Lurching somewhere between the obscene and the surreal ...

...is the performance of the current, astonishingly cretinous British maladministration.

What do you call somebody who pays too much for something? Not very smart.

But what do you call somebody who pays twice as much as necessary for something that doesn't even work? And what do you say if this little clerical error cost £157 million??

Dozy fuckwit doesn't even remotely begin to cover it, does it?

Especially as in this case it's not a new TV or washing machine.

It's the new vehicles some idiot (a entire committee of idiots, no doubt) has bought for British troops in Afghanistan at £600,000 a pop.

They were rejected as unsafe by the US military - not once, but twice - because they don't protect properly against the roadside bombs that have been causing such havoc.

The Ministry of Defence (Manager: Bob Arseworth) has ordered 262 of them to replace the Land Rovers that have been doing such a bad job. That's But the Americans have ordered a safer model - at half the price.

This mistake will cost an unpredictable number of brave men's lives.

What does that make those who placed the order? Culpably negligent halfwits? Don't they read the information they get?

Talking of which, the Mad Bloato has just promised to improve troops' equipment. Equipment which is not up to scratch because of his criminal failure to spend money when it matters.

Will the morons responsible be named? Will they get fired - as you and I would be for making such a mistake? Will they be prosecuted for culpable negligence? Will they even be questioned?

Or will they all retire with titles and fat inflation protected pensions?

Where would you put your money? Assuming you have any when this lot have finished their demolition job on Britain.

Incidentally, whilst British public servants are all, all honorable men they often seem to end up after retirement making a few quid with people who supply stuff to the government one way or another.

Corruption here doesn't exist in quite the way it does in some other places, but once you're on the golden treadmill, you seem to be fixed for life. One way in which many do well is by being appointed to what they call Quangos.

These are glorified committees supposed to take care of this and that. The members are not elected. These are just nice little well-paid jobs for the boys on the inside. A good example is the Financial Services Authority, which failed so totally to foresee the great Bloato Ballsup we're all living through

The people on these Quangos have all just been given a 20% pay rise.

And how has your year been so far?