Monday 30th March 2009

What is Madonna thinking? This weekend's news has been dominated by her sick publicity stunt of adopting four year old Mercy, a deprived child from Malawi in Africa. I could understand if Mercy was an orphan, but the fact that she is being looked after by her father and uncles and Madonna is taking her away from her family puts an immoral twist on this whole saga. If Madge wanted to adopt an African child then she should start looking by in an orphanage perhaps. The newspapers have described this as a "shopping trip to Africa" and this is exactly what it is. Angelina Jolie has recieved much media attention after adopting three children in recent years and Madonna is clearly hoping for the same kind of attention. She hardly spends any time looking after her first adopted child David, who no doubt spends most of his time in the care of nannies and this is just another photo opportunity for Madonna. Also, the adoption process is long and complicated and most people wishing to adopt will spend years on a waiting list, but Madonna being Madonna gets to bypass the queue and jump straight in. This is exploitation of children by celebrities at its very worse.

In other news, I see a pattern emerging with female New Labour cabinet members being embarassed by their husbands. In 2006, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport at the time Tessa Jowell was heavily scrutinised by the press after her estranged husband David Mills was investigated for tax fraud in Italy. This incident put great pressure on Tessa Jowell and threatened to ruin her political career. Now, three years later, home secretary Jacqui Smith has been embarassed by her husband after he watched pornographic films and claimed them on her expenses. I think Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Hariett Harman needs to make sure her husband stays out of trouble if she wants to live up to her ambitions of one day becoming leader of the party, as we've seen all too clearly how these New Labour husbands can so easily publicly humilate their wives.

I was pleased to see Wayne Rooney score twice in England's 4-0 win over Slovakia on Saturday. It looks as though he's finally starting to fill his potential on the international stage. When young Wayne announced himself to the world at Euro 2004, there was a real sense of optimism that he was the future of the England game and the World Cup in South Africa next year may be his chance to prove his worth, providing he stays injury free. On his day, Rooney is undoubtedly one of the best players in the world, but he needs to perform well in an England shirt against the biggest teams on the biggest stage, so next year is his big opportunity to prove to everyone he is world class. After what we saw from Rooney on Saturday, lets hope for more of the same.