The cavalry that rescued Gordon Brown was holding aloft a burning across and dressed in white sheets. Peter Robinson’s DUP has enabled Labour to bang you up for forty two days without charge.

On Sunday of next week there is a demonstration in London because one BNP member has been elected to the London Assembly. The Democratic Unionist Party has nine MPs in the British parliament and is the dominant party in the governing coalition in the north of Ireland. The only real difference between the two organisations is the percentage of the vote they receive.

Are you looking for justification of racist attacks? The DUP will give it. Do you like your MP to be openly homophobic? Iris Robinson fits the bill. Are you in favour of beating the crap out of Palestinians? Contact the DUP’s international department. Banana republic corruption? Ian Paisley junior. General loathing of papists? The DUP’s raison d’être.

The day after it announced that in the last year another 100 000 children are living in poverty, the incomes of the poorest households had fallen by 1.6% while those of the richest had increased by 0.8% New Labour has to rely on the extreme right wing of the British parliament to force though this year’s attack on civil liberties. By contrast Tory leader David Cameron sounded like a Leveller.

Let’s not get too indignant about this. Brown will pull something worse out of the hat in a few weeks.