"I was joking" does not cut it from Gavin Williamson. As Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Defence, he has seriously suggested that the Gibraltarians fire paintballs at Spanish ships.
The median age in this country is 40. So more than half of the population, and growing rapidly, can have little or no political consciousness from a time before Conservative Governments were synonymous, not even with nastiness, but with incompetent, bumbling buffoonery.
The 42-year-old Williamson himself was only 14 when Margaret Thatcher left office. To look at her now is to marvel that anyone ever took her seriously, still less regarded her as either the Messiah or the Antichrist. But they did. How very long ago that now seems. How very long ago it now was.
It is no wonder that, unlike most of his generation and mine, Williamson was attracted to the Conservative Party of John Major. He would have fitted into a Major Cabinet perfectly. Like so many of the present Cabinet, in fact.
There was plenty of incompetent, bumbling buffoonery from the Blair and Brown Governments. But what everyone remembers is the Iraq War, and at least evil is not laughable.
And there was plenty of evil at home from the Major Government, as there has been plenty of evil at home and abroad since 2010.
But what everyone remembers, and what everyone will remember, is the likes of Gavin Williamson, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Defence, suggesting that Gibraltarians fire paintballs at Spanish ships.
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