Lordy Lordy

Nick is all a splutter over loans for lordships. This is a slight return to the Nick of "Pretty Straight Guys", but at this late stage does anyone care? Personally, I think it's probably more harmless for the government to be selling lordships than, say, two year exemptions from EU tobacco advertising bans, letters of recommendation for the purchase of Romanian steelworks, passport applications, large government contracts for anthrax vaccine and what have you, and rather disagree with Nick that the problem here is the structure of the upper house, rather than the fact that we have a bunch of sleazy crooks in charge (again). I suspect that someone from Labour Research managed to bend Nick's ear this week and get the plug; unless I am wrong, it was not the Bow Group which triggered the current investigation so much as a specific complaint made about Chai Patel's inclusion in a draft honours list. Other than that, not much to report; it is not a bad column although it is very thick indeed on the "it's all your fault, you the readers of the Observer, you are the very worst people in the world for allowing this to happen". It is Nick's stock in trade, the self-flagellation of the liberal left and it is getting very tired indeed (look at the desultory nature of the comments on the Observer website - even online loonies can't really be bothered any more). It is surely past time for Nick to eff off to Associated Newspapers and castigate the left from an ex-left "progressive" perspective.