So Why Did He Hire Him Then?

Over at ATW, David Vance has the best line on the whole William Vague thing.

Personally, I was sceptical about the whole gay thing, until I saw how the usual suspects have railed round him. It says a lot about where the Tory Party is at right now that Dave's Drones are shocked - shocked! - that the guy who harried Prezza and Jackie Smith is now hunting down Tory crooks. What kind of game is that Guido guy playing anyway?

Inevitably, the winner of 'Best in Show' was the Reverend Dale, with his trademark mix of passive-aggressive bitchiness and humbug. He concludes one post with the following phrase:

I said on Radio 4's PM that there was part of me tonight that is ashamed to call myself a political blogger this evening, and I meant it. That may sound a bit holier than thou, but it is how I feel.

I hope Mr Fawkes can look himself in the mirror tonight. Because I sure as hell couldn't.

Holy Sickbag, Batman!

But what's this? In his other post, he moves seamlessly from whining about 'lies, smears and innuendo' to this:

Guido Fawkes is not a homophobe, but the way he is writing about this allows those who think he is homophobic to confirm their own prejudices.

Uh...OK. And at this point, I'd just like to note that while I have no, actual, 'proof' that Iain Dale dresses up as Wonder Woman and molests farm animals, I can see how some people could think that he might, IYKWIMAITYD.

More to the point, wasn't the Reverend Dale one of the leading lights in the cyber lynch mob that targeted Philip Lardner? Ah yes: let's hear it again:

Sometimes, you just hold your head in your hands and think 'how on earth did people like this get through the candidate selection procedure?'....

[David Cameron] called Lardner to account and I hope any Conservative does the same if they encounter people in the Government who hold similar... views. They should be chucked out of Parliament for good - not just suspended.

Hey, I'm sure glad the Rev doesn't go in for 'petty and spiteful vilification', but let's check the scorecard on this: comments made by a Tory candidate speaking in a personal capacity in defence of religious liberty demand burning at the stake. Meanwhile, a senior politician appears to be using taxpayer's money to provide a full employment service for marginally-qualified youths, but investigating that is a gross intrusion on his privacy? Really?

But let's not let the individual humbuggery of the Reverend Dale distract from the collective humbuggery of the Nu Tories in general. At risk of stating the obvious, this case exposes the utter fraud of all this talk about 'diversity'. Nothing could lead to less diversity than entry-level government posts being handed out like baubles to well-connected young men and women. Indeed, it's to prevent this that the government has objective hiring standards in the first place.

But it's even bigger than that. What is blindingly obvious from this case is that Hague is the perfect example of what Mark Steyn called 'the Emirs of Incumbistan', using the Treasury as his own personal piggy bank to provide non-jobs for cronies.

Hey, let's accept the Hague's defence at face value: he still hired a marginally-qualified youth to do a non-job on the taxpayer's dime. Hague may, or may not, have got laid, but the rest of us surely got screwed.

Needs A Gay Dude

Other than that, this movie looks a dead cert for an Oscar.

Liberals: Given Up Even Trying To Make Sense

Julie passes on this gem from the Guardian:

Impassioned responses to Beck's event, Dr Laura Schlessinger's recent N-word gaffe and offensive remarks about female supreme court justices are justified and necessary. But they must occur in the context of an unrelenting commitment both to change the institutions that provide platforms for such regrettable incidents, and to move away from soundbites towards a sustained discussion of racism and sexism in all its complexity.

A-huh! So we need to move towards a sustained discussion by silencing anybody who disagrees with the left.

Still, it's a perfect example of Liberal Turettes, the strange syndrome where leftists suddenly blurt out the truth about what they really believe. Whenever sane people hear liberal arguments advanced, they're naturally appalled, hence why the left's only hope of winning the debate is to silence the opposition before hand.

Politicians Telling Us Who They Are

So now we know: our elected representatives are a foul-mouthed collection of thugs. All of which means....

No, wait: Mr Liberal would like to point out it's just a tiny minority who don't represent the vast majority of peace-loving MPs. Really? If these people are just an unrepresentative fringe, why are their colleagues so reluctant to discipline, or even name, them? These guys are public servants, using their working hours to scream abuse at near-minimum wage public servants in a public building. If ever there was a right to know, this is it. Seems like the average MP is plenty comfortable with thuggery, after all.

But there's something deeper going on here. This all supports Canadian writer Kathy Shaidle's theory that PC is Class War by other means. For years, we've had to put up with finger-wagging lectures from our self-appointed betters about insensitive language - even in the most absurd of contexts. PC witch hunts have wrecked careers and wasted billions of pounds, but now members in good standing of the chattering classes are on the hook, it turns out that screaming real abuse and actual threats at people is perfectly fine.

Who'd have thunk it?

You May Not Be Interested In Culture War, But Culture War Is Interested In You

True enough, this is appalling, but it'd still take a heart of stone not to laugh.

Hey, wasn't the whole point of Nu Toryism that they'd turned their back on those dullsville suburban Daily Mail.... oops, Daily Heil (geddit?) readers and their incessant whining about 'PC gone mad', just cause in new, improved Britain, you can get a gun shoved under your nose and a night in the cells on the unsubstantiated word of a race-hustling nogoodnik?

At best, Cameronism was a strategy of evasion, kicking the can down the road on any contentious issues. At worst, these people were positively sneering about anyone who suggested that the whole apparatus of political correctness was inherently totalitarian.

Now suddenly the Dear Leader has fallen foul of PC - though without being arrested as yet - and....? What's happening to the Tories now is just the super-sized version of what millions of ordinary citizens have had to deal with for years.

Shock New Report: Britain Sux!!!!!!

On the plus side, I think we can now safely say beyond a shadow of doubt that liberals hate Britain. What other interpretation is there for the reverence with which the BBC reports on this load of old pony?

Anti-British psychopaths led by a member of a foreign cult blew up British citizens, and this proves Britain sucks? Even from first principles, that'd be a stretch, but the logic on show makes 'I wouldn't start from here' sound like genius:

Al Hutchinson's report, published on Tuesday, found that by acquiescing to a deal between the government and the Catholic Church to move Fr Chesney to a parish in the Irish Republic, the Royal Ulster Constabulary was guilty of a "collusive act".

He said this had compromised the investigation and the decision "failed those who were murdered, injured or bereaved" in the bombing.

Hey, think how the bombers feel: they missed out on the chance to become Ministers of the Crown like Machine Gun McGuinness and pals.

Seriously, let's check the scorecard here: police follow the lead of the elected government in 1972 and go easy on Father O'Semtex = Bad Pigs! Headcases holding public office right now = hooray for the peace process!

Apparently, there's appeasement and there's appeasement!

Meanwhile, liberals supported the IRA all the while it was murdering civilians, but now it's all moot, they claim what they actually meant was 'let justice be done though the heavens fall'.

For further evidence of humbuggery, consider the BBC's description of Sinn Fein as 'the political party closely identified with the IRA'. That's how the BBC describes them right now. In 1972 the police were under political pressure and dealing with a background of sectarian lunacy, what's the BBC's excuse?

Indeed, if there're any parallels between 1972 and modern life, they lie mainly with the BBC's determination to duck the tough questions.

All of which leads to the wider issue: for years the left in general, and the BBC in particular, depicted Ulster Unionists as crazed bigots with some wacky, irrational fear of Irish Catholicism. Now we know the truth: the Catholic Church in Ireland was exactly what the Unionists said it was. True, the bowler hat thing is kind of weird, and the Pope probably isn't the Anti-Christ after all, but objecting to being ruled by people who think True Christianity means murder and ethnic cleansing, well, that used to be what the Left claimed to stand for.

But that was in the old days, before the Left was born again and liberals learned to accept the joy of hating Britain into their lives.

More on the Ground Zero Victory Mosque

This is exactly right:

It would never even occur to me, or any decent person, to erect a Museum of American Achievements in Aviation in Hiroshima.

This is not a joke -- I am not saying a museum celebrating the bomb. I am saying a museum that does exactly as I said -- notes American achievements in aviation. Not the Enola Gay, but the Wright Brothers, etc.

The museum I am talking about, hypothetically, would not be baiting, nor celebratory of the bomb, in the least. It would just be a museum of American advancements in aviation.

But of course no sentient being could possibly fail to see how Japanese would take it as a direct provocation, and a nasty reminder of the bomb that fell on Hiroshima 6 August 1945.

And if I were so stupid, tasteless, and Asperger's-afflicted to have suggested such a museum in the first place, if Japanese then told me "That brings up horrifying memories," I wouldn't then arrogantly double-down and begin explaining to them how intolerant they're being, how irrational they're being, how unfair to my enthusiasm for American airpower they're being.

All of which set me think about respected documentary maker and marathon runner Michael Moore.

Hey, wasn't fatty hailed as a hero after slamming Charlton Heston for holding a supposedly triumphalist NRA rally in Colorado soon after Columbine? Why, yes, and never mind that state law required the NRA to hold an annual meeting and that the whole 'rally' thing was kind of.... Mooresque.

BBC Reveals How Wimminz Won The War

BBC Breakfast (motto: 'have some stupid on your cornflakes') has just run a feature on the 'hidden' story of the Battle of Britain. Brace yourselves: it turns out that it wasn't just about fighters, there was a whole radar and reporting network too!

Apparently, 'hidden' in Beebland means you actually have to open the book, not just look at the nice picture of the Spitfire on the cover. Seriously, who is this guy, the one who knew all about the relative turning circle of the Hurricane vs the 109, but didn't know the fighters were being guided by radio rather than, say, using sniffer dogs tied to the fuselage?

Needless to say, the only thing 'hidden' in the report - and barely at that - was the BBC's agenda. See, the thing is that most of the radar operators, and plotters, were members of the non-reversing community. That was the whole point of it all: women played a role in the battle too - just like every history of the battle makes clear.

This is the other thing about the BBC's crappy reporting. Not only is the bias bad in and off itself, it also blinds them to actual points. It is genuinely interesting to hear from a - still lifey - 100 year old veteran plotter, and there is a serious point here about how the real difference wasn't Britain's technically meh radar, so much as that it integrated with a purpose-designed home defence system. But no: chicks fought too, that's all you need to know.

Projection, Much?

Well said, Sir! Plus who's the Uncle Tom anyway? An MP who's risen to be a minister while still eating loads of pies, or a journalist who lives in Richmond, but gets paid to go into London and appear on TV, dressed in a Magpies shirt, while drinking a bottle of dog and talking about gan dan the toon?

Anyway, what does it say about the BBC that when they need a Northerner, they hire the Al Jolson of Surrey? Nothing we didn't already know!

If It Wasn't For Sneer Quotes, Some People Would Have No Way To Communicate

Heh. Timing is everything. A drive-by commentor on this post was mega, double, enraged by my criticism of libertarians: why, didn't I know, libertarians were totally super critical of liberal pandering to thugs? Then, wouldcha'believe it, Samizdata commented, apparently approvingly, on Alex Massie's Allahawful pay-no-attention-to-the-jihadist-behind-the-curtain article.

About Massie's article no more need be said than to repeat my original point: when exactly did we decide that putting sneer quotes round words counts as an actual argument? Equally though, I'm wondering whether those of us on the right might not have been suckered in to arguing over the minutiae with professional hair splitters like Massie when the honking great elephant in the room is THEY WANT TO BUILD A MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO!!!!

I'm thinking that the whole 'wanting to build a mosque at site of a brutal Islamic terror attack' pretty much kills the 'moderate' thing stone dead. Still, for anyone still struggling with the whole concept, gay Chicago democrats explain it better than most of Britain's Certified Rightists.

Geeks: This Is Why We Don't Trust You (2)

Just as with MP's expenses, I'm still waiting for the slip of the keyboard that inadvertently gives a much lower figure than expected.

Geeks: This Is Why We Don't Trust You (1)

The New Scientist has denounced Coaltion education policy, more specifically....

No, guess.

You'll never get it, it's.....

This.

Of course, you do have to have a certain grudging respect for their adaptability. Leftists have moved smoothly from denouncing the National Curriculum for stifling their creativity, maaaaaan to complaining about a new Dark Age just as soon as the Tories came out against it.

Guess that means Mrs T was right all along, hey geeks?

Meanwhile, in so far as the charge is that absent a gun to their head, most teachers will go with any old crap, doesn't that suggest the geeks should be taking it up with their fellow leftists rather the government?

Naomi Campbell: The Only Black Liberals Ever Wanted To Jail

I have only three questions:

1/ How did the hell did we get in a situation where a freak show collection of unelected tranzi tossers could demand freeborn British citizens abase themselves before their crappy tribunals?

2/ Are celebs going to be more or less likely to take part in charidee events in future knowing that if they do, they risk being hauled before a kangaroo court years after the fact?

3/ If Charles Taylor really is that bad, what does it say about St Nelson of Mandela that he invited him to stop by?

.....

Thena again, maybe Naomi got off lightly getting a few rocks - I hear Nelly and his pals usually go with the whole necklace.

Da Moreonz Wuz Rite

On the plus side, I guess we now know why the Legal-Welfare complex was so anxious to stop anyone reporting on the case of John Venables, the completely rehabilitated murderer now back in jail.

Yes, indeed: Venables has gone down for nonceitude, and plenty of would-be emperors are facing a charge of indecent exposure.

Hell, even after Venables got picked up and the story of his drug-fuelled odyssey of violence started to leak out, our betters were busily explaining how, while they found these allegations 'troubling', one should resist the temptation to be seduced by the partial and subjective reporting of the so-called 'tabloids' into somehow questioning the carefully-calibrated process of...

GUILTY!

The results are in, and it turns out that the tabloid-reading, coupon-clipping, Ford-driving, Tesco-shopping, chip eating, TV watching, semi-owned-on-a-mortgage-dwelling scum were right. 100%, take it the bank, straight in the x-ring, bang on. Our self-appointed betters? Not so much.

All of which raises a philosophical question: if all the alleged super-geniuses were wrong, in what sense are they actually smart? Isn't superior cerebral functioning meant to prevent you talking rubbish?

Then again, there was always an essential tautology in their arguments: if you believed in the rehab industry, you were clearly super-smart, because only super-smart people could understand why the rehab industry was worth supporting.

Ah huh!

Now, in a carefully-controlled experiment, Certified Liberal Big Brains were given a metaphorical, and indeed literal, blank cheque to rehabilitate a loveable scallywag, and it all went a bit Pete Tong. Then they lied about it for years on end, claiming Brer John was both being closely monitored and under tight parole conditions - neither of which can possibly be true in the light of his ability to indulge in a consequence-free, coked-up brawlathon.

Indeed, the readiness of liberals to proclaim their faith in rehab, even absent any actual scientific basis, confirms what we always knew: liberalism really is a Godless cult.

All of which throws new light on liberal criticism of real religion. Transmutation might sound a little strange, but it's no sillier than maintaining that a convicted killer who gets out of his face on drugs and brawls his way round the one city he's banned from, is actually a pillar of the community. More to the point though, I guess it wraps it up for the whole 'paedo priests' thing.

The charge against the Catholic Church is that instead of punishing pervert priests they preferred to send them to therapy, then move them to a different parish where they could strike again. Sound familiar?

Of course, there is one obvious difference: in one case therapy was based on a load of superstitious nonsense, in the other it was based on Christianity. Then there's the other thing: at least the Church didn't announce that any pervert priests it moved where obviously completely cured and anyone who said otherwise was clearly some kind of subhuman monkey.

And let's not forget the other unlovely member of the hipster's pantomime cow. Yes, indeed: libertarians claim people should hire their own air force, crack should be available over the counter and the Royal Mail is part of a conspiracy to get people used to state employees intruding on their property. Meanwhile, state employees bleed the tax payer dry to provide bogus therapies, release dangerous lunatics out onto the streets, then lie about it for years?

Nope, nothing of interest there.

Consistent libertarians might claim it says something about the untrustworthy nature of state employees operating behind closed doors, but that would means rubbing ideological shoulders with the proles. Nope, if it came to a choice between opposition to statism and class loyalty to their fellow elitists, that was never going to be a tough one for libertarians.

The bottom line is that this is issue is the perfect microcosm of the divide in modern politics. For years the right - the real right - has allowed liberals to cast this as a debate between the unenlightened rabble and the sofiticayted elite. We were assured that the ability to put sneer quotes around words like 'evil' was, in and of itself, a brilliant argument. Meanwhile, to suggest that some things really were beyond the pale was evidence of near-retardation.

The point is not just that the right was right - these days, that pretty much goes without saying - it's that the left wasn't just wrong, their whole claim to intellectual supremacy was based on pseudo-scientific drivel and outright fraud. Liberalism is Scientology without Tom Cruise.

Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Welcomes Newest Member

Atheists: Still Desperatly Seeking Relevance

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

I'd put it all down to Daddy issues, except for the amusing bit at the end. Yes, indeed, there's nowt so behind the times as the avant garde.

This Is Being A Poodle

Like I keep saying, The Dave will always find new ways to nauseate.

At least when the usual suspects accused Tony Blair of being a poodle, it was over actual policy. Blair, like Bush, believed there was no possibility of long-term security as long as the Middle East was allowed to remain a cesspit, hence his support for invading Iraq.

Meanwhile, a car load of Senators demand the Head of Her Majesty's Government presents himself like a schoolboy going to the headmaster's office and he folds like a row of tents. Odds of M. Sarkozy or Frau Merkel turning up for a meeting with the MPs for Cornwall? More or less than the chances of the whole county breaking off Devon and drifting to Spain?

That's what hacks me off so much about this guy. It's not just that individual policies are insane, it's that his whole worldview is a train wreck. What does it say about him that he can't see something fundamentally wrong with the idea of a British PM submitting to an inquisition by hack politicians from a foreign land?

Today's Deep Thought

If liberals treated criminals like they treat conservatives, and vice versa, the country would be a lot better off.

And Talking Of The BBC...

Haven't they done well to get a whole series called 'How To Beat Tough Times' completed and on air in such a short time considering that three months ago they were predicting a massive upturn any minute?

Next up: the BBC discovers homelessness

As I Was Saying...

Now Lord Taylor has been charged, surely that apology from the BBC can only be a matter of time?

About That 'Tone' Thing...

Following on from the post below, one of the stupidest excuses for liberal thuggery is that, gosh darn it, they're all in favour of robust political debate, but they just prefer a civilised tone.

Kathy Shaidle drives a stake right through the heart of that idiocy here:

Finally, having run out of counter-"facts", sarcastic liberal now objects to your "tone."

You ask if one recites pi to the 50,000th decimal place without error, but does so in a Mickey Mouse voice, if that renders said recitation inaccurate.

Triumph Of The Shrill

As I understand the basics of the John Gaunt case, he compared a member of our ruling class to a Nazi, then got forced out of his job by a state body.

So no Nazi overtones there at all then.

Personally, I think we dodged a bullet. If calling them Nazis means they use the power of the state to hound you out of your job, think what they do when you call them perverts?

But what are the odds, hey? We've had eight years of BushChimpler slurs but with the Obamamessiah in the White House and Useless Dave in No 10, liberals are suddenly against harsh language. Can't we all just get along?

Well, no, actually. Consider the actual casus belli here: Councillor Heinrich's bonkers idea of keeping kids in care just to make some anti-smoking point. This isn't even a case of either/or. In contrast to the theoretical risks of passive smoking, the lousy outcomes for kids in care are a fact. Kids are having their lives blighted just because some spooky wierdos don't dig fags. This is the type of thing that's supposed to enrage decent people.

Still, now we have the High Court's verdict that's it's unreasonable to call Michael Stark 'ignorant', we have to.... well, actually this is the Blogosphere, so we can say what we mean, unlike the fearless MSM, which has fearlessly grovelled to the thugs at OFCOM. We can say that Councillor Michael Stark is a vicious little rat and a bully, a fascist dolt who's readiness to resort to thuggery is a testament to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of his ideas. In so far as he supports using some of the most vulnerable people in society as sock puppets in his stupid crusade, he is a sicko, little deviant who's unfit to be trusted with the keys to the stationary cupboard, far less the fate of young children. 'Ignorant' is unfair only in so far as it suggest his problem is stupidity rather than depravity. On the contrary, his determination to choke off the public debate speaks to a man under no illustrations about the utter failure of his twisted ideology in the marketplace of ideas.

In fact, the only people worse than Herr Stark are the MSM drones who cravenly accept the right of agents of the state to do all but burst through the studio doors shouting 'Satire Squad! Step away from the mike!'..... all the while lamenting that their crappy, dull, government-approved stations are failing.

Once you have High Court Judges picking through commentary and deciding what's lawful and what's 'undirected abuse', the whole 'free speech' thing is DOA. You can't have worthwhile political commentary if everyone's looking over their shoulder for Big Government to suddenly leap out and announce that no one expects the OFCOM Inquisition (but, since we're on the subject of undirected abuse, what was the actual point of Jerry Springer: The Opera)?

Actually, all this is still giving liberals too much credit. This is an exercise in simple thuggery, and some of them aren't even trying to hide it: check it out.

Yes, indeed: state harassment of right-wing commentators is a good thing because it restricts right-wing commentary. A-huh!

All of which proves that, as usual, I am right: liberalism can only succeed by force or fraud.

Post In Which I Brilliantly Draw Together Two Disparate Elements To Make A Serious Point

Never ones to miss a chance for absurd liberal preening, BBC4 on Tuesday aired a program celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of 'To Kill A Mocking Bird'.

Yes, indeed: liberals are standing up and bravely denouncing lynch mobs and racism, come what may!

But there's more to it than the left's habit of courageously speaking out against dragons, just as soon as St George starts typing up his after-action report. Consider what the central plot device is in TKAMB: a false rape accusation.

Lynch mobs and Jim Crow laws strike liberals as red-hot issues, but a black guy facing a false rape charge? Ancient history, dude!

The liberal obsession with supposedly detecting super-secret racism everywhere merely rams home the point how absurd is the idea of lynch mobs of Klansmen running round Britain's streets. They may as well denounce bear baiting or witch craft. Meanwhile, under the legal arrangements favoured by Harriet Harperson and friends, Tom Robinson would surely have been found guilty, racism or no racism.

All of which brings me back to the BBC and their plans for a 'Man's Hour'. What are the odds of 'Britain's Campest Man' and pals taking time out from probing each other's depths to cover false rape accusations? Better or worse than the chances of them airing about a thousand cutesy interviews with faux lad, performing seal manginas like Nick Hornby et al? Hey, it's not like they can say they're short of material.

Sounds Like A Job For Liberalman!

In case you missed it, here's last week's Things That Offend Muslims Story.

Don't worry though: in a break with tradition, it's only a tiny minority of extremists, but the moderates think we should pander to them anyway.

I know - I was shocked too, but there you have it.

But wait... what's this?

The move comes despite the subject being a compulsory part of the national curriculum.

While parents have legal rights to withdraw children from religious and sex education classes, no automatic right exists to pull them out of lessons such as music.

Zut Alors! Even now, I imagine Marxist pillock Peter Lee is disappearing into a phone booth to do a quick change....

I mean, that's right, isn't it? These guys indisputably are ignoring a compulsory part of the national curriculum (an actually compulsory part, this time), so Captain Tolerance will doubtless be ready to write them a ranty letter in ALL CAPS, right? It's not like our nation's educrats are just gutless bullies and degenerate snobs, right?

Book Burning: Not Always A Bad Thing

Well said, Sir!

Hey, if it's great literature, why are liberals so keen to ram it down the throat of schoolkids?

Actually, I've always thought of it as the literary equivalent of the old line about Stephen Fry: it's what stupid people think of as an intelligent book. AB puts it right in the X-ring:

In all great novels there is some quality of moral ambiguity, some potentially controversial element that keeps the book from being easily grasped or explained. One hundred years from now, critics will still be arguing about the real nature of the relationship between Tom and Huck, or why Gatsby gazed at that green light at the end of the dock across the harbor. There is no ambiguity in "To Kill a Mockingbird"; at the end of the book, we know exactly what we knew at the beginning: that Atticus Finch is a good man, that Tom Robinson was an innocent victim of racism, and that lynching is bad. As Thomas Mallon wrote in a 2006 story in The New Yorker, the book acts as "an ungainsayable endorser of the obvious."

For extra credit, he could also have pointed out the humbuggery inherent in a book stuffed full of absurd caricatures where one of the leads opines that 'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view'. Huh?

Indeed, at one point, Good Ol' Atticus takes time out to explain to Scout the difference between the fine, upstanding, (i.e. liberal) town dwellers, and the barely human rural folks.

It's noticeable that for a book supposedly about race, blacks barely feature at all, and when they do, it's purely as powerless victims of the system, rather than actual, fully-rounded characters. The racial theme is merely a pretext for ostentatious liberal moral preening combined with class hatred of the white working class. Then again, isn't that modern liberalism in a nutshell?

UPDATE:

A drive-by lib offered this in the comments..

this is the dumbest thing i've read today.

...thereby refuting the argument that Harper Lee's main stroke of genius was realising just how much filthy lucre there was in working out a way for none too sharp liberals to feel smart without the inconvenience of actual thought.

Still, it set me thinking. There's a whole extra layer of humbuggery over here. You just know that in any British (alleged) classic, the narrator would be one of the poor (but proud) folks and the middle classes would be depicted as brutes, hypocrites and the like. All of which is by way of saying that the rise of the Cult of TKAMB in the UK might just be a useful barometer of the British left's slow switch from representing the workers to representing the social workers.

The Most Perfect Example of BBC Balance Evah!

Yes, indeed: the BBC has decided to balance up the femiloon rantings of Radio 4's 'Woman's Hour' with a 'Men's Hour'. Which is not a wholly hideous idea, except when you hear what it's actually going to cover:

Called Men's Hour, the new series will “delve into unchartered emotional territory for men, bringing real candour to the challenges of relationships and life”, the corporation claims.

Blurgggh!

Seriously, someone should tell them: it's women who indulge in all this emotional crap. Pretending that they're super-deep is a way for them to fantasise about being special snowflakes, without needing to rely on actual achievement.

Just what definition of 'man' is the BBC using here anyway?

Ah yes:

However, in contrast to the matronly manner of Jenni Murray, the Woman’s House presenter, the show will also feature Louie Spence – described as the campest man on TV – as a regular fixture.

And there you have it, the BBC's definition of balance: on the one had we have shrieking, feminazi, vampire Hell-demons, on the other, whiny, mangina, cuddle bitch ladyboys. This is balance at the BBC.

Even Guardian Writers Don't Read The Guardian

Julie's reading the Guardian, so you don't have too.

First, there's prolier than thou Cath Elliot, writing from a sink estate in Glasgow (right?) about why the middle class suck, suck, suck!!!!

They're the ones who get to make the big decisions that impact on our lives, and they're also the ones who we see every day working hard to ensure that their class is protected and cushioned when times get tough.

Say what, Cath? Would that be like devoting space to an overpaid flack's plea for the government to keep spending taxpayer's money on overpaid flacks? Is that what you mean?

They Said If I Wasted A Vote On UKIP Felons Would Walk Free And They Were Right!

I guess we're just lucky enough people believed all those Certified Conservative Intellectuals when they claimed Cast Iron Dave was a secret conservative, after all.

Oops.

By now, I'm guessing all but the most committed of kool aid drinkers have to admit that Cameron's 'conservative principles' are the Atlantis of British politics: even those who believe they exist have to admit they're sunk without a trace.

It's not all bad news though. Amusing as it is - in a nauseating kind of way - that so many leftists have now belatedly decided that prison works (apparently, the last 13 years must have been some other Labour party), criticism from the left may just mean the pro-criminal lobby have to make actual arguments, instead of just dismissing all their critics as knuckle-dragging bigots.

Mind you, not to go all Laban, but there was always something strange about the 'People's Party' deciding that, hey, if it comes down to choosing between brutal thugs who make life hellish for everyone else on our nation's sink estates, or their victims, their sympathies are all with the hoods.

As far as the debate itself goes, I'm with the guy on one of the police blogs who said that claiming our current system proves prison doesn't work is like saying that you took a paracetamol a week ago, but you've now got a headache so, hey, painkillers must be a right-wing myth.

Still, it does raise one more question: if prison is a failure because a six month sentence can't convert a guy with multiple convictions for violence into a model citizen, what does that say about the arm of government that spends 11 years failing to teach kids to read? Are we allowed to say that doesn't work either?

Liberalism: Your F2 Philosophy

As in 'Force or Fraud' - the only two ways by which liberals can successfully advance their squalid ideology. Or sometimes both at once.

MSM: Wrong Again

Is there a more annoying genre of journalism than the one where people who've never had a proper job berate everyone else for being distracted by trivia, instead of embracing their particular hobby horse?

I think of them as the 'how can you eat lunch while there's polar bears dying in Africa?' stories. Latest example: here.

The thing is Glover's article doesn't even make sense on its own terms - and not just because the landlord sounds kind of cool. Glover implies that the whole footy thing is just a distraction from the real issues. Really? Consider the Fabio Capello story.

Here was a guy who was wafted into the hot seat on a cloud of media hype. Anyone who pointed out that he lacked relevant experience, never having managed in England or at international level, was labelled a luddite Little Englander. No, siree, Jack: this was a new era, and if Fabulous Fabio needed to stuff the payroll with cronies and all but declare himself emperor, well, that was the price of progress.

Hey, it worked for a while, but even then, some morons were heard to suggest that doing the double over Andorra wasn't quite the achievement the MSM portrayed it as and maybe Capello's achievements merely reflected England returning to their natural level after being dragged down by the borderline lunacy of his predecessor. Still, if you listened to the MSM, times they were a-changing, and if Capello seemed more comfortable tearing into the traditional values of English football than explaining what he wanted to replace them with, well, that just proved how sophisticated he was (and never mind that his tactics seemed mightily to resemble those discarded by Continental teams a generation ago).

Nemesis arrived in South Africa. It turned out that the MSM's Designated Messiah was an autocratic bully totalling lacking in any ability to lead those whose skills he needed for success, while his supposedly superior intellect didn't stretch to actually coming up with any answers for England's problems.

So, in summary then, absolutely no resonance with anything or anyone else in the country. Our 'watchdog' media backing a total chump is just a one-off and we can safely ignore any further consideration of Mr Fabio Camerello.

Feminism 101

Julie points out another 'The Net Will Kill Us All' story. It's all good, but what really struck me was this bit:

After a moment of feminist outrage, Blair tweeted her reaction to last week's issue of More! magazine, which included an "inside men's minds" special. Blair's tweets were potentially defamatory and More! magazine could have demanded she delete them or risk the threat of a lawsuit. But they didn't. Instead, they retweeted her insults, cashing in on the free publicity.

Almost instantly, a tirade of indignant readers updated their status with vicious remarks…

So a femiloon slimes a magazine, non-insane people come to the magazine's defence, and this proves La Bigot is the real victim here. Huh?

Against that background it's hard to take seriously the authorette's whine that no one confronted her face to face after she slimed her colleagues. Does anyone seriously doubt that if they had, she'd have whined about The Harassment?

Update:

Link fixed!

We're All One Big Bastiat Tribute Band!

Yes, indeed: England go out the them! on the hottest day of the year. An economic boom surely follows, right?

By the way, for any five-oh sceptical of it all, I have one thing to say: just think of the overtime!

Update:

Heh. Few folks left on the kerb with this one. Bastiat wrote the Parable of the Broken Window to explain what he thought was bonkers about economics, namely that all economic activity is treated as good, even if - like replacing broken windows - there's no net gain at the end of it all. In contrast, if it's mere activity that you're after, replacing all the shop windows put through during the normal post-world cup exit near-riots ought to guarantee an economic boom (to say nothing of all that police overtime). Bastiat's theory could have been tested to destruction, except - as Ross notes - the sheer awfulness of England seemed to drained the life out every the most committed lunatics.

Shocka! Appeasement Still Working As Well As Ever (Part II)

If I understand President Ogabe's position correctly, it's that when a guy stands on a table screaming 'Allah Ackbar!' while hosing down his fellow troops, only a bigot could possibly read some kind of religious angle into all that. On the other hand, when a oil rig explodes the key factor is that the company concerned used to be called 'British Petroleum'.

Hmmmm.... apart from anything else, what's the theory of the crime here? The guys at BP were all drinking tea while watching the cricket when something, something, something and then there was a huge explosion.

What's the middle bit here? Still, before we anoint Tony Haywood as an other bold Atlas holding up an ungrateful world, let's remind ourselves of his company's fine record of crocodile feeding.

Yep - just as long as econuttery was a good way to shiv their competitors, BP were down with the program. It's only now, when they've become the latest folks to discover that you can go to bed with liberals, but they won't respect you in the morning, that BP have suddenly decided that Big Government isn't all sunshine & song, after all

Shocka! Appeasement Still Working As Well As Ever (Part I)

Don't be shocked, but The Dave throwing the Army under the bus last week didn't actually result in anyone except him and his cronies actually 'drawing a line' under anything much.

Here we go again!

The thing is that the vile little toad - Adams, not Cameron - has a point. If you take the absurd precedent set by Saville seriously, then why not? In fact, Adams's position is arguably less absurd than Saville's, being based on the latter's pseudo-legal precedent rather than carved out of whole cloth as Saville's train wreck legal reasoning was.

The Paras Killed Stephen Lawrence

They said if I wasted a vote on UKIP, a military hating freak might get into No 10 and they were right!

Yes, indeed: an enquiry set up to appease leftist fanatics and grievance farmers, headed by a liberal judge and making up the rules as it went along has found that everything the Left ever said is right. Who'd have thunk it?

Besides, any enquiry that involves this guy is clearly well-founded.

The Good Doctor reminds us of the previous winner of 'Best in Show':

Perhaps the fact that the inquiry was open to the public had something to do with the nature of the resulting report. The public gallery regularly overflowed with activists and extremists, who did not hesitate to jeer and mock the witnesses with whom they disagreed; the head of the inquiry, Sir William Macpherson, rarely admonished these spectators, thus creating an officially sanctioned atmosphere of intimidation....

At the beginning of the report, Macpherson defended the unusually “adversarial” manner in which the inquiry was conducted. “Cross-examination of many officers was undoubtedly robust and searching,” he wrote. A few pages later, without noticing any contradiction, he mentioned that when one Mr. Gompertz, the counsel for the police, was questioning Mrs. Lawrence, “The nature and content of the questions made Mrs. Lawrence protest that her perception was that she was being put on trial. Wisely Mr. Gompertz desisted.” In short, only the accused could be questioned.

This is how the left rewrites history: they wait until all the sane people have died, got old or otherwise moved on with their lives, next they hire Judge Skippy to hold an enquiry to prove that everything they said is right, then they announce that the subject is closed and it's time to 'move on'.

Give it twenty years and Judge Euan Blair will be presiding over an enquiry into the Orgreave Massacre of striking miners by Thatcher's SS.

All of which shows how useless our nation's Certified Conservatives actually are. Every time the left announces one of these bogus enquiries, they fall for it hook line and sinker. They're like Charlie Brown trying to kick that ball, while Lucy the Leftist suddenly announces that solicitors for the nominated patsy will only be allowed to question witnesses through the medium of mime.

Still, in its own way, it's kind of reassuring that no matter how predictably awful the mass of career conservatives are, The Great Dave always manages to find new and exciting ways to be even worse. The only good thing you can say about Cameron's Jane Fonda act is that at least we're not engaged in any wars at the moment. Otherwise, throwing the Army under the bus would be the height of irresponsibility.

Hey, I guessing this means all this grovelling to the left wasn't just about The Electability after all. Prime Minister Dave turns out to be just like Candidate Dave, and his whole philosophy of government is of public office as the continuance of campaigning by other means.

But while we're on the subject, I'd like to follow Dave's example and apologise to the nation for the Tories electing this pillock as leader. True, I've never been a party member, don't know how the Party's organised and think 90% of the members are drones, but that doesn't mean I can't sincerely pay tribute to these fine upstanding citizens, aside from their role in helping to destroy our nation.

Of course, some may say I'm being a little harsh but, fortunately, as Chairman of the House of Dumb Inquiry Into Actual Conservatism, I rule their evidence 'inadmissible'.

More seriously though, this case is just another example of the toxic nature of Cameronism.

We're supposed to admire how Cameron's nifty theft of the left's talking points has neutralised the political effects of Saville's ranting, but consider the wider issues - aside from stabbing the troops in Helmand in the back.

Saville claimed that the troops - acting as agents of a democratically-elected government in support of local law enforcement - acted provocatively by entering an area that a bunch of thugs in balaclavas had decided should be a no go area for cops. Moral equivalence isn't even the half of it. Any public servant accepting the supposed right of lunatics to declare de facto independence from the rule of law would be bizarre, but a judge? And if it's provocative to insist that the law is enforced everywhere in the country, why can't the Paras opt from Saville's nasty witch hunt, held years after the fact?

It turns out that the medium is the message. Whether it's Macpherson announcing that the lack of any evidence of racism is itself proof of racism, Saville claiming that there's no reason to believe a terrorist with a tommy gun was up to no good, or any of the other bazillion atrocities against reason over the last few years, the common theme is the left's ability to force through its own narrative as the accepted version of events. The whole point of these freaky show trials is that even as they debase the justice system, they establish the left as the guys who own the mint.

First They Came For The Homicidal Lunatics....

Further evidence for my theory that when hipsters claim to oppose paedophiles, they actually mean it in the purely abstract sense, rather than in the sense of opposing any predator that's ever actually existed.

In the same spirit, I would now like to out myself as a libertarian. Yes, indeed: I strongly believe police officers should not be allowed to randomly machine gun passers-by from their squad cars.

Still, that does raise one question for our hipster friends: in so far as Roy Whiting was convicted for a sexual offence against a child, got a slap on the wrist, moved on up to actual homicide, but is still allowed taxpayer's money to play 'Find That Loophole' just what does it take for our sofitikeyted pals to agree that yes, indeed, he is beyond the pale?

Straight From The Horse's....

Steyn catches a liberal OD'ing on scopalamine:

So ethnic cleansing of Jews is a “liberal” position? Albeit an “anti-establishment” one? What’s interesting is that, after spending so many years huffily insisting they’re not anti-Semitic but merely “anti-Zionist”, the British left is now happy to put an explicit call for “the Jews” to be returned to the land of Auschwitz under the category of “criticism of Israel”

As ever, I say: if it's the right that's so extreme, how come it's always liberals who fantasise about murder and ethnic cleansing?

The Ever-Evolving Gospel According To The Reverend Dale

Personally, I'm thinking Iain Dale has been kind of hard on David Laws:

Sometimes, you just hold your head in your hands and think 'how on earth did people like this get through the candidate selection procedure?'....

[David Cameron's] called Laws to account and I hope any Conservative does the same if they encounter people in the Government who hold similar lawless, and profoundly dishonest views. They should be chucked out of Parliament for good - not just suspended.

Oops. My mistake. He was actually writing about Philip Lardner, who had dared to question the gay agenda.

Meanwhile, Daily Mail readers were treated to the sight of the Reverend Dale giving David Outlaws the written equivalent of a full Lewinsky.

So, for those of you keeping score at home, this means that if you think the question of who an elderly grandmother, running a B&B half way up a mountain in Mid-Wales, rents a room to is purely a private matter, you, sir, are worse than Hitler! On the other hand, if you think the question of who an MP uses public money to rent a room from is a not a private matter, then you, sir, are also worse than Hitler!

The good news is that if only we can trick Laws into trying to rent a room off an elderly Christian lady, the whole gay rights movement might implode into some kind of logical death spiral.

And, No, Civil Liberties Nuts Don't Support Actual Civil Liberties Either

Good news: we've now found a new source of renewable power. Stick magnets on Cast Iron Dave and his constant U-turns could power a small city.

Of course, the real question is this: which is the greater force of nature? Cameron's gutlessness, or Harperson's stupidity?

Say, what you like about Mad Hattie, but at least her room temperature IQ means she keeps letting the truth slip out. Here she is on the case against anonymity:

[Harperson] said: 'We know that it is often only after many rapes that a defendant is finally brought to court and it is only at that point, often, when previous victims find the courage to come forward.

'By making rape defendants anonymous you are going to make it harder to bring rapists to justice.'

Errr...OK.

Hey, apart from anything else, can you imagine what Harpic's like playing Cluedo:

It was Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Dagger.... or in the Kitchen with the Revolver.... Dining Room with the Spanner. How about the Garden with the Chainsaw? Listen dammit, as a member of the Rape-Industrial complex, he's clearly guilty anyway. Stop whining about the specifics!

Needless to say, the requirement that citizens be charged with committing a specific crime, at a specific time and place, is designed precisely to stop the State cobbling together Frankenstein's Case. Stripped of its Grrrrl Power! blather, Harmful's position is nothing more than the legal codification of the belief that there's no smoke without fire.

This is an actual civil liberty issue, not one of the approximately eleventy million totally, vital liberties that lurked undetected until 1997. So where are the Gitmo Groupies when we need them?

Steyn!

Haven't had a good Steyn quote for a while, but here he is reminding us that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar:

Before the body was found, The Independent's Robert Fisk offered a familiar argument to Pearl's kidnappers: Killing him would be "a major blunder... the best way of ensuring that the suffering" – of Kashmiris, Afghans, Palestinians – "goes unrecorded." Other journalists peddled a similar line: if you release Danny, he'll be able to tell your story, get your message out, "bridge the misconceptions." But the story did get out; the severed head is the message; the only misconception is that that's a misconception.

Well, quite. A lot of liberal babbling at the moment reminds me of Len Deighton's line about Chamberlain deciding to deal with Hitler as though he was a civilised man, since he had no idea how to deal with him if he was not.

The BBC: Predicting The Footy Results At 4:59

Also defying all reasonable expectations, the BBC reveals that senior civil servants thought Labour's rampant spending was insane.

Say, you know when that would have been worth knowing? Before the election.

No, Femiloons Don't Oppose Rape Actually

Femiloons are enraged... actually, that's pretty much goes without saying. This time, they're specifically enraged! by coalition moves towards sexual equality.

What? Of course that's a fair summary. Hey, if the local council paying someone who does manual labour out in all weathers more than someone who does clerical work in a climate controlled office is The Sexism! (more women work inside than men, see), it surely is discriminatory for the courts to extend privileges to a mostly female demographic while denying them to a mostly male one.

Even back on Earth, it's hard to see what their problem is... Well, actually, it's perfectly easy to see what their problem is. As befits a bunch of bigoted nutcases, they truly believe that one of the lower orders offending a female in and off itself should be actionable. Unfortunately, that's proving to be a tough sale, so instead they claim they're really concerned about rape, and since all men are rapists, well, work it out for yourself....

Or get a man to do it, then claim you totally could have done it yourself if you weren't so oppressed.

The thing is though, if they really opposed rape, they'd be concentrating at least some of their fire on a demographic that really do commit a lot of rapes, namely rapists, but that never seems to happen.

This case is interesting for two reasons, firstly the sighting of the rare, but increasingly common, Victims of No Appearance. I guess it's further evidence for my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theory that knowledge of the offender automatically precludes knowledge of the victim and vice versa.

The other thing that's remarkable though is the sentence, or lack thereof:

A 'barbaric' robber who took part in the rape and torture of a young couple in their own home was jailed indefinitely today.

Gavin Gordon, 31, a drug addict who has a string of convictions for violence dating back more than ten years, was part of a gang that raped a 26-year-old woman in her home in Clapham, south London, while her boyfriend screamed as he was tortured in the next room.

I know what you're thinking: indefinite, huh? Sounds about right, throw the key away.

Except, in the Bizarro world of the courts, indefinite turns out to be kind of definite, after all:

[Gordon] must serve a minimum of nine years.

What are the odds, hey?

Just what do they think's going to happen in the next nine years to make this scumbag a worthwhile member of society? A visit from the Sociopathy Fairy? Or is it just another case of a headline-grabbing tough sentence that turns out to be pure leftist spin (meanwhile, apparently it's the right that's 'politicising the courts').

Here's a guy who's the worst of the worst. If femiloons were really opposed to rape, they'd want to make sure guys like this got meaningful sentences. Instead, a degenerate predator has got a slap on the wrist and providing he can face the terrible ordeal of a tribunal made up of the self-same type of liberal snivellers who refused to give him a proper sentence in the first place, he'll soon be back on the streets with years of active raping ahead of him. And the femiloons?

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ......

It's all too yawnerooney for them. They want the right to ruin the life of the boy next door on a whim, but their fellow liberals can all but fit a revolving door on the courts with nary a word.

When Diversity Daleks ATTACK!

Julie & commentors have a bit of fun with fascist pillock Peter Lee, and made the obvious 'Death Camp of Tolerance' reference, but the insanity of demanding tolerance at gunpoint is just the tip of the minaret.

First up, there's what it says about our nation's schools. They're studying Islam so they need to play dress up and go to a Mosque? What will they do if they study World War I? Dig up the footy pitch and string barbed wire on the goal line?

Yes, I can see how that approach can have its upsides during Sex Ed, but don't ask what the dress code is for the compulsory trip to 'The Swinging Stallion'.

I can't help thinking something's missing here. To paraphrase what Laurence Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman after he found out Dustin had stayed awake for three nights to prepare for a scene in Marathon Man: 'why not try teaching, dear boy'?

Oops. Guess we've got the answer to that one. A parent tried to exercise her legal right to withdraw her child from religious indoctrination, and his response is write a ranty letter with the CAPS LOCK key jammed on. This is what passes for reasoned argument in schools these days?

TOSSER.

All of which leads to another pile of hot, steaming humbug. Right now, Lee and his fellow headcases headteachers are whining and yammering about SATS. Apparently, carrying out objective tests to determine just what we're getting for all this money wastes too much teaching time... but I guess there's always time for Islamogrovelling? How about if we held the tests at a Mosque?

Then there's the other charge against SATS: they force teachers to 'teach to the tests' instead of being able to encourage da yoof to think for themselves - you know, just like the way this prat encourages pupils to think for themselves by trying to lawlessly bully them into attending indoctrination sessions with the Mad Mullah of Merseyside. Hmmmmm..... anyone think he'll be encouraging the kids to ask if it *really* goes dark at night because the Sun disappears into a muddy pool at the edge of the world? Or is it more likely that pointing out that black dogs aren't actually possessed by demons would provoke another ranty fit from the Marxist twerp?

Then again, I'd bet good money that he's never heard those particular bits of Islamic wisdom. See, here's the thing: even if the people he tried to slime really were everything he says, fascists, Nazis, bigots, they'd still be showing more, genuine, respect for Islam than liberal freaks ever do. At least these people recognise Islam as a wholly alien ideology, with its own unique set of values. Marxoid berks treat Muslims as though they were just Guardian readers with a tendency towards colourful rhetoric. It's leftists that are too small-minded to see the world as anything other than their own goofy obsessions writ large.

This is why liberal tolerance is a fraud - it's always predicated on the idea that their victims d'jour are liberals like them, but with a wacky dress sense. When the ungrateful wogs make a break off the reservation - see 'Sikhs' for further details - liberals sound like Nick Griffin's more bigoted brother. Meanwhile, I'm willing to bet that hell will freeze over before Captain Tolerance invites any actual conservatives in to talk to da kids.

Tories Seethe, Whine: They'd Have Gotten Away With It Too, If It Weren't For U-Meddling-KIPs

Old Meme: Now that the divinely-inspired leadership of The Dave has cleansed the Tory Party of reactionary elements, nothing can stop him crushing Prime Mentalist Gordon McDoom.

New Meme: There's no way even a God-like individual like Cameron could be expected to beat a master politician like Gordon Brown while elements on the right were still sulking about trivia.

All things considered, for a group of people who supposedly champion individual responsibility, there's an awful lot of victimhood floating round the Tories right now. Actually, that's Clue Number One right there: all this talk of how they've been unfairly deprived of victory by people voting for someone else does suggest a certain sense of entitlement.

Spin to the contrary, if large parts of the conservative base treat the Tories with contempt, it's purely because they sense the feeling's mutual. Eliminating large chunks of the conservative base from the Tory Party was an explicit objective of Cameronism, for example Party Chairman Francis Maude claimed the Tories had to 'lose twenty-five to gain fifty' (so at least they got half-way there).

To the point, these missing voters didn't leave the Tory Party, the Tories left them, then threw a brick through their window. To put it another way, if the Tories now had a 100 seat majority, the same people currently raging about UKIP would be citing it as proof of Cameron's status as the World's Smartest Man.

No Tory leader in history has exercised as much personal control over the Party as Cameron. In some respects it was quite impressive to turn the world's oldest party into a personality cult but it does make it hard for his acolytes to now claim he's a hapless victim of circumstance. In reality, Cameron's strategy failed in both quantitative and qualitative terms.

Consider the gay movement. Short of having Graham Norton sodomise him with a crucifix live on stage, Cameron couldn't have done more appease them, and that brilliant strategy was how the Tories ended up with grand total of 9% of their votes - which is to say, 9% of 2.8% of the voting population. Given those numbers, it might have been simpler just to buy them all tickets for Kylie's next gig.

Then there's the Cameron's Clones on the A-List. Oops. And an extra 'oops' for Chief Crony Joanne Cash who, lest we forget, had The Dave personally run interference for her. Guess she needed those dinosaurs after all.

See, this is the whole thing with Cameronism: they never argued policy, instead the whole alibi for these people was that they'd unlocked the secret of electability. Everyone who pointed out that the Tory program was an incoherent mess was denounced as a, well, dinosaur who needed to get with program. That excuse only works if you actually get elected, not if you screw up and whine about other people cruelly voting against you for no reason at all.

That's Clue Number Two: the collective look of bemusement that's settled on the Tories while they grapple with the whole 'voting your ideals' thing ('OK, they believe in traditional British values but what's their real agenda')?

That's the real knock on Cameronism. Some in the Tory grass roots may have believed that Cameronism merely meant adopting a few fashionably post-ideological poses, but after five years of Cameron, the Tory Party is so hollowed out that that when they encounter people that really do believe what they say, they're completely thrown.

So it would be for a Tory government. The Tories have relentlessly triangulated and trimmed their positions down to vanishing point. Cameronism sees the Tory Party's role as merely quibbling over the specifics even as it implicitly accepts the left's assumptions about all the big issues. It means accepting as inevitable, and even desirable, an ever-growing state, taking in more and more tax and producing ever more regulations, bureaucrats and bottom inspectors. And UKIP voters are supposed to feel guilty for opposing that?

To: 'Fifty' From: 'Twenty-Five'

....Missing us yet?

A Unique Moment In Our National Life

It's easy to be cynical right now, but let's not forget what an opportunity we have here. We have the chance to go into work tomorrow late and a physical wreck and still claim the moral high ground.

Yes, indeed. Some of us are aiming to get so caught up in the drama of it all, we feel it's our civic duty to stay up and watch the results come in from Fulchester South at 6 AM. If that unfortunately means we spend the whole of Friday with what appears to be a massive hangover, then that is just the price of democracy, and holding elections on the same day as Wetherspoons Curry Night. It's our democratic right, so stand tall, stand proud and don't forget the breath mints.

Besides, with Lord Snooty on course for a 55 seat majority, we'll all need a drink, so you're just being pro-active.

Exactly

Toby Young, of all people, sums up exactly what's so plain yucky about Cameronism:

Hogwarts is, in fact, a microcosm of exactly what old-fashioned Tories would like Britain to be. It’s a rigidly hierarchical society, presided over by a benign, but stern patrician figure – a sort of wizardly version of Harold Macmillan – in which everybody knows their place. The educated middle class (Potter, Weasley, Grainger) forge an alliance with the ruling class (Dumbledore et al) to preserve order, while the aspirational lower middle class, as represented by the Dursleys, are comic grotesques. The working class (Muggles), by contrast, are a poor, ignorant multitude who must, by dint of their helplessness, entrust their best interests to the elite. Anyone who challenges this status quo is, quite literally, demonised and cast into the outer darkness.

Actually, there's even more to it than that. The whole thing with Harry Potter is that he was destined from birth to be The Specialest Wizard Evah! He never earned his status, it was simply his birthright. Now, who does that sound like?

The A-Z Of Cameron

All things considered, I don't think of Cameron as either the heir to Blair or a British Obama. Amusing though it is to ridicule this horrible twosome for their messianic pretensions, the flip side of that is that at least both had halfway coherent visions of what they wanted to achieve.

On the other hand, in so far as the defining feature of Cameronism is the absurd mismatch  of ludicrously overblown efforts in pursuit of ridiculously trivial ends, he resembles nothing so much as our very own Slick Willy.

All of which is by way of saying that after being reminded of Mark Steyn's brilliant A-Z of the Clinton Years, I thought I'd try my very own version for Cam Jong Il himself.

A is for A-List: Being the list of approved candidates Cameron tried to foist on local parties almost as soon as he took office. Yes, indeed: never forget that almost the first thing principled advocate of localism Dave did was start working on ways to stuff the backbenches with Cameron's Cronies.

B is for Bike: As in the thing Eco Dave rides to the office... closely followed by a chauffer-driven Lexus. Apparently, it's carrying his papers, which explains why he needs a Lexus rather than, say, a Ford Fiesta. Doubtless, there will be some government grants going soon for people to investigate ways to transmit paperwork electronically. Or rucksacks.

C is for Catchment Area: All these bonkers ideas about parents setting up their own schools can't hide the fact that under Cameron catchment areas are here to stay. Unless you're a certain public figure, who sent his daughter to a exclusive, all white, primary school, avoiding 15 closer ones. Hmmm...say, I thought this guy liked...

D is for Diversity: Yes, indeed. Under Dave the Conservative Party is the United Colours of Yuppie Scum. A party that looks like Britain, except for all those bits outside the M25. Actually, what it's most like is a BBC show: it's full of bright, young things covering the whole spectrum of ethnicities and sexual orientations and you never see any actual conservatives. And, of course, what could be more diverse than...

E is for Eton: Apparently, in the Britain Cameron thinks the Tory Party should look like, about 25% of the population have gone to Eton. Proof positive that he does indeed live in a world of his own.

F is for Fat Licences: Remember these?

G is for Gayers: And if you disagree, you, Sir, have no place on the modern Internet!

H is for Huskies: In retrospect, The Dave flying to the Arctic to warn of the dangers of letting proles holiday abroad was probably the first clue...

I is for Islam: It's the Religion of Peace, except for the tiny minority of extremists. On the other hand, people who say Indian Jihadists are 'freedom fighters' and welcome the election of Hamas are perfectly reasonable and, indeed, deserving of a peerage and a position as Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion.

J Is for Jogging: Yes, indeed: he can't even exercise honestly.

K is for Kilo: ...Actually, not really sure where this fits in... Except here's a guy who keeps jibber-jabbering about the dangers of hayte speech, but doesn't see any downside at all in a  rich and successful public figure indulging in nodding and winking non-denials about his relationship with hard drugs.

L is for Land Rover: As in the British Army's main mode of transport in Afghanistan long after it became obvious they were utterly worthless against IEDs. Meanwhile, the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition was posing as Don't Call Me At All Dave. British soldiers were getting killed needlessly and a soi dissant conservative leader was refusing to raise that issue in Parliament lest talking about nasty macho stuff like defence ruin his touchy feely image.

M is for Marriage: Which The Dave supports, but that's not to say that he doesn't support other lifestyles too. But marriage is special, and so are other relationships too.

See, what's confusing about that?

N is for Nazi Germany: What England was exactly like in 2006, apparently. It was all the flags flying for the World Cup, see? That pearl of wisdom comes from Cameron Crony Brian Coleman. Who says these guys have issues with patriotism?

O is for Oxbridge: Just like Eton, these guys also get a waiver on the whole 'Party that looks like Britain' thing.

P is for Prejean, Carrie: The woman shadow cabinet member Alan Duncan jovially suggested should be murdered for opposing gay marriage. Which is a perfectly normal thing for a senior politician to suggest. Keep watching out for those right-wing extremists!

Q is for Queen: Friend of Dave Liz Truss wanted to throw her out of a job in favour of a republic, until approximately six seconds before she was parachuted into a safe seat. But don't go questioning her conservative credentials, you bigot!

R is for Rapist: Just so you know, while The Dave was excommunicating large swathes of the conservative base as just too crazy, he had no objection to palling around with a racist nutcase with convictions for gang rape.

S is for Selection: Bad if its based on educational achievement, good if it's based on... singing?

T is for Taxes: Is there a better example of Cameron's train wreck understanding of conservatism than his policy that he'll reduce the burden on British businesses just as soon as the economy has recovered?

U is for UKIP: Fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, apparently, but they should still vote for The Dave because otherwise someone who doesn't like them might get in.

V is for Virology: The study of viruses, which so far has failed to uncover any evidence in support of Cameron Crony Francis Maude's bizarre suggestion that Mrs Thatcher was responsible for the spread of AIDS (which is in no way a hateful thing to say...).

W is for Wisteria: £30 million in the bank and he's hitting up the taxpayer to maintain his house? Classy!

X is for Xenophobia: The other charge always thrown at UKIP by The Dave and pals, despite the fact that UKIP aren't led by a man who was a member of the Bullingdon Club, a society that's overtly  and indeed proudly, Judenfrei.

Y is for Yeo: As in Tim Yeo, the Shadow Cabinet minister who called for more taxes to discourage people  from flying, even while moonlighting as a globe-trotting golf course reviewer for a national newspaper.

Z is for Zac: Zac Goldsmith. Friend of Dave and another worthless multi-millionaire legatee and eco-pest, who called for more taxes to prevent people flying, even while commuting in from tax exile in Switzerland.

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.