Public Interest.co.uk

I don't know what's happened to the Telegraph. Once it was a paper of repute. But look at this selection from the past week.

Max Hastings:

As you may recall I had certain reservations about this conflict. Not that I thought that anyone other than the Coalition would win. I know some commentators thought that the problem would be quagmire, Vietnam, the fighting spirit of the plucky little Iraqis, and all the rest of it. These weren't my worries, however, as it seemed to me that the overwhelming superiority of the American military would soon put a stop to all those pitchforks and bayonets. It seems I was proved right.
No, my worries concerned the post-war discussion which has only just begun. I know Rumsfeld and his band of gung-ho right-wingers see this as a 'to the victor the spoils' situation and that, seeing as the French and Germans made absolutely no contribution to the victory, they should have no contribution to make to the peace. This seems to me to be short-sighted.
Here at last, I would hazard is an opportunity for bridges to be built. Specifically those bridges between Europe and the US. One senior diplomat said he thought the UN should have nothing to do with any of this. Kofi Annan, in his colourful phrasing, 'couldn't organise a crap in a lavatory'. I thought this grossly unfair. I 'countered with the example of Bosnia, and the outstanding behavior of the UN in that little conflagration.

Armando Ianucci:

This war isn't over. Nor is the Stop the War Coalition. It will take more than the end of the war for us to stop.
Face it: if the war was wrong on Wednesday then it's still wrong on Thursday. And it doesn't matter if Saddam had thrown in the towel the moment Bush announced the war had started. Or taken an early Ba'ath. It doesn't matter if no one had died, let alone the millions of Iraqis who are now starving and dying of thirst; nor if the allies had found a million gallons of anthrax, which they clearly didn't have or Saddam would have used it by now. And if he had had it, Blix would have found it all eventually, anyway.
But this is a war Bush had always wanted, and together with Blair, nothing was going to stop them. Except us. And maybe we still will.

Vicki Woods:

All the models I know are in a frightful state, and I bet you know why. I popped over to the Vogue offices in L.A last weekend, and instead of the usual talk of J-Lo and cellulite, it was all about G.W.B. and Iraq. Instead of MTV blaring out like a foghorn, all the tvs at the gym were tuned to CNN, and all the girls were glued to it. Instead of drooping bums, all the conversations was about dropping bombs.
Just because they like to take their kit off for vast amounts of sponduliks, people like to caricature models as thick and dumb - jealous, I suppose - but you could get more sense out of these girls than from the whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party. And social consciences to boot. This is a war none of them wanted, believe me.
The peace movement just caved in, but the models didn't. No, they were all very angry, and there was talk of organising a whip round. Someone even went so far as to suggest that each girl ought to sell one of their black Versace top to pay for a casket for a poor little Iraqi baby killed at a checkpoint.
Still, there are compensations, aren't there? Some of those soldier chaps look awfully fit, don’t they? I wouldn't mind one of them sticking their rifles into my tent on a cold desert night. Makes it all worthwhile. Almost.
Actually, it makes my blood boil, and being so facetious is the only way I have of keeping sane. I am agin this war, and the more it goes on the more blooming narked I become. If it weren't for the dry martinis, I think I'd have gone overboard.
Three cheers for George Galloway!

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:

The bureaucrats never sleep. Many over Europe will be regarding with envy those Iraqis who are now preparing to embrace their liberators. When will the Americans fly into the main cities of the EU to liberate them, they will be wondering? For, if Tony Blair and his friends in the Council of Ministers have their way, the seldom-mentioned Directive C5 7863 (ii ) of the new European Constitution will actually make it a criminal offence to urinate within five hundred metres of an abattoir.
Of course, this is all being carefully presented as a health measure, but these Eurodirectives have a way of getting under the skin and upsetting a way of life settled for decades. On Continental Europe no one ever pays a blind bit of notice to them. But in Britain? If only.

Boris Johnson:

"Blair's played a blinder, eh, Boris?"
No, this wasn't just another comment from some New Labour lickspittle. No, this came from a former minister. A former Cabinet Minister. A former Tory Cabinet Minister. Well, it even stopped me in my tracks.
But think again, old chum. The way I see I, this is the apex. There's only one way to go now, for old Tony, and that way is down. National Insurance has just gone up, the health service is in an even worse state than when we left it, sixty percent of all school-leavers are so illiterate they can't even read the instructions on their packets of condoms, and crime is not so much spiralling as sprawling. I can't even get insurance for my bicycle.

Zoe Heller:

You can't say Americans don't have a sense of humour. Specially New Yorkers. You'd think, only 18 months after 9/11, that they'd all be a bit sensitive about the subject, but the latest fad here, among the single girls I know who live in the Upper West Side, is spending the night with a male prostitute. And not just any guy. He has to look like Saddam Hussein. That's right. All my girlfriends want to have their evil way with the Evil One himself.
Yes, I know there are plenty of lookalikes out in Iraq, though I don't envy them one minute, but here in Manhattan, any greasy Arab with a thick walrus on his upper lip can earn up to 800 bucks a night, making love to his pick of some of the horniest girls this side of the Eastern Seaboard.
Talk about weapons of mass destruction! And it's not just five minutes of pash with the Great Dictator. No, we're talking the whole bang-shoot: torture chamber, rack, whips, and electric shock treatment. And that's just foreplay.
Sick, no? But done with a certain, ironic post-modern sensibility, I can't see the harm. On the other hand, I can't see the attraction, either. But each to his own. After all, I mentioned this to an old boyfriend of mine while we were having breakfast at Sardis the other day ( him five rashers of bacon, two eggs, four pieces of toast, me a lettuce and two tomatoes ), and he told me that while we'd been going out he used to taxi off every Thursday lunchtime to some lady down in the Bronx who used to dress up as Imelda Marcos and stomp all over him in gold-plated stilettos. No wonder I dumped him.

WF Deedes:

People talk a lot of tosh about chemical weapons. I remember, back in 1915, when I first came across the wretched stuff. This was in the days before the internet and I, as a young cub reporter, had to send my missives from the front line back to the Telegraph by carrier pigeon.
I was especially fond of dear old Dolores. Anyway, it was a dull day at Ypres and I'd just penned some ramblings about how dashed boring war can be, and stuck it into the metal ring on Dolores' foot. I managed to persuade Bunny Grosvenor, who was a freelance stenographer working for the Port Merion Evening Gazette, to take the pigeon off into no man's land to give her a good send-off. Well, five minutes after Bunny had strolled off there came a plume of yellow gas. At first we all thought it was something he'd been smoking, maybe picked up from one of the dens in Shanghai he used to frequent. But take a deep breath of it! Let's just put it this way: you didn't want to have eaten your lunch just beforehand.
Still, it didn't do me any lasting damage. And I'm sure our young people, all very robust and with far better diets than we ever had, will be able to take it well.

Janet Daley:

This is almost certainly the end. And it isn't just Saddam Hussein who is quaking in his boots. No, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Shroeder, and Chris Patten are all, in their various differing ways, finished. The UN, the EU, the BBC and all the rest in the alphabet soup of liberal democracy are stewing in the cesspit of compassion, the flailing remnants of the permissive society which, formed during the Sixties - that pernicious decade that elevated peaceniks and pop singers to the status of gods - is finally drawing to its well-deserved death.

Irvine Welsh:

The only Chemical Ali I ever knew was a five foot two lad from the Gorbals, so unless he's thrown away his CND badge and converted to Islam I don't suppose it's his body the Coalition have found out in Basra in the stinking Iraqi desert. No, when I first met wee Alastair McTavish he'd just come back from a six week holiday in Morocco. I remember going round to his place for a cup of tea one afternoon, and the next thing I knew we were out on our mopeds, with Steppenwolf playing on our walkmans, half way to Edinburgh Castle. Cycledelic or what?
It took me another fortnight to get over the high but it was worth it. I hadn't felt that good since tearing down the goalposts at Wembley, and I wasn't to feel that good again until Tommy Sheridan got elected to the Scottish Parliament. The seventies, eh? What a time.

Anne Robinson:

Saddam Hussein, you're the weakest link. Goodbye.

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Incidentally, I forgot, but always try and link to this discussion between Richard Littlejohn and Will Self, whenever I mention the latter. I heard the last couple of minutes of it. Cracking radio. I actually think Self came out of it pretty well, as did Littlejohn who jumped in swinging punches from the first bell. Honours even, really. Maybe they should have a rematch.

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SAVING DEBORAH ORR

Starring Renee Zelwegger and Hugh Grant

She was a blonde bimbo, he was a lanky heroin abuser. But when Will Self realised that Deborah Orr was wasting her time writing recipes for the Bishops Stortford Citizen he knew he had to save her.

It's a thrill-a-minute high-octane testosterone-filled adrenalin rush about what really happens when you fall in love. Coming to a cinema near you, Soon.

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Sorry about the exiguous nature of my recent postings but I've been busy contemplating the future of western civilisation. Back on Monday.

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When Richard Littlejohn takes on George Galloway there is always only going to be one winner.

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"Whenever I hear the drums of war I reach for Barbara Tuchman", Simon Jenkins reveals. Well, lucky old Babs, I say. Whenever I hear the drums of Simon Jenkins I reach for my sickbag.

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I guess it's that time of year. I think Hamish might prove more useful for sweeping for mines than the dolphins, anyway.

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Now, the third in an occasional series. I'm feeling lazy today, and seeing as I know so many of you live abroad and haven't subscribed to the Times I thought it might be time to bring you a taster of what they've given you this week. All this is yours, for a mere forty smackers a year. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the Times:

Matthew Parris:

I don't know if you're aware that both Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were gay. Further, they were gay together, as it were. Indeed they set up home together, and lived happily for years until studio pressure forced them both into taking part in preposterous, faked, heterosexual unions that kept their careers going while ruining their chances of personal happiness.
Cary Grant, you will remember, was the sophisticated, urbane Englishman. Yet in reality, he came from Bristol, and had a working-class upbringing and accent, both of which he assiduously tried to destroy in order to perpetuate his smooth image.
Randolph Scott, on the other hand, was the ruggedly handsome Texan cowboy. I don't know if they had elections for that sort of thing, back then in Hollywood. But if they did, I fancy Scott would have stolen it. He had that sort of way about him.
Why, I wonder, do I think of them both, when I think of Tony Blair, and George W. Bush?

Libby Purves:

We were told it would be over in a week. We were told that there would be no civilian casualties. We were told that the Iraqi people would rejoice when they saw the Allied troops entering their country, that the people would throw flowers over the tanks as they rolled down the motorways. We were lied to.
George W. Bush and his loyal poodle Tony Blair must have thought we were fools. And we were, because we believed them. Those of us who had reservations about this war, who thought that the inspections were, for all their faults, actually working, yet who decided, once the action had started, to keep their doubts to themselves, bite their tongues, and back the now laughably entitled 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', have been made out to look like gullible twits, whereas Robin Cook, Tam Dalyell and the Archbishop of Canterbury have been made to look like visionaries, people of profound moral stature.

Simon Jenkins:

This is not a sensible war. If Tony Blair knew anything of warfare, if indeed he knew anything about history, and more specifically the history of Mesopotamia, he would know this would be no cakewalk.
I did indeed warn him that the Iraqis would be no pushover. To say that they enjoy being persecuted would be an overstatement. No intelligent Iraqi enjoys seeing his baby have its eyes plucked out without an anaesthetic. And few of the peasantry would walk willingly into a plastic-shredding machine with any degree of equanimity. But the fierce, nationalistic spirit that we now witness fighting against the Western Coalition with such resolve has been severely underestimated by the Bush regime, who are ruled, remember, by a man who can't eat a pretzel and watch television at the same time.
Meanwhile, the one man who is enjoying this the most, is sitting in front of a video camera in a cave with his cohorts, planning his latest message to the rest of the Arab Street. I refer of course, to Osama Bin Laden.

Mary Ann Sieghart:

This is the nightmare scenario.
Remember him when he first walked into Downing Street? Smiling, bushy-haired and bushy-tailed, with a young family and guitar. Now, Tony Blair appears gaunt, his features chiselled, ashen-faced, his cheeks sunken in, his brow furrowed, his hair greying when it is not receding; this war, and its attendant difficulties have aged him fast. Senior colleagues tells me he lost at least a stone since it started and can hardly sleep, staying up into the early hours, flicking aimlessly between the news channels, a glass of Dewer's whiskey in front of him, hoping against hope for a phone call from across the Atlantic telling him that Baghdad has finally fallen.
Indeed one cabinet minister, who preferred not to be named, grabbed me by the water cooler the other day and told me that things were now so bad that, ever since the Prime Minister had failed to secure a second UN resolution, that he has not even been able to perform his marital duties. And when that happens Cherie gets angry, and believe me, I was assured, 'You don’t want to be near the crockery when that happens'.
This is a Prime Minister standing on the very threshold of the abyss.

William Rees-Mogg:

I think that the time has come to appraise the military situation. It looks to me that the difficult part is now almost over. With the troops a mere fifty miles from Baghdad, I predict, indeed expect, the war to be concluded within a fortnight. However, I would hope that this does not mean that the Allies have fully ruled out the prospect of opening up its rich nuclear arsenal. At this stage in the conflict, a carefully targeted nuclear strike on Baghdad would finally finish off the small pockets of resistance that lie in caves and crawl on rooftops, and might very well kill off the Arab tiger once and for all.
Of course this would be an act rife with potential pitfalls. Aside from the nuclear fallout, which would indeed be immense, there would also be the political fallout. What would Jacques Chirac think? How would the Russians react? What about the UN? Would this not come into conflict with the august aims of the Geneva Convention? Possibly, but it would also contain the element of surprise, and prove, once and for all, that George W. Bush, who I know intimately, means business.

India Knight:

This is no liberation. Liberation for me was the Sixties. Walking down Carnaby Street in a miniskirt, with the Beatles on the tranny, while blokes on building sites gave you a wolf whistle. Sexist? Sure. But at least it was fun.
What's going on in Iraq is not fun. Being shot at by a bloodthirsty Yank is not my idea of fun. Sitting in a market in Baghdad nursing a baby whose eyes have been eviscerated by a pair of cruise missiles, personally autographed by George W. Bush? That's not much fun, either.
These people aren't terrorists. They're errorists. They made a mistake. So? Does that mean they deserve to die? Hasn't George Bush ever made a mistake? Hasn't Tony 'Millennium Dome' Blair ever made a mistake? Look at our health service, our schools and our roads.
And to those who say, yes, war is terrible, but what is the alternative? I say to you: Yes, there is an alternative. Peace is the alternative! Caring is the alternative! Food is the alternative! Jobs are the alternative!

Mick Hume:

If there is one thing more pathetic than the sight of those weary, oh so 1980s peaceniks wandering through Oxford Street with their stupid, self-advertising slogans - Not In My Name, indeed - then it is the war-mongerers. Those armchair generals, sitting at home, watching Sky News, and cheering all the while as plucky little Tommy and GI Joe blow seven shades of faecal matter out of the desperately underarmed Iraqis.
What a feeble, inadequate nation this is: Britain, in all its post-imperial, post-Diana emotionalism. A clapped-out washed-out country of victims and losers, caught between the socialist platitudes of the European ideal, and the fatuous cowboys now in control of the White House.
Why doesn't everyone just grow up?

Anatole Kaletsky:

I hold no brief for Saddam Hussein. The Butcher of Baghdad, the man who has killed more of his own people than anyone since Pol Pot has few defenders. But then again, neither do I hold any brief for George W. Bush. That is a man, in case you had forgotten, who, with the help of seven quisling Supreme Court justices, stole the election from Albert Gore, and who has since embarked on a trade war with Europe. He has alienated our closest allies France, cut US taxes to the point that the whole economy is in freefall, and walked roughshod over civil liberties to the extent that the few who dare to raise their head above the parapets, like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky, have had to move to Canada.

Patience Wheatcroft:

Robin Cook and Clare Short make an improbable dream ticket. The former is the forensically-intelligent, if pulchritudinously-challenged ex-foreign secretary. The latter is the warm-hearted Brummie lass who speaks from the heart. And yet their combination of coldness and charisma, principle and opportunism, intelligence and stupidity could prove the ideal antidote to the Blair-Brown partnership that has run this country with such efficiency these past six years. And, if the unthinkable happened, and Labour panicked and ousted the Blair-Brown twosome from their perch, then both Robin and Clare are well-placed to succeed them.

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So long as they teach them cricket instead of baseball what's not to like?

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And if you don't believe me, here's a Telegraph leader on Cook. And here's one from the Times; both are even more critical than I am. And the Sun don't like him neither.

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Robin Cook, on the other hand, has finally lost it. The former Foreign Secretary and current Garden Gnome thinks our Boys should pull out now.

"This was meant to be a quick, easy war. Shortly before I resigned a Cabinet colleague told me not to worry about the political fall-out".

Well if he believed him then Cook should never have been in the Cabinet, not even to dish out the sandwiches.

"The war would be finished long before polling day for the May local elections".

It still might be. The war is only ten days gone and Robin the chicken is already fluttering around the coop like the fox is prowling around outside, instead of stuck in a bunker with half his arm blown away. I suppose this is how Cookie justified poking his secretary while his wife stayed home, peeling the potatoes: 'It isn't really adultery if it's over in thirty seconds'.

"I just hope those who expected a quick victory are proved right. I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed".

It ain't going to happen, Cookie Monster.

"It is OK for Bush to say the war will go on for as long as it takes. He is sitting pretty in the comfort of Camp David protected by scores of security men to keep him safe".

As opposed to Robin, who lives in a tent.
So this is Cookie's Heseltine moment. Unfortunately, he lacks Hezza's subtlety and panache. His argument isn't so much anti this war as anti all war. So he's redicovered his CND roots. Well, that may salve his conscience for sending troops into Kosovo without a UN mandate but it will do damn all for his electoral prospects. As a Tory I'd be delighted if he replaced Blair, but not even the numbskulls who make up so much of the Labour rank and file membership would be dumb enough to vote for a yellowbelly.
The guy's finished.

UPDATE: Well I said he was finished, but I didn't think he'd change his mind this quickly. Who does he think he is, Clare Short? Now, less than twenty-four hours after throwing up the white towel, Cook issues a statement to clarify matters:

"Now that the war has started it's vital that it ends in victory. There could be no worse outcome than one that lets Saddam Hussein survive".

An amazing turnaround, even for this chameleon. Clear as mud, eh?

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Some people are born pillocks, and some people have pillock thrust upon them. Matthew Parris, I am sure, is the latter. His besetting problem, I reckon, is always wanting to be ahead of the pack. This isn't helped by the more practical problem of having to write too much. If he only had one column a week, I can't believe he would waste it on nonsense like this.
The thrust of it is that Our Tone is ''unhinged'. Well I've been a bit of a critic of the PM in the past, but this is going too far.

"Mr Blair has stopped sounding like a career politician. He has lost the professional polish of a man doing a job, and developed that fierce, quiet intensity which, from long experience of dealing with mad constituents, I know that the slightly cracked share with the genuinely convinced. He has lost his feel for whom to confront, or when and where, and puts himself into situations (like the slow handclapping by anti-war women) which do not assist his case. Historians may point to Mr Blair’s private — but publicised — audience with the Pope as an early sign of a dawning unrealism about the perceptions of others. Did he this week stop for a moment to think what impression would be made on grieving parents by his wild-eyed suggestion (based on misinformation) that two British soldiers had been executed by the Iraqis in cold blood?"

Okay, so he's stressed. And when stressed he bullshits. So what's new?

"He keeps retreating into a hopeless, desperate optimism: another sign of lunacy. He seems to have promised the Americans he could deliver Europe, and told the Europeans he could tame America. There was scant ground for hope on the first score and none on the second. The belief that irreconcilables can be reconciled by one’s personal contacts and powers of persuasion is a familiar delusion among people who are not quite right in the head".

Yes, but he's always done that. You can say he was always mad, but I think it's absurd to say he's mad now. Still, I dare say if I had this many columns to fill I'd come up with crap like this sooner or later.

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So the French can win something after all.

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Greetings, moosef--kers!

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Of course, it would help if the comments section actually worked occasionally. If you don't know the answer you'll just have to be patient.

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WARNING

There now follows a joke.

Q. What time does Saddam have his dinner?

Answer is in the comments section.

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Today Richard Littlejohn tears into our useless police force, the useless BBC, and the Salford Shi’ite. I found the story on the cops arresting someone for performing a citizen's arrest particularly interesting. I wonder what would have happened had someone performed a citizen's arrest on them. We could have all joined in.

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This guy, the most arrogant person I have ever met, has died. I'm almost delighted to discover that he wrote a film that blighted my childhood, "The Best Pair of Legs in the Business", starring Reg Varney as 'an ageing holiday camp drag artist', it says here. Oh, how we laughed. Not.
I was a surly teenage then, and it didn't do much for my complexion or temper. I have instant recall for its mesmerising humourlessness. It also had a bloodcurdlingly sentimental ending. Foolishly, I denounced 'Love, Honour and Obey' as the worst film ever a few weeks back. But that disaster didn't send me into therapy, feng shui, and colonic irrigation. Also, I've never watched more than twenty consecutive seconds of Emmerdale, which considering that I have watched Eastenders, Coronation Street, Family Affairs, and even the odd five minutes of Home and Away must mean that my subconscious has still to excise the trauma. Maybe, now that he has gone off to that great Soap Opera in the sky, I shall live a serene and happy life. But I doubt it.

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Now I know why some were taken in by my mockery. Check this out from the Telegraph of all places.

"This is a man's war - for the moment"

says Alice Thomson.

"The Afghan war was the mother of all wars. It was very feminine; all about burqas, saving women from being brutalised by the Taliban, liberating little girls to go to school, letting widows work and teenagers wear make-up.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan urged feminists to help their cause. The war, with the help of Cherie Blair, became a mission to replace the Taliban with a regime where women weren't flogged to death for showing an ankle and children weren't left to die in refugee camps.
It was an emotional war. Pictures of American widows who had given birth months after September 11 shared space with images of Afghan mothers and babies crossing treacherous mountain paths. There were more female reporters. GMTV's Lara Logan discussed her make-up regime on the front line. In Kabul, American Vogue has sponsored a beauty school. A nail bar has sprung up.
A week into the second Gulf war and it is already clear that this is a man's war. The jargon is about pushing and thrusting, conversation revolves around weapons and gadgets, graphics and maps. Men debate whether they've just seen the biggest tank battle since the Second World War. Max Hastings writes about how this is a Boys' Own war.

How can you parody that?

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I've always had an off-on relationship with feminism, switching between condescending bemusement and outright contempt. This straddles the two. No, this is not a spoof!

"I do peace work".

Claims Mary Ann Maggiore, a 'history professor'.

"I organize groups against war. My grandmother did a different kind of "piece work". She sewed buttons on dresses in a factory. A penny a button, 1200 buttons a week for $12.00. She supported a family of four. She was a proud card carrying member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Because she did what she did, I have the privilege to do what I do.
I see clearly that I stand upon the shoulders of the women, including my grandmother, who went before me. Tonight I want to give a salute to some of them".

Yeah, me too. Now go polish your nails, floozy.

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Baghdad will be near impossible to conquer

Simon Jenkins explains. In which case I imagine it will have fallen by Monday.

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By the way, the previous post was a spoof. I did one last week on the Guardian, and thought it would be fairly obvious. I don't think even Joan Smith would be quite so crass as that, and as for Yazza... well, maybe.

Busy today, back tomorrow.

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And now, the Indy:

Joan Smith:

It's boys' time again. Boys and their toys. Boys and their weapons. We have B52s, MOABs, WMDs, and a whole lot of BS. Am I the only one to be sickened by the acronyms that act as duct tape for the bombs, the guns, the bullets and the death camps? It's not as if it's the men who suffer, who are the chief victims of this illegal war. It is, as always, the women. It's the women who are at the forefront of all the bloodshed, it's the women who have to carry the can and take the flak. Men built those rockets, those bombs, and the aeroplanes, but it is the women who lick the wounds, who wipe away the tears.

Terence Blacker:

These are difficult times for the liberal. For the conservative, the choice is easy. On the one hand there is George W. Bush, the illegitimately-elected, gun-toting, prisoner-executing bible-bashing oil guzzler from Texas. On the other hand their Saddam Hussain, the western-sponsored socialist who only ever wanted what was best for his people. For the liberal, for whom every issue has a millions shades of grey, there are the nuances, there is indeed, complexity.

Deborah Orr:

I remember May 1st, 1997 as if it were yesterday. Eighteen years of discredited Conservative rule. Was I naïve? But when I voted New Labour that day I wanted the government to build hospitals, not destroy them. I wanted it to look after the poor, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised. Not to bomb them. I voted Labour that day, and cheered when Portillo lost his seat at Enfield. I drank champagne at the dawning of a new era in British Politics of honesty and decency. And I have defended them stoutly. I have written a hundred articles proclaiming my faith in the Project, while the cynics said it would all blow up in my face. I was wrong. The cynics were right. For now, at last, the brutal, Stalinist mask of New Labour has been exposed for what it is: Blair, Bush's poodle, is in fact a Thatcher in sheep's clothing.

Adrian Hamilton:

America is a country divided. Check the latest polls. Yet if you were to venture to any of the universities, visit any campus and the scene is the same. I have lost count of the number of effigies of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore I have seen being burned. For this is the crushing of dissent. Americans are a paranoid, conformist nation. Much as they pride themselves on their supposed belief in diversity and the individual they are the champions of consumerism and the two-minute culture. This is the MTV generation, stupid, unquestioning, moronic. I am not anti-American - the easy glib retort by that is repeated parrot-fashion whenever one raises these issues - no, I love America, and I hate to see what this wretched war is doing to its people.

Natasha Walter:

This is no computer game played by a sulky teenager in the privacy of his bedroom. This is the obscenity of war, the hideous, ghastly pornography of carnage. We call ourselves civilised. But who is the more civilised here? People who live huddled together in caves, chopping of the hands of thieves and lopping off the heads of adulterous women, or those westerners who live comfortable, empty lives, surrounded by stereos and widescreen televisions?
Yet you'd never know from reading the papers or from watching the news, but there are other atrocities going on in the world. By the time you finish reading this sentence five Afghani children will have died of cholera, three of smallpox, and two of child abuse: the rest will have been blow to smithereens by the so-called dust-cropper bombs.

Philip Hensher:

It is eighteen months now since September 11th. How the world has changed. America had a chance that day to unite the world. Instead it has sacrificed all the world's sympathy, squandered that support. Now, any hesitant suggestion that all is not right with the Bush regime is met with a howl of outrage reminiscent of McCarthyism at its worst. Fratboy George W. Bush and that grinning bible-basher Tony Blair have led us a homoerotic dance, and now we are playing the tango.

Robert Fisk:

In spite of what the supine western media will tell you, life carries on in Baghdad very much as normal. Yes, there is the acrid, all-pervasive odour of stinking corpses, yes, there are the government buildings turned into a cocktail of rubble and molten glass, smoking like factories smelting iron in nineteenth century Lancashire, but still cars drive down the motorways, secretaries stand outside offices smoking cigarettes, and life, one way or the other, carries on.
Yesterday, I strode down my local street, and stumbled across a bar Mitzvah. This is not something you will see on Fox News, let alone the BBC, but believe me, there are plenty of Jews living here, happily rubbing along with their Muslim neighbours. This is the reality of modern day Baghdad.
Walk down another street, and there amidst the panoply of death I find a mother cradling a baby, long since dead, his face completely blown away by American cruise missiles. The rotting charred remains of the burnt carcases of a thousand Iraqi children fills the air.
There are no plastic-cutting factories in Baghdad, believe me, I have looked. I've been coming here for over forty years and the idea that the warehouses here are secret factories storing chemical weapons is too laughable to be taken seriously. But George Bush wanted this filthy, dirty war, and by God I hope he is happy now.

Donald MacIntyre:

Let us now consider the role that Jacques Chirac and the rest of the European Union might play in the post war reconstruction of Iraq. There are those who think that, merely because Chirac may have slightly overplayed his hand in the recent stand-off with Blair and Bush that he is dead in the water, a failed frog boiling away in the pan, ignorant of the ever-increasing temperature. But in the coming months that will be put in the right context, for there are bigger things at stake. In particular, what kind of electoral system will the Iraqis embrace, post-Saddam?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:

I am angry. You think you've seen me annoyed before? You don't know the half of it. And it isn't just me. I speak on behalf of all Britain's Muslims. People say to me, they stop me in the streets, and dare to ask how I can let my daughter stop going to school, and go on peace marches instead. Like I have any choice in the matter. Why, she knows more about what's going on than I do! People say that the young aren't interested in politics, that they are disenfranchised, disillusioned and apathetic. Well take a look at my daughter. Gone at last are the sensible shoes and blue skirt. Now she wears a combat jacket, she hasn't washed her hair in a fortnight, and has a tattoo on her backside saying 'Blix not Blair'.

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I suppose there are two roads to travel for your average paxophile at the moment. One, you speak gobbledygook. Two, you go paranoid. I guess it's all just a matter of temperament. Take Archbishop Catweasel, who today has a column in the Times. Last week he was against the war. This week he's... Well I ain't got a clue. If you want to read several hundred words of evasive flimflammery, here's the place. It's full of 'We must do this' and 'we must do that' stuff, and concludes:

"We have to pray that the risks consciously undertaken will be less costly than some still fear; that relatively swift progress towards a settlement will follow. We must get on with addressing some of the underlying weaknesses and moral inconsistencies that have led us to a situation where our leaders have concluded that we have no alternative to war. We must not easily travel that road again".

Compare and contrast this with the eminent linguist Noam Chomsky. Reading between the lines, it appears that the great man has reservations.

"At this grim moment, we can do nothing to stop the ongoing invasion".

Why not? Get on board the peace train. Or become a human shield. Go for it, Noam.

"But that does not mean that the task is over for people who have some concern for justice, freedom, and human rights".

Indeed not. Noam is thinking long-term.

"As for the outcomes, it will be a long time before preliminary judgments can be made".

I wish people didn't write things like that.

"It is easy to go on, and important to think these matters through, with care and honesty".

I really wish people didn't write things like that.

"There are two ways for Washington to respond to the threats engendered by its actions and startling proclamations. One way is to try to alleviate the threats by paying some attention to legitimate grievances, and by agreeing to become a civilized member of a world community, with some respect for world order and its institutions. The other way is to construct even more awesome engines of destruction and domination, so that any perceived challenge, however remote, can be crushed – provoking new and greater challenges. That way poses serious dangers to the people of the US and the world, and may, very possibly, lead to extinction of the species - not an idle speculation".

Sounds like a preliminary judgment to me, that.

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I know it's five days ago, and I never actually read it, but it seems that the day before war broke out the Guardian was actually advising Saddam Hussein to capitulate to those dastardly Americans.

"Iraq must surrender... It really has no other viable choice... Iraq's armies should simply lay down their arms... If plans exist to use chemical weapons, or torch the oil wells, or mount resistance under cover of civilian areas, or launch terror attacks, they should be aborted."

Did they really write this? Is this a spoof? Until Good Friday I have no way of knowing. However, the Sunday Telegraph is a paper of record, so I assume it really happened. Journalist Nigel Farndale expressed mild surprise at this, but one thing he misses out on is the mixed message this sends out to the Great Dictator. After all, if you were a much-misunderstood, some would say unfairly-maligned politician, recently returned to office by over 99% of your electorate, would you be happy to hand over your country to a bible-bashing, illegitimately-elected etc. etc. from Texas who is only after your oil? Or perhaps it was a brilliantly argued article, and that, by selective quotation, I, and for that matter Nigel too, have been outrageously unfair and exposed what was a superb piece of analysis to ridicule. In which case I apologise to the Guardian.
On the other hand, they must be mighty annoyed that such magnificent reasoning was ignored.

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Apparently Diego Maradona isn't a bloated has-been after all. In fact, he's a visionary foreign policy wonk. At least according to Hernan Etchaleco of Pravda, who confirms the former midfield dynamo's worst fears about the forthcoming US invasion of South America:

"According to analysts and several sources in the region, the new Washington's preventive war doctrine could be soon deployed in South America. The CIA and the Pentagon have two known targets and are currently working on them: Colombia and the "Triple Border" between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay".

I bow down to Senor Etchaleco's greater knowledge.

"Washington already has over 400 troops operating within the country. It is only a matter of time to see a larger force "securing" nation's natural resources".

I dare say there are a thousand Greyhound buses, poised on the Texas/Mexico border, just waiting for the greenlight from Washington.
Watch this space for further developments.

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You learn something new every day, even when watching Newsnight. George Monbiot pronounces himself with a silent t. Like he's French. Figures.

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Richard Littlejohn disses Robin Cook, The Florida Recount fanatics, the BBC - twice!, and sings the praises of the Greatest Prime Minister We Never Had, young William himself. He also takes exception to Clare Shortofafewbraincells:

"There are plenty of madwomen in politics, but Cabbage Patch Clare is the most preposterous. Just as I said last week, she’s never let her principles get in the way of her career. We are talking about a woman who gave her baby away so it wouldn’t interfere with her ascent of the greasy pole".

That's my kind of column.

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Bloated former soccer player - or should that be basketball player? - Diego Maradona has come out against the war, reveals Pravda. The lardbutted ex-midfielder disclosed his feeling to an Argie tv station, direct from Havana.

"Bush is criminal", explained the greasy wop. "People is outraged because this bully (George W. Bush) wakes up and says 'War, war, war' and nobody can stops him".

And Maradona are fat.

"They went now for Iraq, tomorrow they will strike on Colombia, then Argentina and Uruguay. They do whatever they want", he continued.

Today Iraq, tomorrow the world.

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As I am sure you only too well aware, today has been designated World Poetry Day and International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. And the boys over at Poets for Peace are going at it with guns blazing ( so to speak ). I've clicked over there twice today and a whole new slate have appeared since the first time. Creative or what? I think my favourite is this one:

"What times are these
When war has become a euphemism?"

But that's because it's shorter than the rest. This one by Lemuria is longer, and starts with this arresting image:

"Listless in despondency,
tear ducts sealed by the
desolate desert inside.

The sands of time slip through my fingers
while sanity is drained from my pores
like perspiration from a dry well
or blood from a stone".

Nothing beats a mixed metaphor. Or eight. Anyway, go over, read, contemplate, memorise. And thereby eliminate racism. You know it makes sense.

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I don't think our Paul would take too kindly to being deified like this. Especially by me. After all, I take a slightly different approach to Auntie Beeb. For example, in my humble estimation far too much airtime in this Clash of Civilisations is being given over to the peaceniks. I mean, once you've seen one teenage crusty in a khaki jacket and unwashed hair you've seen them all. And they are so inarticulate.
"War's terrible. How many more children must die?" and so on. All that sincerity and righteous pleading. Boring. Still, it can be a rich source of humour. Last night, some bloke with a very worried expression was being interviewed. Evidently his brother is still out there in Baghdad, acting as a human shield. No wonder he had a furrowed brow. When asked how he felt about this he responded that the government - and he meant the British government, not the Iraqis - "ought to be doing more to protect him".
Strangely, the interviewer didn't laugh.
Now that's professionalism.

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Well I'd never heard of him until this week, but this site is rapidly becoming a fan site for Paul Treanor. I'm grateful to reader John Farren for the link. Here our Paul intones about racism, journalism and the BBC. What rational person could disagree with the following sentiments?

"BBC journalists are racists. BBC journalists think that the lives of foreigners are of less value. It's that simple. This kind of racism pervades newspaper and broadcast journalism in EU countries.
It is time to punish journalists, for creating a climate of racism and hostility toward migration. A journalist is not some sort of sacred being, deserving special protection. There is no 'freedom of racism', and there is no journalistic freedom to be racist. The criteria for punishment can be simple: migration of poor people to rich countries is not wrong, and any journalist who campaigns against it should be punished. The penalties should be at least sufficient to reverse the effects. Any newspaper, for instance, which refers to immigrants as 'human sewage' should be closed - completely, permanently, and without compensation. Of course suppression of media hostility to migration is not, in itself, a solution to the problem of global inequality. However, it does seem to be one of the necessary first steps to a solution".

The guy's a genius. He should write for this lot.

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Fame at last! Noted Samizdata contributor Tom Burroughes gets a letter published in the Spectator, denouncing Gorgeous George.

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I was keeping this one for tomorrow, but then I go and check out Mr. Cinders, and hey ho, what do you know. He's gone and done him too, so I thought I'd better post it now for fear of accusations of plagiarism. Great minds thinkalike, or something. Anyway, whose is better? You decide:

David Lawson left a comment over my post below on Paul Treanor, saying that he made George Moonbat look like a moderate. He noted in particular, an arresting article about the role of art in the modern world. This struck me as a comment of almost Moonbatian hyperbole. Nobody could make Moonbat look like a moderate. And then, of course, I read the article.

"The poor, the weak and the oppressed do not speak in defence of art. The voice of art is the voice of privilege, and the privileged are the defenders of art".

He begins.

"Art is wrong because it is the past, because it perpetuates itself, because it is transgenerational, because it is culture, and because it requires the suppression of anti-art to exist".

Now, what makes Paul different from your average fruitcake is the way he is prepared to take an idea and run wherever it takes him. Logic makes its own demands. Moonbat, for example, would just rabbit away about how terrible it is that you could feed a small village in Africa for the price of a Titian, so what we need is some sort of Art Ombudsman to be appointed by the World Parliament. He'd type out the article, email it to Alan Rusbridger, then carry on chewing his muesli and forget about it. For Paul, this would be capitulation to the bourgeoisie. It's not enough for Paul to that people like art. What about the people who don't like art?

"Compare the lives of two twins, born in identical circumstances. However, one is pro-art, the other is anti-art. The pro-art twin can go to art school, or study art history. There is no equivalent for the anti-art twin: there is no school of art incineration. Great social pressure to accept art is applied to one twin. No similar pressure to accept art-destruction is applied to the other twin. Because art is a core value in all existing societies, the social and employment opportunities of the anti-art twin will be limited. It is also the pro-art twin who is more likely to be elected or appointed to political office".

St. Martin's College, clearly, should be offering PHDs in Picasso-burning. It would make the degree shows at the end of the summer rather interesting. Bit different from all those faux Tracey Emins, anyway. Amazing no one ever thought of this before, really. After all

"Being transferred into a cannibal society would be extremely unpleasant for most people. They would be forced to accept that something they abhor is a normal part of society - and that there is apparently no possibility of reform, since everyone accepts it as normal. Such is life for opponents of art, in most existing societies: they are surrounded by people who honour the abhorrent".

In fact, it's worse than that. Because for people like Paul,

"destruction of art is considered a crime, and a sign of mental illness".

I wonder why. Anyway, and so he goes on, for hundreds and hundreds of words, until his eye-popping, and some would say, remarkably conservative, if ultraviolent, conclusion.

"I propose that the United States of America should become a zone of art. The existing cultural preference in the USA for collecting art, (especially from Europe) should be expanded into a prime function of state. Art should be transferred from Europe to the USA, beginning with the art listed in national heritage lists, and with recognised European heritage. I propose as an initial step, the transfer of the Mona Lisa, the best known European artwork, to the USA. The Mona Lisa is old, and heritage. It is better, that the past should burden the USA, than burden Europe. All artists, and those who wish to continue employment in the art sector, should be transferred to the USA.
Any attempt at such a transfer might result in civil war, or even military intervention in support of art. However, given the fundamental opposition between art and iconoclasm, some form of violent conflict seems inevitable anyway".

It's historically inevitable, you see.

Come back, Moonbat, all is forgiven.

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And so, at last, it's the Big One. The Clash of the Titans. The Battle of the Giants, the one we've all been waiting for is finally about to get under way. Yes, it's India v Kenya in the Cricket World Cup Semi-final! Except it looks like it's going to get rained off and may never happen.

Yeah, all right it's not a great joke. But as some of you may know, I have given up reading both the Independent and the Guardian for Lent, and the right-wing press are being a lot cagier in their peacemongering now that it's started, so jokes might be a bit thin on the ground around here. There's going to be a lot of "By the time you read this" stuff from the thinkerazzis, and you really don't want that sort of thing from me too, as I know even less about military matters than I do about string theory. Suffice to say, for what it's worth, from my layman's knowledge of Just War Theory, I think this war is entirely justified.
Jonesy wrote a piece last night which pretty much sums up my position. Except, generally, when push comes to shove, I do believe in God. And I was never an eighteen year old Marxist. But I think you probably guessed that.

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Florida Recount/Vietnam Reference alert! All in the same sentence too, from a letter-writer to the Times, Professor Stephen O'Harrow:

"Brought to office by a minority of those who voted, an even smaller minority of those who could have voted, and less than a quarter of the total US population, the American Government is now about to take all of us into a war that bears the two major hallmarks of Vietnam: hubris and solipsism".

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My devoted reader, the delightful Ellie, advises me to go check out Paul Treanor for more idiotarianism. He's got some sort of connection with Indymedia, a bunch of weirdoids Damian Penny is always having a go at. Now, having read him, I can see why.

Our Paul is of the Moonbat school of writing. i.e. Crazed eye-catching opening sentences and headlines followed by deranged hyperbolic nonsense. Thus, in an article which I find myself worryingly sympathetic to he claims:

"I renounce my human rights, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations".

Basically, he's saying if rights can be given by the state, then they can be taken away. And then where would we be? Yeah. Okay. I'm with you on that one, Paul. But, of course, you can't actually renounce your human rights. It's not like carrying a kidney donor card. The government isn't going to take any notice. I suppose you could take the case to the European Court of Human Rights and argue that the decision to give people human rights is in fact an infringement of said rights, and lawyers could have a lot of fun trying to work their way of that paradox, but between you and me, Paul, it isn't going to fly.

Another article entitled "Why Democracy is Wrong", argues that it just isn't fair that racists and other people Paul didn't vote for sometimes get elected. There is also the equally moving "How Many people did Thatcher Kill?" which includes this passage:

"No investigatory tribunal has ever been established for the Thatcher period. No criminal procedure has ever been started against Thatcher, her ministers, or anyone responsible for implementing her policies. The British media ignore Thatcher's guilt, and treat her as a respected member of the House of Lords. That is a society which has closed its eyes: at least in Chile, everyone knows that Pinochet killed people.
It is a European problem, not a British one. It is not a crime in any EU state, to expose people to market forces, even if it kills them. Even if it kills millions of them. In a continent full of monuments, there is no monument to the victims of the market. If there was any widespread discussion of that crime, then probably a new category of historical denial will be created, in the style of Holocaust denial. And unlike Auschwitz, the free market is still in operation".

This raises a few practical problems that I really don't think Paul has got to grips with. I mean, once you start with Thatcher, who's going to be next? Milton Friedman? That bloke in Bethnal Green market from whom you bought half a pound of tomatoes? Do you know how full the prisons are, Paul?

And then there's a piece attacking the invasion of Iraq on the ground that:

"Colonialism was wrong first time round, and it is still wrong.
It is morally wrong for western powers to recolonise territory in this way, and their soldiers should refuse to engage in a war of recolonisation. British troops should refuse orders to invade Iraq, or to facilitate or support that invasion. A mutiny is the correct response to an order which is morally wrong, and which the political leadership refuses to withdraw".

But it's not going to happen, Treanor! Forget about it!

Our Paul doesn't like democracy, he doesn't like capitalism, and he doesn't like colonialism. And he doesn't like human rights. But he does like intrinsic moral rights. Well, as Meatloaf almost sang, one out of five ain't bad.

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Channel-hopping last night, after witnessing yet another stupefyingly inarticulate backbencher boring us to death with his fatuous views on the Iraq phenomenon, I came across a bizarre show on BBC4 called Dinner With Portillo. The format appears to be that the former Defence Secretary invites some wankers over for tea and biscuits and they all have a go at him. There was an American bloke - who I don't think was a wanker - who flipped his lid towards the end and told George Galloway that he didn't know what he was talking about. Jackie Ashley, the usually garrulous Guardian journalist, didn't utter a single word in all the time I was watching. No doubt shocked at the moronisms Mr. Galloway was enunciating. Benazir Bhutto was also there, looking rather beautiful I must say, and talking some sense. Rana Kabbani, also, who I hadn't come across since the last Gulf War. She's aged quite a bit, and is still bellyaching about Palestine. And of course, Galloway himself. He's not just a wanker, he's an ultrawanker. He's also quite mad. I thought all the crap he comes out was something the crowd brought out in him. A bit like Hitler, he loves an audience. But even over food in front of a mere handful of humans he came across as quite a fruitcake. 'I can't be anti-American, I am the world's expert on Bob Dylan' was his clinching argument. Very persuasive.
I suppose the serious point of the programme is to prove how sane Michael Portillo is, and how broadminded he is to tolerate such a lunatic. In this respect it worked like a dream. If only he got a hold of his ego he could still have a political career. It's there for the taking, if he just shut up a bit.

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"What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops".

It's the Cookie Monster, in another Florida Recount Reference Alert.

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Well, giving up stuff for Lent is supposed to be hard. I was in a library yesterday, noticed they had copies of both the Wanker and the Indy, and ignored them with the iron self will you have no doubt come to expect. I then came home and came across the good Dr. Frank, who reports that big beautiful bouncing Bunting had a madcap piece on Tony Blair yesterday. I can link to him. I can even link to the piece so that you can read it, but I'm not allowed to myself. Looks like you don't have to be stuck out in the desert to be suffering today. On the other hand, if I started reading it again, I don't think I'd do anything else. And there is a real world out there where people aren't going to start slaughtering one another. So all I can say is: Good luck to the lads. May the best man win. And a prediction: It'll all be over by Christmas. But then again there is a third hand: The third hand of the imagination. There is nothing after all, to stop me from imagining what is being said.

Gary Younge:

I sit here tonight in my New York apartment on 33rd street. Instead of the hip-hop junglist acid garage trance music that usually sounds from outside my window, all I can hear is the drumbeat of war. George W. Bush, not content with stealing the election of 2000, has set his sights on an even bigger prize: Iraqi oil. As a black man, I know this. For I am in touch with feelings that do not exist in your average honkie.

Madeleine Bunting:

So, Tony Blair has decided to trample all over democracy. Like a million men before him, he has decided to ignore the feelings of the throng of ordinary people who bitterly oppose this imperialist war of naked aggression. And it wasn't just the usual suspects. For on Saturday I marched, not just with socialists, liberals, feminists, and Europeans, but Jews and Arabs, blacks and gays, women and children, the disabled and the sexually liberated. Yes, middle England and the Outer Hebrides was there, united as one, in a scene not witnessed since last time I was at Glastonbury, sitting in a tent, listening to Primal Scream giving it large. And what does Tony say? Nothing, not even a sausage. This is New Labour in action. Arrogant, male, and hypocritical.

Paul Foot:

Today I can reveal who killed Hanratty. No, it wasn’t the Yorkshire Ripper, nor even the bosses of the Enron. It was, in fact, the oil-guzzling prisoner-executing Texan George W. Bush, together with his grinning sidekick and fellow Bible-thumping zealot Tony Blair.

Matthew Engel:

As the world stands on the brink of war, I find my mind turning somewhat trivially to the cricket World Cup semi-finals. Here I am, in the USA, the so-called sports capital of the world, and you can't even catch the games on any of the thousand channels available on satellite television. You can buy as much cheap jewellery as you like off the dozens of shopping channels, and listen to a thousand would-be Jimmy Swaggarts on the Christian stations, but cricket? Never. What is wrong with this country of fat, burger-eating, Starbucks drinking racists and rednecks, that they prefer baseball to the game of champions? Fuck, I want to go home.

Jackie Ashley:

This has been a bad week for women. We have been let down. And we have been let down by a woman. No, not just the dithering, pusillanimous moral grandstanding of Clare Short, but by another, even more significant viviparous personage. I refer of course to Cherie Yolande Tarquinetta Booth-Blair QC.

Hugo Young:

Robin Cook is a colossus. Short of physical stature, indeed some said he looks uncannily like a cross between the Archbishop of Canterbury and a garden gnome, yet today he towers over his former cabinet colleagues, pygmies all, like a zeus among men. This man, this giant, this forensically-intelligent genius - who can forget his clinical dissection of the Major government, caught in a satrap of sleaze, political compromise, and adultery?

George Moonbat:

This war is already over, and make no mistake, Iraq has won. Saddam Hussein has got George Bush exactly where he wants him. Over a barrel, and not just any barrel. No, this is a barrel of oil, with his butt in the air, ready for action.

Polly Toynbee:

As the rabidly xenophobic right-wing press condemn a million asylum seekers to a life of misery and poor pay the first thing to remember about Tony Blair is that, more important than anything else, before his fundamentalist if sincerely-held Christianity, his naive belief in equality of opportunity, and his passionate commitment to our European partners, he is, first and foremost, a man.

Fidel Castro:

Die, Gringos! Yanquis, go home!

Germaine Greer:

This is not a war about oil. This is not a war about blood. Forget all that male, patriarchal propaganda. No, this is a war, above all, about the penis. The penis of war versus the vagina of compassion. Not since I was sitting on the dunny on Bondi Beach, and a whole team of beer-swilling Collingwood footballers came in and gang-raped my great grandmother have I witnessed such bloodlust.

David Aaronovitch:

Her name was Daisy. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. Conway Twitty was playing on my dad's phonograph, and she was dancing the limbo. I was sitting fresh-faced in my starched shirt and tweed jacket, and had what I now recognize, with the benefit of science and of our more relaxed social mores, was an erection.

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IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!

Durra-da-dah
Durra-da-da-da
Durra-da-da
Durra-da-da-da-da-dah

Durra-da
Durra-da-da-da-da-da dah-da
Duddi-da-da-dah!
We're heading for Iraq ( Iraq )
The planes and the Yanks
Not even Jacques Chirac ( Chirac )
Can stop all the Yanks!
Unless he throws in the towel ( to Colin Powell )
Saddam is toast.
Will things ever be the same again?
It's the final countdown!

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Oh no! It's the Voice of the Moron, in another Florida Recount Reference Alert!

"We expected this from George Bush. Before he was even, fraudulently, elected the Daily Mirror produced an edition detailing how he had executed more people in five years as Governor of Texas than any governor in American history.
The guy likes blood".

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The good people of Birmingham are really getting into this one. Lot of Americans have found the site too. I like to think I had something to do with it.

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Those cunning Maltese socialists, eh? If they win the April election, they propose another referendum. I told you, it ain't over.

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I don't know what the peacemongers are getting all het up about, really. I mean, if war doesn't qualify as "serious consequences" then what the hell does?

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Can this possibly be true? Mind you, they don't have Reactionary up there.


Libertarian - You believe that the main use for
government is for some people to lord it over
others at their expense. You maintain that the
government should be as small as possible, and
that civil liberties, "victimless
crimes", and gun ownership should be basic
rights. You probably are OK with capitalism.
Your historical role model is Thomas Jefferson.


Which political sterotype are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

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I've always suspected that writing for the Wanker was a surefire recipe for getting clinically depressed, and this story seems to confirm it. Matthew Engel, remember, started off writing about cricket.

See, I can write about these guys without even reading them. This is easy.

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Amusing article by Armando Iannucci on Blair's psychology. After his recent descent into peacenikery of late, Mr. Iannucci is shrewd enough to write something anyone can agree with. In a way it's even more disturbing to the warmongers. Blair's in the right, but for all the wrong reasons. Still with a bit of luck the allies will beat the towelheads, and Blair will be out on his ear, leaving the goal wide open for IDS to stick the ball in the back of the net. Not that I think Blair will go down, alas, but there's no harm in dreaming. Two socialists with one stone, eh? Shame it isn't young William, though.

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David Hasselhoff rocks!

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Florida Recount Reference Alert!

Yes, it's George Galloway, Labour MP in the Spectator, slamming the leader of his own party, our Tone:

"He is roving ambassador to the right-wing, born-again, Bible-belting fundamentalist crew which first turned Texas into the toxic execution chamber of the Western world, and has now, via a four–three vote in the Supreme Court and a lot of pregnant chads, given birth to a government which is a by-word for treaty-busting protocol, scuppering, agreement-wrecking international thuggery".

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We want to be in Iraq, but not run by Iraq.

Yes! William writes for the Spectator. He gets quoted by Instapundit, but not namechecked. Do you think the latter hasn't actually heard of him?

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With Clare Short leading the charge, I decided to wander over to her local evening rag, the Birmingham Post and Mail, to find out what her constituents think. They make her look almost reasonable.

"More Brits were killed during the last Gulf War by American "friendly fire" than by the Iraqis ! I know who poses a threat to the British Army and it ain't the Iraqi Army !"

Says David Allison. Except he comes from Leeds. Likewise there's a certain Barrie Howell who opines:

"I can only hope that if Bush and Blair attack Iraq without U.N. approval they will be tried as war criminals. I would suggest Baghdad as a suitable venue".

But he comes from British Columbia. So it ain't just the Brummies.

david barkley from south bend got his caps lock button and punctuation all messed up.

"I THINK BUSH IS GOING TO BE WORST THAN H-----R AND MAKE THE COVENTRY RAIDS LOOK LIKE A PRACTICE RUN GOD HELP US I LIVED THRU THOSE RAIDS WE DO NOT WANT THEM AGAIN"

I wonder who H-----R is. Hamster? He's taking paranoia a little too far, though. Although I wouldn't put anything past the slimy cove, I can't believe even Saddam plans to bomb Indiana.The drones just couldn't fly that far. You can go add your own comment if you like. I did. Well, it's no dumber than anyone else's.

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A certain Peter Kosmider writes to the Times, viz Clare Shortofafewbraincellsgate:

"Sir, I never thought the day would come when I would agree, simultaneously, with old Labour and the French President.

I must be getting old".

No, not old. Senile. Like I said yesterday, you can't agree with both of them. It ain't humanly possible.

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No sooner said:

"Clare Short would undoubtedly favour regime change in Downing Street".

AN Wanker, in the Standard.

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Remember White Flag Saturday?

"FEBRUARY 15 WAS a day when the world was on the march, when it was turned upside down, when the ‘dissenting minority’ became the majority. The Bush junta, the Blair cabal, the crooked circle of Berlusconi, and the rotten court camarilla of Aznar, cowered in their bunkers".

So writes Peter Taaffe in Socialism Today. It's the usual head-in-the-clouds idealistic, sentimental tripe about people who would never vote for them in a million years, plus wholehearted contempt for people who are vaguely on the same side. A lot of inverted commas too - 'so-called' 'friend' and so on. See if you can finish reading it. I gave up about fifteen paragraphs in.
In a similar frame of mind, here's this piece from the very same organ.

"IN AN ELEMENTAL tide of protest against US preparations to attack Iraq, millions marched against war on 15 February, an estimated 30 million in 600 cities. Big demonstrations took place in the United States, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and other cities. In Europe the biggest demonstrations were in countries, like Britain, Spain and Italy, where governments are supporting Bush’s position. These phenomenal demonstrations represent a political earthquake".

Yeah, all right. We've got the picture. Maybe I'd have a better time with the Commies. Maybe I ought to read Pravda:

"Political life is in turmoil. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people are being drawn to street protest and other forms of direct action for the first time in their lives. The air is crackling with real change. Now comrades in and around the CPGB must themselves change to keep pace with these momentous events and - more important - to get ahead of them, to offer credible answers to the questions that this new movement is posing".

Or I could go and put the kettle on.

"In a sluggish period, revolutionary groups acquire habits of work, routines of thinking, that are primarily designed for self-preservation. But when the masses move, communist organisations have to provide real leadership - that or they were not worth preserving in the first place".

Darjeeling all right?

"The two-million-strong demo on the streets of the country’s capital was a wake-up call to the left, our own organisation included. Revolutionary groups - centrally the Socialist Workers Party - did sterling work in spreading the message of the demo, advertising it and encouraging the people attending. But on the day, that left was drowned in the sea of humanity that flooded onto the streets. The challenge to all of us is to provide real leadership to this huge movement, to channel it and equip it with a winning programme".

One lump or two?

"Many are calling for “regime change” in this country - but mean by that just getting rid of Blair. When we in the Communist Party demand regime change, we have something more radical, more far-reaching and dramatic in mind. We want the British constitution torn to shreds and reformulated in the interests of working people. Just imagine what this movement could achieve".

Yes I have. And that's why I vote Tory.

'Kin'ell, mate. How many times have I seen some goon say:

"What we need is regime change".

Pause, take a deep breath. Take a sip from tea. Take a bite from biscuit, and then say:

"And not just in Baghdad".

Cue raucous laughter from the yahoos.

Ho fucking ho.

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YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION,
WELL, YOU KNOW,
WE ALL WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD.


Yes, we all do want to change the world. And one of the quickest ways of improving it for the better is by getting medieval on Saddam's Thomas Aquinass, not by going to the UN for yet another resolution.
Come on, Dubya, you've jumped the shark on this one. If this were a tv series it would have been cancelled mid-season.
Jaw-jaw is always better than war-war, apparently. Indeed, and sometimes War-war is better than jaw-jaw. We've got Clare Short saying she'll support war provided there's a resolution no matter what it says, Chirac says he won't, no matter what it says. I mean, make sense of that, peacenik. Both provisos, if unconditional, are quite ridiculous, and should be laughed out of the International Court. Yes, I do understand that the whole point of the UN is to prevaricate, delay and procrastinate, and allow people to carry on as normal while pretending they all agree with each other. So there's a lot a to be said for hypocrisy. So what's new? And I'm sure this procedure has some obscure, ultimate purpose that, in some ill-defined liberal Disneyworld makes the world a better place, but… well why don't we all grow up now? When important decisions have to be made consensus is all a bit last century.

After all, supposing there is a resolution that the Frogs, Russkies and Pakis can agree with. What's it actually going to say? I give you option 1:

If Iraq doesn't disarm everything by March 20th, then Dubya can bomb the army into nothingness.

Or. Maybe option 2.

If Iraq doesn't try to show some attempt that it has altered its attitude and will at least consider the possibility of not increasing its stockpile of WMDS then the UN, after yet more meetings, will condemn this behaviour in the strongest possible terms.

I mean, like, Hello.

Get with the programme, dudes. So the UN's bluff has been called. My heart bleeds. Why take moral instruction from horse-eaters, baby-killers, wife-burners and liberals?

Of course, the one I feel sorry for in all of this is Saddam Hussain. Well, apart from the torture victims, the murdered and other unfortunates who have had their civil liberties eroded, human rights curtailed and so on. If he'd actually felt that the UN meant any of this and actually intended to carry out any of its numerous threats, he'd have held back from the excesses. He doesn't actually want to die in a war. He just doesn't think it's ever going to happen, and he might yet be right. If on the other hand, the US could act unilaterally, we'd never have got into this mess in the first place. Too many cooks spoil the broth, o internationalist, and too many crooks will bring the whole UN to its knees. Bring it on.

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If you want to see just how partisan a country Malta is, take a look at this front cover.

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Badgered!

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Well no one ever accused a feminist of having a sense of humour, eh?

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Sorry, I had to go and have a bit of a lie down. All these microposts are mere stalling tactics. However, I have now recovered, recharged my batteries and concluded: This one isn't over. It still has to be ratified after a general election, and the vote was a lot closer than anticipated. And it was boycotted - I really can't explain the thinking behind that - by the opposition, so come the election, we may be surprised and the Socialists may ride in on their handsome chargers to save the day.
The most important things to realise for the ignorant, of which I assume all of you are, about Maltese politics is that it is very partisan, elections are always knife-edge, and less than five percent of people ever vote for a different party during their life time. Being of a very non-proletarian disposition, virtually everyone I know on the island always, irrevocably votes Nationalist ( that's the right-wing lot ) and is de facto pro-EU. The people I barely talk to except when I want to buy groceries, the blue collar, rank and file, common stock types, always vote Labour, and are anti-EU. This article, by eccentric lawyer I.M. Beck is a pretty strong example of the attitude of the pro-EU lobby. Those guys, above anything, seriously hate the Labour Party, and see EU membership as a way of reigning in their worst excesses. I try and explain that the only things the EU is any good at suppressing is free enterprise and freedom of association and they look at me like I'm a right-wing crazoid. Which of course I am. But that's how the argument goes.
Anyway, this ain't over. There are all sorts of legal shenanigans to come yet, and this could make the Florida Recount look as easy as Saddam's recent return to power.
The fat lady hasn't sung, she's still gargling in the bathroom, and there are gonna be more twists to this than in both series of 24. It might be a very long day for Jack Bauer, but for the Maltese, it's gonna be a long year.

Stay tuned.

In the mean time I've got other fish to fry. Like, apparently there's gonna be a war soon.

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Now that's my kind of padre.

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If Clare Short, the loudest creature to come out of Birmingham since Ozzy Osbourne, isn't toast by lunchtime, then Tony is even more of a wimp that I had thought.

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Faith no more. The world has lost its Sheene.

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Voice of the Moron:

"Saddam Hussein hardly poses any terrifying threat to the world or his neighbours while Dr Blix's team are at work. Why should he not have more time?
The way ahead is clearly to keep the tyrant shackled in this way without starting a conflict which risks a huge loss of life and could set the Middle East on fire.
But this is not good enough for the warmongers of the White House.
They want blood, and George W Bush is not too bothered whose".

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