Cash for Honours: The "torture" is over.
At a time when the British Labour government cannot bring themselves to condemn Guantanamo Bay in any term more harsh than as "an anomaly", the Labour Party reaction the news that no charges will be brought against any Labour figures in the Cash for Honours investigation has lacked irony to say the least.Denis MacShane, a Labour MP, said people were put through "the most impossible torture".
I fear dear Mr MacShane has no idea of what torture is if he thinks being questioned by the British police constitutes such a horror.
And he should know better. Indeed, when a European report condemned European governments for assisting in extraordinary rendition of terror suspects to secret jails where it was suspected they were being tortured, Mr MacShane dismissed the report as having, "more holes than a Swiss cheese." The report was later found to be correct.
No, Mr MacShane reserves the torture analogy only for the nightmare of having a British Bobby ask you if you gave money in order to get a knighthood. That's simply despicable, torturous and terrifying. Ten times worse than any act committed upon any "Muslim terrorist".
Not that I should find Mr MacShane's hyperbole surprising. After all, he was the man who caused much distress amongst the Muslim community when he demanded that Muslims choose between the "British way" and the way of terrorists.
So tact is obviously not his strongest point, but still, to use the analogy of torture at this moment in history - and only when it refers to actions taken by the British police against the Labour Party - really does make me wonder what planet this man resides on?
Even Blair, whilst refusing to condemn the police for their investigation, nevertheless referred to what he called, a "terrible, traumatic time" for people questioned by the police.
It really is strange that these people, who seem to have so little empathy for others caught up in their war on terror, see the act of being investigated for possible wrongdoing - an act for which they have now been cleared - in such apocalyptic terms.
What happened to them is "terrible" and "traumatic", really "the most impossible torture", and yet what is happening and has happened to some totally innocent men in Guantanamo Bay is simply an "anomaly" that needs to be addressed.
I personally think they should simply be thanking the CPS for it's extraordinary decision not to proceed with prosecutions, a decision which Angus MacNeil, the MP who initiated the investigation, has expressed his astonishment at:"It simply beggars belief that the police and the CPS both believe that no charges should be brought," he added.
But then maybe Angus should consider that, like "Scooter" Libby in the United States, perhaps for some people the "torture" of investigation is sufficient punishment.
"Those buggers in Guantanamo Bay don't know they're living! Have you ever had a British Bobby ask you a question in that gruff tone of his? Jesus, I nearly shit myself. Waterboarding would have been a piece of piss after that! And the tea? Yurgh! Almost barfed! I tell you... Abu Ghraib is nothing compared to the nightmare that is Westminster Borough Police Station. Those bastards work you over good with their 'Ma'am' and 'Sir' shit and their little fucking McVitties biscuits. And when they switched on the tape recorder it was like the Spanish bloody Inquisition. I'd rather be tied upside down to a bed for a week with a lightbulb up my arse than ever go through that again. Torture. I tell you! Torture! Those Afghans and Iraqis don't know what side their bread is buttered on."
People who can only see pain when it applies to themselves really should not enter professions where they are asked to represent the needs of others. They have, by their total inability to express empathy, already proven themselves to be spectacularly unqualified for the task.
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