The real reason why Ali C has gone soft on Big Gordie
Desperately in need of fresh rib-ticklers is Big Gordie, guilty of recycling old gags so often the punchlines are in danger of sounding as if they've been composted. The Labour hustings cannot be far off when the soon-to-be-premier hears the hall tittering before he's finished the opening line. A particular favourite of his is a quip about Nelson Mandela confusing Tony Blair with Tony Benn. The hero of South Africa was surprised to discover "Tony" is 82. The tale enjoyed an airing in Coventry and a week later in Bristol, then three hours later the very same day at the Hay-on-Wye book-fest, before popping up again the following day in Sheffield. I think I first heard the Mandela story at a London lefty jamboree in January, mercifully '07 not '06.
Tory talk of angst in Notting Hell over a personal failure of Druggie Dave's charm offensive, or offensive charm, as that grammar school rebel, Prince Andrew lookalike Graham Brady (below), might muse since he quit the front bench. Druggie's aristocratic outlaws, Sir Reg and Lady Victoria Sheffield, conveyed their displeasure at a mini political disaster. Normanby Hall, the Lincolnshire family pile of that yummy mummy, Sammy Gwendoline Cameron, is now represented by sooocialist chaps. Labour, it transpires, captured all three seats in last month's council contest despite Sir Reg and Lady Vic going on the knocker to urge local peasants to tug their son-in-law's forelock. This little item of bad news should give Brady something to laugh about as he contemplates revenge against Druggie Dave.
I bring you a new explanation for Alastair Campbell's willingness to take the censor's blue pencil to his much-hyped diaries. The spinmeister, whispered a Labour mole, overspun how much he'd earn from the full unexpurgated jottings, with the figure of up to £1m about as accurate as the dodgy dossier. Ali C declined to let the Hate Mail bid for serialisation rights, keeping his hand out of Fleet Street's deepest pocket, leaving Rupert Murdoch's Times to pick up a bargain. Perhaps Ali C, offering advice to Big Gordie on how to smile, calculates his value on the boardroom briefing circuit is higher if he markets himself as close to the incoming, as well as the outgoing, premier.
The indecently hasty departure from Downing Street of Oofy Wegg-Prosser, leaving without so much as a by-your-leave, presents your correspondent with an opportunity to repeat an old favour of my own. Oofy defected to Moscow and the pay of an internet billionaire, reckoning he'll receive a warmer welcome in Putin's Russia than Brown's Britain and in his case he's probably right. Oofy fled, incidentally, still believing wee Dougie Alexander, the miniature minister for transport, had labelled him a "prat" for inviting malcontents to scrawl road-toll graffiti on No 10's e-petition wall. The culprit was in fact Stephen Ladyman, wee Dougie's deputy.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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