Nice to see Howard’s disreputable move into immigration and asylum come back and bite him but his campaign is still flatlining (I do like that phrase) and his team rebelling so, let’s face it, we’re going to see more of this ugly stuff in the next week or two. After all, if the Tories’ share of the vote does come out at the wrong end of the 30s as the polls almost universally predict, the blood-letting within the party will be spectacular and immediate: Howard will be spending more time with his family so quickly they’ll barely have time to get the kettle on. With his campaign in such trouble, any incentive he may have had to run a respectable and positive campaign has evaporated so I think we’ll see a strong return to type for Howard.
Remember, Mr Howard has form. His stock-in-trade while in Government was the slick and effective delivery of some pretty ugly politics: saloon bar nastiness like Clause 28, the absurdly bulging prison population and, of course, the pointless and divisive poll tax. Hold on to your hats.
Howard’s been desperate for Labour and the Lib Dems to call him racist so he can harp on about censorial political correctness. When they refused, saying it’s okay to talk about immigration, he was forced to become even more shrill.
I hate the way he waves the shroud of his dead grandmother every time the racist issue comes anywhere near being raised. I end up getting the idea that, if you don’t have a grandmother who died in the holocaust you might well be racist. Ho, hum.