Mention the war

Mark Steel has a typically entertaining piece in the Independent. Funnily enough, Don't mention the war isn't really about people not mentioning the war at all but about the absence of any debate in the Labour leadership elections.

The best bit is this, about "the supposedly spontaneous outpouring of love for Blair" from Labour members at his big retirement announcement in Sedgefield:

The only other people who failed to spot this was a contrived media event, involving a handful of selected vetted guests, appeared to be the media itself. I expected the commentators to shriek: "Oh, and there's a litter of grateful kittens who've come out to wave him goodbye with 'We love Tony' tattooed on their paws. Well he certainly has always been very popular among kittens."

Of course, the media attend so many contrived media events that they might never stop pointing out that they were contrived. Looking back at Gordon Brown's big announcement last week and his difficulties with a badly placed autocue (actually a badly placed camera operator), makes me wonder why television always colludes with politicians to keep autocues out of shot.