A sorry state of affairs

The website YouTube is right up there with ebay for journalists looking for a story on a quiet news day.

Anyone who's been in the job for any length of time will have written a Shock! Horror! Look what is being sold on ebay story.

And in two years time, any reporter worth his or her salt will be able to recount their first YouTube story - be it kids performing Jackass-style pranks of Government ministers spouting forth about the perils of on-line video in Parliament.

Half of Fleet Street will have notched up their first YouTube story this week with the story about Labour MPs Sion Simon and Tom Watson uploading a mock up of the ridiculously stupid Webcameron video the Tories seem to believe will help win them votes in the future.

Having only been able to sit through the opening moments of the first Webcameron - up to the point where the crying tot appears off-screen only for drippy daddy to break off from adressing the world to ask the kid to return later - I thought the mickey-take had a lot going for it.

It was witty, amusing, and almost totally off message - even for Labour.

But the Tories found offence at the fact that Simon, who dressed up as Cameron, offered up Cameron's wife Samantha for sex.

And here was me thinking the Tories would sell their Grandmothers if they thought it would win them an election.

It's not as if the Tories have a totally blemish-free record when it comes to sex and politics merging.

But how sad it was that Watson subsequently felt the need to apologise. For what? For causing a laugh? For showing up what webcameron really is? No, for offending the Tories. This is an apology to the Tory Party which, in lieu of any acutal policies (another 12 months, folks), resorts to character assassinations of Labour ministers on a daily basis.

Do they all demand apologies? Well perhaps they should.

And perhaps Cameron could start by offering an apology for wasting around a third of Prime Minister's Question Time - the only 30 minutes in the week when the PM is at the mercy of the Commons - on facile questions about whether the PM will give support to Gordon Brown.

But then again, what else can he do? He can hardly debate policy, can he?

Word of advice from someone who's never spent much time inside the Westminister bubble: The Labour leadership contest has got chuff all to do with you. Tell your lot to stop getting their knickers in a twist over political jokes and get them drawing up policies so people can actually judge you on your beliefs rather than the latest spin trick from your backroom boys.