In a development that has sent shockwaves through the leather-scented briefing rooms of Whitehall, news reaches this bleary-eyed correspondent that Australia has stumbled upon its most gargantuan mountain of cocaine ever, a veritable Andes of marching powder that has exposed a global trafficking network of such breathtaking audacity you’d almost admire it if you weren’t so utterly sickened by its efficient cruelty. The haul, weighing in at a ludicrous 2.34 tonnes of finest Bolivian marching powder, was discovered cunningly concealed within a shipment of roof tiles, presumably intended to help some very lively rooves cover their disco obligations.
British intelligence, naturally, have been praised for their role in the takedown, prompting a flurry of self-congratulatory press releases that smelled less of justice and more of that cheap aftershave worn by men who claim to have ‘contacts’ in ‘the intelligence community.’ Let us not mince words: this is the sort of bust that makes the war on drugs look like a particularly inept Punch and Judy show, a sad pantomime of state-sanctioned futility. The cocaine, a quantity sufficient to turn the entire population of Newcastle into gibbering, nose-picking zombies for a fortnight, was destined for the insatiable maw of the Australian market, of that we can be certain.
But the ripples of this particular rock thrown into the pond of global criminality claim to have reached the hallowed halls of Britain, where MI6 and its ilk have been patting themselves on the back so vigorously I fear a collective hernia outbreak. One must ask: if British intelligence is so damned superb, why has this vast machinery of addiction been allowed to chug along for decades like a rusty freight train of human misery? Praise, it seems, is a currency they mint for themselves, a way to distract from the fundamental failure to stem the tide of powder that flows like a libidinous river through the decaying arteries of our cities.
The men who shipped these tiles, these croupiers in the casino of human suffering, will be replaced by fresh-faced entrepreneurs with better calluses and more encrypted phones. The only certainty in this farrago is that the gin in the Ministry of Defence will continue to flow, and the cocaine in the clubs of London will continue to burn a hole in the nation’s moral compass. But cheers, British intelligence.
You’ve done it again.