Day 2682: Ironing Man

Monday:


You know, I just BET that Lord Woolfie's list of ETHICAL recommendations for Weapons Manufacturer BAe does NOT include building a bionic suit of armour and using it to go around the world blowing up all of their weapons that have fallen into the hands of BAD PEOPLE.

It is, incidentally a GREAT, if SLIGHTLY ultra-right-wing, popcorn movie, largely hanging on the performance of Mr Robert Downey Junior as self-indulgent alcohol-dependent billionaire playboy Robert Downey Junior. Er.

It's also a great Mickey-extraction of DC's two biggest names, with the genius-vigilante-who-builds-his-own-superhero-kit inside of the Man of Steel Iron.

Day 2657: Unlawful to let off the unlawful

Thursday:

Corruption: noun, lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain

Once upon a time there was a Prince who had a problem. The police were asking all sorts of bothersome and impertinent questions about where he got all of his lovely presents (and free aeroplane) from.

So the Prince asked Lord Blairimort (who was Prime Monster), and Lord Blairimort asked Lord Goldfinger (who was Attorney General), and Lord Goldfinger asked the police and all the questions went away.

And they all lived happily ever after. Or possibly not.

But, begging your fluffy pardon, doesn't using one's POSITION as, say, a Prince of a Middle Eastern Country for the GAIN of getting an inconvenient police investigation off of one's back sound pretty much like evidence of CORRUPTION anyway?


Now, it turns out that when the Serious Fraud Office, on the orders of Lord Blairimort, dropped their investigations into the alleged BRIBERY going on between BAE and assorted Saudi Arabian Princes, not only were they behaving like the puppets of a cowardly quisling and jumping to obey the dictates of a foreign dictatorship, they were also BREAKING THE LAW.

So Liberal Democrat Leader Mr Clogg is calling for their inquiries to be reopened immediately and investigated properly!

Mr Denis McSHAME, former junior minister at the foreign office with special responsibility for oleaginously thanking the Ambassador for the Ferrero Rocher, came on the The Today Programme protesting that he was a PARLIAMENTARIAN and judges should not seek to overturn the WILL of PARLIAMENT.

News flash, Denis: Parliament expressed its will QUITE CLEARLY when it made bribery and corruption ILLEGAL.

But never mind the SELF-SERVING hypocrisy of a member of the party that has a majority of seats on the House of Commons based on a minority of support in the country saying that they should use that leverage to overturn the law whenever they've broken it. And never mind the ludicrousness of his thesis that courts should ask Parliament to decide first what outcome they are allowed to reach – should there be a division of the House for every case of shoplifting, Mr McSHAME? Or expenses fraud, perhaps?

No, never mind all of that, the whole POINT about democracy is that it is NOT just decided by who has the most votes in Parliament. We have LAWS so that minorities are protected from majorities, and so that the weak are protected from the powerful. Of course it is FAR from perfect but a system with even SOME checks and balances has got to be better than Mr McSHAME's "electoral might is right" scheme. Typically of the Labour, Mr McSHAME clearly does not understand that the Law is there to PROTECT us, including protecting us from governments that have gone MAD WITH POWER.



In the hope of some SANITY, Mr Clogg has written a letter to Mr Frown, asking him to live up to the promise he made on inheriting Lord Blairimort's crown to mend our constitution and restore people's trust in the political system.

Mr Clogg is QUITE RIGHT!

There are two things that NEED to be done:

First we must sort out the state of our law so that OTHER ongoing corruption cases don't end up getting BOTCHED because our laws are full of loopholes. The Labour should LIKE that, because they are ALWAYS making laws, but the problem is that they are always so BUSY spewing out legislation like sausages and always in such a RUSH that they are always making a really BAD job of it.

We need the law to be up to the HIGHEST STANDARDS set by the OECD, not the lowest that the government can get away with. Because otherwise how are people to know that they are being treated fairly and equally? And how are our entrepreneurs supposed to do business abroad if the government is making them all look like Arthur Daley types?


Second, we have to remove the TAINT of government interference in criminal investigations. Lord Blairimort was able to order his Attorney General Lord Goldfinger to pull the plug on the SFO Bribes for Bandar inquiry; that can't be right!

The Attorney General is the Government's chief lawyer, both advising and representing in court the Prime Monster and all government departments.

BUT the Attorney General is ALSO responsible for overseeing all criminal prosecutions.

So when Mr Clogg says: "the role of the Attorney General is fraught with conflicts of interest", what he means is what happens when the government has an interest in the criminal not getting prosecuted?

Quite obviously, people are going to be a bit SUSPICIOUS that maybe – just maybe – the AG is putting on his "I work for the Prime Monster" hat BEFORE putting on his "I serve the cause of justice" hat. Especially since "Justice" doesn't do his PAY REVIEW.

What you need to do is SEPARATE this office into its two distinct roles: one is the government's chief lawyer, a politically appointed position for the party in charge to decide; the other is the INDEPENDENT head of the Crown Prosecution Service, who should be answerable to Parliament (yes, Parliament, NOT the executive) but appointed by a non-partisan panel, like the way the Judicial Appointments Commission picks High Court Judges.

(You could even build in Mr Frown's suggestion of US Senate-like oversight committees in Parliament approving the appointment.)

That is why it is all the more CROSS-MAKING that Mr Frown is doing the EXACT REVERSE and trying to give the Attorney General MORE powers: specifically the power to squish any investigation on the grounds of "that's too embarrassing" or "our chums from the thirteenth century say 'No!'" or "I don't really feel like telling you why".


When Mr President General Mustbehavingalaugh of Pakistan didn't like what the Pakistani courts were deciding, he had the judges rounded up and put under house arrest. And we called him a DICTATOR and said he was VERY NAUGHTY for doing so.

Now (and I call Daddy in evidence!) it seems that the Labour want very similar powers for themselves.

Still, it all ended in HUMILIATING DEFEAT for the General… So Mr Frown has THAT to look forward to, I suppose.

And then we can ALL live happily ever after.

Day 2494: Vince Versus the King

Tuesday:


Well done to Mr Power Cable for turning down a slap up banquet in honour of King of the Sauds, King Ablutions.

I have to say, it was a bit of a CHEEK of his rude royal richness to have a go at Great Britain for not doing enough to combat terrorism, when a great many more terrorists appear to come from his country than from ours. (No need to mention the nationality of the World's Official Number-One Nutter and Winner of the "Which Cave Shall I Hide In" Award for the last four years running.)

Saudi Arabia is the sort of country that gives MEDIEVAL DESPOTISM a BAD NAME. There are times when it seem like half the radical groups in the Middle East were radicalised because of the extreme oppression of people in Arabia… and that the OTHER half were radicalised by militant manuals funded by the Saudi Government!

(The ultra-conservative Wahhadi brand of Islam that the Saudi Government is pushing seeks principally to turn the clock back to the Time of the Prophet, preaching that the religion has been corrupted by undesirable innovations and modern materialist cultural influences. That means US by the way. Mind you, they don't seem to mind such modern materialist cultural influences as receiving squillions of oil-dollars in ready cash.)

Their RECORD on human rights can be found in the HORROR MOVIE THEMES section, and we still do not know whether they were taking ILLEGAL BRIBES from BAE… largely because they BLACKMAILED the British Government with the threat of no more co-operation on terrorism if we didn't quietly drop it. Remember: Corruption is a CRIME unless, apparently, the Prime Monster decides he'd rather it wasn't.


HILARIOUSLY, Conservatory MP Mr Daniel Kawczynski has tabled a motion condemning Mr Power Cable's Condemnation!

Presumably Mr Kamikaze is not doing this to get some CHEAP PUBLICITY but to register his profound support for the torturing, murdering, blackmailing, bribe-taking, anti-democratic, anti-gay-daddy and profoundly misogynist backwards barbaric regime. Although, come to think of it, the cheap publicity stunt option would actually make him look less of a BERK.

I DO look forward to hearing Mr Balloon give him his FULL SUPPORT.

PS

Today was Daddy Alex's birthday, so we had a party to which King Ablutions was NOT invited!

Day 2349: Bungs for Bandar

Thursday:


Do you remember how Lord Blairimort ordered the SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE to stop investigating the deal where we sell a whole load of hi-tech fighter jets to an unstable Middle-Eastern feudal state?

Well, now the BBC's Panorama-rama-lama-lama-ding-dong Show have discovered that there MIGHT have been some SERIOUS FRAUD going on!

At the time of the police inquiry being so MYSTERIOUSLY dropped, Sir Mr the Merciless and the Liberal Democrats made QUITE A FUSS, only to get the BRUSH OFF from our "whiter than white[*]" Prime Monster.

[*] Other colours available, dirty greenbacks may be substituted for white at the management's discretion.

Now, Sir M is challenging Lord Blairimort again, this time for a PROPER explanation!


"Billions of pounds and thousands of jobs depend on this deal," was Lord Blairimort's excuse then as well as now.

Here is where we get into the nasty, dirty PRACTICAL problems. Lord Blairimort is caught in a bit of a cleft stick – and obviously, it couldn't happen to a more deserving "pretty straight kind of a guy". Here he is, trying to keep the British economy afloat[*] and, somewhat unfortunately, just about the only things that we are able to sell abroad these days are the financial services of the City of London and GUNS.

[*] subject to Mr Frown's approval

Yes, it is certainly the case that whilst TECHNICALLY agreeing to supply billions of pounds worth of the most sophisticated weaponry to one of the least stable regions of the planet and one of the least progressive governments on the planet MIGHT make us low-down, two-faced, double-dealing, no-good, rootin' tootin' ARMS DEALERS… it does at least keep us out of World Bankruptcy Court.

The fact that the Saudis are willing to pay in OIL might be quite handy too.

So, even though we would probably rather NOT be being arms dealers, you can't just switch off Britain's only functional manufacturing export industry. The Saudis rather have us over a barrel. An oil barrel, probably.

Except, on the other fluffy foot, Lord Blairimort HAS had ten years to turn the economy onto a new path. Why not try winding down the Export Credit Guarantee Scheme for Arms Dealers – that wheeze that means that even if foreign dictators turn out to be UNTRUSTWORTHY RASCALS who do not pay, then the good old British Taxpayer will still settle their bills for them. Why not try promoting new technologies so we can become world leaders in the next industrial revolution. Why not try and stick to that "ethical foreign policy" idea that Mr Rockin' Robin Cook came up with?

It is TRUE that today we rely on our "defence industry" too much to allow it to be threatened by anything so unfortunate as exposing its underhand dealings. But this is not exactly A GOOD THING, is it!

We need to say "look: it's all very well having this great big contribution to the balance of trade but it just doesn't fit with where we want to be as a nation. So we're going to make a plan that will see us reduce the support we give to this particular industry in order that we can increase the support for new industries that we as a country can be proud of."


In the meantime, we can get out our copies of "FAHRENHEIT 9/11" again and remind ourselves that this is the same PRINCE BANDAR who as Ambassador to America was such a CLOSE CHUM of the President he was even called Bandar Bush.

No wonder the Monkey-in-Chief jumped in when Lord Blairimort was asked about these REVELATIONS to say: "I'm glad I don't have to answer that!"

"Lots of help there, George," Lord Blairimort nearly didn't not say. AS ALWAYS.



Also, and in completely-unconnected-to-corruption-in-high-places news, Conservatory Lord Laidlaw has been wrapped over the knuckles for not correcting his tax exile status as he promised to do in order to get his peerage cleared by the honours committee.

GOODNESS, a Conservatory promised to do something and it turned out he was LYING!

Voters, do not let yourselves be made to look as stupid as the House of Lords Commission!