Egypt - something to cheer about

Well hurrah for the army. As the bleeding heart liberals wring their hands at the way the military deposed the 'democratically elected' Mr Morsi (he actually got only 25% of the votes of those eligible to vote) I rejoice and open the champagne. The army, quite correctly, have gone in hard and not pussy footed about. If a things worth doing it's worth doing properly and getting rid of Mr Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government was certainly something worth doing.  Egypt, under the so called 'moderate' Morsi was heading down the road to becoming a Muslim 'theocracy.'  His government had already started openly encouraging violence against Egypt's 8 million Christians as well as other Muslim minorities who it disapproved off.

I also have a shrewd suspicion that Mr Morsi and his friends where already giving much thought to ways to hang on to power without going through the tedious process of having to present themselves for re election, no doubt taking lessons from the history of most Communist and African dictatorships who managed to survive many years on the principle of one man one vote once.  They might even have been talking to the current President of Turkey who is also an Islamist and has taken the precaution of purging his army and imprisoning many generals on trumped up charges. This particular 'champion of democarcy' said once: 'Democarcy is like a train- you get off it when you get to yours station' a view I suspect that Mr Morsi would have endorsed.  

CASH FOR PEERAGES

Hostess: It's a great secret, but I must tell you. My husband has been offered a peerage. 

Guest:  Really! That's rather interesting. We thought of having one, but they are so expensive, and we are economising just now .

The above from Punch in 1921.  Out of the thirty new peers created several seemed to lack merit except in so far as they have made substantial financial contributions to political parties.  James Palumbo, the night club owner, promotion to the ermine looked particularly dodgy.  He has given, it is true, more than £500,000 to the Liberal Party but it is difficult to think what other qualities he has which would justify his joining the House of Lords.  There is, of course, nothing new about cash for peerages. The Liberal Party in particular has form on this subject as Lloyd George pretty well financed his party by selling knighthoods, baronetcies and peerages.  The going rate then (1920) for a knighthood being £10,000 while a baronetcy would cost about £40,000 and, one suspects a peerage well over a £100,000, multiply by around 100 to get to modern day values.

Then of course there where no such thing as 'Life Peers' whilst now there is no such thing as a hereditary peerage or even a baronetcy on offer so one cannot directly compare the cost of getting a peerage say in 1920 to the cost of getting one now. However for those considering investing in a political party with a view to achieving ennoblement it does appear that the wise man should give money to the Liberal party. With a little bit of greasing it would seem that something between £500,000/£1.0m should, after a decent interval, do the trick.  Conservative and Labour peerages though seem, anyway from the current list, to be considerably more expensive while, frankly, giving money to UKIP looks a lost cause as the main political parties are making quite sure that they have no nominations - odd that - is the Liberal Party that same one which used to bleat at how unfair our system was - strange they are so silent about the effective disenfranchisement from the House of Lords of some 15% of the electorate.