author
class label 13
classes | topic
class label 1
class | article
stringclasses 112
values | template_name
stringclasses 10
values | template
stringclasses 10
values | rendered_input
stringlengths 45
10.1k
| rendered_output
stringclasses 126
values |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12zoewilliams
| 0Politics
|
Leaving aside considerations of career, hair loss and ultimate power, frequently of life and death proportions, over sundry nations, who would you rather be? Tony Blair, who is now officially the Worst Briton in Britain? Or Iain Duncan Smith, who is only the 99th worst, beaten effortlessly by all the representatives of his own party that your average person could name, and safe in the knowledge that the only people in Britain less annoying than he is are the Atomic Kittens? It's a close call - if you're going to feature on such a list, it's good to be at the top, since it means people have heard of you. But in an ideal world, of course, your voting public wouldn't hate you at all - they would respect you, like what they did in the olden days. This poll is bad news all round for the government -people still reserve some venom for Peter Mandelson, who weighs in at number 49, substantially above Sting. It seems that no amount of sacking this man will make people forget about him. What do they want, blood? Even Lord Irvine of Lairg gets a look-in, and the sheer scale of research it takes to get from "that bloke with the wallpaper" to his correct title demonstrates the level of rancour he leaves in his wake. There is also good news - there were only 100,000 respondents to the poll, and there was a slight bias in so far as they were all viewers of Channel 4. This makes it marginally less representative than local elections, and governments never take a blind bit of notice of those. Plus, there are myriad anomalies - while the Blairs warrant two separate entries (Cherie makes it to number 89), the Hamiltons appear as one single entity of pure badness (at number 19). If, therefore, Alastair Campbell (57) wanted to put a spin on this, he could take an average of the Blair-Booth axis (45), putting them on a par with Pete Waterman. Well, you wouldn't put it past him, which probably explains the fact that he himself has been deemed much more hateful than Alan Titchmarsh (who'd have thought?). One further political insight offered by the poll is the strong case for an end to the monarchy - the Queen, apparently, is the 10th worst Briton, and considering all she ever does is go on trips and break up the grinding tedium of Christmas eating, this seems a little harsh. Even low-profile and ex-royals get mentioned, although the significant absence of the Princes William and Harry does suggest that what the voters want is not so much an end to the royal family as an organised cull as soon as they hit 30. Like in that Jude Law film. Otherwise, though, there is no real consistency to the list - people don't seem to like the inarticulate (Gareth Gates, 6), but nor do they like the articulate (Martin Bashir, 5). Chefs who lick their fingers the whole time irk (Nigella, 90); but so do the ones who can take or leave the licking (Jamie Oliver, 28); as well as the ones who positively despise it (Delia, 78). Many of those featured also appeared on the 100 Best Britons, which highlights the already pretty obvious point that these are just the people we've heard of, and they can be either the best or the worst, depending on our mood. Naturally, though, the poll has been used as an opportunity to trot out that old truism: the British hate success. Every development, however minor, in popular culture, spawns this analysis - the Americans "really do enjoy having celebrities" (Terry Jones), they have a "whole notion of the American dream" (Sarah Dunant), whereas the British like to build people up just to knock them down, like to mock and carp, enjoy nothing more than watching Ali G gulling a politician or Princess Anne with a custard pie in her face. This is variously interpreted by media pundits as sophistication and healthy jaundice (if you see what I mean), and by politicians as cynicism and pessimism (Blair, in particular, is always "blasting cynicism". He has a knack of making politics sound like cheapo DIY. First, you blast the cynicism, then you can Artex the public services). It's time to lay this to rest - it is a nonsense to claim that we hate success per se. You will not find anyone on this list who has made a genuine and lasting contribution to life as we know it. There are no doctors or scientists; no academics, poets or composers; no trade union leaders, no charity bosses, no nurses, no inventors. There aren't even any dead people on it, since by the very act of being dead and still famous, they assert their long-term impact. The only artists who appear are better known as self-publicists, and the only novelist is also a journalist (ahem). We don't hate success at all; we just hate people who make a lot of noise, for no great reason, particularly first thing in the morning. Is that so wrong?
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Zoe Williams .
|
Leaving aside considerations of career, hair loss and ultimate power, frequently of life and death proportions, over sundry nations, who would you rather be? Tony Blair, who is now officially the Worst Briton in Britain? Or Iain Duncan Smith, who is only the 99th worst, beaten effortlessly by all the representatives of his own party that your average person could name, and safe in the knowledge that the only people in Britain less annoying than he is are the Atomic Kittens? It's a close call - if you're going to feature on such a list, it's good to be at the top, since it means people have heard of you. But in an ideal world, of course, your voting public wouldn't hate you at all - they would respect you, like what they did in the olden days. This poll is bad news all round for the government -people still reserve some venom for Peter Mandelson, who weighs in at number 49, substantially above Sting. It seems that no amount of sacking this man will make people forget about him. What do they want, blood? Even Lord Irvine of Lairg gets a look-in, and the sheer scale of research it takes to get from "that bloke with the wallpaper" to his correct title demonstrates the level of rancour he leaves in his wake. There is also good news - there were only 100,000 respondents to the poll, and there was a slight bias in so far as they were all viewers of Channel 4. This makes it marginally less representative than local elections, and governments never take a blind bit of notice of those. Plus, there are myriad anomalies - while the Blairs warrant two separate entries (Cherie makes it to number 89), the Hamiltons appear as one single entity of pure badness (at number 19). If, therefore, Alastair Campbell (57) wanted to put a spin on this, he could take an average of the Blair-Booth axis (45), putting them on a par with Pete Waterman. Well, you wouldn't put it past him, which probably explains the fact that he himself has been deemed much more hateful than Alan Titchmarsh (who'd have thought?). One further political insight offered by the poll is the strong case for an end to the monarchy - the Queen, apparently, is the 10th worst Briton, and considering all she ever does is go on trips and break up the grinding tedium of Christmas eating, this seems a little harsh. Even low-profile and ex-royals get mentioned, although the significant absence of the Princes William and Harry does suggest that what the voters want is not so much an end to the royal family as an organised cull as soon as they hit 30. Like in that Jude Law film. Otherwise, though, there is no real consistency to the list - people don't seem to like the inarticulate (Gareth Gates, 6), but nor do they like the articulate (Martin Bashir, 5). Chefs who lick their fingers the whole time irk (Nigella, 90); but so do the ones who can take or leave the licking (Jamie Oliver, 28); as well as the ones who positively despise it (Delia, 78). Many of those featured also appeared on the 100 Best Britons, which highlights the already pretty obvious point that these are just the people we've heard of, and they can be either the best or the worst, depending on our mood. Naturally, though, the poll has been used as an opportunity to trot out that old truism: the British hate success. Every development, however minor, in popular culture, spawns this analysis - the Americans "really do enjoy having celebrities" (Terry Jones), they have a "whole notion of the American dream" (Sarah Dunant), whereas the British like to build people up just to knock them down, like to mock and carp, enjoy nothing more than watching Ali G gulling a politician or Princess Anne with a custard pie in her face. This is variously interpreted by media pundits as sophistication and healthy jaundice (if you see what I mean), and by politicians as cynicism and pessimism (Blair, in particular, is always "blasting cynicism". He has a knack of making politics sound like cheapo DIY. First, you blast the cynicism, then you can Artex the public services). It's time to lay this to rest - it is a nonsense to claim that we hate success per se. You will not find anyone on this list who has made a genuine and lasting contribution to life as we know it. There are no doctors or scientists; no academics, poets or composers; no trade union leaders, no charity bosses, no nurses, no inventors. There aren't even any dead people on it, since by the very act of being dead and still famous, they assert their long-term impact. The only artists who appear are better known as self-publicists, and the only novelist is also a journalist (ahem). We don't hate success at all; we just hate people who make a lot of noise, for no great reason, particularly first thing in the morning. Is that so wrong?
|
12zoewilliams
| 0Politics
|
It doesn't seem to take much to pass for humour in Westminster. This is because they are ruminating to the very limits of their concentration, on matters of national importance, almost all the time. I imagine. Anyway, this is the "joke" still circulating - what have Julius Caesar and Charles Kennedy got in common? They both got stabbed in the back by men in sandals. I don't think Caesar was stabbed in the back. I think he was stabbed from the side, just below the throat. Jesus. I just called MPs humourless, and then went and said a thing like that. I wish I were dead.Meanwhile, Mark Oaten, who had recently thrown his hat into the Lib Dem leadership ring, was spotted in Savile Row. He needed a new hat. No, I'm sorry about that; he was buying shirts. An unnamed Labour "wag" remarked to an unnamed media pal that he should have been buying a beard and sandals.Now, here's the thing - beards have never been a liberal schtick. Not since the days when they were a foot long and everyone was a liberal unless they were a Whig or some sort of freak. Beards are a socialist thing. They date back to a time when people grew them for warmth, because they couldn't afford scarves. New Labour hates the beard, so far to the left is this facial furniture. The status of the sandal in wider life, for that matter, has totally changed, since the footwear first became associated with the liberal. Sandals are very fashionable, these days. Slinky, delicate ones are fashionable, and chunky, lentil-y ones are fashionable. In evidence, I offer the Birkenstock, which is so fashionable that Mr Birkenstock is engaged in legal proceedings against his ex-wife, Mrs Birkenstock, over who's allowed to call themselves "Birkenstock". To hear politicians insult one another in this way, through the conduit of fashion, is like listening to two people engage in a French slanging match, when neither of them speaks French.David Cameron, meanwhile, wowed the world with his special-edition Converse trainers. When we say "special edition", we don't mean an awful lot - they weren't radically expensive (50 squids; far less expensive than, say, a Savile Row hat), and not all that rare. But Will Smith wore some once, and the last Tory leader you can picture emulating Will Smith ... well, there's never been one. Although it's conceivable that Thatcher would have worn a long, black leather coat, and passed for Keanu Reeves.These Converse have caused an amazing storm. The Express is offering its readers a chance to win a pair, that they might look more like Cameron; media-wide, everyone is taking it as a sign of his groundbreaking modernity, even though when he speaks, it sounds like exactly the same amateurish, on-the-hoof carping that Michael Howard had down to such a tee. They do themselves an injustice, these politicos, when they harp on about clothing. They think it makes them sound more like us, more liable to be voted for by the fabled 16-24s who make the world go round. Instead, it makes them sound daft. It makes shoes sound daft. It's brought me very close to going out in my socks.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Zoe Williams .
|
It doesn't seem to take much to pass for humour in Westminster. This is because they are ruminating to the very limits of their concentration, on matters of national importance, almost all the time. I imagine. Anyway, this is the "joke" still circulating - what have Julius Caesar and Charles Kennedy got in common? They both got stabbed in the back by men in sandals. I don't think Caesar was stabbed in the back. I think he was stabbed from the side, just below the throat. Jesus. I just called MPs humourless, and then went and said a thing like that. I wish I were dead.Meanwhile, Mark Oaten, who had recently thrown his hat into the Lib Dem leadership ring, was spotted in Savile Row. He needed a new hat. No, I'm sorry about that; he was buying shirts. An unnamed Labour "wag" remarked to an unnamed media pal that he should have been buying a beard and sandals.Now, here's the thing - beards have never been a liberal schtick. Not since the days when they were a foot long and everyone was a liberal unless they were a Whig or some sort of freak. Beards are a socialist thing. They date back to a time when people grew them for warmth, because they couldn't afford scarves. New Labour hates the beard, so far to the left is this facial furniture. The status of the sandal in wider life, for that matter, has totally changed, since the footwear first became associated with the liberal. Sandals are very fashionable, these days. Slinky, delicate ones are fashionable, and chunky, lentil-y ones are fashionable. In evidence, I offer the Birkenstock, which is so fashionable that Mr Birkenstock is engaged in legal proceedings against his ex-wife, Mrs Birkenstock, over who's allowed to call themselves "Birkenstock". To hear politicians insult one another in this way, through the conduit of fashion, is like listening to two people engage in a French slanging match, when neither of them speaks French.David Cameron, meanwhile, wowed the world with his special-edition Converse trainers. When we say "special edition", we don't mean an awful lot - they weren't radically expensive (50 squids; far less expensive than, say, a Savile Row hat), and not all that rare. But Will Smith wore some once, and the last Tory leader you can picture emulating Will Smith ... well, there's never been one. Although it's conceivable that Thatcher would have worn a long, black leather coat, and passed for Keanu Reeves.These Converse have caused an amazing storm. The Express is offering its readers a chance to win a pair, that they might look more like Cameron; media-wide, everyone is taking it as a sign of his groundbreaking modernity, even though when he speaks, it sounds like exactly the same amateurish, on-the-hoof carping that Michael Howard had down to such a tee. They do themselves an injustice, these politicos, when they harp on about clothing. They think it makes them sound more like us, more liable to be voted for by the fabled 16-24s who make the world go round. Instead, it makes them sound daft. It makes shoes sound daft. It's brought me very close to going out in my socks.
|
12zoewilliams
| 0Politics
|
At his monthly press conference yesterday, Tony Blair told Oona Blackman, a journalist on the Daily Mirror: "Sorry, darling, I'll get to you." Would that get your hackles up? Or would you think, "Here's a good turn, I'm practically family. In a couple of weeks, he'll be telling me what he really thinks of the death penalty vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein."It is fine among family members. Well, it is fine from parents to children. From children to parents it sounds a bit patronising, a bit "your time is past, now I get to call you treasure."Between siblings, it's fine but affected (you never called one another darling when you were eight, now did you?) Between lovers it is, of course, obligatory. Between friends it's OK but choose your endearments carefully. If you blow all your sweet nothings on friends, your life-partner will be piqued.In the workplace, it would never be OK for a man thus to address a female subordinate, but between female peers it tends to be OK, except that a pleasing term should not be used to take the sting out of an annoying request ("Honey, would you mind terribly staying late? I'd do it myself, only I have to get to Fenwicks before they sell out of that expensive thing that you probably can't afford"). And you have to be careful of the way one endearment slides into another. One minute, you're calling your co-worker "darling", and the next you'll call him or her "tootletots" or "perfect pie" or, worse, "hot stuff" or "professor big trousers". And that is weird.As prime minister, I would be inclined to steer away from love bombs altogether, since it's not very authoritative. If he wants to mix it up a bit with unexpected modes of address, he could do worse than "pal" and "matey moo".
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Zoe Williams .
|
At his monthly press conference yesterday, Tony Blair told Oona Blackman, a journalist on the Daily Mirror: "Sorry, darling, I'll get to you." Would that get your hackles up? Or would you think, "Here's a good turn, I'm practically family. In a couple of weeks, he'll be telling me what he really thinks of the death penalty vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein."It is fine among family members. Well, it is fine from parents to children. From children to parents it sounds a bit patronising, a bit "your time is past, now I get to call you treasure."Between siblings, it's fine but affected (you never called one another darling when you were eight, now did you?) Between lovers it is, of course, obligatory. Between friends it's OK but choose your endearments carefully. If you blow all your sweet nothings on friends, your life-partner will be piqued.In the workplace, it would never be OK for a man thus to address a female subordinate, but between female peers it tends to be OK, except that a pleasing term should not be used to take the sting out of an annoying request ("Honey, would you mind terribly staying late? I'd do it myself, only I have to get to Fenwicks before they sell out of that expensive thing that you probably can't afford"). And you have to be careful of the way one endearment slides into another. One minute, you're calling your co-worker "darling", and the next you'll call him or her "tootletots" or "perfect pie" or, worse, "hot stuff" or "professor big trousers". And that is weird.As prime minister, I would be inclined to steer away from love bombs altogether, since it's not very authoritative. If he wants to mix it up a bit with unexpected modes of address, he could do worse than "pal" and "matey moo".
|
12zoewilliams
| 0Politics
|
Tony Blair's annual make-up spend differs, it seems, according to what paper you look at. I read that since 2003 it was £1,000, plus £791.20 on make-up artists. My boyfriend came up with the rather more outlandish figure of two grand per press conference; he must have misunderstood. For that kind of money, the prime minister could have substantial new breasts implanted for every occasion, and would by now look like a lovely healthy heffer.Still, it's a lot of money. I doubt if we're approaching an actor or model's outlay, but he effortlessly outstrips the spending of the average British woman (£195 a year) and, unless the world turned upside down without my noticing, must have spent in two years what the average British man would spend in two or three lifetimes.It's not exactly a Fisher model of statistical analysis, but I still, in my humble way, think it's fair to extrapolate thus: if fleshtone Tony spends about 10 times what a regular woman spends on make-up, then he probably spends in the same ratio on shoes. Research a fortnight ago showed that the average woman, in her lifetime, spent £32,000 on pleasing footwear. Take Blair's tenure as prime minister to be, so far, one-tenth of his life expectancy, and he's already coughed up nearly 40 grand on shoes. For that, you could buy a hospital, albeit quite a small one. I wonder if it was public money? I wonder if he ever wears them? I wonder if he has loads of black pairs that, to the naked eye, seem quite identical? Fancy having to wait until after recess to get these questions answered.Now, the general rule with all cosmetic enhancements is that if you're embarrassed to admit it, then don't do it. I happened to be at the press conference in which Tony Blair famously claimed to have got his facial tanning from the "Downing Street garden", which was unlikely for so many reasons; it was two weeks before the election, for starters, a time not spent swivelling in the backyard like a pig on a spit; plus, the alert Londoner noticed immediately that, unless Downing Street gets a special kind of weather, it wasn't actually that hot. Straight away, then, you have a man who's ashamed of himself and pretending not to be, which makes him just about the easiest target in the world.The problem is, everyone is ashamed of this stamp of vanity, apart from sociopaths. Silvio Berlusconi was openly delighted with his facial surgery. The juxtaposition of those two sentences might lead some to suppose that I'm calling Berlusconi a sociopath. For legal reasons, I'd like to stress that that definitely isn't what I'm saying.Easy, you might say - if make-up is embarrassing, and you don't want to be embarrassed, and you don't want to lie, then don't wear it. But this leaves you with a whole new set of problems - namely, a grey complexion, tired eyes and the inescapable fact that Charles Kennedy, blessed with his marvellous pinkness, looks more cheerful than you do.Blair has always been accused of trading on his attractiveness to the lady voter, but I think the truth is something even more icky - he has in fact been stressing his youth, forging this very unsophisticated connection between his revolutionary new ways of being a "socialist" and the fact that his physique is firmer than the other older geezers and he definitely didn't have wayward eyebrows.Now he's lodged this alliance between ideology and aesthetic in our minds, he simply cannot afford to age gracefully; if we wanted rugged authenticity, we'd get it from Gordon Brown. So in many ways, it is a straight choice between a shed load of blusher and standing down, and you can see why he's chosen as he has, even though there might be more dignity in the other course. Let's not forget, moreover, the threat posed by the Tory leadership election - with Michael Howard and his monochrome visage out of the picture, they are free to go as fresh as they like. They're a treacherous bunch, there's no knowing what they might do. They could get one with a whole load of hair.In the spirit of goodwill, here are my suggestions: first, tone the slap down. You only need to be an even colour all over, and you'll look more attractive. You don't have to be the colour of David Hasselhof. Second, money and thereby awkwardness will be saved if you learn to apply it yourself. It's a simple buffing motion, most adults can master it.Third, if you ever put your hands in your own pockets and paid for it out of your substantial salary, though it was for public engagements, then you might find scandals of this sort didn't happen. Honestly, if he wasn't such a skinflint, his skincare would be nobody's business but his.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Zoe Williams .
|
Tony Blair's annual make-up spend differs, it seems, according to what paper you look at. I read that since 2003 it was £1,000, plus £791.20 on make-up artists. My boyfriend came up with the rather more outlandish figure of two grand per press conference; he must have misunderstood. For that kind of money, the prime minister could have substantial new breasts implanted for every occasion, and would by now look like a lovely healthy heffer.Still, it's a lot of money. I doubt if we're approaching an actor or model's outlay, but he effortlessly outstrips the spending of the average British woman (£195 a year) and, unless the world turned upside down without my noticing, must have spent in two years what the average British man would spend in two or three lifetimes.It's not exactly a Fisher model of statistical analysis, but I still, in my humble way, think it's fair to extrapolate thus: if fleshtone Tony spends about 10 times what a regular woman spends on make-up, then he probably spends in the same ratio on shoes. Research a fortnight ago showed that the average woman, in her lifetime, spent £32,000 on pleasing footwear. Take Blair's tenure as prime minister to be, so far, one-tenth of his life expectancy, and he's already coughed up nearly 40 grand on shoes. For that, you could buy a hospital, albeit quite a small one. I wonder if it was public money? I wonder if he ever wears them? I wonder if he has loads of black pairs that, to the naked eye, seem quite identical? Fancy having to wait until after recess to get these questions answered.Now, the general rule with all cosmetic enhancements is that if you're embarrassed to admit it, then don't do it. I happened to be at the press conference in which Tony Blair famously claimed to have got his facial tanning from the "Downing Street garden", which was unlikely for so many reasons; it was two weeks before the election, for starters, a time not spent swivelling in the backyard like a pig on a spit; plus, the alert Londoner noticed immediately that, unless Downing Street gets a special kind of weather, it wasn't actually that hot. Straight away, then, you have a man who's ashamed of himself and pretending not to be, which makes him just about the easiest target in the world.The problem is, everyone is ashamed of this stamp of vanity, apart from sociopaths. Silvio Berlusconi was openly delighted with his facial surgery. The juxtaposition of those two sentences might lead some to suppose that I'm calling Berlusconi a sociopath. For legal reasons, I'd like to stress that that definitely isn't what I'm saying.Easy, you might say - if make-up is embarrassing, and you don't want to be embarrassed, and you don't want to lie, then don't wear it. But this leaves you with a whole new set of problems - namely, a grey complexion, tired eyes and the inescapable fact that Charles Kennedy, blessed with his marvellous pinkness, looks more cheerful than you do.Blair has always been accused of trading on his attractiveness to the lady voter, but I think the truth is something even more icky - he has in fact been stressing his youth, forging this very unsophisticated connection between his revolutionary new ways of being a "socialist" and the fact that his physique is firmer than the other older geezers and he definitely didn't have wayward eyebrows.Now he's lodged this alliance between ideology and aesthetic in our minds, he simply cannot afford to age gracefully; if we wanted rugged authenticity, we'd get it from Gordon Brown. So in many ways, it is a straight choice between a shed load of blusher and standing down, and you can see why he's chosen as he has, even though there might be more dignity in the other course. Let's not forget, moreover, the threat posed by the Tory leadership election - with Michael Howard and his monochrome visage out of the picture, they are free to go as fresh as they like. They're a treacherous bunch, there's no knowing what they might do. They could get one with a whole load of hair.In the spirit of goodwill, here are my suggestions: first, tone the slap down. You only need to be an even colour all over, and you'll look more attractive. You don't have to be the colour of David Hasselhof. Second, money and thereby awkwardness will be saved if you learn to apply it yourself. It's a simple buffing motion, most adults can master it.Third, if you ever put your hands in your own pockets and paid for it out of your substantial salary, though it was for public engagements, then you might find scandals of this sort didn't happen. Honestly, if he wasn't such a skinflint, his skincare would be nobody's business but his.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
A handful of Labour MPs turned up on the day after the Queen's speech. And most of them could scarcely be bothered to stand up and ask a question. Nobody believes in this thing. It's not worth the parchment it's written on. David Heath, for the Lib Dems, called it an abracadabra Queen's speech. "Shazam! The deficit halved at a stroke. Shazam! Poverty abolished around the world. This is fantasy politics!" Other MPs were fractious about losing the public's attention. Nigel Evans thought it "bizarre" that more people were interested in how John and Edward performed on The X Factor than in the new president of Europe. I don't know. The Irish twins have more in common than you might think with the various dreary factotums who are standing for EU president: (a) rather weird faces, (b) even weirder hairdos, (c) come from very small country, (d) no perceptible singing talent, and (e) unjustified but relentless ambition. In a desperate attempt to make themselves relevant, MPs drag in popular culture whenever they can. Peter Bone, the Tory MP who looks exactly like Sven-Gran Eriksson, said he hoped Harriet Harman would become prime minister. He claimed to be the founder "and, sad to say, the only member of Hots Harriet's Official Tory Supporters!" This was a deeply embarrassing moment, as if Mr Bone had decided to make public a liking for rubber underwear. Ms Harman reacted rather like a young woman being wolf-whistled from a building site and pretended she hadn't heard. Or at least heard properly. "I had not realised that the hon member was hot," she replied. Some of us didn't know where to look, but he could not be stopped. "No, you're hot!" he exclaimed. Fresh trousers for Mr Bone! Michael Gove, the Tory education spokesman, may have been watching I'm A Celebrity because suddenly he accused Ed Balls, of being "the Katie Price, the Jordan of the government. All he is interested in is being on the front pages, so he has massively inflated what he has to offer!" Oooh, missus! Actually this was Mr Gove's attempt at revenge, for earlier he was the victim of a fine coup de thtre by Mr Balls. The education secretary said he was fed up with the Tories saying that GCSE exams had been dumbed down. He had with him a few questions from recent GCSEs. Would Mr Gove care to answer them? This from the additional science test: "Name the type of enzyme that digests stains containing fats." Mr Gove squirmed slightly but offered no answer. Mr Balls, who is a playground bully at heart, realised he had found a victim. "Explain how a fluoride atom can change into a fluoride ion! The hon gentlemen is well known as an erudite and intellectual man. What is the answer?" Then: "Does he want to try that? Wanna try?" He sounded like an aggressive thug chanting "Want some, do yer? Want some?" in a pub car park. Finally he demanded, from the maths paper: "Work out three and three-quarters minus one and two-fifths." Mr Gove again, sensibly, offered no reply. (It is two and seven-twentieths.) The bully had won.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
A handful of Labour MPs turned up on the day after the Queen's speech. And most of them could scarcely be bothered to stand up and ask a question. Nobody believes in this thing. It's not worth the parchment it's written on. David Heath, for the Lib Dems, called it an abracadabra Queen's speech. "Shazam! The deficit halved at a stroke. Shazam! Poverty abolished around the world. This is fantasy politics!" Other MPs were fractious about losing the public's attention. Nigel Evans thought it "bizarre" that more people were interested in how John and Edward performed on The X Factor than in the new president of Europe. I don't know. The Irish twins have more in common than you might think with the various dreary factotums who are standing for EU president: (a) rather weird faces, (b) even weirder hairdos, (c) come from very small country, (d) no perceptible singing talent, and (e) unjustified but relentless ambition. In a desperate attempt to make themselves relevant, MPs drag in popular culture whenever they can. Peter Bone, the Tory MP who looks exactly like Sven-Gran Eriksson, said he hoped Harriet Harman would become prime minister. He claimed to be the founder "and, sad to say, the only member of Hots Harriet's Official Tory Supporters!" This was a deeply embarrassing moment, as if Mr Bone had decided to make public a liking for rubber underwear. Ms Harman reacted rather like a young woman being wolf-whistled from a building site and pretended she hadn't heard. Or at least heard properly. "I had not realised that the hon member was hot," she replied. Some of us didn't know where to look, but he could not be stopped. "No, you're hot!" he exclaimed. Fresh trousers for Mr Bone! Michael Gove, the Tory education spokesman, may have been watching I'm A Celebrity because suddenly he accused Ed Balls, of being "the Katie Price, the Jordan of the government. All he is interested in is being on the front pages, so he has massively inflated what he has to offer!" Oooh, missus! Actually this was Mr Gove's attempt at revenge, for earlier he was the victim of a fine coup de thtre by Mr Balls. The education secretary said he was fed up with the Tories saying that GCSE exams had been dumbed down. He had with him a few questions from recent GCSEs. Would Mr Gove care to answer them? This from the additional science test: "Name the type of enzyme that digests stains containing fats." Mr Gove squirmed slightly but offered no answer. Mr Balls, who is a playground bully at heart, realised he had found a victim. "Explain how a fluoride atom can change into a fluoride ion! The hon gentlemen is well known as an erudite and intellectual man. What is the answer?" Then: "Does he want to try that? Wanna try?" He sounded like an aggressive thug chanting "Want some, do yer? Want some?" in a pub car park. Finally he demanded, from the maths paper: "Work out three and three-quarters minus one and two-fifths." Mr Gove again, sensibly, offered no reply. (It is two and seven-twentieths.) The bully had won.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
A great PM's questions. But first, a moment in British constitutional history. On Tuesday I reported that Sir Peter Tapsell, one of the last knights of the shires, had been reselected. That morning, another thunderously grand knight, Sir Patrick Cormack, announced he would not be standing again. I am told these two events are closely connected. Both men were desperate to become father of the house. But now it seems almost certain that Sir Peter (known as "Blofeld" on the Labour benches) will succeed. For Sir Patrick this is a devastating time, and all our thoughts are with him. He sat behind his rival, in easy backstabbing distance, but being the ultimate gentleman, Sir Patrick refused to take advantage. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown and David Cameron were knocking seven bells out of each other. The Tory leader wanted to know why Britain was the only G20 country still in recession. Gordon Brown made a mistake. He said that Spain was in recession, and six other EU members were too. I assume he meant Latvia, Bulgaria, etc. This is like saying,: "No, I am not the stupidest boy in the class. Snotty Wilson got one less than me in maths." It is better left unsaid. He went on to say Cameron was "talking down Britain". This is always a sign of the end. John Major used the line in the dying days of his government. Any criticism was "talking down Britain". It was weedy then and it's weedy now. Cameron riposted that Brown had promised we would "lead the world out of recession". Brown did what he always does, and accused the Tories of having no policies. The sound in the chamber grew louder and louder as he shot: "The voice might be that of a modern PR man, but the mindset is the 1930s!" "That must have sounded great in the bunker!" snapped Cameron. Brown fought back with his trusty if rusted old sword, the Tory policy of raising the inheritance tax threshold for, he usually adds, the rich people on Cameron's Christmas card list. This time Cameron was ready. The Labour party was the only party which had already legislated for an increase in the inheritance tax! Brown wriggled for him, quite deftly. He brought up the fact that the Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith was a multimillionaire who paid no British tax on his offshore income. Clearly he and Cameron had dreamed up inheritance tax policy on "the playing fields of Eton". The battle of pre-cooked, boil-in-the-bag soundbites was getting nastier. A Labour MP raised domestic violence. The actor Reese Witherspoon had spoken about it that morning. Mr Brown paid tribute to "Renny Wutherspoon". Scottish readers: don't hesitate to tell me this is the way it's pronounced in east Scotland, you English bigot! Witherspoon once played the wife of Johnny Cash. Or, as Labour MPs would sing, "Because you're mine/I toe the line". Finally, Sir Peter Tapsell was called. All sides gave him an immense cheer. The prime minister had said that there would soon be 300,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan, the same number as the Soviets who were humiliated there. Should the prime minister not RESIGN? (Or as Sir Peter, who has a slight speech impediment, put it, "WESIGN!")
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
A great PM's questions. But first, a moment in British constitutional history. On Tuesday I reported that Sir Peter Tapsell, one of the last knights of the shires, had been reselected. That morning, another thunderously grand knight, Sir Patrick Cormack, announced he would not be standing again. I am told these two events are closely connected. Both men were desperate to become father of the house. But now it seems almost certain that Sir Peter (known as "Blofeld" on the Labour benches) will succeed. For Sir Patrick this is a devastating time, and all our thoughts are with him. He sat behind his rival, in easy backstabbing distance, but being the ultimate gentleman, Sir Patrick refused to take advantage. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown and David Cameron were knocking seven bells out of each other. The Tory leader wanted to know why Britain was the only G20 country still in recession. Gordon Brown made a mistake. He said that Spain was in recession, and six other EU members were too. I assume he meant Latvia, Bulgaria, etc. This is like saying,: "No, I am not the stupidest boy in the class. Snotty Wilson got one less than me in maths." It is better left unsaid. He went on to say Cameron was "talking down Britain". This is always a sign of the end. John Major used the line in the dying days of his government. Any criticism was "talking down Britain". It was weedy then and it's weedy now. Cameron riposted that Brown had promised we would "lead the world out of recession". Brown did what he always does, and accused the Tories of having no policies. The sound in the chamber grew louder and louder as he shot: "The voice might be that of a modern PR man, but the mindset is the 1930s!" "That must have sounded great in the bunker!" snapped Cameron. Brown fought back with his trusty if rusted old sword, the Tory policy of raising the inheritance tax threshold for, he usually adds, the rich people on Cameron's Christmas card list. This time Cameron was ready. The Labour party was the only party which had already legislated for an increase in the inheritance tax! Brown wriggled for him, quite deftly. He brought up the fact that the Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith was a multimillionaire who paid no British tax on his offshore income. Clearly he and Cameron had dreamed up inheritance tax policy on "the playing fields of Eton". The battle of pre-cooked, boil-in-the-bag soundbites was getting nastier. A Labour MP raised domestic violence. The actor Reese Witherspoon had spoken about it that morning. Mr Brown paid tribute to "Renny Wutherspoon". Scottish readers: don't hesitate to tell me this is the way it's pronounced in east Scotland, you English bigot! Witherspoon once played the wife of Johnny Cash. Or, as Labour MPs would sing, "Because you're mine/I toe the line". Finally, Sir Peter Tapsell was called. All sides gave him an immense cheer. The prime minister had said that there would soon be 300,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan, the same number as the Soviets who were humiliated there. Should the prime minister not RESIGN? (Or as Sir Peter, who has a slight speech impediment, put it, "WESIGN!")
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
The House of Lords used to be the politest place in the land. Nobody ever shouted, like David Cameron, "you're useless!" No one yelled "wrong, wrong, wrong!" You would be as likely to see a food fight in the Athenaeum. There were ways of disagreeing. For example, if someone suggested the return of child chimney sweeps: "The noble lord makes an intriguing point and one which your lordships may wish to ponder. However, Her Majesty's government feels unable, at this particular time, to make the commitment he requests." All is changed, changed utterly. It's almost as nasty as the Commons now. Take the question about the ratification of the Lisbon treaty yesterday. It was answered by Lord Brett, of whom I have never heard, but who appears to be a minister in the Foreign Office. He took the opportunity to gloat about the Tories' problems on this issue. I might have paid more attention to what he said if he had not appeared to be channelling the late Les Dawson, whom he resembles both in voice and appearance. "My old mum used to say: 'Never intrude into private grief," he said. There would be plenty of public grief if the Tories got their way. Lord Howell, the Tory spokesman, said: "I knew we wouldn't get far without this kind of vacuous exchange." Lord Brett: "I noted the comments about the vacuous comments, and I appreciate the vacuous comments he added. Ooh, missus!" (He didn't actually use the last two words, but some of the peers did go "Whooo!") Here's a pub quiz question. "What is 10 in London and 1 in Warsaw?" The answer is the letter Z in Scrabble. Lord Dykes said that the Polish papers were much better than our own, lacking the anti-European hysteria shown by quite a few members of the Conservative party. Whooo! Lord Brett claimed to be concerned about the Tories' strange allies in Europe. "Another maxim of my old mum was: 'By their friends they shall be known.'" We are being governed by the spirit of Lord Brett's mother. But everyone got off lightly compared with poor Lord Young of Norwood Green, who answered a question about grants for disabled students. Apparently these are in a terrible mess. It's the usual combination of arrogance, privatisation and computer cock-ups. Being New Labour, Lord Young called the situation "a success story". Lord Hunt, for the Tories, asked what, in that case, he would call a failure. "The higher education policies of the last [Tory] government" he replied. "That would be my description of a failure." The Tories jeered at the wretched response. Lord Young was, I fear, humiliated by everyone. Peers from all sides circled him like hyenas spotting a wildebeest with a limp. We only returned to normality with Lord West of Spithead, who contrived to work in praise for our heroic Royal Navy into an answer about cannabis use. I thought he might take the salute, or at least splice the mainbrace, whatever that means.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
The House of Lords used to be the politest place in the land. Nobody ever shouted, like David Cameron, "you're useless!" No one yelled "wrong, wrong, wrong!" You would be as likely to see a food fight in the Athenaeum. There were ways of disagreeing. For example, if someone suggested the return of child chimney sweeps: "The noble lord makes an intriguing point and one which your lordships may wish to ponder. However, Her Majesty's government feels unable, at this particular time, to make the commitment he requests." All is changed, changed utterly. It's almost as nasty as the Commons now. Take the question about the ratification of the Lisbon treaty yesterday. It was answered by Lord Brett, of whom I have never heard, but who appears to be a minister in the Foreign Office. He took the opportunity to gloat about the Tories' problems on this issue. I might have paid more attention to what he said if he had not appeared to be channelling the late Les Dawson, whom he resembles both in voice and appearance. "My old mum used to say: 'Never intrude into private grief," he said. There would be plenty of public grief if the Tories got their way. Lord Howell, the Tory spokesman, said: "I knew we wouldn't get far without this kind of vacuous exchange." Lord Brett: "I noted the comments about the vacuous comments, and I appreciate the vacuous comments he added. Ooh, missus!" (He didn't actually use the last two words, but some of the peers did go "Whooo!") Here's a pub quiz question. "What is 10 in London and 1 in Warsaw?" The answer is the letter Z in Scrabble. Lord Dykes said that the Polish papers were much better than our own, lacking the anti-European hysteria shown by quite a few members of the Conservative party. Whooo! Lord Brett claimed to be concerned about the Tories' strange allies in Europe. "Another maxim of my old mum was: 'By their friends they shall be known.'" We are being governed by the spirit of Lord Brett's mother. But everyone got off lightly compared with poor Lord Young of Norwood Green, who answered a question about grants for disabled students. Apparently these are in a terrible mess. It's the usual combination of arrogance, privatisation and computer cock-ups. Being New Labour, Lord Young called the situation "a success story". Lord Hunt, for the Tories, asked what, in that case, he would call a failure. "The higher education policies of the last [Tory] government" he replied. "That would be my description of a failure." The Tories jeered at the wretched response. Lord Young was, I fear, humiliated by everyone. Peers from all sides circled him like hyenas spotting a wildebeest with a limp. We only returned to normality with Lord West of Spithead, who contrived to work in praise for our heroic Royal Navy into an answer about cannabis use. I thought he might take the salute, or at least splice the mainbrace, whatever that means.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
The Chilcott inquiry heard from Sir John Scarlett yesterday, a spook as different from the spooks of popular fiction as you might meet beside a hollow tree in St James's Park. Present him with a dry martini and an evil billionaire who wants to take over the world, and I suspect he would be dashing off home to spread more John Innes on his roses. What he does have is a remarkable grasp of modern-day management-speak. Clearly this is far more important now than skills at codebreaking and driving fast cars. Before we were two minutes into his evidence, we were talking about "structure, output and tasking." "Bond, I want you to make sure you stay within structure and output guidelines. And no more tasking gorgeous women." The room where the inquiry is taking place is small and stuffy, with pipes running across the ceiling, so it resembles an interrogation chamber in some anonymous military building. As so often, my mind drifted in this case to Berlin during the 1950s. George Smiley, played by Sir Alec Guinness, is being briefed by John Scarlett, an up-and-coming operative. All jargon comes from yesterday's session. Smiley gazed at the lights reflected in the Spree. Berlin was bitterly cold at that time in winter, but it was not just the chill that made him shiver under his greatcoat. A slender figure slid beside him. It was young Scarlett. "I hear that Kalashnikov was a disappointment." "Oh, I don't know, sir. The interrogation was never formulaic, always substantial and often robust." "Did you get anything worthwhile?" "Well, sir, obviously we had to pay close attention to the requirements and priorities round, and bear in mind the formulation of the medium-term work programme, coupled with other short-term priorities." Smiley grunted. A young couple, screeching with merriment, went past on their way to a bar or nightclub. The girl was clearly drunk and her boyfriend seemed to be almost dragging her along. Not for the first time, Smiley wondered about the coming generation. "Did you see the minister?" "See the minister, sir? Sorry, I don't know what you mean." Smiley sighed. Sometimes it was like dealing with people for whom English was a second, even a third language. "I mean, did you brief the minister of defence about what Kalashnikov told us?" "Oh, gosh, I see, sir! You mean did I interface the customer?" "Yes," said Smiley with infinite weariness. "I suppose that's what I mean..." They actually talk about ministers, army chiefs, etc as "customers". And they don't meet them but "interface" them. Sir John Scarlett is older now, and has learned the techniques of the civil service. For example, he let Tony Blair off the hook when he said there had been no pressure to "firm up" the dossier on Iraq's weaponry. But, he was asked, his dossier was an assessment of the WMD campaign, not a threat assessment. That was all implied in the alarming foreword, written by Tony Blair. "The foreword was overtly a political statement signed by the prime minister, so it was his wording and his comments. I didn't see it as something I could change." The stiletto sinks in before the victim has even spotted it.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
The Chilcott inquiry heard from Sir John Scarlett yesterday, a spook as different from the spooks of popular fiction as you might meet beside a hollow tree in St James's Park. Present him with a dry martini and an evil billionaire who wants to take over the world, and I suspect he would be dashing off home to spread more John Innes on his roses. What he does have is a remarkable grasp of modern-day management-speak. Clearly this is far more important now than skills at codebreaking and driving fast cars. Before we were two minutes into his evidence, we were talking about "structure, output and tasking." "Bond, I want you to make sure you stay within structure and output guidelines. And no more tasking gorgeous women." The room where the inquiry is taking place is small and stuffy, with pipes running across the ceiling, so it resembles an interrogation chamber in some anonymous military building. As so often, my mind drifted in this case to Berlin during the 1950s. George Smiley, played by Sir Alec Guinness, is being briefed by John Scarlett, an up-and-coming operative. All jargon comes from yesterday's session. Smiley gazed at the lights reflected in the Spree. Berlin was bitterly cold at that time in winter, but it was not just the chill that made him shiver under his greatcoat. A slender figure slid beside him. It was young Scarlett. "I hear that Kalashnikov was a disappointment." "Oh, I don't know, sir. The interrogation was never formulaic, always substantial and often robust." "Did you get anything worthwhile?" "Well, sir, obviously we had to pay close attention to the requirements and priorities round, and bear in mind the formulation of the medium-term work programme, coupled with other short-term priorities." Smiley grunted. A young couple, screeching with merriment, went past on their way to a bar or nightclub. The girl was clearly drunk and her boyfriend seemed to be almost dragging her along. Not for the first time, Smiley wondered about the coming generation. "Did you see the minister?" "See the minister, sir? Sorry, I don't know what you mean." Smiley sighed. Sometimes it was like dealing with people for whom English was a second, even a third language. "I mean, did you brief the minister of defence about what Kalashnikov told us?" "Oh, gosh, I see, sir! You mean did I interface the customer?" "Yes," said Smiley with infinite weariness. "I suppose that's what I mean..." They actually talk about ministers, army chiefs, etc as "customers". And they don't meet them but "interface" them. Sir John Scarlett is older now, and has learned the techniques of the civil service. For example, he let Tony Blair off the hook when he said there had been no pressure to "firm up" the dossier on Iraq's weaponry. But, he was asked, his dossier was an assessment of the WMD campaign, not a threat assessment. That was all implied in the alarming foreword, written by Tony Blair. "The foreword was overtly a political statement signed by the prime minister, so it was his wording and his comments. I didn't see it as something I could change." The stiletto sinks in before the victim has even spotted it.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
Normally I would not dream of quoting from a private letter, but Sir Peter Tapsell has topped his note to me "Personal (up to a point!)" so I assume he will not mind my sharing the splendid news with you. For on Friday last, Sir Peter was readopted to contest the general election in the Conservative interest for the constituency of Louth and Horncastle. It will be his 15th campaign, and he will almost certainly have turned 80 by the time it takes place. You could almost hear the huzzahs ringing down from Lincolnshire! What makes his victory especially piquant is that as part of his 45-minute speech to the Conservatives, he read out part of one of my sketches. This was from 2006, shortly after Tony Blair had claimed that God would judge him on Iraq. At the time I compared Sir Peter's interventions to watching Alfred Brendel and George Best in action. (I was tempted to rewrite the Tommy Cooper joke: "Trouble is, George Best was a hopeless pianist and Alfred Brendel couldn't play football." But I didn't.) Sir Peter had finished his majestic question to the then prime minister, "Will he tell us which archangel is now beckoning him towards southern Afghanistan?" No wonder that, even in this youth-crazed world, Sir Peter was chosen again. Yesterday he was in his place listening to the prime minister make another statement about Afghanistan. Sir Peter believes that we should not have gone there in the first place, and that since the Soviets could not hold the country with 300,000 men our 500 extra troops will not make the slightest difference. Gordon Brown's statement required a certain understanding of metaphysics. The gist seemed to be that because our military intervention had been so successful, we needed more troops to make it even more successful. And we should send extra men now so that our lads could come home earlier. And the fact that several countries were threatening to remove their forces from Afghanistan meant that even more nations would be represented there soon. Hmmm. You can always tell when a policy is in trouble when the politicians start turning it into new cliches. "We need a military surge, complemented by a political surge, which is essentially an Afghan political surge," he said. Try prising the sultanas out of that cake! Sir Peter did not at first rise to ask a question. Instead he used body language, the Esperanto of the Commons, to express his deep dissatisfaction. He rested his hands on his lap aggressively, if you can picture that. He leaned forward and scowled. At one point he leaned back, folded his arms, and looked, simply, furious. The prime minister continued, deploying more weird pronunciations. ("Mastiff" armoured vehicles he calls "masteef" to rhyme with the French "canif". Al-Qaida is no longer "Alky Ada", the drunken old aunt. She has become Al, Kay, Ada a music hall act of the inter-war years. Finally Sir Peter could bear it no longer. He stood up and, in his pomp, asked a question not about Afghanistan but Pakistan. So it was a disappointment for his fans, but our cup of good news was brimming over anyway.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
Normally I would not dream of quoting from a private letter, but Sir Peter Tapsell has topped his note to me "Personal (up to a point!)" so I assume he will not mind my sharing the splendid news with you. For on Friday last, Sir Peter was readopted to contest the general election in the Conservative interest for the constituency of Louth and Horncastle. It will be his 15th campaign, and he will almost certainly have turned 80 by the time it takes place. You could almost hear the huzzahs ringing down from Lincolnshire! What makes his victory especially piquant is that as part of his 45-minute speech to the Conservatives, he read out part of one of my sketches. This was from 2006, shortly after Tony Blair had claimed that God would judge him on Iraq. At the time I compared Sir Peter's interventions to watching Alfred Brendel and George Best in action. (I was tempted to rewrite the Tommy Cooper joke: "Trouble is, George Best was a hopeless pianist and Alfred Brendel couldn't play football." But I didn't.) Sir Peter had finished his majestic question to the then prime minister, "Will he tell us which archangel is now beckoning him towards southern Afghanistan?" No wonder that, even in this youth-crazed world, Sir Peter was chosen again. Yesterday he was in his place listening to the prime minister make another statement about Afghanistan. Sir Peter believes that we should not have gone there in the first place, and that since the Soviets could not hold the country with 300,000 men our 500 extra troops will not make the slightest difference. Gordon Brown's statement required a certain understanding of metaphysics. The gist seemed to be that because our military intervention had been so successful, we needed more troops to make it even more successful. And we should send extra men now so that our lads could come home earlier. And the fact that several countries were threatening to remove their forces from Afghanistan meant that even more nations would be represented there soon. Hmmm. You can always tell when a policy is in trouble when the politicians start turning it into new cliches. "We need a military surge, complemented by a political surge, which is essentially an Afghan political surge," he said. Try prising the sultanas out of that cake! Sir Peter did not at first rise to ask a question. Instead he used body language, the Esperanto of the Commons, to express his deep dissatisfaction. He rested his hands on his lap aggressively, if you can picture that. He leaned forward and scowled. At one point he leaned back, folded his arms, and looked, simply, furious. The prime minister continued, deploying more weird pronunciations. ("Mastiff" armoured vehicles he calls "masteef" to rhyme with the French "canif". Al-Qaida is no longer "Alky Ada", the drunken old aunt. She has become Al, Kay, Ada a music hall act of the inter-war years. Finally Sir Peter could bear it no longer. He stood up and, in his pomp, asked a question not about Afghanistan but Pakistan. So it was a disappointment for his fans, but our cup of good news was brimming over anyway.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
There are times in the Commons when the only tolerable response is to throw food. Sadly this is not allowed. Nor may we shout at MPs from the public and press galleries. Otherwise we'd be constantly yelling "Next!", or as they would say in the comedy clubs, "Taxi for the minister!" The urge to interrupt the proceedings is often strongest when members are trying to be funny. This is usually like watching a walrus attempting to tap-dance: you admire the effort rather than the result. Today Harriet Harman, leader of the house, was standing in for Gordon Brown who was at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Anne McIntosh, the Tory MP for Vale of York, saw her chance. "Copenhagen is the land of make-believe and fairytales," she said. "Does the leader of the house have a favourite fairy tale?" We groaned, silently, for we could guess what was coming. "Could it be The Emperor's New Clothes? Is she The Little Robber Girl, or is she really the princess?" Oh dear. Laugh? We almost started. A team of top French deconstructionists could have spent semesters on that question. The reference to the emperor's new clothes was, I suppose, something to do with the government thinking it had performed better than it had. Or that Gordon Brown was preening himself while wearing nothing but body hair and goose pimples. Who can say? I don't know which princess Ms McIntosh had in mind, since there are several. As for The Little Robber Girl, no doubt this was meant to evoke high taxes, yet the actual story is horrible, involving mass murder and hideous cruelty. It is the kind of tale that was probably read to kids who have gone on to coin millions with misery memoirs: "Mommy chained me to the radiator, and Daddy read me The Little Robber Girl, every night." Anyhow, Ms Harman was prepared, sort of. She leapt up and said: "We could all learn a lesson from fairytales, which is that you need to avoid" and here she waved frantically at the Tory front bench "the brothers Grimm!" She kept on talking, but we couldn't hear. Labour MPs, who had been largely sitting in a grumpy and morose silence, suddenly erupted as if it were the funniest political barb every fired. They rolled round in fits of comedy delight, slapping their thighs and holding their stomachs as if afraid that the force of the laughter inside them might make them explode. I began to suspect that the noise had little to do with the quality of Hattie's joke but the fact that she had made it and had said something brief and crisp in contrast to the endless vague rambling she had offered before. The row did not stop: it grew more raucous, and in the end the Speaker had to intervene. Good humour was one thing, disorder another, he said. The public wanted to be reassured, not disgusted. A good point, but it may be a bit late to worry about public disgust now.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
There are times in the Commons when the only tolerable response is to throw food. Sadly this is not allowed. Nor may we shout at MPs from the public and press galleries. Otherwise we'd be constantly yelling "Next!", or as they would say in the comedy clubs, "Taxi for the minister!" The urge to interrupt the proceedings is often strongest when members are trying to be funny. This is usually like watching a walrus attempting to tap-dance: you admire the effort rather than the result. Today Harriet Harman, leader of the house, was standing in for Gordon Brown who was at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Anne McIntosh, the Tory MP for Vale of York, saw her chance. "Copenhagen is the land of make-believe and fairytales," she said. "Does the leader of the house have a favourite fairy tale?" We groaned, silently, for we could guess what was coming. "Could it be The Emperor's New Clothes? Is she The Little Robber Girl, or is she really the princess?" Oh dear. Laugh? We almost started. A team of top French deconstructionists could have spent semesters on that question. The reference to the emperor's new clothes was, I suppose, something to do with the government thinking it had performed better than it had. Or that Gordon Brown was preening himself while wearing nothing but body hair and goose pimples. Who can say? I don't know which princess Ms McIntosh had in mind, since there are several. As for The Little Robber Girl, no doubt this was meant to evoke high taxes, yet the actual story is horrible, involving mass murder and hideous cruelty. It is the kind of tale that was probably read to kids who have gone on to coin millions with misery memoirs: "Mommy chained me to the radiator, and Daddy read me The Little Robber Girl, every night." Anyhow, Ms Harman was prepared, sort of. She leapt up and said: "We could all learn a lesson from fairytales, which is that you need to avoid" and here she waved frantically at the Tory front bench "the brothers Grimm!" She kept on talking, but we couldn't hear. Labour MPs, who had been largely sitting in a grumpy and morose silence, suddenly erupted as if it were the funniest political barb every fired. They rolled round in fits of comedy delight, slapping their thighs and holding their stomachs as if afraid that the force of the laughter inside them might make them explode. I began to suspect that the noise had little to do with the quality of Hattie's joke but the fact that she had made it and had said something brief and crisp in contrast to the endless vague rambling she had offered before. The row did not stop: it grew more raucous, and in the end the Speaker had to intervene. Good humour was one thing, disorder another, he said. The public wanted to be reassured, not disgusted. A good point, but it may be a bit late to worry about public disgust now.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
We were gathered for the launch of an exciting new thinktank, ResPublica. It was particularly thrilling because David Cameron was there to pat the tank on the head and send it on its way. The launch was in a hotel conference room festooned with velvet drapes, chandeliers, tapestries and tiled pilasters. It looked like the entry hall of the most luxurious brothel in Bradford. Behind the platform was a placard announcing the aims of the new tank. "Radical solutions revolutionise innovation sustainable future," it declared. My law of reverse meaning states that if the opposite of something is obvious nonsense, it wasn't worth saying in the first place, as in "tinkering at the edges sticking in the mud using tomorrow's resources today!" The room was filled with 300 people. We asked a thinktank tankie who they were. "They are the great and the good of the policy world!" he replied. My heart began to ache and a drowsy numbness started to numb me, drowsily. David Cameron arrived. We hear that many of his shadow cabinet are deeply suspicious of ResPublica, which they fear smacks of socialism and some forms of rightwing fundamentalism. They see it as a freemarket Hizb ut-Tahrir. No wonder Mr Cameron did not stay long. "It's great to be at the launch of another thinktank in Britain!" he said, stressing the word "another" so giving his welcome a slightly sarcastic air. He galloped along. We had a broken society, broken politics, and a broken economy. We needed the "bigger society" whatever that might be. And people were often in public services because they loved their work. "We have to unlock the love!" he exclaimed. The one and only begetter of ResPublica, its director, Phillip Blond, said the Tory leader's diary did not permit him to stay. I'll say. He was out of there like a cat chased by a dog on a skateboard. This left the platform bare except for Mr Blond, who spoke with such profundity that I found it hard to stay awake. I was jerked into life when he pointed out how Conservatives had always been great liberators. They abolished slavery, and it was Tories who led the factory reform movement, "against Guardian-reading Manchester liberals". Heavens, Guardian readers get blamed for a lot, but I didn't realise that included child labour. "Profoundly individualating," he went on. "Reciprocality!" he demanded. "Universality should not be compromised!" He called for an "eco-structure for exchange and ethos". I would have paid more heed to these thunderous abstractions if Mr Blond hadn't looked like a cross between Gordon Brown and DCI Gene Hunt in Ashes To Ashes. "Policing the model," he said. ("Awright, Ms Campbell, better come wiv us, my girl, or you'll cop it.") "Economic actors," ("I'd love to buy a round, darling, but I seem to have become parted from my wallet.") "Postmodern verity against an objective void." "Hear, hear, that needed saying!" as no one remarked. Finally it was over. The food afterwards was great.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
We were gathered for the launch of an exciting new thinktank, ResPublica. It was particularly thrilling because David Cameron was there to pat the tank on the head and send it on its way. The launch was in a hotel conference room festooned with velvet drapes, chandeliers, tapestries and tiled pilasters. It looked like the entry hall of the most luxurious brothel in Bradford. Behind the platform was a placard announcing the aims of the new tank. "Radical solutions revolutionise innovation sustainable future," it declared. My law of reverse meaning states that if the opposite of something is obvious nonsense, it wasn't worth saying in the first place, as in "tinkering at the edges sticking in the mud using tomorrow's resources today!" The room was filled with 300 people. We asked a thinktank tankie who they were. "They are the great and the good of the policy world!" he replied. My heart began to ache and a drowsy numbness started to numb me, drowsily. David Cameron arrived. We hear that many of his shadow cabinet are deeply suspicious of ResPublica, which they fear smacks of socialism and some forms of rightwing fundamentalism. They see it as a freemarket Hizb ut-Tahrir. No wonder Mr Cameron did not stay long. "It's great to be at the launch of another thinktank in Britain!" he said, stressing the word "another" so giving his welcome a slightly sarcastic air. He galloped along. We had a broken society, broken politics, and a broken economy. We needed the "bigger society" whatever that might be. And people were often in public services because they loved their work. "We have to unlock the love!" he exclaimed. The one and only begetter of ResPublica, its director, Phillip Blond, said the Tory leader's diary did not permit him to stay. I'll say. He was out of there like a cat chased by a dog on a skateboard. This left the platform bare except for Mr Blond, who spoke with such profundity that I found it hard to stay awake. I was jerked into life when he pointed out how Conservatives had always been great liberators. They abolished slavery, and it was Tories who led the factory reform movement, "against Guardian-reading Manchester liberals". Heavens, Guardian readers get blamed for a lot, but I didn't realise that included child labour. "Profoundly individualating," he went on. "Reciprocality!" he demanded. "Universality should not be compromised!" He called for an "eco-structure for exchange and ethos". I would have paid more heed to these thunderous abstractions if Mr Blond hadn't looked like a cross between Gordon Brown and DCI Gene Hunt in Ashes To Ashes. "Policing the model," he said. ("Awright, Ms Campbell, better come wiv us, my girl, or you'll cop it.") "Economic actors," ("I'd love to buy a round, darling, but I seem to have become parted from my wallet.") "Postmodern verity against an objective void." "Hear, hear, that needed saying!" as no one remarked. Finally it was over. The food afterwards was great.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
It was our first chance to see David Miliband in action after Hillary Clinton's confession of if not love, then of a deep and profound attraction. In an interview with American Vogue, the US secretary of state came over all Mills & Boon. "If you saw him," she said, "it would be a big crush. I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart! He's a really good guy, and he's so young!" You can say that again. The foreign secretary is 18 years her junior. That makes her what is known these days as a "cougar", an older woman who preys on younger men. (I think I know the origin of this curious term, but it isn't very nice, and I would not dare repeat it in the Guardian.) So Mr Miliband must feel a lot more welcome in Foggy Bottom, Washington, than he does in the Commons. The only woman facing him in the chamber today was Anne Main (C, St Albans) and she is a mere seven years older than him. A puma perhaps, or a lynx. And in any case she didn't exactly look smitten. Nor did Sir Peter Tapsell, the Man Who Warned the World About Afghanistan. He too was clearly not suffering from a crush. As Mr Miliband spoke, Sir Peter's expression ranged from sceptical to cynical, from disbelief to scorn. Finally he rose to intervene with a pair of questions designed to upend our deliciously vibrant foreign secretary through his own superior knowledge of the North-West Frontier and associated hell holes. We learned how the Taliban were once supported only by the Pashtun. Now they were being driven into the Swat Valley and Baluchistan! You could almost see that vital, smart brain thinking: "I've heard of them. They were on the news!" But he thought too soon. Sir Peter, never to be out-manoeuvred in the Great Game went on, "which are an immense distance away from the Durand frontier!" What possible answer can there be to that? It was a magnificent example of one-upmanship, a meeting between Stephen Potter, Flashman and Google Earth. Mr Miliband had no reply, and moved swiftly on to the Israel/Palestine question and something he called "the Clinton parameters". Well, I thought, I've never heard them called that before. It turned out that he was referring to the gorgeous, pouting Hillary's husband, who showed the world his parameters back in 2000. Disappointing. Then William Hague rose and enjoyed himself hugely over the appointment of "Cathy Ashton", as he claimed Gordon Brown's third choice as EU high representative. Why, he said, the foreign secretary had been tempted by the job, for all the right reasons including "his belief that the prime minister will soon be gone". Peter Mandelson had also been put forward. Ministers would have a chance to deny this, but instead "an icy stillness" rose from the front bench. This would not just be a case of a rat leaving the sinking ship, but the lord high admiral himself departing "though we are reluctant to suggest new titles, because he might adopt them". The Labour front bench collapsed in laughter. There is little love lost there.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
It was our first chance to see David Miliband in action after Hillary Clinton's confession of if not love, then of a deep and profound attraction. In an interview with American Vogue, the US secretary of state came over all Mills & Boon. "If you saw him," she said, "it would be a big crush. I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart! He's a really good guy, and he's so young!" You can say that again. The foreign secretary is 18 years her junior. That makes her what is known these days as a "cougar", an older woman who preys on younger men. (I think I know the origin of this curious term, but it isn't very nice, and I would not dare repeat it in the Guardian.) So Mr Miliband must feel a lot more welcome in Foggy Bottom, Washington, than he does in the Commons. The only woman facing him in the chamber today was Anne Main (C, St Albans) and she is a mere seven years older than him. A puma perhaps, or a lynx. And in any case she didn't exactly look smitten. Nor did Sir Peter Tapsell, the Man Who Warned the World About Afghanistan. He too was clearly not suffering from a crush. As Mr Miliband spoke, Sir Peter's expression ranged from sceptical to cynical, from disbelief to scorn. Finally he rose to intervene with a pair of questions designed to upend our deliciously vibrant foreign secretary through his own superior knowledge of the North-West Frontier and associated hell holes. We learned how the Taliban were once supported only by the Pashtun. Now they were being driven into the Swat Valley and Baluchistan! You could almost see that vital, smart brain thinking: "I've heard of them. They were on the news!" But he thought too soon. Sir Peter, never to be out-manoeuvred in the Great Game went on, "which are an immense distance away from the Durand frontier!" What possible answer can there be to that? It was a magnificent example of one-upmanship, a meeting between Stephen Potter, Flashman and Google Earth. Mr Miliband had no reply, and moved swiftly on to the Israel/Palestine question and something he called "the Clinton parameters". Well, I thought, I've never heard them called that before. It turned out that he was referring to the gorgeous, pouting Hillary's husband, who showed the world his parameters back in 2000. Disappointing. Then William Hague rose and enjoyed himself hugely over the appointment of "Cathy Ashton", as he claimed Gordon Brown's third choice as EU high representative. Why, he said, the foreign secretary had been tempted by the job, for all the right reasons including "his belief that the prime minister will soon be gone". Peter Mandelson had also been put forward. Ministers would have a chance to deny this, but instead "an icy stillness" rose from the front bench. This would not just be a case of a rat leaving the sinking ship, but the lord high admiral himself departing "though we are reluctant to suggest new titles, because he might adopt them". The Labour front bench collapsed in laughter. There is little love lost there.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
It was the Threadneedle Spectator parliamentarian of the year awards today. Lord Mandelson was the big winner. (I wasn't a judge, so I am not to blame. Others know who they are.) He received his award for politician of the year from Boris Johnson. It was, Mandelson said, a great honour. He was the first winner since 2006 not to have been a member of the Bullingdon Club. Then he added: "This is another to add to the list of things I have in common with Boris. We both spent a long time in Brussels. We both had very public resignations. And we both have an overwhelming ambition to do everything we can to undermine David Cameron." From his right came harrumphing and denial. "Humph. No! No! Harrumph," cried Boris. This protestation might have been slightly more convincing if it hadn't been for Boris's own speech a short while before. This took the form of a mock-heroic address to MPs, who had created a "magnificent catastrophe" to distract attention away from the banking scandal. "How proud I am!" he said, addressing MPs, his former colleagues. "I want to give you the most massive plug but unlike Jacqui Smith I would not dream of claiming for it for the chaotic, shambolic handling which has brilliantly directed media and public anger away from the financial services of London!" Warming to his theme and Boris never cools to any theme on which he has embarked "you resemble Leonidas and the Spartans, or Clint Eastwood in The Bodyguard, standing in the path of public rage! You have taken the bullet for the bankers!" Why, he said, it was marvellous that MPs should win all these awards. They would each need a trophy cabinet from Ikea, or possibly John Lewis, to display them all! This would go on their additional costs allowance. The cabinet might be so full that it could damage a wall. They would need to grow wisteria on the outside of the wall. So: "It would be necessary to add a wisteria trimmer to the bill." Did he mention moat cleaning, or duck houses, or flat-screen televisions? No, he mentioned only wisteria trimming. And who is the only MP to have claimed for wisteria trimming? Why David Cameron. You might need to be obsessed by politics, or by the control of climbing plants, to understand what he was talking about. But we knew. That is Boris's genius. He always gets it both ways. Most other award winners were just happy to get their gong and go. Kenneth Clarke, ironically named newcomer of the year, said the judges had made an old man very happy. Paul Farrelly, the Labour MP Carter-Ruck tried to silence over the Guardian's revelations of toxic waste dumping in Africa, was named inquisitor of the year and said it showed there was life in the "old dog of parliament". The Tory peer Lady Warsi was moving. She said she had been voted sexiest member of the House of Lords, "but in light of the fact that I've still got my teeth, that's not so extraordinary. "But I am the daughter of a Pakistani immigrant mill-worker, and I ended up in the House of Lords." We all applauded madly what a wonderful country we still think this is.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
It was the Threadneedle Spectator parliamentarian of the year awards today. Lord Mandelson was the big winner. (I wasn't a judge, so I am not to blame. Others know who they are.) He received his award for politician of the year from Boris Johnson. It was, Mandelson said, a great honour. He was the first winner since 2006 not to have been a member of the Bullingdon Club. Then he added: "This is another to add to the list of things I have in common with Boris. We both spent a long time in Brussels. We both had very public resignations. And we both have an overwhelming ambition to do everything we can to undermine David Cameron." From his right came harrumphing and denial. "Humph. No! No! Harrumph," cried Boris. This protestation might have been slightly more convincing if it hadn't been for Boris's own speech a short while before. This took the form of a mock-heroic address to MPs, who had created a "magnificent catastrophe" to distract attention away from the banking scandal. "How proud I am!" he said, addressing MPs, his former colleagues. "I want to give you the most massive plug but unlike Jacqui Smith I would not dream of claiming for it for the chaotic, shambolic handling which has brilliantly directed media and public anger away from the financial services of London!" Warming to his theme and Boris never cools to any theme on which he has embarked "you resemble Leonidas and the Spartans, or Clint Eastwood in The Bodyguard, standing in the path of public rage! You have taken the bullet for the bankers!" Why, he said, it was marvellous that MPs should win all these awards. They would each need a trophy cabinet from Ikea, or possibly John Lewis, to display them all! This would go on their additional costs allowance. The cabinet might be so full that it could damage a wall. They would need to grow wisteria on the outside of the wall. So: "It would be necessary to add a wisteria trimmer to the bill." Did he mention moat cleaning, or duck houses, or flat-screen televisions? No, he mentioned only wisteria trimming. And who is the only MP to have claimed for wisteria trimming? Why David Cameron. You might need to be obsessed by politics, or by the control of climbing plants, to understand what he was talking about. But we knew. That is Boris's genius. He always gets it both ways. Most other award winners were just happy to get their gong and go. Kenneth Clarke, ironically named newcomer of the year, said the judges had made an old man very happy. Paul Farrelly, the Labour MP Carter-Ruck tried to silence over the Guardian's revelations of toxic waste dumping in Africa, was named inquisitor of the year and said it showed there was life in the "old dog of parliament". The Tory peer Lady Warsi was moving. She said she had been voted sexiest member of the House of Lords, "but in light of the fact that I've still got my teeth, that's not so extraordinary. "But I am the daughter of a Pakistani immigrant mill-worker, and I ended up in the House of Lords." We all applauded madly what a wonderful country we still think this is.
|
10simonhoggart
| 0Politics
|
The Tories must be glad that the new leader of Ukip left their party years ago. At a time when David Cameron is trying to shorten the names of any Tory who sounds even slightly toffish, the last thing he wants is another old Etonian, especially one named Malcolm Everard MacLaren Pearson, Baron Pearson of Rannoch. I suspect that he would be even less willing than Annunziata Rees-Mogg (Nancy Mogg) to have his name shortened to, say, Mal Pearce. What's more, M.E.M.P.B.P.O.R has a set of views being anti-gay, anti-Muslim and pro almost any form of hunting which would curl the neck hair of Tory frontbenchers such as Georgie Oz, Andy Lans, Frankie Maude and others, some of whose names have been conveniently pre-shortened, such as Tess May, Bill Hague and Eric Pickles. And Lord Pearson received 100,000 over six years by claiming that his 3.7m house in London was his second home. And he owns 12,000 acres in Scotland. In short, he is everything Davy Cam is trying to get rid of, or at least brush under the carpet. Anyhow, Lord Pearson is now in office, and has annoyed many in Ukip by saying that if the Tories ever promised a referendum on our continued membership of the EU he would disband his own party. Today in the House of Lords he asked the government whether they would hold a referendum. The answer, from Glenys Kinnock, was "no". She added that his offer to liquidate his own party was a "rather original approach to leadership". In fact, everyone patronised him, and once you have been patronised by their lordships, you stay patronised. Lord Tomlinson announced gravely that Lord Pearson had shown "a standard of leadership which screams that the other party leaders do not have a great deal to worry about". Lord Dykes, a peer who believes we will be better off governed by Belgians and Luxembourgeois, who know better than we do how to govern ourselves, said it was an eccentric state of affairs. Lord Pearson qualified for the Guinness Book of Records as the only new party leader who had caused a mass resignation three days after he had taken office. Lord Pearson will not, I suspect, fret too much about this criticism. Back in the Commons, Liam Byrne, who is number two at the Treasury, was making a statement with the risky title of "smarter government". This seemed to involve cutting the deficit by saving money. But no member of this government could ever say anything so simple. Instead, Mr Byrne, who collects jargon like Madonna collects babies, told us his plans would "make it easier for civic society to contribute to public life by pressing ahead with the new social investment bank and by testing social impact bonds". He would also "free up the front line to innovate collaborate [sic] by cutting back on ring-fenced budgets and national targets joint ventures and regulatory flexibility". The low droning sound of Mr Byrne describing his incomprehensible plans was suddenly cut by an agonised cry from Sir Patrick Cormack: "Can you PLEASE speak English?
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Simon Hoggart .
|
The Tories must be glad that the new leader of Ukip left their party years ago. At a time when David Cameron is trying to shorten the names of any Tory who sounds even slightly toffish, the last thing he wants is another old Etonian, especially one named Malcolm Everard MacLaren Pearson, Baron Pearson of Rannoch. I suspect that he would be even less willing than Annunziata Rees-Mogg (Nancy Mogg) to have his name shortened to, say, Mal Pearce. What's more, M.E.M.P.B.P.O.R has a set of views being anti-gay, anti-Muslim and pro almost any form of hunting which would curl the neck hair of Tory frontbenchers such as Georgie Oz, Andy Lans, Frankie Maude and others, some of whose names have been conveniently pre-shortened, such as Tess May, Bill Hague and Eric Pickles. And Lord Pearson received 100,000 over six years by claiming that his 3.7m house in London was his second home. And he owns 12,000 acres in Scotland. In short, he is everything Davy Cam is trying to get rid of, or at least brush under the carpet. Anyhow, Lord Pearson is now in office, and has annoyed many in Ukip by saying that if the Tories ever promised a referendum on our continued membership of the EU he would disband his own party. Today in the House of Lords he asked the government whether they would hold a referendum. The answer, from Glenys Kinnock, was "no". She added that his offer to liquidate his own party was a "rather original approach to leadership". In fact, everyone patronised him, and once you have been patronised by their lordships, you stay patronised. Lord Tomlinson announced gravely that Lord Pearson had shown "a standard of leadership which screams that the other party leaders do not have a great deal to worry about". Lord Dykes, a peer who believes we will be better off governed by Belgians and Luxembourgeois, who know better than we do how to govern ourselves, said it was an eccentric state of affairs. Lord Pearson qualified for the Guinness Book of Records as the only new party leader who had caused a mass resignation three days after he had taken office. Lord Pearson will not, I suspect, fret too much about this criticism. Back in the Commons, Liam Byrne, who is number two at the Treasury, was making a statement with the risky title of "smarter government". This seemed to involve cutting the deficit by saving money. But no member of this government could ever say anything so simple. Instead, Mr Byrne, who collects jargon like Madonna collects babies, told us his plans would "make it easier for civic society to contribute to public life by pressing ahead with the new social investment bank and by testing social impact bonds". He would also "free up the front line to innovate collaborate [sic] by cutting back on ring-fenced budgets and national targets joint ventures and regulatory flexibility". The low droning sound of Mr Byrne describing his incomprehensible plans was suddenly cut by an agonised cry from Sir Patrick Cormack: "Can you PLEASE speak English?
|
0catherinebennett
| 0Politics
|
B>The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Thursday November 20 2003</B><BR><BR>In the column below, sub-headlined ' Presidents and the right to protest', we may unintentionally have given the impression that Jiang Zemin is still the Chinese president. He was succeeded by Hu Jintao in November 2002. <BR><BR> <B><HR size="1"></HR></B> <BR><BR> Here are some things that people think. The majority of people, anyway. People think that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is one of the best books ever written. People approve of the reintroduction of capital punishment (lethal injection, for preference). People want fox hunting banned. Their favourite song is Bohemian Rhapsody. People believe in ghosts and are in favour of identity cards. Their favourite meal is fish and chips and they feel sure GM food is a very bad thing. Almost half of them don't think the MMR jab is safe. People underestimate the hygiene complications of preparing a Christmas turkey. They have never heard of the European Constitution. They think parents have the right to know the name and address of any sex offender in the neighbourhood. They think parental selection of a baby's gender is so awful it should be banned. Mercifully, for those who deviate from the majority position on most of the above, the public view does not have to be emulated, or obeyed. We are not subject to its moronic line on literature, music or the paranormal. On gender selection, however, the feelings of the mob are to be enforced. When Suzy Leather, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, explained why this body, after a year's review, now advocates a ban on sex selection, the main reason adduced for the decision was that the majority of people say they don't like the idea. Or as Leather put it, there is "a substantial public consensus against sex selection for social reasons". In this area, then, the conduct of your private life is to be directed by public consultation backed by a Mori poll. Unless, that is, you have the energy and cash to defy the public fiat: sex selection is legally available, at a price, at private clinics in America and across the Channel. Quite why "people" should be so against this ostensibly not very wicked expression of a preference is not easily understood. If people had concluded, having completed the relevant research, that gender selection might result in a great preponderance of girls or boys, or an increased number of abortions or incidence of neglect, then one might sympathise with their fears, when polled. The deputy chairman of the HFEA, Tom Baldwin, has said that much of the opposition sprang from "widespread hostility", and from anxieties about a "slippery slope". So it is not because sex selection was found wanting by the HFEA experts, you gather, so much as to assuage the public's nightmares about designer babies or hundreds of mini-Bin Ladens (quite understandable if you watch a lot of late-night television) that women such as Nicola Chenery, of Plymouth, who really wanted a daughter after her four boys, should now be prevented from having sex selection by IVF at a clinic in Spain. If this decisive body of technophobes had got their way a bit earlier, Chenery's twin baby girls would never have been born. How fortunate, in fact, that Mori polls were not in charge around the time IVF was invented. Ditto blood transfusion and heart transplants. But it's true: slippery slopes can be awfully worrying. What, for example, are the implications of the HFEA's deferral to public opinion in a country where politicians customarily go to great lengths to avoid doing what the public actually wants? Should we now look forward to seeing paedophiles in the stocks, zero fuel tax, the prohibition of speed limits, a quick exit from Europe and the immediate expulsion of all asylum seekers? The HFEA's recourse to public sentiment suggests that consultation should go much further than that. Most of us, after all, have some acquaintance with the issues of crime and of tax-paying, some opinion on public services. In the case of sex selection, there can be no recourse to experience or, even, to folk wisdom. It's a question many poll respondents might never have considered before - unless you count inclining, secretly, to one sex or the other. If fertility experts on the Clapham omnibus can decide policy on gender selection as well as the outcome of Pop Idol, there is no reason why they should not be invited to rule on other scientific advances likely to prompt substantial ethical debate. Those clinicians currently hoping to attempt a facial transplant, for example, and the few gravely disfigured individuals who have expressed interest in the operation, may need to consider not only the profound questions of identity involved in such a procedure, but whether the public will, once again, be so utterly outraged by the affront to nature that doctors, ethicists and prospective patients must all bow to its opinion. <BR><BR><B>Presidents and the right to protest</B><BR><BR>Isn't it time we had Jiang Zemin round? It's been ages and on his last stay, thanks to Robin Cook's insistence on sparing the feelings of the Chinese president, he hardly got to meet anyone. Quite possibly he went home with the idea that the United Kingdom is, leaving aside 1,000-year-old eggs and the occasional peasouper, just like China. A ruthless police state in which any dissent is either concealed from visitors or suppressed, if necessary by violence. But after George Bush's visit, that should all be different, shouldn't it? Even those who maintain that Bush is the vilest ruler of the most evil empire that ever existed must concede that, if his visit helps restore the right to peaceful protest that Cook suddenly withdrew in 1991, it can't have been all bad. Next time Jiang comes to stay, the Metropolitan police commissioner Sir John Stevens will want to make sure that he sees the welcoming Tibetan flags, banners and T-shirts instead of having all the human rights demonstrators obscured from the presidential view or dragged away by police. Unless, that is, Blair's government has no objection to our shouting abuse at passing democrats, who are probably used to that sort of thing, but draws the line at anything that might offend the sensitive visitor from less tolerant climes. There's only one way to find out. Come back, Jiang, and next time, bring your mates.<BR><BR><B>Where are the women?</B><BR><BR>Was Patricia Hewitt well advised to make gleeful capital out of Michael Howard's almost all-male shadow cabinet? True, Howard's one-to-12 ratio is almost comically shameful (though he was apparently spurned by Ann Widdecombe). But is Blair's record with women so much better? After the departure, hurt, of Mowlam, Short and Morris, Blair's six senior women (out of a cabinet of 21) are: an extremely disturbed person called Margaret Hodge, who seems in need of a long rest; Tessa Jowell, who is probably busy with the Olympics; the tireless caravanner Margaret Beckett; the not-readily-identifiable Hilary Armstrong; Baroness Valerie Amos (appointed, doesn't count); and Patricia Hewitt herself, who is still having a little difficulty reconciling her 1970s feminism with the present day. The Labour ministers with big jobs, are, like Howard's favourites, all men. Until Labour gets closer to electing a woman leader, any triumphalism in this department looks distinctly premature.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Catherine Bennett .
|
B>The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Thursday November 20 2003</B><BR><BR>In the column below, sub-headlined ' Presidents and the right to protest', we may unintentionally have given the impression that Jiang Zemin is still the Chinese president. He was succeeded by Hu Jintao in November 2002. <BR><BR> <B><HR size="1"></HR></B> <BR><BR> Here are some things that people think. The majority of people, anyway. People think that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is one of the best books ever written. People approve of the reintroduction of capital punishment (lethal injection, for preference). People want fox hunting banned. Their favourite song is Bohemian Rhapsody. People believe in ghosts and are in favour of identity cards. Their favourite meal is fish and chips and they feel sure GM food is a very bad thing. Almost half of them don't think the MMR jab is safe. People underestimate the hygiene complications of preparing a Christmas turkey. They have never heard of the European Constitution. They think parents have the right to know the name and address of any sex offender in the neighbourhood. They think parental selection of a baby's gender is so awful it should be banned. Mercifully, for those who deviate from the majority position on most of the above, the public view does not have to be emulated, or obeyed. We are not subject to its moronic line on literature, music or the paranormal. On gender selection, however, the feelings of the mob are to be enforced. When Suzy Leather, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, explained why this body, after a year's review, now advocates a ban on sex selection, the main reason adduced for the decision was that the majority of people say they don't like the idea. Or as Leather put it, there is "a substantial public consensus against sex selection for social reasons". In this area, then, the conduct of your private life is to be directed by public consultation backed by a Mori poll. Unless, that is, you have the energy and cash to defy the public fiat: sex selection is legally available, at a price, at private clinics in America and across the Channel. Quite why "people" should be so against this ostensibly not very wicked expression of a preference is not easily understood. If people had concluded, having completed the relevant research, that gender selection might result in a great preponderance of girls or boys, or an increased number of abortions or incidence of neglect, then one might sympathise with their fears, when polled. The deputy chairman of the HFEA, Tom Baldwin, has said that much of the opposition sprang from "widespread hostility", and from anxieties about a "slippery slope". So it is not because sex selection was found wanting by the HFEA experts, you gather, so much as to assuage the public's nightmares about designer babies or hundreds of mini-Bin Ladens (quite understandable if you watch a lot of late-night television) that women such as Nicola Chenery, of Plymouth, who really wanted a daughter after her four boys, should now be prevented from having sex selection by IVF at a clinic in Spain. If this decisive body of technophobes had got their way a bit earlier, Chenery's twin baby girls would never have been born. How fortunate, in fact, that Mori polls were not in charge around the time IVF was invented. Ditto blood transfusion and heart transplants. But it's true: slippery slopes can be awfully worrying. What, for example, are the implications of the HFEA's deferral to public opinion in a country where politicians customarily go to great lengths to avoid doing what the public actually wants? Should we now look forward to seeing paedophiles in the stocks, zero fuel tax, the prohibition of speed limits, a quick exit from Europe and the immediate expulsion of all asylum seekers? The HFEA's recourse to public sentiment suggests that consultation should go much further than that. Most of us, after all, have some acquaintance with the issues of crime and of tax-paying, some opinion on public services. In the case of sex selection, there can be no recourse to experience or, even, to folk wisdom. It's a question many poll respondents might never have considered before - unless you count inclining, secretly, to one sex or the other. If fertility experts on the Clapham omnibus can decide policy on gender selection as well as the outcome of Pop Idol, there is no reason why they should not be invited to rule on other scientific advances likely to prompt substantial ethical debate. Those clinicians currently hoping to attempt a facial transplant, for example, and the few gravely disfigured individuals who have expressed interest in the operation, may need to consider not only the profound questions of identity involved in such a procedure, but whether the public will, once again, be so utterly outraged by the affront to nature that doctors, ethicists and prospective patients must all bow to its opinion. <BR><BR><B>Presidents and the right to protest</B><BR><BR>Isn't it time we had Jiang Zemin round? It's been ages and on his last stay, thanks to Robin Cook's insistence on sparing the feelings of the Chinese president, he hardly got to meet anyone. Quite possibly he went home with the idea that the United Kingdom is, leaving aside 1,000-year-old eggs and the occasional peasouper, just like China. A ruthless police state in which any dissent is either concealed from visitors or suppressed, if necessary by violence. But after George Bush's visit, that should all be different, shouldn't it? Even those who maintain that Bush is the vilest ruler of the most evil empire that ever existed must concede that, if his visit helps restore the right to peaceful protest that Cook suddenly withdrew in 1991, it can't have been all bad. Next time Jiang comes to stay, the Metropolitan police commissioner Sir John Stevens will want to make sure that he sees the welcoming Tibetan flags, banners and T-shirts instead of having all the human rights demonstrators obscured from the presidential view or dragged away by police. Unless, that is, Blair's government has no objection to our shouting abuse at passing democrats, who are probably used to that sort of thing, but draws the line at anything that might offend the sensitive visitor from less tolerant climes. There's only one way to find out. Come back, Jiang, and next time, bring your mates.<BR><BR><B>Where are the women?</B><BR><BR>Was Patricia Hewitt well advised to make gleeful capital out of Michael Howard's almost all-male shadow cabinet? True, Howard's one-to-12 ratio is almost comically shameful (though he was apparently spurned by Ann Widdecombe). But is Blair's record with women so much better? After the departure, hurt, of Mowlam, Short and Morris, Blair's six senior women (out of a cabinet of 21) are: an extremely disturbed person called Margaret Hodge, who seems in need of a long rest; Tessa Jowell, who is probably busy with the Olympics; the tireless caravanner Margaret Beckett; the not-readily-identifiable Hilary Armstrong; Baroness Valerie Amos (appointed, doesn't count); and Patricia Hewitt herself, who is still having a little difficulty reconciling her 1970s feminism with the present day. The Labour ministers with big jobs, are, like Howard's favourites, all men. Until Labour gets closer to electing a woman leader, any triumphalism in this department looks distinctly premature.
|
0catherinebennett
| 0Politics
|
After a number of recent battles, in which quite a few hundred people have been slaughtered, the sensitive politician might want to avoid the use of bellicose imagery. At least, until the real war in Iraq is over. Tony Blair, on the other hand, can think of no better way with which to emphasise the violence of his latest volte-face. Such is his disgust for the word "referendum", with its connotations of weedy debates and passive consultation (not to mention innocuous "tidying up"), that he prefers to present it as a rough, tough, gloves-off fight until the best man wins. "Let the issue be put. Let battle be joined." If this seems a repellently stupid, and, in the circumstances, staggeringly tasteless choice of words, we should perhaps consider whether Blair, the born-again warrior, is able to control himself. In Plan of Attack, his illuminating and persuasive new account of the approach to the Iraq war, Bob Woodward reminds us how George Bush flattered our prime minister, after the latter had pledged British troops, telling Alastair Campbell: "Your man has got cojones." Afterwards, Bush would call this the "the cojones meeting". More recently, in an interview with Woodward, the president apparently recalled: "And, of course, these Brits don't know what cojones are." Assuming Bush was referring to our linguistic limitations rather than to some flaw in the national biology, he is, of course, quite wrong. We have read Ernest Hemingway. Cojones is the Spanish word for testicles. Moreover, the heavily cojoned hero of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is taken for a Scot. In attributing cojones to Blair, Bush is saying that our prime minister, for all that he may resemble a not particularly vigorous 50-year-old who likes looking at beach volleyball players, is actually a heroic kind of person, a man who might easily have volunteered for the Spanish civil war, or fought bulls in the ring, or enjoyed any number of the life-threatening sports Hemingway considered truly virile: "It takes more cojones to be a sportsman where death is a closer party to the game" (Death in the Afternoon, 1932). Not the least alarming revelation, in Woodward's account of Bush's covert preparations for war, is the strutting, sparring manner in which his jowly advisers would urge one another on to walk the walk. Donald Rumsfeld advocated moments when you have to "look people in the eye". Bush duly "looked Blair in the eye". (Not to be outdone, Blair looked "Bush back in the eye".) Karl Rove, working on Bush's image, lists among desired presidential qualities, "Strong Leader, Bold Action, Big Ideas, Peace in World". Although it's not always as dignified as that. At a crucial meeting in December 2002, in which he attempted to convince Bush that the evidence for WMD was compelling, George Tenet, the CIA director, threw his arms up in the air and twice declared, "It's a slam dunk case!" (I understand, in the absence of Woodward's guidance, that this is a forceful and decisive basketball shot, meaning, when used by the head of the CIA, that there is no question that the WMD evidence is adequate.) Aside from its flattering new cover depicting the pardners Bush and Blair - in contrast to the all-American line-up on the US jacket - the British edition of Plan of Attack depicts this country's engagement in Bush's war as little more than a tactical requirement. In early attack plans, drawn up by General Franks in December 2001, British involvement was presented as optional. Later, of course, it was thanks to Blair that the US went through the motions of seeking UN endorsement for its war, but only because Bush needed Blair to stay in office, where he could proclaim loyalty and support. "If his government went down, Bush would not only lose his chief ally but it would strengthen Saddam. Imagine the headlines! Plus, Bush reasoned, he would be blamed. It would be a double whammy." So worried was Bush about the PR disaster of being forced, in the absence of Blair, into the unilateral, "imperial option", that he called him, offering to find another role for British forces, an opt-out as "peacekeepers or something. I would rather go alone than have your government fall." Blair, the buen hombre, is recorded as replying: "I said I'm with you. I mean it." If Bush and Woodward's account of these leader-to-leader conversations can be trusted, Blair was not so much the president's poodle, as his little drummer boy, free with declarations of eternal fealty - "I said, I'm with you" - for which he would be rewarded with compliments of the cojones variety, or other forms of presidential indulgence. But for all that Bush needed him, the relationship remained unequal. Demeaningly so. When it came to a second resolution, Blair had to plead with Bush: "Blair said he needed the favour. Please." It was graciously granted. After Blair's successful war speech in the commons, Bush is supposed to have called him, and rhapsodised "leaders" - like themselves - "who take strong stands and define their missions". Exactly how much of this sub-Hemingway posturing actually occurred between the two men, neither of whom has ever been in combat, it is hard to say. Some of it is so shaming that, if untrue, Blair should make haste to deny it. A few, utterly implausible expressions, such as "whip counters" and wanting to "win strong", suggest we should not believe every word. But the cross-my-heart avowals are all too convincing. And Campbell's earlier reports of the dumb, virile fun of war summits (where he, too, got recognised as a man), make it easy to believe now in Woodward's extended account of the eyeballing and bonding and slam dunking which seem to have constituted, for Bush and his allies, an updated version of coating themselves in woad. Today, although slighted by the blood brother who persuaded him to commit 45,000 British troops to war, Blair still appears to cherish his status as a man whose cojones are so surpassingly huge that he can do no wrong. It takes balls to walk all over the cabinet. It takes balls to contradict yourself like this. It takes balls to fly to Bermuda when there's a war on. Maybe he should go off and edit Nuts magazine. <B>Lies, damn lies and EU myths</B>One reason for a referendum, according to the prime minister, is to expose the disgraceful "nonsense-myths" circulated by eurosceptics. Among other fictions, he itemised "being forced to drive on the right, the Germans taking over our nuclear weapons; and, no doubt, the shape of our bananas, too." Some of us would have been still more reassured if, in this list of appalling slurs and malicious inventions, Blair had confirmed that a draft EU directive on gender equality will not, if it is adopted, result in a massive rise in the cost of women's car insurance. For the idea that young women, who drive more safely than young men, should have to pay the same as the sex that accounts for 98% of dangerous driving, is surely quite as absurd as the regulation of banana dimensions. But when one remembers the mischievous propagandists who are keen to damage the EU at any cost, it becomes obvious that they, and not a social affairs commissioner called Anna Diamantopoulou, must be responsible. For if adopted, her proposal must be a precedent for the introduction of strict, anti-discriminatory regulation in every other area of insurance, with non-smokers stumping up the same premiums as smokers, croquet players paying as much as skiers. Next time we hear from the improbable "Anna Diamantopoulou", let us remember Blair's assurances, and resolve not to believe everything we read in the newspapers.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Catherine Bennett .
|
After a number of recent battles, in which quite a few hundred people have been slaughtered, the sensitive politician might want to avoid the use of bellicose imagery. At least, until the real war in Iraq is over. Tony Blair, on the other hand, can think of no better way with which to emphasise the violence of his latest volte-face. Such is his disgust for the word "referendum", with its connotations of weedy debates and passive consultation (not to mention innocuous "tidying up"), that he prefers to present it as a rough, tough, gloves-off fight until the best man wins. "Let the issue be put. Let battle be joined." If this seems a repellently stupid, and, in the circumstances, staggeringly tasteless choice of words, we should perhaps consider whether Blair, the born-again warrior, is able to control himself. In Plan of Attack, his illuminating and persuasive new account of the approach to the Iraq war, Bob Woodward reminds us how George Bush flattered our prime minister, after the latter had pledged British troops, telling Alastair Campbell: "Your man has got cojones." Afterwards, Bush would call this the "the cojones meeting". More recently, in an interview with Woodward, the president apparently recalled: "And, of course, these Brits don't know what cojones are." Assuming Bush was referring to our linguistic limitations rather than to some flaw in the national biology, he is, of course, quite wrong. We have read Ernest Hemingway. Cojones is the Spanish word for testicles. Moreover, the heavily cojoned hero of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is taken for a Scot. In attributing cojones to Blair, Bush is saying that our prime minister, for all that he may resemble a not particularly vigorous 50-year-old who likes looking at beach volleyball players, is actually a heroic kind of person, a man who might easily have volunteered for the Spanish civil war, or fought bulls in the ring, or enjoyed any number of the life-threatening sports Hemingway considered truly virile: "It takes more cojones to be a sportsman where death is a closer party to the game" (Death in the Afternoon, 1932). Not the least alarming revelation, in Woodward's account of Bush's covert preparations for war, is the strutting, sparring manner in which his jowly advisers would urge one another on to walk the walk. Donald Rumsfeld advocated moments when you have to "look people in the eye". Bush duly "looked Blair in the eye". (Not to be outdone, Blair looked "Bush back in the eye".) Karl Rove, working on Bush's image, lists among desired presidential qualities, "Strong Leader, Bold Action, Big Ideas, Peace in World". Although it's not always as dignified as that. At a crucial meeting in December 2002, in which he attempted to convince Bush that the evidence for WMD was compelling, George Tenet, the CIA director, threw his arms up in the air and twice declared, "It's a slam dunk case!" (I understand, in the absence of Woodward's guidance, that this is a forceful and decisive basketball shot, meaning, when used by the head of the CIA, that there is no question that the WMD evidence is adequate.) Aside from its flattering new cover depicting the pardners Bush and Blair - in contrast to the all-American line-up on the US jacket - the British edition of Plan of Attack depicts this country's engagement in Bush's war as little more than a tactical requirement. In early attack plans, drawn up by General Franks in December 2001, British involvement was presented as optional. Later, of course, it was thanks to Blair that the US went through the motions of seeking UN endorsement for its war, but only because Bush needed Blair to stay in office, where he could proclaim loyalty and support. "If his government went down, Bush would not only lose his chief ally but it would strengthen Saddam. Imagine the headlines! Plus, Bush reasoned, he would be blamed. It would be a double whammy." So worried was Bush about the PR disaster of being forced, in the absence of Blair, into the unilateral, "imperial option", that he called him, offering to find another role for British forces, an opt-out as "peacekeepers or something. I would rather go alone than have your government fall." Blair, the buen hombre, is recorded as replying: "I said I'm with you. I mean it." If Bush and Woodward's account of these leader-to-leader conversations can be trusted, Blair was not so much the president's poodle, as his little drummer boy, free with declarations of eternal fealty - "I said, I'm with you" - for which he would be rewarded with compliments of the cojones variety, or other forms of presidential indulgence. But for all that Bush needed him, the relationship remained unequal. Demeaningly so. When it came to a second resolution, Blair had to plead with Bush: "Blair said he needed the favour. Please." It was graciously granted. After Blair's successful war speech in the commons, Bush is supposed to have called him, and rhapsodised "leaders" - like themselves - "who take strong stands and define their missions". Exactly how much of this sub-Hemingway posturing actually occurred between the two men, neither of whom has ever been in combat, it is hard to say. Some of it is so shaming that, if untrue, Blair should make haste to deny it. A few, utterly implausible expressions, such as "whip counters" and wanting to "win strong", suggest we should not believe every word. But the cross-my-heart avowals are all too convincing. And Campbell's earlier reports of the dumb, virile fun of war summits (where he, too, got recognised as a man), make it easy to believe now in Woodward's extended account of the eyeballing and bonding and slam dunking which seem to have constituted, for Bush and his allies, an updated version of coating themselves in woad. Today, although slighted by the blood brother who persuaded him to commit 45,000 British troops to war, Blair still appears to cherish his status as a man whose cojones are so surpassingly huge that he can do no wrong. It takes balls to walk all over the cabinet. It takes balls to contradict yourself like this. It takes balls to fly to Bermuda when there's a war on. Maybe he should go off and edit Nuts magazine. <B>Lies, damn lies and EU myths</B>One reason for a referendum, according to the prime minister, is to expose the disgraceful "nonsense-myths" circulated by eurosceptics. Among other fictions, he itemised "being forced to drive on the right, the Germans taking over our nuclear weapons; and, no doubt, the shape of our bananas, too." Some of us would have been still more reassured if, in this list of appalling slurs and malicious inventions, Blair had confirmed that a draft EU directive on gender equality will not, if it is adopted, result in a massive rise in the cost of women's car insurance. For the idea that young women, who drive more safely than young men, should have to pay the same as the sex that accounts for 98% of dangerous driving, is surely quite as absurd as the regulation of banana dimensions. But when one remembers the mischievous propagandists who are keen to damage the EU at any cost, it becomes obvious that they, and not a social affairs commissioner called Anna Diamantopoulou, must be responsible. For if adopted, her proposal must be a precedent for the introduction of strict, anti-discriminatory regulation in every other area of insurance, with non-smokers stumping up the same premiums as smokers, croquet players paying as much as skiers. Next time we hear from the improbable "Anna Diamantopoulou", let us remember Blair's assurances, and resolve not to believe everything we read in the newspapers.
|
0catherinebennett
| 0Politics
|
The Daily Mail despairs of Cherie Blair. True, even when the woman passed for semi-rational, it never had much time for her, but in the past week, dismayed by her appetite for the manifestly bogus, the paper has focused repeatedly on what an editorial called her "lack of judgment". Lynda Lee-Potter diagnosed her as "gullible, bordering on the cranky when it comes to alternative medicine, homeopathy, gurus and the power of crystals and rocks". And in a special investigation of this gullible borderline crank "the Weird World of Cherie" went into disdainful detail about her allegedly "increasing" dependence on a Dorking-based medium called Sylvia. "The fact that the prime minister's wife faxes questions to the spirit world is at best bizarre, but at worst deeply worrying," wrote Paul Harris. "What's she going to ask them? Should we go to war with Iraq? It is rather an unusual way to organise your future." It most certainly is. But no more so, perhaps, than the Daily Mail's own enthusiasm for another purveyor of occult intelligence, one Michael Drosnin, author of a pre-millennium bestseller called The Bible Code. Throughout the week, alongside bulletins from the weird world of Cherie, the Mail has been treating its readers to lengthy extracts from Drosnin's sequel, Bible Code 2: The Countdown, in which the author rounds up a few scary predictions he forgot to mention earlier. For him, as for so many other professional purveyors of doom, September 11 came as thrilling confirmation that the Apocalypse is - hadn't they told us so all along? - a conflagration just waiting to happen. "All the evidence seems to suggest that the globe will be in a state of perpetual conflict until the year 2006... " His threats concluded yesterday with the clinching revelation that the bible code is the work of visiting aliens, who "arrived here on Earth in a spacecraft". It is thanks to them, the Daily Mail presumably believes, that Drosnin is now able to share the warnings of al-Qaida's activities which he discovered in the aftermath of 9/11. "First, the Bible Code predicted the attacks on the Twin Towers", it trumpeted on Monday's front page, alongside a handy aide memoire: a mugshot of Bin Laden. "Now, it warns of nuclear war. Dare we ignore this message?" Ooh, I don't know. As Harris puts it, it does seem "rather an unusual way to organise your future". Like Cherie, whose relationship with her medium is described as "decidedly long-term", the Daily Mail's reliance on Drosnin and his team of gifted aliens goes back a while, to 1997, when it serialised his first, highly successful attempt to use the bible codes to cash in on premillennial tension. His technique, borrowed from a devout Israeli mathematician, is to search for names "hidden" in the Bible, using a computer to try out equidistant letter sequences. It may be, the Torah being so very long, that it contains a lot of interesting stuff about Lynda Lee-Potter or Alan Partridge, but being a serious person, Drosnin stuck to searching for politicians. When he searched for Yitzhak Rabin, for instance, the name duly surfaced, with the letters spaced 4,772 characters apart. Once the letters have been arranged on a grid, in whatever direction - upwards, diagonally, backwards - turns out to be most rewarding, bible code experts then search the surrounding text for phrases or words that might offer added prophetic meaning. Clinton, for instance, could be made to appear near "hidden secret, lover of maidservant". Drosnin was exultant. "That's as close as the Old Testament gets to 'young female intern'. Rabin, on the other hand, could be made to intersect with the Hebrew words "a murderer who murders". Thus it is Drosnin's boast to have predicted Rabin's murder. His prediction of Netanyahu's assassination is less often advertised. Trying to locate the exact date of Armageddon, back in 1997, proved equally tricky. "There is no way to know whether the code is predicting a war in 2000 or 2006," he decided. "The year 2000 is encoded twice, but 2006 is mathematically the best match." Can't be too careful, eh? Defending this codswallop back in 1997, Drosnin said: "When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them. An enterprising Australian computer scientist called Brendan McKay promptly used the bible codes technique on Moby Dick to find the names of a variety of assassinated prime ministers, including Indira Gandhi, Rene Moawad, Abraham Lincoln and Yitzhak Rabin. Sadly, a search of Moby Dick also predicted Michael Drosnin's own death, by a nail through the heart: "Mr Drosnin will be killed either in Cairo or Athens. Probably both places will play a part, but our skills in reading the secret codes are not yet advanced enough to say more." In 1999, McKay also co-authored a comprehensive repudiation of the bible codes in the journal Statistical Science. "A brief summary of the result of our very extensive investigation", he writes, "is that all the alleged scientific evidence for the codes is bunk." A view resoundingly endorsed in a "Mathematicians' Statement on the Bible Codes", available on the net, in which scores of academics, including John Allen Paulos, agree that "the almost unanimous opinion of those in the scientific world who have studied the question is that the theory is without foundation." The pages of the Daily Mail, however, inhabit a quite different, Cherie-style universe, whose laws allow for Drosnin's many critics to be blithely ignored or baselessly discredited. "Many people scoffed," says the paper, "until they saw the astonishing array of modern events spelled out in the ancient Hebrew letters." With Drosnin also rewriting the past - "the case for the code has just kept getting stronger" - many of the Mail's more gullible readers may now be considering cashing in their endowment policies. For unless Drosnin can locate the aliens' code from its resting place under the Dead Sea, it seems that our lives will probably end horribly in 2006. Photographs of Bin Laden, gas masks and burning towers offer a few, surpassingly tasteless hints of what we can expect. Maybe a nuclear holocaust, Drosnin speculates, or "a plague that could kill one-third of the world's population". Hard to say. Whatever it is, only he knows where the aliens left the key "to unlock the code and see our entire future", but the King of Jordan won't let him investigate! "Time is running out - fast... " Is it? Crikey. If consulting the dead were not such a deplorably gullible and cranky thing to do, one might almost be tempted to get a second opinion from Cherie's spirit guide in Dorking. Does Sylvia accept inquiries from the general public, as well as the prime minister's wife? If so, I have two questions. Should we go to war with Iraq? And can we believe anything we read in the Daily Mail?
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Catherine Bennett .
|
The Daily Mail despairs of Cherie Blair. True, even when the woman passed for semi-rational, it never had much time for her, but in the past week, dismayed by her appetite for the manifestly bogus, the paper has focused repeatedly on what an editorial called her "lack of judgment". Lynda Lee-Potter diagnosed her as "gullible, bordering on the cranky when it comes to alternative medicine, homeopathy, gurus and the power of crystals and rocks". And in a special investigation of this gullible borderline crank "the Weird World of Cherie" went into disdainful detail about her allegedly "increasing" dependence on a Dorking-based medium called Sylvia. "The fact that the prime minister's wife faxes questions to the spirit world is at best bizarre, but at worst deeply worrying," wrote Paul Harris. "What's she going to ask them? Should we go to war with Iraq? It is rather an unusual way to organise your future." It most certainly is. But no more so, perhaps, than the Daily Mail's own enthusiasm for another purveyor of occult intelligence, one Michael Drosnin, author of a pre-millennium bestseller called The Bible Code. Throughout the week, alongside bulletins from the weird world of Cherie, the Mail has been treating its readers to lengthy extracts from Drosnin's sequel, Bible Code 2: The Countdown, in which the author rounds up a few scary predictions he forgot to mention earlier. For him, as for so many other professional purveyors of doom, September 11 came as thrilling confirmation that the Apocalypse is - hadn't they told us so all along? - a conflagration just waiting to happen. "All the evidence seems to suggest that the globe will be in a state of perpetual conflict until the year 2006... " His threats concluded yesterday with the clinching revelation that the bible code is the work of visiting aliens, who "arrived here on Earth in a spacecraft". It is thanks to them, the Daily Mail presumably believes, that Drosnin is now able to share the warnings of al-Qaida's activities which he discovered in the aftermath of 9/11. "First, the Bible Code predicted the attacks on the Twin Towers", it trumpeted on Monday's front page, alongside a handy aide memoire: a mugshot of Bin Laden. "Now, it warns of nuclear war. Dare we ignore this message?" Ooh, I don't know. As Harris puts it, it does seem "rather an unusual way to organise your future". Like Cherie, whose relationship with her medium is described as "decidedly long-term", the Daily Mail's reliance on Drosnin and his team of gifted aliens goes back a while, to 1997, when it serialised his first, highly successful attempt to use the bible codes to cash in on premillennial tension. His technique, borrowed from a devout Israeli mathematician, is to search for names "hidden" in the Bible, using a computer to try out equidistant letter sequences. It may be, the Torah being so very long, that it contains a lot of interesting stuff about Lynda Lee-Potter or Alan Partridge, but being a serious person, Drosnin stuck to searching for politicians. When he searched for Yitzhak Rabin, for instance, the name duly surfaced, with the letters spaced 4,772 characters apart. Once the letters have been arranged on a grid, in whatever direction - upwards, diagonally, backwards - turns out to be most rewarding, bible code experts then search the surrounding text for phrases or words that might offer added prophetic meaning. Clinton, for instance, could be made to appear near "hidden secret, lover of maidservant". Drosnin was exultant. "That's as close as the Old Testament gets to 'young female intern'. Rabin, on the other hand, could be made to intersect with the Hebrew words "a murderer who murders". Thus it is Drosnin's boast to have predicted Rabin's murder. His prediction of Netanyahu's assassination is less often advertised. Trying to locate the exact date of Armageddon, back in 1997, proved equally tricky. "There is no way to know whether the code is predicting a war in 2000 or 2006," he decided. "The year 2000 is encoded twice, but 2006 is mathematically the best match." Can't be too careful, eh? Defending this codswallop back in 1997, Drosnin said: "When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them. An enterprising Australian computer scientist called Brendan McKay promptly used the bible codes technique on Moby Dick to find the names of a variety of assassinated prime ministers, including Indira Gandhi, Rene Moawad, Abraham Lincoln and Yitzhak Rabin. Sadly, a search of Moby Dick also predicted Michael Drosnin's own death, by a nail through the heart: "Mr Drosnin will be killed either in Cairo or Athens. Probably both places will play a part, but our skills in reading the secret codes are not yet advanced enough to say more." In 1999, McKay also co-authored a comprehensive repudiation of the bible codes in the journal Statistical Science. "A brief summary of the result of our very extensive investigation", he writes, "is that all the alleged scientific evidence for the codes is bunk." A view resoundingly endorsed in a "Mathematicians' Statement on the Bible Codes", available on the net, in which scores of academics, including John Allen Paulos, agree that "the almost unanimous opinion of those in the scientific world who have studied the question is that the theory is without foundation." The pages of the Daily Mail, however, inhabit a quite different, Cherie-style universe, whose laws allow for Drosnin's many critics to be blithely ignored or baselessly discredited. "Many people scoffed," says the paper, "until they saw the astonishing array of modern events spelled out in the ancient Hebrew letters." With Drosnin also rewriting the past - "the case for the code has just kept getting stronger" - many of the Mail's more gullible readers may now be considering cashing in their endowment policies. For unless Drosnin can locate the aliens' code from its resting place under the Dead Sea, it seems that our lives will probably end horribly in 2006. Photographs of Bin Laden, gas masks and burning towers offer a few, surpassingly tasteless hints of what we can expect. Maybe a nuclear holocaust, Drosnin speculates, or "a plague that could kill one-third of the world's population". Hard to say. Whatever it is, only he knows where the aliens left the key "to unlock the code and see our entire future", but the King of Jordan won't let him investigate! "Time is running out - fast... " Is it? Crikey. If consulting the dead were not such a deplorably gullible and cranky thing to do, one might almost be tempted to get a second opinion from Cherie's spirit guide in Dorking. Does Sylvia accept inquiries from the general public, as well as the prime minister's wife? If so, I have two questions. Should we go to war with Iraq? And can we believe anything we read in the Daily Mail?
|
0catherinebennett
| 0Politics
|
Whatever happened to the Big Conversation? A chill in the air reminds one that it is now a year since Mr Blair launched what he said would be an honest, "grown-up discussion" in which the whole country could participate. "Big issues need a real debate, a big conversation between politicans and the people." There would be meetings, for those who like meetings, and for everyone else, a website, which was launched with a selection of carefully composed tributes from radiantly satisifed Labour supporters. Before long, the Big Conversation had become, more entertainingly, a home from home for the grumpy and resentful: "I can see myself living the last years of my life in poverty," wrote one, not untypical respondent, "the quality of life here is on a steep decline." Others offered detailed calculations to prove that their lives had become a financial catastrophe. From what was published, it seemed most respondents wanted to complain about council tax, inadequate benefits, over-lavish benefits, house prices, speeding cars, speed restrictions, the railways, the bus services, local councils, pathetic pensions, terrible house prices, awful facilities for the disabled, bullying at work, smoking, the evils of outsourcing and the closure of local facilities. I could not, however, find anyone demanding the creation of super-casinos for the democratisation of gambling. Or expressing any interest in smacking. Overall, the tone - and this relates, of course, only to the messages selected for publication - would probably be familiar to anyone working in a call centre, where staff are trained to respond with an unbroken, impartial silence, followed, in the end, by a bland, "What would you like me to do?" In the case of the Big Conversation, that silence continues. There has been, as yet, no formal acknowledgement of the public's anguished postings. No analysis or summary of their views has been published; not so much as a thank-you has emerged from Mr Blair. It has been, then, a rather funny sort of conversation. Just as Britain was, for a while, a rather funny sort of GB: PLC. Of course, as any survivor of the talking cure will tell you, there's nothing wrong with a conversation in which only one side contributes. It's good just to get it off your chest. But even in the world of therapy I believe it is rare for these one-sided encounters to go on for as long as a year. A party spokesman says that the public's responses were fed into Labour's national policy forum. So this will be one of those debates in which the reply comes in the shape of a printed party manifesto. Will it feature baffles on street lights? Or a ban on membership of the Freemasons? Or the reform of council tax? Or the renationalisaton of the railways? The spokesman mentions the strength of public feeling on smoking, childcare and antisocial behaviour. He says the Conversation "achieved what it set out to do". In other words, having created what amounts to a giant virtual dustbin and filled it with complaints familiar from every MP's surgery in the land (minus the hopeless and illiterate, but swollen by comments from constituents with net access), the Labour party has moved on. As the election nears, ministers will no doubt cite comments made by other Big Conversationalists when it suits. But without any analysis of the submissions of its self-selecting contributors, it is impossible to know whether Labour policy reflects consensus on the website, defies it, or, indeed, whether it should have taken any notice at all of this diligently censored PR exercise. When the website opened, Labour officials claimed that nothing would be "off limits". "Tell us your No 1 priority for Britain," they urged. (After all, there was nothing forcing them to publish it.) In the past year there must have been a few of the 15,000 contributors to the website who thought that the No 1 priority for Britain - after local buses, anyway - was resolution of the war in Iraq. But in the world of the Big Conversation (which our Labour spokesman still describes as "a debate without prejudice"), this subject never came up. Perhaps it never happened. Our priorities are childcare, smoking, and antisocial behaviour. The Big Conversation's work is done. <B>Poor, 'bereaved' Paula</B><B>
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Catherine Bennett .
|
Whatever happened to the Big Conversation? A chill in the air reminds one that it is now a year since Mr Blair launched what he said would be an honest, "grown-up discussion" in which the whole country could participate. "Big issues need a real debate, a big conversation between politicans and the people." There would be meetings, for those who like meetings, and for everyone else, a website, which was launched with a selection of carefully composed tributes from radiantly satisifed Labour supporters. Before long, the Big Conversation had become, more entertainingly, a home from home for the grumpy and resentful: "I can see myself living the last years of my life in poverty," wrote one, not untypical respondent, "the quality of life here is on a steep decline." Others offered detailed calculations to prove that their lives had become a financial catastrophe. From what was published, it seemed most respondents wanted to complain about council tax, inadequate benefits, over-lavish benefits, house prices, speeding cars, speed restrictions, the railways, the bus services, local councils, pathetic pensions, terrible house prices, awful facilities for the disabled, bullying at work, smoking, the evils of outsourcing and the closure of local facilities. I could not, however, find anyone demanding the creation of super-casinos for the democratisation of gambling. Or expressing any interest in smacking. Overall, the tone - and this relates, of course, only to the messages selected for publication - would probably be familiar to anyone working in a call centre, where staff are trained to respond with an unbroken, impartial silence, followed, in the end, by a bland, "What would you like me to do?" In the case of the Big Conversation, that silence continues. There has been, as yet, no formal acknowledgement of the public's anguished postings. No analysis or summary of their views has been published; not so much as a thank-you has emerged from Mr Blair. It has been, then, a rather funny sort of conversation. Just as Britain was, for a while, a rather funny sort of GB: PLC. Of course, as any survivor of the talking cure will tell you, there's nothing wrong with a conversation in which only one side contributes. It's good just to get it off your chest. But even in the world of therapy I believe it is rare for these one-sided encounters to go on for as long as a year. A party spokesman says that the public's responses were fed into Labour's national policy forum. So this will be one of those debates in which the reply comes in the shape of a printed party manifesto. Will it feature baffles on street lights? Or a ban on membership of the Freemasons? Or the reform of council tax? Or the renationalisaton of the railways? The spokesman mentions the strength of public feeling on smoking, childcare and antisocial behaviour. He says the Conversation "achieved what it set out to do". In other words, having created what amounts to a giant virtual dustbin and filled it with complaints familiar from every MP's surgery in the land (minus the hopeless and illiterate, but swollen by comments from constituents with net access), the Labour party has moved on. As the election nears, ministers will no doubt cite comments made by other Big Conversationalists when it suits. But without any analysis of the submissions of its self-selecting contributors, it is impossible to know whether Labour policy reflects consensus on the website, defies it, or, indeed, whether it should have taken any notice at all of this diligently censored PR exercise. When the website opened, Labour officials claimed that nothing would be "off limits". "Tell us your No 1 priority for Britain," they urged. (After all, there was nothing forcing them to publish it.) In the past year there must have been a few of the 15,000 contributors to the website who thought that the No 1 priority for Britain - after local buses, anyway - was resolution of the war in Iraq. But in the world of the Big Conversation (which our Labour spokesman still describes as "a debate without prejudice"), this subject never came up. Perhaps it never happened. Our priorities are childcare, smoking, and antisocial behaviour. The Big Conversation's work is done. <B>Poor, 'bereaved' Paula</B><B>
|
0catherinebennett
| 0Politics
|
Barbara Cassani, the American woman leading Britain's bid to stage the Olympics, says that there is absolutely no truth in a report, run prominently in the Daily Telegraph this week, that she had been invited to dinner with Mr Blair, and found, "to be frank, he wasn't that bright". The newspaper alleged that Cassani continued, "He took an interest in what I was saying, and has this ability to make it seem as if he cares, but he didn't seem particularly knowledgeable about anything ... his responses to my questions were slow." She is also supposed to have noted the prime minister's very marked enthusiasm for the siting of beach volleyball on an area of Whitehall conveniently adjacent to his office window (a "masterstroke" of planning, he recently called it, in a public, somewhat heavy-handed appeal to the floating phwooaar! vote). It is unfortunate for Cassani, whose lawyers are demanding a full and complete apology from the Telegraph, that these alleged observations on Blair's mental debility should have appeared so soon after the singer George Michael described what happened after he, too, accepted Blair's invitation to dinner in 1997. George said he found him "a really nice guy ... What worried me most was that he didn't seem the smartest man at the table." A bit steep, you might think, coming from a man whose boon companions include Geri Halliwell and her dog, Harry. Then again, Michael's comments only echo Doris Lessing's verdict. Last year she said, "He believes in magic. That if you say a thing, it is true. I think he's not very bright in some ways." And not very cultivated either, according to VS Naipaul, who has blamed Blair for imposing an "aggressively plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian". No doubt Blair will accept Cassani's assurance that she in fact holds him "in very high regard". It would be difficult to find a new Olympic champion now, and, besides, even if she had said it (which she didn't!) being called stupid would probably make a nice change from being called mad or, more recently, moribund. Last year Blair was repeatedly diagnosed as mentally ill, not only by amateur clinicians such as Matthew Parris, who found evidence of someone "stark, staring mad", but by the concerned professionals quoted in Prospect and the New Statesman, who, between them, detected evidence of the psychopathic, the delusional, and other interesting varieties of pathological behaviour. For some reason - possibly because so many powerful calmatives are now available - the allegations of insanity do not seem to have prompted any talk of lawyers and apologies and setting the record straight. Even though there was every reason to think this supposed lunatic would have passed all the tests - such as spelling "world" backwards and counting in sevens - used to establish mental illness by NHS psychiatrists. It is difficult, on the other hand, to see how the prime minister could now defend himself against Michael's and Lessing's observations. Even if he sat an intelligence test. The contention that he is not mad, so much as dull-witted, is so apt an explanation for all the idiotic things he has done to squander his majority and compromise his reputation - from bodging reform of the Lords to falling out with the judges, from befriending Carole Caplin to alienating half of Europe - that it seems extraordinary it has not been advanced more often, and more forcefully. Admittedly we are familiar with the line that the prime minister is less intelligent than his wife. And less intelligent than his old leadership rivals Gordon Brown and Robin Cook. And less intelligent, as a public schoolboy, educated within an inch of his life, than the brilliant, grammar-school boys with Oxbridge firsts who used to dominate Labour politics. And less intelligent than the political advisers whose job it is to write his speeches and tell him about the third way and dream up "eye-catching initiatives". Even so, one took it pretty much for granted that he was not actually dim. On the contrary. "Bright" was the word generally applied, when his grin first appeared glinting on the horizon. If he did not always dazzle, rhetorically or in mental agility, then one supposed it was because Blair, being so modern, saw the importance, in this deeply intellectual-averse country, of demonstrating the common touch. Hence all the easy-to-understand turns about glasses being half-full, about the smiles on sick kiddies' faces and reverse gears and the surpassing loveliness of the beach volleyball player. Only recently has it seemed possible that this persistent vegetative state might be involuntary. Blair really hasn't got any ideas left. He really was impressed by the football-mad thug, Alastair Campbell. Left to himself he writes speeches such as his hysterical Sedgefield apologia, in which he justified invading Iraq on the basis that this was what he decided to do at the time. "Iraq in March 2003 was an immensely difficult judgment. It was divisive because it was difficult." Not so: simple things can be divisive too. It was divisive because a great many people thought he was plain wrong, and the evidence he supplied to persuade them subsequently turned out to be false. In the absence of coherent policies, plans, arguments, the word "judgment" seems to appeal to Blair as synonymous with rightness. Or with justice. Which, of course, it would be, if he were God. In an interview for Saga magazine last year, he said, "When I was young, I paid more regard to intellect than judgment. As I've got older, I pay more regard to judgment than intellect." As if the two were alternatives. Since then, anyway, Blair seems to have moved on again. What he really pays regard to, these days, is beach volleyball. <B>Save time - read about TV</B>If only Sex and the City could end, finally and for ever, a bit more often. What with the contributions, for and against, from top career women including Mrs Conrad Black, the lively debates about how far it has, or has not changed/reflected women's sex lives, and the continuation of the story, by means of Amanda Platell, in the Daily Mail, the obsequies have been as enjoyable as they are instructive. With the end of this series, it became obvious that you could have missed every one of its scores of episodes without ever paying the price in terms of ignorance, followed by social exclusion and low self-esteem. Now that broadsheet as well as tabloid newspapers are disposed to treat television characters as no less newsworthy for being completely made up - rather more so, in fact, since they are prettier and live more eventful lives - nobody, even people without televisions, need be at a loss during those brief but challenging periods when a programme becomes essential viewing, before it goes on to join Thirtysomething, Cold Feet and Friends in televisual oblivion. It is the work of a moment to absorb a tribute, or critique dedicated to Carrie and the three imaginary friends who have helped the shoe-crazy figment through good scripts and bad, yet such summaries offer instant authority should you suddenly find yourself lashed to a watercooler and forced to contribute to a discussion of, say, That Controversial Ending. Was the made-up baby obsession a patronising sell-out or a fair reflection of what the average non-existent young baggage really wants once she reaches a certain, invented age? The drift towards fiction has its compensations. Anyone who read, rather than watched Sex and the City, Ally McBeal, Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers and Thirtysomething will have managed to stay quite as fascinating as the genuine enthusiast, while effectively extending their life by around six weeks.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Catherine Bennett .
|
Barbara Cassani, the American woman leading Britain's bid to stage the Olympics, says that there is absolutely no truth in a report, run prominently in the Daily Telegraph this week, that she had been invited to dinner with Mr Blair, and found, "to be frank, he wasn't that bright". The newspaper alleged that Cassani continued, "He took an interest in what I was saying, and has this ability to make it seem as if he cares, but he didn't seem particularly knowledgeable about anything ... his responses to my questions were slow." She is also supposed to have noted the prime minister's very marked enthusiasm for the siting of beach volleyball on an area of Whitehall conveniently adjacent to his office window (a "masterstroke" of planning, he recently called it, in a public, somewhat heavy-handed appeal to the floating phwooaar! vote). It is unfortunate for Cassani, whose lawyers are demanding a full and complete apology from the Telegraph, that these alleged observations on Blair's mental debility should have appeared so soon after the singer George Michael described what happened after he, too, accepted Blair's invitation to dinner in 1997. George said he found him "a really nice guy ... What worried me most was that he didn't seem the smartest man at the table." A bit steep, you might think, coming from a man whose boon companions include Geri Halliwell and her dog, Harry. Then again, Michael's comments only echo Doris Lessing's verdict. Last year she said, "He believes in magic. That if you say a thing, it is true. I think he's not very bright in some ways." And not very cultivated either, according to VS Naipaul, who has blamed Blair for imposing an "aggressively plebeian culture that celebrates itself for being plebeian". No doubt Blair will accept Cassani's assurance that she in fact holds him "in very high regard". It would be difficult to find a new Olympic champion now, and, besides, even if she had said it (which she didn't!) being called stupid would probably make a nice change from being called mad or, more recently, moribund. Last year Blair was repeatedly diagnosed as mentally ill, not only by amateur clinicians such as Matthew Parris, who found evidence of someone "stark, staring mad", but by the concerned professionals quoted in Prospect and the New Statesman, who, between them, detected evidence of the psychopathic, the delusional, and other interesting varieties of pathological behaviour. For some reason - possibly because so many powerful calmatives are now available - the allegations of insanity do not seem to have prompted any talk of lawyers and apologies and setting the record straight. Even though there was every reason to think this supposed lunatic would have passed all the tests - such as spelling "world" backwards and counting in sevens - used to establish mental illness by NHS psychiatrists. It is difficult, on the other hand, to see how the prime minister could now defend himself against Michael's and Lessing's observations. Even if he sat an intelligence test. The contention that he is not mad, so much as dull-witted, is so apt an explanation for all the idiotic things he has done to squander his majority and compromise his reputation - from bodging reform of the Lords to falling out with the judges, from befriending Carole Caplin to alienating half of Europe - that it seems extraordinary it has not been advanced more often, and more forcefully. Admittedly we are familiar with the line that the prime minister is less intelligent than his wife. And less intelligent than his old leadership rivals Gordon Brown and Robin Cook. And less intelligent, as a public schoolboy, educated within an inch of his life, than the brilliant, grammar-school boys with Oxbridge firsts who used to dominate Labour politics. And less intelligent than the political advisers whose job it is to write his speeches and tell him about the third way and dream up "eye-catching initiatives". Even so, one took it pretty much for granted that he was not actually dim. On the contrary. "Bright" was the word generally applied, when his grin first appeared glinting on the horizon. If he did not always dazzle, rhetorically or in mental agility, then one supposed it was because Blair, being so modern, saw the importance, in this deeply intellectual-averse country, of demonstrating the common touch. Hence all the easy-to-understand turns about glasses being half-full, about the smiles on sick kiddies' faces and reverse gears and the surpassing loveliness of the beach volleyball player. Only recently has it seemed possible that this persistent vegetative state might be involuntary. Blair really hasn't got any ideas left. He really was impressed by the football-mad thug, Alastair Campbell. Left to himself he writes speeches such as his hysterical Sedgefield apologia, in which he justified invading Iraq on the basis that this was what he decided to do at the time. "Iraq in March 2003 was an immensely difficult judgment. It was divisive because it was difficult." Not so: simple things can be divisive too. It was divisive because a great many people thought he was plain wrong, and the evidence he supplied to persuade them subsequently turned out to be false. In the absence of coherent policies, plans, arguments, the word "judgment" seems to appeal to Blair as synonymous with rightness. Or with justice. Which, of course, it would be, if he were God. In an interview for Saga magazine last year, he said, "When I was young, I paid more regard to intellect than judgment. As I've got older, I pay more regard to judgment than intellect." As if the two were alternatives. Since then, anyway, Blair seems to have moved on again. What he really pays regard to, these days, is beach volleyball. <B>Save time - read about TV</B>If only Sex and the City could end, finally and for ever, a bit more often. What with the contributions, for and against, from top career women including Mrs Conrad Black, the lively debates about how far it has, or has not changed/reflected women's sex lives, and the continuation of the story, by means of Amanda Platell, in the Daily Mail, the obsequies have been as enjoyable as they are instructive. With the end of this series, it became obvious that you could have missed every one of its scores of episodes without ever paying the price in terms of ignorance, followed by social exclusion and low self-esteem. Now that broadsheet as well as tabloid newspapers are disposed to treat television characters as no less newsworthy for being completely made up - rather more so, in fact, since they are prettier and live more eventful lives - nobody, even people without televisions, need be at a loss during those brief but challenging periods when a programme becomes essential viewing, before it goes on to join Thirtysomething, Cold Feet and Friends in televisual oblivion. It is the work of a moment to absorb a tribute, or critique dedicated to Carrie and the three imaginary friends who have helped the shoe-crazy figment through good scripts and bad, yet such summaries offer instant authority should you suddenly find yourself lashed to a watercooler and forced to contribute to a discussion of, say, That Controversial Ending. Was the made-up baby obsession a patronising sell-out or a fair reflection of what the average non-existent young baggage really wants once she reaches a certain, invented age? The drift towards fiction has its compensations. Anyone who read, rather than watched Sex and the City, Ally McBeal, Friends, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers and Thirtysomething will have managed to stay quite as fascinating as the genuine enthusiast, while effectively extending their life by around six weeks.
|
0catherinebennett
| 0Politics
|
It is curious that the one appealing thing about Ken Clarke - his enormously advanced age - should be perceived as a weakness. There are, of course, a hundred anti- age-discrimination reasons, too worthy to list here, to applaud the promotion, at his third attempt, of a man who has reached the official age of retirement. But it is the return from holiday of Tony Blair, still in the grip of what seems to be one of the longest and most florid mid-life crises in modern history, that now shows Clarke's seniority in such an appealing light.On a superficial level, there is the guarantee that Clarke will never appear in T-shirts with a Burberry trim, in thick makeup, or having recently been made over by a fitness expert. Neither he nor his wife will advertise their prodigious sexual energy. He will not have to waste eight hours a week in the gym strengthening the muscles that will be seen when he deliberately takes his shirt off in public, or risk his heart murmur playing tennis, or dive off boats, or do any of the other things that people aged around 25 do in advertisements for cars.More importantly, we will be spared, with Clarke, the middle-aged man's horror of the old, and his consuming, rather pitiful need to identify himself incessantly with youth and novelty, in everything from pop music to technology to millennia. Above all, the wonderful ancientness of Clarke ensures that when he goes, he goes. With Blair, who is still distracted by the business of middle age, there is one certainty: like Clinton, he will never fully leave us alone. We will be at his side as he allows himself to go grey, exchanges tennis for golf, and makes his first, hesitant experiment with Viagra. After eight years of Blair, the only possible objection to Clarke is that he would be an even safer bet at 70.<b>The milk of human self-interest</b>The celebrity gynaecologist, Professor Lord Robert Winston, is a very clever man. He has created thousands of babies. He is always on telly. He is a peer of the type whose illimitable wisdom supplies champions of the unreformed Lords with their last remotely persuasive argument for not electing its members. Professor Lord Robert Winston, in fact, is so brainy that, were he to tell you to do something, you'd be a fool not to do it. This week, large newspaper advertisements have featured the Labour peer posing in the guise of an enlightened milkman with a litre bottle of full-fat in his hands, over a caption which trumpets the health benefits of St Ivel's Omega 3- enriched Advance: "It's clever milk."Why add fish oil to milk? Let us consult Professor Lord Robert Winston, or at least his new St Ivel's press release. "Children of today do not have enough Omega 3 in their diet," he explains. "The largest source of this nutrient is oily fish and, as many mums have found, this food is not popular with children. What has been lacking is an easier way for families to get more Omega 3 in a more user-friendly format."According to Dairy Crest (the company to which many mums are already indebted for its Homer Simpson Raspberry "Doh"-Nut-flavoured milk), "Anecdotal evidence from teachers and parents indicates that increasing intake of Omega 3 may improve learning and concentration for some children." Anecdotal evidence is the kind of evidence not considered adequate by the government's National Institute for Clinical Excellence. And "some children"? How many would that be? Neither Dairy Crest nor Lord Winston elaborates, in this press release anyway, on which children might belong to this category. That may be because they are referring to the children with behavioural or learning disorders such as dyspraxia or dyslexia who are, as yet, the only ones who have been shown - anecdotally - to benefit from supplements of Omega 3.In a Durham study featured in the 2004 BBC programme, A Child of Our Time, for example, which was presented by Winston, all the children were selected because they were not fulfilling their potential. There is, then, no body of evidence which I am aware of that drinking St Ivel's Advance will make a normal child "clever". Or even enhance its "concentration and learning". Even if the evidence were there, there are, of course, many ways of consuming adequate quantities of Omega 3, from eating a balanced diet to buying rival Omega 3-enriched brands, such as supplemented orange juice or eggs.Still, a few additional glasses of Omega 3-enriched milk are unlikely to do any harm to a child of average build on a balanced diet. It is surely the wellbeing of Professor Lord Robert Winston that we should be concerned about. While I can find nothing in the code of conduct for peers that actually prohibits a sideline as a milkman, there must be the possibility that next time Lord Winston rises to his feet to say something wise about science, his audience will struggle to blot out the image of him caressing the lid of his St Ivel's milk bottle and thus have difficulty in following what Lord Winston has previously described as "the quiet and mature arguments so frequent during ministerial questions in the Lords".Some may even see a potential conflict between the peer's promotion of St Ivel's Advance and the injunction, in the Lords code of conduct, to remember the principle of (a), Selflessness: "Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends." And the principle of (b), Integrity: "Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties."The code also asks holders of public office to remember that they "are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office". No doubt Lord Winston will, at some point, explain why he chose to throw his clinical weight behind St Ivel's Advance, and reassure the distributors of stupid milk that he has nothing against their non-Omega 3-enhanced product.In a chamber that still contains the convicted perjurer Jeffrey Archer, Tony Blair's flatmate Lord Falconer, and any number of disreputable, dim and unworthy beneficiaries of political patronage, we should not, I know, get disproportionately worked up about Winston's new sideline. Perhaps we should even be thankful that he did not decide to endorse Simpsons doughnut-flavoured milk ("bought by parents who want to smuggle milk and calcium into their children's diet",) or Utterly Butterly ("appeals to people who don't take life too seriously"). In an upper chamber where millionaire donors do so well, the pressure to behave in a nakedly self-interested way must be intense.Whatever the thinking behind his celebrity endorsement, Winston's obvious indifference to its more unappealing aspect only adds to the evidence - admittedly anecdotal - that Blair's placeman-enriched, clever Lords, with enhanced powers of concentration, is turning out to be as insufferably self-serving as the old, half-witted version. Now that they are gone, you realise that the one thing to be said for men such as Lord Longford, the late and unlamented Marquess of Bath and Lord Clancarty, who used to believe in flying saucers, is that their imprimatur on a bottle of milk, had it ever come to pass, would have been its kiss of death. Many mums like that in a peer.
|
article_from_author
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of {{
[
"Catherine Bennett",
"George Monbiot",
"Hugo Young",
"Jonathan Freedland",
"Martin Kettle",
"Mary Riddell",
"Nick Cohen",
"Peter Preston",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Roy Hattersley",
"Simon Hoggart",
"Will Hutton",
"Zoe Williams"
] [author]
}} .
|||
{{article}}
|
Generate an article based on the writing style of Catherine Bennett .
|
It is curious that the one appealing thing about Ken Clarke - his enormously advanced age - should be perceived as a weakness. There are, of course, a hundred anti- age-discrimination reasons, too worthy to list here, to applaud the promotion, at his third attempt, of a man who has reached the official age of retirement. But it is the return from holiday of Tony Blair, still in the grip of what seems to be one of the longest and most florid mid-life crises in modern history, that now shows Clarke's seniority in such an appealing light.On a superficial level, there is the guarantee that Clarke will never appear in T-shirts with a Burberry trim, in thick makeup, or having recently been made over by a fitness expert. Neither he nor his wife will advertise their prodigious sexual energy. He will not have to waste eight hours a week in the gym strengthening the muscles that will be seen when he deliberately takes his shirt off in public, or risk his heart murmur playing tennis, or dive off boats, or do any of the other things that people aged around 25 do in advertisements for cars.More importantly, we will be spared, with Clarke, the middle-aged man's horror of the old, and his consuming, rather pitiful need to identify himself incessantly with youth and novelty, in everything from pop music to technology to millennia. Above all, the wonderful ancientness of Clarke ensures that when he goes, he goes. With Blair, who is still distracted by the business of middle age, there is one certainty: like Clinton, he will never fully leave us alone. We will be at his side as he allows himself to go grey, exchanges tennis for golf, and makes his first, hesitant experiment with Viagra. After eight years of Blair, the only possible objection to Clarke is that he would be an even safer bet at 70.<b>The milk of human self-interest</b>The celebrity gynaecologist, Professor Lord Robert Winston, is a very clever man. He has created thousands of babies. He is always on telly. He is a peer of the type whose illimitable wisdom supplies champions of the unreformed Lords with their last remotely persuasive argument for not electing its members. Professor Lord Robert Winston, in fact, is so brainy that, were he to tell you to do something, you'd be a fool not to do it. This week, large newspaper advertisements have featured the Labour peer posing in the guise of an enlightened milkman with a litre bottle of full-fat in his hands, over a caption which trumpets the health benefits of St Ivel's Omega 3- enriched Advance: "It's clever milk."Why add fish oil to milk? Let us consult Professor Lord Robert Winston, or at least his new St Ivel's press release. "Children of today do not have enough Omega 3 in their diet," he explains. "The largest source of this nutrient is oily fish and, as many mums have found, this food is not popular with children. What has been lacking is an easier way for families to get more Omega 3 in a more user-friendly format."According to Dairy Crest (the company to which many mums are already indebted for its Homer Simpson Raspberry "Doh"-Nut-flavoured milk), "Anecdotal evidence from teachers and parents indicates that increasing intake of Omega 3 may improve learning and concentration for some children." Anecdotal evidence is the kind of evidence not considered adequate by the government's National Institute for Clinical Excellence. And "some children"? How many would that be? Neither Dairy Crest nor Lord Winston elaborates, in this press release anyway, on which children might belong to this category. That may be because they are referring to the children with behavioural or learning disorders such as dyspraxia or dyslexia who are, as yet, the only ones who have been shown - anecdotally - to benefit from supplements of Omega 3.In a Durham study featured in the 2004 BBC programme, A Child of Our Time, for example, which was presented by Winston, all the children were selected because they were not fulfilling their potential. There is, then, no body of evidence which I am aware of that drinking St Ivel's Advance will make a normal child "clever". Or even enhance its "concentration and learning". Even if the evidence were there, there are, of course, many ways of consuming adequate quantities of Omega 3, from eating a balanced diet to buying rival Omega 3-enriched brands, such as supplemented orange juice or eggs.Still, a few additional glasses of Omega 3-enriched milk are unlikely to do any harm to a child of average build on a balanced diet. It is surely the wellbeing of Professor Lord Robert Winston that we should be concerned about. While I can find nothing in the code of conduct for peers that actually prohibits a sideline as a milkman, there must be the possibility that next time Lord Winston rises to his feet to say something wise about science, his audience will struggle to blot out the image of him caressing the lid of his St Ivel's milk bottle and thus have difficulty in following what Lord Winston has previously described as "the quiet and mature arguments so frequent during ministerial questions in the Lords".Some may even see a potential conflict between the peer's promotion of St Ivel's Advance and the injunction, in the Lords code of conduct, to remember the principle of (a), Selflessness: "Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends." And the principle of (b), Integrity: "Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties."The code also asks holders of public office to remember that they "are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office". No doubt Lord Winston will, at some point, explain why he chose to throw his clinical weight behind St Ivel's Advance, and reassure the distributors of stupid milk that he has nothing against their non-Omega 3-enhanced product.In a chamber that still contains the convicted perjurer Jeffrey Archer, Tony Blair's flatmate Lord Falconer, and any number of disreputable, dim and unworthy beneficiaries of political patronage, we should not, I know, get disproportionately worked up about Winston's new sideline. Perhaps we should even be thankful that he did not decide to endorse Simpsons doughnut-flavoured milk ("bought by parents who want to smuggle milk and calcium into their children's diet",) or Utterly Butterly ("appeals to people who don't take life too seriously"). In an upper chamber where millionaire donors do so well, the pressure to behave in a nakedly self-interested way must be intense.Whatever the thinking behind his celebrity endorsement, Winston's obvious indifference to its more unappealing aspect only adds to the evidence - admittedly anecdotal - that Blair's placeman-enriched, clever Lords, with enhanced powers of concentration, is turning out to be as insufferably self-serving as the old, half-witted version. Now that they are gone, you realise that the one thing to be said for men such as Lord Longford, the late and unlamented Marquess of Bath and Lord Clancarty, who used to believe in flying saucers, is that their imprimatur on a bottle of milk, had it ever come to pass, would have been its kiss of death. Many mums like that in a peer.
|
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
README.md exists but content is empty.
- Downloads last month
- 18