open and shut case

Peter Hitchens makes the case that he is a dangerous idiot:

I have no idea if the MMR is safe or not. But I know many thoughtful and well-informed people who believe that it damaged their children, or fear that it might do so.

If you know nothing about the issue then maybe you should keep your fucking mouth shut, Hitchens.

hatchet-job

The remarkable thing about Steve Doughty's otherwise fairly unremarkable anti-feminist hatchet job of Dr Katherine Rake is the fear of choice.

Doughty tries his best to present Dr Rake as a radical (she wants to "revolutionise" lives!), somehow hypocritical (she's married!), an insufficiently feminine woman (she has short hair like 70s feminists!) and willing to work with gay people (ZOMGZOMG THE GAYS!). He also fabricates one outright lie - the notion that wanting to support greater equality in relationships means she refuses to help "ordinary families" or "parents as they are."

This points to the underlying rhetorical device: to pretend that creating greater choice and freedom in the way we live our lives is the same thing as forcing people to change their lives - that, for example, to open mother and toddler groups to stay-at-home fathers is the equivalent of demanding that all men should stay home and look after their children. So the story leads with

..Dr Katherine Rake, who wants to see men bring up babies

and tries to pretend that this is some kind of blanket policy where men will uniformly take over duties of care and - as in the words of centre-right think-tank Centre for Policy Studies - her agenda is "more about reversing sex roles than helping parents."

And that's without touching the (fairly insulting) ridiculousness of suggesting that many men wouldn't be interested in having more of a role in their children's lives.

business as usual

A week after the election of two BNP MEPs - which, of course, is the exclusive fault of the left, ZOMGZOMG - the Mail goes back to printing misleading immigration stories:

Want a British passport? Just stand on a picket line or canvas for Labour

Migrants will win fast-track passports if they stand on picket lines or knock on doors asking people to vote Labour, it emerged last night.

The Home Office says trade union activism and political canvassing should count towards the planned new system of 'earned citizenship'.

It's a fairly obvious attempt to make it seem as though Labour is bribing immigrants into campaign work on their behalf in exchange for passports - even though political activism, for any party, is only one of the ways in which applicants might complete 50 hours of voluntary work. The one shred of honesty in the report notes that "even aiding the BNP would count - if it was willing to accept help from an immigrant." Hah.

James Slack - the "journalist" responsible for this story - also helpfully looks into the future to invent conspiracy theories for critics who don't exist:

Critics will point to the historic relationship between Labour and the unions. Migrants cannot vote until they become citizens - so, by using union membership to speed their applications, Labour is potentially swelling its own support.

Except, of course, that the scheme is not restricted to joining Labour-friendly unions: you can also work at a soup kitchen for the homeless, serve as a school governor or help out a local museum. You can even volunteer for a faith organisation.

You'll probably recall that one of the recurring arguments presented by critics of immigration in general (and multi-culturalism in particular) is that that migrants should adopt the language and culture of the UK. So what's so objectionable about this proposed scheme, which affirms the need for "newcomers" to speak English and to "participate in our civic and political life"?

Or is the argument that visitors should "fit in" a thin cover for a rather more ugly hostility?

not for nothing

Amongst the clutch of conservatives and neo-cons attempting to claim that the BNP are left wingers - sorry, that's LEFTISTSXOMGXOMG!!!! - is Melanie Phillips. My absolute, hands-down favourite part of her argument is when she claims this:

The philosophical antecedents of the BNP lie not on the right but on the left.

and refers to the following text in support of her thesis:

Ze’ev Sternhell’s classic work, Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France

Neither on the left or the right, except when it's entirely on the left, apparently. Phillips also manages to throw in one of the more obvious canards:

Not for nothing were the Nazis called ’national socialists’.

Indeed, not for nothing - sadly for Phillips case, that "something" was the propagandist attempt to encourage working class support. As this site summarises:

Once in power, Hitler showed his true colors by promptly breaking all his promises to workers. The Nazis abolished trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike. An organization called the "Labor Front" replaced the old trade unions, but it was an instrument of the Nazi party and did not represent workers.

To call Phillips' work intellectually dishonest cherry-picking would be a disservice to idiots working in orchards.

conspiracy fail

Nick Griffin reveals himself to be a mere amateur amongst conspiracy theorists:

Speaking to the BBC after the protest Mr Griffin said he believed the march had been organised by his political opponents.

"There was shouting from down the road and I got 80 people marched up with eggs, bottles [edit: bottles which strangely no-one else seems to have spotted] and placards and that was the end of the press conference. It's an absolute outrage," he said.

"We do have a problem with this organised mob which is backed by all three main political parties. It's a disgrace. They clearly had orders.

"I was splattered. It's a very sad day for British democracy. It seems the ruling political parties who want this to carry on have lost sight of what democracy really is.

"They are silly left wing students, lecturers and probably civil service parasites off on their lunch break. This is a mob for hire. This does not represent the normal people.

"This is organised by the Labour party and funded by taxpayers' money."

There are some points here for general incoherent inconsistency (is Labour, or are all three parties to blame?) but what about the homosexuals, blacks, Muslims and feminazis? And what about the Jews? Is there so little room in your heart for hate, Nick?

ugly bedfellows

Following last night's unbelievably shitty news that the BNP could get less votes than in the last election and still pick up two MEPs, the Mail reports:

Conservative Party leader David Cameron described the success of the BNP as 'depressing': 'It is obviously a depressing day for all of us. The BNP are completely beyond the pale... they are an appalling bunch of people.'

How, then, would Cameron describe the European parties on the far right with whom he would ally his party? During last night's Euro election coverage on the BBC, David Dimbleby asked William Hague about the problem of grouping with parties and politicians who are either virulently homophobic or manifestly racist.

Hague deflected the question, not by rejecting the possibility of working with such people but by arguing that "politics is different in Poland," that they share "our kind of politics" and that it would be part of a strong "mainstream" conservative grouping. A racist, homophobic grouping, apparently.

If we're going to get a Conservative government (which, given the ongoing collapse of both the Labour vote and the Labour party is fairly damn likely) that's serious about opposing the politics espoused by the BNP, now would be a good time for the Tories to reject policies which are "beyond the pale" regardless of their country of origin.

it would not be all bad news

Hyperbole, where are thou?

Caroline Flint on her own has set back the cause of women's equality by about a millennium.

If true, it would mean that Melanie Phillips would be prevented from writing any more terrible articles.

Sadly, no.

fail

In the middle of the BNP's education policy - which is gloriously low on necessary detail, logic and reality-based fact - is a river of cognitive dissonance. From the preamble:

“Citizenship” lessons are a euphemism for political indoctrination.

Indoctrination bad, right? Except when the BNP is doing it:

The introduction of a compulsory Community Award Scheme for all school-leavers to teach them work ethics and social and community values. [...] These courses would be character-building and instil discipline, social and community values and work ethics in all young people.

Yes, it's the bold policy of sweeping away citizenship lessons and replacing them with.. uh.. a compulsory citizenship organisation for young people. While re-introducing compulsory collective worship in schools, and claiming only certain areas of knowledge are "proper subjects." (Oh, and don't forget to re-introduce competitive sports which have.. uhm.. never stopped being played.)

The silliest rhetorical tick is to set up a vacuous opposition between "traditional" and "old-fashioned" approaches and the "modern," "fake," and "politically correct." Are we given any sense of what those words might mean? Is there any detail of any of the educational techniques being proposed or critiqued? Do we know which degrees will be considered "proper" degrees? No. That would be actual political content, rather than vapid posturing. Seriously: the "policy" page for education on the BNP website is shorter than this blog entry.

Remember, these aren't just racist bigots: they're deeply stupid racist bigots masquerading as a political party.

want to ask gordon to quit? (updated)

The Telegraph obligingly reproduces the draft email being circulated that asks Gordon Brown to stand down - complete with the contact address you should use if you want to sign it.

I wonder if, by the end of the day, signonnow@hotmail.co.uk might have a few more emails than they had originally planned.

EDIT: Spyblog points out that the choice of hotmail (and the wide circulation of the address in The Telegraph and the Guardian) means that the address is wide-open to pranking and/or abuse (though I think some of the concerns of insider snooping are overstated).

further tales of deliberate ignorance

Britain has awoken to one of the more undignified moments of the lobby journalist system, wherein every political correspondent knows who is circulating the email asking Gordon Brown to stand down, but where not a single one is prepared to name names.

As Adam Bienkov tweeted earlier, MPs must know who they are, Gordon Brown must know who they are - so why shouldn't the rest of us know as well?

EDIT: I am stupid. It's only some journalists - e.g. the BBC's Nick Robinson. The Daily Mail, for example, has no problem reporting names (while citing BBC Newsnight as a source). Does Robinson not have a TV?

near miss

The Daily Mail had accidentally managed to write a critique of Jacqui Smith without lapsing into patronising sexism - fortunately, the photo-caption writer was able to rescue the paper's reputation by reminding us of her "ill-advised cleavage-revealing outfit."

I presume that Quentin Letts was unavailable to assail us with his usual masturbatory prose. Maybe they're saving him for the day she leaves.

misinterpretation

I can understand web-community policies that ban those who swear, are rude, abusive, aggressive or threatening - but Nadine Dorries' new promise to refuse to publish any comment that "tries to misinterpret the position I have laid out in a blog" is a loop-hole the size of the grand canyon.

It's all the more significant when you're dealing with someone who routinely distorts her own record (e.g. "..Being of neither the pro-abortion or pro-life lobby") or misrepresents fact. The claim that anyone might misinterpret Dorries has the quality of Escher-esque irony.

The refusal to tolerate the "harsh political aggressive tones accepted on other blogs" might also hold water if stated by someone who hasn't also proved more than willing to attack her opponents with demonstrably false claims of political corruption or breaking the law.

This is, though, unsurprising practice from someone who thinks that a fair discussion literally means a conversation behind closed doors with a controlled guest list.

everyman fail

David Cameron's uncertainty over how many houses he owns - flagged by Johann Hari in The Independent - appeared at the end of a fairly long interview feature in The Times. Here's the quote in context:

I only get one flash of that Mr Nasty streak in Mr Nice when I raise the question of the Camerons’ various properties. We had been talking about his bewilderment about the depth of dislike that some people in the Labour party have towards the Conservatives: “Where I think Conservatives tend to feel Labour are misguided and wrong, there are some people in the Labour Party who just think the Tories are awful and evil, which is ridiculous and wrong.”

In my attempt to explain why they might have these feelings – I confess to shuddering whenever I see that photograph of young David and Boris in their Bullingdon Club regalia – I mention the four houses: “The four properties thing is rubbish. Touching that you believe everything you read in the newspapers!” You patronising git, I exclaim.

“I don’t mean it like that, but…” So how many properties do you own? “I own a house in North Kensington which you’ve been to and my house in the constituency in Oxfordshire and that is, as far as I know, all I have.”

A house in Cornwall? “No, that is, Samantha used to have a timeshare in South Devon but she doesn’t any more.” And there isn’t a fourth? “I don’t think so – not that I can think of.” Please don’t say, “Not that I can think of.” “You might be… Samantha owns a field in Scunthorpe but she doesn’t own a house…”

So Cameron's confusion arises when he rejects what he sees as the media's version of the Tory party as a group of landed grandees out of touch with ordinary people. The kind of people who when asked, "how many properties do you own?" answer with seemingly genuine uncertainty in their voices.

Incidentally, that humble-sounding "field in Scunthorpe" might just have something to do with Samanatha Cameron's father's property where she grew up - Sir Reginald Sheffield's 300-acre Normanby Hall estate, which has been in the family since 1590. Anyone?

A small point: having land and money are not automatically bad things, and having land and wealth does not automatically make you a bad person. It is, though, somewhat difficult to pose convincingly as a man of the people who feels our pain when your privileged and wealthy upbringing (and life to date) has apparently left you unable to count how many houses you own.

a short quiz

Via bloggerheads, it's that all too familiar conundrum: stupidly ignorant, or lying through their teeth?

It is, of course, a trick question. The answer is "both."

another good question

So, how many properties does our man-of-the-people, David Cameron, own? And, perhaps more importantly, why doesn't he know?

if I'd known you were coming

It's one of those (rare) days where traffic is coming from numerous places to numerous posts: thanks to those who flagged/re-tweeted/reddit'd me. Turns out the perfect blend for high-traffic blogging is political scandal, religion and sex, and the joyful (if temporary) humiliation of the right-wing tabloid press. Who'd have guessed?

it couldn't happen to a nicer rag

With great pleasure, here's delightful news (via @antonvowl) that the Daily Mail has been forced to pay out for printing transparently misogynist lies:

The Daily Mail has paid £10,000 libel damages each to three women after it ran a story alleging they rated their careers and figures more highly than having children. [...]

Its story was headlined: "For most women, giving birth is the most fulfilling event in their lives. But some are so afraid of missing out on their careers and losing their figures they refuse to go through pregnancy and choose adoption instead. Practical, or just plain selfish?"

A statement issued today by Carter-Ruck said the article contained a number of "false, defamatory and deeply offensive allegations about the three women" and that the Mail had accepted the allegations were "untrue and should never have been published".

There's one particular detail of the Mail's editorial process to read alongside Paul Dacre's recent defence of his paper's ethical standards:

The Mail blamed the offending elements on an unnamed executive who controlled a rewrite of the story, the statement from Carter-Ruck said, rather than the journalists who interviewed the women.

So a senior member of staff inserted lies into the story to fit the Mail's moral posturing about working women. For details of just how mendacious the original story was, read the Mail's extensive correction, which admits to assigning false motives, inventing opinions and fabricating direct quotes.

Will that executive be disciplined or fired? Or are we just hoping - following Dacre's theory of self-regulation - that the "shame" of going.. uh.. un-named.. in front of his or her peers will be enough?

into the long, stupid grass

To counter the weekend's early pessimism, news that the Church of Scotland General Assembly voted to approve the ordination of openly gay minister Scott Rennie:

Rennie's congregation at Queen's Cross Church in Aberdeen had voted overwhelmingly to select him as their minister but the move was opposed by anti-gay traditionalists.

Last [Saturday] night at 11pm commissioners voted 326 to 267 in support of his appointment. [...] The ordination of Rennie, who lives openly with his partner, to Queen's Cross Church in Aberdeen had threatened to create a schism in the Church of Scotland.

Not so great is the following and contradictory agreement to a two-year ban on homosexual ministers:

Desperate not to allow the schism that had been forecast, the General Assembly postponed making a final decision on the issue by setting up a working group to report back in 2011, effectively kicking the issue into the long grass.

Delegates also agreed not to talk to the media on sexuality issues for the two years, a move that was later condemned as “suppressing the debate”.

Consequently, the moratorium reads like an attempt to back away from the significance of the support for Rennie - prolonging the ability of a conservative minority to claim that they can speak for and dominate the apparently more liberal majority.

In other words, Kirk leaders have passed over a prime opportunity to resolve this issue.. in the hope that hard-liners will somehow - over the next 24 months - come to love homo after all.

Does anyone else think that's wildly unlikely?

melanie phillips: support for gay equality is support for nihilism

Melanie Phillips offers some fancy footwork to cover her distaste for gay people but you really don't have to read much further than her first few paragraphs to discover the nature of her rhetoric:

The Equality Bill currently going through Parliament is the latest and potentially most oppressive attempt to impose politically acceptable attitudes and drive out any that fall foul of these criteria. Since the attitudes being imposed constitute an ideological agenda to destroy Britain’s foundational ethical principles and replace them by a nihilistic values and lifestyle free-for-all, they represent a direct onslaught on the Judeo-Christian morality underpinning British society.

The most neuralgic of these issues is gay rights.

The (by now boilerplate) defence of religious freedom sits on top of the belief that supporting the legitimacy of gay people is the equivalent of supporting an amoral, value-free society (where everything is most likely turned inside out, on its head etc. etc.)

To put it plainly, Phillips argues that the unconditional support of the legitimacy of gay people is counter to public morality. Her claim to be being more-liberal-than-thou also deserves close reading:

The true liberal position, that it is right and just to tolerate behaviour that deviates from the norm as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, is deemed to be rank prejudice on the grounds that homosexuality is not ‘deviancy’ but normal.

The problem for Phillips here is that homosexuality is indeed "normal" in the sense that it seems to recur naturally, regardless of culture (or even species) on the planet. It's even normative in the sense that it's a recurring feature of human sexuality. However, the claim that homosexuality is normal is not the same thing as the claim that homosexuality is common. Phillips seems to play stupid by pretending that gay rights advocates mean the latter while arguing the former.

Phillips also attempts to make the claim of "true liberal" dispassionate uninvolvement while still advocating that a specific religious morality should be the basis of law: not just freedom for individuals to stand in moral judgment of gay people and their "lifestyle free-for-all" but the ability to protect and enforce those values through law.

In short, Phillips' apparent claim for tolerance must be read - given her track record opposing a variety of gay rights legislation over the years - as the kind of tolerance that involves treating gay people as less equal than everyone else i.e. not that tolerant at all.

a brief introduction to gender stereotypes

THREE QUARTERS OF ALL VIOLENT ASSAULTS COMMITTED BY MEN.. oh, wait - sorry. That's not news. This is news:

A quarter of all violent assaults in England and Wales are now carried out by women.

The shocking figures, police believe, can be put down to binge-drinking and the so-called 'ladette culture'.

Officers say young women are increasingly challenging their male counterparts when it comes to drunken yobbishness and booze-fuelled brawling.

Why is this such alarming ZOMG ZOMG news? Because traditionally, while boys are made from "snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails," girls are made from "sugar and spice and all things nice."

limited sympathy

Oh, dear. I really want to feel sorry for another human being who's had a rough weekend but the problem is that so much of Nadine Dorries' recent trouble has been self-inflicted.

Don't want to get slapped down by your party leader for making hyperbolic claims? Don't make wild hyperbolic claims on your blog. Or, more specifically, don't make those claims on your blog and then go on every television and radio station willing to hear you repeat them. Don't want to get sued for libel? Cut back on the repetition of anonymous gossip and wild accusations. Behave like an MP, not Amanda Platell.

You might notice that Dorries' attempt to model herself as the unfairly pilloried defender of democracy involves carefully ignoring many of the things that made her the recent subject of attention: the defence of MPs on the grounds that the expenses fund was a de facto tax free allowance to be "maximised" however an MP wanted; her own attempt to test the elasticity of second residence rules to breaking point; and - perhaps most significantly for the media storm at the end of last week - the habit of repeating wild conspiracy theories and baseless accusations about her opponents.

Admittedly, talking about that last issue is difficult because she's in the middle of being sued for it: though Dorries' (much improved) blog is now back, it's missing the key entry from the 22nd, flagged last week as fairly obviously defamatory. I haven't seem anything from Dorries (or her supporters) which addresses the substantive points of the Telegraph/Barclay brothers complaint, which - given the precarious status of the case - might not be entirely surprising.

More importantly, Dorries' critique of a rapacious media too eager to print baseless accusations would also be slightly more convincing if Dorries hadn't made full and happy use of that same tendency to push lies and misinformation during and after last year's abortion debate.

So, limited sympathy.

from speculation to defamation

The alleged (but not yet confimed) take-down of Nadine Dorries' blog after lawyers acting on behalf the Barclay brothers tapped her web host may indeed be worrying. I have no problem with ardent support of free speech - regardless of the speaker - if that's the issue at stake.

However, I'd also offer a small answer to Iain Dale's rhetorical questions:

Can it really now be illegal or libellous to question a newspaper's agenda and motives, or those of its owners? Is it really illegal to accuse someone of a witchhunt?

Well, under current law it may become libellous to speculate about motives if you defame, possibly by suggesting a conspiracy to commit crime - as in the hypothetical notion that someone has been masterminding a "long term undercover operation" to steal a database of MPs expense claims. There could also be a claim made that the accusation of conspiracy to manipulate the electorate is also defamatory - i.e. likely to damage reputation. The "witchhunt" comments may well be irrelevant.

Yet, as Craig Murray argues:

Nobody took seriously her argument that the sleaze revelations were an anti-democratic conspiracy by the Barclay Brothers. The Barclay Brothers will bring far more opprobrium on themselves by this action than was cast by the original accusation.

There is, admittedly, the defence of truth and fair comment for any of Dorries' comments - and I think that the burden would lie on the defendent to prove she had a reasonable basis for her claims. The uneveness of British law on that count is sadly not news: our legal system also has a substantial history of the use of spurious legal threats to silence critics.

Still, as we've yet to hear a formal statement from either Dorries, the Barclay's lawyers or The Telegraph, we're still in the realms of wanton speculation - myself very much included.

I hope you like your religious courts behind closed doors

The Church of Scotland meets tonight to discuss gay clergy - or, more specifically, the case of Reverend Scott Rennie:

The Reverend Scott Rennie was backed by a majority of the congregation and the local presbytery as the new minister at Queen's Cross Church.

But some parishioners and 12 members of the presbytery have since said they had been unaware of Mr Rennie's sexuality.

The matter was referred to the General Assembly, the church's supreme court. [...]

But more than 400 Kirk ministers and almost 5,000 Church of Scotland members are said to have signed an online petition opposing the appointment.

One of those ministers, the Reverend David Randall, said he believed that "a minister is somebody who ought to live by the Bible".

He said: "We believe that the Bible's teaching is quite clear in this matter - that marriage is the right and only context for sexual relationships.

"After all, if a minister sought to move in with a man, with a woman, to whom he was not married, that would obviously be unacceptable - how much more so when we're talking about a homosexual."

You'll note that the claim that they'd treat a straight man in the same situation with the same zeal for the letter of scripture is immediately undercut - being gay makes it far more unacceptable.

Such a stance also conveniently ignores that Rennie couldn't marry his partner within the church, even if he wanted to: the core objection here isn't to unmarried clergy, but to gay people.

As is clear from the other motions being proposed for tonight's meeting, the evangelical wing of the Church of Scotland objects to the notion of gay clergy on principal, regardless of their relationship status. And, given their track record of public statements, it's fair to say that those same conservative voices aren't too fond of gay people outside of the church either.

In other words, the legalistic wrangling is an attempt to make respectable what the evangelical wing have wanted to do for years: pin a "no homos" sign to the door of the church.

now that's what I call PR

Never knowingly under-bloviated:

The technique deployed by the Telegraph, picking off a few MPs each day, emailing at 12 giving five hours notice to reply, recording the conversation, not allowing them to speak, shouting over them when they try to explain, telling them they are going to publish anyway, at day 15, is amounting to a form of torture and may have serious consequences.

Hyperbolic bids for sympathy aside, and judging by the comments on this post at Conservative Home, it seems as though patience with Nadine Dorries is also fast running out amongst Tory activists. A small sample:

And here I was thinking Nadine Dorries was one of my favourite Tory MPs.

Nadine. Please engage brain before mouth.

To talk such drivel is to once again ignite the criticism that MPs leave in a different world and to clearly misunderstand the public anger.

In common with most of the posters above, I heard with astonishment Nadine Dorries` rather intemperate performance on the Today programme this morning. She clearly hasn`t "got it".

Nadine loves media attention far too much

Nadine Dorries is clearly competing hard with Anthony Steen for the Most Stupid Response by an MP to a Self-inflicted Crisis Award. So it's all part of a ploy by the Barclay Brothers to let the BNP take over the UK? Why doesn't she throw in the Freemasons and the Pope for good measure too?

There are also a number of people complaining how heavily she moderates critical comments, preferring to only post those offering her support. Still, nice to see that it's not just nasty leftist blogger types who'd noticed..

doh

Leave it to Nadine Dorries to entirely misunderstand the narrative of the McCarthy subcomittee hearings and turn the government into the helpless victim of independent critics.

Her new argument - and I use that word to indicate a desperate sound-shape rather than a logical sequence of supposition - appears to be that MPs should not be vilified for their extortionate expense claims because the political press had known what they were doing for years and have only just turned into a front page story.

Defence by culpable hypocrisy is certainly an interesting strategy, but not one that does anything for the reputation of the person arguing it: I might be in the gutter but you're to blame for not pointing it out sooner.

(Actually, the claim of McCarthyist persecution is entirely hilarious, given that McCarthy was fond of extended slurs and conspiracy theories which he was widely unable to substantiate. No further comment, m'lud.)

old habits dies hard

Uhm.. did Nadine Dorries just attempt to smear the deep-pocketed (and not unshy of legal action) Barclay brothers with a wild conspiracy theory? Under the thin cover of repeating sourceless rumour, Dorries writes:

The Telegraph are uncovering a few cases of fraud, but not enough, so they are more than slightly embellishing some of the stories. I write as a case in point.

Enter the Barclay brothers, the billionaire owners of The Daily Telegraph. Rumour is that they are fiercely Euro sceptic and do not feel that either of the main parties are Euro sceptic enough.

[...] Where do I get this from? Well, at heart I am just a cheeky scouser. I like to go into the rooms of the faceless and nameless in Parliament, sit on their desk and ask pertinent questions like: who are you? What do you do? I've made friends with one or two. One in particular I am very fond of. He is a mine of very astute information; and whilst in his office yesterday, we chunnered over the 'what is this all about?' question.

He reckons this is all a power game. That the British public are being worked like puppets by two very powerful men. Whipped up into a frenzy to achieve exactly what they want.

Two powerful men? Just who can she be talking about?

Personally, I'd be slightly more careful about suggesting that anyone has directed a deliberate and potentially criminal "long term undercover operation" with the desire of overturning stable government and installing incompetent hard-right patsies in positions of power.

Still, what's an exciting and hopefully-not-actionable conspiracy theory between friends?