Day 2067: Maybe you could come back when you have some ideas

Thursday



Those were the words that SUAVE presenter of the Today Programme, Mr Ed Stourton used to close his interview on Thursday with Shadow Minister for Tuck Shop Money, Mr Boy George Osborne.

It would be a mistake to overlook Mr Stourton's talents: he is always polite and smooth-talking but he has a keen intelligence and often manages to get more out of his interviewees than the abrasive if flashy style of the more famous Mr Humpy.

Nevertheless, it was quite clear that Mr Boy George was proving to be a frustrating subject: claiming to have come up with a jolly good idea of raising oodles of taxes (no, he DIDN'T copy the Liberal Democrats' homework – if he had he would have had some of the ANSWERS!) but then refusing to say WHAT taxes or WHO would pay.

Mr Boy George was behaving like the naughty little boy who has hidden the class gerbil somewhere, and when asked to say where it is stubbornly sticks to his reply of:

"Shan't tell you!"

He then went off to take a trip on a Maglev (short for Magic Levitating) Train.

"Wheeeee!" he added.

Now, I know that my Daddy Richard has some strange ideas about ROCKET SHIPS, but he is a Liberal Dreamer. It seems completely BIZARRE for the Conservatories to be proposing that we build a whole network of these very expensive, very power hungry, not very green Magic Trains. How exactly does this fit in with ANY part of their agenda? Whatever their agenda turns out to be in the end does ANYONE believe that it will include one of THESE?!

Where would we BUILD these Magic Trains? And is it not a bit likely that the railway that we ALREADY HAVE would be a bit IN THE WAY?

I mean I hate to go all "Marge vs. the Monorail" on you but even if we did come into a few bucks from Green Taxes do we really want to spend it on a shiny electric folly?

Wouldn't you rather we just do what the Liberal Democrats suggest and cut your income taxes?


So why was Mr Boy George on the Today Programme at all?

Soon, I think, the editors of programmes like Today are going to have to start asking SERIOUS questions of Conservatory spokespeople before they let them get into the studio. Questions like:

"What real policies are you going to announce?"

Or:

"Isn't this just ANOTHER meaningless PUFF PIECE, George?"