It’s all very well excoriating our politicians for having their snouts in the trough, but this is to ignore the elephant in the room that is former Prime Minister Tony Blair who is swanning around (elephantly and porcinely, if I am not to mash my animal metaphors) picking up millions on the lecture circuit off the back of his illegal war in Iraq.
Not only this, but Blair is collecting megabucks from JP Morgan, the bank that made more than any other in its capacity as central banking body co-ordinating the looting of Iraq, as well as being paid seven-figure sums by Israel and Kuwait.
And now we learn from Private Eye (1236, 15 May 2009) that Alan Milburn (above) is yet another former minister receiving payment from companies who profited from legislation they pushed through. Reporting on the failing New Labour independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs), it transpires that the man who once ran the “Haze of Dope” bookshop now collects £30,000 a year from” the private equity firm Bridgepoint that owns the ISTCs through Alliance Medical.” And yet:
“The £5bn ISTC programme was pushed through by the Department of Health’s commercial directorate, set up in 2003 by the then health secretary Alan Milburn …”
The government hands over our public funds to the banks, protects the rich while bringing in draconian penalties for the weak, frail and poor, and cheats the public purse. James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary who has pursued the poor with a demented vigour, should have the full weight of his own laws thrown at him for claiming expenses on a flat partly owned by his girlfriend. He made over £10K. How’s that for benefit scrounging?
The current revelations are only symptomatic of a greater moral, ethical, philosophical, and even spiritual breakdown in our political system in a world where the notion of public service has gone to the porkers and brute power is the objective.
Anna’s food blog here:
http://annacheneats.blogspot.com/
It's a start of a crack. To open it big time I want people to look at the big picture and the amount of money that is spent on the Royal Family and defence. I want people to say, " What the hell are we doing giving these lot money?" .. in the same way they now with the pollies.
I find a lot of other protests and the like too woolly, unobtainable and ineffective. However if you take away the House of Lords and the Royal Family then you start having a much more even look and feel to society. Concentrated effort is better than supporting all the causes under the sun.
Money saved from the defence (it's billions) could be used to set up cooperatives instead of wasted on training people to kill others.
Hi Louise and Mr Divine,
Did you see the latest Question Time (Thursday)? Margaret Beckett and Ming Campbell got as near to a public lynching on TV as you can imagine. The audience was angry and made intelligent ethical points. I think they should have been shipped off to Westminster to replace the career parasites in Parliament.
Looks like this is available for some time, but check if you want to see it, in case they change it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kftf0
This version for seven days only:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kftf0/Question_Time_14_05_2009/
Next the Royal Family. Look what these guys get up to. MPs are playing for peanuts in comparison.
Labour is pretty much finished because how the hell can they come back from this, other than a miracle and even the NL clones can't magic that one out of the hat. I mean, they are on 19% along with UKIP!!
Who can take seriously Jacqui 'plug and porn' Smith, Hazel 'flipper' Blears, James 'benefit scounger' Purnell…? And instead of admitting their greed they are blaming everyone else for this which causes more anger.
I was talking to a Labour leftie on the Palestine demo today and he said he felt 'sullied' being connected to the LP. I know the feeling.
Also, if the likes of Kelvin Hopkins and other leftie MPs (and WTF was Harry Cohen thinking…?) can make reasonable claims then why couldn't the rest of 'em do that? But as we know NL operates from a 'greed is good' ideology and the worshipping at the altar of corporate capitalism….
And blinkin' hell, Hopkins does the unthinkable…. he commutes to London from Luton and has only ONE house. Unlike Margaret Moran next door constituency who really developed an art in flipping and screwed thousands…..
And if I hear one of them say, 'I was operating within the rules'… I will chuck something at my television. Indeed, who made the rules?
But the NL clones are hoping 'safe pair of hands' Alan Johnson will save them from total wipeout…..