On the Scene: Setting Sun

SOMEHOW the end of an era ought to be more epic than this. But to date in Britain’s election campaign, the Conservatives, aping the American Democrats, have sent around a man in a chicken suit to taunt the Labour leader for being too scared to debate the Prime Minister; Labour has responded by sending the Tories a man dressed as a headless chicken; Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise has endorsed Labour, whose gleeful leader has denounced the Tories as “the ultimate Klingons”; on the subject of ruthless aliens, the owner of Harrod’s, an Egyptian businessman called Mohammed Al-Fayed, who was denied British nationality back in the Eighties and has been waging a campaign against the government ever since, has seen his scheme to entrap Conservative MPs into taking bribes bear fruit.

As far as corruption goes, Westminster is considerably less grubby than Washington, the capitals of Europe, or even Dublin, so the allegations are footling stuff-a complimentary weekend at the Paris Ritz, some cash in a brown paper envelope for asking questions in the House of Commons; the combined total comes to about one and a half slurps of White House coffee. Nonetheless, the media, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats have been piously demanding a complete clean-out of the Augean stables. To date one MP, Tim Smith, has dropped out of his re-election race; another, Neil Hamilton, has declined to budge. To protest Hamilton’s refusal to quit, the opposition parties decided to put up as his opponent not a mere politician but someone who was beyond reproach, whiter than white, cleaner than clean-in other words, a member of the media. The BBC war reporter Martin Bell stepped forward to announce that he would run against Hamilton as the “Anti-Corruption” candidate. To remind everyone that Bell had been shot in the Balkans, he was flanked at his press conference by Colonel “Bonking Bob” Stewart, a veteran of Bosnia and celebrated tabloid adulterer.

About the Author

Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn is an international bestselling author, a Top 41 recording artist, and a leading Canadian human-rights activist.

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SOMEHOW the end of an era ought to be more epic than this. But to date in Britain’s election campaign, the Conservatives, aping the American Democrats, have sent around a man in a chicken suit to taunt the Labour leader for being too scared to debate the Prime Minister; Labour has responded by sending the Tories a man dressed as a headless chicken; Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise has endorsed Labour, whose gleeful leader has denounced the Tories as “the ultimate Klingons”; on the subject of ruthless aliens, the owner of Harrod’s, an Egyptian businessman called Mohammed Al-Fayed, who was denied British nationality back in the Eighties and has been waging a campaign against the government ever since, has seen his scheme to entrap Conservative MPs into taking bribes bear fruit.

As far as corruption goes, Westminster is considerably less grubby than Washington, the capitals of Europe, or even Dublin, so the allegations are footling stuff-a complimentary weekend at the Paris Ritz, some cash in a brown paper envelope for asking questions in the House of Commons; the combined total comes to about one and a half slurps of White House coffee. Nonetheless, the media, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats have been piously demanding a complete clean-out of the Augean stables. To date one MP, Tim Smith, has dropped out of his re-election race; another, Neil Hamilton, has declined to budge. To protest Hamilton’s refusal to quit, the opposition parties decided to put up as his opponent not a mere politician but someone who was beyond reproach, whiter than white, cleaner than clean-in other words, a member of the media. The BBC war reporter Martin Bell stepped forward to announce that he would run against Hamilton as the “Anti-Corruption” candidate. To remind everyone that Bell had been shot in the Balkans, he was flanked at his press conference by Colonel “Bonking Bob” Stewart, a veteran of Bosnia and celebrated tabloid adulterer.