Mark Steel | ukwatch.net

It takes a warrior like Blair to talk of peace

JamieSW — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:48:59 +0000

I concede defeat. Watching Tony Blair parading around the Annapolis summit as the representative of the Quartet of Europe, the UN, Russia and the US, I can’t think of any situation more ridiculous than making Tony Blair a peace envoy for the Middle-East.

I considered saying it was like putting Steve McClaren in charge of the investigation into failing to qualify for the European finals, but at least McClaren was trying to win. Whereas there’s not much evidence Blair has spent the past five years desperately trying to stop wars, only to be let down by his team who’ve gone out and started them by mistake. I’d also considered saying it was like putting Ian Huntley in charge of the search for Madeline, but Huntley would probably claim he regrets his crime, rather than insisting history will prove him right, and boasting he only carried it out after consulting God.

I pondered Ellen Macarthur as President of the Flat Earth Society, Amy Winehouse as leader of the Taliban, Ian Paisley as Secretary of the Noise Abatement Society, Pete Doherty as treasurer for the Society for Abolition of Drugs, Hats and Bad Timekeeping, but none of it matches the surreal horror of making a peace envoy to the Middle-East out of the man who insisted on setting it ablaze.

Everything he says in this job, when you bear in mind his record, is utterly nutty. So he said the task will require patience. In other words “I’ve tried invading Iraq, telling volumes of lies to justify it, watching it cause a million deaths and four million refugees, then been the only European leader to support bombing Lebanon, and these people still won’t calm down and keep quiet. I suppose it just takes time.”

When he appears at a press conference as “Peace envoy”, how can reporters take it seriously? It must be like attending an event where a stark-naked green-painted man bounces in on a space hopper and in a high pitched squeak declares his plan for peace is to give the Palestinians their own state on a giant Custard Cream under the sea.

Then they have to report “Early indications are that Libya and Jordan are cautiously optimistic about the proposal, though the Syrians were sceptical about whether settlements in the central creamy area could get extremely squishy, and the Lebanese asked for assurances that the Israelis couldn’t destroy the new state by dunking it in an underground giant cup of tea. But at least the two sides are talking.”

One of Tony Blair’s photo sessions involved him sitting in a crumbling hut with a family of Palestinians, trying to look as if he’d popped in while passing by.

Maybe there’d been some amiable small talk, such as “Oh I see you’re having some work done. Are you knocking through to the kitchen? Oh that was done by an Israeli rocket was it? Well at least they’re quick. When we had a wall taken out the blooming builders took seven weeks about it.”

It might come to his notice, while he’s arranging peace for them, that the people of Gaza have been without electricity for several months, and that, coupled with living under siege, this probably isn’t helping. Or maybe that’s all part of the plan. Cherie has told him that candlelight spreads a sense of inner calm and tranquil thought-waves. Now all they need is some essence of juniper oil and incense cones wafting across the rubble and they won’t care whether their territories are occupied.

To make this latest peace plan even more pointless, the one group not invited is Hamas, who are supported by most of the occupied Palestinians. So presumably one of the little concessions this proposed state will have to make is it can only exist if it elects the government Israel and America want it to elect. Maybe they should agree, on the condition that Israel and America are only recognised if they elect the government the Palestinians want.

Strangely, the last time Bush and Blair came up with a “Road-map for peace” was in the weeks before they invaded Iraq. This meant they could insist the invasion was part of an overall plan to bring peace. Cynics might argue that when you look at the consequences of that war, “peace” isn’t the first word that springs to mind. And now, as they move towards bombing Iran, off they go again, the two friends who’ll do anything to bring about peace, except for not starting a war.

To show how little effort Blair makes, one reporter described how he turned up to the summit “with an entourage double the size of anyone in that position before”.

Maybe he’s seen 50 Cent and Puff Daddy and thinks he now deserves the same status. So he might surprise us with a speech that starts “Yo yo yo, George Bush he the man. Now listen up yeah, I’m here representen’ for my homies up there in the Pentagon, an’ I just like to thank God for giving me the talent to speak bullshit an’ have people believe me an’ all, peace bros, big up for peace.”

He might as bloody well. Meanwhile, if anyone can think how to complete the sentence “Making Tony Blair a Middle-East peace envoy is like making…”, please let me know.

How nice that we make King Abdullah feel at home

JamieSW — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:13:24 +0000

That should stop those liberal types who complain we don’t do enough to welcome people who leave a country that practises persecution. Admittedly, with King Abdullah, he’s the person who organises the persecution, but the main point is we made an effort.

I wondered whether, to make him feel even more at home, we might behead a couple of adulteresses in Pall Mall, with Gordon Brown saying: “This one was specially chosen by Mr Blunkett, and this one personally selected by Mr Prescott, Your Highness.”

Instead, Foreign Office minister Kim Howells assured him we have “shared values” with His Majesty. He could have added: “For example we’ve decided not to have an election, and so has he.”

The visit also reminds us of Tony Blair justifying the invasion of Afghanistan by referring to its “appalling record on women’s rights”. Which is why we offer a state visit for the King of Saudi Arabia, as his kingdom is the world centre for radical feminism. For example they insist you say a woman has been stoned to death and never a bird. And women are so revered there, they’re not allowed to drive, which means they’re the only people in the world who can’t be punished for drinking and driving, as they’d be executed for either one so they might as well do both at the same time.

A cynic might wonder whether this cheery relationship with the Saudis might be connected to the weapons they buy off us, which might also explain why we don’t worry that their dealings with us are riddled with corruption. Lord Gilmour wrote of the time he was defence secretary: “You either got the business and bribed, or you didn’t bribe and didn’t get the business.”

And when you put it like that, what else can any man do but bribe a dictator to sell him warehouse-loads of tanks?

Burglars should try this argument, saying: “The thing is, your honour, I either got the telly by robbing the house, or I didn’t rob the house and then I didn’t get the telly.”

The former managing director of Thorn defence systems, which admitted to paying 25 per cent “commissions” on a £40m arms deal, said: “I don’t know of a Saudi royal who’ll get out of bed for less than 5 per cent.” So they must have the same agents as supermodels and Premier League footballers.

Presumably they get a bit extra for their image rights as well, and sort out sponsorship deals where they say: “People often ask me how I have the energy to buy five Eurofighter Typhoon jets in one morning, and I always answer ‘Lucozade Sports Drink’ – it brings a good vibe to a good bribe.”

But the awkward part to the King’s visit is how confusing it must be for poor President Ahmadinejad of Iran. He doesn’t grab anywhere near as many weapons and gets in all sorts of trouble. If the British Government hired the super-nanny woman off the telly, she’d say: “No wonder you’re getting no discipline from your dictators, you’re sending out mixed messages.”

The treatment laid on for the Saudi King shows how the issue of whether Iran is developing a weapons programme makes hardly any difference to whether it gets bombed or not. The USA, and therefore Britain, has decided it wants to control the place so they’ll bomb it if they think they can get away with it and use whatever excuse they fancy.

This appears to be the strategy of the American Enterprise Institute, which is led by Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and other supporters of the Project for the New American Century that was behind the occupation of Iraq.

The vice-president of this institute, Danielle Pletka, wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “There is clear information regarding Iran’s link to a weapons of mass destruction programme.” To which the first point must be: “Oh for God’s sake at least use your imagination and come up with something different.”

They seem to have become so lazy they’re going to use excuses from old wars, so in the next statement they’ll say Iran is threatening the sovereignty of Prussia.

Hopefully, Colin Powell will give us something new. For Iraq he showed us photos of the desert and claimed the vague grainy blur in the middle was a group of rocket launchers. So maybe this time he can prove the Iranians are turning men into frogs, by showing a photo of a man, and then a photo of a frog. And the same idiot journalists that believed him last time will go: “Well no one can refute that evidence.”

A logical mind might assume they can’t attack Iran while they’re stuck in Iraq, but it doesn’t seem to work like that. It was when it all went wrong in Vietnam, they decided to bomb Cambodia. Perhaps it’s like at a fairground, when you’ve had a go at knocking all the tin cans off a shelf with a squishy ball and not got anywhere near – so you hand over another two quid for another pointless effort.

The difficulty for Bush is that only 15 per cent of Americans support a war with Iran, and there’s a chance that after the last war turned out to be based on a pack of lies, the opposition to this one could be even greater than before.

And wouldn’t it be brilliant if someone finds footage of the Queen saying to King Abdullah: “So – you can deal with trollops with one blow – no inquests, no Fiat Unos – hmm, interesting.”

Total Propping Up Burmese Junta

Tim Holmes — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:13:48 +0000

From now on, I think every protest should have monks at the front. They look fantastic, so much better than Bianca Jagger and someone from Greenpeace dawdling into Trafalgar Square clutching a crumpled banner the width of the road. And they’re so dazzling, you almost wish that when they’re being chased by the police they would flee in formation, to create a kaleidoscope of colour like the Red Arrows.

So everyone loves the Bur-mese protestors, including George Bush, and yesterday the Conservative party conference. But there are a few in the West that aren’t so enthusiastic. For example, Total Oil doesn’t appear to be cheering for them.

This may be because they supply most of the energy to the regime through the Yadama gas project, which rewards the Burmese military with hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Total denies that its operation there has any connections with the military, although 16 battalions of the army have been stationed around their plant to protect it.

Maybe the board of Total thought this was just part of the Rangoon tattoo. And each day, all the regiments had a thrilling competition to see which could be quickest to assemble an armoured car, fire tear gas from it at dissidents, and drag them away to be tortured.

Total may also, if they were more observant, have noticed that many of their workers have been employed as forced labour, as they claim they didn’t realise this. How can you not know when your workforce is part of a forced labour scheme controlled by the military? Didn’t it seem strange that no applicants for jobs ever seemed to come for interviews? Or maybe they did, and the transcript of every one reads: “So why do you want to come and work for Total?”

“Because if I don’t I’ll be shot and dumped in a quarry.”

“Aah, I see. We’ve had quite a lot say that this morning. Well I must say your CV seems rather impressive – forced to work on a railway, forced to work on a General’s palace, forced to dig graves, I’d say you’ll fit in rather well but I’ll let you know in due course. Next.”

It’s also part of Total’s contract in Burma that all their security staff are to be made available from the army. Did that not strike them as odd? Does this usually happen in democracies? If the Arndale Centre in Ipswich needs a couple of security guards, they tend not to get the 9th regiment of the Royal Fusiliers.

And they might have realised, if they were keeping a vigilant eye on affairs, that the elected leader of the country was under house arrest where she’d been for 13 years. Or maybe the Burmese government told Total that this was an experiment in spreading home-working. Because these days with new technology, fewer and fewer jobs require us to go into the office, even if your occupation is international rebel.

Gone are the days when poor old Che Guevara had to go all the way to Cuba and run around mountains to overthrow a government. If he was around now he could do the whole revolution from his lap-top. Not only does this leave the elected Aung San Suu Kyi with more quality time for herself, but think how it cuts down on carbon emissions.

Total insist that their presence in Burma has helped to make the place more liberal, because they’ve engaged in “constructive engagement” with the regime. That’s how to deal with murderers: never mind stopping them, constructively engage with them by helping them out. If only Maxine Carr had thought of this. She could have said, “Instead of whining from the outside about Ian Huntley I decided to constructively engage with him,” and by now she’d be in the House of Lords.

And there’s another clue about whether they were aware of their part in the military dictatorship. One clause in their deal with the regime reads: “The contract shall be terminated in its entirety if irrefutable evidence is brought that Total is involved willingly with political activities detrimental to the government.”

So how could they sign that and not be aware they were making themselves a tool of that government? Maybe their PR person will claim they were all confused by the broker, the same way people signed up for endowment mortgages in the 1980s.

Like every company that makes profits in a vile regime, Total claims that if it pulled out this would hurt the poorest people most. But the opposition in Burma calls for companies to pull out, and they were supported by 82 per cent of the population, in the election the military trampled over.

So Total are in the same position as companies who made millions out of apartheid South Africa, claiming that to pull their business out would hurt black people, despite the fact black people were demanding them to pull out. And when apartheid fell, very few black people said, “Thanks to all those people who helped bring down apartheid by making money out of it. Thank you so much to Shell Oil, and to Cliff Richard and to all the sportsmen who broke our boycott. Our gratitude is with you for ever.”

You’d have more respect if they said, “We’re making a fortune, so sod the monks. Anyway, they reckon they’ll come back as something better so we’re doing them a favour.”

The Conservatives, like George Bush, can praise and cheer the Burmese opposition, but it’s the free market profiteering they idolise that glues the barbarity into place.

Oh, We Do Like Being British by the Seaside

Ellie Keen — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:39:29 +0000

Surely, if you’ve been desperately frothing to become prime minister every day for 14 years, once it finally happens and you get to make your big speech you must have something more to say than that. From the bit I heard it just went “it’s an honour and a privilege to be in charge of the British people because of all the British people only the British people are British.”

Apparently we came through the floods because of “the resilience of the British people.” If only the tsunami had been in Britain we’d have seen it off. Instead of panicking, jolly Mr Puddleton the baker would have used some of his extra sticky dough to plug the ocean up, and a few of us might have got wet but everyone would have pulled together and used their old cardigans to mop up the perishing tsunami and then Mr Puddleton would have brought everyone some of his delicious custard pies, instead of flapping about like the Sri Lankans because we’re British.

Then it turns out we’ve got through foot and mouth because of our British character as well. I wondered if he’d say “and because the infected animals were British, then with typical British determination they calmly incinerated themselves for the good of the British countryside.”

The response to the failed bomb in Glasgow was more evidence of how British we are, and I wondered if he’d continue “and in true British spirit, British citizens not only captured the bomber, but seeing as he was on fire they used him to set light to a herd of infected cows, saving crucial British energy.”

If he’d been more honest and included all recent events in his examples of our British resolve, he’d have had to say “and then, faced with an uncertain rumour about something to do with a loan, we heartily resolved to calmly gallop to banks in our millions and take out every penny we possess.”

That’s the true British resolve. If there was a hint on the evening news that there might next year be a temporary shortage of cheese graters, there’d be 10,000 people squashing to get into every branch of Woolworths, and people striding out with 200 cheese graters in a wheelbarrow, screaming at the news reporter: “I can’t afford to go short, not with all the Shepherd’s pie we get through in my house.”

Or last year, when the issue of the month was bird flu, they found one dead poxy Scottish swan and half the country was shrieking: “Aaaaagh, kill everything. Right – next door’s got a budgie – get the shovel, we’re going in.”

Then he told us that foreigners with a gun would be deported, and the logic seems to be that in this way we could get back to the days when, if you were shot you could be certain that at least it had been done by someone British. I wondered if he’d start quoting someone from the East End of London, who’d said: “In my day lying in a pool of your own blood happy to know you’d been done by Ronnie and Reggie and you were proud, but these days it could have been any old Latvian and you don’t know where you are.”

And then he got onto his favourite subject of dour statistics, none of them making much sense so they all became one long blur, but each one punctuated with vast applause. He could have been saying anything, and maybe when it’s played back it will turn out he said: “Trees have become three per cent taller year on year in real terms since 1997. (Loud applause.) Liquorice, which was becoming lighter and lighter under the Conservatives until it was almost grey is now the second blackest piece of confectionery in the G8 nations. (Loud applause).”

This would have made more sense than the sentence about not resting until “no one is barred from further education through lack of money.” So he’s abolishing the fees he helped set up that bar thousands from further education, is he? But everyone clapped.

And they clapped the bit about not resting until everyone had equal opportunities, even though every survey from every angle shows inequality is much wider now than 10 years ago, and the Government has fallen over itself to befriend resolute British folk such as Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi, Sunil Mittal and Roman Abramovich.

And they clapped to appear united, because even if someone’s talking gibberish it’s vital everyone talks the same gibberish, including if it’s to praise the opposite to what you’re doing.

So, although I switched off about half way through, I imagine the end went: “And so the Britain I want for the British people is a Britain in which no one makes excessive use of the word ‘British’.” (deafening applause, standing ovation, calls from the floor to make him King).

Too Poor?

Tim Holmes — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:53:48 +0000

We’re used to stories about footballers’ excessive wages, in which a star insists he won’t sign a new contract unless he’s given a planet. And then when the club backs down, he complains he’s only been given Venus, which isn’t fair as Didier Drogba got the much bigger Saturn.

But this week the trend reached a new depth. Because the Palestinian youth team, mostly from Gaza, was due to begin a three-week tour, playing against teams such as Blackburn Rovers, Tranmere and Chester. But on the day they were due to arrive, the British Foreign Office announced none of them would be granted a visa, the reason given that they were “too poor”.

Too poor? Has the Foreign Office replaced immigration officials with doormen from a gentlemen’s club? So instead of asking people at customs to show their passport, they look you up and down, then say, “I’m afraid sir, there is no admission into Britain without a tailored suit.”

The Foreign Office originally backed the tour, saying it would “help to keep young men out of the hands of gunmen”. Still, if only the footballers were rich Arab gunmen, sent by Saudi Arabia, they’d not only be allowed to play Blackburn, they’d probably buy it.

There will inevitably be suggestions from the Israeli government that the tour was a propaganda exercise for terrorists, despite the places they were due to play at. But you can imagine an Israeli statement claiming, “We have evidence that Blackburn Rovers is a front for terrorist activity, and we understand the half-time team talk by Mark Hughes goes ‘We need to battle hard in midfield, and we can get the winner if we launch a merciless Holy Jihad against the infidel Arsenal flat-back-four’. And as for Chester, they might as well call themselves Hizbollah Wanderers and be done with it.”

But it might be harder to explain why the tour was also backed by an organisation called Truce International, whose chair is Nancy Dell’Olio, the glamorous partner of Sven. Or Nancy Dell’Al-Zaqari HamasIntifadaOlio as she’s probably known by Mossad. She said, “To refuse admission solely on the grounds they are too poor to be trusted will do Britain no good abroad.”

How rancid do you have to be to make Nancy Dell’Olio sound like a campaigner from Liberty or Amnesty International? Perhaps it’s a game, and their next test is to get Rolf Harris to say, “Gaw blimey, I’ve seen some imperialist running dogs of oppression but this Foreign Office takes the biscuit.”

Or maybe this is all just practise for the English strategy to win the next World Cup. Within a couple of years almost every decent foreign footballer in the world will be playing here in the Premier League, then just before the tournament starts we’ll refuse visas to all of them and give ourselves a chance. But most likely is simply that the Foreign Office has been leaned on by the Israeli government to refuse entry to the team. Because the Israelis do have a record here. In March last year they bombed the only football stadium in Gaza. And it wouldn’t be surprising if, just for extra nastiness they contracted Multiplex to rebuild it.

And during the Asia Cup, which the Palestinian national team had started with an 8-0 win, the Israelis detained the five players who came from Gaza so they couldn’t get to their match against Uzbekistan. This suggests the latest incident is simply part of the process of petty vindictiveness that occupying forces often dish out. Even if there’s no obvious military or political advantage to be gained, you can imagine them passing a law that no one in Gaza is allowed to hum, or on Mondays everyone has to speak in a Geordie accent.

Even more annoying for the residents of Gaza, for over a year they’ve been under siege, the hospitals have run out of essential medicines, there’s no electricity and hundreds of thousands are trapped there, unable to visit family or complete their education if it means leaving the occupied area. The justification offered often comes down to how Palestinian organisations refuse to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

Yet the Israelis seem so determined to refuse Palestine’s right to exist that they won’t even allow them a football team. So what will they allow? Would they let them take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, or would they get the Foreign Office to refuse them entry on the grounds they were “too loud”? Would they let a Palestinian puppy enter Crufts, or would it be refused a visa for being “too frisky”?

So the Palestinian footballers are left with two options. The first is they’re calling on people to send a message to the Foreign Office, at King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH, asking for the decision to be reversed. Or they could organise their next tour to play against Scotland. Then even if they’re not allowed to turn up they’ll still win three-nil.

Tragedy Turned into Showbusiness

eddie — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:46:37 +0000

As if the story of Madeleine McCann who went missing in Portugal isn’t harrowing enough, the British media seems determined to turn it into a branch of show business.

Every time a reporter comes on the news from the Algarve, they seem to say “The trouble is the police here just aren’t telling us anything. Don’t they understand we’ve got three bulletins a day, and a 24-hour rolling news channel? Quite frankly, Huw, there’s thousands of us out here covering this, you’d think they could at least hold a daily meaningless press conference with an inspector telling us they’re keen to interview someone but they’re not sure who, like we have in Britain.”

Almost every report ends “We try to find out more, but instead of answering our questions the Portuguese police say they’re ‘getting on with the investigation’.” And you expect them to continue “It’s almost as if they see solving the crime as more important than being on the telly. Oh well, that’s just the Portuguese way I suppose.”

For a while, it seemed every television reporter in Britain had gone there, and I still expect the newsreader to say one night “Police have indicated the kidnapper may have come from another country. So we’ve sent a reporter to one of those other countries – Mexico. David Smicklethorpe, you’re in Acapulco, what’s the mood out there about this case?”

Then an expert sits at the table to say something like “Many people are asking questions as to why the Portuguese police are proceeding so slowly.” Because if the investigation had been conducted by British police it would have moved much faster, so that by now they’d already have caught someone, whose face would have appeared on front pages over a headline “The most evil face ever including Satan’s”, and be well on the way to being convicted until 15 years later when it turned out he was a tadpole-collector who’d never been out of Wiltshire.

The newspapers can be more direct, snarling “What a daft idea to let the Portuguese investigate this case! But in these pro-European PC days all it takes is for a crime to take place in Portugal and we hand it straight to the Portuguese! Well is it any wonder they’ve got nowhere?! They’re too busy with siestas and religious festivals to solve crime! Who caught Doctor Crippin? The Portuguese? Where was Inspector Morse from? Portugal? Exactly!!!”

You can almost feel them wanting to publish a photograph and say “If you haven’t caught him yet, what about this bloke? We took his picture yesterday in Preston. Well, he looks weird enough doesn’t he? Well go on then you idle Portuguese coppers, get round there and dig up his lawn.” Then at the bottom it can say “Do you know someone who looks weird? Then take their picture and send it to us in an envelope marked ‘Suspect’.”

And the columnists are itching for a proper suspect, so they can write one of their pieces that goes “Some people call him scum. Well maybe I’m old-fashioned but that’s too darned soft. He’s not just any scum, like the scum in a washing-up bowl that’s been left for a week with a greasy frying pan in it. He’s industrial scum, from a toxic plant in the Russia that’s not even subject to EU regulations and regularly spills out sulphuric acid that kills all the fish. that’s the sort of scum he is.”

But in the meantime the reporters have to make do with stories such as the discovery of a trace of blood on the wall, discovered by sniffer dogs. Even that was presented on the news by telling us “British dogs have a level of expertise that doesn’t exist in Portugal”. And this was said in the slightly proud tone they might use to tell us a British boy is in the final of the World Draughts Championship.

The discovery was reported in The Sun as the news that “Last night three theories emerged about the blood”. It informed us “It could be Maddie’s”, or “It could be the kidnapper’s”. Or thirdly, it went on, “It could be from others”. It seems so simple now they’ve worked it out, like at the end of an episode of Miss Marple. With one bold train of thought they’ve narrowed it down to everyone in the world. Maybe they’ll follow this up by telling us “Amongst those who are other are no less than Angelina Jolie, Frank Lampard and Henry the Eighth, though Portuguese police have ruled out anyone who died 400 years before the block was built.”

The Sun has also done its bit by asking us to “Download our special poster”. And it can only help that alongside the missing girl’s picture is the logo of The Sun. Perhaps every company is trying to find ways of using this tragedy as a marketing opportunity. Someone might sponsor the police, so the reporters have to say “I’m standing here at the headquarters of the Axa Equity and Law investigation”.

And maybe television executives are in negotiations with the Portuguese police to maximise the potential for raising their profile, by making all future announcements live on Saturday evenings just before the draw for the lottery. Maybe they’ll get Davina McCall to do it in that reality TV way, gasping “And the DNA belongs to…” (a bass drum beats like a heart, we see the suspects’ faces, we see them holding hands). Until the name is announced, the police lead the convict to his cell through a flurry of fireworks and we all look forward to doing it all again with a new cast next year.

I Want a Helicopter

Tim Holmes — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:51:56 +0000

Here’s something they sneaked out this week with hardly anyone noticing – the Americans have announced a “military aid package” of sixty billion dollars for their allies in the Middle East. Or, to be grammatically correct, sixty billion, that’s sixty thousand million bastard dollars!!!

How can they spend that? Have Prada moved into tanks? Maybe they now buy these things at fashion shows, where a commentator gasps: “Ooh, my, my!” as down the catwalk comes this exhilarating design for the very latest satellite-guided armour-penetrating missile modelled here by Kate Moss, designed, of course, by Stella McCartney, and “sure to be this summer’s big bold hit when it comes to melting the Hizbollah”.

This is $250 for every living American, $10 for everyone on the planet. Are they taking each weapon out individually for a meal at the Ivy? And $13bn of this is for Saudi Arabia. Because if there’s one family on this earth in need of financial aid, it’s the Saudi royal family. Who’s getting the rest – the Bee Gees? Anyway, why do the Saudis need military aid at all? Their favourite weapon seems to be the stone. I suppose now if a woman commits adultery or speaks out of turn she’ll be battered to death with a bloody great ruby instead.

To get all this in perspective, after the G8 summit two years ago in Scotland, after the Make Poverty History march and concerts, a beaming Tony Blair announced a record-breaking global amount of aid of fifty billion dollars. This time they seem to be a bit more modest. No one came galloping out of the White House joyfully to explain that, after a whole week of negotiating, they’ve come up with more laser-guided firebombs than ever.

But they shouldn’t be so modest. Because a sign of how hard it is to come up with such sums can be seen from this year’s G8 summit, when they admitted that instead of the $50bn they promised in Scotland, it was back to $25bn after all. So all those balloons, celebrations, smiley press conferences and declarations of a new start for Africa, were about the entire western world donating to an entire impoverished continent less than half of what one country has quietly coughed up in weapons for the Saudis, Egypt and Israel.

They do it quietly because how many people would agree with these priorities? On Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, when Chris Tarrant asks: “What would you do with the money if you won a million pounds?”, very few people say: “I’d buy some cluster bombs.” How many people, if they were taken on a tour of the Middle East, through Gaza and the wreckage of Iraq and the slums of Cairo, would say: “I know what this place needs above all else – $60bn-worth of deadly weapons.”

How many people would support a charity record called “Death Aid”, or a night of TV comedy called “Smiles for Missiles”, in which Vernon Kay wandered through Angola grimacing: “This village hasn’t had a landmine for over a month. Please, please, please, send your donation so they too can know what it’s like to watch someone explode”, followed by a special edition of A Question of Sport.

One of the reasons given for the difficulty in providing aid to Africa is their leaders are corrupt, so there’s every chance they’ll swipe the money. So luckily, when it comes to Saudi Arabia they can rely on that country’s rulers, who would never fiddle a billion dollars from British Aerospace or do illegal deals with, to pick someone at random, Jonathan Aitken.

Maybe the complaint about corruption has been misunderstood and the Africans aren’t doing enough of it. So the White House gets reports that say: “Some ministers in Malawi go a whole month with barely a single prostitute being procured by the arms companies – how can we possibly do business with such people?” And half this generous gift, $30bn-worth of arms, is being given to Israel. Surely the problem here is where will they put them all? They’ll be like parents at Christmas when an over-generous grandparent delivers sacks full of presents, and you have to have a clearout of all the old stuff to make room. So if you want a cheap battleship, nip down to a charity shop in Hebron and you’ll be able to pick one up for a score.

But more weapons is the answer to everything. For example, a US defence report on global warming has concluded it could lead to global instability and mass migration, proving the necessity of acquiring more weapons to deal with this.

If anyone from the Pentagon visits Moss Side or Peckham, they’ll announce: “Hey, these places are in bad shape. So we’ve given everyone under 25 a pistol, a sword and a tank.” If someone from the Pentagon ever worked as a chef, he’d taste the sauce and say: “Hmm, it needs something – basil, perhaps, or a sprinkle of fennel? I know, it needs a Stealth bomber.”

How does anyone get to see the world from the point of view of the Pentagon? Who would look around a world in which 5,000children a day die for lack of clean water and decide that can wait, but the weapons can’t?

But the biggest mystery is the official reason given for handing over this fortune to Egypt and Saudi Arabia – that, according to Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to the United Nations, it’s because “Saudi Arabia and others are not doing all they can to help us in Iraq”. So they’re rewarded like that. Well, I’ve done bugger all to help America in Iraq. Can I have a helicopter?

Building on Flood Plains

Tim Holmes — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:27:31 +0000

Maybe this really is a new period of government with no PR spin, because no one concerned with their image would announce building 20,000 houses on flood plains in the middle of the country’s worst-ever floods.

And the housing minister, Yvette Cooper, tried to justify this by saying that York was a fine place to build houses because “The Romans built it on a flood plain”. We can’t take advice on this issue off the Romans – they built a city at the bottom of Mount Vesuvius and look what happened to that. When she was criticised, she claimed this was an attack on “affordable housing”. By this logic she could announce 10,000 cheap houses are to be built in containers full of nuclear waste and, if anyone complained, she could say: “How dare you attack the concept of affordable housing?”

Maybe we’ll at last see the benefits of the war in Iraq, and 10,000 affordable town houses for young families will be built on a brown-field site in Basra. Even then they’d probably be bought by bankers, who’d then let them out to jihadists as somewhere to keep people they’d kidnapped until the value had doubled.

Anyway, if the floods keep coming, they’ll transform the housing market. Because the safest place to live will be the highest point possible. Estate agent adverts will boast “STAR OFFER ... VERY desirable property in highly sought after location *** This NINETEENTH floor flat in Moss Side tower block MUST BE SEEN ... ALL LIFTS BUSTED so no chance of soaking-wet people making their way to your level … £3,000,000 … no reduced offers considered.” And five-bedroom houses in Maidenhead will be on a hard-to-let register and used for putting up refugees from Somalia.

One inevitable line of whining has been the one pursued by a columnist in the Mail, who complained: “If this biblical flooding was happening in some far-flung Third World country, pop stars would be falling over themselves to record a charity single.” And someone in The Sun said: “If this was happening anywhere else in the world, the Government would be sending wads of our cash.”

Which seems to be getting things a little out of perspective. It’s doubtful whether Live Aid would have taken off quite as much as it did, if the song had been: “The river banks burst / So the carpets went first / And one woman’s fridge / Is now under the bridge. / It’s a tale of endurance / But they should get most of it back / On the insurance.”

It is almost as if they’re angry at how Middle England has suffered most, as if this were a politically correct flood that once again attacks the decent, silent majority, because these days a flood daren’t devastate an inner-city area, in case someone accuses it of being racist!

But the irony is it’s these same people who are most damning about the probable cause of the floods, which is global warming. It’s possible this would have happened anyway, but the floods are almost exactly as predicted by climate-change scientists. Those people who remain certain there’s no global warming could have been on the Ark, and they’d have said: “Oh, bloody hell Noah, don’t tell me even you’ve fallen for this nonsense about God being angry – this is all just part of a natural pattern.”

Once things start turning out exactly as the theorists said they would, surely you have to accept they’ve got a point. If, for example, there was a thunderclap followed by live coverage on Sky news of a lamb opening seals and then four horsemen who brought with them war, famine, pestilence and death, I’d swallow my pride and accept that the Christians had been right after all.

The Government accepts that global warming is the likely cause, but seems incapable of doing anything to curb it. For example, one billion pounds is being removed from subsidies to the privatised train companies which sum will be made up in increased fares, which therefore must increase the use of cars.

Similarly, the private water companies were discouraged from building larger drains and sewage systems, because this would have increased water charges. And no one dare suggest decreased water or rail company profits. And the same profit-driven logic will apply to the building of new houses.

So, as the floods get worse, the next move will be to privatise the flood relief, as this is the only way to attract much-needed investment into the emergency industry. Advertisers will divert the river, so the chimneys sticking above the water spell “DFS sofas”. And, as residents are hoisted out of their upstairs bedroom window, they’ll be asked: “Would you like a pastry with your rescue?” Meanwhile, the housing minister will justify with history why she can spend her day fiddling.

Suspend Galloway, Forget the Killers

eddie — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:24:23 +0000

At last a politician has been suspended for their role in the Iraq war. You’d have thought it would have happened before now, and you might have thought when it finally happened, it wouldn’t be the politician most prominently against the war. Suspending George Galloway for his conduct in Iraq is as if last week’s trial of those failed suicide bombers ended with the judge saying “This was a monstrous crime. So I’m going to let you off, and jail the bloke who chased you through the Underground.”

The main reason given for the suspension is that some of the money for Galloway’s charity came from a dodgy Jordanian businessman. Is this the normal attitude with charities, that no donation should be accepted without the donor being investigated? Maybe it’s a new culture, and in next year’s “Children in Need”, Terry Wogan will say: “And how about this? We’ve had a grand donation of £25 from Mrs Wimthorpe in Derby. Well I’ve got one thing to say – who the hell are you, Wimthorpe, and what’s your game? We’re going to go through you with a microscope and if you’ve put one finger out of line you can keep your dirty money you old scallywag, spina bifida doesn’t need you.”

Another source of friction is that Galloway’s charity, The Mariam Appeal, which assisted sick Iraqis who were suffering from the effects of sanctions against their country, was political in that it was against those sanctions. In other words, it was against the thing causing the suffering. And that’s wrong, apparently.

So presumably there will also be investigations into appeals for victims of earthquakes. How dare these people oppose earthquakes in the name of charity? At least they should be balanced, and allow space for supporters of earthquakes to present their side of the story.

The original investigation into Galloway’s dealings in Iraq came when The Daily Telegraph accused him of taking money from Saddam, an allegation that cost them £150,000 when they lost the libel case. Now, despite their acceptance he didn’t take a penny for himself, the parliamentary committee says his charity “damaged the reputation of the house”. So there’s the explanation – the full report probably went: “You mean you weren’t on the take? How the bloody hell does that make the rest of us look, you bastard?”

Somehow, however, the diligent committee seems to have missed other possible examples of the house being brought into disrepute, such as a Prime Minister taking the country into war because “I have no doubt that Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction – absolutely no doubt, no doubt whatsoever.”

And insisting we could be attacked in 45 minutes when he knew this was bollocks; and ignoring his own intelligence that this would make us targets for terrorism; and ignoring the UN and the weapons inspectors, so assisting in the creation of mass carnage, while he swans off to make millions from his memoirs.

If they want to investigate corruption in the Middle East, they could look at the $300m taken in cash from the Central Bank in Iraq, and secretly flown to Beirut in a chartered jet to buy arms, organised by the Iraqi Defence Minister whom we helped put in place. This led to his colleague, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie saying: “I am sorry to say that the corruption is worse now than in the Saddam era.” No wonder Blair resigned – how do you top helping to make Iraq more corrupt than under Saddam? In his new job, is he planning to make Afghanistan less keen on heavy metal and women’s football than under the Taliban?

Or the committee could glance at the billion pounds in illegal payments made to Saudi Arabia in order to secure arms deals for British Aerospace. Unlike Galloway’s crime, parliament decided this matter was too trivial to warrant an inquiry. And if they did find them guilty, they’d have probably ordered them to pay it back at one dollar a week.

But instead, the person suspended is the one who opposed these things. The only explanation is the Commons procedures were originally taken from a chapter in Alice in Wonderland, in which you get charged by the authorities for being an un-criminal. And maybe that’s the plan for our whole legal system, so you’ll be sent to prison for being an un-corrupt arms dealer, or an un-robber, while liberal types complain that prison doesn’t work because most un-criminals re-offend, and if you lock someone up for not stealing a car, when they’re released they’ll do something even worse such as not rob a bank.

Meanwhile robbers and murderers will be allowed to stay free, but only if they remember to ask you to draw a line under robbery and murder, and accept that, hand on heart, you thought that robbery and murder was right at the time.

Druids Hate Our Freedoms

Tim Holmes — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 17:21:47 +0000

Among the many complex questions involving the minds of terrorists is why they would rely on a mobile phone to work properly as the detonator. All that effort, ending with a furious Jihadist snarling, “Bollocks, I can’t get a signal.”

Or maybe the terrorists have modernised their facilities, so instead of an instant explosion he heard a voice saying, “Welcome to the Al Qa’ida automated answering service. If you’d like to hear about our special summer range of fertiliser, nails, 3-for-the-price-of-2 gas cylinders and an exciting variety of combustible materials, press one…” So by the time it said, “Or if you’d like to detonate a Silver Mercedes press seven,” he’d lost interest and hung up.

You’d think there must have been a question mark within Al Qa’ida over the standard of their operatives ever since it was revealed a few months ago they were plotting to bomb the Ministry of Sound. Keep up, boys, the dance scene is SO 1990s. Imagine the embarrassment if they’d blown the place to bits, then discovered it was empty while 3,000 people were up the road watching Arcade Fire.

It might go against their instincts, but they’d probably be better off employing a cultural officer. He could report every month on who’s likely to be hot, and plan the explosions accordingly. Then the minutes of their Jihad Council would read: “Meanwhile, one unlikely tip for the top is the hi-energy folk-rock combination the Gogol-Bordellos, whose blend of infidel strings-based melodies and catchy rhythms that spew forth from the heathen cries of Satan look set to storm the UK charts, attracting crowds well worth immolating with holy vengeance.”

So nothing went off, and ever since, the politicians and newsreaders have congratulated us on our British resolve. We’ve shown the terrorists they can’t win, by displaying our heroic determination to carry on as normal, and bravely continued weeding the garden or going up the shop for biscuits, even though only 30 miles away a car was towed away. And they’re all keen to point out this is British resolve, not the spineless European resolve, where people hear a bang and then all kill themselves.

Over here people say things like “I’m SO determined to carry on as normal, since the weekend I’ve not only kept on having a full English breakfast every morning, I’ve had TWO. So tell Bin Laden to stick that up his hand-held rocket launcher.”

And we can be grateful that, at least in Glasgow, this time it’s fairly certain the police have captured the right person – although even there you half expected them to miss him, and then make an appeal at a press conference, saying “We are looking for a man who is around 5ft 11in, whose distinguishing features include flames shooting out from the top of his head.”

With all the excitement, though, everyone appears to have missed yet another explosion. It took place at the end of last week, when the Washington Post reported a “NATO and US-led assault” on the Afghan village of Hyderabad. Wali Khan, the member of the US-backed parliament for the area, was quoted as saying, “More than 100 people have been killed. But they weren’t Taliban. The Taliban were far away from here. The people are already unhappy with the government. But these kinds of killings of civilians will cause people to revolt against the government.”

Out there, if they had a day like our weekend, the news reporter would say, “What a day – only two unexploded bombs and a nutcase setting himself alight at an airport – so let’s go straight to sport.”

Instead, everyone in the area must scream “It’s no use trying to understand them, they’re just crazy,” and “Who let these savages into the country?”

A US army spokesman said the civilian deaths proved “insurgents are continuing their tactic of using women and children as human shields.” So there’s another lesson for Al Qa’ida. They could claim the Tiger Tiger nightclub was actually a military airfield, with a runway in the cloakroom, and civilian deaths would only have shown the British were using people who dance as human shields.

The reasons why someone erratically drives a car bomb to a nightclub or into an airport must be complex, but there’s no doubt it’s far more likely if you come from a region that’s been mercilessly bombed by the government of the country you decide to bomb in return. That was certainly the view of the intelligence report seen by Blair before the occupation of Iraq. Maybe a combination of rage and helplessness leads some people to feel that at least blowing something up is acting rather than doing nothing, and they then seek justification for their decision by appealing to the far reaches of their religion.

Because there are obsessive people in all religions, but without an earthly motive, they don’t usually resort to blowing up civilians to please their God. Most Druids are crazy, but they don’t normally bother anyone. However, if Stonehenge was bombed on the Summer Solstice, and teepees set ablaze with an excuse that they were threatening us with fertility symbols of mass destruction, you’d soon see the odd one behaving strangely outside a nightclub or airport.

Luckily with this last effort, the terrorists’ level of incompetence was too great. If it turns out that there was a cell of medical professionals behind it all, maybe that’s what saved us. Junior doctors are so knackered after a 22-hour shift that they are almost bound to make a hash of anything.

Super-Rich Postmen

Tim Holmes — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:42:57 +0000

Modernise, modernise has been the theme, and this week it’s the outdated striking postmen told they must accept this. Right to the end, Blair wants all institutions to modernise, which must be why one of his last acts as Prime Minister was to visit the head of an institution that preaches sermons in Latin and who carries a stick with a bobble on top and wears a cassock because that’s how things were done when all this started under the Roman Empire.

To be fair though, the last thing his modern-ness will do as PM is bow to a monarch whose modern rules include a clause that she’s forbidden to marry a Catholic. Maybe he’ll do it with a sense of humour and say: “I reckon I’d be in with you if my new religion didn’t forbid it, your majesty.”

But Post Office staff have been ordered to be even more modern than that. Which is why the Royal Mail are planning to shut down around 2,000 branches. Because the more they shut down, the more modern it is. If the governors of Royal Mail studied Neolithic Britain they’d say: “They were incredibly modern in those days, they had none open at all.”

The problem is some people retain the antiquated idea that certain things should be left open even if they don’t make a profit, allowing branches to carry on just because old-aged pensioners in Cornwall say their Post Office is the centre of their community. This could be remedied by setting up Post Office chat lines, and, at a premium rate, old people could talk to an actor who sits in a studio going: “Ooooo I know dear, isn’t it dreadful? I’m supposed to see another specialist on Tuesday, then on Wednesday we’re off to see Danny La Rue if I’m up to it.” That way they’ll still have someone to talk to and won’t be poncing off the taxpayer.

Then we can start on other untapped business openings. With each delivery, postmen could say: “Would you like a pastry with your parcel?” Or ask if they can also supply your gas.

But mostly they must accept that, in a modern free market, they can no longer expect privileges such as pensions, which, according to the head of Royal Mail, must be drastically reduced as they’re destroying profit margins. Because this is the problem with employing people – they insist on this outdated trade union practice of “Payment”.

This is a hangover from the 1970s, when militant workforces bullied their way into getting “Paid”, so maybe the time has come when postmen should be replaced with inanimate objects, such as towels or pepper pots, which will remain in the sorting office for long hours and demand no pensions at all.

As well as closures and pension reductions, Post Office staff are also striking against a pay offer less than inflation, and an increased workload.

But if the service is to modernise, say Royal Mail, this is all that can be afforded. Luckily this doesn’t apply to the chief executive Allan Leighton, who’s managed to supplement his income by being on the board of nine other companies, including Asda, collecting little windfalls such as a £1.6m bonus from British Home Stores.

Maybe he thinks all the Post Office staff are doing this, and the board meeting at GlaxoSmithKline begins when the chairman rushes in announcing: “Sorry I’m late for the quarterly finance report gentlemen, only it took longer than usual to do Winkleman Street this afternoon. There was a rather fearsome dog at number 22 and it held me up somewhat. Anyway, let’s move straight on to our acquisition of Global Plastics Ltd.”

So the decision has been taken that the postal service needs massive investment to survive. And as we look around modern Britain for where that money might come from, for who might possess vast quantities of untapped wealth that could be used for the public good, there is the obvious answer – from postmen.

Some people might suggest that the people with spare money are the growing clique of super-rich billionaires, most of which pay no tax whatsoever. But they’d be wrong, the people who should make sacrifices to pay for new investment are definitely postmen; the decadent fops with their Gucci sacks and pimped-up bicycles.

Then we can get on with creating a modern service, one which, according to the regulator, could require different sections of the Royal Mail to be run by different operators. That’s because this has proved such a success with the railways I suppose.

Multiplex could run one bit, so that each year they announced they hadn’t quite delivered your letter yet but if you’re desperate you could pick it up in Cardiff. And Jarvis could run another bit and be responsible for the world’s first envelope disaster.

But the biggest story of all is Royal Mail’s line that a strike can’t win.This has been the argument of every management faced by every strike ever, that if everyone stops work it will make no difference.

So what will Royal Mail do, fold up the service and set up in Sri Lanka with cheap labour, and deliver all the letters there instead?

And this strike must have an advantage over most others, because the closure of rural Post Offices is one of the main complaints of the Countryside Alliance. So presumably if any managers cross the picket line, they’ll be met by a team of horsemen sipping sherry, then blowing a bugle before their hounds follow the scent to chase them through a hedge.

A School with a Zoo

Alex Doherty — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:10:09 +0000

Every time someone repeats how there’s no point in referring to antiquated tribal notions of class, they should be forced to visit the Whitgift private school in Croydon, where I went last week to see Surrey play Kent at cricket. To start with, how likely is it that a comprehensive school would have the facilities to put on a professional sports match? So kids in an inner city school would say: “I got in bear trouble man, for disturbing Roger Federer you get me. I tripped him during his semi-final against Rafael Nadal up against the wall of the science block init.”

So I knew this school had a few bob, but what I didn’t realise until I walked round the grounds was it had its own zoo. Which is worth repeating. It had its own fucking zoo. There are peacocks, flamingoes, some sort of rare Central American duck, and two wallabies. Presumably at some stage the school governors complained “It occurs to us that our aim of ultimate excellence in all fields cannot be pursued in the absence of a wallaby.”

And they’re not just any wallabies, they’re special rare white wallabies. Because it wouldn’t do to have common council estate wallabies, they might go on a rampage across the zoo and take the flamingo end. No, these are appropriate posh wallabies, with a Prada pouch.

Maybe I’m naive and this is normal now in private education. Parents peruse the prospectus of each school, making comments such as, “I really don’t feel St Dunstans would be suitable, its hippo looks rather threadbare.”

At normal schools, parents are urged to donate to sponsored bounces and summer fairs to raise money for books and computers. Rarely is a school so well provided for that it holds a cake sale to provide a wallaby. Or is so spoilt that the parents hold a meeting and shout: “This place is a disgrace – last week my daughter’s class was sharing one wallaby between two.” I didn’t even see the whole school, so I’ve no idea what else they’ve got. Maybe, to help the kids with geography they’ve got their own desert.

A little way in the other direction is the majestic tranquil building that is Dulwich College. The grounds there cover 60 acres, and include 12 rugby pitches, 10 football pitches, and eight cricket squares, all of which are in constantly immaculate condition. Why do they need 12 rugby pitches? Was there a point when they only had 11, and the headmaster thought: “But what if 22 teams are playing at once, then the All Blacks pop in and challenge Catfish House to a quick scrum? We’d best get another – it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

It could be argued this is all harmless, but these schools seem to own everything for miles. Dulwich College appears to own every bit of land there is, and must soon be considering whether it can apply to become a country, with its own entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. It even owns a major road, and charges people a pound to go down it, through a tollgate. I suppose their next move will be to take control of the air space. Every plane passing overhead will have to throw a pound into a bucket, or be considered a legitimate target for the school anti-aircraft missile launching team, who are practising for their quarter-final against the Kashmir Tribesmen Old Boys.

And they still get classified as charities, with all the tax benefits that brings. How can these places be charities? Imagine how much they’d raise if a headmaster came on Comic Relief to compete with a kid with no kidneys, and said: “That was all very touching. But I’m afraid poor Bartholomew here is in an even worse predicament. He’s 12, and has never yet been in close proximity to a wallaby.”

All of this is humble of course, compared to the Nero-esque opulence of Eton. This place has just had installed, at public expense, its own Olympic rowing lake. And there’s the bloody Thames up the road. But that probably wasn’t big enough, so they’ve built this lake. I suppose they also have their own Olympic commentators, and every time they go for a row, they get Des Lynam to introduce a panel of experts to discuss who to look out for.

Far from having no effect, half of all company directors went to public school, most commonly to Eton. Seventy-seven per cent of High Court judges, and 83 per cent of senior ambassadors went to Oxford or Cambridge, and 45 per cent of Oxbridge students come from public school. Half of Cameron’s front bench went to Eton.

But Jonathon Shepherd, the general secretary of the Independent Schools Council, defends the charitable status of these schools, and said in any case that they aren’t privileged as “many independent schools look with envy at the facilities at the state school down the road”. Really? Why pay all that money then? Maybe parents notice their kids come out in blotches, so they take them for tests to see if they react to peanuts or pollen, and it turns out they’re allergic to the working class. It all comes out when they say: “I bumped into Nathan from the estate and it was awful, Mummy, he smelt of fish fingers and buses and ITV and I started hyper-ventilating.”

And they never cease to shock. During the cricket match, students from the school wandered through the crowd asking if they’d like to make a donation to a fund for sending the Whitgift hockey team to Malaysia. See, even begging is divided by class. Working-class beggars ask for 20p for a cup of tea with a scraggy dog. Posh beggars ask for 50 quid for a trip to Malaysia with a wallaby.

The Cutty Sark

Alex Doherty — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:16:59 +0000

If the Cutty Sark was set on fire deliberately, it must be by the laziest saboteurs ever. Because they only had to go a mile up the road and do the Dome instead, and they’d have been the most popular arsonists in history. It would have been like the last scenes of The Wicker Man, with smiling children and delirious citizens holding hands and doing country dancing as the flames roared. Then the Government could have launched a fund in order that: “This valuable piece of our heritage can be fully restored to its former pointlessness.”

Instead it was the magnificent Cutty Sark that burned down, as popular as the Dome is despised. Maybe that’s because as the Dome is a symbol of all that’s corporate and soulless, the Wetherspoons of national landmarks, the Cutty Sark had wood and beams and brass and stuff that had been made because it looked and felt beautiful, rather than because it was functional and you could fit the emblem for O2 across it.

At the risk of getting all Daily Telegraph, imagine if the thing had been built with modern practices. Years would have gone by, until Multiplex issued a press release saying: “We regret the ship has not been completed in time for the British Empire, but sincerely hope it will soon be ready so it can go straight to Greenwich as a museum.”

If Richard Branson had won the contract, the captain would forever have been on deck with a megaphone, yelling: “We apologise for the severe delay to your journey, which is due to an unexpected volume of water in the Pacific. This tea clipper is being taken out of service for essential repairs. Please climb overboard and await a replacement pedalo service, which will take you to the Cape of Good Hope.”

It is possible that in 150 years, school trips, tourists and Londoners with picnics will regularly head for the place where they keep Connex South Central’s 8.17 to Charing Cross. And you can get guided tours that tell tales of treacherous overcrowding, scurvy and the days when it seemed so hopeless someone would suggest they start eating each other.

But the Cutty Sark also represents the audacity of Empire. It was built to bring tea from China, at a time when British rulers believed they were naturally superior, so their ships, like their exhibitions, monuments and cricketers were expected to do more than be practical, they had to add a flourish that suited a dominant nation.

This may be why newspapers and commentators who usually complain about almost all public spending are demanding its full restoration, whatever the cost. Because they’d love to return to the values of the Empire, wishing they could step off the Cutty Sark in China, accost an official and bark: “Now you look here, it’s tea you people are supposed to be supplying us with, not microwave ovens. And why should we buy your cheap trainers when we’ve got plenty of child labour of our own?”

This might also be why there are articles full of stuff like: “Britain’s magisterial command of the waves instilled fierce loyalty amongst the crew. Many were the occasions when, if the voyage was held up for an hour through inclement climate, deck-hands would beg for the opportunity to dive overboard in order to lighten the load so the time could be made up, crying as they jumped, ‘I give myself gladly to any piranha, for no Englishman can bear the thought of his queen waiting until half past five for her lapsang souchong’.”

Britain could only control the tea trade in the first place because it fought the opium wars, which opened Chinese ports so the East India Company could flood the place with opium. Which means the Cutty Sark was paid for by money made from drugs. So it could have been on Pimp My Ride, the designer chuckling: “Hey baby, what you say to tinted sails? Or how about we jack up the masts, add in some alloy portholes? You gonna look cool, man.”

As well as drugs, some gentle persuasion of the locals was required to secure the Cutty Sark’s trading route. The Reverend John Liggins, reporting on the bombardment of Canton during the second opium war, described how “field pieces loaded with grape were planted at the end of long, narrow streets crowded with innocent men, women and children, to mow them down like grass ‘till the gutters flowed with their blood.”

To admire the aesthetics and splendid engineering of the Empire, without acknowledging its purpose, is like cooing about the precision of a beautifully crafted dovetail joint without mentioning it’s holding together a stretching rack.

It’s part of our complex history that we’re surrounded by beauty that was funded by atrocity. The other irony is that the long-term result of the opium wars was that the British got addicted to tea. “Ooh, put the kettle on, I’m exhausted,” was my parents’ generation’s catchphrase when I was a boy, followed by: “Aaah, there’s nothing in the world beats a good cup of tea.”

And I would think: “Hang on. I’m 13 and you’re telling me that the best thing I can ever hope for in life is a cup of tea. I’ve not even driven a car or got drunk or had sex yet, but don’t worry because none of them beat a good cup of tea.”

And the dreadful thing is, as I got older I realised they were probably right. We might not have turned into a country that thought like that, if it wasn’t for the Cutty Sark.

Don't Mention The War (Or Anything Else)

Tim Holmes — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:46:23 +0000

That’s a splendid achievement by the Labour Party to assemble such a bunch of candidates for the deputy leadership. Because nowhere else could you gather together six different people, and find they all support the war in Iraq and think Tony Blair is a marvellous bloke.

Poor John McDonnell, the anti-war MP, is even struggling to be a candidate for leader. So there’s one person willing to stand who didn’t support their most disastrous policy ever, and they say “Oh go away, you’re not being realistic.” Imagine if any other job interview went like this.

The panel would ask if, in your last job, you supported anything that led to widespread destruction, and if you hadn’t they’d say: “Oh dear. Well, we’re really looking for someone who maybe burned down their office because, hand on heart, they thought it was right to do so. I suppose we could accept someone who did it but then later bitterly regretted it, but to have not done it all, well, I’m afraid you really aren’t suitable.”

The irony is that if John stood to lead almost any organisation other than the one he’s in, he’d do much better. Ornithology societies, the Scouts, Bristol City Supporters Club, the Women’s Institute, any random group would probably accept that an amiable chap who’s spent his life supporting the poorest and hard-done-by should be on the ballot paper. But the party set up for working people thinks: “Sod that, he’ll be an embarrassment when he meets Rupert Murdoch and George Bush.”

The Labour Party must be getting so distanced from the rest of the country that it believes the coverage of their departing leader. Which is why, when he excused his support for Bush with: “Hand on heart, I thought it was right,” they all clapped. What for? Did they think he might say: “Here, I knew it would be a disaster even when I did it but I couldn’t help it ‘cos I’m a bit mental.”

And anyone else could see through the supposedly spontaneous outpouring of love for Blair as he strolled up to the Labour Club. But party members must have honestly thought this was a collection of Geordies running on to the streets screaming: “Never mind the bookies, I’m gan doon Labour Club to pay me respects, like, but forst let me make up banner sayen: ‘Thanks for maykin’ ma life worth livin, ‘cos it was reet shite till you arrived, like’.”

The only other people who failed to spot this was a contrived media event, involving a handful of selected vetted guests, appeared to be the media itself. I expected the commentators to shriek: “Oh, and there’s a litter of grateful kittens who’ve come out to wave him goodbye with ‘We love Tony’ tattooed on their paws. Well he certainly has always been very popular among kittens.” John McDonnell, by slight contrast, is pictured on his campaign website on a picket line with strikers from Gate Gourmet, who were sacked from their low-paid jobs for not leaving their union. We’re unlikely to see Gordon Brown in a similar pose, as he told the CBI we must “celebrate entrepreneurs”, such as the ones who sacked the staff of Gate Gourmet presumably.

Labour is so enmeshed in the world of big business and media manipulation that they don’t seem to understand people like John McDonnell at all. So when they’re asked about him, they behave like these doctors in a science fiction film, when they come across an alien with no heart, saying: “It’s extraordinary. He has no driving personal ambition to be famous or rich, no wish to go on holiday at the house of a Bee Gee, I can’t work out how he stays alive.”

Some of them seem worried that a proper leadership contest would make them look too Old Labour with the voters. Because if someone has a similar stance on the war as the head of the British army, the party that’s just won the election in Scotland, the US Democratic Party and 70 per cent of the population, that would clearly be such an electoral liability that they shouldn’t even be allowed to stand.

Many Labour members are terrified that any hint of disunity will make them unpopular, so it’s best to get behind the new leader, no matter what he says or does. Because then the voters will say: “They may have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, but at least they all went along with it.”

So even the election for deputy leader is pointless, as all the candidates agree about everything. Not one mentions the war, the decline in membership of 200,000, the record low turn-out, nothing. Instead Hazel Blears said: “The strength of Labour is when we’re in touch with people’s concerns.” And Harriet Harman replied: “We must renew the party and rebuild the confidence and trust of the British people.” Maybe Peter Hain will chip in with: “I think the British people are people.” Then Alan Johnson will intercept: “Hmmmm, British people,” until there’s a hustings with all six yelling “people” and the loudest is the winner.

If John McDonnell does get on the ballot, then even if he doesn’t win, (which must be a possibility), at least there’ll be a debate, in which he could do well in the trade unions, even if the MPs are stitched up and the local branches are defunct.

Or maybe this is all a plan to help people sitting the citizenship tests that Gordon Brown is so keen on. When refugees who’ve fled Somalia or the Congo get taught about our system, they’ll say: “Ah, so your unpopular warmonger leader retires and puts his deputy in charge without a vote – I’m feeling much more at home already.”

Football Clubs as Corporate Brands

Alex Doherty — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:12:59 +0000

Now it’s Charlton that may be bought by Middle Eastern businessmen. No billionaire feels complete any more without a football club. As Sunderland have been promoted, they’ll probably be bought by the Queen. And her Christmas speech will begin “This was a year that will mostly be remembered for the frustrating 2-2 draw at the Reebok Stadium.”

Tottenham will become the subject of a bidding war between Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong-Il, supreme leader of North Korea. The Bin Laden bid will win because of his superior record in arranging facilities at training camps, and his experience of providing funds for new team members when the old ones need replacing. The board will announce that this proves his committment to a squad system. Then there’ll be those interviews with fans on Sky Sports yelling “The main thing is whether he can get us into the quarter-finals of the Uefa Cup”, and before each home game as the new chairman takes his seat they’ll all sing “Holy Jihad na-na-na-na-na-naaaa.”

Because no one seems to care. Newcastle could be bought by a consortium of crack dealers, and the new manager would announce he had an excellent relationship with the board and “I’m assured that as sales are booming there will be funds available for a right-sided midfielder, so it’s good news.”

The Premier League has been presented as an exciting battle this year, but there were only two clubs remotely rich enough to even hope to win. It’s testimony to the obnoxious nature of Chelsea that most people were pleased that the title was won by Man United.

Chelsea’s response to losing may be that between now and next season they’ll buy everyone. Not just every footballer but everyone in the world. Peasants in Laos and Burma who’ve never heard of the game will be put on the books for a tenner, the Pope for a score, entire Somalian villages for two hundred notes, so that every other team has no players. Or they’ll force through a rule that if they’re losing they’re entitled to buy the opponents’ ground at half-time, and turn their own penalty area into luxury flats that block their goal up.

But you can’t go round cheering for Man United either. Aside from their equally corporate nature, I heard one of their fans on a phone-in recently making a gallant attempt to win a prize for the greatest ever effort to live up to a stereotype. The presenter was grumbling that, at a home match, thousands of Man United fans had left 10 minutes early. So a fan rang in and complained “Yes, but what you don’t understand Alan, is lots of us have to leave early to catch our flights home.” Now, if there was any justice the FA would have deducted 60 points from them just for that remark.

There are even calls from some chairmen to abandon relegation for the bottom clubs. Because for all the image of business, that riches are a reward for “risk”, modern business insists on being almost entirely risk-free. Arms dealers have export credit guarantees, so the government pays them even if their sales go haywire. Rail company investment is underwritten so profits are guaranteed. And football club chairmen feel cheated that they’ve paid all this money but aren’t certain to win.

Maybe they’ll get their way and eventually the Premier League will announce: “It has been decided that from now on every match involving Manchester United will be won by them 3-1. We feel this shows the Premier League at its best, with attacking play being rewarded but the Man United defence still being breached once per game, providing a competitive spirit, especially if the opposition goal comes first. This should ensure the continued growth of our product throughout a global network.”

Which is why it’s so disappointing to meet supporters of Chelsea or Man United who glory in their team’s “success”. There’s little sense of these clubs being part of a community, or of the shared experience of alternating between anguish, mediocrity and occasional rare triumph that creates a warm and slightly ridiculous camaraderie at proper football clubs. They might as well cheer because they follow a game called “Pick a Number” and they’ve picked a really big one.

They could even turn up at stadiums and cheer “Fourteen billion, fourteen billion, we’ll support you evermore.” While supporters of 53 could enjoy their underdog status, and say “At least we’re not three-quarters, who’ve gone six years without a single win since nought went into administration.”

The business of football reflects business everywhere. The clubs used to be run by factory owners, who were often local bullies. Now, like every shop, cinema and business, they’re owned by globalised corporate figures, part of a world in which it’s assumed that nothing can exist without their seedy input.

Which is why, for many football supporters, the worst nightmare is not relegation but their club being turned into another franchised unit, playing in an out-of-town stadium that doubles as a conference centre in the summer, and the ground full of supporters singing “Hostile bid for Allied Breweries, you’re having a laugh.”

So the worst thing to happen to Charlton this week was their ominous link to this next bunch of billionaires. Whereas their relegation provided the sort of wonderfully spiteful entertainment that still makes the game worth following.

Blair's Downfall - a Tale of Love and Money

Alex Doherty — Sat, 05 May 2007 19:03:08 +0000

Ten years ago today was brilliant. It was a euphoric sunny optimistic morning. It’s hard to remember it like that, just as it’s hard to recall you had a wonderful romantic wedding day, if it turned out you’d married a junkie who then sold your furniture and smoked your hamster.

But that shouldn’t rob of us of that night of joy – Mellor, Hamilton, the ones you’ve forgotten like Waldegrave – then that glorious awesome sight, containing an inner transcendental beauty like a majestic sunset over the Pacific: the demise of Portillo. It appeared every creep in Britain was being humiliated in public, and I started wondering if Dimbleby was about to say “Now we’re going over to Telford, where Noel Edmonds is being dangled naked so children can prod him with stingy nettles.”

So despised were the Tories that the task of appearing exciting and radical was embarrassingly easy for New Labour. There was euphoria from many people just because they announced an “ethical foreign policy.” How grubby must the Tories have been, for millions of people to shout “Wow – they say they’ll be ethical.” If Blair had any imagination he’d have made similar announcements in every area, such as “We have decided our economic policy is going to be ‘Not Mental’.” And millions would have screamed “It’s amazing, everything’s changed.”

And to be fair, the foreign policy did turn out to be different. Because the Tories’ had been secretly selling weapons to Saddam, which only came out in the Scott Report. So the Tory policy was to claim Saddam didn’t have weapons that he did have, whereas Labour policy was to … (surely you can see where this is going).

Many explanations are now offered for how that optimism was trashed, the most common being that Blair was fine until Iraq. But right from the start the hope was running up against the reality, such as the promise to stick to the Tories’ spending plans. At the time we didn’t realise this included sticking to how much you have to spend to get a peerage, but they’d done all they could to dampen hopes for radical change.

Then at some point in the first few years the enthusiasm dissolved, so the election in 2001 boasted the lowest turnout since everyone had the vote. The reasons may be complex, but it’s unlikely to be the one offered by New Labour, which was that voters were reluctant to turn out for them because they were “basically satisfied”. This was so intriguingly surreal they should have tried out some more, such as: “The low turnout was a result of how most voters are now made of cake. This makes voting much more difficult, as they’re worried the polling booth may tip up and crack their marzipan.”

Just as spectacular was the decline in Labour’s membership. John Prescott announced a drive to double it, following which it halved. No doubt, being a politician, he’d find a way to say that according to some mathematical formula that takes into account the shape of the universe half is actually more than double, but it’s another sign of the decay in support for the New Labour cause. And again this happened before the war in Iraq.

So perhaps there’s another explanation for the decline of Blair and his project. The joy felt by so many at the fall of the Conservatives was a sense of a new atmosphere; an end to an era in which greed triumphed over all. At least to some extent, there’d now be a challenge to the rule of excessive wealth. And here we are.

As one newspaper fumed with rage yesterday that “this has been the greatest decade in British history for the very, very wealthy. Under New Labour the worth of the 1,000 richest people in the country has soared by 263 per cent. It has indeed been their platinum age.” And the newspaper complaining about this was the Daily Mail. The Daily Bastard Mail. Once the Daily Mail is moaning that you’re too kind to the rich, it’s like Posh Spice coming round and saying “Blimey, you’re too skinny”, and buying you a Twix.

It wasn’t one mistake or one flawed policy that eroded all that initial optimism, it was New Labour’s very meaning. In fact, Blair’s support for Bush was a result of that adoration for the wealthy and powerful. Iraq wasn’t an aberration, it was a consequence of all he stood for. But Iraq is what he’ll be remembered for – forever always, no matter how much he tries to orchestrate a “legacy” around social reforms or whatever. He might as well have got Harold Shipman to say: “It’s not fair. No one remembers how I helped out Mrs Ambridge at the Post Office with her shingles. Just ‘murders murders murders’, that’s all the bastards go on about. Well, they’ll be sorry when I’ve gone.”

I'm sorry, but we have to rip you off...

Alex Doherty — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:42:47 +0000

That was a splendid call from the gun lobby in America, to insist the only problem with gun ownership is even more people should have them. This means supporters of Bush have only once pursued anyone for possessing weapons, and then it turned out he didn’t have any.

But whereas American politicians demand everyone should be armed, when our politicians announce they’re going to deal with antisocial behaviour, they say they’ll stop people being rude. So David Cameron has declared we’re becoming “de-civilised”, because “we all have experience of swearing in public, road rage, Tube rage, never mind what is said if you ask someone not to drop litter or cycle on the pavement”. He’s certainly found the answer to the cycling problem, because when he cycled he only went from one side of the road to the other, never making it as far as the pavement. If all cyclists did that, maybe they wouldn’t be tempted.

Politicians love a war on rudeness, as it makes them sound ordinary, exasperated by surly youngsters with no respect. But when would David Cameron come across anyone like that? Unless when he’s playing tennis the ball boy says: “That return was well out, blood; it’s true dat sick serve, man, innit. Thirty-all, you get me.”

And what he’s missed is that the rudest people are often not the hoodies and kids hanging around council estates, but the rich. You rarely come across anyone as “de-civilised” as the city dealer types, snarling: “Come on, hurry up,” at flustered barmaids, and taking delight in intimidating a waiter with complaints about the wine. Whereas you’d rarely hear a youth from an FE college summoning a waiter in Pizza Hut and saying: “For goodness sake, this lager’s absolutely awful – fetch me another.”

Anyone who’s worked in hotels or restaurants will say the richer the clients, the more likely they’ll be despicably rude, hurling food about and dropping their trousers. And if David Cameron’s mates from Eton never leave litter, it’s probably because they’ve each got a little Egyptian boy to follow them around picking it up.

But there’s now also a modern rudeness, of greedy corporations, which disguise their insolence as politeness. So British Gas will happily leave you on the phone for 50 minutes, as you try to find out why no one came again, as promised, which is rude – except they’ll periodically tell you: “Although we deeply, deeply value your esteemed majestic custom, and, indeed, rarely have we encountered one so fair and noble as your eloquent, nay, holy self, we are currently unable to envisage any time ever when we’ll ever be able to answer your call, so you’d best try again in October, oh most hallowed enquirer to our humble gaseous service.”

Politeness has become corporate, so companies force their staff to repeat phrases deemed as polite. For example, air stewardesses have to stand at the exit of an aircraft and beam to everyone who leaves: “Thank you for flying with us, we hope you enjoy your stay. Thank you for flying with us, we hope you enjoy your stay.” But it’s so obviously forced it fools no one. It would be friendlier if they were allowed to say what they really think and go: “Here, I bet you shat yourself in the turbulence.”

For anyone in authority, it’s easy to appear smugly polite. That’s why a stroppy ticket collector on a train can appear reasonable if he says: “I’m sorry, sir, I’m afraid this ticket is inexplicably invalid. Therefore I must request you pay for a full single fare which is £11,000.” Then if you say: “Bloody hell, mate, that can’t be right”, they’ll reply: “I’ve asked you politely, sir, now if you’re going to swear I’ll be forced to call the East London Armed Response Unit.”

The current culture makes this sort of rudeness almost compulsory. Last week on the television programme The Apprentice, a woman was kicked off in disgrace because she thought it was unethical to sell lollipops to kids for £1 when they’d cost only 10p to make. That’s where we’re at, a nation that goes: “What do you mean, you won’t rob children of their pound? With that sort of attitude how will we build a nation fit for our children?”

The amazing thing is, in spite of this acceptance that nothing can work unless it offers someone a vast profit – whether it’s a school, hospital, Olympic Games or lollipop – society still functions, because millions of people contribute their efforts for free. People run children’s sports clubs and centres for old people and make cakes for schools. And despite conditions on London Underground, there’s little “Tube rage”, as most people simply place themselves in a convenient trance, like one of these people in India who sit for days up a pole.

Parents with buggies usually do find someone to help them up the stairs, and they don’‘t often say: “But why should I help when there’s no fiscal incentive? I know, I’ll set up a company that charges three quid a carry, then make it illegal for any passer-by to do it for nothing, as this will undermine free trade under an agreement ratified by the World Bank.”

Maybe Cameron’s approach should be to combine traditional British politeness with an American approach to weapons. So under the Tories, when we invade someone for no apparent reason, at least we’ll send a letter that says: “We cordially inform you that on the 14th instance we shall be depositing upon you an unprecedented barrage of weaponry with the aim of blowing you to shit (sorry about the swearing).”

Who Wants to be a Billionaire?

Alex Doherty — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:23:31 +0000

It turns out that last year the richest 54 people in Britain had an estimated income of £126bn. Which, in layman’s language, is one hundred and twenty-six arseing bloody billion pounds. That’s billion, not million. They’ve probably got a jug on the mantlepiece for those odd millions that turn up behind cushions and under the car seat. But even better, the amount of this paid in tax was 0.14 per cent. That’s nought point one four arseing bloody per cent.

So presumably there’ll now be a series of adverts in which a billionaire is interviewed in a police cell and stutters: “But I was simply transferring funds to… But the investment required for… If only I’d sold that steel plant back to…” Then a voice oozing with gangland menace will say: “No ifs – no buts – pay your tax or you will face jail.”

Many of the 54 are foreign businessmen, attracted by the current attitude towards tax for billionaires, which seems to be: “No – put it away, this is our treat.”

So they can be nice to asylum-seekers, as long as the story is: “My billions are fleeing a barbaric regime where, in front of my whole family, the authorities threatened to confiscate a bit of it and turn it into tax… (Breaks down and sobs) Please, I beg you, don’t force my billions back to this evil place.”

Gordon Brown did promise, before he was in the Government, to change the rule that allows the rich to claim “non-domicile status”, which helps them get out of tax. But he hasn’t got round to it yet. Still, he’s probably abiding by the quaint old Scottish saying: “Look after the pennies and the hundreds of billions of pounds will look after themselves.”

Maybe he’s planning on creating similar loopholes for other crimes. So burglars could inform the police that while they did the robbery, it was all legitimate because the crowbar’s been registered in Guernsey. And drug addicts will be left alone if they can show all the crack has been registered in the name of their wife.

A useful advisor on this practice would be Philip Green, whose group owns Burtons, Topshop and Dorothy Perkins. In 2005 it declared a dividend of £1.299bn. But £1.2bn of this he kindly gave to his wife who, as luck would have it, was resident in Monaco and therefore didn’t have to pay the UK rate of tax.

Or maybe this is cynical, and she was living there anyway because it’s handy for the shops. And Philip hands her all the money because every Friday he gets home with his pay packet and she yells: “Come on, hand it over. I’m not letting you keep it so you can blow ten million on the fruit machine.”

It’s estimated this saves the Greens £300m, but that would still leave a billion – can’t they get by on that? Or would Mrs Green scream: “What am I supposed to tell the kids now? This week I won’t even be able to buy them an island. They’ll have to make do with a lake.”

The best part is that the Government boasts about Britain’s lax system, as this is the reason for the world’s super-rich coming here. Maybe Brown’s hoping that when he’s been Prime Minister for a while he’ll have extended this attitude to other areas, and tell us excitedly: “Such is our reputation as a low-tax, low-regulation, vibrant economy that we have attracted no fewer than 20,000 pimps. The busy brothels, bright wide ties and lively jive banter of our inner cities is testament to our success in seizing market opportunities.”

So David Harvey, the head of a global association of tax lawyers for the wealthy, said Britain has become the billionaires’ natural home, rather than America, because: “The IRS is perceived to be a much more burdensome tax regulator than the UK Revenue.”

Ten years of Labour government, and we’re kinder to the super-rich than George Bush’s America. There’s probably a growing group of Americans thinking: “We knew George W Bush was right wing, but we didn’t think he’d tie himself so closely to such a warmongering friend of the rich as Tony Blair.”

To put this another way, the Government admits that tax avoidance last year was somewhere between £97bn and £150bn, whereas benefit fraud amounted to less than one billion pounds.

So the current obsession with benefit fraud makes as much sense as if, after the Great Train Robbery, the police said: “We have excellent news. The robbers have got away and are a vital part of the economy. But we did catch three passengers who didn’t have a valid ticket.”

Iranian Big Brother

Alex Doherty — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:28:59 +0000

This is a possibility everyone’s missed – maybe the Iranians, in an effort to show the West how modern they’ve become, thought they’d put our marines in a house they couldn’t escape from and show them each day on television in an Anglo-Iranian Big Brother. Now we’ve seen all of them, it will be time to start voting them off. The next broadcast will start with a voice telling us: “It’s 4.57pm and Faye is still smoking in front of the map.”

This could be used to recruit young people into the armed forces in a celebrity culture. Billboards will be put up showing the captives making their statement, with the slogan: “Join the Marines and get your own slot on TV.” Maybe a deal can be reached with Ayatollah Khamenei, that the next lot have to perform their statements in a show called “Hostage Academy”.

So a marine will say: “The Iranian Academy are looking after me well, and I apologise for fishing the wrong side of a designated border.” Then a panel of experts go: “I’m afraid that lacked conviction, it lacked animation; quite frankly, love, it lacked any purpose”, and the crowd boo the experts for making the Marine cry. But eventually there’s a winner, who sings: “I am prostate with humility for my heinous act of trespass” to the tune of “Papa Don’t Preach”, which becomes No 1 in 27 countries.

Instead, the incident has sparked them all off. To start with, the Daily Telegraph is full of letters such as “Dear Sir: With regard to the unsavoury events currently unfolding in the Gulf, may I suggest that in place of the ineffective ‘diplomacy’ favoured by our Foreign Office, we deploy the more robust methods of my grandfather Field-Marshall Whittingtonberry-Whittington, in the Sudan during the battle of Tiger Creek. When a young fusilier was discovered to be missing, my grandfather spared no time in rounding up the entire village and feeding them to a ravenous Venus flytrap, which had been specially starved in preparation for just such an occasion. Readers will be pleased to know the fusilier then re-emerged; it seems he was behind a tree but had lost his compass!”

Some people have been driven to such patriotism they’re condemning the Marines as not patriotic enough. So Richard Littlejohn complains: “They don’t seem to have been tortured, yet they have ‘confessed’”, and he asks: “What must Second World War veterans make of this demeaning spectacle? The British stiff upper lip has been replaced by a trembling lower lip.”

Clearly Richard is wasted as a columnist. If only he’d been out there he’d have asked for his cigarette, then stubbed it out in President Ahmadinejad’s eye and growled: “All right, Abdul, who wants some?”, before using the pen they’d given him to dig a tunnel and escape, having distracted the Revolutionary Guards with a hilarious joke about how you can’t get a job in Camden Council unless you’re gay. Then there’s the ones who explained how the woman’s confession proved women weren’t fit for combat. As if the reason she was first was down to her own choice, having cracked up through going two days without her honey and lime skin lotion. If she’d been last, these people would have gone: “Typical. All the others have read theirs out and she’s still getting ready.”

Piles of experts have analysed the mannerisms of the captives, concluding they’ve not made these statements through their own free will. Which makes you think: “Well done, Cracker.”

Maybe now someone will employ similar techniques for the captives who make confessions in Guantanamo Bay: “The spasmodic shivering, uncomfortability of the orange boiler suit and screeching in pain indicate he may have been subjected to some duress. And from carefully studying the body language, we can note that while he reads his ‘confession’, he clutches it between the second and middle finger, which may be because these are the only ones he has left.”

Similarly, the discussions about whether HMS Cornwall was in Iranian waters misses the point. Even if it was in the Iraqi side of the line, the only reason that’s “ours” is because we’ve occupied the place. But this has been ignored, as if the dispute is over a technicality. Maybe the Royal Navy will present a document to the Iranians proving they’re in the right because they’ve had that bit of water registered at the Post Office.

I suppose they’re thinking: “What difference does it make which side of the line we were, as that side will be ours as well once we’ve invaded you?” The Iranian government may well be shady and crazy and corrupt, but you can’t blame them for being jittery when British and American gunboats are floating about nearby.

If you told someone: “We never trusted the people who used to live next door, what with them going to war with us and causing half a million deaths. But then the new lot moved in, hanged the old bloke, and now they’ve caused half a million deaths as well. And they keep telling us they want our place. In fact, they’ve always had their eye on it, killing the man who used to run it and putting in place a madman so he’d give them his petrol.” Then you’d have a pretty good case for going on daytime TV above a caption: “I keep having trouble with my neighbours.”

In any case, the Iranians can’t be that much of a threat. If they’d really been on the ball, they could have scored a bigger propaganda victory by nipping out a few days earlier and capturing Freddie Flintoff off his pedalo. They could have told him anything they liked, and he’d have been up before the cameras going: “Dunno ‘ow it ‘appened, like, just high spirits and drifted ‘cross border. So sorry for embarrassment caused, like.”