Ten Lords A-Leaping Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t want you to think I was a cynic. I believed a lot of that claptrap till I realized in the late seventies we was doing more ’arm to our members than the bosses were. That’s why I moved to the right almost as fast as I’d moved to the left post-war. Cigarette?’
    ‘No, thanks.’
    ‘Mind if I do?’
    ‘Absolutely not.’
    Deptford produced tobacco and cigarette papers from his pocket and expertly constructed a roll-up. As he put it in his mouth, he caught Amiss’s eye and smiled. ‘Old habits die hard. Now where was I? Oh, yes. Moving right. What they called a turncoat. Especially when I took the peerage. Not that I bloody cared. The way I see it is that after nearly a lifetime of judging everything according to how it would go down with our members, I’ve ’ad fifteen blissful years to think for meself, which is why I moved from the Labour benches to the cross benches and why I now say that life should be about more people ’aving a good time rather than less people enjoying themselves.’
    He sat up and an angry tone came into his voice. ‘I’m sick and tired of all these bloody lefty intellectuals trying to impose austerity on the working classes, disapproving of their drinking and their gambling and their chip butties and all the rest of the things that put a bit of sparkle into hard lives. Me’ – he raised his glass – ‘I’m in favour of cakes and ale and bugger the bigots. What was it Rosa Luxemburg said? “If I can’t dance, I don’t want the revolution.” Do you want to know ’oo really pisses me off? That cow Beatrice Parsons.’
    ‘You mean the author of Principled Socialism ?’
    ‘And other sexy romps,’ said Deptford sourly. ‘She’s just the kind I hate most. Born into the fuckin’ upper middle classes, public school and Oxford, top job as a barrister, but spends her time slagging off everything the working class in this country like best, from the monarchy to the cops. Lives in a Georgian house in Islington high on the hog, takes a peerage when they’re looking for a few women to buy off the left and spends her time lecturing us ’ere about this class-ridden haunt of privilege from which all but the likes of ’er should be expelled when the bleedin’ revolution comes. Christ, she’d be first out, I can tell you, with my toe up her arse.’
    ‘Do I gather, Sid, that your leap right includes defending hereditary peers?’
    ‘Bloody certain it does. I mean, leaving out the ones I don’t know, who never turn up ’ere and who mind their own business down at the farm, most of them are OK. Me best mates from here are Bertie, the Marquess of Stowe, Reggie Poulteney…’ He saw Amiss’s expression. ‘Oh, fair enough. I know ’e’s a bore. But not if you’re interested in hunting. I go down to his place from time to time, just to watch. Oh, and of course, I’m great pals with Benny Porter, who used to be a boiler maker and sees eye to eye with me.
    ‘You don’t find most of the hereditary earls looking down at the likes of us. They’re only interested in people being good blokes. And what’s more, just because they’re selected at random, they’re a lot more bleedin’ representative of the general population than your MPs. Most of the life peers we get here don’t know how ordinary people think, particularly the bloody intellectuals and those retired ’ouse of Commons types who rant away like what they used to do down there and don’t understand how to behave like a gentleman. It’s pretty refreshing, I can tell you, to come here and meet some people who know they’re not that bright, ’ave a bit of modesty and courtesy.’ He stubbed out his cigarette viciously. ‘I mean, can you imagine how pleasant it is to speak in a place where you don’t get interrupted? In the other place they have to shout all the time to drown out heckling yobs.’
    ‘I know, Sid, but you’re not going to convince the reformers that the hereditary system is anything other