There is a powerful weapon found resplendent in the toolboxes of all chancers. If employed efficiently and with the optimum of timing it can be used to devastating effect. I refer, of course, to the Politician’s very own favourite: Bandwagon Jumping.

All chancers worthy of their salt are trained to the pinnacle of their abilities in this discipline, and will be on a constant lookout for the latest bandwagon rolling by upon which to hike up a trouser leg and hitch a ride.

Case Study
The tool has been used admirably over the past few days or so, following the furore surrounding overpaid entertainers, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, and their leaving of risqué/lewd messages on the answer phone of Manuel off of Fawlty Towers. To fill in a bit of background, this happened on a pre-recorded radio show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on October 18th. Remember that date. Now Russell Brand has a bit of a history for putting his foot firmly in his mouth, and as for Jonathan Ross – well he’s 48 and should really know better by now.

But we don’t wish to get bogged down in the rights and wrongs of this, for that is not the purpose of The Chancer’s Formbook. Instead, we shall note that to date there have been 18,000 complaints to the BBC and Ofcom (TV, radio and communications regulator) regarding this broadcast. It is also worth noting that only two of these were made at the time on the aforementioned date of October 18th.

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Despite what I may have said midweek regarding the imminent end of the world and everybody blaming poor Gordon Brown for it, it would seem that as I was indeed publishing said foolishness, the Prime Minister was in fact undergoing a sudden surge in popularity.

Unbelievable, I know, but Gordon Brown was suddenly hailed as the saviour of the planet following the decision to hand £37bn of our money to three of the big banks so they could continue operating, which kick-started a similar bowel movement across Europe and beyond. It would be churlish of me to mention that these are the same banks that are probably right now setting in motion procedures to repossess your home if you’re having difficulties meeting your mortgage repayments.

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God help us!

Is Frank Spencer the only hope left for the Labour movement? If so, I’m resigning my post forthwith and buggering off to live on some distant uninhabitable island, where I’ll be only too happy to take my chances amongst the nests of poisonous spiders and malignant coconuts. It beats chavs and treacherous politicians any day.

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I think Jeffman lied when he said he’d be back on Monday, but then Jeffman, like a politician, has a long history of – how shall we say? – frugality with the truth. Just ask his good mother!

So what has spurred Jeffman into this unscheduled appearance?

Nothing really. Just a desire to get some random idiocy out of his system, and the fact that I can barely believe that giving Maggie Thatcher a state funeral has become an issue.

It has provoked our deputy leader, Harriet Harman, into releasing a statement upon this fine Saturday, saying that there has been no discussions whatsoever over granting the ex-Prime Minister that holiest of holes, the state funeral; should the hag do us all a favour and pop her evil, corruption-ridden clogs, anytime soon.

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And so this prolonged car crash that is Gordon Brown and his treacherous band of thieves ploughs relentlessly onward as he makes not just one, but two policy U-turns in the space of a few days.

First off - in what’s up there with the quickest of embarrassing public U-turns to have been perpetuated by useless governments - there’s the decision to scrap one of the key elements of the plans to tackle what seems to have become a small-scale epidemic of knife crime.

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I may have promised mobile phones and hi-technology for the next post, but that’s been postponed for another time to make way for something considerably lower in tech. What will be the start of an ongoing profile of one James Gordon Brown, elected leader of the Labour Party and unelected leader of the United Kingdom.

Now it’s unfair to say that Gordon Brown’s not what it used to be, as I’m sure he’s always been a sack-faced, penny-pinching miser with all the charm and political conviction of a dull spoon.

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