Liverpool is undoubtedly the worst UK city to offend (ask The Sun, Bulgaria and convicted murderers). I remember being in Liverpool the morning that ill-fated "wallowing in victimhood" Spectator editorial was published, I must have been one of about three people in the area who read it before the Liverpool Echo picked up on it. It was so unwise to make such a generalisation about the whole city.
The incident did help reinforce notions of "Tory Toffs", but the Conservatives have now got candidates in all thirty wards of Liverpool for the first time since 1992. Using the same slogan as the Welsh Conservatives, "Vote for a change", the candidates include a Labour defector and eleven under-30s.
The City associations recently amalgamated, a process about which Nadine Dorries – now of blog fame – wrote a brilliant article. Chris Grayling, "Shadow Minister for Liverpool", deserves a lot of credit for his work on this.
Ambitious Boris also largely survived the fuss, being appointed to promote the city’s European Capital of Culture status. His next challenge was getting into hot stew with Papua New Guinea for linking it with cannibalism:
“For 10 years, we in the Tory Party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour Party.”
And now, LibDems in Portsmouth are hoping to add their city to his portfolio for describing it in GQ magazine as:
"too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs."
Mike Hancock, LibDem MP for Portsmouth South, thinks Boris (who is currently on holiday) should embark on a similar pilgrimage of repentance as the shambolic "Operation Scouse Grovel":
"He should walk barefoot to Portsmouth and apologise and even that won’t be enough".
Students absolutely adore his bumbling, self-deprecating persona but it can seem a bit overplayed sometimes, doing a disservice to his high intelligence. Indeed, with his reputation preceding him it has become much more likely that any edgy off-the-cuff comments made by him will be picked up by the media than by most politicians. The only thing which has noticeably damaged his reputation is having two successive affairs, but as I’m sure this latest gaffe will attest – Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has remarkable bouncebackability!
Deputy Editor
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