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Lee GriffinAbout Lee: Former students' union president and intermitent blogger since the turn of the century, who's aim is to promote objective thinking and a break from partisan politics when discussing the issues of the day. Contact him.

Politalks - Episode 4: Water, water everywhere...

Mon 18th Feb 2008 – (0 Comments)

Politalks 4 is now up! This week we look at terrorism and how torture fits in with that particular problem, in particular George Bush's views on waterboarding. There is also a look at interesting ideas such as soldiers becoming teachers and frankly bizarre educational policy. The big stuff is at the end though, where we let those of you out of the loop know who the sexiest MP of them all is, afraid we have no news on what they'll be wearing to the ball. Video below, transcript even further down, right at the bottom we even have a roundup of the links we took in to consideration when making this

Not work safe unless you have headphones, enjoy!

Our youthful Foreign Secretary skipped PE this week to berate the US over their treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. David Miliband said he had "some concerns" over the legal rights afforded to those due to stand trial for the 9/11 attacks. I wonder if he would have more concerns if he was the one tied to a wooden plank and dunked in a tub of water until he nearly drowns. Let's see what words of wisdom spew from his over-privileged mouth when he's being slapped around by a crew of sunglassed, thuggish louts with more fists than sense.

George W Bush defended the use of waterboarding and other such techniques in an interview with the BBC last Thursday, denying that any of them constituted torture. Problem is that his definition of torture is so narrow: "serious physical injury such as death or organ failure" that anything short of hacking off a limb and rubbing faeces in the stump is acceptable CIA behaviour.

Staying with emotionally-stunted killers, former soldiers might be offered the opportunity to retrain as teachers under plans being considered by the Tories. Young children who resist the guidance of their new tutors will be forced into stress positions and then taken on cross-country runs. Ex-soldiers who find they cannot hack inner-city teaching duties will be offered the chance to re-enlist and lead counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. One thing the new teachers won't be happy about is the finding by the IPPR that smacking children can turn them into criminals, and are disgruntled that they'll only be able to waterboard their pupils until they fall in line.

Steven Spielberg resigned as artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics in protest at China's support of Sudan and the ongoing crisis in Darfur, which suggests to me that he was okay dealing with a bunch of murdering greedy-eyed pseudo communists with all the morals of e. coli, but heaven forfend that they should attempt to export their particular brand of violent suppression from the one billion Chinese to forty million Sudanese. Chinese leaders have "expressed regret" and withdrawn sales of pretentious, shallow, populist films masquerading as high art in protest.

The Stalinist reach of Gordon Brown's clunking fist knows no bounds, and last week he and the beautiful Andy Burnham announced plans for five hours of culture per week for every child. In keeping with Labour's control-freak tendencies, this will be followed up with a creativity test. Quite how you measure something as subjective as creativity is beyond me, perhaps they'll use a banding system:

Band A: William Shakespeare.
Band B: Harold Pinter.
Band C: Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Band D: Eastenders.
Band E: Little Britain.

And finally... A poll by Sky News has revealed that the Liberal Democrats have the hottest Members of Parliament. The yellow peril occupy five out of the top ten positions, narrowly bested to the number one spot by Tory Jeremy Hunt. I'll resist rhyming slang, and simply congratulate Mr. Hunt on being the hottest piece of arse since the smouldering beauty Alan Clark graced the opposition benches.

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Here are some more links about stories we may have touched on this week, or perhaps didn't make the cut. Think any of these would have made Politalks more interesting? Let us know!.

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So what the hell is going on, Labour are slumping in the polls and yet those most naturally in their shadow able to take their place (the Lib Dems) are failing to capitalise in the polls. And even though the Tories are enjoying high times so much they must think it's the 80's all over again (in more ways than one) they have failed to deliver one serious or credible attack against the government that would show them to be the true heir's to the throne. So to speak. Anyway, on with this weeks Politalks. NSFW as usual, transcript can be found if you go through to read more!

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