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.