Ed Miliband has finally found a way to nail the election in 2015…
Shortly after which, he will be himself will also be nailed up and flogged in the public square by the media every day of mourning and Twitternight of his life.
Still, every Great British PM must follow the Way of the Masters…
From the ominous claps of ambivalent acclamation, through Thatcher’s Gethsemane of anxiety and doubt to the final, lonely, misunderstood Golgotha of Anthony Blunt Blair.
Aye, there’s nothing new under “The Sun.”
(Whoops! Sorry for that entirely inadvertent reference to a scandalous act of radical left-wing performance theatre a few years ago).
Anyway, Ed Miliband has been worried that Labour so far, has been entirely unsuccessful at assimilating:
Women, gay people, black people, Jewish people, Muslims, Sikhs, transgender people, disabled people…
And anyone else these Saviors of the Common Man (sic) consider to be “good vote-winning material.”
So, instead of flogging a dead horse, Our Ed (catchy!) has decided to ride to the rescue of the stamp-collecting community…
The latter being an entirely monolithic and homogeneous group which arguably (or at least rhetorically speaking) is the most misunderstood and under-represented of all.
See this transcript between Miliband and Alistair Campbell:
ED: What should I do, Alistair? I’ve been so very, very nice and kind to all those nice ordinary people out there, but some of them don’t like me. Ohhh, they are so very, very uncharitable to me 🙁
AL: Hah! 😛 You need a new stra-te-gy, Ed. 😉
ED: Oh, now, stop it Al! Don’t be nasty to me! I don’t like it when you use big words and talk above ordinary people like me. Stra…te..um? Anyway, the voters need to be guided by the hand and made to understand what their… um… interests are (that’s the word, isn’t it?) But some of them are not nice to me, Al. I don’t understand it. I am so good to them. ;(
AL: Why don’t we find a new community to assimilate? That’s an easy vote-winner.
ED: Oh, stupid boy… go away and let me play Tetris, Al! You’re so very, very, stupid, and you make me feel sad.
AL: Don’t get cocky, Ed. The electoraltariat don’t like that; far less the filthy lumpen-electoraltariat who are so morally impoverished and intellectually debilitated, it’s both beneath them and beyond them, to saunter up to the polling station and put one little tick in the right… um, the correct little box.
ED: Oo! I can’t stand arrogant people and show-offs, Al! That’s why I went into politics in the first place, to show I’m not like all those arrogant and cocky Tories; I’m much better than them, Al! Don’t criticize me! :((((((
AL: How are you going to cope later then? The media (even famously non-satire outlets like the BBC) do not look kindly upon Conspicuous Exceptions who smirk and simper: “Trust me darling; I really am not like all the rest.”
ED: Ohhh! That’s nasty! That what you just said, that’s more like Blair! I’m a completely different kind of leader than he is! So there! Harrumph!
AL: Shut up and listen. Remember who’s boss. I’m practically the Pradatariat incarnate. Anyway, here’s our “However-Many-the-F***-Point Program…”
ED: That’s cheeky! You’re a naughty boy, Al! Humph! All those ordinary people out there, they don’t like swearing! Swearing is nasty! So there…. silly-head! HAH! See, I’m not like the rest of them… I can express my feeling elo..qu…. um, clearly, without saying bad words!
AL: Performative contradiction, Ed? Anyway, here are our Ten Quasi-Questioning Diktats of Philatelic Assimilation:
1. What does the stamp-collecting community in its crushing, monolithic entirety really think?
(Never mind “think about what?” That’s just semantics, Ed).
2. What is its hopes, values, aspirations?
(KIVR; Keep-It-Vague, Remember).
3. What does the stamp-collecting community fear most?
(Hint; not us).
4. What “assistance” (hah!) does it want most?
(Wink wink).
5. Who are the immortal foes of the stamp-collecting community?
(Hmm… no shortage here, right?)
6. What does it want us to do about these issues?
(That’s an absolutely fundamental one. Don’t forget! And by the way, they never have “problems,” only “issues.” In this small respect at least, they resemble us).
7. Who are the “allies” (hah!) of the stamp collecting community?
(Apart from you-know-who, of course).
8. What does the stamp collecting community want to be done about recalcitrants who don’t accept either our assistance, or their enslavement to a wide variety of tendentious, contrived, and generally unhelpful “intersectional alliances?”
(We need to be ruthless here; don’t pander to our enemies, they don’t deserve our pity).
9. Finally, and most importantly of all:
Given that the stamp-collecting community is entirely monolithic, homogeneous and uniform, how can we ensure that the more uppity and independent of the integral synthetic components of the stamp collecting community are shamed, silenced and even driven to commit suicide, by means of internecine conflict between State loyalists and shitty, contemptible, separatist hooligans?
(By this point, they’ll be in the bag; every last backward, reactionary, petty-bourgeois individualist of ‘em).
ED: That’s nine, not ten! Don’t try and fool me! Me and everyone in Labour know our arithmetic! Even if silly Mr Balls and his nasty friend, Tory George, don’t have a clue!
AL: Oh, dear, dear, callow, green little Ed! (Small “g,” needless to say). Someone hasn’t read their William James this morning. Don’t you know the first rule of politics?
TRUTH IS WHAT WORKS.
ED: Make me some cocoa, Al. I’m bored.
AL: Poor dear. It’s so hard for you, my lad. Don’t worry, have some sleepy-byes, and everything will be all right come 2015.
ED: But it’s 2015, already, Al. Humph.
AL: Oh…
Well in that case, you’re up treacle tunnel, my son.