Mr Eugenides

Straw Biggs himself up

2009-07-15T17:45:00.016+01:00

I hold no brief for Ronnie Biggs, let alone the anti-Iraq war brigade - there's an opening sentence for you - but I can't help thinking the FT's Sue Cameron is on to something here:

Sentenced to 30 years for the 1963 robbery, he escaped to enjoy 36 years of freedom, mainly in Brazil, before returning voluntarily to Britain in 2001. Mr Biggs, who was not involved in coshing the train driver, has now served a third of his sentence and was recommended for parole. He was due out this month.

Jack Straw, justice secretary, keen to look tough on crime, has refused to let him out because he is “wholly unrepentant”. This raises several questions. How repentant is Mr Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq war, about his mistakes?

No surprises there, of course; Straw is exactly the sort of greasy, careerist dickwad who would get his rocks off from striking bodybuilding poses over the prostrated body of an emaciated pensioner. But wouldn't it be wonderful if, just for once, our lords and masters were subjected to the same quotidian humiliations that they are so keen to visit on their constituents? Lie detector tests, on-the-spot fines, ID card checks and HMRC audits? "Repentant? No? Another month in the hole for you, then, fucknut!"

Nor does all the cuntwash have a purely Labour stench. I see that Chris Grayling - nominally, at least, a Conservative - is suggesting that antisocial citizens have their mobiles confiscated in order to encourage them to behave:

“If we are to deter potential troublemakers, the consequences they face have to be relevant to the lives they lead and to be immediate. Otherwise why would they stop what they are doing?” he said.

How very true, Chris. And yet almost every MP that has stolen from us intends to remain in situ until the next election, spending my money on vats of asses' milk from John Lewis in which to bathe their wives/diary secretaries, when in any civilised country they'd be breaking rocks in a fucking quarry under the watchful eyes of a horsewhip-wielding Klingon guard.

I've really had enough of these parasitical mouth-breathers. Words can't express my contempt, however hard I try. Time to cut our losses, people. Put out a couple of troughs of baked beans in the Commons canteen and make them sleep in rusting iron beds on a fucking Titan prison ship moored off the Isle of Dogs. I hate these people more than rotting broccoli.

The next election will be won on the playing fields of Eton...

2009-07-15T17:35:00.003+01:00

Art, art, absolute art from the Daily Mash:

PRIVATE schools could lose their charitable status if they keep producing members of parliament, it emerged last night.

Despite targets to reduce alumni who end up ejaculating taxpayers' money onto a rent boy's face, private schools are still failing to meet their 20% 'non-shit' quota, according to the Charity Commission.

A spokesman said: "The tax breaks are based on them benefitting their communities in a variety of ways, not just keeping chinless brats regularly sodomised for six years.

"Ultimately we have to ask if it's right that the country continues to subsidise the education of a steady succession of halfwit bastards who then go on to become heavily subsidised MPs."

According to the commission one private school in Hertfordshire has produced two home secretaries, one chief whip and two dozen back-benchers in the last 20 years. The spokesman added: "That's a staggering number of publicly-funded, soul-sucking ball-tuggers."

Testify!

Light posting, and lighting up in public

2009-07-14T16:38:00.003+01:00

Profuse apologies for recent light posting, which is due to real-world busy-ness and will continue for a few days yet, I fear.

In the meantime I commend to you this post over at Normblog, which contains a fascinating little vignette concerning the Dutch ban on smoking in public.

Oh, yeah, and on a similar note, this message to Gordon Brown from the Top Gear team, to which there is little to add.

(h/t to Counting Cats for that)

Marina Hyde: A big week in the death of Jacko

2009-07-10T10:53:00.001+01:00

The last word, I'd suggest, on the demise of the King of Pop. (If only...)

By now you will have watched your recording of the Staples Centre memorial at least seven times, amazed how much it still gets you when Janet rasps, "Speak up sweetheart, speak up," into poor little Paris's ear. As for Magic Johnson's eulogy, you will likely be wondering whether KFC got that many mentions at the funeral of Colonel Sanders. Please God he was on commission.

Amusingly, the Jackson memorial garnered rave reviews in the US, even though it was so hammy that it made Princess Di's funeral look like Gielgud's Hamlet. It comes to something when Tony Blair quavering out that passage from Corinthians would have raised the tone.

Needless to say, the general consensus was that it was "what Michael would have wanted", as though indulging his appetites had been a recipe for success thus far...

All right for some

2009-07-09T17:49:00.007+01:00

Look, I know he's come to deliver us from evil and all that, but really, Dave, sod off:

Tory leader David Cameron has defended expenses claims for his second home and said he would do the job for "half the money, twice the money or no money".

"Frankly, I love this job because I love doing public service, working for my constituents, trying to hold the government to account, hopefully one day leading a government."

Two things strike me about this vomit-worthy sentiment. The first is the rather obvious point that few of us are independently wealthy enough to do whatever we want in return for half the money, let alone nothing at all. Sadly, Dave, some of us still rely on a salary cheque landing in our bank accounts every month to make ends meet (though admittedly, thanks to the monocular fuckup in Downing Street, rather fewer of us than this time last year). I'm the last one to begrudge a man a healthy bank balance, but I'm not convinced that your PR people will be too keen on you reminding the proles that you don't need the fucking money they're forking out on you.

More to the point, though, am I the only one who's noticed that, for all the saccharine boilerplate about being in public service for the love of the job rather than the money, you don't, actually, do it for "half the money", or "no money", do you, you slapheaded ponce? You do it for all the money, just the same as everyone else. And you claim plenty on your expenses, too, don't you? £141,820 in five years, in fact. Not as much as some, but you're not exactly working pro bono, are you?

So spare us the hair shirt, please. You're a guy doing a job and you claim the remuneration to which you are entitled. If you keep telling everyone you don't need the money, eventually someone's going to start asking; why the fuck are you taking it then?

(h/t to Niall)

Rubbernecking in Helmand

2009-07-09T16:48:00.004+01:00

Funny the snippets you come across sometimes:

HELMAND - The blackened crater on the road from Goreshk to Lashkar Gah is enough to give anyone pause. Some pause to ogle -- the British MP in my armored vehicle was downright excited to be passing a strike site so large -- but others pause to shudder. The pit was big enough to swallow half a Volkswagen (or a whole Tata Nano), and it had claimed the lives of ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] soldiers less than a week before.

How charming. Personally speaking, I'm glad we're represented by the sort of people who get hard-ons looking at gravesites. Aren't you?

Jobsworth twats of the day

2009-07-09T10:56:00.003+01:00

Norwich Police:

Movie motor Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has been banned from a lord mayor’s procession — for not having an MoT.

Thousands of people were looking forward to seeing the famous flying car, but cops said they would not bend the rules. Spokesman Harry Mitchell said: “Our priority is the safety of the public and we cannot make exceptions.” [...]

Helen Selleck, the city council’s events manager, said: “Although the road is closed for the procession, it is still classed as a public highway and the DVLA is clear that all vehicles in the procession need to be fully covered.”

It's hard to get too exercised over a fictional flying car, of course - particularly since, lest we forget, it can't actually fucking fly - but as a vignette of modern Britain it's difficult to beat.

Someone, somewhere, should be hit repeatedly in the face with a mallet for this. I don't even particularly care who.

Iran solidarity

2009-07-08T15:02:00.002+01:00

As the situation in Iran rumbles on, it begins to fall off the radar of mainstream news coverage. For large sections of the British Left, of course, it was never on the radar in the first place; standing up for the democratic rights of the Iranian people marks you out as a patsy of the Zionist-imperialist war machine. Say what you like about the mullahs, so the argument goes, but at least they don't like America. The rights of ordinary Iranians is the sort of "collateral damage" that's not worth wasting too much time on.

For all those who are not infected by this kind of repugnant moral relativism, it is still possible to show some solidarity with Iranians, and for those in London there will be a manifestation of that solidarity on Thursday.

One imagines the Stop The War Coalition will be washing their hair.

The Babes of the BNP, interviewed

2009-07-07T18:16:00.003+01:00

Q: As a hypothetical solution to the immigration problem, what about dividing Britain down the middle, and using the left half for immigrants, and the right half for everyone else.

A: Sorry, I don’t get that. Am I’m being really thick? No. I don’t think so.

Joyful stuff.

(h/t: Comment Central)

Britblog Roundup #229: Bouncer Justice, Nadal's Biceps, Paul McCartney's Vegetarianism, And Nuptials Both Recent And Forthcoming

2009-07-06T04:22:00.013+01:00

Greetings one and all and welcome to the latest edition of the Britblog Roundup, which seeks to round up the cream of British blogging over the past week and, perhaps, introduce readers to new blogs they may not have been aware of. As ever, we thrive on nominations from readers to alert us to the good stuff out there - so please email your suggestions to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

The Britblog normally appears on a Sunday, but Messrs Federer and ~~Murray~~ Roddick put a bit of a dent in that plan. Alex Massie looks back at the greatest Wimbledon final since, well, the previous one.

At least we did not have the frankly unnerving sight of Rafa Nadal's biceps to distract us this year, though of course this may have been a disappointment to female viewers. But more normally it's the women at Wimbledon who are victims of objectification, as the F Word notes with disapproval. Writing at the same blog, and egged on by a particularly loathsome Justin Timberlake video, Laura Woodhouse has a good old rant about being a woman in a world dominated by men.

Moving sideways slightly to cricket, and Michael Vaughan announced his retirement last week. Got Him! That's Out! considers the career of one of England's greatest captains.

Charles Crawford pens some thoughts on e-diplomacy, the FCO's resistance to change, and what t'Internet means for the old question; "Who is my neighbour?".

Another former ambassador is standing for election in the Norwich North by-election. Craig Murray has some questions for his Tory opponent.

While on the subject of Norwich, it looks rather as if that is where the Apocalypse is going to begin. The Law West of Ealing Broadway has spotted a new scheme in the city which gives nightclub bouncers the power to levy on-the-spot fines for disorderly behaviour. Read that again. And then consider that the police gave them this power last October without any consultation whatsoever. Really, can you imagine a group of people in society you'd trust less with summary powers (except Labour MPs, obviously)?

Another group of people you wouldn't give any responsibility if you had the choice; vegetarians. Unmitigated England has some choice words for Sir Paul McCartney, and reminds us of Macca's justification for turning lettuce-muncher back in the 1970's:

"We were on the farm and we saw lambs gambolling and we were eating a leg of lamb. So it was a compassionate thing"

Twat.

Another of life's pleasures, at least at time of writing, is alcohol; but of course the ZaNuLab fascists are coming after your pint as well (© all libertarian bloggers everywhere). Writing at the Devil's Kitchen, the Filthy Smoker demolishes five myths about "Booze Britain" quite masterfully, and makes all right-thinking people thirsty into the bargain. Still on bloggertarianism, Longrider takes some pleasure in delivering a brutal kicking to the "childish, spoiled and delusional" protesters who hijacked a train to stop coal deliveries to the Drax power station. Personally I think the coal industry does itself no favours by naming its facilities after Bond villains.

Mark Reckons that, if the ludicrous Jeni Barnett's comments on MMR were within the Ofcom rules, then the rules are broken. Hard to disagree with that.

Liberal England considers the National Express fiasco and suggests they won't be the last train company to struggle.

River's Edge experienced a strange emotion last week; feeling sorry for Margaret Thatcher (pbuh). Not sure about the suggestion that socialists are nicer than Thatcherites, though; that will be pretty comprehensively disproved by the reactions on the day she dies.

But of course that will be many fruitful years from now, so let's think happy thoughts and try to put that out of our minds! Hard to imagine anything more quintessentially English than the parish church, and this is a particularly fine, if modest, example.

Mark Pack pens an open letter to the Electoral Commission. No, wait, don't go; it's more interesting than it sounds.

And finally this week, two nominations of my own. Dr Richard North has come in for some criticism on this blog in the past, so it is only fair to point out that while we fanny around calling ministers morons, he is doing superb and important work exposing the inadequacies of the vehicles in which our soldiers in Afghanistan are supposed to perform their duties - and, as he notes at Defence of the Realm, these shortcomings - which have cost more lives this week - are not principally to do with money, or at least not in the sense that superficial MSM coverage usually implies. A must-read.

And lastly lastly, congratulations are due to Chicken Yoghurt, who got married last month after wearing his girlfriend down with "fifteen years of pleading, begging and threatening suicide". By my reckoning, that means Ana Ivanovic and I will be hitched some time in 2023. Soon, Ana, soon...

North Korea launches blitzkrieg

2009-07-03T11:10:00.004+01:00

...an advertising blitzkrieg, that is, for Taedonggang beer, the DPRK's premium tipple. I can't speak for the brew, but methinks the advert's production values could do with a polish:

(h/t:BBC)

Quote of the Day

2009-07-02T11:59:00.003+01:00

Onwards, then, to the second glorious decade of Scottish devolution. Here's Iain Gray, Labour's Scottish leader (Gray, Brown - they're all named after boring colours), extolling the virtues of the pretendy Parly:

"Has it [the Scottish Parliament] made a difference?" he asked rhetorically. "Yes it has. When the Parliament started one in five children in this country lived in poverty. That's now one in three. That's significant progress."

Iain Gray is a mathematics teacher.

Ten years of devolution in microcosm

2009-07-02T09:45:00.001+01:00

So, ten years of the devolved Parliament in Scotland, and our elected representatives could scarcely have chosen a more apt way to mark the occasion.

MSPs have been branded "dishonourable" after almost 50 of them snubbed the Queen and stayed away from the parliament's tenth birthday celebrations. While Her Majesty shrugged off a slight cold to deliver an uplifting speech in the Holyrood chamber, many MSPs went on holiday and others found better things to do.

[...] Just 62 per cent of the 129 MSPs were there, with 48 missing... eight of the 16 MSPs based in and around Edinburgh failed to turn up. Instead, embarrassed parliamentary staff were hurried into the main chamber to fill seats left vacant by MSPs. [...]

Excuses ranged from being on holiday to constituency business, from moving office to family commitments. Some offered sick notes, while many others gave no reason at all.

Conservative Gavin Brown's wife gave birth the night before, while SNP MSP Stuart McMillan's wife was expected to give birth on the day.

Fair enough, and congratulations to Gavin and his wife. Not everyone, mind you, can claim a similar commitment:

One of the weakest reasons given was by Green MSP Patrick Harvie, who said he was moving his office in Glasgow instead. He was the only party leader to snub the Queen.

Pathetic, Patrick, pathetic. If you're going to indulge in playground republicanism, then at least have the minimal honesty of admitting that you don't want to indulge the monarch. I don't care for the SNP's Christine Graham, God knows, but at least she was open about not attending for political reasons. "Moving office"? Fuck you.

Another Tory, Liz Smith, is in charge of a school cricket tour, while Labour Lothians MSP Lord George Foulkes preferred to be in the House of Lords.

Of course he did; he gets paid to go to the House of Lords and sit with his equally overpromoted chum the Baron Martin of Springburn gorging his fat, florid face, no doubt, with cream pies and vat-sized glasses of sherry.

SNP chief whip Brian Adam – who decided to go on holiday to Argyll – instead complained that MSPs had only received two to three months' notice to make arrangements.

In reality they were told that there would be a special event on 1 July in October last year and had the full details at the beginning of April.

But Mr Adam continued: "This is a parliamentary recess and politicians are entitled to take holidays."

Because you need three months' notice to change your fucking travel arrangements to Argyll. Really, what a fucking shower.

How do these people expect a grateful populace to give thanks for ten years under their wise and benevolent leadership when they can't be arsed to show up themselves? Yes, very apt indeed. At last, albeit several years behind the curve, even our MSPs are showing the level of apathy that their constituents perfected long ago.

Come to think of it, can we not just get them to stay on holiday?

"A 0% rise"

2009-07-01T17:30:00.003+01:00

Having spent the past few weeks lying about what will happen to debt and public spending after next year, Gordon has now gone completely postal and started invented new mathematical concepts at PMQs today.

No, I'm not exaggerating:

There just aren't the words for this man.

Greek smoking ban: predictably half-assed

2009-07-01T14:58:00.005+01:00

Well, it's the day they said would never come:

Greece has introduced a ban on smoking in hospitals, schools, vehicles and all public places.

Those who break the new law face fines of up to 500 euros (£428), and businesses risk losing licences after several offences.

Needless to say, this being the old country, they've got the whole thing arse-over-tit. You thought your government was incompetent:

Just one day before Greece is due to introduce strict regulations to crack down on smoking in public places, in line with European Union law, the Health Ministry yesterday still had not issued the official decision explaining the obligations of bars and restaurants.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, after the Health Minister had partaken of a leisurely meal, enjoyed a long siesta and then spent five minutes having a really good, deep and satisfying scratch of his balls, the directive was finally released.

According to the new regulations, bars and restaurants larger than 70 square meters must create separate sections for smokers, while owners of establishments smaller than 70 square meters must decide whether to declare the premises exclusively smoking or nonsmoking.

That's correct, reader: the Greek way of "enforcing" a smoking ban is to force pubs and bars to choose either to force people not to smoke, or to declare themselves "exclusively smoking". And I'm proud to say my countrymen have not let me down:

The City of Athens yesterday said that it had received 400 applications from establishments smaller than 70 square meters for the special sticker that will establish them as nonsmoking premises. These 400 bars and restaurants represent about one in 10 of establishments of their size in Athens.

At a stroke, then, by giving out a few hundred no smoking stickers (which will be ignored in the vast majority of cases anyway), the Greek government has created a few thousand "exclusively smoking" pubs. Apparently this is known locally as the "cigar bar license".

What the fuck is an "exclusively smoking" bar, anyway? Are all the patrons required to light up or face expulsion? Can you be warned for slow toking? So now instead of having a city full of smoky bars, you now have a city full of bars who have to maintain a minimum level of air toxicity to keep up appearances. Great work, guys.

"Hey, Stavros, this guy's not inhaling!" "Where?"

Only in Greece.

Spectator vs Liar

2009-06-30T13:44:00.006+01:00

Go and read Fraser Nelson's account of what happened when he put up a post at the Spectator, [correctly] accusing the increasingly disgraceful Ed Balls of lying about debt and public spending on this morning's Today programme (below, about 7mins in):

Would that more journalists were willing to go on record with tales of bullying phone calls from shouting ministers.

Fraser's dogged pursuit of Brown's [and Balls'] Big Lie on the public finances over the past couple of months has at times verged on the heroic. As he notes in his post (once Balls has slammed the phone down):

If you're reading this, Ed (and I suspect you will be) then we have a serious point to make. Five years ago, you could lie like this on the radio and get away with it. Space is tight in newspapers, no one would devote hundreds of words and graphs - as we did - to expose a lie for what is. But the world has changed now. Blogging has brought new, hyper scrutiny. Blogs have infinite space, and people with endless energy, to expose political lying - no matter how small. Your claims can be instantly counter-checked, by anyone. If you stretch the truth, you can be exposed - by anyone. And if you plan to base a whole election campaign on a lie, as you apparently intend to do, then you're in for a rude awakening.

Seconded.

Feeling your age

2009-06-29T12:11:00.004+01:00

My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked. In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape...

- 13 year-old Scott Campbell road-tests a Walkman for a week.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find a quiet corner and weep.

Brown the Builder

2009-06-29T05:23:00.010+01:00

Christ Almighty, there's just no respite, is there? These witless fannies are still at it:

Local residents will be given priority over immigrants and people from other areas on council housing queues, Gordon Brown will announce as he attempts to relaunch his flagging premiership today.

In a shift in emphasis on public services which sees central targets replaced by new "entitlements", patients will also receive a legal right to hospital care within 18 weeks, along with free check-ups for the over-40s and guaranteed access to cancer treatments.

In addition, parents are due to receive a "statement of entitlement" telling them what they can demand from their child's education.

The Prime Minister's Building Britain's Future document is designed to underline Labour's continued commitment to public sector reform, which was seen to have drifted under Mr Brown in contrast to the enthusiasm of his predecessor, Tony Blair.

"Building Britain's Future"? Two questions present themselves, I suppose. The first is: Exactly what the fuck have you been doing for the past twelve years, you useless one-eyed flangewipe? It's rather like hiring builders to put a garage onto your house and watching them pull up, dump a pile of bricks on your doorstep and then fuck off for a fry-up. For twelve years. Only you paid in advance, because you're a moron, see? So you've got no leverage, no redress. These guys have cleaned you out like the sucker you are.

Which leads to the second question; why, having seen the pig's tit these people make of everything they attempt, would any right-minded customer entrust any building work to these cowboy politicos ever again? They hang around in your house for weeks on end cracking lewd jokes about your wife and acting like they own the place, they swipe anything of value they can find, and soil every surface they touch. As we speak, they're being investigated for fraud. But still they have the swingers to present you with another bill, three times the estimate, and hope you don't notice that they've put that garage on the fucking roof.

"Building Britain's Future"? Fuck off, Gordon, and stop wasting everyone's time.

Weighty issues of the day

2009-06-26T12:39:00.001+01:00

Fuck off:

Gordon Brown and David Cameron have both said they are "saddened" by the death of pop legend Michael Jackson.

The prime minister's spokesman said the singer's death at the age of 50, after he suffered a suspected cardiac arrest, was "very sad news" for his fans. "This is very sad news for the millions of Michael Jackson fans in Britain and around the world," a spokesman said.

Fuck off.

Mr Cameron said: "I know Michael Jackson's fans in Britain and around the world will be sad today. Despite the controversies, he was a legendary entertainer."

Fuck off.

UPDATE: Harry Hutton:

No display of ass-hattery will be judged excessive in the coming days. If Blair himself read a prayer at Jackson's funeral then led the congregation in an embarrassing dance, I would hardly wince.

2009-06-17T17:37:00.002+01:00

Your scribe will be off on further travels for the next week or so, and so blogging levels will be somewhere between Michael Foot and Gordon Brown until the end of next week. Τὸ γὰρ ἡδύ, ἐὰν πολύ, οὐ τι γὲ ἡδύ, as a wise man once said.

Signs of the coming apocalypse #285

2009-06-17T08:43:00.003+01:00

Dispelling a number of nasty national stereotypes, I can reveal that the Scottish National Athletics Championships are sponsored by... McCain's Oven Chips.

Quote of the Day

2009-06-16T16:40:00.000+01:00

PJ O'Rourke, mining a seam he's explored before:

The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale. ‘Jeez – 230 pounds!’ But we can’t pass a law making ourselves weigh 185.

And socialists and fools – to the extent that there’s a difference – think we can.

The revolution will be blogged - and Twittered - but perhaps not televised

2009-06-16T12:55:00.006+01:00

The situation in Iran grows ever tenser; there may now be a recount of sorts, though it's not clear whether they'll be any more interested in counting the actual votes than they did first time out. Furthermore, the regime is clamping down on foreign news reporting in an attempt to cut off the flow of disturbing images from the streets of Teheran and other large Iranian cities.

The MSM's coverage of recent events in Iran has been somewhat uneven, reflecting in part the lack of interest in news stories which can't easily be packaged or explained to viewers in under 20 seconds, as well as the aforementioned restrictions on reporting, which make it difficult for even the John Simpsons of this world to bring us the full picture on what's happening.

But to an extent it has also brought into sharp contrast the limitations of the mainstream media. Even the BBC which, despite its myriad shortcomings and much-documented biases, remains the best source of international news coverage (Sky News is a far better channel, but cannot match the BBC's breadth and depth of foreign correspondents around the world) has occasionally been shown up as slow and cumbersome compared to some elements of "new media". Bloggers like Andrew Sullivan have been must-reads in the past few days, providing rolling real-time news updates and analysis while the Beeb is busily editing TV news packages and ponderously double-checking every story before running with it.

And opposition protesters have been Twittering from the ground in Iran, a new development whose significance cannot be overstated. I've hitherto regarded Twitter as a waste of time - largely because I've finally reached the age where I cease to understand new technologies - but after this week, whatever happens, no-one can say that it is pointless. Indeed, the people at Twitter Central even postponed scheduled maintenance downtime yesterday so as not to cut off the flow of information from Teheran. The world is changing, 140 characters at a time.

It would not do to get too misty-eyed about Mir Houssein Mousavi, the opposition leader who most observers believe picked up the majority of the popular vote. He may be a "moderate" and a "reformer", but that's compared to Ahmadinejad, which is hardly setting the bar all that high. From reading some columnists you'd think he was the love child of Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, but don't be fooled; Mousavi is a man of firm views on everything from terrorism to Iranian nuclear ambitions, and is no friend of the West.

But that's not really the point; if democracy is to mean anything, after all, it includes the rights of people to elect leaders we don't care for. Rather, we should take the opportunity to show solidarity with the ordinary people of Iran, who may just be seizing this "election" as the moment when they stood up and demanded the right to be heard. It's a rare moment when both right and left in the West can come together and find something to agree on - though needless to say the EU's statement recognising Ahmadinejad's "victory" was pathetic, and there are the usual suspects on the far left ("the counting was awesome") who would rather see the fanatics remain in power, since they're anti-American fanatics.

There's not a whole hell of a lot we can do, of course; and blogging about revolution from an armchair with a cold beer in your hand comes perilously close to being the very definition of narcissistic, hand-wringing circle-jerkdom. But those of you who are technically minded might consider setting up a proxy to allow Iranian bloggers to liveblog or tweet through the government's firewall. That would be a small but real contribution.

It would be nice to think that this might be the first generation of Iranians who actually had the chance to determine their own futures. It's hardly necessary, sadly, to add that the odds are very much against it.

[Unintentionally?] homoerotic political analysis of the week

2009-06-16T10:25:00.002+01:00

Times:

For more than a decade Peter Mandelson was involved in a love triangle with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They were, he says, the two and a half musketeers - “I was the half” - and all too often their swords were pointing at each other.

I'm sure they were.

A Clip For All Seasons

2009-06-14T16:33:00.004+01:00

It seems to be a perennial bloggertarian favourite, so let's break out the actual clip for everyone's delectation. Always a pleasure to watch the peerless Paul Scofield at work.

If you haven't seen this film, really, you should; it's terrific.