I've got a fun parlour game, if anyone wants to play. It's called Gruesome Twosome. The object is simple: just think of the two most loathsome people of either sex that you can dredge from the deepest recesses of your hate glands. Then imagine them, er, getting it on, in the parlance of Marvin Gaye.
My candidates for your most earnest consideration: Diane Abbott and Marcus Brigstocke.
Top that.
PS For clarity's sake, the above is is my comment on the latest Spectator blog entry by Rod Liddle:
The Lib Dems are still down at about 20 per cent, or less. They show no sign of ceasing to be the third party in British politics. They remain a dustbin for the votes of all those whose policy on cake is pro-having it and pro-eating it, and who think you can govern the country by sucking and blowing at the same time.
For my own part, I certainly think some forms of intervention in family life can be justified on the harm principle in some cases. However, from what I have read of it, the case of Mark McDougall and Kerry Robertson does not appear to be one of them. The Daily Mail story cited by Rod documents an abuse of state power of the grossest and most chilling kind. It is as though the Fife social workers on the case regard Kerry as their property in some way.
First off they prevented her and her partner from marrying on the grounds that she was not intelligent enough. That's an outrage in itself. Now they have taken the couple's baby away. Given that Kerry is not a lone parent, how can there be grounds for doing this?
I posted again:
To lighten the mood, let me share the following story about Paul Dacre, whose paper is currently championing Mark and Kerry’s rights in this case. It is taken from a superbly readable Guardian profile of the great man back in 2001. Here goes:There is one particular story that former staff of the Daily Mail like to tell about the politics, in the broadest sense, of their old paper. A while ago, the newsdesk there noticed a report from a local press agency. A young baby had died from being fed adult food. The Mail immediately got excited: it could interview the grieving parents, make the tragedy the basis for a campaign, and warn the nation of a previously unsuspected danger.
The couple were contacted, and offered £250 for an interview. They agreed, and talked eloquently and at length. A double-page spread - the Mail's traditional mark of a significant article - was put aside in the paper. For the photograph, the parents, who were not well off, were encouraged to look smart: the husband in a suit, his wife in a dress, both of them holding hands.
The morning the feature appeared, it was judged a success at the Mail. The article was by turns sensitive, alarming and full of useful advice. Paul Dacre, the editor then and now, approved - and from him all official sentiments flowed. But then, at lunchtime, Dacre's tall, slightly stooping figure was spotted beneath one of the television monitors hanging from the low ceiling of the open-plan office. Everybody nearby, as it was usually in their interests to, stopped work and looked and listened.
Dacre was watching the one o'clock news with his narrow eyes: on it were the bereaved couple, with messier hair than before, wearing tracksuits and trainers, smoking: not the Mail's sort of people at all. The editor, who is 52, spotlessly shirtsleeved, brisk in his diction, with hair like a cerebral Tory minister, was heard to growl. Then he spoke: "These people couldn't bring up a fucking hamster!"
