Beyond satire

Doppelganger

Agreed.

EDDIE

No comment

Colin

What happens if Gadaffi doesn't fall?

Where does that leave us?

Oflife

Indeed, but Israel will be ok. They get it. And that's, as I said in a prior comment, why it'll be alright on the night. The clueless will self destruct, the wise will endeavour and the meek shall inherit. Etc.

S.D.

I'd say this was coming on a little thick if I wasn't largely in agreement. I think most of us want to see the Coalition succeed, if only to keep Labour out for as long as possible. But their inability to decide on a policy and to directly implement it is verging on the farcical. The government seems to be splintering into factions, with each directing it's own little chaotic programme; the whole converging to form an opera of anarchy. Why on Earth they would send SAS operatives into Libya without telling anyone what they actually want to achieve there is a question I don't think the Ministers could answer. A cabal of military types taking matters into their own hands sounds like a fairly good idea and seems more or less what's happened here, but dear God why can't they be a little better organised than the government itself? As for Prince A, I don't really care. In fact I like the chap.

Brian Moshe

With luck Israel will be watching Britain crumbling and drawing the conclusion that nothing Britain 'warns' them about is worth a carrot.

When Hague recently warned Israel not to make belligerent noises: i.e. told Israel not to say it would defend itself as this would derail the peace process, I thought it would have been hilarious if it wasn't so tragic. Then the buffoon told us that Gadaffi was on the way to Venezuela. Mossad must have split their sides when he made that announcement.

Now we have the bizarre spectacle of botched SAS operations and false passports.

As Colin rightly asks: What if Gadaffi doesn't fall?

Well, I suppose Cameron and Hague can always say it was all Israel's fault, now can we be friends again?

duc de montesquieu

Indeed. And not a word about carriers, harriers, pilots, or the fact it took £1bn aid to India becoming public for anyone in power to bother to check (nearly a year after taking office) whether recipient countries actually still needed their aid cash.

Todays news about a pet BS organisation having its funding cut is pretty priceless too.

To be fair I have had a lot of time for the Cameroons till lately, and electorally it's hard to see any choice at the moment beyond UKIP's one man band.

But the incompetence is getting out of hand.

harryf

What you say has merit but to equate it to the implosion of the Brown governement does rather give away your priorities. Whilst undoubtedly important I don't think they are shared by many people amongst the UK electorate. Try to keep some perspective Melanie. You're a good polemicist but you do overreach sometimes.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Colin: the joy of this embarrassing fiasco -orchestrated by Obama and his poodle, Cameron - is that they have both backed the wrong horse...which means, they both have to indulge in archetypical Bush policy of "regime change".

Ah, what a wonderful, bloody world...!:)

More interestingly, where will Obama's cards fall when the Saudi regime is threatened by "democratic" (i.e Iranian) mass action and the oil is threatened.

Perhaps Israel should take over from the Saudis...Let's have some useful and genuine expansionism..

Grumpy true Zionist

Vague - gotta love him
full of well enounciated, well modulated upper crust articulated bs
even managed to slip in the Israel/palistinian situation (as if ,if only those Jews had sorted something with the good and bad thugs, then none of this mess would have happened with the arabs

even managed to slip in the '67 indefensible border issue (goodbye Ariel et al.....i don't think so)

thankfully Bibi has a good 'democratic' government, with people, who might not be able to deliver a shakespearen type speech, al la Vague, but whose 'kop' (head) functions much better

tiki

Coming to the rescue!!!! The 'always available lightning conductor....the "Palestinians!Mr. Haig elevated (precisely today) their representation in Britain to a "full Diplomatic Mission. "President" Abbas (their 'non elected president for life of their 'non existend country) must be estatic. So much honour. Like Melanie said, Britain (but not only) is crumbling.

Mr Sponge

What interests me is the Governments RUSH to get involved in the Libya affair.

Why are we not standing back like other nations? Focus on repatriating OUR nationals.

Period.

If Gaddafi regains control we are going to look like complete idiots and lose perhaps £billions in investments - paid for out of OUR pensions.

Not to mention giving even more grist to the Islamist mill - endangering OUR citizens from home grown terrorists from Birmigham, Luton, Bradford etc.

Exactly which planet do our politicians live on?

Certainly not the same one as the rest of us.

Mr Sponge

Now Hague is discovering that adopting a Churchillian posture is not enough.

Voice coaching, a bald pate and a smart suit is not enough.

I though he was better than that.

I want the coalition to succeed if only to bury Labour but they don't even seem to be up to the standard of your average pub pundit.

Get out of the Middle East. Stop Muslim immigration. Repatriate all muslims committing an imprisonable offence - even if born here, ban the burqua and Islamist attire and close down all Islamic schools/madrassas - expelling all headmasters, teachers and imams who preach hate.

The Islamic community in the UK needs to be severely constrained and forced to adopt modern attitudes and tolerance.

They either drop the dark age ideology or get out.

Dizzi

Melanie, it really would be funny, if it wasn't so depressing. Never mind, you made me laugh anyway, all the way to the Benghazi.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Mr Sponge: excellent posts.

Larry in Tel Aviv

Cameron is competing with Obama to see who can lead in incompetence and mismanagement. The moron in the White House is talking of arming the rebels with weapons supplied to the Saudis! An irony lost on Obama and his cultists is that this is exactly the kind of meddling where you don't belong that the Left always berate the US for. And Obama then, like Cameron, meddles anyway (because he wants to change the world, that's what messiahs do and he's got the power now, or so he thinks) and incompetently at that, just like with Egypt.

The thing is it's not funny, I mean it's dark humour, but the rest of us have to pay a very real price.

Ed L

And even when Hague was trotting out his ludicrous, implausible equivocation in the Commons he still found time to mention Israel and the '67 borders. Pathetic,

Hague is learning what Clegg has already learned, when the going gets tough Cameron disappears and leaves someone else to get it in the neck.

Peter

Alas, poor Britain. I knew it well.

DougS

I can't help thinking that, if Brown and pals had been self-destructing the way the coalition is, CallMeDave and his buddies would be ripping them apart.

I suppose that they should be grateful that Milipede's lot are so totally useless.

Raymond Douglas

The bottom line I wanted from this government, was competence and an end of the stifling political correctness of The Harriet Harman Labour party. It seems that, yet again, I am to be disappointed.

stephen maybery

Yes Mel, we are watching a once great nation crumble, but this has been going on for so long that keeping tabs on our decline is like watching endless re-runs of the Lucy Show, wall to wall farce.

Remittance Man

This Prince Andrew/Epstein story strikes me as having erupted at a remarkably convenient time. As you say: The government has recently presided over a catalogue of clusterphuques and then, as if by magic appears a royal scandal story one might suspect was almost designed to divert the attention of the gutter press.

Miranda Rose Smith

Colin: the joy of this embarrassing fiasco -orchestrated by Obama and his poodle, Cameron - is that they have both backed the wrong horse...which means, they both have to indulge in archetypical Bush policy of "regime change".

Dear Mr. Roosevelt: Just how could Cameron and Obama orchestrate Prince Andrew being as cozy as kittens with a pervert?

Reuven

This chronic incompetence, I think, is the equivalent of an innate liar who has to tell bigger and bigger lies to cover up his original lie. Time for Britain to take a straight, moral line. That's the shortest distance, in the long run!

TomTom

Why does the British Ambassador speak English to Libyan rebels and not Arabic ? It seems very odd.

Do SAS men really carry multiple passports ? Maybe these were Sandline operatives contracted to MI6 ?

John.

Mr Sponge: A great many indigenous Britons agree with every word you say, but how on Earth do you think your suggested remedies would ever be put into practice in our present PC-mad country? Everyone continues to vote incompetents into office and totally ignore the alternatives who would actually do something. Expulsions and life imprisonments would be a strong counterbalance to the threat of murder extended to all critics of you know who, but our leaders are too pusillanimous and cowardly to lift a finger against them.

Colin

If we look closely at all aspects of the way our country is governed(?) there seems to be a single thread and one word to describe it. That word is Incompetently.

No truer words were spoken when it was said that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.

Trev

Wise words Mr Sponge,you got my vote.

Gordon Square

Mr Sponge, your propsals, though doubtless popular with BNP/EDL types, would require a government that was ugly, brutal, and ignorant of any commonly accepted notion of human rights, rather similar to the policies of the Taliban in fact.

But venting your spleen and displaying your prejudice doubtles serves a therapeutic function for you and it entertains me.

David, Thailand

Gadaffi was our buddy when we needed to capitulate for oil and money, and now a despot that urgently needs to be despatched for a good sound bite, albeit one that is characteristically destined to backfire later on.

We offloaded a bunch of goons at the last election, and decided to go for a new bunch of goons.

You are right, Melanie, and I grimace whenever I hear mention of "Great" Britain.

Celato

Mr Sponge:

Your pub pundits' manifesto includes: "Repatriate all muslims committing an imprisonable offence - even if born here."

Since repatriation involves sending someone back to their "country of origin" - i.e, birth - I guess you'd have to jet them out of Britain on a round trip to the United Kingdom or some such legalistic thing. (Maybe transplant them from England to Wales, or shuffle them off to Scotland...)

Government by newts sounds awfully complicated, expensive and fraught with internal brawling. Think I'll pass on that and have another drink if you don't mind.

Cityca

Brown was useless - the worst PM ever, yet the Cameroons look to be even worse.

British people are being let down by an inferior quality of politician - we deserve and need better.

Mr Sponge

Celato.

Country of origin means precisely that. If they are non-indigens, and 99% are, then they go to the land of their fathers.

We can have no place in the UK for colonisers bent upon the destruction of the UK, its society, culture and people.

Celato

Mr Sponge:

Seems you're a bit of a softie at heart.

Under your plan, all criminal Muslims whose fathers were born in the UK are let off the hook. Can't have that, can we?

Maybe your newts' cabinet could consider sending them to the land of their mothers as a reserve position, though of course the same problem would arise if mum was also British-born...

So how about this, then: we deport them to the land of their grandparents (or, if necessary great-great-grandparents). That way we get round any discrepancy between bundling off some Muslim shoplifter to Afghanistan while his killer-rapist Muslim neighbour is allowed to roam the streets of London.

Only trouble with this, of course, is that grandparents' country of origin (or even that of parents) might well consider the young thug as unentitled to residence owing to lack of citizenship...

Not at all sure what happens in that case, but no doubt you'll get it sorted by closing time.