We Just Weren't Shouting Loud Enough

With consummately satiric condescension, a couple of grown-ups have acted to defuse the effects of Her Majesty's Government's yapping and urine-spraying over Europe's collective security. Tin-Pot Tessie has made some not terribly subtle remarks about how nice it is to be secure and how nasty it might be if Britain were motivated to pick up its toys and go off in a sulk. The blustering blimp in charge of wog-bombing, Michael Fallon, has been blathering about our new-found freedom to establish a special relationship with the Trumpster, which our tainted intimacy with the filthy Euro-wogs had apparently prevented all through the recent glorious campaigns in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so forth. The prime minister of Malta, which holds the rotating EU presidency, and the president of the European Council have magnanimously accepted that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and Her Majesty's Government has helped its own case in the usual manner by proclaiming that it was merely pointing out the importance of security in case the Euro-wogs were too dim-witted to realise on their own.

Family Values

When it comes to moral questions, there are very few matters on which the Conservative Party sees eye to eye with our fun-loving Scandinavian cousins; but Britain does share with Denmark a policy whereby refugee children are not entitled to apply for family members to join them. As always, the reasons are purely altruistic and protective: quite apart from causing unnecessary complications when the children grew old enough to be deported, granting such permission would split up families, encourage people-traffickers, endanger the white working class and cause yet more wogs. Many of the children, being calculating foreign sorts, have resorted to self-harm, sleeping problems and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress; yet campaigners are calling on the Government to reverse the policy and inflict perverse incentives on the poor mites as well.

VE Day

A mere nine months too late, the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK decided on a good-cop approach for her statement to the House of Expenses Claimants on invoking Article 50. She got the best joke in early: "now more than ever, the world needs the liberal, democratic values of Europe - values that this United Kingdom shares", and went on to deliver a series of pious platitudes about special relationships and sincere co-operation which are contradicted only by the words and actions of the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Brexit Secretary, the International Trade Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and the dead-eyed warden herself. She pledged to work in the best interests of everyone in the country, including the EU citizens whom the Home Office is ordering out, and babbled yet further about regaining what we haven't lost and taking control of what we control already. She ordered everyone to come together and work together in optimism and hope, because some people can take independence too far; and she ordered the Euro-wogs to give her a deep and special relationship, with lots of co-operation in science and security and trade, which apparently our EU membership has prevented until now.

His Master's Voice

Anglo-Russian relations have received a substantial intellectual boost with the postponement of the Imperial Haystack's planned visit to the Evil Empire 2.0. The Trumpster's proposed secretary of state discovered a previously overlooked visit by the Heathen Chinee in his diary, and had to reschedule a meeting with America's subordinates in NATO, which has been consistently victimised by Russian aggression for at least the past two hundred years. Naturally, given the special relationship between Global Britain and the USA, to say nothing of the Imperial Haystack's diplomatic heft, there was no question of scheduling the NATO meeting for the convenience of Britain's joke Foreign Secretary; so the Russian Bear's lessons in the art of the limerick will just have to wait a bit longer.

Going Global

A small country ruled by a corrupt clique of religious despots has been promised continued investment from Qatar, doubtless in part because the two governments share a relaxed attitude to human rights. The chief executive of Qatar Petroleum has given global Britain a boost by stating that plucky little Albion's defiance of the Euro-wogs will make no difference whatever to his company; which is certainly a more can-do attitude than that of various bankers and airlines and those citizens of nowhere who have the gall to work in the National Health Service. Qatar already has significant investments in the UK, including such monuments to the white working class as the Olympic village, the Shard building and Harrods. Qatar also has a stake in Sainsbury's, so even that insignificant portion of the UK which does not constitute Greater London will continue to be catered for.

I'm Hans Christian Andersen

...that's me.

Perfidious Estonia

Is there no gratitude among the Euro-wogs? Barely a week since British military and security prowess arrived to see off the latest Russian invasion of Estonia, the Estonian president has made threatening noises about Britain's right to do as it dashed well pleases with its own hired killers, and has even cast aspersions upon Tin-Pot Tessie's habit of conflating various European institutions with the European Union. It seems that Tin-Pot Tessie's veiled threats to withdraw from European security (and thereby presumably allow Putin an uninterrupted march into Portugal) have touched a nerve among the uppity foreigners. "You don’t mix different subjects and topics," the Estonian president said, thus gratuitously denying the legitimacy of the Europhobes' only real tactic aside from shouting louder. The beastly Balt also ventured to speculate that "at some point Great Britain will miss its place in the room, behind the table," as if Her Majesty's Government's entire strategy did not centre on the demand that Great Britain's leaving the EU should extend only to the obligations of membership and not the privileges.

Native Unrest

Despite India's unfortunate degeneration from British Imperial possession to functioning democracy, it appears that a few encouraging echoes of the Raj still remain. A Hindu nationalist politician apparently booked a business-class seat on an Air India flight, but found himself among the lesser breeds in economy; his complaint escalated into an altercation with the senior flight attendant, whom the MP was at last driven to chastise in the best East India Company fashion, by corporal punishment with an item of footwear. As a result of this enterprising and barnstorming conduct, the MP is now banned from flying with any member of the Federation of Indian Airlines, despite demonstrating a near-Conservative level of reasonability in demanding an apology from Air India. Doubtless our own Imperial Haystack is even now waiting eagerly for his phone to ring so he can mobilise the sepoys in defence of civilisation.

Lapsed Judgement

Among the many reasons the terrorists hate us is, of course, our independent judiciary, which at present consists of the lord chancellor, Liz Truss; the Secretary of State for Profitable Incarceration, Liz Truss; and the Rothermere Daily Stürmer's legal representative in Cabinet, Liz Truss. An enemy of the people has taken rather extreme exception to Truss' recent conduct; possibly because he is a mere expert and therefore doesn't know what he is talking about. The lord chief justice, being the British people's most senior non-migrant adversary, has put out a statement criticising Truss for putting out inaccurate information about new rules for rape victims giving evidence at trials; apparently the Ministry for Profitable Incarceration has been so thoroughly streamlined that its elbows have merged with its arse. The lord chief justice also took Truss to task for her reluctance to criticise the scumbag press squeals against those judges who made the ludicrous claim that a more or less democratically-purchased Government should occasionally be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. As lord chancellor, it was Truss' duty to defend the judges; fortunately, the checks and balances inherent in her role as a Cabinet minister and Dacre-doggie prevented her doing anything that might have harmed her reputation.

No Britons Hurt

At least thirty-three non-Londoners, many of whom are believed to have been Arabs masquerading as civilians, were today prevented from inconveniencing Westminster thanks to an airstrike by the US-led coalition for British values in Syria. A separate US chastisement of a mosque last Saturday resulted in the removal of at least fifty-two more non-Londoners, none of whom are now expected to end up in Calais, threatening British jobs and thereby causing rumbles of discontent at the Westminster trough. Indeed, today's non-Londoners may have been attempting to shelter from the fighting, thereby leaving themselves open to the charge of being potential refugees. Despite Britain's status as a major supplier of armaments to head-chopping Islamic fundamentalists in the region, significant casualties were apparently minimal.

Uppity Wogs and Underdogs

Survivors of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, who are suing the heirs of Empire 1.0: Decline and Fall over the murder, torture, rape and herding into concentration camps that accompanied Britain's oh-so-civilised process of decolonisation, have accused Her Majesty's Government of burying bad news, and even of saying the thing that was not. As might be expected from a department under the nominal control of the Imperial Haystack, the Ministry for Wogs, Piccaninnies and Fuzzy-Wuzzies has responded with the assertion that the Government is above the law and that anyone who says otherwise is an enemy of democracy. Leafing through Hansard and comparing ministerial assertions with mere facts, especially to the detriment of the former, apparently constitutes a breach of parliamentary privilege and a technically punishable offence. The merits of this argument may or may not be signalled by the fact that it was employed only after the Ministry had failed for eight months to persuade the court against proceeding further on the grounds that the Kenya Emergency was a jolly long time ago and thus no longer a reason to administer Jewish-style punishment beatings.

You Are Perfectly Safe and Nothing Can Go Wrong

Having taken back control of our energy industry for the profit of France and the Heathen Chinee, Her Majesty's Government has been forced to brush off a request by some foreigners to delay construction of the blanched radioactive pachyderm at Hinkley Point. In the first ecstasy of its newly-freedomised global reach, the bustling, buccaneering hub of Empire 2.0 had apparently forgotten to consult nearby wogs who might be affected, especially once Her Majesty's Government really gets down to repealing all that health and safety red tape. As a result, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has asked the UK to consider delaying further work until Germany, Norway and the Netherlands have given, of all things, their own ideas about whether Britain owes them a formal notification in the event of a corporate indiscretion; and this in spite of the fact that the UK has already assessed the risk and decreed that no significant accident can possibly happen, ever, because we are British. What further reassurance could any lesser breed possibly require?

Nobody Speaks Up

Anyone wondering how we got like this could do worse than observe, if they can bear it, the quality of our elder statesmen. The Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair descends every so often to sermonise, or to announce a new foundation through which to cleanse the fruits of his avarice; Gordon Brown sulks, pronounces and sulks again; and the interregnum which nominally led the Conservative Party through the last seven years of the Thatcher régime remains very considerably concerned to be taken seriously by somebody, anybody, anything at all, even a pot plant, oh yes. One of the present perfect storm's few silver linings is that the elevation of Liam Fox, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson unto the political empyrean is more than likely to be pre-empted by the demise of the state itself.

The interregnum, whose messy, directionless government foreshadowed the corruption of Blair, the futility of Brown, the hypocrisy of Cameron and the ineptitude of May, has been disapproving of loudmouth Europhobes who shout down anyone who opposes them. When such ill-mannered behaviour "comes from politicians, including those from within the governing party, it is time to confront it", which the interregnum proceeded to do by not naming any names in case the culprits felt too confronted. The interregnum did, however, pronounce the ultimate anathema by labelling the miscreants "un-British", thereby asserting that anti-democratic thuggery is a Bad Thing because it's unworthy of the master race. Twenty years out of office and twenty-five out of power have clearly done nothing to diminish the interregnum's genius for incoherence.

NATO Threatened Again

Fury at aggression horror

British troops have arrived in Estonia as part of a major NATO mission in the Baltic states to deter Russian aggression.

Russia has a long history of aggression against NATO members, beginning with its notorious invasion of France in 1812, at a time when the relationship between Britain and its US ally was slightly less special than usual.

Forty years later, Russia's aggressive attempt to invade Britain through Turkey led to the Crimean War, foreshadowing present troubles in the region.

In 1945, just as the Second World War was being won by Sir Winston Boris de Pfeffel Churchill and a few Americans, Soviet Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Berlin which drew an iron curtain across the continent and precipitated such evils as the Cold War and the European Union.

Russia's aggression towards NATO even extended to the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, where British and Estonian troops have recently worked together in the interests of the peace that has been blossoming in the country since 2001.

Further threats to NATO emerged in the 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet empire and increasingly blatant Russian attempts to keep NATO away from its borders, despite consistent NATO tolerance of Russia's presence inside its ring of military bases.

Failing Standards

Rah rah! Watch me simper and smirk!
I've found such a wizard new perk!
And won't it be funny
When I count my money
As little chaps do all the work!

The post-fact purveyors will see
A Press ever more wild and free!
And won't it be great
For reporters to wait
On a sniggering schoolboy like me!

The standards of truth have come far,
To make me their glistening star!
And won't it be nice
When I triple the price
And miss all my deadlines, rah rah!

Gideon Fatwick

Rah

Among the many acknowledged Great Things about the monarchy, of course, is its constitutional role as a check on the despotic and potentially nation-splitting tendencies of corrupt and authoritarian governments which, having bought their way into power and manipulated the electorate with dishonest plebiscites, might then set about dismantling the democratic safeguards of the state while attacking the most vulnerable and disadvantaged of Her Majesty's beloved subjects. It was doubtless with such solemn responsibilities uppermost in mind that a certain tax-dodger from a migrant family, for whose domestic refurbishments the taxpayer has just been ordered to finance a sixty-six per cent pay rise, today signed into law the bill authorising Tin-Pot Tessie to invoke Article 50 and begin the process of informing the Euro-wogs what they're going to give us. The announcement was greeted in the House of Expenses Claimants by the usual grunts and squeals of dignified approbation from those benches being warmed and moistened by the governmental wing of the Farage Falange. Makes you proud.

A Certain Il Ne Sait Quoi

Since the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK has decreed that no deal with the Euro-wogs would be better than any deal that the Rothermere Daily Stürmer might squeal about, the Minister for Cutting the Continent Loose has naturally made no attempt whatever to find out what might happen if no deal is in fact reached. The blithering prima donna David Davis has been blathering at a Commons committee, which had the temerity to question Tin-Pot Tessie's infallible interpretation of the People's inalterable Will. David Davis neither knows nor cares what the impact of defaulting to WTO rules would be, but he is jolly sure that it would be rather rah-rah in some respects, and by no means as frightening as predicted by mere experts such as the CBI and various other people who lack the vision to be Paul Dacre or Rupert Murdoch. In any case, he blathered, it is otiose to plan for a particular outcome when one does not yet know how that outcome might be mitigated. As long as David Davis doesn't know what may happen, nobody else has any business wondering what may happen, because you can't tell what might happen to change what might otherwise happen, and the sublime serenity of David Davis is in any case far more robust than the remoaning of a few million citizens of nowhere. Ironically enough, if only the blithering prima donna were blathering to his fellow inmates at the comfortably padded lunatic asylum that is Chevening House he would have a far more reliable basis for his optimistic inklings. After all, there can be few better locations in which to discover that crashing out of Europe without a deal would most likely have no adverse effect on either Boris Johnson or Adam Werritty.

Coming Soon

Giving Back Control

Members of the House of Expenses Claimants have taken due advantage of their newly-recovered sovereignty by defiantly voting down the Lords' amendment to the Article 50 bill. The amendment provided that the Government should guarantee the rights of EU citizens in advance of the formal notification; but - as we have heard so often from the woman who today lectured the fiend Sturgeon about politics not being a game - when one is playing cards for a profitable divorce it is fatal to show one's hand with a gesture of good faith. As far as the expenses claimants are concerned, any inconvenience felt by Euro-wogs on being ordered to leave the country is clearly outweighed by the mental agony of incurring the wrath of Murdoch's marauders or the Rothermere Daily Stürmer. Fortunately, the blathering prima donna in charge of national isolation predicts that everything will be fine because, given the cleansing waves of adult reasonability which have emanated from Westminster since last June, the twenty-seven enemy powers will swiftly come around to the mainland's point of view.

A Busload of Rah-Rah Helps the Medicine Go Down

Since there are no plans to improve British children's education, physical health, quality of life or future security, at least where the proles are concerned, it necessarily follows that attitudes must be improved instead. Only the obscenely rich and the undeservedly successful have the right to self-pity nowadays; therefore the Government is inviting bids on multi-million-pound contracts for teaching eight-year-olds how to dismiss negative thoughts and ordering adolescents to pull themselves together. No doubt those helpful G4S people, whose perennial optimism as to their own capabilities is an example to almost everyone except Michael Gove, will be well towards the front of the queue. In fairness, the policy is a faithful enough reflection of life in Westminster, where the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK trusts in God to help her vanquish the ghastly Euro-wogs, and the posturing prima donna in charge of national isolation obviously has no trouble herding all his problems onto a little blue bus which, by virtue of being located in Conservative-Cuckoo-Land rather than London, will soon move away.

Fake Kids

One of the great traditional childhood pastimes is, of course, the systematic persecution of those smaller and weaker than oneself; which no doubt explains why a group of American children aged from nine upwards are bullying a two-year-old by trying to drag him through the courts. The group argue that the US government's attitude to climate change, which has veered between inaction and promotion, deprives them of their constitutional rights and also betrays the public trust - the quaint, old-fashioned doctrine, long abandoned here on the mainland, which specifies that governments have some sort of responsibility for preserving public resources. It remains as yet unclear whether the case will come to trial; but the idea that good Christian folk should concern themselves with the rights of children outside the womb has never carried much weight in the God-botherers' Own Party. Predictably enough, the Trumpster wendy-house has responded with squeals of self-pity on several fronts, most notable of which is perhaps the claim that keeping public-domain information in the public domain constitutes an intolerable burden upon the machinery of government.

Safe for Democracy

Members of Parliament are working in a water-damaged fire hazard which has leaking roofs, bad plumbing, damaged interiors and asbestos throughout, and this is apparently a Bad Thing. Not even the jabbering homunculus that is Michael Gove has yet contradicted the experts over the effects of asbestos, although depressingly few MPs show much sign of being short of breath. For the rest, the condition of the Palace of Westminster sounds little worse than some of the country's more affordable housing; still, the last thing a healthy democracy needs is for its lords and masters to bask in the very freedom from Health and Safety red tape that keeps the lower orders all buccaneering and entrepreneurial. Fortunately, plans have been drawn up for Parliament to be moved temporarily while refurbishments take place: the House of Donors to the Queen Gawblesser conference centre, and the House of Expenses Claimants to the offices of the Department of Health, which self-evidently will not be required for much longer.

All Glorious Together

In times of economic instability and Nazi-style Euro-wog conspiracies against the value of the pound in your pocket, it is naturally reassuring to see that war, at least, can always be cheapened further. A new memorial has been unveiled in London by the Queen Gawblesser, commemorating everyone and anyone whose job description obliged them to take part in those comparatively recent episodes of wog-bombing and petroleum-pinching which have done so much to secure peace in our time and stabilise the Middle East. Not only members of the armed forces, and certainly not only those who were killed, but all who were involved and of the requisite degree of Britishness, from the humblest caterer to the biggest profiteer, are shovelled in together: the rah-rah equivalent of a mass grave, although it is debatable whether this achieves the dignity a few bulldozers and some quicklime can provide. In a particularly sensitive move, all the culprits were present - from the drivelling post-Thatcher interregnum to the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair to the late Head Boy to the Trumpster's self-appointed sycophant and her blustering blimp in charge of wog-bombing - but nobody showed much interest in telling or inviting the families of people who were killed. Perhaps it was felt that their negative attitudes might spoil the fun. Still, the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK did give Parliament her word that nobody from the "bereaved community" (widows and orphans, in Oldspeak) who turned up had actually been removed by G4S peace-keeping staff; so clearly all the sacrifices have not been in vain.

They Just Don't Deserve Us

As has been repeatedly demonstrated in liberated zones from Vietnam through Afghanistan to Iraq, the lesser breeds are often regrettably slow to comprehend the high and holy Western truth that wog-bombing solves everything. Such is also the case in Libya, which was freedomised by the Bullingdon Club and their little yellow enablers half a decade ago, but which continues largely unappreciative of civilised and democratic values. The general lack of law and order has resulted in hordes of migrants threatening British jobs from their rafts in the Mediterranean; and now rival militias are making matters yet worse by fighting for control of the oil industry. This base, materialistic urge, so much less exalted than the West's motivations for its own little escapades, has caused intense concern in case of damage to the infrastructure on the coast, which the wog-bombing nations in their disinterested benevolence have identified as the economic lifeblood of the country. It is heartbreaking to think how much trouble might have been avoided, if only the Libyans had planned ahead a little while they were being wog-bombed, and had thought to make appropriate arrangements for a civilised and democratic transfer of their country's resources into the appropriate lily-white hands.

Sparing the Rod

Those efficient G4S people are still learning lessons after their usual fashion; which is to say, not much. After a string of scandals and fiascos, the Government's favourite boot-boys are trying to flog off their last remaining contract for managing a "secure training centre" (child prison, in Standard English), in accordance with the prevailing religious orthodoxy which specifies that a private company shall, wherever possible, be punished for abject failure by an increase in profits. Conditions at the prison have become more violent, according to inspectors, because G4S are too efficient to train their staff properly or keep the staff they've got. So efficient are G4S, in fact, that the lack of staff at the prison can no longer be mitigated by bringing in staff from other prisons, because all the other prisons have been sold. The company's managing director of remunerative child-beating regards the situation as a bit of a challenge, which certainly shows an encouraging level of realism. It remains to be seen whether the Ministry for Profitable Incarceration will approve the company's attempt to drop the whole problem into the lap of a charity; doubtless much will depend on whether the taxpayer has made a sufficient contribution towards the moral well-being of G4S.

And Manly Hearts to Guard the Henhouse

In yet another triumph of Conservative internationalism, the newly global Britain is expected to guarantee all developing nations that their trading relationship with the UK will not get worse; and we all know what Westminster's word is worth when it's given to the lesser breeds. Having walked out of a free trade zone because the Euro-wogs didn't know their place, Her Majesty's Government is hoping to set up another free trade zone in Africa, where governments are famously unconstrained by red tape and where hardship among the proles tends to be a self-solving problem. The chair of the Commonwealth enterprise and investment council has informed the Murdoch Times that the uncivilised tribes will have to make a bit of an effort to deserve what Britain can offload upon them in the way of bombs and bankers; while the vole-brained former Minister for Werritty apparently has hopes of promoting himself to Colonial Secretary.

Saving Private Sterling

Once more, our dole of memory and thanks
To those who helped push back the Nazi tide:
That master race who thrashed the Hunnish hide,
Besides some few at History's rear and flanks
Who fell in somewhat less-than-British ranks,
But more or less significantly died.
We list their names in stone, for moral guide
As sponsored by some nice men from the banks.

They fought for liberties we now enjoy:
The sacred British right to buy and sell
Was uppermost in mind for all our troops -
A market force embodied in each boy.
Our monument commemorates them well:
A cost-effective call to future dupes.

Manly Drone

Mother Theresa and the Threat to Peace

In the wake of the Trumpster's humane and enlightened sponsorship of the international coathanger industry, the ghastly Euro-wogs have naturally been conspiring to put Her Majesty's Government in a difficult position. The Trumpster has decreed that no government aid should be provided to charities which offer abortion services or advice, and the ghastly Euro-wogs are very selfishly and short-sightedly pledging money to fill the gap. This is embarrassing for the newly-independent United Kingdom, which on the one hand wishes to be seen as a leader and not a follower, and on the other hand wishes to suck up to the Trumpster no matter what the cost. Since the ghastly Euro-wogs have not had the courtesy to wait for the UK to set up its own commission for family values, the Government has made its displeasure clear by depositing at the Euro-wogs' conference something called Rory, rather than an actual minister, and by proclaiming that, actually, the Government has intensified its aid to family planning. Given Her Majesty's Government's idea of helping widows and orphans, it is just possible that the ghastly Euro-wogs may once again fail to draw the intended moral lesson.

Rah, Rah, Race You to the Bar

Yet further joyous evidence of our taking back control has emerged with the announcement that the Seventh Dedicated Legislation Committee, doubtless turned out in full regalia with robes, hoods, chains of office and exquisitely-tooled erotic insertables, has decided to award a great deal of public money to a family of migrants who, as recently as three years ago, were found to be mismanaging their finances. The Seventh Dedicated Legislation Committee was confabulated expressly for the single purpose of "considering" the welfare rise, and did so for a full thirteen minutes before voting it through and then humbly disbanding itself. The only reason it took that long was an objection by the SNP, whose representatives pointed out that throwing money at the Queen Gawblesser on the pretext of funding repairs to Buckingham Palace would be like doubling the salary of MPs and then asking them to contribute to building work at the Palace of Westminster. Doubtless an Eighth Dedicated Legislation Committee is even now being confundibulised in order to consider doing precisely that.

They Asked for my Story. I Have Told it. Enough.

Susan Hill, the 1880s ghost story writer and chum of Michael Gove, appears to have committed the indiscretion of taking advice from the jabbering homunculus about how to win friends and influence people. A non-corporate Norwich outlet for the reading-matter industry was giving away copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid's Tale donated by a local reading group; Hill cancelled a planned appearance there for "personal reasons" and then penned a Gove-style squeal for the Spectator, accusing the bookshop of victimising Donald Trump and proclaiming that she had boycotted the event in order to protect the free speech of people like Milo Yiannopoulos (although she did concede, by implication, that promoting paedophilia is probably a Bad Thing). In the face of a robust if bemused rebuttal from the bookshop and some unpleasantly factual comments from other writers (one of whom was indelicate enough to point out that Hill has a new novel to push), the unfortunate lady has succumbed to a fit of the vapours and wishes only to be left in peace. It is to be hoped that the jabbering homunculus will at least do her the courtesy of puffing her latest produce in the Murdoch Literary Supplement.

Giving Up Credibility For Lent

The Catholic Church's continuing effort to cleanse its critics of the urge to accuse clerics of child abuse has received another boost. A commission was set up three years ago to look into the matter, and the only remaining member to have suffered sexual abuse by a cleric has now resigned, citing obstruction by the Curia. As a victim and a female, her objectivity must have left a good deal to be desired, unlike that of the Curia which has done so much to protect the Church's good name against its uncharitable persecutors. With the Divine Will restored to full operational efficiency, it is to be hoped that the Vatican's protection of minors can now proceed in the Mussolini-sponsored theocracy's usual streamlined, forgiving and tolerant fashion.