The death of Robin Cook is rather sad. Despite being a hideous little gnome, Mr Cook was honourable, articulate and generally correct. The Independent published a remarkably tedious article about why Labour dissidents like Mr Cook are needed, which isn’t worth reading. The headline, however, is spot on: "Unlike Robin Cook, the Tories have never mastered the art of opposition".
The death of Richard Littlejohn appears to have been made up by The Friday Thing, which is a shame.
The death of people’s right to say bloody stupid and offensive things in Britain without being arrested for them seems to be increasingly imminent. For fuck’s sake, people: people like Omar Bakri had absolutely nothing to do with the terror attacks on London – if they had had anything to do with the terror attacks on London, we could charge them with that. If you seriously think people should be locked up for treason for not liking our country and its values, then you should probably be locked up for treason for the threat that you represent to our country and its values.
Side note: people keep bringing up the case of William Joyce in vague justification of the ‘treason’ plan. This is not clever: Mr Joyce’s conviction was one of the darker moments of the British criminal justice system. There was no case in law for hanging him, since he was in no sense British, but some very, very dubious technicalities were concocted on the grounds that everyone concerned wanted to see him swing…
Even if Omar Bakri’s sermons did incite the tube bombers (which they didn’t), it’s a hell of a sight safer having him stuck up in Finsbury Park where we can keep an eye on him rather than off to Lebanon sorting out connections for Semtex and still broadcasting the same sermons by videos and the internet. yeesh.
(I maintain my belief, btw, that Bakri and Abu-Hamsa are both snouts and that Al-Muharijoun is a pseudo-gang).
Nah, D2. They’re too obvious for that.
I don’t know about them being snouts, stoolpigeons, dopes or rats, but there’s something a bit fishy about both. (Apart from, obviously, the apparent desire to blow people up on the tube.) A-M always looked like a joke organisation, and it was never quite clear they organised anything beyond media stunts; Hizb’ut-Tahrir, by contrast, are far more serious (and notice that they kicked Bakri out). Otherwise, yes – keep Bakri where you can keep an eye on him and ridicule him – not preaching his "martyrdom" from Beirut, or Belmarsh.
I too gave up on the Bruce Anderson article, but not before I noticed that he’d cunningly managed to turn an article about Robin Cook and the Tories into a bit of immigration/asylum seekers bashing. Nice one Bruce, glad to see you keeping the party-line up…
a hideous little gnome, Mr Cook
I just focused on these words and found myself in total agreement.
But he left out "with a lightbulb-shaped head", as highlighted by Viz in their searing exposé of ‘Britain’s Ugly MPs’.
Michael – a ‘lightbulb-shaped head and frightening, pixie-like features’ was (probably) the full description.
Far uglier than David Mellor.
It’s important to talk about the real issues in politics and not get sidetracked by trivia.
That certainly rings a very loud bell – as does a picture with the caption ‘Clare Short – cow’s arse’.
Cook was no oil painitng but he was bright. Nice to see an example of someone rank stupid posting here: Meadway takes the opportunity to post comments on other people’s blogs when he deletes any comment on his own blog that makes him look stupid. That’s a lot of comments.
One commenter a couple of days ago pointed out to Meadway that in a hilariously pompous post about a former French President, Meadway hadn’t even known the said President’s name. Scuttle scuttle by Meadway to airbrush his stupidity while giving no indication that his post is now not the original article. After his triumph in stating baldly that the racist Gilad Atzmon wouldn’t be speaking at this years’s SWPfest, Meadway has not had a happy time and I think we should all be sympathetic to him on the pitfalls of Internet writing: if you’re a fool you’ll show yourself up sooner or later.
Cook was no oil painitng but he was bright.
Lightbulb head, you see.
Far uglier than David Mellor.
Typical Tory lies.
Mr Cook was honourable, articulate and generally correct.
He was indeed articulate. Very much so. And that will be sadly missed.