Exclusive: Mongo kidnaps Tory party conference!

By Lorne Jackson on Oct 3, 08 10:07 AM

IT'S not often you spot a bona fide slave in Birmingham City Centre.

Yet that's what Nick Cohen was claiming to be.

Cohen is a socialist political-commentator, most famous for his book, 'What's Left?' a vigorous defence of the decision to invade Iraq.

A free thinker is Nick, who no man can control - or so it has always seemed.

Yet here he was at the Tory Party Conference.

Or as he put it to me, ruefully: "Just here to meet my new masters."

It was a socialist political-commentator's dry little joke.

Although instigated by the new reality.

Previously, it was another party, led by Tony Blair, that surfed to power on a wave of 'New'.

Now blue is the new New, while David Cameron is TB Part 2, complete with beautician's facial peel, vanquishing all that Iraq wear and tear.

But the Tories weren't gloating at Conference, and had clearly learned the lesson of Neil Kinnock's knockabout triumphalism in 1992, which turned the tide against Labour in the subsequent General Election.

They were being straight-faced and grown up about all this imminent power that was chapping at their door.

This was no hardship, as the Conservatives are experts at being grown-up.
Or just plain ancient.

Even the Tory Teens I spotted in the watering holes of Brindley Place looked like retired barristers and elderly maiden aunts.

Rosy-cheeked lads imprisoned behind the bars of pin stripe suits; girls with primly brushed hair, rigidly chaperoned by Alice bands.

Which was all wrong.

They were kids, after all, and should have been huddled under hoods, lurking on street corners, trading recreational drugs and wallowing in unprotected sex.

Instead, they wasted their young lives at Conference. Did their parents know what they were up to - or even care?

Clearly this was what the Tories meant by Broken Britain.

However, not everyone had to be garbed in grey and gravitas.

David Cameron, in his early forties, was dynamic! And energetic! And youthful!
Boy-oh-boy was he youthful!

Each morning Dave was spotted by the media, jogging round the Hyatt Hotel on Broad Street.

When they failed to spot him, he jogged round again.

Which proved to be rather exhausting - he is 42, after all.

Although he was perspiring ever so slightly, it was still a louche way to grab the reigns of power.

American politicians RUN for President; to become PM, Dave was merely ambling in sweat pants.

But I shouldn't scold, the plan was working a treat.

Until the end of the world rudely interrupted Tory Conference in mid-flow.

The financial markets went into meltdown.It was that Mongo moment every politician dreads.

Let me explain.

The greatest political treatise of all time is the mad-cap movie, Blazing Saddles.
It's certainly got better gags than anything by Plato, Aristotle or Marx.

Set in the Wild West, the most educational scene involves two blokes in a saloon, involved in a heated intellectual debate.

In the middle of the discussion, a huge ape-like lummox lumbers through the swing doors.
Interrupting the conversation in full flow, one bar room philosopher yelps to the other: "Never mind that sh*t - here comes Mongo!"

Mongo - for that is the huge, ape-like lummox's name - proceeds to smash the joint up.

I was hoping Dave would start his Conference Speech with the seven wise words of that saloon sage.
Mongo being a very apt metaphor for economic chaos.

But the Mighty Leader, rather foolishly, never called me for advise.

However, he did realise that he had a serious problem - jogging was no longer enough to get noticed.

Time for Plan B - Dave would have to say something.

So he gathered the camera lenses round him and revealed he would stand side-by-side with the Government at this difficult time.

Which was true.

But only so he would be ideally positioned to insert the knife between Gordon's shoulder blades.

Still, there is much for the Blue Crew to fear.

They were right to tame the triumphalism at the start of their Conference. The Tories have not won the battle of Britain yet.

An exhausted economy isn't good news for their free market fan base.

Dave's scatter-cushion face is the face of carefree commerce; he is Selfridges squashed inside a snappy suit.

But Gordon Brown is suited and booted for the new austerity, and his cracked and crater-crammed mug looks much like the Bull Ring, once the fore-closures set in.

Perhaps Nick Cohen was wrong.

The Tories are not our new masters; they cower to the crack of the whip, just like the rest of us.

Our old masters were hubris, greed and stupidity.

The new ones will be humility, penny-pinching and reality.

So get ready to bow and scrape - the lords of lost profit are about to arrive.