Balls-Out Attack

A spat has developed between Ed Balls and Fraser Nelson of the Spectator. Many might find it astonishingly boring and un-newsworthy, but not me. It started here and then really got going here.

It tells us the following:

1. Balls is in on the bare-faced lie idea with Brown. Darling is clearly not, and is most uncomfortable with this whole charade. But Ed is still indistinguishable from Brown.

2. Balls monitors the blogs, and calls up the authors. He has time for all this, whilst putting out the fires in his own ministry and attending inner-cabal meetings at Number 10. FOUR calls chasing the Editor of the Speccie! This man is a Cabinet Minister. Jeeesus.

3. For a clever man, Balls is prepared to go to astonishing lengths of intellectual dishonesty. His attempt to weasel his way out of the 'lie' charge by claiming he was discussing debt ratios, and then accusing the clear-speaking Nelson of being 'economically illiterate', is beneath contempt.

Bragging Rights

Because everyone thought that the ball would beat the fieldsman easily and go for four, no one had their camera ready. Okay, there weren't any proper cameramen there, but there should have been.

The batsman from the Greater Lurgashall XI had slashed at a quick ball of full length outside off stump, and had got a thick outside edge on it; instead of disappearing to the backward point boundary, it gave the very slightest encouragement to the fielder at third man. That fielder being Idle, you understand.

Showing startling acceleration for a fourteen stone lad not far short of 50, your correspondent headed along the boundary, reckoning that the further the ball had to travel, the greater the (outside) chance of intercepting it. The ball had never gained very much height, but was still comfortably airborne, and what had started as an attempt to field the leather orb suddenly became, at best, a 100-1 shot of catching it.

It has become an irritating custom in the modern-day game for someone to shout "catch it!" when the ball leaves the bat and does not immediately go to ground. However, idle plays his cricket with a) gentlemen; and b) people who do not expect their colleagues to pull off feats of athleticism in the field. So instead there was silence, even from the large crowd of WAGs and children. They all thought it a lost cause, maybe a six, probably a four.

What happened next? you ask; I shall tell you. Somehow, instinctively, idle turned a thundering, vertical rotund frame into a graceful horizontal one. The closest picture I can find on google images is the one posted above, who is a nameless Kiwi. I do not actually remember getting off the deck, indeed I am surprised that there was any muscle memory in the idle chassis capable of creating such a manoeuvre.

I did not see the last two feet of travel of the ball into my right palm, but it hit the sweet spot perfectly, and stuck true. The reconnection of the idle torso and terra firma might easily have caused dislodgement, let alone a small earth tremor in the Rother Valley, but I landed comfortably, despite the sun-baked turf and the velocity of the episode. I lay there, quite still, for a second, but cocked my wrist upwards to signal the completion of the catch.

A roar went up and the three nearest members of the Greater Milland XI started sprinting towards me uttering banshee noises, with every intention, it seemed to me, of knocking me to the ground and burying me, not unlike those who play that most loathsome of sports, soccer. So I did the intelligent thing and sped off around the boundary. Luckily I was moving away from the crowd at the pavilion, or it might have looked like an immodest victory lap. Eventually I jettisoned the ball towards the wickie and accepted the high-fives and manly claps-around-the-shoulders of my teammates, who had calmed down very slightly. All present declared it the finest and most unlikely catch they could remember seeing in a match.

There are two golden rules in ballgames: first, keep your eye on the ball; second, never give up. This, it seems to me, is a metaphor for life itself. I shall apply it to my employment situation, and beome idle no more.

Except for this blog, of course.

Random

1. A "Rock Dinosaur" is a musician who was very good (or very well known) at least thirty years ago, and who still can do the business now on a big enough stage. It helps if you look like a dinosaur, in the manner of a Keith Richards or an Alice Cooper.

I watched the great Neil Young's gig at Glastonbury last night, and it strikes me that he is now the equal of Keef on dinosaur looks. And the endless Keep on Rocking in the Free World (I think there were 5 fake endings, each time suddenly bursting into another raucus chorus), was just fab. I'm sorry I'm not going to see him live this summer. I walked the idle dog to After the Gold Rush this morning. Pleasure.

2. Guido flags up yet another Gordon-plays-Father-Christmas lunacy. Read Delingpole's piece on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill going through Congress as well. Completely fucking batty. I had a long chat with a member of Parliament yesterday, and I asked him if he had ever seen Gordon behaving in a normal manner privately. He said not; he said the impression the public has of Brown is as close to the real thing as it is possible to get. Remember that the next time JK Rowling tells you he is the life and soul of the party and a kind sensitive loving type behind the 'unfair' media image.

3. Teenage sporting hero and shagger extraordinaire Boris Becker was giving his thoughts to the adoring spinster Sue Barker on the telly just now. It struck me, not just what a nice chap he is (I have long thought so), but that he might be my favourite German. Or am I overlooking some other candidates? Surely there is a long list of boxheads, sausage-noshers, Boche and krauts that spring to mind. Who else might qualify?

While you ponder Neil Young, imminent global disaster and Boris' fellow Germans, I am off to play cricket in this Mediterranean heat.

Ebony and Ivory

So, farewell then, Michael Jackson

"Don't stop 'til you get enough", you sang

The rest of us were shouting "Enough!" years ago

But you obviously didn't hear us

Freedom

Freedom to practice your religion the way the mullahs say you should? Or freedom to feel the sun on your face and the breeze on your body? It's a tricky one, isn't it?

No it isn't. There are plenty enough countries in the world where medieval attitudes persist, and folk who want to emigrate there can go right ahead. Western Europe has its liberties to protect, and when the waters are muddied by the age-old religious freedoms debate, it is ALWAYS right to come down on the side of the individual rather than an institution or group.

Sarkozy is right to ban the burqa, and James Delingpole is right to compare Sarkozy's attitude to the wishy washy liberal guff of Obama. Delingpole fires from the hip:

Almost every idea that ever came out of France has been bad for America, from the structuralist philosophical gibberish which has poisoned US academe to the grotesquely over-regulated tax and spend socialism which is now ruining the US economy. But if there’s one area where the French do get it SO right it’s in their uncompromising approach to Islam.

President Sarkozy once again showed the way yesterday when in a presidential address to France’s two houses of parliament, he said the burqa is not welcome in his country and should be banned.

As he rightly went on to say the full-body garment which makes women in Afghanistan look like a cross between a prison cell and a walking tent is “not a sign of religion” but a “sign of subservience.” He added: “We cannot have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social ife, deprived of identity.”

Compare and contrast, the appalling cultural appeasement of President Obama’s speech in Cairo on June 4 when he boasted that the United States prized freedom of religion and would not “tell people what to wear.” And there was I thinking it was the French who were supposed to be the surrender monkeys, not the Americans.

Was there ever greater proof that, where the great clash of civilisations is concerned, President Obama is turning out to be the Islamists’ useful idiot par excellence?

Does Barack Hussein Obama really not understand that supposed “freedom” he is granting US Muslim women to wear the veil is in fact the most surefire way of guaranteeing their continued subservience to their men folk and their failure to integrate with the broader society?

A Berk Who Will Not Be Cowed

Heaven knows one shouldn't criticise a politician for being ambitious. But when Steve Richards said on the news just now that he had taken a call from John Bercow immediately after the 2005 election, asking for a meeting somewhere private, where he advised Richards that he wished to become Speaker, it became clear that Bercow's re-election as the member for Buckingham was not about representing his constituents at Westminster so much as representing himself on the greasy pole towards High Office.

You may say that the Speakership does not represent High Office, but an antique position of no real power; you may say that no one ever got to the Speaker's chair without planning and preparation; you may say that he is an improvement on the last Speaker. Nevertheless, his performance this evening, from the moment when, sat all agape on the Tory benches, he learned of his victory, to his poor, halting, somewhat smug and patronising victory speech, he struck me as less than credible. He speaks poorly, which is only forgivable if what is said is worthwhile - rather, he seemed clichéd and shallow.

The length of Bercow's first term is in the gift of Mandelson - when he withdraws support for Brown, an election will surely follow quickly. Bercow has until that election to convince Tories that he is worth his place, won as it was with the vote of the rump of the Labour party. But his Tory colleagues see him for what he is, which is a schemer and a greaser, and it is likely that the swathe of incoming Tory MPs at the next election will be broadly of like mind.

I decided against illustrating this post with a picture of the man.

It's Gotta Be Widders

She may have the most annoying voice in Westminster (well, second perhaps, after Patricia Hewitt); she may have the dress sense of a Bulgarian; she may have the body of an East German saloon car and a set of teeth like a cemetery; she may even have bigotted views on hunting and rural pest control, but she is idle's choice for Speaker.

Why? Because she promises to resign at the next general election.

There is no public confidence in this Parliament, and rightly so. Many are retiring next year, many have been forced to go, and many more will be chucked out, having been found out as worthless, dishonest also-rans in a discredited ruling party. These are not the people to elect a new Speaker who may be in the chair for fifteen or twenty years.

So it's time to hold one's nose and vote Widders.

UPDATE 10.39: "Tories threaten to expel new Speaker after election" Political Editor of Evening Standard. They are worried that it's Beckett or Bercow. Well, you know to avoid such a situation.....

UPDATE 2 18.55 Well, it won't be Widders; My guess is that Young beats Bercow by a narrow margin, and we are spared the awful little greaser camping it up in uniform. Will Sir George Young, who strikes me as a Whig, if elected, restore the wig to the Speaker's head?

Fisking McBust's Guardian Interview

From The Guardian:

Gordon Brown: I could walk away from this tomorrow

Gordon Brown has admitted that he has been "hurt" by the personal attacks on him during the failed attempt to oust him this month (the truth can hurt, can't it?), and said that he might move to teaching after he leaves office. (You have got to be bloody joking! This from a man who admits in the same interview he has no communication skills. Perhaps he meant as a lecturer in neo-classical endogenous growth theory, etc).

Speaking to the Guardian in his first interview since the attempted coup by Labour backbenchers, the prime minister made an unprecedentedly frank (true, he has never been frank or honest with the electorate before) series of observations on his time in office, reflecting that the recent weeks have been the worst of his political life. (When your chickens come home to roost and shit all over you, this happens, mate).

"To be honest, you could walk away from all of this tomorrow," he said (All right, you bastard, we'll take you at your word - Fuck Off). "I'm not interested in what accompanies being in power. I wouldn't worry if I never returned to all those places - Downing Street, Chequers (I think we all know that your enjoyment of power has nothing to do with the real estate, you disingenuous creep - it's about social engineering and envy and spite)... And it would probably be good for my children." (Poor bastards. Best thing for them would be to get packed off to boarding school pronto, under assumed identities).

What an utter wanker this man is. Certifiably insane. Later in the interview:

"Brown insisted that Labour under his leadership could win the next election, for two reasons: that the action the government had taken on the economy and MPs' expenses would start to bear fruit; and that the Tories had admitted that they would make deep cuts in public spending."
Hold on - he is suggesting that reform of MPs' expenses is a tricky job, only he can do it, but it will take time, presumably a year before it "starts to bear fruit". The man's a babbling idiot - anyone, ANYONE could sort out the expenses mess in days:
1. Write a set of draconian rules
2. Publish every expense online within 30 days
3. Reserve the sanction of expulsion without pay and criminal charges for miscreants
How hard is that?

His second reason is based upon a lie of breathtaking audacity, that Labour will not cut (or has not already stated through the Budget that they will do so). Polls already show quite clearly that he is not believed on this point by the great majority of voters.

My suggestion three weeks ago that Brown is the Susan Boyle of politics is becoming painfully accurate.

Section him!

Quality Street

Captions, or a discussion about hats, perhaps? Idle is off to play cricket for the day, before evening racing at Goodwood.

Twelve Frightened Men

The Court of Appeal has ruled that a criminal trial can take place in front of a judge without a jury for the first time in England and Wales.
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, made legal history by agreeing to allow the trial to be heard by a judge alone.
The case concerns four men accused of an armed robbery at Heathrow Airport in February 2004. This will be the fourth trial concerning the alleged crime.
The judge made the ruling following concerns of alleged jury "tampering". (BBC)

This is momentous news, which will not, I suspect, get the coverage it deserves - all the evidence is that the British have become ignorant and apathetic about the Laws of England, most of which sprout forth from Brussels, and all of which seem to be subject to the interpretation of the European Courts of this and that.

My attitude is that if the guilty bastards (oops), or their friends and families, have abused the ancient jury system three times already, they can hardly complain with the decision of Judge Judge. But I wonder if this sets a dangerous precedent for the future, and I wonder if, when they are found guilty, this lot will not have a fairly straightforward case to take to the European Court of Human Rights.

Two Dubyas

I have not been able to think of anything to say for two days. I think this might have something to do with Royal Ascot, which consumes me. I backed a winner at 3-1 and a placed horse each way at 20-1 yesterday, which was nice. There were also two losing bets who each came 4th. Today, I followed the evidence from yesterday that the vulgar American's horses had travelled well and were in sparky form. He's called Wade Webley or somesuch (and yes, his colours DO have a big WW on them, also on the horse's blinkers). His second horse duly romped home at 7-1. Also nice. Another each-way bet came 4th today, but we can overlook that.

I don't mean to be beastly about the yank; it can only be a good thing that Ascot is attracting international stars consistently. And he can do what he likes with his racing colours, even if they are a touch egotistical. You can spot a chap who is first-time-out in a morning suit, though.

They certainly know about raw speed, the Americans. Both horses have been ridden balls-out from the starting stalls, with no subtlety required from the jockey. There are another four running over the next three days. Wade's son Randy (I'm guessing here) was interviewed by Clare Balding and let's just say that he was not exactly shy about predicting a treble with Yogaroo in the first race tomorrow. It's shortening in the betting even as I write.

David and Goliath, George and the Dragon

David doesn't want to take on Goliath, and George is being a bit wet about mounting his horse and taking his lance in hand to deal with that pesky dragon.

But Andrew went on the Today programme and was refreshingly honest / unwittingly candid / a bonehead (pick any one from three), and blurted out some home truths about spending. The cat, if it was a cat, was let out of the bag, had it ever been in one. What it did, however, was to let Ed start frothing about CUTS!! (always, in labourspeak, said loudly in capital letters and followed by exclamation marks).

I'm all for them, of course. I have always considered most government spending to be, logically, half as efficient as private spending, and the more of the latter we can do, at the expense of the former, the better. Small efficient government is a worthy ambition not just in the current circumstances, but all circumstances.

So George had to say something. And he has. There will be commentary about truthfulness and bravery, all of which will be guff. Any conservative worth his salt should always be able to articulate this argument, and should not be overly sensitive about his timing.

All this new found good sense comes with a catch, of course. Or two catches, much the bigger of which is the NHS (the smaller being Overseas Aid, or Post Empire White Guilt - a topic for another day). It seems as though we should look forward, at least for the next six years, to an even bigger NHS, consuming yet more money, employing yet more people. There will be suggestions that the middlest of the middle managers might be downsized, or shed, like so much cellulite as the patient's fitness regime takes hold. I doubt it. I would say that we need to have a debate about this, but of course it will result in the Holy Cow remaining Holy. Holier, even, than thou.

So what should happen instead is that the Tories must kick the habit, and do the hard work of coming up with a sensible alternative to our current arrangements. It may be ironic that it could happen at the same time that Obama is motoring towards the British Solution, with all the expense and socialism which is implied, but so be it.

Mark Steyn, a man who would have an opinion on the breeding of goldfinches in Slovenia, if you asked him, certainly can get a head of steam up over something like this, and here he goes:

When President Barack Obama tells you he's "reforming" health care to "control costs," the point to remember is that the only way to "control costs" in health care is to have less of it. In a government system, the doctor, the nurse, the janitor and the Assistant Deputy Associate Director of Cost-Control System Management all have to be paid every Friday, so the sole means of "controlling costs" is to restrict the patient's access to treatment. In the Province of Quebec, patients with severe incontinence – i.e., they're in the bathroom 12 times a night – wait three years for a simple 30-minute procedure. True, Quebeckers have a year or two on Americans in the life expectancy hit parade, but, if you're making 12 trips a night to the john 365 times a year for three years, in terms of life-spent-outside-the-bathroom expectancy, an uninsured Vermonter may actually come out ahead.

I get a lot of mail each week arguing that, when folks see the price tag attached to Obama's plans, they'll get angry. Maybe. But, if Europe's a guide, at least as many people will retreat into apathy. Once big government's in place, it's very hard to go back.

Here's the whole thing. I'm afraid that he, like me, is short of a sensible alternative immediately to hand, and just wants to vent his spleen, but hey, that's blogging.

Winning the Argument

It is axiomatic that our great universities reviled Margaret Thatcher, both during and after her years in power, whatever the public may have thought, and despite how the public voted.

On the one hand, all those left-liberal dons, brought up in an age of austerity, fascinated by communism, contemptuous of those who would champion the liberty and self-determination of the common (uneducated) man.

On the other hand, all those late 70s and 80s students, listening to the Pistols, the Clash and the Cure, and embracing the New Romance of Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran at the same time as ploughing their way through the Old Romance of Blake and Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. Hardly the sort of folk who would be natural children of the Thatcher Revolution.

As a result of which, the sainted Margaret was shunned by Oxbridge. Every time a fan (there were plenty, in truth) tried to get his or her college or university to acknowledge and honour her, she would be defeated in the vote, and it always made the newspapers - I suppose the dons made sure it did, so as to boast another badge of honour.

BUT WAIT! Is it that time heals, or is it that the awful realisation has dawned upon them that the sunlit socialist uplands they dreamed of have turned out to be barren, overcast, and unfriendly? Or is it that Dan the Man Hannan, held in such high esteem by this blog for his oratory and advocacy, has convinced them otherwise?

Whichever, the Oxford Union has decided that Margaret Thatcher Saved Britain, albeit by the slenderest of margins. It was Dan Wot Won It. Rejoice!

Sir Francisco Scaramanga

Knight of the realm, Sir Christopher Lee.

Hear, hear, says I.

You never saw a harder-working actor. See his imdb page for the full astonishing list. The old boy is nearing 90 and has got at least half a dozen films still to hit the screen, in various stages of production.

We went to the same school, albeit 40 years apart. He hated it, apparently, but they managed to coax him back last year to award a prize and prove to him that even military-style public schools such as ours have now turned into country clubs with every known comfort and facility. No wonder they cost £30 grand a child each year.

Busy Being Idle

It's all go. A terrific day's golf at St George's Hill yesterday was followed by a a fine dinner party in London and a 3am bedtime; today was the first cricket net of the season, which is always most satisfying - I tend to pad up, get in the net early, and refuse to come out 'until I've found a bit of form', and then drink beer and fail to do any bowling at the others, because, happily, everyone turned up with their sons who will gladly bowl all evening for a can of ginger beer and a packet of wotsits.

Friday - Lord's, for the Dumbslog Millionaire cricket which is 20Twenty. Luckily no England, who are very bad at it. Instead, Pakistan vs Sri Lanka followed by India vs West Indies. And a picnic tea that would make an Edwardian queasy. June is a joy.

We won't see a bowler of the standard of the great Michael Holding (left), but neither will we see such petulance, I trust.

Ask The Ones Who Voted BNP

The post-mortem on the two BNP MEPs' success, and the access they now have to great pools of taxpayers' cash (the Telegraph suggested £4m over the four-year period of this EU parliament) threatens to become the main source of liberal angst for the time being. No bad thing, as the man-made global warming guff is sooooo yesterday (or tomorrow, or next year, or 2020).

Me? I think it's a good thing, on balance. This is not because I am a racist or a Hitler admirer or a xenophobe. It is because the endless triangulation of policy by the three main parties had led us into a cul-de-sac of effete liberal consensus on immigration and multi culturalism. This was an airless place in need of a damn good blast of fresh air. I hesitate to suggest that the rank mixture of BO and Lynx anti-perspirant from Griffin and his mates is fresh air, but it will have the same effect.

The left's response has been completely predictable, with a bunch calling themselves the UAF hitting the media sofas and emoting about the potential "normalisation" of the BNP in British politics. There will be a great deal of airtime gobbled up by Sonia Earnest asking Gregory Angst about the reasons for this, and vice versa.

Waste of time. What they need to do is to undertake the difficult, unpleasant, and potentially dangerous task of interviewing the many thousands of people who voted BNP, and find out why. Some, doubtless, will be Nazis, like the charming man above (thanks for the pic, Thud). Others will be flippant protest-voters. Still more will be anarchists.

But the majority, I estimate, will be standard British salt-of-the-earth: in other words, mildly racist, but not offensively so; champions of British-is-Best, even if a lot of it is pants; buggered if they understand why economic migrants get away with this asylum racket, and get all those flats and houses and healthcare and benefits and, unsatisfied with that, want to be productive and take our bloody jobs as well! Normal British working class, in other words. No wonder the middle class politician hasn't a clue about them.

New Labour is trying to find out what went wrong on Thursday, and soon the penny will drop that it was THEIR splendid ex-voters who trooped into the BNP lobby. Of course there will be a few far-right folk in there as well, but any analysis of BNP policy will tell you that it is designed for racist socialists.

So let's find out what the hopes and fears of the 1 million people who voted BNP really are, and see if we want to address them. If you don't ask them, you run the risk of getting your information from Nick Griffin and his Lieutenants, which is not advisable if you seek the truth.

Wannabe polemicist James Delingpole, who is a bit hit-and-miss, is mostly 'hit' with his blog on this. And amusing about the achingly centrist types who have dominated the thought process of our main parties for too long.

Bandit at Six O'Clock

Gotta love that fighter pilot humour. Splendid chaps.

Let Me Rephrase That....

Sorry, I got it completely wrong. McBust IS the man to take us through the next 12 months. I don't know how I assumed otherwise. He is terrific, a man for all seasons, a tower of strength and an intellect beyond compare. His courage and fortitude is an inspiration to us all and the rest of the political cast is just so much chopped liver compared to the Great One. Oy vey!

There were no cameras or recorders in the PLP meeting, so thank heavens for Ben Dover-Bradshaw (Lab, Lickspittle North), who told us that the cyclopian doomster had given "the speech of a lifetime".

Phew! And there was I, thinking that he was a lame duck, a Clyde tugboat holed beneath the waterline, a defaulted bond, a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest.

Onwards, comrades! We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Deep-fried mars bars all round!

How to Communicate

Ronald Reagan died five years ago - June 5th 2004. This is from Mark Steyn's Passing Parade:

All weekend long, across the networks, media grandees who’d voted for Carter and Mondale, just like all their friends did, tried to explain the appeal of Ronald Reagan. He was “the Great Communicator”, he had a wonderful sense of humour, he had a charming smile… self-deprecating… the tilt of his head…

All true, but not what matters. Even politics attracts its share of optimistic, likeable men, and most of them leave no trace – like Britain’s “Sunny Jim” Callaghan, a perfect example of the defeatism of western leadership in the 1970s. It was the era of “détente”, a word barely remembered now, which is just as well, as it reflects poorly on us: the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the free world had decided that the unfree world was not a prison ruled by a murderous ideology that had to be defeated but merely an alternative lifestyle that had to be accommodated. Under cover of “détente”, the Soviets gobbled up more and more real estate across the planet, from Ethiopia to Grenada. Nonetheless, it wasn’t just the usual suspects who subscribed to this feeble evasion – Helmut Schmidt, Pierre Trudeau, François Mitterand – but most of the so-called “conservatives”, too – Ted Heath, Giscard d’Estaing, Gerald Ford.

Unlike these men, unlike most other senior Republicans, Ronald Reagan saw Soviet Communism for what it was: a great evil. Millions of Europeans across half a continent from Poland to Bulgaria, Slovenia to Latvia live in freedom today because he acknowledged that simple truth when the rest of the political class was tying itself in knots trying to pretend otherwise. That’s what counts. He brought down the “evil empire”, and all the rest is details.

“The Great Communicator” was effective because what he was communicating was self-evident to all but our decayed elites: “We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around,” he said in his inaugural address. And at the end of a grim, grey decade - Vietnam, Watergate, energy crises, Iranian hostages – Americans decided they wanted a President who looked like the nation, not like its failed government.

Is it just me, or does Gordon Brown look like his government - exhausted, shifty and unpleasant?

Good Morning, My Lord

What I want to know is this: when the newly enobled Lord Sugar enters his pretend boardroom next spring to grill the assorted charlatans, muppets and evil bastards who want to be his apprentice, and says "good morning", they can't answer "good morning, S'ralan" any more.......... surely they're not going to say "good morning, my lord".

My bet is that the beeb will cock it up and we'll end up with the incorrect "good morning, Lord Alan".

Have you all seen this great letter that a hack has dug out of the FT archive from 1992? Classic Sugar. (Hat tip Farqs and the Speccie chaps)

Sir, I have noted with disgust the comments of a certain Mr Gordon Brown who has accused me of doing well out of the recession after reading the letter published in The Times from 40 top industrialists.I do not know who Mr Gordon Brown is. Excuse my ignorance, but I don't.

It doesn't get any friendlier. Sugar will claim that he knows Brown better now and rates him. My arse. He's compromised his independence for the ermine.

Deceased Canard

Jeeesus. A chap goes out for a quiet bottle or three of Tuscan infuriator with his mates around the corner, and comes home to find a cloud of bluebottles over the twitching corpse of the Prime Mentalist, like an african cow that didn't make it through the drought.

Whooda thort it would be Purnell? Does he have a pact with Postman Pat? One searches the blogosphere for info, and there is precious little.

Someone - was it Dizzy? reckons that Burnham, he of the eyeliner and mascara, will break ranks tomorrow. (David) Miliband, a cowardly Fotherington-Thomas if ever there was one, doesn't know whether to twist or stick and sees his chances of glory disappearing faster than an Italian infantryman.

Guido is AWOL, drunk and hapless, reduced to no more than a headline post (and 500+ comments, natch). Dale is, of course, tarting himself on Radio Barnstaple or somesuch meeja Z List opportunity.

The field is left to idle, so I'll hazard a guess: McBust will make the mistake, as ever, of failing to recognise the situation until the shit reaches his eyeballs, so will make it, incredibly, to next Friday. The smellysocks socialists, hidebound by their Trades Union block-vote, beer 'n sarnies dinosaur backers, will propose an unedifying four month leadership election, which will give us - wait for it - THE HARMAN INTERREGNUM - which will be, for historians, a thing of rare hilarity and halfwittery.

Harman will have no choice but to call an October election within days of taking control of the nuclear button (god help us) and will therefore serve her 'premiership' in the unlovely position of being the Lame Duck who took over when the last Lame Duck was stoned to death.

Postman Pat Johnson will fight the October election, lose it and then stay on, invoking the Hague gambit, which as we all know means taking his party's unpopularity up the clacker for the next four years or so before the graph turns flat, if not up. His postie-next-door agreeable demeanour will do no more than stem the bleeding just before the Labour Party's last (non-Union) member cancels the Standing Order.

Purnell beats a rejuvenated Harman, Benn, John Hutton, the ghastly Yvette and some crazed far-lefty to win the leadership after Labour's second general election loss. Balls won't make the long list. Purnell flirts with the Liberals in an attempt to win in 2019.

Get your bets on now. I've only had two and a half bottles of Chianti and three malt whisky chasers, and I know what I'm talking about.

UPDATE 1130am: I was very slightly inebriated last night, but my prediction stands, particularly after the latest twist. I very much regret that John Hutton has left defence, but who can blame him. Hutton, fankly, could be a Defence Secretary in a Tory government and I'd be quite happy. Our wretched armed forces will suffer during the hiatus between now and the next election; one thing we know for sure is that the MoD civil servants care more about their own expensive furniture and their typists' RSI sore thumbs than they do about Tommy and Jock in the Afghan dust.

Needing a Period of 'Rest'

A Dick and a (van) Dyke

Chin chinniny chin chinniny
Chin chin cheroo
Gordon's got three
And Jacqui's got two
Chin chinniny chin chinniny
Chin chin chereek
The free pies allowance is
One hundred a week

Chin chinniny chin chinniny
Chin chin cherown..........
.......Bad luck comes your way
When you shakes 'ands with Brown

One of the True Greats of Sport

This guy was good.



He was voted both greatest National Hunt trainer and greatest Flat trainer of the 20th century.

You don't get many of them to the Punt.


RIP

The Boil on the Bum of Britain

Gordon Boil has been admitted to The Priory suffering from exhaustion. The perennial runner-up was escorted by paramedics from No.10 just after 6pm yesterday after suffering "an emotional breakdown." His friend Simon Cowell became worried after the "spaced out" politician began acting strangely, reports The Sun.

The ambulance taking Gordon to the private clinic in North London was followed by a police car. A source at N0.10 told The Sun that he had been acting even more strangely than usual and staff became concerned. They told the paper: "When the paramedics and police arrived he agreed to go voluntarily. He didn't make a fuss. "The paramedics calmly took him out through the main lobby and into the waiting ambulance. It was all done very calmly. They didn't want to stress or upset him. He didn't look well - he looked lost, not all there."

The clinic specialises in treatment of mental health. Boil suffers from emotional difficulties after being deprived of fun when he was a child. A Britain's Got a Problem spokeswoman said: "Following the Andrew Marr show, Gordon is exhausted and emotionally drained. " He has been seen by his private GP, who supports his decision to take a few days out for rest and recovery. We offer him our ongoing support and wish him a speedy recovery."

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "Police were called to doctors assessing a man under the Mental Health Act. The man was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic. At the request of doctors, police accompanied the ambulance."