British Aerospace (BAe) and the Serious Fraud Office

The directors of British Aerospace must be shaking in their boots at the news that the Serious Farce Office is to report them to the Director of Public Prosecutions for alleged bribery.

This will possibly end in another dirty little deal and these death merchants will go on just as they always have, peddling arms around the globe by fair means or foul. More likely, however, is that their lawyers will point out to them

1. that the Serious Fraud Office couldn't catch a cold in an igloo even with their power to suspend the right of silence
   
2. even if they do get it to court, the case will collapse because the crown prosecution service are useless at handling complex cases where the nature of capitalism itself is involved
   
3. even if someone is convicted, the rich look after their own and they'll do little or no jail time. We only have to look at the case of Ernest Saunders to see that. He is still the only person to make a complete recovery fromAlzheimer's disease

Doesn't it make you proud to be British?

European Union, the Lisbon Treaty and Ireland

I am reminded of a piece of advice regularly given to aspiring lawyers regarding cross-examination of witnesses. You should never ask a question to which you don't already know the answer.

The Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty only goes to prove that the same applies in politics.

Democracy is always a real problem for bureaucracies and dictatorships, and the E.U. is both. So as foreign ministers struggle to find a way to thwart the clearly expressed will of the Irish people we should really be asking ourselves why. The answer is, of course, that the E.U. and its past incarnations, have always put profit before people.

The Irish, even although the country has benefitted enormously from the E.U. has seen little of the benefit 'trickle down' to the ordinary people. Big business, especially big farms have flourished and the rich, as usual, get richer.

They, and we, should continue to reject the treaty until it addresses distribution of wealth as well as wealth creation, because in a zero sum game, if business benefits then ordinary people must be penalised, and with growth at only 2-3% it is effectively a zero sum game.

Scottish Nationalists and the Millionaires Club

One of the problems for the millionaires club in Scotland is that their natural home in the Conservative Party has, for all but ceremonial purposes, ceased to exist.

The strategy seems, therefore, to be to throw all the money they can into the peculiarly Scottish version of the Tories in order to try to stave off the leftward drift in Scotland as people see that Labour are just another party of the right.

So we are treated to the smirking face of Salmond as another rich right wing alleged homophobe lends full support to the Tartan Tories, and, ignoring the dubious moral and ethical problems which seem so important between elections, the Nats grasp the dosh, never asking what they are expected to do for it.

The rich and the Nats are around each other like flies round shit and it is difficult to tell which is which.

Advice for Salmond, the Scots might forgive your running away to London at every opportunity and only coming back, like Sir Sean to try to help out at election time and see what you can get, but they will not forgive you for being snidey and hypocritical. You may believe that for Scotland you are a government in waiting, but we all know you are a pseudo-leader in voluntary exile who left the difficult work of scrutiny of Lib / Lab mismanagement to the wee lassie.