Our Civilising Mission Continues

Those who recall the Reverend Tony Blair's five-year stint as moral adviser to the Republic of Kazakhstan will doubtless be almost as surprised as your correspondent that the former Soviet republic continues to ban opposition parties, imprison protesters and disregard the United Nations charter. So obtrusive is the mote in Kazakhstan's eye that British parliamentarians are to blink away their own little beams in order to mount a formal investigation. One Conservative participant has already recused himself, being so concerned with human rights and international law that he joined Fishy Rishi's government as minister for aid-slashing; but the rest of the commission has promised to proceed with whatever openness of mind is consistent with British values and Kazakhstan's mineral wealth.