What's Left?

Literature

Hilarious knock-about travelogue, describing journalist Nick Cohen's journeys through the dining rooms of Britain's chattering classes, with comical and often sexy results.

Written as high farce, Cohen recounts his pratfalls and japes at a series of Liberal Dinner Parties, where the easy equivalence flows like spunky Nesquik as braying relativists hold black mass in honour of Saddam Hussein, leaving the Decent Observer columnist to seethe at his own frustrated impotence.

Cohen's humourless, self-righteous personality is milked for maximum comical effect, as his stern exhortations to support his personal quest against evil are thwarted by moments of Chaplin-esque slapstick.

"I awoke on the morning of February 15th," I said, fixing them with a glare to silence their gormless tittering, "only to find that, rather than stand in solidarity with their oppressed Iraqi brothers and sisters, hundreds of thousands of Britons had chosen to march in support of a fascist regime."

"What tradition of the Left would - yes, what is it Mary?" I snapped abruptly at a dreadlocked Guardianista, her apparel a testament to her lifelong quest for predictable, childish rebellion.

"Sorry Nick, but your trousers have fallen down!"

Giggles erupted, and I looked down to discover that she was right. I raised my head to give voice to my immense shame and there, horror of horrors, stood the vicar.

"COHEN!", he thundered, purple with rage, "DO YOU HAVE ANY EXPLANATION FOR THIS UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE?!"

"Christing bollocks," I muttered...

(Extract from What's Left?, p.132, Doubleday Publications 2007)

See also Mainstream Liberal Culture