Ming the humorous

Posted by Chris.

I have mentioned before that Ming Campbell injects quite a lot of wit into his speeches.

His attempt to make a joke about the Dunfermline win at PMQs last week, however, was met with a stony silence - not surprising, of course, that our opponents would not wish to laugh at such a joke.

One old tale that he that he has been telling at the Leadership Hustings has raised a laugh and a little bit of discussion elsewhere. It has more than one version and there may be an element of truth in it:

In one version a Liberal candidate turns up for a public meeting, at which the only other person present is the janitor of the hall. After half an hour, the agent goes out and brings two more chairs into the hall and then they go home. Next day, the candidate is astonished to read a headline in the local paper: “Extra chairs brought into Liberal meeting.”

I understand that this tale may have originated in Orkney in the 1950's and was put about by Laura Grimond, wife of Jo, who brought in the extra chairs but only after first taking them out.

With only three or four more Hustings to go, I wonder if it is worth placing a bet on whether or not Ming will also tell the following old joke:

Five years old little Johnny went to school and said to his teacher, "please miss our cat's had six kittens, three Labour and three Conservatives." The teacher was impressed that a boy of five knew about political parties. A few weeks later, she called Johnny out in front of the school assembly and asked him to repeat what he had told her. "Yes miss," said Johnny, "our cat's six kittens all Liberal Democrats." "But that is not what you told me before," replied the teacher. "Yes miss but that was weeks ago, they have all got their eyes open now."