Justice for Simon

As the world mourns the death of the incompetent petty crook Ronnie Biggs, the Bank of England has announced plans to change paper banknotes for plastic ones. Among the new notes will be a five-pound one featuring one of the more inept British chancellors of the twentieth century; the Bank has been tactful enough to keep its release until the year after the centenary of the Dardanelles campaign, in which the future inept chancellor displayed his ineptitude at the Admiralty.

Today is also the day on which the Deputy Conservative nothing-in-particular Simon Hughes was appointed to the Ministry for Profitable Justice. Possibly Hughes was given his little red box in order to help further the tattered remnants of the Deputy Conservatives' civil liberties agenda; or possibly Hughes gave up those same tattered remnants to Chris Graybeing in return for the chance of a few months' fagging for the Bullingdon Club. Churchill was also a notorious political turncoat, defecting from the Conservatives to the Liberals and back again for high and exalted reasons of self-interest; but I'm sure that isn't even a coincidence.