The News: Ahead of the Queen's visit to Uganda for the Commonwealth Summit due in November 2007, British MPs have been raising questions about political repression in their former colony. 

The spin: 

Kampala, February: A visit to Uganda by the Queen of England hangs in the balance after Members of Parliament expressed concern about Britain's “increasingly corrupt and repressive” government.

Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to come to Uganda later this year for the Commonwealth Summit. But MPs may scuttle the visit over human rights concerns in Britain.

Early this week, the MPs demanded to know from State House and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials what the government was doing to halt Britain's slide into political decay and dictatorship.

“This country takes democracy very seriously. We cannot just stand by and watch while the human rights of English men and women are flagrantly violated by Tony Blair's repressive government,” the Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Good Governance, Hon. Kalle Tia Gas, told Parliament. “We must show solidarity with the common Briton and take stern action against Blair's government.”

The MPs accused Tony Blair's government of corruptly giving out honours in exchange for cash. A number of individuals who donated money to Blair's Labour Party were nominated as lords by the Prime Minister, which entitles them to sit in the House of Lords, Britain's upper chamber of parliament. The House of Lords also serves as the country's highest court of appeal.

“This is nothing short of selling people's political and judicial rights,” fumed Hon. Seven Visions, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Presidential and Foreign Affairs.

Hon. Visions suggested that to protect democracy, Blair should have given the donors to his party public markets and plots of prime land in London.

“Don't they have a Nakasero Market and schools they can use to reward donors to the Labour Party?” he said, adding that Britain had a lot to learn from Uganda's democratic model.

The MPs also accused Blair's government of ignoring the feelings of the British people and sending their children “to die in Iraq, as if there is timber and beautiful Congolese women in Iraq.”

“This government has the moral responsibility to put pressure on Tony Blair to quit so that democracy can be restored in Britain,” Hon. Visions said.

The MPs threatened to block the Queen's visit and reject British aid to Uganda if the British government did not introduce democratic reforms immediately.

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