The 'Numpty' Oscars Part 2

Totally incompetent Government Department of the year award.

Fierce competition for this one, but Immigration wins by a short head – hardly surprising since the head suit is a woman who was responsible for the voter fraud in Birmingham a while back, described by the judge at the election court as ‘a disgrace to a banana republic’,left under a cloud and was immediately recruited on a higher salary.

What do you know about immigration into the UK? Nothing. Nought. Zilch. Bugger all. And what does the Government know? The same. You would have thought that in order to meet immigrant demand for housing, social services, health care, education and the rest the authorities would need to have a least some idea as to how many immigrants come to UK. The data does not exist. There is no systematic record of who comes, where they go, and who leaves. Immigration is the largest component of population growth, exceeding the net effect of births and deaths. It wasn’t until 2009 that the Government even acknowledged that there was a problem.

The ‘Malaprop’ award for mangled English.

This one is really tough even though Dubya has a ‘lifetime achievement’ award for such gems as ‘The French don’t even have a word for entrepreneur’, and ‘deja-vu all over again.

Finalists include the Labour Party Chairman Ian McCartney. He is 4ft 11in. Opening a conference he declaimed ‘Comrades, together; we can walk tall’.

But the clear winner must be John Prescott with ‘own homership’, ‘fist time buyers’, and best of all – introducing his ministerial team with the words ‘How can I not lose with a team like that?’

Here are some more gems:

‘The green belt is a great Labour achievement and we intend to build on it.’

‘It's great to be back on terracotta!’

‘I had to live in one of these hostiles’ when he obviously meant to say ‘hostels’.

‘Industrial disputes can be solved through "meditation" ‘.

‘Any definition of homelessness that suggests that people haven't got a home is not good’.

The Whitewash Award for the most egregious cover-up

As I have previously predicted, Dr Kelly refuses to go away, so ‘no contest’ here. Doctors asking for a proper inquest have now submitted a formal request for a High Court direction.

The DT reports that ‘the doctors insisted the Hutton Inquiry failed to address key questions, such as how Dr Kelly obtained a packet of coproxamol painkillers, why his blood and stomach contained only a non-toxic dose of the drug, why he was not spotted by a police helicopter with thermal imaging cameras which flew over the wood where his body was later found, why no fingerprints were found on the knife apparently used to slit his wrist and whether he in fact intended to kill himself’.

Numpty of the Year: the outright winner.

No contest. By acclamation, it’s none other than Gordon Broon, the forgotten man of politics. A review of his book reckons that to give it as a Xmas gift would be a hostile act. He claims to have saved the first crisis of globalisation. What crisis? I don’t remember India, China, or Australia being in crisis. He took credit for the prosperity of the earlier years and was praising bankers as late as 2007. He says that he was fooled by the bankers who didn’t tell him about the risks they were taking. Wasn’t it his job as Chancellor to know? He admits that he was clueless about what was happening in the economy. The review says that by the end of the book the reader is likely to have lost the will to live.