Pissing On Bleach (and Free Speech)

If you'd wanted to devise a PR disaster for the Labour Party Conference, you couldn't have created anything more perfect than the ejection of Walter Wolfgang for heckling.
Not only was he a frail 82 year old man but a refugee from Nazi Germany. If he hadn't been a Labour Party member for 50 years I would have suspected that the whole thing had been organised by a tabloid paper.
And then there was the final absurdity of the police briefly detaining him under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

You know it's a PR disaster of epic proportions when the spin doctors' advice is to put your hands up and go in front of the media and apologise. And that not only the Party Chairman must apologise but the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister himself.
The only trouble is that, if you study the various apologies, you realise that they just didn't get it. They understood it was bad PR but they didn't really understand why it caused such outrage.
Blair prefaced all his apologies this morning with 'I wasn't actually in the hall myself at the time', as though that would have made a difference. If he had been, would he have raised his arms and cried 'I say unto you, turn the other cheek'? Or 'I say unto you, let he who is without sin cast the first stone'? And lo, the bouncers would have hung their heads in shame and a heavenly host appeared in the gallery above Mr Wolfgang's head.

Blair also appeared to be saying that it was unacceptable because of Mr Wolfgang's age rather than because supressing a single, democratic heckle goes against the very values he has pledged to protect against terrorism. And I haven't heard any apology to the younger man who was also manhandled out of the hall simply for defending Mr Wolfgang.
The final insult was to say that Mr Wolfgang could return to the Conference but only on condition that he behaved himself.

It's reasonable to ask how the forced and rough removal of a frail old man from his conference seat fits with Blair's 'Respect' crusade, targeted at the young.
And people might wonder how a single cry of 'Rubbish' compares with the bear garden of the House of Commons at Prime Minister's Questions.

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In Coronation Street, Liz MacDonald has gone to work in Diggory Compton's bakery shop. On Wednesday, Diggory spent a long time staring lecherously at Liz as she bent over the barm cakes and sent her up a ladder on the pretext of putting poppy seeds on a top shelf. Then, wiping the sweat from his brow, he announced "well, me dough's about ready for kneading" and disappeared into the back room.
A cheeky little script from the improbably named Damon Rochefort that conjured up images of traditional seaside postcards on Blackpool promenade.

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Oh dear, something else to worry about. I learn from the pages of the now even worthier and more environmentally-concerned Guardian that if you piss on the bleach that you previously put down the lavatory, toxic chloramine gas is produced.
This is obviously a far greater hazard to men with their forward-facing micturition posture than to the women who usually slosh the Arctic Storm round the bowl with such abandon.
Since I have been pissing on the products of Messrs Domestos in happy ignorance of the dangers for as long as I can remember, it's a miracle that I'm still alive.

But the Guardian article was my Damascene moment - to steal a joke from Peter Kay, it was like St Paul on the road to Domestos.

I've searched in vain for a warning on the bleach bottle that the product is dangerous if it comes into contact with urine. But that omission is understandable given that the product is designed to be poured into lavatories. 'Kills 99% of all known germs plus the male members of the household' isn't going to shift many units.
I am now considering the following options:
1. Flush the toilet before having a slash.
2. Adopt the forward-facing posture of women and drag artists.
3. Buy a gas mask.
4. Stop using bleach and rely on the natural disinfecting properties of golden showers.
5. Stop reading The Guardian.

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Fears that Gordon Brown will be the continuation of Blair by other means were reinforced this week when, in a Today interview, he said to John Humphreys "and I say to you....."
However, Gordon's Scottich accent may make it difficult for Gordon to master Tony's sudden lurches into Estuary English.
But if he wants to try, there was a cracking example to emulate when Tony went on the Today programme this morning. I asume the sudden change of accent was because he was talking about crime on 'sink estates' because he said "If ah'm an old person an' ah'm livin' in fear, I wanna be sure....."
Of course, he actually said 'shoo-er' for 'sure' and that at least shouldn't be a problem for Gordon.

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In a Newsnight profile of Tory leadership favourite David Davis we again got the story of how the schoolboy Davis bravely intervened in the playground to stop a gay boy being bullied and had his nose broken. It's a useful and edifying tale that shows how hard man Davis can still be the flag-bearer for compassionate Conservatism.

There are just two small problems.
The adult Davis has voted against legislation to give greater equality to gay people.
And the sleuths at Newsnight had tracked down one of the playground bullies. He agreed that the incident had occurred but insisted there had never been any violence. If there had been, he said, he would easily have beaten Davis to a pulp.
The moral of this story is that politicians should avoid schoolday reminiscences. Newsnight's researchers and Friends Reunited are a lethal combination.