Oh dear. At about five to twelve this morning Julian Worricker said to me on 5 Live: "That's what we like about you Iain, you don't sit on the fence". Little did he realise what was coming next. After the midday news on 5 Live they had David Mellor on to talk about the grammar school issue. I have never heard a more contemptuous and arrogant interview in my life. What made it worse was that the Mellorphant had told the 5 Live producers that he wouldn't enter into a discussion with the studio guest David Gold as was a "mere candidate" and that Mellor himself was a "former Cabinet Minister" don'tcha know.Mellor spent the whole interview being his normal unctuous, arrogant self and slagging off "Dave" Cameron in the most self-satisfied way you can imagine. David Gold responded in a very measured and calm way. I am afraid I was rather more to the point. As far as I can recall my rant went something like this...
David Mellor has just illustrated why the Tories have been out of power for ten
years. He described David Cameron as glib, superficial and flimsy - there's certainly a danger of Mellor looking like that, as well as arrogant. Some of us in the Tory Party are sick and tired of hearing from failed relics like him. He was a failure in government and helped bring the Tory Party to its knees. How he has the cheek to lecture David Cameron on how he should lead the Tory Party I just don't know. Why doesn't he just disappear and let those of us who have a future in the Tory Party get on and try to win an election - he should just disappear into the place where all failed politicians go.
I'll just get my coat. I know it's bad form for Tories to fight live on air, but I'm afraid he triggered the red mist. Anyway, Jonathan Sheppard from Tory Radio has kindly uploaded the Mellor piece together with my response.
After the show had finished one of the 5 Live people told me an anecdote about Mellor's time as 606 presenter. Someone phoned in and gave a very erudite summary of their opinions of a football match, which Mellor greeted with his series of customary drawled 'yes's'. Then at the end of the call, the caller said: "...and David I've just got one final point. You're a c***." Mellor blustered, but next door the entire Radio 5 Live Sports Desk rose as one and cheered. I know how they felt.
59 comments:
Mellor who?
Is there a bbc listen again link to it?
Well said Iain!
For a while I thought the BBC was deliberately using these dreadful and failed well-known Tories as inverted propaganda, to keep reminding the public of what they were (not) missing. Mellor, Currie, even perhaps Portillo ?
Alan Douglas
PS I totally disapprove of the use of the C-word, but I'll willingly make an exception in Mellor's case.
Anonymous, Jonathan Sheppard is currently 'ripping' it. I will add the link as soon as he sends it through.
Thanks Iain!
As I was hearing Mellor I was delighted - the more he criticised Cameron the more he was pulling in votes for the Conservatives. And while I'm all for politicians standing up to interviewers when appropriate today Julian Worricker was being perfectly reasonable and David Mellor perfectly rude. Good on Goldsmith.
Sorry I turned off the moment Mellor opened up.
He would not know the meaning of dignity.
Wasn't Mellor one of the "My-wife-is-standing-by-me-Look-here-we-are-in-a-group-photograph-all-smiling" brigade?
alan douglas is 100% correct!
Mellor,Currie AND Portillo are the three most loathesome failed Tory politicians of them all.
Everyone I know ,Tory and non- Tory alike hates the sight and sound of these unbelievably smug and arrogant TOSSERS
Mellor always was a bit of a bloated self-promoter....still his concubine is in with this regime as Casino Countess.......
Well done Iain for putting the odious Mellor in his place.
He really is a most insufferable pr*ck and a liability to the Conservative Party.
David Mellor and his ilk are the reason that Labour won it's landslide in 1997 and why the Conservative Party has been out of power for a decade and very unlikely to regain power with such people leading it
I heard him - I got so angry I called and said what I thought- morals of an alley cat was one of them - well done Ian -you were good
josephine in Eastbourne
Depressing times for this conservative who actually wants the party to win the next general election.
This week, I've written to the editors of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph to tell them to stick their papers up their arses.
Their crimes?
Not supporting Cameron on the grammar school issue and in the case of Dacre, actually promoting the bogey-picking coward as an all-round good egg.
Mathew D'Ancona is next on the list. He attacks Cameron in the Spectator and gets a hack to write a two page gushing interview with Ed Milliband.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't D'Ancona's wife work for Ed Milliband?
Today, I bought the Sunday Telegraph, hoping for a word of support for the Tories in troubled times.
So what did we get from Patience Wheatcroft? More rubbish from Melissa Kite, who seems to be obsessed with the idea that the Tories are "in disarray".
I expected better from Wheatcroft, but as far as I'm concerned, she too, can stick her paper up her ample backside.
tomtom: Hear. Hear. Mellor grew up in Wareham where my Mum now lives. A friend of hers remembers David Mellor as a schoolboy and she once gave him a lift to Dorchester to visit his Mum in hospital. All the way there and all the journey back he just talked about himself and all his achievements. What a self-obsessed ****.
My tuppence worth is here:
http://www.martincurtis.net/blog/2007/06/david-mellor-helping-conservative-cause.html
I disgaree with you Iain - I think there should be more of him - just to remind people what we have moved away from.
I loathe Mellor. Slimey, pompous toerag. But describing David Cameron as 'glib, superficial and flimsy'? Frankly, you could only really criticise Mellor for being too generous.
Well done Iain. Mellor is one of the most dreadful individuals in the media. How he conned his way onto 5live doing a football phone in I'll never know (no true football fan switches clubs).
Iain I am now listening to the podcast from Tory Radio and it is painful.
Mellor is SO rude. He talks over the interviewer - doesn't draw breath. It's like facing a steamroller with bad breath. Can't wait to get to you giving him a - lesson, shall we say.
I don't particularly like Mellor but I can't stand Cameron either.
I didn't hear the programme this morning but I really like Mellor. His Evening Standard Sport articles are always worth reading, he's the best 606 presenter they've had and his knowledge of classical musical is formidable. I thnk he's suffered enough for daring to have Palestinian friends and sympathising with the Palestinians.
And who's David Gold? Is he that bloke who sells marital aids?
'he's the best 606 presenter they've'
What?? The man has zero knowledge about football. To make that statement, I can only assume that you don't either.
David Gold was great and so were you, Iain. Good to hear you backing Cameron in that way. Mellor deserved it and I thouhgt when the interviewer said "always a pleasure" he was being sarcastic. Did he make a face?
Anonymous, I couldn't possibly comment, but let's just say that Julian Worricker is a man of impeccable political judgement.
Mellor's obviously got his eye on being ennobled and being part of the Dave nu massive govt, innit.
What a joke - Iain you were a little mild me thinks
Anyway, on to really important stuff, the best 606 presenter were the 2 Danny's, Baker and Kelly. No one has ever come close, although Alan Green is not far away when he loses it
How he conned his way onto 5live doing a football phone in I'll never know
Probably that old institutional-bias-at-the-BBC thing.
Seriously though, Iain, have you ever heard him on Classic FM? He makes me want to barf even more than I normally do when listening to Classic FM.
Good to hear you give Mellor a pasting Iain. I think I remember the c*** incident. To be fair to Mellor, I recall that he recovered quite well, saying something like, “the gentleman is plainly a bit of a buerk himself.” Perhaps it happened more than once!
Why should Mellor be "ennobled"? For what, exactly, services to Chelsea?
Nobbled, maybe.
Next time Iain, just ask him if he's been to 121 Finborough Road recently.
The man's a charlatan.
I think your point about him only debating with himself was very telling.
and to think that I spent hours/weeks in Putney and Roehampton in 1979 talking to voters on behalf of David Mellor. It makes you wonder sometimes......
However I did at the age of 24 get to meet Mrs Thatcher, and I realised in that moment that she was going to be Prime Minister. there was no doubt about it.
Well done. Mellor and his ilk lost the '97 election and it is unlikely that the Conservatives will win power back while there are any MP's associated with that government in the shadow cabinet - William Hague doesn't count because he was still in short trousers at the time.
How sweet it was to see him lose his seat, even better to see him then taunted by Sir James Goldsmith and Micheal Yardley with a large foam toe.
Spitting image summed the effer up when they potrayed him as the sort of person who had green billowing halitosis.
Ha ha morality lessons from a serial adulterer who abandoned the mother of his children whilst she was going blind , for all his faults I dont see our Dave doing that.
"our Dave" as in Cameron
give him a punch
http://www.urban75.com/Punch/mellor.html
There is something rather magnificent about him. Good value! Not everyone has to be likeable. Give it a good old stir.
Dave Mellor
Former grammar school boy who having tried to put down Dave Cameron as his former researcher should perhaps remember that he himself was Jeff Archer’s lackey at one point.
I suppose you have to bluster like Mellor if you’ve been so publicly humiliated as he was back sometime in the last century.
Of course there’s history between Mellor and the Goldsmith family, which may explain some of Mellor’s rudeness and arrogance in the interview towards David Cameron.
Anonymous 7.21 I think you'll find the ugly creep Mellor was trying to get into the knickers of Mona Bauwens daughter of the PLO Financial Controller.
Anyone remember a TV prog on Liz Brewer ? They had some great footage of Mona on the phone to the Slimy toe sucking Pig. She was rolling her eyes and indicating clearly to the camera how personally disgusting she found him. LOL
That Antonia de Sancha must have had a strong stomach.....or perhaps she just made him put a sack over his head?
Just listened to the Tory Radio rip and felt like I wanted to strangle Mellor. What a silly, bumptious idiot.
Quite right, Iain, he's the voice (and face) of the old '90s Tories that helped Blair get into power - they didn't win - we lost it. And we'll go on losing until the Mellors of this world stop spouting. What does he want David Cameron to say? "We'll cut taxes, bring back selection at 11 and increase the road building programme."?
Are these the key long standing principles of the Tory Party that anyone under 50 will rush to support?
Mellor is truly a first class wassock!
Ted, You did very well to use the word wassock. Wan*** would have been fogiveable in the circs.
Mellor may or may not be right about Dave but what's going to happen when his looks go?
Did he ever marry that woman he picked up in Hagley?
Final question-do he and Major still attend Chelsea together?
We should be told!
Iain - I was just using relatively polite language as you've requested.
But I did slip in a little joke about David Cameron's policies - he has, apparently, called for a bigger road building programme. My attempt at satire!
Go on, admit it Iain, you just hate him 'cos he's a Chelski..
On a more serious note, he is an arrogant fool, and I'm amazed you didn't give him a bigger kicking.
Well said!
its not like you to get personal Iain.
Its got to be a West Ham thing. I couldn't get irritated with Mellor quite to that level. Put Gordon on the box and I feel homicidal.
I sometimes feel the same way. It seems at times elements of the Conservative party are intent on keeping the Party out of power.
The greatest strength of the Conservative party is the ability it has to change and history has shown that. People often complain that the Tories are betraying the Party by trying to modernize but those critics need to realize that conservativism is a state of mind and not a strict set of rules that people like Mellor wish to abide by.
A general election needs to bring in a new wave of Conservative MPs that represent what the British public expect of the party today. Combine this with the experience of many current MPs in the shadow cabinet and bingo we could actually have a decent government.
Who drew that clever little picture? It captures the essence of Mellor.
I listened to the interview and was impressed with David Gold who seemed a breath of fresh air compared to the Mellorsaurus. Ian did well too with his witty riposte, but I wish he would really get off the fence...
I appear to be in a minority here, but I thought Mellor hit the nail on the head.
Iain,
Does your edict vis a vis naughty language extend to older forms of Anglo-saxon?
The reason I ask is that there were many colourful terms for people like Mr Mellor that have now fallen into disuse, but might allow your readers to express their obvious disgust in an approved manner
Remittance Man, obviously you should try and find out., Suffice to say, rules are rules, but on this thread I may be persuaded to relax them a little...but only a little!
Excellent riposte. Mellor is such a prig
'Mellor should go where all failed politicians go!'
To the shadow foreign secretary's graveyard?
Gary
I've always been rather worried for David Mellor as to what he might do when he gets older and begins to lose his looks...
There are (I know you don't understand this Iain but bear with us) a considerable number of good uses for a c***. This is considerably more than for David Mellor whether in or out of a chelsea football shirt.
Mellor failed to renew his party membership in 2003, disillusioned, he said, with IDS.
So he's not a Failed, well-know Tory, just a failed, erm, celeb.
I hesitate to try after that answer, but I must admit the phrase "right dog's pizzle" did spring to mind when I read the post.
ps did you get my submission for the book?
I've never been a big fan of David Mellor but I have to say I thought his criticisms of David Cameron were pretty well spot on.
He may not be very decorative but he is voicing a widespread view among the rank and file conservatives who no longer seem to count and who will take their revenge at the next election.
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