Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances...

Well, our PresidentPrime Minister has stood down, to be replaced by someone different, but just as damaging. I've had a lot in my inbox about this, but two particularly caught my eye...

The first is a rather uncomplimentary. What could Tony have done to deserve this? Oh, hang on...

Tony Blair: The Traitor Departs
by Sean Gabb

As I write, Tony Blair is about to stop being Prime Minister. I have waited ten years to see this day. I will celebrate later today by opening a bottle of champagne. In the meantime, I will make the briefest possible farewell to the man.

I am told Mr Blair has a heart condition. I hope this kills him within five years, and that no day between now and then will be other than filled with pain. I hope that fears of being arrested as a war criminal will keep him from seeing anywhere nice in Europe again. I hope that his lecture tours of America will be ruined by popular demonstrations against him and by the tort lawyers. I hope his new job as an envoy in the Levant will end in bitter disappointment. I hope his business ventures will all end in disaster. I hope that death, when it comes, will find a man broken in body and soul.

Of course, he could not have completed the transformation of England into a panopticon police state without the collaboration of an entire political class, and the indifference of the human sheep in the street. Nor could he have taken us so disgracefully to war but for the greed and stupidity of all around him, and for the moral cowardice of the chiefs of staff. But for ten years, he was in charge of things, and he did more than anyone else to drive them forward. It is only fitting that he should receive the greater part of the moral blame.

I have done with the man. I wish him dead, but only after much suffering. Better still, I wish he had never been born.


The second is a warning from the Adam Smith Institute that westminster isn't quite the desirable area it sounds:

By the way, it may be Gordon Brown's dream home, but Downing Street is in a seedier area than folk imagine. In a council house just over the back fence lives an extended family run by a grumpy old woman who keeps a pack of fierce dogs. Her husband makes racist comments and a local shopkeeper says he murdered his son's girlfriend – but the police do nothing. Most of their kids have broken marriages, and their grandchildren are always out clubbing. They all live off the state, and every day the papers are full of their excesses. Who'd want to live near Buckingham Palace?