we wonder if the thunder is ever really going to begin.....

I'm not a political expert, so I'm not going to go on about this... but I have three things to say about the recent European election results and the subsequent political upheaval:

1) It makes me sick to my stomach to hear the newly returned MEP for the British National Party, Nick Griffin, talking smugly on the radio about the "ethnically British" - meaning, moronically and transparently, white people. However, it also makes me feel pretty ill to hear Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, the same people who sent me this flyer, trying to distance themselves from the BNP, as if UKIP themselves were somehow an acceptable mainstream party. It's a pretty sorry state of affairs that either of these parties return MEPs at all, never mind that the BNP appear to have made an electoral breakthrough and UKIP pushed the Labour party into third place in the polls. I see that UKIP actually lost a member in the East Midlands constituency - where I voted - but that the BNP polled 8.7% of the vote (up 2.1% on last time). They didn't get an MEP this time, but they're not far off it. This is exactly why reasonable, intelligent people need to go and vote. Even in European elections.

2) I'm not sure that I thought it was possible, but I'm actually starting to feel a little sorry for Gordon Brown. Sure, he has his faults, but his party is starting to remind me of nothing less than the Conservative Party who tried so hard and so poisonously to get rid of John Major before the 1992 1997 General Election. We have members of the Cabinet quitting as polls close in the elections (although clearly having briefed the newspapers beforehand), we have ministers busy singing the Prime Minster's praises one evening and then quitting in high dudgeon the very next day when they don't get the promotion to the Cabinet that they feel they deserve..... and we have the Labour party as a whole apparently seriously trying to decide if they should keep Gordon Brown as a leader or try someone else in advance of the General Election. The funny thing is that, unlike the Conservative Party, the Labour Party seem almost completely incapable of back-stabbing and conspiracy. Apparently the Parliamentary Party is currently passing emails around stating their desire for a new leader, but that they don't really know what to do with them once they've signed them. FWIW, I think they'd be mad to think a change of leadership will do them any good at all, although quite why anyone thinks David Cameron is a valid alternative Prime Minister defeats me too. Really?

3) ...and whilst we're on the subject of the Labour Leadership, Tony Blair is looking luckier by the day, isn't he? Well, let's not forget that he promised at the last election that he would see the country through the whole term... only to quit whilst the going was still good. Let's not forget too that he kept his Catholicism a secret whilst in office and used his religious beliefs as his compass for taking this country into an unjustified war that we're still fighting. He even went so far as to suggest that "This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation." How arrogant! I'm glad his religious faith gave him the certainty he needed that we were in the right. I'm still far from convinced. Still, why should he care? He's also busy coining it in from bankers like JP Morgan and Zurich (£7m a year) and on the US University lecture circuit ($250,000 for a 90 minute lecture) as he watches - no doubt with some amusement - as his old mate Gordon Brown crashes and burns, perhaps taking the country with him. Think this has got nothing to do with you, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair? Think again.

Pah.

Lovely weather we've been having though, eh? (well... except for the fact that it pissed it down all weekend, but it's been nice today, so....).