tone's breath of fresh ayr

The irony of the Scots is that on the one hand they've got hides like rhinos, and on the other they get upset over the merest little imagined slight. Take Ayr - which Labour is not exactly about to do.

So, of course, Tone wouldn't have wanted to go there in a million years just so he could get a good kicking from the fundamentalist Ayatollahs of the Wee Frees. And face it, even with a by-election, there's nothing in Ayr except that belligerent little chap John Reid dragging the corpse of their election hopes up and down the road.

Quacking That's the trouble with New Labour - can't spot a dead duck even when it's stopped quacking. No, forget Ayr, Tone clearly has. So why do the Scots insist on taking his absence there as a snub to their manhood, their nationhood and, for all I know, the honour of their sainted mammies who live up closes with hair growing on the palms of their hands?

The national psyche of the natives remains a mystery to me despite the long dark months I have spent here, peering out hopelessly between the bars, mainly in the West End. Believe me, I know how John McCarthy must have felt, except of course I've been able to get a drink.

But the sensory deprivation has been much the same and, as I said to the PM when he bodyswerved the good burghers of Ayr and met me for a curry instead: "Tone, you've got to get a grip of this lot before it's Red Ken and the Evil South Bank Empire all over again. Donald needs exciting and imaginative new policies, new advisors, new bifocals, the lot."

Time for a makeover - although I think I may have said legover instead. Either would give his personal ratings a boost with the public. Instead of looking as if someone has just stolen his Werther's Originals, he could be seen out on the town with a real babe on his arm and a sincere but slightly roguish gleam in his eye. It's not impossible, look at Robin Cook.

VASECTOMY "Maybe he could even take a leaf out of your book, Tony," I said, "and go for the family vote with a late baby. Of course in Donald's case it wouldn't so much be a late baby as practically posthumous." Tony was a bit miffed and said in his case it certainly wasn't planned. Cherie apparently told him she'd been considering getting rid of the IUD, and he said he was in favour of getting rid of the whole bloody lot of them since they were clearly never going to decommission their weapons.

Apparently a vasectomy is the one NHS cut Tony's personally dead against, however, and now of course she's threatening to do it herself if there's any more trouble with any more nannies. Far more ruthless than the male of the species, but then that's part of their charm, isn't it?

Still, I could see Tone was impressed with my ideas and I've offered the services of our Style Editor for the spread in Hello. As our PM famously once said, his priorities are presentation, presentation, presentation. Otherwise you might just as well have the Tories back again. And that would be so 1980s, don't you think?

Talking about communication gaps, I'm going to have to get a new picture ed. I asked for a pic of Ayr town centre to go with the latest poll and the fool put in a dead racing driver instead. God give me strength. The whole damn country needs sub-titles.

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