The dominant political sound over these recent economically tortured months has been a discordant mixture of gnashing of financial teeth and the low moan of politicians wringing their hands so hard that they are giving themselves Chinese burns.

This week, however, The Bugle has detected an additional note mingled into this anguished chord - the sound of the British Government coughing in an embarrassed manner and emitting an awkward “er, ah, yes” under its breath, in reaction to the law lords upholding its appeal against the High Court ruling that the former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands should be allowed to return.

The story of the Chagos Islands is one of the latest items in our garishly illustrated catalogue of national embarrassments. In the 1960s, Britain cheekily squirrelled the islands from Mauritian sovereignty in exchange for a few quid and a knighthood, then promptly lent the main island, Diego Garcia, to America for use as an airforce base, and, with a classic one-two combination of force and duplicity, turfed out all the inhabitants. The official goal was to achieve “the complete sterilisation of the archipelago” - a phrase that would have sounded more than a little sinister if it had not been delivered with a certain British imperial charm.

The Chagossians have been politely asking to go home ever since. The various excuses proffered by the Government when rejecting this request have included, in no particular order of validity: strategic military necessity; there are only of couple of thousand of them, who's really going to notice?; it's miles away; there's not much to do there anyway; of course they were upset, moving house is always stressful; we own it, if they were not happy with it, they were welcome to try to fight their way to freedom like everyone else; they had only lived there for a couple of hundred years, so it wasn't really home; and besides, they were essentially taken there as slaves in the first place, so to allow them to return would be to remind them forcibly of a painful, painful past; we've done worse; much worse; so have the Germans come to think of it; in fact, almost every civilisation has done this kind of thing at some point, it's just human nature; we'll all be dead eventually anyway, so what does it matter?; hey, it was the Sixties; we dropped them off in Mauritius and the Seychelles - two of the leading holiday destinations - most people would love that kind of free treat; and none of your business, it's a private government matter, now put that placard down and get out of my garden.

None of these in itself is legally binding, but the Government has been able to exploit the “out of sight, out of mind” loophole in international law (the same technicality, incidentally, that enabled Britain to assist the US by letting two of its very naughty “extraordinary rendition” flights use Diego Garcia as a stop-off on a furtive journey around the tentacles of international law).

Once again, the Chagossians have been left to live like human Elgin marbles, refused the right to return to their original context because the British authorities claim that they won them fair and square and cannot guarantee their safety if they are returned “home”.

All in all, this is a story that should make our internal Union Jacks flutter a little more flaccidly in our British tummies, and one which The Bugle will be trying to forget again for fear of the memory dulling its patriotic pride at the next major sporting event.

Only £50,000?

The tedious George Osborne tornado-in-a-teacup has bored the nation to the brink of emigration this week. (The Bugle's version of events, which it is as entitled to create as anyone else who has “reported” this “story”, is that the Tory Chancellor-in-waiting hijacked a Russian navy destroyer in the Adriatic, sailed it to Moscow and stole 100 million roubles in used coins from the Kremlin gift shop to finance his party's scheme to project pro-bicycling campaign holograms into the night sky. Neither Mr Osborne nor his wealthy ex-chum has yet denied that this is what happened.)

However, it has been entirely correct for people to raise questions about Mr Osborne's judgment. For if it is indeed true that he was soliciting a donation from Russia's richest tycoon, who flaunts an estimated fortune of up to $30billion, then the allegation that he was seeking a donation of a paltry £50,000 suggests that the Shadow Chancellor is utterly unfit to be in charge of the nation's finances. This country has never had qualms about consorting with billionaires, but any prospective inhabitant of 11 Downing Street must display the political cojones to make it economically worthwhile.

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