I was travelling for a couple of days, reading the papers and Private Eye in the car and listenting to the odd news broadcast. One of the Radio Four SixAClock News shows had some ghastly hussie announcing: Former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Steel, has made clear that he didn't know about the (beasting) activities of the late Sir Cyril Smith .
Not claimed, insisted, vowed, asserted, complained, repeated or said. No, made clear.
Not to me, he hasn't, bitch.
Boy David has always looked like a closet something-ot-other, over-shirted, over-coiffed, a bit too dandyish, even for the 'seventies and his whingeing, irritated riposte to the Smith cover-up allegations - "I was not running a detective agency" - rang more than a little hollow. What he was really saying was, Look, I'm on the inside of the beasting tent, beasting out. You can't touch me. So just fuck off. In this, at least, he's right.
A Guardian hack when a young MP, a teevee pundit at the same time, David Steel is a strand in MediaMinster's bloodline. And we can't touch him for his most unLiberal ushering-in however many years of Thatcherism it was; we can't touch him for the Dave-stewarded gargantuan fuck up which was the Scottish parliament building project - a cost overrun of nine hundred per cent - and we certainly can't touch him for his monstrous views on the beasting of children. We might usefully remember, though, that if you scratch a liberal - be he nonce, shit-eater, queer-basher, benefits cheat or unrepentant convict - you'll find a fascist.




