CASINO CULTURE

Confirmation that Labour has been hijacked by a bunch of hucksters, conmen and dodgy backroom business types arrived last week in the growing Labour Casino Scandal. Now, ever at the ready the faithful ‘Labour backbenchers’ are promising one of their famous ‘revolts’. I’d put all my chips on this revolt coming to a big fat zero.

But what’s the stake? Our 'special relationship' with the Yankee Doodle Dandies I'll wager.

It’s not just the absurdity of a government so at hock to dirty business that it has no red-face dishing out this fraud from the Department of Culture! It’s not just the two-facedness of a government that has just got over hectoring people about saving for their pensions, nor the foul stench of insincerity from Blair with his faux Catholicism and Brown with his jouly Presybyterian – it’s the nerve they've got presentating this as really a move motivated by controlling gambling: “Children and vulnerable people will be protected from online casinos and roulette machines, under new proposals announced today”!

Remember ‘beyond spin’ when Campbell got the chop?

Now here's some real bare-faced cheek from ‘Culture’ secretary, Tessa Jowell, in a moment of Blairspeak, said yesterday: "This is a bill about new protections, not new casinos."

Yeah?

Not according to those who should know, the casino types themselves: “Government plans to allow Las Vegas-style casinos were mired in fresh controversy today amid claims that American gambling giants were offered secret tax deals to locate in Britain. Speculation that secret tax discussions had been held was given added weight when it emerged that Labour MPs had been sent a briefing suggesting the Gambling Bill would be "revenue neutral for HM Treasury".

More at Casinoman here...