In a Daily Telegraph classic sting to be published and broadcast tomorrow, 23rd February, Former Home and Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw and former Secretary of State for Scotland, Defence and Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, have been ciaght with sticky fingers.
Offered what are said to be very substantial financial inducements to use their influence in the interests of a bogus Chinese company, the pair could not have been more keen to climb into the trough.
Both were allegedly so anxious to impress the bidders with the value of what they would get for their money that the level of their boastfulness is described as embarrassing – particularly so, it is being said in the case of Jack Straw.
While it may well be that neither greedster has committed a legal or procedural offence, what is t0 be revealed tomorrow is not just embarrassing but indicative of each minister’s habitual modus operandi.
With both men said to egg-up the altitude of the access they can make possible and the price of their services, Straw – as well as saying that he ‘can use charm and menace’ – is evidently heard opining that ‘these things are best handled under the radar’.
This will be the radar under which the former Home Secretary ‘cannot recall’ knowing anything about the American extraordinary rendition flights which used Scotland’s Prestwick airport as a transit, en route to the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, leased to the Americans and now known to have been used for such interrogations.
Straw has tonight been suspended from the Labour parliamentary party.
Rifkind – after boasting to the bidders that he ‘can see any ambassador in London I like’, is nevertheless said to be ‘toughing it out’.
Minister for Modern Slavery, Karen Bradley, was unable and uninterested to tell John Waite on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 20th February why the current UK government chose in 2012 to replace the ‘tied visa’ restriction [removed in 1998] to the Overseas Domestic Workers visa conditions – condemning such workers to slavery.
Now two senior politicians from each of the two major national parties – who have personally held the highest offices 0f state just below the prime ministership, are allegedly about to be be shown to be cupidinous, available to offers and awfully keen to grab the wonga wafted under their truffling noses.
And these are our leaders.
