Please deselect this man now

“A Labour MP has claimed dyslexia is a myth invented by education chiefs to cover up poor teaching methods.

Backbencher Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley, describes the condition as a “cruel fiction” that should be consigned to the “dustbin of history”. (The full Beeb report)”

Never mind that the condition was first identified over 100 years ago. Never mind all the verifiable scientific research that has been done since. Never mind that it pops up all over the globe. Why let facts spoil a good dose of prejudice?

And the amazing thing is – this guy isn’t even a Conservative.

Prat.

Beenip and Sergeant

My responses to two items of recent news:

1. Clearly John Sergeant should be the next Doctor Who. Saturday evenings reclaimed – problem solved.

2. The BNP membership list … oh dear. One of the weaknesses of the McCain/Palin ticket was that it could potentially put the world’s most powerful nuclear arsenal into the hands of a woman who couldn’t protect her Yahoo email account. Similar thoughts come to mind here. They didn’t even have the decency to leave it on a bus, like Labour do with their sensitive information.

Without going into detail I’ll admit I have seen a copy (hint: don’t use Google, try p2p). What makes it art isn’t so much the names as the margin notes. “Owns 13th & 14th century suit of armour. Can do jousting at rallies.” “Lives mostly in Spain so opts for overseas membership rate” (yay, clinging to your principles FTW!) And apparently someone was suspended for having “an inappropriate tattoo”. Black Power? Luv U Mum? The mind boggles.

A distressing number – i.e. any number greater than 0 – live in Abingdon, including one in Alexander Close, which I had always thought was the heartland of moral middleclass respectability, not to mention a Christian ghetto. (Of the right kind of Christian, not like the Revd Robert West of the Apostolic Church in Holbeach, Lincolnshire.) So, if you live in Alexander Close and your skin is of anything less than snow white perfection, be sure to greet your neighbours with an enormous hug. If you can ham up a fake Jamaican or Indian accent, that would be even better.

The Register kindly provides a link to a nationalist blog where you can entertain yourself reading the howls of BNP outrage. (And doubtless there are plenty more like it.) The image that comes to mind is of cockroaches scurrying for cover when the light goes on.

Disproving the old adage that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, Christian Voice alsoattacks the BNP for being, amongst other things, racist, white supremacist, paganist, volkist, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and … um … evolutionist. All quite clearly agendas with equal space on Satan’s to-do list. The very next sentence on their site reads “Angry, chippy and defensive are words which characterise a website lacking in Christian humanity”; they probably mean the BNP but you can’t be certain.