An Obliging Rebellion

Amid all the bad news, the Government's chief whip has offered Daveybloke some comfort: he is likely to have a fair excuse not to proceed with Lords reform. Up to a hundred and ten protectors of the traditional Conservative values of heredity, senility and stupidity may rebel over the reform bill; while Labour, since it believes in Lords reform, will be voting against it too. Many MPs are also annoyed with the Deputy Conservatives for failing to fly to the aid of Jeremy C Hunt, whose innocence of any wrongdoing was definitively determined by the Prime Minister within minutes of his appearance at the Leveson inquiry. "We need to remind the Lib Dems we are the majority shareholder," blathered one MP, understandably confusing government with executive directorship.

Since Daveybloke was too busy commenting on comedians' tax affairs today, his own comedy line about showing good faith to the Deputy Conservatives was passed to a spokesbeing. "We will bend over backwards to push this through," the spokesbeing said, summing up the contortions which will be necessary to avoid pushing it through while simultaneously avoiding the appearance of trying to avoid pushing it through.