Did you see the Press conference yesterday? We were standing in front of the telly, unable to sit still as the county council results came through - Derbyshire! - watching the Prime Minister ramble and flap and snarl his way through a televised briefing that must go down as one of the most hideous spectacles in news history. I admit to feeling pity for Mr Brown. Something in the way the lobby were treating him reminded me of ancient Punch cartoons about bear-baiting.
But hold fast on that sympathy button! Sky interrupted the press conference to bring us the news that Caroline Flint Quits The Government. Oh please, please, I twittered (stylistically and technologically), please let someone in the press corp ask a question about Ms Flint, and please, please don't let the Prime Minister know already. The wonderful Paul Waugh obliged. We held our breath. Surely this would knock the PM from his memorised sequence of nonsense poetry about Renewal Councils, paternal Presbyterianism (this is a good thing?), I'm-the-one-man-who-can-lead-the-nation-from-this-catastrophe stuff?
In the event, we were spared the prime ministerial drop-jaw of shock; clearly he already knew about Ms Flint's exist, as, without missing a beat, he announced Glenys Kinnock will replace her as minister for Europe, as though this was a run-of-the-mill announcement, a minor cog in the engine of Reshuffle.
Glenys Kinnock!
Glenys Kinnock is to take a seat in the House of Lords and join the government!
It 's a government of the political undead. No matter how much you fail, no matter how unpopular you are, no matter how often you are caught in suspicious mortgage activities, Lord Mandelson, there's a place for you in Gordon Brown's government. No matter how many electoral stakes are plunged through its heart, the government lumbers on, like a zombie in a latenight 50s horror flick.
Or, perhaps the Prime MInister really didn't know that Caroline Flint in particular was about to walk, but has simply become inured by the week's events to yet another minister quitting. Perhaps he has a stash of standby replacements, already checked out, willing and eager to accept any great office of state, as and when it becomes vacant? Imagine the conversations at No.10 this week.
-- Prime Minister, Geoff Hoon has resigned.
-- Send for That Guy with the moustache.
-- Prime Minister, Caroline Flint has resigned.
-- Get Glenys down to Ermines-R-Us.
-- Prime Minister, John Hutton's quitting.
-- Get Amstrad Sugar in, he's great he is, doncha love the way they all fawn in front of him on The Apprentice hurr hurr. That's how they all see me you know, in the Cabinet, it's Surgordon this, Surgordon that, I told Alan that, top bloke, likes football, sound.
Perhaps before the end of next week we'll have a cabinet of all the Britain's Got Talents -- Baroness Glenys Kinnock at Europe, Lord Amstrad at Enterprise Tsariness, Moustache-Man at Defence, AntnDec at Health, then Stavros Flatley at Health (because AntnDec will resign after a day, citing their desire to no longer be treated as mere window dressing), Gordon Brown's brother and Lord Mandelson in charge of the new superministry for Typewriter Skills, Compulsory Deep Cleansing and Stuff. Oh, and Ed Balls at the Treasury, where the Prime Minister wants him - though he lied about this, halfway through that carcrash press conference, just after blethering on about his Presbyterian integrity.
It can't go on like this, can it?
Well yes, it can. The political undead are unappealing in many ways; not least because they seem to have lost that most useful of innate human characteristics: shame.
