Putin, Pomp & Circumcision
We Brits sometimes boast that we're rather good at organising formal state occasions. On this evidence, the Russians don't do a bad job at it either.
I was intrigued to see that this particular clip on YouTube (HERE) cuts just as he gets his speech out of his pocket.
And was it just a coincidence that the timing of this historic event coincided with the election of a new President of the French Republic?
I look forward to looking more closely at his speech - but I haven't forgotten (and hope others won't forget) the putrid prose that President Putin has been known to peddle in the past...
Losing words from Clegg, Cameron and Livingstone
Contrary to what some commentators have been trying to make out, there's nothing unusual about government parties suffering heavy losses in mid-term local elections.
Nor is there anything unusual about leaders of defeated parties saying something encouraging to their supporters, especially those who've just lost their seats - and Messrs Clegg and Cameron were quick off the mark (in that order) with fairly brief interviews that did the job yesterday morning:
But while council seats had been falling to Labour up and down the land, the voters of London rejected Labour veteran Ken Livingstone in favour of re-electing Boris Johnson for a second term as their Tory mayor.
As the votes were being counted, Ken must have been hard at work preparing his five and a half minute losing speech. If this was to be his last election, he was jolly well going to make the most of it by letting Londoners know what they'd all be missing, what further disasters Boris had in store for them and just how badly they'd all been let down by the media.
Because yes, folks, maestro of the media though Ken may have been for the last 30 years, it was the media that did for him in the end - or was it?
Nor is there anything unusual about leaders of defeated parties saying something encouraging to their supporters, especially those who've just lost their seats - and Messrs Clegg and Cameron were quick off the mark (in that order) with fairly brief interviews that did the job yesterday morning:
But while council seats had been falling to Labour up and down the land, the voters of London rejected Labour veteran Ken Livingstone in favour of re-electing Boris Johnson for a second term as their Tory mayor.
As the votes were being counted, Ken must have been hard at work preparing his five and a half minute losing speech. If this was to be his last election, he was jolly well going to make the most of it by letting Londoners know what they'd all be missing, what further disasters Boris had in store for them and just how badly they'd all been let down by the media.
Because yes, folks, maestro of the media though Ken may have been for the last 30 years, it was the media that did for him in the end - or was it?
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