I was haunted all day by the skeletal Mr Burns grin of Malcolm Rifkind feeling very pleased with himself for having made what is surely one of the worst jokes of all time. I think he led into it by saying something about people worrying about long speeches and then said, "But as King Henry VIII said to each of his six wives, "Don't worry, I won't keep you long!""
Cue huge laughter and applause from the aged idiots in the audience and the terrifying grin on a face that looks like it hasn't broken into any kind of smirk for fifty years.
The joke doesn't really work on any level. Why is he suddenly bringing Henry VIII into it? Is this what passes for topicality in the Tory party? What relevance does this really have to anything? Does it even begin to make sense? After all, Henry VIII clearly didn't say any such thing and if he had it wouldn't have held any other meaning to whichever unfortunate wife he was addressing than this isn't going to last long. And isn't it a bit of a dark and unpleasant joke? Henry VIII had two of his wives killed and wasn't particularly pleasant to the others, is Rikfind making some kind of veiled threat to the few people who are still loyal to his anachronistic and unpleasant party?
A look at the faces of the audience who found this joke worthy of applause gave the casual viewer a good idea why this party is washed up and in trouble. And the fact that a potential, though unlikely, leader has a) such a poor sense of humour and b) such a scary face is not going to help them.
I could have forgiven the weasly scrotum had he not look so pleased with himself after the joke had been made. His eyes sparkled as if he had just cracked the funniest gag that had ever been spoken. The really tragic thing is that someone had written this joke for him. Some people had sat down and thought, what will be a really belting opening line to get them rolling in the aisles and this is what they came up with. I am pretty sure his script will have read "(pause for laughs)" after this little gem. As it certainly did later on when he made another up to the minute crack when he said that if Columbus had been a liberal he would have discovered the mid-Atlantic. He definitely paused and people were momentarily baffled, but then out came the rictus grin again and the sparkly yet dead eyes and the crones and codgers in the audience realised that they were supposed to react and duly guffawed.
I'd love to hear more of his gags, as I think I could just write them down verbatim and use them in my act, but alas there is more chance of the burp I have just done becoming leader of the Conservatives than Laughing Malcolm Rifkind.
Alas if Columbus had been Malcolm Rifkind his boat would have sunk the minute it set out to sea. Possibly by being holed by a frigate who had mistaken Malcolm's face for the legendary pirate's skull and cross bones.
Don't worry. He won't keep us long.
