Dinner for One

As a special treat for my readers in Germany, and a revelation for many in the UK, here is the cult English language (apart from the short intro) sketch Dinner for One that the Germans repeatedly enjoy every year as part of the New Year's Eve celebrations, yet which is virtually unknown here in the UK:

And they say the Germans know nothing about humour!

Parliamentary comedy

In the season of goodwill, here's a hilarious exchange from Questions to Ministers in the New Zealand Parliament:

Now can anyone find a clip from the UK Parliament that's in such high spirits?

Hat-tip to Iain Dale: Questions to the Minister, Kiwi Style.

And I thought the Meacher bid was the biggest joke...

Harriet Harman for Labour Prime Minister?

Yes I know. Can we all stop howling with laughter?

Luke's Blog: Collective Responsibility notes the current noises emerging from the Harman camp and worries that Harman could become the Labour leader should a vacancy arise.

I don't think he's got anything to worry about. Harman only scraped victory in the Labour Deputy Leadership election through an appeal to sexism, arguing that she should hold the post just because she's a woman. And after all she was running to fill John Prescott's shoes and was in many ways perfectly qualified - see Yet another (deputy) leadership election.

Are even Labour Party members blind to the hopelessness of Harman to elect her as their next leader? Labour MPs clearly aren't and she won't be able to bank on an unopposed shot. I think Luke is over worried about this one and we can relegate her dreams to the joke bin of British politics, where also was found the bid by Michael Meacher!

Shock of the week

It's incredibly rare for the Liberal Democrats to ever deliver a good joke - normally they're too busy being total jokes - but the prize this week must go to Vincent Cable, not normally the most dynamic even by Lib Dem standards. But whatever else he may do, it seems he will be remembered for this Leo Amery moment:

And because of that, it seems this is how we'll remember Gordon Brown:

So will "The House has noticed the Prime Minister’s remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean" go down in history with this line from the Norway Debate of 1940: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"?

Comedy from the Northern Irish elections

The latest elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly have begun. At some point soon I'll post my early constituency by constituency predictions.

In the meantime I'm struck by two pieces of comedy in the blogosphere. The first is this comment posted on the Slugger O'Toole thread Splitters!:

I don’t know if the “fault” lies with my browser, but the News Letter also seems hellbent on creating dissention (or worse) in the DUP ranks.

Here’s how a side bar items appears on their Belfast Today page:

Free
Presbyterian
minister backs
Berry
A SENIOR
member of the
Free Presbyterian
Church is backing
former DUP
member Paul
Berry in the
Asse…
more »

What can it all mean? :0)

Posted by Dawkins on Feb 16, 2007 @ 02:02 PM

I'm sure that one will go down well!

Then there's The Online Journal of the Jacob S Mills Collective - Serious politics question:

Do you feel that, while the Alliance party, in adopting the slogan "Don't send us back through the time warp!" in their party political broadcasts, may appeal to the Whovian and indeed the Trekkie communities, they run the risk of alienating the core Rocky Horror constituency?

Indeed! How will this affect their chances of gaining a seat in studentville Belfast South?