So farewell then, Maurice Papon, mass murderer. They tried you for collaborating with the Nazis in rounding up Jews for their death camps. You did it, but you walked free. That was some hold you had over the politicians and the judiciary. I suppose, like Hoover in the USA, you knew all their dark secrets. I could say you knew where the bodies were buried, but that seems inappropriate for a killer who preferred to dump his victims' corpses in the Seine. All those dead North Africans fished out of the river and nobody dared ask how they got there. Yes, you certainly wielded great power, and you used it like a true fascist.

Richard and Judy, venality personified. Once again caught in flagrante delicto, their grasping hands in the pockets of their viewers. Will they be punished? Of course not. I'm betting Channel4 will give them a rise as compensation for their embarrassment, as if people of their sort ever felt embarrassment.

I suppose my remark about eunuchs in yesterday's post could be taken as sexist. I'm never quite sure which words are in and which are out. I'm still wondering if it's OK to use the word Spaniard nowadays. Everyone seems to say "the Spanish". There's a lot of similar terms I'm wary of: has Somali become Somalian? Must Croats and Bosniaks now be Croatians and Bosnians? I'm sure there must be a handbook of correct terms I can consult, but I haven't found it yet.
But back to the eunuchs' female colleagues. "Blair's Babes" they were once called condescendingly, but that was before most of them voted for the barbarisation of Iraq. Blair's bomb-happy harpies is a bit of a mouthful. Brian Sedgemore's description of them as Stepford Wives is a fair equivalent of eunuchs, I suppose.