The Sunday Ishmael: 11/10/2026

 Young, enthusiastic and wholly wrong-headed, Michael Wakelyn-Green, a Green Party activist, was ripped a new arsehole on the Camilla Tominey politics show this morning. 

What possessed the lad to subject himself to the gladiatorial skills of the cold-blooded Tominey? Vanity and ambition, I suspect. I daresay the extra arsehole will come in useful in the career he has mapped out for himself in Green politics. 

A clear case of nominative determinism, poor young Michael, or Mister Wakelyn-Green, as Tominey icily addressed him, was  destined from birth to make a cunt of himself on national television, advocating the Green Party's new policy. For those that missed it, here's the Green Party's own press release about its position, established at the 2026 conference, following a vote of 1022 in favour with 813 against. The party's leader, Zack Polanski, was not in the hall and did not vote.

"The motion sets out the Party’s opposition to Zionism, defined as an ethnonationalist political project ....... The motion reasserts the Party’s commitment to Palestinian liberation, the right of return, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and a full arms embargo against Israel. The motion also restates the Green Party’s backing for the right to self-determination and calls for the establishment of a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine".

The motion has caused the most awful fuss, establishing the Green Party once and for all as really not being about green energy and saving the whales. With a bit of luck, it may see off Zack, of the permanent dirty stubble and appalling dentistry, 

who failed to win a seat at the by-election for Holburn and St. Pancras, losing to Sagal Abdi-Wali, a Somalian, who secured 12,292 votes to Polanski's 8,928.

Back to Mr. Wakelyn-Green, interrupted in his little rant about colonialisation and expansionism by Tominey, who asked him what his understanding of  Zionism is, responded: "we're into semantics now and I do quite agree that it is a complex issue". 

Tominey asked him to consider the meaning of a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine.  "The motion wants Israel to be wiped from the map, doesn't it?" 

Visibly angry, she gave Mr Wakelyn-Green the opportunity to have a little think about Judea - the clue being in the name.
He doubled down: "Israel does not have the right to exist, but people do have the right to exist. Israelis will live with dignity and respect in the state of Palestine. They will have democratic representation."

Good luck with that one, lad. 

Good thing he is qualified to pursue a career outside politics - his LinkedIn page tells us that he holds a "Level 2 Mental Health First Aid & Mental Health Advocacy in the workplace".

It would be rather nice if the indignation that this Green policy has created turns the corner in the distressing anti-Semitism that is now a feature of Britain. And just why exactly can't the relevant authorities ban the pro Palestinian, anti Israel marches that disfigure London on a regular and frequent basis? Especially the one that celebrated the invasion of Israel by Gazans on October 7th 2023?

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In other news, John Swinney, who now looks like an entirely bald, 

very clean old  man, undertook to return the £400,000 embezzled from Party Funds by Mr. Peter Murrell to the SNP members who raised the money.

He told Laura this morning that the most likely route to get the cash back from Murrell was through the courts. Maybe he has in mind a  sequestration order. So would that be levied against former matrimonial assets? Maybe Nicola needs to try and pick up some more television work? A spot in Traitors, perhaps?

Swinney has been conspiring with the nationalist leaders of the United Kingdom's other devolved nations - Wales and Northern Ireland, and confidently declared that now he has got a stonking majority from the people of Scotland, for another five years, he is going to deliver independence.

Perhaps Prime Minister Burnham needs to read Verse 6 of the National Anthem: 
"Lord grant that Marshal Wade, 

May by thy mighty aid, 

Victory bring. 

May he sedition hush, 

And like a torrent rush, 

Rebellious Scots to crush, 

God Save the King."

Obituary Corner: Speak Nothing But Ill of the Dead

Another Colourful Old Bastard Dies. 

Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (15 April 1940 – 5 October 2026), was an English novelist, politician and convicted criminal. He survived allegations of insider trading, near bankruptcy and misrepresentation of academic qualifications to obtain entry to Brasenose College, Oxford.

Archer was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party from 1985 to 1986; he resigned after a newspaper accused him of paying £2000 to a prostitute, Monica Coghlan, to go abroad. In 1987, he won a libel suit against the paper and was awarded large damages because of this claim. 

Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won his case and was awarded £500,000 damages. Mr Justice Caulfield was particularly smitten by the evidence given by Archer's wife at that time, Mary.  Caulfield advised the jury "Remember Mary Archer in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance? How would she appeal? Has she had a happy married life? Has she been able to enjoy, rather than endure, her husband Jeffrey?" The judge then went on to say of Jeffrey Archer: "Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel round about quarter to one on a Tuesday morning after an evening at the Caprice?" Says rather more about Judge Caulfield's interests than Jeffrey Archer's.

Made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently the first Conservative candidate to be selected as a candidate for mayor of London, Archer ended his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in the case in 1987. In 2001, he was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice. 

Ringo  Starr said of him: "He strikes me as a nice enough fella, but he's the kind of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it."

Not even the BBC pretended that he was a national treasure, the best they could manage being complex character and lovable rogue, although he added much to the gaiety of the nation.

 I had no idea he was quite such a prolific writer, churning out 29  novels, 7 short story collections, 3 prison diaries, 3 plays, and 11 children’s books, along with other stories and works. I've never read any of them, I am proud to say, but quite a few other people have lapped them up - his stuff has sold over 300 million copies worldwide. Apparently, he is one of the most successful contemporary British authors, according to his own website. I searched for an ishmaelian rant about Archer, being quite sure that there must be one, because mr ishmael loathed and detested him. There was a copy of Archer's first Prison Diary on the bookshelves once over, and I'm assuming mr ishmael at least dipped into it, but I couldn't find anything in the archive. So, instead, here is mr ishmael's conclusion to the Book of Common Pulp, his take down of popular fiction:

"There is, actually, only one Book of Common Pulp. 

 It comes as the illuminated Lindisfarne Gospel and  the Book of Kells; as the Compleat Works of Shakespeare and  the gilded, leather-bound King James Bible;  the dog-eared Penguin Lady Chatterley's Lover and the intangible, Kindleised Fifty Shades of Grey, and it comes, lonely, lewd and lustful, written on the cyber toilet-wall.  

We tell each other the same story, over and over and over again, of war and peace, of life and death, love and hate, feast and famine, vice and virtue, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to and the lifting-up of our eyes unto the hills."

The Cautious Traveller's Guide to Days Out in the English Countryside.

1. Terraced Gardens     There's a reason for the terraces. Those Victorian and Edwardian owners weren't planning for people with dodgy knees who have left their Nordic walking poles at home. They saw a steep hillside and thought, "Excellent. Let's build seven terraces and a water feature." The more impressive the photographs in the handbook or magazine, the more likely you'll find yourself halfway up, looking for somewhere to sit down  and wondering whether the gardeners abseil.  
2. The Rustic Café, with authentically primitive toilet arrangements, lacking hot water/soap/toilet paper/towel. Menu items to avoid: "Home-Made Sandwich" - generally two hearty, seeded doorstep slabs of bread with improbable quantities of mayonnaise and chopped egg. "Home-Made Tomato and Basil Soup"- Open tin of chopped tomatoes. Apply industrial microwave. Scatter basil. If they are going to open a tin, why not a tin of Heinz Cream of Tomato, that most nourishing and soothing of soups? "Home-Made Quiche" - a dense, cold wedge of eggy concrete.  Actually, avoid anything saying it is "home made". 
3. Uninhabited stone ruins under the stewardship of English Heritage or the National Trust. With the heads of dead animals stuffed and mounted on the walls. You'll need to take your inhaler. 

If you have not yet purchased your set of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster, here's how to buy them from Amazon or Lulu. 

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.