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I have to say it: I felt really quite sorry for Charles Kennedy at the start of the year when he was hounded mercilessly by the press and broadcast media and then ousted by his own disloyal and scheming leuitenants because of his boozing.

I am no way of a suppporter of the Liberal Democrats; I do not take to their luke warm attitude to major Life and ethical issues. But I do expect them to be largely fair and behave like it says on the tin, so to speak. And I do think Charlie seems to be a reasonable guy and to have been an effective leader.

Charles Kennedy liked a drink, well apparently he liked it a lot; and some of his colleagues decided that he therefore was not fit to be in charge any more. Now I call that not very "liberal".

So they blackmailed him into standing down. They basically announced to Charles (oh, and everyone else) that they would not play on his team. I call that not very democratic.

The Lib Dems have a rule or policy which says that the leader is chosen by the Party Members, not by the MPs. Whether this is a good thing or bad is not an issue; the democratic process upon which their party rests is. And I believe they abandoned this value by forcing Kennedy to step down. He did not want to, you could tell that. And he could have held on and forced a vote from the party membership if he had wanted; but rather than put his party through all that, he decided to go quietly and with some decorum. Perhaps this was because he fancies a political future and did not want to shoot holes in his own boat; or perhaps he genuinely cares about the Liberal Democratic party and did the Right Thing, even though the Mark Antonies around him were prepared to stab him in the back, the front and anywhere else they could shove it in.

Well, they got their comeupppance for sure. The leadership contenders included one man who refused to come off the fence - or out of the closet - about his own sexuality and one outright pervert. Look, whatever they want to do in their spare time is fine by me, as long as they keep well away from my kids. But having publicly shamed and bounced out of office poor old Charlie for being a bit of a piss-head, they must have felt pretty awkward about the credibility of those other two putative leaders.

Serves the hypocritical scoundrels right, I say.

I have just enjoyed listening to Roy Hattersley and Kelvin Mackenzie going head to head in the argument over educational selection (Grammar Schools vs Secondary Moderns etc) on the "Any Questions" show on Radio 4. Each of them had some good points, made fairly unequivocally. Great radio.

But did I hear it right when the debate came to an end, with Roy Hattersley "proving his point" by essentially resorting to making a personal attack on Mr Mackenzie? One might have expected it to have been the other way round, given that Hattersley is supposedly the man of politics and debate while Mackenzie is the man of tabloid hysteria. But no.

I had thought that Roy Hattersley could not go lower in my estimation. He managed to today.

But then, I confess that I have long considered Hattersley to be an arrogant and overstated man, basking in the light of his own ego, so perhaps I should not be so surprised.

I had to write something about this.

When you get a headline that says something like "Prescott in blow" you have to wonder if the fellow has twatted someone again. But no, in this case, the only twat is John Prescott himself.

Get the full story from the BBC here.

Don't misunderstand me; John Prescott actually went up in my estimation when he wellied into the bloke who egged him (or was it custard pie? I forget) in public. It was very straightforwad and honest of him. And I should probably have done the same or at least wished I had, if I had been in the same predicament.

No, really. But then, I am not in politics. And I am not the deputy Prime Minister of my country, so my responsibility to behave reasonably in public might be just a tad less, don't you think?

Prescott was, according to himself, an 11-Plus failure. But he did rise above his Secondary Modern constraints, studied at Ruskin College and got a degree subsequently from Hull University. The ideal of Secondary Modern schools was good but it is probably fair to say that the implementation was poor. If a basically bright kid failed to reach the standard in the 11-Plus, in many cases they did not get he best opportunity in life, if indeed getting the best opportunity is concomitant with an academic education. It is great that Prescott went on to better himself at Ruskin, after leaving Secondary education with next to no qualifications at 15 years of age. It does, however, frighten me crapless that a man so incapable of convincing me of his intelligent thought with any lucid speech actually got a degree. Something is wrong.

That Prescott is using the popular press to express his displeasure with his Prime Minister's education policy direction is interesting to say the least. His apparent loyalty to Blair to date has in my mind been inexplicable, knowing that had interstellar travel been possible the two men wold have been born in separate solar systems. Perhaps this is the final straw for Prescott, maybe he is throwing his toys out of the cot.

Perhaps - even - Prescott is an unwitting stool pigeon in a clever game of Bair's; I just do not know.

However, that the deputy Prime Minister is publicly expressiing his disagreement with his Prime Minister is just amazing. It's even more unprofessional, in my opinion, than the clear blue rift water separating Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In another account of John Prescott's recent indescretions, we find that he is more comfortable with Class War.

He said:-


What the hell is he talking about?

"It's the Eton mob isn't it?" What is, exactly?

This is a man who publicly defines himself, and really the labour party itself, in terms of Class Struggle. I think this is a good enough excuse to disband the Labour Party, were the definition true. Hello John, Marx is dead, and so is his philosophy, you moron. If all you are is a violent reaction against something, how negative and uncreative is that? And moreover, if it is something that does not even exist any longer, then you're an anachronism. Class? What class?

This must be a fantastic representation of all that Tony "Pimp" Blair is trying to get away from. "New Labour" means "Not Old Labour", for sure, and John Prescott is making it so very clear that he is not New Labour here.

And anyway, while we're talking about class here, who the heck is driving the Jag? I mean, the Jags. Both of them. Not me, and I think I identify myself as one of those awfully terrible middle class people that benefitted from a Grammar School education who works hard, pays his taxes and struggles to raise a family in New Labour's Police State Britain, and whom Prescott is now attacking. The duplicitous hypocrite.

Paul McCartney has publicly declared that he would not consider performing in China because of a video he saw which exposed brutal treatment of cats and dogs for their fur.

The story on the BBC's website reported the response by the Chinese:-

Here is the link to the BBC story on Paul McCartney's outrage. You can even feast your eyes on a video clip of these horrors by clicking on a link on the news page.

This is surely sickening and dreadful news to hear about the cruel treatment of defenceless and harmless animals. But is it really that much of a surprise?

I've heard it said that one measure of a nation's level of civilisation is to be found in its treatment of animals. By that measure I think it's fair to say that the UK does not come up smelling of roses, and I am not proud of that. But does this revelation really make us look askance at China?

Let me see. I'm not an expert on this but I do not think one needs to be an expert to know that China has a lamentable human rights record. The government is guilty of religious and political censorship and suppression. Labour and Employment law is scant and often ignored to the detriment of workers. There is ample anecdotal evidence that the implementation of the country's "family planning" rules has resulted in the abuse of the unborn and the newly-born. There's more. You can find some of it at the Human Rights Watch web site.

So, top marks to Paul McCartney for criticising China for its inexcusable treatment of dogs and cats.

However, can it really be true that religious and political suppression, victimisation of common labourers and crimes agains the unborn child, to mention a few misdemeanours, did not deter Sir Paul from contemplating a gig in China, but a video of cruelty to animals and alsation fur coats tipped the scale for him? Either that or the man is showing his ignorance.

And perhaps more disconcertingly, can it be true that we as a nation care more about some dogs and cats than about the other glaring human rights travesties? Why are there, for instance, no covert videos on the BBC web site of Chinese officials taking newborn infants from their mothers and drowning them in the gutter?