It would be funny were it not so wildly unfunny. Despite the expenses scandal that so revolted the public they practically demanded a vomitorium on every street, it is still not electoral poison for a Tory frontbencher go on the BBC, and flounder that yes, the party's deputy chairman and major donor doesn't actually pay full British taxes. We are now told that Sir George Young "mis-spoke" about Michael Ashcroft, though Tory HQ declines to say whether his lordship has honoured his now-ancient "assurance" that he'd give up his non-domicile privileges. And we can bugger off if we want to know more, because "Lord Ashcroft's tax status is a matter between him and the Inland Revenue". Know your place, serfs of the prospective government whose campaign he's running and funding.
On Monday night, meanwhile, what you might imagine to be some totally minor dispute took place at a meeting of the Westminster North Conservative association. I know there's a war on, and everyone's losing their jobs, but please let's focus, because the minutiae are these: the prospective MP, Joanne Cash, is a friend of Cameron's who does not get on with her constituency chair, Amanda Sayers. This led to party chairman Eric Pickles, no less, turning up in person to enforce what had been described as a decree by "Mr Cameron, Mr Pickles and Mr Coulson" that the chair should go. And go she did – all this on the very day of Cameron's big speech about "taking power from the political elite and giving it back to the man and woman on the street".
The micro-managing parallels with New Labour are so striking that we must assume Cameron genuinely intends to reprise the shtick which made Blair's lot so uniquely loathsome to the public. It is history lacking the decency to repeat itself as farce. It is merely history repeating itself.
Yet none of it seems to affect the Conservatives in the polls, which gives you a flavour of the quality of "choice" on offer at the forthcoming election. The counterweight, of course, is our esteemed government, next to whose more repulsive policy decisions the above is thrown into flattering relief. Labour are so calamitously hopeless, and burdened by such epic horrors, that it is hard to see what can so much as dent Cameron's distinctly unimpressive lead against them. The Tory leader has obviously made the calculated judgment that the damage the Ashcroft stuff causes him in terms of looking like a shifty little chiseller is worth the money to the party coffers – and presumably it will pay off.
All these democratic riches, then, we must euphemise as "Decision 2010". The only puzzle is why people are fretting that no one will be able to form a strong government at the end of it all.
No offence, but can't we try weak government? We've had two strong governments since the war. The first destroyed half the country's working-class communities and created the obsession with short-term financial gain that ultimately caused the economy to implode. The second destroyed our reputation abroad for who knows how many generations with disastrous wars, stripped us of what we imagined were fundamental rights, and cherished the same obsession with short-term financial gain that again caused the economy to implode, only worse than before.
So thanks very much indeed for my strong government. But I want me some of the weak stuff now. Whoever lay in bed consumed with the same visceral loathing for Alec Douglas-Home that you could have for Thatcher or Blair, with their big swinging majorities? Caligula wouldn't have been nearly such an arse if he'd have had to make an alliance with Nick Clegg every time he wanted to bump off a consul.
Let's have really weak government. Let's have 20 prime ministers in 10 years. Hand baggage only into No 10. Don't worry about the wisdom of giving the nuclear codes to someone with a carry-on case, because the nuclear codes will remain exactly where they already are, in the hands of the United States. Anyone who thinks we're even theoretically allowed to fire our own missiles is referred to the classic Godfather line, "Now who's being naive, Kay?"
It goes without saying there'd be no wars – in fact, it would be government by paralysis. That has to be better than government by Ashcroft, doesn't it? Our political betters would be too taken up with horsetrading and plotting to make our lives a misery. Alliances would have to form just to get Prime Minister Lembit Opik's asteroid bill read. Insane, hilarious new parties would spring up and die, and all the while they'd be kept out of our hair.
Listen, a couple of years ago Belgium didn't have a government for 196 days. Life, unsurprisingly, went on. Now I'm afraid there are people who'll snort and say that Belgium isn't a proper country. But would you just take a look at us? Would you honestly look at us, probably about to elect a party in the contemptuous grip of a tax avoider, not 10 minutes after convulsing with anger about our rulers' financial abuses? There's nothing remotely proper about us. "A weak government for a weak country." Admit it, it's a helluva slogan. Join me.
marina.hyde@guardian.co.uk
