Close but no...

Evidently running out of domestic loonies to publish, the Guardian goes one better. After all, why run tedious exculpatory pieces on communist dictators by useful idiots, when you can go one better and get one by a genuine communist dictator in person? Reprinting pieces from Cuba's national newspaper is hardly in the crusading tradition of journalism I suppose but what can you do?

Incidentally, the newspaper is named after a national icon: the yacht on which Fidel Castro returned to Cuba to take part in the revolution. It was bought from an American firm, and had originally been named for a close relative of the original owner. That's why the Cuban state newspaper is called Granma. Almost a touching story.

The piece itself is remarkable only for one thing: evidence of the extraordinary dullness of Castro himself.

A few days ago, while analysing the expenses involved in the construction of three submarines of the Astute series, I said that with this money "75,000 doctors could be trained to look after 150 million people, assuming that the cost of training a doctor would be one-third of what it costs in the United States."

We're lucky I suppose that this article doesn't go on for four hours in that vein. It's called Ideas cannot be killed. Unlike, fortunately for Castro, the people that bear those ideas, like democracy, freedom or liberty.