Tonight:
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Since the sad departure of Neil and Christine Hamilton from public life we have suffered as a nation from the lack of a comic political double-act. So, in these gloomy times, we must be grateful that the MPs' expenses scandal has at last brought us promising successors to that golden couple: welcome to the Richard and Jacqui show.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is not, in herself, a barrel of laughs. She has distinguished herself during her time in office principally by bludgeoning the House of Commons into passing a Bill allowing 42 days' detention without trial -which happily, after the Bill's rejection by rebellious Lords, brought humiliation on the Government. Her husband, Richard Timney, however, makes up for her deficiencies as an entertainer. He sports an amusing 1970s-style Noel Edmonds beard 'n' moustache combo and the pornographic films he watches in the long, lonely hours when his lovely wife is in Westminster get charged to the taxpayer.
Until this latest development, the MPs' expenses claim row was going rather stale. We had been subjected to weeks of photographs of dismal-looking suburban villas for which MPs were said to be wrongly claiming expenses. My main feeling was of disappointment at the modesty of our politicians' ambitions. In a country with a sense of style, a scandal involving politicians' property would have involved at least a couple of medieval castles and luxury penthouses.
But the revelations about Mr Timney's viewing habits breathed new life into the story, and brought me genuine pleasure. I laughed out loud reading the news. Here was the woman who had launched a sanctimonious attack on the sex industry which threatened kerb-crawlers with prosecution for a first offence, claiming (for it was she who signed the form) money from the voters for her husband to watch smutty movies.
Politicians who set off on moral crusades always fall on their faces. Every time a government launches a campaign against pornography or prostitution, or in favour of family values or back to basics or some such phrase ennobling social illiberalism, something like this happens. A minister, a husband or a boyfriend is caught out - having an affair, picking young men up in the park or watching Danish Dental Nurses Have Fun on the public purse.
There's a good reason for that. It's called human nature. Plenty of people like watching pornography. Some like visiting prostitutes. Others like having sex with complete strangers in peculiar places. Some of those people are likely to be ministers, or married to them.
I don't myself pass the time in these ways: I prefer having sex with people to whom I have been introduced socially, I would rather not pay for it and the films I enjoy tend to involve plots and clothes. But, since none of these frowned-on activities does anybody any harm, I have no desire to stop other people indulging in them.
That is one reason why governments should not try to legislate on these matters. The other reason is that, whenever they do, they get into trouble. The Richard and Jacqui show may be great fun for the rest of us, but I promise you that Gordon Brown isn't laughing.
Madge's motives don't matter
The sight of a fashionable white person going to a poor country, donating lots of money to an orphanage and coming away with a small black child is a troubling one: it looks, inevitably, as though the child has been bought as an accessory. But the question of the fashionable person's motivation is irrelevant. The only important issue is what impact adoption will have on the child's life-chances. So I suggest that anybody inclined to snipe at Madonna, who has already adopted a boy from Malawi and now wants a girl, should ask themselves whether they would rather be brought up by her or in a Malawian orphanage, and temper their criticism accordingly.
Barbecued granny isn't green
The clash of cultures causes many of the dilemmas of modern life and the more diverse society is, the more often these difficulties arise. The High Court is shortly to pass judgment on a tricky illustration of this — a case brought by one Davender Ghai, who wants to carry out the open-air cremations that Hinduism requires in order for the soul to free itself from the body. It's a tough call — whether your right to dispatch your relatives as you wish overrides your neighbour's right to live free of the smell of barbecued granny. I suggest we decide the matter on environmental grounds: granny's carbon footprint is bound to be much smaller if she's pushing up daisies than if she's burning up oxygen.
Reader views (10)
Yes you are right NAA, London..it is much better to leave children in institutions for years and years rather than give them the slimmest of hopes of happiness.
- Phil Johnson, Fareham Hants, 01/04/2009 14:42
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So she will be a single mother of four children, fathered by four different men, the younger two by immmaculate conception! Oh bless! She is Madonna! Where are the scriptwriters from the Jerry Springer Show?
Of course it is obscene that she is paying to pick up another black child, as she would a handbag - latest portrayal of her twisted penchant for publicity. I blame the Malawi authorities for allowing her to get away with it. She would not tick many boxes if it were Social Services in the western world!
- N.A.A., London, 31/03/2009 23:51
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why cant harrods stock orphans for rich people, its a drag going to africa - flys and creepy crawlys
- Peter Woods, romford uk, 31/03/2009 21:17
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In the companies I have worked, any senior person in Ms Smith's situation would have been sacked, not permitted to resign, for setting a bad moral example for people working undr her, if not for fiddling her expenses. Sadly I am not surprised, but equally sadly deeply disappointed, that both Ms Smith and Mr Brown are shameless.
- Nat, New Malden, 31/03/2009 18:00
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These people are shameless! I haven't seen such blatant disregard for the taxpayer since I gave up managing my banana plantation. We should give our leaders military uniforms and medals and black Mercedes - it would be more appropriate to the way they run our country.
- John Problem, Hackney Wick, London, UK, 31/03/2009 16:43
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Ms Smith is a patsy for Brown and Straw to push through Terror legislation sometimes to look tough and sometimes to sneak it through. To win favour with the police chiefs but to pick on her over the embarrassing case of her husband mistakingly then withdrawing a £10 claim for a couple of videos is ridiculous, saying that her data being released is comparable to saying the police pass to doctors etc, criminals records of patients in relation to there current injuries as they maybe comparable (a knife injury ETC) is just having a pop at Ms Smith for the sake of it
- Jack P Reid, london england, 31/03/2009 14:54
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Apologies seem to be all the range, but why did Emma feel the need to head her otherwise enjoyable article "Sorry, Jacquie..." Definitely no need to say sorry here. Jacquie, your time is up!
- Pam, East Kent UK, 31/03/2009 14:48
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One mistake. The carbon footprint of a cremation in a gas-fired municipal crematorium is higher than that of a traditional Hindu wood-fired one. (Sustainable wood is a green fuel, the CO2 it emits is absorbed by the replacement tree that is grown).
I'd say that provided the dear departed has his mercury-amalgam dental fillings removed, provided other obvious public-heath concerns are addressed (which I'm sure they would be), provided the cremation takes place on private property far from any residences, and provided it cannot accidentally be viewed from a public place, then Hindu rites should be allowed, on the traditionally tolerant basis that they do no-one else any harm.
- Nigel, London, 31/03/2009 14:46
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What an amusing article - something which made me laugh amidst all the doom and gloom. The scandal would not have been half as damaging to tacky Jacqui if she had not herself taken such a high moral stand on "sexual deviances". She will forever be trying to avoid the backlash. What is unacceptable is that Gordon Brown condones her fraudulent claims, and even stated that her claim for the pornographic films was a "private matter". His remarks are unjustifiable and are further proof of the deplorably low standards in public life. The tax payer was made pay for the films - THIS MAKES THIS SCANDAL A VERY PUBLIC MATTER.
- R.F., Yorks, UK, 31/03/2009 13:49
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So madonna is going to be able to give that child more than just money? time, emotional involvement? your assumption that riches give a better life are ignorant, that child has just been bought into a world of paparazzi emotional poverty and stress, maybe it would be better of in an malawi orphanage, with its FAMILY
- Daveb, LONDON, 31/03/2009 13:40
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