First Brüner, then, hopefully Kinnock (and his clan), whose time spent as anti-corruption commissioner has seen his entire herd getting their snouts well & truly in the trough. Amazing how ardent socialists always follow the same pattern, once they're given the opportunity.

Socialism is about spending other people's money, bit like the labour party.

New labour are different, they want to spend other people's money, then chastise them for having nothing left to save for their pension, which reduces the inheritance tax they can collect when they finally kick it.

Why is the abbreviation for inheritance tax IHT ?

In the US the Government bares the financial responsibility should certain irretrievable situations arise. Such as banks or pension plans going bust.

Basically if you are lucky enough in the US to still have one of those pensions that pays a inflation adjusted amount depending on the time you worked for a company and the money you earned whilst there - if that plan dies due to the company going tits up and sneakily forgetting to put their obligated portion into the fund, the Federal Government has you covered. It's a bit more complicated than that, but the point is they don't leave you buggered like most European governments do if you suddenly find out you have no pension.

So it seems that most Governments have forgotten what their role is - which is primarily to protect the interests of its citizens. In Britain's case that means bailing out pensioners when they've been scammed; not defending corporates, fulfilling large American contracts to re-build Iraq, with British troops.

The funniest part of this story to me, though, is that the guy in charge of catching the corrupt and fraudulent is himself corrupt and fraudulent. Perhaps he was trying a bit too hard, and accidentally became someone he was supposed to go after.

Nothing wrong with socialist governments, everyone has one to some extent. Unemployment benefits, state pension plans, national heath care - all socially responsible ideas. The only real problem is the people we put in charge of running these things.

Don't know about you, but trusting politicians with our taxes and assuming they will do the right thing seems a pretty flawed concept - at least not without some serious oversight and very frequent audits.

This is the OLAF we're talking about:

http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?index=2539&Language=EN

From the way this sorry saga went down, one could be forgiven for thinking that we are living in the Stalinist Soviet Union.

Call in Kinnockio!

He and his missus remind me so much of the innkeeper and his wife from 'Les Miserables'!