15th July 2013
After the Stafford Hospital scandal the government asked Professor Sir Bruce Keogh to investigate mortality rates in the NHS. His report is published tomorrow with the help of Professor Brian Jarman whom I have written about before in relation to the Doctor Foster Unit. They say there are 14 Hospital Trusts, one within Kent, which have unacceptably high rates. Mid Staffs would not have been at the top although it would be in the top third. The men estimate that over the last five years 13,000 people have died whilst in the care of those Trusts who needn’t have.
Something I forget to write down last week is a recent problem I have had with rubber bands, of the type that postmen use to parcel envelopes. For a few weeks now I have been finding them inside and outside of my entrance gate. When I came home last Wednesday afternoon there were none outside my garage, on the way to my back door where the post is delivered. When I shut the garage door on Thursday afternoon there was one there. The only trouble with that is I had no post on Thursday so there would have been no need for the postman to enter onto my property.
From an early item on Today this morning I am aware the US Deputy Secretary of State is on a visit to Egypt. He has met with the President, the Prime Minister and the Army Chief. Very understandingly I feel he says America has no wish to interefere in Egyptian decisions. However he does expect a substantive dialogue between all sides.
The chief constable of the PSNI was on the programme. He said the trouble in Belfast this year has been confined to two or three streets. Ten years ago the province had 13,000 police supported by 20,000 troops. Today the all civilian number is under 7,000. Overall good progress is being made.
There was a piece on the World at One at lunchtime to go with Gordon Corera’a next cyber warfare Radio 4 instalment being broadcast this evening. I found it depressing listening. The first significant hostile cyber attack of recent times was against Estonian institutions in April 2007. I go into the Stuxnet virus, discovered in 2010, in my book. My conclusion is it was a joint American-Israeli programme against the Iranians. Then in August 2012 30,000 computers belonging to the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Saudi Aramco, were destroyed by a cyber assault thought to have come from Iran. Gordon says an arms race has started in cyber capability with 30 nations, including the UK, currently working on offensive programmes. It is just like the Cold War all over again. I fully support President Obama in trying to achieve nuclear disarmament. But, if he and other world leaders behind the scenes, are actively moving into cyber warfare I am not sure that is being particularly straighforward with their publics. I think they should tell us exactly what they are up to.
I see from today’s FT that the six woman jury in Florida have decided the neighbourhood watch volunteer I wrote about yesterday was also not guilty of manslaghter. Even though he had a gun and the teenager did not they decided the man acted in reasonable self defence.
The same paper reports that 20% of the coffee crop in the five Central American countries has been destroyed by a leaf fungus. Losses amount to about $600 million and new bushes will not bear fruit for three years. Five years ago Columbia was very badly hit. That whole region I imagine, south of the USA, will be involved in the smuggling of illegal drugs northwards.
Channel 4 News had an exclusive report, resulting from their own tip offs to the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Child Expoitation and Online Protection Centre this evening. A gap year charity director has been charged with child sex offences under British law committed in Kenya, where his organisation operates. The man, I suspect, will have succumbed to his own inappropriate predilections because the Gang made it ridiculously easy for him to do so. He must now pay the price.
16th July 2013
You would have thought a local authority did not have any secrets it wanted to hide from outsiders. However from a local BBC webpage published today I see that does not apply to Kent County Council. Over the last five years they have signed 151 compromise agreements, or gagging oders, with former employees. The staff member gets a higher payout for going quietly. Council tax payers’ money paid out over that period has been over £4 million. The former chief executive of KCC left in 2011 with a severance package of £420,000 after sixteen months in her job.
I see from a BBC webpage this afternoon that the lawyer to whom Edward Snowden has been speaking has close links to the Kremlin. Edward has now applied for temporary asylum and if granted, he will be allowed free movement within Russia.
The perimeter of my one acre garden is all hedges and I started cutting them at the weekend. I had a lot of trouble with my domestic aluminium step ladders in 2011. The Gang messed around with them over several months. I took the first one back to the shop under guarantee and the manufacturer replaced it. However I knew it wasn’t their fault and I felt uncomfortable about it. When my friends started bending components on the replacement I soldiered on but one day fell off, they had made it so rickety. Last year I bought industrial standard steps with a load factor of 130kg. They have been in my shed for nine months without being touched. However, knowing that I had just used them, I must have had a visitor within the last 24 hours.
When I got my secateurs out of the draw one foam handle protector was missing. It was there on Sunday. That I was meant to find out about first, which I did. The steps I was meant to discover later down the garden, which I did. Someone, with a considerable amount of force, has bent the crossbar on which the top standing platform rests when open. It was very noticeable and coudn’t really be missed. Amazingly though it has hardly affected their performance at all. My Gang director of course won’t be very happy with that. At some stage, when he can tie it in with something else, he will get a bit more damage done. When the steps become unusable I shall buy some more.
I lost some sectateurs a few months ago and changed the place where I keep the new ones. That means, like I deduced for the garage in my note 7th April 2013, I must have a voyeur camera in my shed as well. I am flattered that people I do not know find me such an interesting person.
On a more reflective note though it shows I have no secrets. So be it. It doesn’t matter too much. So why then are our political leaders so obsessed about keeping secrets from each other? I noted on 26th June 2013 Mr Hague saying he thought we should trust our state institutions. However if they don’t trust each other, whether justified or not, how can they expect us to view things differently. I would love to have a positive outlook on the future of the human experience. We are one world. Our leaders should remember that and give us an example.
The subject also comes into your mind when you think about our nuclear deterrent. If you keep secrets from others you will assume they keep secrets from you. I heard the Defence Secretary say on Today this morning that he thought any argument to reduce our standard of deterrent, say from four submarines to two, is naive and reckless. Someone who uses emotion like that, it seems to me, wishes to shut down rational argument. With four submarines we always have one on patrol waiting to fire it’s nuclear missiles at a moment’s notice. With two, instantaneous delivery cannot be guaranteed. I feel Mr Hammond is saying, firstly I cannot trust my own intelligence services to tell me what is really going on in the world and secondly I can’t trust foreign politicians with nuclear capability to act responsibly as I would. Not a very good advert for humanity it seems to me.
Yesterday in Parliament was about a Public Accounts Committee hearing on the Duchy of Cornwall which does not pay tax. The crown body was set up in the fourteenth century to provide an income for the heir to the throne independent of the monach. Some thought the estate should pay tax, some were more relaxed.
The chair of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was on the programme expressing her frustration that there have not yet been any prosecutions six months after breaking of the horsemeat story. Apparently the coordinating body is the Food Standards Agency, with the City of London Police doing the investigations. Quite a few foreign agencies are also involved I would have thought.
Jeremy Hunt told the Commons today that 11 of the 14 NHS Trusts with high mortality rates are to be placed in special measures. That means, as I understand it, that experts will go into each Trust to work with the senior management team to identify and bring about the improvements needed. Sir Brian Jarman was on the broadcast. He was a member of the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry team who reported in 2001. He said he had been providing information to those in power and their advisers since then that there was something wrong in some hospitals. Our leaders did not want to know. They were in denial. The trouble I suspect was that politicians knew how emotionally attached to the NHS we are. They could not bring themselves to tell us, or even think it themselves, that there could be something fundamentally wrong.
The Liverpool Care Pathway for dying patients came about in the NHS in the late 1990s for managing a person’s last days in hospital. However over the years it seems it became associated with a target culture of freeing up beds and poor quality of care. Last November the government commissioned an independent review into it’s operation which reported yesterday. It was pretty damning. Consequently the Pathway will be phased out within the next 12 moinths and replaced with an individual plan for each patient with a named senior clinician responsible for it’s implementation.
As I have noted on Monday of last week I sent an email to Lib Dem councillor Duwayne Brooks. It was not delivered. I received two replies from the London Borough of Lewisham, one on the Monday evening itself and one on the Saturday. I found them in my inbox yesterday. The first said they were having difficulty delivering the message and the second said they had given up. The Coucil use an underscore (‘_’) in their email adresses. My replies show it as difficult to indentify. I wonder therefore if it was some form of malfunction in their computer system for Duwayne’s particular address which was removing the underscore and thereby confusing itself.
The first sentence in a front page report in today’s FT is quite shocking. It says the Chinese authorities have stepped up their investigation into GlaxoSmithKline accusing it of being the ringleader of a $0.5 billion bribery scandal involving 700 companies. Chinese police apparently are investigating dealings going back to 2007 and believe GSK used travel agencies and consultancies as a conduit to bribe doctors and lawyers so as to boost sales and profits.
Channel 4 News had a report this evening on the arrest near the American border of the leader of the most violent, 10,000 strong, Mexican drugs cartel. In an intelligence led operation no doubt he was picked up driving down a quiet country road without a shot being fired. Matt Frei say his organisation was more like a death and torture squad beheading 200 migrants, causing a casino fire which killed 50 and dissolving some victims in vats of acid. 85,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drugs wars since 2006. And as Mat says there is one essential truth about it. The driver for the situation is the demand for illegal drugs created by people who live in America. I do not call that very neighbourly.
17th July 2013
Something I forgot to write down yesterday was a thought I had when listening to Today between 8.10 and 8.25. For quite a long time now I feel, the programme makes a conscious effort to mix the heavy with the light. In that segment they had the really difficult story of old patients being uncared for in hospital. It was followed by a light hearted piece on why Brits love camping. I have concluded it is the path I should try and follow in my private life. To be intense with people sometimes can work very well. However if you do it too much they come to associate you with unhappiness in their life. It is not a big step from there to believe you are the cause of the unhappiness itself. At the end of the day of course we all just want to live our lives in peace and quiet. The trick therefore is to combime the two, to get the balance right, to be proactive but allow people their space.
As I am my own publisher and wholesaler I know exactly how many copies have been sold of my badly written book. It is a miserably small number. Even so I assumed that those who should, have read it with the assistance of their national intelligence agencies. But then as the months have passed I began to wonder if that really was the case. Just in case I started to refer to some specific things I have put in it. I think it likely I will soon want to take a break from my weekly blog. It is not that I have lost my drive but I feel by this time I have said all that needs to be said. If the rest of you cannot take it on from here you never will be able to.
A possibility that has occured to me is that my book has been shut down so effectively because there is at least one important incident it relates, with conclusions made, which the Gang do not want anyone to know about.
On 2nd May 2011, a few hours after Osama Bin Laden was found and killed, I observed something from my property. I thought it was significant and therefore sent a Neighbourhood Watch intelligence report the next day to Kent Police headquarters describing what I had seen. On 5th May Sir Hugh Orde appeared on the Today programme. I thought he sounded pretty upset. He was very supportive of the police.
Our police forces and MI5 should work as a team. With the knowledge I have I feel it reasonable to conclude that in reality they do not. They are each in their own untrusting boxes, keeping secrets from each other. The police are accountable to the public, MI5 are not. Indeed, as I note in the chapter six appendix of my book a former head of MI5 specifically said on Radio 4 in September 2011 it is entirely appropriate that her past employer should keep it’s secrets secret. No one really knows I suggest which ones they pass on and which they do not. She said we should trust that they do their job well. Mr Hague said the same thing, as I noted on 26th June 2013.
I might be worrying unnecessarily but if MI5 were challenged, in the appropriate forum, to explain why they acted in a certain way at a certain time I feel it essential they should be prepared to answer that question as honestly as they could. It would be an absolute travesty if they tried to hide behind a defence that they could not say anything in the interests of national security.
The Commons Intelligence and Security Committee have announced today they are satisfied that GCHQ’s access to communications data under the American’s Prism programme does not breach the povisions of The Intelligence Services Act 1994.
Lord hall announced yesterday that Mishal Husain is to join the existing team of five Today presenters, from the autumn I think. It seems likely Jim Naughtie will not be on the programme as much as previously.
I suspect not many people would have predicted a Taliban leader might write a letter to Malala Yousafzai. I don’t think there are any gems of truth in it. In part it is quite nice. In part it is horrible to a 16 year old. The analysis of the BBC reporter is that it wishes to sow doubt into Pakistani society about Malala and divert attention there from her UN speech. More fundamentally for me the Gang can’t bear to think they are not in control. In their mindset they are sending a warning shot across her bow. They are out to get her.
18th July 2013
The story broke yeserday of a North Korean ship carrying a cargo of sugar fron Cuba back home, having Soviet era missile parts hidden on board. They were found, in an intelligence led operation I am sure, when the boat was approaching or passing through the Panama canal. Cuba has admitted putting them there. However, as Frank Gardner has written, the parts have no value in the modern world so it looks like some funny business has been going on. The BBC helpfully publishes a map showing it’s route on the webpage I read. From North Korea on 12th April it crossed the Pacific Ocean probably cruising down the North and Central American Coast towards the Panama Canal, destination Cuba. However it did not arrive at the canal until 31st May. My feeling is that was the crucial part of the journey. I suspect it was all to do with who travelled on the ship. Perhaps it had a meeting room on board. As an admitted flight of fancy I would even speculate it could have been the means of transport for a senior Gang member to leave North Korea to his country of birth.
A convicted murderer was coming to the end of his sentence. He was out on day release on Saturday no doubt preparing him for life on the outside. It appears he burgled the home of a convicted paedophile. I imagine that man phoned a neighbour for help. The neighbour attended where he was stabbed to death by the robber. The police said they wanted to interview the prisoner. He was arrested in London in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
On the face of it, if the prisoner is the murderer, it seems surprising he should wish to risk his future freedom which was in sight. However I can imagine that in reality he was not looking forward to leaving his secure environment. Perhaps he started telling that to his friends. The Gang picked up their ears. They told him, if that was what he wanted, they would be pleased to arrange his continued presence in Her Majesty’s custody. Their only condition was that he should follow through his actions in the way the Gang wanted. He agreed. And so it came about.
I wrote about a minimum price for alchohol on 28th November 2012 and 13th March 2013. My impression was that the idea had already been dropped but an official announcement was made by a Home Office Minister yesterday. Some restrictions will be brought in from next spring but nowhere on the scale originally thought of by the government.
There was a BBC webpage published on Tuesday about valley fever, or coccidioidomycosos, which is endemic in parts of Arizona, California, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico and Argentina. It is incurable and you catch it by inhaling infected fungal spores from the ground which have spread onto the wind. For two thirds of people there are no symptoms. About 160 victims die from complications each year. In 2003 thyere were 5,000 infections. In 2011 the number was 22,500.
I picked on the early business report on Today yesterday that, according to Transparency International, Denmark is the least corrupt country in the world. We are better than America and Brazil is less corrupt than Italy. North Korea and Somalia are the worst.
Just before 7am there was a piece about a young lady from Buckinghamshire whose case has been taken up her local MP Dominic Grieve. There is a dispute between the pair as to the facts but she got to know a policeman when she was 18. They fell out and and then strange things started happening to her based on police intelligence reports. She was stopped in her car more than once and it was seized six times over a two year period. She received four fixed penalty notices all of which she challenged and won. She was taken to court twice for careless driving with no convictions resulting. The father of the lady, now 24, quite reasonably says in my view that those facts speak for themselves. His daughter was subject to a campaign of harrassment. It was gang culture of the worse sort. The Thames Valley chief constable says she has looked into it but can find nothing wrong.
It is obviously difficult for any government wanting to create jobs for it’s citizens to decide exactly whom it should do business with. The answer it seems to me is to allow a free flow of information and see what voters themselves think about it. I was very pleased therefore to hear on the progamme that four Commons committees have got together to produce a report on our military sales around the world. We supply to 27 counties, to a value of over £12 billion, with significant sales to China and Iran. Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Syria are also on the list. It seems the committees have several outstanding questions on the information they have so far recived from government and are asking for clarifications.
The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation was interviewed by Evan Davies on the broadcast following publication of his annual report. He agreed that the nature of terrorism has changed even since 2009. Evan asked him specifically why our intelligence wasn’t better for the Boston bombings and Woolwich attack. Unfortunately the QC did not answer that question.
I relate in my book how my story might well not ever have been told if I had not seen the Enron Play in London in April 2010. Enron was a corrupt Texan energy supply company. I was particularly interested to hear the radio news say yesterday that America’s main energy regulator has upheld a fine of $300 million on four American Barclay’s traders. They had attempted to manipulate Californian electricity prices between November 2006 and December 2008.
It is in the news this morning that Culture Secretary Maria Miller has written to Lord Hall criticising the remarks John Inverdale made at Wimbledon about Marion Bartoli. I wrote about it on 7th July 2013. Bearing in mind that was nearly two weeks ago you can only speculate on the lady’s reason for raising it now. Her motive may be good and she feels she has something positive to say. However Today said she had been invited onto their programme this morning and she declined to appear. It seems more likely therefore that she looks upon it as some form of political ploy. If that is correct, to attack a journalist’s personality in such a way and possibly cause him emotional harm, is I feel completely disreputable of her.
The Justice Secretary was on Today this morning before a meeting coming up in Europe on data protection law and the right of privacy. Mr Grayling says he perfectly accepts the ideas being put forward but believes the rules suggested would be too burdensome, for example, on small businesses. He thinks the European Commission wish to be too controlling. He feels the correct approach would be to have a firm set of principles but within that to allow flexibily for individual entities to decide how those aims would best be be achieved.
Our new chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards was on the programme. Unlike the system used by the Care Quality Commission he will be taking a holistic approach for each hospital looking at the entirety of it’s functions which support it’s key services. He will be creating panels comprising doctors, nurses, patients and families at each hospital to help him. He will ask good performing hospitals to give the benefit of their advice to less adequate neighbours. Everything will be totally transparent. If he finds poor practices occuring he will publicise them.
David Cameron has welcomed the Office for National Statistics report today that recorded crime in England and Wales fell 7% in the year to March. On a visit with the Home Secretary he says the police have been asked to do more with less resources on which they have delivered magnificently. I heard it said today that the police have to be very much a can do organisation. If something needs sorting in a hurry that is it. They cannot pass the job onto someone else. Which of course makes the achievement even more impressive.
I am a supporter of Transform Drug Policy Foundation. I received a really upbeat email from them this morning. The first sentence said that one day, currently illegal drugs will be legalised, taxed and regulated, starting with cannabis. In October they will be publishing a book, for bedtime reading by our politicians no doubt, entitled How to Regulate Cannabis: A Practical Guide. In 2009 they issued a Blueprint for Regulation of all drugs. A former Chief Inspector of Probation has said that latter document should be compulsory viewing for all policy makers.
Wikipedia informs me that Alexei Navalny is a Russian lawyer, political and financial activist. Since 2009 he has been an outspoken critic of corruption in his country. He would like to be elected as Moscow’s mayor. That seems unlikely now however as this morning he was sentenced to five year’s imprisonment for embezzling money with others from a state timber company, which he denied. His wife says he was mentally prepared for that outcome and he has asked his supporters not to be downhearted. The European Union has said the charges were unsubstantiated and raise serious questions as to the state of the rule of law in Russia.
Overnight something else has occured to me about the North Korean ship story. Frank Gardner has written that he has been told the boat had its automatic satellite tracking transponder switched off as it travelled from Panama to Cuba. I would say that intelligence was meant to deceive but, knowing the Gang as I do, I am sure there is an element of truth in there somewhere. My suspicion is that the people who get reports on these things have not been told the truth and it is all to do with where the boat was on particular parts of it’s journey.
There was an article in yesterday’s FT about the chaebol in South Korea. They are large business conglomerates with very dubious morals who corner their markets and prevent the development of small and medium sized companies in the country.
Today’s FT reports that John Kerry has been in Amman this week to speak to the Arab side on moving forward towards Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Comments about that are positive. The complication at the moment is that Israel is very upset at the EU for being on the verge of announcing a boycott of sending funds to any Jewish groups settled on Palestinian land.
The author of today’s editorial, for me asks the participants in the press regulation debate to raise their vision above the fray and see if they can come to some sort of sensible compromise. It seems the press have introduced plans for an Independent Press Standards Organisation to marry in with the Royal Charter they have already put forward. As I understand it though they are not being dogmatic. They are willing to discuss with those of different opinions. In my view the story is a running sore which has been going on for too long now.
Rupert Murdoch has taken the unusal step I would have thought of writing personal letters, with the help of his lawyers no doubt, to the chairmen of the Commons Culture, and Home Affairs, committees. They have been seen by Channel 4 News, as they reported this evening, on the authorisation I am sure of Mr Murdoch himself. Andy Davies’ analysis is that they are remarkably frank. He is polite but not obsequious towards the police. Andy suggests he is out of his comfort zone.
David Cameron was interviewed on the programme by Gary Gibbon on the cigarette packaging row. The Prime Minister was very keen to say the decison for not going ahead was entirely his. He said he thought evidence to support a governmental position to change packaging was not yet strong enough to be sure of withstanding a legal challenge mounted by the industry. I am happy to accept that.
I have no doubt this story is connected with the seizure of the North Korean ship in Panama but I really wouldn’t like to say who is helping, or fighting, who. It concerns the former CIA station chief in Milan. It seems that in 2003 his team kidnapped an Islamic cleric and took him to Egypt where it is alleged he was tortured. In June 2009 the man is reported as saying he was just carrying out orders. However in November of that year he was convicted in Italy in his absence with 22 other CIA employees of kidnapping and sentenced to eight years in prison. The man has just been arrested in Panama close to the Costa Rican border. I imagine the Italians will now ask for him to be extradited there. Interestingly the Panamanian Justice Minister said he knew nothing about the detention.
If I had to guess I would say the Gang Master is hopping mad his secret activities regarding the ship might have been exposed. He has decided to make life as difficult as he can for the Americans, the Italians and the Panamanians. As they start falling out with each other he will take every opportunity to twist the knife.
19th July 2013
A BBC webpage reports today that Australia is no longer going to offer asylum in it’s jurisdiction to those who come by boat to it’s shores. Often illegal immigration can be a big source of friction to the public as we know very well here. The Australian solution I believe is innovative and smart. Mr Rudd has spoken to the leader of Papua New Guinea and, with Australian financial support, it has been agreed the travellers will be taken there. Genuine refugees wiil be given work by the government on public building projects.
Michael Adebolajo, one of the Woolwich suspects, has just lost two front teeth in prison. It seems likely it happened whilst he was being restrained by prison officers. The Prison Officers Association has critiscised the Ministry of Justice for allowing sensational reporting of the incident. The POA say they will be supporting their affected members legally and emotionally during this difficult time.
My supposition of 13th July 2013 that the Gang were not aware of anyone around who actively wanted to frighten Muslims at the moment appears to have been wrong. Two men from the Ukraine have been arrested on suspicion of causing the Tipton mosque explosion last week. Indeed it appears that on 27th June 2013 they set off a small explosive device near the Wolverhampton Central Mosque. Embarrassingly for them no one noticed. However now the police have looked they have found explosive debris in the vicinity.
That reminds me I looked at my note of 1st July 2013 about the Met Police’s Special Demonstration Squad yesterday. It was another analysis I got wrong. The fourth possiblility I hadn’t thought of, but which I now believe to be the case, is that the two men were not known to each other. They were looking at the same picture from a different viewpoint.
We have some big social problems in our country, as I expexct some residents of Liverpool of Manchester would tell you. America is in exactly the same boat with a good example being that of Detroit, a city of 700,000 people, which has just filed for bankrupty. Public services are in a state of near collapse and there are around 70,000 properties abandoned. Ironically though the business district is on an upturn with a lot of energy about. I trust those who work there will not forget those that live a few miles away.
Alexei Navalny has appealed against his conviction and has been released on bail with the agreement of the prosecution, who indeed also suggested that option. It seems he will likely now be able to run for Moscow mayor on 8th September 2013 if he wishes. Today covered it this morning. It does surprise me a little that when most of the British media report from Russia they find it impossible to take things at face value. It is clear the country operates within a gang culture but even so some senior people I hope will want to do the right thing. It could just be that someone thought it fair Mr Navalny should not be held in jail while the appeal process continues. I am sure he could have insisted to go to prison if he wanted. If he is a persuasive politician Moscow residents will vote for him. If he isn’t they won’t.
A fomer adviser to President Obama was on the programme. On Syria he was saying we must address the elephant in the room. If a political settlement just isn’t possible we must go into plan B mode. American patriot missiles are now stationed on the Jordanian and Turkish borders with Syria. They have a range of 50 miles so it would be possible to enforce limited no fly zones meaning refugees could gather within their influence and remain safe. He fully realises that takes the heat off the combatants to sort out their own troubles, and might tend to ossify the situation, but at the end of the day the protection of innocent human lives must be paramount.
From it’s analysis in last Saturday’s paper the FT comments that it is too simplistic today to talk about the private and public sector. A more accurate phrase might be public services industry, that is private companies carrying out public contracts. Apparently 1.2 million people are now employed in that area accounting for 6% of GDP. Sectors covered are Police and Justice, Immigration, Local Authorities, Health and Social Care, Defence and Welfare. The trouble is that whilst our state tries to regulate it’s own responsibilites quite well once implementation passes over to private businesses it seems to lose interest. The conclusion therefore, it seems to me, is that that culture of passing the buck must end. We are all in this together.
At the beginning of last month the coroner in the forthcoming Litvinenko inquest requested the Home Office to create a public enquiry into the Russian’s poisoning in London in November 2006, over six years ago, so that secret intelligence material could be given in camera. Forty five minutes before a progress meeting last Thursday, as reported in that paper, he was told his request had been turned down with no reasons being given. Those we are told will come later. That looks somewhat to me like a rabbit in the headlights story. Mr Litvinenko’s widow, who just wants to be told the truth, is understandably extremely upset about it all. I am sure, just like Mrs Lawrence, she does not know what to think any longer. As the editorial says there is now no possibility of open justice. We like to think we are very principled on the rule of law in this country. But even in possibly the oldest democracy in the world it seems that ultimately political expediency is of more importance.
In a later edition Gidean Rachman wrote about the case. He did not minch his words. He said that by refusing to appoint a public inquiry we are almost saying we should not worry about the rule of law nor the pursuit of truth for it’s own sake; that the only things which ultimately matter are power, fear and money.
The Saturday paper also highlights the tensions the Snowden affair is producing between nations. I wrote on 3rd July how it was odd no one appeared to know whether Edward was on the Bolivian president’s plane or not. It transpires from Spanish officials that European allies thought it because they had been told so by someone in American intelligence. That I am sure will make make many in Europe feel quite paranoid about their supposed friends. The worst aspect, in my view, is how easily the Europeans were led astry. They need to understand how these things work a bit better. Then it has emerged that apparently America has been tapping into telecoms infrastructure in Brazil to hoover up information. At least there the Brazilian government is trying to take a low key approach by asking the United Nations to investigate. That I feel is a better approach than having a slanging match with it’s more powerful ally in public.
The same page reports that the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren and the Republican John McCain are promoting legislation to separate normal banking from the risky investment and derivatives side. It probably won’t get anywhere but at least I trust it will get people thinking seriously about the subject. I applaud the bi-partisan approach. The editoral remarks that traditional banking requires patient stewardship whereas the modern sort is fed by testosterone.
The top of the editorial column asks for some fundamental changes to be considered about governence at the BBC. I do net feel qualified to comment on that but it is clear the culture at the top has not always been of the best order. I heard the other day that Lord Patten will not be seeking a second term as BBC Trust chairman in 2015. If he could help the BBC on it’s way as part of his legacy to the Corporation I feel that would be admirable.
Roula Khalaf in the paper wants Eqypt’s liberals and youth to be the guardians of it’s future. I think she is probably correct. Perhaps only they can show the old fashioned generals and politicians the way to salvation.
The issue also remarks on how a split has emerged in sanctions hit Tehran society between those who have wealth and those who do not. In the last year more than a dozen posh restuarants have opened to serve a local clientele. The nouvea riche represent less than 200,000 of the city’s 12 million population but even so something big must be going on. Intriguingly no mention at all is made of where the money might be coming from.
A nasty story from Syria is also recorded of a Free Syrian Army commander who went to meet members of a rival opposition gruop linked to al-Qaeda, and was assassinated by them. The commander apparently was a man in whom the Americans had confidence so you can see what that was all about.
BP has got itself in a terrible mess in America over it’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement. It was just a small oversight by it’s lawyers that issue says but the Gang, in my view, are punishing them for it for all they are worth. As British Petroleum are so obviously not one of their own it seems the culture of American society is such that they will take advantage of foreign weakness for monetary gain whenever it is presented to them. The Gang are knocking at an open door. The difficulty is that in the settlement agreement between BP and it’s adversaries no definition of revenue and expenses is written down. For reasons which I must say I don’t understand it seems the US court is happy that claims can be made under those categories on an ad hoc basis without showing that any overall loss resulted from the BP spill.
As noted in the Companies section of the edition I am pleased that Nationwide Building Society has been able to lift it’s capital ratios, as recently required the Prudential Regulation Authority, by internal means. The piece also informs me that the new Coop heirarchy have appointed Sir Christopher Kelly to conduct a forensic audit into how it’s bank got into such a financial predicament.
A contibutor to today’s FT ask the German government to show leadership to the European Union; to accept it’s responsibilities as the zone’s leading economy. He would like to see the country’s massive balance of payments surplus used to provide financial stimulus to the weaker economies.
I wrote about the Italian deportation to Kazakhstan last Saturday. The Italian political chickens are now coming home to roost although, as always seems to be the case with their politics, it is extremely heated and messy. True to form Mr Berlesconi has said that if his interior minister ally is singled out for blame his Party will bring down the coalition governmment. That issue reports the Italian state has admitted it acted illegally in deporting the lady and her daughter who were entitled to apply for asylum. The UN has advised Italy to negotiate with the Kazakhs for the return of the pair.
The piece informs me the lady’s husband fled this country in 2011 when he was informed by our police that his life was in danger. If, as seems likely, he went straight to Italy it must have been because he thought he would be a lot safer there. It would be somewhere perhaps he thought the American Gang would not be able to get at him. However I suspect intelligence matters have moved on a bit in the last two years. The cat is now out of the bag as far as the Gang’s presence in Italy is concerned. With his cover blown there, possibly the Gang Master thought he might just as well start calling in a few favours.
20th July 2013
Life is all about making connections. President Obama has spoken again about the death of Trayvon Martin. Previously he had said Trayvon could have been his son. This time he was more explicit. He could have been Mr Obama himself 35 years ago. In a televised address the President described in detail for his citizens how he had been stigmatised and feared by people he did not know before he became notable, just because he is not white. He asked for many White Americans to understand the pain and hurt their black counterparts feel in their society. I cannot think of another world leader who could have spoken in such an emotional, yet low key, way and receive total respect for his statement. The President has a way with words. His best talent, in my view, is the lifting eloquence of his speech. Used sparingly, at the right time, I think it could make a big difference in the future.
Two people I know are going on a holiday to Peru today. There is a BBC webpage up this morning about a lady from Derbyshire who was trekking there with her boyfriend last December. She felt a fly go into her ear. She got it out with her finger but soon after felt pain. When she got home her Mum took her to casualty. The doctors found eight maggots in her ear laid by the fly. She has made a full recovery. This year she and her boyfriend are holidaying in France.
G20 finance ministers have issued a statement from their Moscow meeting today to confirm they wish to bring in some global uniform tax laws within the next two years. If that comes about it will not matter where a multinational company chooses to base itself for tax purposes. I see the vehicle to be used is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development wich originated in 1948 and now has 34 global members, not very evenly spread. Many G20 states do not belong to the OECD.
It came through this morning that Israelis and Palestinians are to start face to face peace talks hopefully next week. It is immensly gratifying that the weaker side have managed to get themselves there but of course this is where the hard stuff starts. Both sides I believe must not forget they are doing it for the well being of those they represent who have no voice; and their children after them. Mr Netanyahu says the talks are of vital and strategic interest to Isreal. They will take place in Washington. I think that is a good venue where hopefully calm, focus and privacy can be maintained. I expect Mr Obama to do what he can behind the scenes so that the sides have a better understanding of each other.
It has emerged that the police have started an investigation into whether any wrong doing took place when Michael Adebolajo was injured on Wednesday. Five prison officers have been suspended. The chairman of the Prison Officers Association was on Today this morning. He said his members do not attack prisoners. They use officially accepted means of control and restraint. The incident apparently should have been fully recorded by CCTV cameras.
I heard two separate contributors say soothingly on the programme that everything would be alright. One was a man responding to Lord Owen who worried yesterday that allowing private companies to provide public health services is extremely risky because of the predominance of the profit motive. The other was an independent Police and Crime Commissioner saying that invariable the new policing regulation system is bedding in extremely well. Both police and commissioners are working with the same aim, to protect and empower the public.
That latter discussion was with the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee who can forsee how problems might arise. He wishes to keep an ongoing eye on how things go so that checks and balances are even handed and due process is always followed.
21st July 2013
Yesterday I dropped some people off at Gatwick airport. I did my food shopping on the way back. I took a short cut back across country as I have done the last twice when visiting that supermarket. It invloves going down a long country lane which is single track in it’s latter part. About half way along a grey Volkswagon van came up behind me. He started off right up my backside. Shortly after a lady driver came the other way with a cyclist not that far behind her. We passed quite safely at a passing place. It was no more than a one hundred to one chance at causing harm but to me the intention was clear. There was still a mile or so to go along the lane and when the driver behind came close again I decided to play a few games with him. I went extemely slowly, put my foot on the brake a few times and stared at him in my rear view mirror. He immediately used his mobile phone and then started gesticulating at me. It was all very small minded.
From a link on a BBC webpage I see the Sun arranged a meeting at No 10 Downing Street yesterday between Coral and Paul Jones, parents of April, and Natalie Sharp and David Niles, parents of Tia Sharp. The subject was how to crack down on worldwide child accessed pornography. The two ladies have said they would be pleased to speak to MPs about their concerns.
Afterwards Mr Cameron gave an interview to Andrew Marr in his official garden. His main message I feel was to the global internet companies to clean up their act. He said they employ some of the best brains on the planet. They should use that exprtise to work out some feasible solutions.
In 2008 Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross got into a lot of trouble for being rude to Andrew Sachs on BBC radio. Russell is on this week’s Desert Island discs. Apparently he says that immediately after the broadcast the BBC received two complaints. After it was publicised by the Daily Mail they received 42,000.
Marie Colvin was a journalist working in the Syrian city of Homs on 22nd February 2012. On that day she was killed, Wikipedia informs me, by an improvised explosive device filled with nails. Five days later Lord Justice Leveson made an eloquent tribute to her at his Inquiry as I relate in chapter 6 of my book. I was awake early this morning and had Something Understood on in the background on the radio. The presenter quoted Marie as having said in 2001 that she wanted to report as truthfully as she could what she had seen in war zones, and make it part of the record. She said she tried to have enough faith in humanity to believe someone out there would care.
The Bishop of Liverpool retires next month. This morning he gave an interview to The Sunday Proramme. The Reverend spoke of the liberating power of truth, especially in relation to the publication of the review by the Hillsborough Independent Panel last September. He said on that day, when the families finally found out the truth, their physical demeanour changed. Their psyches and thought processes had been set free. That of course was a church chaired investigation. The Bishop said that in his view in the past there has been a deficit of trust in our country. Quite justifiably as it has turned out they public grew to have no confidence in Parliament, politicians, police, journalists and even the judiciary. In that case I believe we were extremely lucky to have one or two good churchmen around to assist us.