Daily catch-up: that awkward Putin-Poroshenko moment, and other quotations of the day

Plus: that scare story about a million people being wiped off the electoral register debunked

1. “It’s fine if you want to split it but I don’t think it’s fair because some of us didn’t have a starter or any wine.” David Wyllie provides the simultaneous translation.

2. Quotation of the Day:

“The one positive thing for Labour is it is simply not possible to maintain the current level of incompetence over the next 84 days.”

Dan Hodges, on the pink bus snafu, and before Ed Miliband, presented with a tale of Tory donors with Swiss bank accounts paying no more tax than they should, managed to make himself look silly trying to run a class war line at Prime Minister’s Questions.

3. Second Quotation of the Day:

“A Britain that is more than just a star on someone else’s flag.”

A good line from Nigel Farage, making an energetic pitch for the classless patriotic vote in The Daily Telegraph this morning.

One or two of my correspondents managed to miss the point completely, pointing out that the 12 stars on the European Union flag do not represent the member states (of which there are 28). Which is a bit like saying that Martin Luther King was obviously wide awake at the time. (More to the point, Ben Rathe notes that it was the last line of a song called “So This Is Great Britain” by the Holloways in 2006: “Just another star upon the flag across the waves.”)

Farage’s article is a cleverly pitched appeal to Ukippable voters to “believe”, using the consensus that there is going to be another hung parliament in May to set out a credible ambition to hold the balance of power. That the chances of, say, five UKIP MPs would be in a position to influence the forming of a government are negligible is similarly beside the point.

4. Third Quotation of the Day:

“Fifty Shades of Grey getting a right old spanking from the critics it would seem.”

Alastair Campbell.

5. That “one million people wiped off the electoral register” Labour scare story: it’s not right. Mark Pack checks it out.

6. And finally, I missed this by Steve Suckington first time round in October, but it deserves a late round of applause:

“Hi, I’m here for Paradox Club.”

Actually this is Oxymoron Club.

“Ok, same difference.”

*Looks at group*

Oh, this guy is good.

Thanks to Chris Heaton-Harris for this:

“I was going to start taking self-defence lessons, but decided on Maths instead. I’m a firm believer that there's safety in numbers.”

And to Moose Allain for this:

“Working on an English/American phrase book called Pacifiers For Dummies.”