Something fundamentally wrong with the universe?

I really don't know how much more bizarre things can get!

First we saw a Labour government launch a diabolical attack on our civil liberties by allowing terror suspects to be locked up for 42 days without charge - almost akin to internment without trial. This is especially scary when it comes so soon after the case of a university student being locked up and tried for downloading materially freely available online, from a US government website!

What's more, in a situation reminiscent of the last Tory government under John Major, they could not get the law allowing 42 day detention passed without the support of the Ulster Unionists. Let alone how a lot of Labour members must feel about their leaders passing draconian legislation with the support of arch right-wing protestant-chauvenists whose MPs include an arch homophobe (see my last blog article); I wonder how the New Labour members of Opus Dei, a fundamentalist Catholic sect, must feel about their own government collaborating with equally fundamentalist Protestant supremacists!

Yet then we had the spectacle of David Davis, a right wing Tory who supports the reintroduction of the death penalty and opposed the repeal of the homophobic Section 28 law, presenting himself as a champion of liberty and human rights, by taking the Chiltern Hundreds over the passing of the 42 day law. This led to the even more sorry spectacle of the Lib Dems giving him not only unconditional but seemingly uncritical support, even to the extent of pledging not to stand a candidate against him in the resulting by-election.

Labour also seem set not to stand a candidate against Davis, for a different reason - Gordon Brown decried Davis' filibuster as "a stunt that has become a farce". Well, Mr Brown, considering some of your government's actions - notably the 10p tax fiasco - you'd know all about stunts which became farces, wouldn't you :-(

That doesn't mean the election will go uncontested, however. The former editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, has vowed to stand against Davis. On a pro-42 day detention, and - considering the content of his former newspaper - probably generally an anti-civil liberties platform. Ah well, I guess this won't be the first time Labour has had a total eclipse by The Sun; indeed, under Bliar, it was hard to tell whether The Sun was a mouthpiece for Bliar or whether Bliar was allowing Rupert Murdoch to turn Britain into a tabloidocracy.

My reaction to the whole mess is, Yersinia Pestis on all the dwellings of the candidates and parties involved. Also, why have the left been sidelined once again?

Actually, we haven't. While the Establishment are having fun and games in Westminster, the real activity is happening at ground level. There has been a significant increase in strikes, notably the Shell tanker drivers' strike which has led to petrol stations running out of fuel - Back Of The Net :-) Then there's protests on the streets, such as the one on Sunday against the war criminal George W Bush's visit to London, and the mass demo and concert in London against the BNP this coming Saturday.

Forget parliament - the real power lies with the workers!