Advice from a fictional character for a real party leader.

DEAR ANGRY MAN: I’m the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in a mid-sized, soft-power country in North America. Since winning the leadership of my party, I’ve had a bit of a bumpy ride: there’s constant rumbling in my own party that I’m the wrong man for the job, and the jock who sits opposite me seems to enjoy openly mocking me.

The problem is that the polls never seem to turn in my favour. I’m sure my party could form a great government if only the voters would give us a chance. Our party has played it pretty cagey this last year—we constantly have the opportunity to defeat the government and force an election, but instead we’ve outsmarted those bastards by refusing to vote on confidence motions. We just get up and leave the House to refuse their bullying (heh, heh!). But the people of my mid-sized soft-power North American country, however, aren’t getting the message; the polls are still indefinite. Or worse. Now, apparently I’m running fourth in my own riding. What should I do, Angry man? What should I do?

Lilly-livered Liberal

P.S. I have publicly acknowledged that I am not a particularly eloquent English-language speaker. (English is one of the two official languages in my country.) Yet people still make fun of me about it. How do I get them to stop?

Ah, Lilly. Come here so I can smack you hard enough that your testicles descend. You’re making me physically ill over here, you freaking infant. You pantywaist. You quivering puddle of pablum. I understand English ain’t your strong suit so let me and Google translator make it easy for you: Actez-vous comme un homme! Un homme! Comprendez, mon ami?

Your boss, the man who brought you into politics, how was his English? And how often did you hear him apologizing for that? He’d sooner strangle you or hit you over the head with a soapstone carving or get the cops to season you with a strong spray of his favourite table spice than apologize through his half a mouth for his inarticulacy.

Sure, people made fun of him. Sure, if you transcribed what he said in either language, it sounded like a meaningless string of nonsensical syllables, but no one who listened to him had any trouble understanding the message: “you are going to vote for me and I’m going to keep this friggin’ ship moving with the sheer force of my will, and if you waver in your commitment I might just have to pick my teeth with the finance minister or use an opposition leader in place of toilet paper to show you I mean business.” Sure, the backroom boys got him in the end and put their blithering pretty-boy in office. Remind me, how’d that work out for Mr. Dithers? Right.

Your man Jean was never afraid of fighting an election, was he? No, some kid in a wetsuit starts strutting around like the cock of the walk and Da Boss had him searching the campaign trail for his entrails within weeks, remember that? Then Dude called an election just to spite the elders of his own friggin’ party. And that’s how you knew he was a thoroughbred. He was always spoiling for a fight, and in the heavyweight division of mid-sized soft-power North American politics, fighting is the name of the game, mon ami.

Look at this year’s super bowl: Eli Manning was the joke of the NFL, the kid brother with nothing in his brain and even less in his arm. Until he kicked the shit out of the undefeated and supposedly undefeatable New England Patriots by breaking two tackles and completing a miracle throw with a minute left in the game. And afterwards, when people asked him how he felt right before that, when he came on the field with no time left, down by four, the entire game in his hands, what did he say? He said he felt great. He said that when you’re a kid, you dream about being an underdog and getting handed the ball in the final minute of the Super Bowl with the chance to win it. That’s the way a fucking man thinks. Eli wasn’t checking the polls to see how likely he was to complete the play, he just smiled and got hyped up and proved that speculation about the Giants’ need for a new quarterback was a tad midguided.

Maybe you’re not a football guy, so let me connect the dots. Remember Robert Stanfield? No? He’s “the best Prime Minister Canada never had.” He’s famous for fumbling a football on the front page of the newspaper in 1974. You know who beat him? Pierre “Just Watch Me” Trudeau. Trudeau laid the smackdown on Joe Clark, too. You know what they say about Joe Clark? They say he was too nice for politics. They don’t call Trudeau nice. They call him the Northern Magus. Trudeau gambled the whole country on his personal ability to piss further than Rene Levesque, and he won. Then for a victory lap he patriated the Constitution, created the Charter of Rights and gave the finger to Western Canada. They must have a friggin’ history book there in the Parliamentary library, so why are you wasting time writing to me?

There’s more, though. When you’re in the library, look up John Turner, who was a big hero of Mr. Dithers’. Look at the debate where he was asked about patronage appointments and he broke down like an exchange student with allergies and said “I had no option.” Mulroney (who, by the way, still had pieces of Joe Clark’s lunch stuck in his teeth) said “You had an option sir, to say “no,” and you chose to say “yes”. Goodbye, natural party of government. Hello GST, Free Trade, Airbus and unprecedented profits for the Gucci shoe sales department.

You have an option too, Lilly. Instead of refusing to vote on confidence motions, you could call the Prime Minister out behind the portables for a scrap. What the hell are you waiting for? After all this minority government, voters are still afraid of him. They agree with you on Afghanistan (or they did, until you caved in and changed your mind), on the environment, on social policy. You want the election gift wrapped? Instead of handing him his ass, you’re running scared and giving your milk money to Elizabeth May, making Jack Layton (who wears a mustache, for goodness sakes) look like a Kennedy. No wonder you’re falling in the polls. The calamari I had for lunch had more spine than you do.

I see you’re familiar with the parts of The Godfather that advise you to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and believe me that your front bench is ready to play the latter role if you continue as you have been. You obviously have a bit more studying to do. It’s time for you to decide whether you want to go back to kindergarten where they play nice and the teacher gives them detentions if they make fun of the way you talk, or if you’re ready to take a page out of your opponent’s book and cowboy up.

What is “Ask an Angry Man?” See here for a bit of background.

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Blood on the Ice: When is a fight not a fight?

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Guys vs. Men: It ain’t (just) a battle of the sexes

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