Two interesting snippets from the Daily Mail's Ephraim Hardcastle's column:

[Joe Chi Minh]

America's TV News goddess, Diane Sawyer, who makes our Autocuties look like Miss Skegness contestants, has no sense of humour. Explaining why she was excused from jury duty, the grand hostess of Good Morning America says: "The Judge said to me, 'Can you tell the truth and be fair?' And I said, 'That's what journalists do,' and everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I've ever had." This, from a woman who worked for Tricky Dickie Nixon.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the US Embassy offers a limited number of cots for personnel who wish to sleep in their heavily protected offices, rather than go 'home' to metal-roofed trailers. Those who fail to get a cot are advised to lurk under desks or tables 'until the initial salvo has ended'. Dress code at the Green Zone's Blue Star restaurant requires diners to wear bullet-proof vests and Kevlar helmets. Sounds like South Kensington's Boujis dive bar on a night Prince Harry and friends are in town.

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. That's a good one! Just heard on the TV news that the report of the

Standards and Privileges Committee stated that George Galloway had "damaged the reputation of the House"!

[LeftishBrit]

2. I wouldn't believe anything that comes from the Daily Mail...

Re Galloway: I think Galloway is more a show-horse than a work-horse. But I'll admit that in recent years, Blair and his cohorts have done more than anyone to damage the reputation of the British House of Commons. They should be suspended for a lot more than 18 days!

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Don't be foolish about the Mail. I've been over this with you before, I think.

Set a thief to catch a thief.

Their blindness is always of a wilful, Pharisaic kind. They and the Tories are plenty worldly-wise enough when it suits their purposes, as in the case of recognising the depth and extent of Blair's villainy.

They're hopping mad because, he finessed them, stole their clothes, to win over the monied middle classes, who realise that the Thatcherite and post-Thatcherite Tories are wild animals, who don't have the political savvy to con the people. Even Cameron knows this, but just can't see a way round it. Heck Blair' finally been found out.

It also suits their purposes to 'run with the hare' as well as 'hunt with the hounds' Otherwise their circulation would plummet. Election time is when they drop any pretence at concern for the country and its people, and go all out to promote the Tories.

The depth of their madness, however, can be gauged by the fact that some of them have suggested that the least we(?) could do is give Thatcher a state funeral. The very person who seems to have finally sealed the fate of the Conservative party once and for all - such as it is these days, and is loathed by everyone but themselves. In any other country but our sorry, service-industry national slum, they would organise street parties. Maybe they will in Yorkshire.