Sunday 12 December 2010

oh how the mighty have fallen


So, the great world powers have finally come together to show us what we all already knew: that nobody really likes each other; they especially don’t like Prince Charles, Chancellor George Osborne has the voice of a young Charlotte Church and Silvio Berlusconi is a one-man natural disaster. Isn’t teamwork lovely?

Perhaps the highlight of the Wikileaks exposé is the reaction of the US government to the very public airing of their dirty laundry – rather than oh, say, apologise for the backstabbing, duplicitous, two-faced and generally bitchy nature of their communications, they decide to cry “tell-tale” on Julian Assange and slap him with some completely unrelated yet oddly convenient sex charges. Naturally, it would be outrageous to suggest that this is a thinly-veiled smear campaign designed to Cover Their Asses, so I won’t. 

Of  course, anyone who has seen the classic Mean Girls and Cruel Intentions will know that writing bad things down about people always comes back to bite you on the posterior. Whether in the form of Ryan Phillipe getting tragically run over by a cab, or having your ‘Burn Book’ published by Rachel McAdams, there are always grave consequences for this sort of thing. Maybe teen films from the late 90s should be required watching for budding diplomats – either that or they should all learn to delete things. Hint: it’s that one there.


In any case, the Wikileaks scandal seems to have generated an exceptional amount of fuss, and whilst some of the leaked information is genuinely damaging to international relations, a lot of it is just obvious. Here are some of my favourites from the Guardian’s coverage:

“China is ready to accept Korean unification and is distancing itself from North Korea which it describes as behaving like a "spoiled child". Cables say Kim Jong-il is a "flabby old chap" losing his grip and drinking.”

…didn’t Team America do this one already?

“An official from the Commonwealth secretariat claimed Prince Charles is not respected in the same way as the Queen and questioned whether the heir apparent should necessarily succeed his mother as the head of the Commonwealth.”

No, really, Charles, you’re great. We love you. You just stay real, okay. Keep doing you. Oh, and sorry about your Rolls Royce, by the way.

“Osborne lacked gravitas and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery" according to private Conservative polling before the election.”

Well, there are two options here. Pull a David Beckham and marry a Spice Girl (I hear Mel C is free) or simply have Arnold Schwarzenegger dub over all your speeches. Win-win. 

“Cameron said that under Labour "we let in a lot of crazies and did not wake up early enough."

‘Crazies’, right. So is that a technical term, or what?

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