Conference Call

It's that time of the year again, then.

BBC 2 is hogged by village idiot politicos making empty speeches to even emptier halls on Live telly. It's amazing that ANYONE watches this stuff intently from the comfort of their armchair unless they are physically unable to do anything about it.

Another way to look at this is that it is the Olympics of boring. The most terminally dull individuals in Britain slug it out on a nationally televised stage. They've already been through regional heats, so these must be the national champs. The true heavy hitters.

You just don't find lack of character like this in any other public area (except perhaps on Fame Academy), someone who has had a political obsession for maybe thirty years having finally achieved Party Conference Credentials they can finally bore the pants off an entire nation! And if they are REALLY good at it, they can get onto Newsnacht and slug it out with Uberbore Jeremy Paxman.

Now it seems you can bore the nation remotely from your jail cell. Not since Noel Coward in The Italian Job has anyone with so little to offer hogged the limelight so much. Jeffrey Archer, Lord Archer ferchrissakes is managing to keep the nations attention whilst hiding in a Belmarsh jail cell.

Like the guy set foot out of the cell for a second! Hands up who reckons he hasn't taken a shower since he set foot in the place! How on earth he gets to be the latest authority on penal policy is beyond me, but at least it keeps the former Tory chairman in the news, ready for his next airport paperback release.

Iain Duncan-Smith (Tory leader - William Hague quit, remember...) is trying to get the Tories focussed on something vaguely interesting, but it's all about Eggwina and John-boy in the closets of Westminster when the cabinet's gone home. Once again the Tory conference is barely able to function because of some revelation in the papers that's got the blue rinsers apoplectic.

Time was that the Tory Conference was a right hatful of horrors, like the WWF wrestling. It was one big fix, but it didn't stop you hurling abuse at the biggest, the loudest and the ugliest of Maggie Thatchers freak show. Maybe it's because parties in power have the most interesting characters, but bloody hell the Tories act has gotten bad.

Where are the political Elephant Men these days? When did these guys start being nice? I preferred the Conservatives when they had a sneer and a swagger about em - and had genuine class contempt dripping from the platform. Nowadays, with the best of em falling over themselves to be Mr Reasonable they are fading into complete political invisibility.

No wonder the old school Conservatives were tramping up and down London a few Sundays back to march for something they've already clean forgot about. Anything to keep awake!

Blogga.