A shock and plaudits for the NHS

So where was I? Back from Paris and ready to start political blogging again. There was just this little visit to a colo-rectal consultant to ascertain the results of a colonoscopy I had before going to France.

Result? A diagnosis of bowel cancer and instant admission to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham for an ileostomy from which I emerged yesterday. I now have chemo and another operation to face if the chemo works.

But from diagnosis to surgery in 4 days? What private health cover could better that? And if you have to have colo rectal cancer then have it in Birmingham which is a centre of excellence in terms of treatment.

I have frequently said nice things about the NHS but never before have I been so personally involved in how fantastic it can be in emergencies and I had excellent pre and post operative care and excellent surgeons.

The only sad thing of course is the post code lottery. That not everyone in Britain has the same access to the excellent facilities I enjoyed because of where they live. At the moment I don't feel like postulating too much on this - I am just too grateful for living where I do.

West is wise to stay on the sidelines

Whether the 'convincing' election victory of President Ahmedinejad was intended to reinforce his position and prove his popularity in clear and open competition, it seems to have backfired badly with supporters of Moussavi continuing to challenge the result in cities all over Iran and thousands taking to the streets despite the use of violence by police and security forces.



President Obama is absolutely right to resist the hotheads in the US - particularly in the Republican camp - who want stronger censure of the Iranian government. Obama is only too well aware that any strong actions from the Americans will lead immediately to the finger being pointed at the US as the eminence grise behind the unrest.



He has felt obliged to say something, after resolutions in Congress condemning the Iranian government, but he has remained as low key and uninvolved as possible, simply asking the Iranian government to stop 'violent and unjust action against its own people.'

Obama has to stay strong and resolute on this issue, not giving in to the hotheads of the Bush years who would have been all for labelling Iran as the 'Arch Demon of Evil' or some such rubbish by now

A wonderful week away

Last week was a wonderful escape from the turgid derrings-do of British political life as I spent a week in Paris with two friends -separately if that makes sense. I had long arranged to meet an old American friend who was holidaying there with her daughter and grandchildren and this I did. It was so good to see her again after a very long time.

My other friend is English and she and her husband are living in Paris for eight months while her husband is on an academic assignment. I spent a day with them and discovered the delights of the 5th arrondisement, a clearly upwardly mobile area on the left bank of the Seine.


It was good to be in a 'lived in' area of Paris full of cheese shops, bread shops, book shops and patisseries and away from all the tourist attractions. Of course I did a few of those as well but I preferred the quieter areas of the city.



Normal service resumes on Sunday

What a silly blogger!!!

Apologies to readers of the blog for disappearing off to Paris on holiday and forgetting to post that I would be away for ten days. Do I have any readers left? It's clear not much has changed in my absence, MPs expenses and Gordon Brown's leadership still to the fore - although Brown does appear to have ridden the storm for a time. Now he has to be seen to learn from it.

The Iranian elections produced, not surprisingly, a victory for Ahmedinejad but the scope of revolt by the 'reformers' must have taken the Iranian authorities by surprise and now the genie is out of the bottle it will be interesting to see exactly how strong is the current regime's hold on power.







I thought President Obama walked a pretty skilful tightrope in making it clear that he was interested that due electoral process won out, and that was down to the will of the Iranian people.


Anyway now I am back in harness, I will get back to regular opinions and sorry for not letting you all know

Last Days in the Bunker?

The events of the last few days, for any supporters of the Labour Party, have been horrible. The election results, we knew, were going to be dire but to read of Gordon Brown attempting to reshuffle his cabinet, trying to preserve an air that he had some degree of choice, was more than painful. At the same time, Ministers have been resigning all over the place - Purnell bluntly, Hutton guardedly and Flint bitchily.



Brown has a cabinet in place and, I suppose in practice, can continue to govern but he looks more and more like a dead man walking. Clearly his hands were tied by events and people have stayed in jobs simply because he does not have the clout to move them.

He appeared on television and recited his usual mantra about being the man for the job, pushing Britain out of recession etc etc and there have been calls now to unite around the new government - naturally.

But how long can this frail knocked-together group last. Brown looks like a man with a bunker mentality - going on and on pretending he is leading the nation when everyone else sees him as a lame duck. I'm sure he means what he says. He believes in his destiny. He always has. But can he not see that the ranks of those who agree with him have withered away so fast that he is almost talking to himself.

It is clear he wanted this job so badly that he is going to hang on to it unless shifted by a force of Labour opposition within the parliamentary party. If Gordon Brown really loves the Labour Party, he should bite the biggest bullet of his life - and hand its Premiership to someone else. With Brown at the helm the party is headed for one of its biggest electoral defeats of all time.

Labour Party on the point of implosion

Gordon Brown must today have that uncomfortable feeling of being a General without a command. With his Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, standing down over the expenses scandal and the possibility still of high profile Alistair Darling, Geoff Hoon and Hazel Blears following suit, Brown has had more bad news today when it was announced that, along with David Chayter, another expenses victim, former Minister Patricia Hewitt and Childrens Minister Beverley Hughes both announced they would not be standing at the next election, wanting 'more time with their families'







This time honoured excuse is probably a greater kiss of death for Brown than the expenses resignations. Because everyone knows its polite political speak for 'We are stuffed. I have had it. I have lost confidence in the Party under your leadership and I want out."

There are a growing number of these people and a growing danger for Brown. It is pretty clear that New Labour has fallen apart at the seams and that Brown is hanging on to salvage something from the wreckage.

He may not get the chance. As Labour's fortunes worsen , so the contempt for Brown's leadership seems to be growing within whats left of the Labour Party and he could easily be dumped before the next election. It won't save the Labour Party from electoral humiliation but maybe the Party will get the opportunity in the wilderness to renew itself and rediscover its core values.

Sensible voting may be the biggest casualty

Next week on June 4th , we have the European elections and, whether you are in favour of Britain's membership of the EU or not, should provide the opportunity for the electorate to make a rational decision at the ballot box. Of course they never do, and for years the European election has been seen as the big opportunity to work off your beefs about what is happening locally.



But this year the voters anger could take a new and dangerous turn. It's OK letting off steam if your frustration and anger results in a marginal rise in the fortunes of the minor - some extreme - parties but without creating more than a ripple.

This time the expenses row which has consumed Westminster has fired voters with a fierce rage and it looks, from the polls, as if Labour - not surprisingly - is destined to feel the brunt of most of this, and the Tories somewhere behind. Perhaps more surprisingly, even the Liberal Democrats look as if they are going to be punished for being one of the major parties. Voters seem to have a 'plague on all your houses' sense about them and it looks as if the benficiaries of their wrath are going to be UKIP and the British National Party.

UKIP look like making a very strong showing but what is more worrying is that, in certain areas, the BNP could well be sending MEPs to Brussels.

I sincerely hope that British voters have a last minute injection of common sense. For all that the anger with our established politicans is justified, it will not help the cause of politics or democracy to give power to parties like the BNP, even as a knee jerk reaction. Once they get a foothold, there could be very unpleasant and unforseen results for everyone, including those who were blinded enough by anger with the system to vote for them.

Promises, Promises ?

There is no doubt that, whatever you might think of David Cameron and the Conservative Party, the guy knows how to sell himself. While politicians of all parties have suffered the shame and humiliation of being exposed as expenses fiddlers - and some Conservatives have been the worst offenders - Cameron has seized the opportunity to show his leadership strength in dealing with his offenders in a way which leaves Gordon Brown appearing comparatively floundering.




Cameron himself has been under the spotlight for using his expense allowance to pay his mortgage but at least he has been clear and open about this from the start and, whatever you may think of the expenses machinery, he is clearly not a major offender. So he has been able to stride through this crisis of confidence in politicians and has become one of the few to come out of this with his reputation enhanced in the eyes of the public.

If as most people now suspect the Tories win the next General Election, Cameron's pronouncements take on a more pertinent hue and deserve to be subject to close scrutiny.

Yesterday, in a major speech, he declared that a Conservative Government would revolutionise British politics in a number of ways. They would :-

Reduce Prime Ministerial power and restore the role of parliament

Would consider fixed length parliaments , taking away the right of the PM to judge best date for an election.

Devolve more power to local government

Reduce the degree of whipping on key votes

Reduce the use of the royal prerogative by the Prime Minister


Wonderful. All this sounds very good in the light of the expenses scandal and there is no doubt that it's the kind of speech which will be seized on by those who are sick to death of the goings on at Westminster and thirsty for some kind of promise of change.

And I fear that's all it is. Tony Blair made a few grandiose promises before his election in 1997 with regard to the openness of the British parliamentary system but very little changed when he got into office. Some of these changes are easier than others. In order to give the British electorate real local choice, the whole concept of funding local government has to change and the balance between local and national taxes completely revised. Are the Tories going to commit to that?

And I see the promise about reducing Prime Ministerial authority as so much hot air too. I can't honestly see Cameron being prepared to subjugate his own pretty strong will to a Conservative Party where he has a number of elements of whom he is wary.

So does Cameron mean what he says? Maybe? Some of it. But I suspect he has gauged a speech which everyone wants to hear and which may help him sail into power next year - and what then? Well sorry if I'm cynical but the expenses scandal will be old news - though I don't doubt voter anger will still be high - there will be a new administration with lots of new MPs (if present predictions of sackings come to fruition) and an opportunity for Cameron to set out his personal stall.

I suspect much of this 'new Jerusalem' will be quietly shelved - just as it has always been in the past.

Cantab misreads the mood again

There are times when I read the pronouncements of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and wonder if Rowan Atkinson might do a better job. His latest pronouncement suggests that we have gone far enough in exposing the pecuniary frailties of our politicians and that to continue to do so 'might undermine our whole political democracy'.




This, in my view, is rubbish. What is he suggesting? That we are better off drawing a veil over these excesses thus preserving an impression that our politicians are thoroughly decent people and deserving of our trust? What tripe. Now that the lid is off, I believe there is a public duty to continue examining all these cases and if, as forecast, 375 MPs out of 625 are cleared out of the House of Commons in shame before the next election then so be it.

This is an opportunity for a complete renewal of our political establishment, and it should be grasped with both hands. If people have committed acts of, essentially, fraud with taxpayers money they should go..and let that be a warning to the new MPs who will replace them that times have changed and that the new system they find in place will be strict and relentless.

As for Dr Williams, well I suppose he will carry on chuntering into his beard to anyone who is the least disposed to listen. The crowds must be growing smaller by the day.

Just when Americans thought it was safe .......

...so George Bush's enforcer returned to the arena condemning President Obama's attempts to restore decency and order to American politics by closing Guantanamo. As always, pitbull Cheney contemptuously dismissed waterboarding, torture, deprivation of human rights and everything else Guantanamo signifies as justified in the interests of American security.

It is an easy argument to sell to the homeland because it plays on fear. An argument that uses some form of moral integrity allied to sound common sense, as Obama is attempting to do, is much harder to sell, and, indeed,the President has had to compromise a little on his original closure plans. But at least his aims and intentions are still firmly fixed on the right goals.

Cheney doesn't care about America's image abroad. He sneered at Obama's 'gaining applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo' He doesn't care about the views of Europe for which he clearly feels some disdain. But we all know this, don't we. He and the Smirking Chimp presided for 8 years over the most immoral and despised American administration in many years, a regime which callously murdered 100,000 Iraqis in order to achive 'regime change' to satisfy America's ambitions in the region. A regime which ignored world opinion and went ahead with its criminal war in Iraq anyway.

That's why so many Americans voted for Obama last November. When they listen to Cheney mouthing his contempt and his distaste for trifling incidentals like human rights, maybe enough of them will remember why they turned their backs on the Republican Party, and once again return the monster to his swamp.

Just the kind of Tory to drive Cameron to drink.

What an amazing interview by Tory MP,Anthony Steen, who exploded with anger at any suggestion that his expense claims were unreasonable.

His comments encapsuled everything the average joe perceives about the Tory gentry, arrogant, unfeeling and completely in a world of his own. Steen suggested that critics were jealous of his home, which resembled Balmoral.



More amazing were his assertions that Ministers had 'mucked up' the system by introducing the Freedom of Information Act and that the public 'have no right to interfere in my private life'.

No right? Whose money does this stupid man this he was spending? £87,000 of OUR money to be precise on maintaining his idyllic estate. And the suggestion that MPs should have been allowed to continue creaming off the cash unimpeded by some intrusive law.

For all that David Cameron is pushing his new Tory 'Jerusalem;, there are some party elders who will never change..and more than you think.

An inevitable finale

So Michael Martin has, at last, 'resigned' as Speaker of the House of Commons though of course he was really forced out of office, the first Speaker in 300 years to suffer such a fate. If he was to be admired today, it was the succinct no-nonsense way he delivered his resignation, effective in a month's time at which point elections will take place for the first time for a replacement. His insistence that the day's business be continued after his announcement was probably because, at that point, he couldn't stomach the intended plaudits and tributes from the mealy-mouthed, many of whom had wanted him out.



But the decision is the right one for the Commons needs drastic renewal..and at last politicians from all sides of the house are realising how urgently. The House needs a Speaker who commands respect and is beyond reproach. In addition, new measures were announced to ensure that in future an outside body will monitor and regulate MPs pay and expenses...no more a 'Gentlemens Club' as Gordon Brown put it today.

But is it too late? The disclosures have clearly shocked the British public and they are set to wreak their revenge, one suspects, in the European elections on June 4th. We could get a very strange pattern of results which , as I said in an earlier post, will probably do nothing for any sensible European representation but will be a knee -jerk.

Politicians of all camps are bracing themselves for this but the bigger worry will come in less than 12 months when a British general election is held. Will the electorate have cooled down a little in that period or are they just biding their time? Time will tell but the last few weeks have detonated a bomb under the British political system, the damage from the fall-out still incalcuable.

Hope for a new start in Palestine

I made reference in a post in April to the difficulties the United States has had in the past in influencing the way Israel behaves, due to the tremendous Jewish lobby within the US which has affected how much the United States can do. I expressed the hope that Barack Obama would herald a new approach.

It would seem that my optimism is justified for it would seem that Mr Obama intends to make clear to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's new Prime Minister, that there will be no more blank cheques, no more automatic support for Israel simply because that support is in the interests of the Jewish state. He will push hard, it seems, for two things - For Israel to make positive moves towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state and for Israel to give up its nuclear weapons - the latter having shocked the Israeli government.

What is so heartening about this, is that in a recent poll in the US, Mr Obama's initatives were supported overwhelmingly by the Jewish voters who supported him in November.

I think this is one of the healthiest signs for the future of Palestine for many years. The fact that Jewish voters in America have lost patience with the intransigence Israel has shown towards any recognition of a separate Palestine and endorse Mr Obama so strongly boosts his position tremendously and leaves Netanyahu holding a pretty sorry baby. Without the guarantee of US support, Israel is left facing a very tough reality check - and not before time.

Netanyahu will struggle to concur with much of this, his own position at home depends on his continued stubborness to grant Palestine anything more, but if the consequence of American firmness means that Netanyahu has to go, then it will be a great leap forward for peace in the region.

Police running the country now, are they?

I had a dream - or rather a nightmare - today, of all our elected representatives being booted out of Parliament after the expenses scandals and replaced by policemen. It seems my nightmare is part way to reality with the announcement from the Association of Chief Police Officers today that it no longer intends to monitor hunts, nor do hunts need to inform police of the time and place of their meets or their planned route.

So in other words, ACPO have taken it upon themselves to give a green light to hunting -legal or illegal - with the implied suggestion that they don't consider hunting a priority. Oh well that's fine then.

Whatever you may think of the rights and wrongs of foxhunting, many people fought long and hard to get the hunting ban put in place and surely the police should be finding ways to execute their responsibilities in this area instead of airily informing the public that they don't consider it a priority and don't intend to bother with it.



Instead they have told forces , on the one hand to rely more on anti hunt groups (getting someone else to do the police's job) and on the other to effectively distrust such information because of the emotional nature of the groups interest. So effectively they are telling forces to back off altogether.

Since when did the police acquire the right to ignore law made by our elected representatives , however slimy and fraudulent that latter group now appears? This really is symptomatic of the way the police regard themselves as another branch of government not servants of the people through the democratic will of parliament. It's not the first time the police have taken a unilateral high handed stance about what they will and won't prosecute.

Senior police chiefs have an important role in feeding their concerns to government and expecting those concerns to be taken on board. They do not have a right to effectively neuter an Act of Parliament by effectively removing its ability to function.

The government should seek an early meeting with ACPO and start hammering tables. ACPO should be left in no doubt that laws which are on the statute book of this country will be upheld and that it is an extremely arrogant position for the police to adopt to announce to the world at large that there is one law they see as pointless and , effectively, are closing down any resources dedicated to it. This position should not be tolerated.

The Nuremberg Defence

I have resisted - although the thought had crossed my mind - comparing our shamed MPs and their expenses racket with its 'I was just following the rules' - to the Nazis at Nuremberg and their 'I was only following orders' but a number of our national newspapers have seen the similarities, if not in extent of crime, then to the rather pathetic, whiny back-pedalling now they have been found out, and used the term 'The Nuremberg Defence'

It is now clear that our MPs have had the opportunity to canvass their constituency electorate in the weeks since this all blew up and it is equally clear that what they have discovered has frightened them to death. The degree of public revulsion is of such a magnitude that I think many now see their careers exploding before their eyes. That explains why so many MPs are preparing to pay back some staggering sums of money, led by Health Minister Phil Hope who is repaying over £41,000 in additon to a spaniel-like appearance on TV asking for people to start believing in his integrity again.





And Hazel Blears, quietly confessing 'I know people are angry'. Damn right they are Haze..when someone has blatantly worked the 'second home' system as comprehensively as you!!



But still few admit they were wrong. They just concede that people 'view them as wrong'. Ms Blears, Mr Hope and many others must be relieved that they don't have to face the electorate in the next few months, or their careers may have headed for oblivion. Fortunately for them there is the chance for the public mood to cool a little. The 'Nuremberg' parallel continues with the way these people continue to find euphemisms and excuses to justify their behaviour. Two MPs were today sacked from their jobs, one Labour, Elliot Morley and Tory Andrew Mackay. Morley described his claiming £16000 allowances on a mortgage already paid off as 'a sloppy accounting practice for which I take full responsibility' Bullshit, Morley. It's criminal deception which you haven't owned up to.





Mackay and his MP Wife Julie Kirkbride have each claimed a second home allowance on different homes without having a named first home. Mackay apologised, not for his own behaviour, but for listening to the advice of the Fees Office. That's right - find someone else to blame. Another 'Nuremberg' trait. Gutless.





Although I too am angry at what has happened, I hope this doesn't result in a massive cull of our errant MPs. The people guilty of blatant fraud should be booted out of their respective parties and prosecuted to the full extent of the law but maybe the lesser offenders should be given a flea in the ear and left to fight for their careers. I know the prevailing mood is 'they bloody well deserve it' but what would kicking them all out achieve? A wonderful opportunity for minor parties to cash in on the anger and discontent but all you may get is the election of some people of of lesser talents and some, like the BNP, who would be positively dangerous.

But I hope these MPs , now shaking in their boots, regard this as a massive kick up the backside for their impudence and arrogance. It will be hard for many - who have been exposed as claiming massive fortunes and playing the housing market - of saying again 'I am in tune with the wishes of my constituents' without receiving a massive raspberry in response. I hope they all learn from it. Humility is good for the soul.

Readers, I promise to get off the expenses scandal sometime soon but this really is a shattering political event which could change the face of our politics and hence the attention I have given to it. But I will try :)

Don't listen to Tebbit

Sir Norman Tebbit has suggested - and been predictably slapped down by David Cameron for doing so - that Britons should use the European elections on June 4th to register their contempt and disgust at the major parties over the parliamentary expenses scandal by boycotting them in the election.



Now I am all for showing my contempt and disgust in whatever way is most effective, because I believe MPs in all the major parties somehow took leave of their collective senses in the way they abused the expenses system, but I don't believe we should use the European elections for that purpose.






I would like to see the British exercise more responsibility in European affairs not less. We should be trying to select the men and women who can best represent us in a European arena which is ever growing in importance and legislative responisbility. For too long the British have simply used the European elections as a protest vote , and I realise there is even more likelihood now that the pattern will repeat itself, but I sincerely beg the British electorate to think twice...and start voting positively for your European candidates, not waste your vote on a knee jerk response to the sleazy individuals who have been disgracing parliament of late

Not the man for the job

In December last year, I expressed my view on Mick Martin's fitness for purpose as Speaker of the House of Commons and found it wanting. There has been more evidence over the last week of Martin's unsuitability for his role, first in the way he handled the expenses debate last week, which could have been called manipulative at best. I felt that he connived to achieve a result the government wanted last week and failed to show even handedness in the way he intepreted motions.



Now this week he flew into something of a rage because people criticised the way he handled that very debate. He seems to have no conscience about being a major player in the great expenses debacle just a whiny defensiveness about any suggestion that he might have been less than competent in the way the whole thing was handled.






And as Nick Robinson says on his blog, on a day when the mood was to show a little humility about expenses excesses, not a word of apology from the Speaker. I do believe it is time he was replaced, in the interests of Parliament.

Still creating scapegoats

I watched the 'Panorama' special which revisited the tragic Haringey 'Baby P' case and it was revealed that a video had been made, as part of a case exercise, of Baby P's mother talking about her new boyfriend, the man who later was found to be responsible for beating the baby.



The information was not given to the police and it seems that the only people who know why that was are Sharon Shoesmith, the former director of Haringey SS and her deputy Cecilia Hitchen who was sacked last week, along with case worker Maria Ward and two others. But I can understand why such things disappear in a maze of paperwork and red tape.






It seemed to me that the only thing which came out of the programme was a feeling of a buraucratic nightmare which still shows little sign of improvement and an understaffed service where the social workers on the ground are feeling more and more neglected by their bosses and the politicians.



Ed Balls, the Childrens Minister, seemed to have little time for the social workers with whom he has dealt, comparing their input unfavourably to that of teachers. But I believe there is now a real crisis of confidence - people frightened to do or say anything critical for fear of losing their jobs.



The government seems to have thrown a lot at social services - new technology, more management etc etc but at the level where it matters, there are social workers, some under trained, taking on far too much work and bowing under the strain.



And this attitude of creating scapegoats every time there is a tragedy like Baby P will not help the situation one iota.

These leaders of ours are beneath contempt

There seems to be a common thread between this and my previous post 'Screwing people honestly', for we are unable to get away from the issue of the expense claims of British MPs and, thanks to the Daily Telegraph, we now have details of the claims of Ministers of the Crown and the picture is even more disgusting than even seemed to be the case before.

The way these conscience less parrots bleat about 'it was all within the rules' sounds more and more like a group of people who, instead of showing us what leadership ought to be about, had completely lost any moral compass.

The Telegraph, regardless of how it got its story and for whatever political motive, has done the electorate a favour - and left us with a bleak picture. There are few of them on either side of the House who have not dived in, snouts in the trough, to get whatever they could out of the parliamentary expenses system.

Some of the revelations are appalling.

Multi millionairess Barbara Follett claimed £25000 of taxpayers money for personal security. Excuse 'It was within the rules'

Hazel Blears claimed expenses on THREE properties within a year as her 'second home' 'It was within the rules'

Jack Straw claimed 100% of his council tax back when he was only paying 50% anyway. At least he didnt say that was within the rules just that he was ' a busy man and it was an oversight' Have you noticed that these busy men never UNDER claim?

Phil Hope spent £37,000 of OUR money refurbishing his flat. 'It was within the rules'

And perhaps the biggest inbuilt scandal of all is the legal loophole which allows MPs to make massive profits on properties which they have refurbished using taxpayers money. It is clear that Ben Bradshaw, Hazel Blears and Geoff Hoon have all dipped into this treasure chest and of course they are not alone. The full picture with regard to the Tories is yet to emerge.

Of course now our great and good moral guardians are panicking. 'All this will benefit the BNP' whines Harriet Harman, now trying hard to beg for votes. Well so it might, but these people, these hypocrites who have the temerity to tell us how to behave, should have thought of that before.

Ah but of course they did - when they all tried to be excused being included under the Freedom of Information Act knowing what the outcome of exposure would be. Now they are blaming the Telegraph , the media in general and most of all 'the system'

Do any of them have the moral guts, late in the day, to reflect honestly on the real culprits -themselves?

Screwing people honestly

There is a rather nice story from America this morning about porn star Stormy Daniels - winner of the 2007 Golden G-String Award - deciding to challenge Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter for his Senate seat on a platform of 'Stormy Daniels - Screwing People Honestly'




This is because Mr Vitter is one of those anti-gay, God fearing, Christian values holy rollers who was caught with his pants down consorting with prostitutes back in 2007. There is little to compare with these smug self righteous zealots suddenly found wanting and Ms Daniels challenge has certainly stirred up a scandal Mr Vitter hoped might go away. Like all these sanctimonious Christian right wingers, Vitter -only when found out - confessed to a 'serious sin' but now 'had received forgiveness from God'. Presumably he has a direct line to the Almighty to be sure of these things. Whether that translates into forgiveness from the Louisiana electorate for his hypocrisy is another matter.

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Ms. Daniels is unlikely to win but the prospect of the competition must be sending Republican Party chiefs into the depths of despair and making Barack Obama's 'new' Democratic America appear even more attractive nationwide.

Meanwhile Ms Daniels is having a ball - or two if her quotes are anything to go by. She has challenged Vitter to a family values debate but says 'he hasn't got the balls' and says she decided to enter the political arena because she was looking for something that was dirtier than the job she already had.

If Vitter hangs on to his seat it will probably be a Pyrrhic victory with the spectre of his carnal sins brought up at every stage and the Republican Party just praying for the whole thing to go away.