Difficult choice this week between a specific guy with a specific act of Swinery and a whole bunch of guys making Swinery their profession. I'll start with the latter as they've been spared the piggy crown, this time. Now George Best is clearly a well loved bloke, and a footballing hero to many. It's fair enough then that, should he finally pass away, people would like to know so as to be able to pay their respects etc.

What nobody needs however, especially not Mr. Best's family and friends, is a crush of bored looking newspeople outside a hospital constantly delivering live action footage of bored looking newspeople outside a hospital.

Like bored children on a long car journey you can almost hear their plaintive tones: "Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet?" These vultures squawk and shuffle, each waiting for the final tired breath of a terribly ill man that will kickstart their race to be the first to break the news.

The obit clips are poised and ready to roll, having been put together years in advance, while the faces on the ground go over their solemn announcement for the thousandth time. Each experiments with platitudes and soundbites, desperate to deliver the definitive eulogy to the nation.

Besides the shamefully distasteful nature of the hospital-front scenes there is another dimension to the journalists' failure. With all due respect to Mr. Best and his family, aren't there more pressing and significant news stories to be covered? Is the world really so peaceful and dull that our grand news agencies can afford to waste their time on this sickeningly eager deathwatch?

Anyway, as I said these guys didn't make it this week, mainly because while their Swinery is indeed appalling, it's unfortunately not particularly uncommon. This week's Swine is an individual who has, over the last few days, undertaken to set a precedent that can only really be interpreted as another step down the dark and greasy spiral.

The Official Secrets Act is a funny thing. On the face of it, it seems entirely reasonable that the government have some power to keep certain information out of the public domain, especially if people's lives are in danger. The problem is of course that because the information is secret the rest of us have to wait decades to find out if the decision to withhold the information was valid.

In the meantime we have to just trust our government to use its powers wisely, and this is where the whole thing rather falls down. Once you get into a position where you can't trust your nation's leader or his government as far as you could comfortably throw them, the use of these powers becomes increasingly controversial.

This week our attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, threatened journalists with the Act, ie. with jail time, if they published the contents of a memo. This memo allegedly details a conversation between Bush and Blair wherein Bush suggests bombing the Al-Jazeera TV station. Various sources speaking about the unspeakable have suggested that, on the one hand, Bush was joking, while on the other, he wasn't but Blair talked him out of it.

The precedent mentioned above is the way in which Lord Goldsmith has chosen to employ the Official Secrets Act. My understanding is that, in the past, the Act has been used to jail whistleblowers while the media would usually receive injunctions to prevent further disclosure.

Such instances have included ex-spies publishing memoirs which include details of UK secret service operations for example. It seems strange then that a situation involving nothing but an embarrassing comment from a foreign leader should be dealt with so much more severely.

But wait, things get more sinister still. The fact is that the British attorney general is threatening British journalists with British law. None of the reports of the unreportable so far have suggested that Blair said anything wrong in the memo, in fact he seems to come off quite well, finally demonstrating his long claimed restraining influence over Bush.(1)

It's one thing for the senior legal official of a nation to use the law against the people for the benefit of that nation's government. It can even be argued that the government's interests are the people's and so the people are being kept in the dark for their own good.

What appears to have happened here is that the most senior official in British law has subverted those laws against the British people for the benefit of a foreign power. Now call me old fashioned but isn't that treason? I'm pretty sure that in days gone by this chubby wanker could have been dragged into the streets and hung for such a day’s work.

Of course Lord Goldsmith is not simply some insidious traitor to the nation, but a grovelling servant to our supreme and ultimate leader. It’s quite amusing to see Blair’s authority crumbling around him, mostly because it ‘s clear from his face that he just can’t comprehend what’s happening. He clicks his fingers and nothing happens. Having spent so long believing his own hype, however, he can no longer imagine why his every wish should not be granted.

If he wants an expert opinion, he doesn’t listen to the breadth of academic and professional opinion, his minions find him an expert who will support his ideas. This testimony is then ‘proof’ of the validity of Blair’s idea. In this way the government has rewritten the ‘truth’ of any situation to fit its own latest crusade.

The law is no different and when it came to deciding whether our war against the people of Iraq was legal or not the same old tactics were employed. Now I don’t know the exact job description of an attorney general, but my impression is that they are supposed to be the foremost legal expert of the land, providing the government with clear advice as to whether their needs are catered for by the law.

It would appear that this week’s Swine never even intended to play things this way. Instead his job is to legitimise anything Blair wants. The law, it seems, is just another pesky ‘truth’ to be twisted to fit the plan. So, Lord Goldsmith, you are this week’s Swine Of The Week for aiding and abetting state censorship. I’d shake your hand but the blood of countless Iraqi children is hell to shift.

PS. If I might be so bold as to offer some advice to world leaders, I think it might save you a lot of trouble in the long term. It’s a simple rule that I’ve always tried to live by: DON’T SAY SOMETHING BEHIND SOMEONE’S BACK IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE BALLS TO SAY IT TO THEIR FACE!

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(1) Not that restraining however, seeing as how Al-Jazeera did get bombed by the US, at least twice, and one of their journalists is still in Guantanamo bay!