Balls: What A Piece Of Work

Just a short note to record my astonishment at the hypocrisy and arrogance not just of Labour but of a particularly bad Labourist about the roots of the Coalition on that Robinson thing on telly just now. I had thought, foolishly, that Ed Balls was incapable of getting any worse. I was, of course, wrong. Hearing him whine about Labour's negotiations with the Lib Dems after the hung parliament is extraordinary.

I think some cognitive malfunction in his mind, combined with some serious weakness in his character, together mean that he simply is incapable of comprehending what it means to be honest. He just lies all the time, effortlessly, and has no awareness whatsoever that his habitually revised narrative of events is just that: lies - and, what's more, is known to be lies by everyone outside his mind who has seen the evidence - and the truth - laid out, crystal clear, before their very eyes. But it doesn't stop him - oh no! - because it's pathological. He talks, for instance, about this idea that Nick Clegg about-faced on cuts just for leverage in the negotiation process. Not so (read more about that in the Speccy online here). It was a bare-faced lie, on camera, for the film - but Balls didn't care because he doesn't understand what he did. Maybe we should pity him, he's that bad. (Nah.)

Anyway, I could go on but this is, thankfully, all cold water under Westminster bridge. The right - the only - outcome for Britain came to pass, so none of it really matters to anyone other than various breeds of historian and fading BBC journalists like Robinson any more.

Apart from Balls, that is. He wants to a party leader, but his party (no doubt with him - along with Straw and the other usual suspects - the ringleaders) are about to renege genuinely on a manifesto promise for the sake of political expediency with the AV/constituency restructuring Bill. That's genuine, pathetic, grubby opportunism and it's also why I and other people who feel, for the current incarnation of the Labour party, nothing but utter contempt, would very much like to see Balls win. It would be a great day for the nation (the death of Labour).

But remember, always, there was at least one joyous ending to those strange days of uncertainty back in May: forget Balls because his rather more lunatic mentor, Gordon Brown, was gone, gone, gone! at the end of it all. And the nation breathed a heavy, collective sigh of relief because of it.

Now that's what I call "victory". So, what the hell: good luck to the Coalition deal that fashioned that happy outcome, Tory and Lib Dem members both. Hats off to the nationalists, too (a party of which I happily and tactically voted for).

And why not?

Freudian Brownisms

Just listened to Brown's horrible, grovelling speech, in which he begged for a mandate (his first one - nice of him to ask this time). I then could not believe my ears. He wants, he says, to "clean up parliament for people and those they serve", or words very much to that effect (I think what he actually said was worse). Whoever wrote that speech didn't check his relative pronouns carefully enough.

I know it's not really a Freudian slip - although, given the context and the level of the troughing in the rotten parliament, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he'd simply forgotten to lie for once - but it does give you some sense that Brown is only ever one slip of the tongue away from making a complete tit of himself. It's the fact that he always seems so close to that slip of a tongue, Freudian or otherwise, that makes him such an awkward speaker, and is one of the reasons why he is so excruciatingly ghastly to have to hear. No normal person would choose to listen to Gordon Brown, with that passive-aggressive, gravel growl of a voice, the bizarre pronunciation of simple words and the perpetually haggard face with the fake smile like the silver plate on a coffin (any comparison between Brown and Peel begins and ends right there, however).

Oh, and just for good measure, Brown is now middle class with middle class 'valleyoos', according to him. Class war 'dogwhistles' Fraser Nelson has just called them. Class war gobshite, more like.

Brown. A liability to the end, which is why his end is nigh. Pretty soon during the course of the campaign, there'll be nowhere left for the Labourist campaign bosses to hide him. Bring on the debates!

Update:

Not a Sheep has posted on this and given us the accurate quote, for which I am grateful. It was worse than I thought:

We will renew the contract between the people and those that they are sworn to serve

I'd like to congratulate Brown on being far more eloquently insulting to the entire population of Britain than certainly I could ever manage to be. Oh bravo, Gordon.

What a plonker.