Campaign for an English Parliament

James Purnell MP – thick, tiresome and toadying….. he should go a long way.

Last night, James Purnell did wonders for his latest assault on the title of the planet’s most stupid politician. His appearance on Questiontime plumbed the depths of objective analysis to an all time low. Purnell is either a cretinous berk or a no idea toerag – or both. But apparently, according to Dimbleby’s intro’, he is destined to be a future Labour leader! What a joke.

Also on this distinguished cerebrally-free zone was Boris Johnson’s feminine side (his sister Rachel), ageing Tarzan lookylikey and Mace whirler Michael Hestletine, turbo-gobbed narcissist Piers Morgan and Crusty old Ming Campbell, the oldest man in the universe.

The first few questions puked up the usual dribble of political soundbitery – all pretty unremarkable – apart from Piers Morgan that is. He spent his time telling us how over the past 24 hours he had talked to Ditherer Brown, Boris and Call me Dave over a few scoops “Did I tell you I had a beer with Call me Dave last night?”…..yawn….

And then a man from the audience got up and asked his question. Middle-aged balding Englishman, Roger Bristow asked the panel ‘Should the English have a referendum on separation from the dependencies of Scotland and Wales?’…

Cue spontaneous applause from the audience…..

Girly Boris went first – she told us she wasn’t qualified to answer – then proved it by morphing the question into one which concerned Scottish politics, Scottish referenda and Scottish Salmond….

Ming went next – totally ignoring Dimbleby’s reiteration of the original question, he admitted he felt a bit ’schizophrenic’ about the issue. He then gave us the wisdom of his great age to tell us all about Scotland, Scottish politics, Scottish Salmond, Bendy Wendy and Gordon Brown (he’s Scottish, you know). Ming, proved he wasn’t so much ’schizophrenic’ as ‘Alzheimeric’ because in little over a minute, he had completely forgotten the question from Roger. Remember, Roger the Englishman was asking about the prospect of an English referendum….

Then came the great intellect that is James Purnell. The rising star in the nu Labour firmament, Purnell put on his regulation ‘I feel your pain’ face, looked straight at Roger – and wanted to “get back to the lady’s original question”….. Unfortunately, the Director didn’t pan back to Englishman Roger, the balding middle-ager to see how he reacted to being called ‘a lady’……. Maybe he was getting confused after meeting Girly Boris. Maybe gender reassignment was more common than I thought?

Apparently, Purnell and the Labour Party “passionately believe in the Union” he believes that the United Kingdom is “a great country – the most successful country possible, and the government want to keep it that way”… And then he went the way of all the others, Bendy Wendy, Scottish Salmond, Scotland and Gordon Brown….

Fortunately, whilst Purnell was trying to tell us that Gordon and Wendy were singing from the same hymn sheet (Brown is a son of the manse, apparently – and he feels our pain), Piers Morgan came to his rescue. Morgan proclaimed that he was even more dense than Purnell, then told us that he didn’t believe in referenda at all. Oh, and by the way, Morgan had a drink with Boris last night……. just then, as if anxious not to be outdone by this jumped up nu Labbed oik, Michael Hestletine tarzaned forth (where’s a jungle creeper when you want one?) and told us that he too had been at the same party as Piers – and had also had a drink with Boris and Call me Dave…….. so there!

Just then, everything went off message. Fortunately, someone in the audience had rediscovered his backbone and asked James Purnell to his face whether it was right that England should be disadvantaged on public spending, NHS drugs, free prescriptions, free further education and our lack of democracy when compared with Scotland…. “Where’s the unity in that?” he finished.

Cue spontaneous applause from the audience…..

Purnell looked nervous. He couldn’t launch into his ‘nationalism is dangerous and right wing’ tactic. The guy who had just asked him the question was an Asian. Purnell brought out his patented ‘honest John’ hand gesture and waved it Winston style. He gathered his full complement of 92 brain cells together and said….

“Very briefly. We are a United Kingdom. We have common approaches on benefits on defence, on foreign policy, but we also have different approaches in London, different approaches in Scotland and in Wales – that allows us to experiment, to do what is right for each individual country – and we can all learn from each other….

So Purnell’s countries of the UK are Scotland, Wales and….. London.

For the record, for this question specifically about a referendum for England, the panel’s country-word count was as follows…

Scotland / Scottish mentioned 25 times….. England / English mentioned 2 times