UK Politics
The Jackal's room
Published 17 July 2008
All the gossip from the Westminster Village
As hard as I try, it's impossible to take brass-necked Chris "The Jackal" Grayling as seriously as he takes himself. Not for him summer drinks with hacks in his office or a Commons cupboard. Oh no. Druggie Dave's shadow work-harder-for-no-pension secretary thinks he's going up in the world, so he borrowed the 18th-floor Westminster pad of the City zillionaire and Tory big cheese Sir Paul Judge. With a panorama and enough expensive art to make Jeffrey Archer weep, it was a jarring choice by a Con who preaches workfare for the undeserving poor. The Jackal held court as the fizz flowed, but my snout's eyes were repeatedly drawn to disco lights on top of the bookcases. The owner's taste, he sniggered, is as bad as Grayling's judgement.
Or maybe nothing's too good for the workers now two million bus drivers, factory hands, engineers and speech therapists each own a stroke of Antony Gormley's brush. The Unite chief spanner Derek "Del" Simpson paid £55,000 at Labour's Wembley fundraiser to hang the squiggles in the trade union's Covent Garden lair. Perhaps Del bid under the spell of a magician performing at the tables. After a sleight-of-hand in front of Alistair "Nobody's" Darling, my informant swore the Chancellor muttered, "Would you like to join the Treasury?"
The Midlothian mauler Davey Hamilton lauded the Supreme Leader as a "good comrade" without sniggering at the Durham Miners' Gala, but the biggest shock was cheers replacing the traditional jeers for the Labour government. "You're mad if you think you'd get a better deal with the Tories," cried Hamilton to loud applause, "and I should know." Indeed he should. During the 1984 coal strike the pitman was jailed for two months courtesy of Maggie Thatcher before he was acquitted of assault, only to spend three years jobless. Brown's unpopular but Cameron's still the enemy in the north.
Del digging deep into his members' pockets didn't stop cash-strapped Labour imposing another cut. Sarnies served during lengthy sessions of the party's NEC have been scrapped to save dough. Members were advised to take their own, opening up a new divide: old Labour white sliced v new Labour ciabatta.
A sniff of a Tory cover-up over the whereabouts of George "Oik" Osborne's Edwardian tailcoat. Druggie Dave, this column's regular readers may recall, claimed he hired his Buller rig. Osborne is less forthcoming, his mouthpiece David Haas stuttering: "Right, OK . . . erm . . . [giggle] . . . I'll come back to you, ahm, on that one. Click. Brrrrrr." I'm still waiting, David.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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