Sarah Palin: WTF?

A bizarre and rambling resignation speech from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Readers will know that I have been a fan of her since she hit the national stage last August. But her resignation speech yesterday really was weak. It was as if it had been written (it had been written, right?) by Tina Fey.

The excellent Toby Harnden hits the nail on the head, as ever. Palin's resignation statement was rather akin the Nixon's after he lost the race in California in 1962 (as acted here by Anthony Hopkins):

Hannan in the USA

Outstanding, as ever. If he carries on like this they'll draft him for Congress!

**EXCLUSIVE** Izzet McBride or not?

Whether or not disgraced peddler of vile smears, Damian McBride, is back advising the government, it seems that his ghost lives on in Whitehall.

This week, Tory frontbencher Greg Hands MP raised a bizarre tale of civil service impropriety that arose when Ed Balls and Gordon Brown visited Hands' Hammersmith & Fulham constituency. Having failed to adhere to the established parliamentary convention of informing an MP of their intention to visit his constituency, Balls and Brown were protected by a rottweiler of a civil servant called Balshen Izzet.

Izzet's modus operandi of dealing with Greg Hands' unwanted arrival at Brown and Balls' planned photo call at a Fulham school was to imperiously tell him he was not invited, to snarl that his presence would make the school visit "political", to seek to dupe Hands by misleading him as to the entrance Brown and Balls would arrive through and, in essence, to act in a manner that was self-evidently improper for a civil servant to act.

Where did Balshen Izzet learn this tricks of the trade - the bullying and underhand approach that comes straight from the Damian McBride playbook?

Was it as a result of pillow talk - given that Izzet was revealed by The Daily Mail in April as being McBride's "long-suffering girlfriend"?

Brown's vandalism: I told you so!

The BBC today reports that questions have been asked about Gordon Brown's vandalism of the despatch box in the House of Commons.

How nice of you to catch up! On 23 July last year, I broke this story - a rare exclusive. If Brown has indeed been damaging the despatch box, send him the bill.

Gangster Government in the USA

A hard-hitting critique from Rep Michele Bachmann in the US House of Representatives, calling the Obama Administration a "gangster government". Spot on.



Hat Tip: Kelly.

Time to scrap EDMs?

A new campaign has been launched to scrap Early Day Motions in Parliament: check here to see why it deserves our support!

**EXCLUSIVE** Bercow's latest tantrum

Quentin Letts writes today about Mr Speaker Bercow's latest tantrum, this time in the Chamber of the House of Commons itself. This is just a week after he threw a similar strop at ITN's Tom Bradby (which, if you haven't seen it, is well worth watching). Clearly his inability to control his temper, coupled with him behaving like a referee who believes the crowd is there to watch him, will be the defining characteristics of his eleven months in the chair.

It had been feared that Mr Squeaker's latest hissy fit wasn't saved for posterity but I have obtained exclusive footage of him losing it at James Gray.

How can 48% of prospective Tory MPs back Obama?

Yesterday I attended the excellent Conservative Intelligence conference that looked at the new intake of Tory MPs and Cameron's key advisers. ConHome had run an opinion poll of the new intake (which is being published tomorrow) and most of the findings were unsurprising: they are, by and large, Thatcherites rather than Heathites and they are particularly Eurosceptic. Excellent.

One finding that appalled me, however, was that 48% of those who replied to ConHome said that they would have voted for America's first Kenyan-American President, Barack Hussein Obama, and not the fiscal conservative war hero, John McCain.

It might be, of course, that in doing so they adopted the strict Eurosceptic line of the great Daniel Hannan - Dan took the view that McCain's support for Eurofederalism ruled him out. But I cannot help but suspect that most of the prospective Tory MPs who said they were glad to see Obama in the White House did so from a position of ignorance about US politics (yes, that's you, Simon Burns). For while I can see some merit in hoping that the message of "change" that Obama campaigned on translates to British politics so that the "change" candidate here, David Cameron, wins the next election, which of Obama's other policies was it that so impressed these prospective Tory MPs?

Is it his chippy partisanship? His liberal voting record that was even more extreme than that of Ted Kennedy or John Kerry? His desire to appoint more judges who legislate from the bench? His appeasement of Islamists? His reckless spending? The higher taxes he is imposing? His soft immigration policies? His desire to give more power to trades unions? The extra business burdens inherent in his energy policy? His weak diplomacy towards North Korea, Iran and Latin American dictators?

Or perhaps it is his character that they so admired - his consorting with crooked property developers such as Tony Rezko, palling around with terrorists such as Bill Myers or worshipping for 20 years at the church of racist preacher Jeremiah Wright?

Or his family values - with an aunt living illegally in the US, a wife who only finally became proud to be an American last year and a half-brother denied entry to the UK?

Barack Obama is many things: a powerful orator who stood on a twin campaign pledge of hope and change and who had the potential to be America's first post-racial President. But he is also a dangerous radical whose actions in office these past six months have shown him to more like Jimmy Carter than a latter day FDR. It is unconscionable for any Conservative to support Obama.

Rights for whites, US style

In his rush to relaunch his premiership for the umpteenth time, and in a desperate attempt to stave off the growth of the far-left British Nationalist Party, might Gordon Brown look to yesterday's US Supreme Court ruling in which white firefighters were ruled to have been discriminated against?

In a ruling overturning a decision of, inter alia, the Obamessiah's nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayer, 5 of the 9 justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy) sided against the self-evident anti-white racism inherent in New Haven's recruitment procedures. How long until Martin Luther King's dream, that conservatives such as Charlton Heston (left) and I hold so dear, is realised - of people being judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their characters?

Hat Tip: MCFLR.

Am I owed an apology?

Ten years ago, I was a local councillor in Hammersmith & Fulham. Ever ahead of the curve, a leaflet was put out in my ward calling for preferential housing for those who lived, worked or had some connection with Fulham. The campaign arose because a local black family were living in cramped conditions in council housing. My ward colleague and I considered it intolerable that those with no connection to the borough, including bogus asylum seekers, were jumping the housing queue.

The slogan? "Fulham Homes for Fulham People".

The response from the then Labour council? Outrage: the matter was even raised in Parliament.

As I wrote over two years ago, a complaint was manufactured by left-wing extremists then employed by the council's housing department. My monthly ward surgery was stormed by leftist radicals. I was doorstepped by the media, needed police protection and was advised to leave the country while the matter died down. The Commission for Racial Equality investigated. So did Conservative Central Office (until it was shown that the leaflet was actually approved by the local Conservative Association and was not in any way racially motivated - how could it be, after all, when the campaign was dreamt up so as to help local families of all colours be rehoused in preference to people with no connection to Fulham). The Guardian, ever keen to cry racism, whipped up a storm but to no avail. My ward colleague and I were exonerated by CCO and the CRE, neither of which found any case to answer.

Over the years, the phrase "Fulham Homes for Fulham People" caused many a chuckle among my friends. And yet today Gordon Brown announces a policy of "Local Homes for Local People". I wonder if I will get an apology from The Guardian? For after ignoring the plight of voters who have felt disenfranchised and ignored for too long, who really is responsible for the rise of the far-left British Nationalist Party if it is not Gordon Brown and his chums in the media?

Labour's approach to public spending

At least we know what Labour's approach to public spending is: do nothing until after the next election and piss away as much money as possible before then.

Also known as "slash and burn".

How not to come across in an interview

Feck me, as they say in Ireland (where I have been relaxing in the sunshine these past five days). I've just watched the astonishing interview of John Bercow by ITN's Tom Bradby. Could Bercow have been any more petulant, short or up himself? There he sits, flexing his jaw muscles and visibly fuming - as graceless, or perhaps more so, than his predecessor? John Bercow knows better than this. He needs a decent media gatekeeper and quick, or else he will be a very short-lived Speaker indeed.

Time to teach Iran a lesson

So the jihadist leader of Iran has sanctioned the kidnapping of British citizens - just a couple of years after Blair failed to respond when British sailors were unlawfully detained by Iran.

There's a simple solution: give us back our citizens or we will persuade you to do so in what would seem to be the only language you understand.

And I don't mean Farsi.

My seasonal allergy returns

Every summer it's the same. I get struck down with sneezes, difficulty breathing, sweating and an horrific level of discomfort that puts me in a grouchy mood. I know what you're thinking: it's hayfever, or seasonal allergic rhinitis (to give it it's proper name). In fact, the condition from which I suffer is seasonal allergic ryanitis - an allergic condition I suffer from each summer season when I forget how shit Ryanair is and I stupidly book a cheap ticket and fly with the world's least favourite airline.

To describe Ryanair as unpleasant is as to describe Iran's President Ahmedinajihad as being a little bit Jew-sceptic. I urge you, if you have any sense, to avoid Ryanair.

Ryanair's seats have so little leg room that even a midget would feel uncomfortable. You are constantly bombarded with attempts to extort money from you for scratch cards, soggy sandwiches, overpriced beverages or duty free gifts that would be a rip-off if they were simply given to you free of charge, let alone sold to you. On both of my journeys this week (to and from Ireland) the safety announcements were given by an Eastern European flight attendant whose grasp of English made former Commons Speaker Michael Martin seem like Larry Olivier or Johnny Gielgud by comparison.

The supposedly speedy check-in procedure was even slower than in the good old days when Ryanair actually had more than one check-in girl at least pretending she wanted to serve you and the queue while waiting for the (inevitably delayed) flights from and to Gatwick would have made a Soviet era supermarket owner blush.

Everything about Ryanair says to me that the airline in is desperate financial trouble. One miserable check-in girl who then reappears at the gate to usher you to board a flight where attendants speak (if that is the right word) English as a third or fourth language (and even then unintelligibly) after you have been fleeced if you have luggage weighing more than a couple of pairs of trousers.

The media whore who runs Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, might want to consider spending less time regaling us with his airhead views on the media and more time sorting out his airline's customer relations before Ryanair loses yet more customers and goes bust - which, judging by this week's performance, it certainly deserves to.