Little White Lies

Diplomacy has never been the Bullingdons' strong point, and it appears that Britain's Head Boy was so shocked at some uppity wogs' misreading of the regrettability of the slave trade that he was somehow induced to burble the thing that was not about some other uppity wogs. The wogs of the first part are the government and people of Jamaica, who seem to think that historical crimes deserve something more in the way of reparations than a bit of moral simpering by an over-promoted public-relations office boy. The wogs of the second part are three hundred Jamaican inmates in British prisons, who Daveybloke proclaimed could now be cleaned out to make more room for the natives, thanks to a £25 million bribe from Britain's hard-working families to the Jamaican government. Unfortunately the Jamaican government, which some years ago refused to ratify a voluntary agreement with Gordon Brown's administration to keep British jails for British workers, has now said that no prisoner transfer bargain was made, and that the two countries have agreed only to "explore the possibility." Translated from the diplomatese, this probably means a few suits from both sides have undertaken to do lunch and draft a memorandum or two the next time the mad old cat lady in the Home Office blows a gasket. It is as yet unclear whether the Bullingdons plan to repay the slight by vetoing the Caribbean.