Prescott and the Privy Councillor - amazing pictures

The Deputy Prime Minister Right Hon. John Prescott is alleged to have done lots of things, that have discredited both him, and his office carpet and the back seat of the DPM's pool car.
(BBC2 Newnight cover this tonight - discovered nothing but interviewed a blogger Ian Dale who turns out to be a failed wannabe Conservative MP and sad wanker to boot)

Now it alleged, quite laughably, that one of his ex office workers has been ushered into the privileged sanctums of the ruling elite and been made a Privy Councillor, one has been shipped off on a very slow boat to China and the other is still counting her pay-off from the generous gents of Fleet Street whilst indulging in a little light work in the garden and topping up her suntan.

So Prescott (rumour has it, the burly ex ship's steward is hung like a donkey) has been shagging around - the list of Whitehall shaggers is endless .....WTF?

However ... the cosy fireside chats with pint sized Mr Anschutz, may however have included the odd reference to William Wilberforce, but , more likely to relaxing the savage provision for money laundering imposed on casinos. In the land of his father , Mr Anschutz is used to a tad lighter touch on the control of the money shufflers, even so, his deep Christian conscience does not seem to trouble him in garnering the fruits of the casino operators.

There is also the control over safety / tiresome fire precautions at the Dome which naturally come within the umbrella of the man who looks after Fireman Sam and his London Burners.

Always handy to have a team from the back office to ...er .. iron out any small problems along the way. They were however on a relaxing break at the weekend so probably didn't.

God knows Anschutz needed no help in buying the Dome they practically threw the fucking thing at him and his partners.There was of course the very strange business of what land was available, at what price, who owned it, and what was was part of the deal ... see Hansard here ... very rum indeed.

£550 MN over the life of the deal for 140 acres plus ? Sounds a good deal to me.

English Partnerships owned most land , and EP are a Government Agency who are controlled by - why the semen/seaman stained office of the DPM ! - but never forget it was Fatty Falconer who announced the deal in December 2001

The National Audit Office when they looked at the deal reported ..."Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office, commented that English Partnerships and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister had worked hard to get the deal and that, although there were risks still to be managed in delivering the deal, it stood to benefit local residents and the taxpayer."

The VPM was quoted , "English Partnerships have secured good value for money and a good deal with Meridian Delta Ltd and Anschutz for the future use of the Dome ..."

This is not of course to suggest that these matters were ever discussed, brought up, mulled over, thought about, even hinted at, back (as they say) at the ranch.

But the DPM seemed overjoyed at the outcome.(see pic) As well he might.

Pic : Picture of the Leader of the Privy Council who has never worked in John Prescott's office.

POSTSCRIPT

Citizen Anschutz, 66 was described by Forbes as 34th richest and by Fortune the greediest US executive, with a net worth of US$5Bn .. he is said to own more farm and cattle land than any other single private citizen in the United States.

With fingers in all sorts of entertainment and sport he controls 20% of the country's movie screens, after shrewd deals in buying up bankrupt distributors, just as he bought up railways and laid cables as Qwest for their optic fibre backbone. His original $55 million investment in Qwest turned into a $4.9 billion profit when the company went public in 1997. He is a big Republican contributor, he funded Amendment 2, a ballot initiative to overturn a state law protecting gay rights, helped stop medical marijuana.He helps fund the Seattle based kooky Discovery Institute, a right wing bunch of conservative Christian clusterfucks that pursues a public relations campaign, and finances "research" into Intelligent Design.

He has funded the Narnia fillums based on C.S. Lewis's books, an author revered by the Discovery Institute fruitcakes.

Anschutz is a very shrewd guy , now he is into newspapers with his Examiner series he is building , which it is rumoured will end up being totally online - remeber his Qwest days.

He may be a holy roller Christian but he is not a crook, I guess this rough tough , straight talking, hard nosed guy ate the DPM for breakfast, named and detailed his demands , take it or leave it, ..... what else are you going to do with an empty tent ?

Now if you want a dodgy deal have a look at Lewes / Brighton / Football / Areas of Outstanding Natural beauty etc., etc., but JP is safe, TB cannot afford to sack him and elect a successor. Besides he knows some powerful people, the Lord Chancellor, Privy Councillors etc., he's even rubbed up against a few MP's and their spouses in his time.

Discovery Institute Website