A basic rule of of survival in politics - check, check, check... then check again.  It would seem to me that there were all sorts of flashing lights and alarms going off around Ray Lewis. What the hang is Boris doing?

A case of a political correctness tail wagging a Tory dog?

BBC News. BBC News.

There is a strong level of understanding among African leaders on the need for stable democratic systems... Thabo Mbeki, June 7 2008.

So, Thabo....

Which one of you forget to inform Robert Gabriel Mugabe about this?  Mmmmm?

 The prime minister said the new local area agreements would "drive up standards, respond to local concerns and help people hold their local council to account". The Guardian

I wish this man would get laryngitis or simply shut up. Lots of promises, a shit load of legislation, months and months of wasted time, buckets of wasted taxpayers money but little if anything in the way of changed services.

When will Gordon learn that you cannot legislate real change?  We need fewer rules and regulations, less waste and more power to the people. The place to start to drive up standards is for you and you incompetent government to resign.

Network rail |  DWP | De Menezes | The Yard | Farmers and farming | Network rail bonuses |

... an adult male and a boy were sitting in the passenger seat. In the back there were two women with infants on their laps, the other six passengers, all young children were either sitting or standing in the centre section of the back seat.None of the passengers was wearing a seatbelt. BBC News

While South Africans travelling on the N1 between Joeys and Beit Bridge see overloaded vehicles like this  on a regular basis (especially leading up to Easter and Christmas), I was somewhat taken aback by the story of one Abraham Gniwosch (31) of Tottenham being stopped for carrying 13 passengers in his Volvo S70 in Wales. He was given a 12 month driving ban and ordered to pay in excess of  £900 in fines by Llandudno  magistrates and ordered to take an extended driving test. He narrowly missed having his car impounded.

One can take empathy with displaced Zimbabweans a little too far, Abe.

Britain won a dubious new accolade this week: it became the world's number one arms exporter. Not that the government had any regrets: the trade minister Digby Jones greeted it as "outstanding" and promised: "I look forward to working with the defence sector in future." The Guardian.

There seems no level too low for Britain to stoop when it comes to money grubbing. We have a Chancellor whose first act was to divert in excess of £100 billion from hard working people's pension funds (no wonder private pension investors are in trouble) and now we have the dubious honour of being the world's leading arms exporter. This would not be too bad were we to exercise a bit of taste with respect to our clients... but no... amongst them are Saudi Arabia, one of the world's worst human rights violators.

Of course the Saudi's have a massive amount of disposable income which our greedy grasping government is only too happy to grab, notwithstanding the fact that the Saudi government is a major funder of Islamic extremism in the UK and influential enough to force the former Prime Minister to close down an important corruption investigation involving an alleged £1 billion plus bribe / backhander / sweetener to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, son of the Saudi defence minister, from BAE Systems.

Interestingly enough, one Mark Thatcher, now 'wanted' by Equatorial Guinea for his alleged involvement in the ill-fated Dogs of War type coup attempt in that country, was involved in this same Saudi deal.

Finally, we are so greedy that we happily turn a blind eye to cheating by rich foreign students who enrol unable to write or speak English, let alone write assignments, as long as the fees roll in.

Other recent acomplishments include the highest number of teenage pregnancies, obese people, binge drinkers, the unhappiest children and the highest level of binge drinking and gratuitous violence in Europe.

Aren't you proud to be British?