Andy McSmith's Diary: Tipsters always fall short of running naked down Whitehall

The pundit and publisher Iain Dale has finally come up with a lame excuse for not keeping the most famous promise he ever made. On election night in 2010, Dale poured scorn on a BBC exit poll that predicted the Liberal Democrats would win as few as 59 seats. If that proved true, Dale promised, he would “run naked down Whitehall”. Actually, the poll overestimated rather than underestimated Nick Clegg’s appeal. They won 57 seats.

After all these years, Dale has now confirmed what we suspected: he is not going to run naked down Whitehall, ever. “The fact that they won two fewer was my, ahem, get-out clause,” he pleads, feebly.

Someone else in urgent need of a get-out clause is The Daily Telegraph pundit Dan Hodges, On 15 December 2012, Hodges tweeted: “If Ukip break six per cent at the next election I’ll streak naked down Whitehall in a Nigel Farage mask whilst singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.”

Without vouchsafing to run naked down anywhere I will make two firm predictions: 1) Ukip, currently at 15 per cent or more in the polls, will break six per cent in May. 2) Dan Hodges will break his word.

A taxing conflict of interest

Lord Mandelson’s opposition to Labour’s proposed mansion tax, which will hit anyone whose home is worth over £2m, is wholly unconnected, I am sure, to the valuation that Zoopla now puts on his home near Regent’s Park. Bought in 2011 for a reputed £8m, it is now reckoned to be worth £11.5m.

Taking the Michael

Given where the Lib Dems are in the polls, their chances of holding Portsmouth South in May are vanishingly small. But just to make it that bit worse, the disgraced incumbent, Mike Hancock, who is no longer a party member, is threatening to run as an independent. Given that Hancock has been the MP on and off for 30 years, and was a Portsmouth councillor for even longer, there must be one or two Portsmouth citizens who will vote for him for old time’s sake.

Talking turkey

The final item on today’s agenda in the House of Commons was a debate on the poultry industry. MPs talking about headless chickens: how very self-referential.

MPs have feelings too…

“If you are an MP and want love, you’re in the wrong game,” the political scientist Philip Cowley told a packed room in the Speaker’s House. He was delivering a lecture on attitudes to politicians, in which he argued that politicians have never been trusted in this country, and are no more unpopular now than they were centuries ago.

I dare say he is right. However, the Lib Dem peer Lord Wallace was in the village of Saltaire at the weekend, where the residents are angry about a plan by Bradford Council to cut down some trees to improve the pavements. In the window of a hairdresser’s he saw a notice saying, “Kill politicians, not trees.”

The furious peer stormed in and demanded to know whether the hairdresser would write the same about “policemen” or “Muslims”, setting off a row that ended only when Lady Wallace dragged her husband away. He says he will not be going back there to get his hair cut.

A fruitful development

For those who have been wondering what British government policy is on mangoes, the Foreign Secretary Phil Hammond elucidated today. “I am absolutely clear that there should be full transparency on all issues concerning mangoes,” he told MPs.

No prevarication there.