Alexander's blog

The three Pussy Rioters have been sentenced to two years each, for hooliganism and blasphemy.

More than a hundred pictures of an orgy involving three men and two women have spread like a brushfire over the Chinese Internet.

What added piquancy to the sordid affair was that the men were the top Party bosses of Lujiang county in Anhui Province. In other words, depicted in flagrante delicto were three chaps who had dictatorial powers over 1,200,000 people.

In a Daily Mail extract from his new book, Daniel Hannan, MEP, makes a case against the EU. Not yet having read the whole book, I don’t know every angle of attack Mr Hannan chooses, though I suspect he doesn’t limit himself to just one or two.

The Paralympics is upon us, as if to prove that the heights of vulgarity scaled by the Olympics aren’t the highest peaks possible.

This sick spectacle is supposed to testify to the triumph of the unconquerable spirit over somewhat abbreviated flesh. In reality it testifies to something completely different.

You can argue against a man’s opinions, judgments, logic, conclusions and you can even question his facts. But it’s no point arguing against his secular faith – this is something that’s held on the other side of reason.

The closing ceremony is upon us, and we can heave a sigh of relief. At last, we’ll stop being offended by alternately vulgar and deranged displays, including so many by those who normally don’t show symptoms of madness.

The other day I accused a pundit of confusing ‘patriotism with chauvinism, either of them with nationalism and all of them with tribalism’. This calls for elucidation, as nuances matter.

Advocates of political correctness justify this abomination by its supposedly charitable motives. We’re supposed to mangle English because otherwise we run the risk of offending a member of one ‘community’ or another.

Isn’t coalition politics fun? Nick is angry that those few genuine Tories still remaining in the Commons haven’t let him wreck the Lords more than it’s wrecked already. That was tat, and now comes Nick’s tit: he’ll whip his party into scuppering the Tory gerrymandering bill.

When the French lose at anything, be it sports or war, it’s never because their opponent was better. It’s because they’ve been betrayed – nous sommes trahis is how they put it, in the Gallic equivalent to our ‘we wus robbed’.