London Olympics 2012 pastoral opening ceremony: sucking at every level

UPDATE 12 July 2012 at the end of this post.

Let them snort coke. It was announced today that the centrepiece of the London Olympics 2012 opening ceremony is to be a pastoral idyll. Sheep & cows will star — Marie Antoinette would be proud.

The fact that Britain was the world's first industrial nation with the first working class will take up ten minutes of the three-hour mediaeval fantasy opener — costing £27mn and directed by Danny Boyle — puts the politics into a screwed-up perspective. I wonder if Highland clearances and enclosures will feature, although I am reminded that modern clearances have already taken place with local authority housing tenants banished hundreds of miles away from their Tower Hamlets home. Not to mention the geographical exclusion zones that allow the games' organisers to bully small local businesses with the temerity to mock up their own olympic rings from flowers or hula-hoops.

How is it possible for such a major event to suck at every level? I mean at EVERY level. Even the Olympic Torch. Who cares if some of the 8,000 torch-bearers have emulated the sponsors (as above, so below) and tried to make a few bucks from their torches? It's penny ante stuff compared with the money to be made from fleecing a captive audience with overpriced food and drink (expect your water bottles to be confiscated at the border) and fewer than ten ATMs in the entire Olympic Park now that VISA have had the other twenty cash dispensers belonging to rivals ripped out.

Far more significant to the ethics of the event was the Olympic Torch route taking in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. No mention, of course, that Lewis was purchased by James Matheson (later Sir) in 1844 with his narcotics money made from selling opium to China alongside his partner William Jardine. Matheson created his own rural idyll by expelling 500 locals from Lewis in 1851 (1,771 in total), packing them off to Canada, and building Lews Castle at Stornoway for himself. So the Tower Hamlets clearances have at least one Olympic-connected precedent.

The sponsors comprise a rogues' gallery of some of the most despised corporations in the world. Food giants Coca-Cola and McDonalds — making us fat on crap (very athletic); Dow Chemicals who still haven't cleared up the mess and human misery resulting from the Union Carbide chemical explosion at Bhopal in 1984 which killed 3,000 within the first few weeks and injured half a million more; the ArcelorMittal steel giant whose queasy acquisition of Romania's national steel factories required the help of Tony Blair to whose party he'd donated £250,000; Adidas uses worker-abusing Li & Fung; perversely, ATOS, the French company chucking sick people off incapacity allowance is a big name behind the Paralympics (Jon Ronson video report here); BP whose corruption under Lord Browne and prior blowout in Azerbaijan two years before the Deepwater Horizon gush in the Gulf of Mexico is documented in Greg Palast's Vultures' Picnic.

Although the sponsors paid only two per cent of the total Olympics cost, they are receiving an estimated 38 per cent of the tickets while the actual talent — the athletes themselves — have been allocated a parsimonious two tickets for their own events. The ticket sales have been a long-running fiasco.


Then there's the militarisation of the event in the name of security. Missiles located on blocks of flats — Bow Quarter, a large apartment complex close to the Olympic stadium and Fred Wigg Tower, a 16 storey residential tower block in Walthamstow, east London — include a load that don't work in bad weather; G4S, the world's biggest security company in the world (actually an army) acted as hired guns for illegal Israeli settlers and will police the London games despite being accused of human rights infringements; HMS Ocean warship moored in the Thames; promises to shoot down hijacked planes even if they're over London's intensive urban sprawl: this is all increasingly reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's dystopian film Brazil, itself based on George Orwell's 1984.

And don't get me started on the transport nightmare expected to start a full TWO WEEKS before the start as media and athletes arrive. My home city turns into a no-go area for drivers; getting to the events; and the press are carping about stressed-out public transport drivers getting a measly £500 bonus. Cheap at twice the price.

But with several Goldman Sachs bankers — past and present — associated with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Locog) board, what do you expect?

If this turns out to be the final Olympics before everything turns to shit and World War 3 erupts for real, it will actually have been most apt and I congratulate the organisers for their cynicism and prescience. Have a nice day.

Bread and circuses but not for everyone: In this age of austerity and cuts imposed on those most in need, the government and Olympics organisers have some strange priorities. We found £11bn for the games, yet British people are struggling to survive. Interviews by Kate Belgrave.

Tax swindle at the "ethical" Olympics

The Austerity Games 23rd July, Hackney Marshes

Dave Renton on The Neo-liberal Games.

Comments on the games including the destruction of potential assets to the community such as the new bridge over the A11.

UPDATE 12 JULY 2012: It gets worser and worser, even.
G4S assured government of finding 10,000 security staff only two weeks ago, now admit failure. Army to send in 3,500 troops just back from Afghanistan.
Locals lose fight to halt ground-to-air missiles being based on their roof at Fred Wigg Tower. We note that there are none on the posh blocks lining the Thames.
Democracy and freedom of speech bite the dust as banned items at the Olympics include bottles of water and Che Guevara T-shirts.
Chips banned as MacDonalds demands right to be sole purveyor of fries at the Olympics.
Politicians trough down as MPs accept free top tickets, including from BT despite conflict of interest.
All the fat cats are larding up while poor musicians are expected to perform for free.
More exploitation.
And now a new TONY BLAIR SCARE ...
Not only back but rumoured to be showcasing his private clinic NHS bloodfest at the Olympics: Mee Healthcare (of course!

Greg Palast Vultures' Picnic: stunning. Everyone should read this book

Greg Palast's Lady Baba-Land: The Islamic Republic of BP (BP in Azerbaijan and worldwide for Channel 4 Dispatches)

If you ever suspected how filthy big business is at the top but never knew the details, investigative journalist Greg Palast's latest book, Vultures' Picnic, will have your jaw hitting the floor every few pages. Greg gives the ins and outs of the dirty deals that are screwing our planet by a bunch of psychopaths (see Jon Ronson's fab The Psychopath Test) with nothing but money and power on their minds.

"You know what the perfect crime is? It's the one that's not illegal."

You knew about BP's Deep Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 men and that we feared would never stop spilling oil (it's still seeping). But did you know this wasn't the first time the dodgy Halliburton cement had failed at a BP well? Yeah, yeah, they swore blind to Congress that this was their first such accident but did you know they'd had one two years before in the land of Eurosong, Azerbaijan? Did you know HOW they got the solo contract in that part of the Caspian Sea?

How about the Euro? You think it's an accident that the new currency is taking us down? Did you know that this was its design? The US under Reagan realised that they hated Europe with its pussy socialist welfare systems and decided to bring it down. Mundell was the architect [Edit: Robert Mundell of Reagonomics infamy]. If that sounds far-fetched, Palast studied under Milton Friedman so he knows the Chicago School of Venality better than most.

Or take the repeal of FD Roosevelt's 1933 Glass-Steagall Act prohibiting saving's banks from merging with the casino "investment" banks: FDR would guarantee deposits but not gambling losses. Following intensive lobbying, US Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin smashed up the act in 1999 and promptly joined Citigroup as co-chair on $126 million "compensation". (Check out Rubin's CV since then to understand how fucked we are.) This is what we're reaping now, swallowing America's toxic financial assets: derivatives, sub-prime mortgages, "and all the other exotica coming out of the mad bankers' laboratories"."Let Ireland, Brazil, and Portugal pay cash money to take on the US bankers' risks.... How do we bust down financial rules across the planet? ... It was not enough to erase the laws against speculating with bank deposits in the United States if it was still a crime to do so in Brazil, India, Spain, and Greece."

And, lo, the Financial Services Agreement (FSA) was rewritten, errant nations brought to heel. And here we are today.

So what of China, "the juiciest target of the new FSA"? They signed, joined the WTO and allowed JP Morgan and Citibank into Shanghai. "In effect, US workers' jobs would be sold for the bankers' right to gamble in the new market." Skynet's tentacles have encircled the globe.

Greg Palast is part Hunter S Thompson, a large dollop of Spider Jerusalem and a hefty chunk of Sam Spade. He pursues his corrupt quarry with a breath-taking zeal and steel. In a wrist-slitting scenario, his great strength as a writer is that he gives us all courage in the face of overwhelming odds and overwheening power.

* * *

Engelbert Humperdinck sang "Only love will set you free" at the Eurovision Song Contest last Saturday. Well, in Azerbaijan that's right, 'cause little else will.

Here's an article written by Greg about BP in the Eurovision host country.

EuroVision in the Islamic Republic of BP
The "sexiest Muslim woman in the world" has already won
by Greg Palast

Will "Beyond Petroleum" oil giant BP pick the winner of the EuroVision Song contest this Saturday in Baku, Azerbaijan? If so, I wouldn't be surprised.

When I was arrested by the military police of Azerbaijan during my investigation of BP for Channel 4's Dispatches in 2010, one of the cops who surrounded our crew in the desert told us, with great pride, "BP drives this country."

Photo: Military police chief, Azerbaijan, photo by Palast, under arrest, with hidden pen-camera.

Indeed it does.

In 1992, the newly independent former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan elected a kindly Muslim professor Abulfaz Elchibey as President.

But the voters had made an error: Elchibey refused to give BP an exclusive contract to drill the nation's massive Caspian Sea fields as the company wished. In 1993, with the assistance and, reportedly, guns provided by MI6, Elchibey was overthrown by the nation's former Soviet KGB boss, Heydar Aliyev.

Within three months, Aliyev handed BP a sweetheart deal, called "The Contract of the Century", to take Azerbaijan's Caspian oil.

The way to the no-bid deal for BP was "greased," to use the term applied by former BP operative Leslie Abrahams, with several million dollars in illicit payments and weekends with lap dancers in London for Azeri officials. I asked Abrahams, who was ordered by BP to provide military intelligence to MI6, whether he understood that he was paying "bribes on behalf of BP and the British government." He replied, "Absolutely, yes."

Photo: BP Executive/MI6 operative Leslie Abrahams at BP Baku office, with Kalashnikov, during 1993 coup.

Since BP has taken control of Azerbaijan's oil, the nation has become fabulously wealthy--at least for those close to the Aliyev family and BP.

And they eat well. The daughters of the new President, Ilham Aliyev (son of Heydar), picked up the tab for dinner in London for a half dozen of their friends. It came to £300,000 (excluding tip and VAT).

According to Robert Ebel, the CIA's former oil intelligence chief, the whereabouts of $140 million in BP and other oil industry payments are "totally unknown."

This week, EuroVision Song Contest viewers will be treated to the images of the ancient city of Baku where the Silk Road streets are filled with Maseratis and Bentlys. The Bently dealership, and much of the capital, is owned by Azerbaijan's First Lady,

Photo: First Lady Hon. MP Mehriban Aliyeva (middle) and daughters.
Mehriban Aliyeva, the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. That's official, the vote was taken by Esquire Magazine. (She's actually the twelfth Sexiest Women in the World, but the other eleven, infidels all, can be ignored here.)

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve the title: her fashion model face has been created at great expense by "so much plastic surgery," according to the US State Department Manning/WikiLeaks cables, that Lady Mehriban "appears unable to show a full range of facial expression."

But when I left the Old City and its Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana stores and headed off to Sangachal, the town where BP's terminal operates, I found a nation heading full speed into the 14th century.

Baku, once the world's leading manufacturer of oil drilling equipment, is now one of the world's leading centers of oil-toxin cancers.

Walking along the main street of Sangachal, the aptly nick-named, "Terminal Town," was like doing the rounds in a cancer ward. The local shoemaker, Elmar Mamonov, who hasn't sold a shoe in two years, told me, “This one’s daughter has breast cancer; there, Rasul had a brain tumor. Cancers we had never seen. His funeral was last week."

Azlan, afraid to give his last name, paid to have a cancerous lung cut out,” because employer BP wouldn't pay. He says the oil company fired him after he could not keep up with his work.

And there was Shala Tageva, a schoolteacher, who has ovarian cancer. She needs treatment soon, but how to pay for it, Mamonov can’t imagine. Shala is Mamonov’s wife. Suddenly, Mamonov stopped himself. “If I am arrested, you will help me, yes?”

Sorry, sir, not in the Islamic Republic of BP.

Oil, their main industry, has seen employment drop about 90% according to journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Her father, the former oil production minister, was fired by Aliyev when Ismayilov suggested that shopkas, bribery, was behind the destruction of the industry, bribes which allegedly allowed BP to avoid "local content" laws that would have saved those jobs.

Throughout the nation, we heard the same refrain: nostalgia for the old days of freedom and prosperity under Soviet rule. Under BP rule, the people's health, income and freedoms have decayed rapidly, as pollution has turned their Caspian fisheries into a dead, chemical toilet.

But Azeris are well entertained. The massive expenditure for the EuroVision Song Contest follows the government's spending $1 million for an Elton John concert during a depression.

Today, only one in seven dollars of GDP is paid in salaries (versus four of five dollars in the US and UK). Where have the billions gone?

No one dare look for it, nor the source of the First Lady's wealth. The last journalist who asked about the funds, Elmar Huseynov, was gunned down in his home. A journalist who questioned what happened to Huseynov was jailed. No third journalist is investigating what happened to the first two.

Azerbaijan is, nominally, a democracy. Indeed, the First Lady won a convincing election to Parliament (as did every other candidate supporting her husband's regime–- there was not a single member of the opposition elected). But it doesn't, in the end, matter who is voted in, as long as "BP drives."

Within hours of our arrest, my crew and I were released by the Deputy Chief of the Security Ministry: Imprisoning a Channel 4 reporter would have been an embarrassment for BP. But our witnesses to BP's horrific drilling practices didn't do so well. One made it out of the country, but others disappeared.

When you watch the Euro-warblers compete this Saturday, just remember that in Azerbaijan, the winners are already chosen: BP and the family of the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. And that's not a pretty sight.

Greg Palast's book on BP, Vultures' Picnic: a tale of Oil, High-Finance and Investigative reporting, will be released in Britain on June 26.

Welcome to the 21st Century in which Skynet makes its move. In the words of Prince, "I've seen the future and, boy, it's rough!". And, while we're on the subject, the present ain't that great, either.

More on this at Left Foot Forward

Greg Palast on YouTube

UPDATE: Special Guest Warren Ellis (Author of Transmetropolitan), Nick Dearden of Jubilee Debt Campaign and John Hilary of War on Want (more guests to be confirmed) will be sharing the stage at the Vultures' Picnic launch in London 26 June with special guest appearances by Laurie Penny and Anna Chen.

China expels Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan

Why can't the Chinese authorities stop shooting themselves in the foot?

If you are going to expel a journalist, it had better be for a more pertinent reason than reporting events accurately.

It looks as if Al-Jazeera's only English-language reporter Melissa Chan is guilty of the crime of uncovering scandals such as the perennial one of corruption, including the public officials who've smuggled US $123.6bn out of the country in the 15 years since the mid-1990s to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Based on a report by the Chinese Central Bank, you'd think Chan's coverage was doing the government a favour in helping to name and shame and stem the flow. The final straw may have been an Al-Jazeera documentary — not made by Chan — alleging that China uses forced labour in its prisons.

Chinese Foreign Ministry officer Hong Lei announced that Chan's accreditation would not be renewed but he would not be drawn on the specifics of her infringement of the law, stating blandly instead that: "China addressed this problem in accordance with laws and regulations. The media concerned know in their heart what they did wrong".

Except that we don't. Did she lie? Did she invent these scenarios? Chan may have goaded them with a sharp stick over the years with her investigations, but the government fails to make a strong case as to why this constitutes breaking the law. This is journalism, not PR.

The government is smarting from the unflattering exposure wrought by the Bo Xilai case, but this knee-jerk clampdown just digs them deeper into the same old hole. The world wants China to smarten up, loosen up and address the issues raised, rather than simply shoot the messenger pour encourager les autres.

Rupert Murdoch: ain't our democracy wonderful?

Been away. Such is the nature of deadlines staring you in the face that I didn't get to blog my BBC Radio 4 programme, Found In Translation which went out on 9th July. A novel premise torpedoed by idiot editing which cut out all the jokes and reversed the point of the programme: namely that the Chinese have a rich sense of humour going back thousands of years.

Anyhow. Murdoch. Woo! If rumours are correct and there's actual real life proof that 9/11 victims were hacked by New Corpse on top of everything else, then the Evil Empire is toast. Hacking Jude Law when he was in the US draws News Corpse into the American legal purview where the coals are being heated in an astonishing reversal of fortune, just as the company was about to score its greatest victory to date: buying the whole of BSkyB.

In this continuing fever dream of a movie writer lying comatose somewhere in Hollywood, Rupert will fight to the death in Tuesday's Thunderdome. [See update below: chief griller has links to News International.] We'll all be glued to the telly watching him squirm. Or plead the Fifth, or whatever is the Brit equivalent. (Something like, my lips are sealed while the subject is sub judice, la, la, la, can't hear you.)

Where to begin? First Rebekah Brooks agrees to give evidence, then she 'resigns', and today, she's been arrested. One can only fear for her physical safety if this keeps up, her immortal soul being sold long ago. She loves kids so much that she'll whip up anti-paedophilia mobs while her journalists are not only hacking a murdered girl's mobile, but actually erasing messages and impeding the investigation. Then there are the dead soldiers' families, Jean Charles de Menezes, the Soham girls ...

Our leaders seemed to have lost the long spoon when supping with Rupert and his cosy nostra. Among the unholy trinity of press, police and politicians embroiled in this affair, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has some nifty explaining to do, following revelations that he enjoyed a stay worth £12K at Champneys health club, whose PR consultant was former News of the World boss Neil Wallis who Sir Paul had already employed as PR to the Met. The same Met that refused to reopen the inquiry into phone-hacking (Yates: "It wasn't a 'review'"), assured everyone it was just the work of a few rogue reporters, and who neglected to inform possible victims of their status. [Update 7.55pm: Stephenson resigns.]

A regiment of politicians are having to live down the embarrassment of photos taken enjoying News International largesse. Such was the power the Wapping Mafiosi held over our democratic institutions that, having been reduced to tears by Rebekah's bullying phone call gloatingly informing him that they knew about his son's cystic fibrosis, Gordon Brown still had to attend her wedding.

When Murdoch whistled, Prime Minister Tony Blair fetched up at some do halfway around the world with his entourage, all on wake-up pills, in order to indulge the king-maker. To receive his wisdom? Or be given orders? How many times did Rupe visit the PM for a chat at Downing Street? ALL the PMs ever since Margaret Thatcher added him to her list of pet gargoyles such as the charming General Pinochet (likes: slitting open the bellies of trade unionists and throwing them from aeroplanes so their innards are ripped out).

Apart from being horse-riding chums with Rebekah, David Cameron took free flights from Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud. And only weeks after Andy Coulson resigned, Diamond Dave was still accommodating him at Chequers.

That one man could acquire over a third of the British media beggars belief in a grown-up democracy. That it could have gone on for so long is nothing short of a scandal.

Only Ed Miliband is having a good war. Hopefully, he'll learn from this success and will extend the fight to the Tories over their vicious class-based cuts. Vince Cable, whose buffoonery and appalling judgement nearly let the BSkyB deal go through, is jumping up and down yelling, "I was first." Actually, I think that accolade goes to the heroic Tom Watson MP, who risked the vengeful wrath of the Murdoch empire to stand up for what's right.

Oh, and Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant. How come our slebs are making all the running in the courage stakes? Who'd have thought that Grant would be more impressive in real life than in the movies? Something wrong, surely?

Then there's the legal establishment. Harbottle and Lewis may have had a conflict of interest when they advised Prince William over his alleged phone hacking, "Move along. Nuthin to see", as they were also gimping for Murdoch.

Last night I watched the 2004 movie, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism, and I thoroughly recommend you obtain a copy. I knew that Fox News were dragged into court to win the right not to tell the truth because, by their own admission, they are not a news channel, but "entertainment", but who knew the degree to which those untruths were spun? Seems their trademark "Fair and Balanced" is only a slogan, not a description or even a pledge.

Take Jeremy Glick, whose father died in 9/11. He went on Fox News to make his point: that in the 1980s it was Bush Sr who financed and empowered the Mujahaddin who were to morph into the school of Islamist fundamentalism who carried out the 2001 attacks. This argument was transformed by the bellicose Bill O'Reilly into the lie that Glick had accused Dubbya Bush of masterminding the attacks. From fair evidence-based criticism to a lunatic conspiracy nut-job. See what they did there? Great if you do, because there's a whole swathe of Americans who get their information from Fox News and who don't see it.

This is the company that pressed for commitment to war in Iraq despite the murderers of 9/11 having no connection with Saddam's regime. Who gave birth to the "birthers": proper nut-jobs who deny Barack Obama's US citizenship despite all the evidence. They used footage from different events to inflate Tea Party gatherings and a Sarah Palin book-signing. They fabricate or crop quotes to change meaning.

In Britain, News International has been a hugely corrupting influence, holding police, politicians and royalty to ransom using the tools of blackmail, character assassination and favours. In broadcasting, Sky News has yet to go down the Fox route but the only way to ensure it doesn't in future is to clip Murdoch's wings now. I feel sorry for all the innocent workers who lost their jobs when the News Of The World was folded, but Rebekah was right in that the brand is now toxic as opposed to merely seriously unpleasant. No-one wants to touch it. I appeared on Sky as a guest last year, but I'd be loathe to repeat the experience in the light of what's emerged.

I'm with Ed Miliband on this one: break up Murdoch's empire.

"I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous."

However, don't be too sure that the monster's dead in the last reel. With so many venal wusses in power, there may yet be a sequel. Staked and dusted? Not quite yet, unfortunately.

UPDATE: Sunday 17th July 2011. MP John Whittingdale, who will chair Tuesday's inquiry, has links to New International figures.

He has also said he has dined with Mrs Brooks and met Elisabeth Murdoch, Mr Murdoch's daughter, but denied that they were friends. The Conservative chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport committee is also Facebook friends with Mr Hinton, who he has known for 10 years, and Rebekah Brooks. He is the only MP on either of their friend's lists.

UPDATE 7.55pm: Sir Paul Stephenson resigns. Ha! Sky News gets there first.

UPDATE 3: Thanks to my friend Adi who sent me this link to a Reuters report on the climate of fear at the News Of The World and why it was impossible for the editors not to know a) the genesis of the stories, and b) where the money was going. "That is what we do -- we go out and destroy other people's lives."

UPDATE 4: Monday 18th July. More thanks, to News Corp for adding to the gaiety of the nation and to Charlie Brooker for nailing it.

How The Guardian broke the story here.

How Rupert tried to bury bad news in the US.

Tony Blair: King of the World

Pic: "I want THIS much!"

Now Neil and Glynis Kinnock join in the cheerleading for Tony Blair to be made President of Europe. What, only Europe, Tone?

How corrupt do you have to be to continue rewarding the man who took Britain into an illegal war with Iraq which pillaged that country's resources, murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and has turned it into a basket case. It's not like he hasn't already been paid for services rendered, with JP Morgan shoving millions at him, the US lecture circuit syphoning dosh into his coffers, and Kuwait and Israel giving him vast sums.

And where was our peace envoy while this was happening? (Hat tip Socialist Unity)

Do they want the rest of the world to hate us?

Tony Blair: King of the World

Pic: "I want THIS much!"

Now Neil and Glynis Kinnock join in the cheerleading for Tony Blair to be made President of Europe. What, only Europe, Tone?

How corrupt do you have to be to continue rewarding the man who took Britain into an illegal war with Iraq which pillaged that country's resources, murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and has turned it into a basket case. It's not like he hasn't already been paid for services rendered, with JP Morgan shoving millions at him, the US lecture circuit syphoning dosh into his coffers, and Kuwait and Israel giving him vast sums.

And where was our peace envoy while this was happening? (Hat tip Socialist Unity)

Do they want the rest of the world to hate us?

It was only a wafer-thin mint: politicians pig out on public funds

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.

It was only a wafer-thin mint: politicians pig out on public funds

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.