Your witches tonight. And a spectre.

The Guran helpfully provides its readers with a list of named and shamed candidates, provided by no less than their Deputy Political Editor:

As Tories, Labour and Lib Dems finalise their list of candidates, here are the furores so far 

 Allegations of racism and sexism have abounded, leading to several to withdraw and/or apologise. Others have been the subject of rows over their selection or accusations of cronyism.

They are too tedious to list in detail. Some seem serious. Others reek of dead cat. I am not sure what we should now do exactly. Tories have the most defaulters and LibDems only one, so should we take the next step and infer that the Tory Party generally is home to nasty people? Or Brexiteers are?

Above all, has no-one at the Grun considered the implications? Won't all this make the public even more cynical or disillusioned? Won't it encourage a debasement of political discourse? More trolling? Endanger the lives of candidates?

At this point, my webpage refused to reload. The Gruan has noticed I read their webpages a lot and has asked for money. Maybe they have now realised why I read their webpages?

Normal service has been resumed. Onwards...

Chakrabortty must be a marxist apostate because his opening comment on the anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall recalls Marx's I8th Brumaire...

The threat of the Soviet bloc forced western democracies to acknowledge the rights of workers and poor people 

The very presence of a powerful rival ideology frightened capitalists into sharing their returns with workers and the rest of the society, in higher wages, more welfare spending and greater public investment...the “more national elites [in South America] were under the threat of communist revolution, the more the state introduced policies that reduced top income shares”...[Manifesto now] ... a spectre was haunting the west: the spectre of egalitarianism. [But, just as in 18th Bru...] Communism didn’t topple capitalism, but kept it honest – and so saved it from itself.

Conversely, the collapse of communism between 1989 and 1991 has left capitalism unchallenged and untempered – and increasingly unviable....for most of the past three decades, the political classes – whether Tony Blair or David Cameron, George W Bush or Barack Obama – have accepted vast gulfs between rich and poor as just one of those sad facts of life. With tiny shrugs, they put it down to globalisation or the shifting job market

Almost all...counterweights to extreme capitalism have disappeared today, from strong trade unions to alternative national models. The resulting debauchery is all around us, [and with a bit of Marxist eschatology now] A system so manifestly unwilling to change course will hit the rocks

The mystery remains though -- how does all this lead nevertheless to his support for Remain? 

Meanwhile, the Graun has an absolutely priceless, if long, article, which all fans should read, on the aesthetics and erotics of the dick pic. What a contribution to serious journalism and civilised Western values in these difficult times!

Sexting: do men and women do it differently?