Insider Trading

As befits both the glittering record of those efficient Serco people and the unfailing cack-handedness of Her Majesty's Government, a former lobbyist for the corporate muggers has been appointed to the Ministry for Profitable Punitivity. In the interests of locking up anyone who cannot be thrown out, Her Majesty's Government wants ten thousand new prison places; and, as with every other government project under the present religious orthodoxy, there is no better qualification for managing such things than a career spent channelling public money into private profit. Serco, it will be remembered, is the company which charged the taxpayer several tens of millions for monitoring the activities of dead people; and no doubt the ideal arrangement would be for the taxpayer to reimburse Serco for tracking all malefactors permanently immobilised by the taxpayer-sponsored boot-boys at G4S. The slightest perception of the remotest hint of the smallest possibility of the least chance of even the most insignificant conflict of interest will, of course, be avoided with fanatical scrupulosity.