The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

A Poodle Sniffs Its Vomit, And Finds It Good

As British troops hand over power to the sovereign, independent Iraqi government, and as Britain's leading liberal newspaper waxes tearful over the significant dead, just look who's popped up in the comments pages to tell us how swimmingly everything has gone for another beneficiary of the Vicar of Downing Street's commitment to universal values. It is "one of the untold success stories of recent years", so Tony is once again permitting his left hand to know that his right hand has been dispensing alms.

"Sierra Leone is thriving and tourists are returning". Tony says it, so it must be true. Tony has talked to entrepreneurs. Tony has been struck by their optimism. Tony has consulted Lonely Planet and found that Sierra Leone is "one of their top ten to visit in 2009". Better yet, you can fly there in six hours, thus helping to preserve Tony's paradigm-busting, kaleidoscope-smashing legacy of helping the little brown people while saving the little blue planet. Almost sixty per cent of the little brown folk live on less than a dollar a day, so "the challenge is immense. But so is the opportunity. From agriculture and fisheries to services and tourism, Sierra Leone has huge untapped potential" for an enterprise culture, for toughness on crime and toughness on the causes of crime, for education education education, for cheap labour and corporate profit, for all the things that Tony values most.

Sierra Leone "still needs to improve energy infrastructure and road networks ... and address skills shortages and corruption in the public sector", rather like Britain after Tony had finished with it. Sierra Leone must also "tackle appalling maternal and child-health indicators", rather like Iraq after Tony had finished with it. In order to facilitate appropriate indicator enhancement phenomena, the Africa Governance Initiative, which apparently belongs to Tony ("my Africa Governance Initiative", he sofa-cosily calls it), is "working side by side", or possibly shoulder to shoulder, with the natives. Sierra Leone, "with the commitment of its leaders, the determination of its people and the support of its friends", like God and Tony, "has every prospect of a bright future". Tony says it, so it must be true.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home