John O'Farrell tries to get me to vote Tory
The latest Labour email missive is particularly irritating, even by their usual smug, scare-mongering standards (link to follow, when I find it).
"if we don't get our voters to the polls on 5 May, we will have a Tory government in just two weeks' time. Simple as that. Four years of Prime Minister Michael Howard on the telly every night and the evening news having to have an 18 certificate."Like the news shouldn't have had an 18 certificate for the last couple of years, with the mutilated bodies of dead Iraqis and coalition soldiers every night? With images of naked Iraqis being forced to simulate sexual acts? How the hell are the Tories going to up the stakes? And as far as I'm concerned, Howard would be just as much of an embarrassment as Blair. I want neither of them.
"At this election it will be harder to get our supporters to the polls and we may well have less people with which to do it."Perhaps you should take this as an indication that Labour's doing something wrong?
Then comes a call for volunteers on election day:
"what are you realistically going to achieve by going into work on 5 May?"Erm... Did Gordon Brown approve this suggestion? Somehow I doubt it...
"Imagine the satisfaction from discovering that a retired mini-cab driver wanted a lift to the polling station, saying 'yeah, the car's on its way' and then making him wait two hours."Yep, taking the piss out of OAPs. That's a brilliant vote-winner, considering that they're the age group most likely to bother. What a tit.
"One day away from the office or four years of Michael Howard in office - surely it's no contest."So, one day away from the office campaigning for Labour, or four years of a Tory government which promises to lower taxes as opposed to a Labour government which certainly will raise. Yep. No contest.
They really are going all-out to get us to vote for anyone but Labour, aren't they?
(Edited to make final paragraph make sense. Finally. Blogger being a dick. Sorry.)
4 Comments:
"Like the news shouldn't have had an 18 certificate for the last couple of years, with the mutilated bodies of dead Iraqis and coalition soldiers every night? With images of naked Iraqis being forced to simulate sexual acts?"
And that flip remark brilliantly illuminates the central objection of the comfortable, white, middle-classes to military intervention in Iraq: the fuzzie-wuzzies out there used to die quietly without upsetting anyone by bursting onto the telly (as dear Alastair calls it). That nice Mr Hussein never bothered anyone here by emailing snapshots of gassed Kurds to his friends in the West. Mind you, that would have been a pretty big CC list.
Oh fuck off... This sort of extrapolation was tedious two years ago and it's even more tedious now.
Yes, of course I fucking love Saddam.
Stop being a tit.
Hugs and kisses to you too.
The leaps in logic above are yours.
Firstly you jump from O'Farrell's (admittedly weak) joke about the supposed creepiness of Howard to a knee-jerk complaint about what aesthetically displeasing TV viewing the Iraq war has been.
Then I observe in passing that Saddam had plenty of friends in the West; you infer from that that I think you are one of them. That's your problem, not mine.
Just to make it clear: I questioned a particularly common and "tedious" way of thinking, not your character. And the effect of my criticism would have been devastating---if only you hadn't demolished my argument by telling me to fuck off and calling me a tit.
That'll teach me not to mess with the big boys.
O'Farrell makes a weak joke. I point out it's a redundant weak joke. You assume this is because I'm from the "comfortable white middle-classes" who was opposed to the war, and strongly imply that my supposed objections to the war are because of a combination of not having any awareness of the situation in Iraq and because I quite liked Saddam.
All I was actually pointing out is that war and telly makes for somewhat unpleasant images, and that O'Farrell's glib and meaningless remark (what was he trying to suggest there, exactly?) is actually a load of crap. Mutilated bodies generally warrant an 18 certificate, I think we can agree...
And for the record, to avoid any more sarcasm, I was not particularly opposed to the war. I rarely mention Iraq because it doesn't interest me, but every time I do someone comes along and starts posting stupid comments. The reason for the "fuck off" is that you are about the 100th person to pop up out of nowhere and assume that because I don't like Bush or Blair much I must be a peacenik.
It gets somewhat boring after a while, that's all. I'm sure you're lovely really.
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