Tide of revulsion

If you want to know the true nature of the New Labour project there are a couple of events that help. The first was displayed in the aftermath of the Dunblane shooting, which had shocked the Tory Government enough to enact pointless and swingeing legislation that, while doing nothing to prevent gun crime, was nevertheless a symbol of revulsion at the crime (an iniquitous basis for legislation but there we are). The two party leaders, Major and Blair, had visited Dunblane together and agreed that this was a tragedy above politics, and that petty point-scoring would be tasteless. Spool forward a matter of weeks to the Labour Party Conference where a new pledge to ban handguns completely is unveiled - and who is there providing the sign translation? One of the mothers of Dunblane, tears streaming down her face. A nice way to exploit the tragedy for party political gain while appearing to be caring. The signs were there from the outset.

The next one that really sticks out is the announcement of the 2001 General Election. Traditionally done from the floor of the House of Commons, it was decided to do this instead from St Olave's (from memory) where, standing in front of a lectern, framed by a stained-glass window, Tony Blair, after a hymn, announced the date of the election to an audience of non-voting schoolchildren and pressmen. Matthew Parris remembers Alistair Campbell sneezing and being unable to get the words 'Bless you' past his lips. He wrote then that, surely, eventually a tide of revulsion at the sheer awfulness of this shower of bastards (something of a paraphrase but you get the drift) would eventually sweep them all into the sewer whence they had crawled.

And now, today, another example of this appalling set of human beings. Patricia Hewitt, whose name is anathema to Mr Eugenides and, of course, DK, decided to make an announcement about taxation policy - specifically that the rates charged on alcohol are too low and should be raised. As a man with a healthy appetite for booze of most descriptions but a pronounced distate for alcopops her inane witterings on how Smirnoff Ice is too cheap might have evinced merely a weary shrug or half-hearted curl of the lip, while her use of the useless statistics on 'binge drinking' (two glasses of wine a night? That's not a binge; this is a binge etc.) would only have made me bang my head against my desk in exasperation. It was the setting of this announcement that really made the Reptilian blood boil.

She disclosed her ambition in an interview with the winners of a children's newspaper competition, who straightforwardly asked her for an exclusive. In a departure from normal Whitehall protocol, she told the children - all aged under 11 - about the normally secret correspondence with the Treasury.

Gaaaaah! They are a smug, po-faced, hypocritical, sanctimonious bunch of whining shits. The swearing count for this blog has definitely diminished of late, so I'm unable to compete with either Mr Eugenides or the Devil on this, but every time I hear one of these sick-making announcements I want to pull the head off the Minister making it and make them eat it.