Wednesday 20 May 2009

Most interested was I in the tale being related in the Telegraph (not the Tele of Dundee fame, of course, this is a lesser paper but a decent organ nonetheless) - a tale of derring-don't as Gordon Brown lays out his plans for a decimation (at least) of Labour's MPs - except the saintly Hazel Blears, of course.

It was this line that gave me pause, though:

Labour’s Chief Whip, the party’s general secretary and constituency parties, will have the power to refer MPs for investigation. Expulsion could then follow.
Leaving aside the unnecessary comma, does this not sound like shades of Salem and the witch trials dramatised in The Crucible?

Are there not, in fact, echoes of regal dictatorship in the creation of the Star Chamber? Echoes of political repression and arbitrary justice, no witnesses, no right of appeal - and was it not the cause of the end of Charles I?

Ach weel, neffer mind

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your probably correct Calum!

But for us more enlightened souls north of hadrians, the houses of whores will become utterly irelevant after our long overdue independence!

subrosa said...

The Tele a lesser paper? I'll have you know Calum, my granny used to have the editor of the Tele as her lodger. Back in the 50s and 60s right enough ...

Strange bloke he was. All he did was read papers :)

Calum Cashley said...

Nah, nah, nah, the Daily Telegraph is a lesser organ than the Tele is what I meant. Bizarrely, I was with one of our press officers when news came through that the Telegraph had the disk. Being used to people from places other than Dundee referring to the Tele as the Telegraph, I thought (for a couple of precious seconds) that the Tele had got it ...

Ah well ...