Separated at birth?

Am I alone in noticing the uncanny resemblance between culture secretary (and Shami Chakrabarti-nemisis) Andy Burnham and crafty teen truant Ferris Bueller?

Public enemy

Martha Stewart has been barred from entering the UK. Fair enough, I suppose - she has a criminal conviction, and those are the rules. But what about this? Surely rape also counts as a "serious criminal offence".

Tears for Blears

Daniel Finkelstein reports on a conversation with an un-named Labour MP:

Yesterday, chatting with one of his colleagues, I learned that Gordon Brown was not the only one to earn contempt: The one good thing about global warming is that as the waters rise, Hazel Blears will drown first, the MP said.

Hurrah for Hari

The only problem with parodies by the likes of Public Interest is that they can't beat the real thing. Take this unintentionally hilarious column from Johann Hari. The shocking bit is not where he reveals he was breast-fed until he was three ("she only stopped the day I wrote her a note saying I expected to be breastfed that afternoon"), nor where in despair he asks of those who don't follow this example: "Why? Why do we hobble our babies, and our country?". It's not even his explanation ("Women are conditioned to find their own bodies disgusting, except when they can be used to entice men").

No, you only really begin to suspect he's on a completely different planet when he refers to Harriet Harman as "one of the Government's best ministers".

Only the Irish

"Just over three million Irish voters are registered - in a European Union of 490 million people," concludes the BBC in its report on the Irish 'No' vote. Leaving aside the dishonesty of the implication given the majorities in bigger countries that are also opposed, exactly what number of people would it take before a refusal to ratify could be considered legitimate? If, say, France voted against it, would that be enough?

David Davis

Stephen Pollard probably has the best take on this: it's not just the risks for his own party inherent in Davis's decision, it's that there's no obvious up-side. As Pollard puts it:

Let's assume that things panned out as he had wished, and he won a thumping majority against Labour in the by-election. So what? What would it have achieved? Nothing. A big fat nada, other than to remove from the post of Shadow Home Secretary a man committed to the abolition of 42 days. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot... All it can do is damage his own party's chances of getting into power and doing what he claims to want - standing up for civil liberties.

And I have to admit to wincing when Davis described it as a "noble endeavour". I can't be alone in thinking, "I'll be the judge of that."

On form

One of the more useful effects of Brown's premiership has been to irritate Matthew Parris. At some point I can't pinpoint, Parris seemed to become a little detached from political debate. Public Interest had a great post that picked up on this a while back:

From the window of my penthouse overlooking the Thames I watch the dockers on loading their boats... I stroll back to my chaise longue, turn on my laptop, take a sip from a capuccino and contemplate the mayoral election... Gordon Brown may jostle with David Cameron across the despatch box every Wednesday. Sometimes he wins. More often he does not. The political class gets excited. Vince Cable delivers a witty put-down on Channel Four News. The political elite starts cheering from the rooftops.
But does any of this matter to the docker? Does he know who Vince Cable even is, I wonder, as I thoughtfully stroke my llama.

But, in fact, Gordon Brown is one topic that still gets Parris excited, and he's always on great form when he's laying into him. Here he is today:

Watching the faces of Douglas Alexander and Alistair Darling at Prime Minister's Questions at noon yesterday, I realised that it was not necessary to have the gifts both of sight and of hearing to realise that Brown was losing the argument, though he was to win the vote. The two Cabinet ministers were seated beside Mr Brown as, lost to logic, he flailed hopelessly around trying to defend the idiotic position he has got himself into over the 42-day detention-without-trial proposal. A blind man who could hear would have understood at once that the argument was lost. When politicians don't even pretend to answer questions, but simply take no notice, you know they've reached the end of some kind of a road....

I was surprised at how relaxed David Cameron looked and sounded...No opposition leader could be other than exhilarated at defeating a government. No opposition leader could not want to try. But a little voice in the part of the Cameron brain dealing in reason rather than passion whispers to him that two more years of Gordon Brown will not necessarily be to his disadvantage.

They get there in the end

Cuba is to abandon salary equality.

From the BBC's report: Writing in the communist party newspaper Granma Mr Mateu said workers would receive a minimum 5% bonus for meeting targets but with no ceiling on salaries... The minister pointed out that the current wage system sapped employees' incentives to excel since everyone earned the same regardless of performance.

"It's harmful to give a worker less than he deserves, it's also harmful to give him what he doesn't deserve," the newspaper article said.

Now, why didn't I think of that?

Pic of the day

From the Big Brother blog at Anorak News

Yes, but no, but yes

Did the BBC focus too much on the Democratic race, ignoring the Republicans? Rod McKenzie, editor of Newsbeat and 1Xtra News says 'Yes'. But no. Well, maybe. But it's not because they're biased. It's because Obama's the New JFK. Or not.

In any case, we're promised much more as the election campaign proper gets underway in this "troubled nation".

Can't wait.

Not the question you'd expect...

From the political editor of the Sunday Telegraph: Why not join the euro?

Hard to better the response of one of his readers - "If you haven't worked it out by teatime give the Spanish Prime Minister a ring."

What a difference a day makes

The brilliantly named Michael Cashman on expense-fiddling Giles Chichester in the Mirror, 9th June 08: "He should have resigned much earlier and David Cameron should have acted much quicker. The Conservatives must carry out an exhaustive audit of what their MEPs are doing."

Daily Mail, 10th June 08: Michael Cashman, the former EastEnders actor turned Labour MEP, pays his gay lover £30,000 of taxpayers' money to be his secretary.
Paul Cottingham receives the cash even though he is also the director of a public relations firm.