UK Immigration Minister Liam Byrne has been fined for using his mobile phone while driving. His excuse: he was taking an important call "on a deportation matter".
Source: BBC News, November 2nd 2007
As a former police minister, he presumably knows that's a pretty feeble excuse. But why does he think it is an excuse at all? Not only is he endangering the lives of other road-users by devoting half his attention to some deportation matter, but he is also endangering the life of some potential deportee by casually considering his case while devoting half his attention to the Sutton Coldfield one-way system.
Perhaps it wasn't intended as an excuse at all - more like a covert threat. Me, I'm an important member of the government, I make important decisions affecting people's lives, you'd better be nice to me or else ...
Next time he gets caught, I think he should say he'd been chatting to his mum. I've never met his mother, as far as I know, but I feel sure she would commit perjury for him if necessary. Surely nobody else would?
No comments:
Post a Comment