More here on the arrest of Labour head fund-raiser Lord Levy over allegations about tapping up folk for party donations in return for peerages. (See Alex’s post immediately below this one). First question: is this really the silver bullet that might finish off Blair? He has shown incredible resilience in the face of a huge dollop of scandals since 1997: Bernie Ecclestone affair, Mandelson’s various transgressions, a delinquent and violent deputy Prime Minister; Cherie Blair’s interesting spending habits, David Blunkett’s abuse of office and manifest failings, the sheer uselessness of his successor, Charles Clarke; the suicide of government scientist David Kelley and the whole spin-doctoring of arguments about WMDs in Iraq. In less than 10 years, the Labour government has established a record for venality, corruption and rank incompetence that it took the Tories 18 years to acquire. Quite some achievement, of sorts. Of course, although its economic record is not quite as splendid as some would claim, the relatively-good performance of the economy under Gordon Brown has kept the government of the day in reasonably good shape.
But for how much longer can even this part of the Blair record be relied upon? Yesterday, the Bank of England warned in one of its regular publications that there remain significant risks in the UK financial system, particularly concerning the amount of debt and consumer borrowing there is. Our public finances are slipping deeper into the red despite what has been a relatively decent run of economic growth, so goodness knows how bad those finances could get if there were to be a serious slowdown, or some shock to the financial system.
As a side note, it would be churlish not to praise indefatigible digger-up of news about the Levy saga, blogger Guido Fawkes. If I were the publisher of Private Eye magazine, I would be worried about the competition. Guido has been all over this story for weeks.
Following Levy’s arrest did the police photograph him, take his fingerprints and a DNA sample? And does he now have a record on the police national computer?
I want to know – just to be sure that no special treatment has been given.
How soon before we’re told that Toni’s ticker is playing up and he’s not fit to be interviewed? New balls, please.
Rejoice!
😉
Freeman
One of Sky News’ correspondents stated last night that he had his DNA taken. Now while I’m as opposed to it as anyone here, I can’t deny a smile spread across my face at the mental image of Levy, sitting in a police station, with a swab being shoved in his mouth.
Silver Bullet? Its about time!
As the various credit bubble financial systems and overextended Welfare States (or “systems of entitlement programs” as some Americans choose to say) run into trouble the world is in for a hard time over the next few years.
However, I agree that Britain is likely to see worse times than many other nations.
By the great games of 2012 Britian may well be a horrific example to the world.
This may be the last useful function Britian serves – a warning.
Always keep to hand the five fingers of Fraudulism