The market crashes, but the gravy train rolls on

It is difficult to think of anything more depressing than the recent photographs of a smirking Lord Mandy in his ermine drag flanked by two of yesterday’s major groupies, Lord Falconer and Baroness Jay, she who gleefully masterminded the removal of the hereditary peers, but couldn’t resist a title for herself. At the very moment the PM was berating the bonus culture, his new friend, Lord Mandy, was looking forward to trousering some serious dosh from Brussels, and senior executives of our self-congratulatory, ratings-obsessed BBC were awarding themselves £318,000 extra for doing nothing discernibly advantageous for the licence payers. A gravy train still leaves every hour for the fortunate few. Meanwhile not a hint of mea culpa from our blessed Prudence of the Manse and New/Old Labour is still peopled with the offspring of that pretty straight sort of guy who courted the very wealthy and in return gave us the Dome, all-night binge-drinking, Alastair Campbell, Ken Livingstone, the death of Dr Kelly, two wars and a lethal decline in our civil liberties.