Trembling in the Shadow of Latte (And Other Stupid Ideas)

In so far as Certified Liberal Deep Thinker Vince Cables' latest line of attack is to accusse the right of wanting to send kids up chimineys, it does ram home an important point: there are no good arguments left for liberalism.

People on the right are arguing that a recession is no time to be treating our last surviving private businesses as pinata donkeys full of employee freebies, meanwhile the left is relying on girly hysteria....

Actually, that same dynamic applies to just about any issue. That's the dark secret of liberalism: they don't want to keep university campuses free of conservatives because they think we're morons, they want it because they know we're not. Ditto, in any nation without a bloated state broadcaster with its hand on the scales, Vince Cable would be a national joke.

We should be mocking these people like the loons they are, but instead, the conservative establishment not only treats them like political heavyweights, it allows them to set the terms of the debate, as though there were any kind of meaningful middle-ground to be reached with people who compare opposing compulsory employer-paid aromatherapy with support for child labour.

Enough already, there's no reason to pander to the deranged. On the contrary, the more they have to come out and argue for liberlalism, the more obvious it becomes that 'liberal intellectual' is more a diagnosis than a description. Hence the liberal obsession with hate speech: they need to shut down the debate because every time they have to compete in the marketplace of ideas, they go bankrupt.

The BBC: Fellating Felons On The Licence Fee

Anyone listening to the Jeremy Vine Show yesterday would have got the treat of alleged comedian Johnny Marbles stopping by to talk about his charity swim down the Thames.

No, wait - it was a real comedian what did that. Meanwhile, Johnny is known for one thing: assaulting an elderly man, but apparently that's all you need in Beebland to justify being treated like Tom Cruise opening a new movie.

No, my mistake again - Tom might have to face the odd critical comment, instead of yukking it up with the presenter about how he nailed an old guy. On the plus side, we've surely killed any suggestion that it's the Right which encourages extremism?

Actually - and typical for the BBC - even without the bias the interview failed as journalism. Far from being spontaneous, Thugboy admitted unprompted that he had been stalking Murdoch beforehand, but Vine completely missed it.

Then again, the whole 'educate and inform' thing was conspicuous by its absence. Instead, we had Thugboy's unchallenged ranting about how the Murdochs 'lied' - but without ever explaining what they were lying about or why we should believe him.

Instead of asking his guest to justify his slanders, Vine concentrated on the important stuff: feeding his new pal sob sister lines about how Mrs Murdoch attacked him, and how hard his jailing was on his son, and did he think he was oversentanced?

Surprisingly enough, he did. Plus Jeremy helpfully pointed out that someone who did the same to Fiona Bruce only got a fixed penalty. Yes, indeed: our nuanced friends at the BBC are now claiming to be baffled why assaulting a witness giving evidence to Parliament is treated more harshly than the same offence in the High Street.

Needless to say, no one was there to point out that here was an individual who carried out a violent assault in a self-confessed attempt to 'humiliate' his victim and demonstrate contempt for Parliament, and our State broadcaster was doing all but driving the getaway car.

More to the point, the BBC spent the recent riots on Defcon One Vigilante Alert. Now we have a supposed anarchist who claims the right to assault anyone who, in his opinion, is obviously guilty, even if they've never been charged with a crime and the BBC treats him like an honoured guest. Hello?

Let's check the scorecard here:

Shopkeepers defending their businesses against arsonist and looters: vigilantes.

Leftist thugs attacking people they despise, but who haven't been convicted of anything: Tom Cruise.

BBC moral authority: screwed.

That Depends What The Meaning of 'Elite' is....

I certainly agree with the wider point Ed West is making here, but seriously... David Cameron as the poster boy for the benefits of elitism? It was guys like Cast Iron Dave who sunk that boat in the first place.

No doubt about it, Cameron is a member is good standing of the elite, but much good that's done any of us. The more we're reminded of his credentials, the more we notice how little he's actually achieved. And no, he's not just a victim of bad luck. Never mine the implementation, he's barely capable of putting together a coherent policy in the first place. Consider this: no matter how often we're reminded that The Dave is the World's Smartest Man and the Greatest Orator Evah! I defy anyone to quote a single memorable line from him.

Well, OK, there was that whole 'Hug A Hoodie' thing, but the Cameroonatics don't like to talk about that.

That's the point right there: Dave's elite, but there are guys driving taxis who could mount a more coherent defence of conservative values than Prince Dave.

Those Tory Cuts....

Looks like things have got so bad they're having to focus on the bare essentials.

And, no, it isn't just a bit of fun:

Under the £75,000 initiative, 3,600 Sure Start children’s centres will be sent LazyTown-branded activity packs including recipe ideas and a sticker chart

It's like all the worst ideas from Nu Labour are converging into one big ball of stupid.

The BBC: Focusing on the Key Issues

As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9-11, the BBC asks why aren't you peasants queueing up to watch a soft-focus portrayal of the lighter side of totalitarian lunacy?

Yes, indeed: Muslims killed thousands of Infidels on September 11 but now pesky Islamophobes refuse to watch emetic depictions of jovial jihadists, so there's fault on both sides.

Needless to say, you have to look elsewhere for the real story, including a truly Pythonesque twist:

The Muslim members of ACTRA decided to sit this thing out, and so every warm fluffy moderate Muslim on the show is played by a Protestant or Catholic, Italian or Indian. As comedy of bicultural manners goes, it's like a surreal latter-day PC version of the old vaudeville act "The Hebrew and the Coon," where the Hebrew was the genuine article and the Coon was played by Al Jolson.

Yep - the only way the left could get its Allahawful paean to moderate Muslims off the ground was by hiring fellow liberals to dress up as moderate Muslims.

No wonder the BBC likes the show - that's pretty much been its approach to covering Islam for years. They could combine the two approaches and have a BBC version where the Muslim characters don't speak, and instead the lefty university professors from next door keep stopping by to tell the audience what the Muslims would have said.

Another Reason Why Cameronism Is A Really Huge Fraud

Ace makes an interesting point over here. Basically, he's saying that ideology will only ever win over 35% of the electorate. Getting a workable majority requires a candidate who can project a personality voters feel comfortable with.

Superficially, this sounds like the Cameron doctrine. After all, these guys have never been reluctant to sneer at those nasty old 'right-wing ideologues' what keep scaring the horses, but hang on a minute.... Sure, Cameron doesn't dig the ideology - and let's assume that his obvious contempt for them doesn't cost him any votes amongst the 35% - but where's the evidence that he is able to appeal to the electorate? Where's the proof that the snooty, stand-offish, sleazy suckweasel appeals to anyone much at anything more than a relieved 'at least he's saner than Gordon' level?