Random acts of diplomacy.

The trouble with posting late is that all the good stuff is taken. Angry Exile already has this one covered but it's so bizarre it bears repeating.

Boss Dai needs to make a bit of spare change to pay off the loan sharks he's been borrowing from. Instead of the obvious solution - renting his forehead for mountaineers to practise on - he has decided to tour North Africa and the Middle East with a big box of bullets.

"Get yer luvverly guns here. Bullets, cheap ones, a job lot with 'Tony' written on them that were never used. Genuine British army issue, pucker stuff, the real deal."

Having armed those governments everyone else wants to get rid of, what does he do next? Well, he goes home and says to those same governments "Oi. Gadfly. No. Any more noise from you and I'll send our army over to sort you out, geddit?"

To which Gadfly replies - "Send them if you like. I've just bought all their bullets, remember?"

I wonder what Boss Dai will do now? Send those aircraft carriers, the ones with no planes? Perhaps scout the terrain with a hastily duct-taped-back-together Nimrod? Send the troops his MOD are rapidly making redundant and firing by Email? The troops with no equipment or bullets, who can only terrify the enemy with a good old British roar of "I say, you there. Bang, what?" It used to work, a long time ago.

If I worked for any company making mass redundancies, and I knew I might be on that list, even if it was just a company selling tofu and tents, I'm bloody sure I would refuse to go to Tripoli for the forseeable future. Especially if they were going to send me there without the tofu and tents.

The Cameroid wants a no-fly zone over Libya. I assume he means we won't have any planes flying over there because although we do have planes, he's been busy sacking the pilots. Look, Dai, you can't dismantle and demoralise the military and then threaten people with it. Nobody is fooled.

Then there's the EU, whose glacial agility in a crisis has to be seen to be believed, assuming you have the time to hang around. They want to impose sanctions on Libya. Okay. They bring in this idea after the Gadfly has had time to entrench and stock up his villainous lair with everything he could need. The sanctions can't hurt him now, but they will make life extremely hard for those who are trying to get rid of him.

Whose side are we on here? Our elected and unelected leaders are using really strong language at the Gadfly and the other despots currently being driven into a hellish exile with only a few billion each and barely a Lear jet between them. In fact, they have been known to say things like "I say, jolly poor show there," and "You idiot, you got caught."

From the EU's point of view, in fact from most of the European leaders' points of view, a spate of successful despot-toppling is not something they want to encourage. The Olympics are coming up and despot-toppling was not an event they had hoped to include. It might give their own sheeple ideas.

Then there's the oil, currently an urgent commodity since Herby von Rumpled and Baroness Ashtray accidentally bumped into each other and the wrinkles on their faces stuck like Velcro. A great deal of oil is required to separate them. The EU needs the population of Libya digging out the black stuff, not messing around with things like 'freedom'. Look at Europe, they say. No freedom here, and everyone is as happy as they are legislated to be.

The Eurodespots can't openly support the likes of Gadfly, naturally. The sheeple might get a bit miffed. But, really, who do they want to win this? The people? The EU hates people. The EU likes money and the people don't have any.

I think the Gadfly is done for anyway because he's too crazy even for the EU. He's transferred wads of cash out of Libya and once the EU have the cash, they don't actually need the Gadfly any more. What will be interesting will be the replacement for Gadfly, and how far the EU/US are willing to push for the replacement they want.

The Saudis don't bother with subterfuge. Bahrain is expecting pro-democracy rallies so the Saudis have sent fifteen tanks to - ahem - assist the government in keeping order. Fifteen tanks. ACPO must be salivating at the thought. They'd only got as far as asking for water cannon. Saudi has its own building unrest, which the King has tried to buy into silence. Not too successfully, it appears.

Third world war? Only if the EU or the US does something stupid, like invading one of these countries. That would rally them against a common enemy and they'd shelve their internal differences while they whup some Western ass. Which they probably would since our government has sold them all our guns.

If it came to a call-up, which side could call up a whole mass of people who are used to handling guns? Which side would be calling up conscripts who have never seen, never mind handled a gun and who have been taught to be terrified of all forms of weaponry? Weakening the population probably seemed like a good idea at the time but when those Eurodespots want a defensive line between themselves and a lot of angry Arabs, don't look at us. We aren't even allowed to call them names, never mind shoot at them. Remember? No, Remploy-van, you're on your own this time. Assuming you've been de-Velcroed by then.

I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe all those countries will install proper representative democracies and we can then take a look and see how it's done. Maybe they'll install rabid Islamists and gang up on Israel. Maybe the US will pound the region to liberate the oil. Maybe the EU will make a decision and set a date for implementing it after a suitable period for reviews and meetings. Maybe Clegg will realise he's not dreaming and that he really was elected after all.

Anything can happen. One thing is for sure, there will be a lot of meddling politicans sticking their noses into other people's countries in the near future.

Well, maybe it'll distract them from meddling with us for a while.