Jimmy Saville, Gay Marriage, Ed Balls and Keith Vaz MP – well, blow me down!

Some days, the world seems to tilt on its axis before you’ve had time to make it through your first cup of tea. This morning’s paper was full of reports which – should they prove to be true – would seem to make a nonsense of so many of the beliefs that underpin our national life.

First, despite our enlightened politico-media elite constantly assuring us that voters are “cool” with the idea of legalising gay marriage – in a laid-back, metrosexual, “yeah whatever”, “mine’s a frappucchino”, chillaxed sort of way – MPs from all the main parties say that their postbags are positively stuffed with letters from constituents opposed to any such move – 45% of Tory MPs said it was the number one issue with those who wrote to them, falling to 30% for Lib Dems and 23% for Labour MPs. On average, 1 in 25 constituents who wrote to their elected representative considered legalised same-sex marriage a priority.

That’s astonishing! 

Surely when 36.1% of the electorate voted Conservative in 2010, gay marriage was right at the top of their list of concerns. I know I was thinking of little else. Of course our leaders know what’s best for us, so I’m really hoping that David Cameron does what he’s done on every other issue where voters have made their wishes clear – ignore them completely and plough on regardless with policies designed to appeal to Guardian readers who wouldn't vote Tory even if it meant having to give up their holiday homes in Tuscany: I’m sure the 4% of voters to whom the gay marriage issue actually matters will more than make up for the mass defections the Tories will suffer at the polls in 2015.

No sooner had I recovered from this shock than I read that Esther Rantzen seems to be lending credence to the paedophilia allegations to be levied against The Nation’s Favourite Disk Jockey, Jimmy Saville (well, not the current favourite, obviously, because he’s dead) by ITV in a documentary due to be broadcast on Wednesday night. Apparently, five women have come forward with tales of sexual abuse at the hands of a man whom we had all assumed to be a model of normality and probity: that’s made the founder of ChildLine feel a bit guilty: “We all blocked our ears to the gossip. There was gossip, there were rumours.” 

Personally, I can’t believe a man capable of treating a 14-year old girl as sensitively as “Sir” Jimmy does in the following clip (go to 3’30”) could ever be suspected of sexually abusing minors:

How’s about that then?

But some tea actually went down the wrong way when I read that Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls had repeatedly refused to apologise for the last Labour government’s record on the economy while being interviewed on Today : “I don’t think for a second that it was Labour public spending which caused the global financial crisis.” (Maybe not – but it was undoubtedly what made it utterly impossible for this country to weather the global financial crisis, leaving us in debt to the tune of £1 trillion.)

I really must listen to the interview – when I’ve recovered from all these shocks – because, up ‘til now, there has been no one more ready to shoulder the blame for their part in ensuring that our children face a lifetime of debt than Ed Balls. Enough with the sackcloth and ashes, fatso!

As for the news that – according to the Telegraph – a “Scotland Yard inquiry said funds believed to have been ‘of a suspicious nature’ were paid into current and savings accounts in the name of or linked to Keith Vaz, a minister in the previous Labour government”, well, I don’t believe a word of it. Parliament investigated the almost £500,000 allegedly deposited in the MP’s accounts between 1997 and 2001, and cleared him of any wrong-doing – and if parliament was satisfied, then we should all be. Naked racism, that’s all it is. After all, if Keith Vaz isn’t as straight as a dye, who can we trust?

I may have to give the papers a miss for the rest of the week. I’m not sure I can take any more.