I have no real animus toward the British Tories. Perhaps I would if I lived there; surely I would if Thatcher were still the boss. But I’d much rather be ruled by them than by the people we’re currently ruled by, so it’s hard to work up much actual dislike.
So in laughing until I cried at the text below, I was expressing a literary and not a political opinion. It has the mark of true comic genius: it gets funnier on re-reading. Can anyone produce a comparable bit of American political invective, from either side of the aisle?
[Thanks to Brad DeLong for the pointer.]
It’s cheap and easy for those of us who have always hated the Tories to gloat over the current mess in the Tory party. The party that bestrode the 80s like Godzilla has reduced itself to one that can’t mobilize even its natural base of scabs, spivs, spies and kulaks, possibly because it’s hard to say ‘scabs, spivs, spies and kulaks’ while drunk. A party whose sole defining policy, hostility to the Euro and the European Union, is actually quite popular well inside Labour lines, but which has made Eurosceptics look like somebody conversing with a litter bin while rummaging in it for food. A party that replaces a man who looks as if he’s been replaced by his own waxwork with a man who looks like he sleeps in a coffin. A party that can’t effectively oppose the most distrusted Prime Minister in living memory.
But –
But nothing. As I said, it’s cheap and easy for those of us who have always hated the Tories to gloat over the current mess in the Tory party. So go ahead and enjoy yourself.
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