Gordon Brown

Frankie Howerd

As predicted the death toll of UK soldiers in Afghanistan has exceeded 200 in 8 years. This totemic figure will ensure that the media spotlight will shine brightly, for a while, on a number of issues given a trial run recently - equipment shortages is an obvious one. But let's wait and see for it's unlikely that anything related to strategy will be part of a wider public debate.

Tragic as the 200 deaths are they have to be seen alongside the 30,000 over 5 years in NHS hospitals from superbugs, reported in the Telegraph. Over the same period as the war in Afghanistan this would be 48,000 deaths. What a strange world it is, the deaths of soldiers only jars the national conscience when the figure has a certain resonance, yet deaths from superbugs appear to be running at over 100 per week. But the only hint of a debate, which soon turns into a bipolar rant, is when MEP Daniel Hannan makes his opinions of the concept of 'Big State' as related to health provision known on a US TV news programme.

Canada laughing
Long before Barack Obama became the President of the USA the UK news media was out in force. A full year before the election the BBC had several of their finest on the trail sending back reports from the US. I know many people who would usually admit to an interest in politics were bored by it all. There is a limit to the number of times a reporter can say that the voters of some distant State are “gearing up” for an election. The reader of such reports soon gets the message, nothing is happening yet, but the reporter lacks the courage to say so.

Here in the UK our politicians no doubt like to think that they, when abroad and on behalf of us, 'punch above their weight'. So we see umpteen pictures of our Prime Minister, Mr McEyebags, with his lantern jaw in profile his hands raised doing what he does best; bellowing about something dear to his heart on the assumption Johny Foreigner will be impressed and do as he is told. How could these people be bored watching our man at work? Very easily it seems.

Ussher out

Kitty Ussher has resigned, first with the story was the Telegraph.

So those of you (Gordon Brown?) who thought the battle was over may wonder who the next casualty will be, and when the war will be over.

The last MP to go, Jane Kennedy, was so unknown she did not even have a Wikipedia entry! Ms Ussher is made of sterner stuff, she has been relentlessly parading herself on TV for long enough to have her own Wiki page, but no photo.

ps contains bad language but is very funny.

It started here?
Cause and event, action and reaction, threats and opportunities. No, this is not a short course in management-speak, just a simple observation on the back-wash from the MPs' expenses story, which is now old enough to have its own momentum. True there will come a point when this is history but in folklore terms it's here to stay.

When it comes to the credit crisis Gordon Brown, or Mr McEyebags, loves to tell us “it started in America”. It is said that the PM both loves and admires the US. So funny, is it not, that he failed to spot the problem coming and get some better regulation in place? One would assume that he has studied the US in detail on a regular basis, so would have been on the ball; ah well, missed a trick there. Which is a pity as politically McEyebags comes from the tradition of introducing more legislation at every opportunity.