Thin on Evidence

Mere experts have been carping and cavilling over our lissom, slender Head Boy's proposed war on fatties. The Government intends to deprive people of social security payments if they have obesity or addiction problems and refuse to be coerced into surgery or brainwashing. However, the president of the British Psychological Society and the chief executive of the charity Addaction both apparently believe that there is some sort of medical ethic that transcends the only two human drives which are widely recognised at Westminster, namely the profit motive and the lynch-mob instinct. Their doubts are no doubt fully justified, but of course they miss the point. One does not make war on fatties in order to help fatties; one makes war on fatties in order to provide a nice, big, rounded, soft target at which the tabloids can aim the rabble.

Improving the Lesser Breeds

Britain's Head Boy has been giving the Malaysian prime minister a bit of a ticking off, burbling about the importance of a free press, the need for ethics in business, the fight against corruption and all the other things that are just about good enough for the kind of hard-working foreigners who don't come swarming over here. Semi-competent salesman that he is, Britain's Head Boy gave praise unto the impact on London of "Islamic finance", peace be upon it, because the species of Muslimity that throws up huge loony skyscrapers all over the place is obviously a much more constructive breed of Muslimity than the species which needs to watch its children constantly for signs of incomplete Britishness.

Meanwhile, the leader of Malaysia's political opposition is apparently a bit less accommodating than the very 'umble Randy Burnham, and is serving a five-year prison sentence on charges of behaving like a prefect in an English public school. Britain's Head Boy dispatched his chief spook for "discussions" with the unfortunate man's daughter, whose waterboarding and removal to a CIA black site have doubtless been postponed until her father's captors start displaying an appropriate degree of respect for Rupert Murdoch's idea of press freedom, transparent government and business ethics.

His Balls to Gun-Stones

We are all aware that the Farage Falange wishes to propel the country back in time; but there has always been some controversy as to the precise degree of reaction it has in mind, if mind is the word I want. There are those who look back doe-eyed upon the nineteen-fifties and sixties, yearning for the days when it was legal to display a notice proclaiming No Blacks No Irish No Dogs; there are others who prefer the authentic British values of the Mosleyite thirties; and, naturally enough for a party composed largely of cast-off Conservatives, there is a sizeable contingent who share the Bullingdon Club's nostalgia for Regency corruption and the Victorian poor laws.

However, all such chronological timidity is anathema to the Caudillo himself, who has now so far recovered from the emotive effects of his Nick Clegg pledge to resign that he finally feels capable of toddling back on the national stage. Now that asylum seekers are going to the lengths of maliciously dying in the Channel Tunnel, the Caudillo has belched forth his personal decree that England must hop back at least as far as the mid-sixteenth century, dispatch an expeditionary force to France and reclaim our historic ownership of Calais. It is as yet unclear whether the Caudillo would accept the Duchy of Normandy for himself, should anyone happen to offer it.

Another Hysterectomy for the Mother of Democracies

Despite the obvious advantages of a system that can deliver an overall majority from a third of the vote, Britain is still too democratic for the Bullingdon Club. So robust is the Conservative Party's faith in the public's good sense that its chief salesman is already plotting to pack the upper chamber as well as the lower. Britain's Head Boy is anxious to ensure that the House of Donors "more accurately reflects the situation" in the House of Claimants: "That's been the position with prime ministers for a very, very long time and for very good and fair reason", namely that there isn't much point in having the lower house farctate with fat cats, placemen, time-servers and crooks if the upper house is just going to sit there and interfere. The Bullingdon Club has already been defeated on several of its more faith-based policies, and Britain's Head Boy wishes to ensure a more reliable system of checks and balances which will have more the character of a good, solid rubber stamp than anything so flighty and corruptible as a democratic legislature. It certainly says a good deal for the dignity and resilience of the British Conservative Party that it needs to gerrymander even the more blatantly unelected part of our nominal democracy.

Welcome to the Free World

Despite the increasing openness of their country to American profiteering, it appears that some uppity Africans still have much to learn about the meaning of the word democracy. The Ethiopian government was elected with a hundred per cent of parliamentary seats, much as the two right wings of the US business party tend to do fairly well in the fledgling Dynastic Republic's quadrennial balloon-fests. Although the US registered concern during the election about restrictions on civil libertes and free speech, President Obama has now officially legitimised the Ethiopian government by conferring upon it the World Cop's merit badge, to the disgust of various far-left and backsliding persons who seem to think democracy has something to do with representation of the great unwashed or, worse yet, the numerous impecunious. Speaking at the palace of that great freedom fighter, Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian prime minister settled the matter by referring to his country as a "fledgling democracy", the term favoured by the Reagan administration for its pet death-squad polities in Central America.

Fundamentally Decent

Some Islamic fundamentalist chums of the British Government have called a ceasefire in their ongoing attack on Yemen, with an option to resume bombing anything and everything should anyone suspected of being an evil terrorist put an eyebrow wrong. As with the British Government's other fundamentalist chums in Tel Aviv, the bombers have been "increasingly killing civilians as they continue to target rebels" which, assuming the civilians do not qualify as a price worth paying, puts the campaign firmly in the category of Good Intentions Gone Awry. The British Government is happy for weapons to be sold to the Islamic fundamentalists in question, provided the weapons are appropriately marked Not to be Used for Internal Repression or Other Nefarious Purposes. Accordingly, the ceasefire is humanitarian, without the scare quotes that would accompany a similar announcement from Hamas or Tehran; and although various human rights groups, the United Nations and other foreigners have shaken their heads a bit, neither the British Government nor the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair has felt that the situation merits concern.

On the Origin of Species Loss by Means of Unnatural Selection

The roots of the Anthropocene Extinction Event may extend somewhat further back than had previously been thought. Archaeologists working on the shores of the Sea of Galilee have discovered the remains of a settlement dating from the recent glacial blip 23,000 years ago, and have found evidence that hunter-gatherer societies were already at the point of designating certain organisms pests, weeds or otherwise unworthy of existence. Although the Neolithic revolution only began 12,000 years later, it appears that the morality of myxomatosis and badger-busting was securely embedded in the programming of Homo sapiens ipsedixit from a much earlier stage. Good Christian folk who disapprove of interfering with God's creation will be relieved that the site is in Israel and the culprits, therefore, almost certainly Jews.

What Weight Should We Be Punching Above?

A mere twelve years after the Conservative Party gave the big rah-rah to the Reverend Blair's crusade in Iraq, and only four years after the wog-bombing of Libya, it appears that doubts are startng to creep in as to the general success of the whole civilisation-clashing enterprise, and whether the country can afford any more such gloriously accomplished missions. Crispin Blunt, who is chair of the foreign affairs select committee, has launched an inquiry into whether the results of the Libyan adventure - a failed state, a migrant crisis (refugee crisis, in Oldspeak), a lot more space for Islamic State to expand into, and the Russians growling from the sidelines about Western perfidy - really do constitute what might legitimately be considered a roaring success. It is quite probable that the recently-retired Willem den Haag, who was Minister for Wogs, Frogs and Huns at the time, believes that the enterprise was a spiffing job which has left the world a cleaner, safer place; but then den Haag was never really the stuff of which global statesmen are made. His glorious career began with losing a general election on a proto-UKIP save-the-pound campaign; progressed through years of jet-set smooching with Lord Ashcroft in Belize; and wound down with failure in a petty-minded coup attempt against that world-bestriding Great Satan, the Speaker of the House of Commons. Blunt, who was dethroned by his constituency executive committee two years ago for being too honest, and then voted back in by the membership, will doubtless be highly sympathetic.

Shirker Bees

The British beehive, do you see,
Reflects our Big Society:
Alas, according to report,
The British bee's a social sort.

A monarch heads the hive and nation,
According to her proper station:
The Queen exists to breed and fatten,
Just like our Granny von Mountbatten.

And then there are the drones, who form
The mighty backbone of the swarm:
Most worthy chaps, because they do
Nothing at all but eat and screw.

Deservedly beneath all these,
There are the common shirker bees,
Who simply fly around all day
And snort some nectar on their way.

Now, no hard-working family
Would tolerate a shirker bee
Dancing around the humble home
While migrants pinched the honeycomb.

And every scrounger has, we fear,
Concealed a weapon up its rear!
And so we need our pest controls
To help us deal with stinging proles.

To those who say, "O let them fly,
Or else the hive will starve and die,"
We answer: Merely theories!
Now pull your weight, or buzz off, please.

Amber Fudd

Propaganda Wars

Buck Theorem has posted a thoughtful and very generous review of my excursion into alternate-world film criticism, I, Mengele, and points out at least one resonance that I hadn't noticed myself.

The fact that Mr Theorem seems to be cranking up the bloggery again after several quiet months is good news for all fans of the filmic fantastic. His observations on horror, science fiction and fantasy movies (often, but by no means always, of the cheap and cheerful variety) have provided me with considerable viewing pleasure that I might otherwise have missed, as well as recalling one or two creaky but still effective spooks from the past. He also has some very talented friends; and, as with the Numinous Book of Review, his archives are well worth a trawl.

The Awesome Potency of our Urges

Remarkably, even after seven years of pacificating envoyage by the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair, certain elements of the Middle East remain intractable. The Righteous State, for example, continues its programme of ethnic cleansing, inexorably booting Semites off their land in order to make way for European colonists, even when Britain and her allies in the war for peace protest with considerable assertiveness. The latest threat to a Palestinian village has been met with rumbles of disapproval from Britain, from the Euro-wogs and even from the US State Department, whose spokesbeing strongly urged the heirs of Joshua to refrain from any demolitions; possibly because one of the pretexts being used is that "the Jews were there first", which might set a dangerous precedent for Native Americans. The Euro-wogs have also strongly urged the Israelis not to destroy the village, and the British consulate-general has strongly urged that ethnic cleansing causes suffering, harms the peace process and, last and least, is contrary to international law except under certain limited circumstances possibly including a dispensation from the Reverend Blair. The urging, in fact, has been such that none of the urgers sees any necessity to pause the flow of armaments towards the Righteous State; much less impose sanctions or send a few drones to bomb Tel Aviv. So profound is the morality of the urging that, as usual, nothing so vulgar as action will be necessary.

Though Burnhams Flinch

Just as a potential governing party must agree in all major respects with the policies of the present governing party, so a potential leader of the said party must play the sheep if he expects to earn the bleating accolades of his followers. Randy Burnham, the Battenberg chafer's very 'umble and obedient servant, will not be voting against Iain Duncan Smith's new round of poor-bashing because his leader has told him not to, and the last thing any potential future leader should do is behave as if he has different ideas from the present leader. According to the 'umble Burnham, his abstention will be merely the opening collapse in a long and determined campaign of retreat, doubtless culminating gloriously in five years' time with the loss of his seat in the Commons.

British Values Rah Rah Redux

Britain's Head Boy has been having a bit of a burble on NBC. The substance of it, if substance is the word I want, is that ISIS are a Very Bad Thing, that something needs to be done and that somebody ought to do something about it, and that Britain's Head Boy is ready to step up to the plate and stand shoulder to shoulder with the hand of history in defence of free markets and oil companies everywhere. A further outpouring of statesmanship is anticipated tomorrow, when Britain's Head Boy will inform Britain's Muslims that ISIS are a Very Bad Thing: "If you are a boy, they will brainwash you, strap bombs to your body and blow you up. If you are a girl, they will enslave and abuse you." Since Britain's Muslims are all apparently children, let's hope they are duly grateful that Britain's Head Boy is stepping up as Father of the Nation.

Britain's Head Boy will also trot out the standard lecture on British values: freedom of speech unless the Home Secretary disapproves, freedom of indoctrination if you can afford the free schools, equal rights regardless of race, sex, sexuality or faith but always taking due note of income. Britain's Head Boy will also proclaim that turning schools and NHS trusts into unpaid interns for the security forces is jolly empowering actually; and he will wag the finger at British Muslims for not doing enough to support "the British way of life" - that paradise of hard-working families which will soon be purged of such pernicious foreign imports as the National Health Service and the BBC, and has already dispensed with any pretence that the Government is accountable to Parliament should the former decide to toddle off and do a bit of wog-bombing.

Radical Measures

While having a bit of a burble about seagulls, Britain's Head Boy has suggested an unprecedented break with normal Westminster policy. There have been several reports of gulls attacking pets, which have naturally resulted in calls to control the gull population, since controlling the human and/or pet population is clearly out of the question. In one case the gulls belonged to a protected species: an example of environmentalist red tape which will certainly grate on the delicate sensibilities of those among Daveybloke's party colleagues whose idea of good clean fun is to watch a pack of dogs rip a fox to bits. Asked about the issue on BBC Radio Cornwall, Britain's Head Boy burbled that seagulls were certainly a problem, and hinted that the solution might lie in culling the creatures and vandalising their homes, much as the Conservative Party likes to do with other biological inconveniences such as badgers and proles. So much is purely routine, of course, even down to the echt-Blairy blather about a "big conversation"; but - in a startling reversal of the Government's standard procedure on health, drugs, prisons, poverty and, last and least, the environment - Daveybloke also proclaimed that the people who need to be listened to are the ones who understand the issue.

Interoperable Embeddability

Since Parliament voted against the involvement of British personnel in wog-bombing Syria, the Government has naturally involved British personnel in wog-bombing Syria. Pilots have been embedded with US and Canadian forces under the rubric of "interoperability", which is NATO jargon for making the various member nations' armed forces compatible with one another and allows British personnel to operate "effectively ... as foreign troops". Given Westminster's obsessive concern with the wonder and fragility of Britishness, one might think there would be a few worries about the loss of our national identity in some federalised, pentagonal super-belligerent; but it seems that a dilemma between patriotism and wog-bombing is no dilemma at all. The number of British personnel involved in democratising Syria is understood to be very small at the moment, presumably in order to avoid confusing the minions of the mad old Home Office cat lady and causing a Serco-based incident when the effective foreigners want to be let back into Britain.

Fracking with the Fillies

One of the Bullingdon Club's token fillies, Andrea Leadsom of the Department for Energising Climate Change, has been gushing about the green crap. "The UK has one of the best track records in the world when it comes to protecting our environment while also developing our industries," she babbled; and since she is a minister, and a minister for the political wing of News Corporation to boot, of course we must believe her. Naturally, her masters in Cabinet are doing what they can to rectify the situation, and as an incidental result they have placed the token filly for pleasuring the energy cartel, Amber Rudd. in the Nick Clegg league of political pledge-keepers. Six months ago Rudd told MPs that the Government had agreed an outright ban on fracking in national parks and sites of special scientific interest; but the Bullingdon Club's idea of scientific interest begins with Jeremy C Hunt's homeopathic leanings and ends with the Home Office's vendetta against recreational drugs for the little people. It transpires that fracking will not be banned in areas of special scientific interest, although it will not as yet be permitted in areas of outstanding natural beauty, world heritage sites or the Conservative-voting counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Companies will be allowed to undermine national parks, but only if their rigs are kept at a decorous distance; and of course they will be allowed to contaminate drinking water, since the effects can be blamed on migrants, badgers or the NHS.

Haystack Needled

Horror at H₂O howitzer hiccup

The mad old cat lady at the Home Office has sprayed the London Haystack with her evil-smelling micturitions by refusing to allow him or his chum, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howitzer of the Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club, to play with their new toys.

The mad old cat lady, whose loathing for inappropriately draconian measures has been thoroughly latent until now, refused to authorise the use of water cannon on the grounds that they are unsafe and illiberal.

She cited the case of a 66-year-old Stuttgart resident who was blinded by a weapon similar to those bought second-hand by the London Haystack on the assumption that he would be allowed to have his fun.

Despite the Haystack's arguments that Huns are not the same as real people, the Home Secretary was not prepared to risk alienating voters from the country's most consistently Tory-voting age group, a spokesbeing said.

Observers were struck by the unprecedentedly rational and sensible tenor of the mad old cat lady's reservations, given that her plans for the present parliament are thought to include summary execution for migrants and the criminalisation of mineral water.

However, the Home Office insisted that there had been no U-turn and that the Home Secretary was as bonkers as ever.

"We just copied and pasted all that 'sensible' stuff from loony-left websites like the police forces of England and Wales," a spokesbeing said.

"That's why our security services need full-spectrum powers to monitor the whole internet all the time. Just imagine what might have happened if she'd had to say what she meant and gone gibbering on about her leadership bid."

Playing Tag

Despite the departure of Chris Graybeing, the Ministry for Profitable Incarceration has lost none of Whitehall's famously assured touch with new techno-fangled jiggery-snoopery. Graybeing promised Parliament that satellite tracking tags would be in use on dangerous and repeat offenders by the end of 2014, doubtless with a view to infesting the whole population within a month or so. As one might expect given the intellectual capacity and moral character of the erstwhile Minister for Book-Banning and Heterosexual Hostelry, it has now emerged that there will be a year's delay, partly because the necessary infrastructure has not been put in place and partly because an attempt to rush a few tags into use as a fig-leaf to cover the little prick's latest flop has resulted in an unseemly squabble over intellectual property rights. On the bright side, the delay does mean that those famously honest people at Serco and G4S may have their contract extended again, so that they can continue their sterling efforts for the profit of many and at nobody's expense but the taxpayer's.

All Together Now

Having made a start towards repealing the fox-hunting ban, Britain's Head Boy has turned his attention to the Conservative Party's other favourite pastime: namely Britain's long-term strategic plan or, in Standard English, plotting the next bit of wog-bombing. It will be remembered that Daveybloke suffered some little embarrassment during the last parliament when his attempt to bomb Syria was voted down, partly because he was too complacent to make sure his junior ticks fell into line and partly because he was too small-minded for a bipartisan approach with the Milibeing's very minor amendment to the order to go forth and kill. Once Labour has elected a new leader, the lucky winner will be asked back to the Head Boy's bunker and invited to support a new round of shock and awe, presumably on the grounds that anyone who would sell out Britain's poor is unlikely to sell out to Bashar al-Assad, whom Britain wants removed "as part of a transition to a new broad-based government" or, translated from the journalese, in favour of a thug who will do as he is told. Additionally, the Minister for War and the Colonies believes that as long as we're wog-bombing Iraq it would be illogical not to wog-bomb Syria and, presumably, tomorrow the world. The response of the new Labour leader will no doubt be cautiously co-operative: Randy Burnham will nod and quote Churchill on uncivilised tribes; Yvette Cooper will demand due precautions against Syrian refugees coming over here and taking her job; and Liz Kendall will want to know how soon we can deploy our nuclear option.

Accommodating Business

It has been a while since Britain's Head Boy hugged a husky, particularly since he's had the corpse of Little Ivan™ to wave around; and the dumping of the green crap is now proceeding apace. The Government has abandoned any pretence of interest in controlling carbon emissions, and has now removed the regulations obliging house-builders to make all homes carbon-neutral after 2016. The regulations were introduced by Gordon Brown in 2006, his anticipation that he wouldn't have to worry about enforcing them being one of his few astute political judgements. Nevertheless, this latest Osbornomic massacre of red tape has been vociferously condemned by all sorts of people whose opinion the Bullingdon Club doesn't care about: builders (are there no prisons? are there no cardboard boxes?), planners (a heresy against market forces), green groups (enough said) and a Liberal Democrat. Ed Davey (not to be confused with Ed or Davey) tweeted that Britain's Head Boy "may as well hug a coal power station", which is jolly strong stuff from the flunkey who spent three years generating excuses for the coalition's lack of interest in keeping the planet habitable.

Ill, Timed

The first Vatican show-trial set up to acquit the Holy See of any complicity in child abuse has been postponed because the accused has developed a sudden and convenient illness. The former nuncio to the Dominican Republic is accused of paying shoeshine boys to service his needs: a comparatively minor offence in the annals of priestly paedophilia, many of whose victims received no other payment than a lifetime of mental illness. It is not as yet clear whether Józef Wesołowski's condition is related to the useful form of dementia which afflicted Ernest Saunders during the Guinness affair a quarter of a century ago and, more recently, certain members of the Murdoch gang during the phone-hacking inquiry. Possibly the Vatican's traditionalists have been asserting themselves, and have given Wesołowski a bit of unofficial medication à la Borgia.

From the Ministry

Ye tourists, now hearken to me:
The terrorists want us, you see,
All living in fear -
So do not stay here,
But pack up your luggage and flee!

This terrorist slaughter's designed
To panic the calm British mind,
So do not delay:
Enter Fortress UK
And pull up the drawbridge behind!

Hotel-keeping wogs perhaps fear
Conditions becoming austere;
But Britons must fight
To do what is right:
Vacations in London next year!

Flemman Pluck, FCO

One Nation

Almost surprisingly enough, the Government's Evel plot has ascended from sordid party-political stuntery to the comparative empyrean of low-grade farce. Slightly more surprisingly, the improvement does not appear to have come about thanks entirely to the tact and shrewdness of the former Minister for Profitable Incarceration, Chris Graybeing, whom Britain's Head Boy has appointed his Constitutional Ink Monitor because the subtler minds of Eric Pickles, Michael Gove and Adam Werritty are otherwise engaged. The Government has delayed the vote on the Evel measures, which are designed to preserve the Union for all time by reminding the Scots that nobody's listening, because the DUP was worried that the Union would be endangered and because a score of braying dunderheads were worried that their prospects for blackmailing their Dear Leader would be undercut if England stood alone. Accordingly, despite the customary show of good faith involved in trying to sneak through a major constitutional change on a simple vote, Britain's Head Boy and his fags have been forced to postpone the whole thing until the autumn, by which time the proposals will most likely have been watered down from Evel (English Votes for English Landlords) to merely Kingdom Rotten As Previously.

Constructive Capitulation

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is preparing to formalise its semi-official status as one of the parties that doesn't really care to oppose the Government. The non-event was announced today by the interim clapped-out has-been who is leading the party until it can elect a new business-friendly fan of hard-working families with a focus-group taste in pop music. Presumably, it is hoped that the manoeuvre will finally lift Labour from the electoral doldrums and bring the party's credibility closer to its natural level, on a par with the DUP and the Liberal Democrats; whereupon the 2020 election could yield the glory of a grand, wog-bombing, cripple-kicking coalition. After all, Labour tried standing shoulder to shoulder with the Conservatives during the Scottish independence referendum, and that worked out nearly as well as could be expected.

Silence is Cheap

A minute's silence now for those who died
For snoopers' freedom, and because we lied.

For them we bow our solemn, well-fed faces
(Because they were not killed in foreign places);

Then raise our heads, and with a pious smirk
Continue with today's wog-bombing work.

Davey St Anthony

Hosepipe Bans to Increase Until 2100

Deprived of the scientific wisdom of Owen Paterson, and after only twenty years of increasingly hot summers and increasingly mild winters, the Meteorological Office has discovered climate change. Against all common sense, mere scientists have proclaimed that global warming means Britain will warm up too; making, as Britain's leading liberal newspaper noted in a minor squib, "scorchers the norm", with all the droughts, floods and hosepipe bans entailed thereby. The Met Office stopped short of recommending more river-dredging, better badger-busting or a bounty for Serco on every prole boiled or drowned; but, mindful of its funding, it did qualify its observations with the caveat that "cold winters and wet summers just become less likely, and we will still have to be prepared for them". Translated from the Modern Standard Whitehall, this means that nothing much will continue to be done.

Collateral Opportunification

Thanks to the Osbornomic miracle, of course, the National Health Service is not in crisis; people with long-term illnesses are thriving on the Government's cripple-kicking therapy; schoolchildren are being driven into nervous breakdowns only because their teachers have so much time for them; and food banks the length and breadth of the country are being swept away on the tide of general plenty. Accordingly, Britain's Head Boy has announced that his cash-strapped Government will be using the income from penalties imposed on the banks to fund a bit of posturing over terrorist atrocities. Although the Government is doing everything it can to encourage personal responsibility in healthcare, employment, house-building and profiteering, it seems that the hard-working families of terrorist victims cannot be trusted to build their own memorials, thereby necessitating a quasi-Socialist intervention to remind future generations of the need for constant vigilance and continued wog-bombing.

But Some Rights Are More Certain and Inalienable Than Others

The defence of individual freedom and the rule of law, not hitherto major priorities of the Bullingdon Club and its chums, have been invoked in an open letter requesting the US President to facilitate the release of the last British resident in Guantánamo Bay. Along with Jeremy Corbyn and Russell Brand, signatories include the former attorney general Dominic Grieve, whose concern for the law has increased by leaps and bounds ever since Britain's Head Boy booted him out of office; and libertarian heavyweights of the order of David Davis, Tessa Jowell and the London Haystack; so it is difficult to see how the White House will be unable to resist.

Britain's Head Boy himself, of course, has done absolutely everything that falls more or less within the bounds of his personal convenience to secure Shaker Aamer's release, although it remains unclear what sanctions have been put in place against the United States for its gross and continuing breach of a British resident's rights. In fairness, there are extreme sensitivities at stake: notably those of the Republican heirs to the Bush chimpanzee, who have majorities in both of the US's legislative chambers and don't really want Obama to do anything except go back home to Kenya; and those of the MI6 spooks who were complicit in Aamer's kidnap and torture and whose itsy-bitsy feelings are, as always, a gravely important matter of our own national security.

Britain Soldiers On

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has proclaimed that, as usual, it is unlikely to oppose the Goverment, particularly on so vital and morally-charged a matter as wog-bombing. The Conservatives' previous attempt to expand operations from the Iraqi Republic of Mission Accomplished into the Strife-Torn Failed State of Syria ended in embarrassment because Britain's Head Boy failed to whip up enough support to vote down the Milibeing's very timid objections; nor could the Bullingdon Club muster sufficient bipartisan spirit to accept Labour's amendment and allow Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to share in the adventure's collateral glory. This time, it appears, there is to be statesmanship all around, and the full-spectrum fight against the Fighting Sons of Tony will continue to metastasize until the terrorists settle down and become less extremist than our chums in Riyadh, less reactionary than the British Home Office and less murderous than the Reverend Blair.

The Invasion Continues

If Britain feels even more full-up than usual today, there is good reason for it. The court of appeal has ruled that the Home Office's fast-track wog disposal system is unlawful and "structurally unfair", with the result that another hundred migrants have been released into the wild, there to mess with our plumbing and drive native proles out of the domestic service market. Since structural unfairness more or less sums up Conservative policy from the social security cuts to the proposed Great Daveymander formalising our one-party state, the hard-working families of Britain's white working class could be excused for wondering what makes asylum seekers so special; and no doubt the Labour leadership candidates will be lining up accordingly to demand a more business-friendly programme of deportation. The ministerial cockroach in charge of wog disposal, James Brokenshire, has temporarily suspended the fast-track system, but hopes to get back to locking them up and kicking them out within a few weeks, as soon as the Government has ensured that everything is working well enough to minimise any risk of unfairness to the Government.

Not Quite Judaea

The estimable J Sewell McEvoy has posted a very generous review of my novella A Place Calling Itself Jerusalem - a long-gestated, humble and/or hubristic attempt to follow in the footsteps of Karel Čapek, Mikhail Bulgakov, Roger Caillois and Tim Rice, all of whom portrayed the figure of Pontius Pilate with varying degrees of imaginative sympathy. Since Čapek also invented the word robot, there is a certain pleasing neatness to their prevalence in my alternate (or serial?) holy city.

Meanwhile, Mr McEvoy's book of review continues to expand with perceptive and intriguing pieces on the overlooked and under-rated (after years of vaguely noticing Richard Cowper's name on second-hand paperbacks, this finally induced me to do myself the favour of reading him). The numinous archives are always well worth a trawl.