Up There

Speaking of endangered species, one of the Deputy Conservatives has been doing its best to adapt to the new, hostile environmental conditions of contempt from the Bullingdon Club and loathing from human beings. Sports fans will recall George Osborne's booing at the Olympics and his rather dismal effort to twist his habitual smirk into the pose of a Good Sport; now Osborne's fag Danny Alexander has had a try at emulating the master by squeezing a photo-opportunity from the launch of a beer called Ginger Rodent. Harriet Harman called Alexander a ginger rodent in a speech in 2010, to which Alexander responded: "I am proud to be ginger and rodents do valuable work cleaning up mess others leave behind." Pride in one's unchosen genetic endowment is necessary but, alas, not quite sufficient for full membership of the Bullingdon Club. As to the rest, it is certainly true that some rodents do valuable work; others live in cages and spend their lives running on the spot inside hollow wheels, and still others facilitate the spread of disease by conniving to privatise the National Health Service.

Elsewhere in Scotland, the latest of Michael Greenwell's excellent Scottish Independence Podcasts featured Doug Daniel, an SNP activist who had some forthright words to counter objections to Scottish independence on the grounds that it would leave England permanently in the position of Danny Alexander. The argument that democracy in England is a problem for the English will butter few parsnips with the sort of people who believe that democracy is best imposed from a distance by NATO or the IMF; but it did inspire a brief brainstorm from me. Michael has kindly posted this on his own site, along with some useful advice concerning a minor but rewarding outpost of English literature.