Royal Approval

One tries - by God one tries - to be supportive. The alternative to the monarchy is too awful to envisage. But I'll try: the popular vote would give us AntanDec, or Julie Walters, or Simon Cowell. Maybe Beckham. Joanna Lumley if we were very lucky. Stephen Fry if we were slightly less lucky. Tony bleeding Blair. You get the picture.

Better by far to have a settled succession. There will be a wrong 'un every now and again but not often.

I wouldn't call the Prince of Wales a wrong 'un, but he does have some rum views. Sometimes, these will carry the prospect of policy enactment, additions to the statute book, and massive prospective cost to the punter in the street, be he royalist or republican.

His views on man made climate change are a case in point. He runs a great danger of being on the wrong side of a deeply divisive debate. I think we know that he starts with his heart in the right place (unlike the politicos and scientists who have so much power and money to gain by blowing the Armageddon trumpet), but the implications for economic growth, employment, living standards and shared socialist misery are significant if he has got it wrong. The best place for him in this argument is as an honest broker with strong eco credentials, not as cheer-leader for the Big Government, Big Tax lobby.

What he certainly should NOT be doing is excusing the ratbags at the Climate Research Unit who cooked the books and destroyed evidence. A huge misjudgement, and deliberately cheeky, I would say.

What a target he makes of himself sometimes. I wonder if he arrived in the Bentley?

Posterboy

Matinee Idle

Make your own. Thanks, Lil. Charles Moore, proper Conservative, wrote the other day that if you left the country now and didn't come back until polling day, you would have missed NOTHING that might inform your electoral decision. What a grisly three months we have in store.

Breaking News

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/vh1_reality_show_bus_crashes_in?utm_source=videoembed

Sorry I have been idle. See how you go with the above. Surely worthy of comment.

It Was Idle Wot Won It

This geezer is now officially persona non bleedin grata, at least in his capacity as leader of Beards4Us, or whatever he calls his cell. And it was obviously idle wot banned 'em.

You see, idle led with the story the moment it broke on 2 Jan. After a while, on 6 Jan, that opinionated , quite-often-bang-on-the-money old Today editor leftie, Rod Liddle, joined in. Liddle reads idle (he is, after all, idle plus an L and a D), and went to town on brother Anjem. He calls him "one of those thick-as-mince gobby little chancers", which I must admit is good, and then dares, in print, to more or less quote one of the young Wootton Bassett (well, Swindon) white lads that your modest host suggested on 2 Jan might be future protagonists in this tale. "F*** off back to where you’re from, then, you Muslims" says Liddle. He doesn't use quotation marks nor ascribe it to Luke or Sam. We might infer that it is Liddle's own opinion. He has lots of previous in this area, representing as he does, quite often, the uncomplicated attitudes of the white indiginous working class.

Rod then has fun with the absurdity of the protest group's name:

"the guiding light behind the wonderful Islam4UK group — a terrific name, like www.shariaImlovingit.com or www.kuffirsmustdielol.co.uk"

Wish I'd mined that rich seam of gag in my original post. Rod had more time to think, plus the bugger got paid for it.

Anyroad, the upshot is that Postie Johnson has seen the light and banned the whole group. Just as well, as the facebook snowball was getting bigger all the while and Anjem's gang of malcontents would have had their shit rearranged in robust Wiltshire Young Farmers' Club style.

Well done the Postman. You were my choice as next Old Labour leader before today, but you have now franked the choice. You'll never get elected, but at least you will take your setbacks with good humour and honesty. No chance of the sons-of-Blair Milipede weasels doing so, let alone EdtheYob Balls.

Idle. First with all that's worth reading. Sometimes on a weekly basis.

The Wootton Bassett Conundrum

The ordinary folk of the Wiltshire town who have behaved in such an extraordinary way and with such dignity over these last few grisly years have a problem on their hands.

It would be quite out of character for them to herd the idiotic islamics, assorted peaceniks and their fellow travellers into the Tesco carpark and beat them up, as they deserve. And I am sure the good Wootton Bassett residents will ensure this does not happen. Quiet words with the headstrong young may be needed, though.

Equally, it doesn't seem right for ANY quiet country town to be invaded by a crowd of disaffected urban beards and troublemakers, despoiling the thoroughfare and chanting inflammatory and hoonish utterances, as they so love to do. Particularly a country town which has proved so splendidly that we don't need to go all aftermath-of-Princess-Diana when we wish to register our grief and respect.

So what's the answer?

Is it at all possible that all media will choose to ignore this, to let it go unrecorded? Not even worth posing the question, of course.

Might plod be encouraged to give the demonstrators an upfront bill (always unfeasibly large) for policing the event? At least so the cost of the awayday from Crawley and Oldham and Leicester will be more than just the coach trip and a Wagonwheel.

The best display of sang froid and Britishness (that's OUR type of Britishness, Mr Choudary, not yours) would be to let the buggers exercise their right to peaceful assembly. But somehow that would grate; after all, our excessive tolerance has certainly cost lives and has disfigured the 'culture' of Britain for evermore. Would subsequent repatriations at Wootton Bassett somehow be different, and not in a better way?

Something must be done. Or nothing. But what?