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Grubby business, politics. So back in the UK the Labour Party, under the benevolent and charismatic leadership of Gordon Brown, have taken a violent battering, which can have surprised nobody, and Red Ken Livingstone has lost his job as Mayor of London, which may have surprised some. I don’t want to get too sentimental about Ken when he’s been gone a matter of days, or to succumb to feelings of pity for a man who is reputed to be a ruthlessly self-centred political operator, but I can’t help feeling that had he not returned to the Labour fold he would still be king of London today. It’s hard not to suspect that part of the reason he was elected in the first place was because a large proportion of Londoners admired him for defying Blair and New Labour. In addition to that, he’ll probably be best remembered, and celebrated, as the mayor who introduced the congestion charge, a measure which none of the mainstream political parties would have had the balls to bring in but which has nevertheless been so successful that not even Tory Boris Johnson is going to repeal it, though I’m naturally disappointed that Boris doesn’t intend to go through with Ken’s plans to increase it to £25 a day for greedy, Porsche driving cunts. Surely Ken’s popularity would have soared if, when sheepishly invited back into the Labour Party with an apology uttered through gritted teeth, he’d simply told them to piss off a second time. Was his misjudgement and consequent downfall due to incompetent opportunism or misplaced philanthropy? The former, probably, let’s not forget he’s a politician.

Here President Václav Klaus continues to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Thatcher, not only in terms of his professed ideology but also in his increasingly eccentric behaviour. By the end of Thatcher’s term in office even many of her admirers conceded that she was blatantly barking mad and drunk on delusions of grandeur, and the same is evidently true of Klaus, who has another 5 years to go as president – oh joy. Universal arbiter and patron of art and culture that he is, he’s been poking his nose into the business of the design for the new national library, hysterically pronouncing his intention to prevent the projected building works with his own body. I don’t wish to discourage him in any way, since the image of him chained to a railing, sweating in his immaculate business suit as a bulldozer prepares to drive his anus through his skull is one that gives me great mirth. However, hard as it is for me to say this, I don’t like the design myself and so on this issue I’m on the same side as Klaus, but then I’m no expert on architecture, and even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. But I wouldn’t go so far as to declare that “I make no secret of the fact that I fundamentally and absolutely dislike the design for the library, and cannot very well believe that anyone could hold the opposite opinion”. Well obviously, how could they? For a single reason, according to Mr President – merely out of some petty personal vendetta to spite Klaus, who also describes the architect as “arrogant”. Come again?

Not to be outdone by Thatcher’s ludicrous “we are very proud to be a grandmother” – yes, whilst still PM! – Klaus has also now taken to referring to himself in the royal plural, according to journalists the message on his voicemail is “We cannot be reached”. Christ, five more years.