James Delingpole's Blog, page 69

She's a fox, she can sing, she can draw (-ish): what's not to like about Carla Bruni?

Can you guess who it is? Photo: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy website

When I mentioned  a few months ago that if held at gunpoint and tied up to a bed I really could think of worse fates than being forced to have sex with Carla Bruni, my wife was utterly appalled. "She's not pretty. Her eyes are too close together," my wife said. "Only a man could possibly think Carla Bruni was pretty."

Having seen her new website, I mind the idea of Carla forcing her toned, bronzed, pneumatic yet tender and yielding b...

I have just seen the Conservatives' future. Unfortunately, it's in New Zealand.

So it's just as we thought: the Conservatives are a bunch of timid, Blairite statists who aren't going to drag us out of Europe and are going to spend the next 5 years treading water.

But just imagine, for a moment, a Tory party conference in an alternative universe in which they'd made some of the following commitments:

Massive tax cuts to boost economic growth.Sweeping health care reform – cutting back on bureaucracy, encouraging private health care, improving value in the system.A coalition...

Come off it, Paxo! If you earn a million a year the licence-payer has a right to know.

Last night's Newsnight saw Old Malvernian millionaire interrogator Jeremy Paxman clashing with Old Etonian millionare Mayor of London Boris Johnson. But according to Paul Waugh the most exciting bits of the interview weren't included:

In what insiders described as "fantastic political theatre", Mr Johnson clashed repeatedly with his interviewer over his stance on an EU referendum, on his membership of Oxford University's Bullingdon Club and on David Cameron's public image."

Mr Johnson raised...

David Cameron at Oxford University: the truth

David and Samantha Cameron Photo: Alan Davidson

Cameron: David Cameron at Oxford

David Cameron has told Andrew Marr that he is "desperately embarrassed" by the photo of himself looking imperious and arrogant in his £1,200 tailcoat as a member of Oxford's Bullingdon Club. But he really should get used to it, for the story isn't going to go away. Tomorrow night it crops up again in a 90-minute More4 drama-documentary about Dave Cameron, Boris Johnson, the Buller and that whole lost...

Techno deprivation

Every summer my wife and I conduct an extraordinary social experiment with our kids which, if the authorities got to hear about it, could land us in jail. We take them for a fortnight to a remote house in the Welsh borders, take the fuse out of the plug so they can't watch TV, and force them to entertain themselves using nothing but books, board games and the outdoors.

'The Noughties Kids are going back in time. How will they cope?' you can imagine the voiceover to the accompanying...

Wheel clampers 'being forced out of business'

Was anyone else as upset as I wasn't when I read this headline in today's paper?

Thought not.

David Cameron skippers Morning Cloud, conducts LSO, etc

Is David Cameron  Margaret Thatcher or is he Ted Heath?

This is the only question that really matters about the man who will be our prime minister this time next year. Unfortunately, the front page of today's Guardian already has the answer, under the heading "David Cameron retreats on European referendum."

It says:

"David Cameron is to rule out a referendum on the Lisbon treaty if the measure is ratified by all 27 members of the EU before next year's general election in Britain."

"Amid signs...

A little light Islamist propaganda to liven up your Sunday

I've just been supervising my nine-year old daughter's home work for the week. She attends a Church of England Primary School. Here is the text she was set:

"Abdul left his friend's house. He had had a fun afternoon. He took the route home. He was whistling softly. He scuffed his feet in the dry leaves. He pretended to dribble a football up the pitch. He passed a derelict church."

Is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with the subliminal messages being sent out here?

'Killing parakeets is racist' – and other green lunacies

Parakeets may be a foreign pest which only settled in Britain in 1969 but shooting them just because they're a "nasty alien" is "racist" – a form of "eco-xenophobia." So claims the director of the Environmental Change Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University.

"Is it because I is green?"

Earlier this...

Where have Action Man's gonads gone?

Look, if I were a boy – and you've got to admit, I am still pretty puerile – there's only one place I'd want to send my Action Man right now. And that's Helmand.

Whatever its rights and wrongs, our latest Afghan adventure is the most exciting, testing thing that has happened to our military since at least the Imjin River. And while our chaps and chapesses are there, the very least we owe them is to thrill to their magnificent adventures, their courage, their self-sacrifice and their endurance ...