HONESTY IS NO LONGER THE BEST POLICY.

Horror of Horrors !

Her Majesty the Queen is someone who is rarely caught out but it seems that a snooping reporter picked up a conversation in which she said something about Chinese visitors being rude to an ambassador. Within a short space of time, David Cameron was overheard saying that Nigeria and Afghanistan were 'fantastically corrupt' countries, coincidentally in a conversation with the very same Queen.

That Cameron's comment was undoubtedly correct and the Queen's remark a statement of her perception of a simple fact has made no difference to the media storm which has been created. It seems that, when it comes to relations between nations. the one thing that can't be spoken is the truth; instead, countries like the UK have to kowtow to tin-pot dictators and despots, corrupt regimes and their crooked leaders.

Everyone knows that Nigeria is a country in which corruption is rife, as it is in most of the countries of the African continent. Places like Afghanistan are fanatically tribal with all that that implies, tribal leaders cheating and bribing anyone and everyone in order to maintain their power. Shockingly, we are supposed to keep quiet about such things and pretend that we really rather like the representatives from these nations, who aren't such bad chaps after all. This is not too dissimilar to the way in which the world tiptoes around issues to do with Israel, whatever atrocities are perpetrated by their government. What a load of bu****it.

Along the same lines, Germany actually has a law which prohibits individuals from making fun of foreign leaders and dignitaries and has recently invoked it against a comedian who's dared to recite a somewhat rude poem about the overly-sensitive president of Turkey, Mr Erdogan. Erdogan seems to have few redeeming features and yet Germany, and consequently most of the rest of the EU, is falling over itself backwards to do his bidding.

Why can't our politicians be honest for a change ? Why can't they say what they really think, without fear of causing international incidents ? In business, senior managers are expected to be ruthless and to be brutally honest in the interests of their companies; why is it that politicians are only ruthless and honest in pursuit of their own career ambitions ?

What a sad, sick and corrupt world we live in.