Rules only apply to little people - part 43

News that former French President Sarkozy is being indicted on criminal charges brought few comments and little reaction either in the UK or in France. No one actually expects him to serve jail time, no matter how large the fraud or serious the criminality. Short of murder, and perhaps not even then, Europe's elite never, ever go to jail. Christine Lagarde was found guilty of a criminally fraudulent payments of £355 million - but not enough for jail time. Juncker has been criminally convicted of fraud in Luxembourg, when a bent politician there, and of course Berlusconi has spent his political career being convicted of the most serious offences and yet avoiding jail. 

A few days ago I emailed the EU's HR department, EPSO;

Hi - I'm a highly qualified individual now living in Austria and available for consultant and ad-hoc placement. I have over 30 years experience at senior level. I am seeking a highly paid position for a term of about 5 years - with expenses, grade A2 car, personal staff. Colleagues have advised me I need to use the 'Selmayr Process' for appointment but I cannot find it on your website. I'm afraid I've been working in England for many years where corruption is almost non-existent, so I have no idea if I should bribe an official or officials or even how to do so, but I presume (from what I have been told) that some sort of arrangement would be required for a fast-track 'Selmayr Process' appointment. I have always thought such things both illegal and immoral, but perhaps the rules do not apply to the EU? Perhaps you would be good enough to let me know exactly how to find my way around this fast track process. Mit freundlichen Grüße

They responded

The European Personnel Selection Office is not in charge of the selection of high level management officials at the European Commission.

For further information we suggest that you contact the relevant services via the Europe Direct Contact Centre: https://europa.eu/european-union/contact_en 
Best regards

OK, I was just having a dig - but it raises an important point that applies just as much to the public sector in the UK as to the deeply corrupt EU; the rules only apply to little people. All that stuff about equal opportunities, a fair go, openness, transparency and probity is just so much noise once you reach senior appointments. A job costing the taxpayer £250k a year is £1.25m over five years - where else could you spend this much public money with no competition, based on taste rather than merit, with the route closed to many best qualified? 

Perhaps we should expect no better of our cousins in Europe, where standards are low and levels of judicial and public corruption high, but surely we should aim to tackle these abuses head-on in a newly independent Britain?

God, I love the British people!

First, I implore you to listen to a few minutes of R4's 'Today' from this morning, talking to a group of leavers and remainers from the factory floor of a car components plant - Podcast, starts at 1:20 in to 1:26. God bless you, Sonia, Malcolm, Frankie, Peter and Tina - I'm so damn proud of you! 

This is the voice of Britain. 

To hear the whiny, sneering, elitist metropolitan continuity-remoaners who loathe both their nation and their fellow citizens, read the Twitter feed #r4today from 7.20 onwards; a litany of vile, pompous, superior and spiteful personal abuse which I hope those who gave us such a fantastic Vox Pop never read. "You daft arses!" I shouted at the screen "You're exactly the reason why 17.4m people voted as they did!".   

That's not the only reason I love the British people this morning. The day before yesterday, to counter the CA cheating allegations, I posted a quick Twitter meme - five minutes on photoshop using a partisan-selection from Wikipedia's pages. The figures at the top are accurate and from the Electoral Commission site. I do it once or twice a day. But this one grabbed attention and so far has had nearly 60,000 views - and some inspiring comments;

"Little old Brexit so proud we won against all that!"
"It's a tribute to the innate intelligence of the... brilliant British people that Vote Leave won"
"Makes you proud to be British don't it?"
"No wonder the press and academia hate the working mans voice they use our taxes against us."

And so on.

And ample evidence that the elitists, the metropolitan socialists, the Guardian-fodder both hate and fear the working class and ordinary Brits who have proved themselves so, so much more intelligent, more resilient, and more ready to make sacrifices for their children's good that the elitist sneerers would ever credit. 

Thank you readers - leavers and remainer both. Thank you British people. I go into Easter now inspired and filled with hope. 

Yes, it's biased and selective - it's a piece of counter-propaganda.

The monstering of Corbyn

If it had been choreographed it could not have played better - the sequenced monstering of Corbyn over the past week or so has proven a delight, the gift that just kept giving. Firstly we had the 'Agent COB' revelations from Czech intelligence - a log showing a handful of meetings with the jejune beardy, before Soviet agents dismissed him as an espionage prospect as being too stupid. Then, almost as if Mr Putin (or unknown perp ...) was taking cues from CCHQ, came the Salisbury poisoning and Corbyn's predictable equivocal response; Newsnight was accused of photoshopping his hat to make him look more Soviet. Show Jeremy an enemy of Britain, and Agent COB will give them the benefit of the doubt and invite them for tea on the Commons terrace. Finally, Corbyn's support of a rancid anti-semitic piece of street art set off a monstering that provoked a mass Jewish protest outside Parliament yesterday, faced by a Momentum counter-demonstration presumably in favour of anti-semitism. 

However, we must all now take breath. The aim is not to nudge Corbyn from office, merely to knock his poll ratings down. We need to keep him as Labour leader, but weakened and emasculated, a figure of general ridicule leading the Parliamentary party in support of Brexit but not popular enough to win an election and unseat Mrs May. We must also keep Mrs May in office until it's too late to undo Brexit; as I've written before, getting out is the main thing. 

So as his poor sulky little narcissistic face decorates the front pages and perhaps the fact that his brand of puerile and naive student politics is dross actually sinks in, we can go into Easter not out of the mire but perhaps breathing just a little more easily.