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Some help needed on a reworking of a political piece..........

I need a few ideas to finish off a piece I wrote during the US elections.

I'm working in why the old style Labour party were like cakes and why the old style Tory party were like biscuits. Any flashes of inspiration?

This is a humourist piece rather than out and out comedy.

Cakes soak up everything.

Biscuits crumble and can be used, even when they're past their sell by date.

Soz, head's not screwed on properly right now Dave.

Have you seen your Season's Greetings gift link yet? It's on the Announcements section...

you mean like -

why new labour is like a jaffa cake - nobody is certain whether it's a cake or a biscuit. Either way, the policies are all old conservative...

The Jaffa cake is the punchline. I'll tell thee what, I'll post what I wrote here (when I find it) and you can comment.......

I want to update this to make it current and emphasise the Labour=cake, Tory=biscuit analogy.


I have been observing the US Presidential elections with the usual cynicism this week, pondering, as always, why it is that a country of otherwise sensible people put up with the puppet show that is party politics these days. I suppose the American electorate, like me, are unable to separate these two distinct entities as they have almost blended together into one great mass of dull greyness as they fight for supremacy.

I suppose the same march towards generic uniformity is happening beyond the sphere of American politics. We too have our "Men in Grey". The Tory leadership recycles itself regularly, as one forgettable suited tub of rhetoric is replaced by the next, while those that attain power seem to do so because their grinning inanity makes them indistinguishable from the media’s comedy characatures, thereby letting them attain a place in peoples memories almost via the back door.

This degradation of personality within politics became clear to me today while I was talking to my 2 year old son. He asked for a biscuit and my Wife gave him a Jaffa Cake. As far as I’m concerned a Jaffa Cake is a cake, the clue is in the name. According to my Wife a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit, and this is what she is teaching our child. I’m afraid I must make a stand here.

A biscuit is a hard baked thing which is capable of being dipped into tea without breaking. It should be fairly tough, absorbent, not contain much taste and have just a little sugar to help keep your fires burning until the next meal. They are a simple thing with a simple purpose.

Cakes, on the other hand, are designed to round off a meal. They are not to be dunked in tea. They should contain maximum taste and enough sugar to be bad for you. They are designed to lift your spirits and create a feeling of decadence without overly endangering the consumer. That is their job.

Now a Jaffa Cake is neither of these things. It totally fails to justify it’s existence as either a cake or a biscuit, although it shares all the major design qualifications of each. It is a bland middle ground achieved by some marketing think-tank somewhere in a vast souless city somewhere. It has been sanitised to the point of uselessness in the hope that a "one size fits all" design motif can be brought to bear on snack foodstuffs.

I put it to the world that the same thing has happened to politicians. They used to be cakes or biscuits. Now they’re just a bunch of Jaffa Cakes.

And who want’s to be governed by a Jaffa Cake?

A cake starts off soft, and becomes hard as it goes off.

A biscuit starts off hard, and becomes soft as it goes off.

And anyone who says a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit should be taken out and shot. I'll add your wife's name to the list for after the revolution. I won't be shooting her myself, as I am already on the list.

psikottix wrote:A cake starts off soft, and becomes hard as it goes off.

A biscuit starts off hard, and becomes soft as it goes off.

And anyone who says a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit should be taken out and shot. I'll add your wife's name to the list for after the revolution. I won't be shooting her myself, as I am already on the list.

I shall happily be your Robespeare

Hang on a minute. Does this mean cheesy crackers are Lib Dem ..?