Difficult to choose, I know, given the hordes of swine who snuffle and grunt their way around Westminster never straying too far from the expenses trough. Ruffley was caught with his snout well in the 'Great Expenses Scandal' and received so much stick for his greed that, according to The Mail, he attempted suicide by throwing himself under a train. In a classic example of Tory incompetence he couldn't even top himself properly - he managed to miss both the train and the live rail!
You may wonder at my animus against this prize parliamentary hog because until today I had never heard of him. However, this morning I caught him on Sky News berating Bob Diamond, the new boss of Barclays Bank. He was so rude, so intemperate, so impatient, so . . . pig-ignorant that had Diamond reached over and pulled the little runt to his feet and nutted him I would have instantly switched my bank account to Barclays! Ruffley's manners made those American Congressional bully-boys who grilled the former boss of BP look like choir boys.
Whilst his manners were gruntish, it was his pig-ignorance that really annoyed me. He went on and on, never allowing Diamond to answer, demanding in the sort of hectoring tone you expect from a police interrogator to know exactly how much Barclays intended to lend this year. Diamond refused to answer directly for the very good reason that the busines of lending requires two sets of people - banks and borrowers. If, as a result of the economic policies of Ruffley's own government, borrowers follow the example of their American counterparts and decide that expansion is not the name of the game in the current financial climate then Barclays can hardly be blamed for not putting a figure to it.
In yet another demonstration of his abject stupidity and/or ignorance, Ruffley appears not to have realised that a large part of the problem which brought about the recent financial crash was banks lending too much too often to businesses whose credit worthiness was dodgy. Financially this year is going to be exceedingly stringent for everyone and it is in precisely these sorts of times that those who are struggling will be attempting to cajole funds from their banks - and on this subject I know personally where-of I write! These are exactly the sorts of businessses which should not be loaned money for the very good reason, as everyone has learned except Ruffley, dodgy loans lead to dodgy banks and dodgy banks bring about disaster. I would have thought that given the last 3 years everyone had grasped that simple fact of life but obviously it was quite beyond the dis-Honourable Member for Bury St. Edmunds.
Such a pity the hayseeds of Suffolk voted this rude, bumptious pig back into Parliament.
Thank you for putting a name to a most ignorant bastard - Unfortunately there's even more of them who could never represent the decent people of this Country.
Posted by: chris | Tuesday, 11 January 2011 at 21:18
Well, as I wrote, Chris, it was difficult to choose one from so many!
Welcome to D&N, by the way.
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 11 January 2011 at 22:23