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19 January 2007

CBB – you just can’t get away from it

Celebrity Big Brother seems have taken over the blogosphere

By Owen Walker

As with the physical world, the blogosphere was alive with the sound of racist Celebrity Big Brother comments this week. Sunny on Pickled Politics wrote: “I believe such examples of bullying (by Jade Goody) and subtle racism (by the other two) should be exposed and aired so people can see that even in 2007 such ignorant attitudes exist and should be condemned.”

The UK Daily Pundit queried why, with Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque exposing extremist Islamic preachers operating in London, so much debate in parliament centred on “Two slappers and a Scouser.”

While Tom Harris MP cut through the debate by offering: “It isn’t about race or bullying at all – it’s about ratings.”

The Daily Mail’s Benedict Brogan, who is accompanying Gordon Brown on his trip to India, gave an insight into the Chancellor’s view of CBB: “In private the Chancellor leaves little doubt that he doesn’t think much of BB, which he’s watched over the past few days. The voyeuristic thrill can’t make up for the glaring deficiencies of the English education system. He prefers the aspirational approach of the X-factor.”

In the same week the Royal Mint launched a two pound coin to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the Union between England and Scotland, political bloggers were putting in their two pence worth over its future.

The Campaign for and English Parliament and Richard Bailey saw it as a good time for restricting Scottish and Welsh MPs to only vote on Scottish and Welsh issues. While A Conservative’s blog described it as: “The anniversary for a couple about to divorce.”

Northern Ireland and Wales Secretary Peter Hain, whose recent interview in the New Statesman heavily criticised the Bush administration, has taken a battering this week.

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The Daily’s review: “It just smacks a little of cynical opportunism, as he attempts to position himself as an anti-war critic inside the cabinet. The gap between the rhetoric and reality of Hain’s politics is increasingly marked.” While, Paul Linford submitted a post entitled ‘Hain rediscovers his balls. A pity he mislaid them in 2003’. Speculation abounds as to whether Hains’ new found voice of protest is due to his interest in the party deputy leadership.

Last week we reported Hilary Benn was launching his deputy leadership campaign online and this week saw one of his running-buddies doing the same. Harriet Harman can count on the vote of Cardiff North MP Julie Morgan.

In her first entry, Harman asks why men sleep with prostitutes (or as Labour Watch terms it: “The Solicitor General has chosen to kick off on the topic of soliciting”). Kerron Cross helps her out: “It’s because those men want sex.” Of course I should point out that Harman ceased to be solicitor general in 2005 becoming a minister in the Constitutional Affairs department.

Finally, David Davies tells of an amusing story of when a hotel in mid-Wales double-booked a Conservative conference with a biker gang get-together: “I am told that this led to some unlikely scenes in the bar in the early hours with leather clad bikers and besuited Conservative activists putting the world to rights over a few ales.”

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