Chickens coming home to roost

The eloping of Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor was once billed "the worst-kept secret in history." But something pretty close to that has come to light - that the government was lying through its teeth in its reasons for going to war in Iraq. Carne Ross, the UK's key negotiator at the UN, has given to the foreign affairs select committee, under "committee priviledge" (maybe they heard of my words), a statement that British ministers knew Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq did not pose a threat to the UK, the justification given to parliament for going to war. Now, there is no more serious breach of political protocol than lying to parliament, but this government has often flouted its contempt for convention and brought the need for a fully-written constitution ever closer. Furthermore, Ross reveals, British ministers were aware that invasion of Iraq would probably cause chaos, subsequently borne out, and that tackling Iraq's sanction-busting was never examined as an alternative because of the wayward attentions of civil servants and key ministers. This being the case, this is the most negligent treatment of foreign affairs by any government since the Suez crisis and maybe beyond.
Also, yesterday the government forced the dropping of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into illegal bribery in arms deals between BAe and Saudi Arabia. Now it my well be, that standard business practice in the Arab kingdom is bribery ('greasing the wheels') and that if you don't, they regard it as an insult. But for the executive to intervene in suspending the rule of law in, arguably, peacetime is dangerous, especially as the government enshrined the rule of law as inviolate only last year!
But the mind of Tony Blair shifts like the sands of the desert. He can't be expected to keep track of all the laws his government has introduced, even if they are inclined to the dictum of control-freak regimes 'I legislate therefore I am'. This is why his hands were over the action of putting the roadblock in front of the SFO investigation. And also why he forgot that purloining loans for his party was in breach of election law. Questioned by police as a witness, he may yet see out his term as PM before the hard stuff comes along. Sleaze runs not just through this government but also the Labour Party. Under the previous Tory administration it was the avaricious and scandalous behaviour of individual politicians that tainted the Conservative Party, but under Labour, sleaze seems to have been institutionalised. No longer 'whiter than white', Blair swifty ditched the Daz and revels in muck-rolling. In such jolly japes that were mandatory for errant children in stories of a hundred years, they were liable to a thrashing afterwards from their parents. Let us hope that ministers do not escape the adminstering of punishment as proper reward for their actions.