Dementia Epidemic Threatens World Economy.

The epidemic of dementia amongst leading businessmen has now spread to the German car industry it has been reported today. Seven years after a similar outbreak in the financial sector was discovered and a mere two years after the shock outbreak in the Murdoch media empire, the plague that has already turned many of the world's politicians into zombies now seems to be completely out of control. We asked a leading health expert for his analysis; "A 30 second memory has plagued politicians since time immemorial," he told our reporter, "but the spread of this debilitating condition to the business world is now threatening the whole of industry. The number of chief executives who have absolutely no idea what anyone else in their company is doing is very worrying. Many seem to have no idea what their job actually is, have absolutely no idea what they were doing as recently as yesterday and can barely recognise people they work with every day. We now suspect that the agent of infection must be dirty money which politicians and captains of industry compulsively stuff into their offshore bank accounts without washing their hands properly. This latest outbreak at Volkswagen is particularly worrying since the Germans are usually very fastidious about washing their hands after doing something particularly underhand. The extent of the damage to executive brains can be judged by Martin Winterkorn's reaction to the latest scandal affecting Volkswagen; "I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part." Essentially he admits that he has been doing something wrong but insists that he remains completely unaware of it. This is striking similar to Rebekah Brooks' condition which prevented her from knowing what her staff were doing and to that suffered by Iain Duncan Smith who remains blissfully unaware of the distress that taking all means of support from the sick, disabled and unemployed causes. Perhaps a more striking case is that of Sepp Blatter whose almost total amnesia is truly terrifying. I must emphasise, however, that it is probably misleading to label all these instances as dementia - "wilful amnesia with malice aforethought" is perhaps a better description though the much simpler term "corruption" is probably more accurate."

Cameron Still Dodging Action Over Press Ethics.

It's not often that the electorate get to see a Prime Minister twist and turn as much as David Cameron. It all began with Rupert Murdoch's plan to buy the controlling share of BSkyB and with Cameron pretending that he was completely neutral over the question despite appointing Andy Coulson as his "communications director". Things didn't look good for the Murdoch's when the LibDem's shoehorned Vince Cable into the role of arbiter of the deal, but poor old Vince was quickly removed when two young female reporters flattered him into saying something indiscreet. Enter Jeremy Hunt, charged with the job of smarming the BSkyB deal through while Cameron smarmed around Rebekah Brooks. Unfortunately Andy Coulson's past soon caught up with him as it was revealed that phone hacking had been widespread during his tenure as editor of "The News of the World" and not, as previously claimed, the action of a single rogue reporter. As the scandal grew and grew and more people in the Murdoch media empire were implicated the Prime Minister refused to be drawn and absented himself from Parliament when the issue was debated. He had to be literally forced into announcing an inquiry into press ethics and still fought a rearguard action to protect the Murdoch bid for BSkyB with Jeremy Hunt leading the charge. During the Leveson Inquiry it became clear that the Prime Minister had been far, far too close to the Murdoch media machine and many potentially embarassing questions over the exact nature of his relationship with Rebekah Brooks were left hanging menacingly in mid-air. Leveson has now delivered his report and, as expected, he made it abundantly plain that certain "sections" of the press were completely out of control and believed themselves to be above the law because of the protection they enjoyed both from politicians and the police. Cameron's immediate reaction was the reject these findings and conduct a campaign, through the media, to protect the "freedom of the press" in a sudden and unexpected fit of idealism. That has threatened to backfire as many of the victims of press excesses have called on him the impliment the Leveson Inquiry findings as he had previously promised he would. With his strategy fast unravelling Cameron has now made one last roll of the dice, announcing that what was once an urgent matter is now less so and that there is "no timetable for producing any draft legislation."

What Is Cameron Hiding?

David Cameron has spent the last five days dodging questions about undisclosed texts he sent to Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson. Dismissed as "irrelevant" by Cameron's lawyers when it came the to Leveson Inquiry, it would seem that they must be a little more than that. So what might they reveal? An "inappropriate" relationship with Rebekah? Information that Cameron fed to News International that should have been kept confidential? Evidence that there was colusion between the three in order to pervert the course of justice? Or, perhaps, the collected innane comments by three people without a clue about anything of a substantive nature? Whatever they are it seems certain that Cameron would be embarrased at the very least if they were to be made public. From past experience of the inner workings of the Tory mind, revealed by the likes of Andrew Mitchell during unguarded moments, they probably reveal the contempt that Cameron feels for the "plebs" and his total disregard for the nation. Fortunately he's about to get a graphic reminder that the "plebs" far outnuber the privilged and out of touch as thousands of protestors converge on London today. The Tory reaction to this tells us all we need to know about them. While Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, has made it clear that the demostration is about austerity in general, a senior Tory spokesman replied that, "It is disappointing that some unions insist on pushing for irresponsible and futile strike action which benefits no-one. As we have said time and again, pension talks will not be reopened and nothing further will be achieved through strike action." The Tories, then, are deliberately missing the point and trying to blame the unions for a strike that isn't actually taking place. The problem, as always, is that the Tories see resistance to their present-day idiotic and damaging economic policies and immediately reach for their copy of "How to Solve the Problems of the 1980's" by Margaret Thatcher.

Rebekah Brooks: Now The Whinging Begins.

We've had the quiet and dignified Rebekah Brooks and, at the Leveson Enquiry, we've had the confident but sadly ill-informed Rebekah Brooks. Now, with news that she is to be charged with perverting the course of justice, we have the whinging Rebekah Brooks. Let down by her friends (she means Cameron), subjected to a "witch hunt" that she was only too willing to inflict on others and unable to explain where her files and laptop have disappeared to, she is now reduced to suggesting that her prosecution is "an expensive side-show." Professing to be "baffled" by the charges which she sees as the "result of an unjust and weak decision," she cannot understand the concept of taking responsibility for the way in which she allowed her staff to break the law on an industrial scale. Rather she sees herself as having "no involvement with the central issues," an innocent who was happy to wield the power and happy to take the money but is now trying to make us all believe that she had absolutely no idea what her job was supposed to be or what those who worked for her were doing. Of course in News International she was hardly alone. No one from Rupert Murdoch down, it seems, had any grasp of the business they were in and absolutely no idea of what all those strange people who surrounded them were up to. Sounds like any other highly paid executive to me.