Thursday, June 01, 2006

Pot, meet Kettle - Kettle, Pot.

Fine French whine is on offer as Le Monde charges Britain with having stolen the 2012 Olympics from Paris through corruption. Apparently the British purchase of votes in the final lobbying round was blatant and shameless, with our noble Prime Minister personally involved.

How did a widely acknowledged French lead turn into a pro-London majority in the last few days before the vote in Singapore? Le Monde contrasts the affable transparency of Jacques Chirac with the sinister seclusion of our Tone:

"Jacques Chirac, note un Européen (non français) du CIO, a passé huit heures à Singapour, dont trois inutiles pour la soirée inaugurale. Le reste du temps, il a serré des mains, bu des cocktails en public avec des votants. Tony Blair, lui, s'est enfermé deux jours pleins dans sa suite. Il y a vu 40 membres et personne ne saura jamais ce qui s'est dit là..."

Perhaps all those guests were really just playing tennis with Lord Levy. Nothing suspicious about that.

Sour grapes aside, they really do seem convinced that Tony Blair’s integrity leaves something to be desired. I can’t imagine where they got that idea from. Tony always delivers on his side of any bargain – just ask Mittal, the Hinduja brothers, Bernie Ecclestone, and any number of recent peers. Tho’ probably best to give Dr Chai “Diddums” Patel a miss.

On the plus side, the only hole blacker and deeper than the spot where Labour’s ethics used to be is the cosmic abyss marked “Labour’s competence”. So when the whole thing blows up in our faces sometime in late 2011, there’ll be smiles all round across the Channel. It’s swings and roundabouts, really, isn’t it?


Tony Blair in Singapore, yesterday. “Pop down to the cashpoint for me would you, Seb? I’m running out of fifties…”

6 comments:

Pat said...

If you imagine I am going to defend our prime minister you will have a long wait. I am ashamed of the whole bally lot of them and long to be rid of them.

On the other hand the French never play by the rules and deserve to lose the Olympics. On the other hand ( I'm running out of hands here) why do we want the Olympics?

On a happier note don't you have a baby due some time soon?

Ivan the Terrible said...

Hi Pi - I don't think there's much to choose between Chirac and Blair anymore (hence the title, of course), although whenever the two have crossed swords it's always Blair that ends up with the new scar. Not to mention the little cartoon stars and birds circling his butt.

If only we could maroon them together on the same barren rock somewhere. I hear St Helena is free nowadays. After all the damage they've done to our blood pressure over the years, surely a little retribution is in order?

Gorilla Bananas said...

I give him credit for impregnating his wife just before her ovaries dried up. No need to repeat the old joke about him doing to her what he was doing to the country.

Desargues said...

I resent the implication that Tone B and Jacques are on an equal footing. Blairs wears the better suits, and his ties are chic.

Desargues said...

You know, we've been giving them Krauts and Frogs a hard time on this blog, while thinking the placid Dutch were nothing to worry about. Well, maybe we were just wrong.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Gb - are you sure that wasn't Chirac? He was over in London around the right time, and you know what a total loser Tone was with old JC.

And Des, just when you're sure that nothing could possibly make the headhackers look good, sure enough the Dutch find a way. And for this they ran Ayaan Hirst Ali out of town?