The Big Right Winger Giving It Eyebrows At The Back Stick

If you've never read John Redwood's blog, you really are missing out: it's a peach. Deliciously placed midway between parody and rant, it brightens up an otherwise dull afternoon like finding a six-month old can of Stella that had rolled under the TV stand.

Take this entry. Our John tells us that there are no differences between the parties, only within the parties. Except, says John, for the Tory party. The Tories hate Cameron, says John, because they don't understand.

They will come to appreciate that “hugging a hoodie” before he goes off the rails does not mean their Leader is soft on crime, that sharing the proceeds of growth does mean lower taxes allied to economic prudence to avoid high interest rates, and seeking powers back from Brussels whilst keeping trade arrangements with our partners is the mainstream view in the UK.

I find the above sentence is much more fun if you imagine Johnny saying it with a vacant stare and an unsettling demonic half smile his normal expression while holding a dentist drill and standing over a shackled and sweating dissident Tory.

But he's a man of the people is Our John. He proves the point by donning the metaphorical sheepskin and sallying forth on the misfiring England footy team:

Of course when there are too many poor performances in a row we should ask if a different coach and/or captain would make a difference.

Gosh! Poor results leading to a change of boss? Bit radical isn't it? I mean, it's not as if fotball is famous for its high Manager turnover is it?

It maybe time to look at the whole organisation of the game and the league in England to see if an overseas player rule would give English talent more chance - and curb the costs for clubs.

Erm, doesn't his advocacy of an overseas player rule ignore one major incurred cost - the legal costs incurred for breaking EU freedom of movement legislation...? And how would this curb costs.

But if you think that the boy Johnny's farcical attempts to cash in on the popularity of football (albeit 15 years late) mark him out as some kind of Redwood-come-lately, you're wrong. He's got form. He penned a startlingly insightful prescis of the last World Cup.

Channeling Sepp Blatter, he bemoaned the paucity of goals in an average game and railed against the ridiculousness of the absurd offside rule (yes, really). Apart from advocating the end of the most iniquitous law since the introduction of the welfare state, the best bit is this:

Many talented players failed to deliver the fine free flowing attacking football we have seen on many occasions from Chelsea , Arsenal and other leading clubs.

Look again at that sentence. See the spaces either side of the comma after "Chelsea"? That's textbook. What's he done there is he's written out the paragraph minus the team names. Cos he didn't know em. Then he's looked them up on the internet ("Search Google "attacking football", ctrl+c, ctrl+v") and stuck em in the piece. The "...and other clubs" is good too: like when Chief Wiggum lists the world's major religions as "Christian, Jewish... and miscellaneous".

And Chelsea? Free flowing attacking football? I must have missed the memo...

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Holy Mother Of God. A Post on John Redwood and I didn't add this...