Dead and Undeclared

Apparently, the recently deceased Alex Salmond's body has been brought back to the UK on a private jet paid for by a private individual.  Well, I hope that he's declared this hospitality through the correct channels.  Being dead is no excuse for not doing so, as it is clearly an outrage that politicians should be accepting gifts and gratuities from donors who obviously would be expecting their generosity to be reciprocated in some way and not offer a full and frank explanation to the electorate.  I fully expect the plane carrying his body to be met by a mob of reporters from the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun and the Daily Telegraph, demanding answers, when it lands in Scotland.  I'll be hugely disappointed if I don't hear that they knocked his coffin to the ground as it was being taken out of the aircraft, spilling his body onto the runway as they thrust microphones in his face and demand answers about who is paying for this free trip on a luxury private jet.  because, like I say, being dead is simply not a good enough excuse for his continued refusal to answer these questions.  Where will it all end, other wise?  Will we see his coffin propped up against a wall during a Taylor Swift concert, having been gifted tickets?  Will we find that he's being buried in a designer suit donated by a wealthy Alba Party donor?  We need answers.

If the right-wing press don't pursue Salmond, dead or not, on this issue as vigourously as they have Keir Starmer over his alleged acceptance of undeclared gifts from donors, then I'll be looking to make a complaint to the press regulators.  You know, the regulators set up and run by the press themselves, rather than any of those outrageously biased independent regulators that we don't have in the UK because, well, the press wouldn't like it.  I don't care that Salmond is a corpse - and have the press investigated whether his death is merely a tax avoidance scheme? - he needs to be held to account and censured by the Scottish parliament if it is found that he's been accepting undeclared gratuities.  I don't want to hear that it's impossible because he's already been buried.  Dig the bastard up.  It's doubtless what the right-wing press want to do to Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson and probably Clement Attlee, in order to question them on what gifts they received while in office.  (Obviously, Churchill, Eden McMillan, Douglas-Hume, Ted Heath and the sainted Maggie Thatcher are all above suspicion).  Politicians, specifically those who aren't members of the Tory Party, ho are beyond reproach, need to learn that there's no hiding place, not even the grave, for the grasping, corrupt bastards.