I missed this earlier in the week (think I must have had my eyes shut or something…)

Guardian Unlimited have finally launched their long awaited collective comment blog, “Comment is Free“:

Welcome to Comment is free, the first collective comment blog by a British newspaper website. It will incorporate all the regular Guardian and Observer main commentators, many blogging for the first time, who will be joined by a host of outside contributors – politicians, academics, writers, scientists, activists and of course existing bloggers to debate, argue and occasionally agree on the issues of the day.

It’s well worth checking out, and it’s certainly been added to my feed reader!

Just when you thought the Daily Mail had hit rock bottom, they’re now insisting on referring persistently to  the parliamentary commissioner for standards as “the Commons sleaze watchdog”.  One really has to feel sorry for Sir Philip Mawer.

Comedian Linda Smith has died from ovarian cancer, aged 48.

Linda was somebody I, along with many others, liked a lot. She was one of that rare breed of comedian that can always make you smile, regardless of what mood you’re in, or however much you don’t want to. I loved listening to her on The News Quiz, Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, Just a Minute, and watching her appearances on the excellent QI, as well has her not infrequent appearances on Question Time, where she always had interesting points to make – as always, deadly serious but delivered in a comic way.

In his tribute, Jeremy Hardy tells how Linda chose not to tell many people about her cancer, not wanting to be seen as ‘that comedian with cancer’, but rather just ‘that great comedian’. And she truly was great.

There are formal obituaries on the BBC website, and also at MediaGuardian.

She will be sadly missed.

Council Tax is rising by a predictable amount – probably as low as it could possibly ever rise by, given that it primarily funds people’s salaries.  But if one more person goes on TV claiming it’s a stealth tax, I think I’ll scream.  It’s by far the most publicised and debated tax we pay.  It’s forever in the media.  It’s about as stealthy as taking your pet elephant round Tesco, having previously taken it to get its hair dyed orange.  It’s not in anyway stealthy.  So to call it a stealth tax is positively ludicrous.

When this video was first released, it was largely assumed, not least because of some of the comments in it about the Leader of the Opposition, that it was intended largely for the eyes and ears of David Cameron. But watching it again, I’m not so sure.

Watch it again, and work with me on this…
[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/tbgb.flv” /]

It seems quite clear to me, now, that this is the advice of the retiring (metaphorically) elder statesman, passing on his vast knowledge and experience to his successor. It’s a public memo from TB to GB, with more than just a hint of “Young upstarts, don’t challenge the natural successor, because you can’t cope in this job” about it. Almost every necessary quality he mentions as necessary for the top job is one that GB’s publically acknowledged to have.

Maybe everyone else noticed this weeks ago. But I didn’t. So there you go.

Update: Minor typo corrected and added to new ‘Video’ category.

MPs have voted to ban smoking in all pubs and clubs in England. This is a tough one for me, because I’m very much on the fence on this issue. But, for the record, I don’t smoke, and I don’t like people smoking around me. That just doesn’t necessarily mean I want it banned.

As a healthcare (apparently) professional, I should be jumping up and down at the prospect of people not smoking in pubs and clubs, and raving about how this legislation will save people’s lives, and reduce the rate of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases. But I have my reservations. Yes, this will undoubtedly stop some casual smokers from smoking, and possibly thereby stop other people who might start as casual smokers from ever starting. It will also protect staff from the effects of passive smoking. Some lives will inevitably be saved.

But what about the (stereotypical) poor household, where dad would wander down to the pub for a pint and a smoke each evening? Is he not now going to smoke more at home, and do more damage to his poor kid?

And what of the heavy smokers, who are those most at risk of disease? This legislation is unlikely to change their habits. And what of the little villiage pubs? Is the local PC really going to Plod round there and slap a fine on them for failing to ban smoking? Especially if PC Plod himself smoke, or the consolidation of police forces means that he’s out of a job and the nearest police station is fifty miles away? Will the problem not increase in these ‘underground’ pubs, where more people are potentially at risk as the pub serves as the hub of the community, and people are in there more often than the trendy wine bar in the city?

On top of all of that, it’s another government dictat, which are inevitably controversial, and shift the balance of power further away from the people who elected the government in the first place. My argument throughout this saga has been that if pubs are brave (like Wetherspoons briefly was), then they’ll ban smoking. If there’s such a demand for non-smoking venues, then their business will increase, and other pubs will be economically forced to follow suit – including the little villiage pub, who would be introducing the change off their own back, and so be more inclined to make the ban stick. This would be a gradual change, which would change the public’s and smokers’ attitudes to smoking in general, and would probably have more far-reaching effects than simply banning smoking in these areas. Smoking would become increasingly socially unacceptable, which is a powerful force in getting people to give up.

So, whilst the ban is clearly a good thing in that it will save lives, I’m still not convinced that it was the best way to tackle the problem. But it’s a way, and it looks like it’s here to stay.

The person US Vice President Dick Cheney shot the other day has now had a heart attack. Which tends to suggest that ‘peppered’ shouldn’t have been the adjective of choice. Perhaps a word with a bit more force behind it – may ‘gunned down’ – might have been more appropriate. Who’s to say?

Anyway, as you’d expect, Jon Stewart’s been covering the incident in some detail. Given that we only get The Daily Show the day after it’s broadcast in the US, here’s what he had to say on the incident:

Stewart: Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Corddry: Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington’s face.

Stewart: But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?

Corddry: Jon, in a post-9/11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak.

Stewart: That’s horrible.

Corddry: Look, the mere fact that we’re even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know “how” we’re hunting them. I’m sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little “covey” of theirs.

Stewart: I’m not sure birds can laugh, Rob.

Corddry: Well, whatever it is they do — coo — they’re cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Fantastic.

Yesterday was a fantastic day for Mr Brown. Tony Blair’s stranded thousands of miles away, so the Crown Prince gets to make one of the most important speeches of the political season, get incredibly controversial legislation throught Parliament comfortably, and then get praised by nearly all the papers this morning. It seems too good to be true; and in politics, if it seems that way, it usually is.

Perhaps I’m just too cynical, but it seems rather suspicious to me that in the week that Mr Brown apparently steps up his campaign to take over as leader, and with relations between the PM and the Chancellor apparently smoothed over, he should get this golden opportunity. Just the other day, Charles Clarke came out with a carefully co-ordinated and calculated statement that the two neighbours were now sharing the Prime Ministerial role, then Mr Brown gets to make a hugely important speech on security which is, in reality, way outside his remit as Chancellor, and now he gets to head up one of the most important (though very clearly winnable) votes of the year so far. And anyway, in the event of the PM’s absence, surely it should be his deputy that steps into the limelight. That’s kinda what he’s there for. Not that tradition and the constitution normally count for much in the Blair world.

It even makes me somewhat suspicious about Mr Blair’s big loss of a few weeks ago. Labour doesn’t lose votes like this. Could it have been a choreographed attempt to show Mr Blair as losing control, in contrast to yesterday’s vote supposed to show that Mr Brown is well in control of the party? Stunts like this would certainly make the transition of power easier, and isn’t a smooth transition what they both want?

Dick Cheney has shot a 78-year-old lawyer whilst out on a hunting trip in Texas. Sky, probably in common with some other organisations of similar reputation, are playing this up by referring to it as “Vice President: Shooting”. No surprises there. But I guess you can’t blame them – Sunday is a pretty slow news day, after all, and they’re probably all quite bored.

In the middle of all of this, though, you really have to feel sorry for Harry Whittington, the man on the receiving end of Mr Cheney’s fire: As the property owner put it,

Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good.

Of course, a half-decent Press Office should really have caught the owner before she was able to say anything on the subject, but that clearly didn’t happen.

Harry’s doing fine now, though, you’ll be glad to know. Which is more than can be said for Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who’s learned nothing from The Beatles and declared himself to be bigger than Jesus. Or something to that effect.

I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone.

Not that he thinks highly of himself at all. Of course, just yesterday, he was comparing himself to Napoleon.

Only Napoleon did more than I have done. But I am definitely taller.

If you lived in Italy, would you really want this guy’s finger on the button?

And back home, Charles Clarke, courtesy of The Observer, has delighted in informing us that the consitutional history of our country has been thown out of the nearest window, as we now have joint Prime Ministers, Messrs Brown and Blair. Don’t they make a lovely couple?

Talk about a weird news day…

You’ll remember Valentine’s 2004.  It was the year that the world’s most famous celebrity couple split, a spokesperson saying that they were to ‘spend some quality time apart’.  But it was widely known that Barbie had dumped Ken – her lover of forty-three years – for Blaine, an Australian ‘boogie surf boarder’ she met on a trip to California.

But now, two years on, he’s back.  Ken has got back up, dusted himself down (with a little help from the Hollywood stylist Phillip Bloch), and the couple are said to be romantically involved once again.  A lot has changed for Ken in the last couple of years – he’s been off on a self-reflection trip around Europe and the far-east, and seems to have matured somewhat, preferring Norah Jones to his pop-filled past, and becoming a bit rougher around the edges, with ripped jeans and unkempt hair.  It’s all in sharp contrast to Blaine’s perfected, obsessive self-styling.

So the romance is back on, after a two-year separation.  But what’s become of Blaine?  Nobody seems to have any comment to make.  It seems this home-wrecker has gone into hiding for now, at least.  Perhaps he just couldn’t compete – after all, most of us would love to look like Barbie and Ken when we’re in our fifties – perhaps he was already starting to age.

Hmm… What am I doing with my life?