1st July 2013
The start of another month, the twelfth of this blog. I am really pleased with how things are going. The building blocks seem to now be in place. We are on a firm foundation. Perhaps I can begin to concentrate on the things that are most important to me in my life.
Croatia has today become the 28th member of the European Union. In the longer term it seems the rest of the Balkan Six of Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina will want to join.
A wildfire covering 1000 acres, 80 miles north west of Pheonix Arizona has killed at least 19 firefighters. It seems they became trapped and their normal measures to protect themselves as the fire passed over them, did not work. I think two of the group have survived. President Obama has called them heroes. Senator John McCain from Arizona said the families of the dead were in the thoughts and prayers of all Americans. 200 homes have been destroyed.
A wayward Chinese Lantern has been blamed for the largest ever blaze seen in the West Midlands last night. It fell onto a recycling yard containing 100,000 tonnes of plastic materials. 200 firefighters attended. No one has been hurt.
Today’s FT says that David Cameron had representatives of 30 British businesses with him on his Kazakhstan trip yesterday. Immediate trade worth £700 million is hoped to be generated with the possibility of contracts valued at £85 billion coming through in future years. That is a big number.
The edition reports that the governor of Israel’s central bank retired last week. He favours a two state solution with the Palestinians. He says that set up would expand the economy by a couple of percentage points of GDP.
An article there says the value of the Syrian pound has dropped by three quarters against the America dollar since civil war hostilities began. It is causing some Syrian businesses great distress.
A report from America in the paper notes that Mitt Romney only won 27% of the Hispanic vote in the Presidential election. Following passage of the immigration bill through the Senate, a House of Represntatives’ member says there is an overall majority in the lower chamber for reform. But he does not think it will happen without appropriate leadership from their senior Republican, John Boehner, towards his more intransigent colleagues.
A BBC webpage published yesterday afternoon reported that John Kerry had three meetings each last week with Mr Netanyahu amd Mr Abbas, on his fifth visit to their region since becoming Secretary of State. He has said he feels direct talks between the sides are now within reach with a little more work. From the video clip I watched I can see Mr Kerry looks upon his role as a facilitator. Essentially it is up to those who live in the Middle East, just as in Afghanistan, to decide what they want for themselves. He will do whatever he can to assist them.
The National Audit Office has severely criticised the BBC today for the size of it’s recent payouts to senior departing staff. It seems, prior to the arrival of the new Director General, that the culture at the top was a bit of an old boy’s network. No one worried terribly how much money passed between them.
I have just watched President Obama speak in Tanzania on the BBC TV News about spying. I thought he put it very well. He said countries wish to understand the world better. It is natural they will use intelligence agencies for that purpose so they can gain insights you will not read in the New York Times or NBC news.
It is reported this evening that Edward Snowden has applied for asylum in Russia. Mr Putin has spoken about it. Very responsibly, I feel, he has stated Mr Snowden should not wish to stay in Russia and continue making damaging leaks about Russia’s American partners. Some say Edward has applied to 15 countries to take him in.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, was on Channel 4 News this evening. Modestly he said he thought the questions raised by the Stephen Lawrence affair are two significant for his team to tackle. He thinks a judge led enquiry is the answer. The programme reported that the Prime Minister and Home Secretary are meeting tonight to discuss the matter.
Earlier we heard the other side of the story inside the Special Demonstration Squad which I wrote about on 24th June 2013. Following the allegation by one insider that he was pressurised to find information which could be used to smear the Lawrence family, a senior officer from the time denies that that intention existed at all. The three possible answers for that conundrum I feel are that one is lying; the man have different perceptions or memories of the same events, as perhaps last week’s Care Quality Commission news illustrated; or one of the two was deliberately misled by the Gang as I believe happened to Rupert Murdoch when he thought he was speaking to Gordon Brown once, as I go through in the chapter 9 appendix of my book. I do not know which might be the correct solution.
Another instance of unfolding events at the moment is in Cairo’s Tahir Square. Seeing the effect mainly peaceful young people have had recently in Brazil I suspect, millions came onto Egyptian streets yesterday with fervour to protest against President Morsi’s first year in office. The representative of the Muslim Brotherhood derives his support mainly from the conservative rural classes not the secular town dwellers. The latter want him out. Today the army have said they will step in to restore order unless something is sorted out within the next 48 hours. The protestors believe the military men are on their side.
2nd July 2013
Wikileaks’ website has announced this morning that Edward Snowden has made 21 requests for assylum to various countries. I think it is a crying shame that Edward has now been isolated away where, in my view, only the Gang can get at him. You can tell his mindset by the fact he has now withdrawn his request to Russia because President Putin imposed conditions on it’s acceptance. I am sure he feels hunted by the American system. Being called a traitor by some does not help. When he started out he clearly said he knew he had broken US law. He just felt his principle was more important than that. That was the voice of a strong man. Where he went wrong, it seems to me, was in running away to Hong Kong.
A BBC webopage today says it is now possible to download software from the internet which when installed on your computer hides it’s Internet Provider address to law officers. The system is called the dark internet and is used by criminals to buy drugs, guns and credit card skimmers for attaching to card machines. In the paedophile field apparently it has allowed live streaming, without getting caught, of abusive images since last year. You can sit at your computer screen in England and pay a targeted vunerable family overseas to put their child in front of a computer webcam to provide images of sex abuse to your order.
I have to admit I did not listen to Gordon Corera’s Radio 4 programme on cyber spying last night but there is a very full webpage to go with it. I find it all a bit curious. I have little doubt MI5 and GCHQ really know what is going on. That is the Gang are embedded within key security services around the world, including their own, from where they play their normal silly games. But there is not the smallest hint of that in what the director of GCHQ and MI5’s head of cyber have said to Mr Corera. If they really don’t understand how it works they should speak to Sir Hugh Orde or Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. Instead they blame hostile foreign states who they refuse to name. All very convenient. We all know however they are thinking of China. Gordon very fairly reports that things look a bit different in East Asia. The Chinese see themselves as the victims of cyber attack not the perpetrators. No public officials in my view, inside or outside of the security services, should wish to deceive the public.
Early on Today this morning was a report from America on the Arizona wildfires. It seems the dead firefighters were just unlucky. The wind changed suddenly and unexpectedly. They were caught out. The way the wind is blowing apparently means the fires are completely out of control.
A discussion on the programme has pointed me to a Number 10 petition stating that court defendants on legal aid should have the right to chose their own solicitor. Possibly for that reason the Justice Secretary has said he will see if that principle can be maintained whilst keeping the Government’s objective of a more cost effective system. Mr Grayling appears before the Commons Justice Committee tomorrow.
3rd July 2013
I have had two different people of opposite gender whom I have reason not to like very much, one yesterday and one today, tell me not to talk to them like that. My reply to both was that I would talk to them in any way I wanted. It is telling in my view how people react when they see, what they thought is a controlling situation, is not so controlling after all.
I wrote about my vounteering role, and my lost passport, on 26th May 2013. On the day described the lady filling out the application for my Criminal Records Bureau check asked me for my national security number which I did not know. I said I would look it up for the next day. At that time however I forgot to give it to her and she forgot to ask. That will all have been duly noted by the Gang in my view. The inevitable happened and the defective form was picked up. I was asked for my NI number again last week. That is when the silly games started. I received an email from my coordinator on Monday to say she had been told my driving licence number on the form was two digits short. She had tried to ring me just before and I had not answered. She had therefore left a message on my answerphone. I was in at the time. I am 95% sure I would have heard the phone if it had rung. When I checked, no voicemail message had been left. In my return email I told the lady the truth. I know what it was all about, she however will not. She will have a lingering suspicion, I suspect, that I may not have been straightforward with her. When you phone someone the person hears the ring at the other end do they not?. Now things will crop up in her conversations I expect to make that feeling even stronger. Her trust in me will begin to ebb. And that is how it works.
Edward Snowden’s story goes from bizarre to surreal. Something we should be sure of in a rapidly changing world I feel is that national intelligence agencies understand what is going on even if we do not. Yet yesterday president Evo Morales of Bolivia flew out of Moscow back home after an energy summit and the governments of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy did not appear to know whether Edward was on board or not. We are told they suspected he was and therefore would not allow the jet to fly through their airspace. It had to land in Vienna where it was searched with no Mr Snowden on board. All very strange.
After hearing the radio news this morning and reading Nick Robinson’s blog I know the Privy Council meet infrequently at Buckingham Palace. Ministers are there next week when they will be obliged to consider the application by newspaper editors for a Royal Charter to change press regulation. It seems it will be rejected. The next meeting is in the autumn. Culture Secretary Maria Miller is seeing members of the Hacked Off campaign today to explain the government’s position to them.
When Sarah Montague was in Afghanistan recently she spoke to the head of the Afghan Army. The interview was broadcast on Today this morning and the general said the Taliban, who are based in Pakistan, are entirely under the control of that country. The trouble he said is that his Pakistani counterparts do not trust him, so discussions are going nowhere. If they did, things could move very rapidly.
As I mention in my book Elton John is one of my favourite singers. His melodies have such strength and resonance. Bernie Taupin has composed the most concise, meaningful lyrics. Elton was interviewed on the programme and said that to survive in the music business is extremely difficult. You have to have endurance. He said he is proud of the country where he lives and his two children have brought him more happiness than he could ever have imagined. He is a remarkably open, emotional man.
There was a piece saying that there are 25,000 cases of electricity theft every year costing us £200 million. Ofgem intend to fine energy suppliers unless they do something about it. About a third of the loss is through by-passing of meters by growers of cannabis plants.
I do have to say I misread the Egyptian situation. I thought some form of compromise would be reached before expiry of the generals’ 48 hour ultimatum. Mr Morsi did fairly win the democratic vote in June 2012 and I assumed that would be the determining factor. I was wrong. The head of the Egyption army has been on television this evening to say the country is now under temporary military rule. By all accounts the move has the support of the vocal, energetic urban masses. I have not heard of any serious outbreaks of violence. It seems Mr Morsi and his advisers seriously miscalculated. It would not have happened in a mature democracy I trust but I would not wish to judge in any way. If it is the right thing for the Egyptian people I would be the last to complain. Outsiders looking in must have been extraordinarily calm and measured. It has worked so far.
4th July 2013
Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, has announced today that 70 resettlement prisons are to be created from autumn next year to house all male prisoners serving terms less than 12 months, and also for those within three months of their release. Those jails would be near where the prisoner lives and it seems will cover the majority of inmates in England and Wales.
I wrote about an incident in Westminster Abbey on 13th June 2013. On Monday a BBC webpage reported that the evening before a woman was arrested for spraying paint on a statute there. Apparently she was a campaigner for Stolen Children of the UK and was in the presence of a man from Fathers4Justice. Last Friday one of the male organisation’s members glued a photograph to John Constable’s The Hay Wain in the National Gallery. Then the group said it would no longer try to engage with the establishment. Presumably that means it is guerilla warfare from now on. Good luck to them.
The Metropolitan Police have announced today that it has made progress in the Madeline McCann review and has therefore opened a formal investigation into her disappearance. I am sure Kate and Gerry McCann will be uplifted by that.
The London Array wind farm in the Thames Estuary off Ramsgate in Kent was officially opened by David cameron today.
This might well be a connection too far but there again it might not so I have decided to put it down. I think there is a better than 50-50 chance that Madeline McCann is alive. If police investigations start leading to her I do not think the Gang will be able to frustrate them in any substantive way. That will make them very angry. They alone will know just how well the Metropolitan Police are doing at the moment. On Monday Portugal’s Finance Minister resigned from the Government. On Tuesday the Foreign Minister did the same. That will be deeply destabilising for the Portugese political system.
There is no indication how they found out but Le Monde reports this morning that the French external intellignce service, DGSE, has a super computer in three basement floors of it’s Paris headquarters where is stores and analyses private communications metadata. The BBC webpage does not give the source of the data being stored. It seems very similar to the GCHQ system to me. Le Monde opinions that the operation is outside French law and beyond any proper supervision.
It looks as though Ed Miliband is now in one of those impossible situations. When elected leader he received the support of six trade unions including the largest, Unite. It seems possible it is conducting a covert campaign to ensure as many of it’s preferred candidates are selected for the next general election as possible. Then last week apparently information was received by the Labour leadership that there were funny goings on involving Unite and candidate selection for the Falkirk by-election which is expected before Christmas. The Party heirarchy have now taken over the selection process themselves. The general secretary of Unite says his Union has done nothing wrong and threatens to taken legal action against the Labour Party. The Conservatives will make hay with that.
Hidden power is a corrosive thing. But in my view it happens with big business and the Conservatives just as much. The answer seems simple, to have an open, transparent system of funding for our political parties. But then unfortunately you get to the next impossible situation. Politicians perceive that voters would never wear public funding, so in their boxes they stay. They might well be right but at least they could have a go at explaining it to see if sufficient of us saw how important a principle it is. If you don’t try you don’t know. Their beloved focus groups would tell them how it was going.
But to show that will not happen Nick Clegg confirmed on LBC radio this morning that talks between the Parties to agree a new structure of funding have finally failed. Instead the goverment will announce it’s own more limited proposals in a bill on political lobbying, soon to be published.
The Falkirk affair produced a scalp this evening when Tom Watson resigned from the shadow cabinet as Labour’s general election coordinator. His office assistance was Unite’s choice as the by-election candidate. Mr Watson has co-authored a book about Rupert Murdoch’s links with British politicians and police officers. After Mr Watson passed information to the police at the end of 2012 about a well connected historic paedophile ring an investigation was launched in which two men have so far been arrested. I think Mr Watson worked out it might be a good idea to take himself out of the limelight for a bit.
Mr Murdoch himself has been in the news after a secretly recorded tape of him talking was played on Channel 4 News last night. After listening to Neil Wallis, a former deputy and executive editor of the News of the World, on the programme this evening I understand Mr Murdoch was speaking to 23 News International journalists, arrested under phone hacking allegations, offering his support. For that reason perhaps his words were more biased that they should have been. He thought he was speaking privately. He was very uncomplimentary towards the police and referred to hacking as next to nothing.
5th July 2013
There has been a story about manners in the news for the last couple of days about the Sainsbury’s supermarket in Crayford, Kent or more accurately in the London Borough of Bexley. A checkout operator got upset when a lady by the conveyor was talking on her mobile phone. She asked her to finish before she served her. Afterwards the customer complained to the staff member’s superiors. In my view it will be one of the Gang’s most often used techniques for their helpers to destabilise targeted shop assistants. They are out in public space and have no means of protecting themselves against people being horrible to them. Sainbury’s initially panicked, in my view, and tried to make it up to the customer. She has refused to think kindly towards them. With the comment generated by the story however I think the supermarket realise that did not initially act calmly enough. I read this morning that privately they are giving their staff member every support.
Last weekend at the Silverstone Grand Prix there were tyre failures during the race on six different cars. Fortunately no one was hurt but the drivers understand how lucky they were. They have said that if a similar thing happens at this Sunday’s event in Germany they will immediately abandon the competition. I thorough support that decison. To have your safety messed around with, by the Gang I suggest, in such a cavalier fashion is absolutely unacceptable.
I am really surprised how relatively peaceful Egypt has been since Wednesday. The specific argument for giving Mr Morsi the ultimatum to change his ways I understand was that last November he gave himself the power to legislate without judicial oversight or review: only after public protest did he he rescind most of it. Then he did not appear to understand that he was governing for all the people of Egypt not just Muslim Botherhood supporters. He was creating a lot of bad feeling.
The law normally creeps into difficult situations somewhere and here is no exception. This time it is important that events in Eqypt must not have been a military coup. If so America would not be allowed under it’s law to provide any more military aid to the country. At the moment that runs at a staggering $1.3 billion dollars annually.
Indeed I wonder if that is the key to analysis of the situation. It is inescapable to conclude the Sates would not have been keeping a watchful eye over the months on what they were getting for their financial investment, as no doubt they were before the Arab Spring itself. I have heard it said the the army’s actions must have been planned over months for eveything to have been gone so smoothly. The helicopters trailing Egyptian flags passing over Tahir Square show, in my view, how well they understand that the confidence of the protestors is essential. Exactly who they might have been talking to I do not know but I suspect the generals have been mentored on how to play it for quite some time.
The Unite boss, Len McCluskey, is extremely upest with the Labour party over the Falkirk affair. He says he has lost all trust in them. The Today team were saying this morning that they had asked him to be on their broadcast but he had declined. I think that is a shame. I am a complete agnostic at the moment. I cannot make up my mind on the rights and wrongs of the situation however until I have heard what he has to say.
What does seem clear though, I feel, is that it has been an accident waiting to happen story. From Today I understand Unite openly say they wish as many Labour candidates for 2015 as possible to view politics as they do. I expect those on the Blairite wing of the Party find that challenging and upsetting. However as long as everyone plays by the rules it does not matter. You openly discuss and reach an accommodation between the divided opinions. You have a common aim and the courage to wash your dirty linen in public. Mr Cameron will make as much capital out of that as he can but politics is a rough game. Nobody is getting physically hurt. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
The really horrible thing though is that the Gang are always watching and waiting. They have no morals. As soon as they see a difficult situation they will do their best to destabilise individuals within it as much as they can. They will always, always kick a dog when it is down. That was what Mr Miliband’s briefing notes being found in the Common’s toilet on Wednesday was all about in my view.
There was a man on Today this morning from the lobby group Business For Britain saying why he thought we should commit ourselves now to having a referendum on EU membership. He said he thought it would be a good tactic for discussions with our European partners. The way he explained it was that to be a good negotiator you need weapons in your pocket and a referedum would be a nuclear weapon. He was perfectly genuine in using that language. I think it best I don’t comment but I do feel the gentleman should consider who his real friends are.
Sarah Montague was talking on the programme to a teenager with mental health problems. The young woman sounded perfectly normal with no hint of tension in her voice at all. However she said she had a sense of perpetual fearfulness whenever she is awake and was petrified as she spoke to Sarah. Apparently one in ten teenagers have mental disabilities. An online service is just being launched so anyone affected can contact professional counsellors through their computer.
I found the piece interesting and shocking. I like young children because they are so natural aand unaffected. You always see what you get. It is adults who can present a false impression to the world. I was not aware however that someone as young as sixteen could comprehensively hide their true feelings to others so well.
Stephen Lawrence’s friend, Duwayne Brooks, was with him when he was murdered in 1993. Mr Books is now a Lewisham Lib Dem councillor so it seems entirely appropriate he and his solicitor should have been in to see Nick Clegg today. The police have found evidence that at least one meeting involving Mr Brooks, in 1999 or 2000, was secretly recorded by them with senior authorisation. It is thought likely it was in his solicitor’s office and at least one superior policeman was present. If that proves to be the case there will of course be a couple of questions to answer. Did the policeman present know that a recording was being made. If he did why was it decided to have two sources of information and, if he didn’t, why was he not told.
An inquiry by a former High Court judge, held in place of an inquest, has reported today that Azelle Rodney was illegally killed by a police firearms squad in April 2005 in North London. Wikipedia says Mr Rodney was suspected of drug crime and on the day had just been to have his hair cut. Three guns were later found inside the car in which he was travelling.. The report says the culpable policeman could not rationally have believed Mr Rodney was a threat to him. The initial IPCC investigation found nothing wrong with the police operation.
This afternoon it is reported the Labour Party have given their internal Falkirk investigation papers to the police to see if any laws have been broken. Ed Miliband says Mr McCluskey should face up to his responsibilities and not try to defend the indefensible.
Today’s FT says a new public company, Genomis England, is being established to provide individual genetic advice to patients within the NHS. The initial budget is £100 million and it is hoped details of 100,000 patients wil be in the database by 2017. Once your genetic make up is known treatments can be tailored to your individual characteristics.
An article from the edition written in America says there is a five eyes intelligence sharing agreement between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Very considerately we agree not to spy on each other. Other European countries are not so privileged but all terrorism related material is passed onto them.
The former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, was on Channel 4 News this evening still calling for a public enquiry into the undercover policing revelations. From that I deduce the Prime Minister and Home Secretary still haven’t made up their mind whether they want to go down that route or not. I feel that is probably a good idea.
6th July 2013
The retired policeman in charge of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry has said overnight that he authorised the secret recording of one meeting with Duwayne Brooks and his team in May 2000, seven years after Stephen’s death. Just like the Prism programme, doing things in secret in my view is not very nice but I don’t think that should have had any effect on Duwayne’s group as they they knew they were talking to the police anyway. It is much more interesting I feel to look at it from the other side. The former officer says he wanted an unassailable record of the discussions. I don’t believe that argument holds any water. If a policeman in court swears he is telling the truth about what was said in a conversation a jury will only disbelieve him if they have other reasons to do so. It indicates to me a culture of paranoia might have existed in the Met at the time. No one could be trusted, not even your own staff. The Gang would have loved that. And it would allow them access to the recording to see if they could rake up any dirt on Duwayne.
You can only speculate how these things work but this morning it is reported both Venezuela and Nicaragua have offered Edward Snowden political asylum. My guess is their officials have spoken to Mr Putin. Neither do I discount the possibility that elements of the Russian state have been speaking to elements of the American state. The fact of the matter, it seems to me, is that the Edward Snowden story is making America and Russia look quite silly. Their common enemy is the Gang. They should not forget that.
The practicality of how Edward may get from A to B however is not being mentioned. Perhaps he should hitchhike.
Now that the Egyptian army have acted, in my view they must keep an extremely tight rein on events. Any insubordination in the ranks towards emotional protestors must be vigourously and correctedly dealt with. Yesterday 12 people died in Alexandria, a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold. I am not sure it matters too much how the present sututaion arose. Perhaps it was just that the Brotherhood were in the shadows for so long they could not adjust to a truly democratic system as quickly as was necessary. It is vitally important now I suggest that they continue to engage. If they shut themselves away in a hurt little box their American Gang enemies will start rubbing their hands with glee. What has happened has happened. Everyone needs to move forward. Another absolute essential in my view is that the political vacuum is filled as a matter of urgency. If it is not the violence could spiral out of control.
A sad but realistic editorial I feel appeared in last Saturday’s FT drawing on recent events in Australia. The conclusion is some politicians can be vicious but research indicates, except perhaps for very few people like President Obama, we respond more to those leaders with forceful controlling views than conciliators. We get the politicians we deserve. Possibly the power of others is more attractive to us than the potential power we could hold within ourselves. I think it would be good for all of us to strive harder for self empowerment.
I am so pleased to see the financial markets thinking about the future again with their normal emotional verve. They represent in my view the most sensitive indicator of the health of our societies. The Gang are money, they have always ruled the roost. So when they are manpipulating things financial men just rely on their most basic of feelings, greed and fear. However when good intentioned psychological direction is introduced, which I believe the European Central Bank and American Federal Reserve now understand how to do, rationality can be brought into play a bit more.
Those ideas have come into my mind after reading John Authers’ The Long View in that paper. He says that, as far as emerging markets are concerned, there was a real long lasting sea change in sentiment the week before. Reading the signals right no doubt will enable clever, thoughtful people to make lots of money.
There was a most unsavoury looking man in his twenties strimming an unkempt garden woodland area where no one ever goes at a neighbouring property today. He was noisily working right by the boundary of the property I mentioned in my note of 14th May 2013. I went out to do some gardening a bit later and my Gang director pulled him off, in my view, because he thought I was working a bit too close to him and his charge might be in danger. Just after 1pm he went back by vehicle when it was thought I would be inside the house for my lunch. For some reason however I varied my normal routine today. He kept at it until 5pm precisely. Then mid afternoon a noisy light plane flew around in circles for ten minutes about 100 yards away in a sensitive area. That all means, in my opinion, that there will be a drugs run in the morning. The troops need to be reminded who is in charge. Something I have always found with the Gang is that if they are up against it they will always, always resort to intimidation.
On Thursday the army appointed the head of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court as interim President. At a meeting today he has chosen the former United Nations official and leader of the National Salvation Front alliance, Mohaned ElBaradei, as temporary Prime Minister.
There was a very thoughtful, measured lady from the charity Inquest on Today this morning talking about the Azelle Rodney report. Apparantently the firearms squad thought Mr Rodney was on his way to commit an armed robbery. The lady was saying the whole crime investigation and review system has been fundamentally flawed for a long time. She feels the Specialist Firearms Command felt isolated within their own police force and received no support. The IPCC have never been properly resourced leading to a a mindset of impotence and a culture of just getting things off your desk. In her view the just published inquiry report was only so searching because the exercise was properly resourced by the government.
The programme played a clip of Len McClusky speaking this morning on the Falkirk affair. He obviously feels his Unite union have done nothing wrong. Mr Miliband thinks he is in denial. He asks Mr McCluskey to address the issues.
7th July 2013
I received some disappointing personal news on Thursday. It has not dulled the focus of what I want to achieve. Life is a journey. I feel I am a much stronger person now than I was even six months ago.
John Prescott has resigned from the Privy Council over the press regulation story. He obviously doesn’t agree with the legal advice the government have recieved as I indicated on Wednesday. He writes in today’s Sunday Mirror apparently that as far as he is concerned Parliament should take precedence. He thinks the whole situation is inappropriate politicking.
Following my note about Sainsbury’s in Crayford on Friday the same storyline is on the BBC website this morning for their own John Inverdale. Yesterday he said that the Wimbledon winner Marion Bartoli is not a good looker. The BBC have obviously had some feedback to the remark as they apologise to those who have been upset by it’s insensitive nature. They then include a video clip of what John said so we can all make up our own minds. I would call his conversation kind and realistic. In my view if any of us were upset we were not thinking about it quite as we should. But I suspect many who did complain were playing silly games of the very worst kind.
The Jordanian citizen Abu Qatada flew back to his home country overnight where he will be tried for alleged terrorist offences comitted there, I believe, in the early 1990s. Both Mrs May and Mr Cameron have made broadcast statements this morning about how well they have done for us in finally getting rid of him. That is quite understandable but the fact remains he is only going because he has voluntarily agreed to. I expect a lot of the British public would be interested to know, as I would, how his change of mind might have come about.
On Friday night a train carrying wagons of light crude oil was parked for the night just outside the town of Lac-Megantic on the border of Canada and America just inside Quebec. The wagons were uncoupled and because they stood on an incline probably, rolled back into the town. There some of them exploded. 1000 people have been evacuated from their homes and twenty four hours later the full death toll is not yet known. That in my view is likely to have been down to a gang culture in the area realising how easy it would be to arrange a disaster for the towm, and then for the Gang Master to arrange it. It could have been as simple as a stupid 13 year old being dared into the action of unhinging the wagons without fully appreciating the consequences of what he was initiating. Possibly there was someone at the other end to make sure explosions took place.
On Wednesday of last week North Korea agreed that some of the 120 South Korean businesses concerned could go back to the Kaesong dual country factory area. They could then inspect their property which they had to abandon on leaving amongst high emotion three months earlier. The next day Seoul suggested talks to discuss an agreed way forward. A few hours later Pyongyang agreed.
Yesterday evening our time a South Korean airliner from Seoul was coming into land at San Francisco airport. It crash landed. Early indications are that it may have been pilot error. Two passengers sitting at the back have been killed and ten critically injured. I suspect the crash was arranged by the Gang Master because he felt so angry. It is about time in my view that all this killing and the ruining of innocent families’ lives, stopped. If Mr Abu Qatada could be persuaded to go back to Jordan someone, somewhere should be having some serious discussions with the Gang top people to find out how they see things. Instead of spending billions of dollars on secretly listening to all and sundry the American state should, I consider, start focusing on dealing with the people who are causing their citizens so much grief. They obviously cannot stop it happening so they must go into plan B mode. They need to get real. And it was all so pointless. The BBC report this morning that after 15 hours of talks the two Koreas have agreed in principle to reopen the Kaesong industrial complex.
I expect we have all been in the supermarket sometimes and seen a young Mum berating her three year old for being the most terrible child that ever existed. When I see that I want to walk over to the lady and point out how fundamental a mistake she is making. A child of that age must love it’s parents. It has no other choice. The fault is with the parent not the child. However I know I must not. We all have the right in life, within the law, to conduct ourselves as we wish.
Whilst having breakfast I read Simon Kuper’s article in yesterday’s FT Weekend Magazine. I don’t think I have ever seen Simon write before with evangelical zeal. But he does feel that way about early childhood development. In a study 97% of British mothers over a two year period said they hoped their children might go to university. For well off parents that will often materialise. For poor people though, in today’s unkind world, it is really pie in the sky. They idea is that it is explained to parents in the first three most formative years of their baby’s life, what they need to do to give it the best chance of success. And the things are all very simple. Show your child you love it, put yourself out for it, speak to it, read to it, feed it well. All very basic stuff. And the great thing of course is that it can be applied anywhere in the world, from Pakistan to the USA. It would not cost a vast amount and should not be a political issue. The potential savings in social costs to worlwide societies as youngsters become adults could be exponential I would have thought.
From where I sit in my living room I look out through the patio door at a lovely far reaching view. In the middle distance I can see a small part of the home field of a farm complex nearby. At 10.30 this morning there was a tractor in that particular area, mowing. I am not sure of the point of that as he was last out there cutting the grass at 7.30am the Sunday before last. I am pleased he did however as it tells me there definitely was a drugs run, out of here this morning. To think you are laughing at someone and then expose yourself doing it, is not always a smart move in my view. Some people have the mentality of small fractious children.
My diary note of 1st May 2013 suggested that the American Gang and the ‘Ndrangheta have been partners since 1991. A BBC webpage I read yesterday would fit in with that guess. The alleged head of the ‘Ndrangheta was detained in Columbia, home territory of the Gang, in 1994 and deported to Italy. It seems no charges were brought against him at that time. However he was arested in Italy in 2004 and sent to prison for his crimes. In 2010 he was in hospital being treated for heart disease there and escaped. He was detained in a Bogota shopping centre last Friday by Columbian police assisted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration and no doubt will now be sent back to Italy again.