It is not widely known (if it was before) that despite losing his seat at the last General Election, Lembit Őpik has retained his column in the Daily Sport. In this week’s edition, which is available on-line, he writes about those unfounded rumours that he was going to defect to Labour:
Do you like football? If so, has anyone ever accused you of planning to change the team you support mid-season? Well, that’s what’s been going on in the World of Őpik this week. But in my case they don’t mean football teams. For teams, read “parties.” Some journalistic Willy Wonkas have been writing that I’m about to join the Labour party. This caused a flurry of excitement with the usual suspects in the Press— the kind of people who’d never get a job with the Sport because, well, they’re too scared to. Sadly, for all of them, I’m not planning a jump to the left—or a step to the right. But, hey everyone, what’s the big deal? My boss, Clever Cleggs, is “in and out” of Cameron’s house more often than Tiger Woods is in and out of his. Nobody thinks he’s about to give up on the Lib Dems and go Tory-hugging instead. My mate, former Labour MP Paul Marsden, jumped across to the Lib Dems before defecting back to Labour again like a political boomerang. And what about war-winning Winston Churchill? He joined up with the Liberals before sneaking back to the Conservatives a few years later. When he was described as a “rat”, the slang term for changing parties, Wiley Winston said “anyone can rat, but it takes a Statesman to re-rat.” Personally, I prefer Labour to the Tories. But I’m sticking with the LibDems. After all, if I joined Labour it would be a bit tougher for me to stand as the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor of London!
Later on he reflects on the name of the Camerons’ new baby:
CONGRATULATIONS to Prime Minister David Cameron and his delightful other half on their new daughter. They’ve called her Florence Rose Endellion which sounds a bit complicated to me, but with a name like Lembit, I’m one to talk. By a strange coincidence, part of it includes my late brother’s name “Endel” which is also Estonian like mine. So she’s got a bit of class in there anyway.
Such erudition is bound to impress the voters in the London Mayoral election.
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