Indeed, two Lords are a-leaping but in opposite directions. To be accurate, Lord Malloch Brown has not exactly leaped but, slug-like, has slithered his way into the pig trough where he now splashes happily at the public expense, or, our expense, or, as I always prefer to think of it because I always take these things personally, my expense! This week The Spectator attempted, not so much a hatchet job as a Texas chain-saw massacre of the ghastly old creep, but it must be admitted that they failed to find the unkindest cut of all. A few gripes concerning his Lordship's ability to leap over contending cabinet ministers and grab a spectacular 'grace and favour' residence is not likely to raise an eyebrow in a nation used to watching its leaders act like Gaderene swine. Even his breathtaking hypocrisy whilst serving as Deputy Secretary General at the UN, during which he assured everyone that UN officials would in future be transparent in their financial dealings, is not likely to produce more than a cynical shrug. In 2006, with much trumpeting, the UN launched a new form to be filled in by every senior UN official disclosing their financial arrangements. Hoorah! But then it transpired that, under UN rules, it was not actually required that the forms be published for public consumption. To be fair, this year the current Secretary General and his deputy volunteered their forms to made public. Lord Malloch Brown declined.
In The Mail, Peter Oborne points to a dangerous trait in 'Hash' Brown's management technique, that is, his policy of belittling and humiliating his cabinet ministers. I suppose he got used to it when he was Chancellor because he held the purse-strings and could cut them down to size if they got uppity. Alistair Darling has already been made to look a fool (and perhaps he is) but, according to Oborne, David Milliband is the next in line for the 'treatment'. One can hardly shed any tears for a so-called Foreign Secretary who dumps his duties in order to fly to America to witness the birth of, er, 'his' child by adoption. Somehow I can't imagine the late Lord Grey doing such a thing but in those halcyon, Edwardian days, 'duty' was a four letter word of supreme importance.
However, one Lord has leaped in the other direction. Lord Drayon, who miraculously and, I'm sure, co-incidentally, received his elevation to the Lords a few weeks after donating several thousand quid to the Labour party, has resigned 'to spend more time with his motor racing'. You what?! I remember when I first read this I wondered what was going on behind the scenes, and now, thanks to the scurrilous Daily Mail, I know. Apparently, Lord Drayon, a self-made millionaire was in charge of Defence procurement and undoubtedly turned his considerable energy and acumen to improving a department whose shortcomings are reported daily from Iraq to Afghanistan. However, the prime minister's office with the servile acquiescence of 'Des' Brown, the Defence Secretary and a man generally reckoned to be as effective as Sgt. Wilson of Dad's Army, has ordered the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation without informing Lord Drayon. He, at least, has had the decency to walk, an activity Lord Malloch Brown would find as impossible as the slug he so much resembles.
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