David Cameron (whom, for these purposes, let us imagine in full Little Lord Fauntleroy garb with copious lace and silk knee-pants) must have cut an eager figure as he approached the harassed Obama for a new war. "I'll feed it, and walk it, and you won't even know it's there," he must have implored.
Forgetting that this is what Sasha and Malia told him about Bo (his only surviving election promise) the embattled president seems to have reluctantly agreed, the fit measurement of that reluctance being that he has left Libya in the hands of Cameron and Sarkozy while he addressed more pressing issues, such as the fact that his entire government is on the brink of being shut down.
And, indeed, Cameron and Sarkozy did walk the war, proudly and ardently ... for about twelve hours. Now, with matted fur and an unsettlingly wolfish expression of resentment, it is defecating on the hall carpet and howling through the night.
The last time Britain and France went on their own without American leadership was, of course, the Suez crisis, when at least we had Israel, the world's most bellicose nation, doing some fighting for us. As a world leader (and I use the the word leader loosely) the last news that you want to hear is that the U.S. has ceded control of the air operation to you.
This is a bit like a young comedian getting on the bill with Billie Crystal and then learning that Crystal isn't intending to do any of the jokes himself.
Currently, the losers in this situation are the Libyan rebels, who should really have looked up the phrase "Iraqi Kurds" on Wikipedia before they took up arms.
Disastrous though the current situation is, however, there is worse to come for the people of Libya. If NATO gets its way, and Qaddafi is toppled, normal civilians in Tripoli and Benghazi may well come to view these as "the good old days".
And as for the puppy ... it's a rottweiler ... with a gentle disposition ... and has never showed any signs at all of wanting to savage the small boys who currently only pay it attention to poke it with a stick.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Rolling the Dice
Back in the days when the Rubik's Cube was young, Sordel's approach to this small bundle of polychrome frustration was as follows: if the current situation was not to one's liking, give it another turn and hope that it improves. Now in the grand scheme of things, this is an imperfect approach to solving a Rubik's Cube ... but it is an absolutely disastrous method for solving foreign policy.
Barack Obama has got the red side solved by turning the United States back into a Republican stronghold. Now, like most presidents who have been made redundant by electoral failure, he is looking across the sea. Rather than concentrate on Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan or Guantanamo Bay, however, he has set his sights on Libya. According to the New York Times this was much against his better judgement, but he seems to have been bounced into it by the French, who in this demonstrate an inclination to ironic comedy for which they have not as a nation been previously noted.
("You want some "Freedom Fries" with that, mon ami?")
Naturally there are some who are cheering on this latest excursion on the basis that it protects the fragile seedling of democracy. Quite what species these seedlings are that are peeking out from the oil-drenched soil of the Middle East is, however, open to question, as is the strength of feeling behind the protests that accompany them. After all, when thousands of people marched against the Iraq war, this was regarded by Tony Blair as mere grumbling, but if a hundred people raise a banner in Africa we are evidently ready to recognise their government.
If three men and a dog claimed that the town Sordel lives in had fallen into rebel hands, the BBC would colour it a different colour on a map and start describing the dog as "regional governor".
Whatever the rights and wrong of the two sides in the civil war for Libya, we can be sure that ordinary citizens with very little interest in politics will now be killed by both sides, and by the foreign airstrikes. With Obama's promise of "no ground troops" (a promise that immediately seems impossible to keep) we are looking to the rebels to provide an effective police system capable of restraining a Qadaffi regime that will inevitably conceal itself within the general population.
In the meantime, if the U.S. is serious about protecting freedom-loving innocents from an oppressor's rain of fire, it can do so by stopping bombing children gathering wood in Afghanistan.
Maybe finish one of our other wars before starting another?
Barack Obama has got the red side solved by turning the United States back into a Republican stronghold. Now, like most presidents who have been made redundant by electoral failure, he is looking across the sea. Rather than concentrate on Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan or Guantanamo Bay, however, he has set his sights on Libya. According to the New York Times this was much against his better judgement, but he seems to have been bounced into it by the French, who in this demonstrate an inclination to ironic comedy for which they have not as a nation been previously noted.
("You want some "Freedom Fries" with that, mon ami?")
Naturally there are some who are cheering on this latest excursion on the basis that it protects the fragile seedling of democracy. Quite what species these seedlings are that are peeking out from the oil-drenched soil of the Middle East is, however, open to question, as is the strength of feeling behind the protests that accompany them. After all, when thousands of people marched against the Iraq war, this was regarded by Tony Blair as mere grumbling, but if a hundred people raise a banner in Africa we are evidently ready to recognise their government.
If three men and a dog claimed that the town Sordel lives in had fallen into rebel hands, the BBC would colour it a different colour on a map and start describing the dog as "regional governor".
Whatever the rights and wrong of the two sides in the civil war for Libya, we can be sure that ordinary citizens with very little interest in politics will now be killed by both sides, and by the foreign airstrikes. With Obama's promise of "no ground troops" (a promise that immediately seems impossible to keep) we are looking to the rebels to provide an effective police system capable of restraining a Qadaffi regime that will inevitably conceal itself within the general population.
In the meantime, if the U.S. is serious about protecting freedom-loving innocents from an oppressor's rain of fire, it can do so by stopping bombing children gathering wood in Afghanistan.
Maybe finish one of our other wars before starting another?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Stop The Presses
It seems likely that when the great ideological struggles of the Twentieth Century are investigated by the historians of the future, more attention than heretofore will be given to that between the Radio Times and the TV Times.
Sordel's interest in this behemothian conflict was engaged by the front page splash upon which RadioTimes editors are pinning their Pulitzer ambitions this year: "EXCLUSIVE [and this word, mind you, in red, as though the caps lock was insufficient alert to journalistic dynamite incoming] Back at the Beeb! Jonathan Ross on why he's older, wiser - and safer".
Now, set aside the immediate objections. True, Ross's final episodes of Film 2010 and Friday Night with ... did only air in March and July of last year respectively; there is stuff at the back of Sordel's fridge that as been out of sight for longer. True, Ross was on Top Gear last Sunday, so unless we are actually supposed to be excited that he is "back at the Beeb" after a respite of a full week, the hoopla does seem overstated.
And true, this appearance by Jonathan Ross is actually only as host of the BAFTA film awards. As reconciliations go, this scarcely ranks with Lear & Cordelia.
Set these issues aside and incline your mind instead to the the most pressing question that arises from this cover story:
Who cares?
RadioTimes, like the Russian bear, is fighting the Cold Wars of the past, when every household took two bottles into the shower: shampoo for the BBC, conditioner for ITV and Channel Four. Back then, when The Goodies crossed the floor from the BBC to ITV, TV Times treated them like defecting chess grandmasters. The timeses (TV and Radio) were vassal states fighting and dying for their implacable overlords.
With its monopolistic grip on the BBC listings, the Radio Times was once a proud superpower on the shelves of the newsagents. Now, like an old man his teeth, it has lost even the space in the middle of its title. Yet still it looks back upon former grandeur in the expectation that its readership will view it as Auntie's bastion, partaking of its every victory and defeat.
Just don't mention Sky.
Sordel's interest in this behemothian conflict was engaged by the front page splash upon which RadioTimes editors are pinning their Pulitzer ambitions this year: "EXCLUSIVE [and this word, mind you, in red, as though the caps lock was insufficient alert to journalistic dynamite incoming] Back at the Beeb! Jonathan Ross on why he's older, wiser - and safer".
Now, set aside the immediate objections. True, Ross's final episodes of Film 2010 and Friday Night with ... did only air in March and July of last year respectively; there is stuff at the back of Sordel's fridge that as been out of sight for longer. True, Ross was on Top Gear last Sunday, so unless we are actually supposed to be excited that he is "back at the Beeb" after a respite of a full week, the hoopla does seem overstated.
And true, this appearance by Jonathan Ross is actually only as host of the BAFTA film awards. As reconciliations go, this scarcely ranks with Lear & Cordelia.
Set these issues aside and incline your mind instead to the the most pressing question that arises from this cover story:
Who cares?
RadioTimes, like the Russian bear, is fighting the Cold Wars of the past, when every household took two bottles into the shower: shampoo for the BBC, conditioner for ITV and Channel Four. Back then, when The Goodies crossed the floor from the BBC to ITV, TV Times treated them like defecting chess grandmasters. The timeses (TV and Radio) were vassal states fighting and dying for their implacable overlords.
With its monopolistic grip on the BBC listings, the Radio Times was once a proud superpower on the shelves of the newsagents. Now, like an old man his teeth, it has lost even the space in the middle of its title. Yet still it looks back upon former grandeur in the expectation that its readership will view it as Auntie's bastion, partaking of its every victory and defeat.
Just don't mention Sky.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
A Ferrero Rocher Crisis
In the glamorous world of international diplomacy, a posting to Kyrgyzstan is, Sordel would guess, not the most contested of vacancies. Still, ambassador is ambassador, and Tatiana Gfoeller-Volkoff was presumably delighted when she was appointed by President George W. Bush as part of his initiative to get "all things that are difficult to spell" into the same file. Shortly after her arrival, she attended a brunch in the capitol, Bishkek (you knew that, right?), little guessing that her moment of Destiny had arrived.
When one is born with the accurate transcription of a sneeze where a surname should be, one has to try that little bit harder, so it is hardly surprising that Gfoeller attempted to spice up her reports back to the State Department: not least when the opportunity arose to venture a sketch of Prince Andrew. What is remarkable about this storm in a teacup, however, is not that she took exception to him, but that she took exception to things which seems so very unexceptional.
Among the comments recorded are his declaration that the investigation into Britain's Al-Yamama deal with Saudi-Arabia was a bad thing. The British government clearly thought so too, since it intervened to prevent the investigation. The Duke of York was hardly off-message in voicing his criticism.
Other titbits thought worthwhile for addition to the State Department's file include the Prince's referring to the current adventure in Central Asia as "The Great Game" which, one would have thought, is neither controversial nor novel.
And that the U.S. has no sense of Geography, which - given that it blithely invaded two countries which together have an area of over a million square kilometres using an army more suited in size to the occupation of Cornwall - is an assertion voiced and proven in the space of two sentences.
So the question that arises is not whether Prince Andrew has demonstrated a shocking lack of delicacy, but whether the Diplomatic Corps is really worth its cost if the intelligence data that it is providing is really of this extraordinarily low quality. It seems that the U.S. is gloating over the possession of a hoard of international secrets that even Hello magazine would consign unpublished to the editorial shredder.
As for Prince Andrew ... well, given that he is the former husband of Sarah, Duchess of York, he must be used to public revelations a good deal more embarrassing than these.
When one is born with the accurate transcription of a sneeze where a surname should be, one has to try that little bit harder, so it is hardly surprising that Gfoeller attempted to spice up her reports back to the State Department: not least when the opportunity arose to venture a sketch of Prince Andrew. What is remarkable about this storm in a teacup, however, is not that she took exception to him, but that she took exception to things which seems so very unexceptional.
Among the comments recorded are his declaration that the investigation into Britain's Al-Yamama deal with Saudi-Arabia was a bad thing. The British government clearly thought so too, since it intervened to prevent the investigation. The Duke of York was hardly off-message in voicing his criticism.
Other titbits thought worthwhile for addition to the State Department's file include the Prince's referring to the current adventure in Central Asia as "The Great Game" which, one would have thought, is neither controversial nor novel.
And that the U.S. has no sense of Geography, which - given that it blithely invaded two countries which together have an area of over a million square kilometres using an army more suited in size to the occupation of Cornwall - is an assertion voiced and proven in the space of two sentences.
So the question that arises is not whether Prince Andrew has demonstrated a shocking lack of delicacy, but whether the Diplomatic Corps is really worth its cost if the intelligence data that it is providing is really of this extraordinarily low quality. It seems that the U.S. is gloating over the possession of a hoard of international secrets that even Hello magazine would consign unpublished to the editorial shredder.
As for Prince Andrew ... well, given that he is the former husband of Sarah, Duchess of York, he must be used to public revelations a good deal more embarrassing than these.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Alas Woolas
Generally speaking, a party in opposition has little opportunity to demonstrate its suicidal lack of political judgement.
Even, however, where little opportunity exists, Labour MPs will heed its gentle knock, which is perhaps why they are lining up to voice their support for disgraced former ballot-swindler Phil Woolas.
Phil, who has only appeared in these pages or the public imagination once previously - whilst being verbally spanked to universal delight and approbation by renowned Gurkhaphile Joanna Lumley - has again been the victim of public matriarchal chastisement. This time it was at the gloved hand of Harriet Harman, who told the Resident Intellectual that while a judicial review might reinstate the mendacious Phil, it could not exonerate him of the accusation that he knowingly lied in order to win an election, and he would therefore not be reinstated as a Labour MP under any circumstances.
By any sane standard, this should have seen an end to the story, but seemingly not so, and for reasons that may point to a deeper schism in Labour ranks.
Harman, bug-eyed sophomore grandee of the Labour rump, has also become its Cassandra: universally vilified despite doing the obviously right thing. Having presided over a leadership election process that delivered the "wrong" Miliband as leader, she was marked for death when the loser, David, visibly reproached her for applauding his brother at the Labour Party Conference.
If Harman, however, is regarded as an Ediband loyalist, then her antagonist is a doyenne of the Daviband insurgency. When Daviband needed someone to run his sleazy leadership campaign, he turned to Phil, who proceeded to bring to national politics the approach that had worked so well at Oldham East and Saddleworth. Although the wholly negative campaign, which depicted Ediband as a raving Marxist, has Phil's grubby fingerprints all over it, he actually nominated Diane Abbott, in what he termed "an act of pluralism" (a.k.a. "an attempt to dilute the left-wing vote").
The man whom the rest of us regard as a festering canker on British politics is, to the Davibandians, a poster-boy for political effectiveness.
Of course, this cheers Sordel as a rotting pear does the fruitfly. What could be better for the cynical onlooker than the hyenas of Millbank angrily contesting the last bone of political power?
It is worth acknowledging, however, that for Elwyn Watkins, the Liberal Democrat candidate mercilessly defamed by Woolas, the smear campaign was perhaps less entertaining. A sober account of the judgement in the Saddleworth News reminds us that the thrust of the lies was to imply that Watkins was pro-Islamist in a constituency with racial tensions, which goes rather beyond the rough-and-tumble of regular politics.
There is only one group of people in the world who will question the severity of Phil's punishment, and they all take tea with David Miliband.
Even, however, where little opportunity exists, Labour MPs will heed its gentle knock, which is perhaps why they are lining up to voice their support for disgraced former ballot-swindler Phil Woolas.
Phil, who has only appeared in these pages or the public imagination once previously - whilst being verbally spanked to universal delight and approbation by renowned Gurkhaphile Joanna Lumley - has again been the victim of public matriarchal chastisement. This time it was at the gloved hand of Harriet Harman, who told the Resident Intellectual that while a judicial review might reinstate the mendacious Phil, it could not exonerate him of the accusation that he knowingly lied in order to win an election, and he would therefore not be reinstated as a Labour MP under any circumstances.
By any sane standard, this should have seen an end to the story, but seemingly not so, and for reasons that may point to a deeper schism in Labour ranks.
Harman, bug-eyed sophomore grandee of the Labour rump, has also become its Cassandra: universally vilified despite doing the obviously right thing. Having presided over a leadership election process that delivered the "wrong" Miliband as leader, she was marked for death when the loser, David, visibly reproached her for applauding his brother at the Labour Party Conference.
If Harman, however, is regarded as an Ediband loyalist, then her antagonist is a doyenne of the Daviband insurgency. When Daviband needed someone to run his sleazy leadership campaign, he turned to Phil, who proceeded to bring to national politics the approach that had worked so well at Oldham East and Saddleworth. Although the wholly negative campaign, which depicted Ediband as a raving Marxist, has Phil's grubby fingerprints all over it, he actually nominated Diane Abbott, in what he termed "an act of pluralism" (a.k.a. "an attempt to dilute the left-wing vote").
The man whom the rest of us regard as a festering canker on British politics is, to the Davibandians, a poster-boy for political effectiveness.
Of course, this cheers Sordel as a rotting pear does the fruitfly. What could be better for the cynical onlooker than the hyenas of Millbank angrily contesting the last bone of political power?
It is worth acknowledging, however, that for Elwyn Watkins, the Liberal Democrat candidate mercilessly defamed by Woolas, the smear campaign was perhaps less entertaining. A sober account of the judgement in the Saddleworth News reminds us that the thrust of the lies was to imply that Watkins was pro-Islamist in a constituency with racial tensions, which goes rather beyond the rough-and-tumble of regular politics.
There is only one group of people in the world who will question the severity of Phil's punishment, and they all take tea with David Miliband.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Inevitably, Margate
In the absence of anything untoward happening this week at Harrow or the Derby County F. C., it is to the BBC's Resident Intellectual that we must turn for the latest in our occasional but ever-popular series "Serendipitously Geographical Scandals of Our Times."
Andrew Marr (for it is he) has caused the entire blogosponge to seep & reek menacingly in his direction for some unguarded remarks he made recently dissing the Nerd Collective and accusing (what I am forced to refer to as) us for living in our parents' basement and suffering from acne.
Much of the considered response to this has been of the who-you-calling-ugly-Jugears? variety, which does sort of cede the high ground, but if blogs were written with pencils then a rainforest would by now have been thrown away as they were whittled to an ever-more-lethal sharpness for the purpose of bursting the R. I.'s balloon.
Yet the contrarian Sordel suspects that the hidden purpose of Marr's attack may have been missed. In 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev wished to repudiate Stalin, he did so in closed session of Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When Ed Murrow sought to denounce the U.S. Television industry in 1958., he did so directly to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago.
The Resident Intellectual, noted historian that he is (despite actually being an English graduate), could scarcely have overlooked these precedents. One braves the lions not from behind the bars of their cage, but in their very den.
Presumably this is why he excoriated us not on his Sunday television show, but at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, where you can hardly throw a shoe without hitting full in the face someone who has been nursing a modest commentary on Google.
(After all, The Times is virtually the patron saint of writers of unsolicited opinions.)
There they were, suckling at the teat of literary wisdom, composing quietly in their heads the Cheltenham Festival installment at which they would doubtless issue a stinging rebuke to Melvyn Bragg and pass a cruel but apposite comment on Mark Kermode's leather jacket when - Bingo! - the probing searchlight of the Resident Intellectual pinned them to their seats.
In a moment of Brechtian alienation, the audience was suddenly upon the metaphorical stage, lampooned and vilified like the celebrated men & women of letters that we all so long to be.
Yet once the Great Magician had pulled this rabbit from the hat, he had one more elegant trick to play upon us all. He looked us tenderly in the collective eye and gently, reassuringly, told us: "not you, constant reader ... not you, middle aged office clerk raging against the dying of the light."
"I do not inflict this cruelty upon you, but upon the spotty teenager drinking cider in his parents' basement."
Whew, for a minute there I was feeling wounded.
Andrew Marr (for it is he) has caused the entire blogosponge to seep & reek menacingly in his direction for some unguarded remarks he made recently dissing the Nerd Collective and accusing (what I am forced to refer to as) us for living in our parents' basement and suffering from acne.
Much of the considered response to this has been of the who-you-calling-ugly-Jugears? variety, which does sort of cede the high ground, but if blogs were written with pencils then a rainforest would by now have been thrown away as they were whittled to an ever-more-lethal sharpness for the purpose of bursting the R. I.'s balloon.
Yet the contrarian Sordel suspects that the hidden purpose of Marr's attack may have been missed. In 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev wished to repudiate Stalin, he did so in closed session of Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When Ed Murrow sought to denounce the U.S. Television industry in 1958., he did so directly to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago.
The Resident Intellectual, noted historian that he is (despite actually being an English graduate), could scarcely have overlooked these precedents. One braves the lions not from behind the bars of their cage, but in their very den.
Presumably this is why he excoriated us not on his Sunday television show, but at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, where you can hardly throw a shoe without hitting full in the face someone who has been nursing a modest commentary on Google.
(After all, The Times is virtually the patron saint of writers of unsolicited opinions.)
There they were, suckling at the teat of literary wisdom, composing quietly in their heads the Cheltenham Festival installment at which they would doubtless issue a stinging rebuke to Melvyn Bragg and pass a cruel but apposite comment on Mark Kermode's leather jacket when - Bingo! - the probing searchlight of the Resident Intellectual pinned them to their seats.
In a moment of Brechtian alienation, the audience was suddenly upon the metaphorical stage, lampooned and vilified like the celebrated men & women of letters that we all so long to be.
Yet once the Great Magician had pulled this rabbit from the hat, he had one more elegant trick to play upon us all. He looked us tenderly in the collective eye and gently, reassuringly, told us: "not you, constant reader ... not you, middle aged office clerk raging against the dying of the light."
"I do not inflict this cruelty upon you, but upon the spotty teenager drinking cider in his parents' basement."
Whew, for a minute there I was feeling wounded.
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.
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