Monday 29 March 2004

Emperor Antony Has No Clothes

Everyone is allowed to blow off steam...

by Trowbridge H. Ford

Dear Bill,

Sorry not to have written for such a long time, but I have been having all kinds of problems with Mad Maggie. You must have thought that I was dead. She still thinks that she occupies the imperial throne, wears the purple robes, and carries the mighty scepter.

She wanted us to go to Washington to tell our good King George to swat some more of the unwashed colonials - the targets and weapons being of his own choice - but I persuaded her instead to visit Greater Gibraltar, planning to drop in on our vicegerent at Madrid, the jovial Prince José. Of course, by the time we got there, the whole plot to manufacture at the Basques's expense an election victory had proven a complete fiasco, with nearly 200 residents killed in the process.

Still, Spain got off easy when you consider what happened to the people in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks. Prince José, according to Maggie, gave the ploy its best shot by telling everyone in no uncertain terms he could contact that ETA was behind the bombings of the commuter trains, but the Spaniards, unlike our Britons, are so unplugged into official propaganda that it backfired. Spain has apparently become a nation of gutless Catalans who are unable to think beyond what's on the table for supper.

Maggie said that José's efforts to deceive the Spanish public reminded her of her attempts to disorient the British public about what was going on in Northern Ireland with the Provisionals just before she got the sack from the throne. While she claimed that she was not for turning when it came to terrorism in the province - what was manifestly untrue - José was willing to let Al-Qaeda play the part of Euzhadi Ta Askatasuna just to top up the electoral vote for the Popular Party.

Its plight now is a far call from what is facing her successor, Emperor Tony, and his party. He has actually been stripped of all his clothing but none of the courtiers or scribblers are willing to say so. He and Empress Cherie, of course, attended the memorail service in Madrid for José's fall, sitting in the royal box with all the other dignitaries. They certainly looked happier in the third row than their former Spanish agent in the front one. In fact, the Emperor was so encouraged by his reception that he went on to Tripoli to shake hands with Libya's 'courageous' leader, Muammar Qaddafi. This must have been a slipup by one of his new spin doctors as no one has thought of the Libyan madman in this way before.

Of course, everyone knows that he has always been a fallguy for what London and Washington have been attempting when it came to the Soviet Union, the Provisionsals, terrorism, and the like, but now it is necessary to close ranks with the oil suppliers, as the discarded Michael Meacher has been crowing, to keep it flowing no matter what. The Emperor certainly looked more uncomforable, though, than he had in Madrid, shaking hands, and making the rounds for the photo opportunity with the most eccentric leader.

Things are simply bizarre back home now. Only retired diplomats and fallen courtiers are willing to say anything about how Emperor Tony has been handling affairs. Sir Christopher Meyer, obviously irked, as Chairman of the Press Complaints Coimmission, by the continuing spin operation that he is conducting from imperial headquarters, has talked about his days in Washington as his ambassador, discussing how King George wanted to squash their joint-agent, of all people in the Middle East, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Fortunately, the Emperor prevailed upon him to strike Afghanistan and the Taliban first, giving London and Washington time to 'sex' up the case for attacking the now useless Iraqi dictator.

George, it seems, is simply a nut case, making our predecessor by the same name, who helped instigate the colonies informally breaking off, look like a figure of stability and probity. Rumor has it that the Emperor physically had to restrain crazy George before he would settle for attacking Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan. Fortunately, George is not another Jacques Chirac when it comes to fisticuffs. Who knows who or what George will hit next with José's fate at the polls in November increasingly staring him in the face.

The Emperor's most difficult moments occurred when he waited anxiously to learn if Oxfordshire Coroner Nicholas Gardiner would resume the inquest into Dr. David Kelly's death. Fortunately, for His Majesty, the coroner declined to do so, claiming that it was better to have people squabbling about various conspiracy theories regarding his apparent murder rather than helping come up with the suspects who did it.

Gardiner simply accepted the conclusions of Professor Keith Hawton, the psychiatric expert in explaining suicides who had been hired by the Hutton Inquiry to end the controversy. In the process, Hawton overlooked the doubts and misgivings of the official forensic pathologists and others - the absence of enough blood at the alleged death site, and drugs in Kelly's body to account for suicide, how Kelly actually died, the physical injuries done to him while he was being killed, the movement of the body, etc.

In declining to resume the inquest in order to at least answer some of these questions, Gardiner was satisfied in doing so because of advice offered by the Lord Chancellor, one of Emperor Tony's best friends now on the Woolsack, and feelings for the deceased's family, especially since it is now most eager to get compensation for the killing from the MoD. Of course, if Gardiner had done otherwise, he risked opening a Pandora's box of evidence which could quite easily result in the Emperor and his entourage being seen as guilty of aiding and abetting murder by parties yet to be discovered. The press has been completely willing to go along with the whole fraudulent process, offering only the most feeble reasons - e. g., the body was moved at the site where it was found - for resuming the inquest.

Maggie has decided that things have become so crazy, especially because of the hopeless efforts by her followers, that she is thinking about making a comeback. She has decided that being certifiable for the loonie bin is now a leading qualification for office.

Yours in hope,
Denis