The 1997 Christmas special of The Mrs Merton Show probably doesn’t feature in many people’s formative political memories, but it remains with me more than a quarter-century later. Caroline Aherne, as the bitchy old biddy who made celebrities squirm, turned her smiling-assassin interview style on Edwina Currie, there to flog a book. After introducing her guest as ‘the female Margaret Thatcher’ and asking to check the back of her head for a 666 tattoo, Aherne invited Horace Mendelsohn, a Stockport pensioner and Mrs Merton regular, down onto the sofa. The old boy proceeded to harangue the ex-minister on her party’s record in office before the two sparred over the new Labour government’s pledge to cut NHS waiting lists. Currie predicted that Mendelsohn would come to feel as disillusioned by Labour as he did by the Tories, but he wasn’t having it.
‘As bad as they are, this lot is definitely more capable and better than the government we’ve had for the last 18 years,’ he told her.
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