A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post

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What a week. So where do we start? Exit, stage left, Lord Liar of Weston-super-Mare.

At least we can all sleep safely in our beds now that this dangerous criminal has been banged up. We’re just in danger of drowning in a sea of hypocrisy, as every journalist from the racing correspondent of Women’s Weekly to Anorexia Monthly’s food critic queues up to announce that they knew all along that dear old Jeff had form as long as your arm.

So why didn’t they print it, then? Shades of Maxwell, I fear. They’re quite happy to swig Lord Liar’s champers and eat his Shepherd’s Pie, but no-one had the guts to expose the shameless fraud for what he was. Still, it was enjoyable watching him get his comeuppance, and it will be even better if they manage to nail his supercilious, smug wife.

Anyway, if we locked up every politician who told lies and lived in a fantasy world, they’d have to hold Prime Minister’s Questions in the shower block at Belmarsh Jail. Mr Blah’s a case in point. He’ll say or do the first thing that enters his head if it will get him out of a tight spot.

What’s all this nonsense about taking an EasyJet flight to his holiday in the South of France? (He’s going there after patronizing us all by spending a few days in the West Country, studiously avoiding ugly people from Birmingham with handkerchiefs on their heads.)

Do we really want our Prime Minister and his family to travel by low-budget airline? Those seats should be available to poor people and tight-arses, not wealthy NuLabour toffs. And what if you get sat next to the baby Damien, screaming his little head off and puking on the armrest? It’s just not on. I don’t want Cherie changing nappies while I’m trying to keep down an airline meal.

The same applies to Prince Andrew, who blew £10,000 of our money on a day trip by Royal jet to The Open, when National Express could have got him there for £27. Do we want a member of the Royal Family cooped up for five hours along with the usual assortment of smelly students and drunken Jocks? Well, yes we do, actually. Let him have some pain like the rest of us.

But just because Mr Blah has taken a bit of flak in recent years for blagging free holidays off rich chums, he comes over all egalitarian (look it up, Welsh people) and goes to the other extreme. It’s exactly the kind of acting performance worthy of Lord Liar.

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