Money Shot

Oh, dear. Call me an emotionally reactionary, pre-Big Brother, un-Dianaic old stay-out-the-mud if you will, but this is really rather embarrassing. In the same week as Daveybloke untrussed his Bullingdon at Angela Eagle and the economy showed itself flat on its back with its legs in the air, George the Progressively Regressive has responded to the admission by a BBC radio presenter that he featured in her erotic dreams. In keeping with the BBC's pathetic urge towards "balance", the presenter was immediately prompted to add that "some years before it was Neil Kinnock".

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with erotic fantasies, however distasteful some of us may find the current practice of broadcasting them to the nation. Sex is a powerful and often involuntary urge which can sometimes take the imagination into peculiar places. Sex can also be crude, primitive and idiotic, and not infrequently involves a bit of slime; which is why nobody need be ashamed of dreaming about George Osborne. What embarrasses is partly the fact that somebody tore Osborne away from counting his magic beans and got him to record a bit of nudge-nudge to be played on air when the unfortunate presenter moves to a different programme; and partly the fact that the Downing Street press office apparently thought this would be just the thing to persuade us of the chancellor's Byronic charm.