UK General Election: what's good about it and how it could be much better

The UK general election is upon us, and many of us can’t wait for it to be over. I know, politicians trying to get your vote is the main disease of modern democracies… but I instead enjoy elections so much that I think we should do them more often.

Yes, because I love to see politicians pretending to care about us. We know they don’t care, and they know that we know, but still, I like to see them sweating their way to number 10 by trying as hard as they possibly can to be nice to us. Think if they had to do that all the time? Think if they were going to be nice to you, scared that you could remove them from power with the stroke of a pencil? Yes, give me that power anytime!

Anyway, what I like even more than politicians pretending to care about us, is to see politicians getting caught off guard and saying things they really mean but don’t want anybody to hear, just like Gordon Brown in Rochdale, when he called that poor Duffy lady a “bigoted woman”.

Brown really thought that Mrs Duffy was a bigot because she had the audacity of asking him a question about immigration, and also because, although a life-long Labour supporter, she was questioning (how dare she!) the Labour government!

Saying that, what I really like to see (more than politicians pretending to care about us or politicians getting caught off guard by saying things they really mean but don’t want anybody to hear) is politicians undeservedly apologising for what they have inadvertently said and pretending that they did speak “in the heat of the moment” or their words had been taken “out of context”. But don’t they look so pathetic and harmless, like a puppy left out in the rain?

However, instead of apologising, I would have preferred if Mr Brown had explained why he thought Mrs Duffy was a “bigot”, instead of claiming to have (somehow) misunderstood her.

In fact, let’s take it a step forward, and instead of a debate like the ones we had in the last couple of weeks, let’s make Cameron, Clegg and Brown completely drunk, so at least we will finally get the truth from them, and instead of lots of nice words such as “fairness”, “change” and all of this rubbish, we can really understand what their real ideas, motivations and values really are and maybe, who knows, even agree with them, after all.

Barcelona-Inter, the revenge of Mourinho and the "remuntada" that never took place

... and at the end there was no "remuntada".

All the angry talking of Barcelona players (Pique, poor boy, must be feeling a bit down today, I guess), and all the big fuss about Barcelona being the greatest team in the world and Messi being the new Maradona (not yet, Leo, not yet), and all the water sprinkled on the Nou Camp before the match to make the game easier for the Barcelona stars, and all the 100,000 or so Barcelona supporters being the 12th man on the pitch and... well, it counted nothing, because at the end of the night it was Jose Mourinho and Inter Milan celebrating, walking away from the Nou Camp with the qualification to the Champions League final.

It was a victory for Inter, reaching the final of the Champions League after 38 years, but also for Mourinho, who was nicknamed the "translator" back in his Barcelona days, when he was an assistant to the late Bobby Robson, manager of Barcelona in the '96-'97 season. Barcelona never considered Mourinho a possible future manager for the club, but tonight Mourinho showed them how wrong they were and revenge is always good.

Mourinho tactics, unlike Guardiola, were spot on. Inter played a defensive match but that is what they had to do, considering that it was Barcelona that was beaten in Milan and had to perform a "remuntada" and considering also that Inter played with 10 men for three-quarters of the game. Inter showed Barcelona and the world the meaning of defending, and how Messi can be neutralised. All Inter players were amazing, Samuel, Zanetti, Maicon, Lucio, Cambiasso and so on, a wall that frustrated Barcelona until the end, especially Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the striker who left Inter in the summer because he wanted to win the Champions League and instead he showed the world that Inter is instead a better team without him.

Barcelona cannot complain with the referee either, Motta sending off was a Godsend, Barcelona’s first goal was very likely on off-side, and a handball is a handball, and therefore the second goal was rightly disallowed.

As the final whistle blew, Jose Mourinho celebrated his joy in style, by rushing towards the Inter fans, raising his arms and pointing his fingers to the sky, while Barcelona-keeper-sore-loser-Vitor-Valdes clumsily and pathetically tried to stop him, obviously not liking the fact to be out of the Champions League and probably still thinking about a "remuntada" that never took place.

In defence of the Pope (and yes, Richard Dawkins is a fool)

Some, (too) clever minds in England, are trying to legally prosecute a man coming to our shores in September.

They want to arrest him. They want to strip away his immunity because they think he needs one (!), they want to ask him tough questions (whatever that means) and, above all, prosecute him for crimes against humanity.

Big stuff, isn’t it?

Now, who do you think they are talking about? Three options for you:

a) Osama Bin Laden
b) Fidel Castro
c) Pope Benedict the XVI

Difficult choice, yes, between a and b, but actually the “right” answer is c!

Oh yes, because according to Richard Dawkins, the world famous scientist and author of the God Delusion, the Pope is the man to stop, to silence, to arrest, to prosecute because of “crimes against humanity”.

The reason for this, he claims, is that the Pope is covering up the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The God-hater Dawkins, who in the past called the Pope a Nazi and a leering villain in a frock, also claims that Pope Benedict the XVI is the man responsible for people dying of AIDS in Africa…

Dawkins’ claims are easily brushed aside. The Pope has not covered up the child abuse scandal but has dealt with the situation in its own way, and if that way is not the one Dawkins likes it is not his business. Secondly, people are dying in Africa because of AIDS because over there they f#@k around rather too much, and it is not the word of a Pope that can make much of a difference.

It is easy to grasp that the real issue instead is that Richard Dawkins is a fundamentalist atheist that has decided to focus his energy in trying to undermine religion whenever he can. That is his brand, his credo and probably his purpose in life.

I don’t agree with him on almost anything but I could at least respect him if he had the guts to be tough on any religion, when in fact he is just against Christianity. Has he ever publicly said anything about… Islam?

Let me think for a minute, did Dawkins ever say anything about Abu Hamza preaching hatred and murder in the Finsbury Park mosque? Or did he or his followers had anything to say when Islamic extremist Yusuf Al-Qaradawi preached to kill the Jews while in London, invited, by the way, by then mayor of London Ken Livingstone?

No, he did bloody not say a bloody word. Dawkins is against religion but if you are an Islamic preacher willing to kill Jews that is fine and why is that? Is Dawkins either not aware of Islam being a religion or is he shitting in his pants at the thought of a fatwa?

Instead, Dawkins talks rubbish about the Pope because he knows the “old villain in a frock” will not do any harm to him, and the lawyers of this country are always ready to take a fight for pointless causes.

Anyway, the Pope will be coming to the United Kingdom in September whether Dawkins likes it or not and if you agree with what I wrote and you do welcome the Pope in the UK, please sign the petition below:
http://www.petitiononline.com/PopeinUK/petition.html