Good riddance!

Good riddance to:

(1) Jacqui Smith, who was quite happy to abandon all sorts of ancient liberties and move us towards even more of a totalitarian police state. And quite happy also to send Iranian homosexual men back to Iran where they are likely to be publicly hanged.

(2) Caroline Flint, who has made herself completely ridiculous. That this gormless slut (described by Alan Watkins at the weekend as "a person of the utmost insignificance") could ever have been thought a suitable person to be in government can be explained only by a desperate attempt to include more women, just for the sake of it, however useless and stupid they might be.

(3) John Hutton, a man who apparently believes in all seriousness that we should be building more coal-fired power stations.

(4) Geoff Hoon, a timeserving lackey who appeared to have no particular beliefs but was prepared to do anything he was asked to do in furtherance of his career, now mercifully brought to an end.

(5) Hazel Blears. It is pleasing to learn that her constituents in Salford, noting her attempts to evade paying a large amount of tax, have seen her prattling on about her working-class roots for the self-serving humbug that it is.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, from Tony Benn: "When people are losing their jobs or worrying about whether they can pay their mortgage, the last thing in the world they want to know about is whether or not James Purnell is in the Cabinet".