"If the peace process in Northern Ireland is to bear lasting fruit, it’s not just the trust of those loyal to the Crown that needs to be won. It’s an obvious point, but too few people – certainly too few this side of the water – seem prepared to make it." – Brownie @ HP is wise.

We’ve had "John Negroponte, Longtime Diplomat". We’ve had "John Bolton, Weapons Expert". Can "David Duke, Race Relations Specialist" be far behind? (from here)

Here’s an amusing Nazi analogy for you, to be filed alongside vegetarianism, socialism, George Bush, etc. And here‘s a spurious retread of the whole wanky ‘Londonistan’ meme. As Jarndyce says, "These people are welcome in my city. They are part of my city. They are my neighbours and they enrich my life. Restricting their freedom to speak and constantly demonizing them as Others does us no credit at all".

Finally, go and read Tim’s latest BritBlog roundup. Much quality is contained within.

"You may think that it is stupid to spend £billions on building a monorail to the moon. Indeed, the leader of the Opposition has claimed that doing so is a waste of money and that instead we should spend the money on more hospitals. That would not be wise; it would be contrary to the strong advice given to us by our security services and our police, and I am simply not prepared to do it" – Chris Lightfoot

"At least we’re safe from the appalling prospect that the chap with no arms will race up the aisle of a 747 in his wheelchair, bash down the cockpit door (with no arms), overpower the crew (did I mention he’s not got arms?) and crash the jet on Westminster with his toes" – Alex Harrowell

"All those who went to fight on behalf of the [Spanish] Republic in the cause of freedom were completely duped." – Antony Beevor, quoted by Oliver Kamm.

Scarily, one of these is not intended as a parody of loonspeak. I wonder if you can guess which?

Spanish Muslims have condemned Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden as part of the one-year anniversary of the Madrid bombings. Good.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph’s article on the subject says "The fatwa is believed to represent the first major condemnation of bin Laden by a mainstream Muslim organisation". This is utter bullshit: Muslim organisations have being queueing up ever since 9/11 to condemn Osama, Al Qaeda, and terrorist attacks. Even the fucking Taliban condemned them.

What on earth is the Telegraph doing making such a ridiculous and transparently false claim? The obvious answer is that it is defaming Muslims in the eyes of its readers, in order to spread religious hatred. However, I’ll instead charitably assume that everyone who works there is brain-damaged. This would certainly explain the paper’s continued employment of Mark Steyn.

The government’s recent behaviour over the anti-terror bill has been even worse than normal. Their attitude, as expressed in various interviews over the last couple of days, is that the House of Lords’ decision to amend and filibuster the government’s legislation is disgraceful.

"How dare you tell us what to do?", say Tony Blair, Charles Clarke, Hazel Blears and the other faceless minions. "Don’t you know we’re in charge? You might have a constitutional right to do this, but stop it at once, and let us do what we want". They don’t even understand the concept of checks and balances: judges and Lords are merely anachronisms in the way of their project.

Tony Blair isn’t so much a king (as this worthwhile article maintains) as an emperor. Like Julius Caesar, he believes his own vision is more important than the processes and institutions of the Republic. It must be, because he’s a Good Man with the world’s best interests at heart. Anyone in the way is a either a Bad Man who seeks to destroy us, or a Foolish Man who fails to understand the realities of the situation.

I despise almost everything about the Conservative party’s policies, leadership and supporters. However, they are actually a political party, rather than a concerted campaign to destroy the British political system and replace it with something weird and Imperial. I’ve seriously almost reached the stage where I’d prefer a Tory victory to a Labour victory, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.

If that fails, then persuading Gordon to stab Tony to death might just about be feasible…

(read also these fine pieces on the subject. Meanwhile, Stephen Pollard demonstrates his unique gift to be amazingly and incredibly wrong about any randomly selected issue).

The Adam Smith Institute today lays into the British university system, following the revelation that the LSE, one of the UK’s better universities, sets aside places for children from bad schools.

Being dogmatists, the ASI conclude that the only possible reason for this is government pressure, and that therefore all universities should be privatised (presumably, they also believe that they should be given hefty consultancy contracts to assist with this privatisation…)

The ASI are hopelessly, stupidly wrong here. Obviously, it’s bad that in many of the UK’s state schools, only a tiny proportion of students graduate with good A-levels. This is something which needs to be addressed at primary and secondary school level: playing with the university admission system helps kids who’ve managed to do reasonably well despite the obstacles, but does nothing about the kids who end up unable to read, write or add up.

But given the system that exists, it’s completely rational for the LSE to bring in these measures. The UK’s private school system is designed to ensure that anyone, no matter how thick, gets good enough A-levels to get into some kind of university. Even Prince Harry, who may be the thickest person alive, managed to get a B and a D, thanks to Eton’s teaching and (more importantly) it forcing him to actually do the work.

Some state schools are similar, which is why Oxford and Cambridge’s state school admissions targets are bullshit. In a state grammar school, or even a well-funded state school with an Anglophone, middle-class intake (such as this one and this one, from personal experience), there is similar pressure to perform.

However, in a school where teachers are mostly worried whether you’re going to stab people, and where the main academic focus is teaching people to speak, read and write in basic English, you need to put in the effort yourself. Individual teachers will provide help and encouragement, but the school’s overall aim is to keep order – not to advance pupils to university.

Getting ABB at A-level from the second type of school is an infinitely more creditable achievement than getting ABB from the first type of school – and it also says more about your fitness to take a rigorous and demanding university course. Unlike the Prince Harry type, who’ll probably spend the whole three years smoking dope and getting up at 2pm because nobody’s making him get up early anymore, the person with ABB from a difficult school has already demonstrated their committment to academic advancement.

Universities would be daft *not* to pay attention to this, no matter what they think of the government.

This Avril Lavigne-bashing piece is extremely funny, partly but not exclusively for its mathematical proof that Britney Spears is 96% hardcore. Jay Pinkerton is, officially, the man.

Behold an article on RSS content that doesn’t mention blogs. At all Very much (cheers Nick).

"WTF?" is, I believe, the appropriate response.

Pro-terrorist fanatic Christopher Hitchens has an absurd article on the Ohio election results. Clearly, the man is a drunken, Bush-hating conspiracy theorist.

"How many died as a result of the great Enclosure movement? Nobody cares. But Stalin and the kulaks? Why, that "proves" the failure of socialist theory." – ‘bobbyp’ at MaxSpeak