I do wish terribly, terribly unpopular politicians wouldn’t try to flimsily badmouth their opponents. The snidily nervous smile, will-this-work, will-they-love-me-again? No. Stop pissing over your own doorstep. You are embarrassing me.

Still, the cringeworthy moment in this case has at least resulted in some incidental publicity for the campaign against 42 days’ detention without charge. Shami Chakrabarti’s threat to sue culture minister Andy Burnham unless he apologises for his allegedly defamatory remarks about her recent interactions with David Davis is thetop story on the Guardian politics page.

Can’t argue with that. For those who have been living under a rock for the last twelve hours, this is what Burnham said to Progress magazine:

To people who get seduced by Tory talk of how liberal they are, I find something very curious in the man who was, and still is I believe, an exponent of capital punishment having late-night, hand-wringing, heart-melting phone calls with Shami Chakrabarti.

Shami’s responding letter, gleefully described by the Mail’s Benedict Brogan as a “belter” says:
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What’s in it for them, eh? That must have crossed your mind on reading this chirpy piece from Green London mayoral candidate Siân Berry in the New Statesman hitching her wagon to the Labour party.

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I mean, when was the last time there was such consensus between the Tories and Labour? (Small voice in back of head: Er, Thursday, wasn’t it?) No, no, no, Small Voice, I mean about tax cuts, of all things!

Labour have laid out their spending plans for 2009-10 and tax cuts ain’t part of the deal. And the Tories, while protesting that of course the world is about to fall apart and if they aren’t allowed back to the economic helm we’re all going to end up living on rubbish tips and eating roadkill, have nonetheless quietly accepted them. No tax cuts for at least the “first term” of Tory government, we learn from the laughably hubristic Mr Philip Hammond in the Sunday Telegraph.

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Many left-liberals will have been indulging in some top-level indignation at the totally unstartling news that the Tory hereditary peer Lord Mancroft is a creaking frothing shouty plonker who shouldn’t be allowed into public spaces, never mind a legislative assembly.

First off, he has a go at the nurses who treated him in an NHS hospital in Bath for being “grubby“. If not exactly civil, this is at least a legitimate concern and the nursing profession, unsurprisingly, is up in arms at the slur. So his fartship has been on the Today programme on Saturday morning doing what presumably passes among Tory peers for retrenchment; no, he was not actually complaining about the treatment he received; yes, he fully acknowledges not all nurses are grubby, and made this clear elsewhere in his speech.

No, the true horror of all this grave frothing is yet to reveal itself. This is how he goes on to talk about these young working women whose life choices are absolutely none of his business.
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