David Cameron... has stated that he is
certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite,which means he's not. Since he is
not deeply ideologicalhe lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as
certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger,but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ...
forgot to include Pakistain among his "fantastically corrupt" countries. Nevertheless, the Panama Papers may prove to be the proverbial last straw that breaks the camel’s back of leadership corruption in Pakistain. Or it may not.
The COAS has pronounced on the issue and taken action in his military backyard. He avoided meeting the prime minister until recently and then, reportedly, only to warn him to quickly clean up his own mess. The ’united opposition’ has formulated several questions for the prime minister to answer if and when he comes to parliament. So far he has chosen to ’fight fire with fire’ in a transparent effort to avoid accountability. One of the opposition parties is possibly even more corrupt than the ruling party. This, of course, should provide no cover to a sitting prime minister.
An anti-corruption summit has been held in London. Did our prime minister fear he would cut too pathetic and ridiculous a figure if he attended? He has not been too busy battling the demons of corruption at home. Or was he too disgusted by Cameron’s proposal to ban foreign ’dirty money’ from acquiring properties in the UK by requiring upfront the names of the ’beneficial owners’ of these properties?
Some of our print and media pundits suggest we should accept the ’fantastic corruption’ of our elected leaders as the political norm from which there is no escape. So like the Biblical ’Gideon swine’, are we supposed to rush towards the cliffs of political extinction?
Mid-century, 2050, is less than 34 years away. The population of Pakistain by then will be between 350 and 400 million. We already face a calamitous convergence of several lethal trends. Apart from the population bomb, these relate to climate, pollution, disease, water, food insecurity, law and order, education, basic rights, essential entitlements, family supporting jobs, nuclear doctrines and deployments, no-war no-peace and zero-sum regional strategies, obsolete budgetary allocations, medieval and nihilist mindsets interpreting divine injunctions, etc.