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Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.
If there was one factor the coronavirus pandemic (bear in mind coronavirus? It was very talked-about in 2020) taught us, it was the worth of being inventive to make ends meet.
Some individuals began companies, others tailored surprisingly effectively to working from dwelling, and one enterprising former pub landlord allegedly secured loans from the British authorities and despatched the money to ISIS (bear in mind ISIS? They have been very talked-about within the mid-2010s).
Tarek Namouz is on trial accused of profiting from the “bounceback” mortgage scheme that was meant to prop up the U.Okay. economic system and utilizing the cash — reportedly hundreds of kilos — to fund the fear group in Syria. Declassified’s lawyer — I say lawyer, it’s simply me after watching “Higher Name Saul” — may discover nothing within the small print of the bounceback mortgage scheme contract that claims the cash can’t be used to fund overseas mercenaries. One more authorities failure!
Talking of giving cash to unhealthy individuals, the EU’s newest Russia sanctions bundle proposal would goal not solely the power sector — together with a ban on crude oil (which is rather like common oil however on occasion it tells you to f*ck off) and banks (unhealthy information for anybody who opened a Sberbank financial savings account in 2021 lured by the supply of a free Vladimir Putin bobblehead for each new buyer) — but in addition among the Kremlin’s mouthpiece media retailers.
Asserting the deliberate sanctions, European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen didn’t identify which propaganda retailers could be focused however my colleagues have been instructed it was Rossiya RTR/RTR Planeta, Rossiya 24 and TV Centre Worldwide (the latter of which was clearly the results of utilizing the Kremlin’s random identify generator machine. The EU additionally has such a machine, as proven by this week’s announcement of the well being information house!)
Talking of spewing out phrases that don’t at all times imply something, the European Parliament has voted in favor of election modifications that embrace that hardy perennial … the transnational voting listing! I don’t learn about you however all individuals speak about within the markets and bars of my neighborhood is which pan-European MEP they’ll vote for within the subsequent parliamentary election. This was the fifth time the concept of transnational lists had been formally proposed by the Parliament, which has seemingly but to work out that most individuals don’t vote for MEPs from their very own nation, so are unlikely to vote for individuals from elsewhere. Nonetheless, you realize what they are saying … if at first you don’t succeed, maintain going till individuals get so fed up with you that they offer in.
CAPTION COMPETITION
“In case you resolve to affix NATO and Russia invades, we’ll offer you this many weapons.”
Are you able to do higher? E mail [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque
Final week we gave you this photograph:
Thanks for all of the entries. Right here’s the very best from our postbag — there’s no prize aside from the present of laughter, which I feel we will all agree is much extra worthwhile than money or booze.
“The touching testimony of a sufferer who bought scammed into paying for Twitter, a free-of-charge platform,” by Giovanni Cellini.
Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s Slot Information Editor.
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