Coastalblog

Grant Shapps, Ladies and Gentlemen. Grant Shapps. Graaaaaant Shaaaaaapps. Drink him in. Revel in his presence. Grant Shapps. Grant fucking Shapps. As I have, at times, attempted to point out, my politics are largely of the left. This does not, however, preclude me from liking the odd Tory on a case by case basis. I have reasonably sane friends who are conservative. We can disagree wildly, but we’ll rub along. However. Grant Shapps. Graaaaant Shaaaapps. The Shappinator, the Shappmeister. Cap’n Shapps. No, no, I don’t see he and I getting along. There are people who are conservative because they’re traditionalist, there are people who are conservative because they’re already quite wealthy and they’d quite like to stay that way, thanks. There are people who are conservative because they live in a jolly nice town and everyone else in their jolly nice town is. There are people who are conservative because well, that’s just what one’s family does, in the same vague, unthinking British w...

With the mother of all messy elections now a mere two months away it’s the time to sit back and take stock. Really think about the options presented to us as voters, weigh up what the parties stand for, how it chimes with our beliefs, or not, as the case may be. Or, alternatively, now is the time to tot up which party is offering us the heftiest bribes, and vote accordingly. We’ve come a long way since the wild west days of parliament’s infancy. Back then, bribery for votes, a practice known as “treating”, was commonplace. None of that sort thing now, of course. Shabby, demeaning and corrupt. Wouldn’t want anything like that damaging the good name of parliament (stop laughing at the back). However, whilst bunging an individual a quid for their vote is strictly verboten, attempting to do the same thing to entire demographics is de rigeur. How else to explain the boy Miliband’s promise to knock large swathes of squids off the cost of tuition fees? Is it done from political convicti...