From: Reggie@toptory.lidl.com
To: Desmond.Swayne@dfid.gov.uk
Subject: May Day Rally and Sporting Ladies
Dear Dessie,
You do have the sympathy of Soames, Sir Simon Burns and yours truly re your overseas travelling – one minute in Accra, the next in the Cayman Islands, and hardly a spare moment for the dhobi wallah to wash your shreddies.
You were much missed at the annual parade and memorial service of the Cavalry Old Comrades on Monday. Soames and I put several warmers into the bank at “The Mincing Queen” pub off Hyde Park much favoured by the louche elements of the Household Cavalry, and then a gargantuan curry with Rajah beer at the Cavalry Guards Club. Quite an assault on the interior economy!
Let me try and fill you in with all the events of the past few weeks. Lady Mary and I were invited by my media mogul son-in-law to the BAFTAs on Sunday. Ye gods, what a bunch of leftie BBC luvvies – all whining about how Whitto intended publishing their grossly inflated fees, paid for by impoverished parliamentarians like you and me.
The whips have alerted us to another reptilian honey trap, some dating website called “BeautifulPeople.com”. As Fabricant said, that rules out most of the Parliamentary Party!
How fortunate you were being on your travels to have missed all the elections last week. Mixed results, like the Grand National, but the brothers and sisters are putting on a brave face about the wipe out in Jockland. Comrade Corbyn’s spinners are trying to claim it was a vote of confidence in him….ho, ho, ho!
It was quite like old times to see Corbyn and all the other old Trots and Bolsheviks at the May Day Rally – red flags festooned with the hammer and sickle and portraits of the great democrat J.Stalin Esq. Soames and I got caught up in it as we made our way to Dotty Melrose’s shampoo reception. Things could have turned nasty but for the fact we could both sing the “Internationale” – all those drunken mess nights.
There’s been a great deal of publicity given to some wheeze to prevent restaurants including tips (never reaching the asylum seeker waiters) on the bill. Of course, the kind of restaurants and clubs that Soames and I frequent don’t have such vulgarities as tips.
Now for the great civil war: the EU referendum. I can hear you groan and well you might, as the debate gets more toxic between mainly Conservative colleagues with the odd kipper thrown in for light entertainment.
Numbers 10 and 11 are accused of fear tactics and paying for Obama, foreign heads of state, senior spooks et al to say how you quitters will see the jolly old Sceptered Isle sink without trace off Land’s End.
But actually, their tactics appear almost sane in comparison to your friends in the quitters. Young Gove conjuring up the image of 770 million (or was it 77 million?) Turks all about to rush our Job Seekers Centres in three months. Farmer Paterson saying the UK about to become a colonial outpost of Brussels. And all those ambitious wome -, Patel, Mordaunt and Leadsom – saying the EU is a security threat (explosive reaction from “Colonel” Simpson on the Intelligence and Security Committee).
The quitters have not had a good outing in front of A.Tyrie’s Treasury Committee. Boris waffled and rambled (what’s new, I hear you opine). Some strange cove called Cummings becoming shirty and all theatrical and unable to answer questions. Tyrie nearly had him clapped in arms. Not wise to underestimate Tyrie in his baggy old suit and moth-eaten cardy – sharp as a whippet and reminds me of John le Carré’s George Smiley.
Then there was Bernard Jenkin – oh dear, oh dear. PM in front of the Liaison Committee being beaten up by all those egos, and then B.Jenkin snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Outrage at some government EU website and threatens D.Cameron with a writ based on some hilarious legal precedent from 1937 – Penge Golf Club and some notices telling members to use the loos for the purposes intended – see Molesworth v Dribble in the High Court etc.
I don’t think I can stand much more of this and so-called experts, such as Colonel “Tiger” Nidgit in the Daily Torygraph who had once commanded a Mobile Bath Unit in Afghanistan giving us his words of wisdom based upon laundry experiences in five continents about the threat from an EU Army.
Soames is having the time of his life on Twitter insulting and savaging all the quitters. That weird bird D Hannan has blocked him off – “bloody good riddance” says Soames. Trouble is that Soames on Twitter has encouraged some of the more intelligently-challenged bar flies at the Turf Club to follow suit, and they hadn’t realised the law of libel still applies. I’ve left some of Geoffrey Cox QC’s cards with the doorkeeper and a list of his fees – only the Duke of Westminster need apply!
That’s about it, apart from Brother Vaz leading a delegation from the Home Affairs Select Committee to inspect bordellos in Copenhagen. Young James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) who has volunteered to be our “prisoner’s friend” at the Tooting by-election says the sporting ladies were rather thrown to be given football scarves of Leicester City by aforesaid Vaz – most of them favour West Ham, or at least their punters, who constitute rough trade in the vernacular.
When you return after the Queen’s Speech, Soames and I would like to give you supper at the “Shanghai Express” Oriental Restaurant off the Fulham Road. V.good fodder and decent liquor if you keep off the rice wine.
Yours till final victory,
Reggie