[Theodoric]

It has now been widely broadcast that Colin Blakemore, head of the Medical Research Council, was denied an honour because he defended experiments on animals, a policy which is totally supported by the government. The feeble, pathetic and lying excuse that the government have given for this is (to paraphrase it), "Nothing to do with us, guv, it woz the civil servants what done it."

They really must think that we came up with the daisies. I seriously believe that if a government minister was caught with a smoking revolver in one hand, a blood stained dagger in the other and a still-warm corpse with bullet holes and stab wounds in it at his feet, that he'd claim that it was the press or the civil servants or the fairies that had done the foul deed.

Until politicians show some inclination to come within even sniffing distance of telling the truth, why are they surprised that the general public considers that they are a bunch of lying scoundrels?