My favourite swivel-eyed looney newspaper, The Daily Mail, has an outraged story on its front page. It's all to do with beating children. A rather ineffective amendment was passed yesterday by the House of Lords. This will make it illegal to cause "actual bodily harm" to children. To the mind of the Daily Mail, this is an outrage. "Caring parents" (right...) will be prosecuted, they claim. Note that common assault will still be legal against kids, it's just actual bodily harm that will be illegal. This still leaves kids with significantly lesser rights than adults, but that isn't good enough for the Mail. They want the right to cause actual bodily harm to children.

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Tony Blair, our beloved leader, has said, sadly, that Weapons of Mass Destruction might never be found in Iraq. This, of course, makes him look stupid. Not just stupid because his whole case for war was based around these weapons, but stupid also because he is the only remaining person in Britain who actually still believes that Iraq had WMDs in the last few years. Tony Blair won't admit it, though. He claims that the weapons could have been "hidden, removed or destroyed". Right... So, the Iraqi military, who couldn't put up even a ghost of a defence against the invasion had time to hide or destroy vast stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons? All in a few days? Even though they were being attacked? These guys must be good. Maybe we should employ them to get rid of WMDs in other parts of the world.

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The Democrats in America seem to have managed to select the single most useless candidate for the President they could possibly have managed. Despite a disastrous economy, despite public opinion sliding against the Iraq war, despite the fact that the public no longer trusts Bush to deal with terrorism, despite the success of anti-Bush campaigns like Michael Moore's documentary, Kerry still can't get a convincing lead. This guy is even more useless than Al Gore was. He really has no hope of winning the election. At best, he can hope that Bush loses the election and he comes in first as a result. But I don't think the Democrats really believe he will. That's why they've been trying so hard to set up Nader as an excuse before they even get to the election. Give me a break. Just about anyone could beat Bush right now, if they tried, so it's about time Kerry just tried. Here's a handy hint: oppose the guy you want to beat. Oppose him totally and completely. Put forward policies that are different from his, not just slightly smoothed out ones. Jeez. Do I have to do everything around here?