Do politicians believe their own spin?
Right: Peter "I deeply regret... getting caught" Hain
I believe they do. Some may start all fresh-faced and (dare I say?) honest in their intentions; but they soon fall into line.
Most become party automatons parroting the party-line.
How many times did we hear them justifying the dodgy dossier? How many times have we heard them cover-up for their colleagues' sleaze - e.g. Peter Hain's dodgy money and a barely existent "think tank."
They wonder why politicians are not trusted in a week when the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, tried to say London at night was "safe" when it transpired her spun 'night time trip to a kebab shop' took place at 7pm with a bodyguard in tow!
So it was earlier in the week I tuned into possibly one of the least watched TV stations around: BBC Parliament.
I was pottering at work and I'd heard Hague's speech on the second reading of the EU Constitution (or whatever they've decided to mislabel it as these days) was a belter... as it happens work intervened and I didn't get that far, though I'll try and see it again.
Thus it was I put the BBC Parliament channel on my pc and started doing the job I had lined up. The computer went on and on with various politicians coming and going in the background as I beavered away earning my daily crust (pausing only to mop the sweat from my brow with a spotted hanky).
Cor, these crosswords in The Sun get harder by the day don't they???
Oh tush, dear reader. I'm joking of course. Ne'er a Murdoch rag passes our threshold or any office-space of mine, bar some dire need or emergency (or perchance a copy left on a train, ever seeking to save a penny...)!
As I worked something was said that had me scooting across the room (self-propelling my wheeled chair like a James Bond villain).
Right: Des Browne says "believe me - I'm an expert."
It was the Defence Questions session and the Defence Secretary Des Browne was fielding questions from various MPs: and one had just fired a veritable stinger missile at the man in the post who has to defend our involvement in Zionist wars.
Norman Baker (for it was he) had asked Browne why a certain RAF base was still listed and labeled as an RAF base when there are no RAF personnel there.
Baker, the MP for Lewes (whom, I seem to remember is quite the investigative soul on the matter of the death of Dr David Kelly), suggested that the base be called what it is: a United States base.
Left: Blofeld can't believe his ears! "What a Zionist sonuvabitch!"
The wheels on my chair were glowing red hot, such was the friction involved as I sped twixt work and the pc (sinister white cat jettisoned en route). I rewound the footage and listened carefully.
Yes, it seems that as well as the myriad of US bases such as Mildenhall and the vast acreage of supersize golf balls (sorry, my James Bondesque persona isn't holding up to public scrutiny is it?) spying on all of us from North Yorkshire - which even have the power to knock out the electrics of cars on roads in the area - we also have "British" military bases that are actually American ones.
I wondered what Americans might make of this.
Would they like British Army or RAF bases dotted across America? Would they like British personnel running alleged "American" bases?
Might they wonder what 1776 had been all about?
As I've said before (about the Arabs, but it runs just as well for us as Europeans) it seems that we need to enact our own version of the Monroe Doctrine that the Americans put so much stall by (it stops foreign powers getting involved militarily in the Americas which the USA sees as it its own domain); but then they were also the days when most Americans believed in non-intervention.
These kinds of bases on our soil (we're lucky we don't have Guantanamo like Cuba!) are an overhang from WW2, but as we've just finished paying the billions of WW2 debt to America, at what interest rate the good Lord alone knows (with friends like these...), it's about time the Americans got their troops the hell off our soil (to use Hollywood movie language).
Left: Des Browne's doyley?
All this was going through my mind and I was in dire need to run off and find someone to rant at (computer screens just don't respond to a rant like a fellow human, and anyway, the cat had scarpered!) when Mr. Browne delivered a particularly large, intricate, chintzy, lacey, doyley to act as the centrepiece to his table of a response (in that he tried to make it well-polished and presentable, but it was distinctly wobbly with a touch of woodworm).
He claimed that America was a great ally of ours.
Hmmm. OK. Well let's say that's true - it still doesn't excuse the foreign military bases that we see dotted around our countryside.
France is our ally. So is Germany. Italy too.
Hey! Perhaps the idea is to let all our allies to have military bases in the UK? How inclusive! How so very, very "modern!"
Browne (alas) continued. He next made such a preposterous statement that it made the Dodgy Dossier look like a well researched work of sober, genuine probity.
He claimed that America was a good ally because they were sending more troops to Afghanistan in support of our troops.
Zoiks!
I watched carefully to see if Browne blushed - but not a jot of it. He was bold as brass (no not bald as a brass, that's more to do with Wayne Rooney's octogenarian peccadilloes).
Did he just say that? Does he believe what he just said.
Having already asked his question the camera didn't go back to the Lib Dem MP for Lewes for his reaction, but his eyes must have been on stalks!
Ssssh. What's that whirring sound?
It must be Dr David Kelly spinning in his grave...
According to our Defence Secretary - the expert in our government, in charge of our armed forces - the Americans are great friends because they're sending more troops to help our troops.
What!?!?
Is he mad?
Does he have the memory of a goldfish?
Has he lost the plot?
Does he have the memory of a goldfish?
Is he believing his own spin?
Does he have the memory of a goldfish? (OK, sorry - it wasn't funny the first time!).
This is a government that has sent our armed forces to fight - and die - in Zionist wars that had (and have) nothing to do with our country!
America started these wars and our government decided to act like a pet poodle and follow on its coattails. Worse still, our government lied, spun and covered-up for the American Neo-Con regime and the Israeli Lobby in order to bring these wars about (in the shadow of a highly questionable stage-managed event known as '911').
Now our Defence Secretary (surely Minister of War?) is trying to tell us why we should be grateful to the Americans, and accept the preponderance of their military bases here, because they are sending in troops to support our troops, which were sent in to support their troops (are you following this?).
I started off by asking if politicians believe their own spin.
Des Browne must believe his own spin because otherwise there is no way that he could spout such bare-faced chutzpah (and I use the Kosher term advisedly) to be recorded in Hansard for posterity.
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