The UKIP thing is something else. I loathe them, but at the same time they do reflect the views of many. They have given a stronger voice to a nasty strand of thinking that has always existed in this fair land and made it OK to express thinly veiled racist and thuggy rightist opinions under a dangerously populist banner. Most of all I don't like the way the other parties are pandering to this, particularly Labour. I know that this is a matter of political strategy etc but I still don't like it and don't think it will do any good in the long run. I believe that when faced with vile opinions, especially ones based on scapegoating, you should counter them directly and stop worrying about the tabloids and opinion poles. The media, especially TV, has much to blame for the rise of UKIP - they early on saw Farage as good viewing material and, being the media, that's all they were concerned with. They never miss an opportunity to have him on the screen.

As for your own fair land - well, it's really pleasing when your democracy actually works for once, as with the recent Senate committee report on the CIA - such openness would never happen here. The torture revelations are no surprise of course - we have known for years about this stuff. And as it has always done, everything points to the Brits being complicit - Blair, Straw, DAVID Miliband at the top and countless others down the line all look as guilty as hell but I very much doubt if anything ever comes of it. I doubt too that Rifkind would be so eager to uncover secrets if it had been a Conservative government in power at the time. But there you go. It's never publicly said but we all know that David Miliband would probably be the current leader of the Labour Party if he was not so closely associated with rendition.

Bloody politics. Let's get back to something full of warmth and peaceful thoughts like poetry. 

Cheers and Happy Christmas to all my readers.

Tim