Well, hardly. Respect’s stunning success in Tower Hamlets has provoked borderline hysteria amongst some:

Once the sectarian identities multiculturalism inevitably promotes get hold, it doesn’t seem to matter how bad the politicians who exploit
them are, as Respect’s success in London’s East End shows…

Once again, we find a slice of the electorate in a poor part of Britain that is so lost in identity politics and victimhood that it will vote for those who stoke their rage, no matter how worthless they are.

You can almost smell the contempt, wafting over from the Betsey Trotwood.

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Here’s something a bit different for The Sharpener – a film club. There’ll be a secret handshake and everything.

I’m going to nominate a film and invite Sharpener readers to go and watch it. Next week I’ll write a short retrospective – a review with a few interesting facts (if I can find any) – and then throw the discussion open.

If the idea proves (even remotely) popular I’ll look to making it a regular feature and maybe other Sharpener contributors will offer to choose films and chair discussions as well.

Anyway, the first film I’d like to chew over is Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation. It’s a while since I’ve seen it so I’m keen to revisit it to see if the themes of surveillance and paranoia still resonate (it was made in 1974) in this age of encroaching authoritarianism, CCTV and impending ID cards.

Hope to see you next week. Have a few pints before you come so we can make it a proper film chat.

(I’d argue that The Conversation deserves a place on everybody’s DVD shelf. Amazon has got it for under a fiver and there’s a bunch of them going for quids on eBay.)

Update: Here’s a pleasing little synchronicity. For UK readers, The Conversation is being shown on BBC2 at 12.05am on Sunday night/Monday morning. Set the video.

In the 2005 general election, Tony Blair was elected to serve a full third term as Prime Minister. He has been given a clear mandate by the electorate and it is right and proper that he honour the commitment he made to them only last year.

So say Mr Blair’s supporters. Blair himself has again made this point today at his monthly press conference. Pedantically, it isn’t even slightly true, of course. In the United Kingdom, we don’t elect the executive; we elect MPs to the legislature. The party with the largest representation in parliament then supplies the executive according to their own rules. In the case of the Labour Party, the last leadership election was held twelve years ago. As an exercise in democracy, it’s hardly inspiring.
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FT.com: Mispell or Misspell? – the delights of the English language

John Beyer playing with himself on Wikipedia
Isn’t that terribly un-Christian?

Last November, there were areas of Paris where you could be forgiven for imagining the rioting was someone else’s problem. To many affluent Parisians, within the city limits and behind their digicoded front gates, these rioting youths could just as easily be in some far off country, instead of a handful of miles away, across the peripherique.

Surprisingly, one of those quiet places was La Caravelle, a 1,600 apartment, social housing project in Villeneuve la Garenne, an estate in the 92nd departement with a history of youth violence, car burning and other vandalism. What made La Caravelle different? Read More

The Nether-World: Power to the People Conference – an in-depth report on today’s Power Inquiry event

New York Times – Mandate for ID Meets Resistance From States, even though compared to the UK version it’s nothing…

An invitation to a party – Compulsory voting as a pseudo-Shakespearean farce.  Or something.

Blair blah Brown blah blah Blueblair bloodymargaretbeckett. Schoolsnhospitals britishnationalists and reshuffles. More of that here later. Meanwhile, over there, the new Prime Minister: Read More