An offensive image

Here's an image that many Christians find offensive. It depicts the late Graham Chapman playing Brian, a spoof on our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian. It is part of a long tradition of religious satire ranging from the doddery vicar in Dad's Army to Father Ted and the Vicar of Dibley. Christians, it seems, have always been considered fair game when it comes to humour.

Sadly, Chapman is now dead. I could go out on the streets waving a placard and calling for the other perpetrators of this image - Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and John Cleese - to be executed. But I'm not going to, because I happen to believe that the ability to poke fun at religion - or anything else - is an essential democratic freedom. And because even Christians need to be able to laugh at themselves.

February 7 update: Andrew Milloy has kindly sent me some more images which you would presumably never see in Arab newspapers. To view them, click here.

Blair - Brown handover: the latest

I reckon this story by Paddy Hennessy in yesterday's Sunday Tel predicting a handover by "next summer" is about right, though my money would still be on May 2007 - technically next spring if we're being pedantic.

Hennessy also reckons Blair will sack Hilary Armstrong and try to bring back Stephen Byers in the reshuffle, both of which were also predicted in my Column published the previous day and Podcast available from today.

Other reshuffle tips I've heard: Hilary Benn to go to the Home Office and Charles Clarke to Leader of the House; David Miliband Education Secretary with Ruth Kelly moving to International Development, and Prescott man Dick Caborn to become Chief Whip - possibly as a pay-off for the DPM's rescue act on school reform.

There's also speculation about Margaret Beckett but she will not leave the Cabinet unless it's of her own volition. Blair rates her extremely highly as one of his safest pairs of hands and she is also extremely close to Brown. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that she would want to stay around for the handover.

Hilary's Finest Hour

Those of us who think Hilary Armstrong has outlived her usefulness may like to recall this famous encounter between New Labour's Chief Whip and the rebel MP Paul Marsden at the height of the controversy over the war in Afghanistan, in which La Armstrong (1) denies the existence of spin doctors, (2) claims that war is not a matter of conscience, and (3) compares opponents of the war to appeasers of Adolf Hitler.

Here's the full transcript in all its glory.

Armstrong: "Look, Paul, those that aren't with us are against us."

Marsden: "You won't even give us a free vote on whether we go to war - it is a matter of conscience."

Armstrong: "War is not a matter of conscience. Abortion and embryo research are matters of conscience, but not wars."

Marsden: "Are you seriously saying blowing people up and killing people is not a moral issue?"

Armstrong: "It is government policy that we are at war. You astound me. We can't have a trusting relationship if you keep talking to the media without permission. You must stop using the media."

Marsden: "That's a bit rich coming from people like you and Downing Street when Stephen Byers' spin doctor Jo Moore says September 11 is a good day to bury bad news."

Armstrong: "We don't have spin doctors in Number 10 - or anywhere else."

Marsden: "You aren't seriously telling me that you don't have spin doctors. You are losing it, Hilary."

Armstrong: "You wait until I really do lose it. I am not going to have a dialogue with you about that. It was people like you who appeased Hitler in 1938."

Marsden: "That's the official line now is it? We are all appeasers if we don't agree with everything you say?"

Huhne right to reject Campbell coronation

What are we to make of the story in today's Times that Chris Huhne welched on a deal not to stand against Sir Menzies Campbell in the Lib Dem leadership contest?

I've no idea whether it's true, though I note that the author is not the impeccably well-informed journalist (I won't embarrass him by using his name) who usually covers Lib Dem matters for the Thunderer...

But whether or not there was such a deal, I think in retrospect it is clear that Chris Huhne made the right decision in asking Sir Menzies to release him from it.

The implosion of Mark Oaten's campaign, and the subsequent revelations about Simon Hughes, have left Huhne as the only credible alternative and a Campbell coronation would only have served the interests of Nick Clegg and Co, not the interests of the party.

As Huhne himself has said, appointing a "caretaker" leader who would stand down after the next election would effectively be like appointing "the chairman of an ongoing leadership campaign among the younger candidates."

The Lib Dems deserve a bit better than that, in my view.

Pukka choice!

One or two fellow bloggers seem to be a trifle narked about Jamie Oliver scooping a Channel 4 politics award for being the "most inspirational political figure."

To make matters worse, the great David Cameron - one of the Top 100 sexiest men in the world apparently - was pushed down into fifth place, behind Oliver, Shami Chakrabarti, George Galloway and Bob Geldof.

I can't quite understand what the fuss is about. What Jamie Oliver did was to succeed in taking an important but moreorless forgotten area of policy - namely what our children were being fed in schools - highlighting its inadequacy, and actually bringing about a change.

The fact that it is people like Oliver, Chakrabati and Geldof, operating outside of "mainstream" politics, who are changing hearts and minds over issues of vital concern to ordinary people is not a sign of "dumbing down," more an indication that "mainstream" politics is completely failing to address them.

Is Hilary Armstrong the worst Chief Whip ever?

I can't claim the credit for this question. The great Peter Oborne originally posed it in his Spectator column back in 2002 before answering in the affirmative. Unfortunately I can't include a link as the Spectator archive doesn't appear to go back that far....

But Oborne was right of course. Armstrong was a competent enough local government minister from 1997-2001 and deserved a promotion, but this was always going to be the wrong job for her. Despite her name, the ability to strong-arm recalcitrant Labour MPs into backing the Government is not part of her political armoury.

Armstrong has survived for nearly five years in the Whip's Office for the simple reason that, with a majority of 161, it just wasn't a very important job, as reflected in the fact that after her appointment, she was forced to give up the old Chief Whip's quarters at 12 Downing St to make way for Alastair Campbell.

Now, however, with Labour's majority cut to 66, and the Government suffering its two unexpected defeats on the religious hatred legislation, Armstrong has suddenly found herself in the firing line.

Tony Blair's loyalty to Armstrong extends beyond keeping her in a job for which she is so obviously unsuited. He also employs her husband, Professor Paul Corrigan, as his health adviser at Number 10, to the consternation of the health unions who know Corrigan to be a privatisation freak.

Back in 2001, when he was an adviser to Armstrong's North-East chum Alan Milburn at the Department of Health, it was revealed he was also working as a lobbyist for dozens of firms which have won lucrative NHS contracts, a story which deserves a much more prominent place in the annals of Labour sleaze.

Feb 2 Update.Oborne has returned to the attack in today's Daily Mail. Still no link sadly as he doesn't appear to be one of the Mail's featured online columnists (shame!) but here's a taste of what he had to say.

"Hilary Amstrong is just a harmless drudge. She commands as much mystique as a wet blanket and inspires as much fear as a tabby cat." Miaow!