The Silence Of The Lemmings

‘“SCIENTISTS have solved one of the world’s great mysteries,” writes the Times on its front page.

‘It was the only way anyone would notice us’

And immediately we get to thinking what it is. Have boffins discovered why Catherine Zeta Jones married Michael Douglas (see o’Hell!) or how George ‘Dubya’ Bush became leader of the free world?

Those to come. For now we content ourselves with learning why it is that lemmings throw themselves over cliffs. No, it’s not a cry for help. It’s because they don’t.

Yes, the news is, folks, that lemmings do not commit suicide as once believed.

Oliver Glig, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, says that the four-year cycle of lemming boom and bust can be explained by changes in food supply.

Around every four years the numbers of predators partial to lemmings rise to a high enough level pretty much to wipe out the little vermin.

So why the suicide theory? Dr Glig points the finger at Walt Disney. It seems that the 1958 Disney documentary White Wilderness used faked footage of leaping lemmings.

Scientists are now reviewing other Disney tapes. A large rubber band has been installed at Windsor Safari Park to see if elephants really can fly and research is ongoing into whether or not dalmation fur really makes for better coats than Mickey Mouse or Bambi.’

Posted: 31st, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Howard’s Way Ahead

‘“HOW sad!” laments the woman in the Austin cartoon on the front page of today’s Guardian. “Just when everyone knew who he was.”

‘I told you I’d win a vote of confidence’

The “he” is Iain Duncan Smith, whose ousting as Tory leader occupies more space in the papers than his combined 777 days as the party’s leader elect could muster.

As the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland puts it, ”As if tuning into a penalty shoot-out or the OJ Simpson verdict, people wanted to be near a radio or TV set seven o’clock last night – just to see the moment of public execution.”

Adding to those 777 days, other vital statistics of the IDS reign are found in the Times.

Readers learn that yesterday 90 Conservative MPs voted against him in a vote of confidence and 75 for.

The paper concludes that the quiet man needed just eight MPs to change sides for him to have held down his post until the next General Election, or until another vote of confidence.

The suspicion is, though, that this was something of a Tory fix. They did not wish to humiliate their leader or to see him crushed.

The figures from the poll seem designed to foster an impression of IDS the unlucky man rather than the final undoing of an untalented parvenu.

For this theory to hold water, it would rely on some degree of Tory unity. And there is evidence of such a phenomenon in the Independent.

We learn that the new Tory leader will not be chosen after some drawn-out bloody battle in the streets of Cheltenham but be something more akin to a coronation.

David Davies might, as the Independent writes, “believe he is the Tory leader-in-waiting” but he has announced that he will not be running for the top job this time.

Indeed, with no signs of Michael Portillo or Kenneth Clarke, there was a moment yesterday when it seemed that no-one would stand as leader and the Tories would muddle on as some co-operative.

But Michael Howard is now the paper’s choice. He’s also the choice of David Davies.

And the choice of anyone, who, if the Times’ assertion that he’s the man “Blair fears” is true, wants to unsettle (or indeed unseat) Tony Blair.

So hello, Michael. Look out, Tony. And close the door behind you, whatsyername…’

Posted: 30th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Eurovision Song Contest

‘HEY, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.

‘I am the resurrection and I am the life’

Well, not everybody need bother, just the Independent, which has cocked an ear to the wind and followed the sound right to the door of No.10 Downing Street.

Therein Tony Blair is entertaining Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, with his customary zeal.

Cocking an eye through a half-opened window, the paper sees that Tony’s electric guitar is still in its box and the noise is coming from the stereo.

Unless we are very mistaken that’s the voice of Signor Berlusconi himself, accompanied by car park attendant-turned-guitarist Mariano Apicella.

The pair have collaborated on a new album of songs, entitled Meglio ‘na Canzone, or Better Songs, which is available through all good outlets, although none in Germany.

Fans of the little Italian will need no reminding that he once worked as a professional crooner on cruise ships.

Perhaps that experience gave him the mojo to co-produce an album of songs of broken hearts, dreams of love, jealousy and loneliness.

And perhaps Berlusconi’s CD will lead to our own deeply rhythmic leader working on an album of his own? Come on down, Sir Cliff Richard, your country needs you…’

Posted: 30th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

You Do Ron Ron

‘IT’S been a tense time waiting to see what badgers would do next, but now they’ve made their move.

‘I wish he’d stop badgering me’

Badger enthusiasts, like former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, are struggling to explain why one of these creatures should have “laid siege” to a family for three hours yesterday.

The Times takes up the harrowing story as 12-year-old Luke Youngs gets off a bus from school and makes to walk home.

But there’s trouble. A badger has spotted Luke and he’s giving chase. Luke runs. Breathless with fear, he makes back to his home in Bliss Gate, near Bewdley, Worcestershire.

And outside the badger waits. And waits. And waits.

“It was mayhem,” says Luke’s mum, Rosalind. “It kept trundling around the house, watching us through the patio window and trying to get in through the cat-flap. It just wouldn’t go away.”

Help did eventually arrive in the shape of Mike Weaver, chairman of the Worcestershire Badger Society. He caged the beast and delivered it to a vet, who diagnosed a brain tumour before killing it.

These are, indeed, harrowing times we live in. And while we await the diagnosis of our own autopsy report into why the badger behaved as it did, we ask you to keep a keen eye on the creatures.

And if men can band together in groups, so much the safer for them and the better for all…’

Posted: 30th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Duncan Doughnut

‘YOU can call the Tory party useless, dysfunctional, unelectable and even plain old rubbish but you can never call them unfair.

‘That’s another nail in my coughin’!’

After Iain Duncan Smith has faced a vote of confidence in his ability to lead later today (and the Independent says that his allies fear “humiliation” in this title decider), someone else will get a go at being Tory Leader.

The flaming torch that has been passed with buttery fingers from John Major to William Hague and then onto Iain Duncan Smith is now being offered to…well, the Times wants us to guess.

Will it be Michael Howard, the 11-10 favourite, described by the paper as the “front-runner if IDS loses” – and is that ever one small if?

Or there’s Oliver Letwin, the little chap who seems to be modelled on some Wind In The Willows character, but one backed by modernisers, and punters at odds of 10-1.

There’s Michael Ancram, an outsider at 16-1. And joining him on sweet sixteens is Theresa May, she of the leopard-skin-print shoes and the Tories’ current party chairman.

And then there’s some odd chap with a funny cough. The Independent bends down to hear him say that he’s got the support of grass roots conservatives.

But no-one knows who this fantasist is and the sooner he’s taken out of sight, the sooner the serious political stuff can finally begin.’

Posted: 29th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Self-Preservation Society

‘IAIN Duncan Smith can’t be all that bright. No, really.

‘I’ve asked for the Home Surgery kit for Christmas’

Chances are that if you asked him what he knew about plate tectonics or the ERM he’d tell you that he knew it all – and then be unable to tell you anything worthwhile at all.

There is a time and a place to admit that you’re pig ignorant and there exists a hole in your knowledge bank the size of Jade Goody’s gob.

But IDS’s condition is not untypical of us Brits. And it’s an impression lent added weight by the Times’ article that Do-It-Yourself healthcare is the new boom business.

A report for Mintel, the marketing analysts, and seen by the Times, says that we are spending increasing amounts of cash on self-diagnosis.

And it’s not all pregnancy tests, but includes such things as blood pressure monitors and something called a peak flow meter.

Some questions as to the usefulness of some of these products must be asked. For instance, in our experience a mirror makes a pretty fine body fat monitor.

But we’re not listening – not that the ear thermometers sticking from both sides of our head make hearing anything at all particularly easy.

So to the result of this take on the Brits’ love of DIY doctoring, and to a spokeswoman for the British Medial Association, who says that people who know about their medical conditions take up less of a GP’s time.

This must be a good thing, given how over-stretched our doctors are. And we ask you all to help them out by way of a simple new device.

With our Anorak EZBreathe Kit, you simply blow into one end until you can no longer breath.

You will eventually die, but our machine means you’ll know you’re going to die and be comforted by the fact that you’ve not wasted valuable GP time and saved the NHS a small fortune.’

Posted: 29th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

It’s All Crap

‘“MAGGOTS, skeletons, fear and death,” screams the Telegraph. No, not a look inside the decaying body of the Tory Party, or a Halloween preamble, but this year’s Turner Prize.

Prize entry

Foolishly, the paper has ignored Anorak’s Vomit Into Woollen Sock exhibit, choosing instead to lead with ‘Sex’, the latest work from Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Sadly, no pictures of the pair’s inflatable dolls engaged in sexual activity (how do they think these things up?), or the maggots issuing from decaying flesh are reproduced for our horror.

This is not art that pays much heed to Rolf Harris’s game of “Can you see what it is yet?” – for it looks pretty much like crap from first to last.

But the Guardian, a paper that knows about these sort of arty things, hears critics say that this is the most impressive Tuner Prize show for a decade.

But then they have seen our Vomit Into Woollen Sock…’

Posted: 29th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Do Not Disturb

‘IF you want to get on in politics, you need a good catchphrase.

‘And no-one told me I had been sacked for a whole seven years!’

That Thatcher lady was not for turning, Harold Macmillan told us how good we were having it and Tony Blair not only gave us his stuttering commitment to education but brought the word “guys” out of Cliff Richard films and into the public arena.

It’s clear that Iain Duncan Smith’s image makers – a job every bit as unenviable as Vanessa Feltz’s masseuse or Cherie Blair’s dentist – have noted the trend.

So following on from last year’s cry of “unite or die”, IDS is today calling on his detractors to “put up or shut up”.

As the Independent goes on to say, IDS has given his critics 48 hours to gather the 25 signatures needed to force a vote of confidence in him or else stop their plotting.

And the signs are that IDS doesn’t want to end things there. Like Jimmy Savile and Bruce Forsyth, IDS has realised that you can never say too much, you can never have too many phrases that epitomise your unique take on life.

And so it is that he says unto you, via the Times: “I cannot compel the plotters to quit the field but I’m confident my parliamentary colleagues, our party members and all fair-minded people will insist that my detractors accept their game is over.”

Not catchy at all, but it is him who is speaking, and that has to be an improvement on his customary performances.

No longer the “quiet man”, he goes on to say, “The rules are the rules” and that he is ready for the fight.

And so to the line which could well serve to sum up IDS’s tenure as leader of the opposition.

Sticking with the Times, IDS issues his final challenge to his enemies: “My door will be open to anyone to tell me [to go] in person.”

It is not hard to conjure up an image of a solitary IDS still sitting in his office waiting for a first knock a year from now, while beyond his door a new party leader has been elected.

Neither is the nameplate outside his parliamentary rooms, which no longer reads “Conservative Leader” but the more commanding “Do Not Disturb”.’

Posted: 28th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Class Warrior

‘MORE news now of how our politicians are aiming to get to grips with the country’s many problems by experiencing first hand as many sides to every issue as possible.

Hypocrite

From John Prescott’s selfless investigation into the state of our roads and Tony Blair’s Afro-Caribbean studies that recently took him to Barbados, the Telegraph brings us Diane Abbott.

Miss Abbott is the Labour MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington, an area that has schools, albeit some of the poorest performers in the entire country.

But working in the area she knows what the local facilities are like, and for this reason has embarked on a mission to learn just how the other half do it by enrolling her son at the £10,000-a-year City of London Boys School.

It’s clear she should be applauded for taking such a drastic step, sacrificing her son and her principles on the altar of private education. But no.

The Telegraph gathers some local opinions and hears talk of Abbott’s ‘gross hypocrisy’ from one Tory councillor, while Trevor Philips notes the ‘irony’ of the situation.

But why do they say what they do? Looking for an answer, the Telegraph recaptures a few bons mots from Miss Abbott.

She once said that Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General who sent her son to a grammar school outside her constituency, had ‘made the Labour Party look as if we do one thing and say another’.

So! We say go for it, Diane. It’s only through such selfless dedication that we will foster the equality and egalitarianism that is so lacking from our society today.

Let’s just hope your son survives his ordeal.’

Posted: 28th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Smoggy, Smoggy, Smoggy

‘MIDDLESBROUGH is not all ugly and toxic – not all of it. Many are the people who smile as they take one last view of the place disappearing from sight in the car’s rear-view mirror.

‘CAN YOU HEAR ME?’

But things could be set to change should Middlesbrough get its hands on Anish Kapoor’s giant sculpture, Marsyas.

The huge red tubular structure, which recently filled the massive turbine hall at London’s Tate Modern, is, says the Guardian, looking for a new home.

And Middlesbrough wants it – although it faces a spot of competition from New York and Athens.

But the locals, known as Smoggies, are hopeful. Already Middlesbrough’s best brains are designing a mechanism that can stop the structure from being blown into the North Sea.

If it should go to the north east, Marsyas would rival Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North, the icon that has given Newcastle’s Geordies an alternative identity to the Fat Slags and burly men waving football tops over their heads in January.

Could Marsyas work the same miracle on Middlesbrough?’

Posted: 28th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

To The Bitter End

‘POLITICIANS’ aides go to a lot of time and trouble to make sure their bosses are always photographed in the best light (and we’re not talking about apertures and F-stops here).

IDS, BDS and their new secretary are happy as they are

But when your man is on his way down, there is not much you can do to prevent a picture of him enjoying a pint with a group of students being recast as a drink in the last chance saloon.

And so it is this morning with Iain Duncan Smith, a picture of whom supping said pint appears on the front cover of both the Guardian and the Telegraph.

It now seems certain that the unrest over IDS’s leadership will come to a climax this week after what the Telegraph calls “a weekend of feverish speculation”.

The man himself is insisting that he will not go, but those plotting to unseat him have started to break cover with former whip Derek Conway suggesting in the Independent that he was “not up to the job”.

The conspirators need to have submitted 25 letters of no confidence in their leader by Wednesday’s meeting of the 1922 Committee if they are to force a contest.

However, privately MPs are telling the Telegraph that there could be as many as 40 or 50 names – “which would be intended to force Mr Duncan Smith to quit without a formal vote”.

Even a member of the shadow cabinet concedes that it is all over for the former guards officer.

“He’s obviously passionate in his belief he’s been undermined by some people inside his tent,” he tells the Guardian. “But the tide is now flowing away from Iain and he won’t get it back.”

But John Redwood, a man who has made a career of running for the Tory party leadership, says a contest will not change anything and urges IDS to hold firm.

“We have been told that the 25 names would be there once the conference ended, once parliament returned, once the 1922 committee met again, once we reached the weekend, once we reached the next weekend,” he writes in the Guardian.

“Now we are told they will be there today. It has been like waiting for Godot.”

“We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow,” Vladimir tells Estragon at the end of the Samuel Beckett play. “Unless Godot comes.” “And if he comes?” “We’ll be saved.”

Don’t bet on it.’

Posted: 27th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Not The Final Solution

‘THE Nazis seem to be enjoying something of a media revival of late – the new California governor has sung the praises of Adolf Hitler, Christies is in trouble for flogging paintings stolen by the Nazis and the British police seems to contain more National Socialists than the Waffen SS.

Another lasting tribute to Degussa

And this morning we learn that work on Germany’s national Holocaust monument has been halted after it turned out that the company which won the contract to coat the vast memorial in anti-graffiti solution had Nazi links.

Worse than that, Degussa was once part-owner of the company that produced the Zyklon B gas that was used to slaughter millions of Jews in concentration camps.

Lea Rosh, who initiated the memorial project, said slabs that had already been treated with the solution would be recast – although it has to be said it would be a brave graffiti artist to mess with a company with Degussa’s reputation.

“This is not an easy decision to make,” she told the Telegraph. “But while the memorial committee would have no problem working with a company that produced buttons for SS uniforms, working with a company connected to Zyklon B oversteps the mark.”

Or over-goosesteps the mark, as they say among the British constabulary.’

Posted: 27th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Going Tits Up

‘THOUSANDS of mothers have lost their right to breastfeed at work after a tribunal ruled that they have no special legal protection when they return from maternity leave.

The canteen was always open

So reports the Independent this morning after the employment appeal tribunal overturned a previous ruling supporting the sex discrimination case brought by Helen Williams.

However, the paper rather overlooks the most striking part of the story, namely that Mrs Williams is a flight lieutenant in the RAF.

Now, we don’t have strong views either way on the desirability of women breastfeeding at work, but we do feel that there is a time and a place.

For instance, we would suggest that the cockpit of a Tornado at 1,400 mph isn’t really the right venue to suckle your infant baby.

And we would also suggest that, much as we support employers providing crèche facilities for their staff, taking your baby into a combat zone is somewhat ill-advised.

Similarly, we would advise that the ‘Bring Your Daughters To Work’ day should not extend to Formula 1 drivers, especially if it happens to coincide with race day.’

Posted: 27th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Beyond Our Ken?

‘GEORGE Galloway, erstwhile MP for Baghdad East, was expelled from the Labour party yesterday for allegedly inciting Arab armies to fight against the US-led coalition in Iraq.

Laugh and the world laughs at you

The decision to throw Galloway out of the party was taken after a two-day hearing, which decided that he had behaved in a manner that was “grossly detrimental” to the party.

In cartoon fashion, the MP said the party would “rue the day they took this step”, but Labour party apparatchiks defended the decision.

“The issue here is very simple,” said Labour Party chairman Ian McCartney. “George Galloway incited foreign forces to rise up against British troops at a time when they were risking their lives.”

The big question, however, is not about Galloway (who, whatever your views on the Iraq war, was a Saddam Hussein apologist) but about the Tories and where this leaves their party whips.

The Guardian reports that even the whips have started urging Tory MPs to join a letter-writing campaign for a leadership vote “as the only way to end the intrigue that is paralysing the party”.

As the rats desert the sinking ship that is HMS Iain Duncan Smith faster than an army of Iraqi conscripts, the Times spies a new captain on the bridge.

It suggests that Ken Clarke – “the Tory bruiser most feared by Labour” – is ready to have a third tilt at the leadership.

“The former Chancellor has told friends that his ambition to lead the party is undimmed,” it says.

And in order to achieve that ambition, the veteran Europhile is prepared to accept that Britain will not join the single currency in this Parliament and the Tory party would not change its stance on the issue.

However, the Guardian remains sceptical about the prospects of Clarke standing when – and it is when, not if – the Tories hold a leadership contest.

One of his ex-ministerial allies said the only way Clarke would stand was “an apocalyptic scenario where the party is in such catastrophic despair that it said ‘Write your own contract’”.

So that would be next week, then.’

Posted: 24th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Open Forum

‘DO you remember John Major? Grey bloke, used to be Prime Minister, liked peas. No?

John made Edwina’s head spin

Well anyway, he’s back in the news this morning and behaving in a very un-Tory manner – he’s attacking Labour as opposed to his own party.

This is what the Tories used to do in a bygone age (which only the oldest among you will remember) before they realised that ripping their own party apart was much more fun.

Anyway, the aforementioned Mr Major is on the front of the Telegraph, delivering a “sweeping indictment” of Tony Blair and denouncing Labour spin as “the pornography of politics”.

“It perverts,” he says. “It is deceit licensed by the Government. Statistics massaged. Expenditure announced and reannounced. The record reassessed. Blame attributed, Innocence proclaimed. Black declared white. All in a day’s work.”

Now, we at Anorak don’t profess to be experts in pornography but that sounds like the kind of stuff that even the Adult Channel would pass up.

Which is all the more surprising given that Labour’s former spinmeister-in-chief, Alastair Campbell, used to write for the men’s magazine Forum under the pseudonym Riviera Gigolo.

Take it away, Ali…’

Posted: 24th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Worm That Turned…500

‘‘WHO wants to live forever?’ asked Freddie Mercury – who, no sooner was the question out of his mouth, keeled over and died.

‘You’d be miserable too if you had to eat nothing but mud for 500 years, mate’

If you are one of those who answered ‘yes’ to that question, then there is good news for you in this morning’s Independent, which reports that a tiny worm may hold the “the secret to the elixir of life”.

Scientists have apparently discovered that, by manipulating the worm’s genes and tweaking its hormones [which sounds like something straight out of the pages of Forum], they can extend a worm’s life to 140 days.

That may not sound much, but the paper explains that it is about six times its usual lifespan and the human equivalent to 500 years.

“In human terms, these animals would correspond to healthy, active 500-year-olds,” the University of California scientists report.

However, they warned that no matter how much manipulating and tweaking they did, they couldn’t extend human life by long enough to see Iain Duncan Smith as Prime Minister.’

Posted: 24th, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Bless!

‘WHEN you are 14 and the daughter of Sir Bob Geldof, you are entitled to be angry. Indeed, you would be failing your generation and your genes if you weren’t.

Susannah models the There’s Something About Mary look

So, we are pleased to welcome 14-year-old Peaches Geldof to the pages of the Telegraph, where she launches a tirade at What Not To Wear presenters Trinny and Susannah.

Well, a tirade would probably be the wrong word – Peaches actually feels sorry for the couple.

And the reason she feels sorry for them is not just to do with their own dodgy dress sense, but also to do with their sagging breasts.

For Peaches, that is a problem far in the future, like a third marriage or buying the Telegraph out of choice.

“Susannah should stop slagging off the helpless public and invest in a new, sturdier bra,” she says.

But Peaches also thinks that the pair – that’s Trinny and Susannah, not Susannah’s droopy breasts – should stop presenting such a conformist image of what to wear.

“It’s better to have a valuable personality than a wardrobe of valuables,” she says.

Another thing we know about 14-year-olds, aside from the fact that they’re angry at the world and their breasts don’t sag, is that they hate being patronised.

So run along, little daddy’s girl. And come back and play with the grown-ups when you’re a bit older.’

Posted: 23rd, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The House

‘FORGET Big Brother. Forget Pop Idol and Fame Academy, Wife Swap and The Salon.

‘Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government!’

The reality hit of the summer has been putting 163 men and women (but mostly men) in a house together and telling them to organise themselves into a party that people would elect into government.

Unfortunately, the TV cameras were too busy shooting Britain’s Worst Dressed Celebrity Driver to follow the trials and tribulations of the Tory party.

But the papers have been providing round-the-clock coverage as an organisation that was renowned as the most efficient election-winning machine in history tears itself apart.

Yesterday was “wobbly Wednesday” for the party’s erstwhile leader, Iain Duncan Smith, with one MP describing the atmosphere in Westminster as “hysterical”.

The Times says he is on the ropes and “fighting to stop his remaining authority ebbing away”, but IDS is defiant, claiming that he has earned his right to lead the party.

But the paper says Duncan Smith’s chance of survival look slimmer than ever – a view endorsed by the Telegraph which suggests that 15 MPs have sent letters of no confidence, 10 short of the number needed to trigger a leadership contest.

The Indy goes further, suggesting that IDS’s own chief whip, David MacLean, had warned him to bow out gracefully or face a challenge to his position.

All of which makes hilarious viewing for the audience in the House, namely the Labour, Liberal Democrat and minority party MPs, and for the audience at home.

And proving that the Tory party at war is bitchier place than a gay hairdressers’ convention, the political hacks have been scurrying round Westminster collecting jibes.

One party activist, for instance, tells the Telegraph: “I thought we’d elected an officer who knew how to lead his troops and keep up morale.

“Instead, we’ve got his ballerina mother, a sensitive prima donna.”

A former member of staff claimed IDS was “so intellectually insecure, he can’t admit he’s not an expert on something”.

And an MP tells the Times: “Whilst it is true we need 25 names to have a vote of confidence, we only need three names to get him sectioned.”

Hooray! And Frank Bruno for next leader!’

Posted: 23rd, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Pulling Rank

‘THE revelations that there are racists in the police force can hardly come as such a surprise.

Basic Police Training – Module 4.3

What large organisation can boast that it is truly colour blind when even the Council For Racial Equality has been tainted by racism claims?

But leading policemen are queuing up in the Guardian to say how sickened they were by an undercover BBC investigation into racism among police recruits.

The paper reports that five officers have resigned in the wake of Monday night’s programme, which showed one recruit, PC Rob Pulling, don a Ku Klux Klan-style hood and others express shockingly racist views.

Alan Green, deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said: ‘The programme has greatly shocked me and made me ashamed to be part of the British police service.’

And Met commissioner Sir John Stevens said: ‘I have been a policeman for 41 years at the sharp end and I was absolutely astonished at that behaviour.

‘I have never heard that type of racism – if I had I would have arrested them for it.’

Tomorrow, the police are shocked that some British athletes use drugs and the sky is blue.’

Posted: 23rd, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Putting It Bluntly

‘NOW that David Blaine is back on dry land and sitting down to a McDonalds Happy Meal somewhere, who can we find to take his place in the box?

‘Well, at least I’ve still got my looks’

Step forward to a volley of rotten eggs and golf balls, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

The former guards officer who didn’t attend the University of Perugia is fast becoming a Blainesque object of ridicule with even members of his own party queuing up to hurl abuse at him.

This morning it is the turn of Crispin Blunt, who last night sent a letter to fellow MPs urging them to rise up against their leader.

“I believe the party is at a moment of strategic opportunity and danger,” he writes in the letter, which was leaked to the Independent.

“If I didn’t believe with every instinct that we must act now to save our party from further decline, that we do have an opportunity to return our party to power and that this is absolutely in the country’s interest, then I would do nothing.

“It is after all the easiest course.”

Indeed it is – but is it the course that Betsy Duncan Smith took to earn her £15,000 a year or was she in fact working long into the night sending out Christmas cards to all her husband’s political friends?

Before anyone suggests that the latter task might have been accomplished in the time it takes to lick one stamp, we should remind you that the whole affair is currently in the hands of Sir Philip Mawer.

Suffice it to say that in the Telegraph even IDS’s friends are urging him to call a vote of confidence.

However, they think the leader should appeal over the heads of his back-benchers to the party membership in order to try to protect his own position.

“His allies…think that such a move could pre-empt a formal vote of confidence among MPs,” the paper says.

Despite talk of resignations from the Shadow Cabinet, most MPs appear to be waiting for the outcome of Sir Philip’s investigations into so-called Betsygate before deciding whether to act against their leader.

But Mr Blunt, who resigned from the Opposition front bench in May, believes that, by doing so, they may miss the opportunity to ditch him altogether.

As Macbeth says of the murder of another Duncan, “If it were done when’t is done, then ’t were well/ It were done quickly”.’

Posted: 22nd, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Pigs In Muck

‘THERE are now more police officers in Britain than ever before – or so Home Secretary David Blunkett claimed at the Labour party conference earlier this month.

‘I solved a crime once…’

Not good enough, replied the Tories. If we get into power, we will add an additional 40,000 officers, presumably of the flying variety.

But what will these new policemen and policewomen do all day?

One thing they won’t do, judging by yesterday’s figures, is solve crimes.

Despite increasing manpower, the Times reports this morning that three-quarters of police forces actually solved a lower proportion of crimes last year than the year before.

And as part of its commitment to open government, the Home Office is happy to tell us where we should go if we want to mug old ladies and get away with it.

First of all, we would like to warn all lags that crime doesn’t pay in Devon & Cornwall, Suffolk, Cumbria or Northumbria – the four forces with outstanding records.

If you are trying to carve out a career in crime for yourself in any of those areas, you might want to consider a move to one of the following.

Consider, Avon & Somerset (only a short hop for our Devonian friends), Cambridgeshire, Cleveland, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Humberside.

Criminals who can understand spidergrams can further refine their search and find out which crime is best committed in which area.

The police defended their abysmal clear-up rates, saying that two-thirds of work done by police officers was unrelated to crime.

We trust they are as successful at that as they are in solving crime.’

Posted: 22nd, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Child’s Play

‘WOULD you recognise a paedophile if you saw one? Of course you would.

‘I do believe in fairies’

They wear long white coats and hang around the children’s ward in hospitals, don’t they? No, silly, they’re paediatricians.

They dress up in green tights, never say they don’t believe in fairies and want to stay young forever? No, stupid, that’s Peter Pan.

Paedophiles have horns sprouting out of their head, a tail (which they often conceal inside a long coat) and hooves instead of feet.

Typically, they are also white and IT professionals.

A study by Thames Valley police found that offenders ranged from company directors to doctors, but (says the Indy) the majority of people arrested for child pornography offences were people in computing and IT.

But DS Bob Krykant admits that the profile of a typical offender might be changing as more people have access to the Internet at home.

“It is surprising sometimes when you get people in positions of responsibility and trust that offend – like doctors, managing directors and police officers.”

Well, they’ve got to do something with the two-thirds of their time when they’re not dealing with crime.’

Posted: 22nd, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Up The Creek

‘THE Tories have been up a particular creek for a number of years now and it doesn’t seem to matter much what, if any, type of paddle they have to hand.

‘I have the full support of my party and the country at large’

Having jettisoned the paddle that had served them so well for more than a decade when it seemed to be steering headlong for the rocks, they have been content to use any plank of wood that happened to be floating past at the time.

First of all, there was a particularly grey bit of flotsam, which served its purpose for a time and managed briefly to keep them from capsizing.

Then, when that oar broke, they latched onto a young sapling, albeit with the appearance of an old oak, which they hoped would steer them back into the high seas.

When all it managed was to propel them still further up the creek, they quickly jettisoned it in favour of a nondescript piece of timber – which they have been trying to throw overboard ever since.

However, what the Guardian calls “a near-nightmare scenario” for party strategists is the news that there is no popular alternative to Iain Duncan Smith in sight.

An ICM poll for the paper shows the Government still has a five-point lead over the Tories – the equivalent of a Labour majority of 160 or more at a General Election.

If IDS is replaced by Michael Howard, the figures get even worse with 19% of people saying they would be more likely to vote Tory and 26% saying they would be less likely.

The figures for party chairman David Davis are even worse – but the future still looks bleak for IDS.

The Times reports that he has been “ticked off” about alleged misuse of his official chauffeur-driven car.

“Cabinet officials are understood to have warned the Tory leader and told him that he is subject to the same rules are ministers forbidding use of Government cars for private or party political business,” it says.

And the Guardian says his efforts to bat off the so-called Betsygate scandal surrounding payments made to his wife received another setback yesterday.

Former campaign press secretary Belinda McCammon said Mrs Duncan Smith only came into the office “once every two or three weeks” and she hadn’t even realised she was on the payroll.

Ms McCammon said she couldn’t be sure BDS was not working from home, “but just from my observations and especially in the set-up of the leader’s office, certainly they’ve overstated how hands-on she was in that”.

Time for a new plank of wood, we think.’

Posted: 21st, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Putting The Mochas On

‘TONY Blair’s popularity rating with the country at large may be similar to Mr Heinz’s popularity rating with his housemates when he was trying out his baked beans recipes, but there seems little prospect of his moving out of Downing Street in the near future.

An artist’s impression of the would-be murder weapon

In fact, such is our beloved leader’s political genius that he has even managed to spin Sunday’s heart scare to his advantage.

For we read on the front page of the Independent that coffee was to blame for the heart palpitations Mr Blair suffered at the weekend, and not just any coffee. European coffee.

A Blair aide tells the Indy: ‘He is saying that he drank a lot of coffee at the summit. He obviously felt the need for it to keep him going.

‘It is possible that he had too much strong Continental coffee. Perhaps he should have stuck to herbal tea.’

In other words, our perfidious European neighbours tried to do to Blair what the Tories (twice) and Gordon Brown (on countless occasions) have failed to do, namely hasten his demise.

But wouldn’t it be ironic if a loyal aide succeeded where the combined might of France, Germany and Italy had failed.

A Prime Minister who drinks herbal tea? The very thought of it sends shivers down the spine.’

Posted: 21st, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Seedless Fruits

‘IT is little wonder in a country where the Prime Minister drinks herbal tea that we are suffering from a shortage of sperm.

‘Ah, the Danes are coming!’

But such is the problem that the fertility watchdog is considering ‘bulk’ imports from Denmark to make up for the lack of seed in this country.

The Telegraph doesn’t quite explain whether the abovementioned bulk refers to the size of the Danish sperm or the quantity to be shipped over.

Suffice it to say that the Human Fertilisation And Embryology Association thinks the importation of Scandi-sperm is ‘likely to prove a valuable option’.

In Denmark, sperm donors are paid about £23 a deposit, but the only details kept are hair and eye colour, height, blood group and ethnic classification.

In Britain, however, names are kept on record and the Telegraph says potential donors are being put off because they are worried that anonymity laws will be changed.

And the fact that no-one drinks camomile tea in Copenhagen.’

Posted: 21st, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment