The march of the hypocrites

I listened to Kofi Annan's appalling, to say nothing of hypocritical speech at the United Nations last night, when he declared that "the rule of law begins at home". Appalling it was because it is his own office that masterminded the food-for-oil scam that cheated the Iraqis out of food and medicine, and kept the funds flowing to Saddam.

Clearly, the rule of law may begin at home, but not in Annan’s office, to which effect I had intended to write a declamatory Blog on the subject today. However, the Bad Hair Blog does it better than I could and also provides a link to Claudia Rosett's piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "What's 'Illegal'? Kofi Annan helped Saddam Hussein steal food from babies". This makes the point with admirable clarity. And, of course, my colleague has also had a thing or two to say about the United Nations.

In the Bad Hair Blog today, the authors also takes in the sickeningly hypocritical speech of Chirac about world poverty – a man who has done more to promote world poverty than enough (see link), as does EU-Serf which really makes you wonder about the friends we have.

It really is quite remarkable how Blair and the Lib-Dems want to cosy up to Chirac, with their glib talk of European co-operation, when any sensible – or honest – person would be running a mile.

If Chirac and Kofi Annan truly represented the face of international co-operation, then there would be a lot to be said for isolationism.