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."