Good morning Tash Appreciators,

After several weeks of heavy and sometimes heated political discourse, TF HQ was this week alive to the sound of lol’ing as the leaders of the two largest UK political parties deliberately gave us all some light relief. At least, we assumed it was deliberate. Surely no politician could be as daft as these two?

First, there was Ed Miliband and his keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester.

The moment Ed realised he hadn’t mentioned the deficit OR immigration

In the days leading up to the speech, the Labour Party front bench had been out in force trying to build up hype. Ed Balls – who assaulted a journalist during a charity football match last week – was on The Today programme teasing the listeners by saying that his esteemed leader had a ten-year plan for the economy but that we’d have to wait for the speech to find out what it was. Thankfully, John Humphrys didn’t push Mr Balls too hard (my word that name is fun) as he would surely have run the risk of getting battered too.

After all that, Ed’s comedy master stroke was to “forget” the sections of his speech relating to the deficit – you know, the issue which has dominated politics since 2008 – and immigration – the issue which, according to Nigel Farage, will lead to the end of the world. It was genius – no-one was expecting him to miss out those parts!

I have to say, I didn’t quite get the joke as I was reasonably interested in what Ed had to say on the deficit in particular. However, it must be one of those things that you only appreciate if you’re a parliamentarian; like stealing from the public purse and being very vocal in relation to issues in which you have no expertise.

The other contender for gag-of-the-week was David Cameron making saucy comments about the Queen while he was making Victoria Beckham his UN ambassador and partying with his world leader pals in New York.

It was worthy of prime-time, let alone a Prime Minister. Imagine the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland suggesting that Queen Elizabeth (who, let’s not forget, was chosen by God) “purred” down the phone to him when he gave her the news that Scotland had voted against independence!

Sources suggest that it wasn’t a literal purr but speculation is growing as to how close D-Cam and his unionist comrade George Galloway got on the “Better Together” campaign trail. If D-Cam is into people who purr at him, he and Mr Galloway seem like a match made in heaven.

Anyway, I still haven’t heard Ed Miliband’s ten-year plan to deal with the deficit. It must be a belter because no politician would ever be so bold as to claim that they had such a plan unless they knew it was spot-on. After all, even Stalin refused to commit to anything longer than a five-year plan and he had rather more power – and rather less opposition – than Miliband will ever have. Maybe Ed forgot to tell us all about it so that he didn’t end up looking like this week’s Tash eleven years from now.

I’m sure Michael Fish was an excellent meteorologist but everyone remembers his one terrible prediction. Here’s to you Michael, at least your Tash was good:

Have a great weekend folks!

What’s next? (Tip: don’t ask Miliband)