Are these my people?

It's times like this that I really do wonder whether the Tory Party can continue to appeal to me. We have Nicholas Soames, just one of a number of members of the shadow cabinet who seem more concerned about lunch than government, declining to back his leader's sacking of someone who lied to him, on the grounds that he's a 'brilliant man'.

The inflated sense of self-importance which has exuded from this whole incident makes me slightly sick. Politicians are not - or at least should not - be there as some sort of self-promotion technique to propel them further into celebrity. They are there to do a job and, however much we may like them, if they show themselves to have characteristics undesirable in that job they should go.

Now I am not one who believes image is more important than substance, but at a time like this, when for some slightly incomprehensible reason the Party and country are divided, if the only people who can be wheeled out for either 'side' are Michael 'Toff' Ancram, Theresa 'Shoes' May and Nicholas 'Fatty' Soames then I will struggle to identify with the Party. It's a dark day not because the worthy leader made a wrong decision, but because it casts a spotlight right to the heart of what those in the upper echelons of the Party are about.

Those who battle on with their job incompetently but inoffensively.

Those who are there as part of a social club, who lunch and dine and defend together.

Those who struggle to hold it all together for political gain.

And at the same time the most deceitful, disingenuous and social-engineering Government in history carries on its ultimately socialistic task undaunted.

I am several thousand miles away, and the navel-gazers wouldn't listen to reason anyway.

How thoroughly depressing.