Toffing unacceptable?

This post from Hopi Sen - who is on the stump in Crewe and Nantwitch - has galvanised me to put down the paper and write something about the Tories getting all righteously indignant on us over the campaigning tactics of the comrades in this here by-election.

So, is calling the Conservative candidate a "toff" the grubbiest form of discrimination undertaken in the public sphere since before Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka? Er, no. That it might not be working particularly well as a campaign strategy is an entirely different argument as to whether the tactic is justifiable, and - forgive me - but isn't it a little hypocritical of a Conservative Party who has spent a good deal of time since the accession of our Glorious Leader trying to to turn "Scotland" into a dirty word to start getting all Martin Luther King on our asses now? Or perhaps it's just the case that the Tories are only capable of getting het up about such stuff when it's One of Us who's being attacked and every other bugger can fend for themselves - plus ca change, and all that. Who knows, eh? Hopi:

"After all, being lectured by Quentin “Gorbals mick” Letts about the evils of class warfare is at least amusing. The man clearly has no scruples at all."

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has been reporting that Labour canvassers are phoning up voters in the middle of the night pretending to be Tories. Hmmm, what's that I smell? Oh yes, BULLSHIT! This strikes me as a "when did you stop beating your wife" counter attack agin the comrades: an easy allegation of "dirty tricks" to make, a mud-slinging tactic that ensures some sticks, and one entirely impossible to refute. The Tories, of course, would never dream about lying about their party affiliation in order to assist in a cheap smearing exercise.

Still the press are lapping all this shit up: the right wing media love the opportunity to get one over on Labour by accusations of scumbaggery. Meanwhile the overly-virtuous left get indignant about "dirty tricks" and how we should "be better than this" as if politics shouldn't ever involve streetfighting but comprise entirely lofty Young Fabian-style debates on whether we can reach a progressive consensus on tractor provision for agricultural colleges in the north east, or whatever it is that such organisations come up with these days. Witness Andrew Rawnsley getting his undergarments in a wrangle about this one in the Observer today.

Either way, and as Mike Smithson argues, Timpson et al should grow some balls. This is the most significant by-election contest in recent political memory, not cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey on the vicarage lawn. Of course it's going to get nasty, and if wickle Eddie and his Conservative chums are going to start crying at the political equivalent of a playground taunt then the Lord only knows how he's going to fare in the Commons bearpit.

Apart from anything else, in my long and largely ignoble career in student politics (I know, I know: I'm not a bad person really) I was on the receiving end of faaaaaaar more fruity insults than that; if the worst I'd ever been smeared with was the accusation that I was a "toff" I would have counted myself frickin' lucky.