Lib Dem Rummy

I don't play a lot of card games, but I do enjoy a game of rummy now and again. You are dealt a hand of cards and the object is to make and play some sets by discarding rubbish cards.

The really clever bit is when you encourage the opposition to pick up the rubbish in anticipation of achieving a run, when you remain in position of the critical card or cards.

My reaction to the political news of the day is that the Lib Dems have done pretty well for themselves.

The first card they have passed to the Tories is Richard Porter, Southwark councillor and parliamentary candidate for Camberwell & Peckham.

As the former Chair of Liberal Democrats for Lesbian & Gay Action, he will almost certainly push Macaroon's gay agenda to a point where the blue rinse brigade lose their cool. Especially so when they discover that Porter is yet another mate of "the soft top Tory" Jeremy Clarkson, author of the informative "Crap Cars" and editor of the ghastly website "SniffPetrol.com". Conserve the rural way of life? Tarmac over the old bastards! Whoopie!

The second dud card is John Barstow, another LibDem candidate given a good thrashing at the last election. At least Barstow stood against a Tory winner in Tonbridge & Malling and could expect to inherit a safe seat at a later date, whereas Porter was thrashed by Harriet Harman in Camberwell where the Tories did even worse than the LibDems.

John Barstow is a Sainsbury's store shop steward. He is keen to abolish Council Tax, to reintroduce free eye and dental check-ups, to maintain the Royal Mail monopoly and to reintroduce public sector control of the rail network, including re-institution of some of the rural lines cut by Beeching. So... as someone well to the left of the New Labour middle-ground and even further to the left of me, he'll go down really well with the Tories!

The third dud card and failed LibDem candidate is Tariq Mahmood. Luckily for the Tories, this Tariq Mahmood is the Asian TV broadcaster and not the Guantanamo Bay resident. The NHS physician was given a thumping by the Tory John Randall in Uxbridge. A green activist and opponent of Heathrow expansion, Tariq Mahmood is suffering from the delusion that the Conservative Party has actually adopted the "blue-green" policies of Macaroon, rather than just biting its collective lip.

So, three cards down. If the game goes to form, the LibDems will now pick up some rubbish from us. And I'll be p*****g myself.