Harriet Harman iz luvinn ur totalitarianz

Harriet Harman: definitely not bedtime totty...

Via my impecunious Athenian friend*, I stumble across this execrable interview with Harriet Harman, incumbent of five jobs including Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Apparently The Independent have a regular feature wherein politicians answer fatuous questions emailed in by Independent hacks using assumed names in a desperate attempt to convince people that anyone reads their crappy rag readers.

There are some amazingly stupid answers there (admittedly rendered more entertaining by a passing knowledge of UK politics) but here's the one that struck me as easily appreciable on both sides of The Pond.

Fidel Castro: hero of the left, or dangerous authoritarian dictator?
David Newton
Edinburgh

[Harperson:] Hero of the left – but time for Cuba to move on.

What the hell? That was my first thought upon reading this; obviously, Mr Eugenides was struck by the same reaction.

If the deputy leader of the Tories had praised Augusto Pinochet as a "hero of the right", he'd have be sacked by lunchtime.

But then I thought about it for a little bit, and now I think that her answer is entirely consistent and even, from her point of view, completely reasonable.

After all, a dangerous authoritarian dictator is obviously going to be a hero of the left; there is no dichotomy here—as far as Harriet is concerned, the two options are entirely synonymous.

F**k me, but Harman's such a loathsome individual, as well as being possessed of a face that one would never, ever tire of slapping.

Mind you, Hilary Clinton's worse: those crazy Americans always have to go that wee bit further, don't they...?


If you'd like to see more of your humble Devil's... er... appreciation of Harriet—and you don't mind some fairly strong swearing—a fuller version of this post appears at The Kitchen.