Oofy is talking of fleeing to Putin's Russia. It may be kinder to him than Brown's Britain
Reinforcements are on their way to bolster the half-dozen Old Etonians advising Druggie Dave and his 15 school chums on the Tory front bench. The selection of the multimillionaire daddy's boy Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park makes it, by my count, three OEs picked for winnable seats, with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chinless wonder, contesting North-East Somerset and the local telly presenter Richard Drax doorstepping in South Dorset. That's a single school securing half as many constituencies as all ethnic minorities combined. Druggie Dave's boast that he's got six black and Asian candidates looks a little less impressive when you compare the tally for his alma mater.
The tricky issue of what to do with the Prince of Darkness over the water is taxing Brownites. One camp advocates that when Big Gordie moves in to No 10 he should sack Peter Mandelson, refusing to grant the trade Eurocrat another five years on the Brussels gravy train. An equally vindictive group argues it would be crueller to prolong Mandy's exile while engineering his demotion to Commissioner for Paper Clips. But what is this I hear from an acolyte of Mandy's? The prince is threatening to accept a peerage in Blair's resignation list so he can stalk Brown from the Lords.
To Nottingham and the Tory spring fête, a surprisingly downbeat affair - rows of empty seats and fewer than a dozen stands in the exhibition area evidence of a great stayaway. Oli Letwin, policy review chairman and one of Druggie Dave's OEs, was such an inept chair of a Q&A session that he put only four questions from the floor to a panel of six. Intriguingly, Dave left out of the published version of his speech a dig at his fellow green warrior Al Gore's indecision over whether to drink tea or coffee. Surely a case of wanting to stroke the anti-Democrat prejudices of the blue-rinse brigade without ruffling the feathers of his new best green friend.
The real proximity to power of a politician can be gauged, in this era of suicide bombers, by the security around them. The plethora of Special Branch guards at the gates of Downing Street are testimony to Tony Blair's importance. Ming the Mediocre ridiculously hired a couple of private heavies when he embarked on a walkabout on the mean streets of Harrogate. There was minimal security at the Tories' Nottingham fête, with none at Druggie Dave's hotel and drinkers able to wander in off the street without a pass. Indeed, a bride had her picture taken with him, the Tory leader supplying the blue to complete the new and the borrowed.
Mandy's one-time little helper, the Downing Street dogsbody Oofy Wegg-Prosser, might yet bump into his old boss at the Eurostar terminal. Oofy, my informant whispers, is talking of fleeing to the safety of his wife's Moscow home when Blair exits No 10. He feels Putin's Russia will be more hospitable than Brown's Britain. In his own case, he may be right.
There is a Tory brave enough to admit he never went to Eton. Step forward, shadow bean-counter "Boy" George Osborne. One of my snouts overheard him protesting, "I'm not an Old Etonian. I went to St Paul's." A very different school, and four grand a year cheaper.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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