Seasonal Satire

Just a little trio of tunes, loosely based on recent events and with a festive flavour. Enjoy!

As the spectre of corruption looms over football, players across the country are working on their karaoke for the team Christmas party…

(To the tune of “Merry Christmas – War Is Over”)

So this is Christmas

And what have we done?

Smashed in an own goal

Got sent off for a bung

So this is Christmas

And win lose or draw

We’re hoping that next year

We get bunged some more

That bloke with the briefcase

I’m sure he’s alright

But we’re just footballers

And not very bright

And so this is Christmas

What do we have planned?

Picking up a booking

For seventy grand

So if your team is losing

Then you know the score

Maybe next season

You’ll pay us some more

We’ll handball it, miss penalties

We’ll score own goals, when you want it

Taking bribes and falling over

You can’t trust us any more

So this is football, such an epic fail

Instead of Old Trafford, we’ll be going to jail



If you think things are bad now, just wait and see who they have lined up to replace Santa...

He doesn’t care if you pout

He doesn’t care if you cry

You better watch out

I’m telling you why

IDS is coming to town

He doesn’t care about truth

Or being out of touch

He doesn’t care what you get

He just knows it’s too much

IDS is coming to town

Whether you’re poor or disabled

He doesn’t really care

He sees into your bedrooms

And he knows which ones are spare

He’ll come up with a ruse

He’ll come up with a trap

So you don’t get ahead

Just a benefit cap

IDS is coming to town

You better not claim

You better not try

Just be a good slacker

Hurry up and die

IDS is coming to town…

Last, and by all means least, as her career hits hard times Nigella Lawson is booked as Eartha Kitt on Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes...

Santa baby, slip a kilo under the tree, for me

My head’s been in a whirl. 

Santa baby, won’t you be my dealer tonight

Santa baby, just a few ounces of dope, I hope

Got some brownies ready to go

Santa baby, get me off my boobies on blow

                       

Think of all the hands I’ve had around my throat

Think of all the times I’ve slept with that old goat

The chance of getting out my tree

Is all that’s keeping me afloat

Santa cutie, just a little LSD you see

If I endorse it will it be free?

Santa baby, want to see the dancing hippos tonight

Santa honey, give my finances a hand

I’ve lost 600 grand

Santa baby, get me another book deal, alright?

Santa baby, hurry down my chimney tonight…

Rendered Speechless

Yesterday, retired judge Sir Peter Gibson reported on his review of 20,000 top secret documents following allegations of wrongdoing against MI5 and MI6 officers. Gibson found evidence that the UK had been "inappropriately involved" in some renditions, and that a further investigation was needed into investigations of complicity.

Let me just spell that out for you. The UK has been involved in the illegal transfer of persons to another country for the purposes of torture.

Documents found in the Libyan foreign ministry after the civil war in 2011 show that both the CIA and MI6 rendered suspects to the Libyan authorities in the full knowledge they would be tortured. Yes, you heard right. Two western democracies were flying people in to what they for years had considered a rogue, terrorist state so they could circumvent their own justice system. On some occasions, these were their own citizens.

So why isn't there widespread outrage in the UK about this? Simple. We've been led to believe that it is somehow vital for our "national security" that we allow the security forces to operate outside the rule of law. That they be allowed to employ torture - widely regarded as ineffective in obtaining accurate, useful information - to "protect" us.

Not that these actions did much to protect Shaker Aamer. A Saudi citizen and a British resident, Aamer was picked up by the CIA in Afghanistan in November 2001 and rendered to Guantanamo Bay three months later. He has been held there since without charge.  Aamer has never been charged with any offence, never received a trial and has been cleared for release by both the Bush and Obama administrations.

Aamer was rendered to Guantanamo Bay on the basis of information provided by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, who turned him over to the US forces in exchange for a cash bounty. The evidence for detaining him in Guantanamo came from a detainee dismissed as "entirely unreliable"  and who is known to have been tortured in order to obtain information.

There is no other reason for him to still be in Guantanamo, other than the fact that if he is released he will be in position to reveal the methods used by the CIA, MI5 and MI6 supposedly for our protection, and they don't want to lose what little public support they have left.

The Gibson report came out on the same day as the verdict was delivered on the two men who murdered soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich. Coincidence? Maybe. 

What better way to reinforce the idea that we need to export people with no connection to terrorism to foreign states where they can be tortured, than to remind us of the threat of terrorism on our own doorstep?

The rendition and Rigby stories have at least provoked some debate on what drives Islamic terrorism. Sadly the fact that the key driver is Western foreign policy, in particular the way the US and UK dealt with Afghanistan and Iraq under the guise of "tackling terrorism", is the elephant in the room. Anyone positing that as a cause of Islamic terrorism is dismissed as a radical to be hectored and ridiculed on news shows.

If we want to prevent Islamic terrorism either on our streets or against British targets in the Middle East, how about we start repairing some of the damage we've done? Be a much more worthwhile investment than the social and moral cost of sending innocent people into torture.