Why the Extreme Right is Resurgent in Europe

The rise of the far-right parties in Europe is a real worry.

The Vox party has now entered mainstream Spanish politics as a result of this week’s elections. All the more concerning since it is not so long ago since Franco ruled that particular roost.

Similar movements are to be seen in Italy, France, Austria, Hungary and other EU nations.

Who is to blame? Views vary, but personally I would identify the problem as the cloying impact of

Greta Grates

It would be all too easy to dismiss the 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg as a ghastly little know-nothing troll, but in a sense, that would be unfair.

Unhappily for her, she inherited none of the fabulous good looks of her ambitious mother, Malena Ernman (now an opera singer, but who once represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song contest) and she apparently suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. Not a promising start.

And bear in mind that the horrid little girl has yet to make a public utterance that is in any sense original, and so the blame for her banal ill-informed twaddle has to lie with those who filled her eager little brain with all this half-baked nonsense in the first place.

You know who

Just fine

I have remarked before that the evidence is that governments increase both the number and severity of accidents by posting artificially low speed limits, but they appease the floppsies and collect revenue from speeding fines. Here is how it goes as I drive from my house to my local town, Adelaide. I start on a dirt road. Speed limit: 100 kph.

It stays on 100 kph for the next bit; lots of bends on tarmac road.  Then, as the road straightens out, the limit drops to 90 kph for many

Hey Jules

Julian Assange has been dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrested for jumping bail and in response to a USA extradition request.

He probably is a bit of a plonker, but it is hard not to feel a sense of unease about the way he has been treated.

Instead of punishing him for jumping bail, the court might well have said, “You should not have jumped bail, and the bail is forfeit. But you have imprisoned yourself for seven years, which is far longer than we would have sentenced you to for that offence, and so we dismiss that charge. There are no outstanding charges or arrest warrants from Sweden. You are at liberty to walk free until your challenge to the USA extradition request has been determined”.

It is not obvious that it is in United States’ interest to try to bring him to trial there. The essential gravamen of

Utterly sinful

Some poor chap loves his wife, to whom he has been married for 20 years, notwithstanding that her mental state has deteriorated terribly.

A totalitarian council has now taken him the court, seeking an order that he may no longer make love with her. Just in case the poor woman, who has lost her wits, has nevertheless joined the “Me Too” movement, and no longer consents to sexual intercourse with her loving husband.

Happily, the judge has supported the man’s right to love his wife according to the vows they made 20 years ago.

How can it possibly be right for public money to be spent

Max Wimp

This chap joined a nude protest in the Commons by climate change nutters.

But he refused to take his strides off. He is still wearing his jeans. Because that symbol of American culture still dominates his thinking? Who knows.

The others glued their bottoms to the glass. I think they should have left them there for a while. Gagged, obviously, if they made any noise (they were hardly in a position to do anything much about that). It would have been an appropriate