Government is badly broken in the UK. It's not quite as venal as the Bush administration is, but we've had much higher levels of corruption for much longer periods, to the extent that it's now political background is.

The great mystery is why this hasn't become common knowledge. People should be furious, but there's almost complete ignorance of the true situation. The consensus is that the population still believes that government in the UK is mostly functional. Sometimes it makes procurement mistakes, but when it does it's due to incompetence and not inherent criminality.

The reality is that UK PLC is run by the City, for the City, and that's the main aim of government - not the support of the population at large, but the support of the banks and trading floors.

This is why I'm so scathing about the Econo and the FT. Knowing that this is the case, their constant cheerleading for profit is really just cheerleading for top-down exploitation, tax evasion and outright fiscal criminality.

That's why there's little point in engaging with the talking points. They're not actually relevant, because there is only ever one message, which is "How can the City make as much money in as short a time as possible with as little social responsibility as it can get away with?"