The (Ex) Washington Realist

I was supposed to go onto the BBC this weekend to talk about the NSS but at the last minute the producers decided to devote the entire program to the emerging scandal of "cash for peerages" (that businessmen who have helped the Labour Party with large loans and other financial matters were awarded knighthoods or elevated to the House of Lords).

Several things:

1) I liked the response of a Tory backbencher who said the matter gave off a stench that even an American congressman would find offensive. Interesting that the legislature of the world's leading democracy is held in such high regard!

2) This will go into Putin's file to be trotted out the next time a Western observer decries corruption in Russia or unseemly links between business and politics are protested. More of his, you have the same problems that we do.