P&J Column 16.4.15

‘The Good Life’? Surely the P.M. is more ‘To The Manor Born’?

Struan Metcalfe, MSP for Aberdeenshire north East – an apology

Sometimes, when I say something “off message” or inflammatory to women, poor people, or other minority groups, I get into hot water with Central Office. So I am pleased to report that the tweet I sent after an all night sesh with the Young Conservative Farmers of Fetterangus (jeepers, those lads can knock back the Blue Nun!) was met with a wry smile and a gentle smack across the back of the head from Chief Whip, Mickey “Ready Steady” Gove. Must admit, I quite enjoyed that bit.

“Super Dave launches new manifesto. It’s a bosker. Vote Tory, get ‘The Good Life’. I baggsy Felicity Kendal. Woof!”

Of course, I must apologise for being flippant about our manifesto pledges. But it was also quite wrong of me to objectifly Felicity Kendal. I was always more of a Penelope Keith man, myself.

Cosmo Ludovik Fawkes Hunte, 13th Earl of Kinmuck

Well, the election campaign is hotting up. Or it certainly has been at the ancestral pile, where I have been using the various leaflets to light the fire the Great Hall. The Labour candidate who had the effrontery to chap on my door very nearly ended up on it too. No Fawkes-Hunte has ever voted Labour, and the last man to suggest it ended up in the local cottage hospital with a backside full of buckshot. My father, the 12th Earl, went to visit him. “Now, my little Bolshevik friend,” he said, “My family built this hospital in 1720. If it wasn’t for your hated aristocracy, you wouldn’t be here now.” The fellow had the nerve to point out that that would also have been true if Papa hadn’t shot him. There’s no reaoning with some people.

The oceans are hotting up, too. If the paper is to be believed, haddock and cod will soon be displaced by sardines and squid. I blame the EU. Not content with flooding the country with immigrants, it’s sending them into our very territorial waters. You’d have thought that UKIP would have been on to this threat to the Great British fish supper like a flash, but so far, not a peep. That’s the problem with politicians these days. They are too cowed by political correctness. Just like the squid; no backbone.

Doddie Esslemont, Radical Independence Campaigner

What are we to make of the manifesto pledges of the major parties? Having spent 5 years looking after the toffs and big business, David Cameron has suddenly rediscovered his desire to connect with the average citizen, expanding the right to buy, promising a clamp down on tax avoiders and extra funding for the NHS. Meanwhile, “Red” Ed Milliband has come over a funny shade of mauve; pledging to end austerity by locking down public spending and assiduously balancing the books. What next? The Greens coming out against windfarms? Nigel Farrage entering the Eurovision Song Contest?

Politicians can’t win us over by bending like reeds in the wind. Whatever their message, it should be clear and consistent. My own manifesto is simple. I want independence for 39G Seaton Drive. I have wanted it ever since I fell out with Aggie Thomson in Flat C over arrangements for the use of the communal whirlie. My determination to achieve it only grew when Alfie Mutch stole my recycling bag. I hope this manifesto, unchanged these many years, will stand as testament to my unique clarity of vision. And to my ability to nurse a petty grievance forever.

Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football writer whose column is always a gas.

It’s a shame when the on-field performances of a talented young footballer is overshadowed by off-field shenannygoats. That is what has happened with Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling who has quickly gone from wonder-kid to elephant-terrible. One minute he is stealing the show with his penpoint passing, the next he is passing out after inhaling a balloon full of laughing gas, or as the scientists cry it, Nutritious Oxide.

Shocking. No professional athlete should be taking these substances. Their bodies should be templates.

Of course, footballers appearing on both the front and back pages is nothing new. Back in my extinguished playing career I was no stranger to the papa-pizza. When I was playing for the Dons, Fergie gave me pelters when me and Doug Rougvie was snapped by a boy from the Green Final coming out of the bookies during our lunch hour. Thank god he never seen us 10 minutes earlier, coming out of the St Machar Bar!