“Fuck Off Condi” says Blackburn

This whole Jack Straw/Condi Rice thing has me flummoxed. Is there some weird, perverted, chickenhawk romance going on? ( Personally I’ve always assumed she’s gay, but hey, who can tell? At the very least she appears sexually ambivalent.)

‘Yes, but how big’s his dunda, Condi?”

Jack has new contact lenses, Condi has a new hairdo, it’s all very luvvy and warm, and now Jack has invited new flame Condi home to meet the folks.

As she, with Straw, swans around a tiny Northern town in a bullet-proofed limousine with outriders, like some imperial potentate, those same folks have told her what they think of her, in no uncertain terms. And what they’re saying is fuck off, we don’t want you here.

First the mosque:

Muslim leaders yesterday withdrew an invitation to the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to visit a mosque in the Blackburn constituency of the home secretary, Jack Straw.

Ms Rice was due to go to the Masjid al- Hidayah mosque tomorrow during her two-day tour of Blackburn and Liverpool as a guest of Mr Straw.

“The invitation to Ms Rice to visit the mosque came, as I understand it, from officials in Jack Straw’s office,” said Hamid Qureshi, chairman of the Blackburn-based Lancashire Council of Mosques. “They might not have consulted with the congregation and members were very angry and decided she should not come.”

Then the schools:

Demonstrators shouted “Condoleezza Rice go home” as she entered the school through a side entrance with the Foreign Secretary

Outside the school, mother of five Rabiya Adam, 33, said the US Secretary of State was not welcome in her home town.

“When I found out she was coming here to speak to our children, I didn’t want her to preach what she did in Iraq.”

She is going to see plenty of Blackburn, and will be able to meet many members of the Asian community in town

Arif Waghat, 47, a retail manager, said his 15-year-old daughter and son, 14, were at the maths and computing college today.

He said: “I’m not going to let a couple of warmongers deprive my children of their education. My opposition is to the war. I’m basically a pacifist.”

Inside the school Ms Rice met pupils including 16-year-old Jabbar Khan. He said she had told him she was not enjoying the cold and cloudy English weather.

As Ms Rice left the school police prevented protesters following her.

Hanif Dudhuala, a member of the community forum at Pleckgate, said: “We have been told that Ms Rice has said that she would like to talk to protesters.

If that’s true, I would ask Ms Rice to turn her words into actions so we can raise our concerns with her.”

Like that’s ever going to happen. Both Rice and Straw live in their own little chickenhawk security bubble.

Jack and Condi sittin’ in a tree, w-a-r-m-o-n-g-e-r-i-n-g…. Oh lord, can you imagine what the kids would look like? Northerner’s have an expression that would describe any putative Rice-Straw offspring perfectly – ‘fey as a box of frogs’. Urgh, I’m going to stop thinking about it. I feel dirty.

More likely is that they’re cooking up some sort of united front, Rice for the ’08 election, and Straw for the Labour party leadership. It’s a match made in hell.

Read more: Condi Rice Jack straw Iraq War Blackburn

UPDATE: Much more info on the royal progress available at Condiwatch UK