Uppity Wogs and Underdogs

Survivors of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, who are suing the heirs of Empire 1.0: Decline and Fall over the murder, torture, rape and herding into concentration camps that accompanied Britain's oh-so-civilised process of decolonisation, have accused Her Majesty's Government of burying bad news, and even of saying the thing that was not. As might be expected from a department under the nominal control of the Imperial Haystack, the Ministry for Wogs, Piccaninnies and Fuzzy-Wuzzies has responded with the assertion that the Government is above the law and that anyone who says otherwise is an enemy of democracy. Leafing through Hansard and comparing ministerial assertions with mere facts, especially to the detriment of the former, apparently constitutes a breach of parliamentary privilege and a technically punishable offence. The merits of this argument may or may not be signalled by the fact that it was employed only after the Ministry had failed for eight months to persuade the court against proceeding further on the grounds that the Kenya Emergency was a jolly long time ago and thus no longer a reason to administer Jewish-style punishment beatings.