Someone's in the spiritual doghouse.

Father Derek, editor of this parish newsletter, has been asked to lead Matins between now and Advent as a punishment.

His crime? Sharing a Facebook post that suggested that all Tories are bastards.

It's not that I care a hoot about party politics. In my day, you were either a true believer or you were a Papist. I appreciate that nowadays there are more nuanced distinctions on offer.

No, the reason for Derek's being rostered on the red eye office of the day is because this claim is just not verifiable.

How does he know that all Tories have no idea whatsoever who their father might be? It could be that their daddies passed over before they were born. Or that they were actually created in a test tube or by parthenogenesis.

I think I've been rather lenient to our neophyte priest.

Not so, the dwindling band of desperadoes that comprise the Conservative group on Babergh District Council.

They took the opportunity of the first Full Council since Eve was a virgin to put down a motion condemning him and suggesting that he should step down from his role as vice chairman of the entity that used to be based in the district it represents.

It's not as if there are more important issues facing their residents, is there?

The motion was proposed by Councillor Toad Barrett, aka Onan the Barbarian, so named because of his ever-so grown up use at an earlier meeting of a hand gesture towards Babergh leader Generalissimo John Ward, suggesting that the latter was into auto-eroticism in a big way.

So Toad/Onan had to deliver a carefully worded 'sorry you saw what I did' type of apology before he was able to speak to his motion, lest he come across as a stonking great hypocrite.

Toad/Onan, rehearsing a line that would win awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, explained that this was a "slight lapse in my normally impeccable behaviour".

Is that so?

Toad's tumultuous time at Babergh hints otherwise.

A casual glance through various news archives shows that Toad/Onan was suspended from the Conservative Group in 2017 for leaking confidential information.

The following year he was ordered to apologise to a member of staff for being disrespectful.

Not the best track record.

Simon 'Toad' Barrett

Although Mick 'Macadam' Fraser was the seconder of the motion, he turned out to be a no-show and so these particular, minor, honours were left to Councillor Peter 'Bottler' Beer to discharge.

Although a representative of Great Cornard for at least 300 years, Bottler decided that he wasn't merely going to channel being a Babergh councillor this time. Oh no, now he was something far, far greater: a stern and powerful human rights lawyer prosecuting a genocidal leader at The Hague.

Father Derek had committed the very worst crimes imaginable. In fact, the only comparisons that Bottler could conjure up were those of Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine the Great.

Their faces alternating between the puce of outrage and pallid white of utter shock, Toad/Onan and Bottler looked like a pair of flickering Christmas lights - hired by Hadleigh Town Council along the High Street - in need of some considerable rewiring.

When their motion was heavily defeated (to the cry of 'Shame!', seemingly from the moral mountain that is Bottler), the Tories all walked out like a slow motion homage to the Benny Hill end credits.

The only members who came out of this episode with full credit were the chairwoman, Hadleigh's Kathryn 'Grandone' Grandon and Generalissimo himself who was also under attack from Toad/Onan's motion. His speech, both factual and conciliatory was the best on display.

A conciliatory Tory? Now there's a thing. Perhaps there's still a teeny-weeny chance that Generalissimo and Toad/Onan will snog and make up?

*Satirical columnist Rowland Taylor's Ghost offers his own views. You can send in your opinion, newsletter or pictures by using the black Nub It button on the news home page here...