THE CLEVEREST MAN NOT IN THE GOVAMENT.

He's like a plague, isn't he, this smarmy, patronising, condescending, poisonous, I-Know-Besting blabbermouth; an eminence gris manque, in his own fevered imagination, at least; overlooked, denied  office since his extravagantly cack-handed tenure as Seckatry of State for Wales, a performance mocked and derided even by his then colleagues, Jilted John seizes every opportunity, in parliament and the media - cheeks of the same scabby arse - to proselytise the unregulated market, to hymn the virtues of crisis-torn capitalism as millions of  workers are being slandered and gleefully condemned to poverty and possibly homelessness in the name of deficit reduction, the fetishised slogan which describes the imposition of the full burden of capitalism's self-wrought crisis on those who work for a living, rather than invent complex and nefarious  instruments of greed and who, as Redwood's paymasters, must at all costs be protected.  

Unlucky in love, as in politics,

(The former Mrs Redwood, who last year divorced the former Secretary of State for Wales and two times challenger for the party leadership, is adamant. "In the 35 years we spent together John never gave in time and effort to any charity," she wrote in a letter to the editor of the Wokingham Times.
Her second, to the same newspaper, ends with the warning: "John Redwood does not like it when things go out of his control. Wokingham voters beware!"
The 56-year-old is also putting the finishing touches to a book, provisionally entitled Living With a Vulcan.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?" she told The Telegraph yesterday. "Yes. Well it's true isn't it?"
Mrs Redwood then confirmed that in a chapter entitled "The Nastiest Man in Politics", she has written: "He can be very rude and arrogant. He is heartless and capable of awful cruelty.)

John Redwood, a Fellow of this, a Master of that, this wretched nincompoop, drowning in his own cleverness,  insists that his wit and industry equip him to moonlight as an MP whilst earning proper money elsewhere. In so acting, Redwood justifies himself on the basis that he is only doing what cabinet ministers do - undertake an additional set of duties on top of their constituency responsibilities - and therefore does no wrong; his groupies at his blog love him for this intellectual sleight of hand, this bare-faced avarice,  they all want their men to have a foot in the real world but would froth at their smelly  mouths were a nurse or a social worker  to act similarly, indeed, they are not permitted to trough in the manner of   the unendurable  Hague or the slimebag Lansley,  who have, only upon entering govament, relinquished their handsome, primary earners; somewhat bitchily the unpromoted Redwood maintains that since he is not a cabinet minister he must be allowed to peddle his legislative influence to the highest bidder; despite them notionally being in different parties Redwood has far more in common with the likes of the execrable Geoff Hoon, Patsy Leatherface Hewitt and any number of unprincipled NewLabour hustlers, pimps and slags, than he does with us, all of them flogging their political connections, as honest whores flog their bodies.

Alright, he's another nasty, greedy,  Oxbridge bully with an inflated estimate  of his own importance and the accompanying sense of entitlement   but he is much worse than just that. In his ill-fated leadership joust with John  Major, Redwood secured the votes of about ninety of his fellows, a quite respectable tally, indeed,  former Prime Minister Snot misruled for three years without ever openly securing similar, public backing in his own party.  The influence  of the new Tory  intake, some of them very bright, as well as that of Nicky Gimp's toiletmen,  will have diminished Redwood's standing in this misbegotten,  hybrid party but we may assume that he still speaks for more than himself; depressing, therefore, to hear him tonight, sermonising malevolently on Any Questions. The junkfood manufacturers, he assured us,  these are the people to protect the people from unhealthy eating, the supermarkets were the true agents of choice; the GPs - actually lucrative private businesses, every last one of them, largely unregulated, unaccountable, often neglectful, demonstrably lazy, contemptuous and policing themselves, badly - these are the people to run the NHS, never mind local Health Care Trusts.

From the hoots of derision we may assume that the audience, at least, was  not beguiled by  crass, stupid, doctrinaire Redwoodism and to look on the bright side, the more of this buffoon we see and hear, the more of his tortured undergrad  logic we are exposed to,  the better.  In the meantime, though, lest we forget, here is Redwood at the apex  of his ministerial career.