Alex Massie

Ah, the tabloids... Bless them. Just when you think no newspaper can keep a healthier stable of high horses than the New York Times, Fleet Street reminds one that humbug and sanctimony are both alive and well in London. Gordon Brown just made his life more difficult. If he does renege upon Labour's promise to hold a referendum upon the EU constitution treaty - even in its revised "non-treaty" form- he's made an enemy of Britain's best-selling paper, The Sun. Good. Here's what The Sun says today: GORDON Brown last night took the fatal step of breaking his word to Sun readers. Over dinner with 26 other EU leaders, he allowed the momentous EU Constitution to be approved — without a referendum. The unspoken toast was to a European superstate.

John Derbyshire on fetishisation and Islamophobia (which does, of course exist, even if it is much less widespread than muslim "community leaders" would have you believe): Speaking of which, I have been voted off the New English Review site for being insufficiently Islamophobic. Fair enough. NER has now settled down as a definitely and strongly Islamophobic vehicle, and I'm a poor fit for it, being Islamophobophobic. In matters editorial I am anyway a believer in totalitarian despotism. I've seen enough of magazine and newspaper editors tearing their hair to know that it's a wellnigh impossible job—"herding cats" is the merest approximation—and am content to leave them to it, so long as they don't grossly infringe on my rights as a contributor.

Amidst suggestions that Nancy Pelosi will in fact put the Armenian Genocide resolution in her pocket, it's been quite something to see so many self-styled liberals shake their heads and mutter that, you know, while we feel for the poor Armenians - and please, don't for a moment doubt the seriousness of our compassion - that feeling does extend to doing anything other than cave to Turkey' desire to muddy historical waters that are plenty clear enough (and have been for 90 years) to most reasonable observers. Still, it must be reassuring to be told, We'd like to help, we really would, but it's just too difficult. For some reason the Washington Post has run a number of pieces taking this brave stand.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.