Old and New Labour - An Apology

Dear Stan,

Sorry for another update so soon, but I regret that I have been insufficiently rude to the Reverend Blair. It is admittedly hard work keeping track of his unbridled venality, as the information changes by the day. On Thursday 10th January the London "Evening Standard" ran a front page story that he was going to be paid a million dollars a year for services to J P Morgan. Just a minute, isn't he going to be a Middle East peace envoy, public speaker for hire, and possibly President of the European Union as well? How is he going to fit it all in? Well, the JPM job will be only part-time, the article explained. A article promptly appeared on the "Guardian" website explaining that a million a year for the Vicar of St Albion's wise counsel was good value from JPM's point of view. The Guardian often reads like the New Labour court circular, but this reeked higher than usual.

Come Friday 11th January, the "Telegraph" ran an update explaining that the JPM salary was actually $4 million a year for two days a month. This redefines "part-time", which most ordinary mortals understand as two or three days a week. Of course JPM are making truckloads of money from the reconstruction of Iraq - a situation which the Vicar played a supporting role in creating.

It is a sad reflection on the power of inflation that $4 million bucks doesn't buy you much of a politician any more. Many years ago, two Conservative Members of Parliament received £1,000 ($2,000) each to ask questions in the House of Commons on behalf of their benefactor. Neither resigned or was forced to resign once the news broke. At the time you had to pay around £2,000 for a top class hooker in London, so you could buy two MPs for the price of a whore. At that rate, you could have bought a working majority in Parliament for $640,000, but mercifully I don't think the majority were that corrupt. Now you have to cough up $4 million for an utterly discredited creature like Blair. As one correspondent in today's "Telegraph" noted "JP Morgan omitted to follow the most elementary employment procedures - it failed to take up references from Tony Blair's previous employers: the people of the United Kingdom".

Even worse, I had assumed that, once Blair left office, he was at least off the public payroll. But, no, he still gets $180,000 a year from the taxpayers for an ex-PM's office expenses.

The best comment ever on political corruption is of course from "A Man for all Seasons", when Sir Richard Rich gives the crucial perjured evidence which convicts Sir Thomas More and is rewarded by being made Lord Lieutenant of Wales. Sir (later Saint) Thomas comments: "Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world.....But for Wales!"