John Major warns of 'clear and present SNP danger' – in an incoherent whisper
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Version 0 of 1. The Scots are coming, and the Tories are in turmoil over a possible deal between Labour and the SNP. Time for a safe pair of hands, and few come safer than those of the former prime minister Sir John Major, a man who has dealt with a few bastards in his time – even if they were all in his own party. “This is a recipe for mayhem,” Major told an enthusiastic audience of pensioners, just about the only Tories who can still be guaranteed to remember precisely who he is. “To be honest, his economic record wasn’t that good, but he was a very decent man,” one woman told me. “Mayhem,” Major repeated in a whisper. For emphasis. Suddenly it all came flooding back. Major remains one of the few politicians who can make anger sound like very mild disappointment. Whichever ad agency failed to sign him up for the “we won’t make a drama out of a crisis” voiceover for Commercial Union missed a trick. When Major says mayhem, all that comes to mind is the English cricket team must have collapsed to 67-3 before lunch on the first day. Nothing that a steady pair of hands and a cup of tea can’t sort out. Then part of Major’s charm has always been his struggle with the English language. He speaks in the way that most of us think. Slowly, often incoherently and crippled by the self-knowledge that more often than not he never quite gets it right. “I love Scotland,” he said, having spent most of the previous 10 minutes saying what a dangerous bunch the Scots were. “I have many, many Scottish friends.” Not for much longer. Realising that he might have strayed into “some of my best friends are black” territory, Major racked his brain to remember the advice of the Jungian psychoanalyst he briefly visited to recover from the trauma of Edwina. “The SNP has offered to support Labour in an anti-Conservative alliance. And by ‘support’, I don’t necessarily mean a formal partnership, but an informal understanding – perhaps even unacknowledged – to keep Labour in power.” This was pure Gwynnie and Chris. Not so much a conscious uncoupling, as an unconscious coupling. Or maybe just what he’d once told Norma. Major fixed the audience with his most sincere stare. “Let me deal in fact, not hyperbole,” he said, entirely unaware of the irony that he’d just made out that the Scots were a greater threat than Isis. “And let me not mince my words.” It was too late for that. His brain does that for him. “I warned against Scottish devolution in 1992 and 1997. I always knew that nothing good would come of it.” Telling the Scots that democracy is entirely wasted on them is something you can only get away with if you expect to have no Scottish MPs. There was worse to come. “The Scots are a clear and present danger.” The Hunt for Red Nicolober. This was the language and literature of grassroots Tories. You’d never catch David Cameron quoting Tom Clancy, and Major was hitting his stride. “Gobbledygook and evasion,” he continued, unwittingly channelling his inner Johnness. Take the economy. “Labour want to rob Peter to pay Paul. But what they don’t realise is that if you rob Peter you also hurt Paul.” A few Peters stood up to cheer. The Pauls looked merely confused. “We need a government that can reach out to every part of the country.” The Alastairs felt that Tory commitment was unlikely. Somewhere near the end, Major finally remembered to credit Cameron and George Osborne for doing whatever it was to the economy they had been doing for the past five years. “I’m not some Johnny Come Lately … ” This could have been classified as too much information. “What I want is a return to passion and reality. Whomsoever is going to be … ” But not a return to English as it is normally spoken. And thank God for that. John Major. Still a man who believes in sticking to his principles. |