Thanks a lot for your insights.

Am I right in supposing that since Labour is now so much on the nose, if Ken Livingstone stood as the Red Marxist Bolshevik Proletariat candidate instead as the Labour candidate, he would still be Lord Mayor Of London?

The presence of an Australian Election …. errrr, “Operator” on the scene does worry me though.

Does that mean that henceforth whenever Australians front up to Immigration at Heathrow or Gatwick, we will be treated with the same thoroughness as are Nigerian investment consultants, Eastern European virgins, Colombian medicinals wholesalers, Turbanistan crew-served weapons purchasers and smiling gentlemen whose passport details seem to have been typed on two different typewriters? “Have another cup of tea while you’re waiting, Aunt Alice, it might be quite a while before we get through Immigration ….”

I pointed to him being an imperialist, not mentioning his ‘multi-culti’ (as you so cutely refer to to it) credentials. Pointing out that someone has antecedents in the ottoman EMPIRE, of all things, hardly absolves them from my claim.

Anyhow, as for his ‘multi-culti’ credentials, he’s on the record for not being pro-multi-culti, but (as far as I can tell) he’d rather everyone fell about at Carry On movies.

And David, London politics is fascinating. I began following Ken’s career back int the mid-1980s when he had transformed himself into a professional, full-time politician, which was a rare thing for local councillors. His tenure at the GLC ws interesting, but he was defamed and dismissed by the tabloids as the epitome of the “Loony Left” and as representing everything that was making Labour unelectable.

This was demonology. If you’d asked Ken in the mid 1980s what would be his preferred agenda for an incoming Labour government, he would have said something like: “abolish hereditary peerages; invite the leadership of the IRA to Downing Street for peace talks; launch an inquiry into the institutional racism of the Metropolitan police force”. And he would have been dismissed as the “Loony Left” by the tabloids trying to generate a moral panic. But what did Tony Blair and “moderate” New Labour do in their first term?

I am inclined to the “evil toad” theory myself, but then I think London politics is the place where the Empire went to die, like a sick cat which finally ate a poisoned stoat.

So too all you Luvvies who helped rid us of the Red Terror (well he’s not such a bad egg after all), I say take up The Burden with me! Tally Ho!

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

“For ages, it seems, Supertone has been orbiting in his taxpayer-funded jet, descending to bring his particular brand of humbug to the trouble spots of the world. He did the namaste in Bangalore, and lo, the warring faiths of the Indian subcontinent immediately rescheduled World War Three. For a full 120 minutes, he and Cherie shone the light of their countenances upon the people of Afghanistan, and, who knows, perhaps the place is now rife with feminism, habeas corpus and multi-party democracy… They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird. Like Zeus, back there in the Iliad, he has turned his shining eyes away, far over the lands of the Hippemolgoi, the drinkers of mares’ milk.””

The “Big White Chief” reference is presumably about his perception of Blair’s ego rather than “an attitude that encapsulates all the vicious arrogance - or arrogant viciousness - of 19th century colonialism.”

And Boris is actually the great grandson of a Turkish journalist who was briefly an Ottoman empire minister. Can’t get more multi-culti than that…….

However, that whole “underdog” thing was far, far more important than any supposed genius on the part of Crosby/Textor or that odious bloke who used to run the PM’s department who I’ve intentionally forgotten.

Aussies love a good underdog story, they really do. Look at the election results from 1996 onwards - really pretty close every time. Australians felt sorry for the feisty little bloke. He was up against it his whole life with Peacock, Joh for PM, Hanson, terry-wrists, darkies on leaky boats who were dangerously republican and the constant threat of Costello threatening to stomp out of the room crying in a huff. The pressure must have been immense on those puny shoulders, so when he lifted the begging bowl and begged “please sir, can I have some more” the population obliged until the pot of sympathy was empty.

It’s pretty clear that, instead of being an effective campaigner, Crosby is basically just an opportunist with no ideas and a fixed formula that just happened to coincide with success. He sure didn’t cause that success.

This is a promising sign. For you see, mirth was not the intended effect.