Malcom Caldwell...

Today's Observer carries a long article (I presume it is in the magazine section - I will find out when I finally venture out to get a paper) about Malcolm Caldwell, a Marxist academic who was, inter alia, a vocal supporter of Pol Pot's regime.

In December 1978 Caldwell was invited to visit Cambodia by the Khmer regime along with American journalists Elizabeth Becker and Richard Dudman (they were among just seven western visitors to the country during the Khmer Rouge's tyranny). On 22 December Caldwell had a cordial audience with Pol Pot, something that delighted him. In the early hours of the following morning he was murdered, almost certainly on the orders of the man he had met the day before.

Here is an extract from Elizabeth Becker's book When the War was Over. It is her account of what happened on that night.

Anyway the Observer article is interesting. It portrays Caldwell as a charming man (by all accounts he was) but very, very naive. Fair enough but I can think of many other descriptions for him. Sadly only a small handful do not involve expletives!

Last year Democratiya Magazine published an excellent essay on Caldwell (click here to read it, it is well worth it, I assure you). Written by Michael Ezra it is a far more damning critique of the man.

Caldwell represents the sort of person I hate the most in the world, the apologist of evil. While the Left sadly appears replete with such people, the Right is full of the same sort of scumbag too, so it is not the preserve of one part of the political spectrum. Whatever the political stripe people like Caldwell and his successors (George Galloway springs to mind) are not even useful idiots. Lucky for them few ever meet such an ironic death....

Nick Griffin. whinges about lynch mobs

Ach this will be my only word on Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time last Thursday. As far as I was concerned he was a piece of shit before show. Unsurprisingly I have not changed my mind since.

On Friday he responded to criticism of his performance of on Question Time by insisting he had faced " a lynch mob”

A lynch mob? What Griffin faced was a hostile audience. What he got was a rough ride.

This is a lynch mob:


This is a Question Time Audience.

There is a big difference between the two, no matter how hostile the latter was. Luckily Griffin will never know what it is like to be on the receiving end of a lynching.

More Chavez stupidity

Ahmadinejad - guaranteed never to be called fascist by Chavez

It seems that the spat between King Juan Carlos and Hugo Chavez is not quite going away. On Saturday Chavez called the former Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, a fascist, adding "fascists are not human. A snake is more human." His successor Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero reminded Chavez that "Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people."

Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off and it was then that the king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?" The king then stormed out as Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega stepped in to back Mr Chavez

The king’s actions have been praised in Spain (For example, El Pais said Mr Chavez's outburst was "intolerable"). Yesterday, however, Chavez said the king was "imprudent" and asked if he knew in advance of the brief coup against him. As he left the Ibero-American Summit in Chile's capital, Santiago, Mr Chavez questioned whether Spain's ambassador had appeared with Venezuelan interim president Pedro Carmona during the two-day coup in 2002 with the monarch's blessing.

On Sunday, Mr Chavez said he hoped the spat would not damage relations. "But I think it's imprudent for a king to shout at a president to shut up. Mr King, we are not going to shut up."

The more I see of Chavez’s antics, the more I think he is a fool. His outburst against Aznar was childish and stupid. Of all those present Zapatero may have been most offended by the misuse of the word fascist – his grandfather was executed by francoists during the Spanish civil war. Anyway, perhaps it's a little strange that Chavez would probably never describe Ahmadinejad in the same terms.....

Oh dear, Bryan

Bryan Ferry has apologised for comments made in an interview with the german paper Welt am Sonntag. Ferry had praised the look of the regime's parades as well as the work of the Nazi architect Albert Speer.

"The Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves.” He said"Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful." Ferry also reportedly revealed that he calls his west London studio his Fuhrerbunker...

The upshot of, all of this was the release of a statement on his behalf: "I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused by my comments on Nazi iconography, which were solely made from an art history perspective,"

Bryan Ferry: advocate of the Fourth Reich or yet another musician who could do with engaging his remaining brain cells before opening mouth? The latter, I think.

Bullingdon Boris - Pompous in Pompey

Boris Johnson searches for new people to offend

Boris Johnson's campaign to offend the nation seems to be continuing apace. According to today's Independent Johnson, the shadow higher education minister, went to Portsmouth recently to talk to students at the city's university. At the he was being chauffeured in a £340,000 Maybach limousine as part of a road test for GQ magazine

Johnson was apparently unimpressed by the city describing it as "one of the most depressed" towns in the south of England...too full of drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs". The people of Portsmouth were equally unimpressed: A picture of a bandanna-wearing Johnson appeared on the front page of yesterday's Portsmouth News under the headline: "You Twit".

Local MP Mike Hancock, (Liberal Democrat, not Labour) demanded that he recant publicly, "He is living up to his reputation of being a buffoon and a prat," said Mr Hancock "He is talking out of his arse and this is typical of Cameron's Conservatism... And for him to talk about people with a weight problem is ridiculous. If you imagine the supreme example of manly fitness, Boris Johnson is not the name that comes to the fore,"

But the Conservative Party - despite harbouring reasonable chances in both the city's constituencies at the next election - was standing by its man. A spokesman said: "Boris speaking his mind, in only the way Boris can, is preferable any day to Labour and Lib Dem politicians who try to cover up the truth."

In October 2004, Mr Johnson was ordered by his then leader, Michael Howard, to visit Liverpool to apologise after accusing the city of showing disproporttionate grief following the murder of hostage Ken Bigley in Iraq. Two years later he accused the people of Papua New Guinea of cannibalism.

Some might laugh off Johnson as a buffoon but it is clear that he is a liability who is not fit to hold office should the conservative win the next election... Hold on.... A liability I say? Carry on Boris, there are millions of voters out there just waiting for your bon mots...