21-03-2010, 10:36 AM
(This post was last modified: 21-03-2010, 10:37 AM by 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.
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.