Chav Culture

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' visit to London last week provided another golden opportunity for Ken Livingstone to feel moist over some left-wing dictator. Of course, if it's not him, it's that self-publicising arse George Galloway lambasting vile oppressor Blair while singing the praises of Saddam Hussain. Galloway, in his own words, is 'a different type of MP'. Indeed, George, other ones actually represent their constituents rather than fannying about sucking up to despots.

Anyway, my theory is that Chavez represents the man Livingstone is in his dreams, the tough-talking hero of the masses sticking his fingers up America's nose, rather than the petty socialist bureaucrat with the irritating voice who reappears when he awakes.

And let's not forget Livingstone's visit to China last month, when he surveyed Tiananmen Square and with crassness unusual even for him likened the events of June 1989 to London's poll tax riots. Entirely comparable, Ken, well done - to this day it impresses me what a good job our government did covering up those thousands of deaths on the streets of our capital.

Picture, if you will, a line of tanks rumbling towards the centre of London, intent on violently crushing the massed demonstrators. Suddenly a single unknown individual, taking no thought for his personal safety, heroically blocks their path. The difference? In this scenario, the man turns out to be a traffic warden, who admits that his actions were motivated not by a selfless desire to save others, but rather that the tanks had not paid the congestion charge.