Capitalism throws up all sorts of dodgy characters and some of them make a good living advising dodgy governments.
Enter Shanker Singham, former adviser on Brexit to Her Majesty’s government.
Whichever side of the Brexit argument you’re on, Shanker is bad news. His credentials are crap. He claimed in a Facebook profile, says The Guardian, that “he studied law at Oxford. However, his degree there was in chemistry.” Then there is a “biography”, “distributed by a former employer” (Sorry?) that says he assisted “governments in the early privatisations during the Thatcher administration”, yet his career began post-Thatcher (in 1992). Singham denies “that this could be misinterpreted”.
He’s right. It’s clear as day: in the words of Sir Robert Armstrong, Thatcher’s cabinet secretary about her, he was being “economical with the truth”.[1]
May didn’t take his advice. Instead her deal, he says, is “a damage limitation exercise”. That’s why he’s pissed off and touring the studios and editors’ offices. But in or out or somewhere in between, we should be worried. Because we need to find ways of holding governments to account for everything they do and for the way they do everything they do. We have had cause to lose trust in governments of all parties and in the machinery of government (the civil service). Labour governments had plenty of dodgy advisers and spin doctors (remember them?) It had a dodgy dossier that told us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (remember that?). What we need is an end to dodgy characters and dossiers that capitalism produces from the depths of its bowels like there’s no tomorrow. And for a start, we need some integrity.
Enter Jeremy.
[1]https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/two-moments-of-legal-genius-which-tell-you-more-about-malcolm-turnbull-than-anything-hes-ever-done-in-politics/news-story/99b294dda251d4c3b7de3a5240c1b42b
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