Political anorak Quote of the Day

Dave v Boris is media methadone for those who miss the hard stuff of Tony v Gordon.

Matthew D'Ancona

Sound, very sound.

'For what it's worth, I've always believed that society should have as few rules as possible, rather than the thousands of new regulations this Government* churns out every week.'

In X's Britain, there'd only be one law: don't be a prat. 'That actually covers everything. Not paying your tax is being a prat. Neglecting your kids is being a prat. Doing 100mph through a town centre is being a prat. As long as you're not a prat, you can do what you like.'

*This was 2009.

Eh? Oh, all right.

Oh, noes...

The precocious, raging, Hellenic baby, Mr Eugenides, has run out of rage. He has and taken his well-chewed little little digit off the keyboard.

Bloody tragic. Get back here, you... you... wossname. Well... you know... whenever you... I mean... aw, fuck. This is just too much. In the words of sixtypoundsaweekcleaner over at the Kitchen the Devil's Knife,

Have you all run off together...? Obo... the lovely Trixy... Ranting Rab... Anna Raccoon... Mr Eugenides...

Now look here, chaps and chapesses of a Right to Liberty mind. The Leftoids are just getting their blogging act together now that they're in opposition. The electorate has merely tied a temporary tourniquet round their nads, though, not performed the total castration for which we all pray, although we can hope that glorious day will come. Point is, if we give them space... well, this is no time to clear the runway and clear the bastards for take-off.

Personal dismay and dischuffment aside, my heartfelt thanks to Mr Eugenides for all the too-numerous-to-remember belly-laughs, and for setting an example to the rest of us in how to give the (typing) finger to the infinite variety of marxoids who spend their misbegotten lives fucking the world up for decent types like our departed Greek friend.

Farewell, Mr E. Enjoy your rage-free life while you can. It won't last, you know.

What's the German for 'Labour', Polly?

Oh, yes. Arbeit. Kthxbai.

Going, going...

Thus Mark Steyn at http://bit.ly/ctLNfA via @SteynFeed:

--

"Declinism" is in the air these days, but for us full-time apocalyptics we're already well past that stage. In the space of one generation, a nation of savers became the world's largest debtors, and a nation of makers and doers became a cheap service economy. Everything that can be outsourced has been – manufacturing to by no means friendly nations overseas; and much of what's left in agriculture and construction to the armies of the "undocumented".

At the lower end, Americans are educated at a higher cost per capita than any nation except Luxembourg in order to do minimal-skill checkout-line jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology. At the upper end, America's elite goes to school till early middle age in order to be credentialed for pseudo-employment as $300 grand-a-year diversity consultants (Michelle Obama) or one of the many other phony-baloney makework schemes deriving from government micro-regulation of virtually every aspect of endeavor.

So we're not facing "decline". We're already in it. What comes next is the "fall" – fast, sudden, off the cliff.

--

Remind you of anything?

via Blackberry

The big British Left-Liberal blind spot

Nick Cohen is about the only leftish journalist of note who constantly warns about the pernicious, seditious, effective and entirely non-accidental Islamist entryism in British politics and social life, and the aid and comfort enthusiastically and suicidally supplied to murderers by the Left, in Britain, the USA and elsewhere. Cohen's name and heritage assist his enemies (and Britain's) in dismissing his writings as predictable prejudice despite his assiduous adherence to verifiable evidence.

Melanie Phillips is also routinely sneered at as 'Mad Mel' when she covers this subject, even though she, too, is diligent to a level which shames most of her peers. But then, she's just another Jew, so that's all right. If only she were a Muslim, she'd get a hearing instead of sneering.

The latest news on this front, though, on which the British media, including the mighty Murdoch empire and 'the world's greatest news gathering organisation', are all utterly silent, is noteworthy.

The Muslim Brotherhood has declared war on America and now explicitly endorses the extremist jihadist program of Al Queda and its affiliates.

In case you've just landed from Planet Tharg, the Muslim Brotherhood is probably best known as the progenitor and banker of Hamas, those lovable trainers of their own children as suicide bombers. Sorry, I mean, those poor 'victims of Israeli oppression'.

(The emphasis throughout this post is mine.)

This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don't fit their policies; and by experts, because they don't mesh with their preconceptions.

Which should matter enormously to us, because...

... there is barely an aspect of British life today in which Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas supporters lack influence. From the academic world, including student organizations, through politics and government, trades unions, the media, the legal system and even some Christian churches, they have succeeded in re-writing the prevailing narrative by means of the employment of the language of charity and human rights.

Skillfully, they deflect criticism by the use of anti-racism laws and social mores and manage to market themselves as the face of ‘moderate Islam’ so successfully that they are often invited to act in an advisory capacity to decision makers and are even able to secure government funding .

[...]

... the Muslim Brotherhood has been allowed a free rein in British society and has slowly and patiently promoted an atmosphere of ideological extremism not only within sections of the Muslim community, but also within the host society, to a point where terrorism is so acceptable that many ordinary British people find nothing exceptional in thousands of people marching through their capital city under the flags and banners of terrorist organizations.

And, I would add, to the point where the authorities simply dare not throw Muslim Brotherhood seditionsist out, so well embedded are they in 'the communities'. There would be riots not to mention am interntaional slapping from the now wholly pernicious European Court of Justice.

Read the whole thing here for worrying examples from Leeds to Exeter, but if you're short of time, here are a few snacks for thought.

... operating in the UK are several organizations set up by the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE) which is the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella organization in Europe, established in 1989. The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO) for example enjoys links with the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations as well as close links with the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) in British universities.

Another example is the ‘European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza’ (ECESG) which is a body set up in 2007 by the FIOE and, among other activities, is behind flotillas attempting to reach Gaza, including the one which ended in violence aboard the Mavi Marmara due to the actions of members of the IHH; a member of the ‘Union of Good’ – the collection of charities providing funding for Hamas (and chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi of the Muslim Brotherhood) which was designated a terrorist entity by the USA and banned in Israel.

The head of the ECESG is Dr. Arafat Madi, who is also executive director of the Palestinian Return Centre with which the ECESG shares offices and a telephone number in North London. Not only has Dr. Madi reportedly had the ear of the President of the European Parliament, but the ECESG organized a delegation of European MPs to Gaza in January 2009 to meet with Hamas representatives there.

British supporters of the ECESG include Lord Nazir Ahmed, Baroness Jenny Tonge ( also a patron of the Hamas supporting Palestine Solidarity Campaign), Lord Richard Harries, former MPs (until 2010) Clare Short and Brian Iddon and current MP Roger Godsiff, as well as various members of the Scottish Parliament. This in effect means that a Muslim Brotherhood organization has influence at the highest levels of British politics and legislation.

The Palestinian Return Centre’s board of trustees includes another Hamas operative named Zaher Birawi, who is also the spokesman for ‘Viva Palestina’ and is considered by some to be the liaison between George Galloway and Hamas. From 2001 to 2003 Birawi was the chair of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the de facto branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another MAB leader, Mohammed Sawalha, was a member of the steering group of former London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s ‘Coalition to Defend Freedom of Religious and Cultural expression’ as a representative of the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) – a MAB offshoot run by Anas Al Tikriti -, of which Birawi is also a member.

Do read it. Bear it in mind when you read about the Labour Party's acclaimed (sic) candidate for the London Mayoralty elections or electoral news from Minaret Tower Hamlets. Or when you watch the news or look around the audience on Question Time, or read the Guardian. And of course when you wonder why none of the above ever gets a mention outside the columns of Cohen, Phillips and the heroic Andrew Gilligan.

Of course, all the quotes above are from an Israeli journalist so we can just all go back to sleep, knowing that it's nothing but vicious propaganda aimed at stirring up hatred against the religion of peace. Coffee, anyone? Salaam.

Take your thieving hands off my money, you bastards

Indispensable prose from Charlotte Gore, with a hat tip to the Devil.

Say I steal £1 off 100 people and give you the £100. Should I do it a second time? Apparently refusing to do it a second time is a greater crime, because I’m denying you £100 that you’re now expecting. The poor suckers who are losing the £1? It’s only £1 isn’t it? Hardly worth getting in a flap over.

If they knew how much you really really needed that money, they’d be happy to cough up, right?

See, whilst many (most of them apparently on Twitter) are psychologically able to ignore, or excuse, or basically discount altogether the taking money from people bit of public spending, there are some of us that just can’t.

One day it occurs to ask the question, “What exactly gives them the right to help themselves to whatever they want?” and the answer turns out to be because they can. Then you get a bit angry and frustrated, feel almost entirely helpless then, just to make things that little bit worse, everyone else in the world comes and slaps you in the face for even daring to consider such heretical notions.

The taking from me bit doesn’t count. I don’t matter. It’s the no longer giving bit that counts. Think about how people feel! Think about all the things they could do with that money, or that job, or learn from those people or achieve with the support of those others! Don’t you understand? Have you no feelings?

Apparently not. I just keep thinking, “But it’s not your money. How can you live with yourselves taking it?”

Food values

The bread basket comes to the restaurant table. Ah, the unmistakable aroma of fresh-from-the-oven rolls in various shades of white and brown and various degrees of crustiness. Supplied with the bread, we have not one lubricant but two. The first pot contains butter, the second Schmaltz. That's dripping, in English.

Fabulous. The Germans (for we are talking about the Fatherland) cultivate a proper respect for bread, butter and the all-important, flavour-imparting ingredient of good meat: fat.

Oh, yes, the dining room at breakfast time may provide mineral water and vitamin pills to go with the fruit, yoghurt, low fat spread and muesli, but they also serve butter and good cold meats (incluing paté, though they don't call it that... much too French) and excellent cheese. There's a good balance there, and no truck with the food police. So, at dinner, among the white napery and silver we have... dripping.

Yum.

Can you imagine dripping being served in a decent English restaurant, in its own, fine porcelain dish? I can't.

Those evil Tory cuts in full

One half of public spending, departmental expenditure limits, will go up by 10 percent over the next five years, while the other half, annually managed expenditure, will rise by 23 percent. Any deviation from the growth is called a cut.

ASI.

Mad, axe-wielding, baby-eating Tory bastards. Rather explains Little Ed's pathetic waffle, though, don't you think?

What? Who? Oh, yeah, him. The (*splutter*, *choke*) "Shadow Chancellor" (*snort*). Please. Can we be serious?

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition does not *do* economics

Don’t you see? This Labour shadow government (no, don’t mock the afflicted*) does not do economics.

Ed Miliband and his happy little band are totally economics-averse after the Brown disaster. They are the guilty men (and women). They know it, we know it, and they know we know it. Having wrecked the economy and been chucked out by the electorate for it, they are battered, bleeding and bone-tired, this ‘new generation’ (wa-hay!) of discredited former ministers led by an uninspiring, perplexed Brown bag-carrier whom most of them did not want as Leader anyway. What they'd all really like is a good long break from all this Political Economy stuff, but politics is a real bitch, isn't it?

Labour has no say in how the country is run, economically or any other way, and won’t have for at least four years, so, fuck - why sweat it?

The electoral timetable having afforded him a breather – and a long one, if the coalition’s agreement holds – Ed Miliband has decided to abandon economics entirely until some sort of Plan B begins to coalesce out of the mists of his obvious confusion. Postman Pat, his brain entirely innocent of economic ideas, has been made Shadow Chancellor. The Labour Party’s offering on the subject is to comprise saloon bar wit, nothing more. Well, it’ll keep the back benches entertained.

You have to sympathise with Miliband Minor. Well, all right, you don’t, but it’s clear that the only way he could possibly engage with Osborne and the Treasury’s economists would be by letting the Balls duo off the leash, but that would be the end of him. So as far as economics goes, for now, we have dictatorship by coalition and no opposition whatsoever.

© 1959 Frankie Howard

Beebspeak

Via Guido, the following is a memo to all BBC News staff from their boss, rapping some quite senior people's knuckles for Tweeting their decidedly Left, anti-Conservative/Coalition, pro-Green political opinions, thus giving the game away.

Dear All, We have had some occasions recently of BBC News staff using social networking sites to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly, these have been picked up by the wider web and used to discredit the BBC and its impartiality (sic... oops... hahahahaha). We have Editorial Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet …which everyone should observe. We also have brains and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before rushing to communicate. Hx

The BBC calls itself 'the world's greatest news gathering organisation' and its employees consider themselves a cut above Sky (Murdoch mouthpiece), Fox (Murdoch arsehole-piece), CNN and all its other competitors in news broadcasting. It pays its managers galactically impressive amounts of public money, its top bananas trousering up to six times what we pay our Prime Minister.

The BBC is the Mount Parnassus of Planet Clipboard. It has systems and grids, groups and protocols, monitors and matrixes and meetings and modules for every conceivable purpose. Throngs of experts in, oh, everything, more or less, clog its corridors in all its many establishments, fighting it out with squads of management consultants for prime position at the watercoolers.

Thus are we led to believe that the BBC is the last word in management-communication skills, so we must therefore assume that the management gurus of the world's best business schools recommend that a general bollocking from an operational chief should begin with

Dear all

and be signed, not as, for instance,

Helen Boaden, Head of News

but as

Hx

Fuck me, no wonder they're called luvvies.

Value for money

"People are required to buy more things with the same income."

That's from a discussion at the Telegraph of Philip Blond's approach to poverty and equality (hawk, spit).

This kind of language simply makes me tired. For a start, is it 'are required' - or 'require'? Who are these passive people who 'are required' to do things by... some mysterious malign force?

Secondly, how much longer will the bien pensant pundit class preach the blinkered partial view which ignores all historical perspective on trade and has no clue about the value of goods and how that value is arrived at?

Calculation of the extent to which the statement at the top of this post represents a (growing?) problem (if it does... does it?) must take into account the vastly reduced end-user cost of many of those 'more things' (aka desirable goods) as a result of improved/increased global trade following the introduction of computers and low cost travel/shipping, and the availability of a vast and growing global pool of labour thanks to improved diet, medicine and education, which delivers goods (a) in huge quantities and therefore (b) at low cost.

The cost of food, clothing and essential (and non-essential) domestic goods, relative to income, has fallen beyond the imagining of predecessor generations so that they now cost a tiny fraction of average income. Think IKEA. Think Primark. Think Tesco. Think Ebay.

The sins of the fathers are the sins of the fathers

Guilt attaches to the moral decisions governing a subject's personal acts and omissions, including the giving or withholding of his informed assent to the acts and omissions of others.

If it was not I but, e.g., my ancestors who acted, omitted or assented, I bear no guilt. Justice dictates that I may not be convicted as proxy for my ancestors nor for any other party whomsoever.

If my countrymen, parents or ancestors are accused of morally wrong acts, I will examine what can be known of their moral intent. I will inquire whether there was mens rea sufficient to convict them. If it can be established beyond reasonable doubt (that blessed and mighty English legal concept) and if there are no contemporaneous arguments for their defence, they may stand convicted, i.e., they may be guilty, of a moral wrong, but not I.

Guilt and shame must be distinguished. I may feel shame at the acts or omissions of those with whom I associate myself: my countrymen, family (including ancestors) and friends. Shame may prompt me voluntarily to try to ameliorate the ill consequences for another of my associates' acts or omissions, but that would be a charitable act of my free will and does not imply any share in others' guilt.

Collective guilt is a malign and false doctrine deliberately constructed to inflame mutual hostility among groups. It is beloved of Marxists who determinedly impute guilt (for real or invented wrongs) to entire classes, nations and races in order to engender hatred and foment group conflict. They feel a virtuous glow from 'having done something' to 'redress the wrong' but are blind to the ludicrousness of their action which offends against Justice -- in the name of Justice.

Collective guilt is irrational, political, and wholly inimical to the common good and to justice. I will have no part of it.

Memo to the governors of St Michael and All Angels CofE Academy

Ladies and gentlemen,

Re. Ms Katherine Birbalsingh

What a dreadful example of immorality you have set before the children in your care. May the wrath of thousands now descend upon your shameless, cynical heads and give every last one of you a thousand sleepless nights.

Yours,

Prodicus of Ceos

____________________

The school's website has disappeared - fancy that! - but their email is info@stmichaelandallangelsacademy.org

"The future is not my period,"

... said the history don, chortling over his port. It's not mine, either, but I will relinquish a very tiny hostage to Fortuna.

At the next General Election the Liberal Democrats will be as mendacious and unscrupulous as ever in their campaigning. The Dave-Nick love-in will last five years and no longer. Possibly less. After that, it will be business as usual.

The LibDems, led by Clegg and (dead-in-the-water) Huhne, will nail their yellow (sic) colour to the mast of Fairness. Cowley Street will stock up on small onions to make sure that LibDem spokesmen (and Olly Grender) weep bitter, bitter tears on all channels, wailing in chorus that they devoted all their energies over the past five years to holding back the vicious Tories. It would all have been soooo much worse without them, without the exclusively LibDem instinct for Fairness. But for Nick, Cameron would have been Thatcher II.

Oh, how they wish they could have done more! But, sob, even a party of secular saints like the LibDems could only do so much, sniff, being the junior partner in the Coalition. They will claim 100 per cent of the credit for anything vaguely green or 'caring' done by the Coalition, in the teeth (natch) of Tory opposition. (Lucky that Cabinet Minutes are locked up for so long, innit?) They will shake their heads in sorrow, bemoaning their inability to ameliorate further the horrid (Tory) austerity measures, sympathetic frown ... in which they are presently cooperating because (Oh yeah, 'Labour made it inevitable, BTW' and anyway) better be in power at any cost (we're LibDems after all) than not.

In order to retain the 2010 votes they borrowed from a Labour Party temporarily disabled by Gordon Brown, votes which are now zooming back home at a catastrophic rate, the Liberal Democrats will play the Hughes gambit and look Left. They will hope that their cynicism isn't totally transparent and doesn't make too many voters reach for the sick-bags and the over-ripe fruit. Except in Tory-LibDem seats, obviously, where the Orange Book will be the bible and their literature will be Righter than Right.

Labour and the LibDems will both attack the Conservatives with everything they've got. Given the poisonous legacy which Gordon Brown made very sure to leave to Cameron, the guns firing at the Conservative Party will be numerous, huge and loud. And possibly devastating unless, of course, the electorate has grown up and grasped reality with both hands. Or unless, maybe, something else happens.

I already told you, the future is not my period. But history teaches us that leopards don't change their spots.

And then? AND THEN???

Woman on train, standing by doors as train pulls into station, speaking into her mobile in clear voice: '... pulling into the station, almost stopped, stopped, just waiting for the doors to open, they're opening...' And then she got out so I missed what happened next.

Damn.

via Blackberry

Doughty defender of MPs' rights to fiddle their exes - FAIL

Started life as a journo, right? Learned his, er, trade under the auspices of the NUJ? Wait... hack... expenses… union leader… expenses… MP… expenses… Call me suspicious but there seems to be some of sort of pattern emerging…

Indigestion? Piles?

Thought for the day

On welfare reform.

I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

- Benjamin Franklin

Why, it's... it's...

... an absolutely brilliant appointment!

Read

... this.

Horrible bastards.

UPDATE

Anna Raccoon, to whom that link should lead you, has suddenly disappeared entirely from cyberspace, including Twitter (@annaraccoon ).

Any info as to her fate gratefully received.

A meditation

I quite like being a person of a certain age. I can enjoy my political rage and, thanks to teh interwebs, vent it, in the not entirely vain hope of catching an echo from a like-minded soul out there, but, and this is the thing, without worrying about it all too much.

When you've seen it all before, you know how little the buggers can actually do. It's better having your own lot in government, of course, but as every issue of Private Eye makes plain, election promises are almost never fulfilled once a new minister gets hold of that Seal of Office.

Election promises are dreamed up by sweaty, maniacal wonks who egg each other on, believing that Being In Government is like becoming Dumbledore. Overnight. Hahahaha.

Once the burdens of office are unpacked and explained in all their horrible detail by Sir Humphrey, what is actually possible (without making matters worse) seems like, er, very little. Ask Michael Gove or Theresa May. Not to mention George Osborne. And Cable and Huhne... mwahahahahaha...

As Balfour said, nothing matters very much and few things matter at all. And politicians don't actually do very much, for good or ill. Not that they don't try, which is why one has to watch the bastards like a hawk. They do have some power and and some of them are closer to Voldemort than to Dumbledore. But on the whole, life goes on and Balfour was right.

Voices off: 'Who are you and what have you done with Prodicus?'

Chill, people. Chill. For a while, anyway. Then, back to the knitting.

PS: the philosophers are far more to blame for society's ills than the politicians. On which topic I intend to blog at length at some point. But not today.

Little and large

Not being a train-commuter, from time to time I get a huge reading backlog. At present it's four Spectators, two Private Eyes, a Salisbury Review and two Standpoints. Every few days the bastards inflict more excellent writing on me. I am rapidly approaching crisis point. There is only one answer. High-speed wheat-from-chaff: speed-reading.

It is not without its drawbacks.

Unaccustomed as I am to having all these damned Liberals in a Conservative government, I am stumbling over names to which I must to put an unfamiliar face. Your Cables and Huhnes present no problem because I never forget an arsehole.

Danny Alexander, though, is difficult. No fault of his own, poor sod (he seems a decent enough fellow -- for a Liberal) but I keep thinking they're talking about Douglas Alexander. Both Scots. Both actual or former political enemies. One of them, though, has seen the light and come over to our side in order to stymie the socialists and put the country back together, while the other was Dictator Brown's arse-wiper Gentleman of the Stool.

Whenever I read 'Danny Alexander', I feel icy fingers twisting my bowels. There is a moment of slight trembling. A clamminess of the forehead. I am gripped by a cold dread that the defenestration of Brown's 'government' was only a dream... aargh...

But then there is a flood of warm relief (tsk - really) as I realise, no, this is Alexander the Tall. The little Brown turd is Alexander the Short.

It's only dèja... phew.

O2 - brand image FAIL

Go here.

For the avoidance of doubt, Ed

Nooooo... surely not.

Under Gordon Brown there was a surge in the birth rate of the bottom 20 per cent of society, while the “squeezed middle”, unable to afford even a two-bedroom flat in London, abstain. It’s almost as if our socialist Government was intent on some sort of reverse eugenics programme to kill off the middle class by house price rise.

Ed West.

Libertarians should stop sounding like Roy Hattersley

I guess I been dun seen about ever-thang...

... or a politician who's trying to get elected and isn't 'PR-obsessed'.

The party needs to have credible candidates. Sure, they don't need to be Blair clones - the sort of middle-aged, middle-class PR obsessed clones currently running all three major parties. - link.

'PR obsessed'. It's a facile sneer used by political losers to thumb their noses at political winners, most of all those at those who've been put into Government by the electorate.

It's a favourite with angry wannabes of various stripes: agitators who have never been elected but know they're naturally superior to those who have, and with incumbents awaiting political defenestration at the hands of the enemy. Its deployment is mandatory for Labour Party members and their tame hacks when referring to Tories, obviously.

Being Right (and you know you are... sigh) is not enough. The only way to get elected is to campaign for votes and persuade people that they want you in office rather than the other bastard.

Political Campaigning For Dummies is a slim volume describing how to assess voter perception of you in order to improve it, with any luck to the point at which they might consider not positively ignoring you.

Chapter One deals with finding out whether voters know you exist. It moves on to how to assess your relationship with those who do know you exist and how to advertise the fact to those who don't.

Chapter Two addresses the business of contacting a very large number of people with the aim of getting them to listen to you. This assumes that you have something to say which won't elicit the reflex response of a fart in your general direction.

The next few chapters deal with how to assemble and present your persuasive arguments in terms intelligible to your audience, as opposed to your mates and your mum, which leaves electors pondering their choices. Those choices are:

1. You're a complete tosser
2. You're not a complete tosser
3. You can't be any worse than the current tosser
4. You are a tosser but what the fuck. Yeah, all right. Now go away.

The final chapter covers post-election analysis: if you failed to save your deposit, why you failed; why nobody listened, heard the message or voted for you. Or indeed, why you succeeded and how to build on that next time rather than face political death and have to go back to sneering in the wilderness.

We doctors have a technical term for this whole process. We call it 'public relations'. 'PR' for short.

Until well-meaning souls like the Libertarian Party (hearts in the right place and all that) accept the realities of communicating with voters and use appropriate tools and language to do so, they will remain a bunch of unelected complainers and the world remain unenlightened by their gospel.

Do us a favour, Libertarians -- and I say this with our shared best interests at heart -- stop wasting your time bitching enviously about your opponents' PR skills just because (sic) they are vastly superior to your own. Apart from the fact that it's actually a sideways compliment to the victor, it is graceless and deeply unattractive and makes you sound like Roy Hattersley.

Start reading PR manuals yourselves. Maybe then you'll learn how to get people listening to you. With any luck someone may hear what you say (which is not the same thing, by the way) and maybe they'll like it enough to vote for you.

In other words, grow up. Dumbo is a cartoon character. He's not real.

Oh, and best of luck. We Conservatives need you.

About Rod Liddle

Yes indeed, @FraserNels, about Rod Liddle. What? Oh. Yes, see, the thing is, Liddle may be a bit of a turn-on for ladies of a certain age, or so I am informed by my better half, but the fact is he hasn't looked like that for twenty years at least. And ladies of a certain age wouldn't look at him if he did (I am instructed to add).

So why does he look like a 25-year old trainee hack on the CoffeeHouse website? Is it in his contract? Eh? Eh? What's he got on you, Fraser?

Courage, man. Bite the bullet. Tell him you're the boss and you're changing his picture forthwith because you're running a current affairs magazine, not a history journal. Defend yourself against any protestations and threats by pleading force majeure, making it clear that, as Editor, it is your job to respond to pressure from an important section of your readership - and anyway, tell him, it's in his own interest, assuming that he wants to hang on to the position of Spectator Heart-throb (former title-holder Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson) and attract grown-up women with brains as opposed to the sort of bimbo who would be attracted by a bloke who looks like that old photo. Hang on. I've spotted a snag, there.

Wait - a voice over my shoulder... a dispute about tactics... Oh, for f... "Fraser Nelson is the Official Spectator Phwoar. Liddle is only the Vice-Phwoar."

Oh, sod it. Never mind. As you were, Fraser.

Tempus wossname

Fugit.

Sorry about the silence. Things are a bit fraught around here. Am Tweeting when I can.

Spoiling the story with a few facts