Lovable bumpkin Alistair Carmichael laments that his last plea to constituents fell on deaf ears, before ricocheting further down to stony ground. Hugely misunderstood, Scotland’s leading (and only) Liberal Democrat MP asked our own Citizen Cuddis to take down dictation for a second, fateful plea.
Dear (so-called) constituents of Orcadia and the Shetlandic Archipelago,
After my letter—my cri de coeur—appeared on this website last week, I looked forward to a positive postbag. I shouldn’t have bothered. You could have counted the letters of support on the fingers of one of my fat feet. Thanks for nothing.
I reached out to you for support—as a quid pro quo for 15 fond, expenses-filled years as your humble servant. And how did you repay me? By spurning me.
Hard on the heels of my re-election on a majority thinner than a Carr’s water biscuit, I really could have done without this mass cold-shouldering. You ungrateful Orcish, Shelandian and archipelagonian bastards. I am sorry for the language but there’s only so much ingratitude a man can take.
As good fortune would have it, not everyone has turned their back on me. There was one letter of semi-support. From Jock Guthrie, a G-Wing internee of the maximum security lock-down ward at Dundee Asylum. The positivity expressed in the opening sentence of Mr Guthrie’s letter puts the rest of youse fair-weather voters to shame. ‘Dear Ali,’ Jock wrote. ‘I love you and I want to have your babies.’
I appreciate how difficult it must have been for staff to shoehorn Jock back into his restraint harness once he’d scribbled his letter. I do hope the Cross fountain pen Jock managed to bury in the pin-down team leader’s thigh during a momentary lapse in vigilance, has been safely extracted and that repeat surgery will prove unnecessary.
I must also thank Jock for suggesting that I should take up sport as a de-stressor during these uncertain times. I offer slightly less thanks for his tongue in cheek (I think they were tongue in cheek) suggestions for specific sports—cordless bungee jumping off the Skye Bridge for example. Or catching the javelin (He also recommended that I lash the Dinnie Stanes to my testicles with whipcord before dragging them up the Royal Mile, with my hands behind my head, though technically, I don’t think that counts as a sport).
Welcome though advice always is from a supporter, I think I’ll stick to breathing exercises as a calming agent. After all, as a long term season ticket holder for the first class carriage of the gravy train I long ago learned how to breathe through my arse so I could submerge my head in the Westminster trough right up to my side parting for days on end.
Malky—no stranger to walking the bonkers tightrope—suggested a Buddhist meditation which involved breathing in through the ears and out through the soles of the feet. I tried it. My blood pressure plummeted. Unfortunately the technique produced high levels of condensation in my brogues (I had to ring out my socks every half an hour), so I abandoned it.
But I digress. On top of all this, there’s the ongoing legal challenge from Turncoats of Orkney, or whatever they call themselves, who seem hell-bent on overturning my hard-fought election result.
My defence team continues their search for a legal specialist. Someone with experience of securing a not guilty verdict for fat, lying, gravy-guzzling, integrity-free, morally bankrupt, ethic-lite, power-hungry mud-slingers. Surely they don’t mean me?
I thought of representing myself at trial but If I remember right, I won my degree in a raffle at a dockside brothel in Partick so I might be shaky at…well, at everything, really.
I know that if we do not find someone soon I shall write to the aforementioned Asylum to ask if the provisions of the Mental Health Act can be set aside to allow Jock to act as my QC.
And who knows? If Jock pulls out the big one and gets me off, I see no impediment to him standing for leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party. Let’s face it, he couldn’t be worse than the Cleggmeister.
Yours Aye
The Right and Extremely Honourable
Alistair Carmichael