Tag Archives: Party

All our politicians should be on posters as 1980s characters

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SO WHERE did this obsession with the 1980s come from? Maybe it is because of TV channels like G.O.L.D., or is it because so many of us are stuck in a timewarp, constantly harking back to those decades when we think we felt happier and more secure?

Oh really? I don’t think so. It is just that we forget the bad bits – like Dallas.

Bobby Ewing was killed by a car and then came back from the dead. J.R. was shot but stayed dead. Ronald Reagan was shot but did not die – although he looked as if he had.

Sorry about that. Of course he wasn’t in Dallas. That scene was in something else. What was that called? Oh yeah, real life. That was it.

It was also a time when we were all fed up with older people saying stuff like: “When I was young . . . ” Now we can’t help it. We say it ourselves. Some of my in-laws say it from dawn to dusk.

Whatever the reason, there is now a constant round of 80s-themed discos, reruns of 80s TV programmes and rusting Ford Capri Ghias tarted up just as they were in the era of the big shoulder pads and massive hair.

Now the politicians have latched on. Labour had this whopping idea of depicting David Cameron as Gene Hunt, the sexist, potty-mouthed star of the 80s-themed TV show Ashes to Ashes.

Ashes to Ashes, apparently, is a yarn about a woman cop in the Metropolitan Police called Alex Drake who is shot dead in 2008 and then wakes up again later. So it’s just like Dallas, really? Well, yeah. Except she wakes up back in 1981.

Well, that sounds like a really fantastic idea. Not.

In Labour’s poster, David Cameron is sitting like a right Gene Hunt on the bonnet of a red Audi Quattro alongside the slogan “Don’t Let Him Take Britain Back to the 1980s”.

Just one teensy problem. I don’t think Labour thought this one through properly. Tough cop Hunt is one of the good guys of the retro TV series. He is not a baddie.

Tory spinmeisters, of course, twigged that one right away. They just re-did the same poster with the new words “Fire up the Quattro. It’s time for change.” With additional words: “Idea kindly donated by the Labour Party.”

Mandy, if it’s your work, go back to the drawing board. Or was it Balls?

The idea itself is OK. It would liven up the boring election which, in case you live in a cave, will be announced tomorrow. It got me to thinking which of our Western Isles constituency politicians could be depicted as 1980s TV personalities.

Back then, Pete Beale had a market stall in EastEnders. He was a larger-than-life character who was always getting into arguments. Before the last election, I remember someone saying that Angus MacNeil looked like a younger version of him. Five years on, he should be looking even more like him now. Whaddya think?

Alas, it was not all plain sailing for Pete. He fell foul of a rogue with a double-barrelled name called James Willmott-Brown. He was keen to get rid of Pete and replace him in the affections of his missus, Kathy.

I suppose Donald John Macsween has a double-barrelled name of sorts. And he is anxious to oust MacNeil and replace him in the affections of the electorate. Uncanny, eh?

DJ himself does look a bit like George from the sitcom George and Mildred, and not just because of the absence of follicles. George was a much put-upon fellow who was bullied by a domineering wife. She felt there was little he could do properly. She was much more glamorous – and amorous. George, meanwhile, preferred pottering around in his shed or watching the telly.

However, I am not suggesting that their characters are in any way similar. DJ’s beloved, Marina, has always struck me as someone who is far more reasonable and, er, undemanding than the fictional Mildred. And she is good in the kitchen. I can confirm her nibbles are the best I have ever laid hands on.

Arthur Daley, in the series Minder, was a complex character. Yes, he did things in an unusual way, but, deep down, he had a heart of gold.

There is no possible connection between a well-dressed but unscrupulous importer-exporter, wholesaler and used-car salesman and the independent Christian candidate Murdo Murray.

But have you seen Murdo without his glasses? Not dissimilar to Arthur.

Murdo, too, once moved among the shady underclass. But that was just his job as director of technical services in the White House. He paid his debt to society. Time to allow him to move on.

Everyone loved Samantha Fox in the 80s. Maybe she was a bit dizzy, but she more than made up for that by being cheeky, voluptuous and sometimes in the papers for the wrong reasons.

Not that there is any such connection between her and our Tory candidate, Sheena Norquay – other than the slight likeness with the former page-three stunna in the only unflattering photo I have seen. I’ll confirm the rest when I meet her.

There was always something niggling me about Jean Davis, the Lib Dems’ hopeful.

You can still see traces of that cutie smile that must have knocked them bandy when she had on her oversized Wham T-shirt and leg warmers.

I’ve got it: She’s like that girl in Dukes of Hazzard. Daisy Duke wore cut-off jeans which were a touch high for early-evening viewing. So if you see Jean, swinging in and out of the window of her Mini in torn dungarees, you will see how right I am.

Now all the candidates have to do is make posters in these 80s alter egos and they will have the election in the bag.

I don’t even charge them for this invaluable PR advice, you know.

I am busy keeping my wayward wife and preparing for election

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WOKE up this morning and there was no sign of Mrs X. Ah, she must be cooking a special breakfast for me, I thought. I’ll tiptoe down and surprise her. No, she’s not in the kitchen. Not in the loo. Garden shed? Nope.

No note on the fridge to say she has gone round to her sister’s? No. Of course, she has taken the mutt for a walk in the castle grounds. No, Hector’s still in his basket. Don’t panic; there must be a perfectly simple explanation. No, there isn’t. She has run off with someone. And it’s usually someone the wronged partner knows. Who was the last person I saw giving her a peck on the cheek?

Jimmy Ogilvie. Having had cataracts removed from both his eyes, he actually told me how it had changed his life as he can see pretty girls for the first time. Now he has changed my life by skipping off with my old missus.

He has single-handedly ruined my life; that’s what he’s done. Things will never be the same again. I’ll have to do my own cooking and stuff.

What did the fork-tongued Laird of Ogilvie Towers (currently closed to the general public) see in her? Everything, obviously, after his eye ops. And what was the attraction for her? I bet he’s got loads of money. We’ve all seen Jimmy O, sitting there in the corner of the Lewis and the Carlton sipping fine Napoleon brandy from his fancy crystal goblet. Shamelessly flaunting his bulging wallet, he has turned my beloved’s head.

Not that I haven’t got a wee bulge myself, you understand. It’s just not in my back pocket. Mine is more upfront, if you know what I mean. However, having just appointed Binnie, one of the superstars off the Gaelic TV weight-loss show Farpais Fhallain, as my personal trainer, I’ll soon slim down and blacken both of Ogilvie’s roving eyes.

Wait. Was it not Donnie Saunders I last saw planting a kissag on her? Donnie flipping Saunders. Him off the radio. I should have known. She has a thing about those broadcast types. Well, well. What the heck has he got that I haven’t got? Apart from a Crocodile Dundee hat?

And she is a stranger to the truth. She told me she didn’t like beards on men when I went a bit Adrian Chiles. Scarlet woman that she is. Right, sit down in a quiet room. Deep breaths. That’s it; into the living room.

“Hullo, darling, come in. Andy Murray was two sets down, but he is coming back now.”

There, bold as you like, was the alleged hussy herself in front of the telly, a cup of coffee in one hand and a breakfast crumpet in the other, looking as if the only bulges on her mind were the ones delivering Murray’s forearm smashes. She had sneaked downstairs at 8am to watch it.

Good morning, dear. You watch the tennis. I’ll just go and write something for the P&J.

First, though, I boil myself an egg to celebrate the return of my prodigal wife and wonder how Margaret Thatcher scoffed up to 28 a week to lose weight before the 1979 election. Maybe she kept up that regime afterwards, too.

Her Cabinet was probably so desperate to get upwind of her they would agree to anything.

“Right, let’s bomb the Belgrano. What do you say, John Nott?”

“Yes, yes, Margaret, whatever you say. Now would someone please open a window.”

It is important I study the habits of high-profile political figures in case I decide to stand at the expected forthcoming election on May 6. A letter arrived the other day asking me to allow my name to be put forward to be the Christian Party candidate. So I have cleared my diary.

Snigger ye not. It is an American-style open primary, so it’s open to anyone to be selected. And they are, we hear, having a bit of difficulty finding someone of the right calibre. They say they want someone to rock the boat. So call me, Rev Hargreaves.

My only mistake was showing the plea to sometime Labour apparatchik Callum Ian MacMillan. I suspect he’s now going for it, too. I told him it will take more than going now and again to listen to Rev Kenny I, and knowing upbeat Father Tom Kearns, the self-confessed former 1960s London swinger who is priest in the Catholic church, to become the ideal ecumenical candidate.

Kenny in the SNP office admits they are worried down there. They’ve heard the MacMillan fellow is the preferred candidate of the Gideons, the bedside-Bible crowd. Bet the Gideons are in Kenny I’s flock, too. That’s what I’m up against – cliques.

My secret weapon is that I’m going to be a doctor. I won’t be ripping out any appendixes just yet as I will be a doctor of divinity.

I came across this site on the internet, you see. All I had to do was answer a question or two like who was Adam and what does the word covet mean when they talk about your neighbour’s wife in the 12 commandments. Take note, the covetous Messrs Ogilvie and Saunders.

Just sent a hefty cheque, for post and packing, to an American college. I think it is really kosher in a general, non-Jewish way. Now a scroll confirming my new academic status is winging its way back across the pond.

My manifesto will say those who covet others’ wives will be put to death. No messing about.

Mrs X is shouting from downstairs that Andy Murray has lost to Roger Federer. Fantastic game, she says, but Andy is just saving himself for the ardours of a certain summer tournament in Wimbledon. Yeah yeah, whatever.

I’m still worried that Mrs X herself might be still saving herself for the ardours of that Ogilvie fellow – or that Saunders.