Politicians nowadays speak to us in code. If you still believe that the vacuous utterances of your average politico are nothing but sad soundbites and sugar, think again. The brew is teeming with cipher messages for fellow conspirators.

Currently it’s the crumpled Labour Party that’s responsible for more encrypted signals than GCHQ. Even the political commentators are picking up this irritating habit.

One of the more popular of the code words now doing the rounds is cojones, which is not a type of Welshman. Both Matthew d’Ancona and Andrew Rawnsley used the new “c” word yesterday.

Cojones, pronounced CO_HON_ESS in its native Spanish, has a lot to do with the driving force behind fighting bulls. And I mean behind literally. To be delicate (as we must on a family website), think of our Education Secretary as Ed Cojones. If I also say, two Eds are better than one, you should by now have interpreted my codified intent.

Not surprisingly, the main target in the cojones wars is David Miliband, that prize chump who bounced across our screens last week, grinning like a clown with a painted-on face, on the back of a dreary article in The Guardian. And, yes, the article was seen as so encrypted you’d need an Enigma machine to work it out.

Miliband is sometimes referred to as the British Obama, the Boy David, Millimetre, and, for some reason, even Millinery Hatband. Oh, I get it!

Milly is the cryptic leader of a putative coup against our Gordon, if the signals are read aright. He even answers questions about his dreary “manifesto” in double-code: “can” instead of “will” apparently carries enormous significance with the nerdy types who watch these things.

Variations on the conditional tense are also a big giveaway as in, “I have always wanted to support Gordon”. Meaning, “I haven’t quite got there yet, and it looks a bit late for that now … but I live in hope [Wink].”

Oh, the chuminess of it all. Such ripping fun all round.

Not so for William Rees-Mogg in Sunday’s Mail. After slipping up last week with “the British Obama”, he really gave the lad a smack yesterday.

“Least of all can one sympathise with teenage rebels without a cause who think it would be nice to be the next leader of the Labour Party. They seem to understand nothing about the depth of crisis in which their party and Government find themselves. Grow up or shut up is the best advice to them.”

Such invective is rarely heard from the Somerset Levels.

Liz Jones, also in the Mail, and not normally associated with the cloak and toothpick world of politics, sweetly writes that Milly could be our very own Brad Pitt. Not William Pitt, mind you, but Brad.

There’s only one obstacle to clear. His wife must look like Angelina Jolie. The fact that Ms Jones sets this hurdle, almost certainly means she doesn’t. That must be a great relief to Mrs Milly. I imagine though that Milly himself has enough vanity to rather fancy following in the footsteps of Brangelina.

I think we’ve squeezed all the juice to be had out of Milly’s cojones for one week. However, we do notice that another bandwagon (Milibandwagon? — ah, the composites available to this man) has begun to roll in favour of the other Miliband, Ed — not cojones Ed, you understand. And I’m not suggesting Ed M. doesn’t have what it takes in the boot.

You know, scribbling about British politics can get very complicated. Come back David Cameron (currently in Cornwall), all is most definitely forgiven.

Oh, and bring Occam’s razor with you, along with that big pile of psychology books.

Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Leader of the Labour Party, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, has had surprisingly few titles in his long 11 years in government. Some Minsters have managed to accrue almost one a year to embellish their CVs and Who’s Who entries.

Maybe he deserves another to plump out his list, even if it is an honorary gong going forward.

The title I have in mind has been available to him ever since the local elections in May and the loss of London to David Cameron’s Tories. It should certainly have been collected after the disastrous debacle in Labour’s safe seat of Crewe and Nantwich. Now, following yesterday’s cataclysmic implosion in the East End of Glasgow — the very soul of Labour’s heartland — we’re going to pin it on his chest whether he likes it or not.

Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition Designate.

Not that he will linger in his new job when his party is wiped out Canadian-meltdown style in the next General Election. You can be sure he will step down from politics the moment he concedes defeat. A son of the manse who built a reputation for pulling rabbits out of hats will find the absence of hats very hard to bear. Latterly, even the rabbits have deserted him.

For Gordon was the man who, as Chancellor, forged a glittering Cityscape of infrastructure to celebrate his achievements. The Golden Rule that borrowing should be for “investment” only, not for consumption. As a man without a moment’s experience of commerce in his entire life, his idea of investment was more, and yet more, state clutter.

His Borrowing Rule and his Financial Regulator were equally flawed. He’s had to send in his chief ghillie to slice them up for breakfast after they all dropped dead at the same time. Gordon’s smoke and mirrors have disappeared in a big puff of smoke.

Like many, I sometimes get a twinge of conscience in seeming so beastly to a one-eyed man who has pursued his partial vision with commendable vigour for so long. Then I recall that his 1970s-style economics was aimed at creating a client state that would, in theory, always vote Labour. The same was true for mass immigration.

The list of betrayals goes on. Signing away the country to a foreign power (as the EU will be after the Lisbon Treaty) against the wishes of a large majority of the British, and ratting on the promise of a referendum. Selling seats in the upper chamber of Parliament, and other honours, for party funding — he denied knowledge of this outrage but no-one believes him …

Eventually you get weary of compiling inventories of Brown’s failings, treacheries, errors of judgement and betrayals of trust. Like many obsessives, he bores by excess.

The electorate has already spoken. Will he go of his own volition? Brown’s tragedy is that he has no hinterland, nowhere else to go. To him, politics and life are one. Even the books he occasionally writes are intended to burnish his career prospects. Silly little tomes about courage, from a man who conspicuously has little of it. He has been labelled “yellow” by his opponents.

But he won’t go unless pushed and the Labour Party doesn’t cut down its leaders. It’s the long stalemate before checkmate.

Rudyard Kipling had a prescient little verse for our Leader of the Opposition Designate:

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

Cartoon by Peter Brookes

Some phrases in the English language become very annoying after a while.

They begin as cute, even devastating, responses to awkward situations. The purpose of them is to confer a powerful air of superiority on the user.

One such phrase is: “What part of ‘No’ don’t you understand?”

All such sayings start life as carefully crafted one-liners by wags in the press, usually half-decent writers, or cerebral contributors to those erudite TV panel shows. An osmotic process ensures they are swiftly deployed by every journalist, editor and media performer in the land.

Then, following a brief moment of triumph, they fade away, almost as quickly as they appeared. They have turned into cliche, and real writers know they are now virtually unusable … by them, at least.

But that’s not the end of it. Ordinary, non-media people pick them up as smart things to say when pressed. Endless TV vox pop interviews — popular because they don’t have to be paid for — are now filled with the dreaded words: “What part of ‘No’ don’t they understand?”

The Irish “No” vote in the EU referendum on Friday has resurrected this tired old bit of phraseology. It’s all over the newspapers again. Even hoary TV commmentators are using it — usually as a quote from someone else to give themselves deniability. The WPONDYU challenge is having its day in the sun.

Have we at Syntagma ever used it? Once or twice a moon or two ago. The problem with it is that it’s rather authoritarian. If someone barks it at you, you’ll know what I mean. It conjures up a particularly abusive school master or a militant feminist responding to an idle pass.

As a public service I have carefully crafted a witty response to What part of “No” don’t you understand? Here it is:

“It’s the ‘N’ that puzzles me. It gets it off to a very poor start.”

Okay, it’s not Oscar Wilde, but then I have nothing to declare but my lack of genius.

We have a new policy here at Syntagma not to post on April 1st because whatever we write our readers are going to unpack it for the catch / joke / scam.

Of course I have to post today to tell you about the new policy, and you may think that’s a bit of an April Fool situation in itself.

The fact is, you can’t win on April 1st. It’s like being overshadowed by a dark angel.

Look up now and you may just see it.

A man turns up at a small hotel for a night’s stay. He speaks urgently to the landlady and says he’s allergic to apples. “Please don’t serve me apples,” he asks.

“I promise you’ll get no apples here,” she replies.

That evening the man is tucking into dessert which is described as fruit pie. To his horror he suddenly feels very ill.

“You promised me no apples,” he cries out to the landlady.

“It’s not apples,” she says, as his head doubles in size, his lips turn blue and he goes into acute anaphylactic shock. “It’s apple pie.”

Now consider the ongoing saga of the European Constitution — newly renamed an “Amending Treaty” despite being 98 percent the same as the constitution. British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a manifesto promise that the British people would get a referendum on it. He has reneged on that promise because he knows he would lose by a very big margin.

The promise referred to a constitution, he says, and the treaty is no longer a constitution.

The original document has been shuffled around a bit, as you would a deck of cards, some cosmetic stuff has been removed, and the name changed.

It’s not a constitution, claims Brown. Sure, it’s constitution pie.

A few moments ago there was an enormous racket outside Syntagma Towers. People passing were looking up in the sky as if a giant asteroid was about to hit us.

I rushed outside with the new camera (12X zoom) and found our police helicopter hovering directly above our little haven of peace.

Darn, I thought, they’ve caught up with us at last.

I’m now hoping it was just a training exercise, or maybe a criminal gang was hiding in a neighbour’s garden.

It’s gone now. We live to fight another day.

As I look up from my desk here at Syntagma Towers I can see the full moon glistening fiercely above the distant pine forest from where wolves are howling fitfully into the night.

I shudder slightly and turn back to the work on my desk. Suddenly, the doorbell rings.

When I open the door, expecting to see a familiar figure, I am surprised by the presence of a tall, young man in a black suit holding an enormous book. I can’t quite make out the title of his tome, but I guess I’m being cold-called by an encyclopedia salesman.

“Good evening, Mr A. N. Other,” he says brightly in a rich Californian accent. He knows my name, then, I think glumly.

“I’m here to introduce you to The Gurgle Encyclopedia of All the World’s Knowledge in 1000 easy-to-manage volumes.”

I see my escape route at once. “Ah, 1000 volumes. I couldn’t afford them, I’m afraid.”

He grins. “No problem, Sir, they’re free.”

“That’s incredible,” I say, genuinely taken aback, “But in any case there’s no room for them here.”

“Not a problem, either,” he continues, “We’ll extend the back of your house so the books will be displayed in a long gallery. A real talking point for your friends and neighbors.”

I’m about to interject again when he hits me with his second pitch. “And that’s all free too.”

Suddenly, I’m beginning to take him seriously. I look up at his face, now shaded by the growing darkness. The full moon is behind his head, glowing strangely like a corona around his features. The wolves are silent at last. “What’s Gurgle?,” I say almost inconsequently.

“It’s a Californian corporation made up of bright young graduates from Stanford University. We have a motto, ‘Never do anything evil to anyone at any time’. ”

You have to be impressed by his schpiel. But it’s really sounding too good to be true. I begin to feel slightly overwhelmed and look for another way out. “They will go out date very quickly,” I say hopefully.

“These are no ordinary books.” he grins. “They look normal, but actually the pages are filled with electronic circuits so that we can remotely update them every day.”

I gaze at him in wonderment, picturing these vast, magical books stretching in a long line right out into the garden. “There must be a catch,” I say, finally.

“Only one paragraph of small print. If you have any media online, websites, blogs, etcetera, you must promise never to use text link ads … ever.”

My brain is now working overtime. What if I sold the encyclopedias to compensate me for loss of earnings.

“And you must swear never to sell the books to anyone.”

He smiles triumphantly just as a passing car illuminates his face with its headlights.

In his open mouth, I can see two sharp vampire fangs hanging down from the upper jaw. I close the door hastily and rush to the kitchen for some garlic.

Now we know what will happen to the Australian rugby team when they return to Oz after their defeat by England in the World Cup.

It’s reported that an Italian tourist who swallowed anti-freeze in the north of Queensland was admitted to a hospital intensive care unit and fed a case of vodka over three days.

Of course, that begs the question of who uses anti-freeze in the north of Queensland, but we’ll let that pass. It seems the poor sap was hooked up to a drip of pure alcohol, and when that ran out, doctors bought a case of vodka and fed him four bottles a day for three days.

Strewth, the hangover doesn’t bear thinking about. The doctors say he was kept in a “medically-induced” coma for three weeks, so probably didn’t notice the after-effects.

If the vodka had run out, would they have used Fosters lager, the amber fluid of Crocodile Dundee, or the XXXX variety? Difficult medical choices for the Aussie quacks obviously. The old toper’s excuse, “I only drink for medicinal reasons” now has new backing.

But if the patient had died, what would they have put on the death certificate? Cause of death : acute alcoholism aggravated by a small quantity of anti-freeze?

So will the defeated Australian rugby team receive the same treatment? They’ll be queuing up for it, mate!

I like to post a serious, reflective piece on Sundays, so today I’m going to write about my discovery of the first machine-washable cellphone.

Incidentally, I never use the term “mobile” phone because they’re not actually mobile — they don’t have wheels or wings. They are in fact “portable” phones, but nobody would know what I was talking about, so I’ll settle for the American “cell” instead. Actually, that’s what they were called in Britain before “mobile” became standard, so don’t think I’ve gone all transatlantic.

The trouble with summer is that the drastic reduction in the amount of clothing worn means that objects get put in unusual places. Last week I went on a long, sticky walk in the heat with my nearly-new Motorola cellphone in a shirt breast pocket. When I got back I took the shirt off and put it straight into the washing machine and switched it on.

An hour later I was passing the laundry room only to be assailed by an ominous clanking sound as the machine went into top spin mode. A vision of the phone leapt into my mind’s eye.

I hastily retrieved the now very shiny object from the tangle of damp clothing and found it was totally dead. Being an optimist I opened the clamshell and left it in the sun to dry out.

Two days later it was still dead. I’d been using my old Model-T Ford phone for two days and was ready to take a decision to buy a new one.

A couple of hours later, I returned with a brilliant Sony-Ericsson portable phone. It had cost me a heavily-discounted £105 ($210), so I was pleased.

I was about to throw the nearly-new, bedraggled phone away when I decided to check it one more time. In the process, I wiped over the battery terminals, which were suspiciously cloudy, and turned it on. Hey presto, it jumped into life as if nothing had happened. It was like a corpse leaping out of a coffin in the rudest of health.

So now I’ve got two new phones and never know which one to use.

I doubt though that phone salespeople will be persuaded to use the line : “It’s completely machine-washable, Sir/Madam, and comes up like new time and time again. In fact, it’s superior to cotton, wool and polyester. We recommend Daz washing powder for the brightest wash.”

Well done Motorola. Hello Moto!