Going Up

It is gratifying to note that, despite the departure of Adam Werritty from the Ministry of Collateral Damage, the spirit of Liam Fox yet remains in all its vole-brained glory. The Ministry has teamed up with those other masters of smart warfare and pinpoint targeting, the Metropolitan Police, and the happy couple have informed residents of a gated estate in east London that surface-to-air missiles may be stationed on one of their roofs. Apparently British surface-to-air missiles are not much good unless they start from fairly high up; or possibly Daveybloke and his chums have sold the better models to the Sultan of Bahrain. We may safely discount any suspicion that the Ministry, let alone the Metropolitan Police, has much concern with keeping the local citizenry from being blown up; with the Government in its present state, a bit of Olympic devastation would undoubtedly be a welcome distraction for ministers and police commissioners alike, and a new 9/11 would be an ideal pretext for Daveybloke to indulge in some Churchillian posturing and to lecture the population about the advantages of private health insurance and policing for profit. Certainly, the leaflets informing residents of their privileged defensive status impressed one beneficiary as being a bit rah-rah: "The general tone of it all was: 'Great news, aren't we lucky,' but that's not normal," he said. For its own part, the Ministry of Collateral Damage said that it would only play with its toys as a last resort, presumably in order to ensure that any hijacked airliners or Argentine invasion forces fall on the proles rather than crashing into people of importance.