HSBC Tax Dodgers

Cameron could have a future writing satire.He doesn't have one as a politician!

Sometimes you wonder what satirists do for a living in these days of politicians, and the rest of the Establishment, satirising themselves.

I mean in the past you'd have expected a George Parr interview on the Rory Bremner Show, or some smart comment from a panellist on 'Have I Got News for You?', or 'The News Quiz'.

But how can you improve on the jokes these people make of themselves?

Labour's loan

Of course just as the Labour Party were chortling at the unfortunate revelation that the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC had been helping its customers to fiddle, and that the man who had been in charge of all this fiddling had been ennobled by Cameron and made a government minister... (you couldn't make this up), news broke suggesting that the Labour Party took out a loan of £2 million with a certain billionaire (we shall call him Richard Caring because that's his name), who banked with the company. (He was known to have withdrawn just over that sum in cash from the Geneva branch of HSBC only a matter of months before in 2006.) 

The Scottish Office leader and some random ned.

Incidentally the loan was to be free of interest until July 2010, after which it would accrue interest at a rate of 6.5%. So, as it apparently is not yet paid back, it looks like Labour may have a large interest bill to settle by September of this year when the whole sum is to be be returned. And I expect he'll want him money because Mr Caring has somewhat disingenuously transferred his affections to the Tory Party. I wonder where that will leave Blair who has been travelling the world, making millions, thanks to Mr Caring generosity, in his private plane.

You can add to that the titbit that a FoI request submitted by Alasdair Allan* has revealed that Jim Murphy claimed for 2 tins of Irn Bru on his parliamentary expenses. Clearly he could not be expected to be able to do his parliamentary duties without a quick gurgle of the drink that's made from Girders (or Gorders as I originally typed... Freudian error?).

And finally... for a belly aching laugh, the above mentioned Gadfly, Blair, has said that he will do whatever it takes to help Ed Miliband into 10 Downing Street. No really, he has.

Good place for  warmongering
 ex prime ministers who need to lie low.

Seriously Tony, if you want to help Ed, I'd suggest a few months' holiday in Antarctica...or maybe you could ask Richard Branson if he has any flights to the moon going any time soon...

* Thanks to Anon, below, for correcting my error that it was Guido that initiated the FoI request.

SCOTLAND'S OTHER NATIONAL DRINK...MADE FROM GIRDERS

It was either these Irn Bru ads, or Kim Jong Il's funeral. On balance I thought that these were moderately more entertaining.