Department of Blowing Shit Up, Summer 2007:

Hang on, early summer?  How to clean up after a house fire of any magnitude . Blair went end of June, we're fairly confident he would have been 'on board', the sacking of Jack Straw as Foreign Sec. is generally taken to be a slap down to suggestions that attacking Iran was off the agenda.  I sincerely hope that any risk of the British being 'on board' with another engineered, illegal Middle East war died with the late Premiership.  Did it?

Of course, if Blair promised Bush British support *again* without bothering to consult Parliament, can the Labour Government please stop pretending we've learnt from Iraq and prosecute the bastard?  How *is* that Middle East peace mission going, Tony?  Anyone trust you yet?

Disturbing news if true, from the Stop The War Coalition:

I'd be interested to know under what legislation they can stop it - SOCPA I seem to recall was a kilometre, not a mile, so it's possible the cops are just making it up as they go along, like they do with anti-war protester numbers.

It's hard not to feel sorry for David Cameron. I'm sure he is a nice bloke and does seem to be genuinely interested in dragging his party kicking and screaming out of the Victorian era. He does however, have one major problem - his members. To put it bluntly the membership of the Conservative party is old and bonkers.

We shall see this in the conference hall, whilst the party tries to drag anyone under 40 to the cameras and platform, as the camera pans over the delegates in the hall it will look like a cross between a neglected bingo hall and night of the living dead. These people are the core of the membership of a party that is literally dying.

These are the people who threw away any chance of electoral success for a decade when they chose Duncan Smith over those two political lightweights, Portillo and Clarke. The people who weren't trusted to choose a decent leader by the party hierachy and it wasn't until Davis agreed not to stand that Howard could stick the knife into Duncan Smith and take the crown, in the knowlege that the membership wouldn't be involved.

In the next election, Davis blew it so badly at conference that even the tranked up hoards spotted a loser and that nice boy won.

But how can Cameron make any progress in getting his party in any shape to be fit to govern? The right keep sticking the knife in, knowing the members are with them. Will Dave do a Hague and lurch to the right? Will he carry on and lead a party that has had it's manifesto plagiarised by Gordon?

Well, the signs aren't good for Dave and his somewhat ineffectual advisors: It's Back to Back to Basics!

Well, send in the clowns and let the sport begin.

While it's perfectly in order to worry about the rise of conformist, technological surveillance societies in the West, it's a bad idea to channel this worry into violence and start sending letter bombs.  Not least because they tend to injure or kill perfectly inoffensive low wage people who are just doing a job of work, and no doubt a very boring one, but also because it makes it so much easier to paint people like you and me with legitimate, thoughtful concerns as wacky nutjob extremists.  The end result is what's seen in US blog politics, where centrist Democrat bloggers wondering why the people they voted for haven't ended the war yet are portrayed as frothing communists by right-wing loonies who, usually in the next breath, advocate bombing Iran.

The response conviction of Miles Cooper, therefore, is a timely reminder that this can happen anywhere - the BBC are, I'm sad to say, at it:

Well, that's pretty conclusive, isn't it? No one but an angry, dangerous extremist would get so worked up about politics as to actually *write a letter*, would they?

On a related note, my MP's office have been in touch to say a reply to my enquiry about the Iraqi employees is in the post. No rush, guys.

After more than four years of war in Iraq with 170 British soldiers killed, 3,800 American casualties and up to 1.2 million Iraqi deaths, David Miliband tells us that there was "never a military solution" to Iraq.

Now he tells us!

It looks like the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who showed himself to be such a disgrace to his profession by changing his advice on the legality of the Iraq war at the behest of the White House and by halting the SFO investigation into BAE, has landed himself a cushy job with an American law firm.

Right!

Hey there, it's blogenfreude from across the pond.  Gordon Ramsay was on Larry King last night (it was ugly), but we've no time for that now.  Spain has done what your government won't.  Behold - the Spanish Downing Street memo:

The frantic row back from Blairism (into what waters we're not quite sure yet, a kind of Christian Stalinism, possibly, an uneasy mix of Bible bashing and Father Of His Nation paternalism) continues apace at Chairman Brown's first Party Rally.  Latest in the 'what *were* we thinking' confessional is old lag and serial Home Office muppet Tony McNulty, who would like to apologise for the last couple of years of kneejerk Sun-pleasing counter-productive counter terrorism and ask for several offences of talking to the Muslim Council of Britain to be taken into consideration.  Good start, Tony, but we want action, not apology.  However, it's a start, and even an apparently minor change of emphasis is of great significance when it involves Government ministers talking openly about human rights instead of hiding from the wrath of the Sun.  I note that Shami Chakrabarti is evidently of similar mind, and she has an excellently tuned bullshit detector.

It is pleasing for petty small minded Blair-haters like ourselves to note how Big Tone has been completely airbrushed from history. There are some jobs you really need a Stalinist for, they do have a certain style when it comes to erasing backsliders.

Recording here.  Not often we have a good word to say for UKIP, but there you go.

He's back and he's mad.

Welcome Back Tim, it'll take more a dodgy billionaire to shut him up.

Tebbit Names Brown as 'Thatcher's Heir'

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy could it? From England Expects:

I think I can hear the sound of toys being thrown out of prams.

...sort of. Worth keeping an eye on, this isn't over yet.

We have been watching the protests in Burma growing day by day. 20,000 on Saturday, 30,000 on Sunday, 100,000 today. Soon the Junta is going to decide; to crush or be crushed. In a large part, this will be decided by China, a nation with a less than spotless record on peaceful protest.

The UN is gathering in Washington and this is a good time to let them know that we support the peaceful demonstrations and reasonable demands of the Burmese people.

It's time for regime change, only this time it is peaceful protestors that are providing the shock and awe. It takes a great deal of courage to confront the vicious thugs in Burma.

As you would expect, there is the petition, to be presented to Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council, sign it and add your voice.

If anyone has any ideas on more concrete support we could offer, please get in touch through the Contact Us page.

...here

Mainly for Arsenal fans, actually.