Jim Devine, the former Labour M.P., has just been released from jail after serving 4 months of a 16 month sentence for expenses fraud to a feeding frenzy of righteous indignation. Incumbent members are on holiday and generally unavailable for comment. Brazen editorialising has paraded as straight news, spraying cold-filtered opprobrium with gay abandon and no inferable sense of irony.
Now, some might think it reasonable to say, on the basis of what they have learned, seen and heard of the man, that he would not be one’s first choice to be stuck in a lift with for any length of time. That monotone Lanarkshire brogue, despite being perfectly intelligible to anybody who can see their way to leaving a few prejudices at home for a minute is, nevertheless, for dialect connoisseurs and collectors only.
By way of a motif, it might be worth considering something obvious, something that can usefully withstand repetition now and again; Jim Devine was voted into office. In a democracy, this in itself has to carry weight, even if it is dead weight. Chip away at this and you effectively over-rule a plebiscite and a rapidly widening wedge will sense an opportunity.