As much of the world breathes an unnecessary sigh of relief that the Mayan Apocalypse did not come to fruition, at least one person in the United Kingdom must be wishing that it had. But unfortunately for David Cameron, he really does have to lead the government right up to the next election and (one suspects) not a second longer.
Rarely can John Lennon's perennial inquiry "And so this is Christmas and what have you done?" resounded more reproachfully in a British politician's ears.
Now, Sordel must acknowledge from the off that Gordon Brown did little more of any actual value, but at least he must have been fully occupied by whimpering, chewing his nails, mopping his nose with a dirty handkerchief and, of course, holding his breath when anyone came into his office looking for him.
Cameron, however, seems to be completely idle. Which is perhaps hardly surprising that he has no money to do anything. If he had an elder sister looking for some quality smooching time with her boyfriend, she would have to advance him the tuppeny bit to get himself down the pictures and take the long way home. Rarely has someone of high net worth been so administratively down on his uppers.
The measure of the situation is perhaps given by the way the government approaches problems these days. Rather than actually read the Leveson Report, for example, Cameron came straight out and said that he was not minded to legislate on it, but would the press please come up with their own ideas?
Faced with tax evasion by big corporations, the government did not actually attempt to close tax loopholes, but instead invited the British Public to shame those corporations into paying up.
Defeated by the complexities of the education system, the government now encourages people to set up their own local schools, and hospitals cannot be far behind. Indeed, if its relationship with the police continues in the direction it has been taking, it won't be long before social order is delivered by posse.
Perhaps not all of this, however, is a bad thing. Upset with civil war in Syria, Cameron wondered aloud who would rid him of this troublesome Assad, but otherwise kept his head down, an approach whose lack of heroic statesmanship is at least offset by a little practicality and humility.
Doing nothing has a virtue all of its own, as demonstrated by the fact that no one at the BBC got into any trouble at all for shelving that Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile. Perhaps not doing something is the new doing something.
Personally (and as demonstrated by the thin nutshell pickings of recent months) Sordel feels rather ahead of the fashion in this respect, and welcomes Cameron to join him on the sidelines, where we shout just as much but are not required actually to break a sweat.
Whatever else happened in 2012, we can expect less of it in 2013.
Showing posts with label Gordon Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gordon Brown. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Friday, July 15, 2011
Long Spoons, Short Memories, Tall Stories
Short of toppling a statue of Rupert Murdoch and beating at it with their shoes, Britain's MPs could scarcely have depicted themselves in recent days more like the long-suffering victims of the despot's whip.
For displays of pomposity, self-congratulation, mutual back-slapping and retrospective posturing, the last week has known no equal. There were members of parliament standing up in the Commons on Wednesday declaring that in their handling of the News Corporation scandal they had collectively expunged memories of the Expenses scandal.
Gordon Brown - a man who can turn any amount of public sympathy to eye-rolling apathy with a single word - explained to skeptical government benches that it would all have been done on his watch but for those meddlesome kids at the Civil Service.
Faced with an open goal, the honourable members have not so much kicked a ball through it as dived bodily into the net. As Sordel writes, there are politicians, responding to the news of the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, flailing wildly in self-made toils in their desperation to press some new demand.
Yet where was all this a month ago?
To the peasants who stream, torches in hand, to Baron Frankenstein's castle, the news that this is the birthplace of the monster is at least news. Indignation is at least comprehensible.
Britain's politicians can hardly claim innocence in the original and subsequent cover-ups of wrongdoing at the News of the World. If Rebekah Brooks had a fiduciary responsibility (to know who was being paid by her paper, and for what) then so did politicians: to ensure that the investigation into the original hacking case was a little more probing than accepting the assurances of the very organisation being investigated.
The story of the News International scandal is not only about journalists going rogue in search of a story. The greater blame falls on the police and government that were supposed to prevent or punish that wrongdoing.
The spite with which MPs are attacking the Murdochs would perhaps be justified in small boys overpowering a bully. It rings false from people hitherto only too happy to turn a blind eye for the chance of an invitation to dinner.
For displays of pomposity, self-congratulation, mutual back-slapping and retrospective posturing, the last week has known no equal. There were members of parliament standing up in the Commons on Wednesday declaring that in their handling of the News Corporation scandal they had collectively expunged memories of the Expenses scandal.
Gordon Brown - a man who can turn any amount of public sympathy to eye-rolling apathy with a single word - explained to skeptical government benches that it would all have been done on his watch but for those meddlesome kids at the Civil Service.
Faced with an open goal, the honourable members have not so much kicked a ball through it as dived bodily into the net. As Sordel writes, there are politicians, responding to the news of the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, flailing wildly in self-made toils in their desperation to press some new demand.
Yet where was all this a month ago?
To the peasants who stream, torches in hand, to Baron Frankenstein's castle, the news that this is the birthplace of the monster is at least news. Indignation is at least comprehensible.
Britain's politicians can hardly claim innocence in the original and subsequent cover-ups of wrongdoing at the News of the World. If Rebekah Brooks had a fiduciary responsibility (to know who was being paid by her paper, and for what) then so did politicians: to ensure that the investigation into the original hacking case was a little more probing than accepting the assurances of the very organisation being investigated.
The story of the News International scandal is not only about journalists going rogue in search of a story. The greater blame falls on the police and government that were supposed to prevent or punish that wrongdoing.
The spite with which MPs are attacking the Murdochs would perhaps be justified in small boys overpowering a bully. It rings false from people hitherto only too happy to turn a blind eye for the chance of an invitation to dinner.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
After You, Cecil
Other than encouraging the media to discover the word psychodrama and turn it into the new vuvuzela, the catastrophe that befell David Miliband is most notable for bringing to further light a distressing new phenomenon in British Politics: Buggins's Turn.
It began with Mrs. Brown's Little Boy who (for those who cannot remember a time when he was anything other than an object of hissing and derision) was pictured as a sad-faced child looking on in a bereft manner while that nasty Tony boy from next door hogged the Nintendo and crowed about his High Score. "Let Gordy have a turn," encouraged the Great British Public from the doorway while greasing up a cake tin in preparation for High Tea.
Well, the position of Prime Minister is not like your fifteen minutes of fame ... not everyone gets a go.
David Miliband (latest example of the Pod People generation into which our current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were hatched in a damp basement some years ago) seems to have thought that letting the sour Scot have a few more moments steering Mario repeatedly off the high cliff and into the rapacious man-eating vegetation below was somehow "the decent thing to do". I suppose with his foot almost upon the stirrup of power, David felt that exquisite pleasure that can be derived from patient expectation.
Quite possibly David was an able Foreign Secretary, although that would be difficult to establish during an era when international detente is actually being conducted by the Ministry of Defence. Like the hare, however, he rather overestimated his supposed lead in this particular race and was to be found napping as his steady reptilian sibling crawled past him and across the Finishing Line.
So now Labour MPs are affronted. Clutching small pieces of coloured paper with numbers written on them and shaking their fists like shoppers at a cheese counter, they turn their fury upon the vuvuzela Ed Miliband.
(The word vuvuzela in my last sentence can (and will) be replaced by ruthless if you are a BBC Political Correspondent.)
Amusing though it was to see David pipped at, and to, the post, for sheer callousness Ed falls well short of the standards of Stalin and Hitler. Unless he actually hangs his brother from a meat hook (something that he might be well-advised to consider) I think that his victory only qualifies for the description "business as usual".
Still, the whole sorry mess has made work for lip-readers who assure us that the comment passed by bad-loser David to Harriet Harman was: "Why are you clapping? You voted for it."
Rarely has the word it been more readily replacable by the word me.
It began with Mrs. Brown's Little Boy who (for those who cannot remember a time when he was anything other than an object of hissing and derision) was pictured as a sad-faced child looking on in a bereft manner while that nasty Tony boy from next door hogged the Nintendo and crowed about his High Score. "Let Gordy have a turn," encouraged the Great British Public from the doorway while greasing up a cake tin in preparation for High Tea.
Well, the position of Prime Minister is not like your fifteen minutes of fame ... not everyone gets a go.
David Miliband (latest example of the Pod People generation into which our current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were hatched in a damp basement some years ago) seems to have thought that letting the sour Scot have a few more moments steering Mario repeatedly off the high cliff and into the rapacious man-eating vegetation below was somehow "the decent thing to do". I suppose with his foot almost upon the stirrup of power, David felt that exquisite pleasure that can be derived from patient expectation.
Quite possibly David was an able Foreign Secretary, although that would be difficult to establish during an era when international detente is actually being conducted by the Ministry of Defence. Like the hare, however, he rather overestimated his supposed lead in this particular race and was to be found napping as his steady reptilian sibling crawled past him and across the Finishing Line.
So now Labour MPs are affronted. Clutching small pieces of coloured paper with numbers written on them and shaking their fists like shoppers at a cheese counter, they turn their fury upon the vuvuzela Ed Miliband.
(The word vuvuzela in my last sentence can (and will) be replaced by ruthless if you are a BBC Political Correspondent.)
Amusing though it was to see David pipped at, and to, the post, for sheer callousness Ed falls well short of the standards of Stalin and Hitler. Unless he actually hangs his brother from a meat hook (something that he might be well-advised to consider) I think that his victory only qualifies for the description "business as usual".
Still, the whole sorry mess has made work for lip-readers who assure us that the comment passed by bad-loser David to Harriet Harman was: "Why are you clapping? You voted for it."
Rarely has the word it been more readily replacable by the word me.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Snow News Day
Much to the surprise of BBC editors, they have had to shelve their customary plans to drum up interest in obscure social and overseas stories during the sleepy New Year period. B-roll reports on the condition of women, animals or possibly agriculture in countries hitherto unknown to Thomas Cook were returned to their hard drives unplayed. Tales of marital discord, credit card fraud and the drinking habits of feral teenagers were held over until the stars (or at least, the heavens) were propitious.
Instead, it has been all hands to the pump as the necessity arose to cover something rarely dreamt of in their philosophy. News.
As in, something actually happening.
Admittedly, what was happening was only weather, which happens all day every day whether it is covered by the BBC or not. Nevertheless, weather in general is to be distinguished from photogenic weather, and what can be more visually appealing than the sight of every regional news reporter in Britain shivering in a snowfall for hour after pitiless hour? ("Let's go back to Amanda, who is going to tell us about school closures while standing outside some gates in Cheshire ..." smirked the presenters, probably squirming their feet joyfully in Christmas's fleecy slippers.)
News 24 has come of age ... as a blood sport. No wonder Sordel was hooked.
As it turns out, however, not only does bad news come in threes, but news in general seems to as well, for today was also the opening of the hunting season, a.k.a. the first PMQs of the parliamentary New Year. Undesked from his office, shot full of that most bracing of stimulants (Fear) and determined to shake off his seasonal disappointment at being named GQ's Worst Dressed Man of the Year, Gordon was brimming with vim as he tackled Cincinnati Kid Cameron.
Cameron got in one exquisite dig (approximately: "At least when lean over to say "I love you, Darling" I can do it with sincerity") but Gordon was back at him in a flash. If wordplay can be likened to the experimental rough-and-tumble of a pair of Labrador puppies, they were all wagging tails and bitten ears for five minutes before coming, panting, to a halt. A good day for both and every expectation that their respective party faithful would bear them shoulder-height to greatness.
Sadly (well, for one of our protagonists) the third piece of news hit just before 1pm and scattered even snowshowers before it. Geoff Whoon? and Patricia Who-it? - two minor Labour bulbs who must be grateful that anonymity, like virginity, never quite grows back - launched what was rather optimistically described as a "coup".
Given that Whoon? is actually a former Defence Secretary, it is saddening to note the lack of military planning that went into this insurgency. By the evening most of those micturating out of the cabinet had disappointed the hopes of those micturating in the complementary direction by swearing blood oaths in Gordon's favour. Wet shoes were certainly experienced by all parties - not least the shoes of David Milliband, who demonstrates himself to be sodden through and invertebrate at every opportunity - but once Mrs Brown's little boy is tucked up in bed tonight he can take great comfort that the snow seems to have more sticking power than his opponents.
BBC news reporters and cabinet ministers seem to be of one mind one the subject: it's cold outside.
Instead, it has been all hands to the pump as the necessity arose to cover something rarely dreamt of in their philosophy. News.
As in, something actually happening.
Admittedly, what was happening was only weather, which happens all day every day whether it is covered by the BBC or not. Nevertheless, weather in general is to be distinguished from photogenic weather, and what can be more visually appealing than the sight of every regional news reporter in Britain shivering in a snowfall for hour after pitiless hour? ("Let's go back to Amanda, who is going to tell us about school closures while standing outside some gates in Cheshire ..." smirked the presenters, probably squirming their feet joyfully in Christmas's fleecy slippers.)
News 24 has come of age ... as a blood sport. No wonder Sordel was hooked.
As it turns out, however, not only does bad news come in threes, but news in general seems to as well, for today was also the opening of the hunting season, a.k.a. the first PMQs of the parliamentary New Year. Undesked from his office, shot full of that most bracing of stimulants (Fear) and determined to shake off his seasonal disappointment at being named GQ's Worst Dressed Man of the Year, Gordon was brimming with vim as he tackled Cincinnati Kid Cameron.
Cameron got in one exquisite dig (approximately: "At least when lean over to say "I love you, Darling" I can do it with sincerity") but Gordon was back at him in a flash. If wordplay can be likened to the experimental rough-and-tumble of a pair of Labrador puppies, they were all wagging tails and bitten ears for five minutes before coming, panting, to a halt. A good day for both and every expectation that their respective party faithful would bear them shoulder-height to greatness.
Sadly (well, for one of our protagonists) the third piece of news hit just before 1pm and scattered even snowshowers before it. Geoff Whoon? and Patricia Who-it? - two minor Labour bulbs who must be grateful that anonymity, like virginity, never quite grows back - launched what was rather optimistically described as a "coup".
Given that Whoon? is actually a former Defence Secretary, it is saddening to note the lack of military planning that went into this insurgency. By the evening most of those micturating out of the cabinet had disappointed the hopes of those micturating in the complementary direction by swearing blood oaths in Gordon's favour. Wet shoes were certainly experienced by all parties - not least the shoes of David Milliband, who demonstrates himself to be sodden through and invertebrate at every opportunity - but once Mrs Brown's little boy is tucked up in bed tonight he can take great comfort that the snow seems to have more sticking power than his opponents.
BBC news reporters and cabinet ministers seem to be of one mind one the subject: it's cold outside.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Nutts to (Gordon) Brown
Until the birth of New Labour it was comparatively rare for a British politician to be assassinated. These days, the only job more perilous is being a member of the Columbian judiciary.
Consider Alan Johnson, once considered the brightest and best in the Labour ranks.
This, of course, is like being considered the most liberal member of the B.N.P. or most charismatic member of the Liberal Democrats. Nevertheless - however shallow the compliment - it was enough to push Johnson way out in front in the race to lead his party through its rapidly-approaching eight years of impotence and opposition.
Having taken the Brownian shilling however, Johnson now finds himself with a portfolio that can best be described as Minister for Shitty Jobs. Now that the traditional poison chalice set to the lips of tall poppies of yore - Minister for Northern Ireland - has been leeched of its venom, prime ministers have to be more creative in sticking it to the junior ranks.
The bad news started for Johnson when he was (literally) pushed to the front in the Afghan War, becoming the first Home Secretary to be honoured with a paddleless visit up that particular creek. Presumably Bob Ainsworth - a Defence secretary who has unwittingly become the most persuasive apologist for every standpoint that he opposes - is now so unwelcome that even close members of his family shy him with date-expired vegetables when he arrives home.
Thus it is that Johnson found himself arguing in defiance of all physiological instinct to blush that he regarded Britain's continued support for C.I.A. operative Ahmed Wali Karzai and his vote-rigging brother as a key element in the war against domestic terrorism.
This is a bit like sending the Minister for Transport out to Afghanistan on the basis that reducing military traffic on British roads is a key element in our motorway policy.
Anyway, no sooner was Johnson done with hitching his wagon to that particular lost cause than Mrs. Brown's little boy peered out from his customary place of hiding with another job that he needed doing. Inclining an ear to the mahogany drawer from which the Prime Minister's glowered up at him, Johnson must have been surprised to hear that he was being asked to write a letter sacking David Nutt.
It is not recorded whether he had the courage to ask "Who?" but Nutt's name had certainly not been tripping off the tongue until Brown decided that it was important to (send a flunky to) sack him.
Thus it was that Johnson found himself appending his John Hancock to a letter motivated by no higher purpose than Gordon's spite and vindictiveness. Go back a few centuries and Johnson would have been hiding his weapons under a sycamore tree and demanding that Thomas Beckett submit to the King's will.
Yet we weep not for Johnson, for this is a man who - contrary to all hopes that other might have placed in him - decided that the percentage play was neither to join the rats leaving the sinking ship nor wrest the wheel from the captain who had driven it aground in the first place. Instead, he chose the honour of serenading on first violin those running up and down the deck attempting to save their birdbaths and toilet seats from the rising waters.
In contravention of the elegantly-phrased Miltonian epigram, he is the first man in history to think it was actually better to serve in Hell than rule in Heaven.
Consider Alan Johnson, once considered the brightest and best in the Labour ranks.
This, of course, is like being considered the most liberal member of the B.N.P. or most charismatic member of the Liberal Democrats. Nevertheless - however shallow the compliment - it was enough to push Johnson way out in front in the race to lead his party through its rapidly-approaching eight years of impotence and opposition.
Having taken the Brownian shilling however, Johnson now finds himself with a portfolio that can best be described as Minister for Shitty Jobs. Now that the traditional poison chalice set to the lips of tall poppies of yore - Minister for Northern Ireland - has been leeched of its venom, prime ministers have to be more creative in sticking it to the junior ranks.
The bad news started for Johnson when he was (literally) pushed to the front in the Afghan War, becoming the first Home Secretary to be honoured with a paddleless visit up that particular creek. Presumably Bob Ainsworth - a Defence secretary who has unwittingly become the most persuasive apologist for every standpoint that he opposes - is now so unwelcome that even close members of his family shy him with date-expired vegetables when he arrives home.
Thus it is that Johnson found himself arguing in defiance of all physiological instinct to blush that he regarded Britain's continued support for C.I.A. operative Ahmed Wali Karzai and his vote-rigging brother as a key element in the war against domestic terrorism.
This is a bit like sending the Minister for Transport out to Afghanistan on the basis that reducing military traffic on British roads is a key element in our motorway policy.
Anyway, no sooner was Johnson done with hitching his wagon to that particular lost cause than Mrs. Brown's little boy peered out from his customary place of hiding with another job that he needed doing. Inclining an ear to the mahogany drawer from which the Prime Minister's glowered up at him, Johnson must have been surprised to hear that he was being asked to write a letter sacking David Nutt.
It is not recorded whether he had the courage to ask "Who?" but Nutt's name had certainly not been tripping off the tongue until Brown decided that it was important to (send a flunky to) sack him.
Thus it was that Johnson found himself appending his John Hancock to a letter motivated by no higher purpose than Gordon's spite and vindictiveness. Go back a few centuries and Johnson would have been hiding his weapons under a sycamore tree and demanding that Thomas Beckett submit to the King's will.
Yet we weep not for Johnson, for this is a man who - contrary to all hopes that other might have placed in him - decided that the percentage play was neither to join the rats leaving the sinking ship nor wrest the wheel from the captain who had driven it aground in the first place. Instead, he chose the honour of serenading on first violin those running up and down the deck attempting to save their birdbaths and toilet seats from the rising waters.
In contravention of the elegantly-phrased Miltonian epigram, he is the first man in history to think it was actually better to serve in Hell than rule in Heaven.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Arena of Antagonism
Devotees of gladiatorial combat on television will have enjoyed the last few weeks, during which the red corner has been pitted against the blue corner with a regularity not seen since The Jerry Springer Show.
It all began with a warm-up: the Resident Intellectual vs. Mrs. Brown's Little Boy, during which Andrew Marr enquired about some health issue to which it would doubtless be legally hazardous to allude too specifically. This was the appetizer, however, to a discussion of the same on Question Time, during which overweening windbag David Starkey grappled to the mat Preening Coxcomb Ben Bradshaw. These two combatants (one blue rinse away from playing the ugly sisters in an exceptionally well-cast run of Cinderella at a seaside town) provided the most compelling man-on-man horseplay since Alan Bates and Oliver Reed went at one another in Women In Love.
Better was to come, however, for in the Main Event Ian Hislop was being oiled up for a round or two with Sordel's favourite Brownie, Yvette Cooper-Balls. I have alluded to the Stepford perfection of YC-B in previous blogs. She is like the youngest matron in a boarding school: an object of fascination to boys and masters alike yet given to a defensive frostiness only thawed in the communal imagination by suspicions of illicit liaison with one of the unattached housemasters. In an environment where personal attractiveness is a secondary consideration and gender itself barely a prohibitive one, YC-B is about as comely as Labour ladies come.
Hislop, however, is no respecter or of the fairer whatever. His career on Have I Got News For You? has been founded on the sneer of startled loathing with which he meets every guest on the show, as though the only way he would even tolerate their company is if he were well-paid beforehand. Evidently he holds the duo Balls in special contempt, because it was without a blush that he accused the distaff ball of riding to a political career on the coat-tails of her husband.
At which Stepford perfection - as it always will - short-circuited and YC-B have a look that could have only been more perfectly emoted had her eyes glowed red and a spring popped out of her left ear.
Shame on you, Mr. Hislop. A low blow indeed.
This, then, is an era in which hard thoughts are given voice, as when the Resident Intellectual put it to David Cameron that he was a bit of a toff.
Yet for all the political combat, the crowning unpleasantness of this purple patch comes not from a political programme but from The X Factor, for it was here on Saturday that Danii Minogue decided (and I forget whether the predominant metaphor here was wrestling or boxing) to take off the gloves completely.
It is difficult to see exactly what prompted Danii's animosity to Danyl Johnson, but it may have something to do with a proprietorial anger at someone else choosing to spell their name in a non-standard way. Whatever the reason, she chose to greet the 27-year old's first performance on live television by alluding to tabloid stories that he is ... well, I'm guessing bisexual or bi-curious.
(Sordel doesn't read tabloids ... and if that sounds snobbish, he doesn't read broadsheets either.)
So, this is what we've come to.
It seems a long way to travel in a short time to go from an entirely reasonable question as to whether the Prime Minister is healthy enough to do the job to an (at best) tangential reference to the sexual orientation of a virtual nobody who may at some future point wish to resume his regular career as a teacher.
Maybe, though, the British Public has grown tired of the bread and only a genuine circus will do.
It all began with a warm-up: the Resident Intellectual vs. Mrs. Brown's Little Boy, during which Andrew Marr enquired about some health issue to which it would doubtless be legally hazardous to allude too specifically. This was the appetizer, however, to a discussion of the same on Question Time, during which overweening windbag David Starkey grappled to the mat Preening Coxcomb Ben Bradshaw. These two combatants (one blue rinse away from playing the ugly sisters in an exceptionally well-cast run of Cinderella at a seaside town) provided the most compelling man-on-man horseplay since Alan Bates and Oliver Reed went at one another in Women In Love.
Better was to come, however, for in the Main Event Ian Hislop was being oiled up for a round or two with Sordel's favourite Brownie, Yvette Cooper-Balls. I have alluded to the Stepford perfection of YC-B in previous blogs. She is like the youngest matron in a boarding school: an object of fascination to boys and masters alike yet given to a defensive frostiness only thawed in the communal imagination by suspicions of illicit liaison with one of the unattached housemasters. In an environment where personal attractiveness is a secondary consideration and gender itself barely a prohibitive one, YC-B is about as comely as Labour ladies come.
Hislop, however, is no respecter or of the fairer whatever. His career on Have I Got News For You? has been founded on the sneer of startled loathing with which he meets every guest on the show, as though the only way he would even tolerate their company is if he were well-paid beforehand. Evidently he holds the duo Balls in special contempt, because it was without a blush that he accused the distaff ball of riding to a political career on the coat-tails of her husband.
At which Stepford perfection - as it always will - short-circuited and YC-B have a look that could have only been more perfectly emoted had her eyes glowed red and a spring popped out of her left ear.
Shame on you, Mr. Hislop. A low blow indeed.
This, then, is an era in which hard thoughts are given voice, as when the Resident Intellectual put it to David Cameron that he was a bit of a toff.
Yet for all the political combat, the crowning unpleasantness of this purple patch comes not from a political programme but from The X Factor, for it was here on Saturday that Danii Minogue decided (and I forget whether the predominant metaphor here was wrestling or boxing) to take off the gloves completely.
It is difficult to see exactly what prompted Danii's animosity to Danyl Johnson, but it may have something to do with a proprietorial anger at someone else choosing to spell their name in a non-standard way. Whatever the reason, she chose to greet the 27-year old's first performance on live television by alluding to tabloid stories that he is ... well, I'm guessing bisexual or bi-curious.
(Sordel doesn't read tabloids ... and if that sounds snobbish, he doesn't read broadsheets either.)
So, this is what we've come to.
It seems a long way to travel in a short time to go from an entirely reasonable question as to whether the Prime Minister is healthy enough to do the job to an (at best) tangential reference to the sexual orientation of a virtual nobody who may at some future point wish to resume his regular career as a teacher.
Maybe, though, the British Public has grown tired of the bread and only a genuine circus will do.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Outsider Art
Not since the angel with the fiery sword told Adam and Eve that if their names weren't on the list they weren't coming in has humanity so strained with fury at the injustice of an exclusion.
It seems that Gordon Brown has been refused admission to the cool kids' table. President Obama's dance list was mysteriously full every time that Gordon's party planners suggested a Terpsichorean tryst. If it were a Jane Austen adaptation he would be hiding his face behind a fan and hissing to his sisters at this very minute.
According to FT.com, a spokeswoman has been attempting to play down what lesser news outlets are describing as a snub. "She argued that the two were talking informally all the time – including a short encounter in the kitchens of the United Nations in New York."
Let's script that out shall we?
Obama: "While I'm here can I get a club sandwich?"
Brown: "Mr. President, it's Gordon!"
Obama: "My error ... can I get a club sandwich, Gordon?"
Sordel's amusement at this serious insult that our leader has suffered at the hands of the Rebels (surely the most vexing since the Boston Tea Party) is not unmixed, however, with fellow feeling. I was myself excluded this week: from the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Now, it must be acknowledged before I go any further that the exhibition had not, in fact, opened yet, but it was nevertheless galling to be forced to gaze impotently through the glass at corridors that will soon be thronged with milling culture vultures. By the time I am able to form an opinion on this particular exhibition the expiry date for such an opinion will doubtless have passed and I will be left bewildered by discussion of the next artistic sensation.
It was not an entirely wasted journey, however.
For those of us unable to pass the gate, the Royal Academy has provided a very large courtyard sculpture that is best described as a Fizzy Drink. Shiny polished spheres (something of a stock in trade to which Kapoor resorts for his more obviously institutional artworks) effervesce upwards in a loose column, providing reflections of the surrounding buildings and one another.
As a consequence, those of us unable to enter the exhibition were forced to contemplate our own bleak physiognomies peering back at us.
It would be nice to think that Mrs. Brown's little boy will also use his time in the wilderness to indulge in a little self-reflection. In a crowd of little versions of himself he might at last find some friends.
It seems that Gordon Brown has been refused admission to the cool kids' table. President Obama's dance list was mysteriously full every time that Gordon's party planners suggested a Terpsichorean tryst. If it were a Jane Austen adaptation he would be hiding his face behind a fan and hissing to his sisters at this very minute.
According to FT.com, a spokeswoman has been attempting to play down what lesser news outlets are describing as a snub. "She argued that the two were talking informally all the time – including a short encounter in the kitchens of the United Nations in New York."
Let's script that out shall we?
Obama: "While I'm here can I get a club sandwich?"
Brown: "Mr. President, it's Gordon!"
Obama: "My error ... can I get a club sandwich, Gordon?"
Sordel's amusement at this serious insult that our leader has suffered at the hands of the Rebels (surely the most vexing since the Boston Tea Party) is not unmixed, however, with fellow feeling. I was myself excluded this week: from the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Now, it must be acknowledged before I go any further that the exhibition had not, in fact, opened yet, but it was nevertheless galling to be forced to gaze impotently through the glass at corridors that will soon be thronged with milling culture vultures. By the time I am able to form an opinion on this particular exhibition the expiry date for such an opinion will doubtless have passed and I will be left bewildered by discussion of the next artistic sensation.
It was not an entirely wasted journey, however.
For those of us unable to pass the gate, the Royal Academy has provided a very large courtyard sculpture that is best described as a Fizzy Drink. Shiny polished spheres (something of a stock in trade to which Kapoor resorts for his more obviously institutional artworks) effervesce upwards in a loose column, providing reflections of the surrounding buildings and one another.
As a consequence, those of us unable to enter the exhibition were forced to contemplate our own bleak physiognomies peering back at us.
It would be nice to think that Mrs. Brown's little boy will also use his time in the wilderness to indulge in a little self-reflection. In a crowd of little versions of himself he might at last find some friends.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Beam Me Up, Scotty
In my mind's eye it must have been like one of those golden evocations of childhood from European cinema ... possibly German, probably French. A little girl, slightly anxious, slightly hurrying, runs from hiding location to hiding location, but every closet door she opens reveals an older child who shoos her away. As the ominous sound of another child counting towards a hundred gets louder in the background, there seems not a table or bed that does not already conceal a hider.
In this case, the little girl in the story is Patricia Scotland, the soon-to-be-erstwhile Attorney General, and amongst the various bigger children one might find: Gordon Brown (still under the desk and now in desperate need of a bath and shave); Yvette Cooper-Balls (still crying after the B.B.C. interviewer dipped her pigtails in ink); "Whatever Happened To" Jacqui Smith; and Alistair Darling, who now wears the permanently-dazed expression of someone who has survived being struck by lightning. The only one not evidently in hiding is Baron M., and whether this is because his hiding place is too well chosen or because he himself is "coming to get you" is yet to be established.
Poor Baroness Scotland of Asthal! Labour actually has only one big political idea, and it is basically this: get the costs of government paid for twice by the taxpayer by passing back to ordinary citizens the cost of regulation. In this case, employers have been given increased responsibility for ensuring that the people who work for them are not illegal immigrants. Patricia knows all about immigration, not because she was born in Dominica herself but because she was a Q.C. (the first black woman to become one, incidentally) and - oh yes! - she was a Home Office minister who was involved in framing the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality 2006 which tightened those responsibilities on employers.
So, if there was one member of the government you could guarantee would not be caught employing an illegal immigrant, it is Baroness Scotland of Asthal.
(I think when that petard detonated it scared a whole bunch of pigeons that had come home to roost.)
Accordingly - and in a neat piece of role-reversal that will appeal to connoisseurs of irony - the Red-faced Baroness's apology to the nation had to be delivered by Mrs. Brown's little boy, who has become the nation's favourite deliverer of vicarious contrition ever since he apologised for the maltreatment of Alan Turing last week. Surely only the public revelation that his pants were on fire can have dragged the Prime Minister from his customary refuge.
Just when you thought that no member of the government less credible could be found to rush to Scotland's defence, however, Labour demonstrated that in this one critical area they can exceed all reasonable expectations.
The person who was sent onto Newsnight to speak on the behalf of Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Asthal, one notes, being the Oxford village where she now resides, rather than the area of Walthamstow where she grew up) was none other than Keith Vaz.
Keith Vaz, Ladies and Gentlemen!
(Or, if you need to Google him in a hurry, Vaz Scandal.)
Now Sordel is aware that it may be claimed that Baroness Scotland, Keith Vaz and Trevor Phillips attract controversy not because allegations against them are true but because they themselves are not white. Sordel gives due credit to this possibility.
However ... the day that I need Keith Vaz to stand in front of gunfire to protect me, I hope that I will have the courage to talk him out of it.
In this case, the little girl in the story is Patricia Scotland, the soon-to-be-erstwhile Attorney General, and amongst the various bigger children one might find: Gordon Brown (still under the desk and now in desperate need of a bath and shave); Yvette Cooper-Balls (still crying after the B.B.C. interviewer dipped her pigtails in ink); "Whatever Happened To" Jacqui Smith; and Alistair Darling, who now wears the permanently-dazed expression of someone who has survived being struck by lightning. The only one not evidently in hiding is Baron M., and whether this is because his hiding place is too well chosen or because he himself is "coming to get you" is yet to be established.
Poor Baroness Scotland of Asthal! Labour actually has only one big political idea, and it is basically this: get the costs of government paid for twice by the taxpayer by passing back to ordinary citizens the cost of regulation. In this case, employers have been given increased responsibility for ensuring that the people who work for them are not illegal immigrants. Patricia knows all about immigration, not because she was born in Dominica herself but because she was a Q.C. (the first black woman to become one, incidentally) and - oh yes! - she was a Home Office minister who was involved in framing the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality 2006 which tightened those responsibilities on employers.
So, if there was one member of the government you could guarantee would not be caught employing an illegal immigrant, it is Baroness Scotland of Asthal.
(I think when that petard detonated it scared a whole bunch of pigeons that had come home to roost.)
Accordingly - and in a neat piece of role-reversal that will appeal to connoisseurs of irony - the Red-faced Baroness's apology to the nation had to be delivered by Mrs. Brown's little boy, who has become the nation's favourite deliverer of vicarious contrition ever since he apologised for the maltreatment of Alan Turing last week. Surely only the public revelation that his pants were on fire can have dragged the Prime Minister from his customary refuge.
Just when you thought that no member of the government less credible could be found to rush to Scotland's defence, however, Labour demonstrated that in this one critical area they can exceed all reasonable expectations.
The person who was sent onto Newsnight to speak on the behalf of Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Asthal, one notes, being the Oxford village where she now resides, rather than the area of Walthamstow where she grew up) was none other than Keith Vaz.
Keith Vaz, Ladies and Gentlemen!
(Or, if you need to Google him in a hurry, Vaz Scandal.)
Now Sordel is aware that it may be claimed that Baroness Scotland, Keith Vaz and Trevor Phillips attract controversy not because allegations against them are true but because they themselves are not white. Sordel gives due credit to this possibility.
However ... the day that I need Keith Vaz to stand in front of gunfire to protect me, I hope that I will have the courage to talk him out of it.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Rescuers Abroad
This from BBC.co.uk: "The final decision to order the rescue of kidnapped journalist Stephen Farrell was taken by the foreign and defence secretaries, Downing Street has said. Gordon Brown was consulted, but David Milliband and Bob Ainsworth sanctioned it."
Had things gone differently, I suppose Downing Street might have made a different announcement. There would have been Mrs. Brown's little boy, smiling with shy pride and unaffected delight before the hissing flashbulbs of the assembled press, explaining his pivotal role in this Entebbe-esque victory. How Gordon would have beamed.
Failure, however, is an orphan. Worse, it is an orphan who has just been unwillingly adopted by David Milliband and Bob Ainsworth: the sort of punishment that even an orphan asking for more gruel might consider severe.
Special forces operations, like wars, roll a die, and the relationship of risk to reward is a complex one, but in a situation where the best case scenario was freeing two prisoners, it was at best a daring operation to undertake. Saving one out of the two ain't bad I suppose, and if it matters to you that it was the British one that they saved then you may feel that the result was broadly successful.
Nevertheless to save one man from very uncertain death at the price, seemingly, of the deaths of four others - the interpreter, a soldier, two civilians - isn't exactly the sort of thing that gets people hanging out the bunting and draining glasses to the health of the Dear Old Queen. If - as is suspected - Sultan Munadi was killed by the bullets of those attempting to rescue Stephen Farrell, then the success was something worse than equivocal.
The question that most stubbornly occurs, though, is this. What was the basis for the decision made by this pair of politicians (without any collusion whatsoever from our prime minister, who merely peeped out from under his desk while stretching for a cup of tea that had been thoughtfully left on the carpet for him)?
Surely only a cynic could suggest that the Go order was given in the hope of securing a headline-flashing victory in the course of an increasingly miserable occupation?
Had things gone differently, I suppose Downing Street might have made a different announcement. There would have been Mrs. Brown's little boy, smiling with shy pride and unaffected delight before the hissing flashbulbs of the assembled press, explaining his pivotal role in this Entebbe-esque victory. How Gordon would have beamed.
Failure, however, is an orphan. Worse, it is an orphan who has just been unwillingly adopted by David Milliband and Bob Ainsworth: the sort of punishment that even an orphan asking for more gruel might consider severe.
Special forces operations, like wars, roll a die, and the relationship of risk to reward is a complex one, but in a situation where the best case scenario was freeing two prisoners, it was at best a daring operation to undertake. Saving one out of the two ain't bad I suppose, and if it matters to you that it was the British one that they saved then you may feel that the result was broadly successful.
Nevertheless to save one man from very uncertain death at the price, seemingly, of the deaths of four others - the interpreter, a soldier, two civilians - isn't exactly the sort of thing that gets people hanging out the bunting and draining glasses to the health of the Dear Old Queen. If - as is suspected - Sultan Munadi was killed by the bullets of those attempting to rescue Stephen Farrell, then the success was something worse than equivocal.
The question that most stubbornly occurs, though, is this. What was the basis for the decision made by this pair of politicians (without any collusion whatsoever from our prime minister, who merely peeped out from under his desk while stretching for a cup of tea that had been thoughtfully left on the carpet for him)?
Surely only a cynic could suggest that the Go order was given in the hope of securing a headline-flashing victory in the course of an increasingly miserable occupation?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Some Idiot Went To War And All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt
Like most of Britain's citizens, Sordel is content to fight his wars on the Home Front. I am not entirely convinced, however, that our Prime Minister should be allowed to do the same.
It used to be inferred from his sullen silence on the subject that Gordon Brown was no supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. War, one felt, was incompatible with a man for whom prudence had become not so much a watchword as the nervous tic of a genteel Tourette. The mongering of war sits uncomfortably alongside fiscal responsibility, which is why many voters may have assumed that Brown would draw a line under the adventuring of his predecessor and quietly withdraw our troops from theatres of war with the discretion of an impresario closing a West End flop.
How wrong we all were.
Brown, it is true, is no wartime leader. One cannot imagine Churchill, or Thatcher, or Blair, presiding over a country at war without the occasionally morale-raising speech, the shake of the flag, the salute to the forces. Brown acts, however, like someone for whom war is conducted far away by strange and distant relatives.
It is an impression that can only have been fostered by Blair's own remoteness. One imagines Tony to have been like as a small boy at boarding school writing reluctant postcards to a disciplinarian and slightly mad aunt. "UN nice, food okay, send more money." "Thank you for the seedcake, dug out a rabbit hole on Saturday, send more money." "Met the president, going to war, send more money."
Sat at home with this collection of haikuesque epistles, the dismal Gordon could only have thought of statesmanship as something that happened to other people in distant lands. Mrs. Brown's little boy - admitted to Edinburgh University by the age of sixteen when most of his peers would have been getting their prefect badges and first serious girlfriends - continued along the sad little road upon which his feet had long ago been set.
No war for Gordon. No prefect badge for Gordon. Gordon excused school sport on account of a nasty injury incurred during rugby.
The result is a man gazing uncomprehendingly at war through a window-pane. When a crisis occurs for which he feels himself prepared (if, for example, someone is needed to pass billions of pounds across the table to the banking fraternity) Brown is the man for the job.
But war is something to which he takes no principled exception and to which he can make not the least practical contribution.
Helicopters? The brass might have more luck asking for seedcake.
It used to be inferred from his sullen silence on the subject that Gordon Brown was no supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. War, one felt, was incompatible with a man for whom prudence had become not so much a watchword as the nervous tic of a genteel Tourette. The mongering of war sits uncomfortably alongside fiscal responsibility, which is why many voters may have assumed that Brown would draw a line under the adventuring of his predecessor and quietly withdraw our troops from theatres of war with the discretion of an impresario closing a West End flop.
How wrong we all were.
Brown, it is true, is no wartime leader. One cannot imagine Churchill, or Thatcher, or Blair, presiding over a country at war without the occasionally morale-raising speech, the shake of the flag, the salute to the forces. Brown acts, however, like someone for whom war is conducted far away by strange and distant relatives.
It is an impression that can only have been fostered by Blair's own remoteness. One imagines Tony to have been like as a small boy at boarding school writing reluctant postcards to a disciplinarian and slightly mad aunt. "UN nice, food okay, send more money." "Thank you for the seedcake, dug out a rabbit hole on Saturday, send more money." "Met the president, going to war, send more money."
Sat at home with this collection of haikuesque epistles, the dismal Gordon could only have thought of statesmanship as something that happened to other people in distant lands. Mrs. Brown's little boy - admitted to Edinburgh University by the age of sixteen when most of his peers would have been getting their prefect badges and first serious girlfriends - continued along the sad little road upon which his feet had long ago been set.
No war for Gordon. No prefect badge for Gordon. Gordon excused school sport on account of a nasty injury incurred during rugby.
The result is a man gazing uncomprehendingly at war through a window-pane. When a crisis occurs for which he feels himself prepared (if, for example, someone is needed to pass billions of pounds across the table to the banking fraternity) Brown is the man for the job.
But war is something to which he takes no principled exception and to which he can make not the least practical contribution.
Helicopters? The brass might have more luck asking for seedcake.
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Mouldering Edifice
They're cranking open the roof of the laboratory at Labour Central Office again and praying for a stormy night.
It is a source of amazement to me that Margaret Beckett is regarded as a serious candidate for the role of Speaker. Were Russell Brand to stand for election as Commissioner for Standards in Broadcasting, there is a slim chance that he might defy expectations and not mention his willy in the acceptance speech. There is, however, no chance at all that Mags would reform the Commons. She is the steady-as-you-go-Lads-and-you'll-be-needing-those-spoons-for-gravy candidate.
This is, after all, a woman who actually managed to have a claim for expenses declined by the Fees Office. So incompetent was her fleecing of the public purse that she actually put in a receipt for having her pergola painted. Officials accustomed to swallowing camels strained out this gnat, so the patched horror was required to dip into her own resources.
Is it any wonder that her campaign slogan is "No Gazebo Left Behind"?
John Bercow, another front runner for the Speaker's job, is regarded (when standing next to Margaret Becket) as a reform candidate, but is in fact a member of the "£23,083 Club": those members distinguished for having claimed the maximum allowable in '07-08. The man does backflips for fish and was forced to write out a cheque for £6,508 at about the same time that his colleagues were shoving thick copies of Hansard down their breeches in expectation of a caning from the Beak.
All of which leaves Ann Widdecombe (the Have I Got News candidate) looking surprisingly acceptable for the role. HIGNFY is, you will recall, the route by which Boris Johnson managed to get elected as London Mayor. On the principle that brand recognition is better than a glowing c.v., Miss Widdecombe becomes the natural People's Choice.
Moreover, she actually managed to make it into The Telegraph's "Saints" section. The poor thing actually commutes to London and doesn't claim for a second home at all.
So she won't win it.
By the time you read this, the issue will probably have been settled, but informed rumour (i.e. baseless speculation) has it that it is the Goldilocks candidate - George (Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold But Just Right) Young - who may yet be dragged protesting to the Speaker's chair. Another member of the £23,083 Club, he has nevertheless avoided the whiff of scandal thus far and does not require a bolt of lightning for reanimation.
On the whole, though, it would be somehow fitting were the Speaker to require the periodic reattachment of limbs. The stench of recent disinterrment would be a reminder to Gordon Brown that he long ago traded the sweet smell of success for that of impending ruin.
It is a source of amazement to me that Margaret Beckett is regarded as a serious candidate for the role of Speaker. Were Russell Brand to stand for election as Commissioner for Standards in Broadcasting, there is a slim chance that he might defy expectations and not mention his willy in the acceptance speech. There is, however, no chance at all that Mags would reform the Commons. She is the steady-as-you-go-Lads-and-you'll-be-needing-those-spoons-for-gravy candidate.
This is, after all, a woman who actually managed to have a claim for expenses declined by the Fees Office. So incompetent was her fleecing of the public purse that she actually put in a receipt for having her pergola painted. Officials accustomed to swallowing camels strained out this gnat, so the patched horror was required to dip into her own resources.
Is it any wonder that her campaign slogan is "No Gazebo Left Behind"?
John Bercow, another front runner for the Speaker's job, is regarded (when standing next to Margaret Becket) as a reform candidate, but is in fact a member of the "£23,083 Club": those members distinguished for having claimed the maximum allowable in '07-08. The man does backflips for fish and was forced to write out a cheque for £6,508 at about the same time that his colleagues were shoving thick copies of Hansard down their breeches in expectation of a caning from the Beak.
All of which leaves Ann Widdecombe (the Have I Got News candidate) looking surprisingly acceptable for the role. HIGNFY is, you will recall, the route by which Boris Johnson managed to get elected as London Mayor. On the principle that brand recognition is better than a glowing c.v., Miss Widdecombe becomes the natural People's Choice.
Moreover, she actually managed to make it into The Telegraph's "Saints" section. The poor thing actually commutes to London and doesn't claim for a second home at all.
So she won't win it.
By the time you read this, the issue will probably have been settled, but informed rumour (i.e. baseless speculation) has it that it is the Goldilocks candidate - George (Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold But Just Right) Young - who may yet be dragged protesting to the Speaker's chair. Another member of the £23,083 Club, he has nevertheless avoided the whiff of scandal thus far and does not require a bolt of lightning for reanimation.
On the whole, though, it would be somehow fitting were the Speaker to require the periodic reattachment of limbs. The stench of recent disinterrment would be a reminder to Gordon Brown that he long ago traded the sweet smell of success for that of impending ruin.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Black Balls For White Supremacists?
Short of having a peerage, could Gordon Brown be less democratic? As an MP for a Scottish constituency he, like so many of his auld acquaintances, owes his place in the Commons to a West Lothian bye. He was never elected to his place as leader of the Labour Party, and never elected to be prime minister either. If he wants someone in the cabinet but can't get them elected (such as Peter Mandelson) he hands them a peerage. Moreover, at a time when it is painfully obvious to everyone that he can command the support neither of the country nor his own party (nor, quite possibly, his own cabinet), he clings on to power with the same Nanny-knows-best logic as his predecessor.
This is the man showing a new zeal for parliamentary reform.
It is interesting that he - and others - have been attacking the old abuses of the Commons with the emblem of a "gentleman's club". This comparison suits the class war mentality that he and Baron Mandelson seem to believe plays to a Great British Public resentful of privilege, yet it also seems a remarkably thin comparison. Gentlemen's clubs are, it is true, known for their leather armchairs, but extensive redecoration of the Commons is scarcely affordable, let alone necessary. Clubs are also known for their sleepy atmosphere, but - given the tireless energy that the members have been putting into their expenses - clearly there has been little time for napping between debates.
Moreover, it is worth bearing in mind that gentlemen's clubs supply a luxury that is paid for by its members, and not taxed out of the pockets of those milling outside its doors. People don't enter gentlemen's clubs to make money; they generally have it on the way in and somewhat less of it on the way out.
Presumably the basis of the comparison, then, is this: clubs are exclusive. They keep out the people who don't "fit".
It is interesting, then, that recent news has taught us a lot more about the ways of democracy with regard to the BNP. Evidently the other political parties have been colluding to run additional candidates in areas of local BNP strength in order to dilute their vote. There is, in short, a conspiracy against the BNP. When Nick Griffin said last night that the egg-throwers were only doing what the major political parties wanted them to, he was far-right on the money.
Now, I can't say that I like the BNP much, but amongst the reasons for Hitler's rise a prominent one was the defects of the Weimar Republic, and the roots causes of support for the BNP are not so distant. The Labour government spent years whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment in an effort to persuade us that fighting a war abroad was the only way to prevent domestic terrorism here. It was shameful fear-mongering, and has resulted in a country where dislike of foreigners now has an institutional root. Open the door to xenophobia (for contemptible political ends) and racist politicians will squeeze through.
Another factor to consider here is politicians tend to be made in the image of the tactics used against them, and the eggs are only the latest of the harassment used upon Nick Griffin, who has been unsuccessfully prosecuted for inciting racial hatred twice and was, of course, prevented from attending the vote count on Sunday at his first attempt by the mob demonstrating outside.
According to Wikipedia, Nick Griffin has a Boxing Blue from Cambridge. He apparently took up the sport after a "brawl with an anti-fascist". He will learn and employ tactics appropriate to those used upon him.
It goes without saying that there is no moral equivalency between racial hatred and spangly loo-seats but I do have a nagging fear that the true threat to the British political system is not the people clamouring to get into our parliament but the people fighting so ignobly to stay there.
This is the man showing a new zeal for parliamentary reform.
It is interesting that he - and others - have been attacking the old abuses of the Commons with the emblem of a "gentleman's club". This comparison suits the class war mentality that he and Baron Mandelson seem to believe plays to a Great British Public resentful of privilege, yet it also seems a remarkably thin comparison. Gentlemen's clubs are, it is true, known for their leather armchairs, but extensive redecoration of the Commons is scarcely affordable, let alone necessary. Clubs are also known for their sleepy atmosphere, but - given the tireless energy that the members have been putting into their expenses - clearly there has been little time for napping between debates.
Moreover, it is worth bearing in mind that gentlemen's clubs supply a luxury that is paid for by its members, and not taxed out of the pockets of those milling outside its doors. People don't enter gentlemen's clubs to make money; they generally have it on the way in and somewhat less of it on the way out.
Presumably the basis of the comparison, then, is this: clubs are exclusive. They keep out the people who don't "fit".
It is interesting, then, that recent news has taught us a lot more about the ways of democracy with regard to the BNP. Evidently the other political parties have been colluding to run additional candidates in areas of local BNP strength in order to dilute their vote. There is, in short, a conspiracy against the BNP. When Nick Griffin said last night that the egg-throwers were only doing what the major political parties wanted them to, he was far-right on the money.
Now, I can't say that I like the BNP much, but amongst the reasons for Hitler's rise a prominent one was the defects of the Weimar Republic, and the roots causes of support for the BNP are not so distant. The Labour government spent years whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment in an effort to persuade us that fighting a war abroad was the only way to prevent domestic terrorism here. It was shameful fear-mongering, and has resulted in a country where dislike of foreigners now has an institutional root. Open the door to xenophobia (for contemptible political ends) and racist politicians will squeeze through.
Another factor to consider here is politicians tend to be made in the image of the tactics used against them, and the eggs are only the latest of the harassment used upon Nick Griffin, who has been unsuccessfully prosecuted for inciting racial hatred twice and was, of course, prevented from attending the vote count on Sunday at his first attempt by the mob demonstrating outside.
According to Wikipedia, Nick Griffin has a Boxing Blue from Cambridge. He apparently took up the sport after a "brawl with an anti-fascist". He will learn and employ tactics appropriate to those used upon him.
It goes without saying that there is no moral equivalency between racial hatred and spangly loo-seats but I do have a nagging fear that the true threat to the British political system is not the people clamouring to get into our parliament but the people fighting so ignobly to stay there.
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