neither Hoon nor Gove, and probably not Opik either

Has there been anyone in British politics quite as depraved as Geoff Hoon? Can my readers help?

Probably the worst defence secretary ever. (You have to realise that he was probably one of the Prime Minister’s two designated deputies for nuclear retaliation – Byers, not so much, and at least he got us the railways back.) Iraqi mothers will thank me. Editors should apologise. And on and on it goes. He signed the letter in an effort to sack Brown but didn’t send it because he wanted a job in Europe. Now, the bungling backstabbing fucko and neocon extras girl is yours for £3000 per 86,400 seconds. It’s almost worth taking a Senlis Council view and deciding that it’s worth paying over the money, collecting his lobbying services in a sealed warehouse patrolled by the army, and destroying them just to get them off the streets.

But. But. Come to think of it, the Blaney precedent governs this case – whatever is worthless cannot be the object of corruption.

Meanwhile, Michael Gove reckons that accepting money from a non-taxpaying non-voter who made the money by squeezing the wages of cleaners and charging Belizeans for phone calls at monopoly rates, before joining the legislature under false pretences, and letting him define your party’s strategy, without any of its members being so much as asked, is OK. Accepting money from the taxable income of millions of citizens who donated it by their free choice and elected representatives to decide what to do with it is beyond the pale. However, if some sort of national network of political activists was to offer Michael Gove donations and organisational support, that’s OK so long as they start with a C.

Of course, Gove personally didn’t need any organisation or money, because he got given a one-party seat and was allowed to keep writing national newspaper editorials in his own cause during his “campaign”. The only conclusion is that Hoon and Gove are equally repellent; you have to make allowances for the opportunities Gove has missed out on, as part of a generation of Tories deprived of power.

Meanwhile, I called my local MP, Jeremy Corbyn, the most left-wing man in the Commons and 472nd out of 646 for responsiveness about the Digital Economy Bill. Radio silence, of course. I left a comment on Lynne Featherstone’s blog, and you know what? She actually responded to it, saying that it going into the washup was good because all parties had to agree to pass it. True. If anyone remembers to object.