Good evening,

Is that the sound of a not very intelligent man with his brain grinding slowly into reverse? It is former Interior Minister Suthep Thaugsuban (disqualified as an MP for improper shareholding) and still Deputy Prime Minister who has become slightly equivocal about whether it is really a good idea to try to prosecute four people for rumour mongering when it was a story half of Asia was openly talking about. Apparently, the relevant law is ‘complicated’ – well, that is one why of putting it. The SET Index finished down another 0.70% today amidst suggestions that the police had been instructed to prosecute the BBC, CNN, Xinhua News, Adam Smith, Joseph Schumpeter, Michael Porter and Mahatma Gandhi and all his descendants for trying to defame the good name of Thai capitalism.

Still, one thing the government can do is to continue its spiteful reprisals against the union members who dared to point out that the locomotives of the State Railway of Thailand are dangerous. Not only will the SRT management try to sack six more union members they will try to make them pay 70 million baht in compensation.

Still, one person seems to have won the lottery – Rakesh Saxena has been promised a fair trial by the government (wonder how much he could sell the ticket for) – he has just been extradited from Canada where he has spent the past 13 years denying embezzlement from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce and causing its subsequent collapse. The government has promised that the case will proceed strictly according to the law and will definitely not be a basis for negotiating good deals with politicians alleged to have been involved in the case in some way, no definitely not, that would be wrong and is completely ruled out. Absolutely not. Rule of law only.

My article Tragedies of Shakespeare: Timon of Athens has been published at Bookstove.

Back on Monday.

Not even sure who we’re playing – doesn’t seem to matter anymore.