The UK Establishment - It's Blackmail-tastic!

And to prove I’m not just a cynical bastard who never sees the good in anything...

Congratulations to this year’s BBC Children in Need Appeal

I’ve just visited the official site and so far it has raised a heart-warming

£18,300,392!!!

towards helping needy children in the UK

Feel the Love...

Which works out at roughly the equivalent of five hour's worth of UK 'defence' spending or just a little bit more than the £18,000,000 the Beeb is paying Jonathan Ross over the next three years - which averages out at something like £2.37 for every on air reference he makes to tossing himself off. How he kept a straight face whilst appearing on the telethon I’ll never know

Actually, he didn’t

Stef's Jonathan Ross Impression:

Hey everybody, I had a wank last night!

That'll be £2.37 please

No matter, there’s plenty more lovely loot where that came from. The BBC is putting in for yet another licence fee increase next month - with an aim to securing a steady supply of Important Information from former MI6 double agents and Knob Gags for future generations.

Coincidentally, the Beeb are currently putting together a documentary about the death of Doctor David Kelly. The producers are being coy about whether they will pay any credence to conspiracy theories about Government complicity in Dr Kelly’s death but they have promised that they will get round to deciding what they will say before the documentary is broadcast – about a month after the licence fee decision is announced.

None of which is in any way reminiscent of the police kidnapping Tony Blair’s special friend and chief fundraiser Lord 'Ooops my office just caught fire' Levy and holding him in custody immediately before the recommendations of the Fully Independent Stockwell Shooting Inquiry were announced.

I also recall some mutterings that the policeman heading up the Levy investigation, John Yates, has to be kept on bit of a tight leash (Down Mongo! Down!) as he was the sap who led the investigation into Paul Burrell that all went a bit pear shaped, leaving him looking like a bit of a tit.

That would be the investigation that led to the trial that was stopped part way through by a phone call to the judge by Prince Charles. A call made the day before Burrell was due to take the stand and spout some nonsense about what certain Princes enjoy doing on a Saturday night, embittered ex wives compiling dossiers, custody battles, car crashes in Paris, guff like that.

Anyway, it all turned out OK. Lord Levy was released and the Stockwell Inquiry established that absolutely no-one, especially not any policemen, was responsible for shooting an innocent man in the face nine times. And the solution to the Lord Levy issue is for political parties to receive state funding - at a level and terms set by the political parties. And I’m sure that if there was anything untoward with the Stockwell, Kelly, Levy, Burrell or Diana stories the BBC would have been all over them like a rash.

I do like happy endings. Well, some people are happy.