Julian Assange, Newscorp and Standard & Chartered were all dismissed too quickly by the Government. It shows no signs of learning from such mistake.
People have often asked me in the past why the ‘powers that be’ are so keen to stitch up Julian Assange. And stitch him up they have – be in no doubt about that. I have posted many times before about my sincere belief that Assange is a disturbed and controlling megalomaniac, but there can be no doubt that his invention of Wikileaks was an act of genius that has evoked a massive Establishment backlash.
However, we must be very clear about the specific Establishment involved here.
Whether those of Right or Left like it or not, it was the financial nature of actual and promised leaks from Assange’s site that first fired up the Powers of Darkness. And Hague – who turned left to America rather than right to the EU on the day he took office – is taking his orders from Washington and Wall Street, not Brussels…the last of that trio being a City he rarely visits. (In policy terms since 2010, let’s face it – it shows).
Hague would’ve made a first class Chancellor, but the job was of course given on the basis of the Bullingdon Leg-Up into Camerlot. Sadly, the Mekon is a washout as Foreign Secretary. Having done the business up every American backside, he now compounds the crime by knee-jerking to classic US ‘let’s storm the place’ by issuing a truly childish ultimatum to Ecuador. He has now, as the legal advice has finally been heard, been forced to back-pedal into ‘wanting talks’ about it.
Last week, first Boris Gobson and then Gobeon Osborne had a crack at New York regulator Ben Lawsky…only to watch 36 hours later as the ‘entirely innocent’ Peter Sands fessed up to 250 BILLION bucks of wrongdoing…as opposed to 14 MILLION. I take the point of critics that SCB is stupid rather than malignant: but if that be entirely true, why feel the need to lie at all?
Now a genuinely tragic dimension has entered the not entirely Standard behaviour of SCB and its advisors Deloittes, as news breaks that the family of a senior Deloitte partner has called for answers after he apparently committed suicide days after the auditing firm was linked to the Standard Chartered Iran dollar trades scandal.
There is a great deal more to come out about this yet. But aproaching tricky issues with an Open Mouth has become a near-generic feature of the Coalition in general and the Conservative Party in particular. David Cameron himself led the way with his dismissive drivel about first Andy Coulson and then Rebekah Brookes, while his arch-enemy Boris dsimissed the entire Newscorp scandal two years ago as “Left-wing poppycock”.
Surely we deserve better people in charge of the Nation’s affairs? People like…and….um, also….and then there’s, er, …..
The Slog 