
wow
"I am informed by my friends in the Metropolitan Police that I am shortly to become the one and only Western politician to be brought to justice for crimes committed in Iraq."
I'm no fan of Boris, but that statement had a lot of impact.
London mayor Boris Johnson has been forcibly relieved of a cigar case formerly belonging to Tariq Aziz under the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003 which demands that "anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police", as the BBC puts it. Johnson apparently found the case in the rubble of Aziz's bombed-out …
He claimed that taking it wasn't theft in the same breath as commenting that the looters had taken it.....so if everyone else wants to do it then it must be fine for me.
By his rationale, it means i would be within my rights to punch him in the face.....as many others seem to want to!
Good riddance to Red Ken and welcome to, erm, darn....not sure where i am going with this.....
"If this was the cigar case of Tariq Aziz, think of the scenes it had witnessed."
I know that potatoes have eyes -- but cigar cases? And to think that people voted for him. Not long now before he starts talking to the big bunny rabbit that lives in his desk drawer.
Time for an old joke?
What time does Saddam Hussein have his dinner?
About the same time Tariq Aziz!
Mine's the one with old Mesopotamia relics in the pocket.
True. But then again, most investigations into petty thievery don't directly relate to the security of the public.
That doesn't mean we let a thieving bastard off, though. Mr. Johnson may have a hard time thinking of his actions as theft, but anyone but a thieving bastard who is trying to wriggle off the hook would have no problem: it isn't his, he took it, that's stealing, QED. Perhaps he should look into the statutes regarding "stealing by finding"; it's an open-and-shut case. "Morally ambiguous", my arse.
Of course, he isn't actually stupid (we are led to believe), so I'm sure he really understands perfectly well that what he did was stealing, and his pretence of bewilderment is merely an intellectually and morally dishonest sham. If he really is as stupid as he's pretending to be, London is doomed.
"If this was the cigar case of Tariq Aziz, think of the scenes it had witnessed."
It's a fucking cigar case. It witnessed nothing, by virtue of being an inanimate object, unless it's a new breed of sentient cigar cases, which have senses and comprehension, and can helpfully open and pop a cigar out when they know you're reaching for the brandy. In which case I want one.
So many baddies, so few goodies. Spin it out and you'd have a great comic novel in the picaresque tradition.
Talking of handing over "Iraqi cultural property", perhaps this is part of the pressure that is currently being brought to bear on the Iraqi government to sign an agreement to give occupation rights to over 100 bases, as well as several other sovereign rights, to the USA before Junior leaves for Paraguy - the usual two-for-the-price-of-one political stitch-up which screws up the options for the next incumbent of the White House, and has the Iraqi administration autographing its own death warrants.
the only person who is utterly bewildered that nice but dime is a politician let alone the Mayor of London or a hack.
I am still waiting for his demise,
I am betting on death by a plague of rabid lamas introduced to London as a part of a hair brained scheme to prevent people from farting on public transport. Although I am open to other possibilities.
The absolute worst thing about it has to be that we can no longer take the piss out of California for electing the terminator.
Coat now, but "I'll BE BACK."
"Pretty unacceptable of Boris to try to overturn the rule of law"
How exactly has he done that? He's done no such thing at all, and has handed the item over.
Obviously, the thousands of members of the armed forces who have bought an equally minor keepsake home will all be contacted and prosecuted for looting as well, now. Or not.
It's a box. A keepsake. A bit of anandoned junk. Yes, it's technically illegal to own it (it seems), but does it actually matter?
Re: Eric Worrall - "Looting is looting"
Given that half a cigar case cannot really be classed as being of great cultural importance to Iraq, I hardly think that snaffling it can be counted as looting. I'm also guessing that as the offending item was found in amongst a large pile of rubble, and as it is referred to as "half a cigar case" it's state of dilapidation would probably render it uselss anyhow. In fact, one might refer to it as rubbish. By removing it, Boris has in some small way provided the Iraqi people with a free waste disposal service. Keep Iraq Tidy.
Boris talks about the looters not leaving anything of value then half inches the ciggie case. Kettle,pot,black.
A piece of leather of unknown ownership and blags (blogs?) about it belonging to someone famous, this should teach him to keep his gob shut.
Paris - knows about using her gob.
"The 2003 UN order is enforced unless the owner of an item "can prove they were not aware that the property was illegally removed from Iraq""
So basically if Mr. Johnson can prove he didnt know what he was doing, then he's safe?
There isn't a jury in the land that wont buy a plea like that from him :-)
Honestly. Not so much BJ (am I allowed to call him that?) but the tossers who reported him. I don't care how much easier they make it to vote, it's hard to summon any enthusiasm for the 'democratic process' when our 'representatives' (of all parties) continue to behave like this.
So, the politically-correct liberals are sooo upset that the public - for once - voted for a paid-up member of the human race (with the imperfections that implies) that they insist on bringing the full force of UN resolutions & Ian/Tony Bliar's best plods to deal with it.
If that ain't a prime indication of what a lot of pathetic mealy-mouthed, tiny-minded tossers they are, then I'll join the esteemed Mr Hislop and declare myself to be a banana.
Mine's the one with the assorted bootmarks/truncheon marks/cs gas stains/taser scorchmarks and bullet holes in it - but it's been there for 42 days...
That there case could have the evidence UK Gov needs for ID Cards, WMD's in Iraq, genetic material from Osama Bin Laden, and the last known copy of photographic evidence of Bush Jr. engaged in kinky skat sex with a homosexual walrus.
I don't think we'll see anything of that last one, though.
"A police spokesman explained: "The Met works very closely with a number of countries, including Iraq, to recover items that are considered culturally significant. In order to establish the origin and potential significance of the item, such items must be submitted to police custody for further examination."" ..... in a Place with Dodgy Documents?
"a defence which evidently didn't impress the "Labour stooges"" ... that is as may be but was it checked for veracity or was stooging the Met their plan too? And will it Matter tomorrow after Today's News. More Stories 4Tomorrow2
That is a spectacularly dumb thing to say.
Where is the evidence that Boris would be calling for prosecutions? During his campaign for LM did Boris hire a bunch of goons to go back through Kens history and dredge it for scandal ? (No, but Ken did that to Boris)
Has Boris launched any prosecutions for Malfeasance in Public office against Ken or his cronies ? (No but the Allegations made in the Evening Standard could warrant investigation)
So there is no evidence, you are just using school boy level debating tactics, "yeah but no but yeah, Boris would almost definetly, certainly, have done the same right so that makes this extraordinarily ridicolous prosection ok by me."
The sad thing is that Iraq *was* a repository for many ancient artefacts of huge historical significance, and Saddam had largely safeguarded this heritage (while brutalising/murdering/raping, to be sure). And as he fell, the museums were broken into and catalogued artefacts were looted for little personal gain by the looters.
Reassembling the remains of this ancient civilisation will probably never happen, a loss which, while of a lesser order, will be seen as comparable to the destruction of the Library at Alexandria. These are the cultural items we should be interested in, not some cigar case of unsavoury provenance.
From 'The meaning of Liff':
"FREMANTLE (v) To steal things not worth the bother of stealing. One steals cars, money and silver. Book matches, airline eye patches and individual pots of apricot jam are merely fremantled."
If anyone can use this as a defense, it's BoJo.
"Just when the police are trying to focus on beating knife crime and making the streets safe, they are told they must lavish money and manpower on a preposterous investigation that will do nothing for the security of the public."
And don't forget all those photographers who need harassing and intimidating, Boris. That can't be left to the plasticops and rentacops.
So lets see, Brown used tax payers money to buy the Irish 42 day vote. Now they lost the mayor election and trying to get Boris on half a cigar case that the owner does not object to him having.
So what next?
Sir Ian Blair should resign, Brown should follow. Boris was elected, they were not.
> So, the politically-correct liberals are sooo upset ...
Um, no. We're the right-wing, law'n'order, bring-back-hanging and birching's-too-good-for-'em crowd. Remember "zero tolerance", the "broken windows" theory, don't let even the petty crimes go unpunished?
We're just being consistent. From the hoodiest hoodie to the mayoriest mayor, we all have to respect the same law. Hell, it's the lefties who always want to let everyone off for everything... if we were politically-correct, we'd be trying to excuse him because of his childhood or his circumstances or blame it on society somehow!
I mean if you have been lugging this cigar case all over Iraq so that it becomes (in)famous in it's own right, are you going to leave it behind?
Now the other thing is supposing when Boris pick this thing up and says to himself " Bugger me. That is an interesting object, I shall quietly put it in my pocket." or does he say " How interesting. here Mr policeman you better take care of this". Because in either event the object would disappear forever. What he actually does is say "Hey everybody, look what I have found". This is not the action of a guilty man.
So I think that all these stupid bastards can sod-off.
No I do not want a coat. I am cross.
>"says to himself " Bugger me. That is an interesting object, I shall quietly put it in my pocket." or does he say " How interesting. here Mr policeman you better take care of this". Because in either event the object would disappear forever."
What a fascinating line of argument. "Stealing is OK, because other people do it too".
Oh. My mistake. It's not fascinating at all, it's just the same old same old two-wrongs-make-a-right bollocks again.
>"No I do not want a coat."
Anyway, you can't have your coat. I took it, because you said it's ok to steal stuff if a corrupt policeman exists anywhere in the world.
>"I am cross."
Hypocritical, too.