Austin Ambassador (as eyeballed in 'Private Eye' magazine)
n/a c/w Private Eye magazine | 12.10.2005 12:57 | Birmingham
One former employee of collapsed car giant MG Rover has happily fallen on his feet, unlike thousands of his colleagues.
Alistair Morton, the company's former training manager who was made redundant in April, has been appointed head of communications for Birmingham Shitty Council. He reports to the Conservative leader of the ruling Tory-Lib Dem coalition, Mike Whitby.
One of Morton's last acts at Rover was to arrange the long-term loan of £65,000 top-of-the-range MG SV sports car to...wait for it.... Cllr Mike Whitby. At the time Morton said the loan was "totally above board". Cllr Whitby was said to be an "ambassador" for the city......"we needed to promote it (the sports car) among people who could afford to buy it".
When Rover collapsed and employees with company cars were being obliged to give them back, Cllr Whitby hung on to his freebie, only returning it months later. Alas, even with the cachet of Cllr Whitby behind the wheel, only a handful of MG SV's were ever sold. It is estimated that developing this dud accounted for some £48m of Rover's debts.
Let's hope Mr Morton has a happier story to tell for his new boss. So impressive, apparently, are his spin-doctoring skills- despite limited experience in the field- that Birmingham Shitty Council appointed him without advertising the job!
Alistair Morton, the company's former training manager who was made redundant in April, has been appointed head of communications for Birmingham Shitty Council. He reports to the Conservative leader of the ruling Tory-Lib Dem coalition, Mike Whitby.
One of Morton's last acts at Rover was to arrange the long-term loan of £65,000 top-of-the-range MG SV sports car to...wait for it.... Cllr Mike Whitby. At the time Morton said the loan was "totally above board". Cllr Whitby was said to be an "ambassador" for the city......"we needed to promote it (the sports car) among people who could afford to buy it".
When Rover collapsed and employees with company cars were being obliged to give them back, Cllr Whitby hung on to his freebie, only returning it months later. Alas, even with the cachet of Cllr Whitby behind the wheel, only a handful of MG SV's were ever sold. It is estimated that developing this dud accounted for some £48m of Rover's debts.
Let's hope Mr Morton has a happier story to tell for his new boss. So impressive, apparently, are his spin-doctoring skills- despite limited experience in the field- that Birmingham Shitty Council appointed him without advertising the job!
n/a c/w Private Eye magazine
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For tyrants like Blair, mass corruption is essential
12.10.2005 19:15
The consequences of mass corruption are almost without limit. Every corrupt individual can be directly controlled, through various obvious forms of blackmail, and the promise of future dishonest rewards.
The REALLY stupid are told that corruption is inevitable, and occurs at the same levels everywhere. Of course, at the same time, every effort is made to PREVENT people from comparing laws against corruption, levels of prosecution, and severity of penalties, across different nations.
In a land where every year more and more laws are passed, sending people to prison for ever longer periods, for ever more offences, in ever more prisons...in our land the penalties for all forms of abuse of power are EVER MORE REDUCED to the point that the UK is the safest place in the developed world for the criminals behinfd the offences of business and political corruption, incompetence, and negligence.
Have an accident in your car, roll over an inadequatley protected bank onto rail tracks, and attempt to stop trains operating with completely useless communication systems, and go to prison for a LONG time.
Run the railway by massively cutting back on repair work, instucting safety inspectors to ignore dangerous rail damage, and employing cowboys who leave work incomplete on lines in use, murdering many train passengers in an horrific incident, and lying over the circumstances- blaming fictional vandals- THEN YOU GET BIG FAT BONUSES DRAWN FROM ALL THAT MONEY THAT WASN'T SPENT MAKING THE RAILWAYS SAFE.
Hey, but Blair doesn't hide any of this- any more than he hides the fact that he has absolute power when only 2 in 10 voted for him. Birmingham may have a strange Con-Lib council, but that doesn't make them any less pro-Blair.
However, maybe some of you are stupid enough to think that all this corruption is like manure, out of which beautiful flowers grow??? Sorry, in reality we live in a running sewer, and all we have to look forward to is an endless series of plagues.
twilight
Actually, as of last Sunday, it's now the late
13.10.2007 15:33
G. Reaper