Max Clifford knows where the bodies are buried

One wonders how many celebs have confided in Max Clifford about their goings-on.

He seems to have given more than one interview in recent weeks on the subject of anxious celebs.

And then he’s being questioned himself.

In the wake of Stuart Hall and DLT you wonder who will be next.

Who else was big in TV and radio in the 1970s and 1980s?

Could be the whole lot of them.

Autumn Budget Statement: what it means for you

London, December 1876.

From our parliamentary reporter

Sir Gideon Osborne today revealed his latest financial plans to a packed House of Commons.

‘These workshy paupers need to take their medicine,’ he said – to widespread applause from the government benches.

‘For too long, the unworthy poor have been too eager to shirk their responsibilities.

‘All they do is moan on about rickets, drink Porter, grub about on the banks of the Thames looking for scraps of coal and get disemboweled by serial killers.

‘Frankly, it’s just not good enough.’

Sir Gideon went on to say: ‘When I was at Eton I didn’t get to be a member of Pop by hiding in the toilets and playing with my Old Chap. I knuckled down, got myself down to double Greek and learned how to play the cover drive – even when De Lancy (Major) was coming in off his full run-up.

There were general murmurs of agreement at this point and several members nodded approvingly at the mention of Bernard De Lancy (Sussex and England) and showed off scars gained while playing cricket against him at Eton.

Warming to his theme Sir Gideon added: ‘Let’s stop beating about the bush. The poor smell, they’re covered in pus-filled sores, their teeth are revolting and they couldn’t tell Theseus from Perseus in a million years.’

To rapturous applause he climaxed: ‘Of course, though, we’re all in this together.’

Duchess Kate is pregnant. Rejoice, people of Britain

So Princess Katie is pregnant.

The tabloid press (and the Daily Telegraph) has its lead story and all is well with the world.

Or not.

While congratulations are no doubt in order on a personal basis, should we really care about Katie being up the royal duff?

No. Absolutely not. This isn’t 1335. If the monarch to be doesn't have an heir it isn't going to throw the nation into civil war. And this grovelling fixation with the royals is, frankly, grotesque.

Britain needs to start looking forward a bit more. The last thing it needs is to have another class-system-confirming obsession with Princess Katie’s morning vomiting.

Let's have a bit more focusing on schools, opportunities and competing in the modern world and a bit less medieval claptrap about the activities of the royal pizzle.

David Cameron fed up by Qatada release

Prime Minister David Cameron says he is ‘completely fed up’ about the release on bail of Abu Qatada after the Muslim cleric won his deportation appeal, reports the BBC.

Abu Qatada was freed from prison after a UK court ruled he might not get a fair trial if deported to Jordan to face bomb plot charges.

Mr Cameron said ministers had ‘moved heaven and earth’ to try to deport him.

He said: ‘I am completely fed up with the fact this man is still at large in our country, he has no right to be there, we believe he’s a threat to our country.

‘It’s extremely frustrating and I share the British people's frustration at the situation we find ourselves in.’

He said that, as well an appeal, the government would ‘do everything we can to make sure that we do have the power to expel and deport people from our country who have no right to be there and mean us harm’.

Judges say there is a real risk that the preacher's retrial in Jordan would be unfair because it would include incriminating statements made by men who were tortured by the secret police.

As the toothless judiciary shows its spinelessness, it comes as no surprise to know Qatada’s release will come at a price tag of around £100,000 per week. That’ll be picked up by the good old taxpayer, of course.

Andrew Strauss could be Tory candidate for Corby

Former England cricket captain Andrew Strauss has barely pulled off his pads for the last time and speculation is flying around concerning him becoming the Tory candidate for Corby.

A report on the Northampton Chronicle's website suggests the former England skipper could be the man to fill Louise Mensch’s shoes (metaphorically, clearly) at the upcoming by-election in the constituency.

The newspaper reports that Paul Staines, posting under his Guido Fawkes pseudonym on his OrderOrder blog, suggested: ‘Many have been wondering why England captain Andrew Strauss has quit international cricket. While it’s probably has more to do with his bad couple of years at the crease and major dramas in the dressing room, it’s well known that Andrew is a Tory and rumoured that he has an interest in moving into politics. He raised £25,000 for the party at a 2011 fund-raiser.'

Corby borough councillor Rob McKellar told the Chronicle: ‘I couldn’t rule out voting for Andrew Strauss as a Conservative candidate if the rumours were to be true. I would like our next MP to be somebody who lives in the constituency and who has Corby and East Northamptonshire at heart.

‘But that is not to say a high-profile candidate couldn’t achieve this, while raising the profile of the area at the same time.’

China forces abortion of seven-month-old baby

More evidence of what a ghastly dictatorship China is comes from today’s Daily Mail newspaper in the UK.

The Mail examines the case of Feng Jianmei, who was forceably injected with a chemical to induce the abortion of her seven-month-old child.

This sounds like the sort of thing the Nazis got up to. The reason Feng was thus brutalized was because she already had a child.

Local birth-control authorities ordered her to pay a fine of £4,000 as a punishment for becoming pregnant again.

She didn't have the money, she said, so a team from the local family planning authority in Shannxi province came to collect her from her home and take her to hospital for the forced abortion.

Recounting the horror, Feng said she told the family planning department she could not pay the fine because her mother-in-law needed money for cancer treatment.

At the hospital she was restrained and given an injection that would be lethal to the foetus. None of her family was allowed to be present during the traumatic time, she said.

Feng said that her father-in-law heard about her being taken away but when he rushed to the hospital he was prevented from entering the obstetrics ward.

Local media said it was most likely that Feng had been injected with a chemical commonly known as Lifannuo – a powerful bactericide used in the late 1980s and early 1990s when China’s one-child policy was strongly pursued by authorities.

Human rights in China? Not likely.

Chloe Green defends ultra-rich lifestyle

Chloe Green, daughter of multi-millionaire Topshop boss Sir Philip Green has been accused by The Daily Mail of being out of touch with reality. 

Just a little bit smug, perhaps?

As evidence, The Mail points to a recent Elle magazine interview in which 21-year-old Ms Green attempts to defend her privileged lifestyle. 

Talking ahead of the launch of her forthcoming shoe range, CJG – wonder how she got that gig? – she reveals that, contrary to popular opinion, she doesn’t insist on a private jet when she travels. 

In fact, she is perfectly happy to fly BA, she adds. Though not, one suspects, at the back of the bus. 

‘At no point in my life have I ever taken anything for granted,’ she told Elle. ‘I'm not saying to my dad, “Because we have a jet can I borrow it and fly down to France?”. If my dad says, “Would you like the plane?” then I'll say, “Sure, if you don't mind.” But if not, BA is fine. 

Speaking of the Belgravia flat her father bought her, she says: ‘I spent a year or two finding something that I liked and then said to my dad, “I think this is a great flat, a great investment, whether I live there or not. Let's buy something”. That's how the conversation went, it wasn’t like I went, “please buy this for me”.’ 

The Mail also points out Ms Green has a housekeeper who comes in to hoover the flat three times a week, but the rest of the time she is ‘very independent’ and even fills up her own car.

The comments of Mail readers suggest they’re not convinced. ‘She looks like a horse,’ suggests one.
  

Alex Salmond, Tom Harris and Downfall

I have to confess I feel ever so slightly sorry for Tom Harris, the Labour MP, who has resigned from his post as the Labour Party’s new media adviser.

Harris posted a Downfall-spoof on YouTube, depicting the Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond as Hitler.

It appears to have caused a bit of a stir, and not only among the legendarily humorless Scots. Media outlets everywhere are currently wheeling out the big guns (or not) to tell us all why this is so inappropriate.

Well, yes and no. I personally thought Harris’ video was quite amusing and probably made a fair point about Salmond. Though it wasn't as funny as the one with Gordon Brown as Hitler...

TV's experts seem keen to go further than just slapping Harris for Salmond baiting, suggesting that making jokes about Hitler is in some way mocking the Holocaust.

I wonder what they make of The Great Dictator, then?

Charlie Chaplin's film mocked Hitler and dictators generally, to an extent in the same way that the Downfall clips do.

Chaplin made the Nazis look ridiculous, as far as he could defusing the aggression of all the goostepping, saluting and bullying and making it appear deranged.

Those getting irate about those Downfall clips should bear that in mind.

Iranian scientist killed in Tehran 'by Mossad'

Dangerous job being an Iranian nuclear scientist these days.

Israel and the US appear to have decided that Iran having nuclear weapons would be really bad news (and they've probably got a point).

Mossad has allegedly recruited Iranian dissidents to help carry out sabotage and assassination activities and it may have been one of them who clamped the magnetic bomb to Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car.

The bomb duly exploded killing Mostafa and his driver, Mustafa.

The car, the BBC reports, was barely damaged, suffering just slight scratches to the paintwork, a dented door and broken glass.

The Iranians are blaming Mossad and the CIA for the attack (and they've probably got a point).

Little Chef to close 70 restaurants

Could this be the end of the road for Little Chef?

Today I discover, from The Sun, as it happens, that the iconic restaurant chain is to close 70 of its restaurants and cut around 600 staff.

If that happens it will leave 91 restaurants and counting (down, for sure).

So much for Heston Blumenthal and the Blue Sky Thinking. Though I remember Heston looking pretty horror-struck about various aspects of the business then.

And farewell to those 1970s/80s ads where a rather sinister Little Chef would loom out at passers by offering them an Early Starter or Steak Platter.

In the end Little Chef is one of those brands, in my humble opinion, that feels as though its time has passed. There’s a certain whiff of doom about it. Over-priced, a bit tawdry, stuck in a rut, unsure of who its market is... a bit (with the exception of the price bit) like Woolworths used to be before its demise.

Is Diane Abbott racist?

Is Diane Abbott racist? Is the whole business of her twittering a storm in a teacup? Should we be bothered anyway?

One thing is for sure. Had a politician tweeted about the supposed failings of 'black people' they wouldn't half be in hot water.

More than that, though, Abbott's tweet shows, in my humble opinion, how small minded and foolish she is. To be banging on about, as she says she was, the failings of colonialism and how the colonial powers divided and ruled... How relevant is that to the situation we face in the UK today? Not very, I suggest.

Sure, colonialism wasn't a good thing. Then again, what has followed it in countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, DRC, Central African Republic, Angola, etc, etc hasn't been exactly brilliant.

It probably doesn't matter too much if it's the colonial askaris who come looking for you with their shiny bayonets or your erstwhile neighbours hunting you down with their machetes.

And as for the slave trade, anyone who thinks that was purely a white on black crime should read a history book or two. Or just google the words 'Ashanti Empire' and see what they find.

At a time when it would be helpful if we were all in something together - ie rescuing the UK from its plight – it is unhelpful for Ms Abbott to be blathering on with the language of black and white.

To see her backed by the increasingly odd Darcus Howe on Newsnight was just plain depressing. His language seemed to be of a different era - trying to convince an ever-more colour-blind country that we should really be at each others' throats.

It seemed to me to be bizarre and regressive. Like Ms Abbott in a way.