The greatest perk of being a political reactionary (apart from the absence of any obligation to think anything through) must be the lack of any commitment to consistency (it would only slow you down). While I felt guilt at wrongly questioning the integrity of Top of the Pops, some feel no embarrassment at pleading failed asylum seekers’ cases after months of provoking irrational fear of the same.

On Channel 4 News, Tory leadership hopeful David Davis claimed we couldn’t send failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers back because Mugabe was murdering ‘tens of thousands of people’. In fact, Mugabe’s most recently guilty of demolishing the homes of 200,000 people. Davis exaggerates even when he need not and so risks damaging the cause he’s temporarily aligned himself with. He then describes Saudi Arabia, a country with an appalling human rights record, as perfectly safe. That country’s crimes aren’t so well lodged in the public imagination, there’s been no outcry, there’s no bandwagon to climb aboard and so it’s easier to dismiss the contradiction with a lie.

Yet on this issue Blair is little better. He’s received a kicking and opted to play the populist. That means being tough on Zimbabweans, because unlike Davis he’s actually in charge. If he were as inconsistent, he’d set all kinds of precedents and bring down the system. If only the government had a consistent policy on the issue based upon a clearly defined set of principles that it could sell to the country. Then there’d be no need to go down the populist route ever again.
Spare a thought for#3: Jamie Oliver

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Thought of space exploration’s increasingly depressing given the industry’s continual failings. Only today comes criticism of Nasa on safety. We’ve only just heard that Beagle 2 was always doomed and Cosmos 1 will never sail on solar winds.

So it’s with some surprise that I hear that the next generation of International Space Station computers are to be voice controlled. They’ll speak too, but I suspect comparisons with 2001’s HAL are wide of the mark, if my own recent experiences with state-of-the-art speech recognition software are anything to go by.

I made the mistake of booking Batman Begins by phone and hung-up twice to start over it was so bad. ‘Speech recognition software by Telephonetics.co.uk’ it boasts. And before long I’m saying ‘yes… yeeesss… yeah-ss’ et cetera and ‘Batman… Bat Man… Batman Begins… Bat Man Be Gins’. Bring back ‘press one to make a booking’ before some poor astronaut’s last words are ‘Hard ta port… Hard to port… Hard. To. Port… Turn Left… Left… Hard left…’ [repeat to fade].

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A new-ish series for you: reader offers. And first off the block is Cantor Spreadfair which is offering a £50 first trade bonus to all new customers. The incentive’s required because spread betting is a risky business (be sure to read the warnings before you open an account), and Cantor Spreadfair is combining the benefits (and so the complexities) of spread and exchange betting. In other words the £50 is to compensate you for having to do some thinking before you dive in. Just enter the code ‘frb001’ when opening your account.

Nevertheless, the benefits are the improved odds delivered by exchanging bets with other punters rather than a bookie (rivals Betfair claim exchange betting odds are twenty per cent better) and the greatly enhanced earning (and so loss) potential of spread betting.

While it’s important to mention risk, it’s also fair to say that responsible spread betting sites, like Capital Spreads, who specialise in financial spread betting, do have safeguards. Capital Spreads also offer free demo accounts and a free brochure that goes into far more detail than I can offer.

Anyway. If all that’s too much you can still have a free £25 bet on Totesport, a traditional bookmaker.

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