Category: News and politics

I see that the joker Harry Phibbs is back to lend his support to the disgusting idea that Margaret Thatcher should be given a State Funeral. You can tell that I don’t agree with that.

 

I think I’m more in line with the surreal thoughts of Steve Bell on this one. His current series of If… strips playing upon the idea of Gordon Brown as Heathcliff and Margaret Thatcher as an evil zombie are closer to the mark of the respect that I feel for her.

For the life of me, I can’t understand what is misleading about this description of Berlusconi. Spot on, it seems to me. Even more astounding is that the White House, under this administration, got it right for once and told the truth. No wonder they felt the need to apologise. 

As Johann Hari says, oil-slick politics in the UK are not good. They will poison the body politic.

I think Chris says everything that I feel about Ken Livingstone’s service to London.

Londoners go to the polls today to choose their next mayor. While Ken Livingstone is up for re-election, his main rival for the post is Boris Johnson. Astoundingly, Johnson may well win, according to the polls. This, in my opinion, will be the equivalent of having a lunatic running the asylum. Just how bad it will be can be seen in this hatchet job on Johnson written by Zoe Williams in today’s Guardian. As the title says, be afraid, be very afraid.

I find it strange that a rare honesty from a politician, telling the unvarnished truth, is likely to count against him. But then, this is the US Presidential race. Why should I expect normality?

When I saw and heard President Bush justifying the use of torture and citing the families of the London 7/7 bombings as a rationale, I wondered how long it would be before Rachel responded. As I expected, she is not impressed. Bush is beyond contempt.

I signed a petition today. I find the very idea that Tony Blair might become President of Europe obscene in the extreme. 

I did rather like this, in a bittersweet sort of way. Bowie’s song always takes me back to the hormones and the time that forged me, and this reworking, while at one remove makes me realise the power that everyone has through software editing these days, at another makes me realise that never a truer phrase was spoken than: plus ça change…

 

   

It wouldn’t surprise me if this turns out to be prescient.

 

Update: Back from the grave. Excellent. It’s clearly not over until the fat lady sings.

I think that this cartoon by Martin Rowson sums up my feelings about Blair and his faith pretty well.

A quite staggeringly stupid thing to do – lose two CDs containing the bank details and national insurance numbers of 10 million individuals. Diamond Geezer imagines the likely outcome.

Today, while rummaging through the bran-tub that is the Web, I came across two stories that made me pause and reflect. The first is Peter Wilby’s review of John Simpson’s autobiography: Not Quite World’s End in today’s Guardian. I like John Simpson. Probably more pertinently, I trust John Simpson. When he speaks, I tend to listen, and find his words meaningful.

 

Now, Wilby’s review points out some of the more sentimental and woolly side of Simpson, complete with some potentially rather un-PC sexism ("Fatherhood – and we perhaps shouldn’t inquire too closely into why two daughters from an earlier marriage didn’t have this effect – has "utterly" changed his view of the world, and particularly of war and death"). But still, the end result is that I continue to trust Simpson, and I’m tempted to purchase his memoir to read for myself.

 

That memoir, as Wilby says, apparently: "…combines meticulous reporting with attitude. Much of it can be read as an epitaph to the foreign adventures of the Blair era and, as such, it is fair, forensic and utterly devastating".

 

Which brings me on to Tony.

 

Unlike my attitude to Simpson, "trust" is no longer a word I personally could now ever associate with Blair. My response to him, from the halycon days of 1997 when I truly believed that Britain was poised to take a step forward, has been poisoned by his deeds and has undergone a complete volte face. Now, he is a "peace envoy" for the Middle East Quartet. yet his language at this event is hardly pitched to be diplomatic. Instead of working for peace he seems determined to pile up the bonfire for the conflagration.  

What in heaven’s name has happened to The Observer? This was once a quality Sunday newspaper. But today it carries what at first glance seems to be a serious news story about forensic analysis. However, Ben Goldacre points out the facts. The journalists in question, Mark Townsend and Ned Temko should hang their heads in shame. Disgraceful, truly disgraceful.

Today was the day when Queen Beatrix formally opened the Dutch Parliament. Prinsjesdag, as it’s called, is similar to the State Opening of the British Parliament – an excuse for pomp and circumstance, and a chance to hear both queens (Beatrix and Betty) lay out the plans of their respective governments.

 

We watched the proceedings on telly, beginning with the royal entourage processing in a variey of horse-drawn carriages from Noordeinde Palace to the Binnenhof (the Dutch Parliament buildings), and then watching the Queen’s speech from the throne in the Ridderzaal (Knights’ Hall).

 

What I really adore about living in the Netherlands is the way you get suckered into thinking that things are just the same as in the UK, but then something sneaks up on you and slaps your brain awake to make you realise that, no, they do things differently here. So there I was, watching the procession, with the gilded coach and the over-the-top liveries, and listening to the Dutch commentator droning on. And just as I was settling down to thinking how like the home-life of our own dear queen this was, I snapped awake as I suddenly realised that the commentator appeared to be giving medical histories of the Dutch Royal Family. Had she really just said that Pieter van Vollenhoven had been treated for cancer of the foreskin, and that while he would have regular checkups from now on, his doctors were confident that the treatment had been successful? Yes, I do believe that she had… Perhaps not so like the home life of our own dear queen, after all… 

Every country has its share of politicians who display signs of being either loons or would-be demagogues. Here in the Netherlands we have Geert Wilders, who yesterday called for a complete ban on the sale of the Qu’ran or its use in mosques. Well what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, I say, if you’re going to ban the Qu’ran, then logically you should also ban the Bible, which is also not short of toe-curling passages and injunctions to kill the non-believer. But, of course, the publicity-hungry Mr. Wilders and his sympathisers can’t see that particular beam lodged firmly in their eyes. A more measured response came from Afshin Ellian, advisor to ex-Muslim Ehsan Jami, whose beating-up outside of his local supermarket apparently initiated this wild idea from Wilders. Ellian pointed out that instead of banning the book, firmer measures should be taken against the radical imams and mosques that use the Qu’ran to spread hatred.

The Tripoli Six are freed. 

The BBC has recently been going through some public washing of its dirty linen, after being shown to be falling short of the standards set by Lord Reith. Quite right too.

 

But as Mark Ravenhill points out in today’s Guardian, the BBC has only been following in the footsteps of New Labour. It’s an excellent article and accurately skewers both organisations with the charge of stage management like beetles to a board.

The news that Boris Johnson has thrown his hat into the ring in the contest for London’s mayor has me staring into the abyss. Yes, he’s a celebrity darling, but would you want him to be in charge of anything more consequential than a stuffed toy? Red Ken may have his shortcomings (a blindspot for islamic scholars for one), but he seems to me to be a stronger candidate than Johnson could ever be. Still, when did the human race ever prove that its collective IQ was more than that of a lemming? Stand by for the outcome foreseen here. I have at least the distance. Thank the lord.

…who needs enemies? I know I’m coming late to this story, but I’ve finally seen the video of Mika Brzezinski refusing to lead with the so-called "news" story of Scunthorpe Motel (aka Paris Hilton) being released from jail.

 

While I knew that I would be siding with Ms. Brzezinski, until I saw the video I hadn’t quite appreciated just how sickened I would feel by the behaviour of her co-presenters. What a pair of absolute wankers.