Well, dear readers, it has finally come to this. After over five years of tangentially quixotic ranting, connection of cranium against connecting walls and howling at the moon like a frenzied fox, I finally admit defeat.

Yes, this week this column is actually going to address the issue of the day as dictated by the mainstream press — the election.

Critics have pointed out that references to the least appealing gang-related overture since Gary Glitter have been as seldom witnessed as the Higgs Boson particle in this column’s recent meanderings.

Well no more!

Thus it is with a jaundiced eye and blackened heart that it turns its attention towards the imminent cornucopia of constitutional calumny that awaits us all in a scant few months.

In particular those most ephemeral of things, election pledges.

With an average life expectancy somewhat south of that of a mayfly larva and an adherence rating akin to that of Quaker’s oats, the recitation of such pledges, against all logic to the contrary, has apparently become de rigueur in recent weeks by the bold warriors of the fourth estate.

As if anyone, anywhere, believes a word this shower of self-serving, solipsistic sycophants puts into what they risibly called their manifestos.

Outrage was sparked this week among authors and advocates of free speech by the announcement of a new “clean reader” app which removes all the rude words from e-book texts, thus sparing the more delicate reader from shocking their sensibilities by inadvertently reading the F or C-word.

Ironically it is those very two examples of Anglo-Saxon slang in close proximity that spring most readily to mind when this column thinks of the individual behind such a travesty.

Of course the Orwellian censorship tool originated in, any guesses? The US. But it will be guaranteed to take off with Bible-bashers and zealots this side of the pond — just like their blatantly bogus election system and even earlier mangling of our national argot.

The app is the nefarious work of Idaho couple Jared and Kirsten Maugham after they claimed their daughter was “left a little sad” by swear words in a book.

Jesus Christ! Why stop there? Let’s face it, what these petty-minded fascists really want to do is burn any book that offends them. They just haven’t got the guts to say it.

Chicken-shit cowards, the lot of them. Put your money where your mouth is, you whining, whinging wastes of oxygen.

Having said that, however, a useful application for such censorious software immediately springs to mind.
Set it loose on party manifestos … Instead of expunging perceived smut, eradicate falsehood.

Admittedly, the Tory document would end up resembling THAT page from Tristram Shandy — or the CIA torture dossier — but it would be less nauseating.

The Lib Dems’ offering would be a blank page, but then it pretty much is already.

And the title of a certain allegedly left-wing alternative may not find itself on the cover … but it would save a hell of a lot of time.

I seem to recall that when God allegedly sat down to scrawl the 10 commandments he paid rather more attention to cautioning against the telling of falsehoods, as opposed to effing and jeffing.

Honesty among politicians is about as common as altruism amongst bankers.

Much mirth was had by some at the expense of Green Party leader Natalie Bennett when she had her unfortunate “brain-fade” incident on LBC radio recently.

What no-one seemed to point out that that is all George Osborne has had for five years.

Believe me, I know, I’ve had to watch every speech and Budget in that time and not once has he come out with a solid fact or explained how he would pay for any of the proposed measures.

At least Bennett was honest, something Gideon couldn’t do if his life depended on it.

Speaking of which the chancellor got himself into more hot water than Archimedes on bath-night on Tuesday this week when he was accused of misleading a parliamentary committee over the Tories plans for VAT rises.

The Treasury select committee accused Osborne of the worst abuse of select committee protocols ever.

Thus making the committee members among the 1 per cent of the population gullible enough to believe a word he says.

Of course lies come election time are not the sole preserve of the British.

Newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu achieved his surprise victory by blatantly playing to the right-wing and promising no two-state solution.

Like the Tories not so much a re-invention as a revisiting of old policies. Until, that is, hours after he was declared victorious when he had to engage in a spectacularly humiliating row back when it proved that the US was less than happy with the gung-ho, apartheid spirit he’d espoused.

All of which leaves Netanyahu in something of a conundrum. Which of the lies he told can he get away with saying he meant to say and which of them did he “misspeak.”

Think Nigel Farage with a nuclear capability.

The answer of course, as has been all too amply illustrated by our domestic politics, is “depends who’s asking.”