I have discovered a new talent. Well, strictly speaking, he looks like more of a middle-aged talent but, whatever, he writes like a dream, or perhaps, more like a nightmare if you are one of his targets. In today's Telegraph (no link as yet) Matthew Norman, hitherto totally unknown to me, ponders on 'Cain' Miliband's choice of shadow chancellor which, according to received opinion, must be one of a pair of Balls, either Ed or Yvette. Mr. Norman implies that such a choice is like asking a condemned man to choose between hanging or shooting because these two could walk into the Shakespearean roles of 'Murderer 1' and 'Murderer 2' without the need of an audition. Mr. Norman analyses the time-line taken by Ed Balls in making up his mind to destroy his new leader:
How long Mr. Balls restrained himself after the result was announced before turning his mind to replacing Mr. Miliband is anyone's guess. Taking into account the calls on his time (smirk at David's agony; sit disdainfully throughout Ed's speech; quick word with Nick Robinson; cup of cha'; ring Damien McBride), mine is 11 minutes and 29 seconds.
Oh, my hat, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at that one! But there was more and better to come:
There is no point in criticising this throwback to serpentine schemers slithering through the cloisters of a Tudor court for serial treachery than there is for blaming the scorpion for stinging the frog halfway across the river. Why will Ed Balls attempt to remove Ed Miliband? Because he is Ed Balls.
Strict literary stylists might complain of Mr. Norman's over-reliance on alliteration but I love it! And this paragraph says it all:
For 15 years, this plumply bumptious phial of human strychnine [my emphasis] trickled poison about his colleagues into the body politic in the interests of his liege lord, Gordon Brown, and himself. He may have ferocious will power (somehow he weaned himself off blinking incessantly when lying to interviewers), but men cannot transform their personalities in middle-age. Gordon Brown taught us that.
In considering the other option open to 'Cain' Miliband, that is, offering the shadow chancellor job to Yvette Balls, whom Norman describes as an "ice-pixie" (oh, I whinnied at that one!), he writes this:
How could he trust Yvette, whose economic outlook seems identical to her old man's and whose loyalties to her boss must be flimsier than to the husband intent on removing him. Only if Mr. Miliband calculates that making her 'de facto' front runner to succeed him would cause enough domestic resentment to end the marriage would this make sense. But he may feel his reputation as a wrecker of families is secure as it is. (My emphasis).
If I live to be hundred, which I fully intend to do because, as I keep reminding 'SoD', I am determined to be a burden, I will never be capable of pouring such distilled acid as Mr. Norman produces. Terrific stuff, so go out and buy a copy of The Telegraph and read it in full!
Additional: At last a link to his article:
The UK has no monopoly on politicians and their associates making odd proclamations on their merits.
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2010/10/02/another-belford-u-doctor
Posted by: JK | Sunday, 03 October 2010 at 05:28
A case of the biter bit, perhaps?
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 03 October 2010 at 08:25
He writes very good stuff. I also enjoy Simon Carr in the Indy on the web, and much regret that the Times' paywall stops me reading Matthew Paris at first hand - here he is, second hand.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardpreston/100056463/so-ed-scissorbands-is-a-dweeb-rather-than-a-geek-pay-attention-at-the-back-there/
Posted by: dearieme | Sunday, 03 October 2010 at 12:34