Last week I remarked on the brouhaha that would be stirred were a British (as opposed to a Japanese) Prime Minister to be attacked by a killer robot. I am now trying to cope with the idea of our political masters indulging in ritual goat sacrifice – perhaps not every day, but quite often. According to today’s Guardian:

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, has found solace in an unusual form – the ritual slaughter of goats.

Zardari has a black goat killed every day at his Islamabad house to ward off “evil eyes” and protect himself against “black magic”, according to a report in Dawn, Pakistan‘s paper of record.

Spokesman Farhatullah Babar confirmed the president practises sadiqa, or the sacrifice of an animal whose meat is distributed among the poor. “I have seen it been done. Not exactly every day, but quite often, yes,” he told the Guardian.

But he denied its purpose was to fend off malevolent spirits. “The main belief is that this practice invokes the pleasure of God. The corollary is that bad things will not happen, of course, but that’s a matter of interpretation,” he said.

I don’t see the slaughtering of goats as Gordon Brown’s thing, but it would make sense with someone like Geoff Hoon.  He looks like a goat-killer, as does his partner in that recent failed coup, Patricia Hewitt. I expect the failure was due to their being so busy tippy-tapping conspiratorial drivel into their Blackberries that they forgot to sacrifice a goat at the propitious time. As for Miliband 1 and Miliband 2, they strike me more as the type to interpret the bloody entrails of ritually slaughtered poultry.