Hash, Skag, Barbiturates and Cocaine

Heroin, Smack, Blow, Crack

Or HSBC. As they like to be called. Not often you laugh out loud at an item at the head of the radio news. But this:

“...compliance head at the HSBC has resigned after confirmation that the bank was used to launder money by Mexican drug cartels...”

had us in stitches.

Really. They sail the world down the river. They are unable to to anything as everything goes wrong, all thanks to them. They continue to award themselves massive salaries and huge bonuses. Then the news breaks that there are still rogue traders causing losses in the billions. Then it emerges that they illegally rigged the interbank lending rates to suit themselves, cover up the impending meltdown, make it all seem ok for longer, for personal gain. On the back of that those that should've known (like the Bank of England) claim no knowledge (presumably on the basis that being godawful at the one thing you're asked to do is slightly better than admitting you've colluded with crooks).

Then, one of the big players in the industry turns out to be a clearing house for South American drug barons. What's next?

Pot, kettle

G4S have not, I think it's fair to say, covered themselves in glory. Some MPs on a select committee gathered together for a bit of legal bullying.

One, doing his best Horace Rumpole impression asked whether the affair had been a humiliating embarrassment for the security company unable to rustle up a small fraction of the cheap eastern European labour they had hoped for.

“Has this been a humiliating embarrassment for your company?” he boomed the demand.

There was a mumbled response. Even louder and with a pinch of added pomposity:

“Has this been a humiliating embarrassment for your company? YES OR NO!”

This is where I wanted so much for the bloke in the dock to insist that not every question has a yes or no answer. The classic is “have you ceased beating your wife?” You could try “do you still have a taste for human flesh?” or “do you still torture kittens to death?”

Then I wanted him to say:

“Yes”, pause, then, “was the MPs expenses scandal a humiliating embarrassment for you?”, then, whispered, “yes, or yes?”

Isn't it a bit rich to have the people who employed the company turn on them when they fail (again). Isn't this the lot who did the privatised prisoner moving and had a mass escape on their first day? Shouldn't the ministers and others taking the praise and wetting themselves over the Olympics put their hands up when things go wrong?