In the newspapers today was an horrific account of how a group of people had been bussed hundreds of miles from their home, forced to work for no pay, starved, and made to sleep under a bridge in the cold and wet. This is the sort of story one expects to hear from despotic regimes such as Burma or North Korea. It was therefore somewhat shocking to hear that this happened in the United Kingdom as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. So, congratulations, Queen Brenda. You can now hold your head high alongside the likes of Thein Sein and Kim Jong-Un.

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