Short one, food for thought. Given a 61% turnout in the 2005 general election, with Labour winning 35% of votes cast, Tony Blair has a mandate from 22% of the electorate.
In other countries, President Bush has a mandate from 21% of voters. The Iraqi parliament from 27% of voters, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a staggering 36% of voters.
What gives?
Gay pride in Israel and Palestine
Liberating Jerusalem?
More Losers: two quotes illustrating just how clueless the Democrats really are.
Nicaragua: “They did everything but threaten to invade”
The dirty war continues
Did you know that intermittently brilliant comic Lenny Henry won New Faces? We’ll come back to this.
The paper I like to call tehgrauniad explains: Brown outlines his vision for an ‘X Factor’ Britain. No, really, I’m glad that Gordon has such up-to-the-minute advisors; otherwise he’d be telling us how he was ‘down with the kids’ and listening to that cool skiffle, Daddy-O.
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A strained Senate needs help, but the aid has been embargoed
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“Great is the power of habit,†Cicero told us, “it teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.â€Â Cicero was, of course, a Roman senator, dead for some time now. However, with a little imagination, he could be thought to be talking about the American Senate of today, which, like any good political institution, is fatigued, wounded, in pain, and, mostly through habit, refusing to do anything about it. Read More
Saddam: a tribute
Political parody par excellence. Or is it?
Technorati Tags: english+spelling, simon+jenkins, spelling+reform
Last Friday, in the Guardian, Simon Jenkins wrote that he welcomed the decision of the Scottish Qualifications Authority that they would accept text-message spellings in school examinations in “a direct challenge to the English at their most reactionary”. “The dark riders of archaism will protest and the backwoods will howl. No spell is cast as dire as spellcheck. But the champions of reason are massing north of the border and need our support,” he declares. This, he hopes, might set off some renewed interest in reforming spelling, the discussion of which “has become a no-go area, an intellectual tundra”.
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