Fruitcakes, barmpots and racists

HOW did that fat Liberal Cyril Smith get away with child abuse for so many years? Intriguingly, Google has more than 15,000 links to "Cyril Smith and Freemasons." If it ever gets started, this is going to be one hell of an inquiry.

NO SUPRISES in the torrent of bile being poured on Ukip as the May 22 Euro-elections approach. Some of it is doubtless deserved. As I pointed out some months ago, when a party grows so quickly that it suddenly needs to find hundreds of candidates, some fruitcakes, barmpots and racists will slip through the net. But largely because it is so new, Ukip is still squeaky-clean compared to the three major political parties with their various sex, paedophilia and expenses scandals. Con, Lab and Lib/Dems are worried to death about Ukip seizing millions of votes. Hence the bile.

"LIFE goes on. Until eventually it doesn't." Words by an old colleague and friend, John Slim, in the blog he wrote on being told he had terminal cancer. I learned of his death a few days ago. I recall him as the gentlest of journalists who grew angry only when a misprint crept into his column, and who always chose his words well. When the time comes, may we all have the grace and the grit to do the same.

COUNTRY musings. We found what looked like two butterflies on the farm track. On closer inspection, one red admiral had been run over and was dead. As its lifeless wing fluttered in the breeze, the other butterfly perched by the body. It may have been attracted to the smell of death, it may even have found a free meal. But on a hot, sunny day when all the butterflies were in pairs, it looked for all the world like the devotion of a mate, puzzled by the mystery of sudden death. How much emotion can something so tiny feel? After a few minutes a single butterfly appeared on the scene. The two paired up and flew off, leaving the body behind. Strangest thing.

MEANWHILE, the same old seasonal row over bankers' bonuses erupts once again and I can only offer the same old seasonal explanation. Think of bankers as workers in a chocolate factory where all the workers, right to the top, have their fingers in the chocolate vat. They take the stuff for two simple reasons. Because it's sweet. Because they can.

THE lesson of history is that when the peasants have guillotined all the lords, they tend to start lording it over their fellow peasants. In France (motto: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) the energy minister Segolene Royal has reportedly issued palace-like instructions for staff to stand in her presence and for female staff to avoid showing cleavage. Meanwhile, our own dear Queen keeps her corn flakes in Tupperware and saves Christmas wrapping paper to use again. Spot the genuine national treasure.

THE French minister's edict reminds me of the old definition of the UK and France in the days of President de Gaulle. It was said that Britain was a republic disguised as a monarchy while France was a monarchy described as a republic.

A READER takes me to task for suggesting Auntie Beeb doesn't get many good scoops. He writes: "I'd prefer BBC News itself not to engage in the kind of practices that newspapers use to get their 'scoops,' such as hacking people's voicemails or inventing fictitious stories." The Leveson Inquiry focused solely on the written media. So far no-one has asked television or radion journalists whether they have ever hacked, impersonated or invented. We might get some interesting answers.

AND now, I'm off to pack a suitcase. A Scottish adventure beckons. . . .