Word's Getting Round ...

'Bout Bad News Hughes. Deadpan, tasteless, hilarious. Peter Tinniswood meets P J O'Rourke meets Hunter S. Thompson round at Joe Bob's.

Link from the Englishman.

Much Respect

The Respect Coalition has a new website - sort of. Hat tip to Harry. I have added it to my links and would urge all right-thinking people to do likewise.

I'm particularly fond of the disclaimer.

"As creator of this website, I take no responsibility for its content. This is the age where one is not expected to take responsibility for one's actions, and I fully intend to take advantage of living in this golden era. Anyone who doesn't believe me should read The Guardian or similar left-liberal paper. Remember, I am a victim and this website is my cry for help."

British Bondage Is Best

The Guardian's always first with the big stories. "British people top the league for bondage in the bedroom, according to an independent thinktank", while "Dutch people seem particularly turned on by novelty underwear."

Knitted from extruded Edam I trust, and featuring tasteful scenes of dykes and tulips.

If only I had any skill with these paint packages ! A Reynolds or Gainsborough with added handcuffs or leather mask, or a Vermeer or Breughel with 'novelty underwear'. I'll see what I can do.

The masters of this sort of visual foolery are of course the people who post here.

Left Wing Play At National Theatre Shock

Stephen Pollard on the latest in leftie luvviedom as David Pinter - or is it Harold Loach ? Ken Hare ? clamps his gums once more onto the state-funded nipple.

Meanwhile champion clamper AL Kennedy appears to have undergone an operation. She could have let the anaesthetic wear off before putting digit to keyboard. I think the point of this somewhat disjointed piece (the writing, not the author) is that excessive consumption fuels the evils of imperialism. But I could be wrong.

And two takes on immigration. Most of the left has long accepted that large-scale immigration from poorer countries suited capitalists, but judged the effect on British culture to be worth the price. Polly Toynbee's only just noticed.

"The real reason why we should fear immigration. Labour is using foreign workers to deny everyone a living wage." Uh ? This is the Guardian, isn't it ? Polly ? Are you there ? Wake up, Polly ! Gosh - it was all a dream .... wasn't it ?

The Scotsman draws the obvious (liberal) conclusion from the Morecambe tragedy - as we can't stop illegal immigration, why not put our hands up and legalise it ? After all, Scots politicians have been talking about immigration as a solution to the lack of Scots babies.

I'll believe it when I see it. It must be such fun to be a Scots liberal - abusing the English racists safe in the knowledge that hardly any immigrants or asylum-seekers will end up north of the border. After all, they don't even like English immigrants.

Evil America Fails To Attack Dictator

Simon Jenkins has the moral blinkers on again.

What is the difference between a sadistic oil-rich Arab dictator who must be backed and fêted by the West and a sadistic oil-rich Arab dictator who must be bombed and sanctioned into submission? Answer: none.
The lucky dictator in the 1980s was Saddam Hussein and today it is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The unlucky dictator in the 1980s was Gaddafi and the unlucky one today is Saddam.

Let me say it slowly. The difference (apart from the lies - when was Saddam ever feted ? And "Saddam did not sponsor any terror network" - what about the payments to suicide bombers' families ?) is that having taken note of Saddam's fate, Quaddafi has decided it's time to stop the anti-Western rhetoric and to forget about developing WMDs, despite all the assistance provided by Pakistan. He's not alone - North Korea and Iran are both getting cosy with US and international nuclear inspectors after years of secrecy.

Of course he's still a very bad man. No doubt of that. And as SJ rightly points out, his change of heart is totally self-interested. But what do you do with bad men ? You can 'engage' or cut a deal with these people, something SJ here denounces as the triumph of cynicism. Or you can strike the bad man down as in Iraq, or bomb as we did with Quaddafi 20 years back, and be slated for only creating more terror.

SJ, along with a large part of the Left, would prefer a Third Way. Our government should roundly condemn and abuse such dictators, thus annoying and alienating them, while doing nothing to stop whatever bad deeds they may be up to. This policy of course was tried by Labour, the Liberals, and half the Conservative Party in the years 1933-1939, with conspicuous success.

Now Quaddafi's no Hitler and Libya's no Germany. But with Pakistani scientists, apparently backed by the Army, handing out the technology to every Abdul, Ibrahim and Youssuf, they don't need to be. The nuclear genie may now be out of the bottle.

Mr Churchill spoke of this Third Way in March 1934.

"The Opposition is very free-spoken, as are most of us in this country, on the conduct of the German Nazi Government. No one has been more severe in their criticism than the Labour Party or that section of the Liberal Party which I see opposite...
But these criticisms are fiercely resented by the powerful men who have Germany in their hands. So we are to disarm our friends, we are to have no allies, we are to affront powerful nations, and we are to neglect our own defences entirely. That is a miserable and perilous situation."

It's also the situation Simon Jenkins, half of Labour, and the whole of the Lib Dems would like us to be in.