democracy

you have to admire our members of parliament. they have realised that the extradition treaty between the auk and the use is a little bit lopsided, and strangely favours the use more than it does the auk. well who would have thought that such a thing could have happened?
additionally a treaty that was supposed to be aimed full square at the terrorists in our midst has now been used to extradite three bankers who may have been involved in the enron scandal.

now i hold my hands up here and have to say: “do i care?” in case you don’t know the answer it is no i don’t. i don’t care because the chaps involved are alleged to have made £1.5 million each from their shady dealings, in which they conspired with an enron employee in an act of fraud.
from what i can make out the house of lords and the european court of human rights have both upheld the decision for them to face a trial in texas. the alleged enron three (which we apparently shouldn’t call them as it prejudices their case) say that it is unfair to prosecute them in the states as all the things they need to defend themselves are in the auk, which of course means that all that is needed to convict them is probably in the use….
it is more than likely that they will be given bail.

now one of the criticisms of this extradition treaty is that it was only supposed to be targeting terrorists. the government says that this is not true and was also aimed at drug runners, child pornographers, and human traffickers and hey ho why not use it against those people who perpetrated one of the greatest frauds in business history.
people who have probably caused more misery in the use than the 9/11 attack did.

frankly it is time that white collar crime (and especially a crime this large) was prosecuted as vigorously as other crimes that can destroy lives.
oddly on the radio a number of people pointed out that if the 3 had been muslim terrorists, or kiddie fiddlers, drug dealers there would be no debate. but because they are white and part of the business class there is a huge outcry.

of course the tory party and the liberal democrats are painting this as being yet more infringements of our civil liberties, how it is another example of blair being america’s poodle. me i see it as a few very greedy people getting their comeuppance (if they are guilty), and i am not sure there is anything wrong with that. my only wish was that digby jones was somehow implicated, but you can’t have everything.

more importantly what are the members of our fine parliament to do? how can they sway the government and show them the error of their ways? well i will tell you. after a three hour debate the members of parliament for this fair and wondourous isle decided that they would quit work early. this was a symbolic gesture of support. as my dear departed father would have said it was a bollock gesture.
it is a gesture that must have stuck fear into the hearts of blair and bush (and no doubt bush being forewarned of this decided he had better get the geneva convention on board for the various detainees he had kicking around the place in case our mps took a symbolic gesture full day off…..

so i ask you all to doff your caps and raise your glasses high to salute the bravery of the members of parliament and their symbolic gesture of support. you have made me feel proud to be english.