If you want to know how "socialists" behave, how about looking at the behaviour of socialists?

Some of you might remember that I used to have a place on my blog-list for the very popular American libertarian blogger Dr Helen Smith - not because I approve of her politics in general, but because she has some interesting observations on gender politics, many of which I find it hard to take issue with. But one of her recent posts made me laugh out loud -

"I read that French President Nicolas Sarkozy disrupted his vacation to fly back to Paris for an emergency meeting to review "the economic and financial situation." Remember the French heat wave of 2003 when thousands of elderly people died in their homes while the administration and families stayed on vacation in August? I thought that "socialists" were supposed to care more about people than money. Or is this just a lie?"

There then follows a hilarious discussion in the comments section about the despicable nature of the "socialism" represented by Sarkozy and his ilk - until the tenth and final comment, when someone finally plucks up the courage to draw attention to the elephant in the room, ie. that Sarkozy is not in fact a socialist. I couldn't resist adding the following comment of my own -

"Quite. The socialist candidate in the 2007 presidential election was Ségolène Royal - she was defeated by the right-wing candidate Sarkozy. Nor was there a socialist president in power at the time of the 2003 heatwave - the socialist candidate in 2002 was Lionel Jospin, but he was defeated by the right-wing candidate Jacques Chirac.

Here's a radical thought - if you want to know how "socialists" behave, how about looking at the behaviour of socialists?"