As William Hague prepares to take PMQs this morning he will also be looking forward to his trip to Washington with George Osborne and Liam Fox, where they'll be looking to repair relations with the Republican Party that were so damaged during the Howard era. So with David Cameron on paternity leave and William Hague out of the country, who will be taking charge of the Party during their absence? Well according to the Daily Telegraph it will be none other than the Shadow Home Secretary and my old boss, David Davis. So I have been speculating on what DD might do during his brief tenure in charge.Day 1. Announce immediate front bench reshuffle promoting Derek Conway and Greg Knight
Day 2. Launch new economic strategy involving £38 billion of tax cuts
Day 3. Announce the appointment of Eric Forth as Deputy Chairman, Candidates
Er, before I get myself into very deep water, I'd better stop at 3! But feel free to make your own suggestions in the Comments section!
Note to Bob Piper. This is meant to be funny. A joke. It's called humour!
Announce a new policy of six months' compulsory paternity leave perhaps.....
ReplyDeleteHow about compulsory lack of identity cards?
ReplyDeleteSeriously Iain, had DD won, who did he plan to appoint to the frontbench?
ReplyDeletehoundtang, I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on that on here, beyond saying that William Hague would have been in a top job.
ReplyDeleteIn your dreams Iain....
ReplyDeleteGet rid of Francis Maude... quick!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me why I voted for DC!
ReplyDeleteIt is unfair to ask Iain about DD's shadow cabinet make-up - if he answered honestly it would be written up as a split story. But you can work some of it out for yourself, Houndtang.
ReplyDeleteFor a start, he made clear Cameron would have been Deputy Leader, although not which policy portfolio he would have held. I think we can fairly accurately surmise that Willetts would have been shadow chancellor, as that would have been an appropriate reward for his (rather unexpected) support. By the same token Fox, who didn't support DD, would still have been demoted from foreign affairs, leaving that job free for Hague. I think Fox, as a good right-winger, might however have ended up with home affairs, which is ironically a more senior job than the one Cameron has given him!
The big unknown is what he would have done with Maude. I can't really imagine it was true that he planned to make Mitchell party chairman - although that rumour gained enough currency to frighten at least one Tory PPC up my way into voting for DC. But I can't quite believe he would have kept Maude on either.
I trust that the Rt Honourable Gentleman will be announcing to the House that the next Conservative Party election manifesto will include the abolition of ID cards.
ReplyDeleteHey, Iain... you don't like the comments, I'll take them elsewhere. As Michael Howard never quite managed to understand, and DD has a similar problem, if people don't think your jokes are funny, it might just be that they aren't funny.
ReplyDeleteBob, I appreciate your comments just as I apreciate everyone's. But you do seem to have a problem in understanding humour. This is a trait I have discovered many socialists have.
ReplyDeleteHang on there Iain - what about Albania? They loved Norman Wisdom. And to everyone outside, Albania itself was pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...interesting one Iain. IIRC Bill Hicks was something of a leftie and was pretty damn funny. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a good rightwing or conservative funny man - unless you think Bernard Manning is hilarious of course?
ReplyDeleteHey, leave Mr Piper alone everybody.
ReplyDeleteOK, so he's a Labour Councillor, but that doesn't make him a bad person. Yes I know he hangs around this web because he's lonely. But have you ever wondered why he's lonely? Go to his web and you'll find nobody ever comments on his very interesting postings. Now that's not nice.
Come on guys and girls; contact Bobby and make him feel he's one of the gang.
Iain is right of centre and he can be hillarious. During the last general election campaign every time he said he was going to win I screamed with laughter and when he said that he was going to"write Conservative policy on coastal protection" I laughed and laughed. My Aunty Maude wet herself [it is a long standing problem which we do not talk about but we try to avoid making her laugh as the vibrations sets her off - I think it's a womans thing.]
ReplyDeleteRobb