Chickens come home to roost in a Youtube world

Back in 1981, I visited a friend at one of the rather better Universities. It was a good excuse for a cheap weekend away. As ever, such evenings ended in the Student Union subsidised bar. This was a good place to get blind drunk on the cheap and there were always plenty of young and pretty undergraduates to be chased.

There was one group of students who rather stuck out in the bar. My friend stated that they were the Young Conservatives on a night out. Whilst they seemed just as keen on getting pissed and meeting members of the opposite sex as the rest of us, there was definately an aura of oddness about this group. At about 10pm, one of them leapt up on a table and started shouting, in a manner that today would probably have him classified as having touret's syndrome. I can't honestly remember exactly what he said but phrases such as "Harpoon the disabled" "Euthenasia for the elderly" were bellowing forth. His friends found this hilarious. I was less than impressed, but as I was a guest I felt I had to restrain myself from thumping him, which was my first instinct. I comment to my friend "what a complete knob". He responded "Oh, he's actually alright. He's taking the mickey out of ***** ******* who's the leader of the young Tories.

I was a bit surprised, but it transpired that there was an election coming up for the post and the drunk on the table was trying to usurp the incumbent. It seemed as if a major part of his strategy was to get roaring drunk and mercilessly lampoon the incumbent. His entourage at least thought it was hilarious. I asked if the incumbent had actually said "Harpoon the disabled", to which my friend replied "probably not".

I'd completely forgotten the event until recently, when I bumped into my friend. He said "Do you remember that bloke you wanted to thump at my college bar?" I replied "Oh, Mr Harpoon the disabled". He said "er yes, thats the one". He added "Did you know he's in the Shadow Cabinet?". I replied that I wouldn't recognise him if I saw him, having only seen him once, in a drunken haze, 28 years ago.

My friend replied "I bet you wish you'd had a mobile phone with a camera then, that would look good on your blog". I suppose if you wanted to be really unfair and make mischief, it would. I'm not really into trawling up high jinx from ancient history. I assume that, like me, he's a rather different character now and cringes at some of the things he did at college (assuming he could remember). I'm glad that we didn't have youtube, cameras on mobile phones and skype when I was a teenager, god knows what my kids would think if they saw some of my shenanigans.

During David Cameron's leadership campaign, reference was made to his past drug use. There was the inference that he'd been a naughty boy at college. A nice little youtube clip of him snorting or puffing would probably have finished him (assuming he did, which he may not have for all I know). Would this have been a good thing? Well not from my perspective. I'd hate him to get elected, but this is because he's a Conservative. If he's a Conservative who had a good time at college and has since grown up, I'd say that is actually a plus. He has shown that he has the self restraint to try something & then say "Ok, been there done that, moved on".

Unless we as a society grow up and realise that we do stupid things when we are 18 that we wouldn't do when we are 46, then Youtube clips will ensure that we never get anyone in politics apart from the most boring, useless, characterless figures, who are so risk dull that nothing will ever get done.