Michael Portillo, please come to the diary room

Stevie: I'm, um, down with it too. (Is that unparochial enough?) These things are hard to call in so many ways - but I think I have to assume that an IDS win is what we're after.

I'm glad you recognize that Clarke (leaving Blair aside for the tiem being) is hostile to the public sector. He gets away with being talked about as 'on the left of the party' moderate blah blah, but is essentially an old Thatcher minister.

Hey - maybe we should go and ask some Tories what *they* think.

Some idiot at one of the offices I work at, before Clarke entered race, reckoned he was OK because, and I quote, 'He likes a drink, he likes his fags.' This was obviously before his Tobacco Road tour of Vietnam, but JEEEEEEESUS, falling for the 'more human' trick is the biggest Doh! in the book.

Also, I think the lot of them should remember that they, too, are public sector workers.

Both very right. There is actually very little to differentiate between the lot of them apart from the euro thing. If anything Potillo's latest veneer is a little more liberal that clarke. Trouble is there's not a great deal to differentiate them from labour. which means there can be very little debate about public services because there aren't really contrary sides.

At least with Maggie, she had an ideology that you could really hate. None of this wishy washy scrabble for the centre ground.

Economically: perhaps no signif difference.

Socio-culturally: excuse me, Portillo is being rubbished — and may actually lose — for being ("having been") unstraight. Nu-Lab has not exactly been a Shining Beacon of Queer Theory in Millennial Effect, but this is nevertheless something *I* am prepared to call a signif difference.

Dont most memebers of the british upper classes have some buggery in their backgrounds.

Apparently E4 got it's highest ratings ever as viewers were desperate to see if Helen + Paul were to get it on. Helen's bizzarely attractive, in an ugly bleached hemmoraged-at-birth kind of way.

My personal hope in all this was that they would elect a figure seen to reassert the old Toryism so beyond the pale to the electorate they do commit themselves to electoral oblivion, leaving a mainstream centrist party (new lab) increasingly answerable to irate old socialist backbenchers with an opposition of modern leftists in the lib dems. Duncan Smith seems to me in the little we've seen of him to be a slightly less hilarious, high pitched Hague with an actual belief in his free market un-liberalisms, rather than a Hagueish desire to chase whatever seems a votewinner. He appears electable. I hope he loses. Portillo is very difficult to imagine as a PM. Unconvincing as a liberal, and a Judas to the right. Has a bizzare fatface. Excellent leader for a march into a volcano. Clarke i never observed in the Tatcher/Major years as i was a bairn and his post-97 career hasn't seemed worth following. Popular with the electorate, i believe, so hopefully might fail.

A huge amount of them, by all accounts -- perhaps more the further back in the 20th century you go, if only because of the social structure of the public school system and all, but perhaps little has changed. Read _The Swimming-Pool Library_ by Alan Hollingsworth for a fictionalized and fascinating take on a certain UK social level's gay history of the century.

I really liked that book .

I'm not happy about the homophobia around Portillo either, and think he would be a better sparrer to Blair than Duncan Shit or Clarke. And it is precisely because most poshos with boarding-school same-sex encounters want to repress that and distance themselves from it, that this is going on. When I found out, I just wondered, hmmmm...pitcher or catcher? Bowler or batsman?

"Don't most members of the british upper classes have some buggery in their backgrounds?" Not significantly more than any other class. Don't be silly. Ned you should know better. (Also: Scoop = Waugh not Forster... )

Besides: this typically unclear definition of the "upper classes" bears zero relationship to NuTory vs NuLab, where all playas are middle class by any sensible old-skool reading (Michael Ancram, first to vanish, was the solitary toff). Blair = probably the "poshest" PM since Alec Douglas Home (a genuine aristo, w.land and a set-aside title) (also if I am not mistaken a distant relative of medium Daniel Dunglass Home, of secret monkey and magnetic cats fame...)

Yeah, as I may have said before, few current British politicians are in any way as posh as Albert Gore or George W Bush (the US Guy Ritchie). Instinctively, my thought is the best result for the Brit Left would be IDS, who would lead the Tories further into the wilderness. But on the other hand, a Portillo leadership might lead Blair to worry about Disraelian progressive Tory outflanking, and so push the govt a little on social liberties issue. But, of course, they are all Tories and thus scum.

Toff = short for toffee-nosed = synonym for posh = p.o.s.h. = port out starboard home = the comfy way to travel cabinside by ship to India...

There are things i dislike abt my nationality, but the language ain't one of em!!

Mark M, that's a genius analogy. However, the Gores are more posh than the Bushes by MILES (and not very many Brits know how to spot American posh very well). Blair is actually from a nouveau riche background, he's just got the standard-issue Fettes College/Edinburgh Academy vowels because self-made dad sent him to the former.

Classwise, though, newspapers and government alike have high-density upper middle class presence and/or a total jones for private education which explains the neurosis around Portillo being trickled down to readers/voters they suppose are impressionable.

I was perhaps being disengenuous, Mark S, or just unclear, in trying to draw a distinction between sexuality however defined and the social arenas in which homosocial (and more) activity was codified. Thus my public school reference in particular; apologies for any inadvertant implication that social class defines/influences sexual identity.

My mum thinks Portillo is dishy. Yes, she does wear glasses.

Before Portillo came out — tho rumour had been rife for years, inc. famous spurious- gossip Total Lie in which P and Peter L*lley are surprised in frenzied mid-fuck by a House of Commons cleaner on evening of Mrs Thatch's third election victory — several males of my acquaintance had declared not- entirely-ironic pash in re those super- voluptuous lips. "If tweren't for his politics etc etc..." (tho with one or two of them I think the politics franly *added* a certain rough-trade gauleiter frisson sigh: "shallow, WE?")

Didn't mean to be cross or fierce Ned: homosocial is of course another (v.complicated) matter entirely...

Nah, don't blame ya, Mark, it's a slippery subject to talk about and lord knows I often type before thinking. ;-)

If Duncan-smith wins, it's the end of the Conservative party, if Portillo wins ditto. Those guys never learn, they really need to go underground and regroup instead of having a public battle over who should lead them, they are really like a bunch of Marvel supervillans but without a Magneto, Dr Doom, or Galactus to lead them! Maybe if Clarke wins they will become more centre right, but I can't see him being too popular amongst the grass roots, they might just as well bring back John Major, at least he appeared affable.

(caution: long post ...)

Ancram, interestingly, also the only candidate to have a southern English shire constituency. FWIW Tory leadership in its early-50s-to- late-80s (with blips along the way, of course) "mainstream Britain's aspirations" period was a suburban thing: Churchill, Macmillan, Heath and Thatcher, all with constituencies on the outskirts of London, led the party for 41 out of the 45 years following WW2. I suppose the party's retreat from suburbs to shires (and under threat even there) made the leadership of William Hague (Richmond, North Yorkshire) rather appropriate. Curiously my own county council of Dorset retained to Tory control for the first time since the Great Wipeout of the '93 local elections, but this is no indication of some great local Tory revival - votes at this level are usually for individual candidates and local policy more than party. The Tories regained at least three council wards in parliamentary seats which they lost, which shows how different local and national politics are.

Personally I'd love to see the Tories become more and more unelectable, and I want the centre-left to establish an ever greater domination of mainstream British politics. Therefore I would relish Iain Duncan Smith becoming leader because it would show the sheer self-serving modernity-ignoring fucking stupidity of "grassroots" Tories even more clearly. I quite like Kenneth Clarke myself, and am tentatively finding some good things about Portillo, but he's so incredibly hard to trust, and it's very hard to believe that *he* believes everything he's saying. IDS is the opposite - morally certain in all the worst possible ways.

One interesting thing, though, is that the first person I encountered, back in 1995, talking up the possibility of the internet and other technologies to radically change rural life was actually a confirmed Tory (then, anyway - I don't know if she's changed since). She was also *far* more aware of Chartism, the Tolpuddle Martyrs etc. than, say, my uncle who always votes Lib Dem. I thought I'd mention this to give the lie to my earlier generalisations that all Tory ruralists (and she was very much a ruralist) are anti-technology and unaware of Britain's history of countryside revolt and unrest: it's slightly surprising that she could still be a Tory, but she believed very firmly in Thatcherite economic ideas re. the free market, enterprise culture etc., and I suppose she voted Tory *despite* the party's protectionist view of the countryside (because she was smart enough, I think, to be able to sniff it out) in the same way that people of an Old Labour bent vote Labour *despite* Blairism.

Labour Party hacks rubbing their hands at the thought of Duncan Smith gettting in. As one anonymous MP put it in the paper the other day, "He'll be like William Hague without the jokes."

I get the impression that one or two posts have fallen out of this thread. People occasionally seem to be referring to things which are absent. Anyway -

Robin C said:

>>> Personally I'd love to see the Tories become more and more unelectable, and I want the centre-left to establish an ever greater domination of mainstream British politics.

So would I, so would I. But is the centre-left in control now, and if it isn't, then would the election of this or that Tory as leader encourage it to be? (The poster above had a point re: could Portillo, or anyone else, at least threaten Blair by promising more progressive policies, thus not just allowing the government to move further and further right?) Then again - I'm here indulging in the kind of speculation of which I don't really approve: you can't gamble on anything good coming from the Tories. It never comes.

>>> Therefore I would relish Iain Duncan Smith becoming leader because it would show the sheer self-serving modernity-ignoring fucking stupidity of "grassroots" Tories even more clearly.

But RC, you know (I know you know) that it was the Tories (Thatcherite) who introduced 'modernization' to UK in various forms: attacks on unions, deregulation, openness to global market, market infiltration of public-good institutions. So are you saying that gras- roots Tories don't see any of this, and really think the Conservatives are mainly - 'conservative'?

>>> One interesting thing, though, is that the first person I encountered, back in 1995, talking up the possibility of the internet and other technologies to radically change rural life was actually a confirmed Tory

This doesn't seem surprising to me - for the reasons I have just given. Free-marketeers are in the vanguard of social change and the penetration of new areas by technology, invisible commerce, etc. Whether one approves of that social change is another matter. I "don't" - but it's easy for me to say that. More dialectical approach required.

Andrew said:

"Labour Party hacks rubbing their hands at the thought of Duncan Smith getting in"

See Andrew Rawnsley's superb column in today's Observer, which says it all about the oblivion the Tories face under "IDS". The man's a profoundly unpleasant character, not only still more boring and less charismatic than Hague, but even more unpleasantly right-wing and ignorant of any suggestions that the party might have to change, and against him Labour would surely achieve a third massive majority. He would, however, re-establish the post-war tradition of Tory leaders representing outer London constituencies (Chingford and Woodford Green, which he inherited from Norman Tebbit - you can see why I'm glad I've never lived there!).

The Pinefox said:

"But is the centre-left in control now?"

Not as left-wing as I'd like it to be, true, but certainly compared to most of the last century.

"and if it isn't, then would the election of this or that Tory as leader encourage it to be?"

Duncan Smith would, in that he would seem unapprochable to floating voters who might be more likely to return to the Tories under Portillo or Clarke. Therefore Labour and the Lib Dems would have a greater chance of holding seats which were traditionally Tory (Graham, David M, Dr C and myself all live in such constituencies, I know, and there may be others). Under Portillo or Clarke, more far- right Tories might sneak in because the mainstream of the party would seem more amenable: hardly a positive situation for the centre-left. I don't get the idea that Portillo would encourage Blair to stop his drift to the right: the only people in Parliament who can do that are Lib Dems and the more socialist Labour MPs.

"it was the Tories (Thatcherite) who introduced 'modernization' to the UK in various forms"

Oh, of course. This is one of the paradoxes at the root of the party's decline, dissected superbly by Tim Hames in the Times in April: how do you reconcile the enterprise culture (a fundamental post-1979 Tory principle) with the idea of a changeless countryside (a fundamental Tory principle for much longer, perhaps throughout their history)? Ultimately, you can't. I think voters have seen through that, and this is one of the main reasons for their decline.

"So are you saying that grassroots Tories don't see any of this, and really think the Conservatives are mainly - 'conservative'?"

I'm saying that some of them don't see the paradox and think they can have it both ways. In the 80s, centre-ground voters thought the same way, but not now.

"Free-marketeers are in the vanguard of social change and the penetration of new areas by technology, invisible commerce etc."

Exactly. And in doing so, the Tories in the 80s and early 90s pulled the carpet from under the social fabric that had held them together for so long. Conceivably, the voters who swung some shire constituencies towards Labour or the Lib Dems had moved into the areas from the cities or the suburbs *precisely because* of the massive increase of job-related moving as a result of the Tories' creation (or, at least, strengthening) of the flexible market economy. They spoke of preserving the countryside while making it a viable business proposition, and it worked in the 80s while yuppies spent their weekends reconstructing English Civil War battles. But in the 90s we discovered that the party of heritage culture had undermined what remained of that society while thinking they were preserving it: the paradox bled in front of them, and ruined them. The red and yellow on the map of Dorset is down directly to people, at last, seeing through the paradox of a party talking of preserving tradition, while destroying it through all their economic and social policies. Labour and the Lib Dems are so much clearer on all these things, quite apart from their other positive virtues.

"Whether one approves of that social change is another matter. I 'don't' - but it's easy for me to say that."

Do you mean "it's easy for me to say that because I live in London"? Well, you've (or maybe "I've") got to strike a balance between wanting to keep anything new out of the countryside (the Robin Page tendency) and being obsessed with people making money and promoting themselves at the expense of public services (the technocrat Tory slant). Personally, my idea of the countryside is broadly culturally globalist but economically anti-globalist, the inverse of the impression the Tories often seem to convey. If you want to relate it to one journalist, that would be George Monbiot, and if you want to relate it to any particular MPs, those would be Peter Bradshaw (Labour, The Wrekin) and Paul Tyler (Lib Dem, Cornwall North) above all others. As I'm sure you know, it has *nothing to do* with either the suburban technocrat or the shire protectionist Tory slants (some Tory constituencies have seen the technocrat replace the protectionist, as happened when Oliver Letwin succeeded James Spicer in Dorset West in 1997): they contradict each other and have done much to bring the party down, but I have never embraced either and, on balance, dislike them both equally.

"More dialectical approach required."

I think you've got it, Reynard :).

Above = part of why you must NEVER leave the boards, Robin. An outstanding post.

I am trying to think when and how exactly the "Changeless Countryside" entered the political lexicon: I suspect from the "left" in the v.late 18th century — back when Anglo- Saxon Customs were invoked as a citizen's natural rights against eg the industrialisation of the textiles industry (or later the Clearances) or whatever, and were co-opted and turned back on these radicals (eg Cobbett was a small-c conservative, against Old Corruption Toryism...)

at a guess, i would surmise that the myth of The Changeless Countryside was a product of industrialization, and then, later, perfected by the victorians.

So has anyone seen Ms Platell's video-diaries (I've no C4 access)? Is Portillo now dead in the water?

Andre Rawnsley's article is her e

>>> Do you mean "it's easy for me to say that because I live in London"?

Actually, no - what I meant was something like:

"It's easy for me to say I'm against Thatcherism and the changes it wrought, cos I was brought up on the Left and find it difficult to say anything else. But perhaps I am being somewhat hypocritical, in that I live in the Britain wrought by Thatcherism - for better or worse, or both [hey - 'dialectical approach'] - and (possibly?) benefit from some of those changes (?), and I should therefore try to make a more balanced assessment of it all which does not begin and end in knee-jerk opposition to Thatcher".

(That doesn't mean I'm about to do so.)

1) That video diary was quite boring. I had expected it to be her with a camera chatting to peeps off the record, but it was just her talking to the camera and her opinions. Boring, boring. Cute cat though.
2) I said ages ago that Portillo would have difficulties because of his perceived shirtlifer tendencies. I was right! Yay!
3) IDS is as charismatic as a floorboard. I wouldn't vote for him even if I woz a Tory.

With reference to daft rumours concerning Tory politicians, there is one doing the rounds in Oxford about one W.J. Hague being president of OU LGB during his time there. This being true seems very unlikely given that no-one who was there at the time has sold tale to press yet, but a friend claims that a (named) friend of their's was paid to remove Hague's name from LGB. And it's always been common knowledge that he was a campigner for gay rights at university. So I was wondering if Mark S. who, if my calculations are correct, was a contemporary of Hague's at Oxford could shed any light on this rumour?

There's a 'records' missing after that second LGB.

"Cute cat though": DG once again spins off into TV-related insanity.

Yes, I am Hague's secret college lover!! Now the truth can be told!! Actually, sadly no: as world's only straight-edge Oxbridge punk rocker studying maths and philosophy I was very extremely uninterested in not to say hostile towards all possible "society" activity, sex-pol or otherwise, and can sadly provide no dish. Knew foax that knew him: but my closest mutual acquaintance (who I think shared A turor with him) is long dead. Rumour is certainly persistent to this day: eg that Ffion = Tom's beard, I mean Hague's beard.

Mark: thanks for the kind words. I think you and Gareth are both right on the "changeless countryside" myth, with the other key factor being something I mentioned back in the very early days of this board: the growth of the Labour Party in the early 20th Century coincided with the intensification of industrialisation: had Labour developed before the "flight from the land" or had said flight happened in the 1930s, say, Labour wouldn't have developed quite as strong an identification with urban areas so Tory-ruralism link wouldn't have been as strong (other key factor in establishing said link: the tiny ineffectual rump that was the parliamentary Liberal Party - the rural liberalism Labour had left behind, if you like - from the 30s to the early 80s).

Pinefox: that's how I often feel as well, actually!

DG: Duncan Smith is worse than uncharismatic: his intolerance of anything he isn't familiar with approaches Tebbit-level. Hard to believe that "Iain Duncan Smith 100-1" Private Eye cover was only just over two weeks ago ...

Mark - the cat was cute! It was a three-legged ginger cat with big blue eyes. That = cute. Anyway, we'll settle all this talk of insanity on Saturday, like gentlemen.
Robin - I saw IDS on C4 news asking "But what is charisma?" Very appropriate. Incidentally, have you ever been to Woodford Green? Smack bang in the middle of said green is a monstrous statue of Winston Churchill. You are now entering Tory Country.

Damn. I was hoping to clear this up once and for all. Saying that, I was the official queer on our JCR commitee and I couldn't name any of the LGB presidents we had when I was there either.

Ffion and Billy = each other's beard was a particularly popular idea down pub. It might still be for all I know but I poured remnant of pint of beer over pompous ex-lover's head before discussion was concluded and had to leave. In my defence, he had been behaving like a fuckwit all afternoon expounding bizarre idea of ideal society in which patrician/plebeian division was re-introduced. He then preached about open source software for a bit, spouted odd conspiracy theory stuff about Diana and Big Brother most of which was I suspect was lying for effect and topped it off by implying that all non-goths are mundane. I regret pouring beer on his head, but I'm so fucked off with him at the moment I could scream. Everyone else I was with seemed totally embarassed by the shit he was spouting, but didn't have the nerve to confront him about it. I did and then unfortunately lost my rag in the process. Shitfuckbollocks.

DG: I thought you meant 'Manda P = NOT cute. (Secretly I think you still DO mean her, but are just backing off cleverly — to get me off my guard for our grand rooftop duel, liek the Reichenbach Falls w.TV aerials and on-lookers eating crisps. Moriarty = me, btw, as he was Professor of Mathematics...)

No, I meant the cat. Cats = bestest, as we all know.
Fair enough, you be Moriarty - he loses. And don't you go trying to get any of your friends to assassinate me with an air rifle in the aftermath, either.

At work yesterday (I work in a library) a man came in to use the fax machine. He wanted to send a fax to five or six national newspapers about how it would be a disaster if Portillo became Tory leader because he's "in league with Peter Tatchell" and wants to introduce a law making it compulsory to be gay (or something along those lines...oh, hold on, maybe it was 'repeal section 28'). Any way, I had to send the fax for him but (and here's the clever bit) I sent it so that it was the wrong way up, therefore he just faxed a blank bit of paper to half a dozen newspapers.

I think *I* win

Churchill's constituency was somewhere round there, I think. Epping Forest, was it? That would explain much.

I think you're right Robin, though I'm not sure. I know it wasn't too far from me as I remember being shocked that someone of such stature (ho ho) should have anything to do with my area. Shock coming as a result of BBC's anti-east London propaganda, as I've moaned about before.

Churchill = actually quite a weird Tory (when not in fact a Liberal).

But still a bit of a Tory posterboy, nonetheless.

Churchill was MP for Woodford itself, according to marvellous flatmate KatieG a former resident of said place.

Churchill's invocation of mythical rural past during WW2 an interesting example of tendency I dissected earlier, though totally understandable from any perspective in this case because there was obv. a genuine need to stir patriotism in the nation as a whole, and that's always easier when you're invoking something that's been around seemingly forever, something which, back then, most people, however urbanised they were, still felt a certain connection with (the pro-internet Tory ruralist I knew very well in '95 actually lent me a book of the "Merrie England" ilk from c.1942 and I *wish* I had it now - would be a fascinating account of how these things were played on).

But the unwitting downside, as oft. noted, was "if the Empire lasts for a thousand years men will stay this was their finest hour" or such words: it strengthened the whole idea that whatever happened in the future could never equal those glory days, and Churchill inadvartently, and with understandable purpose at the time, ultimately strengthened the post-war feeling that our best days were behind us, that national consciousness equated with a love affair with the past and resentment towards the present: Churchill, the unknowing unconscious godfather of heritage culture?

He is a fascinating figure, though, *because* of the way his whole life and career echoes with the contradictions of British self-image, right up to his funeral being cited by Peter Hitchens as the last great moment of his beloved Old World, and the fact that people I know who grew up in the 60s have told me that that moment was a last goodbye to what had come before, after which they felt that a new world was coming, something gone had been laid to rest, and they were going to utilise the liberations somehow created by that passing (Churchill's death cross-fertilising with Wilson's election). I'm sadly less knowledgeable then I'd like to be about the exact circumstances surrounding Churchill, Welsh miners and the army in the 1920s.

I'm sure your friend is right, DG: the constituency names / boundaries were probably different then.

Last sentence: meant to address Richard not DG.

Oi Mark, you weren't the only straight edged Oxbridge punk-rocker studying Maths and Philosophy you know. unless Carter don't count as punk rock (which i have a sneeking suspicion they don't).

Or unless Pete Baran does not count as straight-edge which I really most strongly suspect he does not.

— grrrrrrrr —

1. Suzy elsewhere mentioned Michael Young. I have only just discovered that he is also a co-author, with Peter Willmott, of 60s sociology classic FAMILY & KINSHIP IN EAST LONDON!!!

2. So - Clarke to take leadership? Effects of this?

It'll be, oooh, two months before we know, Reynard ...

I've just rediscovered this thread. One of the best we ever had, I think.

So - what now? What of IDS?

Indeed.

Indeed.

*nods*

I think you're wrong about posh Mark, though it's a lovely idea.

I read that it's a Romany word meaning half which was used by 17C underworld in connection with money and eventually became slang for anything rich or expensive.

As for IDS, when he goes I'd stick a few bob on Oliver Letwin. Anybody else and the tories go the way of the Whigs.

Oh no!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3221105.stm

Oliver Letwin might unite the party but I don't think he'll go down all that well with the voters.

So.

The vote still has a few hours left.

90 minutes more of IDS. Presumably.

90 voted against him - IDS booted out !

oh :(

read all about it...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3225127.stm

Who was that quiet man? :(

Not good tidings for the Tories... it would have been far better for them if he'd been hammered; there's now a very clear division in line for a possible new leader.

Surely not good news for the Tories' foes either?

Michael Howard will last about 3 years, I reckon.

Well... while IDS was effectively an asset for the rival parties in his ineptitude, Michael Howard would bring a whole new set of personality traits that could be exploited. He's hardly an affable centre-grounder, by any account. He may well be more of a heavyweight and be able to 'land a few punches' as many are saying, but so was Hague able to at PMQs... Howard is not the sort who will play well to a whole country. Too many reminders and associations with past Tory failures... I would be amazed however, if he becomes leader entirely uncontested... knowing the Tory Parliamentary Party, I can't see that all would be happy with him. Of course, maybe only a Clarke or Portillo could have a chance against him (and then they'd struggle with the grassroots) but surely there will be a tokenistic figure from the Tory left, or indeed, a lone maverick challenger. There have been such figures... Meyer... Redwood... there's always the factor of putting down place-markers for future contests; Howard indeed is hardly likely to be there more than 3/4 years - he is 62 and I can't see him making a success of an election campaign.

Howard is past it, Howard is just a stop-gap while they find the long-term man, Howard is an irrelevant old fart from a bygone era, Howard is too closely associated with too many past prize cock-ups, Howard hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of ever becoming PM.

From Australia, beware: they were saying the same things about our Howard in 1995.

Why has no one in Conservative Central Office not twigged that Michael Howard is even MORE repulsive to the general electorate than IDS?

I see the Daily Mirror got their punches in quickly with the Dracula front page. This will probably run and run.