Why is this man still being paid? And other scandals

The man with the visionary expression and the weak chin is “Rick” Wagoner, in charge of running General Motors into the ground for the last nine years. The photographer had a tough job making him look anything but a wanker**.

You might call Rick the car industry’s answer to Gordon Brown.

The U.S. taxpayer is about to cough up another avalanche of dosh to keep them all tottering along. Over 20 years ago the late Everett Dirksen observed of another act of government largesse, “A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon it adds up to real money.”

You may wonder how somebody so manifestly useless got the job in the first place. It shows how being able to climb to the top of large corporations has nothing to do with knowing how to do the job and everything to do with low cunning. The last boss of GM – Roger Smith - was just as bad.

It’s like politics, really. The Bliar was useless, but a brilliant bullshitter; the Toad is useless even at bullshitting.

Daniel Hannan did a wonderful demolition job of Brown – so good I see my friend Clayton Makepeace has put it on his site, but then Harold Wilson repeatedly tore the conservatives to bits forty odd years ago – then proved a woefully bad Prime Minister.

** On the subject of wankers, half the country is giggling about the Home Secretary, "Jacqui" Smith's latest little problem.

Just to put it in context, she's responsible for things like crime and has been busy lately trying to explain away why she got found out fiddling her housing expenses. But now it turns out that her husband who she pays (with our money) as a parliamentary aide has been spending his time masturbating furiously over porn videos bought on her expenses (with our money).

To add to her misfortunes the Great Bloat has defended her for doing "a great job". How the hell would he recognise a great job? And where exactly has she been doing it? In the bedroom? Certainly not as home secretary, where she's spent most of her time with her foot rammed firmly halfway down her throat.