True Blue

True Blue

I’ve just ordered True Blue: Strange Tales from a Tory Nation after a friend in the Labour Party emailed to recommend it. She pointed out a passage on the old “urban talisman’ himself, Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey.

“To keep them interested Shaun introduced a shock prison story that I had not heard him use before, thus suggesting the possibility that he was making it up as he went along. ‘If you go into Holloway women’s prison you have to share your knickers with other women,’ he told the blondes. But they didn’t really bit on that either. A girl who looked as if she might be fifteen or sixteen wandered into the circle. It seemed that she was the daughter of one of the blondes….

……Bailey was onto her straight away, warning her that she shouldn’t have sex with boys, because they would not respect her for it. The girl looked embarrassed and said nothing. Bailey then went on to outline a strangely conspiratorial theory: people in the entertainment and media businesses had conspired to create the idea of the teenager, and to foster divisions between children and parents which could be exploited to make money…..The girl looked at him as though he was mad and obviously wanted to get away….

Bailey who wasn’t drinking because of his standing as a gymnast, body builder and health fanatic, then began berating the girl about the need to avoid getting a sexually transmitted disease, warning her that if she had a baby it would ruin her changes of going to university.”

I hope it arrives before I go on holiday.