Quote of the Day

What\’s more, when it came to protecting individual rights and civil liberties, socialist societies shat dead rats.

Jane Haddam

And then all the techie stuff: “The information revolution can give real power and control to individuals…” Heavens to Betsy, a portly Etonian in his forties finally gets his iPod working and he thinks that he\’s Bill Gates.

Giles Coren on David Cameron.

…using George Lucas as your writer instead of Rudyard Kipling is starting in a very deep hole indeed.

The second is very good.

What made Gordon Brown a great Chancellor of the Exchequer is exactly what makes him an awful PM; the man has the charisma of ground carp.

Besides, there\’s something particularly pleasurable about going to MacDonald\’s in France.

My first interview was Jeffrey Archer in 1986 for the Wimbledon News where I started as a reporter. That is also where I met Piers Morgan. Both are criminally insane egomaniacs who really should be on anti-ego-inflammatory medication. But they are great characters and I like them both a lot.

\’Did you know that 54 per cent of all Americans believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago? That\’s 1,000 years after the Sumerians invented glue.\’

On Eliot Spitzer.

Once again, we see that a vehement moralizer is secretly a libertarian, at least in regards to his own rights.

It’s always other people’s freedom that needs to be curtailed.

It\’s true that boys who lack firm parenting and social advantages cause many of the worst problems in our communities, but, generally, if you feed and exercise male children, let them shout "bang", dismantle radios and develop a few hobbies, they\’re fairly simple creatures.

Rowan Pelling.

Imagining the SACP* having a real input into economic policy gives me a bad feeling – like imagining a remake of the movie Basic Instinct, but starring Julie Andrews.

Kelvin Kemm

*South African Communist Party.

Quite fun to watch. Oxford, LSE, Harvard – and he ends up as the highest-paid mime artist in Britain.

The mother of your infant children is a mentally unstable crystal-meth fiend: stumped for the ideal birthday pressie? It would take some doing to lose a child custody dispute to Britney Spears, but I think K-Fed has it in him.

People are confusing an increase in costs that was largely (not completely) anticipated — after all, the plan is supposed to cover more people, and subsidize their coverage — with a cost overrun.

So a not completely anticipated increase in costs is not a cost overrun.

This news brought to you by a winner of the John Bates Clark Gold Medal, awarded once every two years to the best American economist under 40 years of age.

But it is hard not to sympathise with the new bosses\’ surprise at discovering entries in EMI\’s accounts such as £200,000 for fresh fruit and flowers – a well-known industry euphemism for artists\’ partying requirements –

Decca Aitkenhead.

Despite all the craziness of 2007, there were actually a few high points. … Madonna didn\’t make a movie in 2007.

So what have Castro, Ché Guevara and the Cuban revolution achieved? The ruination of their country and the admiration of the BBC.

Norman Lamont.

El Snobbo:

Gordon Brown\’s kecks must be like a Mark Oaten midnight fantasy at present.

Jeff Randall:

Gordon Brown\’s premiership has become the Trabant of British politics: we had to wait 10 years for delivery, then it fell apart after less than six months.

Daniel Moynihan.

The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it\’s so rare.

Many more good ones there at that link.