You don't seem to have taken the point of the garden analogy, for which I refer you to (d) above. God is supposed to be not only good and powerful, but *infinitely* so. Hence we could reasonably expect any world He creates to be not just "good on the whole", but *manifestly* wonderful. Sadly, it isn't.’ ***Really? I tried to point out that given God’s omniscience and our lack of it, the wonderfulness of many parts of Creation might be mysterious and impenetrable to us. It’s a basic Leibnitzian point, which I would have thought would be known to him.

A 30ft effigy of Lance Armstrong wearing a Jim'll Fix It badge will be burnt at the famous annual Edenbridge bonfire this weekend.

Will: Well, I can't go to California with you. Skylar: Why not? Will: Well, one, because I--I got a job here, and two, because I live here. Skylar: Look, um..If you don't love me, you should tell me because it's such a-- Will: I'm not saying I don't love you. Skylar: Then why? Why won't you come? What are you so scared of? Will: What am I so scared of? Skylar: Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in this safe little world where no one challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else but defend yourself because that would mean you'd hafta' change. Will: Oh no. Don't, don't, don't tell me about my world. Don't tell me about my world! I mean you just wanna have you fling with like the guy from the other side of town. Then you're going to go off to Stanford, you're going to marry some rich prick who your parents will approve of and just sit around with the other trust fund babies and talk about how you went slumming too, once. Skylar: Why are you saying this? What is your obsession with this money? My father died when I was 13 and I inherited this money. Nearly every day I wake up, and I wish that I could give it back, that I would give it back in a second if it meant I could have one more day with him, but I can't and that's my life and I deal with it. So don't put your shit on me, when you're the one that's afraid. Will: I'm afraid? Wh--wh--what am I afraid of, huh? What the fuck am I afraid of? Skylar: You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And you know what? I'm afraid too. Fuck it. I want to give it a shot and at least I'm honest with you.

"Twelve voices were fawning in adulation, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the Tories. The creatures outside looked from Cameron to Blair, and from Blair to Cameron, and from Tory to Labour again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

I've come to dislike LinkedIn. It's like a perpetual class reunion. Bunch of people you used to know, waving around their electronic cocks and bragging about their new promotion or how much they earn. The whole premise to the site is that you are your CV - that you're defined by your job title.

"There are environments in which it is deeply unfashionable to voice a opinion which has traces of conservatism - rock music, for instance... ....For your average Joe Bloggs, I would add that Twitter is one of those environments." I think that DM has nailed it with this statement. To be perfectly honest I hide behind a daft name principally because of the possible effect (sorry impact) on employment. However there is also the feeling of social stigma that can come from being openly conservative. I believe this is why Peter Hitchens is correct in not attempting to soften his approach. The smug self satisfied Left and meek apologists for the Right are both part of this problem, I also know that actions like mine are part of the cause. But experience tells me I'm not alone. I find politics on an evening out is a taboo but in certain environments assume that "left" is the default position. The odd thing is that once someone dare be an icebreaker and opine anything conservative, it's satisfying to watch the general agreement. But in an internet environment with your own name behind it, I'd be apprehensive to stray from banality. I reluctantly use facebook and twitter for commercial purposes, though as little as possible. I dearly hope social media is a passing fad that will pass by unreplaced. Similar to ebay that has changed from being an online car boot sale to just an other comercial market place.

TCFKAMKB whinges: "To reach his blog many people have to scroll down through the crass, patrionising, sexist circus that is the 'femail' column; passing by stories about perfect, slim bikini bodies, hideous imperfections, revealing cleavages . . . etc, etc, blah, blah. No you don't, you can do what I and probably most other regulars do, which is to use the bookmark feature and come straight onto this blog. You remind me of that old joke about the woman who complains that the man next door sunbathes in the nude. When the policeman asks her how she could possibly see her neighbour over his high hedge she replies "Well, you can if you stand on the water butt on tip toes".

“I do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe, that in the sacrament of the Lord's supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.” (Art. 12, 13 Wm. III, c. 2).

No-one's saying those days of 60 years ago were perfect but any sane pertson knows they were a whole lot superior to the mess of a society we're presently living in. But yes they were "good old days" - a good old days where suicide rates hadn't gone through the roof , where the murder rate was about 20th of what it is today, where violent crime in general was similarly a fraction of the size, where you didn't need to turn your house into Fort Knox to stop it getting burgled, where you could walk the streets (anywhere) at night without risking a beating or worse, where old people weren't terrified inside their homes, where private companies didn't charge ridiculous rates for basic utilities to line their own pockets, where an ever-growing number of the youth weren't being driven out of their minds by street drugs, a good old days free of ridiculous manufactured politically correct hysteria over racism and "homophobia" where a tiny minority of middle class liberals try to foist their peculiar attitudes on the rest of the population... I could go on but I don't think even Jeff Pollitt and Kevin Brown actually really believe things are better now - although deluded people like this believe if they tell themselves something enough it might be true.

I couldn't agree more with what you say about the increasing encroachments of officialdom on individual freedom and privacy. In a funny kind of way the more trivial the example is the more clearly it reveals megalomania on the part of those who should regard themselves as our servants rather than our masters. I've also noticed the BBC increasingly deploying its in-house comedians to sneer at such concerns. For example BBC comics frequently use the phrase "it's political correctness gone mad" in an ironic mocking way as if anyone who thinks political correctness has indeed gone mad is by definition a bigoted right-wing idiot. This is a classic psychological technique for discrediting an idea without engaging with it intellectually - simply associate it with culturally uncool attitudes and those who fear being caricatured as Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells will run a mile from it, without ever even stopping to ask whether the mockery is justified. A few months ago I heard Radio 4 comic Steve Punt slip in a bit of this type of covert propaganda, on behalf of CCTV, during a quiz show he was presenting. Comedians singing the praises of ubiquitous state surveillance! Whatever next? So much for comedy as a vehicle for political and cultural dissent.

As for the negative reactions of "left-wing luminaries" to humanist concerns about mass murder I am not as dispirited as George Monbiot. I have come to expect that from a certain type of left-wing "thinker". In fact it is something that such "thinkers" share with political hacks of every hue. Like George Monbiot, I consider myself to be on the left, but unlike him I have never had a high regard for the politics of people like Noam Chomsky and John Pilger and I am not at all surprised by their reactions to his efforts. As I see it what marks people like that is a complete inability to see the difference between special pleading and making a genuine case for a point of view. Chomsky and especially Pilger think that merely piling up evidence that is consistent with their point of view amounts to proving its correctness. Many of their readers clearly think so too. What they have not understood is that to make a case for something the most important thing you have to do is to consider the strongest possible evidence and arguments against it. If one does not do that then ones argument is essentially worthless - however much the piling up of evidence that is consistent with one's conclusion may delight those who are keen to see attacks on those they oppose. A scientist or engineer who relied on this technique would not keep his or her job for long.

O hidden face of man, whereover The years have woven a viewless veil, If thou wast verily man's lover, What did thy love or blood avail? Thy blood the priests make poison of, And in gold shekels coin thy love.

And we seek yet if God or man Can loosen thee as Lazarus, Bid thee rise up republican And save thyself and all of us; But no disciple's tongue can say When thou shalt take our sins away

Full employment, workers’ rights, strong trade unions, municipal services (including council housing), public ownership and the Welfare State made possible the civilised and civilising world of the trade unions and the co-operatives, of the Workers’ Educational Association and the Miners’ Lodge Libraries, of the pitmen poets and the pitmen painters, of the brass and silver bands, of the male voice choirs, of the people’s papers rather than the redtop rags, of the grammar schools, and of the Secondary Moderns that were so much better than what has replaced them.

The fact that he doesn’t seem remotely ashamed of it suggests that he is actually beginning to turn into the true Heir to Blair, a man who has so successfully faked sincerity that he no longer knows or cares when he is lying.

Socialism = long history of famine, firing squads, secret police, bankruptcy

All the pillars of the Cameron delusion have now collapsed. The Tory Party cannot win a majority by any method. Nobody trusts it, and it stands for nothing except getting posh boys into office

Now we out in Paris, yeah I’m Perriering White girls politicking that’s that Sarah Palin Gettin’ high, Californicating I give her that D, cause that’s where I was born and raised in

There are, I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep some thirty years ago over the day's newspaper and woke up last week over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading about the same people. In one paper he would have found a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. In the other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. If this is not being governed by families I cannot imagine what it is. I suppose it is being governed by extraordinary democratic coincidences.

For a plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks. The home is the one place where he can put the carpet on the ceiling or the slates on the floor if he wants to. When a man spends every night staggering from bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, we say that he is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living a highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, laws of such places. Some times he is not allowed even to sit down in the bars; and frequently he is not allowed to sing in the music-halls. Hotels may be defined as places where you are forced to dress; and theaters may be defined as places where you are forbidden to smoke. A man can only picnic at home.

G. Sarto - I have to agree with you about Chesterton. As a journalist he is up there with Orwell in my opinion. His observations on the then current racial theories, eugenics, Socialism and Prussianism during the Teens and Twenties are downright spooky considering what happened in the Thirties. And his critique of big government and big business in the 'History Of Hudge And Gudge' from 'What's Wrong With The World' is still relevant today.

Underpinning the absurd doctrine of humanitarian intervention is the idea that everybody wants to be a 'right on' liberated man or woman with a fag hanging out of one hand and a bottle swinging in the other. The world isn't like that, people want different things and we need to recognise that. David Starkey

Safe to say, I just don't get it and it's easy to blame that on youth. If you're me and not close with an editor or a phenom in and of yourself, then you're not yet to this stage in life- the middle ground between college and real life, where you do need a place (in the neighborhood of the moment) and to pay your rent, but you can go out every night because you don't have real responsibilities (god forbid).