So long, Kim Jong-il

Christmas is a particularly horrible time of the year to lose a loved one, so our sympathies go out to the people of North Korea who have lost their beloved leader, Kim Jong-il. Apparently he had a heart attack on a train.

As Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has already commented, Kim was a ‘comrade’ in the struggle against oppression. A similar valediction has arrived from another progressive democracy, Iran. Elsewhere, Britain has said that it hopes his death will prove a ‘turning point’, which seems a bit callous when the poor chap isn’t even stiff yet.

The successor is his younger son, Kim Jong-un, whose older brother was passed over because it was feared he was a screaming homosexual. I think it would be quite nice for North Korea to have a gay megalomaniac as a leader, rather than a straight megalomaniac, for a change. Instead of uplifting socialist anthems they could do those massed synchronised displays, for which they’re famous, to the Mamma Mia soundtrack or something by Lady Gaga. That would cheer us all up.

I suspect, pace Britain’s response, that this will not be a turning point at all.