09 December 2005

The Jack and Annabel show

In his parliamentary sketch in The Times, even Magnus Linklater rises to the occasion:
"Ms Goldie now went for the clinch. She said that she detected “a certain ambivalence” in Mr McConnell’s response and, rising dangerously from the sofa, she launched herself towards him. “It takes two for Punch and Judy to tango,” she announced thrillingly, if somewhat obscurely. “Here I am with arms outstretched.” As the First Minister, his face a mask of horror, retreated into his seat, she delivered what is almost certainly the most resistible offer he has had all day. Instead of dallying with the “duplicitous whimsy” of his Lib Dem colleagues, she told him, he should accept the warm embrace of the Scottish Tories. United by the common agreement that all was not well, and the stirring principle that something radical had to be done, they could set out along the aisle of political union to forge a better world (that last bit is made up, but it was the kind of thing she was driving at).
At this point Mr McConnell had a strong sense of deja-vu and realised he had a late-night bus to catch. The vision she held out, he said, was of David Cameron reaching out to Tony Blair to clasp him to his bosom. She nodded — that was just what she had in mind. “I’m not going to respond here and now,” he said thickly. Did that leave the door open a chink? We all wondered. But it was what he said next that left Ms Goldie dabbing her eyes and gazing mistily into the distance. “I am prepared to listen to her questions,” he told her, “if she is prepared to change the questions and listen to the answers.” Whatever is a girl to think? We must wait for the next tantalising episode of the Jack and Annabel show to find out."

Romance and the First Minister, and it's not even Valentine's day!

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