liberty

Philip Hollobone MP
A lot of people are finding it funny, going on odd, that the UK organisation called Liberty is, in so many words, offering to take MP Philip Hollobone 'to the cleaners'. All this because of his views of the burka. The Independent has the letter to Hollobone from Liberty, it's almost gleeful in the way it's worded, a posh version of the veiled threat, "c'mon make my day". They might be right and he might be wrong, or perhaps the other way around. The fact is, a bit like Nulabour, Liberty look like they are yesterday's people. And another fact is, again like Nulabour, it's all their own fault. Liberty and its Head Honcho, Shami Chakrabati, are a regular feature of the media circuit. Theirs is a rather priggish double act, they know best and right from wrong, but alas that's all they know. If they were in a sales and marketing team living off commission they would starve to death. You may wonder how such an organisation can, so effortlessly, get so many people's backs up.

Fine balance
Dr Bob Spink, UKIP's latest acquisition, voted in favour of the 42 day detention plan. Thus he voted with Nulabour and against his old party the Tories. His explanation for this was that -

"he had to consider his 8,000 constituents who work in London, the front line of the terrorist threat".

But when Spink left the Tories for UKIP it would seem this group of his constituents were not the main reason for the move. In fact it is hard to see how any of his constituents played a part in the process, as he was expelled from the Tory Party. Also Dr Spink said that, along with many other MPs of all parties, he would be -

Safe in their hands
Not so many weeks ago a senior policeman started a debate on the lines that ALL teenagers are horrid little things and so cannot have a drink until they are 21 years old. This idea, if passed into law, ignores the fact that a family Christmas would become a rather frigid affair if the law were obeyed and thirsty teenagers were present.By the way, they are not as little as you might think and, now they are grown up they spend so much more time away with their friends, it would be so lovely if we could all sit down together now and then. However, by contrast,a family celebration could become a rather furtive affair if father in an expansive mood poured his offspring a glass of wine: "pull the curtains Dad, you never know".