Superb stuff

I was astonished to see on my return to Blighty earlier in the week that the Daily Wail had decided to celebrate my arrival at Heathrow by informing me that loadsa people want to leave it. The reason for this mass exodus? Er... too many of THESE wholesome people:


are unhappy with THIS lot and are leaving.


I luuuuurve the smell of a none-too-subtle agenda in the morning don't you? Check out the picture of those "asylum seekers". I'm only surprised the Mail didn't photoshop in a large bag marked "swag/fruits of benefit fraud" on the bloke with the beige suit and a little girl being asked via speech bubble by the man in the white jeans whether she would like to see his puppies.

Bloody outrageous really, but that ain't got NUFFINK on the comments. Scroll down to the bottom to read them in full. My personal favourite is this one from Chriss in Canada:

"It's got nothing to do with new labour over the past ten years. I left England over 30 years ago and it was a mess then, mostly due to too much immigration. I do believe at the time the conservatives ruled the roost."

Presumably the irony of a man who hates the concept of immigration so much that he, er, emigrates thus becoming....well, you see what I'm getting at.

Back 2 Skool
Reader, I returned.

Yeah.

Sorry about the no-show, comrades, but I've been toughing it out in warmer climes with Beloved for the last two weeks or so...I've been back for a couple of days now but - what can I say? - I couldn't be arsed.

Anyway, without wishing to diversify into the realms of my personal life which is (frankly) not as exciting as the daily insania one gets used to in and around the corridors of power (or holed up in a daylight-free office in the Parliamentary Estate's dungeon, in my case), the holiday had some highlights. For me, the best part was ordering one of these:



and then proceeding to sit amidst a number of bright red, pot-bellied men in England shirts (several of whom were reading the Daily Mail) whilst the Manchester derby was played out last weekend. The appalled look on Beloved's face was only made worse by my attempting to make light of the situation by declaring in the requisite accent that I was the "only gay in the village" as the blighter merrily sparkled away. I thought it was funny; seemingly I was alone.

Sigh. Back to work on Tuesday it is though. So. What have I missed? Guido brought the Government down yet? Has Iain managed to get the Beeb to admit they're a load of pinko commies?

Resumation of normal service

Good morning, comrades. I have been away for three weeks on holiday (nowhere exciting unfortunately) and I PROMISE to have a post for you by the end of today. That's a proper promise by the way rather than a manifesto one (gag copyright, Yes Minister).

In the meantime, I spotted this at the airport. Strawberry KitKat...? What kind of devilry...?

Apologies

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I'm finding it difficult to work up the enthusiasm when the weather's so nice.

I'll have something for you later.

Thought for the day

Regular BBF commentator T-i-B posted the following on the chicken run thread, causing me to inhale most of my morning coffee because I was snorkling so much. It is so good I think it deserves a post of its own:

Well, as my old man used to say, "show me a politician and I'll show you a man with his house full of mirrors"

More later.

"Not near my three million quid mansion thank you very much"
Our finest hour

Dear MP,

I am writing to you to ask you to do something about this story which I am outraged about. So, okay, these men have been injured in their service to the nation and their families need to be housed SOMEWHERE when they visit them in the nearby military hospital, but why here?

It's just another shocking example of how the Labour Party don't care about Hard-Working People that they just want to dump a house full of soldiers wives (called names like "Tracey" I shouldn't wonder) right in the middle of a prime leafy location (my street). You don't CARE about what this will do to my house price do you? You've got your snout in the trough after all and aren't bothered about what happens to Ordinary People.

I had cause to write to you a few years ago about how we should be locking more of these young hoodlums up in prison and then found - to my horror - that there was a proposal to build a new prison just a mile down the road from me! A totally ludicrious suggestion, it was agreed all round, and luckily enough of us banded together to persuade the council that a better location would be in between the primary school and the old people's home in the council estate three miles away.

But it just goes to show that - once again - politicians aren't listening to what people want. I served in the war I'll have you know, so don't go giving me all this "they're soldiers, they deserve some assistance in your neck of the woods". Okay, so I had a "home for heroes" when I returned from Italy in 1945 and plenty of assistance in finding work, but now I've done good for myself thank you very much and I'll be damned if I'm going to give up everything that I've worked for (all by myself) to a bunch of lower-class oiks who should have had the foresight not to have had themselves injured in serving this country and our Queen (God bless you, ma'am) in the first place.

I shall never vote again because you're all the same - selfish and in it for yourselves.

Yours,

Outraged of Ashtead

Channelling the sisterhood
"Is it because I 'af ladybits?"

In the past I might have - erroneously, I assure you - given the impression that I am not exactly Germaine Greer when it comes to my reaction to this sort of thing; but the unedited thoughts of The Public(TM) can sometimes do strange things to a chap.

Recap: Sue Turton (C4 news reporter) got her arse pinched by some bloke whilst she was reporting live on the floods last week. Subsequently, Knacker has taken an interest, the fuzz have got involved and are planning to serve a fixed penalty notice on the "gentleman" who decided to get his jollies from humiliating a woman, which has elicited a number of responses at the bottom of this related article on Comment is Free ranging from:

- "Damn right. Why is casual sexual assault acceptable? Are we still living in the Middle Ages?"

- "The bloke was a d*ckhead but let's not get too bothered about it. Worse things are happening in Darfur." *

- "I am a bloke and I get my arse pinched sometimes by WOMEN! I think it's immensely flattering and she should stop moaning." **

- "She's a rough old minger and should be grateful for the attention, the silly b*tch."

For a real treat, have a look at some of the comments below the YouTube posting:

- "the woman is damn ugly it's proly the first time somthg like that happens to her, she 'd better be happy won't happen again lol... look at her...and that is supposed to be an assault LoL"

- "Woman like such. It gives her the feel her ass is worth something. but in these days of feminism and emancipation every cheap bitch is a wondergirl with the personal rights of a queen and she has to show that. i want back the good old times, sigh."

- "That was so cool. She loved it!" (ah! That old classic)

- "Hah, nice. It's great that she doesn't even react but of all people why would he want to pinch HER ass?"

Beautiful.

Anyway, I was thinking about women in this new meedja thang on the back of a survey Iain Dale did a couple of weeks ago on his readership demographic which turned up that only 14% of his hits came from the female of the species.

A significant percentage of his commentators think that this is due to the fact that "most women aren't interested in politics", but perhaps the real reason is that whenever one of them pokes their head above the parapet, they get subjected to a barrage of "friendly fire" low level sexual harrassment which can be handily dismissed as "just a joke"?

Remember the Melissa Kite Affair of Insufferable Tedium, where Dale fisked an admittedly piss-poor article by Kite? She hit back with this. Whilst Dale was, in time, proved right on the substance of Kite's initial musings what was unacceptable were the comments about what various commentators would like to see a "real man" do to her. Nice.

I probably wouldn't want to be a woman in politics or the media either if everybody assumed that, just because I was in possession of a vagina, I was simultaneously fair sexual game and automatically wrong on every issue I chose to expound on.

Just a thought.


Occasional political dictionary

* "Why should we bother with X when Y is happening and it's so much worse?": This is the "why should I tidy my bedroom when the world's such a MESS?!" approach to political discourse.

This theory holds that no one should attempt to do anything about anything at all, because there might well be something worse going on in the world that we need to address instead. Whatever this might be, however, I won't, because my philosophy doesn't extend beyond my armchair and I can't be bothered.

Still, it's a good way of deligitimising an argument without addressing it.

** This happened to me and I wasn't bothered: My opinions, unlike yours, are universal in their scope and encompass ALL human experience.

Spartacus on the chicken run?

It has been brought to my attention by an Independent reader (not a paper I can usually stomach myself) that rumours are circulating that George "I am Spartacus!" Galloway (c623 here, hat tip Comrade M.) is about to demonstrate in what esteem he holds his constituents of Bethnal Green and Bow.

A brief recap: Galloway ousted sitting Labourite Oona King in the election of 2005. Since then his major successes on behalf of "Respect" have been:

(i) turning up to only 823 (12%) divisions ranking him 600th out of 639 MPs only marginally above Tony Blair (9%) who at least had the excuse that he was away running the country at the time (hat tip).
(ii) dressing up in a leotard and mewling like a cat on national television.
(iii) getting expelled from the House after a lengthy and largely incomprehensible rant about "Israel" stuffing the Standards and Privileges Committee, and managing to crow-bar in the phrase "spunk loving sluts" into his rant - shurely a parliamentary first.

Nevertheless, the first interview he did after his election was with Jeremy Paxman in which the latter was so awful that (at least temporarily) I felt on Galloway's side. Nice one, Paxo!

Moving on to present day, according to the Independent, Galloway has now revived speculation that - after such a sterling performance in East London - he's going to attempt to transfer his "talents" to Blackburn and stand against Justice Minister Jack Straw (whose constituency office presumably comprises, er, "Caesar's legions" - c623 again).

One can only admire a man who - as soon as things get a bit tricky - goes on the chicken run to an area he conceives of as an easier electoral prospect prospect. Sir, we at the BBF salute your courage and indefatigability!

I'd like to conclude with the immortal words of Stephen Pound MP, as he addressed Conservative David Amess across the House after the latter's desertion of Basildon just before the 1997 GE: BWAAAAARK, cluck cluck cluck cluck!