corporate entity becomes 'candidate' kicks off bid for Congress

[Paul Rigby]

I favour the idea greatly.

By a strange coincidence I have a whole stack of pre-stuffed brown envelopes (now sadly empty) that I borrowed from my old bank when I left. So I'm ready to go.

I can also make speeches in the desired fashion, which must be a plus to my candidacy. There are not many things I can remember at my age, but my sort code, account number, and procedure for depositing large bundles of low denomination banknotes remain as sharp as ever.

May I call you "Stephen"?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/...over-sting

MPs targeted in undercover sting over cash for influence

Former ministers said to have been caught on camera by journalists

Anushka Asthana and Toby Helm

The Observer, Sunday 21 March 2010

A group of MPs, including former ministers, have been targeted in an elaborate sting operation in which journalists set up a bogus lobbying company and offered to pay them in return for political influence.

Among the politicians approached was Stephen Byers, the former cabinet minister and arch-Blairite, who was filmed describing himself as a "bit like a sort of cab for hire". He offered to trade Westminster contacts for £3,000 to £5,000 a day…

Byers told her he had saved hundreds of millions of pounds for National Express through his contact with Lord Adonis, the transport minister, and had influenced food labelling proposals for Tesco after phoning Lord Mandelson, the business secretary. The MP said that his friendship with Mandelson was one of his "trump cards".

Pure class. Now, can we find enough candidates of similar probity to give them a run for their bungs? It's a tall order, and a fierce battle lies ahead. Nevertheless, I have every confidence the BEP (Belize Educational Project) is up to the job, the first of which will probably involve a bank. Taxi!

[Paul Rigby]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=18247

Tony Blair's Secret Deal with a Multinational Oil Giant

by Jason Groves

Blair's Fight to Keep His Oil Cash Secret: Former PM's Deals Are Revealed As His Earnings Since 2007 Reach £20 Million

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: 'These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale - he is driven by making as much money as possible.

'I think many people will find it deeply insensitive that he is apparently cashing in on his contacts from the Iraq war to make money for himself.'

Here at the BEP, Mr Baker, we find your naivety offensive, and your moralising wearisome. Mr Blair is a perfectly normal and respectable Anglo-American war-criminal who engineered wars for personal gain, and then started a religious foundation. What could be more logical or fitting?

Truth to tell, the Supreme Court ruling in the US represented the law belatedly catching up with reality.

[Peter Presland]

My last post was in haste having done a - by now near routine - coffee spluttering at one of Magda's posts whilst scanning new posts without paying proper attention - a bit preoccupied with other stuff right now.

I have only just taken time out to read the whole thread and it is a corker. I think PR and DG should form a partnership to write a new u-t-d Monty Python series - with the odd snippets thrown in from others here.

It's bloody hilarious. A real tonic. Thanks Guys and Gals

[David Guyatt]

The New Westminster Taxi Cab Service of Belize

is pleased to announce our customized pre-paid, untraceable debit and credit card accounts on application - well used cocaine banknote transportation a speciality - special courier services rendered,

We are delighted to introduce our Board of Directors:

[Paul Rigby]

According to Sir Reginald Pike-Darkness, in his definitive The Bung in History: Illicit Lolly and the Rise of the Klepto-democracy (London: Anthony Gland, 1989), the secret of a happy society is an entirely corrupt one; and at the heart of any well-ordered state lies a civil service whose highest echelons find nothing remotely odd or questionable about ministers demanding modifications in proposed legislation which obviously favour big business. Quite so.

Let’s hear it, then, for those nameless men and women who also serve (the Klepto-democracy, that is) by doing the necessary when a figure such as “Minty Feltch”* gets on the blower.

*The fictional New Labour fixer and eminence grise so vividly brought to life in Pike-Darkness’ novel of the Blair years, Greasing the Pole (London: Anthony Gland, 2003), which won the Disreali Prize for political fiction that same year. John Rentoul, the New Labour cheer-leader writing in the Indie, described Pike-Darkness's magnum opus as "simply vile...and quite probably actionable." I can think of no higher commendation.