By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor
The old saying is keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I guess it is easier just to make everyone your enemy, then you don’t have to worry where anybody is; takes the pressure off, I suppose.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Labour today; the Conservative party is crawling from disaster to disaster. The Tories are almost literally taking wheelchairs away from disabled people. Then coming back the next day to where they left them slumped on the ground, popping them back in the chair and saying: “sorry about that, remember we have spent the most on disabled people ever.”
There were even a group of disabled people in the lobby protesting against the cuts. Lefties (myself included) across the country sat back and waited for the games to begin. However, within minutes it became clear this wasn’t going to happen. The PM brandished a spreadsheet, allegedly collated by the Labour leadership, categorising their own MPs into their levels of loyalty to the Corbynista cause. It is apparently from January so it was clearly their get out of jail free card.
The Categories included core group, neutral but not hostile, and hostile. The spreadsheet will need a few changes after this performance. Not a problem, Corbyn doesn’t need to be a whizz on Excel, a simple select all and change to “hostile,” will suffice.
I hate to admit it, but it all felt a bit Joseph Stalin. If that’s the case the first MP who will be sent to the gulags will be John Woodcock. He attempted to send a direct message to a pal on Twitter during PMQs, but failed and it was sent to everyone as a tweet, oh dear.
Now, parental advisory explicit lyrics time, if easily offended – don’t be a Labour MP – he tweeted: “Fucking disaster. Worse week for Cameron since he came in and that stupid list makes us into a laughing stock.”
The tweet was deleted, but it was too late, the cat was out the bag and was being flung around the world. I have some sympathy, I made a similar mistake once when drunk and left a derogatory tweet about UKIP. I woke up to a level of abuse only child killers and Richard Branson deserves.
I deleted it, it wasn’t witty, wry or amusing, it was just rubbish; the type of abuse you expect from one of their more lunatic fringes. The previous sentence may well be deleted at some point depending on the abuse I receive.
A united front today against a Conservative Party in disarray could have seriously rattled the Tory leadership, but the session ended with Cameron cracking jokes, and telling each Labour MP who asked a question, what they were on the Corbyn’s watch list.
There may be more than one Easter Rising to remember this weekend. Let the hostilities commence…
Sycophantic question of the day
Andrew Stephenson, Con, who begged the PM to have a pint with him, in his local, in Pendle. Cameron obviously won’t, but said the pubs will open longer for the Queen’s Bday. So we can celebrate Lizs’ big day with a fight outside a kebab shop, an hour later than normal.
Winner
Microsoft Excel.
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