"You have to share a truth Jim. That's the game. A truth for a truth."
Hannibal Electorate drawled in his best Morningside accent, one which churned and grated at Jim's very soul because it was the accent he wished he would have been born with. The whinny of a Rifkind, backed by a Watsonian assurance, an Oxbridge education and a lot of hard cash. This was a being who knew instinctively the difference between what is rather than what Jim wanted it to be.
"If you want to know, what you want to know and if you want our vote, Jim, a truth for a truth, or no deal."
"Well slept in a drawer when I wis a wain.." Jim recoiled at his clumsy way of speech, its mock Gallogate intonation, the fractured vowels, the guttural consonants, the glottal stops he attributed to his 'workin' man' persona.
"Jim, you know that is not true, Mr McTernan told you to say that to make a connection. There is no evidence you ever inhabited a single - end, let alone a drawer." Hannibal Electorate took a whispered inhalation through the lips, like that of a master sommelier while saying, "Try me with another one."
"There's aa thon folks waitin fir yonks at A&E and ithers cannae git thir corns sort'd." Jim sensed his oxters dampening and that cold trickle down his back into his bum crack, "That 's a fact - I got that ane frae the Freedom of Information folkie...."
"Jim, you understand the term 'pull the other one, it has bells on it' do you not?" Hannibal Electorate's patience was beginning to run thin, there was an increasing chill in the air. Jim pulled the collar of his John Motson (TM) sheep skin coat up around his ears.
" If you vote SNP you'll get a Tory Government - that's a dead cert .." Jim was struggling now, he had believed he knew the secret to get Hannibal Electorate on his side. The I am one of you card, the NHS shroud waving and the threatened haunting by Margaret Thatcher - it had worked before, it had always worked, it never failed.
"Jim, Jim, Jim. I can smell your cheap aftershave from here and coupled with your increasingly sweaty oxters it is not a pleasant aroma. You have nothing but fear and dissembling to offer me. Even though you will not play the game and continue to conflate, insinuate and lie, I will play the game. I will tell you the truth. The biggest fear you carry is you will be the man who will see the back benches at Westminster empty of Labour's Scottish sheep.
You dread being responsible for the silencing of the Bams.
You hear that silence every night in your nightmares, don't you Jim?" Hannibal turned his back on Jim and walked away.
Jim was left sitting in a pool of light, sweating heavily, Hannibal Electorate had got to him. He could hear Hannibal Electorate's feet sliding off across the floor ever farther away, ever further from view into a corner where he knew he could not follow because he did not know how to play the new game in Scotland.
He waved to McTernan, to come and get him out of here. McTernan shook his head, Jim had made his own jail of lies and was now trapped in it. McTernan was going to seal up the door and thicken the walls. McTernan would avoid the blame for the ever more likely cull of Labour's Scotch MPs, just as he always did, by blaming everyone else for his own failure.
Hannibal Electorate drawled in his best Morningside accent, one which churned and grated at Jim's very soul because it was the accent he wished he would have been born with. The whinny of a Rifkind, backed by a Watsonian assurance, an Oxbridge education and a lot of hard cash. This was a being who knew instinctively the difference between what is rather than what Jim wanted it to be.
"If you want to know, what you want to know and if you want our vote, Jim, a truth for a truth, or no deal."
"Well slept in a drawer when I wis a wain.." Jim recoiled at his clumsy way of speech, its mock Gallogate intonation, the fractured vowels, the guttural consonants, the glottal stops he attributed to his 'workin' man' persona.
"Jim, you know that is not true, Mr McTernan told you to say that to make a connection. There is no evidence you ever inhabited a single - end, let alone a drawer." Hannibal Electorate took a whispered inhalation through the lips, like that of a master sommelier while saying, "Try me with another one."
"There's aa thon folks waitin fir yonks at A&E and ithers cannae git thir corns sort'd." Jim sensed his oxters dampening and that cold trickle down his back into his bum crack, "That 's a fact - I got that ane frae the Freedom of Information folkie...."
"Jim, you understand the term 'pull the other one, it has bells on it' do you not?" Hannibal Electorate's patience was beginning to run thin, there was an increasing chill in the air. Jim pulled the collar of his John Motson (TM) sheep skin coat up around his ears.
" If you vote SNP you'll get a Tory Government - that's a dead cert .." Jim was struggling now, he had believed he knew the secret to get Hannibal Electorate on his side. The I am one of you card, the NHS shroud waving and the threatened haunting by Margaret Thatcher - it had worked before, it had always worked, it never failed.
"Jim, Jim, Jim. I can smell your cheap aftershave from here and coupled with your increasingly sweaty oxters it is not a pleasant aroma. You have nothing but fear and dissembling to offer me. Even though you will not play the game and continue to conflate, insinuate and lie, I will play the game. I will tell you the truth. The biggest fear you carry is you will be the man who will see the back benches at Westminster empty of Labour's Scottish sheep.
You dread being responsible for the silencing of the Bams.
You hear that silence every night in your nightmares, don't you Jim?" Hannibal turned his back on Jim and walked away.
Jim was left sitting in a pool of light, sweating heavily, Hannibal Electorate had got to him. He could hear Hannibal Electorate's feet sliding off across the floor ever farther away, ever further from view into a corner where he knew he could not follow because he did not know how to play the new game in Scotland.
He waved to McTernan, to come and get him out of here. McTernan shook his head, Jim had made his own jail of lies and was now trapped in it. McTernan was going to seal up the door and thicken the walls. McTernan would avoid the blame for the ever more likely cull of Labour's Scotch MPs, just as he always did, by blaming everyone else for his own failure.
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