2010 is surely the estimable Mike Smithson's finest year in the blogosphere, what with the record-breaking tsunami of comments over the election period at his must-read blog, PoliticalBetting, the premier drug of choice for UK and expat political anoraks. And some expat/overseas cousins. Open all hours: political debate continues all day and all night. Simply amazing.
OGH ('Our Gracious Host'), as he is usually known, makes no secret of his LibDem activism although he scrupulously refrains from intruding his personal prejudices into discussions at PB.com where all are welcome including the truly enlightened (like me, obviously), the 'Tory Herd', some world-class-witty Libertarian controversialists, a handful of phenomenally dedicated, narcolepsy-inducing Labour bots and a few blind-to-the-bleedin'-obvious barking mad maniacs. The lethal and original lightning wit with which culpably ignorant posters are euthanased and the pathologically prejudiced outed and squished makes for better reading than most Booker winners and for frequent coffee-keyboard incidents. Bloodsport at its finest - and all conducted in the best possible taste. Some of the more self-important political blogs could do worse than to lighten up a bit and emulate the humour of the PB.com community.
But back to OGH. With his party's leadership having arrived in government against even his own fondest predictions, he is taking the opportunity, reasonably enough, to post regular articles about his home team. Today, in a rare McEnroe moment, he allows his wishes to father a ridiculous thought which no-one outside LibDemmery should - or could - take seriously, to wit., Fox despatched and Ashdown for Defence Secretary.
Look here, Mike, old chap, Cameron is running Cabinet government. Chaps meet around a big table, Prime Minister in the chair. One chap proposes X which all the other chaps ponder before agreeing which bits of X they like. All the chaps agree to accept responsibility for X-amended and then the first chap toddles off and does X before reporting back to the other chaps on results. The entire Cabinet meeting snacks on any prima donnas who get above themselves.
Now where could Paddy possibly fit into such a scenario? His custom is to bark an order and have the chaps reply "Sir!" before obeying with alacrity and without demur. Fact is, after a lifetime of that sort of thing, compounded by having lived for too long in a world carpeted wall to every wall in red Yugoslavian and Belgian Axminster, the Cabinet Room would not be big enough for Ashdown's huge ego. See, he actually believes himself, now, to be a monarch - without a country, so far, but he's working on that. His head alone would occupy the space normally allocated for half the chaps around the table.
No, Mike. No. Not Paddy, sorry. Decent enough bloke, old soldier and all that, but there is simply not enough room at the top.
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