Forty something UK “journalist” Samantha Brick should be scored a perfect ten for achieving maximum publicity with minimum talent. Her cri de coeur about the downside of being so beautiful has impacted the world like a tsunami – why it’s even been picked up by the leading American political website at Hot Air…

I’m tall, slim, blonde and, so I’m often told, a good-looking woman. I know how lucky I am. But there are downsides to being pretty — the main one being that other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks.

True, most of the reaction has been scornful and positively insulting but Samantha doesn’t care. Playing out the old showbiz adage that there can never be such a thing as bad publicity Ms Brick will reap a golden dividend of TV appearances, radio interviews and magazine articles. A book and probably a film will almost certainly be on the way as well.

Some achievement for a woman who changed career midlife from being a self proclaimed “top TV executive” (large pinch of salt needed here) to a lifestyle scribbler after having decamped across the channel to marry a Frenchman.Within microseconds of marrying Pascal she had become an expert on all things Francais, pumping out, via the UK Daily Mail, articles on stepmothering, household management, cooking and keeping slim a la Francais….oh plus “trying for a baby” and little sideswipes against former colleagues and, naturally, her first husband.

Every article is shallow, derivative and self obsessed – in other words perfect material for the Daily Mail which appears to thrive in its crusade to portray women as emotionally unstable airheads concerned primarily with their clothes, waist size and the workings of their internal pumping systems. It’s a misogynistic approach which irritates not only feminists but also those of us who appreciate the strengths and values of the women in our lives. But it has not harmed the financial viability of the Daily Mail so why should they care?

It’s called Polyfilla journalism partly after the DIY product so handy for filling up gaps and holes in walls and ceilings and the Polly Filler character in Private Eye “a vapid and self-centred female “lifestyle” columnist, whose irrelevant personal escapades and gossip serve solely to fill column inches”. Editors abhor empty spaces in their papers so a whole legion of Samantha Bricks earn a generous living regurgitating and slightly reconfiguring articles on sex, fashion, marriage, divorce, careers and diets. Most pass easily down the memory hole but sometimes, as in Brick’s latest piece of vacuous scribble, they hit a mother lode of controversy which generates publicity and sells extra copies.

She might not have much talent or sense of perspective but she deserves a brief salute for her chutzpah, surely…..

Today is the 30th anniversary of the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982 when Argentine forces invaded and occupied the isolated South Atlantic islands. There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher and her government were asleep at the wheel at the time ignoring the ratcheting up of rhetoric from the military junta over previous months.

When we heard about the invasion there was anger mixed with humiliation as we saw the pictures of UK marines lying on the ground in surrender. Nevertheless most of us believed that after decades of following the advice of our diplomatic mandarins and the sermonising of the BBC the Thatcher government would wring it’s hands, write an angry note and then accept the offer of a UN special conference that would eventually come up with some wheeze like “shared sovereignty”

But we had reckoned without Margaret Thatcher. It was her willpower that drove the organisation of the task force that travelled thousands of miles and drove the invaders into total capitulation. With hindsight, of course, it all appears to have been a foregone conclusion. But, like D Day in 1944 it was a tremendous gamble with only one possible throw of the dice. Failure would have been the final nail in the coffin of British power and self respect, a vindication of the BBC/Guardian siren song of eternal appeasement and, naturally, the end of Thatcher’s political career.

Nothing illustrated the sudden transformation of will than the sinking of the Belgrano. The Argentines realised that they had sown the wind and had now reaped the whirlwind. They faced a foe that would go to all lengths to break them.

Today, of course, another government in Argentina is seeking to use the Falklands as a useful drum to beat to distract attention from domestic problems. But no self respecting UK government could dare offer any negotiation for a land streaked with the blood and bones of those British servicemen who died in 1982.

Ask the widow of Colonel H Jones who died leading his paratroopers in an assault upon machine gun emplacements at Goose Green.

Ask Simon Weston, the Welsh Guardsman who was horribly burned in an Argentine air attack.

1982 uncovered a Britain that had been hidden away for many years. It’s back under cover, of course, but, much to the chagrin of the left and their friends at the BBC, it’s still there….

The Coalition government, which in opposition vigorously attacked proposals to allow the security services to monitor e mails and phone calls, has backtracked on it’s pro-freedom/anti-snooping rhetoric with a proposal to give those same security services powers to check on our website visits and e mail and phone contacts on their own initiative without a warrant.

At present it doesn’t involve content, for which they will still need permission, but, rest assured, that will be the next step.
In a statement, the Home Office said action was needed to “maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes”. “It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public,” a spokesman said.

Maverick Tory MP David Davis sums up why these proposals need to be beaten back.

‘It is not focusing on terrorists or on criminals. It is absolutely everybody. Historically governments have been kept out of our private lives,’ ‘Our freedom and privacy has been protected by using the courts by saying “If you want to intercept, if you want to look at something, fine, if it is a terrorist or a criminal go and ask a magistrate and you’ll get your approval”. You shouldn’t go beyond that in a decent, civilised society but that is what is being proposed.
‘They don’t need this law to protect us. This is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary innocent people in vast numbers. Frankly, they shouldn’t have that power.

‘
The government hopes that, by playing the terrorist card, it can gain some grudging support. But how long before those who oppose gay marriage or the EU or other fashionable causes are also deemed “dangers to the public” and placed under electronic surveillance on the whim of a government functionary.

If they have good reason let them request a warrant. If not then either do more legwork and make a better case or keep their noses out of our private business…