The perils of personalismo

Spanking, swinging, threesomes - Tommy Sheridan is my kind of politician. Not so much a champagne as a PVC socialist. Or maybe a PVC and champagne socialist, according to the News of the World's lawyers.

Only his problem is he pretended to be one of those scary hairshirt types. Allegedly.

Anyway, regardless of the outcome of this defamation trial, the SSP will surely split. I think I'd rather join Tommy's wing, along with the 'silent majority' of the pro-spanking rank and file - sounds like more fun. I mean, party discipline meetings? The mind boggles.

Someone once said righteous indignation is 2% righteousness, 3% indignation and 95% envy and this is what will do for Tommy. Not so much a question of hypocrisy, more the suspicion that he's been having too much fun. Allegedly.

There's no point saying it's his private life. I deeply and sincerely wish politicians would tell the tabloids, who operate on the basis that there's no such thing as a private life, where to go. But Tommy's opportunity to do this passed when he chose to say, "It wasnae me", instead of, "Fuck off and mind your own business".

So good luck with the case, comrade Sheridan - from what I've heard, you're certainly going to need it.

Tommy Sheridan: "Sing it with me: The people's glove is deepest red..."

Most boring medical advice ever

Have 'mild sex':

"Experts at Vienna's Sport Medicine Institute say high temperatures boost the desire for sex, but also increase the risk of heart attacks.

Professor Norbert Bachl warned couples to refrain from sex if the thermometer topped 30 degrees Centigrade.

And he appealed to those who could not resist to make love "calmly".

He said: "The high temperatures increase the sex drive, but they also make intercourse quite risky, as the chance of heart-related complications increases.

"Those who can't resist should wait until the evening hours, when the air gets cooler, but even then they should not go wild.""

In a recent survey, 8 out of 10 Viennese doctors, despite reservations, agreed on balance that life was for living. Provided it's done in an orderly fashion.

Problems with the left?

"The Right looks for converts, the Left looks for traitors", is an old saying, apparently - although like Norm I'd never heard it before. But it's true of course - fratricide has always been a strong tradition on the left and I've been wondering whether and to what extent this has to do with the way in which at least a significant proportion of those who would describe themselves as 'left' understand morality.

If it's right to say that this is often still understood by many as a function of being on the 'right side of history', this means in practical terms that a measure of a person is often taken from the 'correctness' of someone's views in relation to big geo-political issues, rather than the more mundane business of how people conduct themselves towards their families, friends, neighbours and work-mates.

Burke wrote that, "To love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections." But certain sections of the left (not all of it, by any means) have not only tended to reverse this but sometimes to act as if love for one's little platoon should be viewed as something that is potentially detrimental to 'public affections', as if the former 'crowds out' the latter, as it were.

It's a problem because - and if I can be permitted to use this suspect phrase - I don't think 'ordinary people' have a lot of sympathy for this. It's a feeling I share.

On "foreign policy adventures"

"We are stuck in Afghanistan", declares Brian Whitaker in CiF. Now I'm fairly dubious about the wisdom of using British troops to try and curtail opium production but Whitaker's description of the invasion of Afghanistan as "Tony Blair's other great foreign policy adventure" is truly objectionable.

For it followed a unanimous vote by the UN Security Council and the fact that it was supported by the leaders of all the major parties in Britain means there's absolutely no reason at all to think it wouldn't have happened if Tony Blair hadn't been prime minister.

So how does it come to be Tony Blair's own personal 'foreign policy adventure' in Brian Whitaker's mind?

Scotland set for first Asian MSP

For the Scottish Nationalist Party, apparently. Since Mr Ahmed's election is being treated as a foregone conclusion by everyone concerned, I'm assuming he's being selected as a list MSP.

The SNP's leader in Holyrood (Alex Salmond loves Scotland so much he has a Westminster seat) Nicola Sturgeon was reported as saying, "I'm over the moon that Bashir Ahmad is on course to be Scotland's first Asian MSP", which makes me think the journalist made this up in the pub. I mean, do you hear people saying they're 'over the moon' when they're happy about something very often? Neither do I. But in journo-land this happens all the time. That and people SLAMMING things - what's that all about?

I digress. The SNP will want to use this to portray themselves as an open, diverse party that believes in civic nationalism. The problem seems to be that the rank and file don't seem to take quite the same attitude.

Not towards Asian Muslims, I hasten to add. Research carried out by Bill Miller and Asifa Hussain of Glasgow University found that while Islamophobia certainly exists, it is not apparently at all sensitive to Scottish nationalism - unlike in England.* Rather, what the research did reveal, and which some of us have been aware of for some time, is that hostility to the English is very sensitive to nationalism:

"[The] anti-English view increased depending on the sense of Scottish nationalism of the respondent. A total of 46 per cent of Scottish nationalists had a negative view of the English and 8 per cent actually said they would be unhappy to have an English relative.

The results were almost as stark when voting patterns were taken into account.

Researchers found Anglophobia was highest among SNP voters and Islamophobia was highest among Conservative voters. Labour voters were in the middle while Liberal Democrats were the most tolerant, with levels of Anglophobia and Islamophobia low among their supporters."

Note this is nationalism, boys and girls - not football. I could point out that I'm not a nationalist and am "over the moon" to have English relatives but I'm sensing y'all are a bit sensitive after Rooney went and kicked the wrong balls and all that. For what it's worth, I too am very disappointed at England's exit from the World Cup. I'd hoped they might stay in long enough to be beaten by Germans in a penalty shoot out.

Self-loathing Scots and insecure English to the comments for some therapy, if you must. All this anxiety about identity - quintessentially British, if you ask me.

*Correction from previous version: I hadn't been comparing like with like, silly me. Amongst the findings of the Miller report was that, "Islamophobia is greater in England than Scotland, and more closely tied to English nationalism in England than to Scottish nationalism in Scotland." Thanks KW.