Poison Prescott

We Liberal Democrats have had to endure being the butt of satirists' jokes over the past few weeks, at least until the Dunfermline result was announced. On Radio 4's News Quiz, which is recorded on a Thursday evening, the panellists had much fun at our expense, but the witty asides seemed curiously dated by Friday when the programme was broadcast.

Labour, meanwhile, in the twilight years of Blairism appear almost beyond satire. Take John Prescott's speech to the party's spring conference in Blackpool, which apparently had the assembled delegates laughing like drains.

According to the BBC News website

Adopting a comedy "posh" voice, he mocked "Dave" Cameron, "David to you and me" - and his privileged background - "Just an ordinary lad from Eton".

As opposed of course to '"Tony" Blair, "Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to you and me" - "just an ordinary lad from Fettes".

Maybe my sense of humour is letting me down here, but for me this sums up all that is unpleasant about the Labour Party. Aneurin Bevan once notoriously described the Tories as 'lower than vermin', although he later apologised. But I suspect that somewhere deep down in the psyche of the Labour Party is the belief that their motives and intentions are so much better than everyone else's that no jibe at their political opponents can ever be too far below the belt.

How else do we explain why Labour delegates great with hilarity a speech mocking an opposing party leader for having a privileged background, a public school education and an abbreviated forename in contrast to their own leader who has er… a privileged background, a public school education and an abbreviated forename?