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...a blog by Richard Flowers

Monday, September 25, 2006

Day 2091: Resile! Resile!

Sunday:


We are listening to Lord Blairimort on the Andy Marr television show.

"What kind of a person USES this sort of language?" asks Daddy Alex.

"A twisty-turny weaselly one, OBVIOUSLY," I reply.

Mr Andy was trying to get Lord Blairimort to say whether he supported Mr Frown to be next leader of the Labour.

"No, Andy, of course I don't. Look… I hate Gordon… and… I always have… and, you know… he'll have to pry the leadership… from my… cold… dead… hands."

Is exactly what Lord Blairimort was NOT saying and NOT saying VERY CLEARLY.


So, instead of saying that, or even saying "Yes, I've said in the past that I back him, and I still do" (it COULD happen… maybe) Lord Blairimort kept repeating his new MANTRA: "I do not resile from anything that I have said in the past."

He doesn't WHAT?!?!?!

I have looked up the word "RESILE" in the dictionary, because even Daddy did not know what it meant!

There are three meanings given:

One is to recoil.

Another is to spring back into your original shape or position.

And only the third is to draw back from an agreement or statement.

So EITHER Lord Blairimort is saying that he is not REPUDIATING his statement of support for Mr Frown, OR he is saying that Mr Frown got him BENT OUT OF SHAPE but he's not going back to his original position (of "get stuffed Gordo!").

Why all the nods and winks? (And dead horses.) Lord Bairimort maybe CRAZY but he's not STUPID. He knows perfectly well that since making a GAME out of politics, saying that you refuse to play is just another TACTIC. By not openly backing Mr Frown, everyone just assumes this means he is against him. Who needs the less subtle HINTS dropped to the "News of the World"?

If Lord B TRULY wanted the Labour to stop squabbling over the leadership then he should say: "the next leader will be Gordon, we all know it. Now let's get on and let me finish my go."

Or he could say: "I don't think it should be Gordon, but he's got as much right to a crack at it as the next man, so there should be a proper contest."

But he doesn't do either of these OPEN and HONEST things. Instead he raises an EYEBROW, refuses to answer one way or the other and then talks about RESILING.

He might as well have had "I'm a shifty lawyer" tattooed on his shiny forehead!

The answer must lie in the peculiar dance that takes place between Lord Blairimort's desire to stay as long as possible and Mr Frown's ambition to see him gone. It would still be BETTER for Mr Frown for Lord B to take the blame for next year's anticipated electoral disasters, but that doesn't mean that Mr Frown won't topple him before then. So Lord Blairimort twists like a contortionist on a Twister board to avoid saying anything that ACTUALLY PROVABLY breaks any of the promises that he has made to Mr Frown.

Funnily enough, Daddy Alex and I were watching a DRAMA on BBC1 last week on the day that we got back from conference (Daddy Richard was HYPNOTISED by the Star Wars Lego Game, obviously). It was called ANCIENT ROME, and it was the story of the mad Roman Emperor ToNERO Blairius. This was a bit CONFUSING partly because ToNERO was played by the same actor who played Lord Blairimort in "The Deal", but mainly because he was playing ToNERO in EXACTLY the same way!

It was difficult to watch that manic grin, that twitching performance, not to mention all the STABBING in the back, without thinking it was a dramatisation of this year's Labour Conference.

This is not good news for CHERIE, by the way!

So all in all it was good to have a few words from HONEST Peter Mandelson.

"Gordon smells!" he said. "Let's get 'im!"



Incidentally, Daddy Alex was VERY DISAPPOINTED that he did not get to see Mr Andy at the Liberal Democrat conference: Daddy is a big fan of Mr Andy's staring starring role in Dr Who!

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