1st December 2013
Friday was the first day of the trial of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. I saw the CCTV footage on Newsnight that evening showing the last few moment’s of Lee Rigby’s life. He was coming back to his barracks in civilian clothes and crossing the road. In the distance you can see a car driving towards him quite fast, with another immediately behind. He is on the other side of the carriageway before it reaches him. It swerves and hits him from behind. He did not notice it coming. Lee collapsed on the ground with his back broken. Both assailants got out and attacked his motionless body, one with a knife and the other with a meat cleaver. With evidence like that it seems surprising the two defendants are pleading not guilty. No doubt they will tell us why when they give their defence. I can only imagine one factor must be that they wish to make political statements when they appear in the witness box.
2nd December 2013
There was a Panorama programme on this evening about dishonesty in the foreign aid business and the Global Fund in particular. Richard Bilton said corruption in the field damages trust and makes fools of donors.
An early morning local train yesterday derailed as it was nearing it’s New York destination. Some passengers have said it was travelling too fast around a bend. Four people died and 60 were injured, not including the driver I believe. I imagine it would have been a lot worse if it had not been a Sunday. At that point the track runs alongside the Hudson river. One carriage nearly entered the water but stopped just short.
There was the strange case reported on Today this morning of an Italian lady, here for work, who was given a Caesarian birth by court order on the application of Essex County Council Social Services after she was held to be mentally unwell. It is accepted she has now recovered. She says she would like the child returned to her but instead it will be given to adoptive parents. That unfortunately is about all we know. The Court of Protection and Family Courts do not allow their dealings to be put into the public domain.
Colin Firth was on the programme talking about his starring film role in The Railway Man, soon to be released here. It is a true story, as recorded in the book, about a British Army Officer who was tortured within an inch of his life in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in 1942 and later. After hostilities ended he came to meet one of his tormentors. They became extremely close friends for the rest of their lives.
As I mention in my book I think rape is one of the most difficult of crimes. I also wrote about it on 27th May 2013. There will mostly be no evidence, it is just one person’s word against another’s. And it involves high emotion which therefore requires very careful handling by official agencies when they get involved. A BBC webpage reports this morning it is estimated only about 20-25% of rapes are reported to police. The ACPO representative on the subject has said he would like a much higher proportion of victims to come forward if only so the police have a better understanding of what is going on under the apparently calm surface of society. On Today he asked for more sensitivity and education on the subject all round, so that risks for potential victims are shut down, they properly understand the principle of consent and are able to decide what is best for them after the event.
I wrote about the demonstrations in Kiev last Thursday. Over the weekend the crowds have become larger, with several hundreds of thousands now involved the BBC says. With numbers like that out in a European country, I cannot see foreceful repression turning the tide. The government seems tense. It says it suspects a coup attempt. I certainly hope that doesn’t happen. It would be the perfect cover for guns to be fired.
Thailand though I feel has a different culture. The disturbances there are experiencing the full weight of the army against them. And the protestors themselves have used force to enter government buildings. Trouble has been brewing under the surface since the last big disturbances in 2010. There appears to be a structural fault in the country’s society.
David Cameron is in China at the moment with a trade delegation of businessmen from more than 100 large and small companies. He has been made most welcome. We do seem to be in their good books at the moment.
3rd December 2013
Following my note of 5th November 2013 it does appear something is going on with North Korea at the moment. A BBC webpoage passes on from South Korean media, reports that Kim Jong-un’s uncle has been removed from his high level military post for unspecified wrongs. South Korean intelligence sources apparently say two of the leader’s close aides have also been executed for corruption within the last couple of weeks.
I have had in an email from Avaaz this morning inviting me to sign a petition for Edward Snowden to be granted permanent asylum in Brazil when his temporary one year Russian visa runs out. I was pleased to do that.
I have heard that David Cameron is being accompanied by six ministers on his China trip. It seems a set procedure has been devised for dealing with our objections to China’s human rights record. Those things are discussed but only at specific times, places and amongst certain people. That way the issue doesn’t get in the way of other business.
RBS had a major fault with it’s computer systems last night. For three hours from 6.30 no customers could access their accounts. I heard one lady say she was thrown out of a taxi because she couldn’t pay her fare with her piece of plastic. There was a bank representaive on the radio this morning and they obviously don’t yet know what caused it. They are in an impossible situation. All they can do is apologise profusely to hundreds of thousands of customers and offer compenstaion to those disadvantaged. They will pray it is a one off so the public don’t associate them with being a basket case and treat them like lepers.
I have seen a bit more information on a BBC webpage today about the Caesarean birth story. I think it will have come from the lady’s solititor in Italy where she has returned. The page links to a County Court judgement now made available from February 2013 authorising the adoption. The baby girl was born in August 2012 when her mother was attending an airline training couse at Stansted Airport. Her lawyer says it could never have happened in Italy. Then from a radio newspaper review, I have looked at a Daily Mail article which reports that the case is still outstanding and will now be transferred to the High Court for final determination by the president of it’s family division.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been in Glasgow today to lay a wreath at the helicopter crash site at the Clutha Vaults pub. First minister Alex Salmond was also in the city to sign a book of condolence at the council offices. I wrote an email of commiseration to Mr Salmond yesterday.
Although Mr Obama is never combative in his demeanour he spoke very plainly in the video clip I have just watched. His healthcare reforms will not be repealed whilst he is President. However he will listen to anyone who has a constructive suggestion to put forward.
Today this morning reported on a change of tactic by the Thai authorities. The barricades in front of government buildings have been dismantled and the riot police withdrawn. I feel that is a clever move. It means the demonstrators have nothing physical to fight against. I hope the rioters might decide it is best to wait til the next election to try and achieve their aims, and in the meantime use their powers of persuasion instead.
A piece on the radio news noted that flares being throw at football matches are becoming a problem, with the associated risk of injury to fellow members of the crowd. In 2010 there were eight instances in our leagues. So far this season there have been 96.
The editor of the Guardian appeared before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee today. Mr Rusbridger said that his newspaper has published roughly 26 of the 58,000 documents made available to it by Edward Snowden and has never disclosed the identities of any individuals. I understand some MPs feel the paper might have breached section 58 of the 2000 Terrorism Act which covers the collection of sensitive information helpful to terrorists. I have just looked at the provision online. The paragraph says it does not apply if the action taken was reasonable. I imagine that was inserted specifically to protect from prosecution journalists carrying out a professional job.
4th December 2013
As happened in Manchester in September 2012 two police officers were called to a house in Leeds earlier today where a gun was fired at them. This time fortunately there were no fatalities. The male officer was unscathed and his female companion serously injured. A man was later arrested after a tip off from a member of the public.
It has been announced this morning that the policman on the gates of Downing Street at the time of the plebgate incident is suing Andrew Michell for libel, presumably with the financial backing of the Police Federation. As Mr Mitchell has said he wanted the participants to swear the veracity of their accounts on oath I imagine he will not mind about that at all. The losing party will have to pay the winner’s legal costs. As far as I am aware it is still one person’s word against another’s.
Michael Adebolajo went to university. He appears highly articulate and political. From what I have read and listened to from the BBC today he seems to have a strong disregard for politicians, in particular our three main party leaders, Mr Miliband’s brother and Mr Blair. He spoke of the custom of naming fallen serving soldiers in Parliament as a strange and disgusting practice. I am not sure why he thinks that. When talking to the police he blamed the political class for misleading the people of this country and refers to our representatives as wicked, corrupt, selfish and oppressive. I feel he must have been immersed in a gang culture where those views were all persuasive. He clearly realises his killing of Lee Rigby could be considered as wrong even to the extent of possibly displeasing Allah. He must have thought it necessary nonetheless. He was assessed psychiatrically for several days immediately after the killing and found to be of sound mind before being tansferred to police custody.
A Hezbollah commander was shot dead outside his home in Lebanon last night in a targeted attack by gunmen. The organistaion have accused Israel of being the perpetrators. Israel denies it.
5th December 2013
It seems to me Scotland must have upset the Gang at the moment. Perhaps they think the independence vote will be lost. First of all it was Falkirk, then Grangemouth and most recently Glasgow. Possibly there is a connection to Leeds. I have just looked at the Met Office online rainfall radar map. It shows the most terrible storm currently raging directly over the central belt of Scotland.
Wikipedia informs me that the Yemeni government is mainly Sunni. The country is on the southern flank of Sunni Saudi Arabia. The home rebels in the country are Shia with al-Qaeda groups comprising many nationalities. This morning a military assault involving gunmen and a suicide bomber was made on the defence ministry compound in Sana’a. The government say they have the situation under control.
I probably have come across the phrase emotional intelligence before but I don’t recall. One definition I see is that it is being aware of and controlling your emotions, then using that input to guide one’s thinking and demeanour. I believe it is something I do. I am trying to develop it to better my social relations with others and influence their actions for the good.
I heard the description used in Thought for the Day on Today yesterday in relation to Baroness Ashton’s achieivment in pulling off a first step in the Iranian nuclear talks. Even if she might have the best intellect in the world she would not have got anywhere without a high degree of empathy for the men she was with. The presenter called emotional intelligence a form of wisdom.
Before that Frank Gardner went to the Met Police’s Counter Terrorism Command headquarters at New Scotland Yard for the programme and spoke to the officer in charge. I feel it was very positive of his superiors to encourage him to talk to Frank on the record in the way he did.
There was a lady from the National Audit Office on the edition talking about the Charity Commission. Apparently it is very bureaucratic to register a charity but even so the checks made are not searching in any way. If you wanted to be deceitful it would not be difficult. An example of what can happen is that of the charity Cup Trust which, it is said, was nothing more than a tax avoidance scheme.
The Attorney General was also on the programme explaining why his office has issued guidance, on Twitter and elsewhere, to remind users of social networking that they should obey the country’s laws of libel and slander, in the same way as journalists have to. It seems many people pass on tweets they have received without really thinking about what they are doing. Unfortunately however ignorance of the law is no defence against it’s provisions.
I have just heard the day’s report on PM about the Woolwich killing. In his statements to police Mr Adebolajo said he looked upon himself and Lee Rigby as fighters on opposite sides in a war. He considers that, by cutting his throat, he killed Lee humanely. However it is how you would slaughter an unconscious animal. I don’t feel Mr Adebolajo actually dealt with Lee respectfully at all. I think he must have a very hard heart.
One attribute he does display, I suspect, is a blind sense of loyalty to his friends. He says he picked on Lee because he was the first soldier he saw. That does not make a lot of sense to me. Lee was wearing a Help for Heroes top and carrying a camouflage effect shoulder bag. I don’t consider that made him an obvious military officer. From the CCTV footage Mr Adebolajo’s car seems to have been too far away to see Lee clearly in any event. I feel it would be more productive for Mr Adebolago to use his obvious intellect to think about how his gang were aware Lee was a soldier well before he approached the barracks.
25% of the population of the Central Africa Republic now require food aid as a result of their civil war. At least the international community seem to have acted reasonably quickly. By unanimous vote of the UN security council France has been given appropriate legal cover for sending in a substantive peacekeeping force. Troops are starting to fly in this evening to take French numbers there up to 1,200. The African stabilisation force will increase to 3,600.
There was a meeting in Brussels today of EU justice and home affairs ministers specifically to talk about immigration issues, I imagine in view of the free movement of Bulgarian and Romanian workers which comes into effect on 1st January 2014. There seems to have been a division of view between the officials and their politicians. Theresa May said it is not right that newcomers can immediately make full use of our welfare state.
I feel the reporting of the case currently being conducted at Isleworth Crown Court is a damning indictment of the influential in society, here and elsewhere. I understand there are satellite TV trucks ouside, in a quiet London street, from all over the world. The two women who are accused of serious fraud are hardly mentioned. It is all about the two highly traumatised victims, required to provide intimate details of their past private lives solely to assist the legal process. So what do our press do, they victimise them further, especially the lady for saying she wants to tell the truth about taking drugs in the past. If she had been deceitful no sensational material would have been provided. What a marvellous lesson for our young people. Every newspaper this morning, except one apparently, had a front page picture of Nigella Lawson entering court with full small minded comment of her demeanour and dress choice.
It seems mine is not the only story floating around in the shadows waiting to see the light of day. In 2006 HSBC in Geneva employed a computer expert to make their banking systems more secure. When he got down to it he found that everything seemed to have been set up so that money could be moved around the world in absolutely secrecy. He says his bosses would do nothing about it, so he stole the details of thousands of bank accounts. He fled to France with the Swiss authorities after him. An Interpol arrest warrant was issued. That apparently allowed the French to seize the data in connivance with the man who wanted it circulated as widely as possible. French intelligence agencies passed it around but there was no political will in western countries to expose the tax evasion it showed. The man decided to go to Spain. He was arrested again but judges refused to send him back to Switzerland at the resulting extradition procedings. And it was that public hearing apparently which created the pressure for some nations to start taking action against their citizens. Account holders included South American drug cartels, French aristocrats, Spanish bankers and Belgian diamond dealers. Hundreds of millions of pounds have now been recovered by tax authorities. Spain and France have each recovered over £150 million each from their nationals’ details found in the data dump. Greece has secured nothing from nealy 2000 account holder names given to them. Indeed in that country the authorities prosecuted the investigative journalist looking into the story. In America they went after HSBC itself rather than the listed individuals. The bank was fined $1.9 billion for money laundering. Back home HMRC has caught one account holder out of 6,000 names provided. The HSBC man could provide many more names it seems if asked. It is a scandal if you ask me. It is about time those in charge started doing their jobs properly.
Later Jesse Norman MP, a member of the Treasury Select Committe, said our apparent lack of success might be because HMRC have settled all their cases out of court. I am sure the Revenue would be able to tell him if he is interested enough to ask. As far as the rigging of financial markets is concerned Mr Norman suspects there might be quite a bit more to be revealed, such as manipulation of foreign exchange and commodity indices, including that of the oil price which hits us all of course in the price of petrol at the pumps.
There was a QC on Today this morning, specialising in Court of Protection work, putting the other side of the argument to the ordered Caesarian birth story I wrote about on Monday. He said his experience tells him it will be far more complicated than the simplistic way it has been presented to the public. He has faith that the court will have done the right thing.
The head National Trust gardener at Stourhead was on the programme talking about the changing seaons. He said it has been so mild this week his team were out cutting the grass yesterday. I am going to have to change my ways. I never visit my lawn after the middle of October. I do have to admit though it is looking pretty long out there.
A front page article in Saturday’s FT was about Bitcoins. It seems little Alderney would like to become the global centre of some form of virtual currency exchange. As a first step they want to mint a Bitcoin made partly of gold to give it real instrinsic value. A vault of those no doubt could be used as security for any future trading system which might arise. They are in preliminary discussions with the Royal Mint to produce them which also, I expect, would give a form of official approval. Bearing in mind that the essence of a banking relationship is trust I suppose there is nothing wrong with that in principle. And virtual Bitcoins are in demand, currently worth over $1,000 each. There is money to be made through tapping into that popularity.
Brian Meehan is a name which rings a bell with me. Looking it up I see he was a member of an Irish drug gang who was convicted for a murder he commited in Dublin in 1996 with others. The person who lost her life, shot from a motorcycle while driving her car, was the investigative journalist Veronica Guerin who no doubt was looking into their activities. It created quite an uproar at the time.
In last Saturday’s FT there was a piece about Mr Meehan’s cousin Paul Meehan. He was jailed two years ago for running illegal drugs, counterfeit cigarettes and guns into Northern Ireland. It did not come out at the time but the paper has discovered the cigarettes came from southern China.
I have never mentioned it before, except in at least one communication to Kent Police, but I suspect Merseyside based Speedy Hire to be a heavily influenced Gang company. A piece in the business pages of that edition writes about them. It’s chief executive has just stepped down after financial irregularities were discovered in it’s Gulf based division. That apparently has a high profile even though it only accounts for 5% of the group’s revenue streams.
In the FT money section of the edition Martin Wolf proffers the view that the eurozone will eventually fail. Not because there aren’t solutions but due to the politicians finding it impossible to do what is needed. He thinks it likely things will bump along until some form of crisis comes along, such as a default or election result, which could decide say Greece or Spain that it has finally had enough. The Gang of course know very well that is how these things work. They would love to arrange it.
6th December 2013
Nelson Mandela is not a hero of mine. His first name is actually Rolihlahla. It was his his primary school who decided to call him Nelson. Listening to everyone speak about him this morning I understand that is because I do not see him fully. I think it may be due to me only being aware of him in recent years, after he came out of prison. Before that he was a big awe inspiring freedom fighter. But 27 years locked away on your own must change you a lot. As an example of how much he liked his fellow human beings he learnt Afrikana so he could talk to his prison guards. I only knew him after his battles were won. He came over as an extremely affable, kind man but there was no obvious sign of steel. There was nothing there that made me want to put him on a pedestal as I feel with some other people.
I have two online computers, one running Windows XP and one Vista, in my home office and the house. For a few days now the BBC home wepage on my Vista laptop in the lounge has been missing the top line giving me my local weather forecast. That part of the page is just blank. I thought it could be something to do with one of my sons coming round the other evening and doing something else on it for me. We did not come over here. Then this morning when I turned my office PC on it was doing exactly the same thing. That part of the screen was blank. Two hours later it was working fine. Very strange.
I feel we were pretty lucky with the storm surge last night. It was a spring tide, with a low pressure area above it allowing the sea to rise. Winds blew that bulge down the North Sea. I think it may have been the relative weakness of the last factor which saved us. Sea levels were still higher than 1953 when over 300 people drowned but the sea defences for 800,000 homes held on the east coast in all but a few places. The authorities were cautious though with many people advised to evacuate their homes. I think that was the right thing to do.
There has been malware about, called ZeroAccess, which has now infected 2 million computers worldwide. When you do a shopping search, say on Google, it will suggest you go to an innocent looking site which in fact is part of a criminal network capable of stealing your purchase card details. It is estimated it costs legitimate advertisers on search engines about £1.7 million every month. You never find the right sites for your purchases. A BBC webpage reports today that Microsoft, in conjunction with various law enforcement agencies, has been able to seriously disrupt ZeroAccess by blocking it’s servers and taking control of it’s domain names. It has not been totally sucessful though because the programme has been designed to have one PC control the next throughout the chain, so the mainframe computers are not as important as you would normally expect.
7th December 2013
It is very easy to make wrong decisions when you are under pressure. A good example of that I feel is shown on a BBC webpage this morning. An Essex policewoman trained in dealing with alleged sexual offences was not performing well. On one particular case of suspected rape she ended up lying both to her superiors and the victim that the case had been rejected for follow up by the Crown Presecution Service when in fact they had not received the papers. The situation only came to light when the lady complainant obtained an advocate to help her. The, now former policewoman, has just been sentenced to four mounths in jail for her actions. It seems her personal life during the period was very difficult. Her counsel says she is racked with guilt about it all.
I had not realised it but another page this morning puts our storm surge into perspective. The turbulent weather system has affected a large part of northern Europe. South of us the Elbe has caused the worst flooding in Hamburg for 37 years and in Sweden many rail services have been cancelled. 1,000 people were stranded at Copenhagen airport last night when it had to shut.
And just to remind us that it is not only the weather which affects our propensity to travel in the air there has been aircraft movement disruption in the UK and Ireland this morning. The computer at the National Air Traffic Control Service near Southampton did not migrate properly from it’s night hours to it’s daytime mode earlier. Turning it on and off obviously did not work for them. A lot of passengers are not where they want to be, either landed at the wrong airports or waiting for several hours to take off. Engineers are currently working on it.
Another BBC journalist writes there is sometimes a lack of urgency by General Pratictioners in transferring patients with cancer symptons to see a specialist. The Today team also covered the story on their programme this morning. It is the first time I have read it but it also says a chief inspector is going to be appointed for GP’s surgeries. He will rate each practice in the land to identify those which are not performing properly. I do feel one’s personal doctor is the cornerstone in the workings of the NHS.
After some Christmas shopping this afternoon I used a Tesco I don’t visit that often. It was quiet and one of the checkouts was free. The previous customer was chatting to the operator just before he walked off but I don’t think they knew each other. Her mind was not on things when she served me. She was showing slight signs of aggression and fear at the same time without realising she was doing it. Whatever he said, in my view, went straight into her unconcious mind but unsettled her nonetheless. I suspect he related something which made her think about her private life which a stranger simply could not have known anything about. Without a concept of of how these things work the lady could never possibly understand for herself what might have been going on. One very good reason, it seems to me, why the general public should know a bit more about the Gang story.
It has taken quite a long time to come out but Sussex Police have confirmed today that a man was found dead in a house in it’s area last month in unsuspicious circumstances. He was the gentleman who piloted Nigel Farage in his light aircraft crash on election day 2010. That caused the man difficulties in his work and he threatened to kill Mr Farage and the crash investigator. His punishment was a two year supervised community order.
Richard Galpin reported for Today this morning partly from a southern Turkish town near the Syrian border. It seems there is now a well organised route, travelling to the country by air, for Islamist fighter volunteers from western Europe to go in and out of Syria. They join al-Qaeda or a more extreme group called The Islamist State of Iraq and Greater Syria. Richard spoke to a man who runs a safe house for the insurgents in the town. They stay there for a few days out of obvious sight of the Turkish authorites. Even moderate opposition leaders are now being targeted in Syria. Some exiled rebel fighters in Turkey are in despair. They believe only a miracle will now stop the advance of the Jihadists.
The programme was talking about the storm which has flooded 1400 homes caused by about a dozen breaches of flood defences. A man fron the Environment Agency said that London’s river was at it’s highest ever against the closed Thames Barrier since it became operational in 1982.
In essence this Gang story, I believe, is how we relate to each other. Once you realise that, good people can stop the rest of us being fools to ourselves. I suspect we got the hang of the right approach all those decades ago when we had the most terrible industrial relations. The country was paralysed by strikes. By getting all the positive inputs lined up we were able to get conflicting groups to agree with each other. I think that knowledge is now being applied on the global stage.
In that connection I wrote about the Durban 2011 climate change conference in my book and the more easily agreed framework at Doha in my diary note of 8th Decemeber 2012. Then yesterday in Bali we had the first time the 159 member states of the World Trade Organisation have agreed anything since it’s inception in 1995. Some people are saying it is not a lot, as it just cuts down on the suffocating red tape of global trade. However it is at least a start. The Times of India tells me the conference ran over by one day to sort out the objections being raised primarily by Cuba supported by Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
My story I believe has been about using common sense to interpret circumstantial evidence I began noticing in 1994. I was able to work out that something funny was going on where I live. Over the years the Gang were becoming more and more irate with me so that by 2006 they were finally beginning to show their hand. In 2007 I was starting to work it all out.
The point I am making is that there really isn’t any smoke without fire. You don’t need to see the fire to know it is almost certainly there. If a person has committed one crime it is highly likely he or she will have committed others along the same lines. That should not be rocket science to sensible, thinking people such as you hope get called for jury service.
I believe therefore it is extremely beneficial for us that the doctrine of double jeapardy, in place since our legal system came into being, was abolished in 2005. If a person is found not guilty for a crime, and knowledge of the person’s past bad behaviour then comes to light, there is no reason why a retrial of the first alleged offence should not take place. Acquittal is still a possible outcome.
A lady from the Crown Prosecution Service was on that edition of Today following the conviction of a man from Derby for some sexual attacks of which he had previously been found innocent last year. After that he carried out more abuse so this time he was tried for all 18 of the, new and old, assaults. She said it is an option the CPS use very rarely, triggered only 13 times in all so far.
NATS got their systems up and running about 7pm. It seems the problem might have been even simpler than we have been led to believe. Something about a malfunctioning internal telephone system not allowing the needed number of operator desk stations to come on stream. As a result Eurocontrol estimates than 8% of European flights have been severly disrupted today. I saw a Ryanair representative speak on the BBC TV 10pm news. Bearing in mind the number of travellers who have been so severely inconvenienced he called on the industry regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, to get a grip on things and see that nothing like it ever happens again. I recall that Ryanair were pretty upset in February 2013 when the landing charges at Stansted airport appeared to be increased to justify the sale price at the time to Manchester Airports Group. Then the CAA refused to look into the matter, I think, at Ryanair’s request. However, looking into it, I see that about a month later the CAA decided to cap fees for landing at London’s three airports at 1.3% below the rate of inflation for the years between 2014 and 2019.
8th December 2013
I heard an item on the radio news yesterday morning about an American man being allowed to go home by North Korea. He is a veteran of the Korean War and went there on a tourist visa last month it seems to look up some old soldier firends he got to know then. He flew out via China and got home yesterday. Looking into that I see Joe Biden began a trip to China on Wednesday. I think the back channel discussions I wrote about on 2nd October 2013 must be continuing. I wish them well.
Before China the American vice president was in Japan and afterwards in South Korea. That will be about China’s unilateral declaration of an air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, over the Senaku islands. America is asking Japan and China to talk about their differences. Then today South Korea has announced it’s own expanded air defence zone partially overlapping with China’s.
Lawrence Summers, who never made it as President Obama’s first choice chairman of the Federal Reserve, was in London last Wednesday for the Global Health 2035 event. I heard him speak on Today about America’s healthcare reforms. He agreed that they haven’t gone very well but he said Mr Obama is a man who learns from experience. He doesn’t make the same mistake twice.
NATS is located at Whiteley 10 miles from Southampton. This morning a man walking his dog found some body parts on the shore at Southampton Water. Police officers are looking into it. On Friday afternoon a gentleman rang me back from Hampshire in response to a message I left earlier in the day.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority have decided that MPs salaries will rise by 11% to £74,000 per annum after the 2015 general election. The main argument agin it I feel is that MPs should not get an increase when the rest of us are not and, for, that they should be paid the going rate for the job. On the basis that IPSA’s conclusions are correct I think they should get their increment. We need the best representatives we can get and no one should be put off by poor pay. Any who do not want it can give the extra money away to benefit the underprivileged in society.
Last Monday’s FT shows a much clearer picture than I have seen elsewhere of the New York train derailment the day before. It shows that the forward momentum of the carriages at the point of the track fault on the bend sent then moving in a straight line towards the river. The first one stopped overhanging the water’s edge.
Tuesday’s FT says that the US, Japan, South Korea and Russia all have ADIZs. Most experts agree that China have acted in accordance with the principle of international law.
8th December 2013
I wrote yesterday about a telephone conversation I had with someone on Friday afternoon. I gave no details as it concerned something I had initiated and as such I think, for the moment at least, it should remain private. Very seldom do we know exactly why a person has done something and, with the knowledge I have, I do not think it is for me to be vindictive. But you should not do the wrong thing. It is a difficult dividing line.
Anyway the purpose of this note is to say that no one except me, the Gang, GCHQ, MI5 and, I hope, Mr Cameron knew about the call. I suspect the Gang retaliated about it and you really do have to ask, if they did, why? It can’t logically have been anything to do with me, it was far too far away from my own world. The only sensible conclusion is that the idea was to intimidate those in our intelligence forces. I had an artificial argument yesterday morning with someone from a neighbouring house. Shortly after the heavy black and white helicopter went over. However it was so far away it was almost as though it was hoping I, and those standing not far from me, wouldn’t notice it.
I believe it is extremely fortunate that 28 year old Michael Adebolajo was not killed when he was arrested on 22nd May 2013. Good for him because he feels a need to tell us how he sees things and gives him another chance, and good for us so we can understand his point of view. He has been in the dock at his trial today speaking completely openly.
He has a wife and six children. He was brought up in a church-going Christian family in Romford. Most of his friends were white and British. In his first year at university in London in 2003 he converted to Islam and became radicalised. He was arrested by police in 2006 at an Islamist demonstration. I wrote about him going to Kenya and subsequent events on 25th May 2013. He said the thought of being close to al-Qaeda, even though he really doesn’t know who they are, are his life. He loves them. He said one of his British friends joined the Army and was killed in Iraq. He blames Tony Blair for his death. I wonder who he thinks is responsible for Lee Rigby’s death.
His barrister asked him why he is pleading not guilty. He said it is because he is a soldier fighting a war. Under the Geneva Convention it is legal to kill in battle when hostilities have been declared.
9th December 2013
I wrote on 28th November 2013 about a difference of view I have with Boris Johnson. I do completely agree with him though when he was due to say today that protesters about the recent fatal cycling accidents in London should think hard about using the slogan cycling with death. It is likely to scare people so much they will never put their bicycle clips on again (later in the day I read that the remark had been withdrawn from his speech). It is a problem I have had to confront in my private existence. Once people associate you with bad things happening in their lives, especially if you want to talk about it all the time, it has an overwhelmingly negative effect. I am trying to move forward on it as best I can.
Channel 4 News informed me this evening that Michael Adebolajo’s youngest child was four days old on 22nd May 2013. Bearing in mind he thought he was going to die that day, my comment is he might believe he is in love with al-Qaeda but I don’t think he can care for his baby very much. It seems in the witness box he went through his early life to give some of his experiences which have shaped the man seen today. That is how I approached the first chapter of my book. The Gang knew in May, I am sure, that the police would be under instructions not to shoot to kill.
Also on the progamme was an interview with the President of the University of London Union. Looking into that I see the management of the University wish to shut down his association to save costs. The day after a protest about it three weeks ago The Independent reports he was walking down the street back to his office after a meeting when he was taken to a police station, arrested and bailed. Charges have since been dropped. There was a further demonstration last Wednesday when 41 arrests were made. Things are now getting pretty heated and a national day of student action has been called for central London on Wednesday. I have no doubt the young people are being picked on but I really hope they do not allow their high emotion to get the better of them. The leaders of tomorrow should use their intellect and smartness to identify and persuade the relevant power points in their story, in today’s society, to push back against those hidden forces.
I wrote about Girl A in the Rochdale sex grooming case on 26th October 2013. I was full of admiration how she had pulled through that terible ordeal so that today she is able to give her daughter all the love in the world she needs. Then I heard her father interviewed by Becky Milligan, asking all the right questions, on the World at One earlier. I can see where she gets that trait from. Dad is not a retiring violet. But he is totally honest. He warns that no family should ever think such a thing could never happen to them. He readily admits he would have done things he shouldn’t to some of his daughter’s abusers if he had had the chance over the years. However he got through it. I have no doubt he loves his grandchild as much as his daughter does.
Today had a reporter in Seoul this morning informing us there has been another development in the North Korean story. In pictures released by their state news agency, Kim Jong-un’s uncle is shown being led away into custody by guards at an open party meeting. The idea was obviously to humiliate him in front of the nation. The man was probably the Supreme Leader’s most powerful aide. It seems he is being accused of corruption, disloyalty and western style decadence. That sounds pretty much like Bo Xilai, the former Communist Party secretary of the Chinese city of Chongping, to me.
I haven’t written about the Republican US Senator Marco Rubio before but as he is currently visiting us I think I had better put that right. Some hope he will be their next president. He has been interviewed by Justin Webb. He came over as moderate and soothing. He was respectful towards his opponents. He is obviously aiming for the middle ground in American politics which I feel is a good way forward.
It is nice to see that Google, Apple, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, Linkedin and Yahoo have joined forces, in a group called Reform Government Surveillance, to put forward a combined private sector view against the activities of state intelligence agencies. Amazon, telecomunications companies and technology harware manufacturers are not there yet. No doubt they can enrol at a later date if they wish. Today highlighted the story throughout their broadcast. The alliance considers, after some deliberation, that overall the interests of the state have excessively been put before the rights and privacy of the individual citizen. They fear the relationship of trust with their customers has been damaged and wish to rectify that, if only to protect their own revenue streams. The Microsoft representative said it was only about a month ago, through the Washington Post article, that the industry realised the extent of the information which was being secretly collected by national agencies.
Iain Duncan Smith was on the edition and received a rough ride at the Commons Work and Pensions Committee later in the day. Advisedly in my view he has scaled back his ambitions for the pace of introduction of Universal Credit. He is going to see that the new systems work adequately for a relatively small number of people initially before rolling the programme out in full. That means it will not now be totally in place until 2017.
Just to remind us we are not actually that important in the scheme of things, Tom Fielding was reporting on the programme that so far we have only identified 5% of the composition of the universe. The rest comprises some form of dark energy and dark matter I think. Scientists are lokking for a BSM theory, beyond the standard model.
I suspect the Thai government feel they are in an impossible situation. They have been democratically elected but still a minority of their population are so unhappy they are causing substantial disorder. There was a large rally in Bangkok today. After that pressure new elections have been called. But I heard a demonstrator say on the evening news it does not satisfy her. She comes from the city and knows her side will lose because of the size of the government vote in the countryside. A difficult situation.
Even though they are different cultures you can see similarities with the position in Ukraine. There the protestors amount to hundreds of thousands. You would not imagine a goverment would wish to resist that degree of public sentiment. But it is happening with the excuse that it is what the Russians want. In that case perhaps Mr Putin might decide to address the people directly, as he did with the US public when he authored an article in the New York Times which I wrote about on 12th September 2013.
10th December 2013
The chief executive of Domino’s Pizza is just about to leave for a job at Saga Group, based in Kent, which provides services for the over 50s. I heard him on PM this afternoon. He said since immigation rules have been tightened Dominos have found it difficult to fill vacancies in the company. British workers do not want them. Whether friends at his new employers had asked him to say that, to be horrible to the government and us, I wouldn’t like to say. He certainly wasn’t breaking any laws and is entitled to his own opinion as much as anyone else.
I went to a gathering today with seven other people. We collected in the reception area and then went to the meeting room. Thinking about it this evening my view is that there were two Gang helpers present who I have not seen before. The idea was for them to be totally low key and unattributable which they nearly were. But besides intelligence gathering their purpose was also to be intimidatory. When you know how it works it is impossible for those two aims to be realised without giving the game away. I do wish the Gang would try a different tack. They are pretty stale in their ways.
Unfortunately it rained hard during the Nelson Mandela memorial service at the Johannesburg sports stadium. I think that kept the numbers down. Even so it will be a day which will be remembered. Our three main party leaders went as did three former American presidents. The Iranian president it seems changed his mind about attending. More regrettably I consider, Mr Putin and Mr Netanyahu stayed away. That must be down to how they see things at the moment. I wish they felt more inclusive. In contrast Mr Obama took the opportunity to shake the hand of Raul Castro, and embraced Dilma Rouseff who hasn’t acted very warmly towards him recently.
I do feel Mr Obama comes up with the words to meet the occasion. Today he said Madiba made him want to improve as a man and a president; he spoke to what is better inside us. We should reflect on his values and see we apply them in our own lives. Our world does not present easy answers. Many thought Madiba’s task was impossible but yet he accomplished it. We can too.
Alex Thomson is in Bangui at the moment for Channel 4 News. Earlier today he and his team were driving from their lodgings to the airport. I imagine they always keep their camera running in case the unexpected happens. It did. Yesterday apparently the route had checkpoints on it manned by French toops. This morning they were absent. Suddenly a truck load of African UN peacekeeping troops swerved in front of them from behind making them stop. The troops got out of the back and started shooting in a seemingly random fashion. One of their number was shot dead in front of their eyes, probably by another. Last night I composed an email, sent this morning, in which I mentioned Channel 4 News.
Later in the broacast there was a studio discussion about gender segregation at university functions. It seems external Muslim speakers are allowed to have audiences divided between men and woman at their events if they wish. That, as can be imagined, causes anger amongst liberal thinking students. The suspicion is that hidden pressure is being applied to university managements by funding and sponsoring organisations to allow the position to pertain.
The chairman of Kent Police Federation revealed tonight that a motorist killed in an accident on Monday evening was an off duty detective constable serving with Kent and Essex Police Serious Crime Directorate. He leaves a wife and baby son. His car was in collision with an empty bus at a roundabout near Lamberhurst. The bus driver wasn’t hurt.
This morning a story was doing the rounds about Comic Relief and Save the Children. Panorama has discovered that both invest some of their charitable donations, indirectly through market managed funds, in such companies as those producing tobacco, alcohol and weapons. I hope that isn’t too much of a surprise to anyone but of course there are plenty of ethical investments funds about. If a significant number of donors are upset by the situation I would have thought it is a no brainer for the two organisations. They do what their benefactors want. That is why the piper plays the tune. Later in the day Comic Relief said they were reviewing their position.
Today had a piece this morning about how Imperial College in London deal with their laboratory animals as part of their medical research. The university has carried out an internal review and found their practices fall far short of what should be expected. A professor from the university was saying they would be implementing all the report’s recommendations in full.
A bit of a different discussion also took place with an author about what goes on in ladies’ toilets. It was derived from a new film about that subject I think called Powder Room.
11th December 2013
So as to give the right signal I am sure, America and Britain have today announced they are suspending such aid as medecines, vehicles and communications equipment to the Syrian rebels. Humanitarian assistance will continue. It seems that the Islamist Front section of the opposition have split from the Free Syrian Army and requisitioned the FSA’s arms and supplies at Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish border. We want to assess just what is going on before we move forward on it.
Dementia happens when the brain stops working properly, it is progressive and associated with old age. There are about 100 different forms. For some reason it appears pharmaceutical companies have not been conducting much research into combating it. Today we hosted a G8 summit of health and science minister at Lancaster House to sort that out. The idea is to draw in all individual specialist researchers across the globe into a coherent group so that a meaninful cure or treatment for the disease can be found by 2025. With current trends there are expected to be 135 million sufferers 25 years after that.
I wrote about Uruguay’s planned decriminalisation of cannabis production and use on 1st August 2013. That has now happened after a positive vote in it’s Senate by 16 votes to 13.
The Gaul was a modern trawler and fish factory ship which sank for no apparent reason in the Barents Sea in 1974. All 36 men on board were lost. Today mentioned the story earlier because it has come to light that some coastal folk nearby might have buried human remains which were washed up shortly after on their beach. I remember it was a story which ran for years, just because there was no explicable sensible answer. Two theories re-told this morning are that its nets were caught by a submarine or it was a spying ship which was sunk by the Soviet Union.
I have referred a couple of times recently I think to people being stoic. Another way of expressing that perhaps is to say we just put up with things because we have no alternative. A man from a sister organisation of CAFOD was on the broadcast speaking about how terrible things are for Lebanon at the moment with it’s population swelled by 25% by Syrian refugeees. Some schools are working on a double shift basis to try and give a form of education to all, that is if it has proved logistically possible to get the kids to theme from their tented camps.
Justin Webb went down to his alma mater at the London School of Economics for the programme reporting on an alleged loss of freedom of expression at the universitity. It is about religious sensitivities and how those seem to take precedence over the expressions of non believers by student union officers, security officials and administrative authorities. Between February and June this year I visited all the major London universities trying to promote my book. It did not work. On 21st February I went to the University of East London at Stratford. As I walked into the campus building there was quite a senior security man I would say by the card operated entrance turnstiles. I explained my business and he was happy to let me through. He walked with me down to the students’ refectory. He appeared interested and I showed him one of my leaflets. With the most cursory of glances he eyes rested on the name of the website as you see at the top of your screen. Without thinking, it seemed, he immediately said what a pretentious name it was. Then he walked off and left me to it. His task had been completed.
The arrogance of bad people has been well publicised by the BBC and Channel 4 today I feel through highlighting the man standing by the speaking podium at Nelson Mandela’s memorial celebration yesterday, apparently signing to deaf people. You only have to look at him to see how uncomfortable he felt. Those without hearing say he is a fraud. His body movements meant absolutely nothing at all. Even knowing he would be watched by viewers from all over the world no one with hidden influence there it seems realised it might be best to see he was off sick that day. I wouldn’t call that very organised.
Overnight riot police cleared barriers and tents in Independence Square and then, it seems, melted away into the dawn light. The forces pulling from east and west at the moment seem quite evenly balanced. Catherine Aston has had a long meting today with the Ukrainian president as has the American Assistant Secretary of State. John Kerry has chipped in by saying the clearance operation was disgusting. After all that Mr Yanukovych has remarked he does of course respect the right to peaceful protest.
Yesterday on his way back from Johannesburg President Hollande called in at Bangui airport to rally his troops. Alex Thomson said on Channel 4 News tonight that 70,000 civilians in CAR have now been displaced. Their lives have been turned completely upside down. The presence of the French soldiers does not appear to be helping them a great deal.
The broadcast reported on the London student domonstration in London today with over 1000 present. It seems a small number were intent on causing trouble but fortunately nothing too bad happened.
12th December 2013
I was speaking to someone when I was out yesterday and said I believe halucinatory drugs in this country will be decriminalised within the next ten years. Although the person was far too polite to say so I don’t think they agreed with me. Nevertheless I hope I am right.
After viewing the BBC Kent website this morning I have linked to a BBC page published two months ago about mental health. Then the medical director of the South London and Maudesly NHS Trust, a psychiatrist, said it’s treatment in England is in crisis and unsafe. Because you can’t see mental illness as you can physical ailments it suffers budget cuts it shouldn’t. It is the easy option. Going against that reduction in supply he says demand seems to be increasing through such tings as financial crisis affecting families and other factors.
Data at that time was obtained from 46 NHS trusts replying to a FoI request. For today’s story 43 replied. The conclusion is that funding for mental health trusts has been cut by 2% in real terms over the last two years. The government have said overall NHS funding will increase during this parliament. The Care and Support Minister, Norman Lamb, says the position for mental health povision is unacceptable. The president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists warns their services are near breaking point.
I heard on the local TV news last night that our Police and Crime Commissioner is recommending Kent Police’s current deputy chief constable, Alan Pughsley, to move up to the top role next month on the retirement of the present incumbent. Apparently there was a two day selection process although, as far as I am aware, no details have been revealed of who the applicants were.
The signer at the Mandela memorial event has spoken to the BBC. He says he had a schizophrenic experience and apologises if he offended anyone. The owners of the firm who employed him to provide the service have disappeared. I do have a personal connection to that story in my private life, however the details are not mine to pass on.
Legal highs, or psychoative substances, are synthetic stimulant drugs which you buy online or shops. New ones become available in the EU at the rate of about one a week. It must be very risky to take them I would have thought. You just do not know what they might do to you. I heard a discussion on Channel 4 News this evening which concluded that we should have an informative regulatory environment listing natural and chemically made drugs so that people can excite themselves safely; and retailers should act much more responsibly. The Home Office crime prevention minister, Norman Baker, has announced today that a panel of interested parties will conduct a review of public policy to report on the issues in the spring.
Although the national inspection regime of GPs’ surgeries does not start until next year the Care Quality Commission have already visited 900 premises which they had reason to believe could be below par. It found that one in three of those did not meet basic standards and deficiences were serious in nine of them. Maggots were found at two locations.
I feel it was appropriate this morning on Today that Mark Mardell reminded us we are at the first anniversary of the deaths at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut. There will be a memorial service in the National Cathedral in Washington. Americans, in my view, should not forget it happened. It will encourage them to better their society.
Yesterday in Parliament on the programme concentrated on PMQs. All three party leaders are agreed the IPSA pay increase proposal in current circumstances is daft. No definite decision will be made until nearer the next election although cross party talks are likely to take place. If that issue can be combined, in discussions between the three, with the equally thorny subject of party funding I think that would be an extremely good idea.
I thought there was a surreal interview sometime later. It was with the chief executive of Universities UK talking about segregation between men and women students in our universities. She quite genuinely seemed to think that when it happens it must always be because it is what the ladies want themselves. I don’t think she understands what sexual grooming is all about. Life is a bit more complicated than that, madam.
In his annual address to the Russian parliament today president Putin said he hopes for a peaceful solution to the Ukranian protests. As far as he is concerned nothing is going to be imposed on anyone.
The editorial in last Friday’s FT quotes two High Court justices, and a former Lord Chief justice. They are not happy about the relationship between our judiciary and the European Court of Human Rights. They feel it should be more equal. If necessary our law should be changed to balance things out.
David Cameron has been told off today, by the judge hearing the Lawson-Saatchi fraud case. A few days ago Mr Cameron said he liked Ms Lawson. I personally feel the judge is being a bit disrespectful towards his jurors if he thinks they will be influenced by such a comment.
14th December 2013
A bomb went off last night in central Belfast without causing injury. However in the run up to Christmas it ruined the evening for partygoers and shoppers. It is nice to see those with responsibility are all on the same page. Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers, said the small minority who want to drain the economic life from the city will not be allowed to succeed. A senior policeman said the attackers were offering disruption and destruction to the community they are part of.
I wrote an email to somebody yesterday talking about two steps forward and one back. I expect the same happens in our foreign policy. We do not have formal diplomatic relations with Iran and therefore no embassies on each other’s soil. However in October 2013 we appointed an envoy to Ian and more recently they have done the same. The week before last our chap visited Teheran and on Thursday their man came to London. Hopefully the two countries are getting to know each other a bit better. However this morning it is reported a person passing state secrets to MI6 has been arrested in the Iranian city of Kerman. The Foreign Office say they never comment on intelligence matters.
There is an air of uplifting expectation in a BBC webpage I have just read. It is about full week rotas for hospital doctors coming in so the quality of medical care at weekends is comparable to that during the week. The chief executive of the NHS Employers organisation says it is the most important issue facing the service at the moment and presents a once in a generation oppurtunity for change. In future he hopes the NHS will develop innovative services that anticipate and respond to patients’ needs rather than firefighting the problems all the time.
Saturday’s FT Magazine resports on it’s 11 month investigation into the workings of the Vatican Bank which holds 5 billion euros in assets. Ever since the 2008 financial crash pressure has been building up on the bank as various scandals have come to light. It was in June apparently that the cardinals decided a robust way of doing things must be intoduced. Someone in the know has told the paper that if you have no rules and a person with criminal motivation comes along you are finished.
Further in is an article about Greenland, an automonous country within the Kingdom of Denmark with a population of about 56,000 in coastal settlements. Denmark is responsible for it’s monetary policy, foreign affairs and national defence. The significance of the country at this point in time is that the Artic ice cap is melting which will expose the vast majority of it’s land surface to mining activity. It is estimated the Artic may hold 13% of global untapped oil and 30% of gas besides all those minerals. External countries sniffing around the place apparently are Canada, America, Norway, Russia and China.
I wrote about our problem with antibiotics on 11th March 2013. The more we use them the more chance we give natural selection to pick out mutations within a bug family we are fighting which are resistance to our medicines. Gillian Tett wrote about it in the edition. It is a global issue so one country trying on it’s own will be no good. I hope an effective world government will materialise one day but we certaintly aren’t there yet. It is a subject we can still, just, bury our heads in the sand about. Our children will likely be the ones who suffer the catastrophe not us. Gillian thinks it is horribly like the financial crisis. Nothing will be done until a killer epidemic hits us which no known treatment can touch. By then of course it will really be too late.
Margaret Hodge was the personality who had Lunch with the FT in the paper. It seem she was quite a left wing firebrand in her younger days but had mellowed by the time she became an MP in 1994. She was favoured by Tony Blair who first made her a minister in 1998. At 67 she became chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee in 2010 just about the time, in my view, that parliamentarians became to realise they have some important things to do in our society. She is, I feel, part of a successful family with 10 grandchildren and says at her time of life she owes no allegiances. She can just do what she thinks is the right thing. On the subject of immigration she believes movement of people to new countries is a benficial facet of our civilisation. You will not change it. So every time a political party says they will ompose restrictions the policy fails and trust is lost.
Also in that section Lionel Barber wrote the weekly Dairy piece. He mentions that he arrived in Teheran, as I noted on 28th November 2013, the day before conclusion of the Geneva talks. He ends by writing about David Frost who died unexpectedly on a cruise ship on 31st August 2013. He says Mr Frost was a good listener and genuinely interested in people. He does not think those attributes should be mistaken for modesty. Indeed perhaps Mr Frost had a bigger ego than most although he kept that well hidden most of the time.
In the main section of the issue a short piece refers to Mr Biden’s visit to Asia as I wrote about on Sunday. It says America does not want to take sides between the competing countries; Japan must rely on the weight of it’s own arguments. Nevertheless the vice president thinks it would help no end if America, Japan and South Korea could strenghten their mutual relationship.
The psychological tensions in Saudi Arabia are also highlighted there. The ruling Royal family have decided it wants it’s 2 million foreign workers to leave their country so as to free up work opportunities for locals. As all foreigners remit $28 billion of their wages back home each year that is a big decision. 100,000 people have arrived back in Ethiopia alone. Other nationalities affected are Somalis, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Many see the move as a badly thought through experiment which could seriously destabilise the region.
The Gang are money. It is just about as simple as that. We all have to accept it and work with them, imposing strict regulatory rules, as best we can. I am sure the government dropped one of the three proposed routes for a second M25 crossing on Thursday knowing all the ramifications involved. There is now no chance of the barren, undeveloped Swanscombe peninsula in North Kent being used. That will allow private developers to move ahead to build a £2 billion Disneyland type theme part there, with associated uses, possibly creating 27,000 jobs.
Last Saturday’s FT has a very comparable story in my view but this time the regulation has fallen down. It is a similar type development north of New York with a Chinese theme. In this case it seems anyone with $500,000 to invest and able to show their money will create at least 10 jobs, will be able to move permanently to the States. However questions are being raised about whether that is quite as legal as it might be.
Stephenie Flanders has now left the BBC and works for JPMorgan. She wrote an article in the edition being pretty confident about our economic future. She suggests politicians believe we voters are not so interested in the past, or where we are now but how we perceive things will turn out in the future. She may be right, I am not sure. I suppose you could say it is all about confidence and that quite definitely is what business people need for their investment decisions.
On the same page Christopher Caldwell writes a most interesting piece about Detroit. It seems to me the Gang’s main influence is in banks and finance, the weather, power generation, air travel, construction and cars. Motor vehicles have been made in the city since 1899 and it is the headquarters of General Motors. The two other big three American automobile manufacturers, Ford and Chrysler, are also based in the State of Mitchigan. Detroit, in my view, is a sad example of what happens when the Gang follow their instincts for years and decades without any oversight. It had a population of 2 million in 1950. Now it is 684,000. Property values have fallen by over two thirds since 1960. It suffers the worst crime rate in America, five times the national average. A former mayor has just been sentenced to 28 years jail for fraud, racketeering and extortion. It has an 83% black population, again the highest in the country, and is a Democratic stronghold in a Republican state. It has been bankrupt for years, primarily it seems because of it’s pension liabilities to public sector workers. Perhaps a judge has just come to it’s rescue. He has ruled that it’s debt can be cut by reducing the current rights of pension holders. Whether they will be prepared to voluntarily agree to that, with all the hidden Gang induced whispering in the background, remains to be seen.
I wrote about Mr Rusbridger visiting the Houses of Parliament on 3rd December 2013. The editorial says the possible offence under the Terrorism Act is the knowing transfer of secret information out of the country to the New York Times. It remarks that the job of terrorists, egged on by the Gang in my view, is to destroy public trust in the state. The Guardian’s motives cannot be put in that category. It does not consider a prosecution would be in the public interest.
My last note today about a fascinating weekend read relates to the Person in the News, Vitali Klitschko. Beside being the 6ft 7in tall Ukraine opposition leader he is a former world heavyweight boxing champion. That means his wealth has come to him in a transparent manner. The signs are he is an astute political operator. He implores the demonstrators in Kiev to be peaceful so no excuse is given to the police to use oppressive force against them.
15th December 2013
I watched Atlantis on BBC 1 last night. Jason falls under a spell and and becomes a ferocious hunting wolf in the night returning to his normal self at dawn. He loves the princess and she likes him but their different circles make things difficult. His friends know how to break the curse and the princess, without knowing it’s purpose, agrees to provide the material needed. Unplanned, she finds herself with Jason just as he is turning into a mad animal. Afterwards Jason and his friends are tortured by the thought she might have known what was happening to him and been so frightened she would never want to have anything ever to do with him ever again. I expect it will all turn out happily in the end though.
I have mentioned before that my company used to do work for Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management, although it was not my account. The group controls the broadcasting and copyright of all it’s events so must make a fantastic amount of money. My understanding is that in the 1980s Mr Ecclestone’s companies received 99% of income streams from the sport with 1% going to the teams themselves. In the 1990’s he started selling his interests but in a pretty complicated fashion. It seems he wished to retain power of decision maker for the sport. The process continued and in 2006 there was a further disposal to a private equity group. There is obviously proof Mr Ecclestone paid a German banker £10 million associated with the transaction. Mr Ecclestone says he was being blackmailed by the banker, others believe it was a back hander for arranging an undervaluation of Fomula One at the time so Mr Ecclestone could effectively retain it’s control. A London civil court has just finished it’s hearing brought by a party suing Mr Ecclestone who will have lost out if the transaction was made at too low an amount. There is also the possibility of German authorities charging Mr Ecclestone with corruption. Newsnight covered the story last Thursday night and had an interview with the shadow Attorney General. She said we should also have an investigation by the SFO into Mr Ecclestone’s financial affairs. If it isn’t the sort of situation the regulator should be looking into she doesn’t know what is. I wrote about Mr Ecclestone on 23rd July 2013 and my perception of the Gang racing scene in chapter 7 of my book.
North Korea appeared in my note written on Monday. On Thursday Mr Jong-un’s uncle apparently admitted at a military trial trying to overthrow the state and was immediately executed by firing squad. State media described him as despicable human scum and worse than a dog. The White House said that was an act of extreme brutality. China has called it an internal matter. As an indication North Korea is not too bothered about any criticism, and a sign of confidence I feel, a senior government member has spoken to Associated Press saying his regime would still like to see foreign investment in his country. It has also been made plain that the leader’s aunt, unlike her deceased husband, has nothing to fear.
Is seems likely to me that the back channel talks with North Korea have been going well. On the personal authority of Mr Obama I suspect Mr Jong-un was told his uncle was not all he seemed. Evidence was given to him. It was also made plain it was a matter for the country’s leadership to act in the way it thought most appropriate on the information imparted.
UN inspectors have already decided that there was a chemical weapons attack in Damascus on 21st August 2013. It seems it was not an unique event. In their final report published on Friday they say they found proof of past nerve agent presence at five more locations in Syria out of seven the team visited.
Also on Friday an on-site techician at an airport in Kansas drove onto the tarmc with the intention of committing suicide though setting off a bomb he thought he had in his vehicle. In fact it was a sting by the FBI who had supplied him with an innocuous substance. Not long ago he would have been branded a terrorist and perhaps carted off to Guantamano Bay. This man however will go through America’s domestic court system with a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
That episode is a good oppurtunity for me to write how I currently see the Gang set up. You have two distinct circles, the top and the rest. There must be contact between the two but I imagine it will be incredibly well protected, otherwise progress would have been made by now on apprehending the senior tier. The security issue must be even more important than frustrating an FBI operation the Gang leaders have been watching throughout. From my own observations our intelligence agencies are able to listen at will to what the lower, common criminal lot are doing. What the goodies need to do, in my opinion, is to put some extremely well hidden sleepers in those lower gangs, whose presence is only known about by one or two individuals, so they can work out how those channels of communication operate.
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, was on Any Questions yesterday. On the subject of the changing world she made the point that some of those in the audience will have children and grandchildren who want to stay where they are, some will chose to emigrate. She posed the question whether those youngsters should be looked upon as foreigners in their new host countries or human beings entitled to common dignity and respect wherever they make their home.
Two murky stories about Iran have made it into the news over the last couple of days. First a former FBI agent is thought to have been held there for the last seven years. It is alleged the CIA has paid $2.5 million to members of his family associated with that captivity. Then the former attorney general, Lord Macdonald, has criticised the Home Office and SFO for apparently passing files to the Iranians about a man with dual British-Iranian nationality who had been investigated for alleged oil deal bribery. The gentleman had moved to Dubai and in June 2013 gave evidence via video link to an international tribunal sitting in The Hague hearing a compensation claim against the National Iranian Oil Company. A few hours later he disappeared. It is suspected that agents of the Iranian state carried out the deed. Apparently the Foreign Office have told his wife he is probably dead.
The leaders at the Lough Erne G8 summit in June pledged not to pay ransoms to terrorists in the future. However Frank Gardner said on Today on Friday that since then it is believed France has paid $20 million to al-Qaeda to free four hostages in Niger. Switzerland, Finland and Austria apparently have also handed over sums this summer to release their nationals in Yemen. Those actions are making the extremist groups rich and motivates them to carry out further atrocities. They reward bad behaviour. America, Canada and the UK I believe are the only countries which adhere strictly to the rule.
The programme also covered Ireland’s exit from it’s £71 billion eurozone bail out. It has met all the conditions and from tomorrow has access to finacial markets to borrow money just like any other country. Prime Minister Kenny said this evening that never again would his country’s stability be threatened by speculation and greed.
John Simpson is in Africa at the moment reporting on Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Although the line went down before he finished speaking on Today yesterday he wanted to highlight the small minded robbery at Archbishop Tutu’s home when he was away at the memorial occasion a few days earlier. That of course made big headlines. In contrast John said on the day of Mr Mandela’s inaugauration as president in 1994 not one crime was reported in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Pretoria.
I have mentioned before that I do not read books. I don’t really understand why, it must be something to do with my psychology. However I must have been attracted some time ago by the tenure of John’s reporting. I asked to be given his book, A Mad World My Masters. It is has been on my bedside unit for at least five years, probably a lot longer. I have read about three pages. It is not that I don’t want to, just that I never seem to get around to it.
A BBC webpage reports this evening that between 150-300,000 peaceful demonstrators have been in Kiev’s Independence Square today. US Senator John McCain addressed them after a walkabout in the crowd. He said he wanted to support the country’s sovereign right to determine it’s own destiny freely and independently.
16th December 2013
The man assessing the damage caused to the NSA by Edward Snowden’s leaks has said he thinks there should be the possibility of offering the fugitive an amnesty he if gives a cast iron guarantee that no more files will be made public. I feel that is a fantastically positive development. You can call Edward misguided if you like but under no stretch of imagination, in my view, can you call him bad. Also, if he did become resident in America again, I suspect his activities could be pretty helpful to politicians who also live there.
David Attenborough was interviewed on Today this morning in relation to the very popular Tweet of the Day feature on Radio 4. The conversation then got onto other things. Mr Attenborough said we need to stop our global population expansion. If we don’t do it in a manged way nature will do it for us. It would help a great deal if as many women as possible had control over their bodies, with knowledge, themselves. It is a proven fact we would then have less babies created. The subject of epigenectics was also mentioned. It is our discovery I understand that offspring can inherit traits from their parents without any chemical alteration to the DNA of the suceeding generation.
The United Nations has launched an appeal today for £4 billion to help the population of Syria. It was promoted on Today this morning. I think many folks believe we have failed the hunanitarian needs of the Syrian people. It is not their fault that their leaders cannot stop fighting each other.
I found it very beneficial that the chief executive of Ineos was willing to give a relaxed, in depth interview to Robert Peston, clips of which were played on the broadcast. He has knowledge of the energy market around the world and notes that our costs do not compare favourably. Although it may well be a political decison nuclear power to industry currently costs 40% less in France than the new Hinckley Point generator will when it coms on stream in 2023.
Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, was interviewed on the programme about the appearance of BBC executives before them in September 2013. She said the strong impression gained about the past top management of the BBC was of good friends who looked after one another, in financial matters as much as anything else. From about 2009 I think the corporartion started cutting it’s budget substantially but, ironically, it came at a monetary cost. She highlighted an extract from the BBC Trust report published in June 2013 that in the three years to December 2012 150 leaving high level managers received severance payments of £25 million, half the annual budget of Radio 4. It seems there were extremely generous provisions in their contracts of employment. The 10 most senior leavers received £5 million.
17th December 2013
In his closing statement at the Woolwich trial today the prosecution barrister has told the jury that killing to make a political point, to frighten the public, to put pressure on the government or as an expression of anger is murder and remains murder whether the government in question is a good one, a bad one or a dreadful one.
Russia has today reduced the price of the gas it sells to Ukraine by nearly a third and is buying $15 billion of it’s government bonds to alleviate it’s debt position. Mr Putin says there are no strings attached to either move. You could call it bribery or a shrewd political move. As long as the people’s wishes are respected I don’t feel it matters.
The Airports Commission has announced today that it has decided on three main options to increase our airport capacity in the south east. Those are a new runway immediately to the south of Gatwick airport, one immediately to the north of Heathrow and an extension westwards of one of the two existing runways there. That last alternative would apparently allow planes to take off at one end and land at the other. The Commission will also be evaluating further the viability of a brand new airport on the Isle of Grain in the Thames estuary.
Current government thinking is that rehabilitation should be at the heart of our prison and probation system. However a joint report by the chief inspectors of prisons and probation out today says that function is failing. As people inside, and then outside, of prison are mentored and tracked quite a few specialists must liase and cooperate with each other. It seems that is not happening. They are not talking to one another. It is recommended the supervisory body, the National Offender Management Service, should give some simplified clear guidelines and intruction as to what is expected of the professionals concerned. There was a piece in the first hour of Today about it this morning.
Yesterday in Parliament covered the appearance of the Home Secretary before the Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday. It seems the chairman, Mr Vaz, wrote to the MI5 chief inviting him to also come along. Mrs May wrote back on Mr Parker’s behalf that she did not think that would be necessary. However there was no tension evident between the two over it. Mr Vaz did try a few questions to try and ascertain the reasoning behind some of Mr Parker’s statements at the recent Intelligence Security Committee hearing but he didn’t get anywhere.
In last Tuesday’s FT was a report that Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have reached agreement in principle to halt the lowering water level in the Dead Sea, physically between the three of them. Water is going to be pumped from the Red Sea to replenish reserves.
Wednesday’s edition goes through the joint Democrat and Republican accord to agree government spending levels through to 2015. There are various other public finance issues yet to be settled but President Obama has called it a good first step. After that votes were passed, despite some resistance, in both houses of Congress.
The editorial notes that young blood is entering the top of Italian politices. Enrico Letta was 46 when he became prime minister in April 2013. His duputy, once overshadowed by Silvio Berlusconi, is 43. A few days before, after a convincing electoral win in Florence, the left leaning Democratic Party got itself a 38 year old new light.
There is an article in the paper by Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the the Commons Liason Committee. I have not heard of it before but it comprises the chairs of all the other Commons 33 select committees. The group have called for full reform of the Civil Service with a parliamentary report to be issued about it before the next general election.
18th December 2013
Prince Ghazi of Jordan was in the country yesterday. With Prince Charles he visited the Egyptian Coptic Church centre in Stevenage and the Syriac Orthodox cathedral in west London. Afterwards the Prince of Wales said those with religious faith are currently being victimiesd in the Middle East by intimidation, false accusation and organised persecution.
Abbas Khan was a well thought of othopaedic surgeon from south London with a wife and two young children. He wanted to help Syrian refugees and went to the Turkish border in November 2012. After some fighting in Aleppo he travelled to a field hospital there to offer his assistance. Almost immediately he was arrested by the Syrian army for having no visa and put into prison. He remained in gaol until he was found hanged in his cell on Monday.
His mother had been to Damascus to plead for him and journalists are aware that on the personal authority of President Assad he was to be allowed home. The Syrian Deputy Foreign minister has said the release would have been a present to the British people. George Galloway was to go to the country to collect him and he would have been back with his family this weekend. All those hopes have been cruelly dashed. Mr Assad must feel impotent. I hope he wants to do something about it.
Last night I heard a Foreign Office mininster call Doctor Khan’s death effective murder. I have little doubt he is right. There are quite a few hanged people found dead in our jails. However I have never heard officialdom even hint that something dark might be going on there. Funny that.
Today reported this morning that there was a coup attempt led by troops loyal to the former vice president, in South Sudan on Sunday night. The worry is that civil war could break out.
Yesterday in Parliament was with the Public Administration Committe the day before. The MPs were thinking about charity executives’ pay and had the top man at Mary’s Meals in front of them. He pays himself £32,000 a year with that of his staff graduated below him. He agrees it is not easy to recruit but they do always manage it. It was of course a favoured argument of the banks that they would never be able to employ good people unless they were paid obscene amounts of money. Apparently the salary of the chairman of the charity St Andrew’s Healthcare has until recently been £600,000 per annum.
Throughout the broadcast the subject of volunteering was highlighted especially for those of us of a mature age. Nick Hurd the minister for civil society noted that unpaid involvment away from home has increased a lot in the last two years. It was said helping others in that way is often as beneficial for the giver as the receiver. I certainly find that in my own volunteering, as long as I feel I am making a real difference.
The progamme concluded with a unique interview I imagine of one Humprys, John. It seems he came into contact with Ronnie Biggs, who has just died, in his early journalistic days and related some of his experiences.
I have watched the first instalment of The Great Train Robbery this evening on BBC television. Bruce Reynolds was the organiser and Ronnie Biggs got involved as he knew someone who could drive the train from the stop signal to the road bridge for unloading. Ronnie got caught because he apparently left his finger prints on a sauce bottle at Leatherslade Farm. The plan was to burn the place down when they left but their man was apprehended a few days before by the police for petty stealing. In my book I recorded my recollection that a red cloth had been put in front of the green light on the track gantry. In fact it was a little more complicated than that but not by a lot. The cloth, or glove, was put in front of the green light to mask it and then a clip-on connector used to take the electricty supply from the live wire to the red light.
My reading of the way the story was portrayed was that the robbers were as much messed around and laughed at as the honest members of 1963 society. The men thought the farm would be burnt down by their substitute arsonist after they left but for some reason it was not. The £2.6 million stolen in used bank notes was a frightening amount for them even though they didn’t take all the mailbags from the train. Their estimate was a maximum of £1 million. They thought things would quieten down after a few days. In fact the opposite happened. The establishment felt defiled; we threw everything at investigation and retribution. I suspect it all went just as the Gang hoped. And of course the bulk of the loot was never recovered.
Just to show, in my view, that the Gang Master is not happy about the broadcast Ronnie Biggs died in the early hours of this morning at a care home in North London. Bearing in mind that the Gang are supposed to be a hidden organisation you do wonder if someone is beginning to lose the plot.
19th December 2013
In July 2010, two months after he became Prime Minister, David Cameron said he would set up an Inquiry into the involvement of MI5 and MI6 into the extrajudicial detainment of individuals by other countries, also known as extraordinary rendition, and their improper treatment. He appointed Lord Justice Peter Gibson to lead it but police enquires were ongoing and those had to be completed first. Everything got bogged down. Wikipedia says an initial report was completed in the summer of 2012 but it was never published. Today it has been. It raises 27 questions which Sir Peter feels need answering. The ball is now being given to the Intelligence and Security Committee to see if they can get to the bottom of things under the extra powers given to them by the Justice and Security Act 2013. Ken Clarke, Minister without Portfolio, was on the World at One at lunchtime. He said he wants to see how the ISC performs. The government have not ruled out a full judge led inquiry should that be necessary.
I suspect all that might be connected with a report which has just been given to the White House on the workings of the NSA. That has made 46 recommendations for greater regulation of the organisation and records a presumption of non retention of data in the ownership of commercial technology companies. Glen Greenwald noted on Newsnight last night that a federal judge had just ruled the NSA Prism programme to breach the civil liberties of Americans and, as far as the judge could see, had not helped to apprehend any terrorists at all.
Last weekend’s FT Magazine featured 13 women. One was the former wife of President Putin. No interview was carried out due I imagine to her maintaining her privacy since the couple jointly announced their divorce in June 2013. It seems she is just one of those ladies who does not seek the limelight. The piece says it was not easy for Mr Putin but he respected her wishes. I feel it shows the stature of the man that he was able to do it. It must be the hardest thing in the world to take the right course when every emotional fibre in your body is pulling you in the opposite direction.
Earlier in the periodical Simon Kuper was writing about sex equality. He thinks, starting from the 1960s, it has moved on massivly. Forty years ago half of Americans thought extramarital affairs morally wrong, today it is 91%. He feels the essence of a mature equal relationship is sex and love. I am sure he is right. I would add that sex is the pleasurable but momentary part of the liason. Love is the deep enduring bond which gives the couple strength. Even so, in a timeline, I feel it is usually the sex that comes first. Love often comes along later.
The past political differences about Guantamano Bay are highlighted in the newspaper. It seems Congress has been insisting that any released detainees should not return to terrorism. Bearing in mind we should all have freedom of action in this world until convicted of something that does not appear very practical. Another condition was that no one should be returned to Yemen where most of the captives come from. However some hardened minds are at last softening up in America sufficiently on the issue to get some enabling legislation passed. It is now possible more than half of the 160 still held could be repatriated once the revised hoops have been jumped through.
On the opposite page is one of the FT’s analysis pieces on the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement which I wrote about for example on 25th October 2013. The picture presented stikes me as just how the Gang work. It was so secret no one outside the circle even knew it existed for decades after it had been set up. And the idea is the participants have complete trust in each other, so much so they they exchange personnel between them. However I see New Zealand were expelled for disliking nuclear powered ships in the 1980’s. They were not forgiven for 20 years. Another eerie similarity is the exclusiveness of the club, you spy on everybody else but never on each other. That of course will leave countries like France and Germany hurt and jealous. Although it is not specifically written the impression is given that Germany asked to be let in this autumn. And our refusal prompted Mrs Merkel to spill the beans about her mobile phone being listened to.
Those of us with ambition want to do something with our lives and the edition reports that Bob Diamond has found a new focus for himself. He hopes to raise $250 million with an African businessman to buy a bank on that continent.
The two British girls caught at Lima airport on 6th August 2013 trying to smuggle cocaine to Spain have been sentenced to six years eight monts in prison under a plea bargain arrangement.
The coppers tale of the Great Train Robbery was on this evening. The first programme noted that the wife of the man who changed the track signals had left him a view days before the robbery. He must have found that deeply destabilising. He could easily have made a silly mistake. I suspect the Gang would not have mined at all. They would have looked upon it as a challenge to show their true mettle at manipulation whatever the changed circumstances. I recall my note of 25th June 2013 of what two Anglo Irish Bank executives said to each other just after Lehman Brothers went down. It is of no surprise then that the same man was the first to be caught by police, after a couple of days, in connection with a garage he was renting in Bournemouth. The widow of a police officer phoned the investifating officers about him. Soon after that two members of the public happened to find a sitcase full of used bank notes in woods near Dorking. The press were beginning to portray the criminals as cheeky heros and the politicians started panicking. Pressure was put on the police.
I was waiting for Ronnie Biggs to come substantially into the story, on either night. However he was only a bit player on a par with all the others so it never happened. I think that might have made the Gang pretty angry, to ignore their protegee like that. Tonight’s film was what it said on the tin, the story of chief superintendent Tommy Butler of the Yard. He delayed his retirement until he was able to personally go to the Torquay flat where the main robber, Bruce Reynolds, was finally caught in 1968. Mr Butler died on 20th April 1970 the day Mr Biggs’ memoires were published in the Sun.
Michael Adebolajo and and Michael Adebowale, both of Nigerian heritage, were found guilty of murdering Lee Rigby today but innocent of attempted murder of police officers. The rusty gun they had with them held no ammunition. It is quite a puzzle to me how they were persuaded to do what they did when they did. It is clear it was a last minute decision. The knives used in the attack were only bought the day before. No communications about any plan was found by the police except between the two Michaels themselves. The key must be, as reported by Simon Israel on Channel 4 News this evening, the three hours the two spent in Adebolajo’s flat immediately before the attack. It would be lovely to know who else was present. Inevitably it will be quite a worry for MI5. If it happened once in that way it could happen again. I suspect someone who works for them in fact does have a good idea how it all worked. Simon says the agency visited Mr Adebolajo as late as February 2013. The person or group on our side might well feel pretty guilty when it really wasn’t their fault.
Lee was separated from his wife and engaged to another lady. His mother and step father say they now want to make the best life they can for his little boy, Jack.
So that we don’t think too hard about Woolwich, in my view, there has been an accident this evening at a London theatre. During the first act of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Apollo theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue part of the ceiling fell in on the audience of 720 below after rain. As always it could have been so much worse. Four people have gone to hospital and there are 41 walking wounded.
20th December 2013
I though it was quite interesting on Wednesday’s World at One how Ed Davey compared our recent economic difficulties to war like situations. He said this country has only experienced similar situations after the Napoleonic, the first and the second world wars. We have just been through the deepest recession for 100 years.
When you step back and think about it there is so much going on at the moment. On Wednesday the Duma voted unanimously to introduce an amnesty Bill to free about 20,000 low level ciminals. That could be to create a good liberal impression before the Sochi Winter Olympics in February or it could go a bit deeper. From our perspective it should mean the Greenpeace detainees will be released as well as the Pussy Riot ladies. Then today, in the same vein, President Putin has signed a pardon for the jailed former owner of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He has been encarserated since 2005 for embezzlement and fraud. Initially even his solicitor didn’t know anything about it. Then today Mr Khodorkovsky has flown to Germany where we are told his mother has had medical treatment before, even though she isn’t currently there. I see Mrs Merkel has said she is happy he has been freed. I suspect there could be something involving Ukraine in there somewhere.
21st December 2013
I understand the Daily Mail has 13 pages of print this morning about the outcome of the Saatchi-Lawson trial. It has caught the public imagination. That is how we are. It is also as very good opportunity to learn a few lessons in my view.
There was a 10 minute discussion about it on Today earlier between a gentleman human rights lawyer and the lady chair of the Bar Council. It was only in the final couple of sentences that the fundamental difference between them emerged. She believes a trial process is to test the prosecution case, he that it should be a search for the truth. I recall my note about Simon Kuper speaking to a barrister which I wrote on 16th November 2013. The man on Today said to only concentrate on one side encourages game playing without thinking about the human beings in front of you. Both agreed it was legitimate for the defence to want to paint Nigella Lawson in the worst possible light to destroy her credibility as a truthful witness. It is then down to the judgement of the judge to decide whether to allow that to happen. I do not know the details of the case but it was a massive responsibility for him to take on his shoulders. If Nigella were not such a strong person he could have completely destroyed her for the sake of one court case in which there may have been a miscarriage of justice. I personally feel there should be a backstop appeal provision within the trial process for situations like that so some second opinions can be sought. If the trial were held up for 24 hours I can’t see that would matter greatly.
Then the other important aspect for me is the, still, incredible power of the Gang. They do need a couple of months to get their plans in place but that, in my view, is quite sufficent for them. It is a question of numbers, intelligence and selection. The law is an area where they concentrate anyway. Their systems within it I expect are so extensive they can invariably get their required package into place. They concentrate on and pressurise individuals whether you be a judge, lawyer or juror. Amongst them will be some Gang helpers, also subject to the same pressure cooker environment, who are told what to do at crucial times. Our masters see how all react to that situation and make sure any slight mis-step is amplified to destabilise the group further. They do not know, just as we don’t, how it will all work out but often it goes their way. In that case it gives them a massive boost of confidence.
That positive form of sentiment was expressed more than once in President Obama’s remarks yesterday about the NSA’s Prism programme. He said the public, in America and throughout the world, need to have confidence they are doing what they are supposed to. It seems he is thinking about transferring the responsibility of storage of mass data to commercial people out here in the real world where we can all see them. I feel he wishes to portray an air of calm assurance. He says he will mull about it over the Christmas break and then let us know his decision.
I think the London Gang director must be looking forward to the Christmas break. He has had a busy few days. Following on from the Apollo Theatre accident a red London bus was driving in Kennington yesterday. It swerved to avoid a car and drove head on into a tree but not so that it damaged the driver’s side of the vehicle. Six passengers were seriously injured and 24 less so. Then early today there was a fire at Chessington World of Adventures in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. It was in a cafe building near the zoo. The park has not been able to open today.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the Pan Am Lockerbie air crash. There has been a memorial service in the town today. In his address the local church minister connected 9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid and Woolwich with the event. The American representative said we owe it to those who are no longer with us to continue the fight against terrorism to the end. David Cameron paid tribute to the fortitude and resilience of all those affected by the tragedy. He said his admiration for them is unconditional. Their determination to continue their normal lives shows that bad people can never crush the human spirit. Terrorism will never prevail.
The UK, US and Libya have announced they want to work together to see if they can find out how the 1988 bombing happened. Libya will be appointing two prosecuters to investigate the matter with the other two goverments providing as much support as they can.
The head of the Quality Care Commission since January 2013, a former Conservative MP, has told the Daily Telegraph the NHS should not be treated as a national religion beyond criticism. He said even the most senior staff are afraid of honestly referring to it’s defects. The department which most obviously shows the deficiencies is A&E. It is at the sharp end, where all the pressue is. To have a tick box arbitary limit that all admissions must be seen within four hours is not sensible.
On Tuesday the Chief Inspector of Constabulary told the Commons Home Affairs select committee that it is perfectably understandably the police feel obliged to manipulate crime statistics for public consumption. The question is not whether they make them look more favourable than they really are but the extent of it.
Vince Cable was on Today on Thursday talking about zero hours employment contracts. It was the day the Davies Airports Commission reported and he was asked about that as well. His London constituency is partly under the west London airport approach flight path and previously he has said a Heathrow expansion will not happen. This time he used the word unlikely. One of those, now muddied, red lines again as I wrote about for example in relation to Syria on 30th August 2013.
John Humprys is one of our leading broadcasters. He has been sticking his head above the parapet over the last few days. I understand he, and his editor, have had quite a bit of press criticism for interviewing Mr Choudary yesterday following the Woolwich tial verdict. On that programme he said if we can’t trust our police the game is up. It would mean we are not living in a civilised society. It is not something we could let ourselves believe. You should be careful John. People will want to start to shoot the messenger if you are not careful.
I fully appreciate this is going to sound like a riddle to some but I want to write it down. Sometimes I find myself in an extremely difficult position. I am entitled to my privacy, others are entitled to theirs. Some things should be told, to journalists for example, which are in the public interest. Then you have our security services, with their confidants, who know I suspect everything I say and do except my own thoughts which I chose not to openly express, verbally or otherwise. All I can do I feel is procede with the desire to trust those people I should have a presumption of being able to trust and then react accordingly if that expectation is not realised. Whatever the ins and outs of it are it seems to be working.
Sir Bernard Hogan Howe thought Thursday was an appropriate time to speak on the progamme about policing, particularly having in mind I expect the damage caused to his force by the plebgate affair. I feel he was saying it is his job to lead his people and have confidence in them unless that patently should not be so. However there will always be rotten apples in every barrel and those individuals will be treated accordingly. It was a combative, assured public outing by the Commissioner in my view.
I have been watching the final of Strictly Come Dancing tonight, the 11th series. Everyone is saying it is the best ever for those involved in it. That phrase increased self confidence has cropped up quite a lot. More than one contestant has said it has been a life changing experiencing for them. I doubt if that is a concidence bearing in mind where we are with things. If people are shown love, consideration and respect in a challenging environment, and are given the right stimili, they react accordingly.
22nd December 2013
On Friday it was announced the next police chief constable in Kent will be Alan Pughsley. He joined the service from the Met in 2009. The BBC Kent webpage says he was one of three candidates but it gives no further details.
A Radio 4 newspaper review passes on a report in the Observer that the Department of Work and Pensions is upset with a charity which has opened up more than 400 food banks around the country. The allegation is that they have done it for political purposes. The Independent has visited a food bank in the Prime Minister’s constituency which it says is remarkably busy.
On 29th November 2013 an aircraft was on a Mozambican Airlines flight from Maputo to Angola. It crashed killing all 33 on board. No doubt with the help of the recovered black box flight recorder the head of the Civil Aviation Institute has said that the pilot had the clear intention of taking his plane down. It ovbiously brings back memories to me of the The Clutha helicopter crash on the same day.
On Friday a Chinese billionaire completed the purchase of a chateau and vineyard in France. The previous French owner took him up in his helicopter to show him his acquistion from the air. It is said the Chinese man’s wife pulled out of that flight at the last moment saying she was afraid of helicopters. The aircraft crashed killing the two men, an interpreter and the Chinese man’s 12 year old son. A previous owner of the estate died in the same way in 2002.
On Wednesday eurozone Finance Ministers agreed to set up a single resolution board and fund to deal with future crises in it’s banking system. Comment seems to be it is rather in the form of a half measure but of course it does show political will. Francois Hollande has said more progress towards the goal has been made in the last few months than the previous ten years.
Between 2001 and 2003 the American diplomat Richard Hass was the Untited States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. He returned to the province in September 2013 to assist the five political parties in resolving outstanding issues. I heard him speak on the radio news yesterday and my guess is feels he is on the brink of a deal. He intimated they are just about there on general reconciliation, past crimes and parades. It is flags which is still the thorny issue.
On Friday the Commons Homes Affairs Select Committee reported that it is likely we have a serious problem in this country with patients being addicted to prescription drugs. There could be 1.5 million of us who feel dependent on swallowing tablets of one sort or another. In the first instance Keith Vaz, it’s chairman, says we need to have good data. That I imagine means some resources should be allocated to the area, for example so that people who keep coming back to their doctor for more pills can be spoken to. Mr Vaz says doctors and police should also be talking to each other to catch the few who obtain far more drugs than they need for their own personal use. They visit different surgeries for the same prescription.
After the ending of the Woolich murder trial on Thursday it was said that Michael Adebolajo was influenced in part by the teachings of Anjem Choudary. Mr Choudary was interviewed by John Humphrys on Today the next day which I also mentioned yesterday. Through being shown common courtesy it was possible for the audience to understand what it is he believes. My reading of him is that he has such strong emotions within, it has twisted his thinking processes and values. He is a highly intelligent and articulate Gang helper who can see that hidden hand working but has concluded the conspiracy is within our state and not elsewhere. Anything the Gang give him therefore, such as the murder of Lee Rigby, he will thankfully grab with both hands. It fits in with his scheme of things. Immediately afterwards Lord Carlilse, the former independent government adviser on counter terrorism, was on. He I thought was using pretty emotional arguments. That I suggest, for a subject like this, spreads fear and unease. It is not the right approach.
On the subject of freedom of speech I feel an individual should always be allowed to express his or her genuine views unless they are inciting others to break the law. It is what Speakers Corner is for. Mr Choudary is genuine I believe and he is careful how he expresses himself in public. For me it is a test of a strong society that we can listen to such opinions without being influenced by them. If we are it is a reflection on the imbalanced attitudes within the general population itself. A civil society should be able to accommodate mavericks without letting them destabilise it.
I have listened again this evening to Maura McGowan of the Bar Council and the barrister Geoffrey Robertson talk about Nigella Lawson’s experience at the Isleworth criminal trial. Mr Robertson’s view is that the law should be changed to allow a witness such as Ms Lawson to employ her own legal counsel to represent her interests and call evidence in that connection as necessary. Ms McGowan thought that would clog up the whole trial process.
Mr Khodorkovsky has spoken today from German. He says he did not know he was going there until he was in the aeroplane flying away from his gaol. He thanked the Germans for helping to secure his release. He wants to now take up the cause of other detained political prisoners but not get involved in Russian politics himself.
Last Monday’s FT notes that Turkey has recently restarted discussions with the EU to join the club after a three year break. Agreements are also just about to be signed on the easing of visa restictions and the repatriation of illegal immigrants.
24th December 2013
It was last Friday President Obama said he is thinking about what to do with the NSA. On the same day the Guardian published further extracts from the Snowden files saying we and America have been spying on various activities in 60 countries, including on an EU commissioner and a former Israeli prime minister. I expect that was designed to keep the pressue up. Apparently the NSA still haven’t established exactly what is was Edward stole. They were so intent on looking elsewhere it doesn’t seem to have occured to them to have their own management controls in place. What a shower.
I noted about the ruling, which has been appealed, of an American federal judge last Thursday. From a link on a BBC webpage this morning I see it arose from an application by two users of Verizon’s mobile phone system that collection of their data for five years by the NSA was unconstitutional. The judge agreed. Then Edward Snowden has said this morning he thinks his task has been done. He just wanted to bring the situation out into the open and then let others decide the best course forward. A comment on the page says it has all been a real shock to the system of the state’s spies. They are used to watching, not being watched by others.
The Northern Ireland negotiations, after an all night session, did not reach agreement and Mr Haas is now going back to America for Christmas. He will write down the position reached and make some suggestions. If the parties want him to he will come back in the New Year. Obviously though he cannot do it all on his own. I heard Lord Trimble say he feels local communities themselves should be consulted and their views moved upwards to the top.
Peter Tatchell is a political campaigner taking a special interest in gender issues. He was on Today this morning talking about the official pardon given to Alan Turing who I wrote about on 14th December 2012. In view of what was found in his stomach I would have thought the circumstantial evidence he was murdered was pretty strong. Mr Tatchell was saying the suspicion is that his death was arranged by some members of MI5 as they feared, because of his sexual orientation, he might betray some of our secrets to foreign agents.
Although I don’t suppose any preventive action could have been taken it seems that South Sudan has been an accident waiting to happen. In the space of just over a week full scale civil war has broken out between the Dinka and Nuer tribes. There was a reporter on the programme speaking about it from Juba. She said communities and neighbours are now killing each other depending on physical appearance and language spoken.
There was a storm in a tea cup yesterday about a Muslim checkout operator at Marks and Spencer refusing to sell some champagne to a customer because it would be against her religious beliefs. The employer took a responsible attitude and said they were in the wrong for putting her in a position in which she felt uncomfortable. I heard the chief executive of Asda take a similar line. That is quite correct for businesses out there accommodating all shades of customer preferences and staff types. Even so, as an indiviual, I feel we do have an obligation to get on with out fellow human beings as well as we can, without imposing our values on them. In the work environment good training plays a large part in that I feel.
Toronto and the east coast of Canada was still in the grip of an ice storm yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of homes are without electricity. That mass of cold air has been propelled across the Atlanic by the jet stream travelling at over 280 mph, faster than wetherman Peter Gibbs has ever seen. When it reached our shores the depression over the sea was expected to be 927 millibars, just about the lowest ever recorded. Hardly surprising therefore that so many of us have had our travel plans disrupted in the run up to Christmas.
Gideon Rachman had a piece in last Tuesday’s FT after returning from a trip to Israel. His sense was that they are getting used to the idea of a nuclear deal with Iran. They are starting to think about the opportunities which are beginning to arise for them in their relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Apparently Mr Netanyahu also got on very well with Mr Putin on his recent visit to Moscow just before the last Geneva Iranian talks.
The point I would make about the Prism programme is that it allows the NSA to place any communication in the world onto it’s computer storage facility in Utah providing the Gang the opportunity to go along at a later date to pick out those, such as mine, which are of interest to it. The editorial in Wednesday’s FT confirms that the President is thinking of making that storage function the responsibility of the communication provider or a third party. If the NSA wanted to look at a particular message they would have to give a good reason why.
Thursday’s paper highlights that after a lull of 20 years the Carribean is becoming a major transit route again for the transportation of illegal drugs. I think that direction must be northwards into America and is being used because Mexico is more difficult nowadays.
There was some useful analysis I feel by Philip Stephens in Friday’s FT. He suggests the possibility, if Mr Obama hadn’t hesitated about bombing Iraq in the summer, that the British Parliament wouldn’t have pulled the rug from under Mr Cameron’s feet. That led to an accommodation with Mr Assad which will also probably mean he will be part of any negotiated settlement of Syria’s woes. The episode was also a confidence booster for Mr Putin.
A BBC webpage was published this afternoon about the Cryptolocker ransomware which has infected some 250,000 computers, mostly here and in the States, running the Windows operating system. You are tricked into opening an authentic looking attachment to an email which them downloads the virus to your computer from the internet encrypting all files and making them unreadable. A ransom then has to be paid in virtual currency before the authors remotely decontaminate your hard drive.
My garden tractor went in for repair to it’s starter motor earlier this week. The village firm is about three miles away up an ummade track with some other small businesses. A very low cost, low key set up you might think. I therefore thought the standard procedure for repairs in the area where I live was quite interesting. People around here must expect the very best of service. I suspect cost is no consideration for them. The firm’s practice is to thoroughly check all the equipment over and give you a quote for sending it back in the best of condition. When I told them there was no need to do that for me they sounded quite relieved.
25th December 2013
A have seen a clip of a BBC weather report today which goes into more detail on the origins of our storm. It seems the jet stream runs along the boundary of warm and cold air masses. The difference in temperature this time between Montreal and New York, at 28 degrees centigrade, has been so great a torrent of warm air has rushed across the Altantic. That is the part which has beeen causing all our rain in the south of the country. Then as it moves it sucks in cold air from the artic at lower altitudes trying to equalise the pressure difference. A deepening vortex effect is created causing the strong winds and the record low pressure as that icy blast rushed in past the Orkney Islands.
In her Christmas Day message the Queen spoke about the Commonwealth Conference in Sri Lanka last month. I think she was saying that whatever the rights and wrongs of it if you are part of a family the others try and include you. They hold you within their circle with encouragement and hope you will learn to change your ways.
As we were walking back from church this morning there were four mature Gang helpers out to crowd us, two ladies with a dog and then, initially hidden around the corner, two gents with two dogs. However I don’t think they are very experienced as the women standing in front of us crossed the road well before we got to them. As we passed on opposite sides of the carriageway one of the men looked over with a broad smile on his face. I think he must have been expecting, it being Christmas Day, that one of us would smile back. I gave him a long hard stare. My two companions did not even notice.
It is quite incredible really that four grown people would want to do something like that on such a day just, I suspect, to make them feel big and valued within their little gang. They cannot have known who we were or why they had been asked to go out. They are not brave people. Essentially they do it because they think you do not know what they are up to, or that you are part of the game. I do wish the public generally knew more about these things. It would only take a relatively few people like me to make it plain what we think of their imbecilic behaviour and it would stop overnight.
26th December 2013
I see it is estimated 15 million people went to a religious service yesterday. We do not have a tradition of shouting about our faith in this country but as that number is approaching 25% of the population it shows I feel our above this world thoughts are a significant part of the lives of many.
Got home this evening and found the power was off. I would guess it is quite localised. I see and hear one of my neighbour homesteads has a generator but the rest of us are unlit. The police have put a sign up shutting the road because, for a stretch of about 150 yards along my boundary and beyond, there is electricity cable all over the road. It is a right mess. It looks to me as if it was just pulled down, after no doubt the power was first disconnected.
27th December 2013
The president of Kenya and prime minister of Ethiopia met the president of South Sudan in Juba yesterday to talk about the fighting in his country. Today there is a meeting of Igad, an eight nation East African trading bloc, in Nairobi to discuss the situation. The United Nations are sending extra peacekeepers to South Sudan.
I don’t think anyone could criticise David Cameron for visiting Yalding today on the river Medway just upstream from Maidstone. He wanted to show his support to the villagers who have had their Christmas ruined through flooding in their homes. It was good of him to break into his own holiday to do it.
Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5 between October 2002 and April 2007, was the guest editor on Today this morning. She is a lady I feel who values human interaction. She had a 45 minute chat for the programme with Judy Dench who played her in the most recent James Bond film, far longer than was needed. She said that before 9/11 she did not think she was up to the top post but that event gave her the determination to go for it. She said she felt bereavement for her lost job when she left making me think it was not of her volition. She also said how tenacious Tony Blair was during the Northern Ireland peace process hanging in there when everyone else thought it was a lost cause. She seems to be a woman who plays strictly by the rules. It is for that reason I suspect she does not agree with what Edward Snowden did in betraying secrets no matter how good his intention might have been.
At her request a consenting Muslim MI5 informant was interviewed. He also strongly believes in right and wrong but because he considers his motive to be true does not mind telling tales on his friends. His family is ignorant he does it. He seeks no form of recognition for his efforts and only receives reimbursement of his expenses. Sometimes his minders suggest he does a particular thing. However it is always on the basis that it is great if he does it but nobody minds if he doesn’t.
28th December 2013
I have just driven over this morning to a home with power in a neary town for a few hours. It is a lovely sunny day with clear blue skies. I estimate that between 20-30% of the cars I passed had their side or head lights on.
Freedom of Information requests are a useful tool I feel for lots of poeple. I see the Scottish Conservative party think that too. Their FoI application to the Scottish Ambulance Service has elucidated that it’s drivers have received over 2,200 speeding tickets between January 2010 and August 2013. A fine results unless it can be shown, within a limited period, that the vehicle was on an emergency call at the time. The politicians say the system should be changed.
I suspect the death of a former Sunni Lebanese minister and opposition figure in Beirut is quite significant politically. He was looked upon as a moderating force in his country. Both John Kerry and Francois Hollande have condemned it. Mohamad Chatah and four others were killed in the car bomb blast yesterday. 50 people were injured.
David Tang wrote a piece in the main section of last Saturday’s FT about domestic staff following the conclusion of the Saatchi-Lawson trial. All his staff at his home in Hong Kong have been with him for at least 20 years. However they are not angels. Although they are my words not his I expect it could be a case of the devil you know rather than the devil you don’t. Beside the obvious trust which must exist he says the art of foregiveness is also a must. None of us are perfect. I think he tries to lead by example. I also make a connection with the Gang. They are not going anywhere either. We must learn to live with them. And show them our ways are better than theirs.
Another page went through Ukraine’s position with the EU and Russia following Mr Putin’s announcement earlier in the week of bilateral agreements worth $20 billion to it’s smaller neighbour. European leaders said they would not engage in a bidding war for Ukraine’s affections. It’s people need to have a grown up debate about what is in their long term interests as well as those of their children and their children’s children. It reminded me of some of the comment I read a few weeks ago about whether Tesco should reduce it’s profit margin to try and maintain market share. I feel that would be a mistake. It would engender a race to the bottom, encourage a dog eat dog attitude and generally destabilise the whole of the retail food sector. Messing people around, from a lofty strategic perch, is something the Gang Master is very expert at in my view.
A piece on the same page relates that a former German foreign minister was a prime mover in the release of Mr Khodorkovsky. He had several discussions with President Putin about it, over a period of months I think, and said he had received the greatest possible help from Chancellor Merkel.
The edition reports that David Cameron put down a marker for his colleagues at the just finished EU summit in Brussels. He said we would be prepared to veto an enlarged Union if that were not carried through in an appropriate way as far as movements of people between countries is concerned. It seems Germany, Austria and the Netherlands have sympathy with our view.
An academic wrote in the issue about the unstisfactory way we go about arranging major infrastruture projects such as the channel tunnel, HS1 and HS2, in this country. The approach is too political, not strategic, he thinks meaning we get caught out in trying to please as many people as possible. He suggests the right approach, which we should use for our increased aiport capacity project, is to get the questions right. With those the answers become pretty obvious. I would extend that principle into life generally. Modern day existence is pretty confusing. You can’t see the wood for the trees, least of all make the right connections. We need to keep asking people the right questions. Then hopefully they might be able to see.
The magazine had an in-depth article about the Caribbean. It is not an easy place to live. The islands are in a hurricane zone. Crime and corruption are rife. 70% of all academic achievers leaving school between 1965 and 2000 decided to emigrate. Even though democracy is in place the Jamacian finance minister comments that politicians can have no legitimacy while poverty persists.
I wrote about epigenectics on 16th December 2013. The science page clarifies that it seems the sperm and eggs of adults in a population can somehow become changed through an individual’s emotional experiences in life.
Sir Tim Berners Lee was guest editor on Today on Boxing Day. One of his subjects was Open Data. It is information which would normally be private to you, such as your travelliing history, or records held within a company. It is stored and made available to anyone to use for commercial or other advancement. Besides the consent aspect it is a big challenge apparently to collate all that information into useful and acessible form.
Mishal Husain had a journailst join her on a typical working day to discover exactly how private her life outside of the studio, is. The BBC hired taxi firm who take her to the office will know her address and mobile phone number should they need to contact her. Her mobile phone company knows where she is whenever her device is switched on including her address where it lies stationaryl, as well as any journeys she makes. It is not possible for any of us to live in an isolated void. Our privacy, in my view, is not something we should get too paranoid about.
The former chief justice, Lord Judge, was on Today this morning talking about the European Court of Human Rights. Deep tensions exist between rulings coming down to us from the court, such as whether prisoners should have the right to vote, and the way we see things. However no politician would tell us we should not obey the rule of law. Lord Judge thinks the correct question to ask is, what is this doing to our sovereignty? He thinks parliament should discuss it and if appropriate decide we should take account of the court’s decisions but not be bound by them.
Keith Starmer was interviewed on the edition about his commission from the Labour Party to look at how witnesses and victims can be better protected in court cases. He says our system is essentially a punch up between the prosecution and defence. We need to think about the other people who turn up a bit more.
Even last weekend things were afoot in Turkish politics. The FT reported then that three sons of cabinet ministers had been arrested by police on corruption charges. Mr Erdogan seems to have reacted pretty much as he always does and shouted it is all because his political opponents are trying to do him down. He has therefore thought it justified to interfere in the police investigation. Whether his view is correct or not, I fear, is besides the point. By upping the rhetoric he will prevent people looking at the evidence and proceding calmly. Mr Assad has always thought he has been victimised by terrorists. Things have not worked out very well for him nor his people.
It seems Mr Erdogen is particularly concerned about the manouverings of a self exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen who lives in America. I wrote about the Gulen movement on 22nd May 2011 in the chapter 11 appendix of my book. A Turkish BBC journalist was saying on the broadcast that his group seems to have become remarkably well organised this year with perhaps 8 million people supporting him worldwide. It appears to me that, whilst he still has the power, Mr Erdogan needs to be quite smart and keep voters on his side.
Richard Haass has returned to Northern Ireland today. That must be because he feels an overall settlement on the politicians’ differences can be achieved. I heard Gerry Adams lend weight to the view on the radio news this morning. He asks that participants are prepared to bend their wills to reach an accommodation. A time limit of Monday is being set for the talking to stop.
There is no sense of hope in an article in last Monday’s FT about the current affairs of oil rich Libya. The government has an annual budget of $52 billion for a population of 6 million but nobody knows what that money is being spent on. There is no accountability within the state so everybody does pretty much as they want. Some militia are now demanding large sums of cash just not to kill people. The paper interviewed the anti-corruption tzar who at least has a busy, focused office. However he is a grain of sand in a desert.
A story which I have not seen elsewhere appeared in Christmas Eve’s FT. The Chinese economy is currently running at a debt ratio of 200% of GDP and the Chinese central bank is trying to reduce it. It wants banks to reduce their poorly secured loans. It does not wish to pump cheap money into the market so that is causing a bit of jitteriness. Short term interset rates have just shot up for the second time this year as banks become afraid to lend to each other in case they do not get their money back.
In a Gang influenced world life can be disheartening for a lot of us. We get frustrated at all the doors being shut without realising why. If a political group can tap into that emotional they can be remarkably successful. It happened with Italy’s Five Star Movement last February and, as reported in that paper, it is currently taking place in India. A year ago the Aam Aadmi party was born, fighting corruption and the country’s complacent political elite. Almost overnight in electoral terms they are just about to lead the local government of New Delhi after securing 30% of the vote in a recent city poll.
UK Power Networks arrived outside soon after 12 noon. It was a team of four from Suffolk who arrivd in Kent on Boxing Day. The chap said the last two days had been absolute chaos for them. They had six runs between poles to rewire and power was restored at 6pm. I estimate that means about a dozen homes were without lights for just over four days.
29th December 2013
There was a fire on a DFDS Seaways ferry last night soon after it left North Shields for Ijmulden near Amsterdam. No one was badly hurt but some passengers and crew were taken to hospital by helicopter and the boat returned to port. It seems there was some sort of argument between two men and then a passenger’s cabin was set on fire. That of course could well have been a set up job.
A suicide bomber killed 16 people at a railway station in the south Russian city of Volgograd this morning. The conurbation is near to the former Soviet Caucasus states where there are various Islamist insurgencies and not far from February’s Winter Olympics site at Sochi.
The three main Party leaders said jointly the other day the UK would increase it’s financial aid to Syria from the £523 million so far committed. Separately Labour has said it would accept up to 500 refugees from the country. Ten EU states have made similar offers for about 12,000 people. The UK only allows asylum applications. Nigel Farage joined the debate this morning when he made a distinction between economic and political refugees. He too feels we should should offer space to an unspecified number of families fleeing the conflict.
The Sunday programme this morning was looking at the importance of food in our social lives. As part of that there was a discussion about starvation as a tactic of war, just as chemical weapons are or rape. The method is currently being used as a means of controlling civilians in Syria.
I did listen to Good Morning Sunday in August when it came live from the Greenbelt Fesival at Cheltenham Racecourse. However I missed the interview with the American religous writer Jim Wallis. I must have turned over to Radio 2 too late. Just by chance though I did catch it this morning when Clare Balding was playing memorable clips broadcast during the year. Mr Wallis has written a book in which he says politics has sunk into a pattern of fear, blame and increasing vitriol. Those attitudes create paralysis in society. In his own country he is finding that faith communities can help politicians reach the right decisions. They persuade and pressurise in a calm way holding the decison makers in a tight circle, as I describe in chapter 8 of my book, so they have the space to think things out for themselves. A wind of public sentiment can then be created which our elected representatives feel able to follow. It is all about those of conviction having a strength of commitment and purpose for the common good.
As part of the storm trouble on Christmas Eve there was a power cut at Gatwick Airport’s North Terminal affecting thousands of passengers. It all sounded pretty chaotic. I suspect a couple of phone calls were put through to the Civil Aviation Authority about it. As reported in Friday’s FT the regulator is going to carry out an investigation into what happened.
Patrick Jenkins notes in the paper that the biggest casualty of the 2008 financial crisis, by a long way, was not a bank but the insurer AIG. American taxpayers had to fork out $182 billion to rescue it. Fortunately they got all their investment back. Although the group was nominally an insurer it’s diversification was so great it had become impossible to regulate or manage.
Michael Schumacher was skiing off piste with his 14 year old son today in the French Alps resort of Meribel. He fell and it is said hit his head on a rock. However he was wearing a helmet and walked around afterwards saying he just felt dazed. However two ski patrollers attended who decided he should go by helicopter to a small hospital in the nearby town of Moutiers. It would appear there, or on the way, he lost consciousness. He was flown to the regional hospital at Grenoble. He arrived in a coma and this evening has undergone brain surgery.
30th December 2013
A BBC webpage reports this afternoon that Prince William is just about to start a 10 week course on agricultural management at Cambridge University. It has been specifically tailored for him. He will live in the city for part of the time. It will prepare him for stewardship of the Duchy of Cornwall in due course.
A second suicide bombing has killed 14 people on a electric trolleybus during rush hour in Volgograd this morning. They were saying on Today this morning the trouble in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia goes back to the wars that were fought on the break up of the Soviet Union. It has produced hard line Islamists who want to creat their own religious state, or caliphate, in the North Caucasus. They do not mind how they go about it.
From the newspaper review I understand quite a few papers this morning have been mean towards the Queen for not stopping to take boquets of flowers from the children as she left Sandringham church yesterday. Apparently she only waved. That is very much how it works I am afraid when you are out in the public gaze.
Another item on the broadcast was about the government requiring police forces to be more specific when categorising their crime reports. Various new headings are being created. I imagine that is about this age of big data with it being hoped specific patterns of reported behaviour will be thrown up around the country.
Michael Palin was guest editor on the programme. He returned to Ethiopia after a gap of 22 years to see the work of the charity Farm Africa. Michael said it may only be helping a few thousand people out of a population of 100 million but for that number it is doing good and changing their lives. That must be advancement for Ethoipia and for the world. From little acorns big oak trees grow.
The radio news reported on some polling by the international organisation Win/Gallup. Out of 67,000 people in 65 countries one in four thought that America is the biggest threat we have to world peace. Between 30 and 40% thought the world would be a better place if most of our politicians were women.
I wrote about a typical day for Mishal Husain on Saturday. One of their journalists carried out a similar exercise for that day’s FT. In an age of modern technology it is immpossible for us not to leave a trail of our activities. I suspect most of us are pretty relaxed about it. The vast majority I am sure are happy to accept cookies from websites they visit even though they know the information given might well be used for commercial purposes. We still have a foundation of trust in our authorities that they are not out to do us down. However that confidence must not be betrayed which is one reason I feel transparent regulation of state intelligence gathering is so important. The FT article notes that last year our public authorities made 570,135 requests to communications companies for private customer use data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, a statute to combat terrorism. I would be surprised if all those applications were entirely reasonable.
31st December 2013
The cajoling in Northern Ireland did not work. The present series of talks broke up a few hours before dawn this morning. However people are being determinedly optimistic about what has been achieved and I am sure the pressure will be maintained. The problem I believe is on the Unionist side. I do recall seeing Peter Robinson of the DUP on the TV News on Saturday evening. Mr Robinson appeared quite sincere, however I thought the men standing behind him almost had smirks on their faces. It was as if they thought they were playing some sort of game rather than making important decisions for the benefit of young people in the Province.
I am pleased the chief executive of Barclays, Antony Jenkins, accepted his invitation to be guest editor of Today this morning. He has an interest in leadership and that I suspect means he thinks pretty hard how to get the best out of people, not only in his own bank but throughout all walks of life. One of his points is that we human beings are all basically the same whether we live in London, Lahore or Lagos, should the colour of our skin be white, tinted or black. We respond to the same stimuli which essentially I feel is that we are cared for and respected. With views like that you can imagine he has an common identity of purpose with the Archbishop of Canterbury who was also in the studio for Thought for the Day and a later interview.
The Archbishop wants us to have hope although he recognises that does not necessarily have anything to do with the reality of a situation. He had some very kind words for the Pope who leads an organisation 20 times larger than his. He remarked that if you have a good vicar in a parish his or her congregation will inevitably grow. The flock need to know it is the purpose, they are wanted. It is pretty much as simple as that. A predominant thought was that we should all strive to leave this world in a better state than we found it.
Both men agreed that the banks lost their way to such an extent it will take up to a generation to get their moral compass back on track. Mr Jenkins says it only takes a moment to destroy trust but you need an age to build it back again. The Archbishop suggests there are still men in the city who are in absolute denial about what the financial crash was all about. It will be a long hard slog.
In an early part of the programme the FT columist John Kay appeared. His view is that most businessmen do not yet associate making money with being honest or acting ethically. It is just a matter of doing better than the other chap. The circle which has to be squared it seems is that commercial leaders need to understand that acting properly, pleasing customers, is also in the best interests of their staff and shareholders. They should think long term and not worry about where the next quick buck will come from.
Two ladies who appeared in this morning’s New Year’s Honours list were Julie Bailey and Helene Donnelly. Ms Bailey spoke up over her mother’s treatment before she died at Stafford Hospital and Ms Donnelly was a whistleblowing nurse in the building. Both women were vilified by some for their actions. Ms Donnelly was on the broadcast and has since found alternative employment in another NHS Trust. There she is highly valued and does work directly for it’s chief executive.
The United nations had a deadline of removing all chemical weapons from Syria by the end of today. It will not happen. The Noweigian and Danish ships which were going to the Syrian port of Latakia for collection of the containers are returning to base in Cyprus empty handed. I don’t think it is a red line for anyone but the Syrians are being told it is important they get the materials to Latakia as quckly as they can.