Barb'ry, talking politics is a vigorous and lusty pastime, not best done walking on eggshells. I'm a product of those hard-left smoke-filled rooms of the 70s, the difference from here being that we can't eyeball each other on this forum. That gives Iains the "courage" to routinely offend, provoke, and insult. He'd have been given the order of the boot in short measure had he tried that in those heated real debates, for the astonishingly simple reason that he can't debate. We just didn't do what he does. So let us have free rein, within reason. Counsels of perfection are fine, and we should aspire, but we are human beings. Please delete posts that take the mick out of our names ("backwardman," "little jimmie," "shaw" and the like), and that lack any of the sensible content you'd expect in talking politics. And while I'll defend his right to the hilt to make constant references to his favourite far-right criminal blogger and muse, he really shouldn't be sneeringly telling us just about every day that Mr Staines is the only infallible source of political analysis. Don't let him do it. That way, you won't have to keep sending us those green "love-letters." We promise!