But why 42?

As Gordon Brown prepares to face what could be the Waterloo of his premiership something has suddenly started to bug me.

In terms of the vote tomorrow on 42 days detention without charge many valid points involving erosion of our civil liberties have been made. But no one has raised the question of why 42? Blair went for 90. Beyond the fact that Brown doesn't want to push his luck, having seen his more popular predecessor defeated on 90, why just slightly less than half the previous attempt? Why not 45? Or some other nice round number? 50? 40?

Could our country's leader be a closet Douglas Adam fan?

I can't work out if this is better or worse than Boris...

Actually that's a bit of a silly thing to say. Anything is better than Boris.

But we now have, according to the Metro and other high quality news sources (Sky News, The Mirror), the news that 26 year old Miss Great Britain, Gemma Garrett, is running as an MP for the "Beauties For Britain party" in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on May 22.

Ms Garrett has apparently said: "I may not know a lot about politics yet, but I do know about people and how everyone would prefer that Britain looks and feels beautiful instead of dwelling on the ugly and negative side of life and politics."

Quite...

She will be guided through her campaign by Robert de Keyser, the chairman of the Miss Great Britain contest, described by Metro as her "political advisor".

It's been obvious for years that in this post Blairite-Britain politics is now all about marketing: the spin of Blair and New Labour, the phoney eco-posing of Cameron, the libido of Nick "shagger" Clegg for the Lib Dems (OK forget the last one...). I mean, when someone can get elected as Mayor of London, with no record of competence, but purely on the ground that his imbecility is funny, you know we have jumped the shark...

But this takes things one step further. This is political candidacy as marketing tool, apparently marketing for the Miss GB contest. At least Screaming Lord Sutch launched the Monster Raving Looney Party to show that every one, no matter how absurd, had a right to the political process. This is politcs as promotion.

So next election you can choose between the banality of the main parties, the extremism of the BNP and the RESPECT party and the lifestyle choices of the Nescafe Party (the candidate that never sleeps), the McDonalds Party (the candidate that never exercises) and the Nintendo Wii Party (the party that exercises in the comfort of its own living room whilst smoking lots of skunk).

Which probably means the democratic process isn't dead.

Then again, we did just elect Boris.

Leon Greenman 1910-2008

Leon Greenman died last week and was, to the best of my knowledge, buried today in an Orthodox Jewish service.

He was the only Englishman to be imprisoned in Auschwitz, where he lost both his wife and baby son to the gas chambers. From the 1960s until his death Greenman was an active anti-fascist campaigner taking part in demonstrations against the National Front and British National Party; the direct political descendants of those that killed his wife and baby.

He would also speak publicly of his experiences in the camps in the hope that we would never forget the atrocities committed.

Never forget.

Flint in "not a builder" shock

New Housing and Planning Minister Caroline Flint gave her first speech on environmentally friendly building earlier this week at the EcoBuild conference at Earls Court.

All was going swimmingly for Flint until a question from the floor asked how, whilst trying to renew our depleted stock of affordable housing, she would handle the problem of embedded energy.

"It's a very good question and I don't really know the answer. Its something I'll look into. I mean, I'm not a builder. I'm not an expert in this area," said a sheepish Flint. She then regained some composure and added that her job was to identify "what was the vision and who are the people who can make it happen".

Glad that's cleared up then. It would be terrible to have ministers who didn't have sufficient knowledge in their specialist field and tried to fill the void with business-speak nonsense.

Harry gives 'em hell

Big story this week is Harry Windsor fighting on the front line.

All very brave and commendable but can someone explain to me why, when a member of the royal family does something like this they get universal praise? The Times has "Royal warrior Prince Harry sees off the sneerers", The Telegraph "Prince Harry: He can hold his head high" , and The Sun "makes hero Harry a pin up".

Now, I'm sure the lad's very brave and all that. And having a crack at "Terry Taliban", as he so charmingly describes them, is certainly more commendable than rucking with paparazzi outside Boujis. But why is it that when someone from an incredibly privileged background goes to war they're a hero. Many UK soldiers have died in Iraq (175 according to the Iraqi Casualty Coalition website). I couldn't find figures for Afghanistan at the flick of a Google but the point remains...

Whatever you think of the "War on Terror" project, the majority of soldiers are ordinary people who have joined the armed forces to provide for those around them as best they can. They do their jobs and only get labelled heroes when they are killed. Why no media fanfare for them?

Answers on a postcard to the MOD please.