The Policy Blender

Shockwaves echoed over the Middle East and the rest of the world this afternoon as it became clear that humus had won the recent Palestinian elections.

Humus is a militant snack item, made from chickpea paste and Kalashnikov. The region’s previous favourite snack item was Falahfel, which more palatable for Westerners and is favoured by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

US President George W Bush said the poll was:

Meanwhile, the Guardian claims that the Serious Fraud Office wants to talk to Galloway about the UN’s fraud-ridden Oil for Food programme.

The government is announcing a new initiative to crack down on benefit fraud.

Cracking down on benefit fraud is admirable – scroungers are a burden on society and hurt the honest poor the most. However, the government’s plans – announced today – do nothing but shift the blame from the incompetent and bloated bureaucracy of the state to our already overworked and over-regulated medical professionals.

Benefit fraud is merely one symptom of our broken and corrupt statist social model. The cause is government bureaucracy masquerading as social concern.

If the government really cared about reforming the NHS so that it could deliver quality service, free at the point of delivery, for everyone, they would drop the charade that all is well with their precious centralised Stalinist model and allow funds to be channelled to patient care rather than for administration and ‘targets’.

The government knows there is a hole in the NHS bucket. They wouldn’t have had to top it up so often if it was not leaking as it is. In fact, the government should be well aware of the size of the problem, since no serious politician will dispute that more funds are now channelled into the NHS than ever before. Yet the only thing the NHS do better than before is hit targets.

Dr Crippen has an example of how today’s announcement will play out for GPs.

Mark Oaten has resigned as LibDem Home Affairs spokesman. His resignation yesterday preceeded News of the World allegations of an affair with a rent boy.

Oaten, who is married with two children, was confronted with the story in advance by the paper.

Sky news reader Martin Popplewell said of the affair yesterday:

"My instant reaction was when I heard about this was that it was someone else, but let's not go there."

The remaining leadership contenders: the unknown Chris Hunhe, the unmarried Simon Hughes and the undead Ming Campbell, must be uneasy this morning as the LibDem meltdown continues...

Update: The spotlight now seems to be turning to Hughes, who campaigned against Peter Tatchell in the 1983 election under the banner of "A Straight Choice"

Nutcase father's rights group Fathers 4 Justice's plan to kidnap Tony Blair's son has been stopped. The group planned to lure 5 year old Leo from the safety of wherever it is that he tends to be, by dressing as comic book heroes from the seventies and standing in high-up places in full public view. No physical harm would have come to young Blair, but as yet, speculation on the psychological damage of being picked up and thrown over the shoulder of a fat middle-aged psychopath dressed as Batman has been limited.

Bizarrely, we haven't said much about LibDem leadership hopeful John Hemming.

This is a particular shame, as the comedy candidate has now decided not to run in the leadership contest anymore anyway.

Insiders are noting that the correct time to withdraw would have been about a year ago - just before he concieved a love child with his researcher and fellow LibDem Birmingham councillor, Emily Cox.

Guido reports that, for the princely sum of around £300,000, the LibDem leader of your choosing can be purchased.

Unlike in the Tories leadership races, and let's face it - they're getting pretty good at them now, the cut off point for joining the LibDems and being able to vote in the forthcoming leadership election is after the candidates are announced. In fact, the deadline for joining the party and still being able to vote for head sandal-wearer is January 26.

It costs as little as £6 to join, and then you too could rest easy, knowing that you'd played your part in allowing Simon Hughes to lead the LibDems into electoral oblivion…

an editorial

Iran has announced, yet again, that it is defying the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN by breaking its nuclear seals.

These clever little Middle Eastern types are obviously trying to replicate the contemptuous manner with which Saddam Hussein ran rings around the UN in the nineties.

Well let's give them a taste of the same medicine that he got.

Seriously, they're playing us for fools and before you know it we'll have some psycho beardie Islamist flinging nukes hither and thither. Let's look at the facts: Iran's political leaders have stated unequivocally that they want Irania to be a nuclear power. Iranistans's president has also stated unequivocally that he wants to "wipe Israel of the map". Alarm bells?

They're sneaky buggers, these Iranis. Not to be trusted, you see. They've even strategically placed their more sensitive nuclear facilities under a couple of hundred feet of concrete. That means that in order to take military action in order to stop them getting the Bomb, we'll be needing to use tactical nukes ourselves. Blighters.

But their sneakiness doesn’t stop there, oh no. They've only gone and put all these sensitive nuclear sites buried under thousands of tons of concrete right next to highly populated cities.

At least the Ruskies played fair and stuck the really sensitive stuff up in the Tundra or in what is now Kazakhstan. These beardie buggers are just taking the piss.

Now I'm not advocating the total annihilation of Iranistan - we can keep that one as a threat for later. What I'm saying is we should give 'em a dose of corporal rather than capital punishment. The cane never did me any harm. Bahhh, mmm, grrr. Made me the man I am.

Let's negotiate with these chaps in a language they understand - death, fear and destruction. Remember, they're Persians, so you need to be firm and keep an eye on them. Cheerio.

Not politics, but certainly news. This story has to be the second weirdest one of the day (after this - which is particularly dark).

Apparently a student in Oxford referred to a police horse as homosexual, and was taken to court for his offensive remarks - "Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?". Police claimed passers-by might have been offended by his attitude towards homosexuality in horses.