amica Last updated at 12:26 AM on 13th January 2009 AAARGH! As if one of them wasn't enough, Peter Mandelson is being cloned in cyberspace. A cartoon-like image of him will soon appear on a new website. The computer-generated Mandy, called an avatar, is - believe it or not - designed to give him a more human image and will use his real voice. Since his real voice sounds as if it has been generated by a computer, how will anyone be able to tell? Cyber Mandy will debut on Second Life, the virtual world created for people who don't have a real life, and is the brainchild of his former sidekick Dolly Draper - aka Mr Kate Garraway – another member of Labour's Living Dead now back in the fold. Virtual reality: Peter Mandelson's avatar on website community Second Life has been designed to give him a more 'human' image According to Mandelson's blog, the project is designed to 'embrace and engage' voters in the age of the internet. In the past, he admits, 'sometimes we were our own worst enemy'. Not while I draw breath, you're not, petal. Yesterday, I tried to log on to the new website, without success. If Labour has a door policy in cyberspace, I'm barred. Maybe they're creating this online Fantasy Island to distract us from what is actually happening back here on Earth. Then again, life on Earth - at least that distant colony inhabited by Labour - is difficult to distinguish from virtual reality. Gordon Brown lives in his own time/space continuum, rarely touching down in the real world. For all we know, he may be an avatar. Think about it. What was his leadership 'election' if not an elaborate exercise in virtual smoke and mirrors? He allegedly toured the country, addressing virtual audiences of computer-generated Labour loyalists. Since no one from outside the bubble was ever admitted to any of these rallies, how can we be sure they actually happened? Then there was the general election that never was. Was that an illusion, too? Here, in the real world, sterling has suffered its sharpest fall in history, the economy is a basket case, millions are facing unemployment, the housing market has collapsed, bank lending has atrophied and shops are being boarded up all over Britain. Yet in the parallel universe of Labour's La-La Land, Gordon continues to insist he's a superhero who has saved the whole world from financial ruin and pumps billions of virtual pounds into a black hole of his own creation. Turn on the news bulletins and he's everywhere, making speeches boasting of his brilliance. I've become convinced that there are several computer-generated Gordon Browns doing the rounds, otherwise he could never keep up such a punishing schedule. The speech patterns are a dead giveaway. For all the advances in computer graphics, voice recognition software hasn't progressed much beyond Dalek level. Virtual Gordon, like all avatars, has a limited vocabulary, which he is forced to repeat over and over again - 'global', 'began in America', 'right decisions', 'whatever it takes', 'do-nothing Tories', 'global', 'began in America' . . . 'exterminate, exterminate, exterminate. . .' Actually, careful observation of Labour's entire front bench suggests they may all be avatars. The Miliband Twins look and sound like Vulcans. There is little sign of human life on Alistair Darling. Every time he opens his mouth, he manages to suck all the oxygen out of the room. Caroline Flint is obviously an early prototype gone wrong of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Yvette Cooper could be Sonic The Hedgehog's annoying kid sister. Jack Straw looks a bit like Yoda from Star Wars. But I suppose it was inevitable that Mandelson would be the first to have his own official online, carefully-airbrushed persona - a sort of computer-generated picture of Dorian Gray. Like a PlayStation villain, no matter how many times he's zapped, he's impossible to kill. And now Little Lord Cyberspace sits at Virtual Gordon's right hand, while the rest of us are destined to be marooned in the real world wasteland they are leaving behind. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mork and Mandy. This column's support for Israel is well-known. I dug out what I wrote at the time of the war in Lebanon a couple of years ago. Substitute 'Gaza' for Lebanon and 'Hamas' for Hezbollah and nothing has changed. I'm not going to revisit all the arguments. This has less to do with the Palestinian cause and everything to do with the global jihad and Iranian-sponsored terrorism aimed at wiping Israel off the face of the Earth. Yet where are the violent demonstrations outside Iranian embassies in London and around the world? Precisely. Israel will do what it has to do to defend itself from the Hamas and Hezbollah death cults. What has always concerned me is the impact on the Jewish community in Britain. Since Israel invaded Gaza, there has been a marked increase in attacks on Jewish targets in this country, from assaults on Jews wearing traditional clothes, to vandalism and firebombs at synagogues - not that you'd be aware of it from watching the BBC. Yet again, the hatred is coming from the hard-Left and militant Islamists - the same virulent anti-Semitism, disguised as condemnation of Israel, which I uncovered when making a documentary on the subject for Channel 4. Much of the violence in London has involved people who couldn't point to Gaza on a map and think the West Bank is a subsidiary of Northern Rock. It's the usual crowd of Trotskyite boot boys, Saddamites and bussed-in wannabe jihadists, spoiling for a fight and an excuse to kick a few coppers. The situation is inflamed by home-grown rabble-rousers like Galloway and Livingstone, and dopey birds like Tony Blair's sister-in-law claiming that the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are used for nothing more sinister than transporting food and medicine. Contrast the mayhem outside the Israeli embassy with the restrained, dignified pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square. So far, it has cost the Met £1million to contain the violence. It's bad enough that there's war in the Middle East, without it being fought on the streets of London. Crack down: Communities secretary Hazel Blears is giving ball games the red card Now we know why councils have been recruiting 'street football co-ordinators' - not to encourage kids to play football, but to ban it. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has sent out a 53-page departmental memo ordering local authorities to carry out risk assessments before allowing ball games on municipal property. The guidance states: 'If not planned properly, football can be divisive and trigger conflict. Passions can get high and physical contact can easily lead to confrontations.' That's the whole point of park football. It's to encourage boys to burn off excess energy. And if it descends into a punch-up, so what? Some of the worst fights I've ever seen have been on Sunday morning football fields. No harm done. I can remember a referee - who sent off three players from the same side within the first ten minutes - having to flee for his life from supporters on motorbikes. This is all part of the meddlesome Guardianista plot to eliminate all risk and spontaneity from every aspect of our lives. How long before they legislate on the use of jumpers for goalposts? For instance, you won't be able to use jumpers from budget retailers because they're made by slave labour in the Third World. Next, they'll be insisting that teams have to reflect the gender, ethnic origin and sexuality of the surrounding area. And no one will be allowed to win, because it could traumatise the losers. It was bad enough when professional football introduced the superfluous fourth official. By the time Hazel Blears has finished, there'll be so many risk assessors, elf'n'safety advisers, diversity monitors and anti-social behaviour counsellors on the touchline, there won't be room on the park for anyone else. A couple in Leeds have been told they can't adopt a child because the husband is too fat. Damien Hall, 37, weighs in at 24½ stone (don't ask me what that is in centigrade). He is over six feet tall, doesn't drink or smoke and has been happily married to his wife Charlotte, a nanny, for 11 years. But his body mass index rules him out as a prospective adoptive parent. Curiously, had Mrs Hall weighed in at 24 stone and been able to conceive naturally, the authorities would be bending over backwards to accommodate her. Last year, I told you how hospitals were ordering reinforced maternity beds to support grotesquely overweight mothers. Now University College Hospital, in London, is one of 30 hospitals having to widen the doors to its maternity unit because some women are too fat to fit through them. How fat do you have to be not to fit through a door? They'll be installing cranes soon to winch them through the windows. It would be cheaper to encourage them to adopt. The Prime Minister has announced plans to spend £500million creating jobs for those made redundant in the credit crunch. If he must add to the public payroll, how about hiring thousands of staff to sort our rubbish into different piles once it gets to the dump, and scrapping all those ridiculously expensive and vindictive recycling regimes?
Log on to Mork and Mandy in
Labour’s La-La Land
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Don't bring Gaza war to the streets of London
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Don't push yet, madam - just try breathing in
Thursday, 15 January 2009
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