Welshman on holiday causes trouble

The denizens of the Saloon Bar at "The Jolly Farmer" were busy last night forming a Committee for the Defence of People who are Attacked and Insulted by Dr Kim Howells and putting the finishing touches to their Mission Statement.

Whilst his Government is gradually having it's collective collar felt for dishing out Coronets for Cash, this gormless Welshman - who approaches every problem with an open mouth - was busy in Kenya giving the natives a good dressing down.

Which is a pity because most of the Ministers he met and had been dressing up, as hordes of delusional civil servants, and gravy train grubbers were in town to discuss climate change - the comic scenario whereby Notting Hill will soon be as warm as Nairobi and the beaches of Merseyside will be as delightful as Mombasa.

This hapless front man for the Foreign Office - whose staff includes the deeply corrupt Lord Levy took up the challenge of William Burke.

" I do not know how to draw up an indictment against a whole Nation" said Burke .. well Dr Kim had a good go ..

Kenyans, he announced,

"can be bought. From the person who works at the docks in Mombasa up to the government ... You can buy off politicians, you can buy off policemen. The weakness has been recognised by drug traffickers and probably by terrorists too ... and that is very bad news for us."

Mind you, this is well trodden ground .. those with a very long memory will remember how 2 years ago Sir Edward Clay, an ex Senior dip Nairobi, accused President Mwai Kibaki's regime of "vomiting on the shoes" of aid donors... remarks claimed by outraged Kenyan Ministers to be thos of a dipsomaniac , not a diplomat.

"Tonnes" of drugs were moving through the country", Howells blundered on..." and top officials were implicated."

"At the port [Mombasa] today, they said they had not come across a single drug since 1998. I replied very candidly that if that was the case, they must be the only port in the world not to have found a drug in eight years. They [the government] talk the talk but when it comes to action it's very disappointing. There is clearly complicity at very high levels."

Which is a bit rich from man who represents a country (not to mention its Gubment) with a record sized prison population of whom a third every day spend their time in a drug fuelled haze.

Adam Wood, the High Commissioner, no doubt a decent man, steeped in the niceties of statesmanlike talk , no doubt bore the look of a man consigned to pick up the pieces.

It looks as though our Committee is going to be kept busy .