Is it not possible 9/10 victims of the fake sheik do say ‘sorry old boy, not interested’? It’s not as if the NOTW is going to run it.

Errr, hang on. I think you’ve got some problems here.

You cannot liken Fergie to Karen Matthews. KW faked the disappearance of her child, wasted police time and money, whilst hiding her daughter in such a fashion that may be considered abuse (was Shannon under the bed the whole week or just when she was found? Can’t remember.). Fergie did something that whilst some people find objectionable, was not illegal. That’s a very important difference.

I don’t know the specifics of our anti-lobbying laws, but I am again unsure if retiring MPs looking to be paid for their connections and networking skills is akin to being on the take. In the private sector in many industries, an individual with good contacts and a high profile former client list will be paid more than someone who has only secured a couple of small accounts.

In both these cases I have no objection, to be honest. Fergie can sell her connection to Prince Andrew to whomever is stupid enough to pay for it. Similarly Byers et al can sell their lobbying abilities and market their social network. As long as the Prince/Government are not bowing to lobbyist pressures and are judging on the merits of the individual cases, I don’t really care.

(I remain open to the ins-and-outs of the Higgins affair. I am waiting to see what the investigation brings up before making any judgement.)

I’m not sure all his targets are rich, famous people. A google search for “Mazher Mahmood” brings up the result “Evil mum tried to sell my virginity at 13″. (As an aside, I think if I found out someone I knew planned to sell their daughter’s virginity, I’d contact the police rather than tipping off the News of the World.)

I don’t care much when rich people are caught with their hands in the till, but I’m not going to celebrate the fake sheikh as I have no confidence in his methods & we don’t know how much pressure his targets are put under. Haven’t there been cases where he’s been criticised by judges/juries in court?

“Funny how you never hear of a Fake Sheikh sting blushingly rebuffed by the target with a properly decent British response such as ‘thanks awfully old boy, but I really couldn’t possibly. I’m afraid your suggestion would be most, erm, unethical.’”

Oh come along Dave. As Matthew alludes to: we never hear about the stings that don’t work because they’re not stories in the sense that a newspaper wants to publish them.

Thought provoking piece.

The problem I have with the ‘nothing done that’s illegal’ defence of some of those exposed is that if we were all to allow our standards to be set by the law as is, and the law only, there would be neither hope nor future for the Left.

Naive perhaps, but I expect something better.

Byers and co. were not only stupid and foolish but treacherous too. I refuse to accept that it’s a legitimate use of a parliamentary representatives time to be meeting with lobbyists to discuss daily fees that run at a rate of 2/3 the annual minimum wage.

That applies whether it’s a sting or not.

That the parliamentary representative in question happened to belong to a party that sets some store by the idea of equality and a programme aimed at addressing poverty – in the UK and worldwide – just underlined his lack of fitness for the role and membership of the party.

A few significant points really jump out at me.

Why would anyone actually pay to get access to Prince Andrew? The man is little more than a parasitic oxygen thief, who has never worked a single day in industry in his life (no offence to the Navy pilots BTW). This man is probably the least qualified ‘industry adviser’ in the Country and I include the imaginary characters of ‘shameless’ in that. Why on Earth would anyone ask any member of the Royals, far less this one to become an ambassador for industry? What does his appointment to this task say about Britain as we reach the second decade of the twenty first century?

However, given that he IS in the ‘job’ and let us (suspendeding our disbelief for a second) assume that he has actual influence in this task. Sarah Fergusson was quite willing to discuss and accept this bribe. Someone offered her half a million quid (£50,000) up front and she failed to spot a rat? In fact, not a rat but a herd of elephants in rat’s clothing and formed in formation to resemble a giant rat.

Half a million quid and not an eyelid batted? I do not know about the rest of the people on this blog, but to me that implies that this type of corruption (and that is what it is) is fairly commonplace. Sarah Fergusson must have thought that people ask and receive these types of ‘payments’ all the time, perhaps she just is really that naïve or perhaps she has good reason to believe this…

Does this mean that our entire political and economic system is systematically corrupt? We all know and (apparently) accept that these deals go on all the time, be it champagne, lap dances, ‘pepsi’ at spearmint Rhinos or the big corporate boxes at sporting events, but is it true that huge companies that baulk at paying £5.80 an hour are quite willing to shell out half a million quid to talk to this fucking lotus eater? Could it be true that major deals are done on the backs of these squalid practices?

Perhaps that this story exposes how common place these bribe actually are is the biggest story here.

Could you not have written this piece without the misogyny? So you find Fergie unattractive – so what? Why compare her to another woman, one completely unconnected with the fake sheikh sting? Why note her sodding hair colour, FFS?

And Tim has a very good point – the failed stings never make it to the paper. Duh.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!! NOTHING HAPPENNED!!!! LORD X IS NOT A CROOK.

I’m more or less convinced Higgins was simply blackmailed by one or other of the criminal organisations that bankroll all professional sports competitions (and most other things) in Russia. I’m thinking he won’t ever go back there to play.

Without wishing to bandy clichés about, snooker players are nearly always working class, and very hardworking at that, and I’m not predisposed to thinking Higgins is an exception.

Derailment over! Good post, Dave.

This kind of entrapment is, essentially, a classic confidence trick. And all con tricks depend on a simple proposition: the mark is greedy. If the mark isn’t greedy the con won’t work. Class, culture or other factors may play a part but the dynamic is avarice. The mark must believe they’re getting something for much less than it’s worth and, usually, that they’re cleverer than the con artist. That’s how the three-card-trick works, and it’s why the men selling fake perfume in the street behave like old-fashioned villains from an Ealing comedy. We’re meant to think, “Hey these guys have clearly nicked this stuff, and it’s the real thing, and they’re in a hurry to offload it, so I’m going get a piece of this.” We congratulate ourselves on being pretty fly, until an unfortunate girlfriend or mother opens the stuff and we find it’s cat-piss made in someone’s kitchen. If we didn’t think we were so smart, and weren’t prepared to bend the law, we wouldn’t fall for it. And be honest, we all have. Every scam is the same: no greed, no sale.

Fergie looks nothing like Karen Matthews. But they’re both very daft people.