Feb 26. I’m off on a bit of a working tour: Brussels, the Black Forest and Bologna so this blog will remain off-line. But it’s good to see a new Sunday newspaper has hit the stands today, in theory at least. Sadly the Sun On Sunday – SOS for short – has little to recommend it. No must-read columnists (Toby Young?), a bland ghost-written Katie Price page, and tedious "fashion expert" Nancy Doolallio. The paper is in serious need of a radical free-thinking columnist who hits like Eric Joyce to reflect working class frustration with the status quo. A bit of kiss & tell filth wouldn’t go amiss either. Like it or loathe it, The Sun is still a class operation but it has lost much of its punch, and all of its principles. At least in the eighties it rattled politicians and stood for something. The Sun’s decline set in during the following decade when senior management forced the paper to abandon its core beliefs to become the Pravda of New Labour, turning somersaults to do the bidding of its ideological masters. The litany of shame stretches from Mandelson and the Millennium Dome to its slavish adherence to Blair’s Gulf War lies. Now I see Rupe wants our forces to shed more British blood in a new Middle East conflict. US “neo-cons” are itching for an all-out war on Iran, and there’s the Sun on the side-lines as the cheerleader. SoS? Same Old Shit.

Why aren’t our politicians up in arms over the extradition of Kent businessman Chris Tappin? This honest English businessman has been indicted by a grand jury in El Paso without ever being told the case was being heard! It’s like something out of Kafka. Now he has been transferred to a US jail on the basis of an unproven charges he has not been allowed to contest. Our extradition agreement with the States is a one-sided farce and this is a travesty of justice.

JK Rowling is writing her first novel for adults. I believe it’s called Harry Potter & The Goblet of Werther’s Originals.

Feb 23. R.I.P. Frank Carson, who died today aged 85. Britain is now a much quieter place. Belfast-born Frank was an old-fashioned joke-teller without a bad bone in his body who rattled off gags like a Gatling gun. It was the way he told them. And he was a cracker. It was a privilege to have known him. Classic Carson quips: My father fought in World War I single-handedly destroyed the Germans' lines of communication. He ate their pigeon... I don't think my wife likes me very much. When I had a heart attack she wrote for an ambulance. A fella said to the doctor: “What’s the good news?” “You’ve got 24 hours to live.” He says: “What’s the bad news?” And the doc says: “We should have told you yesterday”... An Irishman's wife gave birth to twins. Her husband demanded to know who the other man was... Paddy calls a wrong number at 3am. "Is that O'Malley's Bar?" he asks. "No it's not, this is a private residence." "Oh, I must have the wrong number. Sorry to have troubled you," says Paddy. "Ah it's no trouble," says the stranger. "I had to get up to answer the phone anyway."

Ken Goodwin passed away last weekend too. It must be like the Wheeltappers & Shunters Club behind the Pearly Gates these days. There aren’t many of the comedy giants left. Someone should throw a fence around Ken Dodd. Better yet, someone in television should get the last of these old boys on film. They are living gold.

Feb 21. The blog’s not back, but Iain Duncan-Smith deserves a special mention for boldly identifying the cause of youth unemployment today - The X Factor. Well who knew that? It takes a politician to cut through all the crap about the economy, double dip recessions, migration and welfare and show us the bigger picture. And clearly he’s right, it was obviously Simon Cowell who took us into the EU and slippery Louis Walsh who is stopping banks lending to small businesses. Gary Barlow personally destroyed our manufacturing backbone, and if you look into it you’ll probably find that Tulisa is responsible for the on-going immigration fiasco. New girl Alesha Dixon is not in the clear either. After watching her on the Alan Carr show I reckon she’s behind the on-coming drought.

Feb 19. David Haye and Dereck Chisora turned this morning’s post-bout press conference into a bar-room brawl. Haye provoked Chisora into a rage, and then delivered the kind of right-hander to the chin that he’d repeatedly failed to produce when fighting Wladimir Klitschiko so badly last year. Security men hung back as the two hot-heads scrapped. Chisora claimed he’d been glassed and repeatedly threatened to shoot Haye. It was horrible. “Bad for boxing, good for box office” say cynics who point out that a Haye/Chisora bout will now be a must-see event this year. But let’s stick with the “bad for boxing” bit, shall we? The noble art has enough critics without fighters at the top of their craft dragging it through the mud. What do they think the Marquis Of Queensbury is, a boozer? If we tolerate this kind of behaviour we might as well broadcast car park fights at chucking out time. Chisora had already shown himself up as a charmless berk, slapping his opponent Vitali Klitschko at the weigh-in and spitting in Wladimir’s face. Previously he’d bitten an opponent in the ring. That he fought well last night, and showed considerably more heart than Haye did last summer, doesn’t come into it. Both men should now be banned for at least a year. It’s the only way to preserve the good name of British boxing built up over generations and preserved by gentleman pugilists like Cooper and Bruno. Boxing is one of the last remnants of cultural machismo, a sport where honour, courage and discipline still matter. It is, wrote Joyce Carol Oates “a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity, all the more trenchant for being lost.” These morons could drive it into extinction.

Word is Greece will get a new bail-out next week, but will it be any good for them? Even the German finance ministry realises that the Bubbles won’t be able to meet their repayments, and are said to be privately pushing for the Greeks to declare themselves bankrupt. Billions have already been spent trying to keep Greece in the Eurozone, when it would have made much more sense for the country to get shot of the Euro, bring back the drachma, devalue and reap the benefits. The Greek economy sank by seven per cent last year, manufacturing output was slashed by about one sixth and 60,000 small firms went to the wall. The EU’s austerity agenda has pushed the country into a financial death spiral, yet Europe’s political class would rather condemn a generation to poverty than face up to the reality that the Euro isn’t working. All that matters to them is maintaining The Project and they will trample over democracy and sovereignty to secure it.

Feb 12. This blog is shutting down. Back soon, I hope. Cheerio.

RIP Whitney. Another giant talent wrecked by bad drugs. Remember Whitney Houston in her prime, not for what she become. As she said: "We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” And she did. Great Whitney pictures through the ages here.

My latest pod-cast is up here, with guests Mik Whitnall (Babyshambles) and DJ Paul Hallam; tracks from Argy-Bargy, The Selecter, Marching Orders, Phyllis Dillon and many more.

Feb 11. My next signing and reading session for Dance Craze in the UK will be at the 2-Tone village in Coventry at 2pm on March 24. Admission: £2. That evening, I’ll be joining Lady Cardboard and Mod legend Paul Hallam as guest DJs at a fund-raising gig starring The 2-Tone Collection (including Horace Panter, Charley 'Red Dreads' Anderson and more) plus supports. There will be another reading in Shoreditch, East London, before the end of March, details tba.

I’m no fan of The Sun, for obvious reasons, but today’s arrests are absolutely absurd. John Kay is one of the giants of what we used to call Fleet Street. John, who must be 69 now, is an exceptionally good reporter and is as honest as the day is long; he does not deserve to be treated like this. These OTT dawn raids look to me like an entirely fraudulent gesture designed to humble the press, largely to please and appease corrupt politicians who resent having been caught with their fingers in the till. But there’s a widespread suspicion that senior management have had a mucky hand in setting this up too, sacrificing journalists as a cynical ploy. My prediction is that no prosecutions will stick and none of the hacks who had their collars felt today will be found guilty of anything.

Feb 10. Barack Obama has released his Spotify playlist – the 29 songs he’ll be playing on the campaign trail. Can you imagine David Cameron’s Spotify list? It’d surely include The Great Pretender and Bend Me Shape Me; Nick Clegg should go for Magazine’s Shot By Both Sides, while Ed Miliband has Yesterday’s Man written all over him. No straight answer could ever be had from Tony Blair, but I suspect he’d be tough on grime and tough on the causes of grime. And that his anthem should have been Steve Miller’s Take The Money And Run.

Feb 7. I'd like to thank the European Court of Human Rights for reminding us once again that Britain no longer controls our own borders. Thanks to Strasbourg, the Islamist nut-job Abu Qatada will be freed to sponge off the British tax-payer for pretty much as long as he likes. Qatada has been described as Bin Laden's main man in Europe, and "the key UK figure in al-Qaeda"; he was a "spiritual guide" to one of the 9/11 terrorists and the man who advised shoe-bomber Richard Reid. He fervently believes that it's okay to kill Jewish people, women, Americans, Brits and any Muslim who renounces his faith. An all-round nice guy. Qatada is wanted in his native Jordon for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, but we're not allowed to send him home in case the authorities there torture him (even though Jordon has guaranteed that it will not.) So he'll be released from prison on bail to trouser a bucketful of benefits. Lucky old Abu. It's the liberal equivalent of winning the Lottery, and he didn't even have to buy a ticket...

Most weeks we get fresh evidence that the British can no longer make our own laws or decide who can and cannot remain in this country. A recent report showed that 3,775 former foreign prisoners, who were due to be kicked out by the UK Border Agency, have been released from custody and are living here, many on benefits, thanks to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the "right to a family and private life". One of them was a Nigerian rapist who brutally attacked a 13-year-old girl. His rights apparently trump our rights to protect our kids. If it was down to me, the only right he (and any other child rapist) would have is the right to choose whether or not to wear a blindfold when he dances the Tyburn jig. Last week Lady Justice Hallett, while hearing a rape charge against a known Lithuanian sex offender, commented: "Do we just let anyone in, even if they have such a serious conviction?" Indeed we do. Suspected terrorists, big time criminals, foreign paedophiles... in they come and if Strasbourg says they stay, then stay they must. What mugs we have become. What a sick joke, what an unholy mess. Up to our neck in debt, bossed around by unelected European judges, addicted to welfare, scared silent by the PC thought police, Twitter hate-mobs and the equalities industry, and "led" onwards and downwards to ever increasing misery by the great PR con-man and self-serving Quisling David Shameron. Be proud people. This was Britain. Now it's crap. Still at least that bird in TOWIE has got nice implants.

* I'm glad 102 Tory MPs want to repatriate powers on crime and policing from Europe to Britain. But I wonder if they have noticed that it was the Conservative Party who took us into Europe in the first place and have slavishly supported EU legislation for years. When are they going to wake up and realise they are in the wrong party?

Welcome to Bushell On The Blog – the web-page that is proud to drink Top Totty beer.

Feb 3. Top Totty ale has been kicked out of Parliamentary bars after feminist MPs objected to the glamour model silhouette on the label. It’s believed to be the first time the phrase “the Totty’s off” has been used outside of Walford. Obscure Labour MP Kate Green, who looks more of an Old Peculiar kind of woman, has brewed up this storm in a beer glass prompting speculation about which beers she’d prefer to see. Possibly a Miliband Mild & Bitter. The first instinct of the joyless clown is to ban anything they don’t like, and this is a depressing 1980s mindset is gaining ground again, with campaign group Turn Your Back On Page 3 boring the tits off of the Leveson Inquiry. But don’t these middle class control freaks patronise women far more than the newspapers they hate? They paint glamour models as simpletons manipulated by scheming men, when in reality many are bright and strong-willed, exploiting their own lucky genes to make a few bob and escape from the poverty they were born into. It’s their decision, their choice. If you don’t like Page 3 don’t buy the papers that run topless shots. If you don’t like Top Totty, boycott bars that sell it. But stop trying to tell the rest of us how to live our lives. The real Commons bar scandal is that our taxes subsidise the prices.

Kate Green: Scottish-born divorcee, elected via a women-only shortlist, previous claim to infamy, failing to declare an interest when tabling an amendment... which part of this surprises you?

I don’t know whether Chris “Buff” Huhne was driving or not, but he’s in the right seat now... the ejector seat. It’s just a shame we can’t get shot of his barking mad energy policies so easily.

The US republican race has moved to Nevada. Ah, Las Vegas, home to endless buffets and wedding chapels – so, perfect for Newt you might think. But I reckon the big winners are likely to be Mitt and Ron Paul. Here’s why. The large Mormon vote in the state will swing massively behind Romney. Gingrich knows he’s blown it, while Santorum hasn’t bothered campaigning here. Ron Paul on the other hand has a strong campaign machine in Nevada, and a philosophy that ticks all the Vegas boxes. His stand on public land is popular, and he’s right on the Constitution, pulling out of foreign wars, and beating the state out of the lives of the citizens. Ron Paul is the freedom candidate. He’s the man.

Feb 1st. What more fitting development for a Big Brother society than the Two Minute Hate? Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin has been stripped of his knighthood, two days after the current RBS boss was bullied into handing back his bonus. Who next? Former RBS chairman Sir Tom McKillop? Or Sir Callum McCarthy, of the FSA? I’m not sticking up for Goodwin who drove RBS to the brink of bankruptcy, but this kind of demonization diverts our attention from the real problem. Fred’s a totem, a smoke screen. Why not turn the righteous spotlight of wrath on the politicians who let it happen like ‘Lord’ Prescott and ‘Lord’ Mandy Mandelson, the man who was always “intensely relaxed” about the filthy rich, especially those with yachts. If Fred can be stripped of his title, then why not LORD Archer, LORD Taylor, BARONESS Udin, LORD Hanningford, LORD Browne and the rest of the lying, cheating, fiddling scumbags? When will we wake up to the scandalous corruption, avarice and largesse that runs through Brussels – the real seat of power? My heart goes out to Mandy’s chum Tony Blair who is struggling to get through these difficult times on a measly £45million. Let’s hope our former leader isn’t forced to flog one of his seven houses.

Previously.....