Has it ever been this bad before?
Fraid so...
..."Sleepy" Fred Mulley in '77 (HM's Silver Jubilee)
... and before that there was (??) Bottomley, an ex-union thug (like 2 Jags only not as suave, debonair and eloquent) who, on passing through Gan (13 months unaccompanied, no blueys, no 'phone calls!) en route for the Far East says:
"Cor blimey luvvaduck (or similar) bleedin' wevver's fackin' brillyant hereabouts. Wives and kiddies must luv it 'ere"
Edited to: Change bad northern to bad mockney in the quote. Having googled him he was from Landan - and was Commonwealth Sec not Defence.
Arthur Bottomley (from DNB):Bottomley was one of the last of the old-style Labour politicians. A working man with little formal education, he made his way to Westminster through Toynbee Hall, trade unionism, and local government. He was proud of his achievements, but never lost his engaging simplicity of manner. Always a north-east Londoner at heart, he saw out his days in the house at 19 Lichfield Road, Woodford Green, that he and his wife, by whom he was survived (there were no children), had shared since the early 1950s. He died in London on 3 November 1995.