Sunday, December 14, 2008

This week

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Peter Tatchell in The Times on Friday: "When Gordon Brown condemns the Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe I can't take him seriously. He's all talk, no action. I had Mugabe under citizen's arrest in London in 1999, but the Government allowed him to return to Zimbabwe to continue his murder and mayhem. If Mugabe had been put on trial in 1999, Zimbabwe would have been spared the past nine years of torture, rape, kidnapping, murder, rigged elections, hunger and now disease. Tens of thousands of lives might have been saved".

Matthew Norman, in The Independent on Thursday wrote the quote of the week. Referring to James Purnell and David Freud, the millionaire architect of the White Paper on welfare reform, he wrote: "to watch a minister with a plumply padded pension and a free widescreen telly and, of all creatures, an investment banker threaten those on £69 per week is to observe the unspeakable in pursuit of the unemployable".

A back-to-form Nick Cohen in The Observer on the subject of New Labour, "tough choices" and tax dodgers. A truly outstanding article.

Believe it or not, The Express. We salute the fact that, for once, they wrote an editorial which has relevance to people's ordinary daily life instead of talking about the Queen, Brussels bureaucrats and left-wing Stalinists. "GREED OF ENERGY GIANTS IS A GROSS ABUSE OF POWER", they wrote on Friday, adding that "Thousands of elderly people are likely to die this winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes properly".

Similarly, it's not everyday that you find an enlightened column in the Sun. On Saturday, following the controversy surrounding the Sky documentary about assisted suicide, Lorraine Kelly explained why terminally ill people should be allowed to die with dignity.

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When you read people like Carol Malone in the News of the World you realise the effect James Purnell's crackdown is already having. Today Malone features another one of her patronising lectures about "workshy single mothers" and the myth that the benefit system is a free for all. I'd love to see Carol Malone being forced to flip burgers or mop the floor at McDonald's on the minimum wage for years on end and then hear what she thinks about "work ethic".

The UK press. Always ready to jump on scroungers and evil mothers, they virtually passed by the story of two solicitors, Doncaster-based Beresfords Solicitors, who took millions of pounds from compensation money to sick miners. Yes, there was the odd report but, (with the Mirror a partial exception) you didn't read of any OUTRAGE shouted at a couple of greedy 'professionals' who literally ripped off ill, vulnerable workers.

Ken Livingstone
. Asked to comment over the de Menezes fiasco, the former London mayor offered a fine display of backslapping. "Cressida Dick (the commander in charge) has commissioner potential", he said. Lord help us.

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