The Apologist

‘ITALIAN prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was yesterday gracious enough to deign to speak to the press about some hairy German he was supposed to have offended earlier this week.

I blame the Jews

‘I very much regret having to apologise for calling one of your tree-huggers a Nazi,’ he said in a phone call to his German counterpart, Gerhard Schroder.

‘However, I realise that I don’t yet own every media outlet in Europe and, until the day I do, I should be more careful about what I say.

‘Of course, I never meant to compare Herr Schulz with a Nazi camp commandant – he clearly couldn’t organise a shower party in Auchwitz.

‘What I intended to say was that an Italian producer I know is making a film on Nazi concentration camps and I think Herr Schulz would make a good corpse.’

And so Signor Berlusconi expertly defused the diplomatic row that followed his ironic – and wonderfully amusing – remarks about German MEP Martin Schulz.

In the interests of balance, we should tell you that some of the communist elements of the fourth estate, such as the Guardian and Independent, have tried to land a blow on the beloved European president.

The latter even betrayed its ignorance of European affairs by calling Signor Berlusconi’s witticism ‘an extraordinary gaffe’, while the former describes him as ‘a man of vanity, greed, vindictiveness and secrecy’.

However, other media outlets were quick to come to the Italian PM’s defence.

Rai Uno called Signor Berlusconi ‘a new Augustus’; Rai Due thought it the best political joke since Iain Duncan Smith; Rai Tre praised him for making the trains run on time; Rai Quattro commended his full head of hair…

‘

Posted: 4th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Collateral Damage

‘THE war in Iraq may drag on for another decade, according to some sources this week, but the Government’s battle with the BBC looks to have been won.

Who will get the chop first?

The Times says Auntie is on the edge of defeat over its claim that Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell ‘sexed up’ an intelligence dossier on Iraq.

A report by a House Of Commons select committee is expected to rule in favour of Mr Campbell today in what looks to be a decisive stage of the war.

It is now surely only a matter of time before we see down-trodden executives at the BBC handing out flowers to their Government liberators and pulling down statues of Greg Dyke.

Corporation executives have acknowledged to the Times that ‘heads may roll’ if the Foreign Affairs committee delivers such a verdict.

And the paper says that the position of defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, the so-called jack of hearts in the Government’s deck of cards, is under immediate threat.

However, sniping continues, with the Government coming under hostile fire from the Telegraph, which insists today the Tony Blair, British prime minister and friend of the beloved Silvio Berlusconi, did harden up the claim that Iraq could launch its fabled weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

The original intelligence merely suggested that Saddam Hussein was ready to rain herds of flying pigs on Israel at a moment’s notice.

‘

Posted: 4th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Guniea Pigs Will Fly

‘IT was always going to happen – as soon as dogs got passports, all their mates were going to want passports.

Sam’s photo did not do him justice

And so we learn in this morning’s Telegraph that gerbils, hamsters and guinea pigs are going to get them.

So are cats, rabbits, rats and mice. And canaries, budgerigars, terrapins, tropical fish and even earth worms.

The new ruling, tested by the guinea pigs and announced yesterday by animal health minister Ben Bradshaw, means that all of the above will now be able to holiday all over Europe and North America.

They will even be able to look for work in other EU countries.

However, ferrets are not included – and nor are they the only ones unhappy with the scheme.

Peter Jinman, president of the British Veterinary Association, said: ‘There must be active monitoring of pets arriving in Britain.

‘Since the passport scheme was extended to North America, the monitoring has been passive. As a result, for the first time in this country we are recording diseases such as brucella canis and leishmania infantum, which can severely affect or kill people.

‘We do not want to see the same thing happening with diseases that are in Europe but not so far in Britain.’

Like being foreign, for example…

‘

Posted: 4th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Axis To Grind

‘IF Europe is to have a future of total harmony, there is one overriding rule that governs its unity: do not mention the war.

‘I called him a fascist. It’s a compliment’

From proprietors of small hotels in Torquay down to the very helm of the Brussels bureaucratic machine, mentioning the battles of 60 years ago will breed hostility and division.

So it was surprised faces all round when Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire Italian prime minister, marked his fist day as the president of the European Union by using the word Nazi in the context of a German MEP.

The Independent sets the scene, hearing Martin Schulz, leader of the German Socialists, raise the point of how Berlusconi used an immunity law to wriggle free of bribery charges levelled against him.

‘My Schulz,’ replied the keeper of European brotherhood for the next six months, ‘I know there is a producer in Italy who is making a film about Nazi concentration camps. I will suggest you for the role of commandant. You’d be perfect.’

The comment is not without its ironies. As the Telegraph says, Berlusconi is aligned with the anti-Semitic and ‘xenophobic’ Northern League of Italian politics, while it was Schultz who raised the issue of how the League’s leader, Umberto Bossi, has said that boats carrying illegal immigrants should be ‘blown out of the water’.

Bossi failed to state whether a U-Boat should be employed to do the job, but it’s apparent that the role of the Nazis is a contentious one, especially among the Italians and Germans.

‘

Posted: 3rd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Big Deal

‘REMEMBER the National Lottery line, ‘It could be you’?

John Prescott hopes it will be an E-type

It’s been modified since then, and now goes something like: ‘It won’t be you – but the Fifth Surbiton Boy Scouts might get a nearly-new net for their badminton court.’

The Lottery is now pitched as a chance to go good works for underfunded schemes, the ones that were once provided for by councils, governments and bring-and-buy sales.

Twenty-eight pence of every pound spent on a Lottery ticket goes to good causes in the UK. The rest goes God knows where.

And now, as the Telegraph says, we the people will get to vote on how we want the Lottery money spent. Plans are for a ‘mini-referendum’ on grants of up to £10,000.

And the best bit is that the paper says the voting model is the Big Brother TV series.

But why just £10,000? Let’s open it up for all applicants. In readiness, we’ve mocked up our own Lottery Vote.

Do you want to: A) spend all the money on a large tent so Tony Blair and his mates can have a party; B) get some new fireworks for the Queen’s next birthday; or c) fund part of London’s Olympic bid.

The votes are in and the winner is…get John Prescott a new Jag.

‘

Posted: 3rd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Booze Busters

‘WHEN Denis Thatcher shuffled off this mortal coil, we did not realise that we were saying adieu to the last of a kind.

‘Anyone fancy making up a threesome?’

Denis, a man whose life could not be called stress free in any way, was a keen advocate of the slimming and restorative powers of gin and fags. And Denis lived until he was 88 years old.

Being pickled from within has a lot going for it, but the British Medical Association fail to see the benefits in the embalming effects of alcohol and, as the Telegraph says, have ‘agreed to take on the drinks industry’.

The doctors want a ban on all television adverts for alcohol. As one medical type, a student doctor called Leigh Bissett, says: ‘Alcohol harms, and we want to see the glorification of it on our screens ended.’

‘They [the adverts] portray young people off their face, flying around the room with hundreds of attractive women,’ he adds, ‘but we know this is not reality.’

Should that not be ‘I know this not reality’, Leigh? For Leigh sounds like the type who bought into the advertisers’ hype to solve his own failings with womankind.

He was duly stunned to see that it did not do what it promised on the can.

‘

Posted: 3rd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Helping The Aged

‘AT Anorak, we pride ourselves on our non-discriminatory employment policy – young, old, black, white, man, woman, human, ape…they all get paid the same pittance.

‘Aisle 7? I forget, dear’

So we are glad to see that the Government has at last decided to crack down on ageism at work.

For too long, old people have got away with skiving off work as soon as they hit 60 (or 65 in the case of men) before embarking on a life of endless bingo, Saga holidays and Bakewell tarts.

What is worse, they insist on getting paid a pension to live this life of Riley, while clogging up the health system with their unceasing ailments and the sewerage system with their incessant outpourings.

So, we can only congratulate Trade And Industry Secretary Patricia Hodge when we read in the Times that ‘millions of older people will get new rights under proposals to be unveiled today that outlaw age discrimination’.

These include the right to remain silent (especially about anything that happened before 1990), the right voluntarily to end their own lives (or involuntarily if it is decided that they’re spending too much of their children’s inheritance) and the right to regular toilet breaks.

In return, says the paper, ‘many people may also be forced into staying at work until they are 70’.

In the Telegraph, Miss Hewitt criticised advertisers for playing to the cult of youth and said in future employers would not be able to say ‘young and energetic person wanted’ or ‘only mature people need apply’.

However, employers will no doubt find it very easy to get round these rules.

Simply asking applicants at interview to name the members of Blue or five different types of ecstasy pill should do the trick…

‘

Posted: 2nd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Kraft Work

‘THE hardest thing about getting a job, they say, is getting through the door in the first place.

‘Five Happy Meals and hold the fruit please’

But if this applies to old people, how much more does it apply to fat people, especially the 300 million people around the world who are classified as obese.

But is something happening at last to address this worldwide epidemic or in a few years will we all look like Vanessa Feltz in a puffa jacket?

This morning’s Independent suggests it may be the former as it reports on how the world’s second biggest food manufacturer is to cut back on fat and sugar in its products and reduce the size of portions.

Kraft, which makes Dairylea slices, Toblerone and Bird’s desserts, yesterday announced an overhaul of its products to make them less unhealthy.

The Indy says many other food manufacturers are expected to follow suit ‘to avoid the risk of being sued by overweight consumers in the way that tobacco companies have been sued by smokers’.

Obesity is fast becoming one of the world’s biggest problems, having witnessed a 50% rise in the past seven years. A staggering 22 million children under the age of five are obese.

The paper also says McDonalds, which has recently suffered its first quarterly loss, is promoting a new range of salads.

And this summer it is starting trials of a Happy Meal, which will allow customers to opt for a bag of fresh, sliced fruit instead of fries.

It remains to be seen whether the world is really ready yet for the McApple, McOrange and McGrape.

‘

Posted: 2nd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Blanc Canvas

‘THE trouble with healthy food is that not everyone can afford it.

The McSea’n’Earth salad

Take Raymond Blanc, the chef at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, who yesterday was demonstrating his new creation in honour of national salad week.

The Guardian is probably right when it suggests that salads like M Blanc’s Sea And Earth are unlikely to achieve national popularity, being priced as it is at £635 per portion.

Of that £600 is the price of 50g of Almas golden caviar, a delicacy so sought after in Russia that it was reserved for the tsar. Anyone else caught with it would have their hand chopped off.

The salad, which combines two types of caviar, black truffles and creel-caught langoustines around a bed of potatoes and courgettes, filled with lettuce, will feature for a week at M Blanc’s restaurant, albeit at a reduced price and with a lesser caviar.

With a slight change of ingredients, it will then become the McSea’n’Earth salad and be available from selected McDonalds outlets for £1.59.’

Posted: 2nd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Blair Outfoxed

‘THE unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable – Oscar Wilde’s quote about fox-hunting and a pretty good description of rebel Labour MPs turning on their leader.

Tree-hunting never really held the same excitement

The House Of Commons last night voted for a total ban on hunting with hounds in what was technically a free vote but which all the papers see as a blow for the Prime Minister.

Tony Blair had (typically) wanted a compromise motion that would have allowed hunting to continue only in certain areas and under tight conditions.

No doubt, a regulator called Offox would have been set up to police the remaining hunts.

But all that became unnecessary as the Guardian reports on what it calls a ‘humiliating rebuff’ for Blair as more than 300 Labour MPs, including seven Cabinet ministers, defied Downing Street to vote for an outright ban.

The Times calls the Government climbdown ‘an astonishing retreat’, saying that anti-hunting MPs are now predicting that they will have achieved their aim by the middle of next year.

But the Telegraph foresees problems in the House Of Lords and says Blair will now be under great pressure to use his majority to force the ban through Parliament.

The Time says Blair had wanted to show rural England that he was trying to save one of their prized pastimes, but was forced to capitulate to his own party.

The hope is that, by giving in to the backbenchers on hunting, he will be able to count on greater support for crucial votes to come, particularly on foundation hospitals.

As someone almost once said, to lose one vote may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.

‘

Posted: 1st, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Dark Ages

‘WE have peered into the future, but couldn’t see anything because none of the lights were working.

Britain in 2020

That is the doom-laden prediction of the Institution Of Civil Engineers which looks forward to the year 2020 and can only see a repeat of 1974.

By that time, the report says, we will be importing 80% of our gas needs ‘from politically unstable countries thousands of miles away’.

Mechanical failure, sabotage and terrorist attacks could lead to power cuts within days.

David Anderson, chairman of Ice’s energy board, tells the Guardian: ‘We will literally be at the end of the line which will start in Algeria, Iran and Russia and pass through many gas-needy countries.

‘It does not need much imagination to realise how vulnerable we will be.’

At the moment, Britain is self-sufficient in gas, which provides 38% of the country’s electricity, but will have to start importing within the next three years.

And with coal-fired power stations being phased out to cut down on emissions and only one nuclear power station operational by 2020, the country will be reliant on gas.

As Simon Skilling, head of strategy at PowerGen says, ‘it is feasible that by 2020 the lights could go out’.

Unless somehow we can all start producing more gas…

‘

Posted: 1st, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

One For Joy

”ONE for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, and seven for a secret never to be told…Maaaaaagpiiiiieee.’

Enjoying a celebratory morsel after his High Court victory

Yesterday was a good day for our feathered and furry friends. Not only will foxes soon be spared the spectre of being chased by Prince William and a baying pack of paparazzi, but magpies were given legal rights as well.

A High Court judge ruled that Norman Shinton, who kept such a bird in a trap in his garden as a way of luring other magpies to their deaths, could be guilty of causing the bird unnecessary suffering even though he had a licence.

Mr Shinton, who had been acquitted by a lower court, claimed that it was a way of protecting songbirds’ eggs and chicks.

But the RSPCA said: ‘There is no evidence that magpies have a significant effect on the songbird population.’

Jenny Hanley was unavailable for comment.

‘

Posted: 1st, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Understanding Auntie

‘THE BBC stands for many different things, depending on where you sit.

‘Someone get me cup of tea…in a mug! And some sweaty armpits…’

If you’re the Labour government, it’s the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation. If you’re an opposition MP, it’s the Blair Broadcasting Corporation.

And, if like Lord Tebbit you’re old enough to remember socialism, it stands for the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation.

What everyone seems to manage to agree about, however, is that the first B in BBC stands for biased – and never in their favour.

But politics makes strange fellows and, no doubt in the belief that mine enemy’s enemy is mine friend, this morning we find the aforementioned Lord Tebbit rallying to Auntie’s defence.

The former Tory chairman tells the Independent that the venom of the Government’s recent attack on the BBC over claims that its dossier on Iraqi weapons was ‘sexed up’ ‘springs not from the belief in the guilt of the BBC but from the certainty of their own self-guilt’.

Tebbit claims Downing Street is adhering to the Goebbels doctrine: ‘Never admit to a lie – simply keep repeating it.’

The Guardian says the committee investigating the allegation is likely to clear Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell of altering a draft of the dossier.

But the Prime Minister will be given a severe dressing-down for deliberately hampering the investigation.

However, the fall-out from the row between the Government and the BBC is likely to continue long after the event, with mixed signals being given out in this morning’s papers.

The Telegraph claims that BBC director-general Greg Dyke is staking his reputation and that of the corporation on the ‘all or nothing’ confrontation with the Government.

But the Times suggests that the BBC is to sue for peace by offering independent arbitration by a leading QC ‘to head off the damaging spectacle of a libel action against a minister funded at great expense by the licence fee payer’.

One name springs to mind – Cherie Booth QC.

‘

Posted: 30th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Queer Bedfellows

‘POLITICS, as we said, makes strange bedfellows and it’s not often you find Peter Tatchell and the Telegraph snuggled up together under the same duvet.

And the bride wore a tuxedo, much like the groom…

But the paper happily reports that the Government’s proposals to extend to gay couples the same legal rights as those enjoyed by married couples has been attacked – by gays.

Peter Tatchell claimed it was discriminatory against unmarried heterosexual couples.

‘It is divisive, heterophobic and discriminatory to exclude unmarried heterosexual couples. It is a grave injustice.’

The Government claims that unmarried heterosexual couples can qualify for things like pension rights simply by getting married.

But opponents say that people should not be forced to get married to qualify for the additional legal protection.

Former equality minister Barbara Roche, the woman who steered the proposals through Government, says same-sex relationships will now be part of the very fabric of society.

‘It’s a sign of a society which has modernised,’ she told the Guardian, ‘it’s come of age and it recognises that there are very, very many different and very, very valid ways in which people live their lives.’

Except of course heterosexual couples deciding to live together without getting married.

‘

Posted: 30th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Adopt A Wasp

‘THERE are organisations dedicated to the protection of most things – in fact, there is probably an organisation dedicated to the protection of organisations that protect things.

‘What with Prezza and Tony, there are too many bloodsuckers here already. I’m off…’

It is little wonder that the number of insects is on the decline when the little critters have to struggle on with no-one in their corner.

However, the Independent reports today that the RSPB has stepped into the gap and is organising a ‘citizen science’ programme to investigate this apparent decline.

Motorists will be encouraged to put a postcard piece of film on the front of their car – a so-called splatometer – to measure the number of airborne bugs that splat against it during a journey.

The RSPB believes that a decline in insect numbers may be responsible for a decline in many species of birds.

‘Bumblebees, mayflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and many other insect species appear to be tumbling in numbers and vanishing from many places,’ explains the Indy.

‘It is a critical development because insects are the most numerous of all organisms and underpin all ecosystems, providing food for countless other species and playing a crucial role in plant pollination.’

So, go on – join the Anorak campaign and adopt a wasp today. ‘

Posted: 30th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Maggie’s Den

‘ONLY when a person is gone can you see their real worth. It’s the case of Denis Thatcher, who for years knew when to step back and let his wife take centre stage.

”Coooeee! It’s that nice Mr Duncan Smith. And he’s got a gun…”

Now Denis has removed himself entirely and has died.

The tributes for Denis in the papers seem genuine and fulsome in their praise for the man who had the truly unenviable job of being Mr Margaret Thatcher.

The Independent, however, tries to sum up the life of Denis in one short headline: ”A steadfast consort, a lover of golf and fond of a tipple: Sir Denis dies.”

Perhaps best to do as Matthew Parris, writing in the Times, does and list a few of the bon mots of the man who for so long survived life in, and as, Maggie’s Den.

”My idea of Heaven is sitting in my garden on a warm June night with bottle of bubbly and my wife in a reasonably calm frame of mind,” said Denis of his dream while resident in Downing Street.

On the secret behind his slim physique, Denis gave the succinct reply: ”Gin and cigarettes.”

And when Maggie was deposed in 1990, he offered a line, sage-like in it clarity of vision in light of the ensuing Major and Blair years: ”Life is not going to be so much ruddy fun any more, neither for you nor for me.”

And it could, as the Telegraph leads, be about to become yet still less fun. News is…well, just listen to the headline: ”Tories back in lead after 11 years.”

In a YouGov poll, the Conservatives are top of the pile with 37 per cent of the popular vote while the Labour Party have dipped to 35 per cent.

But could the departure of Denis and the upsurge in Tory support be linked by more than a shared front page? One nasty slip on a wet paving stone and Iain Duncan Smith could be king.

Come on Maggie, chin up – the nation needs you…

‘

Posted: 27th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Queen’s Ransom

”’GAWD save yer, guv’nor. Spare a bit of change for an OAP. I’ve got four kids and a train to support. Me mum and sister have just died, and me ‘usband don’t understand me.”

”Come on, hand it over. And the rings…”

Touched by her openness and warmth, you all hand over the required 60p each it takes to keep the old bird going on for another year.

As the Times says, this largesse equates to the £36.2 million per annum needed to run the Queen. And, to save her going crown-in-hand for her funds, those nice men in government take it all as a form of tax.

And we would not have it any other way. Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse, reminds us all, via the Times, that: ”We are not necessarily seeking the cheapest monarchy.”

If we were, would we allow the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent to live rent-free in Kensington Palace for years?

Or permit the Duke of York, in his guise as President of the Football Association, to spend around £35,000 of taxpayers’ cash watching last year’s World Cup?

We are though refreshed to hear, in the Telegraph, that the Queen will not be distributing any cash to do up two rooms in Clarence House used by Prince Charles’ friend Camilla Parker Bowles.

The bedroom and bathroom frequented by the lady who might yet be Queen are not part of the Clarence House renovation project (funded by the taxpayer to the tune of £4.4m) and will be financed from the Prince’s private income.

As a result the spaces will enjoy a ”basic finish”. There will no chandeliers or gold-plated taps.

The rooms will contain a simple bed made from the husks of organic peapods, a few insipid watercolours on the walls and, blocking all the natural window light, a large Mother-In-Law’s Tongue called Liz.

‘

Posted: 27th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Campbell Cleans Up

‘SPORTING a large bristling moustache, a beret and flanked by three identical looking minders, the Prime Minister’s spin-doctor Alastair Campbell sat before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Commons and went on the offensive.

A sexed-up Alastair Campbell

The Committee’s MPs, who had, most likely, planned to pin their man into corner on the matter of the two Iraq dossiers – one ”dodgy”; one ”sexed up” – found themselves on the receiving end.

On the question as to whether the dossiers’ contents were designed to justify Britain going to war with Saddam Hussein, the Times hears Campbell say how there ”was new intelligence which had been cleaned up for public use”.

How thoughtful of him and his men to change confusing words like ”opposition” to the more evocative and easy to understand ”terrorists”.

This was not done lightly, says Campbell, but at the behest of unnamed ”experts”, and not by members of his team looking to push a particular pro-war line.

Which is nothing like life at the BBC, where ”large parts” of the national broadcaster have an ”agenda” on Iraq, according to the man in the frame.

”When you have got this bad journalism amid the good, I think you have a responsibility to admit that,” the Times hears Campbell say.

”Something has gone very wrong with BBC journalism…and they better issue an apology pretty quick.”

And in a flash the bruiser becomes the victim.

The Independent hears Campbell go on at considerable length about the Beeb, which dared to suggest that the Government had sexed up the dossiers to win popular support for a military advance into Iraq.

It’s a ”lie”, says Campbell.

In the spirit of fairness, the paper hears from the BBC, which in a statement says: ”We do not feel the BBC has anything to apologise for.”

The sentence was then ”cleaned up”, with the word ”not” gone and ”anything” amended to ”everything”. And at once all was right in Tony’s kingdom…

‘

Posted: 26th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Away With Words

‘LANGUAGE and meaning are a recurring theme in today’s newspapers.

A is for Autocutie

Having learnt that the words ”opposition” and ”terrorists” are interchangeable, the Telegraph opens up the new Collins English Dictionary and finds a few new twists and turns.

There are now 5,500 new words in the English language which qualify for an entry into the book.

A ”chew-‘n’-spew” is a fast-food restaurant. An ”autocutie” is a young, attractive but inexperienced female TV presenter.

Other – and these may be of interest to Alastair Campbell and his minions – are new takes on what the paper calls ”contemporary obsessions”.

So we have ”road map, ”regime change”, ”WMD”, and ”stealth tax”.

Plagiarism, cheating, passing off and other ways of pretending the work of another, say, someone like Dr Al-Marashi, whose academic work is known in Government circles as a ”dossier”, are all words that remain unchanged in their meaning.

But the Telegraph says that the new dictionary includes elements of weblish – a form of English favoured by visitors to Internet chat rooms and, one supposes, by definition paedophiles and hunch-backed perverts.

Key ones to know are IYKWIMAITYD (If you know what I mean and I think you do), BBL (Be back later) and HYSAWMDOASMWAM? (Have you seen any weapons of mass destruction or a swarthy man with a moustache?)

‘

Posted: 26th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Cell-Mates & Soul Mates

‘WITH this simple sword of truth, I thee wed. Take this trusty shield of British fair play and wear it as a symbol of all we shall share.”

”’Til death or a nasty libel case do us part…”

And so it was that Jonathan Aitken, the ex-lag and former Tory cabinet minister, married for the second time yesterday.

The Guardian was there to take a photo of Aitken stepping from the church with new wife Elizabeth Harris, ”sometime wife” of the late actors Richard Harris and Rex Harrison, and also the ex of Jonathan’s cousin Peter.

Others who were there to see the man who was once sentenced to 18 months for perjury make his vows before God in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, were Lord Lamont, Lord Weatherill, Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Micky ”Spider” Aguda, a one-time cell-mate of the groom, who entered the church via a half-inch gap in a skylight.

”He is a mate and has found himself a brilliant woman,” says Mr Aguda. ”I looked after him all the time he was away and he never said anything about getting married again.”

But would you or any of us have believed him if he had?

‘

Posted: 26th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Grasping At Straw

‘THE war in Iraq has not only toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, it is threatening to deliver a damaging blow to what’s left of the credibility of Britain’s domestic government.

Straw dogged

While the Times leads with the grim news that six British Army personnel in Iraq have been killed in guerrilla-style attacks, the Independent watches Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s appearance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

Much of this latest Iraqi incursion has been about things that have not been found: Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction and a painless way out of the desert.

But Straw is sure that Saddam had cruel intentions ”consistent with his previous behaviour of lying and cheating”.

A condition that makes the fallen despot nothing at all like this Government, which, as the Independent reminds readers by way of some reproduced pages of the dossier ”Iraq – its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation”, is one of rare probity.

For those who cannot remember this work, the paper reminds us of its more popular working title: ”The dodgy dossier.”

Reports pointed out that this dossier contained large chunks of already published academic articles and at least one student thesis.

Yesterday, the Indy learnt that thanks to the wonders of modern technology, manifest in something called a ”revision log”, the identity of those who cribbed and cheated can be known.

The four people whose names have fallen off this wondrously slippery log all worked for a Government unit created by none other than Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s director of spin.

Yesterday this document, which was intended to win popular support for a military offensive in Iraq, was called a mere ”briefing document for journalists” and ”a Horlicks” by Mr Straw.

Today it’s the turn of Alastair Campbell to appear before the Commons committee and tell us what he thinks it is.

Front-runners are a ”chewing gum wrapper”, ”Euan Blair’s homework” and, our favourite, ”a letter of resignation”.

‘

Posted: 25th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mummy Knows Best

‘IT is hard to visualise the 6,265lb of cocaine seized by police and customs in 2001.

”Where have my two kids gone?”

Far easier to picture a line of the intoxicating white powder disappearing up Lord Frederick Windsor’s retrousse nose.

But this does not make Freddie a junkie. As the Telegraph hears Freddie’s mater, Princess Michael of Kent, state: ”He’s down as a drug-user but he’s not.”

Problem is that the 24-year-old had admitted to having used drugs, a confession that somewhat reduces his mother’s assessment of things.

But no-one knows a boy like his mum. ”You just have to watch him in action,” the ironically nicknamed Princess Pushy presses on. ”Freddie isn’t a junkie.”

You’d imagine that Princess Michael would like the matter to rest there. But let’s go on.

She says that Freddie ”finally…gave in” to drugs after ”he was teased” for not knowing what drugs were all about.

But how can this be? Especially since the Princess regales us with a story of how when Freddie was 12 or 13 she took him to a drug rehabilitation centre by way of an education.

”While we were there, what looked like an old woman came up and told us, ‘I’m 17. I haven’t got a tooth in my head. I have had two children I’ve never seen. Do you want to be like me?”’

The Princess then tells us the world how ”tough” Freddie was sick in the garden when he left, he was so shocked.

And not a drug addict. Because as Freddie knows, drugs takers are all 17-year-old girls with poor dental hygiene and two missing children.

Freddie is male, has superb horse-like dentures and has never knowingly sired anything.

So he cannot be a drugs user. End of.

‘

Posted: 25th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Safety Call

‘DID you know there was a road safety minister? Well, there is, and his name is, er, hang on, it’s, er, David Jamieson.

Anon

He’s a hard working lad is this minister, and he’s been telling the Guardian that it’s high time the roads were made safer. That is, after all, what the road safety minister does – he makes the roads safer.

Having worked tirelessly to reduce the speed of road traffic to 1.3 miles-per-hour, a velocity where accidents are rarely fatal, the minister is now keen to clamp down hard on people who use their mobile phones whilst driving.

From December 1, anyone caught driving while holding a phone in one hand or in the crook of their shoulder will be fined £30. This can be increased to a maximum of £1,000 if the matter makes it to court.

”Our decision to introduce this new offence will make the roads safer for all,” says the road safety minister, David Whatshisname.

Other road safety measures in the pipeline involve making traffic lights stay on red for 10 minutes at a time, lacing Magic Trees with smelling salts and stationing a policeman in each and every motor vehicle.

‘

Posted: 25th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Fishy Tanks

‘IN a major show of support for British military kit, our friends in the Indonesian government have been parading some of our weapons in the little known Aceh province.

Made in Britain, fired in Indonesia

Melting boots, non-firing guns, wrongly sized uniforms and dodgy tanks might not be the best way to go into battle against a well-drilled professional and well-equipped army, but against a ragtag bag of insurgents they get the job done.

Why then does the Guardian accuse the Government of going against it own much-vaunted ”ethical foreign policy”?

The paper has failed to spot that the deployment of 36 British-made Scorpion light tanks is a clever piece of diplomacy: the Indonesians get to look tough, and the separatists get to walk away unscathed.

Just listen to what Indonesia’s Colonel Ditya Sudarsono has to say on the matter.

The army man says that that tanks will be used ”offensively” but ”not used to violate civilians’ human rights”.

Of course, when they have no rights, it’s pretty easy to avoid abusing them.

But still Foreign Office minister Mike O’Brien has been in Jakarta to urge local president, the powerfully named Megawati Sukarnoputri, not to use British arms against insurgents or in violation of those human rights.

But why worry when none of the weapons work properly anyway? If she wants to really attack the populace, Megawati should do what the British do and borrow some gear from the Americans…

‘

Posted: 24th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Going To Potter

‘MAGIC is at work. The Times has news of strange words and paragraphs appearing in the latest Harry Potter adventure.

Harry’s raunchy sex scenes were deleted from some versions of the book

Chile Brayfield, a 22-year-old children’s book reader from Kent, says that her copy has 48 pages missing.

”It had just got very exciting,” says Chile. ”Harry had just found out something horrible.”

And what it was she, or is Chile a he, will never know – not until she buys or begs another copy.

And by spooky coincidence, Amy Crowther, 28, (we trust that’s her age in months and not years) also had 48 pages missing from her edition, but from a different part of the book.

And so the tales of disappearing words go on. Over to Katie Collins, of the publishers Bloomsbury, for some words of her own.

She says that someone in Chester reported a chapter in the wrong place. Another Potter fan located a chapter upside down. And in Australia, 10,000 copies had two entire chapters mysteriously vanish.

Luckily, the Bishop of Bristol, the Right Rev Michael Hill, is not mincing his words. He says that Harry Potter is turning children into ”commercial slaves”.

”The Church needs to ask some questions of the society we find ourselves in,” he says.

And so it should. Questions like: ”How much is my upside copy worth?”; ”Is Potter an Anglican?”; and ”Has JK Rowling ever thought about writing a version of the Bible?”

‘

Posted: 24th, June 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment