As Tory leader David Cameron prepares to publicly bend Conservative MP Joseph Wrinkler over his knee and give him good hard bare arsed spanking as punishment for his abuse of his Parliamentary expenses, party officials have angrily denied that he is a political opportunist prepared to jump on any passing bandwagon. “This is a serious response to a serious issue,” insists Deputy Party Chairman Nora Stitzcock. “It’s clear that the public want to see MPs who have abused their position for personal gain be properly punished. David feels that simply slapping their wrists behind closed doors would be an inadequate response – the electorate need to actually see these miscreants brought to book.” Stitzcock dismisses suggestions that by publicly humiliating the errant MP – who claimed over ten thousand pounds on expenses for leg waxings and a framed nude photograph of himself, which he regularly masturbated in front of – in this way, Cameron is simply hoping to curry electoral favour with an angry public. “If he was just pandering to the public bloodlust, surely David would have had Wrinkler publicly flogged with a cat o’ nine tails?” she points out. “The fact is that whilst a proper reform of the current system of MPs’ expenses might provide a sensible long-term solution to this problem, such behind-the-scenes wranglings wouldn’t satisfy the public’s desire for justice. They’d feel cheated if they didn’t actually see someone being punished for their wrong-doing.” However, critics of the Tory leader remain unconvinced. “Look, he’s just taking the piss – giving the guy a spanking isn’t any kind of punishment, those Old Etonian-types enjoy that sort of thing! As usual, Cameron is just jumping on the bandwagon,” declares Enid Ballslap, Labour MP for Clapham Common, who admits to having had a sex change on Parliamentary expenses, having previously represented Balls Pond Road (South) constituency as Ron Flounder. “Trust me, if he thought that he could get away with it, Cameron would probably have had a few of his MPs decapitated in Parliament Square to demonstrate how in step with public opinion he is!” Ballslap, a former Minister, points out that Cameron has a track record for trying to exploit topical popular causes for electoral gain. “Let’s not forget when he turned up for the Commons debate on outlawing so-called violent pornography wearing black leather bondage gear, in a desperate attempt to get the fetishist vote,” she recalls. “Then there was the time he was spotted hanging around King’s Cross in a blonde wig and high heels, canvassing for the transvestite hooker vote. Is nothing he won’t stoop to in order to try and get votes? What will he do next, convert to Islam to try and corner the British Muslim vote, or maybe he’ll put on black-face and start rapping to try and woo the young Afro-Caribbean vote?”

In fact, Cameron has already attempted to woo ethnic voters, although he has always denied that his condemnation of Prince Harry’s use of the term ‘Paki’ to describe an Asian colleague earlier this year was a cynical attempt at jumping on the publicity bandwagon. “He is dissin’ my people, cos I am black, too. Innit?” the old Etonian declared at a press conference at the time. “We got to show solidarity in the face of this kind of racism. This honky has to be told, jus’ cos he da Prince, don’t mean he can dis da brothers.” Cameron also denied that his donning of black face to make his condemnation was in any way offensive, saying that he was merely demonstrating a united front with Britain’s black community, rather than making a desperate, and misguided, attempt to appeal to the black vote. “We got to show that if the man attacks one of us, he attacks us all – we all black under the skin!” he claimed. The Tory leader also poured scorn on allegations that his statements, with their embarrassing attempts to imitate ethnic ‘street language’, simply showed how out of touch and confused he was on issues of ethnicity. “It da Fresh Prince of Buck House who da one outta touch,” he retorted. “Dat man he callin’ a ‘Paki’ is clearly Indian. He shouldda bin callin’ him a ‘wog’! No Old Etonian woulda got dat wrong – we know da correct etiquette of racial abuse. Is insultin’ to everyone when you call dem by da wrong name!” However, Cameron isn’t the only prominent Tory apparently prepared to go to extreme lengths to try and secure votes. Fellow Old Etonian, Boris Johnson was spotted in Brixton during the Mayoral campaign, covered from head to foot in black boot polish, wearing only a grass skirt and a bone through his nose, carrying a spear and a Zulu shield. “I’m sure it was him – that gormless look is unmistakable, even under a layer of polish,” said street sweeper Dan Hobbshirt, who claims to have confronted Johnson over his bizarre get up. “But he just claimed that he was going to a fancy dress party organised by the local Young Conservatives.” When pressed on the issue, the blacked up figure denied being Boris Johnson. “He reckoned he was Joseph Bumpo, recently arrived from Bongo-Bongo Land,” says a perplexed Hobbshirt. “He then ran off down the street waving his spear and shouting ‘Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo’. Even though he tried using a really bad Nigerian accent, he still sounded like an Old Etonian.” A spokesman for the Mayor’s office categorically denied that Mr Johnson had ever worn black face, let alone attended a fancy dress party as a Zulu warrior. “Such conduct would be highly insensitive on the part of a politician who represents such an ethnically diverse community as London,” said the spokesman. “Obviously, Boris Johnson would never do anything so crass.”

Cameron’s bandwagon-hopping tactics do seem to be having an effect on the electorate, with a recent poll indicating that a majority of voters felt that of all the main party leaders, he had handled the expenses scandal the most effectively. “Too bloody right, constructive political policies actually addressing the root causes of complex problems are all very well, but they take too bloody long to have any effect. What we really want is instant gratification by seeing someone in authority take a damn good kicking,” Jim Bollusck, a typical voter, opined during a recent radio phone-in. “If the government won’t pass an Act of Parliament making it legal for me to punch my MP in the face, then David Cameron giving one of the bastards a good thrashing is the next best thing. He’s got my vote!” Indeed, so successful has the Tory leader’s approach to politics been, that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been forced to follow suit, declaring that when Speaker Michael Martin formally quits, he will be forced to run a gauntlet of voters throwing their own excrement at him as he leaves Parliament. Meanwhile, flushed with his latest political success, Cameron is already planning a new initiative, this time tackling the thorny electoral issue of immigration. “David is very keen to put himself at the heart of the issue and demonstrate that he fully understands voters’ concerns on this complex and sensitive issue,” explains Stitzcock. “Consequently, he plans to go on a fact-finding tour of Britain’s ports, personally hurling any illegal immigrants discovered at them into the sea.”