New Labour: a Titanic mess

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks! Pushing past purely partisan posturing I'd place our pompous parliamentary popinjays in a progression from porcine pampering to paragons of probity:

1. Labour - Hogzilla
   
2. Conservatives - Gloucester Old Spot (of Bother)
   
3. Lib Dems - Piglets caught snuffling for truffles
4. ...
5. ...
6. ...
7. ...
8. ...
9. ...
10. SNP - as innocent as Babe
    

That's my perception of the extent to which reputations have been damaged anyway. What say you, the great blogging public?

The Telegraph has a neat summary of New Labour's twelve years in power: Life under Labour: the worst of worlds. A couple of New Labour's majestic works caught my eye. Apparently it is illegal to:

• Stage a protest of any sort, even if alone, within 1km of the Palace of Westminster, without the authority of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
• Enter the hull of the Titanic without permission from the Secretary of State for Transport (Protection of Wrecks (RMS Titanic) Order 2003).

In fairness the first of these now looks like a sensible precaution for our poor beleaguered MPs.

But the second?! What were they thinking? "New Labour: tough on Tomb Raiding, tough on the causes of Tomb Raiding"? And does our jurisdiction really extend to a few kilometres below sea-level in the 1km radius around 41⁰ 43’84”N 49⁰57’23”W? Surely they were taking delusions of Britain's glorious imperial power slightly too far with that one.

As the article says:

MPs have simply not being doing their jobs properly. They are there to hold the Government to account but have allowed a torrent of legislation to pour forth. They have spent too much of their time thinking up ever more imaginative ways to claim their generous allowances. They have given up their primary task.