Kenny Everett Lives!

At least I’m assuming he does, ‘cause the latest emissions from the Pink Wedge bear his hallmark eye for the absurd. They’ve come out – as it were - against legislation they’ve spent years pushing. They’ve finally noticed that there’s no obvious way to draw up legislation imposing a right for 16 botty bandits to goose step into the Dog & Duck and claim it for the Republic of Rumpramming without similarly creating a right for persons of the straight type to enter the Blue Oyster Bar.

The technical term for the above observation is ‘blindingly obvious’, but it passed them by until about two minutes ago, at which point all the queeny hysterics previously dedicated to pushing this legislation was suddenly switched to opposing it. Not that they’re bigots, oh no, they’re just worried about gay bashers. Funnily enough, the landlord of the White Lion isn’t prejudiced either, he’s just worried about one of his regulars being sexually harassed by a passing Tory MP, but when he says that he gets called a Nazi.

Still, the Pink Wedge is left with trying to find a way to explain why schools should be forced to expose pupils to publicly-funded gay propaganda, but folks down the Swinging Stallion shouldn’t be exposed to the sight of badly-dressed blokes. This is where we are in the Culture Wars. These people have spent years banging on about their desire for equality, yet now they’re suddenly demanding special treatment. Who’d have thunk it ?

Well, yes, plenty of us actually. It has been quite obvious for years that the Pink Wedge’s attachment to equality has been purely tactical. Consider, for example, the legal harassment of pensioners who ask for equal prominence for gay and Christian literature in council offices. No complaints from the Pink Wedge there. That is important because Prince David has dedicated a lot of time to grovelling to the Pink Wedge – indeed, the whole gay rights thing seems to be Opus Dave’s very own litmus test, but this whole policy is based on two really stupid myths: that there is some kind of moral case for their argument, and that Cameron need only find a magic formula and the Pink Wedge will flock towards his banner.

Forget it - the Pink Wedge isn’t motivated by any particular vision of ‘equality’; it’s just another special interest group. There will be no point at which they decide ‘hey, things are going pretty well, let’s fold out tents and get a life’. Or to put it another way, Cameron can feed the crocodile all it wants, but that won’t stop it shedding tears about how badly it’s been oppressed.

Cartoon Jihad Exposes Cartoon Leader

I’m guessing the honeymoon is over for Prince David. The latest polls are in, and the Tories are melting….melting. Not coincidentally, voters list ‘defence/foreign affairs/terrorism’ as their most important issues.

But, of course. Islamic fundamentalism is the perfect rebuttal to everything Opus Dave believe about politics. Cameron, like Blair before him, is an essentially post-modern politician, obsessed with questions of image and perception, more than facts. But while Blairism retains the putrid remains of at least some basic idealism, Cameron takes it one step further. Listen to Opus Dave talk about committed Conservatives and you realise these people not only lack any beliefs of their own; they positively hate the whole concept of idealism itself. Actual beliefs are so twentieth century, ironic detachment is the thing these days. Everything is negotiable, all considerations are tactical and expediency is the only principle.

Now, consider this comment from a former leader of Hezbollah “We are not fighting so that you will offer us something, we are fighting to eliminate you.". Say what you like about the Islamopaths, but you can’t accuse them of burying the lede. A bus bombing demands a more serious response than spin and photo ops. But does anyone expect that from David Cameron, a guy who needs to check the polls before deciding whether or not to wear a tie today ? On the one hand, we have people who’ll kill themselves just to nail Infidels, on the other, people who live in fear of a critical story on Newsbite.

The War perfectly criticises the difference between politics and leadership. That Cameron is effective at the first may be all well and good, but would anyone feel safe with him in Number 10 ?

So Now We Know

The BBC may be a little unsure about whether flying airliners into buildings is a good or bad thing, but don't let that make you think they have no ability to take a stand. The July 7 bombers may have been 'misguided criminals' but there's some people so evil even the BBC can see it. Yes, the BBC's launching it's own War on People Who Hang Cartoons.

In a bold attempt to refute claims that Liberals have no self-awareness, the BBC even refers to the Phantom Cartoon Hangers as 'extremists' - y'know, kind of like people who openly incite murder, people who put bombs under researchers' cars, people who blow up Afghan villagers.

Not that I'm complaining. It occurs to me that the BBC has given the store away. If you threw a bucket of water over a sleeping BBC presenter, they'd jerk awake denouncing 'right-wing extremists'. Equally, every report of Islamopathic activity is carefully balanced by reference to the extreme right bogeyman. Well, now we know. Inappropriate wall hangings. That is what the BBC means when they talk about the threat from the rise of the extreme right.

Welfare For Wasters

Seems like only a month ago the BBC needed an inflation busting rise in the licence fee to protect its ‘strong and distinctive schedule’. Well, they must have found some money down the back of the sofa – they’re splashing out £100 million on propping up the British film industry. And how did welfare for Emma Thompson et al get to be the BBC’s job ? Apparently, ‘By investing this acquisition money in UK films, we are ensuring that television audiences have access to a mix of movies which includes the very best of British.’ Don’t you just love the way Lefties don’t waste public money, they ‘invest’ it ? But leave aside the superficial absurdity and concentrate on the deeper stupidity: what the BBC is saying is that people like films so they need to prop up the film industry. Really ? Call this a shot in the dark, but I’m fairly sure there’s a more direct way for the public to fund film makers.

Ah yes – that would be the thing. For a real insight into what ails the British film industry, consider what swept the board at the Baftas. Now check out the box office takings. Big hits have been Narnia (current gross: £43,009,415), King Kong (current gross: £29,156,307) and Harry Potter 4 (current gross: £48,080,285). And the greatest film ever ? Ah yes, after 7 weeks it’s managed a gross of £8,534,522, or to put it another way, it’s in the same ball park as Fun with Dick and Jane and Memoirs of a Geisha. In just over a week, Chicken Little grossed £8,481,486. People might like films, but they don’t like the ones the British film industry wants to produce.

Brokeback Mountain celebrated homosexuality and adultery and mocked one of the heroic archetypes of western civilisation – the only way it could have appealed more to British Liberals was if it’d been set in Islington. No doubt the preference of the Great Unwashed for films with actual plots is another selling point in its favour with the chattering classes. That’s OK, there’s no law against snobbery, but I’m a little unclear as to why Joe Public should fund Liberal ego trips.

See, that’s Liberals all over. They whip out an onion when talking in the abstract about ‘the people’ or ‘the poor’ or ‘the disadvantaged’, but when it comes to actual people, the L3 are out there shaking them down for loot to pay for their idiot vanity projects. Hey, wasn’t it us Conservatives who were supposed to be beating down single mothers with our polo mallets ? Meanwhile, those compassionate Lefties at the BBC want to jail them if they don’t fork out cash to support their modern day Palace of Versailles.

The Worst Of All Possible Worlds

For proof of where we are in the Culture Wars, consider recent events in Kent. While a gang of robbers were able to carry out one of the biggest raids, if not the biggest, in British history, the Filth were concentrating on real criminals.

This country has an extensive range of laws covering public order, none of which were designed to encourage police officers to hang around skate parks at 9 PM, waiting to overhear yoofs talking like yoofs talk. Kent might be a dangerous place to run a security depot, but at least any maiden aunts wanting to get in some late night boarding are free from overhearing naughty words.

I could almost accept one or the other. If the Police’s habit of jumping out from behind trees to bust citizens for technicalities was accompanied by a similarly aggressive pursuit of real criminals, that would be one thing. Equally, if the all the rhetoric about ‘understanding root causes’, to say nothing of all the ‘my resources fell down-the stairs, guv’ whining, resulted in a fall in insane tickets, that would still be an improvement on what we have now.

Question D'Jour

Is Richard Dawkins the Alec Baldwin of science or what ?

I'm Guessing The *Quick* Reaction Force Was Tied Up ?

I could almost stand the sudden upswing in demand for onions from the L3 every time a particular act of violence catches the nation's eye, if only their policies weren't the main cause of the mayhem in the first place. Take last week's events in Nottingham. The L3 professed to be shocked - shocked! - at the shooting of a PC. Here, we had a guy found robbing a house by a civilian then caught by a pair of PCs, one of whom he then shoots. Big story, except... it was like something was missing. For four days you would have had more luck trying to find a copy of Cherie Blair's client list than a description of the suspect. Finally, a description is released and the suspect is caught soon after. Coincidence ? Probably, but under what theory of law enforcement is it deemed advantageous not to reveal witness descriptions of a fugitive ? More to the point, how come this theory never applies when the suspect is a David Beckham lookalike ? No doubt the Libs would point to the infamous 'wider issues' - sure, but let's have less of the Princess Di act from people prepared to give a wannabe cop killer a break rather than upset the multiculti applecart.

Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of The Dissemblng Dhimmi

It says a lot about the MSM that they moralise constantly about the need for more transparency in public life, but when they’re under fire they make the mafia look like a model of openness. Consider events surrounding the BBC’s awful series ‘Spooks’

After The Sun ran a story about the BBC censoring an episode of ‘Spooks’, the BBC rushed out a statement that’s a masterpiece of sleazy evasiveness. Actually, even without the censorship, the case is still pretty bizarre. After spending approximately 250 million episodes avoiding any mention of the War on Terror (and this in a series about MI-5), the BBC has decided to take the bull by the horns and face the issue of crazed fundamentalist terrorism head-on. Yes, they’re doing an episode featuring a crazed Christian fundamentalist who runs round killing Islamopaths. And this is the part they admit to. I guess this is what they mean when they say the stories ‘reflect modern life’. I understand future episodes will feature a group of scientists bombing animal right activists, gangs of old ladies mugging smackheads and a right-wing media organisation that extorts money from the public to produce ludicrous propaganda.

So far, so dhimmi, except The Sun reported an amusing twist. Apparently, the Islamopaths aren’t all au fait with the demands of victimhood culture. The thought of someone depicting the shooting of an Islamopath was enough to drive them to….send a strongly-worded letter of protest.

Just kidding!

How’s that for a morality tale for our times ? The BBC tries to draw an insane equivalence between Christians and Islamopaths, so the Islamopaths threaten murder. See, they’re exactly like Christians!

The only surprising thing about the whole story is that the BBC immediately denied spiking the episode in a statement that manages to convey absolutely no other useful information. Were threats received ? Did the BBC consider spiking the episode – and when did they decide against ? Who decided ? And how will future policy reflect these events ?

That’s the bottom line here. Much though the BBC tries to conceal it; that was the why the Motoons were first posted: to demonstrate the endemic nature of self-censorship when the media deals with Islamopathy. Now we have reports that the BBC considered spiking a programme due to threats from Islamopaths. We deserve better than weaselly-statements. Maybe the BBC deserves credit for airing this episode – though none at all for making it - but it’s clear that the BBC is still the Dhimmi Broadcasting Corporation.

Liberals Missing A Dick

Call Inspector Lewis, a prominent Oxford professor has gone missing. Yes, indeed, there’re plenty of things wrong with the Cartoon Jihad, but at least it got Richard Dawkins to STFU. Who says faith can’t make the world a better place ?

The only thing better than the rare moments of silence from Dawkins has been the desperate hair splitting of his acolytes, frantically claiming that absent Dawkins penning an article called ‘Hooray For The Ayatollah Editors’, we shouldn’t mock the sudden onset of laryngitis in 'Darwin's Bulldog'.

Who knows ? Maybe Dawkins really isn’t interested in the Cartoon Jihad, after all journalists are a problem both Creationists and Darwinists would rather not think about. On the one hand, there’s no reason why a just and loving God would create them, on the other you really have to question how warped an environment would have to be to for protojounalists to be able to compete successfully in it.

Oops, my mistake: the latest bizarre iteration involves the very thing that normally provokes Dawkins into channelling Linda Blair in The Exorcist, namely skoolz. Here’s Dawkins on faith schools in general.

The very idea of a faith school is as unjustifiable as the idea of a hereditary House of Lords, and for the same reason. But hereditary peers, though undemocratic and often mildly eccentric, are not dangerous. Faith schools almost certainly are.

Here he is on the specifics of teaching creationism:

But Richard Dawkins, Symonyi professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, said that equating evolution and creationism was "educational debauchery".

"Evolution is supported by mountains of scientific evidence," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "These children are being deliberately and wantonly misled."

There’s plenty more where those came from, for example searching google.co.uk for Dawkins + school + Vardy (Sir Peter, backer of some schools which teach creationism) returns 884 hits. But look what's coming up next:

School textbooks should be reviewed for intolerant depictions of Islam and other faiths by experts overseen by the European Union and Islamic leaders, the European Parliament was told yesterday.

The call for a special committee to examine religious education in schools came from Hans-Gert Pöttering, the German Christian Democrat, who heads the largest group of MEPs. But the proposal was immediately condemned as "appeasement" by Charles Tannock, a British Conservative MEP.

No room for misquote there. So how about The Dawk and the rest of his fellow travellers ? These are the people who howl with rage at the thought of new faith schools opening, well now the pols are talking about giving the religious a veto on the textbooks used in every school, for every subject . Yowser! So much for parental choice.

At least we'll finally get a straight answer to the question: is the atheist Left's hatred of Christianity part of a genuine opposition to religion, or is it just part of a more generalised opposition to anything Western ?

All The Latest News From 2003

Just to sum up the current state of play as regards MSM journalistic ethics, reporters covering a controversy over cartoons shouldn’t let the public see the cartoons themselves as that would be pointlessly inflammatory, but airing images taken from a two-year old investigation that has already resulted in multiple jailings is the very definition of cutting-edge reporting.

Something I’ve said before - leave aside any wider issues, is this even good journalism ? They call themselves news organisations but what, so to speak, is new about it ? Thanks to the sterling work of the MSM, I believe there are people in the upper reaches of the Amazon who are already aware that there was abuse at Abu Ghraib. Behind all the hoopla, these new pictures add literally nothing to the debate.

Really, there’s no evidential value at all. Nothing in these photos adds to our understanding of events at Abu Ghraib. In so far as these images are horrific without moving the story along in any meaningful sense, they are the very definition of ‘inflammatory’.

This sort of thing used to be called tabloid journalism, right up until it suited the Liberal agenda. Now suddenly publishing page after page of atrocity photos is the very definition of the role of a free press. But, quite literally: what is the MSM’s actual point ?

In so far as the MSM have managed to cobble together these any kind of justification for giving two year old evidence the kind of coverage normally reserved for World Cup wins, it’s been the same old dreary nonsense that they were pedalling two years ago.

Guess which news organisation breathlessly reminds us that ‘No senior officer or civilian official was ever charged with a crime in relation to the Abu Ghraib abuses. ‘ Yes, indeed, trust the BBC to rise to the occasion. Personally, I think it’s a revealing insight into the true nature of the modern Liberal just how frequently the L3 are thrown by the revelation that, no, you can’t charge people without actual evidence, no matter how serious the crime is. To listen to them, you’d think the ‘no evidence=no charge’ rule was some cunning ploy by the BushChimpler.

The BBC’s reporting is a whirligig of vague innuendo, dubious assertions and tactical omissions. Having spent years trying to tell us that guests in Gitmo were all just heavily–armed Afghan hill farmers, the BBC now refrains from telling us that the victims at Abu Ghraib really were ordinary, decent criminals. At first sight, that would seem to make the abuse even worse, but it also flatly contradicts the line the MSM has been trying to push, namely that Lynndie England and the rest of the trailer trash were actually operating under the direct supervision of the White House. Even the L3 can see that Dastardly Dick Cheney wouldn’t torture people merely to find out where he could pick up a few cheap car radios.

For all the MSM’s dark hints, Abu Ghraib has been investigated to a degree previously reserved for the Kennedy assassination. Despite all this, there has never been any credible evidence of any kind of conspiracy. Just as with the MSM’s loving publication of these photos, nudge-nudge wink-wink references to high-level conspiracies has absolutely no actual news value at all.

This is the truly infuriating aspect of it all. Just about every MSM outlet that has carried these pictures have included whiny analysis pieces solemnly reporting on how these new photos will inflame Muslim anger. That used to be a bad thing, but suddenly the MSM are free speech maximalists ? Jyllands-Posten drawing attention to media self-censorship was pointless grandstanding, but carrying page after page of atrocity pics and insane conspiracy theories, now that’s journalism.

But this isn’t all about the cartoons. It’s not even about nuance, or shading, or anything so subtle. Right now, while the British MSM are devoting pages to a 2003 retrospective, this is going on without so much as a mention. I believe the relevant phrase is ‘not anti-war, just on the other side’.

The Fox Hunt In The Dog & Duck

Ok, so the health nazis have managed to ban smoking in pubs. Surely we deserve a quid pro quo. After all, if being obnoxious and annoying is reason enough for prohibition, why can’t we throw them out ?

The one thing you can’t say about the smoking ban is that it’s an abuse of democracy. Democracy has always had the potential to be two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. The only twist this time is that the two wolves don’t actually eat red meat because it’s kind of unhealthy, but they want the sheep shot and roasted anyway, just in case they might want some mutton at a later date.

Speaking personally, it took me a while to work why exactly the ban on smoking on licensed premises wound me up so much. After all, it’s not as if we’re talking about the Grossly Fat Bloggers Bill (2006), so there’s absolutely no reason why I should be taking it so personally. The penny finally dropped in the run-up to the debate. More than any other, this issue has thrown into sharp relief the assumptions underlying the collectivist mindset. Normally, these people can keep a lid on their loonier aspects, but in this case, convinced they have the full support of the chattering classes, they’ve felt comfortable enough to give free reign to their nuttier impulses.

The excuse for all this is the collectivists second favourite one (behind ‘it’s for the children’), yep, elfensafety. They tried pushing the health angle to persuade smokers to quit – that failed. They tried to persuade the public that being downwind of a lit cigar would induce instant seizures – that failed. Now they’ve abandoned actual persuasion in favour of outright thuggery. Right now, they’re taking out onions for all those bar staff who are threatened by passive smoking. Never mind that the evidence for this is distinctly low-tar, even assuming that the theoretical risk from passive smoking was as dangerous as even the most fanatical of the prohibitionists claim – who cares ? Really. Consider how few people actually spend more than a few years as full-time bar staff. Consider how many are smokers themselves. But most of all consider this – just how many jobs would survive this putative ‘no risk ever’ test. That wraps it up for mining, scaffolders and farmers for sure. Salesmen, despatch riders and pizza boys are goners too. At least the government will be able to take action to protect the people statistically most likely to be assaulted in their jobs – even though I not sure how we’ll run hospitals if nurses aren’t allowed to deal with patients. Then again, it wasn’t too long ago that the same people were complaining that members of one profession weren’t taking nearly enough risks. Being pelted with bombs is one thing, but cigarette smoke – that stuff’s dangerous (although no word yet on the dangers of DIY cigarettes).

Of course, there’s the obvious point that this act offends against the basic principles on which our society is based. Security of property, free trade, self-ownership, freedom of association, presumption of liberty – y’know, the little stuff. This Act marks another turn on the ratchet. Free enterprise is being choked off in this county – that’s been true for a while but there’s something extra here. It was hinted at in the patronising drivel the prohibs came out with when it was suggested that pubs could allow smoking if no food was served. That couldn’t be allowed, said the prohibs, because these pubs tended to be in poorer areas, and you know what those people are like.

Equally, take the rhetoric about smokers themselves. Bad enough though the prohibs patronising drivel is when talking to smokers directly, there’s something truly psychotic about how some of them talk about smokers: dirty, smelly, contaminating the air for decent people. You’d be in prison for hate crimes if you talked about Islamopaths the way the prohibs talk about smokers. And no, you don’t need to perform statistical yoga to prove that blowing up tube trains is a risk to health.

That’s another thing right there. The whole ‘passive smoking’ thing really has marked a new low for British science. At least with global warming there’s the excuse that the biosphere really is complex – deciding the toxicity of a particular mixture of compounds isn’t exactly in the same league. We’re back to what I was saying about the MMR issue – once the debate becomes polarised between the good guys who turn in one set of results and those pigs that turn in contradictory results, then we’re no longer talking about scientists so much as really badly dressed PR guys.

Not that the prohibs really need any more PR, what with the MSM having long ago thrown it’s hand in with them. We’re told that the public supports a smoking ban. Really ? And after only a twenty year media wall of noise in favour ? ATW reminds us that homosexuality has its own health implications. Yes, indeed. How about the MSM starts to cover gay issues the way it covers smoking ? We could have interviews in which people talk about great length about how disgusting they find gays. The science geeks could pitch in and start classifying all deaths from AIDS, other STDs and heart attacks sustained while clothes shopping as ‘homosexuality-related deaths’. Ditto, any deaths amongst hairdressers, air stewards or Tory MPs could be given the same classification. Let’s see what twenty years of that does to the case for gay rights.

Mind you, I did enjoy the Freudian slip from one of most notorious groups of dogs in the manger. Cancer Research UK called the ban ‘the biggest step forward in public health for half a century.’ Well, indeed. Never mind wondering what definition of research includes lobbying for restrictive legislation – or how much of their income actually comes from smokers - just think about this: a group of folks who’ve been living the life of Reilly for years under the banner of cancer research call a ban on smoking the biggest step forward for fifty years. Say no more.

So, the debate has revealed a nasty and vindictive streak in British society and exposed scientists as whores, but that’s not it. What really sticks in the throat is the sheer chutzpah of the whole thing. Regular readers will know that I am something of a drunk. I like drinking, that goes without saying, but I like the culture of it too. Footballers have their clubs, stamp collectors get together to talk trends in sticky postal things and prohibitionists meet up to reaffirm their loyalty to Satan, but do you see any drunks demanding that cocktails be served at the AGM of Peterborough Philatelist Society ?

No, you don’t. The whole prohibitionist argument rests on a fundamentally absurd premise. These people claim that allowing smokers to smoke in the Captain’s Bar of The Ship means that smokers will inflicting their smokerness on their noble prohib selves. But what would they be doing down there in the first place ? In what parallel universe is it in which health freaks stop off on the way home from the gym to dive into the Captain’s Bar and announce they want 10 double vodkas, and their mate will have the same ? As if.

Of course, the prohibs always claim that they would go to the Red Lion, if only it wasn’t for the smokers, ‘cause you know, you can’t expect them to down ten pints if they’re going to be exposed to a dangerous narcotic while doing so. Or to put it another way, while everyone talks about how this new law means some of our top drinkers will be exiled, it also means the pub will fill up with people drinking eco-friendly organic Perrier water. In case you’re wondering, this is supposed to be an argument in favour.

This is exactly why these people have to use the power of the State to enforce their writ, because there’s so much demand for smoker-free pubs. Or something.

That’s it, that’s what gives me this killing rage. This isn’t about whether people set fire to rolled-up tubes full of dried leaves or not. This is, in the fullest sense of the word, the latest front in the culture wars. Forget the junk science claiming that everyone in the pub will die if Dave lights that fag. What it’s about is what it’s always about: a bunch of collectivist weasels want to inflict their whiny cry-baby lifestyle on the rest of us.

To Hell with them all. It makes me wish I had a donor card so I could tear it up. I want to drive down to the chippy and order chips and pies, with extra chips, and extra pies. I want to sneak up to one of these prohibs’ yuppiemobiles and slash the tyres, so they can’t ‘inflict their fumes’ on me, most of all I want to be there the day the ban goes into effect and one of these freaks goosesteps into my local and start strutting around. You won’t need some hooker in a white coat to find the negative health implications of doing that, I can promise you.

I hate them, everyone one of them. This isn’t about health, this is the ban on foxhunting part II. In both cases yuppie scum collectivist chattering class weasels indulged in vacuous moral posturing to conjure up some bogus justification for their thuggish attempts to stop people they don’t know doing stuff they don’t agree with in a place they never go anyway. That’s the real evil of the whole thing.

These pasty-faced yuppie scum, urban 4x4 driving idiot, crypto-castrato loser femimen, sensitive snivelers, lemon-sucking, no mark, congenitally less-of-worth sleazeballs aren’t motivated by any deep convictions. They aren’t looking forward to the Golden Age when the last pub is closed, they don’t think that pubs are the work of the Devil. There’s nothing so sophisticated – they’re motivated by hatred pure & simple.

You know what this is ? This is what happens when all the whiny losers from school get hold of the levers of power. This is their vengeance for all those years of having their lunch money robbed. Now, they’re going to pass a law making them the cool kids, and if you don’t agree, why, they’ll set the Filth on you.

That’s the silver lining to all this. Plenty of folks are prepared to buy into collectivist ideals as a kind of Devil’s Pact, preferring group power to no power at all, well now they’ve just seen the downside to that theory played out in glorious Technicolor. The sight of Parliament using it’s power to push the agenda of a bunch of vicious, spiteful health Nazis should give these people a reality check. No doubt Nu Lab stabbing its traditional supporters in the back will convince some of them that they need to go back to the good old days of Real Labour, but I’m guessing at least some will start to see the light. Governments are in the business of thuggery. Sooner or later, you will be the sheep not the wolf. The only true security is in individual rights. And one right above all, namely the right to beat to death any health Nazi found in the confines of licensed premises. It's for the children.

Like Kittens, But With Bombs

Just a hunch, but I'm guessing that the Era of Responsible Journalism is over.

Actually, 'era' might be going a bit too far. It was more like two weeks, or however long the Cartoon Jihad took. You still can't find a British paper that'll print cartoons of the Paedo Prophet, but they will devote twenty pages plus a commemorative DVD, to a video showing alleged naughtiness by British troops in Iraq. Lest any member of the public miss the irony in that, they’ve also been sure to include weighty columns talking about how this footage will inflame Muslim opinion. Hey – it was only five minutes ago that inflaming Islamopaths was a bad thing.

Nope, suddenly, it’s all change. Not only do we have 24/7 coverage of the video itself, but the media’s trademark unbiased reporting is in full flow. As ever, the BBC is leading the way:

Tony Blair has said claims of abuse by soldiers "will be investigated" after images that appeared to show UK troops beating Iraqi youths were published.

Ah, yes, youths. Doubtless out scrumping apples when they got jumped by crazed squaddies. Pretty much the whole of the MSM has taken the same line. I suppose we can count ourselves lucky they didn’t go the whole way and call them ‘scallywags’.

You have to read down to paragraph 13 of the BBC report to find out what these youths were really doing.

The tape allegedly shows a disturbance in the street outside what the paper calls a military compound.
Soldiers are shown chasing youths involved in the disturbance, dragging four of them into the compound and beating them on various parts of the body with batons and kicking them, one in the genitals.

And what indeed was the nature of this disturbance ? The BBC ain’t telling. You even get a more balanced perspective going direct to the NotW site. Here’s what they say:

A DIY grenade lands and explodes inside the compound—blasting out shrapnel and a cloud of grey-white smoke. A fire blazes just outside the perimeter wall sending up a pall of black fumes as crowds of rioters chant abuse at the soldiers. Dozens of youths run towards the compound hurling stones, but suddenly turn on their heels—chased by a unit of squaddies in combat helmets with riot visors and desert camouflage. Some of the soldiers are wearing flak vests and are armed with batons and rifles.

So, this would be a ‘disturbance’ in the sense of a ‘riot’, then ? Note the idiot modifier though. Again, most of the MSM has been anxious to insert stupid modifiers like ‘home-made’ in front of any mention of grenades, just so we know it wasn’t anything really dangerous. After all, how much trouble can you really cause with improvised explosives ?

Just to recap, we’ve already got that the alleged victims were part of a mob of rioters trying to storm a British position throwing improvised explosives. Now, check this bit out:

A crackling radio message to the troops pinpoints a target: "Black top, blue bottoms! Black top, blue bottoms! GO!"

So not loveable ragamuffins then. Far from being passing boy scouts, randomly victimized by psychos-in-uniform, the alleged victims were the ringleaders of a rioting mob targeting British soldiers (you know, sort of like here).

Now, usual caveats apply. Yes, indiscipline is like pregnancy, you can’t have a little bit of it. This sort of thing often precedes a more general breakdown in discipline. Equally, in the strict legal sense, it would have been better if the suspects were handed over to civilian courts to deal with. Except, hang on a minute, this footage is two years old – Liberals claim Iraq is in chaos right now. Just what kind of court system did Iraq have two years ago ? Maybe rough justice was all that was available.

The bottom line is that the Liberals’ new baby seals were leaders of rioting mob throwing explosive devices and trying to overwhelm a British garrison. And for this they got a kicking ? This ‘scandal’ isn’t proof of how depraved the British Army is, it’s proof of the opposite. Faced with a pack of bomb throwing savages, they don’t open fire, they dive into the mob and grab the ringleaders, then give them a few kicks, before handing them over to the civilian authorities with the almost certain probability of them being released scot-free. Liberals aren't sure about the importance of press freedom, but when it comes to defending the right to throw bombs at people, they're one hundred percent behind our troops - with a dagger in their hand.

UPDATE:

Further proof of the BBC's earnest desire to avoid inflamming the situation. The Rotty Pup reminds us that the BBC solicited comments from Hizb ut-Tahrir, aka the Islamopaths' Islamopaths.

Meanwhile, Alison has been digging and she finds that not only were the MSM aware of the general situation in Iraq at the time, they had specifically reported on these riots. Back then, it suited the MSM to report the vicious nature of the riots as further proof that Iraq was ungovernable. It was only when they had a chance to paint the Army as a bunch of thugs that the rioting scum mutated to a group of jovial young scallywags involved in a disturbance.

Our Noble Allies

More love from the home of moderate Islam:

It is rabidly anti-American, and it is the biggest draw in town.

With a budget of $10m (£5.7m), Valley of the Wolves Iraq is the most expensive film ever made in Turkey - and it is pulling record crowds...

In one scene, trigger-happy US troops massacre civilians at a wedding party.

In another they firebomb a mosque during evening prayer. There are multiple summary executions.

And for the first time, the real-life abuses by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison are played out on the big screen.

Even the doctor - played by Gary Busey - is evil, removing human organs from Iraqi prisoners to send to patients in the US, Israel and Britain.

Needless to say, Al Beeb forgets to mention that the doctor is a 'friend of the Goldbergs', if you get my drift. Of course, that would kind of undercut the BBC's insane attempts to spin the hatred as being motivated by 'nationalism'. Yes, indeed, that's why they have a Jew doctor harvesting organs for Israelis, because they're nationalists. Huh ?

But TV Tax Evaders Are Always Scum

Here's a moral dilema. Is it OK to post human faeces through John Simpson's letterbox, or should we just leave him to be savaged by a dog ? I mean, it seems like an easy question, but apparently morality is more complex than you'd think. The BBC's 'Don't Have Your Say' is hosting a debate on whether or not it's OK to hack websites (gosh! which websites can they mean ?). Yep - DHYS, whence even the most moderate of right-wing comment gets filtered out. Apparently, right-wing thought is inflammatory but giving sly winks to criminal damage is BBC policy. Who says they aren't reacting to the threat of the blogosphere ?

The Treason Party Implodes

Bishop Hill with further evidence that the Lib Dems' days of surviving as a political will-o-the-wisp are coming to an end.

More Use Than The Common European Lightbulb

Talk about never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Eurocrats spend years trying to dream up insane Frankenstein plans to create a common European culture, but when people across Europe come together to defend a genuinely common European value, the EU pitches in on the other side. How does that work ?

This is such a moral no-brainer that even dyed-in-the-wool Eurohaters like me have been impressed with the fighting spirit of the French - and I never thought I'd say that - but Brussels thinks the headchoppers have a case ? See, that's the thing. Whatever you think of the case for European union, the EU carries a whole lot of other baggage. Look at the EU Constitution for that, approximatly 2 billion pages full of every absurd idea Liberals have ever had but couldn't get through any genuinely democratic process. Brussels is Gramsci Central. The Cartoon Jihad has emphasised that there are some genuinely shared values in Europe, but the EU can't acknowledge that, since that would involve them discarding just about everything they've ever believed. That's quite an achievement actually - we don't even have a country called Europe yet, but the Liberals are already betraying it.

Who They Are

So now we know. All the time the Left was trying to prove that the spontaneous expression of disgust with Islamic intimidation of the press was all a dark conspiracy, the protests from the famous 'Islamic street' were as genuine as a £7 note. Yep, an Egyptian paper carried the cartoons in November (during Ramadan!) with nary a word being said. Not that you'd know this if you were dependent on the MSM. Then again, there's a lot of things the MSM have forgot to report about the Cartoon Jihad.

After all, the MSM won't even tell the truth about why the cartoons were drawn in the first place. To listen to, say, the BBC, you could think this is a Viking version of Piss Christ, except really nasty and evil instead of challenging and transgressive. Nope - the cartoons were produced as part of a feature on the effects of Islamic intimidation on press freedom. Note too how the BBC forget to cover the role of Danish Imams in stirring up anti-Danish feelings, even while carrying quotes from the self-same Islamopaths.

Come to think of it, there a certain lack of backstory in the coverage of virtually all the Islamopaths being given a PR boost by the BBC. Of course, 'gotcha' journalism can go too far. Pre-Cameron, the BBC especially wouldn't carry a Conservative MP saying he liked dogs without trawling through the archives to find a shot of him with a cat, but this is ridiculous. Consider, for example, the promotion of Faiz Siddiqi as a proverbial 'voice of reason'. Scott B has the goods on him. Yes, that Scott, the one who spends his time indoors, at least according to the Guardian. Who knows what that's meant to mean, but let's flip the usual anti-blogger charge around: the MSM keep telling us about their multiple layers of fact-checking, their huge resources, their armies of contacts, so how come you keep having to go to bloggers for the full story ?

Hey - this isn't about bias, or necessarily about bias anyway. Here's the biggest story in the last couple of weeks, and MSM may as well stand for 'Masses of Stuff Missing'. Let's abstract away from the specific issue, and consider whether this was good journalism. Seriously, these folks keep babbling on about their role as High Priests of the Church of Journalism, but look at their performance: context missing, gullibility when dealing with one side, near paranoia when dealing with the other, extremists not only given house room, but presented as moderates....You almost hope it's bias, rather than believe that these folk actually think this is how journalism should be done.

Still, don’t get the idea that I’m disappointed in the MSM coverage of the Cartoon Jihad – I’m actually delighted. Most of the time media bias is subtle, a matter of shading and nuance. The Carton Jihad threw that out of the window. With peace-loving Islamopaths demanding the death sentence for inappropriate use of an easel, the media had to go to afterburner. Now, the omissions have been too numerous, the good dog/bad dog labelling too blatant, for anyone to deny the reality of media bias. Print the cartoons ? The MSM can’t bring themselves to print the news.

That’s the thing right there, that’s what the Danes have really done for us. They’ve flushed out the enemy. The MSM can bang on all they want about the ‘Religion of Peace’ but we’ve seen the true nature of the Islamopath. The Cartoon Jihad wasn’t a natural phenomenon; it was simply an excuse for the Islamopaths to indulge in yet another sociological land grab. Never mind that there’s no legal basis to a supposed ‘right not to be offended’, there’s was no genuine offence there anyway. This was a political, not a theological matter. If Islam was merely a set of creation myths, no one would care, but it isn’t. Islam is a bloodthirsty, expansionist ideology, and deserves to be treated exactly like we’d treat any other doctrine that celebrates mass slaughter, genocide, rape and slavery, amongst other delights.

So don’t criticise the lunatics parading around with banners calling for murder. At least they’re honest; they’re telling who they really are, and the MSM dhimmis explaining that the loons are using the word ‘behead’ ironically are telling us who they are too. So now we know just how far Islamopaths will got to spread their filthy ideology, and just how far the MSM will go to cover for them. Not a bad result from a few guys drawing pictures.

Return Of The VRWC Again II

You know what the most ironic thing about the Cartoon Jihad is ? For at least forty years, just about any union thug, activist scumbag or full-on terrorist has been able to rely on Liberals to romanticise their psychotic behaviour behind a cloud of blather about 'popular uprisings' and the like. Now, we have people across the world spontaneously coming together to assert their right to freedom, and the L3 are busily defaming them.

Take the insane obsession with proving that the whole thing is the result of a cunning plan by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. The lunatics going on the rampage outside G8 summits are the true voice of the people, but folks across three continents standing up to Islamofascism ? That's got to be a dark conspiracy.

Of course, there's a certain grim humour in seeing the people with Che T-shirts in the wardrobe explain that they agree with the basic principle but they think these folks are going too far. Mass executions, yes. Publishing cartoons, now hold on a minute...

This seems to be a common theme. The L3 keep wittering on about how their favourite artists are 'dangerous' and 'transgressive', well, the editor of a publication that carries these cartoons is in a hell of a lot more danger than any prat making scultures out of his nose hair or whatever, but no, suddenly the L3 have found their inner Mary Whitehouse.

Liberals have spent years fantasising about smashing the system, man, but now Europe is convulsed by widespread, spontaneous resistance to a brutal, fascist ideology, the Left is foursquare behind the thugs. Yep - they've been waiting years for a revolution, and they've still managed to miss it.

The Girl In The Cafe Gets Thrown Under A Bus

Just so you know what £3 billion a year gets you, first item on Newsnight tonight was a long item about corruption in Kenya. On the Clapham Omnibus, they rarely talk of anything else. I mean, yada, yada, yada, standard disclaimer follows, yes, it is an important issue, but first item on the BBC's flagship news show ? It just looks like they've got something to hide. I guess if the Cartoon Jihad goes on much longer, we'll be seeing items about how the Internet is affecting life in the Amazon, the jazz scene in Bangkok and the latest trends in reindeer farming.

The dhimmitude is one thing, but the chutzpah is positively olympic standard. So, the BBC has discovered that huge chunks of foreign aid never reach those who need it. Really ? You'd think someone would have said.

But wait...

That's exactly what the Right has been saying for years. So who was cheerleading a policy of throwing money at Africa without a clue as to what actually happened to it ? Well, Liberals in general and the BBC in particular. Consider the reverent coverage given to Live 8 aka the most important thing ever. Hey, they even made a nice little play about how everything would be great if only we just held hands. But suddenly, there's a danger of them having to report news that reflects badly on the Islamopaths, and - kablooey! the poor, retarded lass is a goner. Guess it's true about Liberals - you can cut a deal with them, but don't expect them to call you in the morning.

The Ugly Sisters

I feel that I should say something about the Cartoon Jihad, but it’s an uphill struggle. Partially, that’s because I’m having trouble dealing with the whole concept. What is it with all those dhimmis ostentatiously agonising over the need for cartooning to be done ‘responsibly’ ? Do we need a Caricature Czar ? Annual police inspections of licensed cartoonists ? Remember, when easels are outlawed only outlaws will have easels.

But let’s not even talk about that. It’s not about cartoons anyway. It’s about the fact that 5% of the public are demanding that everyone else abide by the rules of their cult, and the Left is treating them as though that’s perfectly reasonable.

As for the rest, all the good points are already taken. Steve notes Fleet Street’s channelling of brave, brave Sir Robin. Personally, I’m not surprised. For all the sub-Lois Lane posturing, the average journalist demonstrates the raw physical and moral courage of a mop head.

Indeed, the L3 have been proving all that yoga does come in useful by twisting into Curly-Whirly patterns trying to explain why the Jerry Springer: The Opera is daring social comment but drawing a picture of the paedo prophet isn’t. Or for that matter why cartoons of baby-eating Jews are OK, but caricaturing psycho mass murders isn’t (mind you, the Jew haters do have to deal ‘a flood of correspondence’ so there are fanatics on both sides.

Laban and DFH are there to catch every twist and turn. Reading through their stuff is a shock to the system. Liberals behaving like snivelling, two-faced dhimmi weasels – you could have knocked me down with a feather.

Of course, there’s more to it than just the basic worthlessness of the Liberal. There’s also the deeper worthlessness of the Liberal. Obviously, there’s a certain superficial weirdness in seeing someone like Richard ‘religion is the root of all evil’ Dawkins apparently A-OK with his daily newspaper being edited by the Islamopaths, but it’s not really that surprising. For all that Dawkins criticises ‘religion’, 90% of his rhetoric is aimed squarely at one particular religion in one part of the world. Equally, as I’ve said before, all that talk of the dangers of creeping theocracy isn’t motivated by any particular belief in liberty, quite the opposite. Behind a thin layer of post-enlightenment posturing, there’s a really nasty core of totalitarianism.

Liberalism’s defining characteristics are hatred of the West and a weakness for totalitarian ideology, yet somehow they’ve managed to find common ground with the Islamopaths. It’s tempting to call this a Nazi-Soviet pact for our time, but the analogies between these two ideologies are much deeper than that. Both Islam and Liberalism are what scientists call ‘really whiny, loser ideologies’.

Whether they’re ascribing everything to society or to the will of Allah, they’re all just passive, prissy whiners. Even they can see that capitalism beats their systems hollow, hence the sudden desire to conjure up alternative metrics of success. America might be rich but it’s bad for the environment, or it’s full of immorality (i.e. even proles can afford cars and women can walk unveiled). Yada, yada, yada.

True, the L3 and Islamopaths have a few disagreements. Take homosexuality. Islamopaths think it should be a capital offence, Liberals think it should be compulsory, but this is just a minor disagreement. The bottom line – as it were – is that both take approaches that are opposed to the principles and traditions of Western Civilisation.

Both Liberalism and Islamopathy are based in a basic hatred of life. At least the Islamopaths are more honest about it. They could hardly not be with an ideology called ‘submission’. So give yourself over to the Paedo Prophet because you’re nothing, just a drone, a speck of dust. Hence why the defining characteristic of Islam-infected societies is stagnation.

Liberals are more cunning in their hatred of life. Instead of a full frontal assault, they prefer to wage the Culture War. That’s why they like to present misery as somehow valuable life experience, while success is treated as a priori grounds for suspicion. Look at how television is so in love with supposedly ‘gritty’ dramas in which crack-addled hookers are presented as Robin Hoods, while whenever a businessmen is portrayed he’s force-feeding his worker’s nuclear waste while smoking huge cigars. Look at the cult of equality in education. For all the talk of helping the kids make best use of their talents, even a superficial analysis of the actual policies employed makes it quite obvious that the opposite objective is more likely. Or look at politics and the way Liberals use PC to choke the life out of debate. Und so weiter…..

Liberalism and Islamopathy are the ideologies of choice for ineffectual losers across the world. Both offer not only the opportunity for vengeance against everyone who isn’t a worthless waster, but moral justification for doing so. Call them unholy, claim Allah wouldn’t like it, say they’re harming the environment or generating social division, whatever. Islamopaths aren’t shooting people because there’s a strong case for Islam and Liberals don't support PC because their arguments stand up to scrutiny.

All of which is by way of saying that the best response is to do the one thing that sends Liberals and Islamopaths most round the bend: tell the truth about them. Both groups score highly on the Outrageometer, but only because that’s all they have left. The facts are not on their side.

Hooray For Us!

Gosh, the Cartoon Jihad – who saw that one coming ? Well, pretty much everyone on-line. Denizens of the blogosphere knew weeks ago about these events, but the MSM is still trying to present them as a bolt from the blue. Dhimmitude ? Blind incompetence ? Who cares ? The MSM keeps yapping about the blindingly obvious fact that no individual blogger can match the resources of a single MSM organisation. Well, yeah, but what are they doing with all this cash ? This is not about conspiracy theories; this is about the simple fact: the blogosphere did a much better job of covering the Cartoon Jihad than the MSM.

There’s a more sinister aspect to this. The BBC, dear ol’ Auntie, the sweet, old lady who’s ever so worried about showing anything which might damage social order, not only managed not to show the real cartoons in question, but also to show a fake cartoon showing Murdering Mo’ as a pig. Huh ?

I’ll take a wild shot in the dark here, and say that the Islamopaths weren’t trying to pass off the cartoon as genuine in order to calm the situation down, but the BBC still had no problem showing it. It was only when we got to the real cartoons – the ones that the Islamopaths didn’t conjure up – that Auntie decided she better not show them after all. Coincidence ?

So, dhimmitude at the BBC, but hang on – hasn’t the BBC being filling our screens all week with news of just how angrily angry the Islamopaths were ? Not sure why Liberals think telling us that morons are really angry means we’ll think they’re any less moronic, but anyway, the point is this: the BBC has been describing at great length exactly what kind of tinderbox the situation is, while they themselves have been down there scrapping away with the knife and flint.

All this raises plenty of questions about journalistic ethics, BBC bias and the like, but there is one in particular that stands above all others: wasn’t the BBC’s stated reason for the long-running fatwa on supposed ‘extreme right-wing’ (ie Conservative) commentators or topics supposedly justified by fear of causing social unrest ? Now Al-Beeb is running bogus Islampath propaganda (and no one’s been fired over it), we have to ask: just how do they define ‘inflammatory' ?

Ideology Doesn't Mean Big Government

It suddenly occurs to me that I haven’t mocked the Chocolate Orange Inspector for weeks. Let’s put that right now.

What reminds me is that Brian Walden contributes a not entirely bad article to the BBC website. The basic point is that David Cameron is simply following in the Conservative tradition. This is true in so far as the Conservative Party has been useless throughout most of history. Yes, Churchill was a Conservative, but so was Neville Chamberlain. Ditto, we can’t talk about the achievements of Lady Thatcher without noting the role of the Tories in letting things get that screwed up in the first place.

There may once have been an excuse for the Conservative Party to follow a policy of political quietism, but that was in the days when the citizen could go through their life without ever encountering any arm of government other than the Royal Mail. Now, there’s no getting away from government. Consider the track record of our elephantine government: is this really something Conservatives should be looking to, as it were, conserve ?

Equally, it’s a long time since government was value-neutral. On the contrary, the government is firmly under the control of Gramscians for whom everything, be it the weather forecast, the teaching of reading or the organisation of the Fire Brigade is an explicitly political matter. To the point: as long as NHS Direct insists that callers must first divulge their ethnic status before they can be helped, there are more profound issues at stake than mere matters of efficiency.

Cameron’s wholesale swallowing of the Liberal agenda carries with it the corollary that the only thing left to discuss is the specifics of implementation. As an old-time Lefty himself, Walden naturally doesn’t see the problem. No doubt this idea of the Conservative Party as the Waldorf and Stadler of the Liberal’s Muppet Show suits the soi dissant progressives fine, but as allegedly informed political comment goes, it falls far short.

Conservatives do have an ideology, just not one in the sense the Left means. Even old-style Leftists like Walden, never mind modern Liberals, can’t conceive of the idea of separation of government and nation, let alone the idea that good things can happen without government. No wonder they’re so frequently foxed by people who believe desirable social ends can best be achieved by bringing together the very best brains in the public sector, setting them to work on a particular problem, then calling in an air strike.

I’d almost give Walden a pass – plenty of Lefties misunderstand this point, except he manages to libel the one guy who could have best explained that to him. Here’s Walden on the role of presentation in politics:

This trend to a very personalised party leadership has developed over many years - one has only to think of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Yes, Reagan breezed into power by charming folk with his youth and vigour. Walden is just lucky that the dead can’t sue, after bracketing The Gipper with these two tools. The ‘very personalised party leadership’ is what Liberals use to try and avoid talking about their policies. That was never a problem Reagan had. Here’s the non-ideological Reagan on the environment:

A tree is a tree. How many more do you have to look at?

On abortion:

I notice that everybody who is Pro-Abortion already has been born.

On student protests at UC Berkeley:

If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with.

On foreign affairs:

Let us beware that while they [Soviet rulers] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination over all the peoples of the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.... I urge you to beware the temptation ... to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.

The UN:

One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all.

See ? He was exactly like David Cameron. Talking of which, here’s one for Dave:

Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there.

That’s a clue right there. Liberalism is at its heart such a miserable, whiny runt of a philosophy. Big Business is plotting to rob you! The Earth is going to turn into a giant BBQ! Chocolate Oranges are deadly! Losers, every one of them.

Some say that all this whining is a means to an end, a subtle way of boosting the case for big government by creating an endless series of monsters ready to pounce on the unprotected citizen. That’s one factor, but I think the biggest is simply that Liberals don’t actually like people. Listen to their rhetoric with all that talk of ‘mob rule, ‘hate speech’ and the like. Why can’t the public just shut up and let them rule ?

In contrast, Conservatives have a very definite vision of the way things should be, it’s just that we rarely think sending guys with guns to kick doors down is the way to achieve them. Yes, if the occupants have bombs, no, if they have a range of Christian literature. Ronald Reagan was the perfect example of this. Here was a man who believed above all else in America and the American people. That was the motivating force behind everything he did.

That’s the ideology right there. No carefully spun vision, no Frankensteinesque attempts at social engineering. Above all else, Conservatism is about faith in people. Maybe it lacks the grand gestures and white elephant projects that Liberals think government should be about, but Conservatism was never about government anyway. Both Cameron and Blair have worked hard to create the public image of themselves as people who can make great things happen. Reagan never played that game, he spent his time convincing the American people that they could achieve great things – and they did. Meanwhile, Cameron is following in the Tory tradition by plotting the final offensive against chocolate oranges.