RAGGED Right is a look at some of the gems the nation’s columnists shower upon us with dizzying frequency because they have a financial requirement to write something new at least once a week. Actually, many of them don’t write something new – they bang the same drum over and over again which, in a way, is entertaining in itself.
The Ephraim Hardcastle column in the Daily Telegraph, February 24, 2011:
Ex-Foreign Secretary David Miliband is busy on Twitter, tweeting: ‘Great honour to Egyptian people today. People power has forced regime change. Needs equal focus and discipline to bring in something better.’ Aren’t the benighted Twitterati fortunate to benefit from his masterly foreign policy analysis?
This is an interesting illustration for people seeking an easy life expressing their opinions in the world of print media. Usually, in a column of bite-sized pieces like this, one is expected to be witty and entertaining. As you can see it’s not always the case.
AN Wilson rages about what he sees as the completely unnecessary 918 tick boxes in the forthcoming census, in the Daily Mail, February 23, 2011:
Admittedly, the religion question is optional. But, in a sense, it is a less intrusive question to ask someone’s religion than to peer into their sexual preferences — or, come to that, bossily inquire whether they have gas or electric heating devices.
Cripes. Not the dreaded gas or electric heating devices tick box. I hope there’s a coal-in-the-bath-option.
Stephen Glover pens a huge, rambling piece on the Labour Party allegedly doing deals with Colonel Gaddafi, in the Daily Mail, February 22, 2011:
The man is a monster, and mad and corrupt as well. Yet, starting in 2004, Labour set out to appease him and make deals with him.
The rotters. I expect, though, that somewhere in this huge, rambling piece there will be a reference to Margaret Thatcher buying oil off Gaddafi during the 1984 miners strike, the same year the Libyans murdered PC Yvonne Fletcher? There will be, won’t there? What, there isn’t?
Richard Littlejohn’s having trouble keeping up with events in the Arab world, in the Daily Mail, February 22, 2011:
Today’s hotspot is Libya. By tomorrow, it could be Morocco, or Dubai. Who can tell? All we do know is that the Middle East is in a state of flux. We are not in a position to influence anything.
But if we really tried to influence events, Dickie, perhaps we could find a way.
Yet smack dab in the centre of all this, Call Me Dave jets into Egypt. He is the first Western leader to visit the country since Mubarak was toppled. Why?
Er . . . because he’s in a position to influence events.
Leo McKinstry, afraid that events in the Arab world will unleash a tide of Islam that will sweep across Christendom and swamp Margate, cannot resist having a pop at a “socialist” villain, in the Daily Express, February 21, 2011:
In Libya the autocratic Colonel Gaddafi, whose tyranny mixes Islamism with socialist ideology and Arab nationalism, has reacted with typical ferocity at the challenge to his power.
Peculiarly, McKinstry fails to mention that the other leaders under threat are – to a man – rabid right-wing capitalist despots and tyrannical monarchists who would be as comfortable watching polo among the upper echelons of British society as in their desert palaces. Watch out for Gaddafi, though. The bounder’s a red.
Fraser Nelson on government cuts, in the News of the World, February 20, 2011:
Up and down the country, we see lollipop men under threat while expensive, useless five-a-day advisers stay put.
So what’s David Cameron doing about it then, Nelly?
Cam has just hired a Whitehall warrior, Paul Kirby from KPMG, to make sure government departments cut the fat not the flesh.
I see. He’s hired an adviser. Would he be an expensive, useless five-a-day one, then?
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, February 17, 2011:
Some people still yearn for the days of Dixon of Dock Green, with a friendly bobby on every beat. Foot patrols have virtually disappeared in some areas, especially in the countryside.
Why’s that then? Could it be because the countryside is mostly open space with nothing in it?
Leo McKinstry attacks the bankers and financiers who have ruined our economy yet still award themselves grotesque bonuses while the rest of us face redundancy and cuts to services, in the Daily Express, February 17, 2011:
The machinery of the state seems to have become a giant protection racket for the criminal classes while the law-abiding public is neglected or punished.
Oops. Sorry. Reading further, he’s on about something that happened to a flooring firm boss in Essex.
Earlier this week, David Cameron said: “We need social recovery to mend the broken society, and that to me is what the Big Society is all about.” Matthew Norman responds in the Independent, February 16, 2011:
Have you ever, in all your puff, met such utter cobblers? To saddle a sentence with one specious societal cliché, the “broken society”, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lumber it with two, by lobbing in the Big One, looked like an attempt to disguise befuddlement by creating a Manichean struggle between two entities that do not exist.
Oi. That’s too clever for this website. Bugger off.
Larry the Cat, No 10’s much publicised rat catcher, writes a guest column in the Daily Telegraph, and after a litter of milk-warm moggy jokes about George Osborne and Nick Clegg, concludes with these words – February 16, 2011:
Dave, bless him, just smiled at them both. “I think he’ll fit right in here, actually,” he said. “Apparently, he has a very strong predatory drive. Perfect for the political world.” After they’d left, he picked me up and started stroking me, muttering something about a “Claws Four moment”. Humans, eh?
Stick to ratting, pal.
David Robson bashes Jamie Oliver’s attempt to instil motivation in British children, while comparing them with hard-working eastern Europeans, in the Daily Express, February 15, 2011:
Jamie’s next project is called Dream School and it has famous people – historian David Starkey, poet Andrew Motion, Alastair Campbell and Robert Winston among others – attempting to teach school dropouts. It sounds about as unreal as it gets. What’s the point? And what’s Polish or Lithuanian for nonsense?
Similarly, we could ask: what’s the point of Robson’s column? There’s only one word for it. Actually, there are several: niedorzeczność; głupoty; bajka; bzdura; bezsens.
Leo McKinstry on the TUC, Labour Party and local councils complaining about the cuts, in the Daily Express, February 14, 2011:
What is entirely missing from this crescendo of indignation about the cuts is any recognition of economic realities.
Honestly. No stiff upper lip; no backbone. They should jolly well sacrifice their jobs, their homes and their children’s futures and shower praise on the bankers who created the economic reality. After all, they’re getting a royal wedding, the ungrateful tykes.
Some columnists do humour well. Others don’t. Here’s Fraser Nelson in the News of the World, February 13, 2011:
RUSSIAN astronomers have warned that an asteroid called Apophis will hit the earth on April 13, 2036. Two reasons not to worry. One: The ex-MP Lembit Opik once claimed the same. Two: Russian astronomers use empty vodka bottles as telescopes.
Is this funny? No it is not. Have another go . . .
IT’S Gordon Brown’s 60th birthday next Sunday. I imagine that Labour intends to celebrate by throwing huge parties, and then leaving the bill for the Tories to pay.
Is this funny? No it is not. Have another go . . . Er, no. Don’t.
The charming Lucy Jones is having trouble making plans for the royal wedding – too much red tape apparently – in the Daily Telegraph, February 11, 2011:
If you haven’t already started planning your royal wedding street party, then I suggest you get cracking.
Right-o Lucy. I’ll just put the kettle on first. Have you run into a spot of bother?
The Kate ’n’ Wills salt and pepper shakers were on order along with the tablecloths. I could sit back and relax. Until, that is, I read about the council in Essex which this week banned a royal wedding street party because it was going to be on a bus route.
Honestly. Surely they could have moved the tables to let the buses through. The jobsworths.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, February 11, 2011:
Camilla has been spotted handing out advice to Kate Middleton over lunch at a swanky London restaurant. Wouldn’t you just love to have been a fly on the wall?
Not particularly. And if you’re going to launch into one of your desperately unfunny make-believe conversations we’ll stop this right now. You’re not, are you? Oh . . .
Leo McKinstry’s Friday rant. This week he tells us why there are so many young thugs on our streets, in the Daily Express, February 11, 2011:
The justice system has become so soft because of a malign cocktail of sentimentality and Marxism.
Those judges with their Che Guevara T-shirts and raffia sandals, spouting off about the oppression of the proletariat – why don’t they just sod off to Moscow, or Islington, or wherever it is they sod off to these days? Doncaster perhaps.
Virginia Blackburn on Birgit Cunningham, the single mother who has “done the dirty with the very married Lord Strathclyde” (who appears to be an innocent bystander as opposed to the bloke who jumped willingly and regularly into her bed), in the Daily Express, February 10, 2011:
You wouldn’t expect much else from Birgit – this is, after all, the woman who shoved a chocolate éclair in the face of a government minister in front of many dozens of waiting cameras.
That’s just too much. A slice of Little Venice Cake Company Valentine Heart perhaps, but a chocolate éclair is so very Marks and Spencer.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, February 8, 2011:
A woman on the wireless yesterday was complaining that the music industry discriminates against the blind. I take it she’s never heard of Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder — or Blind Lemon Jefferson.
In the countless hundreds of thousands of musicians who’ve entertained the world between Blind Lemon Jefferson’s birth in 1893 and now, Dickie’s managed to name three blind ones. Keep counting.
Max Hastings on the Government’s plan to sell off the nation’s forests, in the Daily Mail, February 7, 2011:
I do not believe anyone in their right mind, including David Cameron, seriously intends to allow Britain’s woodlands to be despoiled.
As an exercise to illustrate a track record, replace the word “woodlands” with any of the following: aircraft carrier capability; Harrier jump jets; flood defences; healthcare system; university education; school refurbishment programme; library services; culture; and any one of a number of nationally important issues back to coal industry, steelmaking and shipbuilding.
Melanie Phillips remonstrates against moving BBC’s Question Time to Glasgow and the problem of finding a replacement for the editor, who has resigned in protest, in the Daily Mail, February 7, 2011:
The prospect of the BBC finding a replacement who is as able and experienced in national political programming – and crucially, who will also want to live in Glasgow – is remote, frankly.
I see what she means. Nothing but stovies and white pudding to eat. And those shipyard hooters going off just when someone’s making a crucial point about the influence of Islam in the Pony Club. And then there’s the inevitable problem of drunks in the audience. Not to mention the fact no one speaks English.
Fraser Nelson on the Government’s cuts, in the News of the World, February 6, 2011:
To try to get Britain back in the black, Cam is carrying out very mild cuts, of just over 1 per cent a year.
In the unreal, disjointed world inhabited by those cocooned by wealth and privilege, the 150,000 workers made redundant so far by Cam’s “mild” cuts are a price worth paying to preserve that wealth and privilege. Any more wise words from Nelson?
Barclay’s didn’t take a penny of taxpayers’ money – so why should we care if its boss, Bob Diamond, is paid a £7million bonus?
In the unreal, disjointed world inhabited by those cocooned by wealth and privilege, greed grows in proportion to the suffering inflicted on those below. And so, apparently, does ignorance.
Victoria Coren on the forthcoming royal wedding, in the Observer, February 6, 2011:
And now it turns out we will be throwing street parties under an array of coloured flags. I’m very happy for these two young people and wish them luck, but I can’t help being tickled at the thought of us actually feasting in the street, celebrating the union and fertility of the future king. It’s not just tribal, it’s insectoid.
Pardon me, but may I just say on behalf of the moths, butterflies, ladybirds, grasshoppers, and countless dozens of other varieties of British insect who read the Observer, that not all of us indulge in such crude and human-like behaviour when it comes celebrating the union of two bright young things. So buzz off.
Peter Hitchens on the Egypt crisis, the power of the EU and the fall of communism, in the Mail on Sunday, February 6, 2011:
Would I, knowing what I know now, have been so keen on the liberation of Eastern Europe 20 years ago? No. I would in the end have sacrificed their freedom in return for ours. And if I am ruthlessly honest – as I ought to be – I would sacrifice the freedom of the people of Egypt for my prosperity and stability, if that is the bargain on offer. And I think it is. There, I’ve said it.
Question: The Titanic’s sinking fast and there’s one place left in the last lifeboat. At the head of the queue stands a young mother with a baby in her arms, and behind her Peter Hitchen. Who grabs the seat . . . ? Correct.
William Langley indulges in the newspaper commentators’ latest sport, Bercow Bashing, but employs an old and hackneyed trick, in the Daily Telegraph, February 5, 2011:
Even the view across London from their grace-and-favour quarters struck her as “incredibly sexy”. To underscore the point, Sally was photographed in her window bay, starkers but for a scrap of bedding, while in the background the Big Ben clock tower, rich with Freudian import, soared into the velvety night sky.
When you want to belittle someone in a position of power, just point out that their home is owned and paid for by the state. But don’t, for heaven’s sake, use it willy-nilly. One must never, for instance, say Mr Cameron returned to his grace-and-favour quarters in Downing Street, or the Queen, God bless her, returned to her grace-and-favour palace after a day killing pheasants.
Frederick Forsyth on suicide bombers, in the Daily Express, February 4, 2011:
I KNOW it’s wrong to treat lightly the ending of a human life but I couldn’t repress a grin at the news out of Moscow that a female suicide bomber was rehearsing her act of mass murder by trying on her explosive jacket. The trigger mechanism was a message by mobile phone linked to the jacket. Her handler, miles away, rang to wish her a fruitful new year. Unfortunately, that was the coded message. The Russian police are still wiping the ceiling.
Laugh? We really split our sides. Honestly, they don’t half know how to have a good time at the Express. Oh, well, time to move on to the poetry section.
Under a headline that says “David Cameron has caved in to those waging war against the family”, Peter Oborne makes this observation in the Daily Telegraph, February 3, 2011:
It is a curious fact that all revolutionary movements, from Christianity to the Bolsheviks, have been viscerally hostile to the family. The most troubling part of the gospels concerns Jesus’s remark that: “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” For a believer such as myself, this comment is terribly difficult to explain.
My God he is so RIGHT. Jesus should have followed the example of the family-friendly Herod and learnt some compassion.
Harriet Sergeant on the new website that maps crime street by street, in the Daily Mail, February 2, 2011:
Three cheers for Policing Minister Nick Herbert and his new Home Office website. At the touch of a button millions can now see how much crime goes on in their street – or any street in the country.
This is great. I’m waiting for the updated version that shows tax evasion.
Quentin Letts, while painting a vivid picture of Black Rod’s retirement, inadvertently illustrates just what’s wrong with this country, in the Daily Mail, February 2, 2011:
Lord Strathclyde paid eloquent tribute to the retiring Sir Freddie. Lady Royall, for Labour, coughed up her own compliments but slightly spoilt her speech by calling him ‘Block Rod’, which sounds like a plumber’s solution to sewage seepage. She also said ‘Lootenant General’ instead of ‘Leftenant General’. Oh dear.
Oh dear, indeed. These Labour ladies just can’t get their tongues round their vowels. We can assume, though, that Lord Strathclyde would have no such trouble following last week’s revelations that he’s been bonking a single mother in a flat above a chip shop. No mention of that, funnily enough.
Neil Hamilton in the Sunday Express, January 30, 2011:
GORDON Brown rivals Bernie Madoff as one of the great fraudsters of our time.
Sorry, who’s just said that? Neil Hamilton? Right.
Julia Hartley-Brewer on the Sky Sports sexism furore, in the Sunday Express, January 30, 2011:
IN MY first proper job as a news reporter, the male journalist sitting opposite me would regularly attempt to blow some small item or other from his desk through an empty matchbox aimed at my cleavage. More often than not, despite my ample decolletage, he missed. Sometimes he scored a direct hit, when he and the other male reporters would shout: “Goal!”
We don’t need this imagery. Gray and Keys have a lot to answer for.
Nick Ferrari in the Sunday Express, January 30, 2011:
Whether it is politics, commerce, law, or even the dreaded media, the widely held belief is that it is more who you know than what you know and they are likely to be more interested in the colour of your old school tie than the quality of your last school report. Broadly speaking, it’s probably about right and I say Thank God for that!
Basically, it’s okay to be thick so long as you went to a posh school. Right.
Peter Hitchens on the Sky Sports sexism furore, in the Mail on Sunday, January 30, 2011:
I hate professional football and everything about it.
So you’re not going to waste our time by dedicating hundreds of words to it then, are you? Oh, you are . . .
Giles Coren enters the Sky Sports sexism debate and argues that women are worse than men, in the Daily Mail, January 27, 2011:
As a teenager, I was terribly shy about sex and yet girls were trying to do it with me all the time. I used to run, literally run, from their bedrooms when they tried it on.
This is a problem many of us have encountered. I used to find that not going into their bedrooms in the first place usually did the trick.
Quentin Letts describes the back-bench business committee, chaired by Labour MP Natascha Engel, and four female MPs who appear before it to put their case for a parliamentary debate on International Women’s Day, in the Daily Mail, January 26, 2011:
Next up were four women who had been gossiping away so noisily that Miss Engel had been required to demand hush. These four hens were Eleanor Laing and Mary Macleod, Tory, Kate Green and Sheila Gilmore, Labour. Cluck, cluckety, cluck.
Come back Andy Gray, all is forgiven.
Ann Widdecombe describes how a friend went to the aid of an elderly man who collapsed in the street – while the rest of the public walked around the scene or ignored it. She blames Britain’s modern society, in the Daily Express, January 26, 2011:
How many of us if we heard screams or cries for help would stop what we were doing and summon the police? It is a sad but unsurprising comment on today’s Britain that the answer must be: not very many.
Modern Britain? Luke 10:25-37: “Jesus answered, ‘A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead . . ’.” Do we need to go any further with this?
Peter McKay on the alleged affair between the former Shadow Chancellor’s wife, Laura Johnson, and her protection officer, in the Daily Mail, January 24, 2011:
Presumably, Rice’s affair with Mrs Johnson was consensual. For all I know, it was initiated by Mrs Johnson. So it doesn’t seem entirely fair that Rice is the only one punished.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I think his punishment stems from the fact he was being paid to do one job but was doing another at the same time. Durrrr . . .
Leo McKinstry discusses Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, and in the process manages to debase the meaning of the word “privilege”, in the Daily Express, January 24, 2011:
The two Eds are remarkably similar creatures. Born into privilege as the sons of successful academics, both of them went to Oxford where they studied politics.
“Privilege” has two definitions in the Daily Express style book. 1) Rich people who can pay for their own health care and education, and maintain a certain station in society without expending energy; 2) Poor people whose families can afford their own health care and education, and maintain a certain station in society because they are intelligent and work damned hard. Miliband is, in fact, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, his mother being a Holocaust survivor. That’s privilege, eh?
Fraser Nelson in the News of the World, January 23, 2011:
SPURS manager Harry Redknapp says he was mugged in Madrid. But all sports stars are mugged in Britain – by the outrageous 50p tax. Already Lewis Hamilton has left for Switzerland. Word is that Spanish golf ace Sergio Garcia is now avoiding Britain, refusing to hand over most of his winnings to the Government. High taxes make everyone poorer.
As result of reading this, three unemployed single mothers have set up the charity Tax Aid for Stupendously Rich Sports Personalities. Apparently various organisations for the homeless, the newly bereaved and limbless servicemen have pledged their support.
Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday, January 23, 2011:
Should Muslims adapt to Britain, or should Britain adapt to Muslims?
Another columnist who can’t get his head round the fact (see Littlejohn below) that people who happen to share a religion are just that – people; individuals with lives and dreams and thoughts and aspirations. There are 55,000 Britons living in the United Arab Emirates and 47,000 in Pakistan. A total of 5.5 million Britons live abroad. How many have embraced the culture of their adopted country? Exactly. And why should they? Pillock.
Richard Littlejohn on Baroness Warsi’s assertion that Islamophobia is taken for granted in Britain, in the Daily Mail, January 21, 2011:
Most of us just think anyone who wears a burka in Britain is barking mad and wonder why someone who so utterly rejects our society and our liberal values would want to live here. Surely they would be much happier in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.
Ah, the dulled mind of Maildom speaks, and assumes we all accept that Islam is one vast consciousness, one sprawling mass with one objective – and not just a bunch of ordinary people who happen to share a religion. If only Littlejohn accepted that, in an equally ridiculous lumpen mass of Christendom, he could be much happier on Ascension Island or Terra del Fuego the world would be a much better place.
Leo McKinstry advocates the use of the European Convention on Nationality as a means of destroying the grip of European Union, in the Daily Express, January 20, 2011:
We have to start the fight-back. The eU should be forced to abide by its own legal requirement to respect our “right to a nationality”. After years of imposing its demands on us Brussels should be subjected to a class action lawsuit from British citizens seeking to have our basic rights upheld. For too long we have been pushed around by alien rulers who despise our nation and our heritage.
And coal bunkers. When did anyone last build a house with a coal bunker? That’s the EU for you and its regulations. Don’t get me started. They’re destroying our culture. And what about the Saturday afternoon wrestling? The bastards. And Reckitt’s Dolly Blue? Put my name down for this class action lawsuit, whatever that is when it’s at home.
Stephen Glover on a gay couple’s court victory after they were denied accommodation at a seaside hotel, in the Daily Mail, January 20, 2011:
Arguably their suspicions should have been raised when they made a booking at a hotel which boasts on its website that it is a ‘family house’ and ‘a family-run business run for families’, though there was no requirement to inspect the website.
And here’s me forgetting that gays don’t have families, are not part of families, and would never be associated with a family-run business. As they might say in Royston Vasey: A family hotel for family people.
Ann Widdecombe on the scourge of female MPs, in the Daily Express, January 19, 2011:
David Cameron went out of his way to “broaden” his party in Parliament and particularly to woo young women and fill the benches with single mothers, chick-lit writers and media types rather than with sobersides bankers and lawyers
The halfwit. Bring back the sobersides bankers.
The Reverend Peter Mullen’s pay-off line in the Northern Echo, January 18, 2011:
Miliband will preside over an extreme left wing government. When that happens, I should like to revive the old slogan: “Will the last person to leave Britain please turn the lights out.”
What this lacks in originality it makes up for in dullness.
Richard Littlejohn on a scientific report that suggests climate change could have contributed to the fall of the Roman empire, in the Daily Mail, January 18, 2011:
Funny, I don’t remember global warming being mentioned in relation to the fall of Rome when I was at school. If this is true, it will have profound implications. We’ll have to rewrite Up Pompeii, for a start.
No. Please, Dickie. No. You’re not going to launch into that corny old formula of yours where your column becomes a mock TV script, are you? You are? Woe, woe and thrice woe . . .
Following her brush last week with Tolkien monsters, Virginia Blackburn is still doing her reality/unreality thing. Today she’s discussing the daughters of the former Tunisian president who have fled into exile and are living at the Disneyland Hotel, Paris, in the Daily Express, January 17, 2011:
It would be unkind to point out that a Mickey Mouse presidency has now ended up in the home of the real thing.
Virg. Mickey Mouse isn’t real. Sorry.
Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express, January 17, 2011:
FILLED with barbaric hatred and envy, Islamic extremists constantly plot the downfall of our civilisation. Tragically for us they have an ally in their lethal cause: the elite of the European Union.
Shhhhhhhh. Quiet children. Close the door softly and he’ll be better by teatime.
Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday, January 16, 2011:
The New Liberal Conservative Party has fought – and nearly won – its first by-election.
Bugger. I missed that one. The only result I saw was Oldham East and Saddleworth, where the Tories got absolutely shafted and Labour increased its majority over the Lib Dems by 3,000 votes. I really should pay more attention.
Julia Hartley-Brewer discussing education while on holiday in Thailand, in the Sunday Express, January 16, 2011:
The Finns, I learned, all speak Finnish, Swedish and English virtually from the cradle. Yet most of us Brits could barely manage to put together a grammatically correct English sentence if our lives depended upon it.
My advice to you, Missis, is change papers.
The Richard and Judy column discusses Tania Garwood, the mother who shopped her son, Edward Woollard, for throwing a fire extinguisher during the student riots in London, in the Daily Express, January 15, 2011:
I’m not surprised at her shock. Because she may well have just ruined her son’s future. Young offenders institutions are bleak, tough places, full of young men in mental torment who will make Edward’s life hell. Because he is a middle-class student they will see him as “posh” and privileged.
Blimey. I hadn’t realised until now that all the scumbags in young offenders’ institutions are working-class scumbags. Good job Edward is a middle-class scumbag or this column wouldn’t have been written.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, January 14, 2011:
Speaking of Diane Abbott, she popped up recently on an episode of Come Dine With Me. As my old dad used to say: I’d rather feed her for a week than a fortnight.
Wahey. An indication that Littlejohn’s house is festooned with distorting mirrors.
The Ephraim Hardcastle column in the Daily Mail, January 13, 2011:
President Barack Obama’s apparent dislike of the UK and preference for France is said to be related to the imprisonment and torture of his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama – an army cook – by British soldiers in troubled 1950s Kenya.
I say, old chep. Just slipped in there that the bounder was an army cook – to show what we think of the rotter. Sleight of hand, hey? Best not tell the readers that old Hussein Onyango was violently tortured by our lads to the point he was too traumatised to speak, was permanently scarred and required assistance to move for the rest of his life. Another drink, old chep?
Times are hard and there are too few jobs for women. But Harry Phibbs has the answer, in the Daily Mail, January 13, 2011:
If women were able to sign up to a waiver on certain rights then I think more of them would get work. Better still would be to scrap statutory maternity pay altogether. That would boost economic growth, reduce unemployment and increase flexibility.
Sorted. O Lordy! Get in dem fields, gals, and pick dat cotton.
Virginia Blackburn, while slagging off circuses and a particularly grotesque eastern European example, strays into the land of Morder then inadvertently blunders into an even worse place, in the Daily Express, January 13, 2011:
One chap fell off his bike three times in two minutes, while there were complaints that the show boasted of having various creatures that do not actually exist (orcs and turantons – the real thing had been offered despite existing only in the pages of JRR Tolkien).
Hobbits, dwarfs and Express readers can cope with orcs – in the daylight at least – but no self respecting turanton ever strayed onto a page of Tolkien. A swift tour of cyber space on the wings of a Nazgul suggests a turanton is either a wargame character or something that got lost in translation between the Belarusian city of Vitebsk and Ms Blackburn’s column. Still, a very entertaining read, precious.
Simon Heffer on university admissions, in the Daily Telegraph, January 12, 2011:
Much is said about the rights of people from state schools to have a university education. Where, though, is the kindness of admitting them to universities where they cannot meet the intellectual demands – not because they are stupid, but because they have been so badly prepared?
Cor. ’E’s right. I ain’t looked at it like that befower. Be kind to mah kids, Mister ’Effer, and send ’em dahn the bleedin’ chimneys.
Daily Mail columnists have a poke at Bob Diamond, the slightly-overpaid boss of Barclays – but instead of being drawn by the colour of his money they are obsessed by the colour of his hair. First Quentin Letts, January 12, 2011:
I was standing by the door when Mr Diamond, one of the highest-paid players in world banking, arrived for his session with the Treasury Select Committee. Shortish fellow, weak chin, poor complexion. Wears his hair with maybe a hint of henna.
Not to be outdone, the Ephraim Hardcastle column has a snip:
At 59, Diamond retains a full head of impressively dark hair. But would its colour survive a sharp shower of rain?
Right. That’s the priorities out of the way . . .
Nick Ferrari on the effects of the icy weather, in the Sunday Express, December 26, 2010:
THE only thing missing was a Closed sign. This week GB plc hit a new low in bungling incompetence and coupled with the creeping paralysis of health and safety made us the laughing stock of the world.
Somehow it’s reassuring to know that while thousands of ordinary people are toiling in freezing conditions to keep this country moving, there’s always some smart-arsed, lardy-cheeked, puffy-palmed journalist who probably doesn’t know the difference between a shovel and a spade sitting in an air-conditioned office opting for the easy option of slagging people off rather that lifting his sights to earn his wage.
Julia Hartley-Brewer entertains us with an A to Z of 2010, in the Sunday Express, December 26, 2010:
O is for the rather large BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was, the eco-bores insisted, the world’s biggest environmental disaster until it, well, just sort of wasn’t any more.
That’s because they plugged it, Julia. Durrr . . .
Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday, December 26, 2010:
Actually I didn’t much like the Fifties, which I remember as bleak and chilly and smelling of damp raincoats, stale tobacco, suet pudding and cabbage. Not to mention the chilblains.
God, yes. The smell of chilblains. How it used to turn our empty stomachs. We used to fry kippers to mask it.
Richard Littlejohn on the festival of Christmas, in the Daily Mail, December 24, 2010:
I’m not advocating turning the clock back to the 1950s, just pleading for a little goodwill all round. What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?
Littlejohn then launches into a tirade of unbridled abuse against Vince Cable, Gordon Brown, “preposterous Labour MP Chris Bryant” and school leavers, his only words of love and understanding being reserved for a Border collie called Chaser that has learned to recognise a thousand words. You couldn’t make it up.
Robert Hardman gets steamed up over plans to build a high-speed rail link through the delightful Midsomer Murder country, in the Daily Mail, December 24, 2010:
They are absolutely furious in Buckinghamshire, just as they are apoplectic next door in Northamptonshire and all the way to Birmingham in one direction and London in the other. In the past nine months, they have gone from living in one of the most pleasant stretches of the country to living in the residential equivalent of Chernobyl. No one wants to touch the place.
Hardman exposes the fatal flaw in the Government’s plan: the railway doesn’t run through poor parts of the country. They should build it straight up to Rotherham then double back to Birmingham.
Frederick Forsyth on WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange putting bucketloads of confidential material on the interenet, in the Daily Express, December 24, 2010:
Anyone can do that. And in what way are we enlightened?
Unsteady Freddie’s question could equally be applied to his own newspaper and column. Careful, old boy.
Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday, December 19, 2010:
Irish Republicans used to travel many miles to attend, and be offended by, the Orange Parade at Drumcree in Northern Ireland. When they got there, they would stand about for hours, making sure they were thoroughly upset by the ghastly sight of red-faced, middle-aged men hobbling by in bowler hats.
And so the airbrush moves on through the annals of history, conveniently erasing the provocative Orange Order marches down the Catholic Garvaghy Road. The Victory Jig danced by David Trimble and Ian Paisley didn’t help matters either. A selective memory is indeed a wonderful thing.
Nick Ferrari on the radicalisation of an Iraqi suicide bomber in a British university and how Britain’s biggest export has become terror (allegedly), in the Sunday Express, December 19, 2010:
MADE in England. That’s the shaming tag which can be applied to the Stockholm suicide bomber.
Go for it Nick. And are you going to mention Britain’s illegal invasion of Iraq and continued war in Afghanistan for being the root causes of this radicalisation? You’re not? Oh . . .
Toby Young on UK Uncut, the protest movement staging sit-ins at branches of Vodafone and Top Shop over their tax arrangements – or lack of them – in the Daily Telegraph, December 18, 2010:
What makes the movement so objectionable is that the main victims of this form of protest are the people trying to buy Christmas presents for their loved ones, not the corporations that own these shops.
If I was prevented from entering a Vodafone shop I’d consider myself a lucky man, not a victim. UK Uncut is obviously providing a worthwhile service. Can we get it to target Ikea?
Alex Singleton on Margaret Thatcher advising Ukip’s Lord Pearson, in the Daily Telegraph, December 17, 2010:
She advised him to hire Viscount Monckton, a former Telegraph journalist, who she said had done a brilliant job for her in the Number 10 Policy Uni
t. You may think Monckton looks eccentric (although I have to say I have a soft spot for stripey blazers and tweed), but she regards him as razor-sharp. What’s more, Thatcher had relied upon his understanding of how people outside the Westminster elite think during her premiership, as he’d spent his Saturdays travelling anonymously to pubs in his biking gear and chatting to the public.
Yes, I can see he’s the type of bloke who knows how ordinary people think, and how he would merge into the background while travelling anonymously to pubs in his biking gear. Cor, they ain’t ’arf clever these nobs.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, December 17, 2010:
This may seem like a silly question, but what is Julian Assange doing in Britain?
Correct for once. It is a silly question.
Frederick Forsyth argues that while left-wing demonstrations inevitably end in riots and chaos, right-wing demonstrations are peaceful and respectable, in the Daily Express, December 17, 2010:
But I do recall clearly the two countryside Marches against Labour’s countryside Act. So they came to London by their hundreds of thousands and marched – peacefully. I remember a line of bobbies staring back in silent amazement as they were cheerfully greeted – courtesy from a civilian was clearly not in their experience.
To fill the gaps left by Unsteady Freddie’s amnesia, 16 hunt supporters were arrested during violent clashes outside Parliament. Oh, and didn’t that irritating Otis Ferry storm the House of Commons with a bunch of Hoorays? At least the students haven’t killed any animals.
Andrew Alexander makes the case for students paying for their own education, in the Daily Mail, December 15, 2010:
What a pity it is that in the higher education debate, no one presses the issue of why students, a minority in their age group, should expect to have their costs met by others, including of course those who will not enjoy the privilege of a university education.
Blimey. I’ve never looked at it like that. And how easy it would be, with the simple substitution of a few key words, to extend the argument to healthcare provision.
What a pity it is that in the healthcare debate, no one presses the issue of why sick people, a minority in their age group, should expect to have their costs met by others, including of course those who will not enjoy the privilege of free board and lodgings in hospital.
Sign me up now. It’s the answer to all our woes.
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, December 14, 2010:
Most of us are closer to Mrs Thatcher’s ‘core’ values than when she left office 20 years ago. But we’re ignored by politicians. If students can have a protest march, why not Middle England? Altogether now: Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! IN, IN, IN!’
Off you go then, pal. There’s nothing stopping you. Don’t hold back. Haway . . .
Leo McKinstry tells us what caused last week’s student riots and what’s wrong with Britain, in the Daily Express, December 13, 2010:
The reality is we are living in a fragmented culture created by Left-wing policy-makers who have been in control of public institutions and the media over the past four decades.
And now we’ll close the wardrobe door and leave Leo to take tea with that nice Mr Tumnus.
Carole Malone on the student riots, in the News of the World, December 12, 2010:
Did they really believe the Lib Dems’ pre-election promise about banning student fees? Didn’t they realise it was just a lie to get their vote?
Scary Mary reveals she was aware Nick Clegg was lying all along. Presumably she didn’t say so at the time because she saw the financial benefits the consequences would bring the paint, park bench and window replacement industries.
Fraser Nelson in the News of the World, December 12, 2010:
STAGGERING news that Indian tailors now want to create an £80,000 SUIT – to cater for the booming number of billionaires in the country (69 more of them in the last year alone). Maybe it’s time to rethink India’s status as No 1 recipient of UK overseas aid.
Journalist who can’t get his head round the fact that wealth can flourish in an ocean of abject poverty. Wonder what the remaining 1,155,347,600 Indian people think.
Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail, December 8, 2010:
Now here’s a question: who has posed a greater threat to American security — the hacker Gary McKinnon or Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was yesterday arrested in London in connection with rape and sex assault charges in Sweden?
It must be the hacker. Because the Mail goes on to reveal the latest Wikileaks cables in full under a welter of headlines:
- Lockerbie bomber was freed after Gaddafi threatened to cut Britain ‘off at the knees’, WikiLeaks reveals
- Labour backed release but blamed Scottish Government for final decision
- ‘Harsh, immediate and not easily remedied retaliation’ threat if bomber died
- U.S. assessed Britain as being ‘between a rock and a hard place’
- Gaddafi riddled with phobias, including fear of flying over water.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the answer Glover is seeking.
The eternally charitable Reverend Peter Mullen in the Northern Echo, December 7, 2010:
Is it not time to reconsider the restoration of the death penalty for such foul and premeditated murders?
Basically, columnist runs out of controversial subjects to write about so falls back on a dependable favourite – bring back hanging – which has less likelihood of taking place than the Second Coming. But it fills a hole.
Melanie Phillips speculates on the future of the Con-Dem coalition, in the Daily Mail, December 6, 2010:
In fact, we may be looking at the development of a new, Liberal Conservative Party. Real Conservatives who care about defending the nation and its historic values will thus be left totally disenfranchised.
This would have sounded better coming from a newspaper that hadn’t supported Hitler, Franco and Mussolini right through the 1930s.
Matthew d’Ancona on the dilemma facing Nick Clegg over tuition fees, in the Sunday Telegraph, December 5, 2020:
Managing Lib Dems is like herding cats – except that the cats in question sign petitions and have their tea on the moral high ground.
There’s some wonderful imagery here. Why is it, though, that once you’ve got them to sit down to tea there’s always one that drinks out of the saucer?
Julia Hartley-Brewer argues that to have won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup, England should have cheated like the Russkis apparently did and offered bribes to Fifa officials, in the Sunday Express, December 5, 2010:
Couldn’t we at least have promised them all a nice gold-embossed invitation to Prince William’s wedding if they did the right thing?
Crikey. Why didn’t they think of that?
Patrick O’Flynn defends the middle classes by attacking those at the foot of the social ladder, in the Daily Express, December 4, 2010:
The people the squeezed middle really have no time for are the skiving classes: those who contribute nothing but live permanently on welfare, producing extra children to boost their benefit cheques.
You can’t beat a myth of the German-soldiers-marching-through-Belgium-with-babies-on-their-bayonets variety to make the neck redder. The breeding-for-benefits, shockingly Shameless, council-house-hogging, scumbag skiving classes have eaten all the pies. The rotters.
Liz Jones relates her epic tale of getting home to Cornwall after the rail and road networks were disrupted by snow – and blames everyone and everything except the weather – in the Daily Mail, December 4, 2010:
I sat in first-class as a protest, to find the heating had failed, and that it was inhabited by First Great Western staff eating crisps.
What did she expect? All the pies have gone.
Peter Oborne comes to the aid of beleaguered Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, in the Daily Telegraph, December 3, 2010:
The first and least important element concerns that pledge to abolish tuition fees.
Er . . . Right. Moving on . . .
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, December 3, 2010:
Can someone please explain how ‘saving’ 160,000 public sector jobs is ‘good news’ — especially at a time when it is reported that 1,100 small businesses are going bust every day because of the recession?
Can someone please explain why this man has a job?
Tom Utley in the Daily Mail, December 3, 2010:
Lady Thatcher’s nagging tone may have irritated many. But her message of self-reliance, fair reward for honest effort and lifting the dead hand of the state struck a resonant chord with millions.
But I think they were all confined to a geographical area south of Kettering and east of Shepton Mallet.
Ann Widdecombe in the Daily Express, December 1, 2010:
IF SOMEONE cheats the benefits system he or she may be prosecuted but is unlikely to be much punished and as the money will not be there to be paid back the scrounger will keep the often huge profit.
I’m sure Lady Oriol Bowden would disagree. On October 30 she was jailed for 12 weeks for swindling £90,000 of taxpayers’ cash through housing benefit. I mention the titled baronet’s widow just in case anyone is tempted to equate the words “housing benefit, cheat and scrounger” with a certain class of people.
Patrick O’Flynn on Prince Andrew’s tirade of expletives released by WikiLeaks, in the Daily Express, December 1, 2010:
For my part, the current furore has made me think much better of the Queen’s second son.
And the 2010 award for Media Brown Nose to the Royals goes to . . .
Richard Littlejohn being thoroughly mundane in the Daily Mail, November 30, 2010:
It continues to amaze me why people feel the need to post their every mundane thought on the world wide web.
If this is not mundane enough, here’s Littlejohn on September 3:
These days, total nonentities have their own websites and Twitter accounts, on which they churn out every mundane opinion and intimate detail of their breathtakingly-dull existences.
And for anyone who has missed the point, Littlejohn on June 1:
I can’t imagine why so many people want to provide a running commentary on their lives, posting every mundane thought on the internet.
As Littlejohn might say: “Laydeez and gennelmun. First prize for Mundane and Repetitive Columnist of the Year goes to . . .”
Harry Phibbs on tax and the economy, in the Daily Mail, November 29, 2010:
There is no practical economic case for a 50 per cent top rate tax.
We’re all in this together. Except, perhaps, the rich podgy ones who dropped us in it in the first place.
Leo McKinstry on the Daily Express campaign to get Britain out of Europe, November 29, 2010:
As the phenomenal response to the Daily Express campaign demonstrates, the British public now recognises that the end of our EU membership is in our national interest.
Can’t find any figures for a response anywhere on the Express website, mate. The latest story just has quotes from a music studio manager in Glastonbury, an engineer in Guilford and a secretary from Prudhoe. And while we’re on the subject, the Express campaign states this:
The famous and symbolic Crusader who adorns our masthead will become the figurehead of the struggle to repatriate British sovereignty from a political project that has comprehensively failed people right across Europe.
Pardon me, but there can be few things more symbolic of European unity than a crusader. Not much thought been put into this lot, has there?
Julia Hartley-Brewer defends Tory peer Howard Flight’s “breeding” gaffe, in the Sunday Express, November 28, 2010:
But who is really outraged by what he said? In case you missed Flight’s exact words, here they are: “We’re going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive but for those on benefit there is every incentive. Well, that’s not very sensible.”
In a nutshell: Tory peer likens middle classes to animals by inappropriate use of word “breeding” instead of “having children”, and claims lower orders “breed” solely to increase their benefits. Tory journalist can’t see what the fuss is about.
Richard Littlejohn on the BBC commissioning Jimmy McGovern to rework the nativity, in the Daily Mail, November 26, 2010:
No doubt in this modern version, Jesus is born to a single mother in an illegal settlement; the Three Wise Men are Mossad agents staging a covert incursion into Palestine; and Pontius Pilate is head of the UN War Crimes Tribunal.
Littlejohn rewrites the Bible and places Pontius Pilate at the birth of Christ. Still, at least his hands would have been clean.
Frederick Forsyth in the Daily Express, November 26, 2010:
I read that the number of cuckoos have halved in 40 years. Now this bird is almost completely brainless, contributes absolutely nothing and is a total parasite, living and breeding off the unceasing toil of others. I think I know were they have gone. Ornithologists should try the public payroll or banking.
And judging by the number of grammatical errors in this paragraph, I think one’s writing Freddie’s column.
Max Hastings puts the argument for selective education and how it should be the way forward for Britain, in the Daily Mail, November 25, 2010:
The tragic irony of all this, of course, is that independent schools remain the only places in Britain where there is rigorous academic selection. The Common Entrance exam, which every applicant must sit at 13, really counts. Eton, Radley, Winchester, St Paul’s simply will not admit stupid pupils, even if they are dukes’ sons.
Just as well we have a comprehensive system to mop up the stupid pupils. I’m sure the dukes would agree.
Ann Widdecombe on Lord Young’s “we’ve never had it so good” remark, in the Daily Express, November 24, 2010:
Lord Young, however, was touching on another uncomfortable truth with which we do not like to be confronted which is that, as a whole, we are a very well-off country despite the horror of recession.
We’ve never had it so good in a very well-off country where there’s no money left and we’re all in it together facing an age of austerity. Right.
Richard Littlejohn attacks the Bishop of Willesden for criticising the monarchy and the forthcoming royal wedding, in the Daily Mail, November 23, 2010:
Some people might think this column has no right to bash the Bishop.
Constructive comments to news@dailymail.co.uk
Melanie Phillips on the Bishop of Willesden, who stated that the royal marriage will last only seven years, in the Daily Mail, November 22, 2010:
Such remarks were unbelievably crass, spiteful and stupid. How on earth can this absurd churchman purport to know how long William and Kate’s marriage will last?
Gosh. Of course he can’t. He should stick to hard fact and his Bible. No prophesies there, eh?
Leo McKinstry has a poke at the eurozone, in the Daily Express, November 22, 2010:
The economies of its member states have been gripped by recession. Debts have spiralled out of control.
Blimey. What a relief that hasn’t happened here.
David Starkey jumps on the royal wedding bandwagon with a column on how George V – at the height of the First World War – dumped the monarchy’s German heritage, language, names and customs to stave off the threat of revolution, in the Mail on Sunday, November 21, 2010:
And yet he had shrewd political instincts and shrewder advisers. Together they decided to fight revolution with revolution. Their enterprise was no less than to reinvent the British Monarchy.
It’s called spin.
Julia Hartley-Brewer in the Sunday Express, November 21, 2010:
I am, it may come as something of a surprise to regular Sunday Express readers, a staunch and long-standing republican. Cue gasps of horror over the breakfast table as Princess Diana memorial china cups are dropped!
Cue barely audible snort of indifference. Moving on . . .
Leo McKinstry on EU President Herman Van Rompuy, in the Daily Express, November 18, 2010:
Van Rompuy may look like a clown but he is a shrewd operator bent on fulfilling his dream of a unified european superstate.
Roly-poly fat man lobs brick at clown and retreats to glass house.
Peter Oborne on monarchy and the royal engagement, in the Daily Telegraph, November 17, 2010:
In its purest form, the monarchy represents what all of us have in common. It is above party, faction and race.
But, unfortunately, it draws the line at Catholicism.
Dominic Sandbrook, on the forthcoming royal wedding, in the Daily Mail, November 17, 2010:
By coincidence, William’s parents and grandparents got married during periods of deep austerity. At the time, both couples were criticised by carping Left-wingers who begrudged them the expense of a fairytale wedding.
Those carping left-wingers have no sense of occasion. If all the unemployed and the 490,000 public sector workers facing redundancy were lined up at the roadside to wave Union flags, they’d have a very nice time.
Quentin Letts on what Speaker’s wife Sally Bercow thinks of the royal engagement, in the Daily Mail, November 17, 2010:
His wife was up to her usual tricks on her keyboard yesterday, tapping out sneery, vaguely anti-royal remarks and accusing the media of being ‘orgasmic’ about the engagement. Need such a plonking trollop be included on the wedding guest list? She’ll probably only go and tweet from the pews. The Palace should tell the Bercows to get stuffed.
Recent columns by Letts on Sally Bercow: “Oh please stop this twit from tweeting, someone”; “Does Mr Speaker take orders from his mouthy (and Labour supporting) missus?”; “How Bill Clinton met saucy Sally, the hotel siren”. A strange and seedy infatuation.
Richard Littlejohn, the man with the catchphrase “you couldn’t make it up”, in the Daily Mail, November 16, 2010:
Fifty Islamic jihadists disrupt Remembrance Day, shouting vile hatred at British soldiers, yet escape arrest for incitement.
Two men, aged 30 and 25, were arrested on suspicion of Section 5 public order offences.
David Robson sings the praises of pyjamas, in the Daily Express, November 16:
I mention this because, according to market research, the male pyjama is making a comeback among ordinary folk.
Excuse me for being a pedant, but shouldn’t that be “man’s pyjama”? I’ve a feeling a male pyjama is something one shoots from the back of an elephant.
Peter Hitchens on Tony Blair and the armed forces, in the Daily Mail, November 15, 2010:
. . . he compelled those same Armed Forces to surrender to the criminal gang called the IRA, the only recent war in which our soldiers were used for proper national ends.
I missed that one. I thought it was the IRA that was forced to decommission its arms while our lads kept theirs. I shall have to pay attention in future.
Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail, November 15, 2010:
Forgive me for asking. But why is the union Unison advertising on daytime TV for public service workers to become members? Surely it’s not because it knows many public sector workers might be taking unapproved time off and be at home rather than at work?
No, we won’t forgive you for asking because you obviously didn’t take time to do your job properly and think it through. Perhaps it’s because many of them are health and emergency service night workers. Oaf.
Leo McKinstry, Monday morning’s right-wing siren that heralds another week of gloom, leaves us in no doubt as to what he thinks of the Labour Party, in the Daily Express, November 15, 2010:
The party is like an arsonist hurling abuse at a fire crew trying to put out a conflagration that he started . . . they are nothing more a gang of fiscal Luddites . . . the Coalition’s opponents are like aristocrats of the past, fighting to defend their now vested interests against democratic change . . .
One might have assumed that an unholy and illogical alliance of arsonists, Luddites and aristocrats would have frightened off the electorate, but the latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times puts the Arso-Lud-Aristo Party two points ahead of the Tories, on 39 per cent, and 31 points ahead of the Lib Dems, on ten per cent. Vote Arso-Lud-Aristo – they’re all in this together.
Carole Malone on benefits claimants, in the News of the World, November 14, 2010:
As a country we can no longer afford to fund feckless families who knock out a child a year with no means of supporting them. We can no longer allow those families to live rent free in seven bedroom houses in the best part of town doing begger all in return – other than moan that their mansions aren’t big enough or luxurious enough.
Malone demonstrates that if a total fluff-head who is completely out of touch with society and reality can earn a living writing a column for a national newspaper, then anyone can get a job anywhere doing whatever they want. So that’s unemployment sorted.
Fraser Nelson laments the fact that the people who caused the credit crunch and worldwide recession are fleeing overseas, in the News of the World, November 14, 2010:
But high taxes, banker-bashing and growing regulation is sending our golden geese flying to South-East Asia.
Golden geese. Jesus H Christ. Let’s have a whip round for a golden gun and make sure they all go.
Minette Marrin on Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, in the Sunday Times, November 14, 2010:
Of course it’s true that jobs may for a while be scarce, but there is an unending demand for unpaid work, for helping hands, which Duncan Smith’s proposals intend to exploit, to help the vulnerable.
If there’s an unending demand for unpaid work to help the vulnerable, why don’t we take it in turns in a Big Society gesture? I’ll sign up for that. Anyone from the Sunday Times? . . . Hello? . . . I’m listening . . . Hello? . . .
Julia Hartley-Brewer gives us her view (complete with original typos) of protest marches in the wake of the Millbank Tower riot, in the Sunday Express, November 14, 2010:
I’VE never been much of a fan of protest marches. they always seem to do one of two things: they either fizzle out rather pointlessly or they turn nasty and violent. the one thing they rarely do is have any discernible effect on Government policy.
How jolly right you are, Julia. I was saying to Nelson Mandela just the other day: Nel, if you and your mates had sat down with a cup of tea and wrote letters to the Afrikaner-dominated National Party instead of making them cross by doing the naughty things you did, the world would have been a far better place.
Patrick O’Flynn on the student riots, in the Daily Express, November 13, 2010:
Nobody who witnessed television footage of the wanton destruction wreaked by that mob of anarchists and student activists on the Conservative Party headquarters could think it was remotely justified anyway.
Actually, Paddy boy, having spoken to a few colleagues, probed a scattering of friends and read a few newspapers, I get the feeling quite a few people think it was completely justified.
Richard Littlejohn tackles the thorny issues of university funding and rioting students, in the Daily Mail, November 12, 2010:
If only the brightest and best went to university, we wouldn’t have a funding problem.
There is a similar theory, to which I subscribe, that runs: If only the brightest and best aired their views in public, we wouldn’t have a stack of newspapers full of complete tosh.
Paul Routledge on the student protests that left Tory HQ staff as bewildered and shocked as civil servants facing redundancy, in the Daily Mirror, November 12, 2010:
I know I’m an old man these days, but I was a student once, and I stand four-square with them now.
Excuse me, but you appear to have strayed onto the wrong website. As I told your colleague Kevin Maguire some time ago, only raving red-necks, the politically unhinged, the educationally challenged, simpering sycophants, closet fascists, rude old men, the sexually inept and Richard Littlejohn allowed on here. Be off with you.
Max Hastings on the unemployed and why they won’t work, in the Daily Mail, November 12, 2010:
Why are so many restaurants staffed by EU migrants? The answer is that few young British people want to be waiters or kitchen porters, and they make a poor fist of it when they try.
I’m sure the job seekers of Blaenau Gwent – which at 15 per cent has Britain’s highest unemployment rate – will read this and flock to the many restaurants in their locality to demand jobs.
Daily Mail leader on the student rioters who wrecked Tory HQ in Millbank Tower, November 11, 2010:
Yet this wasn’t a typical protest. For a start, these students have a legitimate grievance, as it is about to become very much more expensive for middle-class Britons to get an often poor quality university education.
Legitimate grievances are limited, apparently, to the middle class. Firefighters, Tube workers, NHS personnel, civil servants, teachers, train drivers and the rest of the rabble who keep this country going – on yer bikes with your illegitimate grievances.
Daniel Johnson, like a Second World War fighter pilot, is on the tail of the president of the European Council for stating that nations can no longer stand alone, in the Daily Mail, November 11, 2010:
According to Mr Van Rompuy, the idea that a country can survive alone is not merely an illusion: ‘It is a lie!’ He has clearly never heard of the Battle of Britain.
A historical note here. Along with our brave lads who stood alone against the Luftwaffe in the skies above Britain were pilots from – listed in order of greatest sacrifice – Poland, New Zealand, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Belgium, South Africa, France, Ireland, the US, Jamaica, Palestine and Southern Rhodesia.
Richard Littlejohn rubbishes refuse collections in the Daily Mail, November 9, 2010:
Far from experiencing ‘high levels of satisfaction’ most people are furious that the simple business of emptying the dustbins has been turned into a cross between a political crusade and a protection racket, complete with an exciting array of fines and punishments.
Most people aren’t furious at all. A miniscule minority who don’t have a life, or who have the time to write 884 words on a subject that other lackluster commentators have covered innumerable times in the past, might be mildly cross. But, really, in the grand scheme of things, who gives a toss?
Melanie Phillips on Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith’s proposal to force the unemployed to work for their benefits, in the Daily Mail, November 9, 2010:
So what is he doing to provoke such fury? Why, making the outrageous proposal that instead of sitting at home on benefits doing nothing, people who are out of work should actually give something back to society in return.
Yes, the parasitic, lazy-arsed pillocks. We can’t have their taxes so we’ll have their dignity. And when we’ve made another 490,000 public servants redundant, the scrounging spongers can clean the fat from our drains and tidy our gardens. What’s wrong with that?
Leo McKinstry doesn’t allow facts to get in the way in a column about Muslim protestors outside the court where MP Stephen Timms’ attacker, Roshonara Choudhry, was being tried, in the Daily Express, November 8, 2010:
Perhaps the most nauseating feature of this Islamic demonstration is the fact that the British taxpayer was forced to subsidise it. For nearly all the protestors are benefit claimants sponging off the rest of us.
Meanwhile, back in reality (or as near as we’re going to get to it), the Daily Mail, which broke this story last Friday, could find only two protestors on benefits – and one was a quality controller who had been made redundant.
