If Only The Artic Convoys Had Been Carrying Slaves...

....Nick Clegg would never get sick of talking about the Second World War.

The Past Is A Different Country

...At least I'm guessing it is, otherwise liberals would be enormous humbugs.

And then there's this...

And this...

And this too.

Humbugalicious!

Cameron groupie Christina Odone is shocked - shocked!- that people could refer to members of the Cameron Party as 'Vichy Tories'. Apparently, that exploits the real victims of the Vichy government.

I'm sure if she'd had time to finish her post it would have sounded less stupid, but she had to race off to ask her Messiah to stop comparing real conservatives to the people we're actually at war with in Afghanistan right now.

Yep, She's A Lib

Arrogant slapper Sally Bercow has apologised for calling two of the locals in her target constituency 'smackheads'. Not because that betrays a certain contempt for the voting public, but because calling smackheads 'smackheads' is judgmental.

Yep, last thing you'd want in a politician is someone who discriminates against members of the differently worthwhile community.

The Clue Is In The Question

In his latest attempt to rebrand his reheated liberalism as tasty new policy Cam Jong Il has gone grave robbing again, while inadvertently revealing what the real problem is:

Brooke Kinsella is here today because one night, nearly two years ago now, her brother Ben had his life taken from him in the most violent and tragic way.

For real? That's what a soi dissant conservative calls it when a young man is murdered by three professional criminals? He had his 'life taken from him'?

For the record, taking a look at the CVs of these charmers suggests a more straightforward explanation of what's really broken:

Jade Darrell Braithwaite

Prior to the murder, Braithwaite had a reprimand for possession of cannabis and was convicted of attempted theft of a laptop computer from a fellow teenager. He was given a one-year detention and training order in 2006 but during 2007 his sentence was cut on appeal to community service.

Michael Leroy Alleyne

[Alleyne] had been released three months earlier from a young offender institution after serving just half his sentence and was under the supervision of the council's youth offending team at the time of the murder. Alleyne had a criminal record including shoplifting, robbery, motor vehicle theft and drug dealing of crack cocaine and heroin. Alleyne's electronic tag was removed just weeks prior to the attack. He had also previously been in custody for robbery of a mobile phone. He was also known to "terrorise" council estate tenants with his 2 Staffordshire Bull Terriers. Alleyne is also alleged to have pulled a gun on a young member of his own gang.

Juress Kika

[Kika] was first cautioned aged 11, the same year he stabbed 14-year-old Robert Parker in the back with a 3-inch blade before calmly walking away, although he was not prosecuted because of his age. Kika was on the run from police for a stabbing and robbery incident 9 days prior to the murder over a drugs argument. He had also received convictions for robbery, affray and obstructing a constable.

You know, I'm not sure never knowing the 'love of his father' is at the root of the problem.

Most. Bogus. Scandal. Evah!

On the plus side, the second election debate suggests that even some open borders nuts have now internalised the concept that not everyone should be let into the country. Then again, it was the Pope they wanted to keep out.

As far as I can make out, the main charge against His Holiness is that he didn't take paedophilia seriously enough, unlike liberals who...

[Dawkins] wrote then that 'we live in a time of hysteria about paedophilia, a mob psychology that calls to mind the Salem witchhunts of 1692'.

Yes, indeed: until about 10 minutes ago there was no better way to mark yourself out as an urban sophisticate than to sneer at those pesky witch hunters out there chasing mythical 'paedophiles'. Apparently, all those times groovers referred to 'paedo panic' what they actually meant was that they strongly supported enhanced screening for suspected paedophiles.

Or maybe it's the other thing: the Church wasn't harsh enough on priests who really were paedophiles. The Vatican scheduled them for counselling by senior clergy, rather than the punishment favoured by the intellectual classes, which is counselling by a psychologist. Or, to put it another way, the difference between hipster sophistication and Papal depravity is the difference between counselling based on a bunch of superstitious, unscientific garbage, and counselling based on Christianity.

I would point out the absurdity of people who wail about mythical vigilante mobs criticising an organisation for not indulging in extra-judicial punishments, but it's eclipsed by the even greater humbuggery of the same folks complaining that the Church didn't do enough to keep paedo priests away from children, even as they denounce the dirty masses for not being thrilled at the idea of unrepentant predators being housed on estates full of children. Hey, if you're down with Gary Glitter being free to do all but mail snaps of his naked backside to the families of Ian Huntley's victims, you're not best placed to criticise the Church for not opening its own version of Gitmo (and I still say a higher proportion of the suspects at Gitmo are terrorists than priests are predators).

Still, we can take one lesson from all this: let's compare the Catholic priesthood with the liberal equivalents. All of which means....

No, wait, I hear a squeaking from the corner: Mr Liberal would like to point out that Catholicism looks down on sexual excess generally so priests who abuse kids are, like, totally huge hypocrites.

See, that's the problem with child rape - everything would be OK if the assailants had previously spoken out in favour of child rape but they didn't so clearly this invalidates everything Catholics have ever said about anything.

Now we're getting to the truth of the matter. Our right on pals wave the bloody shirt of priestly child abuse (and only priestly abuse) because they hate the whole idea of morality. They can't say anything positive about the lifestyles they promote, so instead they try and drag everyone else down. If only the Church would join them in the sewer, these priests could sign up for the Roman Polanski Misunderstood Artists Program and Tom Hanks would win a Oscar for playing one.

On the other hand, I'm guessing everyone expects liberals to be degenerate filth anyway, so that must be why teachers and social workers sodomising their charges is yawnerooney, but why do they get so mad when I point that out?

I Don't Think It's The Booze That's The Problem...

Prohibitionists say the funniest things!

Judge Stuart Baker [said]'Your violence was fuelled by your excessive consumption which at the age of 16 you should not have been consuming at all.

'This case is one of a worrying number of cases in which young people who drink themselves to the point where they are grossly inebriated, react to a perceived grievance or insult by using violence as the first resort.'

Bad booze! Who knows what hooch will do next? But wait...

The court heard Upton of Rishton, Lancashire was just 16 yet had been given a string of warnings by police about his drunken thuggery.

He had been given a police reprimand in 2006 for headbutting a classmate and the following year he was warned for affray after punching and kicking a stranger. In January 2009 he was given an £80 fine for being drunk and disorderly.

But at least this time he's facing some actual consequences, right?

Today Upton was jailed for four years after he was found guilty of manslaughter at Preston Crown Court.

That'll teach him!

We Don't Want To Join Them, We Want To Beat Them

Someone tell these tools: freedom isn't about how much you can influence government policy, it's about how little it can influence you.

Non-Mainstreaming Latest: Reality Now Illegal

Yes, indeed: in so far as the 'progressives' now demand that we can't call their little friends what they indisputably are, it is the very definition of 'mainstreaming'. In so far as these people are apparently enraged by the mere act of calling a 'paedophile' a 'paedophile', they can't hardly deny that it the very concept of 'paedophilia' that they are opposed to.

Certainly, it's not as if the demands of the register are particularly onerous:

Their name, address and date of birth are recorded, with details of any pseudonyms they use and their National Insurance number. Each individual is required to notify the police, in person, of any changes, and also if they intend to leave the country.

Hey, you know who else has to inform the government every time they move house? Every one with a driving licence. As for the whole leaving the country thing, well.....

Key point: a football banning order doesn't even require an actual conviction, just a suspicion that the subject may be involved in trouble, at some future date, so doubtless the usual suspects will be protesting them any day soon, right?

Right?

Hey, is it just me or is there an echo in here?

Perfect

In related news, Francis Maude still hasn't apologised for claiming Lady Thatcher is responsible for the spread of AIDS.

Not Picking Up Any Signals On The Sympathy Meter

Heh.

It's like a modern day version of Aesop's fables. They replace those pesky locals with cheap labour from abroad then whine like a singed cat when they suddenly find that they're riding a tiger. Shame!

Direct Hit!

He's right, you know.

Who needs a tribute act when the real thing is running too?

I guess the Tories will have to fall back on The Dave's record of achievement and personal charisma....

Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of A Nice Tan

While we're knee deep in the latest round of Toss Idol, our real government is dealing with the important stuff.

All of which is by way of saying our Designated Messiah Cam Il Sung can produce whatever carefully focused grouped and triangulated nods to the right he wants, but Big Society Localism (huh?) or not, as long as the body that generates 70% of our laws is hell bent on giving us a chicken in every pot and a stamp in every passport, the clever money is on the future size of the state only going one way.

About That Liberal Democrat Breakthrough....

To quote a pal of mine, I'll believe the Lib Dems are moving into the mainstream when radio phoneins and newspaper comment threads start featuring contributions from lifelong Lib Dem voters, instead of people who've "always voted conservative but now I'm voting Lib Dem because of David Cameron's extreme right-wing policies which could lead to 70 million British children dying every year... "

Hey, as Ann Coulter pointed out in a similar context, no wonder our kids aren't learning anything in school - the teachers are spending all day phoning Radio Swindon pretending to be Tories.

More Right Wing Morons

Looks like social workers are now officially too crazy even for fellow leftists:

Social workers behaved like officials in 'Stalin's Russia or Mao's China' in attempting to remove children from loving mothers, senior judges have said.

Needless to say, there's still a way to go. One judge manages to hit on two of the daftest clichés social workers use to excuse themselves, before finally hitting on the key point:

[Lord Justice Wall] said the case would do little to dispel the public perception of social workers in care proceedings as 'trampling on the rights of parents and children' while removing youngsters into 'an unsatisfactory care system'.

The judge, who will today be sworn in as president of the High Court's Family Division, becoming the most senior family law judge in the UK, acknowledged that social workers were often 'damned if they do and damned if they do not'.

But he insisted they had a clear legal duty to 'unite families rather than separate them'.

Well, quite. As a matter of black letter law what they were doing was illegal. This isn't a case of tomat-o/tomat-ah - they're not damned if they do break the law, damned if they don't. Ditto, it shouldn't be just the Daily Mail that thinks public servants acting illegally is a bad idea.

Still, all things considered, their Lordship's collective comments blow a hole through every excuse social workers have ever used to justify their thuggery.

All of which is by way of saying that, for those of you keeping score at home, senior judges are now to the right of the Nu Tories. Either that, or even senior judges in the family courts don't know what social workers 'actually do'.

Is Raping Terrorists OK?

I'm starting to develop a soft spot for Tony Blair. He's still a weasel but at least he's got more class than folks like Robert Harris. Harris and the rest of the kool aid drinkers hailed Blair as the messiah, right up until the moment Blair went off the reservation, at which point he became the evillest man evah!

Of course, moral seriousness have never been the left's thing. Still, the latest twist in it all is special. They've made a movie of Harris's novel in which a thinly-disguised Tony Blair is hiding out in the US to avoid prosecution for 'war crimes' - the alleged torture of Islamofascist lunatics.

And who's directing this piece of dreck?

The controversy that attended publication of the novel has been equalled by that surrounding the making of the film because the director is Roman Polanski, a figure beleaguered and trapped much as Harris’s Adam Lang is.

Well, that's one way to put it. The other would be that Polanski is a fugitive from justice who raped a young girl, then pled it down to 'only' statutory rape, and fled the US after he was convicted.

Is this the perfect insight into modern liberalism or what? They pen masturbatory revenge fantasises about their opponents being put on trial for bogus crimes. Meanwhile, a violent sexual predator who preys on young girls is a victim because he's missed a season's skiing.

Steynism!

Brilliant response to a letter writer whining about cruelty to all those martyrs in the public sector:

I can't usually connect all the widely scattered dots in your Macleans columns, so I would normally be unable to comment, but I think I understand the gist of your rant about the public sector. To which I have this to say:

Many who work in the public sector do so out of choice, and, in fact, many leave for the private sector or spend their careers shuttling between the two. Public sector jobs, at a mid-to-high level, often mean receiving lower wages. These jobs nowadays are dynamic, challenging, and done under the most severe public scrutiny. I encourage you to try working in the public sector for a while before raking over the coals the hard working people doing the sometimes thankless tasks that keep our country going.

Brendan Watkins
Victoria, British Columbia

MARK SAYS: Going where?

DJ's Quick Answer

Cameron groupie Christina Odone wonders why oh why people keep thinking the Cameroonatics are a bunch of arrogant snobs. Hey, Chrissy, maybe it's because members of the Cameron Cult keep dismissing non-kool aid drinking members of the conservative base as 'idiots'?

Murder: Also Often Considered A Form Of Abuse

Hey, for all the flak the Catholic Church has had over child abuse scandals, at least the Pope never issued a statement claiming that the real problem was that all this child rape may make people think worse of the Church.