An absolutely beautiful day, baking hot; a foretaste of what the Telegraph (yes, I still read it) promises is going to be a “barbecue summer”. I hope so. The last two were washouts and we all need our vitamin D.
The Whitsun recess began only just over a week ago. In many ways, things have stayed very much the same. Today’s Abergele surgery was a fairly typical mix of housing and traffic, leavened with a string of constituents livid, and with good reason, over council plans to construct a wholly unnecessary relief road. A few did touch on expenses, saying they were becoming sick of the story and wanted a general election. Apart from that, it was bread and butter; business as usual.
And yet, so much has changed. The parade of tumbrels has continued in the pages of the Telegraph, pursued closely by its doubtless seething competitors. How many of them, I wonder, are now kicking themselves that they didn’t stump up whatever was asked for the notorious DVD?
The casualties of the investigation grow daily in number; as I write, thirteen MPs, including the Speaker, have announced that they will be standing down. How many more will follow suit in the days to come?
Few have come out of this episode well, though David Cameron’s resolute actions have apparently gained approval. Gordon Brown, however, has no comfort whatever to take from the events of the last three weeks. He maintains a stubbornly low profile, doing no media at all. Iain Martin even speculates as to whether the Prime Minister is still alive.
Tomorrow, it is back to London on the gratifyingly fast new Virgin afternoon service. And then a few days’ wait until the Euro and local elections, which those who understand these things tell us will be dire for Labour.
What then? Will one or more cabinet members finally decide that the game is no longer worth the candle and tell Brown he really has to go? Or will everybody bottle it, sit on their hands and allow the whole ghastly, depressing charade to continue for another twelve months, while the economy declines, the nation drifts and the electorate seethes?
Today, the Telegraph (which I do intend to continue reading) publishes a leader of sound common sense. Don’t vote UKIP, it says; it is a wasted vote. Don’t, even worse, vote BNP; it is a profoundly anti-Christian party, a negation of everything our parents and grandparents fought against.
And yes, I have got a vested interest, I know; but I believe that everyone who wants to see an early end to this profoundly horrible, dispiriting period in our national life should vote Conservative.
If the Tory vote is strong and the Labour vote collapses, it may, just may, persuade even this disturbed, self-deluding Prime Minister to acknowledge at last that the game is up, that the country is disgusted, and that the only way he can hope to salvage an ounce of respect from his fellow-citizens is to call an immediate general election.
