If I were free this weekend, this is hardly going to make me want to go to Crewe and Nantwich

As The Times puts it, this is hardly Obama's "Yes we can" video.

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I think this might be the video I need at home put on a loop to help my son get to sleep at night. It's not Susan Kramer's fault, but the person who decided that 10 seconds of watching the same clip from four different angles really ought to be made to watch it.

Portillo in The Times - "Can the Tories ever win again ?"

There is a really interesting article in The Times today about how Cameron appears to have given up on the middle ground for fear of annoying the Tory right wing and now looks like he may embark again on a right wing anti Europe campaign.

Michael Portillo sees this as a doomed strategy which will allow Gordon Brown to hold the centre ground and marginalise the Tories for a number of years. The whole article can be found HERE, but the end of the article says it all:

"We have been here before. Hague started as leader understanding that the party had to change but soon capitulated. Michael Howard briefly adopted modernisation talk but the walk was unmistakably reactionary. Does Cameron need reminding that when Blair had occupied the middle ground it was Hague who moved the Tory party sharply to the right? That is how he won only 30% of the poll. Hague’s one apparent enthusiasm in foreign policy (on which he is the party spokesman) is Europe-bashing. Depressingly, the signs are that he is to be unleashed again as the Tories cry tallyho against the new treaty.

If Cameron really has surrendered, the party is doomed. I had concluded, when I left politics, that the Tories were ungovernable and had a death wish. But Cameron is clever and charismatic; I believed he could succeed where I had failed, especially since even the Conservatives might learn something after three landslide defeats.

Now I am not so sure. Cameron has wobbled. Unless he regains control of his party at once, the project will be lost. It would be much better for him to press on even at the risk of being deposed than to settle into the leadership agony of Hague and Howard.

I have always doubted that the Conservatives could win the next election. Now the question in my mind is different: can the Tories ever win again? "

Intelligent people those Cornish !

We all know the Cornish are intelligent people, you don't get 100% representation from Lib Dem MP's by being one pasty short of a picnic, but The Times today has highlighted a wonderful story that shows the ingenuity of the Cornish.

Attempts by the Peruvian Arms pub to become registered as a Peruvian consulate, and thus avoid the smoking ban might have been unsuccessful, but it appears they have not given up hope of finding a loophole.

I personally support the ban, but admire their ingenuity.