How can it be that we’re two weeks on, and there’s still been no media witch hunt to identify the (I choose my words carefully) cretinous meathead who decided to threaten Ecuador with the storming of their London embassy if it didn’t expel Julian Assange?
Has there been a more shaming diplomatic fiasco for Britain in the past decade? Post-farce, this country stands revealed as in thrall to an undemocratic cabal, which quietly dominates every aspect of public life. I refer, of course, not to the agents of American military industrial hegemony, but to bastards even worse. That’s right. Lawyers.
On paper, the Foreign Office maintains both that William Hague sanctioned the threat, and that it wasn’t actually a threat at all. This is an explicable line for officialdom to take, and certainly sounds better than admitting the more probable truth, which is that he simply wasn’t paying that much attention to any of this Assange nonsense and nor was anybody else, because hadn’t you noticed, there’s a war on.
In the real world, though, you can bet the lawyers were in charge, and still don’t even really understand what they did wrong. ‘But the law says we can revoke embassy status!’ they’d protest, baffled to the end. ‘It’s the law! The law!’
Mixed up in this sentiment, I reckon, you’ll find absolutely everything that is wrong with modern Britain. A sweeping statement? So sue me. You can’t? Well, it doesn’t matter then, does it, which is my whole point. The problem here is a creeping legalese; an increasing, ingrained sense that the letter of the law trumps all, and a naked confusion upon discovering that it sometimes doesn’t. MPs’ expenses, health and safety, raging banker immorality, the reasons why our trains are so crap, the inability to get shot of Abu Qatada, the farce of school admissions — this is a game that anyone can play, feel free to add your own.
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