If it were done when 'tis done...

Suki

Very funny, Mel.

PS, make sure you see Simon Russell Beale in The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard if only to give your lungs a rest from laughing at this farce.

I'll get off to the larder to see if I've any rotten fruit to start throwing at this lot. No need to aim at anyone special, we've never seen a politcal stage so full of turkeys.

Robert Pearce

Excellent - and I hope Birnam Wood is the British electorate!

David Raynes

Alls well,
I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
To you they have showed some truth

stanley Jerusalem

Who gets to say " Alas poor Yorick I knew him ......" and "The devil damn thee black thou cream-faced loon" at the end of the play?

Norm

Fools and Horses also springs to mind.

stanley Jerusalem

Further casting thoughts:-.
Page [Last act] - The Hon Viscount Stansgate AKA Tony Benn

Greg

Surely the play that springs to mind is Julius Caesar. Not that any of the cabinet have the balls of Cassius or Brutus.

Tina

Miliband as Hamlet! He’s so indecisive even when it came to stabbing the person behind the arras he’d trip over on a banana skin before he got there.

Ann

Surely more like Titus Andronicus?

hadrian

and who gets the line that runs something like 'Out , out Damned Spot! Not all the perfumes of Arabia could wash this little hand clean...'

flabslab

Recently, I've often commented that I feel like I'm living in a version of Alice in Wonderland, written by Franz Kafka and edited by George Orwell.

Augustus

Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
-Act V, scene ii

Dave

Just goes to show Richard Littlejohn is more talented than you might think

Ellen

What a third-rate cast.

I honestly believe that one of the reasons why Brown looks like he may ride on is simply because all the people resigning have no respect from the public.

They're not the sort of political big beasts like Geoffrey Howe and Kenneth Clarke.

They're people like Hazel Blears and James Purnell. Both of them are tainted badly by the expenses scandal. Both are bland, useless and unrespected by the public - like all the other resignees. Brown needs a few killer blows and the Labour Party is so short on talent there's no one capable of doing it.

Dave, if you don't like Melanie Phillips or Richard Littlejohn, that's just tough. But the reason you're here reading Mel and mentioning Uncle Rich is because they're two of finest journalists in this country - as demonstrated by their popularity. Run along to Mr Rusbridger now, why don't you?

EC

"Is anyone actually running this show?"

Enter: Lord Amstrad flunked by Nick and Margaret.

[Baron Mandelstein has gone to raise the dead Duncan .. er Tony with help from the Blair Witches. The third way? ]

BlairSupporter

Lovely stuff, and so timely. Now if only Brown, I mean Macbeth, had rejected murder as did Banquo.

Btw, Banquo is surely Miliband?
Miliband has just forgotten which play he's in. Julius Caeasar took its final curtain a couple of years ago.

'While the witches do not directly advise Macbeth to kill King Duncan, they use a subtle form of temptation when they inform Macbeth that he is destined to be king. By placing this thought in his mind, they effectively guide him on the path to his own destruction. This follows the pattern of temptation many believed the Devil used at the time of Shakespeare. First, they argued, a thought is put in a man's mind, then the person may either indulge in the thought or reject it. Macbeth indulges in it, while Banquo rejects.'

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Ms. Phillips: Funny, but a lot of people don't follow British-Scottish politics and have no idea what you're parodying.

MikeF

More seriously - well not by much - I have started to give some thought to the casting of the inevitable televison 'docu-drama' that will be made about all this in a year or two. Some suggestions:

Gordon Brown - Robbie Coltrane

Lord Mandelson - Rowan Atkinson

David Miliband - David Tennant

Hazel Blears - Toyah Willcox

Jacqui Smith - Victoria Wood

Alastair Darling - 'Brains' (from the Thunderbirds)

Bob Ainsworth - Matt Lucas

Margaret Beckett - Maggie Smith

Caroline Flint - Paris Hilton

Joanna Lumley - herself

Any more?

Sheila

The Sunday papers are drawing attention to this quote from Blair presumably given to a reporter in private: 'The darkness in his heart and the lies will be his downfall.'

New Labour's nucleus comprised Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Campbell and maybe Jonathan Powell. Of those characters who are politicians (just three) only Blair and Mandelson carry the same sort of weight as Brown. Unless Blair or Mandelson turns full force on Brown, I expect he will survive. I think TB knows that which is why he tested the water with that quote but I doubt he'd move further without Mandy's at least tacit consent.

Again and again the attacks come in and they are simply laughable because of who is making them. They have no weight at all (see Mel's cast list above).

Diane Abbott has been particularly insightful all the way through this. She said it was a plot on This Week, which it looks more and more as if it is. And on Adam Boulton's paper review today she said Caroline Flint was probably chumming up with the other plotters only to drop them when she thought she might have a place in government. Only, to paraphrase Ms Abbott, Caroline Flint being Caroline Flint, she hadn't sorted out a place in government and when she found out she hadn't got one she played the 'it's because I'm a woman' card (cue gales of laughter from the public).

This is how talentless this lot are. They can't even organise a coup properly and when they do run forward with the dagger people simply laugh at them.

Original Tony

They all remind me of 'Captain Pugwash' somehow...they keep smiling no matter what and move very slowly.

Suki

Isn't it simply the case that if there is a change of leader there has to be an election with a few months merely to contain public fury? And if that were to happen, what might happen to the Lisbon Treaty?

We'd have a referendum on it. That's what. Mandy won't have that under any circumstances because he wants the Irish to vote yes on it before we get the chance to get to a General Election and vote on Lisbon ourselves.

If the Irish vote yes on the Lisbon Treaty allowing it to become law, it won't matter a jot who wins the next British General Election. Brussels will have virtually complete control over us.

Mandy knows the show must go on until that's settled. Let's not expect an interval any time soon.

Alf Tupper

To be honest, I think Shakespeare made it up as he went along.

Ronnie

Original Tony, thank you for reminding us of Captain Pugwash. That and Nogin the Nog were my favourites and I have to say that the government of the UK has decended to the same level.

Adam B.

MikeF, one word: inspired!

Roland Role

and John Prescott as Sir John Falstaff - the play has declined into a series of farcical excerpts with cameo performances.

Mandy is preparing his Mark Antony lines.