It's a good article. I sometines like to read Monbiot, when he writes like this it's almost a pleasure.

I remember when I was a bairn watching some famine or other in Bangladesh asking my grandad why they were so poor. His reply was that the British Empire and stolen all of their wealth. I'd asked him because he spent over a decade on the sub-continent in the army. Of course at that age I'd imagined ships full of gold and rubys etc. sailing back to blighty. As I got older I realised it was the exploitation that sucked them dry, not lack of treasure. The Brits saw what had happened to the Spanish and the debasing of it's currency with all that gold sloshing about. They not only saw but came up with a better wheeze altogether.

Not sure how this fits in with expensive MPs though. :)