ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Bush will achieve nothing at all, mainly because he doesn't represent a neutral party. In an ideal world he'd meet Abbas in the West Bank for talks, go and see the illegal wall and denounce it as illegal and then go and visit a democratically elected Hamas member in Gaza and while he's there he would denounce the siege of Gaza. None of this will happen so nothing can move forward. Taba was the closest we ever came. Only someone like Jimmy Carter can save the world now!

If ONLY Gordon would have the guts to do an interview with Jeremy!

Re-1 M_Rock.
totally. plus he could admit that US foreign policy as well as Britain's of course, is a concert party with Israel, which everyone knows is true but swears blind it isn't. Good here isn't it.

Oops Jeremy is on the blog early today

;-)

Please get the West Midlands police and CPS on the show to answer these questions:

Why did they ignore the extremism blatently going on in Midlands mosques, and instead try to prosecute the brave 'Dispatches' team?

Who made this decision?

What were their 'influences' when making this decision?

JEREMY - ASK GORDON

Was Mervyn signalling his endorsement of the fact that 'Wunderkind Brown' had performed his ten years of economic miracles DURING THE NICE YEARS, when world economics were being nice to him?
Might it be that 'Clunk Brown' is no more brainy, than he turned out to be fisty?

BRITAIN PPPs ON THE CONGO

As far as I can tell, all the Africa Fixers (outside Africa) seem to want to rush Africans towards the success (?) that is The Developed World. The words: β€˜Be afraid, be very afraid’ come to mind. I don’t doubt that many be-suited Africans, pressed into the European mould, over generations, want all the right things (money, possession, fame and attractiveness) but what do the 'earth-wise', who have not yet succumbed to our unsustainable angst-ridden ways, want?

Re 'Face The Media' time: Ed Balls took a real pasting from Fern this morning on ITV
over SATS and exam pressure: according
to Balls the whole point of these tests is
to give 6-11 year olds practice with exam
stress so they can cope with the kind of
"nightmare" he remembers doing his O
Grades ...... He was quietly skewered!!

Once and for all Midnightpantsman, I am NOT Jeremy! In fact I'm on facebook (I'm 32 years old, female and have long blonde hair), and we have a facebook fansite called "The Jeremy Paxman Appreciation Group." My picture is up on that site, and there are two with Jeremy himself! :p

PRIVATE GOOD GRIEF

All this time I was under the impression that mistress 76 was the 76th person blogging under the title mistress. Now I realise Jeremy is doing OK for mistresses. That's what a full head of hair does for you Paxo!
What number is midnightPantsman in the Paxing order?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Sorry but I feel the lady doth protest a tad too much

:-)

MR BROWN SAID: PUBLIC DRINKING LAWS WOULD HAVE TO BE REVIEWED. (PM News)

WE are a nation of USERS Mr Brown! We are a world of USERS. We are a SPECIES OF USERS. The human brain coupled with life HURTS! If you want to approach drugs intelligently, stop destroying lives with education and GDP obsession. Then heads will not hurt so much and we will not need the anaesthetic so much!
Hello bucket my old friend, I've come to shout in you again . . .

apparently the ever-helpful SNP is having a clearance sale of pens, stickers, file covers and old briefcases that are cluttering up HQ and getting in the way of the onward march to independence ..... i tried suggesting that
this might be the answer for Caroline Flint
but that comment fell foul of Newsnight's new webblog guidelines - on advertising,
transparency and public display of briefs!

I've just found the website for the 'Virginia Performs' score- card management system
[slogan: 'the buck stops here'] that Alex Salmond's SNP Government in Scotland
is hoping to introduce according to his
statement yesterday to The Scottish Parliament. It is 'outcome-based' - in
contrast to the 'tick-box' approach of
the Great Clunking Fist .... they hope!

It would be interesting perhaps to ask
your team in Washington to investigate
how this system works out in practice?
Brown and Blair have talked and talked
for years about 'public service reform' -
but that has generally been code for all
these back-door privatisations and the
headling targets Brown in particular is
so fond of churning out .... it is hoped
that this Virginian system is different?

Not fair! Whatever the mistress said couldn't have been *that* bad, surely..?

You might consider looking at the finding in favour of same-sex marriage by the California Supreme Court, handed down in the last hour[1]. how does this affect all those whose widely-covered San Francisco marriages were declared illegal? How does the lengthy, wide-referencing opinion reflect upon the discriminatory UK marriage/civil partnership laws, given that California, as the UK, had civil partnerships already and this case was essentially about whether that was insufficient for equality. The majority of the Supreme Court rules that denial of the right to actual marriage is significant discrimination. Is that not also the case in the UK? Do those discriminated-against in this way in the UK have any access to redress?

You might talk with the Yorkshire academic couple who went to the Family court in London seeking recognition for their Canadian same-sex marriage, appealing the discrimination in the Civil Partnerships Act, and were placed in financial difficulties when the court not only ruled (oddly) that the case was "too soon", but awarded government costs against them. Others still anxious to achieve equality inlcude Peter Tatchell and the Lesbian and Gay Humanists.

Perhaps on the other side there is the campaigning group Stonewall, who have been oddly silent in accepting unequal civil partnerships, with suggestions that too close a relationship existed with Tony Blair personally in making a deal to not upset the religious opposition.

SAME SEX MARRIAGE (#17)

If you take up this subject, you might enquire why de-facto sterile relationships are subject to 'degrees of separation' law.
My brother is 75 and I am 70. We intend to keep an eye on each other till death us do part (like the elderly sisters recently in the news) and it would make all the predictable aspects of declining health, support etc. so much easier if we were 'married'. Somewhere in high places the plot has been lost; I would love to know the truth of it.

Further to 17, Sir Ian Mckellen, who, despite being a founder of Stonewall and a very generous donor, has said that he can see no possible justification for denying same-sex couples access to marriage equally, is currently in the UK. He is also very familiar with California.