Name: Commie.
Age: About a hundred years.
Appearance: Overalls. Cloth cap.
Who is this poor senior citizen? He or she shouldn’t still be labouring at his or her age. Ah. This is not the name of one person. It’s a name that is being applied to Ed Miliband by his opponents.
The hapless leader of the opposition? That’s him.
And now his opponents are saying that he’s a junior chef, typically entrusted with repetitive, low-skilled tasks such as potato peeling? If so, I can see why you wouldn’t want him running the country. No, that’s a “commis”. This is “commie”, a contraction of the word communist, cf. “pinko”
An affectionate contraction? Not very. Most people don’t like communism much. And especially not Sarah Vine or Boris Johnson.
The rightwing newspaper columnist and wife of the Tory chief whip, and the Tory mayor of London and now candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip? That’s them. In March, she deplored the “Communist-style egalitarian lino” of what turned out to be Miliband’s second kitchen, and on Monday, Johnson described the stone monolith into which Miliband has engraved six vague pledges as “some weird commie slab”.
Sorry, did you say a monolith? I was away at the weekend. That’s right. A biblical 8ft limestone tablet with things such as “a strong economic foundation” written on it. If Miliband becomes prime minister, it’ll be installed somewhere like Labour HQ, or in the garden at 10 Downing Street.
Dear God. And I thought the “Tory tax lock” was the worst gimmick of this election. Never underestimate the quiet Miliband.
Still, is it surprising that two devoted Conservatives are calling the Labour leader an extreme lefty? No. Although Noel Gallagher is doing it too.
The multimillionaire former songwriter for the derivative rock band Oasis? That’s him. His view on Ed Miliband, as he expressed it to Alan Carr on Friday night, is: “He is a fucking communist.”
Right. So let’s be absolutely clear on this. Is Ed Miliband a communist? No. He’s more of a social democrat with progressive leanings.
Fascist! If you say so.
Do say: “1. Thou shalt be tough on the crimes. Yea, and also on the causes of the crimes.”
Don’t say: “2. Verily, the workers shall control the means of production.”
