Mikileaks UK

The Fable of the Fox and the Hounds

2011-10-17T19:00:00.001+01:00

Photo by Steve Bell

*please see Editor's note at end

Once upon a time there was a Very Clever Fox. Foxy was so clever he became Shadow Health Secretary, and was so busy in his lovely new job he got his little friend Verity to help him. Verity and his friend Bertie passed themselves off as experts in Health, because that's what Foxy needed, and they did lots of things that were very important for Foxy's job, such as getting money from Multinational Drugs Companies so he could find out how to make us all really healthy.

Foxy was so good at being a Shadow Health Secretary, he was promoted to Shadow Defence Secretary. He was also a bit of a magician, and hey presto, with one wave of Foxy's magic wand Verity was transformed into an expert on Defence. Foxy's new job involved lots of journeys to the US to meet the Special Friends he had over there, so he built an Atlantic Bridge so he could cross the Ocean in a jiffy, whenever he wanted. Which turned out to be quite often. The Bridge was designed to be wide enough for two to cross over together, which was good because it meant Verity could go with him. Which he did, quite often.

Il Padrone

Some of Foxy's Posh friends had helped him build this Bridge, including the self-styled 'Iron Lady', who became Patron (or Padrone, as they call it in Italian), because her family know a thing or two about making money from dealing in guns and other Defency stuff.

They classed it an 'Educational Charity', which sounded harmless enough, and meant they could avoid paying tax on the income. Some nice rich Speculators and Arms Merchants paid them lots of dollars to keep it running. And guess who Foxy put in charge of it? Yes, right first time - his little friend Verity.

Then all of a sudden Foxy and his Posh friends won an Election, and Foxy dropped the Shadow - now he was a real-life Defence Secretary, in charge of actual bombs and guns and uniforms. Just what he'd always dreamed of!

Foxy gets to play with a gun!

Now despite being a Very Clever Fox, he found he needed lots of Advice in his job, and the Civil Servants in his Department just didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. So he got himself his very own personal adviser. Yes - Verity again! Verity even got himself some special cards printed so people would know how important he was, and the two of them set off to travel the world together.

Foxy and Verity sort things out

They met with Very Important People such as Presidents and Generals, and the odd Arms Merchant and Speculator of course, and made sure they had their photos taken at each port of call.

They were really busy-busy, going hither and thither, and hither again, and staying in the most expensive places, and some of the highest, everywhere they went. And all the while they were 'networking', as important people do, so it's a good job they had built up a nice cosy network of 'friends' and 'business associates'. It gets quite complicated, so when someone at the next table asked him "Who's your friend?", Foxy drew this rough sketch on a table napkin.

Foxy's Network

Now Foxy's probably the only person clever enough to keep all this in his head at once, and like lots of very clever people his handwriting's not brilliant, so for the rest of us mere mortals, who'd like to understand who's doing what to whom, our boffins have come up with this lovely legible version, with moving bits.

We paid for Foxy on his trips of course, because he was our Representative. We couldn't pay for Verity as well because he wasn't really our Representative, just Foxy's personal fixer, but luckily the Arms Merchants and Speculators were paying for him, so he didn't get left out!

So Verity beavered away, fixing up meetings with Ambassadors, Presidents, representatives of Presidents and suchlike. It got so good that Verity was even invited to tell the Israeli Secret Service - and the Iranian opposition - what to do about Iran. How clever is that? And then, thrillingly, when he got back home he was invited to tell MI6 all about it.

Another wheeze was when they set up the Sri Lanka Development Trust, ostensibly to do good works in that troubled country. This Trust paid for Foxy to visit Sri Lanka three times in a year, but the good works are so far quite thin on the ground - in fact there don't appear to be any at all.

The Sri Lanka Development Trust in action

The Trust is keeping its good work so close to its chest that it has "no website, no publicity material, and is unknown to aid workers". Nor is Foxy letting on "who funds it, how it makes a profit and who works for it". He's not even telling the Charity Commission or Companies House. Cunning as a Fox, eh?

But all this is speculation. Who knows what cunning stunts Foxy and Verity cooked up between them on their travels! Who knows?

And they would probably still be cooking, but for a few unappreciative spoilsports. The Charity Commission decreed that Atlantic Bridge had misrepresented itself, and that "its charitable purposes have not been advanced by any of its activities", so they struck it off the list. Foxy closed the whole Bridgey thing down pretty damn quick, and hoped no-one would notice.

But it was too little, too late, alas.

For by this time some nasty News Hounds were on their trail, accusing them of all sorts of misdemeanours, such as lying, misrepresentation, fraud, corruption, cronyism, breach of the ministerial Code of Conduct, promoting an alternative defence policy, and other crimes too numerous to mention.

Foxy made a valiant effort to defend himself from these slanders, and wheeled out a secret machine he had designed for just such a purpose - his very own patented Language Mangler. Apparently he's found a way to put an English sentence in at one end, and have the Mangler spout a stream of incomprehensible gibberish at the other, which Foxy hopes will put the Hounds off his scent. Here are some examples of the Mangler's recent output:

Foxy's Language Mangler

"I should not have allowed the impression of wrongdoing to arise"

"I accept that it was a mistake to allow distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend."

"When it comes to the pecuniary interests of Mr Verity in those conferences, I am absolutely confident that he was not dependent on any transactional behaviour to maintain his income."

If you're struggling to discern any meaning in these Foxy utterances, one of the Hounds has made a brave attempt to decipher how the Mangler works.

To make matters worse, Foxy was given the "dreaded vote of confidence" by the Top Posh Boy. In a series of encrypted text messages, which our boffins have decoded into everyday English, Posh Boy told him:

"Y'v made ur bed, Foxy, now u must lie in it"
"I shl leave u to stew in ur own jce for a bit"
"We cnt go on lk ths. Its bad 4 my img. P*ss off Foxy b4 I kck u out."

Thus was Foxy left with no Defence, and with no exit strategy but to fall down the barrel of his own machine-gun (see photo above).

As this is a Fable dear readers, there has to be a Moral. In this instance our Moral has kindly - though probably unwittingly - been provided by Posh Boy himself, in an uncannily prescient speech made over a year before the events recounted here. Posh Boy thought he was talking about someone else's past. In fact he was predicting his own future (see also these juicy examples):

"It is the next big scandal waiting to happen.

The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.

We don’t know who is meeting whom. We don’t know whether any favours are being exchanged. We don’t know which outside interests are wielding unhealthy influence.

Money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest.

We can’t go on like this."

*Editor's note: We are not making any of this up. Honest.

I am not making this up

2011-10-12T21:01:00.001+01:00

Theresa May, the Posh Boys' Home Secretary, got her biggest laugh at the recent Tory Conference by attacking the Human Rights Act with a story about a judge who allegedly allowed an "illegal immigrant" to stay in the UK because he had a cat.

There are several issues here. First, it's a lie, in several respects. Second, she nicked the story from the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, which her own leader David Cameron regards as consisting of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly". Not content with stealing the story, she was apparently so comfortable with the source that she also pinched the phrasing and even - and I am not making this up - the pausing for effect.

Third, cabinet colleagues Ken Clarke and Christopher Huhne both apologised to her for pointing out to the rest of us that she had indeed sought cheap applause at her party conference by peddling a racist lie from the loony right. Why did they feel the need to apologise for telling us the truth? Did someone lean on them? Someone Posh, perhaps??

Is this corruption (3)?

2011-09-18T22:29:00.000+01:00

This time it's a minister, changing the law to suit his own company - and his own pocket, of course. Jonathan Djanogly is the Posh Boys' Legal Services Minister, and is also a partner in his family's insurance business. His latest wheeze is to push through changes that slash the legal aid budget, and force claimants to pay higher legal and insurance fees. Experts reckon this will put hundreds of millions of pounds into the coffers of the insurance companies, including Djanogly's.

Does this smell vaguely like a conflict of interest? At the very least??

Is this Corruption (2)?

2011-09-13T17:26:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago it was Michael Gove's Department of Education dishing out contracts to the boys, as Special Adviser Dominic Cummings went off to work for a company the department had contracted to run the so-called 'free schools' scheme that he himself had advised the department to adopt.

Now they're at it again - this time it's contracts for the girls, as a company set up by Emma Harrison, appointed 'families champion' by David Cameron a few months back, bids for government money to run 'Working Families Everywhere', a scheme she herself helped design within the Department for Work and Pensions.

Harrison realised some people might think there was a possible conflict of interest if her own private welfare company, A4e, bid for the contract, so she set up a "partnership" - 'Families Unlimited' - to bid for the money, with A4e sub-contracting from them. Apparently the DWP thinks it's OK, so long as A4e is not the 'prime contractor'. So a 'prime contractor' and a 'sub-contractor' are two different entities, even when they are owned by the same person?

Harrison is a multimillionaire (aren't they all?), so she doesn't really need the money. However, the families she is supposed to be trying to help do need it. A4e were granted £1 million to get a target of 400 people into work in a scheme in London; they'd managed to get jobs for 14 of them after a year. That works out at a success rate of 3.5% - just the sort of record that apparently wins contracts from your friends in government.

And of course the whole thing is just one more manoeuvre to try to put the blame for unemployment and other social problems on the unemployed themsleves.

This smells. Of nepotism (if we can extend the term to friends, not just nephews), deception, hypocrisy and corruption. But that's the way the posh boys work, isn't it?

Is this Corruption?

2011-08-30T22:53:00.000+01:00

Is it corrupt if a person who works as as Special Adviser to a Minister, persuades the Government Department he is working in to hand over half a million pounds to an organisation run by a previous adviser to the same Minister, and then goes off and works for - and gets paid by - that same organisation?

In fact, in this case it's even worse.

Dominic Cummings, was earlier this year appointed as Special Adviser to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, and worked on Gove's so-called 'Free Schools' policy. This policy is effectively using state funding to establish private schools - i.e., diverting state resources from the public to the private sector - and had been rushed through Parliament using procedures intended for emergency anti-terrorism measures. Cummings urged that a grant of £500,000 be awarded to the New Schools Network to advise and help develop 'Free Schools'. No other organisation was invited to bid for the work.

Shortly afterwards the Government cancelled the previous government's 'Building Schools for the Future' scheme. So money that had been earmarked for renovating thousands of state schools was siphoned off to an untried, untested - and socially divisive - scheme, specifically designed to subvert the state system.

Clever, eh?

And then Cummings went off to work for his friends at the NSN, who paid him with the money he had steered their way in the first place.

See Wikipedia on Political Corruption, especially this section on 'kickbacks'.

The dreadful dreams of a Health Minister

2011-01-27T01:08:00.000Z

From an unmarked van parked across the street, our Dream Detection Team - the DreaDiT Unit - has managed to capture what was going through the mind of Health Minister Andrew Lansley the night before he introduced his self-styled 'reform' of the National Health Service.

And from the resulting incomprehensible stream of noughts and ones (mostly noughts, it must be said), our cutting-edge Dream Visualisation program - iDriVel for short - has created the scientifically accurate illustration you see above.

Our dream interpreters - the DrIps squad - then attempted to explain some of the iconography of the dream. Theirs is not an enviable task, for gazing too long on such an unpleasant image could seriously damage your health. Amongst other key symbols, they highlight the relish with which the 'surgeon' rips the guts out of the patient, and the vulture and the fat-cats hovering in attendance, awaiting the pickings.

Our in-house Dream Analyst - Dr Anal to his colleagues - gives the following summary of the verbal content of the dream:

"Premier Milton Keynes is one of two consortia there in its application to be a pathfinder consortium."

"Over the next two years we will enable them to develop these existing primary care trust schemes with voluntary and independent sector support."

"GPs in Redbridge have been pioneering GP-led consortia, shifting care into primary care …"

"improved core delivery of the efficiency challenge … reinforcing the interface."

What it all means, we have no idea, and we doubt whether Lansley does, either.

And if you're still with us, our patented dream location software - DroLocS - pinpoints the capture as taking place not in the bedroom, as Dr Anal had suggested, but "somewhere in the bathroom"; what he was doing in there, and why the poor chap wasn't safely tucked up in bed at that hour of the night, we shudder to think.

It is not known what real-life events prompted this disturbing dream. One conjecture is that the victim may have recently visited the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, and inadvertently stumbled across this painting by Rembrandt.

If this is so, his mind appears to have totally lost its grip on the original intention of the artist, for the doctor in the painting is clearly sticking his scissors into the arm of a corpse, and demonstrating to his eager listeners the latest 17th Century techniques for saving lives. Whereas in Lansley's dream - well, judge for yourself.

Remember - "We're all in this together"!

Posh Boy job references discovered

2011-01-25T18:27:00.001Z

smarmy - poisonous - slippery - evasive - condescending - patronising

One of our Oxfordshire operatives, 'Mrs Mopps' (not her real name), has managed to gain access - hoover in hand - to the Posh Boy study, where she has come across the following clippings. They are on irregularly cut scraps of paper, and our forensic team deduces that they had been scissored - in some haste - from character references obtained from former colleagues when he was applying for his current post. They appear to have been brushed under the carpet.

"I wouldn't trust him with my daughter's pocket money."

"louche, slippery, unhelpful and evasive"
"never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative"

"put up so much verbal tracker you started to lose your own guidance system."

Jeff Randall, financial journalist, Sky TV

"aggressive, sharp-tongued, often condescending and patronising"

"frequently obstructive and unhelpful"

Chris Blackhurst, City editor of the London Evening Standard

"obstructive"

Patrick Hosking, investment editor of The Times

"a poisonous, slippery individual"

"a smarmy bully"

"far from the smoothie he pretends to be now"

Ian King, business editor, The Sun

"a bombastic bully"

Conservative Central Office colleague

"philosophically naive and vacuous"

Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph columnist

"an out-and-out opportunist"

"I don't believe he believes anything"

Robin Harris, Conservative Research Department

"at his interview for Oxford, he was caught bluffing about how much philosophy he had read"

"a cautious man, someone who would think twice before throwing a bottle at a policeman"

The many faces of Mr. Cameron (Francis Elliott and James Hanning)

Mrs Mopps' full report has been transcribed by Brian Reade: David Cameron: What the experts say, for which many thanks.

Posh Boy Philosophy revealed

2011-01-23T22:56:00.001Z

22 Jan 2011

Warning: Some of the information in this picture may have been obtained by listening in on private telephone conversations. Or maybe not. Our investigative reporter didn't tell us and we wouldn't say even if he did. In any case he was acting on his own.

We appreciate that some of the language used in the document above may not be familiar to everyone, so we have added a few explanatory notes which we hope you will find helpful:

People

Karl Marx

Josef Stalin

Why Cameron resembles a fish in a condom

Philosophy

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their need"

Posh Boy Politics

Open any newspaper*, any day, any page, and read about:

• hitting the disabled

• hitting the poor

• hitting the young: Sure Start - Educational Maintenance Allowance - tuition fees

• hitting the old

• hitting the unemployed

• wrecking the health service

• dismantling the education system: school curriculum - academies - so-called "free" schools - university funding

• starving the arts

• cheating the voluntary sector

• destroying democracy: constituency boundaries - voting reform

• cosying up to Murdoch*

Hardly any of these measures were in their election manifesto nor in the coalition agreement, few are based on reliable evidence, many haven't even been costed.

Posh Boy Etonomics

- letting the banks off the hook

- fomenting unemployment

- privatising anything and everything

- telling porkies about the economy

Posh Boy Outlook on Life

And all handled with seemingly effortless, patronising effrontery: "I'm incredibly optimistic"

We could go on but it's nearly bedtime. More helpful links to follow.

Note:

* if your newspaper isn't telling you about all this, ask yourself why

New Lottery - how it works

2011-01-23T22:54:00.000Z

19 Jan 2011

Our moles have been burrowing away, and can now reveal how the Demolition Government's much-vaunted new nation-wide Lottery Scheme works. Mikileaks locked researcher Steve Bell away for a couple of minutes with the scheme's source code - scribbled on a torn-off scrap of 'Number 11' headed notepaper, and rescued from the bin beside the photocopier - and he has come up with this graphic representation of the process. He says it wasn't that hard to crack, as the first line of code reads:

{Top Secret: GO says 2000 Mancunians down the pan, and pronto!} *see Note 1

It therefore came as no surprise to us to see amongst this week's lucky winners:

Manchester!

Manchester council attacks government as 2,000 jobs axed

However, do not despair if Lady Luck hasn't called on you this week. For wherever you live, and whatever your circumstances (with some notable exceptions - *see Note 2), they've got your number, and it could be drawn any day now. It could be your turn next!

Remember - We're all in this together!

*Note 1: There are conflicting rumours as to the identity of 'GO'; some analysts suggest that he may well be the mysterious character seen scurrying across the steps of 10 Downing Street in this videoclip.

*Note 2: Some experts claim to have detected certain regional and social biases in the coding of the scheme, which seems to be stacking the odds strongly in favour of 'Northern towns' and 'poorest areas' at the moment:

Northern towns 'targeted' with cuts

Councils say poorest areas will be worst hit by cuts

And if you wondered what this picture was doing at the top of our original article, see:

Police may stage street protests over cuts and job losses

Police force's colour-coded redundancy letters give staff the blues

So when the police take to the streets with their face-masks and home-made placards - who will do the kettling?

NB: Steve says his illustration is 'after LS Lowry'; of course it is - Lowry died over 20 years ago. He painted scenes, full of sympathy, of the ordinary lives of ordinary people in his home town of Salford, including Going to Work and Coming home from the mill. Would he qualify for an arts grant today?

According to our maps, Salford is quite near to Manchester, and so probably qualifies both as a 'Northern town' and as a 'poorer area'. Some folk have all the luck.

Why is it easier?

2011-01-23T22:52:00.000Z

18 Jan 2011

"Why is it easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven?"

Bob Diamond, Chairman of Barclays Bank, is richer than most, but at the second time of asking he is "still stuck on that one".

Oh dear, Mr Diamond. I'm afraid it's Purgatory for you, then. Or better still, Hell . . .

Many thanks to Mikileaks investigator John Mann MP for putting the question, oh so subtly.

Remember - "We're all in this together"

Rats in Downing Street

2011-01-23T22:50:00.000Z

17 Jan 2011

Mikileaks reseacher David C sends us this exclusive report:

"I thought all the rats were inside No 10. Is the coalition sinking?"

Our investigators have analysed the videoclip, and conclude that the rat in question is clearly legging it from No.11 to No.10. But who can it be? We have heard that if you play the video at double speed you can clearly make out the popular verse:

Are you Osborne

Are you Osborne in disguise?

Although some say that if you play it at half speed, it sounds remarkably like 'Cleggie'.

Mikileaks motto of the week:

If there's a rat in there, we'll smell it

New nationwide lottery

2011-01-23T22:46:00.001Z

17 Dec 2010

Mikileaks researchers have uncovered Demolition Government plans to launch a new, nationwide lottery early in the New Year. Millions working in the public sector have been entered in the draw, and those selected - who could number over 100,000 - will find out when a letter drops through their door by 1 January or shortly after. This lottery is unusual, in that all winners will receive the same prize: their very own redundancy notice, signed with 'best wishes' by D Cameron, N Clegg, G Osborne and E Pickles.

Remember - "We're all in this together!"

We're all in this together

2011-01-23T22:45:00.000Z

15 Dec 2010

Mikileaks can reveal that many of the members of the Demolition Cabinet are quite rich! In fact, most of them are millionaires. I bet that surprised you as much as it surprised us. It's OK though, our society and institutions are safe in their hands.

We don't usually reveal our sources, for obvious reasons, but this report's from a reputable daily newspaper.

And remember - we're all in this together.

"Sorry, we sold out”

2011-01-23T22:42:00.000Z

15 Dec 2010

From a Mikileaks informant:

I phoned the Lib Dem Head Office this morning and asked for a copy of their manifesto. They said, “Sorry, we sold out”, I said “I know, but can I have a manifesto?”

Police: "Protesters have failed to stick to the agreed route."
Member of public: "To be fair, so have the Lib Dems."

He's a Liar Liar

2011-01-23T22:39:00.000Z

14 Dec 2010

Mikileaks hears that the Posh Boys have been caught telling Porky Pies! The evidence collected by Captain Ska and his friends is incontrovertible, and very catchy. It is available from iTunes and other online music stores, for Xmas No 1 (proceeds to: Crisis, Disability Alliance, FalseEconomy and Women's Health Matters).

Remember - "We're all in this together"!

Posh Boys wreck the joint

2011-01-23T22:37:00.000Z

Mikileaks Exclusive
13 Dec 2010

Insider sources have confirmed the identities of several of the students responsible for the current spate of violent attacks on our institutions. Amongst the gang leaders are Master D Cameron, Master G Osborne and Master B Johnson. It is believed all three harbour ambitions to "be something" in politics.

Cameron expressed the group's strategy succinctly to our undercover agent: "Things got a bit out of hand and we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets".

Mikileaks calls on members of the public to remain vigilant. This gang is dangerous and are clearly intent on wrecking anything they can get their hands on.