Avoiding the "soggy middle ground"

“We already know that to recapture the....seats that will make up a Labour majority, we have to become again the party that represents the hopes and aspirations of our traditional supporters. That does not require us to abandon our ideals or reject our socialist philosophy. Indeed, if we are to become again a party of power rather than a party of protest we need to say more, not less, about both our idealism and our ideology. We cannot win as working-class Conservatives or shop-floor Liberals. Nor would we deserve to win if we abandoned our historic duty to evangelize for a more equal society. It is our belief that “socialism is about equality” which distinguishes us from the grim authoritarians of the far left and the social ameliorators of the soggy middle ground. It is that hopeful, generous, confident philosophy around which we have to build popular support.”

(Roy Hattersley, Labour's Choices, Fabian Society 1983)

"...as much as you are reasonably able."

You may or may not have heard - it's been very much in the news here in Derby, but then that's not really surprising - but the last remaining train-manufacturing works in the UK looks to be in genuine danger of closing, with it bringing to an end almost two centuries of industrial heritage and tradition.

Be careful where you get your news from...

Credit where due (though it's one of the rare occasions that they've been anywhere near the truth) - Yahoo* reported this one pretty quickly. The story appeared on their homepage while the Sun's website was still compromised, as I found out when I went to have a butcher's and found the day's "headline":

Reviewed - Samuel Adams Boston Lager

One of the many benefits of occasionally shopping at the continental discount supermarkets - yer Aldis, Lidls and the like - is their frequent themed promotions, where they get in a load of product based (sometimes tenuously) around a theme, load it into racks in the centre aisle and price it to sell. Doesn't always quite hit the mark (witness the time my nearest, very inner-city Lidl store tried in vain for months to shift a load of horse tack and garishly-hued jodhpurs following an optimistic - though horrifically misguided - equestrian-themed promotion), but when it's good, it's really good. 

Sorry for what?

Can't pretend that it wasn't with a wry grin and a touch of relish that I read Murdoch's personally-signed apology yesterday (in full here if you're interested, complete with a touching header; "We are sorry" in a carefully selected, >72-point serif typeface in order to get across just how deeply, deeply sorry the whole News International group is about the whole thing) - in parts it sounds like a cross between the Penitence Prayer and the intro to AA's Twelve Steps, and whether released at the behest of an expensive PR-advisor or not, it's not the kind of press release Uncle Rupe's accustomed to putting out:

...because that's all it would take.

Four minutes for the missiles to come screaming over the horizon to their targets, detonate and blow the whole lot, the entirety of a sorry nadir of human civilisation to ash.