I am horrified to discover that I attended the same college as cabbie-monstering David Mellor!

Odd - he looks like such a nice chap!

Back in 1988 David Mellor, then a  Foreign Office minister, took the opportunity on a tour of Israel to berate an Israeli solder on camera for arresting some Palestinian children. I distinctly remember him wagging his finger and bellowing “This is not good - not good AT ALL!” at the bemused chap. It was all over the news. This earned Mellor a (private) tongue-lashing from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for having overreached himself. Unfortunately, this grotesque display of ill-mannered pomposity didn’t earn the odious, self-regarding pimple the sack he so richly deserved. 

Mellor was eventually defenestrated after taking up the role of Minister for Fun under John Major in 1992, when some Spanish actress with whom he had been conducting an extra-marital affair blabbed to the press, followed by revelations that he had enjoyed a month-long holiday in Marbella courtesy of the daughter of the PLO finance director. John Major’s initial support for Mellor cemented the Prime Minister’s reputation as a hapless, dithering wimp. Now, twenty-two years later and this truly horrible man (Mellor, I mean – not John Major) is yet again making trouble for the Tories.

Whenever I’ve heard the phrase “the nasty party” since Theresa May used it at the Conservative conference in 2002, I invariably get an image of Mellor’s distinctly unprepossessing physog in my head. I force it out, but it leaves a bad odour behind. The Tories have spent years trying to divest themselves of the “nasty” tag. David Cameron and his mordernising chums gained control of the party on the unspoken assumption that they’d make it fluffy and cuddly and thereby acceptable to floating voters. This desire for redemption  (quite misplaced, of course – disaffected working and lower-middle class Labour voters are actually rather partial to a dose of nastiness as long as it's aimed at the right target) has resulted in the current government’s failure to cut public spending and in wasting time on pointless, feelgood rubbish like gay marriage, which has accomplished nothing but the further alienation of its traditional voting base. The imagined need for compensatory “niceness” has led to it tackling this country’s problems with limp-wristed effeteness.

So it was with mixed feelings that I listened to the story of Mellor’s ludicrously over-the-top monstering of a London cabbie as the result of a disagreement over the best route to the Great Man's house on the ride back from a Buckingham Palace investiture ceremony attended by Mellor and his wife last week. In case your newspaper didn’t carry it in full (the loyalist Telegraph skimped on the details) here is the full transcript, pinched from the Daily Mail (full story here) with all the expletive-deleteds restored. It is one of the funniest things I’ve read in years:

[The two are already arguing about the route the taxi driver has taken when the recording begins…]
CABBIE: I know who I’m talking to. You’re David Mellor — so what?
MELLOR: I don’t want a lot of backchat. Just drive me there, and don’t think even with the limited supervision that you guys have today... I can’t take a lot of fuss from you.
Don’t you talk to me like this, I’m a Queen’s Counsel for all these years, and don’t ruin our day, just drive a sensible way. I don’t want to know how much you know about London because you don’t know as much about London as I do.
Take me the way I wanna go, OK, because that’s part of what you’re supposed to do.
CABBIE: I don’t have to get talked to like that.
MELLOR: I’d think carefully if I were you.
CABBIE: You don’t intimidate me.
MELLOR: I’m not trying to intimidate you.
CABBIE: You are.
MELLOR: I’m just sick of having to be in the same cab as you.
CABBIE: Listen, you got in here and then you start telling me which way to go, and I said, look, it’s Friday night, it’s ten to six, you may have lived in London 40 years or however long but I’ve been driving a cab for ten years.
MELLOR: You’ve been driving a cab for ten years, I’ve been in the Cabinet, I’m an award-winning broadcaster, I’m a Queen’s Counsel.
You think that your experiences are anything compared to mine?
Just shut up for Christ’s sake, drive whichever way you wanna go and keep a civil tongue in your head.
And don’t give me a lot of shit.
CABBIE: You wanna calm down.
[Mellor notes the cabbie’s number.]
MELLOR: Of course you could apologise. I don’t suppose a guy like you does apologise, do you?
Because you think you’re a big shit, having driven a cab for ten years.
You don’t need to worry about someone who’s been in the Cabinet, who’s an award-winning broadcaster, who’s a Queen’s Counsel.
Treat me like shit, ruin my wife’s day. She’s been to the Palace and been awarded a major award.
You fuck up our day. Does that give you pleasure?
CABBIE: To be honest with you, Mr Mellor...
MELLOR: I don’t want to hear about you being honest, and if you think you’re going to be sarky with me, get a better education.
So if you’re not going to say you’re sorry, shut the fuch up. And you, cab number ****, listen to Ken and I tomorrow, you’re going to get a fucking bucketful.
I have so many cabbies, when I get in a cab they listen to my show, and are proud to do so, I’m going to tell them what you’ve done.
Uber [a controversial minicab-booking app, taking black cabs’ business] is going to be my thing now.
CABBIE: To be honest...
MELLOR: I don’t want to hear from you, shut the fuck up.
CABBIE: If you’ve had a bad experience I’ll apologise, but to be honest, I think...
MELLOR: I don’t want to hear this, do you understand? Shut up!
You either say you’re really sorry, you’re a little guy who will learn when you grow older, or you shut the fuck up and you don’t ruin my day any more. Your choice.
But tomorrow, cab number **** you’re getting it on LBC, before about 300,000 or 400,000 people.
CABBIE: I have apologised.
MELLOR: I don’t want to hear any more from you. You’ve fucked up our day.
How dare you. Smart-arsed little bastard.
(inaudible)
MELLOR: How dare you? I can deal with you, but now she’s upset.
All you had to do was drive us back in a sensible way instead of being smart-arsed.
What’s that to be proud of? Anyway, cab driver **** you tune in tomorrow from ten.
And a lot of your old friends listen to my programme and know I’m a big supporter of black cabs.
Do you think they’re going to say ‘wonderful, clever little guy’?
Because they’re not. I’m going to tell them I’m supporting Uber from now on, and that’s all because of you.
And enjoy tomorrow because I will. Take a right here.
CABBIE: OK... right again?
MELLOR: Yeah. See what you’ve done to her, she’s telling me I’ve ruined her day.
YOU fucking ruined her day. She’s been at Buckingham Palace, she’s seen Prince Charles, received a major award, and you, smart-arsed little git, have ruined her day. Are you proud of yourself?
You’ve been a taxi driver for ten years and [are] such a great guy and I have to pay £30 for the limited privilege of being in your fucking cab.
Do you get any of this, my little friend? Or do you need me to tell you tomorrow, on the radio, what a sweaty, stupid little shit you are?
CABBIE: Sorry.
MELLOR: Stop here, by the red light. Then you can fuck off, and understand that you just ruined our day. Stop here.
Cab driver **** you’re going to go down in history as having turned London’s biggest black cab supporter into an Uber supporter.
And I’m going to say that on LBC tomorrow. You’ve got anyone you respect in the cab trade?
Because you won’t take it from me. You’ve done it for ten years, what about the people who have done it for 30 years?
You’ve done them no fucking favours. Got anything to say?
CABBIE: I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, sir.
MELLOR: You are a sarky bastard and you’re going to get it. How much is it?
CABBIE: £29
MELLOR: What’s your name? I can’t call you number ****. Do you want to give me your name when I refer to you tomorrow?
CABBIE: [Giving false name] Brian.
MELLOR: Brian what?
CABBIE: R*****.
MELLOR: Right, Brian R*****. Listen in tomorrow and learn something.
I’ve learned that younger cab drivers should not be driving black cabs — you should be in some fucking minicab.
CABBIE: Thank you.

Now, I wonder why the Tory Party got a reputation being ‘the nasty party”. Hmm.

I enjoyed Mellor’s response when questioned about the incident: “I will leave the public to judge his [i.e. the cabbie's] actions.” Pure comedy gold. As was his comment to the cabbie, referring to his wife:  “See what you’ve done to her, she’s telling me I’ve ruined her day. YOU fucking ruined her day. She’s been at Buckingham Palace, she’s seen Prince Charles, received a major award, and you, smart-arsed little git, have ruined her day. Are you proud of yourself?” I wonder if David Mellor is feeling proud of himself. But the real question is – how can Viscountess Cobham (i.e. Mrs. Mellor) bear being married to such an odious prat?

If I were the Tories, I’d use some of their election funding and pay Mellor not to leave his house or use the internet or answer his phone between now and the general election.

I hope the Israeli solder Mellor berated 26 years ago (who I remember feeling very sorry for at the time) is still with us and that someone has brought his former persecutor’s gloriously public humiliation to his attention. (And I wonder if Mellor's cabbie was Jewish - just a thought.)

While I was checking up on Mellor's history, I came across the fact that we attended the same college. As he's three years' older than me, I assume he must have graduated a few months before I arrived. A narrow escape indeed. From now on, I may have to pretend I went somewhere else.