Breaking the law

So after more fibs from the government and assurances that their latest corruption scandal was a mistake by one party official that no-one else knew about, surprise, surprise it turns out that wasn’t the case, even after the Prime Eejit stood up and told everyone it was. Considering this is the same party who has blocked enquiries into how we were lead (and lied) into the Iraq war it can’t be a surprise to anyone that they hide other dodgy secrets and illegal activities behind misdirection and bare-faced lies. Tonight most news programmes were reporting that this is a criminal matter and as such should be referred to the police, but come on, who the hell thinks the Met will do much there after they so conveniently looked after the government’s interests in the cash-for-honours scandal (the senior officer’s appearance in front of a House committee afterwards was also less than convincing).

You know, if you were a suspicious, cynical person you might find it seems rather convenient that just after the Metropolitan police announced no prosecutions after a high profile, very expensive investigation into political corruption the beleaguered and incompetent Chief Constable got given backing from on high to let him ride out the furore over the findings in the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting. With such protection from senior ministers and the Prime Minister no wonder Ian Blair looked so smug and arrogant when he was in front of the committees, he was all but saying up yours, you can’t touch me. If, as I say, you were very suspicious you might think perhaps there is a secret link between the cash for honours investigation being dropped and Blair being protected by senior government officials, some shady quid pro quo. And if you thought that you might be even more cynical that any dodgy dealings in this new corruption scandal will be properly investigated, much less see all the people responsible actually charged. But of course, that’s just paranoid fantasy, isn’t it? Like someone making multiple illegal donations in the guise of different people, the very idea is mad… Oh, hold on…

And they wonder why so many people don’t even bother to vote or take part in the political process anymore after setting this kind of example… Still, it was great to see the look on Gordon Brown’s dour face when Cable compared the eejit to Mister Bean…

In the interests of honesty and transparency though, I will admit I have made multiple donations to the KLF (Kangaroo Liberation Front) under the names Hieronymoys H Monocle, Lord Freddie of Mercury, Muhammed the Bear, Lady Anastasia Appendix-Major and the Magnificent Montogue and his Performing Koalas. And absolutely no-one else knew of this. Unless someone finds out otherwise. Honest.

Oh, those pesky immigrants!

The chief constable of Cambridgeshire has made a very public case for lots of immigration to the area causing problems for her police force. She made special mention of foreign workers and the carrying of knives and drink driving and how they didn’t meet British expectations in this regard. Hmmm, judging by the crime stats for actual citizens if immigrants are drink driving and carrying blade weapons then they are doing their best to blend into the British modern way of life… Seriously though, she may have some points (translation costs and time being an obvious one) but the way she presented this to the eager media made it like some bloody Daily Mail rant about ‘damned foreigners’. Isn’t this something she should be discussing with relevant authorities and not making press conferences about, especially given the continual xenophobia we have in our tabloid press and the general move to blame everything on immigrants.

I always find it funny when British people talk about immigrants, since we spent the previous two centuries taking over a full quarter of the world and running the biggest Empire in history, settling ourselves wherever we damned well pleased. And we’re not the best at blending in when we go abroad today, are we? Most Brits don’t even learn how to say so much as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in the local language when they go abroad, but we are good at shouting loudly in English to make ourselves more understood… Really, considering our history we have no real grounds to go on about other people coming over as immigrants…