Maligned Heroes

The deputy Deputy Prime Minister, Simon Hughes, has responded to the Liberal Democrats' difficulties over tuition fees in true New Labour fashion, with a sincere mea culpa for bad advertising and for failing to couch the betrayal in words of one syllable. Apparently the tuition fee rise is not a rise at all, but a positive gift: "from the beginning, everybody would be paying less and huge numbers of people would be paying nothing, whereas now they are paying something". However, the public, particularly the university-going public, were simply too stupid to understand this: "We were trying to be more sophisticated and too cerebral and not upfront enough". It seems that this sort of thing is the deputy Deputy Prime Minister's idea of how best to win over the voters of Oldham East and Saddleworth. It is certainly a great pity that the Liberal Democrats don't have the electorate they deserve.

Meanwhile, the New Labour cockroach Phil Woolas, whose election-night win in the constituency was overturned because he lied about something other than a policy pledge, has been setting the record straight: "people in the constituency did not like two judges coming up from London and telling them who to vote for. What happened to me will work in Labour's favour". Being dragged kicking and screaming out of Parliament was all part of Phil Woolas' cunning plan to help his party. Gives me a lump, it does.