david aaronovitch's wounded foot

Surely Aaronovitch anyway has been making a career recently out of doing the opposite of providing political comfort food - deliberately rubbing yer average Grauniad reader up the wrong way (his pro-Iraq war and welcome Bush stuff in particular). The problem is that it seems like such a pose, and he does so in such an unsufferably pompous and smug manner.

N -- yes, it's his looks, but also his manner of speaking, as if there's an obvious liberal consensus that only a madman (ie ppl who aren't DA) would go against.

Allegedly, of course.

plus an extremely sad at any age, but especially at his age, goatee.

To paraphrase Alan Bennett on Larkin, I foolishly assume that anyone who makes a series about his world tour of sex shops for Channel 5 has forfeited any right to comment on the political and social morals of this or indeed any country.

If he wants to turn into another Melanie Phillips, he's welcome to do so. Just go away and do it in the Mail, please, so that we don't have to read it.

Matt DC OTM -- i dunno what the consensus is, but the observer is THE liberal UK paper, historically.

this is true, i suppose -- not that the obs sales have dropped. i suppsoe i meant 'liberal' the way peter hitchens means it ;)

my cat is currently using an IoS from October 2001.

but we all love victoria coren tho!! and barbara ellen!

Incidentally, I was quite happy to see Toynbee's Hodge piece - calling out media witch hunts is always admirable, even if it is a minister being hunted. (Okay, point undermined mildly by the fact this is Polly Toynbee we're talking about here, but hey).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1092358,00.html

AAARGGGHHHHHH

okay, for once i have actual knowledge, sorta, to bring. i used to work in the nhs, in a 'workforce development confederation'. these units were set up to spend the second term dough. last night on channel 4 news there was an investigation into where this money is going, focussing on the mental health sector in buckinghamshire, which was covered by my unit.

part of what was worrying about the report was the seeming impossibility of getting a straight answer from those responsible to the question: where has all the money gone? because it sure as shit doesn't reach anyone on the front line.

the reason there is no answer is that the health service managers operate exactly like new labour insiders (they have social links to them anyway) -- any tiny little report we make has to be given a 'narrative' and i've blanked out the number of lies i was made to tell. the figures i had to report, which in some form made it into press releases, were bollocks -- the nhs is so complex that measurement is an extremely difficult process. the contempt of the nhs bureaucracy for the front-line staff was breathtaking.

and i don't want to get emotional but this callousness will affect your loved ones.

so david aaronovitch really can swing from the nearest lamppost as far as i'm concerned.

here's a line from his sign-off column:

"The Hornsey and Cambridge effects, where Liberal Democrats overturned hefty Labour majorities? With the honourable exception of immigration, a protest vote for the Lib Dems was a vote to say one was on the left while paying nothing for the privilege."

it's early morning, so i'm still working this one out, but i guess the idea is that while my mother (cambridge) and i (hornsey) have never 'done anything' to prove our leftness, the davester has... written numerous articles defending tony blair. no, it can't be that... we haven't paid labour party membership? that would be absurd:oh, i know, we haven't paid tuition fees/loan repayments after taking a 'graduate job' at £6ph? no, we've certainly done that.

Dem crazy negroes!

http://www.atelier-rc.com/Atelier.RC/b-dayCalendar/10.11-JmsBarry-Philoctetes.jpg