Journal of the Plague Years

Corruption isn't only about money; it's about a sickness in the soul. Quite often, however, it's about money...

Affiche of May, 1968

This page has grown so fast, that I should like to invite visitors to see what they think: Not an essay, not a developing argument, just reactions to events and news-items over the past six months. Plat du Chef for June!

By the nature of events over the last months, there have two main themes, 'Dodgy donations' to politial parties and, building up, 'MPs expenses'. The messages are rather unremitting... but perhaps they need to be...

Items in Blog Order

• Corruption as an assault: When it affects children, it's child-abuse.
• Expenses are a matter between an MP and his trough. (Or, as Ms. Beckett might say, 'Let them eat cake!')
• The Corruption just goes on and on; and you and I just pay for it... and you don't even whimper.
• Expenses and the Probity of MPs.
• Livingstone; he presumes.
• Mourning for Cincinnatus.
• Render unto Corruption what is Caesar's...
• The Damned.
• The fish rotting from the head.
• The stench of corruption is not masked by the nosegay of legality.
• Is the House corrupt?
• Just make sure your crime is on a grand scale.
• The Gravy Train.
• You are not Honourable, Mr. Brown.
• Mr. Speaker Martin.
• What's the point of power without a bit of healthy nepotism?
• Hain's Out.
• A Kind Of Darling?
• Hain Again.
• Sometimes getting it wrong?
• Apologies That Aren't, No 194.
• Hain's Defence?
• Nemo Me Custodiet. (or, Finance and Finangling.)
• People Who Use People Part II
• People Who Use People.
• My submission for Quote Of The Year.
• A Change Of Perspective.
• Simon Carr (with acknowledgment) on Hatty Harman.
• Commercial Confidentiality.
• Teflon Triumphant.
• Ignorance is Innocence.
• Donorgate 2
• Moth and Rust...

Corruption as an assault: When it affects children, it's child-abuse.

7 June 2008 .

We've pretty much embraced the idea, as a society, that sexual offences against children are unacceptable. (For those who assume that they were always unacceptable and that, in these last few years, we've simply been making it clear, a reminder: as recently as fifty years ago, even while no one approved, assaults when they occurred were often (possibly generally) ignored or hushed up; the interests of hurt or damaged children frankly did not figure as highly as they should have done. Those children who had the resources in themselves to do so frequently did not report what had happened to them, for exactly the reasons that women who've been raped still often fail to do so now. Even ten years ago, it was said that paedophile sites were operating pretty freely on the web.)

We haven't reached the point, yet, where rape is also seen as irredeemably unacceptable - aggressive male sexuality towards women is still regarded as normal in too many locker rooms - but we're getting there (so we hope and believe).

When it comes to corruption, however, we're still stuck somewhere in the eighteenth century. [This is a personal bugbear, echoed (probably at far too much length) throughout this site. But corruption, whether of politicians, of officials or of police officers, can in its own way be easily as toxic as sex crime.]

A great swathe of our political establishment, for example, not only sanctions all sorts of corruption but appears to be incapable of recognising it in themselves, either for what it is or for the cruel and poisonous damage it does. [Not just money corruption... but there's more news today about British MEPs channelling hundreds of thousands of pounds into their private companies - and not being summarily turfed out: I'm afraid that that particular gravy train will probably trundle on for another generation or two, yet.]

Police corruption, though; now there's a thing. Most people in Britain apparently deny that there is such an animal, or that, if there is, it's only one or two bad apples. I don't have any statistics, one way or another (although, having lived in London all my life, I remember only too well how it was vociferously denied that large chunks of the Met were corrupt - until it all came out). But an(other) appalling tale has reached me from friends in the US about a police force there ("to protect and serve") closing ranks around a criminal officer - which I thought they'd moved on from (evidently not altogether) and which I'll no doubt report here if I'm still running the site when it becomes appropriate - which has so shaken me that I've been reflecting on one or two unfortunate tales about our own boys in blue.

One particular case herewith and, if you'll forgive me, a short diversion on the way to my conclusion.

[I taught in Islington for twenty years.] A lad in my class, aged about 15 at the time, was out near Highbury Fields with a group of his friends; not that it should make any difference, but, he's white, some of those friends are black. It seems that there had been some sort of bother (half a mile away, in which these lads wouldn't have been involved, weren't involved, and were finally proven not to have been involved). A transit full of Knacker's hofficers skidded up to our lads and spilled out its contents in blue, who set about beating the lads up. It got into the media, of course, but not in as big a way as maybe it should have done. My lad ended up in hospital, and off school for some weeks.

Once it was established that these youngsters had no records, were (and are) of unblemished character and had been nowhere near the earlier incident (all of which took a long, long time in the face of police foot-dragging), an inquiry was finally, and slowly, launched.

The findings, after another long, long time, were that the boys had indeed been beaten up by uniformed policemen (a bit undeniable, really, since there were witnesses) after the hofficers involved had presumably made a wrong identification.

However, no action could be taken since it could not be established which one of two transits-full of guardians-of-the-law had been involved. It seems that the senior hofficer in each van had 'accidentally' misplaced the van log. Hmmm.

Back to the question of corruption: I'll allow that beating up a group of lads might be a separate issue; but the footdragging by senior officers seems to come very close to corruption.

Where the senior officer of each van is concerned, however, the issue becomes much clearer:

One was in charge of a contingent of officers who assaulted youngsters (at 15 years old, probably more self-confident, but still children - and nobody would have mistaken my lad as sixteen, let alone adult - as if that would be any excuse). That officer was, is, a child abuser. In my eyes, no question.

The other, in 'losing' his log book, may, by an extraordinary coincidence, have simply been incredibly unfortunate or careless; but I don't believe a jury in the land would accept that defence... but, of course, it was never tested in a court, so, in the absence of justice, I reserve the right to draw my own conclusion. which is that that officer, although not involved in the assault, nevertheless connived in it after the event and, in doing so, was corrupt. No money involved, but nonetheless a corrupt officer. In my eyes, no question. I'll bet there were other officers, too, who could have demonstrated beyond doubt which of the two transits were involved: any who could have done so (and didn't) were also corrupt. To me, such abuse of trust is corruption precisely as is a copper accepting a bribe, or as is a politician abusing their position of trust by fiddling expenses.

Personally, I believe that both officers in charge should have been brought to trial - I'm sure that had the will existed, appropriate charges could have been found.

If and when one officer had been found guilty of assaulting children, his mugshot (along with the rest of his vanload, by extension) should have been published in exactly the way that a child sex-abuser's might be.

More to point, and finally back to the issue of corruption where it affects children: the corrupt officer, if found in a court to have attempted to pervert the course of justice, being thereby also guilty of the abuse of children, should treated in the same way as a child abuser.

QED, I reckon.

I see very little moral distinction between a bent cop (or a bent politician, come to that - or a bent headteacher*) and any other child molester. It's always being suggested that communities have a right to know about child sex offenders who live amongst them (some people going further to suggest that offenders should be listed on the internet: interestingly the arguments against either of these ideas seem to be more to do with offenders 'going underground' than any objection in principle): I propose that any copper who is found to have abused children, whether directly or through corruption, should be subject to the same teatment.

* See Classified - Education

• Steer Clear of Childcare. 06 March 2008, middle of page, and
• The Ugly Side of School League Tables. 12 October 2007, last item on that page.

(I'm afraid I don't yet have the HTML skills to link you to the right place on the page.)

In passing, I firmly believe that the line managment of the two hofficers i/c transits should have been required to explain, publicly, how at least one and probably both of them got so out of control; but those more senior officers were never called to account, so far as I know. Are they ever?

Notes:
1) The information in this item is accurate to the best of my information and belief.
2) I suspect that my argument isn't very tidy, or tight. This is one item I may come back to try to tidy up later.
3) Just out of interest... I'm by age, class, background, etc., part of the police force's natural constituency of support. But if what I've reported here is true (and additionally I claim to have had a couple of personal experiences, equally disillusioning, with the police) and assuming that I've not got a grudge because they've had me banged to rights at some points (for the record, I've never been accused of a criminal offence, nor suspected of one so far as I know, nor particularly guilty but undiscovered)... Then, why should I ever be quite happy to put my trust in the police again? Let alone a 15-year-old whose first experience of the police landed him in hospital?

Reference A New Slant On 'Justice Must Be Seen', ( Classified - Police, 08 December 2007).

Breaking news, apparently, from the Mail (who had best be very sure of their facts on this one...)

It seems that the special constable murdered on her husband's orders, Nisha Patel, actually helped him to run a string of call girls - and used her warrant card to threaten creditors and difficult clients, and to assist in enforcing her rule.

The Mail claims that the Met knew about both her business activities and her abuse of the card. Even worse; when someone in Herts (with whom Patel was having a disagreement) called the police, Patel used her card to try to intimidate the senior officer who attended, Sgt Dave Eden, who immediately made a report to the Met - who, in turn, never replied.

All in the name of political correctness, possibly - as an ethnic minority officer, according to the Mail, Patel "ticked all the right boxes" for the Met. But corruption is corruption. And turning a blind eye to corruption is corruption. And closing ranks around a bent cop is corruption. Or do policemen, like politicians, not see it?

As I've said about other matters, elsewhere on this site. If the report is right, there had most certainly better be hell to pay by senior officers in the Met; if it's wrong, the Met must sue.

Corruption is corruption. Period.

'Dave Eden' 'Nisha Patel' 'Police recruitment targets' 'Police Corruption' 'Child abuse' Highbury fields'

Expenses are a matter between an MP and his trough. (Or, as Ms. Beckett might say, 'Let them eat cake!')

29 May 2008 .

I'm fed up with griping, on this site; but I'm even more fed up with there being so much that needs to be griped about... but there is, and the griping needs to be loud and long.

MPs' expenses again: this or that shocker is being revealed daily - from just the few (14, I think) senior members whose details have been forced into the open. The following (both the stimulus to write this item and the particular stats repeated here) is in a way courtesy of Mark Steel in the Independent, but it could have been of any of a number of commentators in any of the rags over the past few days.

Margaret Beckett: claimed 1,900 of my money to pay for some plants and a pergola (which she gets to keep) in her second home. On so many levels: what planet does she live on? Steel takes refuge in sharp humour - which is obviously the sane response - but I'm not sure I can keep seeing the humour in endless surrealism at my expense.

Barbara Follett, revealed before the abortion debate last week as an SA-woman for the sisterhood, is a millionaire socialist (of which we have too many who, like Follett, have no understanding of socialism): she submitted a claim for window cleaning.On her home. For 1,600. I'm not sure if humour is appropriate: I find myself muttering darkly, and musingly, about the year 1917 and the condignity of the firing squad.

These, and an endless list of claims similarly irrelevant to the MPs' work, have been met out of the public purse, substantially or (usually) in full.

[One claim which has been criticised but which I think reasonable is that by Gordon Brown for his Sky subscription; he does after all need access to media news and opinion as part of his job. Especially if he can't rely on the intelligence services, ha ha.]

So there's a problem for the parliamenticles to solve, which they ought to be able to manage, since it's their own... ie, how to mollify the public disgust with this expenses scandal.

Their suggested solution is to give every MP an automatic annual allowance - tax free, without any requirement to account for spending - of 23,000 for their second homes. (The London MPs, whose necessary expenses are lower anyway, need only laugh their way to the banks - which won't even need to be offshore for tax-avoidance purposes.)

So, do they see the scandal as merely a matter of presentation? That when MPs don't have to publish what they spend our money on, we won't know and therefore won't question? That the whole kerfuffle has only arisen because some fool left a loophole (in the Freedom of Information Act) whereby the ignorant mob were given information which could only upset them?

Never fear; our trusty MPs are on the job of sorting out the scandal of our MPs' expenses.*

* NB: Read this carefully: it's 'the scandal' they're going to sort out, not 'the MPs' expenses'.

Reminder: In planning a means to evade accountability, the MPs are asking for 23,000 untaxed on top of an already extremely handsome salary (stuff all that nonsense about sacrificing the bigger salary they would be receiving in the private sector - which some of them get anyway and most of the rest would not get but for the letters MP after their names): The average salary in this country is only 29,000 taxed - out of which ordinary people have to pay for their own housing.

"But worst of all," writes Steel, "is that they're so out of touch with normal life, they can't see why so many are aghast at this practice."

Aghast we may be, but my betting is that they'll get away with it: we'll draw a line under it and move on. You watch.

'Margaret Beckett' 'Mark Steel' 'Freedom of Information Act' ' MPs' expenses' 'Barbara Follett'

The Corruption just goes on and on; and you and I just pay for it... and you don't even whimper.

26 May 2008 .

Blair bought a house, Myrobella, in Trimdon, County Durham, after he won his Sedgefield seat in 1983, for 30,000. His wife claims that about the same amount again was spent doing what was "absolutely necessary" (but note the next paragraph).

From 2001 - 2005, he was paying interest on a mortgage of 90,000 on this property, which he was reclaiming, as an expense, from the taxpayer. This was in addition to some of his other claims during this period, including 10,600 to fit a kitchen as well as over 900 for just one month's gas bill, over 500 for a dishwasher (which he presumably kept when he resigned his seat), and on and on and on and....

He also remortgaged the house to the tune of 297,000 in 2004 (which was then valued at 150,000 - nothing like being PM for obtaining a 200% mortgage!)

Of course, he was negotiating the purchase of a 4 million house in Connaught square* and more recently he added his 4 million stateleigh pile in Bucks. To say nothing of his two properties in Bristol. And ten years for free at 11 Downing Street (because No 10 wasn't 'big enough for a growing family'.)

* Financial experts are said to be 'puzzled' as to how he managed to secure this financing on his prime ministerial salary. I'll just bet they are!

"Everything was done according to the rules", quoth a 'spokesman for Mr. Blair'.

And who was making the rules?

Blair corruption 'abuse of privilege' Myrobella 'Connaught Square' 'negative equity'

Expenses and the Probity of MPs.

23 May 2008 .

The expenses claimed for second (or subsequent) homes by a few senior MPs (including Brown, Blair and Cameron) will be published today. Whatever appears on the list (at a guess: mortgage repayments, costs of redecoration, council tax and/or utility bills), however inappropriate it may be that the taxpayer should fund it, however self-evident it may be that it is in effect an undeclared (and untaxed) supplement to the income of the greedy, we'll be told that it's all perfectly legal... which of course it is, since it's the MPs themselves who decide what's legal. After a couple of days, we'll have forgotten and moved on.

I'm willing to bet that the MPs are relying on this outcome.

It seems to be a feature of our society that no matter how shocking something might be in the abstract, once some celeb or politico is seen to do it, in 95% of cases people will shrug, as if to say, 'well, so-and-so's done it, so it must be okay.'

Thus are the boundaries pushed. I, for one, am not at all sure that it's always been for the best.

Probity 'MPs expenses'

Livingstone; he presumes.

01 May 2008 .

The Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee have said that the organisers of the 2012 Olympics are showing 'a risible approach' to cost control, seeming 'willing to spend (our) money like water'. With the budget having almost quadrupled since the games were awarded to London, I don't think the committee is telling us anything but the blindingly obvious.

What the committee says which I, at least, hadn't realised (even if I guessed) is that the bid was pitched 'artificially low' to win public support. If this is true (and the committee should not have reported it unless there is evidence), it's fraud. Arrest and trial, please.

In this connection (by implication...) it's reported in a couple of papers that Livingstone, the populist and deeply unpleasant mayor of London (whom I met - and disdained - when he used to hang out in the student bar) has boasted that he played 'a con-trick' (his words, we're told) in order to draw money ('ensnare billions') into London.

It's also reported that the committee has also found that Tessa Jowell, the irredeemably mediocre Blair Babe in charge of the Olympics (already tainted with the brush of considerable corruption, with her husband), has been economical with the truth about contingency funding to the tune of a billion quid.

This is the system which the late Dear Leader held out as a beacon of rectitude and honesty to the world (while he okayed bribery abroad and accepted it at home).

As some Dixie friends of mine would say: 'Ain't we got no shame?'

Shame 'Ken Livingstone' 'Tessa Jowell' 'Blair Babe' 'Olympic committee' corruption bribery 'Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee'

Mourning for Cincinnatus.

26 April 2008 .

Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, has owned up (before she was found out anyway) that she is paying her husband a salary of up to 40,000 quid for 'research and assistance' out of the taxpayers' pocket. (A great deal more than the national average wage/salary, incidentally, and firmly among those who benefit most from the recent tax changes in the budget, unlike the millions on a whole household income of a quarter of this who had their taxes hiked.) Of course, she'll say it's legal (as why shouldn't it be, since in Parliament she can make the rules, with her fellow rotting fish). She's Home Secretary, and she obviously just doesn't get it (although clearly she got it well enough not to tell us about her cozy little arrangement until she had to)... she can argue it how she likes: it's corruption. Period.

She's not alone; for once public pressure, plus that of a few honourable MPs, has had some effect. As the new Great Stink becomes undeniable, it seems that two other cabinet ministers have come clean, another Blair Babe and the scion of the Benn family. (Tony Benn is quite not as guilt-free as he portrays himself but, nevertheless, he should be turning in his wheelchair). And over 100 other MPs. All parties.

And look at that list: David Davis, Tory home affairs spokesman; George Young, Chairman of the Commons' Standards and Privileges Committee; Sir Stuart Bell (responsible for reviewing parliamentary expenses); Peter Hain (q.v.); Michael Howard (lately leader of the Tory party). And of course there's Mammon Martin, the holder of the post that was once was the very proof of Parliamentary rectitude, now certainly not that... [and when you think of the men of old who once sat in that seat...] The list goes on - and that's just the ones we know about.

The People's Blair (q.v.) may well be relieved that he got out when he did...

'Jaqui Smith' 'George Young' Benn 'Stuart Bell' 'Speaker Martin' 'Home Secretary' 'Great Stink'Cincinnatus rectitude corruption

Render unto Corruption what is Caesar's...

22 April 2008 .

Just in case we might imagine that legalised corruption would be limited to our parliament here in the UK, we have the stirring battle of the European MPs to ensure that their expenses don't get examined to put our ideas straight - and they're even better at corruption than our own mob, judging by the amounts involved. They start at over 160,000 p.a. as it is...

Could we even have hoped that the MEPs might have observed the growing resentment in the UK at our pigs'-trough parliament, and the (hopefully) likely denouement as the calls for transparency (hopefully) become irresistible? Could we beggary!

A presumably political (EU?) face I didn't recognise, but which seemed to talk sense, said on the box this evening that if members of the public in Europe should wonder if there might be 'more honest people to be found in a prison' than in the European Parliament, he would find it hard to argue. Damned right.

Just don't expect Brown or Cameron to do what needs to be done. My betting is that this one will just be allowed to slip quietly into the shadows, like so much else.

MEP Corruption expenses 'more honest people in a prison' 'pig's trough'

The Damned.

14 April 2008 .

With friends, this weekend... a break from apoplexy with our politicians, worrying about the state of the planet and writing on this site. Lovely.

Then, last night, I watched Visconti's The Damned, which I last saw when it first came out. I remembered it as a disturbing film, and it was certainly that. It's of the Von Essenbachs, a wealthy industrial family, falling apart during the first months of Hitler's government; on the most obvious level, the family as an allegory for what was happening in Germany.

Now, I admit to having become a bit oversensitised; but, for me, this film hit a lot closer to home... Set aside the times of the story and the particular ambiance of Nazism, and the allegory is of the rise of Blairism.

I'm not yet (quite) a querulous old man, and I don't think it's age that leads me to believe that something quite nasty has happened to the public and political mind of this country in my lifetime. If I'm right, I don't for one minute think Blair bears sole responsibility for the changes; Thatcher before him, and before her the sometimes politically subverted unionism that resulted in her being swept to power, and Heaven knows what before that, all played their part: but I do believe that Blair represents what's happened. In the same way, Hitler didn't change Germany of himself, but he certainly represents what happened. Nor am I suggesting that Blairism is comparable to Nazism in its manifestations.

I do suggest that there are several parallels between Blair and Hitler. Never mind their ambition, which may well be common in politicians, but look at the way they swept established but inconvenient frameworks aside, their impatience with tested ways, their messianic self-belief, their 'new orders', the toxic effect they had on their disciples and the institutions they touched... and, with regard to the film and the decay it portrays, the toxic effects their politics have had on their two societies. Not parallels in detail, of course, but parallels in tectonic aetiology(!)

Added 15 April, on reflection (I thought about re-writing this item - in fact, all today's work - but I want to stick to my own rule not to do that, even when I think I've not been arguing at my best): I think the key is corruption (moral, rather than strictly financial). It would be foolish to suggest that our society has never been corrupt, but something in Blairism sanctified it. Germany hadn't been free of anti-semitism, either: it's the sanctification of evil that's already incubating that draws Nazi Germany, Blair's Britain and the Von Essenbachs into the parallels I've suggested.

Visconti 'The Damned' 'Von Essenbach' Blairism Nazism 'Blair and Hitler' corruption parallels

The fish rotting from the head.

07 April 2008 .

As PM, The Peoples' Blair lived at No 10 rent free. At the same time he claimed 47,000 over three years for his home in Trimden, money which went on paying his mortgage and suchlike expenses: his claim was under the rules for an allowance intended for MPs who have to maintain two homes.

That's corruption. Isn't it?

(If it isn't corruption, please use the feedback to explain to me why not. I promise I'll reproduce your argument on this page, in the right spirit.)

Blair Trimden

The stench of corruption is not masked by the nosegay of legality.

04 April 2008 .

1. MPs are claiming that their snouts in the expenses trough, as is at last beginning to be revealed in all the accompanying stench, is perfectly legal. Of course it is; they make the laws.

2. As two people serve both functions; the obvious question is, how can anyone do the job of MP (60,000+ p.a.) and be a member of the London assembly (30,000+ p.a.) and do both jobs properly? The less obvious question is, how can anyone be allowed to hold two legislative positions of such power at once?

'London assembly' MP 'legislative powers'

Is the House corrupt?

03 April 2008 .

After nary a beep from my public for most of March (which was strangely depressing - but then what's the point of marking a tree if the other dogs don't notice?), a small flurry of feedback to this site.

One e-mail asks if I'm really as cynical about politicians being corrupt as I make out.

This site is in part a commentary on what I read in the media: it's human nature to tend to notice the more outrageous reports (and media nature to report them in the first place). But I'm also writing it because I think there's a lot worth fighting for in this country, and I believe ordinary folk shouldn't let the sometimes damaging shenanigans of politicians pass unchallenged.

However; all that said, yes, I am a bit cynical. I believe that there are many constituency MPs who are on the whole as honest and honourable as the day is long: but, I don't believe that the honest and honourable part of parliament is as close to overwhelming as it should be. If a clear majority voted consistently by honesty and principle, Mr. Speaker Mammon Martin wouldn't last a day; there would be no question about protecting rather than evicting corrupt MPs; dodgy donations would be sorted, immediately, in the House, instead of the rest of us having to kick up a fuss; we wouldn't be seeing this disgusting expenses nonsense with so many MPs scuttling to cover their tracks and, most of all, the manifold corruptions of senior politicians from Blair down would be properly challenged.

Corruption's about more than money, too, which is why I hold the party hacks, apparatchiks, yes-men and suits, of which there are all too many, in such contempt

This site's been on the web for a couple of months now, so it's still fairly new. I haven't started canvassing it or asking other sites for mutual links, which I should; so, please do leave a message if you can, when you visit - approval, criticism, advice, whatever. You have a duty of encouragement!

Speaker Mammon Martin

Just make sure your crime is on a grand scale.

31 March 2008 .

If you don't pay the fine for forgetting to buy your TV licence, you may be banged up in one of Her Majesty's. Or if you look at a site hosted by Al Qaida while being Asian. But rip the country off for hundreds of millions or even billions of pounds through criminal negligence (and I choose the adjective with care, q.v., particularly, items in Classified - Economics), and you walk away with your ill-gotten gains and three quarters of a million pounds given to you by the shareholders who have shared in your ill-gotten gains and a pension worth two and half million.

'ill-gotten gains'

The Gravy Train.

13 March 2008 .

When it comes to their expenses, our MPs really are incorrigible. It seems that one of the deals that may be put on the table for them, in exchange for having to account for their expenses, is a daily attendance allowance of 160 per day. An attendance allowance for doing what they're already paid an extremely handsome salary to do; nice, if you get it.

[Under the new regime, it seems, MPs will have to produce receipts for claims on items over 25. Tough. The rest of us have to account for every penny - no receipt, no refund.]

Can we be clear? MPs receive a salary massively above the national average, despite the fact that there is a plentiful supply of people qualified and ready to step in (which in every other job is taken by those same MPs as grounds for keeping wages and salaries down). Nobody expects them to account for how they spend that income. What we do ask is that their expenses - which are incurred on our behalf and paid for by us - be accountable to us.

Please also have a look at Commercial Confidentiality, 06 December 2007; as in, 'would you let your plumber spend your money without telling you what he's spending it on?'

'Gravy Train' 'attendance allowance' 'expenses'

You are not Honourable, Mr. Brown.

28 February 2008 .

Downing Street has been ordered by the information commissioner to publish minutes of cabinet meetings (13 and 17 March, 2003) during the time that the decision was (supposedly) being made to go to war in Iraq. Predictably, Prudence Brown's office has indicated that it's likely to appeal. Predictably, because, apart from issues like the exact process of the Attorney General's (flawed) advice that the war would be legal, Pru has tried to distance himself from the decision, especially since he became PM, to let us ordinary folk think that he had urged restraint. We already know from Clare Short's diaries of the time that during these meetings he was, on the contrary, "animatedly" backing Blair; the publication surely can't help but bring Pru's part back into public focus.

Where the responsibility lies for the deaths in Iraq since 2003, and its extent and nature, may not be resolved in this generation, if at all. While it remains in the air, it will be the source of hatred (who believes that all the Muslims in Britain, let alone the whole Arab world, will simply forget about it?) and of a poisonous cynicism even amongst non-Muslims. Which is why I believe that the impeachment of Mr. Blair is vital for the political health - and perhaps the security - of our country.*

However, what if the question of responsibility - or guilt - were asked in a slightly different way: who shares in the guilt because by different words or actions they might have been able to prevent the war?

It might be that nothing happening in the UK would have substantially changed the course of events; but I don't believe that. [Once again, my argument may seem naive to better informed folk; but I'm writing as a moderately well-informed citizen, which probably means there are others who think the same sort of way.]

1. Although Bush said that the US would invade Iraq alone, if need be, I wonder if, when push came to shove, they could have done so against the opposition (or, at best, abstention) of every other country in the world.

2. As events unrolled, the UK was the largest contributor to the coalition outside the US. If, instead, the UK had made a principled declaration of opposition to the invasion prior to a decision by the UN, I wonder if Spain, for example, would have gone on supporting it. Then, if the west Europeans presented a united front, I think the new EU members in the east would have found it impossible to oppose that majority, even to please the US element of NATO (which I take to be largely why they went along with the US). Once Europe was out, I think Turkey's EU interest would have had to override their interest in northern Iraq. I'm not sure how strong Australia's support for the US would then have been, but it certainly must have been shaken. I therefore believe that the UK's support for Bush was critical - whatever Bush may have said, privately to Blair (about the latter being free to demur) or publicly.

3. I don't think there's any question that the UK would have signed up to the invasion if Blair had opposed it, which is why so many of see him as being uniquely guilty - especially if his opposition might have restrained the US (which his support never apparently did, despite his claims).

4. There's been speculation since that time: what if Brown had had the guts to oppose Blair, in March of 2003 or perhaps even earlier? It was what some people thought at the time might happen - and if the gamble had paid off, no invasion and Brown might have become an honourable PM four years earlier, on his own terms. At the time, I thought that Brown had lost his nerve. Whatever the reason, and whatever he'd like us to think now, he gave Blair his support, giving Blair in turn a smooth passage in cabinet and Parliament... and thereby allowing the invasion to go ahead?

I believe that Brown supported Blair then not from principle but from cowardice. If it had been from principle, he would not have tried to distance himself since then. And in that he has tried to distance himself, I believe that that of itself is a demonstration that he is not an honourable man.

* Remember that an impeachment shares its purpose with coroners' investigations, in that it is only a means of establishing the truth. It is not a foregone statement of guilt, which is why it might even be in Blair's own interests to welcome it. Although I doubt it.

'Clare Short' 'Attorney General' 'cabinet meetings' impeachment minutes 'information commissioner'

Mr. Speaker Martin.

26 February 2008 .

It seemed so obvious to me that the Speaker was a big part of the problem with respect to unjustifiable expenses, that I assumed it to be equally obvious to everybody else - so I never got around to even mentioning that particular bit of sleaze here. The Supreme Leader, asked about him (I think by Newsnight) during the flurry of media activity at the weekend, condemned him with just four seconds of faint praise. 'Martin's gone,' I thought.

But he isn't. The House seems to have rallied around him, with public handshakes and pats on the shoulder.

I'm going through a Victor Meldrew moment. Not only does this man's position seem to be secure until the next scheduled election for a speaker, but he's still chairing the enquiry into MPs' expenses - precisely the corruption for which he's being slated.

I realise that, in this day and age, there's not the remotest possibility that he would recuse himself - or even, apparently, have any shame about not doing so. But surely there must be more members of the House than just David Winnick with some sense of honour or decency...

With the media going at Martin hammer and tongs - and having no evident effect whatsoever - there can't be much point my spending any time on him on this minor site... but I still feel the need to register my miniscule bit of public opinion.

[The swarm of rather distasteful Scots in our political elite are beginning to make me feel quite anti-Scottish. I'm ethnically, or genetically, or what-have-you, more Scots than anything else: if I weren't, I think my antipathy could be approaching racism. But then, my Scots ancestry is mainly Highland, as opposed to those Sassenachs, Mammon Martin and Prudence Brown, so maybe there is a bit of racism after all. Tough. They shouldn't be so arrogant.]

'David Winnick' 'Speaker Martin'

What's the point of power without a bit of healthy nepotism?

29 January 2008 .

When it comes to snouts in the trough, did I just choose a bad time to start this journal, or has it always been like this? I thought that once in a while I'd huff and puff about some isolated bit of egregious greed by the occasional loser who had succumbed to temptation...

For the past four months, there seems to have been a steady stream of sleaze and corruption. Admittedly, my first entries pretty much coincided with the second round of dodgy donations, which has without doubt boosted the score; but even setting the donations aside, the picture is pretty repellent.

Another morsel today, as Derek Conway MP, having had to apologise publicly for inappropriate payments to one son (which apology he made in the Commons with every appearance of sincerity), is revealed to have made similar inappropriate payments to another son (45,000 and 32,000 respectively) .

Did he tell us all about this second son yesterday, while he was apologising? I certainly didn't hear it. So what was yesterday's apology worth?

Here's for yet another apology that wasn't.

-/-

Mind you... if those of us who fear for the future of the planet are right, then Derek Conway (if he really is corrupt and not just unlucky, or a chump), with all the others who are taking cream from the public milk, is of no more consequence in the grand scheme of things than the high-street shoplifter with whom he's on a moral par. 100 years from now, no-one will know or care that he was a moral vacuity; they will care very profoundly about the way that he and his fellow MPs are reacting to those nightmares which threaten our society or even our world........ ah, perhaps I'm wrong there: it may be that a parliament which is beginning to demonstrate in a significant percentage of its members levels of undue self-interest is actually closely linked to illegitimate war, the loss of our liberties, the slow pressure on the 'undeserving poor' and the failure to act singlemindedly to the global threats we face.

After all: steal our money, steal our liberties... are they so different?

However, I'm tempted not to comment further on corruption, but simply to mention it for the record from time to time; otherwise I am going to die slowly, redly and painfully of apoplexy.

Ain't they got no shame?

'Derek Conway MP' nepotism

Hain's Out.

24 January 2008 .

Hain resigned today, which makes some of what I've written about him rather redundant. Now I can admit to the side of me that's sorry he's gone: I don't think he was an apparatchik, and we have too many of them; he was, it seems, prepared to stand up to brown, and we don't have enough of them; and the question is as always, what do we get instead?

An interesting comment by the BBC, that the move towards transparency in MPs' financial affairs has resulted in more, rather than less, apparent sleaze. I believe that the new rules of the past few years have been one of the areas where blair earned some real brownie points; does the BBC really think that there would have been less sleaze if there had been less rules? The rules about donations are rightly becoming more stringent, and inevitably more politicians are being caught out. It's not a bad sign, it's a good sign.

So long as it's established that he was not intentionally corrupt, I won't have a problem seeing a suitably chastened Hain return to a ministerial post. Of course, if he is not sufficiently chastened and continues to be as abrasive/arrogant, the people who will have to work for him won't be pleased.

Very few people are all good or all bad, even politicians. So much easier if they were, but there you go.

'Peter Hain'

A Kind Of Darling?

24 January 2008 .

Private Eye reports that the Chancellor, A. Darling, made a public declaration (on the internet version of the register of MP's interests) on 9th October 2007 that he owned a small flat in London - which seemed to be for letting. He had made no such mention in the previous edition on 28th August. The property was mortgaged with Northern Rock.

The Eye asks when the property was first disclosed in relation to the Northern Rock crisis breaking in early September; it also asks what the amount, terms and date of repayment of the mortgage were. The particular point is that N. Rock was offering giveaway rates as part of its 'kamikaze rush for market share' during its final months.

The magazine satisfies itself with the parting suggestion that since the flat presumably now forms part of the taxpayers' security, we should be given the details.

While the Eye doesn't go further, I will, to the extent of phrasing the unasked question. Since Darling would have been aware of the Rock's precarious state long before any of the above events, and had certainly been 'formally' advised by early August... wasn't he involved in a form of insider dealing, darling?

'Alistair Darling' 'Northern Rock'

Hain Again.

19 January 2008 .

I had heard vaguely, probably from the Eye, that Hain has been plugging Tesco. I missed an item by Terence Blacker in the Indy (16 Jan) in which he mentioned that Tesco is a leading client of Hain's lobbyist (Steven Morgan). Blacker used the word 'depressing'. I'd say so.

Blacker also said that the real problem with the public distrust is that it is invariably justified. I truly hope not.

A quip from Mark Thompson of the BBC on the matter of public perception of sleaze and cover-up; that a significant number of people believe that the government is covering up the facts about extraterrestrials. Such humour(!) might be acceptable - if the BBC itself were on safe ground. Not since you let yourself be misled and then bullied by The Dear Leader, mate.

'Terence Blacker' Tesco 'Mark Thompson' 'Steven Morgan'

Sometimes getting it wrong?

18 January 2008 .

Possible apologies to David Abrahams (as if he will ever know!): a letter in Private Eye suggests that it was wrong about his links with the Labour party of T. Dan Smith, which means that I was, too. Once again: one of the problems with being an ordinary member of the public is that I can often only make judgments at a remove. I have to decide whether that means I should shut up altogether; I have to believe that that would be the wrong decision.

'David Abrahams' 'Private Eye'

Apologies That Aren't, No 194.

17 January 2008 .

According to the Father Of The Nation, speaking on behalf of Hain to the Electoral Commission about the non-reporting of donations, Hain has admitted his mistakes and apologised profusely.

No, he hasn't.

Hain's comment on record ("I am a busy man who surrounds himself with incompetents.") is by no stretch of the imagination any part of a profuse apology. If, in the last three days, he has utterly repudiated that comment (and such has not been widely enough published for this newspaper-reader to see it), one might be forgiven for believing that it would have had very little to do with repentance.

[It's been suggested that Hain's department was already in a state of near-mutiny because of his arrogant and abrasive manner. It is a question, of course, as to how far that might be true and how far it might be his friends (honourable or otherwise) twisting the knife: one of the problems with being a private citizen with no political connections is the continual difficulty of filtering.]

By the way, it may be mistaken to suggest wrong-doing on the part of Hain over this business; however, it is a regrettably long way from being 'clearly absurd'.

'Electoral Commission' 'busy man' 'Peter Hain'

Hain's Defence?

15 January 2008 .

"I am a busy man who surrounds himself with incompetents." Peter Hain, on failing to declare 103,000.

What can you even begin to say about a cabinet minister who publicly says something like that?

Another incidental: it seems that Hain spent twice as much as any other candidate in his failed bid to be deputy (he's long been better known for his ambition than for his ability). Nevertheless, he assumes he will be believed when he says that he was so busy with his ministerial duties that he had to give his election bid a low priority. I was going to classify this item under 'competence' when the time came. Silly me. Corruption, of course.

'incompetents' 'deputy leader'

Nemo Me Custodiet. (or, Finance and Finangling.)

12 January 2008 .

For months the papers have been banging on about irregularities in the way political donations are made. In such a situation, it must be blindingly obvious to the most hopelessly incompetent, irrevocably corrupt or, as Peter Hain would have us believe of him, selflessly overworked politician that, whatever else you do, you make damned sure that the paper trail is spotless. Take a month off to sort it out, pay an accountant, tell somebody that you've cocked up, do something. But no; Hain forgot about 103,000 ($200,000) given to him as he tried (and dismally failed) for the rather nebulous post of deputy leader of the Labour party. (Never mind the legality of the source of the funding, shouldn't there be all sorts of questions about the costs and why people are willing to make such donations? Still, at least we don't pretend any more that there's anything remotely socialist or Labour about the party.)

Hain is 'Work and Pensions Secretary'. This is the man who is looking after the national pension fund!

I'm not clear, since the papers don't rumble the Tories so avidly, but it seems that Osborne, in that party, has slipped through with even more - 500,000 or so not declared as is required. Then again, it is the Tory party.

Meanwhile, the MPs are going to vote on their own over-the-odds pay rise.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I would rather it were someone a bit more consistent and publicly answerable than the fourth estate; but a million times better them than Nemo.

'Finance' 'Finangling' 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' ''Work and Pensions Secretary'

People Who Use People Part II

09 January 2008 .

Further to yesterday's (below):

Exploitation is probably the overarching sin; it encompasses rape and paedophilia, violence and slavery, sexual harassment and wife-beating, sharp business practice and corruption, Imams encouraging suicide bombers and battery farming to the possible destruction of the planet. In almost every case the perpetrator is insouciant; often he/she is unaware of wrongdoing and works hard to remain so.

The second sin is keeping silent when we observe it.

Exploitation

People Who Use People.

08 January 2008 .

I've just been watching the film 'Mercury Rising', with Bruce Willis. I think Willis is good value, and it was a fairly engrossing film; but I found it quite upsetting and, in a sense, exploitive, since it involved the planning by a rogue NSA to kill an autistic 9-year-old whose parents were killed in the process. The pain and panic of the child were just a bit too well captured.

I must be too sensitive, I suppose. But there do seem to be a lot of films and TV dramas involving 'users' - people following their own agendas at the expense of vulnerable others. I take it that this stream of stories reflects reality at least to some extent, since in my own life I have seen too many victims of exactly such people, hurt and sometimes damaged ways which often seem banal and quotidian to outsiders. Usually, the agenda being followed is in pursuit of the user's own career; too often, people who can see what is going on look away. Quite often, the victims are young. Generally the users get away with it... like rapists.

I've found myself wondering about one or two unpleasant episodes I've witnessed, which people (sometimes including senior officials and/or public figures) have known about, which have been glossed over or hushed up; including one episode over which, to my shame, I allowed myself to be bullied into silence.

I'm tempted to write about some of these, naming names: should I publish and be damned? The answer isn't quite so obvious as it might seem. I've done things I'm less than proud of, too... but I've never deliberately hurt anyone, and certainly not to profit thereby. I'll think about it.

Blog Pudding (Spotted Blog?) might even provide a pleasant cold buffet.

'Mercury Rising' 'witness intimidation' 'personal agenda'

My submission for Quote Of The Year.

23 December 2007 .

The Mail on Sunday today quoted an MP, whom it failed to name, speaking about the backbenchers' claim for a 10% pay rise (compared with the police, held back by government to 1.9%). For such an exquisite blend of imperviousness, self righteousness and greed, it must be in the running for Quote Of 2007:

"We now earn less than some Polish plumbers - and that cannot be right."

If I were that MP, I'd be hoping to remain unnamed.

'Quote Of The Year'

A Change Of Perspective.

20 December 2007 .

The revolting T. Dan Smith, with his equally squalid business partner John Poulson, were the political Godfathers of the Labour party machine in the North-East during the 60s and 70s - one of the most corrupt chapters in local government in the UK. Smith had another buddy, Bennie Abrahams, who was a Labour councillor and Lord Mayor of Newcastle during the period in question.

Following my item about the donations by David Abrahams to members of the Labour party (Donorgate 2, 29 November 2007, below), I learned that David is Bennie's son.

There are people who feel that entrenched interests continue to taint the North-East; whether that's true or not, the fact that Bennie left his money (and interests and contacts?) to David appears to mean that Donorgate 2 needs to be taken more seriously than I supposed.

'T. Dan Smith' 'John Poulson'

Simon Carr (with acknowledgment) on Hatty Harman.

08 December 2007 .

These notes from yesterday's Independent. Carr identified three problems with Harman's tenure as Leader of the House.

• "As a parliamentarian, her actions reveal no ambition beyond being a creature of the executive."
• "Intellectually, she's that Barbie doll designed by Lisa Simpson."
• "As an arbiter of political propriety, she's one busted fish."

I'm not sure he thinks much more of her than I do, and he's in a better and wittier position than I to judge. He mentions that:
1. on the major and controversial issue of 42 day detention, clearly requiring an oral statement, she produced instead a dense wodge of paper; she answered no questions from the House.
2. on the constitutional abomination that under the proposal, Parliament would debate how long an individual would be held in jail, "She waved it all away. She may not have grasped the principle." (I wondered how Parliament would debate it: would the police give any more information to the House than they would give the court? What, then, of national security? Surely; the whole idea is less than well thought out.)
3. when challenged (by Theresa May) about the undeclared 40 000 to Hatty's campaign fund, "She airily said that all sorts of question had been asked."

Blair Babe on top form.

'Simon Carr' 'Hatty Harman' 'Blair Babe' 'Barbie doll designed by Lisa Simpson' 'Theresa May'

Commercial Confidentiality.

06 December 2007 .

I am dubious of the right of the government to refuse to give information to us, requested under the FoI legislation, on the basis of 'commercial confidentiality'.

Any company or corporation accepting the taxpayers' money must surely be willing to tell us how much they are taking, and for what, on the same moral basis as a plumber doing a job for a private citizen.

This isn't to say that all dealings must be dissected on demand - there may be genuine reasons, even security reasons, why they should not be. But commercial confidentiality isn't, and shouldn't be, one of those reasons.

Apart from anything else, it is an invitation to corruption to both government and the corporation.

(No, I haven't made a request and had it refused!)

'Commercial Confidentiality'

Teflon Triumphant.

06 December 2007 .

Three hours since I wrote about her, and... It's Harriet Harman again. This time it seems she failed to register a 40,000 injection into her campaign to be Deputy to The Supreme Leader (What campaign?). 'Silly me!' seems to sum up her explanations - and, so far at least, nobody seems to be bothered. Deputy Leader and her husband the party treasurer. Just imagine if I omitted to mention 40,000, or 4000, or 400, to the tax man.

Also heard today: HRMC Chairman Paul Gray, retired (honourably, we supposed) in the wake of the lost data fiasco: it turns out that within days of doing so, he was given a job in the Cabinet Office at the same rate of pay.

And: One Paul Myners was given a government post (150 000 p.a. for a two day week, or at least 1500 per day, leading a drive to encourage people to save more for pensions) by The Supreme Leader after he replaced The Dear Leader... It seems that Mr. Myners was a donor to Brown's campaign to become Supreme Leader in May (what campaign?) as well as on other occasions. The government said upon his appointment that Myners had made no contribution to a political party...

It just goes on and on.

'Silly me' 'Paul Myners' 'tax evasion' 'Harriet Harman'

Ignorance is Innocence.

06 December 2007 .

Blair babes do seem to come by quantities of cash all wide eyed and innocent. Tessa Jowell knew nothing about the dodgy money acquired by her husband which helped to support her enjoyable lifestyle. And wasn't Harriet "5 000 from David Abrahams" Harman's hubby Treasurer to the Labour Party?

'Tessa Jowell' 'Treasurer to the Labour Party'

Donorgate 2

29 November 2007 .

Much talk about the illicit donations to the labour party by David Abrahams.

All I know is what I've been reading and hearing in the media. My impression, I have to admit, is that this is a storm in a teacup - even if Harriet Harman (deputy leader and one of those blair babes (?) whom I have not been able to take seriously) has probably made a bit of a fool of herself. Evidence of mistakes, laziness, etc., but not so far (nor at all so far as I can see) of corruption.

Unlike the last donor scandal, where every large donor had received a peerage or knighthood, which I believe to have been the tip of an iceberg of corruption (a belief which I would stake my pension I share with the investigating officer who was so obstructed. See Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates, ' Classified - Police' 21 Oct)

A pity that we are being diverted: I want to see The Supreme Leader get his come-uppance - but I want it to be for his arrogant damage to the international reputation, the constitution and the financial stability of my country. Just as I wanted Blunkett to go because of the damage he did, not because of his (comparatively) petty peccadillos. Just as I wanted The Dear Leader (tony 'I'm pretty straight kind of guy' blair) to go because of the war - and yet saw him appointed as some sort of middle-east peace plenipotentiary (at extraordinary expense).

While we're mentioning how we're diverted so easily from the issues that actually matter: Did you see the relief the The Supreme Leader clearly felt, in the middle of the lost data debacle, when England lost a football match against Croatia - and all the media, and the people in the pub, promptly lost the scent and went for that red herring instead.

Summary - identification of responsibility: I do not imagine for one moment that The Father Of The Nation knew about the recent shady (if shady they were) donations, nor about Hatty Harman's errors (although it is arguable that anyone who takes Hatty as a deputy deserves everything they get). Unfortunately, commentators are saying that they're sure that few or none of the current crop of problems are down to brown; they're wrong: Northern Rock and the missing CDs are down to systems imposed, developed and underfunded precisely by The Supreme Leader himself.

=/=

In the discussion, incidentally, the comment's been made that Major, Blair and Brown were all affected by sleaze and corruption that was not of their creating. I happen to believe that Major was clean, but the repeated assertion that we all agree that (whatever his mistakes) Blair was a decent, honest, sincere man does not wash. Since inquiries have been thrown or blocked and impeachment isn't going to happen, no-one can say one way or the other anything of importance about Blair's honesty (except Blair himself, whose evidence might be damaged anyway since he shows signs of being actually deluded).

I think it's clear that I don't believe that Blair is/was an honourable man; that's just my opinion... except that it's also the opinion of an awful lot of other people. And it's only your opinion, you who cleave to it, that holds his honour in esteem; so, please, do not say that it's evident, or agreed, or generally acknowledged: it isn't.

Donorgate 'Major, Blair and Brown'

Moth and Rust...

14 November 2007 .

This from a friend (who wants to stay anonymous) who teaches in north London, at William Ellis School:

This school offers cash awards to certain deserving alumni, particularly to those who wish to go on to higher education but whose families may be deterred by the costs involved.

Alastair Campbell's son was a student at the school and has gone on to university; he has been declared one of this year's deserving cases.

Fine so far but, while there is probably a perfectly good reason for this award, the following items do beg certain questions:

1) Alastair Campbell has been given a seven-figure advance ahead of the publication of his diary.

2) Alastair Campbell's partner, Fiona Miller, is vice-chair of the governors of William Elliis School.

'Fiona Miller' 'Alastair Campbell' 'William Ellis School'

Corruption sends its tendrils throughout the website, sometimes not (at first glance) quite so blatantly. The following sample is a duplicated item from the Economics page:

Assets Of Straw. Or Just Off-shore.

21 February 2008 .

The taxpayers' exposure on N. Rock has reached 100 billion. (Twenty billion pounds. Then 25; then 33, 39, 50, 65, 69... now 100 billion... when does it stop?)

While we watched our liabilities climb and climb with a sort of dumb resignation, we assumed that (perhaps by some sort of Brownian motion) there was a meaningful figure on the assets side of the sheet to reassure us that the whole business wasn't quite the awful black hole that it appeared to be. Some hope.

125% mortgages, including to people who were going to be hard-pressed to meet payments on any mortgage at all, insuring that a mass of struggling new home-owners were buying themselves into negative equity at the top of the market before they even started. These are assets of straw. How do you get people-at-large to understand the enormity of what's been allowed to happen? (Which phrase do you even choose to put into italics?)

Then: it comes out this week that 45 billion pounds-worth of Northern Rock's more secure mortgages have been salted away with a Jersey-based company, Granite. This company, despite appearing on N. Rock's books, has not been nationalised. The assets left 'securing' the British taxpayer's exposure turn out to include an impressive amount of the straw and, apparently, none of the gold.

When there's a disaster in progress, but somebody's walking away with a smile on his face, it must be worth asking how much the situation might have been engineered.

1. The N. Rock directors set out with a growth model: borrow short-term and cheap, and lend long.
1.1. Like pyramid selling, with which it's on a moral par, it produces what appears (to the lay person) to be stunning growth.
1.2. But, as any banker, including the directors of N. Rock, should know without even thinking about it, the growth is unsustainable, and has no substance.
1.2.1. The moment that interest rates started to rise - which event was always as certain as death and income tax - N. Rock would crash. They did and it did.

2. Knowing that the crash would come eventually, the directors awarded themselves fat bonuses and gave unjustifiably large dividends to the shareholders and
2.1. went on doing so even when it was becoming clear that gravy-train was heading for the buffers - which now appears to have been with the approval and even the encouragement of a treasury which want literally to con its way out of an economic disaster.

3. At some point (and I do so hope people will be asking when) the directors salted away what gold there was among the dross in an off-shore company, so that when the taxpayer finally came to bail the bank out, the assets which should have been in the pot weren't there.

4. And the directors walked away.

It puts the Great Train Robbery into perspective - as a pocket money raid. Similarly Brink's-Mat and the Tonbridge business. (The real joy of the N. Rock scam - for the directors - is that it's comparatively risk-free. And no guns. Even if they were rumbled, the worst they'd face would be a minimum security, white-collar, 'open' nick.)

It's been the Crime Of The (21st.) Century; the B of E, the FSA and the treasury have been the patsies and the taxpayer's paying.

History Will Say That. And it will say that Gordon Brown might as well have been the man on the inside because of the way the system was set up under his watch as chancellor. As for the rest of the banking sector - think twice before asking them to be on your local Neighbourhood Watch, because they'll just sit back and admire the burglar who comes along so long as he has enough chutzpah.

However The Great Economist And Helmsman may huff and puff about urrrgh prudence, this government and its financial agencies have truly buggered us.

But I'm only a man with a sandwich-board; what do I know?

'Northern Rock' 'Granite' 'Great Train Robbery' 'Bank of England' Treasury FSA

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