Search results for Scandal:

This week I turned on the TV to see what I thought was a new Roland Emmerich movie, but instead it turned out that Los Angeles was on fire. Now huge swathes of it look like that other Los Angeles movie with Snake Pliskin except now I think about it there's a scene in that one where Kurt Russel goes surfing with Peter Fonda and the water would probably have helped a lot here and at the very least a fictional character wouldn't have been able to make the situation worse, unlike the mayor or the go ......

A batch of More Jeffrey Epstein names was released and it included Magician David Copperfield, which maybe explains how someone got in and out of his jail cell undetected

North Korea has stated that Kim Jong Un is now 40 although I'm not sure if that means years, or stone.

An electric bus caught fire in London, it's probably the only time a London bus has had the heating on during winter.

Sven-Goran Eriksson has announced that he's got cancer and only a few months to live. I'm not sure sure if the doctor announced it by telling him he'd reached the knockout stage, but I'm imagining that Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney and the rest of that squad of players will be asked to lower the casket at the funeral, so they can let him down one more time.

There was a story in the tabloids about the last moments of the Queen's life were painless, which I guess would have been a welcomed relax from the previous 9 decades of toil and brutal hard labour.

Probably the largest story though was the developments in the Post Office computer scandal, after the government announced new laws to quickly exonerate and compensate victims. More than 900 postmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after being falsely accused of stealing huge sums of money, with only 93 convictions so far being overturned. Innocent people went to jail, people were declared bankrupt, marriages were destroyed and several of these people committed suicide. It's worth noting that all 3 major parties were equally deeply involved in this. Labour purchased and introduced the bad software, the Conservatives and LibDems both oversaw the failings and coverup. In fact one of the more shocking aspects of it is that for all the incompetence, deceit and nefarious things going on, the SNP were't also involved and Mark Drakeford was miles away at the time. Ed Davey, the leader of the LibDems was the post office minister at the time most of this was going on and there's truly astonishing interview from a few days ago where he repeatedly weasels out of saying the word "sorry" in a manner that's reminiscent of the old Michael Howard interview, it's genuinely worth looking up if you've not seen it. He's also refused to resign as party leader, which is surprising given that demanding peoples' resignation is all the LibDems really do these days. Also of interest is the fact that it turns out the legal firm the post office hired was paying Davey £5k per month. Not so much the gravy train as the Davey train. Compare and contrast to Paula Vennells who was the Post Office CEO for 7 years and has since announced that she's returning her CBE, though hopefully she's not posting it back to the king. Anyway, as I said the government is putting forward some new post office legislation, although the government might want to be careful this time: when they passed the Stamp Act back in 1765 things went very badly wrong.

Happy new year, and if anyone else is doing dry January, I'll raise my glass of dry chardonnay to you. I was putting the Christmas decorations back in the attic when I came across a Christmas present I meant to give the kids 2 weeks ago. It's a shame, they'd have loved that puppy.

Bill Gates has got yet another scheme on the go to make life more unpleasant for everyone. This particular scheme is one in which he's going to be turning human waste into drinking water. Given his wealth, I assume that just means he's going to buy whichever brewery it is that makes Fosters

A news story about how the deputy leader of Hamas was killed in an explosion. Oh well, at least he died doing what he loved. Someone else who died here, Tom Wilkinson, star of the Full Monty or as it's now known, the 80% Monty. I was looking to see if they played the song Hot Stuff at his cremation. And there's also a headline saying that the former head of Kids Company has died. I thought Jeffrey Epstein was killed a few years ago.

Someone who was great buddies with Epstein was Prince Andrew who was in the news this week after the release of anonymous names of people who visited the island. Supposedly he and Fergie were apparently thinking of remarrying so let's see how that goes now. Although either way I'm guessing she's going to soon realise that he's only after his money. Bill Clinton was frequently referenced in the documents although it begs question of whether he should go to prison or whether it's a harsher punishment to force him to live with Hilary for the rest of his life. I was eagerly waiting him to give a vaguely sarcastic piece to camera explaining "I did not have relations with those girls, on the island" like he did in the 90s. Most curious was the mention of Professor Stephen Hawking although I'm not quite sure how that would work anyway and could the girls not copy of the old Dr Who and the Daleks idea of "going up some stairs" Say what you will about Davros, he tried to murder billions of people and conquer the universe but he has his limits and never contemplated going near Jeffrey Epstein's island. Although the same can't be said for other 1970s BBC tv personalities.

The welsh government is going to introduce a mandatory 20mph speed limit, in response Chris Rea is release an updated version of one of his songs "Driving Home For Easter"

With all the strong winds I'm quite concerned about the caravan in my garden, because it wasn't there a few days ago.

Rupert Murdoch finally announced his retirement this week after a career lasting over 70 years. Highlights include the eradication of good UK government, the wholesale destruction of US bipartisanship, getting Sky Television to make sure there was no football or cricket on normal tv, and that time in the 80s he thought he'd bought the publishing rights to hitlers diaries. He was recently and briefly married to Jerry Hall though it makes you wonder if he thought Jerry Hall was a hall that the gerries kept those diaries in.

Russel Brand turned out to have been a bit dubious, who would have thought it? I've got neighbour whose dog acts like that, trying to get on anything that moves: it's a Jack Russel Brand. He's also facing second degree charges for crimes against comedy and acting. A number of people have come to his defence mind and said they'll stand by him, although that's largely because it's far safer than lying down. Apparently he was into swinging and £50 says that by the end of next month it will be from a tree at the end his garden by. If I were his lawyer I'd recommend calling all his accusers transphobic, that seems to get you out of trouble these days. Like how some said that that Lucy Letby was an incel. Wait, no, I misread that, she's "In a cell"

Tony Bennett died this week at the age of 96. It doesn't seem to give a cause of death although I'd head Crooner-virus suggested.

The Huw Edwards story seems to have fallen off the radar and yet he is still claiming a salary. If makes me wonder whether we've finally reached the point where bringing the BBC into disrepute is no longer achievable.

Vladimir Putin canceled a trip to South Africa after threats that he would be arrested for war crimes. I was looking at various photos on the web, and between Ukraine and UK Rain I'm not sure which is more depressing.

And talking of jailtime, I see that Ghislaine Maxwell was in the news, apparently her fellow prisoners gave her the nickname of Cruella de Vil. It seems a bit lazy to be honest because if I was going to name her after the villain from a kids' story I'd go with the Child Catcher.

There were 3 elections this week and the Conservatives lost Somerton and Selby, but retained Uxbridge. For weeks we were told that Labour would win that one because Boris Johnson is so hated by the public, yet the complete opposite seems to have been true. It seems that the tale of Boris's lockdown party really was Shakespearian, in that it was Much Ado About Nothing. It also seems that Boris' phone is not password secured and that he handed over the complete tranche of underrated messages to the Covid Inquiry. I actually had my own password issues this week after I went to set a new lock-screen password. I tried the word "fortnight" but it said it was too week

There's a story here about that post office scandal where an IT system led to hundreds of people losing their job and being wrongly investigated by the police. There's a quote here from one person saying "I lost absolutely everything" although I always assumed that was a requirement to get a job at the post office in the first place.

Interesting developments this week as the News at 10 turned into the No Huws at 10, before Hugh Edwards was back on the news but more as a story than a presenter. He was of course until quite recently a well respected news figure at the BBC, just recently leading the reporting on the death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth, but this week the only thing that died was his career after it turned out he'd been paying 10s of thousands of pounds for explicit photographs from a 17 year old. Photographs that he presumable saved in a folder titled "Nudes at 10"

Personally, I found the more interesting part of the story the speculation as for days nobody knew which "well known" BBC celebrity it was. There was suspense, intrigue, drama, mystery and exciting plot twists which is surprising given that it was the BBC. I was waiting to see if they'd made a new episode of "Who do you think you are" but called "Who do you think it is?" and in the end most of us were just disappointed it wasn't Garry Lineker. I was disappointed not to get on the radio because I wanted to call and request that they played "The Power of Love" by Huwy Edwards and the News but as things stand it's all gone quiet now, as he lurks in a hospital claiming to be depressed, although I would be to if I'd just lost a job paying half a million per year.

Anyway, what else was in the news? Well the teaching union called an end to strikes in England and Wales, mostly because it's July so the kids are off anyway. There was a twist in the Boris Johnson's phone story after he claimed he couldn't hand over WhatsApp messages because he's forgotten the iPhone lock-screen password. A common way to remember it is to have it be something memorable like one of your kids' birthdays but it's not like that would have helped Boris. And finally, the coroner released a report about how Lisa Marie Presley died of a bowel obstruction. I'm guessing then that the last thing she said to her doctor was "A little less constipation a little more action please..."

Climate change activists threaten to glue themselves to the Grand National racetrack in order to disrupt or prevent the horse race. It does make you wonder if they know where glue comes from.

Oscar Pistorious looks set to get released early on parole, apparently he's unlikely to jump bail. And physically unable. Roses are red, violets are glorious, never creep up on Oscar Pistorious

There was another high school shooting in the US. Apparently the leading cause of death there in under 16 year olds is guns, although in China it's protesting, so it could be worse

A lot of the protesting being threatened though has been over the upcoming indictment of Donald J Trump, or as he may soon be know, Donal Jail Trump. This is the latest of multiple attempts to charge him with something, anything, no matter how trivial, in order to prevent him running and likely winning an election next year, going by the latest polling and the increasing incompetence of a Biden administration which has been shown to have been up to far worse than Trump was, albeit without police action ever being countenanced. A few years ago, they were going to prove that he was a paid employee of the Russian government and that didn't turn out to be true, although we know how that the Bidden family was, and possibly still is, being paid by the Chinese government. Trump was impeached over allegations of corruption with Ukraine, although there's an actual recording of Biden making identical comments to the Ukrainian government during the Obama era, so they dropped it. Then they wanted to arrest him over holding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and they were *this* close but then it emerged that Biden had been keeping boxes of classified documents at his house in Delaware and had been doing so for over a decade, there's even a family photograph of him in front of his garage with everything clearly stacked up behind him, the way that you or I would keep the Christmas decorations. A lot of his supporters, struggling to defend him, say "at least he's not Trump" but that line is increasingly dubious now, and at least the economy wasn't collapsing on Trump's watch and Eurasia was under control

It remains to be seen whether Trump will comply with any of it of course. The Florida governor actually stated that the state will refuse to cooperate with any federal arrest, one which supposedly doesn't have strong enough evidence to find him guilty. The idea is get him in court, stretch it out and keep him off the campaign trail for as long as possible and with the US legal system and lengthy appeals process, that could be years. On the other hand, there would be zero risk of him being put put in handcuffs if he and Stormy Daniels hadn't been using handcuffs several years ago

In the news this week

Disgraced actor Kevin Spacey in trouble again and facing 4 charges of assault. In his defense, he said that all he did was ask the young men if they wanted the part.

America has a baby food shortage at the movement which is officially being blamed on the driver shortage as well as one of the few massive factories being closed in what is a tight and regulated industry. Although if you want my 2 cents, there were none of these shortages issue until met started letting men get pregnant. Based on what the BBC seem to claim.

Talking of the BBC, there was an incident this week when a BBC News broadcast briefly displayed the text “Manchester United are Rubbish” before it was taken down and an intern presumably given the sack. I’m not sure which is the stranger part of the story: that the BBC News reported something that was true, or that they felt the need to apologise for doing so

The main story is probably Ukraine but this week the media have gone all-in on the Partygate scandal, desperate to claim the scalp of the Prime Minister for 5 main reasons [1] he went to Eton [2] he was key in making Brexit happen [3] he sometimes criticises the more extreme aspects of wokery [4] He once wrote for the Daily Telegraph [5] Most importantly, they didn’t get an invite to the party in question. If Laura Kuenssberg or Justin Webb had been asked along then they’d have at Downing Street faster than party donor in search of a peerage. In the mean time Boris has sought to change the rules about people having to resign although if he really wants to wind up the left he should team with Quincy Jones to rerelease the song “It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to”. Sorry, it wasn’t a “party” - it was a “work meeting with refreshments” or some such rubbish. That sort of rebranding is like if someone claims that they weren’t sacked, they just suffer from “earning disabilities”

Let's stop talking about the modern day Tzar in order to talk about two princes, both of whom made a spectacle of themselves this last week.

Fist of all, the Fresh Prince, Will Smith, decided to make the Oscars watchable for the first time in years after punching Chris Rock following a joke he told about Will's bald wife. I bet Will wishes he still had that memory erasing wand from the Men In Black film series. Anyway, it at least makes a change from the usual charade where several hundred attention seeking morons exchange platitudes and act like they hold the moral high ground when in truth they'd have to all run for political office to drag Hollywood's reputation any lower.

As to morals and ethics, Will Smith and Jada have an open marriage although most assumed that Jada was the slapper in that relationship but Will Smith too? I guess it shows that their marriage is open to anything, asides from jokes. The only disappointment was that Chris Rock decided to remain calm and get on with the award ceremony rather than coming back with a retort, something like "Come on Jada, keep your hair on" or possible a joke about how it was the worst thing Will Smith had done since Wild Wild West. Anyway, with expectations raised for next year it's hard to see how they'll up the ante. Perhaps one of the stars will agitate for a fight ahead of time, so that it's already trending on social media before the lights go dim. That's certainly something I'd tune in to watch, as compared to the current hypocrisy where some 2 hour long lecture in diverse wokery is proclaimed as one of history's most important pieces of cinema.

The other prince who was on the telly this last week was Prince Andrew who decided to show up to take center stage at the memorial service to Prince Phillip. It's a memorial service to his father, nobody disagreed about him attending it and it's not like anyone trusts him to be left alone unattended these days. On the other hand he also went out of his way to walk with the queen and place himself in the limelight to the extent that you almost expected him to do the talk-show rounds afterwards. Possibly an appearance on the One Show, because it's about one, because he's royalty, geddit?. Anyway, the rest of the royals were apparently livid about it, Prince Charles especially so, he had presumably begged Harry & Meghan to show up for the sole purpose of diverting attention away from their uncle. Here's one to close, What's Meghan Markle's favourite computer operating system? Windows Me.

Happy new year and here’s a thought: if “people are as honest as the day is long," then is that why there's more crime in the winter, over Christmas and New Year? And talking of criminals, Tony Blair finally got given a knighthood in the New Year’s Honor list. Reportedly it was delayed for the past 2 decades at the personal bequest of Prince Phillip who despised him although ultimately the prime minister thought that Mr Blair should be rewarded for his services to making the Labour Party unelectable as well as associating the “People’s Referendum” campaign with his special brand of toxicity+hubris.

In other news I also saw a story: “Motorcyclist killed in A1 collision” and I honestly think the Telegraph should show more respect to the grieving family and refrain from rating fatal vehicle accidents with scores like A1 as if it's Buzzfeed

But the large story from the last few weeks has probably been the Ghislane Maxwell story, she spent her 60th birthday in prison and by the looks of things she’ll probably be spending the next 60 of them in prison too. I’m joking of course, she’ll probably befall some kind of tragic yet fatal accident like tripping and catching her neck on a rope or the kitchen accidentally using cyanide rather than paprika. It is after all a Maxwell family tradition, dying in mysterious circumstances.

In a surprise turn of events however it turns out that one of the members of the jury lied on the screening questionnaire, had been a victim of abuse when they were younger and discussed this in the deliberations, thus laying the grounds for a mistrial. It also means we are unlikely to see what so many had hoped, which was her cooperating fully with the police and naming a series of high-profile names in exchange for a reduced sentence. Perhaps instead of 50 years, the judge might cheekily ask if to match her crimes she’d like her prison time to be under 18. In exchange for testifying against Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton and the like, which is what this has all been about from the start

The Ghislane Maxwell case has always been very much a warm-up show, it’s like back in the day when people went to the cinema to see a Pink Panther movie and they’d show one of the cartoons during the opening credits and that’s great. But you were really there to see Peter Sellers and some kind of farcical crime caper where Inspector Clouseau investigates whether Prince Andrew can sweat or not. As to how things are going, Andy has just had to flog a chalet in Verbier Switzerland to fund his legal team’s war-chest, although some of that money will be used to pay off Isabella de Rouvre who loaned him the money to buy the chalet and who also later sued him for £7million. Perhaps the money troubles are why he likes the weekday specials at Pizza Express although it remains to be seen whether he’s going to later be catching the Midnight Express (bit of prison humor there). Or perhaps the easiest and cheapest way to get him off the hook would be for the queen to just hand out some honors to Ghislane and some other witnesses in exchange for never mentioning Andrew’s name again. After all, “Dame Ghislane Maxwell” is no less bonkers than “Sir Tony Blair”.

A little bit late this week, I was waiting to see what would happen to Matt Hancock. In the end, the Welsh Football squad did manage to outlast him (just) before he was finally forced to resign from his job, before also resigning himself to getting a right earful from the wife this summer. Or maybe he’ll continue the politics and lies at home though and continue to strenuously deny what happened, perhaps with a questionable story about them not kissing and how he was just trying to save taxpayer money by sharing some chewing gum. Either way, Sajid Javid has his job now and promises to “learn from his predecessor's mistakes” which presumably means “knowing where the cameras are located.” I’ve never been entirely sure what makes MPs imagine that they can carry out a surreptitious affair in one of the most heavily surveilled buildings in the country but either way it seems evident that the Health Secretary (sorry, *former* Health Secretary) decided to research how the health service works by watching Carry On Matron (ooh er missus!). Certainly that would explain the lack of competence and general ineptitude. Now I think of it a Carry On movie set in downing street would be pretty good if you had a time machine, Kenneth Williams looked a bit like Michael Gove, I’d imagine Carrie Johnson would be played by Babs Windsor and I could see Hattie Jacques playing Emily Thornberry. Anyway, in real life the only real surprise was that someone actually got sacked by Boris Johnson for cheating on their wife, although I guess the empathy maybe explains why he was able to hang on for a few days longer than he would have been able to 5 years ago. Just be careful saying that the resignation was overdue though, otherwise some Labour activists might mishear you, think it was over a jew and start posting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Talking about conspiracy theories the other story this week was the American report published by the Pentagon into UFOs. This was looking specifically at 144 reports made about the phenomena since 2004, and the general gist is that they’re real but they don’t know what they are. In other words: the aircraft equivalent of those spikey vegetables they sell at my local Asian supermarket. Officially there’s speculation that the videos might be of experimental Russians or Chinese aircraft, but mostly likely these are American made and this is all just a way to get it on tv to show of what they have and scare anyone who might want to attack the US air force in the future. Enemies like North Korea or Iran, or hospitals or schools that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s worth remembering that the SR71 flew at Mach3 and was designed in the early 60s and that the B2 stealth bomber was designed half a century ago so it’s likely that despite how inefficient and corrupt military-industrial complex is, it could probably have come up with something fancier in the intervening years. Or perhaps it’s aliens. If so then it’s pretty damning: that they flew trillions of miles to get here, watched an episode of Love Island and decided to turn around and go home.

The story of the BBC is in many ways a sad one, an institution that was once on the cutting edge of drama, comedy and even technology now languishing as dated, increasingly irrelevant and profoundly out of touch with modern society. Alongside the likes of YouTube or HBO, the BBC is a bit like seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury hanging out at a West End nightclub. I was a kid when Saturday night BBC was pulling in 10m viewers so maybe a better analogy would be that it’s like going to a school reunion and finding out that the cool kid that once painted a swear-word on the headteacher’s car is now a clerk for the local council and driving a 17yo Daewoo that some damned kid had scrawled a swear-word across. For the record, that’s not me, I drive a Mazda, and the last time I was at a town hall it was to see a tribute act of UB40. They were called WD40, started out rusty but got better as the evening went on. I digress though, I said “millions” of viewers and to give you a scale of how things have changed, the once mocked show Noel’s House Party used to bring in over 15m viewers on a Saturday night. Even Harry & Meghan’s interview couldn’t beat that kind of ratings number, although perhaps they could have invited on Mr Blobby and discussed how a senior royal made disparaging remarks about his garish colour-scheme. Let’s look at Saturday night tv this week, 15m is probably more viewers than all the networks combined will get and if you’re looking at the BBC, more people will probably tune in to watch the Netflix shareholder meeting, let alone the tv programs Netflix are actually producing.

The BBC once produced produced good tv though, everything from I Claudius to Fawlty Towers to Blue Peter and in 1980 when they broadcast live footage of the Iranian Embassy siege, the idea to was to broadcast the breaking news, not to then provide a platform for the Labour party to somehow blame the siege on NHS spending cuts. I always think it’s very telling that the BBC are always trying to cut back on religious programming but they don’t half enjoy commissioning programs that prominently feature the NHS. I can’t believe Casualty is still going although maybe they’re waiting for one of the patients to finally get to the top of the waiting list for a new hip. Public services funded by high taxesx are seemingly the one true religion to many people who work at the BBC, other than praying to pictures of the blessed lady Greta Thunberg. Although admittedly it probably does save a lot of carbon emissions when people see Greta’s face on the news headlines and turn off their tv set, and most of the shows on BBC 4 are recycled, “doing their part” I guess

In the 1990s the BBC comedy zone on Friday Night was a golden age: several hours worth of fantastic writing like the Fast Show, Red Dwarf, Shooting Stars, Bottom, The League of Gentlemen, one after the other, whereas this Friday there is one show on offer, Mrs Brown’s Boys which is not funny but does feature a man wearing a dress so I guess the idea is if not to entertain then to at least inform and educate the public, to reinforce their outlandish belief that a 65yo Irishman dressing up as a lady is a perfectly normal thing. What is not a normal thing of course is a television license that costs 3 times as much as a gun license. What next? Perhaps a “sock license” where you have to pay an extra £100 in order to have colour.

The education - or lets be honest and call it propaganda - thing is really where the crux of it all lies, the idea that the prime objective for the BBC is to fulfil a self-appointed role as a social engineer. To try to fix a society that they see as flawed and racist and obsessed with ridiculous things like earning money or trying to afford a nicer house or a second car. Those things should be restricted to those who’ve earned money the correct way, like by commissioning televisions programs. Perhaps shows like a 21st century version of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol where Ebineezer renounces his old ways and becomes transgender. Or how about a big period drama like Tolstoy except that the actors portraying 19th century Russia are all Afro-Caribbean and in the last episode maybe the Tsar decides to abolish university tuition fees. What about a remake of Only Fools And Horses where Delboy opens the door of a newly arrived shipping container and finds a family of illegal migrants inside and the series reveals itself to be gritty drama about racial politics in Peckham and how Rodney, far from being a loveable plonker is instead portrayed as a brutal imperialist who reads the Daily Mail and doesn’t listed to anyway podcasts and he goes to the sort of pubs where they serve food on a plate rather than on a piece of slate roof. I’ll call that show “Only Fools and Trojan Horses” and sell the rights for £10k if anyone out there is interested.

The current situation was best summed up when the actor Idris Elba was recently criticised for not being black enough in the show Luther. Further questioning revealed that the BBC execs thought that the show was flawed and that he should have mostly ethnic friends and been seen to mostly eat jerk chicken. That in itself is a profoundly racist set of lazy assumptions to make and yet it came from Miranda Wayland - the BBC’s diversity chief. Imagine a world where a conservative cabinet minister had made that sort of societal commentary and you quickly realise that the rules are as far apart as if you compared the Saudi Arabian Sharia rules with the set of drinking rules my old student bar had posted on the wall back in the day. Admittedly, that is not quite as far apart as the two sets of rules that dictate how many genders there are. Either several dozen, or sometimes just two if Radio4 is talking about a gender pay gap or the BBC is promoting women’s football, largely owing to it being a lot more affordable to buy the rights to. I just think if you have more genders than there are types of Kit-Kat then we’re in trouble as a society and what’s that joke, that genders are a bit like twin towers: there used to be two of them but now it’s a touchy subject.

Anyway, I’ve been ranting for long enough so I’ll just close in saying that the archive that is the internet is a wonderful thing these days, and that I no longer watch nor pay for the BBC these days. If you are wanting to see some of your old politically incorrect stars, most are still touring, and after the cruise industry recovers you might even get to see a show for free on your way to Greece. Thinking about it, actually if I was on a ferry or cruise I’d rather go take my chances in the Covid infested bar than risk going to see the likes of Rolf Harris or Dave Lee Travis do a lunchtime matinee. I remember back in the day when the judge remarked “There’s some grey walls and bars on the windows. Can you guess what it is yet Rolf?”

This week: Kate Middleton paid tributes to murdered woman Sarah Everard, palace officials were keen to stress that the event was not a rehearsal. Elsewhere rumours abound that Elton John is working on a new version of candle in the wind

Also, a bizarre series of photos were published of Shamima Begum wearing western style clothes as her supporters again try to make the case for her returning to Britain when in reality she’s about as welcome as Julian Assange with a USB US memory stick

But the main story this week was from Scotland where with 6 weeks to go until crucial elections a parliamentary committee concluded that Nicola Sturgeon has been telling lies as big as the ones when the Royal Bank of Scotland told investors “what could possibly go wrong”. I have a friend who was recently phones by the local school and told that his son had been telling lies and he responded by saying “Tell him, he's pretty good. I don't have any kids” In contrast, in 6th year I was voted Most Likely to Lie About Past Accomplishments. It’s true... or is it…

The result of the enquiry is not really a surprise to anyone, least not Nicola Sturgeon who says that the verdict was decided weeks beforehand. This is in stark contrast to the Alex Salmond case where the result was also decided weeks beforehand except then Alex had at least paid for a good lawyer to make sure he was acquitted. The Alex Salmon case and the waste of public resources was a damning indictment and really shows why it’s important to have a separate and non-politicised judicial system. It’s also one of only a handful of similar examples though. In Westminster the SNPs chief Whip Patrick Grady was forced to resign and it ultimately turned out that accusations had been swept under the carpet for years. Elsewhere there are a number of growing scandals including a contract for new ferries that I'm guessing must be managed by Francis Ford Coppola in so much as it's £97m over budget and 4 years late; also Prestwick Airport’s dubious dealings with the US military. There’s also another financial scandal where the Lochaber aluminium smelter was given government guarantees over energy prices, before the owners decided to backtrack on building a new smelter and instead use the government backed line of cash to renegotiate its borrowing terms and pocket the money. None of this is anywhere as well reported as it should be, and every one of them should be a resignation matter on their own, and yet for someone who claims to dislike Thatcher, Nicola Sturgeon does seem to claim to want to 'go on and on’ though Margaret Thatcher was forced to resign not long after that quote. For now, Nicola continues to blame Westminster and the English Press for his accomplices mismanagement, taking out court injunctions in courts presided over by Sturgeon supporters and SNP apparatchiks which have about as much jurisdiction in England as they do over Narnia. If Nicola ever does get her way and talk of a hard border with England comes up again, her wall will have a lot more in common with the Berlin Wall than Donald Trumps one, albeit Trump will still only have a golf course to the north of it and Berlin will probably pay for it again, much to the annoyance of most people, though to the surprise of no-one.

In the news this week
- Shamima Begum learnt that she’s definitely going to be unable to return to Britain after her court appeal process turned all ironic and blew up in her face
- Captain Tom was finally laid to rest although in bizzarely cruel turn of events, the casket was carried in a German-built Mercedes-Benz followed by a BMW.
- Harry and Meghan did two major TV appearances, being interviewed by Oprah and James Corden, leading many to demand that Harry & Meghan should change their attention-seeking ways and start respecting Harry & Meghan’s demands for privacy.

There was also a fairly big story in Los Angeles where Tiger woods was involved in a car accident. We've all seen him make a 300 yard drive except this was the first time that the drive in question was down the side an embankment. Talk about landing in the rough. It at least answers the question of "Why did Tiger Woods buy a new car?" "To make a hole in one" Supposedly the sheriff who oversaw the accident investigation confirmed he wasn't drunk after making him do a field sobriety test where Tiger was asked to count from 1 to 1000 counting in 50s which was probably pretty easy if he was counting out $50 bills as he was doing it.

But of course the other big story of the week was from Scotland where Alex Salmond was giving evidence at a hearing at Holyrood as to whether Nicola Sturgeon deliberately mislead parliament. I say “hearing” but there's a salmon and a sturgeon so perhaps this one is pronounced “herring”
What are the two competing sides of this story though:

1. Mr Salmond claims that there was an ongoing campaign led by the government to damage his reputation and potentially throw him in jail despite his innocence. He says that the prosecution service threw vast public resources at a fabricated court case when then there was no real evidence against him. The SNP led government supposedly forced it to do so, against legal advice but backed by perjury and lies and an easily coerced civil service allowing it all to happen. There is institutional bias and corruption at the top level and SNP apparently stands for Subterfuge ‘n’ Perjury
2. Nicola Sturgeon on the other hand claims it’s all a bizarre conspiracy theory with no evidence to back any of it up and that after they fell apart Alex decided to drag her reputation into the mud and force her to resign.

The key thing is though that Alex Salmond has no evidence to present because he’s currently under a court order to not share the evidence he has, supposedly damning texts and the very communications proving that Nicola Sturgeon (allegedly) used the law and coerced the prosecution service to throw him under the bus. I say bus but if it’s Edinburgh I should say throw him under the tram. We are currently now living in a world where Alex Salmond of all people claims that the Scottish institutions cannot be trusted to run an independent country, and that’s coming from a man who’s spent his decades long career fighting for that very one thing. It’s akin to if Carolyn Lucas had done a lap around the Top Gear track or if Jamie Oliver was doing an advert for McDonalds, although given what happened to his business empire stranger things have happened after all, the only dough he has these days is that sourdour starter sitting in the cupboard above the spice rack.

With regards to the Salmond case though the one question I’ve not quite gotten to the bottom of is “why?” The SNP were fearful that they were going to lose seats because of the court case and their wrongly placed expectation that he would go to jail. It’s why they sided with allowing Boris Johnson to call that election in 2019, damage limitation at the ballot box. That’s the election that decimated Labour, gave Boris a thumping majority and ultimately led to Brexit being able to happen. If some of what Salmond says is true then Nicola Sturgeon gambled her reputation, allowing Brexit to happen, got her husband to allegedly commit perjury and possibly risked the public turning on the very idea of Scottish Independence itself. All for what? Because her and Alex disagreed about things? There’s clearly something else being hidden from public view here and unfortunately we have no clue what it is, unless there are secret clues as to what it is just south of Edinburgh at Rosslyn Abbey and that Dan Brown therefore writes a story about it. And it gets turned into a film with an action scene where Tom Hanks ends up in a car chase at Donald Trump's golf resort and there's cameo where Tiger Woods looks at the speeding car and then camera and shakes his head in disapproval.

Ok, this week it's a bit of an unfunny subject so let's start with a crime-related joke: A young man robbed a bank wearing a suit made of many mirrors. But he turned himself in after taking some time to reflect. Luckily the judge was lenient as he saw a lot of himself in the young man.

But back to the topic at hand, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested this week in America after an international hunt ended with the FBI showing up a a mansion in New Hampshire. She didn't own a Ford Bronco so they quickly took her to jail where she'll probably have lots to talk about with a lawyer. Ghislaine is supposedly an eye-witness to lots of crimes involving formally alive and mysteriously now dead Jeffrey Epstein and a lot of his former associates from the Clintons to Prince Andrew to Elon Musk are probably sweating now. Apart of course from Prince Andrew who is famously unable to sweat. Except of course when he's being photographed doing so.

Ghislaine has been described in the news as Epsteins former girlfriend but unlike many of his girlfriends, she's an adult and be facing some serious criminal charges relating to human trafficking and so many are suggesting that she'll cut a deal and offer up information on everything that went on. I once heard someone say that they didn't trust stairs because they were always up to something, but in this case there's an cadre of rich and powerful people likely up to something, ready to prevent any stories being revealed and that of course is why everyone is wondering how long it will be until a tragic accident occurs. Possibly in the same prison as her friend Jeffrey was staying. my betting is that the Coronavirus will be responsible this time and that a high profile court case will be yet another big event missing from our tv screens this year. Certainly the prospect of Prince Andrew being called to give evidence at a trial must make him rather glad that she wasn't arrested when she was at her other house in France, because the British Royals seem to have bad luck when they visit that country, and having watched that interview, Prince Andrew is certainly no stranger to car crashes.

But of course this is all speculation & rumour for now. Without answers or evidence it's as much use as asking what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag. Personally I'm happy to wait until the judge or the coroner make their mind up and come back with something conclusive and in the meantime if you're that interested in gossip, go online and look up the lives of Robert Maxwell's other children because they give soap operas a run for their money. I guess that Ghislane therefore had more in common with Prince Andrew and his family than you'd think.

Two major news stories to come out of America this week leaving president Trump happier than that time that he found a loophole saying he didn't have to hire any of the idiots on that tv show of his.

The first main story was the acquittal in the senate impeachment trial, much as that result was never in any doubt, I've seen romantic comedies with more twists and suspense, joking of course because I don't want those sorts of films. At no point did anyone expect Adam Schiff to turn around like Columbo, say "one more thing" and pull out a surprise cassette recording. There was no sign of Perry Mason with a partly crumpled photograph and Angela Lansbury from Murder She Wrote lives in Maine, not DC. To this day there has been no evidence provided to substantiate any of the claims made by the house democrats. Whilst it is true that no witnesses were called, that is equally in part due to the Democrats not being willing to cut a deal that would also have seen their people called to the stand, not least Jo Biden who went on camera a few years ago to boast about cutting aid to Ukraine in order to get a prosecutor fired, the same thing that President Trump was alleged to have done. The whole thing became politicised when the house insisted on closed door hearings with no public reporting so with partisan lines drawn down the middle any attempt to impeach the president was bound to fall apart faster than one of Prince Andrew's many elaborate excuses.

The second bit story this week was the Iowa Caucus, an event where the crowd of people wanting to run against the president hold a popularity content in Iowa. It's already contentious given that it's not very representative of the US demographics, it's a small rural state and it's lucky that the number of registered voters finally now outnumbers the number of candidates, given that the scores of potential contenders has finally narrowed down to half a dozen. Nonetheless, this year was an unmitigated disaster of epic and hilarious proportions as the smartphone app designed to count votes broke and still nobody knows what the result actually was. All of course claimed a victory and if the Democrats were trying to avoid accusations of political correctness gone mad, the vote resembled one of those primary school nonsense sports events where "everyone" is declared the winner. The person who came out of it best was probably Michael Bloomberg who chose to stay away and focus on the other upcoming poll in South Carolina. Nonetheless it made the party look about as professional and organised as one of those internet videos where people hold a fist-fight to see which of them will be the first to get inside the Wallmart. All part of the comedy of errors I suppose, after all they only have a few months to decide which of them will embarrassingly lose to the President in November

Celebrity gossip news this week as Jeff Bezos accused the publishers of National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him, in a salacious story that really brought home the difference between real world billionaires and those we grew up with such as Bruce Wayne or Scrooge McDuck who to my knowledge was never involved in a extramarital affair although he has been known to express a worrying predilection for gold coins which in the US feature a picture of Native American lady Sacagawea.

Anyway Shortly after Jezz Bezos' divorce was announced last month, the National Enquirer was suspiciously quick to publish intimate details and threatened to publish photographs if Mr Bezoz didn't stop investigating who their source was. Just like a good magician, a newspaper never reveals its secrets, unless of course they're commanded to by a court like that time Piers Morgan discovered he could invent stories in Adobe Photoshop.

With the Bezos story however, there's an undercurrent that beyond the gossip there is a political game being played here. The publishers AMI had demanded that the Amazon owner make a "false public statement" denying any political motivation for the National Enquirer's coverage of him and his mistress. There's the angle that Mr Bezos owns the Washington Post which had published the story about Jamal Khashoggi's murder by the Saudi government and it was around the time that publisher AMI had been linked to Saudi investment. Thinking back to Scrooge McDuck at least when he went to the middle east to make a killing it was by means of a treasure map.

At this point the story is either yesterday's news soon to be forgotten in favour of something about Jennifer Anniston, or it is but the start of a 2 hour long voyage through the YouTube conspiracy theory videos that ultimately leave you scratching your head about 9/11, the origins of ISIS, whether the earth is hollow like the promises made in a manifesto, and whether we can perhaps get back to boring news next week, like Brexit or the upcoming recommencement of the US Government Shutdown.

Ok, Frank Field and possibly others are finally quitting the Labour Party so it's time to get round to talking about anti-semitism and Jeremy Corbyn's purposeful woeful attempt to eradicate it. Until a couple of years ago the Labour Party was run by Ed Miliband, someone who claimed to be not just jewish but a modern sort of jewish where you get to eat bacon sandwiches and have your own set of ten commandments carved up except instead of Judaeo-Christian laws they're actually vague promises about the NHS and Len McClusky's paying for it.

Anyway, that was a long time ago now and we now live in an age where Jeremy Corbyn is in charge of the party. This is also an age where Twitter and Facebook have to be taken sort of seriously because they influence everything from policy to which tv newsreader to harass online with anonymous threats riddled with spelling mistakes. Social media is there so that President Trump can tell us what's on his mind just as much as it's there so that John McDonnell's friends can discuss tax ideas in the comments section under a youtube video about how Israel were responsible for everything from rise of ISIS to the rise in the cost of a pint of milk.

It also leads to a class of negligent, purposely ignorant people who have their opinions and education shaped and fed to them entirely by a self-feeding algorithm, they don't read books, know next to nothing about 20th century history and likely didn't live through that era when it was just as ok for the government to own a car company as it was for it to give Jimmy Savile a show on children's television.

There are a lot of people who believe that a complex situation like the middle east is actually a pretty simple and black and white issue, if only the folks in charge would listen to what they have to say on the matter. These are also the sort of people who believe you can fix everything with asset seizure, capital controls and massive consequence-free tax rises. Most importantly, these are also the sort of people who elect Jeremy Corbyn and to give the man some credit, at least he's aware of that one fact. If you expel the people who'll believe any video as long as it's under 10 minutes and accompanied by an ominous soundtrack, you lose your base.

On the other hand, perhaps Jeremy Corbyn's a conspiracy theory beyond all of us and genuinely believes it's all fiction, a plot devised up by Nathaniel Rothschild and George Osbourne sitting with a laptop around a pentagram in a cave.

For a while the party has been keen to ignore the problem, treating it somewhat like a credit card debt that nobody knows about, it will probably certainly likely maybe take care of itself. No, this is now more like a debt with a local gangster, you really should get it paid off sharpish, and you probably shouldn't pass the time sharing racist cartoons on twitter about jewish money lenders and how Garry the Loanshark is working for Mossad.

This week Washington DC was looking forward to the release of an FBI memo with the sort of anticipation you'd more readily associate with an launch of a new iPhone or a perhaps the release of a video in which Piers Morgan conveys empathy or genuine selflessness.

In the end, there was a story and it is a scandal but in the past few weeks we'd all been promised something so shocking that the public would see the 'deep state' for what it is and demand that the FBI be disbanded. But so far really the only people calling for the dismantling of the FBI are the Zodiac Killer, DB Cooper and a collection of suspicious Italian sounding men from New Jersey who all claim that their inordinate wealth stems from an olive oil importing business.

Back to the memo. The shocking memo itself focussed on the dubiously court-approved wiretapping of Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump election campaign. This was all based on evidence which was knowingly suspect and, in spite of this, the pro-Hilary anti-Trump bias was knowingly allowed and encouraged. But this is more sloppy gamesmanship than a coup d'etat, the powers that be thought they could get away with it because they thought that Hilary Clinton would win anyway and then she'd bestow them with rewards for their loyalty, like more money or more Areas in which to do those alien autopsies. This was political theatre: it wasn't Dallas in Dealey plaza so much as it was Dallas on Saturday evening television.

Of course, I'm saying this with less than 24 hours on the clock; there might be more to come out of this. Or perhaps anything else has already been destroyed many weeks ago, along with the Hilary's email server and the chances of Chelsea Clinton running for president in 2 and a bit years time. Well, one good thing out of three ain't bad I suppose.

Really though whatever the FBI was actually up to was never really the point. The whole purpose of exposing this 'vignette of DC careersmanship at its worst' was to discredit what remains of trust in the institutions. Next week I suppose they're going to leak a memo explaining what the overseas aid gets spent on or what the sausages are made from.

It's the end of December and the end of 2017 and it's possibly the end of the line if you're the sort of person who originally became a politician or a tv celebrity to get close to the young female interns. Of course I'm joking, Kevin Spacey got into show business for the young male interns, he's probably looking forward to 2018 because he thinks there's 2000 of them.

Talking about "end of the line" though, one of the stories I'm sure we'll see a lot more about in the future was this week's announcement that Israel is going to name a new subway station after president Trump. Perhaps the president thought that he'd improve his poll ratings amongst minorities by associating himself with an "Underground Railroad". Either way, at least the new station will give the Israelis somewhere to hide when the bombs start dropping. The bombs of course being those ones that everyone from Dwight Eisenhower to Obama and everyone inbetween has been selling to the region. Asking the US to mediate that peace process is like asking a mousetrap producer to intervene in the battle between Tom and Jerry

But for now, finish off that Christmas port and start planning for 2018. We'll have fresh Brexit news all year as well as the same old stale Brexit news, plus loads more Trump news now that Twitter have interceded and increased the character limit on his tweets. Plus the Russia stuff is going to keep on coming with the regularity of dysentery on a cheap cruise ship. The Fifa World Cup is being hosted by Russia this upcoming summer. I suppose most people wouldn't mind Russia rigging elections if they gave all the voters a Rolex watch and a briefcase full of money like they did with that election to decide which country would host the football tournament. As I'm sure Vladimir Putin has no doubt said many times before though, they've got the world by the balls.

Big political moves in Westminster and Alabama this week; two places that don’t often have much in common although if you’re a politician from the West Midlands and fancy a holiday to America, why not spend a week at the Hilton in Birmingham - Birmingham Alabama that is - and try submitting the 1st class airline ticket as an “honest mistake” ?

But first let’s discuss the Brexit vote in Westminster. Essentially the parliament will now get to vote on whether they like Theresa May’s deal or not. It’s like the end of a dinner party when the host asks the guests what they thought of it but still refuses to disclose what type of meat was in that stew. But the powers in Brussels are certainly happy enough to move onto the next stage of the talks. They eat frogs legs and raw chicken though so who knows how the second stage will go.

That vote though, according to the press it was the result of a betrayal by capricious tory rebels akin to something out of a John le Carré novel, and now the Labour Party will get the chance to race in on horseback as saviours at the end of the process to vote down the deal and prevent Brexit. Or at least they would be, had the date not already been placed in law and were the EU not already moved onto planning a more federal post-UK Europe. It’s a fact that in around 18 months the UK will now either drop out with Theresa May’s deal, or the likes of the LibDems and the more metropolitan wing of the Labour Party will win their vote and thus deliver a WTO rules Hard Brexit. And a few days later, event at that stage, the Labour Party will no doubt put out a serious of contradictory statements about the future of the customs union with about as much coherence as a Diane Abbott attempting to read the football scores.

So now to the US. This week saw Roy Moore loose his run for the US senate seat in Alabama and the deeply conservative stage chose their choice of spokesperson from the same party as Hilary and Nancy Pelosi. That’s the kind of End-Of-Days black swan event you might imagine featuring in a montage in a disaster movie. But we live in odd times, Scotland has several Conservative MPs after all. But this was more a condemnation of the system. Moore shouldn’t have been the candidate in the first place but not enough people cared during the primaries to kick him off the ballot and once his name was there, they were stuck with it, like a badly installed bathroom. In all honesty I think in the longer term it was probably a good result for the Republican party. If he’d won, the Democrats would have used him as the mascot for their campaigning next year to destroy what was left of Trump’s powerbase. It’s a bit like how in 1992 the Conservatives won a narrow victory but the resulting 5 years destroyed what was left of the Party’s soul and public credibility. They ultimately paid the price for that win. Perhaps if the likes of Jonathan Aitken had lost their seat in ’92 then things would have been very different in ’97.

There’s that old saying in show business: never work with children or animals, especially if it’s pornography. Kevin Spacey though - he’s one of those “do as I say, not as I do” kind of celebrities though. In the 1995 film The Usual Suspects, he played a ruthless criminal who brutally murdered people and did a lot of bad stuff but even Keyser Soze had lines he didn’t think appropriate to cross. Now the latest series of House Of Cards is on hiatus because HBO would rather keep the show about “locker-room banter” and corruption - like in the real Washington DC.

At Westminster though, it’s been an accusationary free-for-all. Kelvin Hopkins has been suspended, Charlie Elphicke has been suspended, there are calls for Stephen Crabb to be suspended, Clive Lewis has been accused of groping and there’s even a Labour Party proposal to forbid their MPs from using the Sports & Social bar because that’s generally where young and irresistibly attractive members of staff hang out. What next? A banning people aged 19 to 22 from going near the 1922 committee? Things got real for the Conservative party when Sir Michael Fallon resigned. Allegedly a few years ago Andrea Leadsom said that she had cold hands and he said “I know where you can put them to warm them up!” I wonder if Michael Gove or someone else in the cabinet had a Swanee Whistle on hand to add a sound effect to that gag. If I saw it told on TV I’d expect Benny Hill to be delivering it, before of course quickly slapping someone bald, presumably Iain Duncan Smith, on the head and running into the chamber followed by a half dozen scantily clad nurses as the credits rolled to Yakety Sax.

Alas, it’s not television, although events did take a surreal turn when Harriet Harman of all people decided to go on tv and tell a racist joke to Andrew Neil, as you do. See you next week when frankly anything could have happened and be sure of course to look out for the newspapers this Sunday, followed presumably by Resignations on Monday.

A lot of page filler about Brexit in the papers this week. Essentially nothing of substance has happened for a few days and there’s no proper developments as such. Yet at the same time, there’s no debacles from the White House this week and from a legal perspective, the newspaper lawyers would certainly prefer that their columnists discuss rumours about Phillip Hammond than those surrounding Harvey Weinstein’s ongoing ‘legal difficulties’

The supposed ‘Brexit Battle’ is that Phillip Hammond has refused to set aside money in case there’s no deal whereas other ministers say that we need to at least acknowledge that there’s a possibility of it happening, otherwise we don’t have a proper negotiating position. At the same time though, the EU has said the talks aren’t going anywhere anyway unless the UK writes writes out a cheque, a huge cheque too, like the sort that Nigel Farage might sign after a big Friday lunch at Simpsons, or that a locksmith might make you write out if you were unlucky enough to need their services on a bank holiday.

There are of course some legitimate reasons for some kind of settlement, like paying for the pensions of the EU civil servants that the UK has, after all, employed for the past few decades, and there’s our commitment to some scientific projects that will continue for years to come. But the EU’s costs aren’t itemised in any way and there’s zero explanation of where they got their suspiciously ballpark €100bn figure from other than perhaps reading a beginners book on negotiating and guessing that if they go in silly high like that then the UK will somehow be obliged to meet them halfway in the middle because that’s how they think business works when the option of bribery’s off the table. Perhaps we should just copy their approach, play silly buggers and claim that Brussels actually owes the UK money, then meet them half way at zero.