Society

Not even his severest critics doubt Gordon Brown’s intelligence. They might object to the causes in which it has been enlisted, but they knew that it is both formidable and restless. Nor do the Prime Minister’s critics doubt that he has a coherent vision of where he wants to take Great Britain, what sort of society he would like to create (the assumption being that it is in his power to do just that). Again, they might disagree on the consequences of striving for greater equality of income and wealth distribution, or the efficacy of stuffing an unreformed public sector with cash. But they have no doubt that Gordon Brown

Less a rage against the dying of the light, more a prolonged, high-pitched whine of complaint and self-justification, the sound of a swarm of badly earthed strimmers, heard from a distance on an early autumn morning. The Commission for Racial Equality has issued its valedictory press release before its duties are acquired by the Commission for Equality and Human Rights next month. The new organisation, headed by Trevor Phillips, will co-ordinate all manner of whining on behalf of absolutely anybody who considers him- or herself to be oppressed and victimised and discriminated against by the vindictive white male hegemony. Good luck to it. The CRE, meanwhile, has left us with

As a study published the other day showed, the equality gap is far from sewn up. Despite the fact that women managers climb the career ladder faster than men and reach positions of responsibility five years earlier than their male counterparts, they are still paid less …an average of 12 per cent less, rising to 23 per cent at senior level. Are you still there? Because if I were you I would have wandered off by now, perhaps to tidy my sock drawer, or empty the bins — or perform any number of more fascinating tasks; anything apart from listening to yet another whingeing career woman bleating on about the

If you ever roll your eyes to heaven in despair at the pretentious nonsense spouted by some rock journalists you might enjoy Graeme’s Thomson’s post on Guardian Unlimited’s music blog, where he calls for an immediate ban on the use of ‘brave’, ‘dark’ and ‘edgy’ in any album review. Although I’m 100% with Graeme on this one I should point out that this link was sent to me by a well-wisher after I’d used the d-word with reference to Serafina Steer, the foul-mouthed harpist from Hackney who we’d just seen in action (I did grapple briefly for an alternative adjective, honest, but I couldn’t think of one).

The more that emerges about the Israeli air strike on Syria the more mysterious the whole thing becomes. The Washington Post reports today that the US corroborated an Israeli intelligence assessment that North Korean personnel were present in Syria before the strike; suggesting that the US effectively signed off on the strike despite the risk that it could have sparked an all out regional war just as Washington is desperately trying to damp things down so that it can make some progress on stabilizing Iraq and sanctioning Iran. But there is still no real read on precisely what the Israelis were bombing or how far along the Syrians were in

The breaking news is that the BBC Blue Peter cat-naming scandal was even murkier than it first appeared. As the Beeb fessed up today, the true result of a viewer competition to choose the name of the cat – ‘Cookie’ was the people’s choice – was over-ridden by heartless Corporation executives who imposed the name ‘Socks’ instead. There are now sensational allegations of electoral fraud, as the inevitable blame game begins. Apparently, there was a suspicious late surge of votes in favour of ‘Cookie’, leading the heirs to Reith to conclude that they must intervene – a dubious decision which has now backfired spectacularly. As any parent knows, you don’t