Morally disgusting people praise Castro

Before the Castro tributes, the last time left-wingers were so funny was when Marchais, Yasser Arafat and the others welcomed the Moscow coup in 1991.

But it's not just the left. The BBC are kinder to Castro than they were to Lady Thatcher when she died:

“His critics accused him of being a dictator.”

The Lord Mayor of Dublin has opened a Book of Condolence for Fidel Castro to allow the people of Dublin to "pay their own respects", which is reminiscent of Eamonn de Valera signing the book of condolences in the German Embassy in 1945 on the death of Hitler.


The top headlines in today's Independent also seem strange.

Trump calls Castro 'a brutal dictator' hours after his death

Stark contrast between president-elect and respectful Obama

You get the impression that the paper is pursing its lips, disapproving of President-elect (that no longer sounds odd) Trump for not being respectful to the dead communist tyrant.

The morally disgusting Jeremy Corbyn has been rightly ridiculed for saying that 'for all his flaws' Fidel Castro was "a champion of social justice". 

This is the Castro who had blood drained from political prisoners, before they were executed, and sold on the world market.

Serena Mackesy the novelist (on the left herself) made the best comment on it all:

Dear people of the left: arguing that a national health service and universal literacy outweigh freedom of speech, movement and conscience and being able to feed yourself *really* doesn't make people inclined to trust you, you know.

Castro will not be embalmed like Lenin but cremated. Otherwise this quatrain of Belloc's would be a fitting epitaph.

The Politician, dead and turned to clay,

Will make a clout to keep the wind away.

I am not fond of draughts, and yet I doubt.

If I could get myself to touch that clout.