some progress being made

he (John Howarth that is) has made a few corrections, you can see his "corrected" post here. Not bad so far John, but could do better. Thanks for paying attention and incorporating my corrections. I notice that as well as doing a a proper translation from Klingon instead of relying on Google Translate he has decided to name the others on the candidate list. Who advised him to do so, I wonder? Is this the new inclusive Howarth? I'd be surprised. Sort yourselves out boys, you'll never get elected this way.

Best Blessings of Existence 46

In which Emma B speculates on the qualities of candidates.

She was glad when time and space (water under the bridge had unfortunate connotations) afforded a natural distance between herself and the Laceybrook by election.

Of course, the exposure of Ron Butcher’s criminality had its uses. Money expended on champagne, turbot and a society photographer paled into insignificance in the light of the thousands of pounds filched by Ron from the Deposit Account to feather his love nest.

Similarly, the notoriety of her sexually suggestive election literature was as nothing in comparison with the face of the Peacock Heating thief; glaring from the pages of The Gridchester Evening Post, accompanied by the lurid details of his crime and his political affiliation.

If he absolutely HAD to steal to split from Clare and abscond with that tart, said Hazel, uncorking a bumper bottle of Lambrusco Why the hell didn’t he nick the money from Peacock’s? The Election’s bound to be called this year – and at this rate, we’ll do worse than in ‘ 83!

Mind you – I still don’t see why they have to keep dragging the Party into it ALL the time?

It’s totally unnecessary.

She exchanged glances with Sylvia and Gail.

Try as they might, they could not get Hazel to understand that, as Ron had stolen from the Party, any coverage of his crime was bound to mention it; especially as Ron was a member of the Party himself.

No, I don’t see the relevance at all, maintained Hazel stubbornly, clicking her needles. She was knitting matinee jackets for Live Aid babies – although it was difficult to feel that woollen coats in swelteringly hot climates were the best response to the evils of famine and a lack of sanitation.

They could say he’d stolen from a charitable concern – and it would be true, wouldn’t it? But no, that wouldn’t help their Tory chums and we’re a laughing stock!

Every time I go to a Governors’ meeting, Borthwick Prosser gets in a comment about broken boilers, or heating – and last week he made a completely facetious suggestion about taking Year 7 to see the peacocks at Highbury Hall. I can’t stand much more of it!

They made sympathetic noises. Councillor Prosser, a local estate agent, was a new type of bovver Tory; epitomised by one of the puppets in Spitting Image satirised by the series’ creator who had given it a shaved head and kitted it out in biker boots and a leather jacket.

Borthwick and cohorts had none of the traditional courtliness of Sir Emrys Bowcher or Stanley Dexter Leppard and were methodically eliminating these gentler beasts from the Tory forest in a type of natural selection.

It was too bad that Hazel was subjected to the Borthwick barbs and of course they were strategically aimed.

But you mustn’t let him get to you, she soothed.

I don’t think it was a good idea to call for a vote of no confidence in his chairmanship – it just gave him an excuse to write to the Post and mention Ron Butcher again. I think we should put it behind us and move on.

It was easier said than done.

The Butcher affair, as so often with the Party; had ushered in a witch-hunt, with comrades lining up to distance themselves from the couple and blaming others for nurturing Ron’s perfidy.

Clare had gone to ground, which was a good thing because a motion was passed demanding that external auditors be brought in to examine all the accounts from her six-year custody of the Party’s finances.

She did not like Clare Butcher, but from any perspective, this was manifestly unfair.

It’s as if Clare’s guilty by association, observed Gail - and she had to agree.

The chief inquisitors were Brian Pelleroe and Shaun Mills; the crush and husband respectively, of Sylvia, who always tried to change the subject when the Butcher affair raised its head

To date, Fred Hoy and Darren Peabody had stopped coming to meetings and Youth Officer Sian Norfolk resigned after the scuffle between union delegates Laurence Fernyclough and Vince O’Reilly resulted in complaints from Duke regulars to landlady Pat.

Paul had been in the main bar at the time and took the moral high ground:

For God’s sake darling – I know you want a hobby – but couldn’t you find something else to do rather than hanging out with a set of middle-aged hell’s angels. Like helping at Richie’s group?

It was a spiteful comment. Of course she couldn’t help at a toddler group – she had a full-time job and two degrees; but it was easier to ignore it and she did.

In any case, her relationship with Paul was on rocky ground after the Dickon Cleave debacle.

It was not as if she had slept with Cleave.

They had not done anything … .much.

But she had a sneaking suspicion that Paul was very well aware of what they had and had not done and was maliciously using it against her.

Although he had not been present in the MG roadster – how could he? - or the restaurants or the pubs.

But he was aware that something had happened and took delight in mentioning her former Agent at random and monitoring her reactions.

Such as last Sunday at her parents’ home.

Vanessa was occupying herself with one of grandma’s jigsaws; Richard had been put to bed after two readings of Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Alan Ahlberg and her mother had opened a box of Quality Street in preparation for the television treat of the evening; Allo Allo.

So when’s the Election going to be? asked her father, handing Paul a beer.

He took a lively interest in politics and was aware of her own involvement with the Party at Gridchester:

Though I expect the Tories have got a fair run in your neck of the woods, haven’t they?

As she knows only too well! chortled Paul.

Did you tell Dad about your Barbara Castle moment?

And he then proceeded to expound happily upon the varied grotesqueries of the Laceybrook by-election; the salacious literature, the result, the Butcher criminality and finally the fact that her Agent had got a student pregnant (I don’t think she was under age, was she darling?)

prior to making moonlight fit to London and leaving this one in the lurch. You had a teensy bit of a crush didn’t you sweetie?

The drive home to Binley was painful; she had challenged Paul about comments that had certainly disturbed her father, who had advised her to stay clear of that lot – they sound like a rum crew.

You implied that Dickon had stolen the money, she had hissed angrily, glaring at her husband from the passenger seat

You know that’s not true – and I didn’t like what you were hinting about me and Dickon. We don’t see Mum and Dad that often and now they’ll worry - you know what Mum’s like! Why the hell did you do that?

She had raised her voice and felt close to tears. Vanessa, aware of the tension was quietly grizzling in her car seat and Richard flung a Lego man out of the window.

Paul lit a cigarette and motored smoothly on, steering lightly with one hand.

His tone was unruffled:

Well darling, if the cap fits…don’t know why you can’t see the funny side! You were making cow’s eyes at that poseur for weeks, and all the time he’d got a kid up the duff! And pull yourself together! You’re upsetting the children.

The children; the chink in her armour. He could always win by using the children.

She said nothing and that night put on a more than enthusiastic display of athleticism in the bedroom. He would leave it alone – eventually.

After nearly six months of trench warfare that had seen a further haemorrhaging of the membership; the Gridchester Party forgot about the Butchers.

Clare ceased to come to meetings; indeed, Hazel thought she might even have left the area.

Ron, who had certainly left when he absconded to Lowerbridge, was now forced to make a further change of address; HMP Porlock for 18 months, and although the sentencing triggered a further spate of lurid headlines, there was comfort in the fact that this would be the end of it.

I expect the release date will be earlier – but not even the Post will splash again, said Gail.

They were sitting in Hazel’s lounge, having watched a boxed set of Dallas on the new television. The screen was enormous and the picture was excellent, but the television, fish tank and dining table left little room for people.

It had been a tight fit on the sofa, but transferring to the more spacious surrounds of her own home was out of the question because of Paul.

He did not like Dallas or Dynasty and had it not been for the fact that the children would die without a daily dose of Rainbow and Sesame Street, he would have preferred to dispense with their set. So she watched when he went to the Duke.

When they had finished discussing the travails of Sue Ellen and Pammy, they returned to the Butchers and the selection of a candidate to contest Gridchester North at the General Election; expected later that year.

Hazel as usual was pessimistic, but she herself tended to agree with Gail that even if Ron Butcher were to serve a shorter sentence, his release would be a media damp squib because

It’s not as if he’s famous like Harold Wilson or Eric Clapton – he’s only Ron Butcher, and who wants to read any more about him? It didn’t even make the nationals in the first place.

If the papers were full of nothing but Ron Butcher for the entire course of the year there was anyway, little they could do about it. But the Election had to be contested and a candidate put in place, and sooner rather than later.

Her father had been right about Gridchester; both constituencies were fertile and well-tended Tory territory.

South might best be described as duck-egg blue; largely because of the presence of a nefarious council estate on the outskirts of the city that was riddled with social problems. In the past it had been used as a try out seat for an ambitious young Party candidate who did not expect to win but hoped to make an impression.

Gridchester North by contrast, was a determined navy and had remained so, even at the historic elections of 45 and ’66.

Nobody with an ounce of Party potential would be seen dead in it.

I’m hoping Brian might be persuaded, ventured Sylvia, brushing tea-cake crumbs from her new trousers.

They were black leather-look from the new Next Directory catalogue and she suspected that Sylvia was trying them out on the girls prior to dazzling Brian Pelleroe at the St John’s Ambulance hut.

Oh – really? she replied, simulating enthusiasm.

What makes you think he might be interested?

A little bird! murmured Sylvia and she knew that this was a cue for her friend to confide details about another of the cosy chats she had enjoyed with ‘Brian’ after official business at a Party meeting had been concluded; chats that served to fan the flames of Sylvia’s passion whilst sparing Brian the inconvenience of being stalked from daybreak to dusk both at work and home.

What on earth did Sylvia see in Brian Pelleroe?

Husband Shaun was younger and ten times more attractive – but he was only a taxi driver and she supposed that the thought of being squired by a man who was Rodent Officer to a whole city was the secret of the Pelleroe charm.

If Brian had been interested, Sylvia would have enjoyed a clear run because everyone else was repelled by his slightly chemical odour; occasioned by the day job and resistant to even the most liberal applications of Aramis.

But Brian, married to Lisbet, had never considered Sylvia in that way, and she suspected that the money spent on black leather-look trousers had been squandered.

Nevertheless, Gridchester North was interesting from a Tory perspective.

Hedley Mount, the sitting MP who had held the seat for thirty years prior to 1983; actually increasing the majority by £14,000 at that election, had announced his retirement.

The new Tory candidate would be Borthwick Prosser, the uppity estate agent who had riled Hazel about Ron Butcher and epitomised the emerging bovver element that was infiltrating the ranks of the Tory Party in Gridchester as elsewhere.

The Party’s candidate could not expect to win, but neither should he or she be trampled by a Prosser dirty-tricks campaign that could have a ripple effect far beyond Gridchester. It was for this reason that the Party’s Sectional Office would be paying more than usual attention to the candidate selection.

Also, the outbreak of disorder following the Butcher affair had resulted in Party organisation in Gridchester being strictly monitored by the Sectional Team.

It was late ,and Christine was babysitting because Paul was supervising yet another play rehearsal at Fairway.

Anybody but Brian, muttered Hazel as they waved goodbye to Sylvia who had just been picked up by Shaun in his taxi.

Prosser will eat him up but she just can’t see it, can she?

I’d really like a strong woman candidate, someone like Jessamy - but of course she’s completely lost to us now. Apparently Dickon’s getting spliced to that student – after all those years of saying marriage was a bourgeois institution.

I suppose it’s a virility thing – physical proof that he’s sprinkled his seed if you know what I mean!

They cleared the plates and she picked up a half-full glass of rose from the side table, staring determinedly at the bubbles emanating from the mouth of a large goldfish that had suddenly swum out from behind an ornamental rock in the fish tank.

It was a shame to waste it. 

call him number - what?

a little light fisking, mine in red as always.
Labour members in South East England have - the present perfect is the correct tense here backed former Reading and Berkshire Councillor, John Howarth who is barely literate, as their number one choice from the shortlist of five male candidates the only kind of shortlist that matters, eh John? for the European Parliament Elections in 2014. Anneliese Dodds, who is based in Oxford and fought Reading East at the last General Election, came out top in the separate female ballot the ballot isn't female, you barely literate arse, the candidates on it are. Under Labour’s selection rules Anneliese has been placed at Number 1 undermining her as you did when she was parliamentary candidate in 2010 on the South East Labour List and John will be Number 2 no, he already is. With Labour winning back voters in South East England, John has a very good chance of becoming an MEP.
John says, “It is always a great honour to be chosen by fellow Labour Party members for any role not that you have been, very often - when you were a county councillor you ran away rather than face reselection. I hope to win the confidence of the electorate and to be able you should be telling them you are able to provide it, not that you hope to work out how to do it some day - though that is true to provide the kind of effective representation we badly need here in South East England where our economic future depends on our relationship with Europe the South East of England is in Europe, you deluded fool - where did you think it was? Africa? Antarctica? . I am absolutely thrilled and look forward very much to the next nine of months what is this? Google translated from Klingon? making Labour’s case for a better, reformed European Union with Britain as a strong voice within it. shouldn't there be a close quote here?
“Thank you to all those who supported my campaign, endorsed me as their first choice or gave me practical help stuffing envelopes and who everything else that was necessary does no-one even proof-read this stuff? "and who everything else that was necessary"?, to my colleagues on the short-list for the excellent spirit in which they fought the campaign and a huge thank you to everyone who voted in the ballot – especially the very lovely people who voted for me.
“The biggest thank you goes to my wife Jane He marries women called Jane on a regular basis. Quite surprised I never got an offer. (No you're not. Ed.)who was a rock throughout and to whom I owe so much. I also nned there are newfangled things called spellcheckers, John - if you got your head out of the 1980s for five minutes you'd know that to thank Alex, Jessie and Jamie who have put up with having to see rather less of me lately. It’s great to be chosen but my feet are firmly on the ground – we’ve won nothing yet.” You're right there John. If you get elected you'll be in Strasbourg one week a month. I'll be waiting.

broadly Christian

Most of my adult life, and indeed my childhood and growing up years, have been spent not going to church. I wasn't brought up that way. Although I was baptised in the Church of England, my younger brother and sister were not (they both did it on their own initiative later) because my parents thought it was hypocritical to have them baptised when they themselves were not churchgoers. I now think my parents were wrong, although when I heard this when I was  growing up I was rather proud of them. Because baptism involves godparents, and it is they who take the responsibility, or should. Parents only have to promise to do their best, and that is what all parents want to do anyway. I go to church these days, have done so for the past few years, and every Sunday it strikes me that although there is much I have had to learn about worship in the Church of England over the past few years, a great deal in the liturgy is entirely familiar to me. This is because every morning, when I was at school, we had assembly, and these forms of words were used. We had grace before lunch int he school canteen. We joked about "the piece of cod that passeth all understanding" on Fridays, thinking we had invented it, but it is in the Molesworth books, which portray a generation a bit older than my own, so it must have been current in many schools. I hadn't read Molesworth at the time that phrase was being used by my contemporaries, and neither I think had they.  Most people my age or older know, at least from school assemblies, the words "we have left undone that which we ought to have done" and some of us remember, or think we remember (this is an urban myth I believe) being at an assembly when the trousers of the teacher intoning these words were in precisely that condition - cue hilarity.

Anyway, I got to wondering how they taught trainee teachers to do these assemblies, back in the day. That requirement, for an assembly of a broadly Christian character, is still there today - in fact the provision in the 1944 Education Act was strengthened in the 1988 Education Reform Act, which I remember well. Not all teachers are Christian, in fact I suspect that most of them are not, and assemblies no longer use the Book of Common Prayer and other bits of Anglican liturgy as they did in the 1950s and 1960s when I was going to school. I remember thinking in secondary school that the headmaster, who took most of the assemblies, didn't believe a word of what he was saying, and despising him for it more than I did already. Quite possibly he didn't. If he had had a dog-collar on we might have made the assumption that he did. But there is still an issue now. So how then, and now, do teachers of non-Christian or no faith manage with this stuff? Can anyone tell me?

Sudhana Singh

I have posted before on the case of this former head teacher, see here. Now the BBC has this:

 A former head teacher who says she was the victim of "racist bullying" has won a Court of Appeal ruling she hopes could help her bid for compensation.

Sudhana Singh is claiming constructive dismissal over her treatment at Reading Borough Council-maintained Moorlands Primary in Tilehurst.

She says the council "forced" school business manager Sue Heath to provide a statement "riddled with lies".

Employment and appeal tribunals had ruled the claim should not be allowed.

Now three appeal judges have allowed Mrs Singh, 45, to appeal.
'Autocratic style'
Lord Justice Lewison said both tribunals had been wrong and there was "no immunity behind which the council can shelter".

The judge said Ms Singh ran into "serious difficulties" in her first year as head teacher in her relationships with parents, staff and governors.

He said she was accusing governors of endorsing a campaign of "discrimination, bullying, harassment and victimisation" against her as an Asian head teacher.

She was also accusing the council of "deliberately and unlawfully" endorsing the campaign to remove her from her post.

He added: "The council denies these allegations. It says that the serious breakdown in relationships was due to Ms Singh's autocratic style of leadership and her poor communication skills."

She may win this appeal. I hope she does. I have never met her, nor do I know the school, nor do I have any view as to her competence as a head teacher, but it seems quite clear that she has been hounded out following a non-specific campaign by a group of parents. If someone is not doing their job well enough, a noisy media campaign is not the way to deal with it. It is however Reading Labour's way, and their fingerprints are all over this. The chair of governors at the key time was a man whose day job is as the regional director of the Labour Party, South-East Region, one Malcolm Powers. Why is Labour-controlled Reading Borough Council even commenting at this moment? Given that an appeal is pending they should not be doing so. All their counsel had to say was that if Ms Singh was given leave to appeal this would "open the floodgates" to other cases. Er, only if there are crowds of teachers and others Reading Labour is trying to hound out of their jobs for being people of colour in order to appease a bunch of racists in a marginal ward, would any floodgates open. This is the same bunch who have no shame at using a racist dog-whistle to get their candidate elected against an Asian candidate, see below, "she's one of us"

Best Blessings of Existence 45

In which we are told of children's games - and were there tears before bedtime?

n the early 1990s, when she had been on the parliamentary selection circuit and spending an inordinate amount of time at Party Conferences in an attempt to impress (or prey) upon constituency officials and Shadow Ministers, there was a dress code.

Women on the hunt wore sharp suits; usually in navy or black;possibly pin-striped and invariably exposing as much leg as possible if not cursed with piano trunks.

Men adopted three-quarter-length trench-coats, belted at the back, with the number of eyelets and buckles denoting seniority.

In the absence of embroidered codpieces; flowered ties sufficed, with senior personnel vaunting the equivalent of the Chelsea Flower Show above their breasts.

In 2009, ties were out and socks were in.

Robbie Nantwich; aged 59, with a moustache, hair-weave and to-die-for salary, had dressed for combat with Sandra Cornish in a tailored grey suit, black Hugo Boss-style vest and fluorescent pink socks.

She sneaked a glance at Lynne.

The latter was staring resolutely at the set and did not say

Didn’t you bonk him at Dorlich?

But it was obvious that she was thinking it.

How ridiculous it was to even feel a twinge of embarrassment, as she, along with millions of others, prepared to watch the acclaimed presenter go through his paces with their old university friend.

Robbie Nantwich had certainly put it about at Dorlich; over the years there had been rumours about his friendships and she’d like to bet that there was an entire battalion of women between the ages of 20 and 60 who were settling down to view The Nantwich Hour with very specific recollections.

As for herself, she hardly counted as one of their number.

They had only done it twice.

Nevertheless, it would have been better if they had never done it at all and she had spent the entire evening at the recent Sceptre Room party, trying to avoid Nantwich at one end of the room and Kingsmill at the other.

She mentally berated her 20-year-old self. How foolish that person had been.

Whatever had induced her to have sex with either of them?

Thou hast committed –

Fornication: but that was in another country

And besides, the wench is dead.

Meanwhile the camera homed in on Sandra, very much alive.

Well Mrs Cornish – or may I call you Sandra? began Robbie. Perhaps you’d like to tell us in your own words exactly why you decided to break your silence and expose what you describe in a tabloid newspaper as ‘corruption’ nestling at the very heart of Wendy Runcible’s Government?

Take your time; this must be very difficult for you – and difficult for ME, to see a former university friend in such terrible distress.

Sandra did not look distressed; indeed, the workings of her mouth seemed to denote somebody trying to disguise a smirk rather than an outburst of tears. She looked positively perky – even predatory.

Was she hoping to make a move on Nantwich? In which case, she’d better forget it - Sandra trussed up to the nines was no match for Sarah Cassidy with her implants and facial fillers.

And in any case, a man who had the pick of the sweet shop would hardly light upon Sandra, who began her story with the oratorical ease that indicated many hours of practice in front of the mirror – or even with a voice coach.

Her heart was breaking, and it had been the most difficult decision of her life to bare her soul to Ponia Tindall and Jessica Trotter (no doubt eased by the money that The Crier had put her way; Bruce Oldfield and Jimmy Choo don’t come cheap) but this was a matter of duty.

And her duty as a devout Christian was to clean up politics for the sake of the ordinary, hard-working people who did not deserve to be represented by heinous toads such as these.

A Christian? Must have been a Damascene conversion, offered Lynne, genuinely shocked.

And even if it was, it obviously doesn’t require her to renounce Mammon and give all her worldly goods to the poor. That outfit must have cost a bomb!

As their friend rehearsed the litany, determined to wreak revenge for a lifetime of disappointment, she noticed that Nantwich’s interview technique was markedly different from his usual chatty style.

In fact, this was not an interview, it was a monologue; coaxed from an increasingly garrulous Sandra by sympathetic prompts such as:

And did they really? Or You found them on the sofa? And Children – you mentioned children – tell me more about that – if you can…

The reference to children ushered in the commercial break.

During the first half of The Nantwich Hour, Sandra had supplied a potted life history; beginning with what she termed the birth of the sect 37 years ago at the University of Dorlich.

Here, the prime movers were a certain Leslie (now Sir Leslie) Potts and Derek Kingsmill (now Home Secretary in the Runcible Government).

Potts was a rampant and deviant homosexual who had taken advantage of the virginal Sandra Milford as cover for his true nature. No young man was safe from his clutches ( she hinted that pressure had been brought to drop charges in connection with a homosexual rape case and two incidents of cottaging in a public convenience adjacent to Persimann’s Folly ) and his partner in crime was Derek Kingsmill.

Although Kingsmill; whom she had surprised in the act of congress with Potts on a sofa, was licentious with members of both sexes.

Indeed, he had maliciously appropriated the key to a hotel bedroom at a student conference, knowing that she had no means of escape, and had then proceeded to have sex with a drunken woman right under her very nose. The room was extremely small and the only way she could avoid the outrage was to close her eyes tightly and stuff her fingers in her ears.

(Did she imagine it, or was Robbie Nantwich struggling to suppress laughter? She could not look at Lynne).

Sandra continued her sprint down the years, via her fateful meeting with Bill Cornish; her boss at United Biscuits whom she had encountered during the course of a disastrous holiday to Marrakesh with her old university friend; a former Head of Section at The Department of the Environment and now acclaimed Inuit specialist Lynne Lessways.

Ms Lessways, (who had later nurtured the career of the infamous Clifford Morledge) had spent the entire fortnight engaged in lascivious hedonistic pursuits, risking arrest for impropriety in a strictly Muslim country, and had abandoned her to the clutches of Cornish, who had used her for cover whilst conducting a series of assignations with very young men in the Majorelle Gardens.

I’ll FUCKING KILL HER! screamed Lynne.

AND WHO’D HAVE LOOKED AT ME ANYWAY IN THAT BLOODY KAFTAN?!!!!

She sat on the chair, mesmerised by the mouth on the television; spewing its venom like Billie Whitelaw in Not I.

Sandra was not their friend. She had never been their friend. She hated them both. She hated the world.

On the mouth went; the gay film club; the spurious Honour for Leslie Potts; the infiltration of Morledge into her home; sodomy on the sofa (again); sex with male interns in the office; sex with male asylum seekers in exchange for visas; blind eyes and deaf ears from Wendy who was terrified that her longstanding lesbian affair with Official Spokeswoman Edith Traynor would be exposed; sex in the kitchen at No 10 during the Children’s Christmas Party….

How could they allow her to do this? Why didn’t they flash the credits?

Where were the lawyers?!!

The children, said Robbie Nantwich after the break.

I wonder, Sandra – could you tell us a little more about that? Now I’m not trying to put words into your mouth AT ALL – but do you think that any of the children at that party had any idea? Not of course, that they would UNDERSTAND what was going on if they happened to stray into the kitchen after the jelly... they would think that your husband and Mr Morledge were –er—‘play fighting’ wouldn’t they?

And what about the Santa? Do you think that Santa knew? Or could have been in on it? Not that I’m saying he WAS – it was a male Santa wasn’t it?

Do you know who Santa WAS?

My husband… said Sandra.

And Robbie Nantwich, who had been content to be a listener during Part One, now began probing ruthlessly; extracting the information from Sandra that Bill Cornish was always the Santa; or the Rudolph or indeed, the Easter Bunny, at the annual Number 10 Egg Hunt.

And not only did he perform these functions at Westminster to help out; dandling the children on his lap, jiggling them up and down ( being a horsey) but he was just as assiduous and eager to help out in the constituency.

Why, he had even rescheduled the Mainland Security Paving Motion in order to make the 200-mile round trip to Boughton Hallows, so that he could step in to the Methodist Church Children’s Christmas Fumble, deputising for the usual Santa who was recuperating at home following a hip operation.

I expect the children got rather over-excited at these events? suggested Robbie silkily.

All that jelly, all that ice cream, and then being bounced up and down on Mr Cornish’s knee with their presents! I expect one or two of them might have been a bit sick. Or tearful? At the No 10 party? Do you think?

Did any of them cry, Mrs Cornish?

Sandra, who seemed to have lost a little of her poise, admitted that perhaps, yes, some might have been a bit tearful.

Maybe.

Although she couldn’t be sure what had caused it…

And on that note, concluded Robbie, cutting Sandra off rather rudely, in mid sentence

t’s ‘Goodbye’ from the Nantwich Hour, on a day when not one but two Cabinet Ministers and the esteemed geneticist, Sir Leslie Potts are currently helping the police with their enquiries and - breaking news! – we have just heard that the Tories have tabled a Motion of No Confidence in Wendy Runcible’s Government.

So on this historic day, when the revelations of a woman scorned are poised to bring down a Government, may I wish you happiness, harmony and a very good night.

And the camera zoomed, for one last time on Sandra; providing a most unflattering close up of her eyes, which looked larger - and wetter - than ever.

Best Blessings of Existence 44

Goings-on in a Commons committee room, and in which Sandra has her revenge - or does she?

No, she said

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. It wasn’t for me.

They were drinking wine in the lounge of the Pimlico flat, waiting for

8pm and The Nantwich Hour; a television slot hosted by the presenter who had shared her bed on two occasions in Dorlich.

They had been grisly events and she usually switched channels to avoid his clipped moustache and hairline that was rapidly receding (despite an Elton John weave) but tonight there was no respite.

The subject of the interview was to be Sandra Milford Cornish; their old university friend whose actions over the last 24 hours were threatening to bring down the Government.

She replied to Lynne, who was insisting that a woman was only truly fulfilled when she had given birth.

Lynne’s view was understandable. Greg had caught mumps in late adolescence and was unable to father children.

He was also unwilling to taint the Salt bloodline by allowing Lynne to have children by donor IVF and so reluctantly, but then stoically and with relish, she had settled upon dogs, and compensated by deploying the Salt money as midwife to a stellar career.

They were sitting in the tasteful lounge of Lynne’s London flat; two women in their late fifties who had known each other, statistically, for nearly forty years – but who had never really understood each other at all.

Dorlich had been the stage for a double act and they had played it to perfection; revelling in their reputations for outlandish and daring eccentricity, but safe in the knowledge that beneath the Afghan coats, bare feet, silks and satins, were two extremely conventional, hard-working young women who seemed to unite the best blessings of existence and had lived nearly 21 years in the world with very little to distress and vex them.

If the first 21 years had been plain sailing; the subsequent 36 were best described as a bumpy ride.

There had been success – of a sort.

Lynne had made a marriage paved with gold.

Greg’s money had given her intellectual ability; academic flair and natural vivacity a launchpad that would bear comparison with Cape Kennedy. She was an internationally acclaimed environmental consultant and author, with one best-seller to her name - and no doubt more to come.

But the husband who had made all this possible was in reality,an insufferable bore with whom she had little in common apart from property and pets.

The arrogant nincompoop for whose sake she had remained childless had run off with a clerical assistant from the Lyndhurst Chambers – and they had even appropriated the dogs.

As for herself; the triumphs of prising Paul away from the embraces of Nicola and the clutches of Frances Hunt had been hollow indeed.

After the briefest of lulls, Paul had recommenced his sexual foraging with renewed vigour; generally adding a further notch to his bedpost whenever she fell out of line by scoring a political success – or even by making new friends.

Yes, she had been an MP – for what it was worth. (Eight years of underachievement; constantly soured by ‘family problems’ triggered by her failed marriage).

Yes – unlike Lynne, she was the mother of two children.

But she could not think of the guarded faces of Richard and especially Vanessa without guilt for the years when her children were unwilling adjutants in a parental war still being waged from beyond the grave, as the reading of Paul’s will would no doubt prove.

Like flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.

The gods had enjoyed a high old time with herself and Lynne

She thought of Paul; dark and handsome as he had been when they first met at Bunters; recalled how he had compared her to Tessy dearest, and knew that whatever it was that had dogged her footsteps, for as many years as she could remember, was not played out yet.

The president of the Immortals had not ended his sport with Tess...

What the fuck is she going to say?

Lynne’s voice came from the end corner of the Conran Habitat divan that she had bought for the flat in pre-Greg days.

After a 20-year break, the events of the past week had propelled her to the cigarette packet and there was a flicker of the 20-year-old classicist surveying movers and shakers at a Wellington Parade party.

Of course, Robbie Nantwich and Sandra Milford would also have been present at the ghostly party – and the fact that the pair would soon be duelling before the nation on prime-time television was utterly surreal.

She quelled a sudden impulse to ask Lynne for a cigarette, and switched on the set.

After weeks of humiliation that had seen her replaced in her husband’s affections by a male lover; castigated by commentators and her own children for displaying Stone-Age homophobia; and to add insult to injury – witnessing said beastly husband rise to a career high as Secretary of State for Children, Families and Communities, Sandra had cracked.

And being Sandra, she had cracked spectacularly.

The rejected girl who had pursued Leslie Potts through the highways and byways of Dorlich,erupting banshee-style at Belinda Briscoe’s party, had become the woman who had bared her soul to Ponia Tindall and Jessica Trotter from The Crier on the front page and then pages 4-8 inclusive.

Tindall and Trotter, who must have linked up with Sandra after her hysterical display in The Fifth Column.

They had observed the shameful proceedings from ringside window seats and when she and Lynne had abandoned Sandra to her fate; alone at a table, cradling an empty wine bottle and crying piteously, they had moved in for the kill.

The article was shocking; covering topics and making allegations that might be commonplace on the internet (on the Vlad site for example) but would never appear in print, because no editor could get away with non-attributable material of that nature.

Even the time-worn device of a close friend or senior colleague could not be used to report that Cornish and Morledge had engaged in homosexual congress in the kitchen at No 10 in the time gap between jellies and ice cream and presents from Santa at a children’s Christmas party hosted by Wendy.

Or that Home SecretaryDerek Kingsmill was reliant upon respected geneticist Sir Leslie Potts for a supply of pliant rent boys hailing from Malawi and Somalia, who would do anything for Indefinite Leave to Remain, thus corrupting the entire asylum system.

And that Terrence Gale and Wendy herself had turned a blind eye to the gay film club which met in Committee Room 16 whenever there was a screening of an international football match featuring the England team.

A giant St George flag draped over the locked door knob, sufficed as a Do Not Disturb notice and the squeals and yelps from therein , echoing the length and breadth of the corridor, were natural eruptions of joy whenever the team scored a goal...

There was much more in the same vein, and of course it had been printed, because Sandra had put her name to it.

Though even with a name, I’m amazed that it wasn’t legalled, she commented as the familiar introductory jingle heralded the start of the Nantwich Hour.

The programme was live from the studio, and Robbie Nantwich, as was his wont, prowled across the stage and took his seat in one of the two Mastermind-style black leather armchairs.

His well modulated measured delivery had a new tone of repressed excitement as he prepared viewers for:

The interview of the century and the woman whose revelations in today’s Crier have brought Wendy Runcible’s Government to its knees and turned the Profumo Affair into a children’s nursery rhyme.

Welcome to the Nantwich Hour and the woman of the hour – Sandra Milford Cornish!

Sandra walked on from stage left, settling herself into the chair and crossing her legs.

Her first thought was that Sandra was looking remarkably well; better in fact than she had looked in years.

Gone was the gaunt turkey neck and sense of desperation. Sandra had put on weight; her hair was swept into an updo reminiscent of her party style at Dorlich, and her lilac dress suit was pure Bruce Oldfield, setting off her legs to perfection.

Even the pop eyes; always her worst feature seemed somehow less prominent, and anyone who had tuned in hoping to see Sandra’s version of a stricken Diana (There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded) was in for a shock.

This was Sandra’s interview: her story, her moment.

She looked at Lynne, then back at Sandra, as Robbie Nantwich prepared for the first question and the truth dawned, accompanied by twinges of horror and disgust.

Sandra was enjoying this.