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1 October 2002
[politics] ‘If only we had known back then’ — Steve Bell on Edwina Currie and John Major … ‘It’s not often that I actually gurgle with delight, but I must confess that is exactly what happened when I awoke to the news of Edwina Currie’s affair with John Major. Having spent so many years drawing Major as a hapless gawk with his Aertex Y-fronts always worn outside his dull, charcoal-grey suit I was faced with the fact that he was also a sex-romping superstud who could keep it up for at least three hours (according to the News of the World).’
29 September 2002
[sundays] A couple of interesting articles from the Observer … - The Secret Passion that Staggered Westminster … ‘Back to Basics has come back yet again to haunt him, a phrase that must now go down as the most unfortunate, misinterpreted and now clearly misjudged three-word soundbite ever. It was launched at the Conservative conference of 1993. Currie was in the hall. ‘I listened in absolute amazement,’ she said. ‘And if you’re asking me whether I thought that policy was a mistake, absolutely. Not least because it was very cruel to people who were otherwise excellent Ministers, who didn’t deserve to have the magnifying glass turned on their lives at that time by their own leader. If it had been my choice, we would have had a very different policy. It was going against the tone of the times and it was also handled in an extremely cruel fashion. ‘It was cruel to single parents, it was cruel to women left on their own with children, it was pompous and facetious and stupid.’ And, a fact the public only know now, the height of hypocrisy.’
- Don’t Laugh. This is the Real Office — A visit to a real office in Slough … ‘ I have come to the people at Swan to find out what they think of the programme and whether any of them resemble the grotesques on screen. And, of course, they don’t, Gervais’s comedy being a fierce distillation of every lousy trait – jealousy, ambition, self-deception, witty ties – found in every office in every town in Britain today. Instead, their chat represents fairly perfectly the minutiae of life in what Napoleon should more accurately have called a nation of service-sector retail distribution outlet co-workers: house prices, last night’s TV, the drive to work and the perennial search, in Europe’s biggest trading estate, for a decent lunchtime sandwich.’
25 September 2002
[rant] Trouble when Tweed Comes to Town — Will Self rants about the Countryside March … ‘Yes, Countryside Alliance, you’re the Tories who can’t stand the free market; you’re the libertarians who can’t handle homosexual rights or decriminalising drugs; you’re the defenders of Fortress Britain who get bankrolled by Brussels. You aren’t old MacDonald – you’re bloody senile.’ [via Guardian Weblog]
17 September 2002
[politics] Saddam and Me — interview with George Galloway … ‘He revealed how Saddam had offered him Quality Street chocolates, told him how much he admired British buses. He also said how shy and retiring the Iraqi dictator was. The account may have been widely ridiculed, but Galloway is probably the only British politician who would be granted such an audience. Why didn’t he accept one of Saddam’s chocolates? “I never eat sweets, my dear. Never.” In his article, Galloway also related how Saddam commented that he had lost weight since their last encounter a few years ago. Galloway smiles when I mention it. “He didn’t have a chocolate either, which is interesting. But everyone else wolfed them down, so I got the impression that the tin doesn’t get brought out all that often.”‘
3 September 2002
[politics] ‘Oh my god. Not Ann Widdecombe’ — Guardian Colunist spends three days in a hotel with Doris Karloff … ‘You get all sorts of requests once you’ve written a book. The other week Amnesty International invited me to an event to read the works of an imprisoned writer and I was happy to say yes. I chose Jeffrey Archer.’ [via I Love Everything]
25 July 2002
[politics] You Ask The Questions — Ann Widdecombe … ‘Q:Were you pleased with When Louis Met Ann Widdecombe? Why wouldn’t you let Louis into your bedroom? A:I was not unhappy with the final programme. I invited Louis into only those areas of the house where I would invite anyone else. I am entitled to some privacy and I cannot believe the nation is remotely interested in my bedroom or bathroom.’
17 July 2002
[film] Chronicle of a Death Foretold — Greil Marcus on the Manchurian Candidate, John Frankenheimer and the Kennedy Assasinations … Frankenheimer: ‘I can see Bobby’s face on a big television monitor in the ballroom and I can see his back for real. As I stood there a figure went by me and it was as if there was electricity coming out of his body. I’ve never felt anything like it before or since. Of course it was Sirhan Sirhan.’
9 July 2002
[politics] A Political Torpedo — a mad profile of Boris Johnson which suggests he could be a future Tory Leader … ‘In many respects he embodies all that is supposed to be politically unacceptable in a modern prime minister. He’s an outrageous toff and an image consultant’s disaster area. What’s more, he has no man-of-the-people credentials at all. Yet, assuming another election defeat, after the disappointment of a decade of William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith, the Tories may well be in the mood for a wild card. The electorate will eventually tire of the joyless puritanism of the Blair-Brown regime. If the Tories want to play the joker, Boris could be their man.’
[euro] They Said What? — Eddie Izzard on the Euro: ‘I’m travelling in Spain where everyone’s using the euro. They haven’t all drowned, everyone’s speaking Spanish, they haven’t become English. they haven’t become Welsh, they haven’t become Afghans.’
8 July 2002
[euro] A Goosestep too Far? — commentary on Rik Mayall’s pro-Euro Hitler and a brief look at Nazi / Hitler satire …  ‘There is a long heritage of Nazi satire, some funny, some trenchant, some negligible, some stupid (we salute you, Freddie Starr, particularly for that hilarious touch of putting the Führer in shorts). When John Cleese put an index finger to his upper lip and did his gangly approximation of a goosestep through the lobby of Torquay’s most benighted hotel, it was funny and important, particularly as it came in a context of lampooning one Briton’s cartoonish views of Germans.’
5 July 2002
[world] Like Dallas policed by the Taliban — inside Saudi Arabia … ‘[Saudi Arabia] is a country of astonishing contrasts. Riyadh is a hyper-modern city with ancient social customs. It is Dallas, Texas, policed by the Taliban. Women entirely shrouded in black abayas , with even their eyes covered, go shopping at a Harvey Nichols inside a Norman Foster building. Men pour into the mosque under an enormous neon sign advertising Sony, as if they were entering an electrical goods sale rather than a place of worship. McDonald’s is seemingly on every street corner, and yet it closes its doors five times a day for prayers – making Saudi Arabia unique as a country where the most powerful franchise on earth bends its knees in front of an even stronger brand: Allah.’
4 July 2002
[politics] Hell hath no fury like Iain’s scorn — Simon Hoggart’s view of Prime Ministers Question Time … ‘The last question went to Ann Winterton, whose MP husband Nicholas has been recently knighted. The speaker called her Lady Winterton. What a strange country this is, in which two months ago a frontbencher can be fired for telling a joke which ends: “In our country Pakis are 10 a penny”, and is now honoured by the title Lady.’
24 June 2002
[history] Inspired by the Finder’s guide to Deep Throat and Meg… Deep Throat was… - …a smoker and he drank Scotch.
- …a composite, if he (or she) existed at all.
- …the shadowy source who haunts the pages and scenes of “All the President’s Men.”
- …presidential adviser Patrick J. Buchanan.
- …Pat Gray, FBI director from May 1972 to April 1973.
- …Earl J. Silbert, an original Watergate prosecutor.
- …some sort of liberal bureaucrat.
- …a spook.
- …in fact, the lead actress in the film of that title.
- …a well-read but occasionally rowdy man.
22 June 2002
[history] Deep Throat: Not the Usual Suspects — from McSweeney’s … ‘Richard Nixon: On a dark, rainy evening in the spring of 1973, President Richard Milhous Nixon, tormented by self-loathing, picks up the phone and places a call to the Washington Post. The rest, as they say, is history, my friend.’
21 June 2002
[history] Richard Nixon’s Last Secret — audio archaeologists go after 18 minutes of conversation deleted (by Nixon?!) from a Watergate Tape … ‘The fact that the tape contained as many as nine separate erasures contradicts any notion that it was caused by an accidental press of the Record button. The culprit was either very anxious to protect the president or was a mechanical klutz. Both descriptions, Watergate scholars have noted, fit Richard Nixon. The 37th president was laughably inept when it came to technology. Haldeman recounts in his now out-of-print book, The Ends of Power, that Nixon struggled with the most basic functions of cassette recorders. The Army Signal Corps supplied Nixon with the simplest recorder available so that the president could dictate memos in the evening. But even then, the various buttons had to be marked so Nixon could use the machine without mixing things up. Put a man like that in front of a reel-to-reel, and it’s easy to see how a simple erasure could turn into a clumsy mess.’
[Related: Nixon Resigns]
17 May 2002
[politics] Fortunate Son — the Barbelith Webzine looks at the murky past of George W. Bush. ‘[Fortunate Son] contained the allegation that in 1972 Bush senior had arranged for a Texas judge to have his son’s conviction for possession of cocaine expunged from the records, in return for which Junior performed works of public service. This last was already documented; the fact that he worked for a while in the early seventies in an outreach centre for teenagers in one of Dallas’ poorest districts has often been touted by republican publicists eager to round off some of their leader’s corners. Needless to say, it stands out like a sore thumb.’
4 May 2002
[politics] What I learned about Tony – the Hard Way — William Hague on Tony Blair … ‘All politicians like to identify with their audiences, but his desire to do so is extreme. People who listened to his speech of welcome to the Australians who came to London to celebrate their centenary two years ago could have been forgiven for believing that he had spent most of his life there. When Frank Sinatra died, he bizarrely announced that he had “grown up with him”. In the Labour party magazine it was announced that “Tony’s favourite food is fish and chips. He gets a takeaway from his local chippy whenever he is at home in his constituency.” In The Islington Cookbook his favourite food was “fresh fettuccine garnished with an exotic sauce of olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes and capers”. So, even more than most politicians, he wants to be loved by everyone, and can act himself into the necessary part without the sense of the ridiculous that would overcome most of the rest of us.’
26 April 2002
[politics] ‘The veil? It protects us from ugly women’ — Guardian interview with Jean-Marie Le Pen. ‘…[Le Pen is] someone who loves a fight, who stirs up strife and contention; a despised and dangerous man who went looking for a violent dust-up and lost his eye as a consequence. His contrasting version of events fits in well with his regular complaints of being politically slandered, of deep-rooted misunderstandings and systematic abuse from the establishment. Even the more jocular aspect that he seeks to ascribe to the whole episode perfectly suits his personality: “On one occasion, a female political rival claimed that I was looking at her with a ‘hard stare’. I replied: ‘But of course, madam. You are looking at my glass eye,'” he says with a boisterous laugh. An encounter with Le Pen can be a bit of a culture shock. The man is blessed with a rare, intoxicating charisma.’
23 April 2002
[politics] A French Movement — another Steve Bell cartoon on Jean-Marie Le Pen and the French Presidential Elections.
16 April 2002
[quote] Texting … ‘…and I wonder about my fellow citizens. I wonder if there isn’t some collective human core drive toward conservatism. I mean conservatism on its most basic level: fear of change. These familiar white men — familiar both because they’re clones of what we’ve been acculturated to perceive as power, and familiar literally, it’s the exact same people, the same handful, the plutocracy — are they somehow reassuring big daddies, distant and tight-lipped, security conscious and faintly disapproving, a little out of touch, a little authoritarian and secretive, deals out of earshot and quiet phone calls, a potential for real anger, but usually genial and a little hokey; they want what’s best for us, they know what’s best, because they’re father? We don’t need to know the details. They’re in charge, and that’s as it should be.’ [via Wood s Lot]
[tags: Politics, Quotes][ permalink][ Comments Off on ‘I wonder if there isn’t some collective human core drive toward conservatism…’]
15 April 2002
[politics] Look Who’s Talking — Christopher Hitchens interviewed by Lynne Barber … ‘…recently he has amazed everyone – left, right, centre – by coming out firmly in support of Bush’s war on terrorism. This means that for the first time in his life he is in the unfamiliar position of swimming with the tide. But on the other hand it hasn’t made him revise his first impression of Dubya – ‘Eyes so close together he could use a monocle, abnormally unintelligent, could barely read at all, “rescued from the booze by Jesus” – and if there’s one sentence that would piss me off more than any other, that’s it. But one can look on the bright side and say it proves that anyone can be president.’ Is this a sign that he’s moving rightwards?’
13 April 2002
[politics] Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher — a Digested Read … ‘First and foremost, you cannot trust any foreigners apart from the Americans. Take Communism away from the Russians and the Eastern Bloc countries and you’re left with a bunch of gangsters and freeloaders. The Chinese think they’re superior and the Middle East is full of people who dress oddly and don’t go to church. Only the Americans have moral right. This is because they speak English, are devout Christians and are very, very big.’
[cartoon] Yet another amazing Steve Bell cartoon — this time on US efforts to promote peace in the Middle East. ‘Peace… in your own time, Man!’
22 March 2002
[politics] Just What Was He Smoking? — The Washington Post takes a look at audio tapes from Richard Nixon’s White House. ‘…he does explain many other things in these drug tapes, including the insidious nexus between drugs, homosexuality, communism and, of course, Jews. The excerpts begin with the Nixon doctrine on why marijuana is much worse than alcohol: It is because people drink “to have fun” but they smoke marijuana “to get high.” This distinction was evidently enormously significant to Nixon, because he repeats it twice.’ [via Scripting News]
14 March 2002
[nologo] America is not a hamburger — Naomi Klein on the “rebranding” of America. ‘…Beers views the US tattered international image as little more than a communications problem. Somehow America still hasn’t managed, in Beers’ words, to “get out there and tell our story”. In fact, the problem is just the opposite: America’s marketing of itself has been too effective. Schoolchildren can recite its claims to democracy, liberty and equal opportunity as readily as they can associate McDonald’s with family fun and Nike with athletic prowess. And they expect the US to live up to its claims. If they are angry, as millions clearly are, it’s because they have seen those promises betrayed by US policy.’
6 March 2002
[politics] You Ask The Questions… Christopher Hitchens … Who is worse — Henry Kissinger or Mother Teresa: ‘With Kissinger, you can tell how many people he killed. With Mother Teresa, who only preached surrender to poverty, disease and ignorance and against family planning, we can’t be sure of the figures. But together they certainly make two out of the four pale riders of the Apocalypse.’
5 March 2002
[tv] The Truth about me and Louis Theroux — a profile of Ann Widdecombe … ‘One thing does, however, leave the viewer still utterly dumbfounded by the end of the show. Widdecombe actually believed that Theroux would stick to his promise of not bringing up her alleged virginity, which, predictably, he does within the first five minutes. (Widdecombe famously threatened to sue a reporter who suggested to her that she wasn’t still a maiden.) “As you probably realised, there was a huge row off-screen,” she says. (There’s a pretty enjoyable on-screen humdinger, too.)’
1 March 2002
[war] Nixon talked of nuclear bomb for Vietnam … [via Metafilter] ‘Kissinger laid out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort, such as attacking power plants and docks, in an April 25, 1972, conversation in the Executive Office Building.
“I’d rather use the nuclear bomb,” Nixon responded.
“That, I think, would just be too much,” Kissinger replied.
“The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?” Nixon asked. “I just want you to think big.”‘
26 February 2002
[cartoon] Steve Bell on Stephen Byers and the Spin Row … ‘Fuck, Minister.’
29 January 2002
[people] A couple of interesting articles from The Independent: - Don’t mess with the man in the leather skirt — profile of Russell Crowe … ‘I’d move to Los Angeles if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed up in a huge tidal wave. If there were a bubonic plague in England, and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack. In Australia, they treat you like a piece of furniture. Your mates are your mates and the folks who hate your dark and bloody guts, they don’t change their minds. That’s why I love it, I suppose.”‘
- Interview with Tony Benn … ‘Today, he is wearing House of Commons braces and an old shirt with little burn holes in it. “I burn holes in all my shirts and cardigans all the time. This is the trouble with being a pipe-smoker.” Overall, he has the look of a homely, crumpled, go-ahead vicar. I ask him if the Labour Party ever tried to tart him up, encouraged him to seek advice from a Colour Me Beautiful consultant. “No. And I think that they wouldn’t have succeeded. I’ve still got the coat I was given when I was demobilised in 1946.”‘
27 January 2002
[obit] He was a Crook — Hunter S. Thompson’s obituary for Richard Nixon from 1994 … ‘If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.’ [via Metafilter]
22 January 2002
[distraction] This is Me by Georg Bush … ‘i have the most guns and planes in the world’ [via BenHammersley.com]
20 January 2002
[politics] Hey, I’m Doing My Best — Christopher Hitchens on George Bush’s first year … ‘The moral and political universe turns on the axis of 11 September. And that date is a day that Bush would no doubt like to have back again. Unlike any of his predecessors in a time of disaster, he was actually live on camera when the news hit. We saw him squatting on a small chair in a Florida schoolroom, smirking condescendingly at a junior class, when his chief of staff came hurrying in. And then we saw him no more, as the stupid doomsday routines of ‘national security’ hid him. The official excuse for this – that he had been overruled by his guards – was more panicky and pathetic than the reality. So the Mayor of New York became leader of the free world for a whole week.’
5 December 2001
[politics] The Guardian has the inside story on the Tory Leadership race from Ken Clarke’s campaign manager … ‘The party I joined was full of nice old people; today, it is full of nasty old people. Their hatred of gays, blacks, successful women and the European Union is as extraordinary as it is offensive. [..] They cannot be reasoned with.’
[tags: Politics][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Inside Story On the Tory Leadership Race]
24 November 2001
[cartoons] 3AM Magazine interviews Steve Bell and Martin Rowson … Rowson: ‘There’s a journalist, Christopher Hitchens, whom I greatly admire. Generally because the gaudiness of his prose matches his subject matter which is what we do as cartoonist. It’s very visceral. Very immediate. There’s a wonderful line which I take as my guiding star a wonderful line of overblown journalism which he wrote in his biography of Henry Kissinger ‘ One can never eat enough to vomit enough when one thinks about Henry Kissinger.’ I met Hitchens once and went over to him and said ‘let me shake your hand for that line.’ It’s that visceral response that as a cartoonist is what I am looking for. It’s what we should do. We have to go the extra leap. The extra five yards or whatever. Say the unacceptable.’ [via Feeling Listless]
3 November 2001
[war] Victory for the doom-mongers in a passionate war of words — Simon Hoggart on Labour MP’s and Afghanistan. On a speech by George Galloway: ‘…he had never thought he would see the day when Labour – Labour! – MPs supported the use of cluster bombs. “Is this war so finely poised that we need the use of cluster bombs?” He recalled Clare Short crying on Brighton beach at the very thought of land mines. “But cluster bombs are much worse than land mines.” Ms Short sat squat, alone and disgruntled on the front bench as Mr Galloway reached his peroration. It was the Northern Alliance who had destroyed and beggared Afghanistan with its mediaeval obscurantism. It was the Northern Alliance who hanged the former president and stuffed his penis into his mouth – “those are your new best friends!” he raged.’ [ Related: Hoggart Archive]
27 October 2001
[no logo] Between McWorld and Jihad — Naomi Klein on 9-11 and the anti-corporate movement… ‘Of course, there is little evidence that America’s most wanted Saudi-born millionaire has a grudge against capitalism (if Osama bin Laden’s rather impressive global export network stretching from cash-crop agriculture to oil pipelines is any indication, it seems unlikely). And yet for the movement some people call “anti-globalisation” others call “anti-capitalism” (and I tend to just sloppily call “the movement”), it’s difficult to avoid discussions about symbolism: about all the anti-corporate signs and signifiers – the culture-jammed logos, the guerrilla-warfare stylings, the choices of brand name and political targets – that make up the movement’s dominant metaphors. Many political opponents of anti-corporate activism are using the symbolism of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks to argue that young activists, playing at guerrilla war, have now been caught out by a real war.’
25 October 2001
[politics] You can’t beat a bit of bullying — more on the way the way a Labour Whip dealt with an awkward MP over government policy in Afghanistan. ‘…they found it impossible to stick to the argument. Within minutes they had moved from the issue of loyalty to attendance records to trust (Marsden: “It would help if your deputy didn’t send me snotty letters”), to the question of war as a matter of conscience, to risible fibs about telephone messages (“Er, perhaps I got the wrong number”), to appeasement “Don’t you dare!”), to the pressing question of which of the two was the more northern (Marsden: “Do you mind? I spent four years at Teesside Polytechnic”).’
[tags: Politics][ permalink][ Comments Off on Catherine Bennet on Internal Labour Shenanigans]
23 October 2001
[politics] ‘Those that are not with us are against us’ — interesting transcript of a conversation between the Labour MP for Shrewsbury Paul Marsden and the Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong about UK Government policy over Afghanistan… ‘HA: In fact we may well hold a vote, but if we do, it will be whipped. PM: That is outrageous. You won’t even give us a free vote on whether we go to war – it is an issue which should be a matter of conscience. HA: War is not a matter of conscience. Abortion and embryo research are matters of conscience, but not wars. PM: Are you seriously saying blowing people up and killing people is not a moral issue? HA: It is government policy that we are at war. You astound me.’
12 October 2001
[politics] Political cartoonist Steve Bell visited all the Labour, Tory and Lib-Dem Party Conferences …. ‘Theresa May has a strange simpering manner and a magnificent nose, along with bags under her eyes that suggest a wealth of experience, though not in transport, local government and the regions.’ [ Related: Archive of Steve Bell Cartoons]
10 October 2001
[politics] A right pair of Dolly Partons — Simon Hoggart on the Tory Party Conference … ‘Then there was a stir. “Welcome,” said the chairman (a woman), “a very special guest. The Rt Hon William Hague!” At this point the conference sprang to life and stood. Noises emerged. IDS accompanied him onto the platform. It was a fantastic, surreal sight. They looked like two boiled eggs in blue eggcups. Their pates gleamed in unison. I gazed from the balcony in awe. If you’d stuck a few sequins on their heads they’d have looked like Dolly Parton’s cleavage. Then Hague separated from his twin and stood at the front. The conference applauded wildly. Margaret Thatcher (three victories) got little more applause than William Hague (one landslide defeat). It was mad. They were cheering the albatross!’
6 October 2001
[politics] Presiminister Exits as Old Conflicts Rumble On … Simon Hoggart on Blair’s performance on Thursday. ‘The prime minister did not try to save the world again; he did that earlier this week. Instead this was his seventh day. For a moment he could rest, with a rapt House of Commons listening carefully and silently to everything. He gave a cool and precise survey of what is being done and what is being planned. As for the most sensitive evidence, “I enter a major caveat”, he said, unlike UBL himself, who has no doubt recently entered a major cave.’
4 October 2001
[politics] Steve Bell in Brighton — Tuesday and Wednesday … ‘Blair sweeps in, looking serious, determined, resolved and orange. It’s been niggling in the back of my mind as to why everybody on stage at this conference seems to be orange. It must be a combination of the lighting effects and the backdrop. Or perhaps they’ve all been inoculated against chemical attack with Sunny Delight.’ [ Related: Archive of Steve Bell Cartoons]
3 October 2001
[politics] Full Text of Tony Blair’s Conference Speech [ Part 1 | Part 2] ‘Just two weeks ago, in New York, after the church service I met some of the families of the British victims. It was in many ways a very British occasion. Tea and biscuits. It was raining outside. Around the edge of the room, strangers making small talk, trying to be normal people in an abnormal situation. And as you crossed the room, you felt the longing and sadness; hands clutching photos of sons and daughters, wives and husbands; imploring you to believe them when they said there was still an outside chance of their loved ones being found alive, when you knew in truth that all hope was gone. And then a middle-aged mother looks you in the eyes and tells you her only son has died, and asks you: why? I tell you: you do not feel like the most powerful person in the country at times like that. Because there is no answer. There is no justification for their pain. Their son did nothing wrong. The woman, seven months pregnant, whose child will never know its father, did nothing wrong. They don’t want revenge. They want something better in memory of their loved ones.’
[politics] Field-marshal Blair rallies the troops for war – on socialism … Simon Hoggart on Blair’s Conference Speech. ‘Throughout this conference, Mr Blair has scarcely shown his face on the platform. Instead we are allowed to imagine him in the ops room, or at least the Metropole hotel, with an open scrambler to George Bush, dispatching ships, planes, tanks and men to the most hostile terrain on the planet. Or possibly watching This Morning with Twiggy. Not that it matters. There are times when leadership means staying out of the way.’
2 October 2001
[politics] Steve Bell in Brighton … Britain’s finest political cartoonist visits the Labour Party Conference. ‘To Brighton, storm-lashed and ready for war. It’s also where I live, so, as a ratepayer paying for this steel-ringed, machine gun-equipped securityfest, I am already irate.’ [ Related: Archive of Steve Bell Cartoons]
9 September 2001
[politics] Tories’ leap of faith — intriguing profile Of Ian Duncan Smith … ‘This is what comes up most often when you talk to those who know him (along with his genuine ease as a family man: he likes to change nappies, and makes a mean pasta); principle, unshakeability, and loyalty to his friends, one of whom said, rather ludicrously: “He’s someone you’d go tiger-shooting with.”‘
23 August 2001
[politics] Anne Widdecombe? The voice of reason?! ‘Lady Thatcher became prime minister 21 years ago. It is time to move on.’
17 August 2001
[politics] Are you a Woolly Liberal? ‘Walking home late at night, a man accosts you and snatches your wallet. Later, you fantasise about: Ann Widdecombe in Downing Street working to put more bobbies on the beat.’ [via Meg]
![[not so random image] Christopher Walken -- 'You get me in a vendetta kind of mood, you tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is Vincent Coccotti.'](https://i0.wp.com/www.timemachinego.com/linkmachinego/images2/walken.jpg?resize=171%2C208) [politics] Me? A member of the liberal elite? — The Guardian tries to find some members of the Liberal Elite … ‘”A Home Office minister said to me,” says John Wadham, the Liberty chairman, sitting by a fan in his windowless office, “that the more we complain about civil liberties disappearing, the more the government like it, because it plays well with the Daily Mail.” He does not even bother to look disappointed. In his scuffed Doctor Martens shoes and small rimless glasses, he could pass for a defeated radical activist from the early 80s. It is probably just as well that his office does not have a view. Within sight of the Liberty headquarters, there are at least two CCTV cameras.’
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