Thanks to Wikileaks, the power of the internet and the Guardian, we now have some kind of truth about the war in Afghanistan.

A truth that, if we had ever given it more than a moment’s thought in our busy lives, we probably could have guessed for ourselves.  A truth that says more about the state of British democracy than what goes on behind the stories and lies we are fed about a shabby and ill-conceived military campaign.

The expectation of openness or honesty from our elected politicians – and the secret army of faceless, civil servants and Whitehall mandarins who manipulate them -  clearly still has a long way to go before it becomes a reality, if it ever will.     A considerable amount of wool has been pulled over our eyes by introducing a Freedom of Information Act that is simply window dressing and – despite a policy of Open Government – very little has changed in real terms.

We, or rather the politicians, are just going through the motions.  Paying lip service to the notion of a democratic government which is accountable to the people it is supposed to serve.  Theirs remains a world of lies and deceit, of smoke and mirrors, of spin and outright propaganda: not aimed at a terrorist ‘enemy’, but at the ordinary citizens of Britain and America.

The lack of truth is ‘in the interests of national security’, we are told.   However, national security is unlikely to be compromised by information which is months or even years old, and which is already history.    Nor is anyone suggesting that the armed forces’ detailed strategy against our Taliban foes should be given to the newspapers in advance. There is, in any case, enough reportage and hypothesis on Allied tactics in the broadsheets every week. Any Afghan warlord who cares to stump up two quid at his local newsagent can read it for himself.

The politicans miss the point, as usual.  Why do they think we need to know?

It is because our sons and daughters are being killed and our money is being spent by the billion to fight this questionable cause.   We are entitled to more honesty and transparency from our politicians about the reasons for war and the mistakes they have made in waging it – without having to wait to get it from whistleblowers.

Whether it’s good or bad news, we must have the truth.  Only then can we make proper choices about who to elect and who to sack; about what we are prepared to let them to do in the name of our country and what we are not; about whether we want them to build more schools and hospitals for our society, or go to war.

Just give us the truth and let us – the people – decide, through the ballot box, by referendum, gathering a petition or by whatever other means we have at our disposal in order to make our voice heard.

…but of course, that’s what they are afraid of.

Smart-arse BBC ‘Watchdog’ presenter Julia Bradbury seems to have been caught out in a £20,000 air miles ‘racket’, according to the Independent. Funny how these things always happen to people we knew we didn’t quite trust for some reason, but couldn’t put our finger on why. Ms Bradbury always comes across to us as a bit too smug and self-important, considering all she does is read an autocue machine in front of a camera, along with that other smug b***ard, Nicky Campbell. She has denied everything, of course, but in the meantime has withdrawn from the BBC’s consumer programme until the fuss dies down… pretty much like the dodgy fraudsters her programme fearlessly ‘investigates’. In the meantime, we miss the likes of Nick Ross, the late Jill Dando and all of the genuine people in whom we used to have complete faith. Who actually employs the Bradburys and Campbells of this world with licence payer money? We’ll be watching this case with great curiosity.

After uttering the dreaded ‘golliwog’ word in front of politically-correct BBC colleagues, she has quite rightly been sacked from her job as ‘roving reporter’ (should that be ‘barking’? – ed.) on The One Show.

We suggest it was more to do with the fact that she’s lousy at the job and only got the role BECAUSE she was well-connected as the offspring of equally dotty parents.

A spokeswoman for Carol Thatcher accused the BBC of “being motivated by animosity towards her mother, former prime minister Lady Thatcher”.   Ha!  If that were the case, she wouldn’t have got the job in the first place.

Thatcher was removed from her post after she refused to issue an unconditional apology for her remark, in conversation about a tennis tournament.  A BBC spokesman said: “The notion that this matter is in any way linked to her family is just silly.”

Miss Thatcher is now demanding an apology from the corporation over her treatment.           Good luck with that, then, Carol….

We feel sorry for Russell Brand and the Radio 2 Controller who have now become fall guys for that overpaid waste-of-space, Jonathan Ross.
Ross led Brand into the whole sorry episode with the phone calls to Andrew Sachs, as you can hear in the audio recording on YouTube.

A lot of people tried to defend the incident by saying “only 2 people complained when they heard it”, or “there are worse things to worry about”.
This is like saying “only 2 people saw an old lady mugged so it’s not a crime”.