Another Lord-a-ranting!

But this 'Lord' is not one of those Labour ones whose nose is so far in the trough that all you can see is his twisted tail. No, this one is an angry blogger who has written a "rant" that should be read by all right-minded people. Read it here.

I particularly liked his conclusion:

"....if there's one thing that I'm sure of, Labour have led us into this folly deliberately and maliciously. I've made my choice to fight, and I implore others to do the same. I don't mean getting out on the streets and rioting, because that just plays into their hands. But we must all do as much as we can to educate ourselves, and our children and friends. There is still a chance, and we must make sure we choose the right path before it's too late."

Not a bad first draft of the clarion call that should go out to the people.

Clarkson to be deported

How dare Jeremy Clarkson criticise Gordon Brown whilst visiting one of our older ex-colonies.

"(In the UK) we've got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything's fine and he's saved the world and we know he's lying, but he's smooth at telling us."

Doesn't he know that talking down the Government like this will only lead to it being kicked out of office and hasten the installation of a Conservative administration? How disgraceful!

I just want to punch the old Labour git in the face!

Sorry Pauline! But he does rather ask for it, doesn't he?

Will these words come back to haunt me?

It's not often that I am quoted in the International Herald Tribune (which, for the uninitiated, is the international edition of the New York Times):

People in all six countries surveyed thought Obama's election would be good for the United States...."I believe that the U.S.A. will be the driver of the world recovery," said another respondent, Ted Foan of Chesterfield, England. "His leadership will be crucial for engaging other countries, especially if he can change perceptions of America's role in the world."

Given Obama's difficulty in getting his fiscal stimulus package through Congress and the signal that he is prepared to impose protectionist measures against the rest of the world, I am getting a little worried that any recovery in America will not benefit its trading partners as I had hoped.

So it is a bit of a relief to hear that the "Buy American" message is being re-thought. Let's hope Obama has the cojones to see that it is in America's interest to support free trade as widely as possible.

Why I couldn't work for the BBC

Good for Carol Thatcher! She's refused to apologise for making an allegedly racist remark according to a report by the Press Association.

What was her offence? Apparently she called a tennis player a "golliwog". Shock! Horror! The sensibilities of a few BBC-types on the The One Show have been offended and now she has been banned from working on the programme. Oh, well, it's their loss.

When I was in New Zealand last year, we bought a black-faced rag doll called, guess what? Yes, it was a golliwog!

John Redwood - is he right or "wrong"?

John Redwood has, as usual, written a most incisive piece about the difference between "right wing" and "left wing".

He says: "Some socialists try to distinguish communism from fascism, either defending its proponents like Stalin, or claiming that communism as practised was a distortion of the pure doctrine. None of us on what Labour call the “right” in British politics would ever dream of doing the same for fascism, as we loathe it with an equal passion to our loathing of communism."

I tried to make the same point in my previous blog "Extremism in all its forms needs to be opposed" but probably with less effect.

If you don't already follow John's blog I recommend that you start now!

An assisted place for doomed Smith?

Mike Smithson has an alarming blog about the possibility that Jacqui Smith will be smuggled out of her doomed seat in Redditch to a safer place in Wolverhampton.

Why on earth would even the Labour Party want to keep her as an MP? If she is considered to be so talented by them then they really are desperate.

But we knew that, didn't we?

Utterly Butterly - I can't believe he's not buttering us up!

This was Mr Brown, who insisted on BBC's "The Politics Show", that he was "utterly confident" about the future of the economy and the British people's ability to come through the difficult time. "I am utterly confident about the future of the UK economy, utterly confident about our ability to work with other countries to deal with the problem. Britain is one of the countries that will be one of the great success stories of the next period of global change.

"I have an utter faith in our ability as a British people also to come through difficulties to realise problems to be resilient in face of them and then to see that we can solve these problems by working together," he said.

Funny that. Because I am utterly convinced that Gordon Brown has been, and continues to be, utterly useless in governing this country.

Feed the World? Not Likely

Here's a thought. By 2050 it is reckoned that Africa will have added another billion people to the world's population. Speaking as one who is not likely to be around to witness this momentous event and therefore not particular worried about the consequences for myself I am still curious to understand how this could happen.

Billions of dollars continue to be pumped into overseas aid by developed countries (mainly America?) to alleviate suffering from HIV/AIDs, malaria, famine and countless other forms of pestilence and disease. But we are still faced daily by visions of starving children, failed crops, years of drought, violent disputes over the rights to land and internecine genocide. But it never seems to stop these tragedies being repeated again and again.

In the BBC2 Explorer programme tonight on the countries of the Rift Valley the hopelessness of all this was put into stark reality. Are we doing these people any favours when their governments are so incompetent or corrupt that they can let so many people suffer such miserably short lives? For example, we had the contrast of people living in a virtual wilderness herding their cattle in constant fear of attack from other tribes whilst some hundreds of miles to the south broccoli was being cropped for export to the West.

Maybe Dizzy has the right take on this - let Nature take its course. He has a point.

Extremism in all its forms needs to be opposed

Iain Dale has set the hare amongst the hounds with this post "Why the BNP is Left Wing (And Fascist)." Inevitably, there has been a strong reaction from the whole spectrum of opinion.

I have often found that the left/right thing is framed in terms of "Left is 'right' and Right is 'wrong'" so, inevitably, anyone who is seen to be outside the 'normal' acceptable limits of this definition (eg the BNP) are considered to be right wing. On the other the hand, people with views that veer far to the left of the continuum are seen as 'extreme lefties' and usually dismissed as a 'very small minority'.

But surely the point is that these latter two groups are "extremists", either of which would inflict untold tragedy and misery on the rest of us if they ever came to power.

Fortunately, we are not in a position (yet?) where any (either?) of the ruling parties are so bloody far from the centre that the electorate would lurch from one extreme to the other.

But we need to be eternally vigilant!