The name’s Freude – Schaden Freude: American buggers, green energy and idiotic union leaders

The news is very rarely a barrel of laughs, but I must admit that I’ve been enjoying it enormously these past few days, because three of the things I most dislike have either suffered a bit of a reversal or extreme embarrassment.

First, there’s Obama’s spot of bother over the question of whether America has been bugging French and German politicians. I was astonished at how lightly Barry was let off when it came to stories about American authorities monitoring journalists and the IRS deliberately making life hard for right-wing groups (well, no, I wasn’t really surprised – the American mainstream media’s a shoe-in to win the Cruft’s “Toy Dog” category next year, should it decide to enter). But no amount of brown-nosing by journalistic poodles is going to get him and his security services off the hook with those European “allies” he’s been cosying up to at the expense of his country’s imaginary special relationship with Britain. After all, Angela Merkel is the second most powerful politician in the world.

The BBC, of course, is doing it’s best to help Baz out. For instance, can you tell what’s odd about this online report about Germany summoning the US Ambassador to give a full explanation of what exactly the Yanks have been up to (full article here)?:

Mrs Merkel has demanded a "complete explanation" of the claims, which are threatening to overshadow an EU summit. 

She discussed the issue with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday. 

President Obama told Mrs Merkel the US was not monitoring her calls and would not in future, the White House said. 

However, it left open the question of whether calls had been listened to in the past.

Yes, that’s right. The bit where Obama is protesting innocence is attributed to His Holiness the Prez. The bit about him not answering questions about past naughtiness is attributed to a building – i.e. the White House. Next we’ll no doubt be treated to the sight of Mark Mardell via satellite link, all pink and wobbling, assuring us that it’s all the fault of those horrid Tea Party maniacs.

Next, the news that the Unite union has gone crawling back to the management of Ineos to stop 800 of its members losing their jobs for rejecting proposals to cut their extravagant pay and pension entitlements. I was particularly amused by this stinking piece of panicky cant from Unite’s boot-faced commie leader, Len McCluskey:

"This plant is on cold shut down and each day that goes by makes it harder to start back up again, which is why the stewards made the offer to the company - so that we can get people back to work." 

Gosh, Len, how generous of those stewards to make the company an offer, which they presumably decided would be a good move within about 30 seconds of realising that their ridiculous bluff had been called (one presumes that shortly after reaching that decision they all had to rush off for an urgent change of underpants). But I was a bit confused by your claim that the union would not let the plant close. I think you might be a bit hazy about who actually has the power to decide whether a business shuts down a part of its operation. Let me clear that up for you: it's the owners, not the employees. (And, by the way, it's 2013, not 1973.)

As for David Cameron’s statement that “We need to roll back some of the green regulations and charges that are putting up bills”, no – ya think? What about an apology to all those sensible critics who’ve been begging you to do this ever since your deranged promise to lead “the greenest government ever”. And why did it take a cheap gimmick from that little twerp Miliband to make you realise that placing extra  burdens on British tax-payers and businesses just to satisfy the utopian fantasies of hysterical misanthropic eco-loons might not be particularly clever? Fool!