High life
A talent to abuse
Taki
Oh, how I envy Paul's talent to abuse: `His face says it all: ugly but conceited; dim and unimaginative but not without low cun- ning; obstinate and bigoted and protected by a carapace of self-righteousness acquired over a lifetime spent in low-grade partisan politics . . . the delight in bossing people about — the lust for sheer power, however petty, at last gratified . . . ' He has also been: 'Immune from the need to earn a living . . . All I can add is Amen, Amen! Straw, who has made a mess of everything he touches, looks like the guy in a Godzilla film who is the first to see the monster. He would be perfectly cast as the greedy lawyer who was sitting on the loo and was eaten by the dinosaur in Jurassic Park.
How do you like the latest Strawism and what it's about to do to our civil liberties? Labour is to pass a law that makes it legal for a business tycoon with most of his money in tax-exempt off-shore trusts say, Geoffrey Robinson — to contribute to Labour, or even a business tycoon to con- tribute and get a policy change — say, Bernie Ecclestone — but not for a British businessman living abroad to contribute to the Tories.
Which brings me to Michael Ashcroft. No, I've never met him and he has never offered me his private jet, but if he is forced to resign as Tory party treasurer it will be yet one more example of why the Tories deserve to disappear as a political party. Ashcroft has done absolutely nothing wrong except leave England in order to make his billions, and to employ 45,000 people. Bums like Peter Mandelson can go around making trouble for Ashcroft, but how many people has Mandelson ever given employment to? In fact, how many of Blair's cabinet have ever earned a living outside politics? How many have ever cre- ated jobs or employed people? None is the answer. The disgrace, of course, is that of the Times, and the dirty work the newspa- per has done to facilitate Labour's dirty tricks. Peter Stothard, the editor, has cho- sen innuendo and distortion when he wasn't libelling Michael Ashcroft. Stothard is the same little man who had his little wife write an article in the Guardian denying his cross-dressing (Stephen Glover had written in The Specta- tor that Stothard used to wear kaftans at Oxford).
Stothard and his ilk are envious little creeps trying to destroy a self-made man by the most outrageous lies. If Ashcroft is involved in drugs because he owns banks in Belize, so is David Rockefeller and every other banker we know. If Ashcroft is involved in drugs because he flies a private jet, so is every other private jet owner the poor little Greek boy, too, as I plan to buy a share of one. This is what the Times has come down to. I hope a jury throws the book at Murdoch's catamites, and that Stothard is fired for disgracing a once good newspaper and for cross-dressing. But enough about such ugly and jealous people. Last week I was brilliant in a tennis tour- nament, even if I have to say so myself. I beat a couple of seeds and won a cliffhang- er of a tie break, 10-8 in the third. The trouble is I spent just over three hours on court to win, and now I'm back home and unable to walk. One knee looks like a water melon. So what I've done is the next best thing. I've decided to build a larger palazzo on a hill adjoining where I live now. I know, I know, it sounds a bit nou- veau, as I've only lived in the present palaz- zo for just six months. But it won't be ready for two years, and I am getting on and a larger palazzo does tend to make low-life hacks and politicians green with you-know- what. In fact I think I shall name it Palazzo Pinochet, in honour of the greatest leader in South America and the only political prisoner in Europe.
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