Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

Long standing readers of this blog (who really, truly should pull up a chair and rest their tired legs) will know that I rarely get agitated about matters political. At the end of the day, when it comes right down to it, we sort of expect all politicians to be mealy mouthed and venal. As long as they run the country in reasonable fashion and don’t try to frighten the horses, we are prepared to let them get on with it.

However, John Prescott not only takes the biscuit, he hightails it with a 40 tonne truck full of bourbon creams. The man is astounding. If you didn’t hear the interview with him this morning on the Today programme, then you should go and listen to it on the BBC website and see how long it takes before your jaw drops open in amazement.

There’s one particular exchange that illustrates just how low this man has sunk. The interviewer asks him about allegations that he has had more than the one affair that he has admitted to. There were three possible responses to this question – to deny it outright, to admit to it or to tell the interviewer to mind his own business. Instead, Prescott weasled and obfuscated and avoided the question to such an extent that he may well have said “La La La – not listening, can’t hear you”.

Who does he think he is fooling, exactly? When he has such contempt for the people that pay his wages and foot the bill for a stay on a homophobic billionaire spiv’s ranch, why should we treat anything he says with other than utter contempt? When asked to give an example of what he actually does, he mentioned opening an exhibition about William Wilberforce in Hull. Well,.woop-di-doo. William Wilberforce actually changed the society that we live in for the better – John Prescott just swans around cutting ribbons.

At the last election, there was a great deal of hand wringing about the level of political apathy, particularly amongst the young. I think that the actions of Prescott et al are to blame.

Picture thanks to Bloggerheads