Cameron panics

I may be alone in this, and I do agree that given the Tory reputation for racism a dismissal may have been appropriate for bad judgement...

However, what Patrick Mercer actually said was that calling someone a "black bastard" happened in the army. Along with calling people "fat bastards" or "ginger bastards". Which is probably true. So he wasn't being racist. The worst you could say of him was that he was condoning a culture of verbal abuse, but that depends on whether you believe that a group of guys who are expected to go out and... erm... kill people are likely to cry into their mattress every night over being called "a slow-moving ginger bastard".

What scares me is that it is now far safer as an MP to waffle and hedge evasively (in the grand tradition of Tony Blair) than it is to actually speak from the heart or discuss controversial issues honestly. This bolsters a culture of spin, PR and stage management. The worst person coming out of this is probably David Cameron who has demonstrated he is too scared to stand up for a public culture of open debate.