Lesser-known Rudyard

Most Englishmen have no problem in meeting with with Triumph and Disaster, and are fully aware not only that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, but also that East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. Few realise, though, that some of Kipling's seemingly high-flown pronouncements are actually ironic or even sarcastic.

A poem he wrote in 1919 is called The Gods of the Copybook Headings. Hardly anyone nowadays has any idea what the title means; you will have to look here if you want to find out what a copybook is, and even then it is not easy to understand exactly what the sly old devil is saying. It could be that he is making a plea for common sense, but perhaps he is pouring scorn on traditional values.

One verse has given us a colourful image in its third line:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire

But there is a reason why I have been reminded of these fusty old verses. Let us, holding our noses, turn to the paranoid commentator Glenn Beck, conspiracy theorist, rabble-rouser and darling of Fox News and the loony right. He used the last two verses of the poem in a video trailer and read the entire poem except the final lines on air in his broadcast on October 7, 2010, making an attempt to explain it in terms of today's politics and his own beliefs.

If, on November 6th, one of the possibilities facing the US is realised, he will have a powerful friend: Glenn Beck is a Mormon.
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Blessed is the cheesemaker

In a speech delivered at the LSE, Malcom Turnbull gives an Australian's view of China and refers to the assumption by Americans they will always be the strongest, richest and cleverest nation on earth. He goes on to suggest that there is evidence of a growing sense of inadequacy, and the realisation, not limited to Americans, that the rest of the world is becoming outclassed by China: "Nobody who has visited Shanghai could be unimpressed".

Well, yes. But the experiences of many of the expatriates who have lived and worked in China for some years may cause them to give a wry smile at the "cleverest nation on earth" bit, having found incompetence, mendacity, inflexibility and general stupidity and lack of sense among many—or even most—of the clients and employers they encounter. The miseries of being an expatriate trying to make a living in China are described by Froog with justifiable anger.

But there is another side to the Chinese character. In the blog of an American globetrotter called Heather I came across an account of the achievement of a young Chinese man called Liu Yang who went to France to study management, fell in love with cheese, learned all about it and became a cheese maker. Now he is single-handedly introducing cheese culture to Beijing with his artisanal cheeses, handmade in his workshop. Although most of his clients are expatriates, he is slowly winning over Beijing locals. Heather's blog has a link to a Mercedes-Benz ad in which he talks about his business.

Clearly Liu has enormous energy, initiative, determination and sheer ability. Of course he is only one out of 1.3 billion, and there must be several hundred millions in China who lack all these qualities and resemble those Froog has encountered, but there must also be tens of millions who could one day do the sort of thing that Liu Yang has done.

This is an inspiring thought. Or perhaps a frightening one.

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The New Germany

No 34 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century

January 1934   From Louis Landsberg in Aachen: Thank you for your kind Christmas wishes. I read in the newspaper that these postcards are being exhibited today and tomorrow in relation to the past years work of new structure of Germany. I hope it will be of some use to your collection - there is only a small amount being issued so I think it will be a rare specimen... It was pretty hard to paste up these two stamps neatly. The one pfennig stamp was issued in December. How are you? Your girl? Everybody?
This anniversary card of Hitler's  year-old chancellorship was hot off the press and Hitler makes his first appearance on a stamp. The control exercised over all the semiotics of power, masterminded by Goebbels, already marked Hitler out as in a different league of dictatorship from Mussolini who only made one philatelic appearance in Italy (and then on a stamp which also features Adolf Hitler). The Brandenburg gate in Berlin retains its symbolic appearance at the end of the century.

Bat of Burning Gold

So England’s cricketers “will take the pitch to a rousing rendering of Jerusalem”.
This will disappoint those who, in a poll carried out by a digital music channel asking 2,000 people in England what song they would choose to represent their country, chose A Candle in the Wind, All You Need is Love, Vindaloo (what?), Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Abide with Me and several other songs proclaiming England’s sporting prowess, or something.

Jerusalem got 51% of the vote. It’s odd that Blake’s poem should be thought to inspire patriotic fervour, beginning as it does with four questions to all of which the answer is a resounding no. Of course, it’s not to be taken literally, it’s just a metaphor, but surely a rather outdated one: all our dark satanic mills are now loft apartments with designer kitchens and real teak floors. But bits of England are still green and pleasant enough and the idea of building even a metaphorical Jerusalem here has some pretty unpleasant connotations.

But if you forget the ludicrous suggestions it’s a jolly good tune, and there aren’t many other choices. There’ll Always Be An England isn’t really saying very much: there’ll always be a North Pole, if it comes to that, unless we go and melt it.

Comment from the Chair of St Augustine

 As a letter to The Guardian pointed out, the colon in a recent headline was misplaced. The headline should have read: The Archbishop no-one voted for: coalition policies.

No reason why His Grace should not have voiced criticism of the policies of our coalition government, of course, and few with any sense would disagree with what he said. But it is hard to see why so many objected to him saying it: he is entitled to say anything he likes, even when has no special knowledge of the subject, for no-one would take him seriously; the man is totally lacking in charisma.

The silly hat is not his fault, for that goes with the job, but he clearly cares nothing for his appearance, not even having the decency to trim his preposterous eyebrows. Lamentable!

But recent Primates of All England have been a pretty uninspiring bunch. His immediate predecessors—Coggan, Runcie and Carey—were respectively dull, hypocritical and slimy, so I suppose Williams, mad eyebrows and all, is an improvement on them. But for a bit of style you have to go back to Ramsey, a genial old person who once very nearly gave me the immense privilege of sharing a drink and a chat. If you bother to follow that link, you will find not only a report on this memorable encounter, but also a note about John Whitgift, whose stylishness has never been surpassed since he died in 1604, though his contemporary detractors said he was just a show-off and deplored his ecclesiastical bling. 

A weekly shot of sense

I have a PVR which enables me to record TV programmes for watching at convenient times (for example, when I am not dozing, or eating, or training for the pole-vault in 2012). Most of the time there are a couple of dozen items waiting to be watched and inevitably when starting to work through them I find that in many cases I had been unjustifiably optimistic in thinking they might be interesting. So I have watched only the first five minutes of many programmes which looked promising but turned out to be rotten; this often happens with old films which I remembered with affection but which, when viewed with a more mature (or blasé) eye, are unutterably tedious.

I said rotten, not rubbish: one of the pleasures of advanced age is being able to watch rubbish without feeling guilty; I do a lot of that. I will not, therefore, list the items of which I am currently watching a series, but there are some which I can recommend without incurring contempt.

One is Dateline London, a round table discussion between media correspondents based in London, some British but mostly foreign (12.30 on Saturdays, BBC News 24). They talk about any issues of the day in a relaxed and non-adversarial way, often disagreeing but often reaching a consensus. None of them ever expresses any opinion which makes me want to punch him, or her, in the mouth. Hard-ass journalists they may be, but they argue as if they actually like and respect each other, a refreshing thing; Gavin Essler chairs admirably

And, of course, most of them know something of which they speak, having studied and reported on it. After I watch this programme I am often still confused about the matters which have been discussed, but confused in a much better-informed way, if you see what I mean.

Their discussion on April 30th was typically rewarding. They talked with appropriate gravitas about the situation in Syria, the West's attitude to dictators, and the alternative voting system, but before that with an equally appropriate lightheartedness about the previous day's royal wedding.  

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of the Independent had spent the day in a deserted Epping Forest and then at a (very small) republican party, Brian O'Connell of the Irish RTE said that they had given it three hours on TV, up to the balcony kisses, Dr Vincent Magombe of Africa Inform International said that he doubted whether anybody in Uganda had watched it because the situation there is so dire, and the splendidly named Stryker McGuire of Newsweek said that most of his compatriots had thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent spectacle, knowing that they didn't have to pay for it.

Weasel words

"I'm sorry if what I'm setting out to do hasn't communicated itself...Listening to the vote this morning, if I've not got that message across then I apologise."

Andrew Lansley's words, reported last week as "an abject apology", were nothing of the kind, for three reasons:

First, I'm sorry is rarely an apology; usually it is an expression of regret for something for which the speaker bears no trace of responsibility: I'm sorry to hear your grandmother's got piles. Second, use of the conditional if, twice, suggests that it is by no means certain that there is anything to apologise for. Finally, switching to the passive hasn't communicated itself lets the speaker out: if you didn't get it, that was your fault or the message's, not mine.

He could have made an apology which really meant something: I now realise that my proposals for the NHS were ill-considered and likely to harm the NHS irrevocably, and that I failed to explain them clearly and honestly. For these things, and my general incompetence, I apologise.

Fat chance.

Reverse crusade

Interesting to see that Gbagbo and his forces of the Ivory Coast Christian south have been finally beaten by the forces of the Muslim north and the French. Apparently his only allies in the world were the American Christian evangelists, who admired him greatly and believed he had really won the election.

Nice to know, too, that the graffiti artist Banksy Moon gave his support to the right side.

I bambini del Duce

No 32 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century
January 1928  Not waving but saluting. The two elder sons of Mussolini are already adept at the fascist salute. Bruno became a pilot and died in action in 1944. His younger brother Vittorio survived the war and went to live as an exile in South America. The third brother, Romano, was their junior. He inherited their father's musical gifts, became a popular pianist and bandleader and married the sister of Sophia Loren. Their daughter Alessandra alone continued to serve the fascist cause as an Allianza Nationale deputy in the Italian parliament. We do not know what Emilie Ascoli means when writing from Carrera to Mrs Perkins in Durban: he adds to his conventional message of greeting: I think this P.C. will interest you.

Unprecedented for decades, mould-breaking...

...and into uncharted waters, I shouldn't wonder. Anyway, it might be worth watching tomorrow. Usually we get bored with election night after a few results are in, but for this one we have bought a new TV for the bedroom and intend to take a bottle of some modest claret to bed with us and and make a night of it.

We have a very good friend from New Zealand staying with us at present and we (well, I) thought of asking her to join us, but to be honest I don't think I could cope with a threesome nowadays. Ah, if only I were sixty-five again!

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The Stupid List

Here is an update to two earlier posts: Sugar Pills and Magic Water on the NHS, in which I described the Early Day Motion proposed by the MP for Bosworth, David Tredinnick, and Jackson's crazy ideas, which questions whether a distinguished actor is in full possession of her senses.

Seventy-three MPs originally signed the EDM. Five of these realised that in doing so they were supporting the daft notions of a crackpot and have withdrawn; many others will not be in the new Parliament.

But this still leaves many idiots who admire Samuel Hahnemann's 200-year-old homeopathic cult and are demanding that the NHS should spend money on such quackery. You can look up the names here.

Everyone can decide whether they really want to be represented in Parliament by an MP who is convinced that if a 'medicine' consisting only of water and no active ingredient is 'succussed' (struck a sharp blow) it will 'remember' what it formerly contained and have a beneficial effect on you when you drink it. If any of those listed are standing in your constituency you might write to them to express your contempt for their superstition and at the same time make sure that all your friends and family know just what they will be getting if they elect someone so simple-minded.

Large ones all round in Bodbury

It seems very likely that on the morning of 7th May almost no-one will be happy with the results of the election. This does not often happen; back in the sixties Michael Frayn noted that after the bye-election in Bodbury all three candidates were celebrating:

F. Muncher (Lab.) 14,931
J.P.R. Cramshaw-Bollington (Con.) 8,101
S.W. Dearfellow (Lib.) 7,123
Labour majority 6,830

General election:
Lab. 23,917
Con. 16,023
Lib. 9,980
Lab.majority 7,966

F. Muncher: "It's a wonderful result. Not only have we held the seat, but we have increased our share of the poll—a real smack in the eye for the Government. The voters of Bodbury have told Mr Macmillan and his friends in no uncertain terms what they think of the Government's record on such things as the Common Market (or will have done, as soon as we have actually decided which policy on this question it was that our supporters were voting for). And if you take our vote in conjunction with the Liberal vote, it's clear that there is an over-whelming anti-Tory majority in Bodbury".

J.P.R. Cramshaw-Bollington: "I am absolutely delighted with the result. At a time when the pendulum traditionally swings against the party in office, we've slashed the Labour majority in this Labour stronghold. I take this as a most encouraging vote of confidence in the Government—a message from the people of Bodbury to Mr Macmillan urging him to carry on with the good work, whatever it may be. And taking the increased Liberal vote into account, it is evident that there is a definite anti-Socialist majority in Bodbury".

S.W. Dearfellow: "The result couldn't be better. Our share of the vote is up sharply, while the numbers of votes polled by both the Labour and Conservative and Conservative candidates have slumped heavily. This is Bodbury's way of saying "a plague on both your houses—we want to have it both ways with the Liberals." And if you take the Liberal vote in conjunction with either the Labour or the Conservative vote, you can see that either way we've got a clear anti-extremist majority".

The spirit of Nelson flashes forth

Rejoice, rejoice! The long decline of the British Empire has been halted; we are no longer a laughing stock among the nations, sunk in nostalgia, currying favour with Johnny Foreigner in the hope of being asked to once more to play a part in world affairs. We have been uninvolved too long in great events and no-one has expected us to act decisively to show our mettle in a crisis.

And what is more, we didn't wait to be asked; after only four days we took the kind of action— brave, wise and above all firm, which used to be typical of us and which made us universally admired and respected.

We sent, not one but THREE gunboats. At this moment, they are in all probability steaming at full speed, ensigns flying, to remote spots to collect thousands of British subjects who might otherwise have had to remain in tropical hell-holes for several days, missing the start of the school term and incurring heavy expenses. Arrangements are being made to welcome them on board Her Majesty's warships (including the Ark Royal, no less; now there's an Imperial echo); wardrooms are being quickly converted into buffets, junior officers are rehearsing their stand-up routines and the Marine bands are getting ready to switch from hornpipes to Tunes from the Shows.

"Hello, sailor!"

"You'll find the ballroom just abaft the mizzen tops'l, madam"

Sugar pills and magic water on the NHS

In a report published last month the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons concluded that:

By providing homeopathy on the NHS and allowing MRHA licensing of products which subsequently appear on pharmacy shelves, the Government runs the risk of endorsing homeopathy as an efficaceous system of medicine. To maintain patient trust, the Government should not endorse the use of placebo treatments, including homeopathy. Homeopathy should not be funded on the NHS and the MHRA should stop licensing homeopathic products.

This was a strong and unambiguous statement. In response, the homeopaths and their associations, understandably worried, came up with some muddled ravings, while others, speaking from positions of profound ignorance, rallied to their support.

Foremost among these was David Tredinnick, who is Conservative MP for Bosworth. He is known as the man who used parliamentary expenses to buy astrology software and training from ‘Crucial Astro Tools’, and has called in the Commons for the government to support medical astrology, to provide government funding of various kinds of quackery within the NHS and to use legislation to support quacks in their work.

This egregious fruitcake introduced an Early Day Motion to Parliament on 23rd February, expressing concern at the Select Committee's conclusions, and asserting that the report took insufficient account of the evidence. Anyone who believes that such protestations from the quacks are worth supporting should first study the Select Committee's official report (or at any rate skim through it: it runs to 216 pages, including the formal minutes, verbatim records of the proceedings and notes of the statements submitted in writing).

A number of simple-minded MPs have signed this motion to indicate their approval of Tredinnick's preposterous ideas. Andy Lewis has dissected their idiocy and D.C Colquhoun provides a handy list of the signatories. Many of them, happily, will not be returning to the House of Commons after May, and when the Parliamentary candidates have been announced we shall be able to see which of Tredinnick's deluded supporters are up for election. We might call this The Stupid List.

Voters in those constituencies which might elect one of them can then consider carefully whether they really want to be represented in Parliament by an MP who believes in magic potions which contain no active ingredient.

There is an e-Petition to the Prime Minister asking that the government implements the recommendations in the report as soon as possible. It has already acquired 1626 signatures; the closing date for signing is 24th February next year, so there is plenty of time to add your name, although we may hope that whatever government we get in May will have taken action long before then.

Eurospeak

The Companion to British History defines this as suspect linguistic usage in which familiar expressions convey different concepts from those generally understood.

The most important cases are (fam means the familiar meaning in English, ES the meaning in Eurospeak):

Council: (fam) a local authority; (ES) the European legislature.

Directive: (fam) an important rule requiring obedience enforced by a sanction; (ES) a direction to a member country to alter its law, but not in force until it does so.

European: pertaining to the geographical European continent; (ES) pertaining to the area of the EEC or EU for the time being.

Parliament: (fam) a sovereign legislature; (ES) an official discussion forum at Strasbourg.

Regulation: (fam) a minor rule made under law; (ES) the most important kind of rule, superior even to an Act of Parliament.

The invasion of Afghanistan

Inhabited by some of the most warlike peoples on the face of the earth, the country has always been glowering, secretive and veiled in intrigue, little known to Europeans except by disrepute. The Afghans think trade an ignoble occupation and leave it to foreigners; their general character is at once savagely independent and desperately unpredictable. They can be lively, humorous, courageous and warm-hearted but can also be bigoted, sly and murderous. Split into tribal divisions subdivided into clans, they fight incessantly among themselves and are almost impossible to govern.

We British have known them longer and better than most, and at times have wished, on the whole, to preserve the independence of the nation, but when it became apparent that foreign influences at work there posed a threat to our interests, the decision was taken to invade, while proclaiming that "once the independence and integrity of Afghanistan is established, the British Army will be withdrawn".

The principal invasion force consisted of 9,000 troops, with 6,000 more not under our direct command. Progress was slow and laborious, for behind them there followed 38,000 camp followers. The army was to live off the country but nevertheless took with them thirty days' rations of grain and enough sheep and cattle for ten weeks. Every platoon of every regiment had its water-carriers, its sadlers, its blacksmiths, its cobblers, its tailors, its laundrymen, and there were the men who polished brasses, and the men who put up tents, and the cooks, the orderlies, the stable-boys—together with all their wives, all their children and often aunts, uncles or grandparents—and troops of prostitutes from half India, with fiddlers, dancing-girls, fortune-tellers, wood-gatherers—with herdsmen to look after the cattle, sheep and goats, and butchers to slaughter them. There were carts and wagons by the thousand, palanquins, drays, chargers, ponies and dogs.

All this great multitude stumbled away to war, each corps with its band playing, a regiment of Queen's cavalry, nine regiments of infantry, engineers and gunners. A mighty dust hung in the air behind them, as a sign that the British were coming.

As a military operation the invasion was a qualified success. Organized opposition seemed to be at an end, and on August 6th, 1839, the panoply of British imperial power entered Kabul. At their head was the king, Shah Shuja, whom the British had restored to his throne; he was a splendid sight, scintillating with jewellery, and rode a white charger accoutred in gold, but was greeted with sullen silence by the Kabulis, who didn't much like him.

Much of the army was now sent back to India, leaving a division of infantry, a regiment of cavalry and an artillery battery. The British settled in, built a racetrack, organised amateur dramatics and persuaded a few Kabulis to take up cricket. However, in 1841 a riot became a rising and the head of Her Majesty's Envoy and Plenipotentiary was paraded through the capital while the rest of his corpse was suspended from a meathook in the great bazaar. Despite this discourteous behaviour, General Elphinstone, who was in command in spite of being debilitated by a wound in his buttock, negotiated an agreement with the insurgents, who promised to see the army safely through the passes to Jalalabad on the Indian frontier. No-one really believed them.

On January 6th, 1842, the army began its retreat, the most terrible in the history of British arms, and some 16,500 souls struggled out of their cantonment. The retreat lasted just a week; by January 13th all had died or been slaughtered except for one army surgeon who reached Jalalabad hotly pursued by sabre-waving Afghans.

So the first of Queen Victoria's imperial wars came to its terrible end. The British returned to Kabul within the year, blew up the great bazaar as a reminder of their displeasure and subdued the Afghans until the next Anglo-Afghan war forty years later. Shah Suja was soon murdered, and Afghanistan provided perennial strife for the rest of the century.

The above was adapted from an account by the essayist Jan Morris in her trilogy Pax Britannica. She concludes:
As for the retreat from Kabul, though largely forgotten in Britain it is vividly remembered in Afghanistan. When in 1960 I followed the army's route from Kabul to Jalalabad with an Afghan companion, we found many people ready to point out the sites of the tragedy, and recall family exploits. I asked one patriarch what would happen now if a foreign army invaded the country. "The same", he hissed, between the last of his teeth.

Lessons from the past

It is not surprising that a party which thinks so highly of traditional (i.e. nineteenth-century) values should want to introduce a Victorian flavour into our educational system, if not to the extent of bringing back the cane, or learning by rote, or dunces' caps for the low achievers, of course (though no doubt some party members would enthusiastically support the re-introduction of these).

The Tories have a plan to highlight allegedly failing standards in education by setting up an online library of past examination papers going back to Victorian times. It is not clear how this will raise standards, but at least it will show today's schoolchildren just how lucky they are not to have been born a hundred and fifty years ago.

Here are some sample questions to give an idea of the sort of things their forebears were expected to know:

Maths
If six children working nine hours a day can sweep fifty chimneys in a week, how long will it take ten children to sweep seventy chimneys of the same size? (You may not use your abacus.)

PE
Should children who walk more than twelve miles to school be excused drill? If so, what cleaning tasks should be given them instead?

Religious Studies
"Naphtha the Jebusite was a more godly man than Rehoboam the King of Judah." Discuss, illustrating your comments with not less that THREE passages from the Book of Joshua.

French
Où sont les neiges d'antan?

History
(a) Who was in whose what, and how many miles awhat?
(b) Cap'n, art thou sleeping there below?

Geography
Write 100 words on FOUR of the following: Basutoland, Mesopotamia, Cochin-China, Bohemia, Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Dahomey, Wallachia.

Social Studies
Explain in 200 words the social benefits of ONE of the following: workhouses, transportation to the colonies, the death penalty, press gangs

Food Technology
Give your recipe for TWO of the following: Boiled Griskin of Pork, Kedgeree, Jugged Hare, Gruel, Roast Haunch of Venison, Barley Soup

Forward into Europe

......or out of it, as the case may be.

Passed a pleasant half-hour at the hustings earlier this month. Our local tennis club was transformed for the day into a polling station simply by furnishing the clubhouse with a couple of trestle tables, some pencils and some rather flimsy voting booths. I am not sure if there had been a rush hour, but at the time I turned up I was the only voter making my mark (two marks, actually). However, there were a few people hanging about in holiday mood, and we enjoyed a bit of cheery badinage, steering well clear of political dispute, which might have led to unseemly behaviour or even fisticuffs, and concentrating more on critical evaluation of the names of the candidates for the ten MEP seats in the south-east.

The general consensus was that something called the Christian Party/Christian Peoples Alliance (who offer "a broad range of God-fearing policies") had the edge for originality. Putting up candidates called Je-Ran Cherub and Christabel Maclean-Bacchus may not have got them many votes, but suggests that they are at least an interesting and unusual bunch of people.

Nearly all the other names on the long ballot-paper were totally forgettable, which may have been one of the factors contributing to the very low turn-out. The Labour party did include one memorable name: whether one votes for him or not, who could ignore or forget someone called Silke Thomson-Pottebohm?

Such considerations are frivolous; what we should study are the candidates' policy statements, so that we know just what we are voting for and not merely who. Sadly, these were mostly banal and without much sparkle, the only exception being that composed by Jean-Louis Pascal of Reading. He has stood locally several times before, representing the Roman party (?), and is said to be a French bus-driver (? again) and a very nice chap. Here is his manifesto from the 2007 local elections:
In my first election of Reading on BBC Berkshire I suggested we should consider moving British jail to other Eastern European countries to run at less costs for the British tax payers we could seek permission of Vladimir Putin President of Russia. the reason for this is most British jails are run like hotels and sanctuaries. They are able to gain degrees without paying funds out of this type of education, yet we have school leavers and their families paying a substantial amount of money and also finding them selves in debt. This is some thing I feel need to be changed. We also supply them with cigarettes, newspapers etc.
-As For young offenders who disturb the community and rebels that break windows, create fire, and delinquents will be sent for 6 months in military for discipline and respect and learn how to live in society. I will use the military territorial barracks of Oxford Road in Reading. We could approach the Ministry Defence and local authorities for disused sites.
The money we save on jail overseas will be used for NHS and to care about elderly people who want to stay in their home and to have the same care than in hospital until a critical level of sickness. These are strong factor that need to be looked at by the government and local councils.
To put down the deficit of NHS we have to create an health option and also eliminate the salt in any food on the supermarkets in the process food.
Last summer there was a water restriction because we had a shortage of water in the reservoirs due to a lack of investments because we need a larger water systems rather than profit going to big fat cat. We must use this formula for the shortage of houses to let our children to gain access onto the properties ladder. So vote a law against 'gazumping'. Put the first buyer a priority to buy a house and decline any investors gaining more than three properties. I understand we all need to make a living. Not this 50/50 share home. But a low set price to those seriously first time buyers. All that until the house market takes a normal graphic of demand and quantity.
When a political leader leaves his position, he should leave copies of up to date accounts of all expenses occurred and how much debts he left to the country. Those things should be published in the local newspapers.
No politician should have access to pension funds to pay for any taxation or reduce the pension fund of the citizens of this country.
All Military Personnel must be bought back to our Home Land because its not in the interest of this country to be Involved.

I fear some of his ideas were not too well thought through, but he does sound like a nice chap and I was pleased to hear later that several people had voted for him.

Not since 1695

Scapegoat, n. In the Mosaic ritual of the Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi), that one of two goats that was chosen by lot to be sent alive into the wilderness, the sins of the people having been symbolically laid upon it, while the other was appointed to be sacrificed.

As I read it, the first was the luckier of the two: the desert was full of scorpions and dangerous beasts, and it wouldn't have been much fun to wander there alone, weighed down by the sins of the whole tribe, but, looking on the bright side, you would enjoy freedom for a little while and there was always the chance of finding a nice clump of ripe alfalfa to fill your four stomachs (goats are ruminants) or even a lonely scapenanny to spend a little time with, while your unfortunate colleague had already had his throat cut and his blood sprinkled on the mercy seat by Aaron to make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sin ... "and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness". That sort of caper must have been even less fun than the odd scorpion bite.

So being sent alive into the wilderness is not such a terrible fate and perhaps no more than you deserve if you have done your best to prevent the sins of the people from coming to light. Anyway, the constant repetition of this word over the last few days by people pretending to be familiar with Lev, xvi is becoming wearisome. And another thing: it has been said that many were against the old boy because he was, or had been, a rough-speaking Glaswegian sheet-metal worker. The reverse is true: there were always many more who supported him just because of that; he had few other qualities appropriate to the job.

Oh, by the way, for the benefit of people who live in Mooney Ponds or Wichita KS, I should explain that the last paragraph is not really about the iniquities of the people of Israel but more about the enforced resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons in London, which takes effect from June 21st.

However salutary his departure may be, it has been sad to watch his recent decline; in addition to his customary muddled petulance, he had acquired the curious habit of calling out "Order! Order!" when absolutely no-one was being disorderly.

The POTUS writes

I haven't watched The Daily Show very often recently; Jon Stewart is a bit pleased with himself and the sycophantic laughter sometimes grates, but his heart is in the right place and his satire only rarely misfires. To the English, the news that the show has been "criticized as having a liberal bias" is incomprehensible until you remember that in north American right-wing parlance "liberal" is a term of abuse.

Our liberal Guardian has been assiduously satirizing the US administration throughout the Bush years and has not stopped doing so just because the White House it is now occupied by a less sleazy bunch. The paper asserts that, "in a unique experiment in democratic transparency", they are being sent copies of all Obama's confidential emails, of which this is one:

To: Arlen Specter [arlen.specter@senate.gov]
Subject: welcome aboard
Just wanted to drop you a line to welcome you personally to the Democratic party, and to say how much I appreciate this courageous act of naked self-preservation. Not everyone would have the nerve to abandon an affiliation of some 30 years standing in order to avoid a tough primary race. I've long admired your independent spirit, but you won't be needing it any more. Good Democrats toe the line. I'll drop by the debriefing if I get a chance - in the meantime I'm getting some bumper stickers and stuff sent over to your office. Update your website, and cover your mouth when you cough.
Barack

[Not having kept up with the political news from the USA for a week or two, I was puzzled when I first read about Specter's recent defection. Why should the Democrats welcome a convicted murderer into their ranks, even if he had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Then I realised: silly of me, wrong spelling and different first name]