Yes, indeed, once again I spent countless hours - er, well, a couple this morning, as it happens - scouring the global media in an effort to bring you the very latest and best of news commentary and today I can offer you two corkers from the Telegraph. The first is an example of vintage Matthew Norman who writes an essay with the intriguing title of: If only I’d given Nick Clegg the beating he needed. Here is a taster:
Punishing him would have been a betrayal of principle on the scale of his own
over tuition fees. But I could – and, with hindsight, should – have beaten
Little Clegg senseless that morning. Had I battered the bumptiousness out of
him, it would unquestionably have sent him down a different path, towards a
career in which monstrous self-confidence was not a prerequisite. He would have
become a GP, therapist or fully qualified teacher of the 27 languages he
fluently speaks.
In the great history of missed golden opportunities that must rank fairly high. Read the piece and enjoy! Turning to an altogether more serious problem than the 'Kleggon', the Telegraph also has an excellent column from Charles Moore on the menacing problem of an out-of-control police force. Ever since the Bow Street Runners, coppers have regularly 'fitted up' dodgy geezers inhabiting the less salubrious areas of our great cities. The novels of G. F. Newman portraying the London police of the '60s and '70s confirm that fact although it was clear that as, by and large, they came from the same social class as the villains, they confined their activities to 'banging up' their own kind. It is only fairly recently - the last 25-odd years, perhaps - that they have widened their practices to include the middle-classes, and with the so-called 'Pleb-gate' scandal it is clear that in their arrogance they are now intent on using their power against the government of our country.
Last week we had the extraordinary sight of three middle-rank police officers lying through their teeth to a parliamentary committee. They were followed by three Chief Constables who were not much better. And we have a Commissioner of Police running the Met who is either as thick as a plank (not unlikely!) or a man prepared to back the lying liars under his command right up to the hilt of the dagger they thrust into our democracy. Charles Moore explains it all much more elegantly than me - so go read!
