When the news of the dual attacks in Norway broke, the broadcast media, in their usual rush to appear important and ‘discuss’ matters, were quick to suggest the killings were the work of evil Islamists. Time, as we now understand, proved otherwise.

Yet, one thing which rarely changes, once Islamists have been ruled out, is the willingness of the Left to demonise the political Right. I was immediately struck by the similarity of reaction in leftist media to the atrocities performed by Anders Breivik and those carried out by Jared Lee Loughner in Tuscon in January. On both occasions, the Left were particularly quick to label the perpetrators as ‘right-wing extremists’, and thus tarnish millions of people by association.

In the very sad case of the Tuscon shootings, Loughner targeted the Democrat and House of Representatives member, Gabrielle Giffords at a local advice surgery. During the incident she suffered a severe gunshot wound to the head, while a local Judge and five bystanders, who were caught up in the shooting, died of their injuries.

Initial reports suggested that Giffords had been killed in the attack, though these statements were relatively quickly retracted when it became apparent she had survived, albeit in a critical condition. Yet it didn’t take long before the finger was pointed at the Right in the United States, especially the Tea party movement and its followers.

It was mainly brought to the fore by an outburst from the Democrat supporting local Sherriff, Clarence Dupnik, who said in an interview:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Later, Sherriff Dupnik retracted his initial statement, saying that his investigation had not yet found such evidence. But it was all too late – the damage was already done. This spark lit the touchpaper and a predictable Left-wing witch hunt began in earnest.

It was those Tea party fascists wot dun it, screamed Jane Fonda on her Twitter account within mere hours of the incident. She managed to blame Sarah Palin and radio host Glenn Beck for good measure too, while Paul Krugman in The New York Times darkly suggested a nefarious Tea party conspiracy and assassination attempt.

Eventually it became apparent Loughner was neither right-wing nor a supporter of the Tea party, but such facts didn’t get in the way of the Left blaming the Tea party and Republicans for stirring up anger and resentment by using ‘violent’ political rhetoric and symbolism.

A similar process of events have now taken place in Norway. Once it became very clear that Breivik was the murderer, and his so called manifesto had been discovered on the internet, another witch hunt and mass pillorying of the Right began again.

The Guardian’s Seumas Milne took the time to link some arguments Breivik made in his manifesto to the ‘staple themes’ of conservative newspapers, commentators and websites in this country, saying:

The continuum between the poisonous nonsense commonplace in the mainstream media in recent years, the street slogans of groups like the EDL and Breivik’s outpourings is unmistakable.

Right-wingers are all the same and to be viewed with equal levels of suspicion and mistrust. Melanie Phillips was smeared for the heinous crime of being quoted by Breivik, and BBC journos have obsessively pursued the line of investigation that there were solid links between Breivik and ‘right-wing’ groups in Britain. Yet, despite the repeated statements from officials and Ministers in Norway, the BBC hasn’t given up, believing a connection to be only a matter of time.

More worrying still, as Autonomous Mind uncovers, is the threat to our liberties from the European Union. As is usual, the EU are attempting to turn a disaster into a beneficial crisis involving a further transfer of powers and integration. What is more, they are to begin development of an EU network in order to ‘monitor the growth of the radicalisation of discourse on the internet’:

It is frightening that the EU, with its goal of eradicating the nation state, will be deciding whether its opponents are too radical, whether their views can therefore be shared on the internet, and will define what constitutes xenophobia and whether that should be punished – all backed by European courts and European arrest warrants.

Whether or not such a network will be built and succeed in its goals is another matter. But that the EU should even be considering such plans is deeply disturbing. No doubt those same people on the Left who have smeared the Right by association with Breivik will be full of praise for the new EU radicalisation network. This is how freedom can die, in the pursuit of security – of which, in the end, we shall have neither.

The sheer volume of coverage has been somewhat staggering, with the broadcast media having given the matter virtually wall-to-wall treatment, with every miniscule new event turned into ‘breaking news’, all reported in wide eyed, breathless tones by metropolitan elite newsreaders.

Likewise, the print media have gone into overdrive, filling hundreds of pages and columns with mindless prattle on the technological equivalent of rummaging through someone’s dustbins (something that, incidentally, our beloved and benevolent state does to us with little comment or complaint by that same media and politicians).

Yet, for all the quantity of reporting then there has been very little in the way of quality, with most articles rarely scratching beyond the surface of the issue and indulging in the typical kind of bubble-journalism which is increasingly prevalent in the mainstream media.

If only the media elite expended as much effort examining Britain’s membership of the European Union, the financial crisis into which we are rapidly sinking, or the way in which (as Christopher Booker weekly highlights) children in this country are let down in the ‘care’ of the state. But, then again, this is the British media…

During this manufactured scandal, the political and media classes have shown the full extent of their regressive and symbiotic relationship, with each feeding off the filth disgorged by the other and revelling in the spectacle: one rotten establishment propping up another equally rotten institution, like two corpses with rigor mortis.

Meanwhile, as our politicians and media vie for the limelight in their race to the bottom, dealings of far greater significance are taking place across the Atlantic. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard tells us:

On the other side, the recovery has sputtered out and the printing presses are being oiled again. Brinkmanship between the Congress and the White House over the US debt ceiling has compelled Moody’s to warn of a “very small but rising risk” that the world’s paramount power may default within two weeks.

This, as he highlights, is an incredibly scary prospect. Whether it will actually happen is another matter, but the spectre of default now hangs over the US economy and consequently the world. After the Wall Street crash in 1929, it was said that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches the cold – and it now appears that the same or worse may well happen again unless the US institutions can pull the country back from the brink with debt reduction.

Of great interest has been the way in which the price of precious metals has risen as paper currency has receded in value due to the inflationary pressure of printing money. I recall reading an article in the Daily Mail back in May, which noted that the US State of Utah became the first in the country to legalise gold and silver coins as currency. This was a warning sign of events to come, and Evans-Pritchard highlights the increasing flight by the markets to Gold.

Yet, so absorbed in its own sordid affairs is our British media that the crisis that is gripping the world is treated as almost purely an economic rather than political issue. This is the news that should be on the front page of newspapers. This is the news that should be leading daily broadcast news bulletins on the BBC and Sky. Instead though, we have to contend ourselves with the dreary mug shots of Rebekah Brooks and company as the world crashes and burns.

In the mean time I’ve been keeping tabs on the whole ‘Climategate’ saga which thankfully blew up a few months ago before the Copenhagen Climate talks. Much of the foot work was done by the blogs both in this country and in the United States as the mainstream media sort to bury their heads in the sands and managed to turn a collective blind eye.

Today has seen heavy snowfall right across the country causing disruption to traffic networks and business. However, predictably the usual suspects have been quick to claim that what is predicted to be the coldest winter in thirty years is not, in any way whatsoever, in conflict with man-made global warming.

If you haven’t read it already, Dr Richard North wrote an excellent article for the Mail on Sunday about how the Met Office has been so wrong about its long term forecasts. I am also about to start reading Christopher Booker’s latest tome on the subject of Global Warming and Climate Change which comes highly recommended.

As I write, it is beginning to snow again, so I leave you with a photograph of all that Global Warming in my garden this morning. Clearly I had absolutely nothing better to do…

For having the audacity to stand up for her beliefs and probably those of millions more then she has come under intense and personal criticism from the Left – and for this at least she deserves acknowledgement.

Yet, I do find her rather annoying. Despite her brave, if at times ignorant, stand on traditionalist issues such as abortion, at times she lacks a sense of credibility. Perhaps the attacks by the Left really are hitting home, or perhaps it is because when she gets things wrong it is arguably in spectacular fashion. Who knows?

On her blog last night, Ms Dorries did nothing at all to alleviate these concerns of mine. Quite openly she cited ‘rumours’ from a close yet unnamed source who suggested that the MPs expenses scandal may have been created and exploited by the apparently ‘fiercely eurosceptic’ Barclay Brothers, who have since 2004 been the multi-billionaire owners of the Telegraph newspaper group.

Nadine went on to declare that she agreed with her source who said the Barclay Brothers wish to destabilise Parliament and allow anti-EU parties to gain votes at the European elections because the Conservative Party are not ‘eurosceptic’ enough. Yet, if she really believed the Barclay Brothers were conspiring against MPs then she should have said so rather than using weasel words.

What’s more, the recent MP allowances scandal is collectively the responsibility of all Members of Parliament. Nobody forced MPs to claim their allowance in full. So when Labour MP, Stephen Pound, claimed that Parliamentary staff ‘used to ring people and say you’re under claiming this month’, and that, ‘in reality they were helping us over the cliff’, this was still absolutely no excuse.

Furthermore, of course the Conservative Party is not eurosceptic enough – but then, these days, euroscepticism doesn’t mean anything anymore anyway. You either leave the EU or remain in it and run by it – there is no in between. However, whether that is the view of the Barclay Brothers is debatable. They have never done much to give me the impression they favour EU withdrawal.

However, there is indeed deception at work, and like Ms Dorries I do not find it particularly unlikely that:

This is all a power game … the British public are being worked like puppets by two very powerful men. Whipped up into a frenzy to achieve exactly what they want.

As I did previously remark, something similar happened in 1997 when the media collectively grouped together to help remove the Conservative administration under John Major. Something similar is beginning to happen again, the result of which will mean that important political issues won’t be discussed (or even aired) and as a consequence no honest political choice will be given to the electorate come the General Election next year.

Despite Cameron and the Conservative Party being equally guilty and complicit in the recent expenses scandal (manufactured or otherwise), the media has sought to portray the Conservative Party as setting the agenda on Parliamentary expenses (which it has not done). This is so that the furore may be used as a mechanism to allow the Conservatives back into office without proper scrutiny of their policies or those of Government.

We are entering very dangerous territory and our entire British political system faces an enormous challenge. Under the cover of darkness that this scandal has cast across Westminster and engulfed the media, our Government, with the willing compliance of the opposition, are seeking to force through yet further radical constitutional reform. Melanie Phillips in the Spectator argues:

The last thing that should happen is for Parliament to be made even weaker. Yet MPs are apparently themselves doing just that by agreeing to have their financial arrangements removed from Parliamentary control and given to an outside body. But this undermines a key principle of our Parliamentary democracy that Parliament is sovereign and no-one tells it what to do.

As Dr Richard North had previously remarked – this scandal is a symptom, not the cause of our wider problem. That problem is the constitutional crisis we are now facing which has been mainly brought about by successive Governments and Parliaments who have helped to whittle away our democratic powers and right to self-government. The result has been a public left bewildered and angered by handsome perks for MPs who are not doing their job.

In this way, Nadine Dorries redeemed herself this morning when she rightly remarked that the real fault lies with successive Governments and their Prime Ministers, who have never had the courage publicly to address the issue of MPs’ salaries and their worth. The currently proposed reforms will go no way towards assessing that worth either. One or two MPs might ceremonially be thrown under the bus by their leaders to save the rest, but, fundamentally, nothing much will change at all.

We cannot continue to blithely ignore the overriding issue of sovereignty. Unless our Parliament as an institution is rebuilt and strengthened against the power of Government then it shall remain meaningless and verbose, and these types of financial and political scandal will only perpetuate.

While both scandals undoubtedly serve to remind us and the electorate of how out of touch the political class are with the rest of the country – both morally and politically – this cannot, I think, necessarily be seen as entirely desirable.

In the few years leading up to the 1997 General Election, the Conservative Government of John Major was engulfed in scandal after scandal involving the sleazy activities of Tory backbenchers and Ministers. The bedroom antics and financial misdoings of MPs whom nobody had heard of previously were suddenly splashed all over the front pages of the daily newspapers.

It would be fair to say that all Governments who have been in office for any considerable length of time are susceptible to these scandals. This does not, of course, make it right that they should have been carried out by the individuals in question, but simply to say that such human and political failings will almost certainly happen under any Government of any party given enough time.

As it happens, the supposedly ‘whiter than white’ Labour party that followed the Conservative implosion and electoral landslide of 1997 was swiftly involved in its own set of financial and sexual scandals, with Robin Cook choosing to sack his wife at the airport after a phone call with Blair and later marrying his mistress, while Peter Mandelson was caught up in the Hinduja passport row.

Yet, with a change of Government, very little by comparison was made of these similar scandals in the mainstream media, and sleaze suddenly became politically unimportant again (to most journalists at least). This therefore suggests that sleaze only seems to matter when a Government is perceived to be doing a bad job. This was the case in the mid-nineties under John Major and is equally so now under the tenure of Gordon Brown.

However, more importantly, the cry of sleaze levelled at individual MPs and Governments can be used by the media as a means by which to allow the political opposition into office without ever having subjected them to reasoned or thorough scrutiny of policy.

In short it is an unreasoned, mindless frenzy. It happened in 1997 with very little public scrutiny of Labour’s policies under the leadership of Tony Blair, and it appears that something similar is happening again with the Labour Government and our Tory opposition under David Cameron. The effect will be that ‘real’ political issues will not be discussed (or often even aired) and that as a consequence no honest political choice will be given to the electorate – they will simply be voting on personalities.

Labour backbencher, John McDonnell, and Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, call for a swift inquiry into the email leaks and those responsible for the digital comments. The end of the world as we know it beckons.

Who actually cares? Certainly not me, though it seems that the usual suspects in the media and in the blogosphere have worked themselves up into a mad feeding frenzy over what amounts to be nothing more than a complete non-issue.

Nobody living outside the Westminster bubble actually cares at all either. Real people with real jobs and families are either too busy dealing with their own financial problems, as our economy falls into the worst recession for decades, or worrying about more important issues from health to immigration. Perhaps this is why the British National party are rapidly gaining traction in local elections at the expense of all the main parties?

In fact, this whole rather sad episode played out in Westminster just goes to further highlight how completely out of touch our political class have become. They’ve made more fuss over a few pathetic emails than they have over many, many other issues which are actually important to the electorate. This will only serve to drive yet more voters into the arms of the racist BNP.

I do not condone Den Dover’s clearly deceitful and illegal actions but I think that the issue of his personal theft from the system in comparison to EU waste in general is very minor.

However, with our modern media being what they are you can guess which story they will spend most column inches discussing.

Could it be that the old left-wing fanatic is afraid of losing her seat at the next election, which she currently holds with only a slim majority of around two thousand votes?

Whatever the true reason for her departure, good riddance I say. Unfortunately however, the damage she helped cause in her time as Education Secretary under Tony Blair’s premiership will not be undone by her political demise.

Ruth Kelly, like so many of her Ministerial predecessors across the decades, presided over the imposition of increasingly pitiful state education on the poorest in Britain while, as emerged earlier this year, allowing her own children to escape the system by sending them to good public schools. Of course, afraid of the public backlash that her hypocrisy would have sparked, she desperately attempted to suppress the truth before the story broke.

Unsurprisingly, Ms Kelly’s arrogant and hypocritical stance is not unique within the Labour party. Diane Abbott famously described her own decision to send her child to a public school despite being against them and for the hopeless state educational system in this country as, ‘indefensible’.