An invitation to join the government of Britain

Join it? From what I've seen you want us to run the bloody thing because you haven't got a fucking clue how to do it yourselves. And who will be the beneficiaries of this "Big Society"? Your chums who get all the bleedin' contracts.

Not a good look for a walking stump

You're a fraud, Cameron, and luckily the country is starting to see right through you. You and your witless shower of goons would bring the country to its knees while you and your fellow chums rake in all the money. Here's the BBC's 'in a nutshell' version of their "manifesto". Oh, and by the way, it should have read 'An invitation ... '. Call me old-fashioned.  But not in a way that's detrimental to the country.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"We have got to stop treating adults like children"

David Cameron

After the launch, the Guardian reckoned Cameron evoked the spirit of JFK, haha!  KFC, possibly. And pop band Keane said they were "horrified" to learn that one of their songs, Everybody's Changing, had been used as part of the soundtrack manifesto launch.  "Told the Tories played Keane at their manifesto launch. Am horrified. To be clear - we were not asked. I will not vote for them", Richard Hughes tweeted.

Steve Bell, the Guardian

Jeremy Paxman interviews Nick Clegg

This BBC 'special' is available to watch on iPlayer until 19th April. Click here to be enthralled.

Only two more to go, Jem

Devine, Chaytor and Morley to receive legal aid

Annoying, isn't it?  Apparently officials applied the "interests of justice" test to determine whether the MPs should receive legal aid. The test says if a defendant is at risk of losing his or her liberty - that is, they could go to prison if convicted - then they are entitled to legal representation paid for by the state.

The "interests of justice" test began to be phased out in January to be replaced by a means test for all Crown Court cases in England and Wales - but Southwark Crown Court is not yet part of the new scheme, so it did not apply to the MPs. Justice Minister Jack Straw told the BBC: "It is simply a matter of chance that [the means test] is yet to be introduced in Southwark, where the former MPs are being tried. Decisions about legal aid are made by the courts, and MPs and ministers have no control over the award of legal aid in individual cases."   

All four are accused of theft by false accounting and if found guilty, face a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. Police began investigating after details of all MPs' expenses claims were leaked to the Daily Telegraph. The men's lawyers have said that they intended to argue that they should be dealt with by Parliament rather than the courts because their actions were protected by parliamentary privilege. Privilege traditionally guarantees MPs and peers immunity from slander laws for statements in parliamentary debates and also relates to access to parliamentary buildings.

NAAFI brews a cuppa for heroes

NAAFI Break tea has been served to soldiers “providing a taste of home” since 1921. As from today, the NAAFI (Navy, Army & Air Force Institutes) is to sell its special "strong British blend" of tea on the high street for the first time in its 90 year history.

The new fundraising venture will see the brand sold in 80 SPAR stores across the country with 50p from every box sold donated to the Help for Heroes charity, providing funds to help wounded servicemen and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. This will be followed later in the year by a range of memorabilia including a retro styled mug and tea caddy, both of which will mark the 90th anniversary of NAAFI.

The Naafi organisation was created by the British government in 1921 to run recreational establishments needed by the armed forces and to sell goods to servicemen and women and their families. It runs clubs, bars, shops, supermarkets, launderettes, restaurants and cafes at most British military bases and also canteens on board Royal Navy ships.

A future fair for all - the Labour manifesto

The BBC has saved me hours of reading by summing up the manifesto quite efficiently 'in a nutshell' (here).  That means all I have to do is find a pretty picture.  This makes me happy as I have to go and shoot the idiot in the Pavilion Gardens who has been thumping bongo drums for the last 17 hours.

In fact Labour has made it even easier by producing a video for stupid people.  How thoughtful.

Two little boys

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Adams, Telegraph

To quote Polly Toynbee

You have to give David Cameron some credit. He's got what a training in PR gives you – breathtakingly barefaced cheek. "The Conservatives are today the radicals … We are now the party of progress," he wrote in yesterday's Guardian. You can imagine his team laughing at their own sheer effrontery as they penned, "To Guardian readers everywhere, I say: overcome any prejudices you may have. We want to change our country and we want to do it with your help." What a nerve.

Those prejudices are grounded in history, as Cameron and George Osborne reprise Margaret Thatcher's disaster economic policies: cut public services, cut taxes, cut benefits, cut borrowing faster, let unemployment rip. Last time the result was child poverty rising from one in seven to one in three children, social damage that is stubbornly hard to shift: tax credits, better benefits and Sure Start lifted 500,000 out of poverty but as soon as efforts cease, numbers will soar. Cameron taunts Labour that "inequality is rising", which it has slightly, but he knows his policies mean sky-rocketing inequality and poverty.

Look what the "party of progress" has done this week. Today it's a marriage bribe of £150 that leaves out the lowest paid married couples and deserted wives. In the wash-up Cameron stopped a referendum on the voting system and House of Lords reform. He blocked sex education and one-to-one tuition for slow readers. His shadow home secretary repudiated protection for gay people, while his MEPs voted for homophobia with their weird new party. Cameron told the Catholic Herald that he will vote to cut the time limit for abortions: a majority of incoming Tory MPs will make sure it happens, banning the rare desperate post 20-week abortions. Is that "progress"? He will also oppose assisted dying for the terminally ill.

A Financial Times survey of Tory candidates this week pointed to the scale of climate change denial in the party. Most resist a cap on bankers' bonuses and want less financial regulation: many come from the financial sector, others from PR and marketing, and they want the 50p top tax scrapped. Conservativehome.com finds them rabidly Eurosceptic. All that is radical, a fundamentalist return to Conservative roots. No change there, then.

Is it a surprise Cameron occupies such traditional Tory turf? Pickles and Hague, with their trusted Yorkshire backgrounds, are frequent frontmen for class purposes, but also represent the nasty old party. Cameron flits between "progressive" and the old story beneath. The party of business rolls out 68 captains of industry, most on astronomic pay. The national insurance rise they oppose costs £4 a week per employee – not, says James Caan of Dragons' Den, a sum that deters hiring. As Ruth Sutherland points out, it will cost M&S £10m – peanuts compared with its new boss's £15m golden hello.

Synthetic policy is a Cameron hallmark. It looks convincing, it catches a public mood, but it knows very well there is nothing in the tin. The 68 captains may not sway polls much because people don't warm to fat cats, now less than ever. Cameron is quick to catch that "fair pay" sentiment – but without touching the precious 68. Instead he will cap public officials' pay at 20 times their lowest paid staff. Reasonable enough, but Income Data Services says only some 100 people would be affected. Meanwhile in the private sector top pay has risen from 47 to 81 times average employees' pay – not lowest paid but average. It's the private sector that most needs a high pay commission – about which Cameron says nothing. Public sector top pay is only a symptom of a private sector disease. Voters know that the big market destroyed the economy, while the big state rescued it.

Jobs will be lost in the public sector whoever wins: all parties pretend, but "waste", "back office" or "contracts" are all people's livelihoods. The choice between parties is one of degree and priority. Cameron offers tax cuts that will require double the depth of spending cuts and probably mean double the job losses. Consider this: just as a whole new green industry is set to arrive in the north-east, with Clipper, Siemens, GE and Nissan about to manufacture wind turbines and other greenery, Cameron pledges to scrap "regional stuff" – the regional development agencies and their subsidies that made it happen – while Kenneth Clarke says he "shudders at a nightmare return to the 1970s" of industrial subsidy. The Tories voted down new planning rules, so their nimby councils can block wind turbines, scrapping the renewables obligation that forces energy companies to build them. GE warn they would think carefully about coming here if Cameron did abolish tax allowances for the upfront costs of new machinery. "A disaster for manufacturing" warns the Engineering Employers Federation. Why do it? To fund Cameron's 3p cut in corporation tax. That means money for manufacturing investment goes instead to banks or Tesco and those 68 captains' profits.

Here's another way Cameron would increase unemployment: the Small Business Federation says "the jewel in the crown" of Labour's Keynesian borrowing is the £5bn of tax postponed for 200,000 small businesses, saving many of them and their 1.4m jobs. But Cameron says all such borrowing "must stop instantly". Unemployment is much lower than expected, but Cameron would send it back to the 1980s.

Unemployment already risks creating a new cadre of the poor, even without Theresa May's ominous promise to "increase work incentives" for those on the dole. Most wicked would be Cameron's plan to cut Sure Start back to its origins, with maybe 500 of 3,500 centres surviving in skeleton: so much for his concern about "social mobility stalling". School budgets, not ringfenced, would get a £1.7bn cut, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons, before paying for new parent-run schools.

Cameron is a star performer – playing cuddly and progressive in the Guardian while issuing old Tory bribes on the family via the Daily Mail – but can the mixed messages (on tax cuts and deficit slashing especially) hold water to May 6? If so, he has set himself a trap – to be judged on poverty, inequality and a "broken Britain" that his polices can only worsen.

Dear Guardian readers, this is Cameron's radical and progressive party. Plausible phrases decorate policies with entirely predictable results. We know it because we have been there before.

Polly Toynbee moans for the Guardian [but we love her - Ed]

Brighton Pavilion

I shall be keeping an eye on this constituency for three reasons: firstly, it may well produce the first Green MP in the history of the Mother of Parliaments; secondly, because that candidate is none other than the Mother of all Greens herself, Caroline Lucas MEP; and thirdly because it is, for my sins, the constituency in which I am expected to vote.

Caroline Lucas - pitching her look somewhere between Joe Orton and panto

Ms Lucas has chosen to put herself up against Nancy Platts, who hopes to take off where her Labour colleague and incumbent MP David Lepper leaves off; and Wandsworth resident, Charlotte Vere, the Conservative wannabe shipped in presumably because of her credentials working with Zak Goldsmith (their credentials not mine, you understand). There are other candidates, naturally, but I am not obliged to mention them and, frankly, they don't matter - which is surprising for you would think the Lib Dems had a chance in a place such as Brighton but they don't, hey-ho.

From their twitterings, Nancy and Ms Lucas seem to be doing the hustings a bit more enthusiastically than Ms Vere who appears to end up getting pissed in Pub du Vin most nights. No ordinary pub for her, you understand, oh no, she's a Conservative gal. Still, I supppose the party's paying for it.

However, I shall attempt to give them all equal coverage and publish links to articles concerning all three. I wouldn't want to be accused of political bias - haha!  To that end, first off is Ms Lucas, who recently featured in a Channel 4 News report regarding the constituency. You can read the article, watch the report and laugh out loud here.

Spurs join Villa

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in the pit of despair.

Cheer up, son

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Modern Conservatives

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Morten Morland, the Times

Polish President Lech Kaczynski killed in plane crash

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and scores of others are believed to have been killed in a plane crash in Russia. Officials in the Smolensk region said no-one had survived after the plane apparently hit trees as it came in for landing in thick fog. Several other government figures, including the army chief of staff, were also thought to have been on board.

Mr Kaczynski had been a controversial figure in Polish politics, advocating a right-wing Catholic agenda. He opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes.

Read the full BBC News article here.

Keep the Grand National for the many, not the few

John Prescott will be at Aintree today to start an online petition to protect the right to watch the Grand National on free television. Currently, the Grand National and other major events like the FA Cup Final, the Olympic Games, Wimbledon and the World Cup must be offered to free-to-air broadcasters. This ensures that everyone can enjoy key sporting events, including those who cannot afford the extra cost of subscription television.

Tory Shadow Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, has said that the Tories would cut the "A-list" of sporting events listed for guaranteed free-to-air broadcasting which he says is "an artificial interference" in the running of sport. Last year, 8.6 million people watched the Grand National live on BBC1. But under Tory plans, major events like these could be bought up by the likes of Murdoch's Sky Sports, meaning only those who pay for satellite or cable channels would be able to watch them live.

You can sign the petition here to keep the Grand National for the many, not the few.

Pope hit by new paedophilia cover-up claim

Pope Benedict XVI was hit by fresh allegations yesterday that he failed to crack down on sexually abusive Catholic priests before becoming pontiff. A letter written in 1985, when the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the head of the Vatican's doctrinal unit, resists a request for the defrocking of an American priest with a record of molesting children, for the "good of the universal Church".

Pope Benedict has a penchant for wearing his dead mother's old hats

The letter, published by Associated Press, also notes the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age". The priest, Father Stephen Kiesle, was 38 at the time. Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, confirmed the cardinal's signature on the letter, but added: "The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations."

In an editorial published yesterday on the website of Vatican radio, Lombardi said the pope had become the victim of "unfounded insinuations and criticisms", and recalled the offer made by Benedict to meet abuse victims in a letter to Irish Catholics last month.

28 Days Later

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A Political Scrapbook production   http://politicalscrapbook.net/

Gordon Ramsey launches Pétrus

The re-birth of Pétrus builds upon the successful and prestigious provenance of this restaurant now under Head Chef Sean Burbidge who offers a modern European menu. The new location at 1 Kinnerton Street in Knightsbridge displays a stunning open cellar in the centre of the dining room bringing to view over 1500 bottles of wine.  I only mention this because their set lunch menu is a very affordable £25 per head.

Starters
Crab and salmon cannelloni with baby gem lettuce sauce
Pressed rabbit and foie gras mosaic with carrot chutney and a hazelnut salad
Roast curried pollock fillet with braised lentils and cauliflower soup

Main courses
Pan-fried sea trout with sweetcorn, wild mushrooms and sorrel sauce
Roasted chicken breast with confit leg, creamed leeks and caper jus
Boiled beef cheek with root vegetables and cardamom consommé

Desserts
Spiced toffee apple, with a sage yoghurt parfait
Coffee soup with a hazelnut financier
Bitter chocolate beer parfait with puffed wheat
Roasted fennel crème brûlée with Alphonso mango
Chocolate sphere with milk ice cream and honeycomb
Marinated pineapple with coconut pannacotta, lime and chilli syrup

Reservations 020 7592 1609
http://www.gordonramsay.com/petrus/

Cameron's national service scheme for teenagers

In its first year in office, a Tory government would redirect £50m from the government's Prevent Programme, which is designed to prevent extremism, to pay for pilot schemes for 10,000 teenagers. Every 16-year-old would eventually be eligible for what Cameron described as a "non-military national service" [Hitler youth] scheme.

The star of The Muppet Christmas Carol accompanies David Cabbagepatch

This kicks off with a week away from home with outdoor activities such as rock climbing or canoeing. In the second week the teenagers live together near their homes and help out their community. The teenagers return home in their third week and carry on working with their social action project for a further five weeks. Cameron said the scheme was inspired by national service but it would not be military and it would not be compulsory. Teenagers from different backgrounds would mix together to give them what the Tory leader described as "a sense of purpose, optimism and belonging" [tomorrow belongs to them?].

Martin Rowson, the Guardian

Liverpool go where the top three don't

Gerry would have needed a pacemaker last night as Fernando Torres hit two to take Liverpool through to the semi-finals of the Europa League with a 4-1 victory at Anfield. The victory sealed a 5-3 aggregate win over Benfica. 

Meanwhile, a reporter asks Cristiano Ronaldo if he's as good as Lionel Messi.

Letters to the Guardian

Would the Guardian do a public service and publish the salaries and bonuses of the CEOs opposing Labour's proposed NI increase, calculate the impact of a 1% increase in NI contributions on the wage bills of their companies, and estimate how many executives might need to lose their bonuses to pay for the increase?

Robert Fletcher
Oxford

In today's crowded marketplace, it is hard to find a way of discriminating between different companies offering products and services. It is therefore helpful to have a list of companies which have taken a clearly political stance to help the Conservatives. I need never darken their doors again.

Steve Hilditch
London

How many of the industrialists who signed letters about national insurance increases depend on the NHS or local schools? Instead of jobs read profits and bonuses; for workers read shareholders and for public service cuts read new business. It is good to know that through their crocodile tears they can still see the balance sheets!

Rev Maurice Wright
Shrewsbury

Voting record on gay rights

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Click on image to enlarge

The Last Waltz Darling

Malcolm McLaren has died in Switzerland, aged 64; he was being treated for mesothelioma, a form of cancer more usually associated with exposure to asbestos. His girlfriend, Young Kim, hopes to fulfil one of McLaren's final wishes and bury him in Highgate Cemetery, London.

"Old maids say I have no sense, boys declare I'm just immense"

McLaren emerged from art school in the 1960s and, with Vivienne Westwood, set up Let It Rock - a fashion store specialising in rubber and leather fetish gear. It was later, infamously, renamed "Sex" and he and Westwood defined punk fashion. The two married and had one son, Joseph Corre, the co-founder of lingerie shop Agent Provocateur.

McLaren's next project was the Sex Pistols which he and they made famous by courting controversy. Their debut single Anarchy in the UK was released in December 1976 and the band became a household name when they swore on Bill Grundy's TV show. Their concerts faced difficulties with promoters and authorities and they were fired by both EMI and A&M records. In 1977, their single God Save the Queen was banned by the BBC. McLaren then created his disputed film version of the Sex Pistols' story, the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. The band broke up at the end of a US tour in January 1978 with members accusing McLaren of mismanaging them and withholding money.

McLaren also managed a number of other bands, including Bow Wow Wow before producing his own records including the much-sampled track Double Dutch from the 1983 album Duck Rock. He continued to be involved in the culture and arts scene up until his death, earning him in equal measure acclaim as a doyen of music and design and criticism for his marketing of pop culture. More recently he stood for the then newly created London mayoralty in 2000. Amongst his policies was the serving of alcohol in libraries.

The Risk of a Conservative Britain

At a time when Britain’s economic recovery is at a critical stage, the public needs more than the shallow rhetoric offered by the Conservatives. Their reckless commitment to immediate cuts would pull the rug from under the recovery. They have no credible plan for dealing with the deficit. Every time their policies come under scrutiny, they wobble. They would put frontline services that millions rely on at risk, by refusing to protect frontline schools, frontline policing and children’s centres from cuts.

Behind the airbrushed posters is a party that still favour the few not the many: cutting Child Tax Credits and Child Trust Funds for ordinary families, while sticking to a tax giveaway of £200,000 to the wealthiest 3,000 estates in the country. Since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party his focus has been on changing his party’s image. Through high profile PR stunts he has attempted to demonstrate this change to the electorate. However, many of these attempts have backfired - whether it is airbrushing the Conservative Party’s first campaign poster of 2010, travelling to the North Pole to talk about climate change or being photographed cycling to work with his shoes in a car behind him, David Cameron has proved his talk of change is more style than substance.

David Cameron seems to think that the new image of the Conservative Party means it is easy to get away with the same old Tory policies. You couldn’t get a cigarette paper between the Tory manifesto today and the manifestos that were put forward in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Unfair marriage tax breaks – back from the days of William Hague. Bringing back fox hunting – returning again even though the vast majority of the British people oppose it. Politicising the police with new “police commissioners”, a Michael Howard policy that David Cameron hasn’t even bothered to rename.

Indeed in some areas, the Conservatives are now trying to get away with plans that are more rightwing than they ever proposed before. David Cameron’s inheritance tax cut is more regressive than anything planned by any Conservative leader for twenty years. Even the arch-Eurosceptic William Hague baulked at allying himself with David Cameron’s controversial new partners in the European Union. Even Michael Howard did not propose that new “free market” schools would be allowed to ignore the national curriculum and set up in converted office blocks or temporary buildings. Cuts to Child Tax Credit and Child Trust Funds for families on modest and middle incomes are a Cameron innovation that no previous Tory leader dared pledge.

There is a clear choice at this election. A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for same old Tory party of the past - a party that would put the recovery at risk, threaten public services and would make life tougher for families across the country. They are a change that Britain just can’t afford.

Manufacturing Depression by Gary Greenberg

With an attention span as short as mine, it is rare I find myself thinking about a subject long enough for it to depress me.  However, across the world, 450 million people suffer from mental health problems and in the next twenty years, according to the World Health Organisation, depression will become the single largest health burden on society. Given these numbers, perhaps it is no surprise that experts have begun to challenge both the definition of the problem and the notion that medication is its best solution.

American psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has stepped in with Manufacturing Depression, a thorough, often shocking history of how the pharmaceutical industry has pathologised misery in order to sell us the cure. Greenberg includes frank and funny accounts of his own battle with depression and deals principally with the US healthcare system. However, his argument and detailed evidence make it vital reading for anyone who has ever been squeezed through the machinery of depression treatments or who simply has a healthy scepticism about the influence of Big Pharma.

In western society, to suggest that depression is part of our psychic landscape, and that in trying to eliminate it we risk losing something crucial to our humanity, is a heresy. But this engaging and necessary book is a rallying cry to resist the pathologising of emotion for profit. Greenberg is asking us to step back from neuroscience and take a more philosophical look at what it means to live now.

Pessimism, he suggests, may be a correct response to times of crisis and a spur to action. "Regardless of whether or not the drugs work, to call pessimism the symptom of an illness and then turn our discontents over to the medical industry is to surrender perhaps the most important portion of our autonomy: the ability to look around and say… 'This is outrageous. Something must be done.'"

PLANETPMC AMAZON LINK FOR THIS BOOK

Manchester United say ta ra to Europe

And it was in no small part due to this young man ...

Cheers, Rafa.

A day in politics

Huw tries to ignore the amateur beside him

I'm the guv'nor round here and don't you forget it

Nick and Vince on the road to nowhere

The Ashcroft Express - stopping at all marginals

Bugger me stupid, you Scottish brute

New big knob required

Conservatives reeling at closest ICM poll for two years

Labour still has a fighting chance of winning the most seats in the general election, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. The findings suggest Tory hopes of a defining breakthrough have been overplayed, with the gap between the two main parties now at just four points – the closest in an ICM poll for almost two years.

Labour support has climbed four points to 33% since an ICM poll carried out for the Guardian last week. Conservative backing has dropped one since then to 37% – Labour's best ICM rating since December 2008 and the Tories' worst since February. On a uniform national swing, these figures could leave Labour 30 seats short of an overall majority. Even if the Tories perform better than average in marginal seats – as most people expect – David Cameron would struggle to establish a secure parliamentary basis for power. Either party could be left dependent on the Liberal Democrats, who are on 21% in the poll – down two from last week. Despite that decline, the Lib Dems will be pleased by the strength of their position going into the election. The party has been at or above 20% in seven of this year's 11 ICM polls.

Read the full Guardian article here.

Simples

ALEXANDER CRAVEN

MANDY THE MAN MACHINE KRAFTWERK

PLANETPMC AMAZON LINK FOR THIS ALBUM

BNP official questioned over alleged threat to kill Nick Griffin

The BNP has been thrown into turmoil weeks ahead of the general election after a senior party member was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Nick Griffin. Key party officials have been summoned to a meeting tomorrow to discuss "urgent organisational matters" after Griffin and colleagues made statements to police resulting in the BNP's publicity director, Mark Collett, being detained on Thursday. Collett, 29, had been due to contest Labour MP David Blunkett's Sheffield Brightside seat in the election but has been stripped of his position within the party which accused him of conspiring to launch a "palace coup" against Griffin.

Griffin and Collett after their civil partnership ceremony in Brighton, 2006

A spokesman for the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said rows over finance, particularly Griffin's European expenses, had led to the conflict. Griffin and Andrew Brons were elected to European parliament in June 2009 but have been criticised in recent weeks for failing to publish details of their spending. "Nick Griffin is constantly claiming he is the leader of a moderate, non-violent organisation," the Searchlight spokesman said. "It is difficult to see how he can square that assertion with his statement to the police that his own head of publicity has been plotting to kill him." [LOL]

Read the full Guardian article here.

The Daily Mail Song

by Dan and Dan



which reminded me of this little ditty by Bob Dylan from 1965

Secret tape reveals Tory backing for ban on gays

Oh, I can here the whistles screeching as we speak. Apparently the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, was secretly taped suggesting that people who ran bed and breakfasts in their homes should "have the right" to turn away homosexual couples.

Oh, if only

The comments, made by Grayling last week to a leading centre-right thinktank, drew an angry response from gay groups [really?] and other parties [let me guess, Mothercare, Wetherspoons, that sort of thing?], which said they were evidence that senior figures in David Cameron's party still tolerate prejudice. Best you just read the article, I'm bored already.

Read the full Observer article here.

UPDATE - 4/04/10 at 14.08

The BBC's Norman Smith said it was "awkward and embarrassing" for the shadow home secretary, who would have to enforce equality legislation should the Conservatives win the election. In a statement, Mr Grayling said: "Any suggestion that I am against gay rights is wholly wrong - it is a matter of record that I voted for civil partnerships. I also voted in favour of the legislation that prohibited bed and breakfast owners from discriminating against gay people. However, this is a difficult area and on Wednesday I made comments which reflected my view that we must be sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups in this country. But the law is now clear on this issue, I am happy with it and would not wish to see it changed."

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, told the BBC he was "deeply saddened" by the comments, which would give voters "pause for thought". He said people were not forced to open their homes as commercial premises and they should abide by the law. "I don't think anyone, including the Tories, wants to go back to the days where there is a sign outside saying: 'No gays, no blacks, no Irish'," he said [oh, I don't know]. What was more worrying, he added, was that Mr Grayling said these sorts of things in private but not in public.

Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw, who is openly gay, told the BBC: "Not only is this displaying the fact that the Conservatives have not really changed on this and many other issues, but here you have the shadow home secretary advocating that people break the law." Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said "Chris Grayling's plan would allow discrimination to thrive".

[packs whistle away]

Gene Genie

I'm not sure Dave won't be just a little bit flattered at being compared to the coolest man on television. I am, however, rather concerned that the architect of Labour's latest poster is having just one wet dream too many about him.

Whatever next, Dave and Georgie as Starsky and Hutch?  I know, I'm sorry I mentioned it.

UPDATE
The Tories hit back ...

[vomits]

In nominee patris et paedophilia et spiritu sancti

The leader of Germany's Roman Catholic bishops said he hoped Good Friday would herald a new start for the Church after a spate of child abuse allegations. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch acknowledged that the Church had failed to help victims of abuse by priests. He blamed the failure on what he called mistaken concern over the Church's reputation. In his message, Archbishop Zollitsch spoke of wounds that may never be healed, and the pain, fear, and shame felt by Catholics.

Via Crucis, Caracas

"Today the Church is conscious that ... it did not do enough to help the victims due to disappointment over the painful failings of the perpetrators and due to falsely understood concerns about the Church's image," he said. He added that he hoped Good Friday could "be a new start for the Church that is so urgently needed".

Meanwhiile, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland is to say sorry to the victims of sexual abuse by priests in his Easter Sunday address, it has emerged. Cardinal Keith O'Brien will apologise to those who have suffered any abuse by representatives of the church. He will say Catholics are "demoralised and confused" by the "many evils" perpetrated by paedophile priests. The Church has been accused of covering up and "turning a blind eye" to allegations of child abuse by priests. In his Easter Sunday homily at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, the cardinal will speak of the "shame" the abuse scandal has brought to the members of the Church.

Yet at a Good Friday service in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Preacher of the Pontifical Household compared criticism of the Church over abuse allegations to "the collective violence suffered by the Jews". Fr Cantalamessa said he had been inspired by a letter from a Jewish friend who had been upset by the "attacks" against the Pope. "The use of stereotypes and the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," he quoted the letter as saying, as the Pope listened.

The general-secretary of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Stephan Kramer, told the Associated Press the remarks were "repulsive, obscene and most of all offensive towards all abuse victims as well as to all the victims of the Holocaust". David Goldberg, of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London, told the BBC the comparison between criticism of the Pope and anti-Semitism was an inept analogy, but he did not think they were ill-intentioned. "It rather struck me how out of touch so many people in the Vatican are in terms of either understanding the Jewish psyche or in actually dealing with the outrage that so many people, Catholic or otherwise, throughout the world feel," he said.

A spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) said the sermon had been "reckless and irresponsible. They're sitting in the papal palace, they're experiencing a little discomfort, and they're going to compare themselves to being rounded up or lined up and sent in cattle cars to Auschwitz?" said Peter Isely. "You cannot be serious." The head of Germany's Central Council of Jews described the Easter sermon as unprecedented "insolence".

The Vatican said the remarks did not represent its official position. Drawing such parallels could "lead to misunderstandings", spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi told the Associated Press.

Indeed it could, Federico, indeed it could.

UPDATE

And of course Rowan Williams has to stick his fucking oar in ... here.

UPDATE II

And then has to apologise for what he said ... here.

UPDATE III - 04/04/10 at 16.20

A senior cardinal has said the Roman Catholic faithful will not be swayed by "petty gossip" about child sex-abuse allegations. Expressing solidatiy with the Pope, he said  "Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers." Meanwhile, the Pope's personal preacher has apologised for comparing criticism of the Catholic Church over child abuse to "collective violence suffered by the Jews" in a Good Friday sermon.

"The Pope seems uncertain how to deal with a crisis of confidence unparalleled in modern times. The Vatican's public relations strategy so far has been to blame the media - particularly the foreign media - for exaggerating the problem.  Many bishops have rallied to support the Pope and his policies for dealing with paedophile priests, although some are openly demanding greater humility and transparency from the Church.  The Vatican has in the past consistently played down the extent of clerical paedophilia.  Its spokesman has been engaged in a major damage control operation. He has to try to convince the world that policies now in place are adequate to tackle the problem and ensure that clerics who commit these crimes are properly tried in the civil courts as well as punished by Church authorities."

David Willey, BBC News, Rome

UPDATE IV - Pope doesn't give a fuck.

THE END

Another member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs quits over the way mephedrone has been "criminalised"; Wayne Rooney should be fit for the World Cup (unlike Cesc Fabregas); Israeli planes carry out 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and David Cameron says Labour is "on the wrong side" of working people and companies over proposed rises to National Insurance.  I'm off for a snooze.

Cesc Fabregas out for rest of domestic season

Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas will miss the rest of the season after cracking his right fibula in Wednesday's 2-2 Champions League draw with Barcelona. Fabregas picked up the injury when he won a penalty after colliding with Barca centre-back Carles Puyol. The Spaniard, 22, underwent a scan on Thursday which confirmed he will be out of action for at least six weeks.

"When I took the penalty, I was quite strong, but after when I went to get the ball, I could not walk any more," said Fabregas after the match. The influential midfielder would have been suspended for the return leg in Barcelona after picking up a third booking of the competition.

Big society in, big state out, say Tories

Hundreds of millions of pounds of unclaimed assets from dormant accounts will be channelled into a "big society bank" to fund grassroots social entrepreneurs to deliver public services under a Tory government, David Cameron announced today. Outlining "incredibly ambitious" plans to reduce the role of the "big state", the Tory leader declared that the bank would help charity and voluntary groups that are "locked out" of the current system. The bank was one of a series of proposals revealed by the Tories todayas the party outlined its "big society" mission to tackle social ills.

"Oh my God, i've just touched one!"

A Conservative government would:

• Create an army of 5,000 full-time professional community organisers – modelled on the work of Barack Obama in Chicago in the 1980s – who would encourage the creation of community groups involving every adult in Britain.

• Target neighbourhood grants towards poorest areas to encourage social entrepreneurs and charities in deprived areas.

• Transform the civil service into a "civic service" by making community service a key part of staff appraisals.

"This idea, the big society, is both incredibly ambitious, but also refreshingly modest. Ambitious because its aims are sweeping – building a fairer, richer, safer Britain, where opportunity is more equal and poverty is abolished. But modest too – because it's not about some magic new plan dreamed up in Whitehall and imposed from on high. It's about enabling and encouraging people to come together to solve their problems and make life better," said Cameron.

But there are at least two big problems with Mr Cameron's big idea. First, his enthusiasm for a strong society is not actually shared by his party's more ideologically Thatcherite members, large numbers of whom still see cutting the state as a virtue in itself and are not overly fussed about the social consequences. These free marketeers are likely to see the Big Society's community initiatives as a waste of time and money. Second, and much more important, it is hard to see how the Big Society approach cannot benefit the rich more than the poor. Empowering communities with thick wallets and sharp elbows is much easier than empowering those who have neither.

Labour unleashes its dog of war

In an audacious new election strategy, Labour is set to embrace Gordon Brown's reputation for anger and physical aggression, presenting the prime minister as a hard man, unafraid of confrontation, who is willing to take on David Cameron in "a bare-knuckle fistfight for the future of Britain", the Guardian has learned.

For their part, Conservative strategists are said to be troubled by internal research suggesting that several members of the shadow cabinet – including Cameron and George Osborne – would in fact not "come here and say that" if challenged by Brown, instead turning pale and running away, or arranging for an older brother to wait outside the Houses of Parliament to attack him when he is least expecting it.

Read the full Guardian article here