This is the Simon Hughes who is my MP. Member of Parliament for the newly-and-oddly-renamed constituency of Bermondsey and Old Southwark (does the ‘old’ refer to the Shakespeare’s Globe or the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, I wonder?); a place with more council housing than any other national voter district in Britain.
The Simon Hughes who has only been the Liberal MP for this part of London because of three decades’ support from traditional Labour voters. The Simon Hughes who became an MP as the result of a by-election in which his ‘liberal’ party, in cahoots with the Murdoch press, ruthlessly exploited the sexuality of his young left-wing opponent.
The Simon Hughes who is a decent enough local representative, will turn up for the opening of an envelope, and will always arrange for a personal reply to any everyday complaint.
The Simon Hughes who is so desperate to get a whiff of the coat-tails of power, that he can contort to such an extent that he thinks that readers of a left-wing weekly, along with the council tenants of Bermondsey and Old Southwark, will rejoice that he and his fellow heirs to the Beveridge tradition are sustaining the government that, by any measure, is about to make the rich richer and the poor much poorer.
The Simon Hughes who has never, and will never get my vote.
