Head to Head with Janet Daley

Does anybody besides me ever watch the BBC News 24 political debate "Head to Head", in which two political commentators battle it out over the latest of Westminster's hot irons? Chances are you're snugly tucked up in bed, unless you're something of an insomniac like me, as this is a fairly late night show.

Recent editions have frequently featured David Aaronovitch (Guardian columnist but writes for The Times too) representing the liberal side and Janet Daley (formerly Daily Telegraph, now The Times) rooting for the conservative agenda.

Daley is the kind of arch-conservative American that tends to make my blood boil and unfortunately the somewhat soft-spoken Aaronovitch is no real match for this yapping, ankle biting terrier of a bitch.

A few episodes back, Janet posited laconically that "Anglo-Saxon people have always benefited from low tax economies" (or words to that effect, as I can't find a transcript). Anglo-Saxon people... these are English speaking people or peoples, right? So British, American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealanders and South Africans are all lumped together as the potential victims of the dreaded "socialist" tax-and-spend. Hmm, that must be why Britain's public transport infrastructure remains the worst in Europe (from possibly being the best at one point), that the NHS is still in serious trouble and routinely underperforms and that the US's Medicare system is virtually bankrupt. That must be why in Britain we have the lowest minimum wage of all of Europe, yet the highest divide between rich and poor. That must also be why here in Britain we have an incredible number of stealth taxes, despite being a "low tax economy".

And of course she's also in favour the education reforms, a set of proposals that will simply lead to "excellence" through inequality. What we need is decent schools accessible throughout the country, wherever one lives. If you're posh, rich and delusional enough to believe state schools aren't good enough for your brats, then by all means send them to a private school, like Poobah Bliar does.

Our little iron lady was also one of the first to defend the Met for shooting the Brazilian plumber in the wake of 7/7, after all he was running away wasn't he? Split second decisions and all that. Nanoseconds, blah, blah. Since then we know better, of course, but Janet isn't one for retractions.

I can't help escaping the impression that Janet must be on some kind of exchange program:
we send Bush our most conservative "asset", Dr Nile Gardiner and in return they send us Janet Daley. Well, thanks for nothing...

Keywords: Janet Daley, David Aaronovitch, conservatives