Inside the system
‘League of shame’ firms honoured
THE QUEEN’S birthday honours list which was announced recently shows the businessmen New Labour loves.
Those “honoured” include:
COLIN Byrne ran the “business relations unit” at Labour’s Millbank headquarters during the general election. He has now returned to his usual job as chief executive at the lobbying firm Shandwick.
Shandwick has just won a 100,000 account from burger giant McDonald’s for Colin Byrne to work on McDonald’s relations with government.
Out of her tree
DENISE RICH is the ex-wife of billionaire tax fugitive Marc Rich. He was given a presidential pardon by Bill Clinton before he left office. Mrs Rich lives up to her name. She paid over 3 million for a mansion outside New York and 2 million to decorate it.
She then spent tens of thousands of pounds having a 100 square foot replica of the mansion built as a treehouse. Rich then realised there was no tree big enough to take the tree house. So she spent 150,000 importing a 150 year old specimen to spruce up the garden.
Drinks test
EXAM STRESS can drive you to drink. But you don’t expect to be able to have one during the test itself. That was the situation students at New College in Nottingham found themselves facing.
Managers botched up plans for the exams so badly they had to hastily book emergency venues. Students had to sit papers in the Nottingham Polish Community Centre bar. Incredibly, nobody closed the bar. Students found strangers walking past their desks to order drinks.
No adverts ban on fag firms
NEW LABOUR did not put a tobacco advertising ban in the Queen’s Speech. Perhaps ministers should read the speech by Sir Richard Peto to the Third Global Conference for Cancer Organisations. Peto said, “There will be 150 million tobacco deaths in the first 25 years of this century and 300 million in the second quarter.”
In all, he said, one billion people will die because of tobacco this century. Most of them will be in developing countries, specially targeted by fag firms like British American Tobacco and its spokesperson, Tory Kenneth Clark. All the evidence shows that nobody will die from cannabis.
Billion dollar men
BRITAIN HAS 13 men worth a billion dollars or more, according to Forbes Global magazine. They are:
The world’s richest man is Bill Gates of Microsoft. He has assets worth $58.7 billion.
Lethal plastic
POLICE IN Greater Manchester want to use the new style plastic bullets the Ministry of Defence admits can cause severe injuries. Oldham in Greater Manchester has seen protests by Asians fighting back against racists targeting their communities and the police indifference to these attacks.
Now police officers want to increase the tension by being allowed to fire “potentially lethal weapons”, as described by the chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation. In Northern Ireland plastic bullets have led to at least 17 deaths.
GERALD Corbett, Railtrack’s former chief executive, is not content with his 1.4 million payoff, revealed last week. He will also get a second top-up pension of 55,000 when he retires in the future.
Corbett is now a senior executive at Woolworths, where he has just signed another contract. His last contract paid 200,000 for six months “work”. His new boardroom colleagues defended these handouts on the grounds that it was “normal”.
Pissing prince
THE HUSBAND of Princess Caroline of Monaco has been ordered to pay 315,000 for yelling at a newspaper editor. The paper accused Prince Ernst August of Hanover of urinating in public. Prince Ernst has appealed against the fine-one of three for rowdy behaviour pending against him.
The prince has already paid out 370,000 in connection with the beating of a disco owner and 250,000 for injuring a photographer.
Things they say
“SEASONAL soup 4, grilled chicken breast with bacon 6.95, grilled lamb steak with mash 6.95.”
“GENERAL inequality has been becoming more grievous with every year that passes, and without a bleat from the leaders of the party who once spoke up so trenchantly and characteristically for greater equality.”
“LABOUR failed to notice that, if anything, public opinion moved to the left during the Thatcher era. With its obsession with privatisation and failure to improve public services New Labour was old Thatcherism writ large.”
“I WOULD like to wish her well in whatever guise she next appears.”
“I DO not think I could look my community in the face if I allowed the police to use my poem. I love ‘The London Breed’. It is a real celebration of multicultural Britain, but the police do not reflect that.”
“I JUST can’t believe that after all I’ve been through with the police personally, they are now looking to me to help them with their recruitment problems. I have been a victim of them on too many a night driving home.”
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