WWMCD?

What do you suppose might be the clincher for you when you’re deciding how to vote on May 6^th? The economy? The need to preserve the public sector? It’s tricky isn’t it? So much to think about and I don’t know about you but my poor little brain can’t cope with all these big questions. Wait a minute! I know! What about that bracelet I always wear? That’ll show me the way. Yes, that’s it – that bracelet with letter beads reading WWMCD threaded on it, like this was still 1992 and it was all right to dress yourself in stuff you bought at Shared Earth.

WWMCD. What Would Michael Caine Do? That’s how I live my life. I make all my decisions by asking that question. It’s how I ended up hiring a Mini in Turin that time and why I absolutely never, ever shoot until I see the whites of their eyes. Still, the problem is it’s not always possible to be sure about precisely what he would do. If only there were some way of finding out…

Wait a minute! There he is! There! Standing next to David Cameron! Telling us that he’d vote Conservative! Oh, thank-you! Thank-you, you multi-millionaire tax exile, for showing me the way. Thank-you for synthesising all the complex and ever-developing arguments and viewpoints posited by all the various parties on the many and varied elements of policy that will affect the economy, the make-up of society, the extent of people’s rights and the size of the state for five years or more and calculating the answer for all of us. And thank-you David Cameron for giving us the opportunity to hear what Michael has to say. At last I can stop thinking about this and go back to sitting on the sofa with my head cocked to one side, dribbling.

**

Big Gordon’s laid it on the line. The man formerly know as the Iron Chancellor (nothing to do with his shepherding of the Economy for all those years, it’s just that he once went to a fancy dress party as Bismarck) has said “We must do what is needed to secure the recovery.”

That. Is. Brilliant. What an excellent idea. You know, if it came down to a straight choice between someone who thought we should do what is needed to secure the recovery and someone who didn’t think that, I reckon I’d go with the former.

Other similarly radical positions Gordon might like to consider adopting include: “We must do everything we can not to hit anyone in the face when we turn round with a plank over our shoulder,” “We must remember not to melt all the tarmac off the roads with a giant magnifying glass,” and “We must do what is necessary to ensure that we don't flood the water supply with Angel Delight.”

**

Ah, the Liberal Democrats. You know… the Liberal Democrats? The Liberal Democrats. The yellow ones. That’s it. Well anyway, what are they doing to Vince Cable?

There’s much to admire about Vince Cable: the fact that he keeps bees and has fervently fought to bring the crisis of the diminishing apine population to the attention of Parliament in the face of the usual braying idiocy that seems to affect people once their arse comes into contact with the battered green leather of the House of Commons benches; the fact that he is an ace ballroom dancer and never goes on about it, thus clearly has an actual life outside of politics; the fact that he appears to have been dropped into his clothes back to front and then had them yanked round the right way whilst still wearing them. Most of all there’s the fact that he possesses one of the finest economic minds in British politics and has somehow managed over these last months to restrain himself from going batshit in the Chamber and punching as many people out as he could before that chap in the black tights could stop him with the Mace.

Shame, then, that he isn’t being let out on his own. Poor Vince – condemned by his brilliance to stand next to Nicholas Cleggolas, lending him credibility. It won’t work, really. Cleggolas’ tragedy is that he just doesn’t have weight. We believed Ashdown. Partly, it must be admitted, because we were aware that he knows exactly where the pressure points are on the human body and could down you faster than you could say “What’s wrong with First Past The Post?” Charlie Kennedy had a nice line in worldiness and looking like he’d take the ministerial boxes down the pub if he wasn’t finished with the paperwork by closing time. But Cleggolas? No. Standing Vince next to him doesn’t lend him the weight he’s missing, it just looks for all the world like Grandad’s come to support Little Nicky at the sixth form debating competition.

Let Cable be Cable (right, West Wing fans?) and then they might get somewhere, those Liberal Democrats… The Liberal Democrats… The yellow- Never mind.

**

More excellence this morning from The Daily Mail, the only national newspaper that you suspect might one day actually have a stroke right in front of your eyes. Since Labour came to power, it says, 1.67 million jobs have gone to a foreigner. To their credit, and somewhat against type, they don’t go so far as actually to name the foreigner in question, although I think we all probably suspect it’s Graham Norton.

**

What’s happened to ‘The Great Ignored’? DavCam seems to have dropped them. Now, let’s try thinking like a political strategist here. Has he done it because the phrase is the clumsiest and most insulting thing we’ve seen since Noel Edmonds stopped doing those Gotchas? Or… is it something far cleverer than that? You see, by effectively ignoring the Great Ignored is he not just making them even more ignored? Which makes the case for fighting for them even more pressing, thus making him look like a hero? God, he’s good. He’s really good.