There was gloomy news last week in the sphere of international politics -- so gloomy, in fact, that had it not been for Israel's spirited rejection of its most unhelpful prime minister ever, Benjamin ("Turn-the-clock-back Bibi") Netanyahu, monitors of social progress everywhere would now be inconsolable.
A familiar and reassuring force in British politics, it was reported, is facing extinction following a rise in the deposit required by electoral candidates. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party will field no candidates in the European Parliament's June elections; indeed, according to its leader, a question mark hangs over the party's entire future.
We are not coyly referring here to William Hague and his Conservative Party, although British voters have understandably been known to confuse Tories (and the odd Ulster Unionist) with Monster Raving Loonies from time to time. No, the man responsible for last week's bombshell was the top-hatted Screaming Lord Sutch, who, as leader of the Loonies and its predecessor Teenage Party since 1963, is Britain's longest-serving party leader by far. As for the OMRLP, it is a bona fide electoral force that has labored faithfully since 1976 to serve the British public by "taking looniness away from the unofficial loony parties (the Conservatives, Labor, Lib Dems, Greens and the rest) and showing them up for the boring parties they are."