Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Rutland fig

“If you have room for only one fruit tree, do you go for damson or bullace?” – Jim Hartley

The fellow goes on to ask which fruit the current of Lib Dem MPs remind me of: “Ming Campbell, something rather old fashioned, but solid: quince? Danny Alexander, orange, bitter & no good in the sun: Seville orange. The great leader is of course bland and yellow and would have to be a banana.” I think this is what the young people call ‘satire’.

The fruit tree I ‘go for’ is neither the damson nor the bullace but our trusty Rutland fig. Each year, Meadowcroft cuts a fresh length of twine to hold up his trousers and goes down to Westminster to negotiate with the Serjeant at Arms about the trees for Portcullis House.

So adept is he at playing the country bumpkin come to town that the House authorities are quite disarmed and thus prey to his wiles. Why, over the last 12 years, he has stung them for £400,000 to maintain the trees we sent to grace the place when it first opened! When a tree is as profitable as that, I look no further.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

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