1st October 2012
Although it hasn’t been widely reported I heard on the 6pm Radio 4 news that the Iranian rial lost 18% of it’s value against the dollar today. It has now dropped 80% since the end of 2011. I personally would connect that to Mr Netanyahu’s speech at the UN on Friday with the Gang in effect admitting their immediate hidden power on Israeli-Iranian happenings has lost it’s grip.
3rd October 2012
It looks as though David Cameron’s strategy in appointing Patrick McLoughlin as Transport Minister has become plain this morning. As an ex-chief whip I suspect he is a bit of a bruiser, just like Ken Clarke who I expect briefed him well on the suggested details of his announcement overnight that all rail franchising in this country is being reviewed, including the West Coast Main Line, the day before Richard Branson’s challenge started in the High Court. All the abortive application costs in that particular franchise are being returned to the four companies, amounting to £40 million. The Minister says the fault lay entirely with his own civil servants. I think Mr Cameron could have smelt a rat at the time of his reshuffle and wanted a strong man there to deal with any political fallout.
Everyone agrees Ed Miliband gave a very good one hour speech yesterday at the Labour party conference without notes. He is branding Labour as a one nation party, being neither old Labour nor new.
4th October 2012
No sign of April Jones since she went missing on Monday evening. This morning the police have let it be known that she suffers from cerebral palsy and takes daily medication. One of the first pictures given to the media, by her family I imagine, shows her to look younger than five and to to have huge brown eyes. Just like Madeline McCann. Madeline has never been found. I am beginning to suspect that the same will apply to April.
I imagine as soon as the Labour Party conference ended at lunchtime the Prime Minister gave an interview, inside No 10 I think, about April Jones. He made a heartfelt appeal for information to be given to help the police, and her family and referred to Ivan having had cystic fibrosis.
I had not realised it but 65 passengers, presumably American, have been suing Rolls-Royce and Boeing over the January 2008 Heathrow air crash mentioned my book, in the American courts. Today’s FT reports the action has now been settled without a hearing or any admissions of liability, at some $10 million. The report states that the accident happened due to ice clogging in the fuel lines.
The same paper reports that Nigeria has just set up a sovereign wealth fund, to have investment capacity of at least $1 billion a year from oil revenues, to safeguard the interests of future generations and protect against future global financial shocks.
5th October 2012
I heard Madeleine McCann mentioned this morning, for the first time regarding April Jones. It was very cleverly there in an inserted audio link on a BBC webpage where a German reporter was asked why he had come to Machynlleth. In passing he said his audience are making that connection. Mark Bridger has most recently been living in a small farmhouse in Ceinws on the road to Dolgellau. It is now the biggest missing person case we have had in this country.
From the space given to it in today’s paper you can see the FT sees the rail franchising story as a very significant event.
After an IPCC investigation the chief constable of Cleveland Police has been sacked by his police authority, the first time such a thing has happened in 35 years. After a subordinate changed their Witness Statement to the IPCC it has ben held that he persuaded that person to originally lie about his chief’s involvement in the recruitment of a former police authority chairman’s daughter, as well of course lying about it himself.
…. , in view of the media hype at the moment about Mitt Romney’s debating success, coolly arguing why Mitt is likely to lose the election. In 2004 60% of Americans said they were against gay marriage, now it is a minority of 44%; then 41% thought abortion should be mostly legal, now it is 53%. About half of voters feel Mr Obama best reflects their views on social issues, as against 36% for Mr Romney with roughly the same percentages applying for women generally. He says America’s more diverse society is becoming better tolerant of others’ views.
6th October 2012
The Jimmy Savile deceased story which broke the week before last is proving tricky for the BBC although I would say new man Mr Entwistle seems to be handling it fine. Last year Newsnight decided not to broadcast a prepared expose of him so that mantle was taken up by an ITV 1 documentary last week. That has encouraged various new women to come forward to say he sexually abused them when children, sometimes on BBC property. The Metropolitan Police are investigating so there must be the possibility of criminal acts having been committed by people still alive. Then, in the thick of things as normal, Today had an interview this morning with Liz Kershaw who said that when she was a Radio 1 DJ in the late 1980’s she was regularly groped by a fellow presenter whilst she was speaking to microphone. When she complained to authority she was asked why she didn’t like it and whether she was a lesbian.
7th October 2012
I see that that Pearson’s CEO, Marjorie Scardino, has left and been replaced by John Fallon. She had said she would never sell the FT so rumours are now circulating that it might go. I see that News Corp is even mentioned as a possible buyer by the Guardian.
I hope she isn’t right but Merryn Somerset Webb had an extremely thought provoking article in last weekend’s FT. Her argument is that a policy of QE is like giving drugs to a drug addict. If it goes on long enough it will destroy our faith in money and in America particularly it toxically feeds the already apparent delusions of many. She quotes one financier as saying that Ben Bernanke’s current ruinous QE policies will one day or another destroy the world.
8th October 2012
Mark Bridger appeared at Aberystwyth Magistrates Court this morning and, though he only said a couple of words, was in an emotional state. He had tears in his eyes and cried. That does not strike me the action of someone who has recently committed murder. My guess is that he was tricked into taking April, then he had to leave her somewhere. Other than that he knows no more than the rest of us. Not something he will ever want to talk about though I suppose. He will now be held in a Manchester prison and will next appear in Caernarfon Crown Court via video link.
New Tricks is on at the moment. They are investigating a criminal called Sean Docherty. An interviewee is ‘Britain’s sexiest poet’ who is promoting his new book. The storyline is about people in the drugs’ world with a Turkish connection and who make deals with Organised Crime. I have just seen Sandra talking to an interviewee in the street with a stallholder in the background speaking on a mobile phone. The story also juxtapositions the intellectual qualities of poetry, the human condition and the criminal world.
I have just watched a BBC programme on China. Despite all the hype their average citizen is still poorer than one in Bulgaria or Costa Rica. However they are like all people everywhere. They want to be rich and to spend their money. Because there are so many of them their development is going to have a massive effect on the world.
9th October 2012
No point in beating around the bush on this one. A man was found dead on the railway line under a road bridge in Tonbridge on 29th September. The police have not been able to identify him. That is very unusual in this country and, as at Machynlleth, the police say they wish to identify him to assist his family, not for their own intelligence purposes.
BBC, South East Today are broadcasting this evening, picked up fully by Radio 4 and the BBC website, about the woes of an IRA supergrass, Raymond Gilmour, from the early 1980’s. His information led to the arrest of 35 republicans but the subsequent trial collapsed in 1984 when the Lord Chief Justice called his evidence as unworthy of belief. He says MI5 promised him £500,000, a new home, psychiatric support and a pension. In fact he was provided with modest accommodation, £600 a month for three years and no employment. He has suffered from alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder and is destitute. With the help of his MP, whom the BBC are not naming, he has taken his case to Investigatory Powers Tribunal who can investigate wrong doing by MI5.
Today reported this morning that the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee and the US Houes Intelligence Committee both consider the Chinese telecoms company, Huawei, to present a national security risk. Here apparently they have a joint contact with BT regarding broadband supply.
Angela Merkel obviously feels the Greeks have done enough down their path of austerity for her to show her open support. She has gone there on a day trip today for the first time in five years. 7000 police officers were on the streets, Athens’ biggest security operation in a decade.
The editorial on the opposite page (of that day’s FT) has a go at America’s drone attack programme. In effect it is asking for a debate on the subject. It complains that as usual though, national security and the need to protect intelligence sources are cited as reasons to avoid open scrutiny.
11th October 2012
The Lance Armstrong story just broken has similarities for me with the Jimmy Savile exposes. It results from a 1000 page report from the US Anti-Doping Agency which says he organised an American team doping ring for over a decade enabling him to win seven Tour de France titles. His compatriots had to go along with what he wanted or be bullied and threatened. He still denies it all but is not formally challenging the findings.
A video of Julia Gillard berating the leader of the opposition in the Australian parliament has gone viral on Facebook and so popped up on Today this morning. She accuses him of being sexist and misogynistic and personally nasty towards her, all dressed up as normal behaviour. One of those culture stories it seems.
Tony Barber wrote in yesterday’s FT that the chickens are coming home to roost for Cyprus. They were hoping for another bailout from Russia but this time the Russians have been much cooler fearing they might not get their money back. It seems the Cypriots will have to go to the eurozone and IMF and in that case, like others before them, they will have to cut their cloth accordingly.
The Taliban do not believe girls should be educated and in 2009 11 year old Mala Yousafzai started to write for the BBC Urdu service to try and prevent her school in the Pakistani Swat Valley being shut. A couple of days ago she was shot in the head by the Taliban whilst coming home from school. She is being treated in a military hospital. Many in Pakistan are upset but we will see if it makes any long term difference.
12th October 2012
There is a BBC webpage up this morning reporting that the London Beekeepers Association is saying the number of bees in London could be too high. It seems a business group is offering hives to central London firms without worrying whether there is any flower producing foliage on which the bees can feed. And of course bees do sting.
13th October 2012
An interesting day up in London yesterday. Relatively low key but I was being watched like a hawk. When I went back to …. for my coat a high level Gang helper criminal was on me immediately. When waiting to go in for the recording of The Headset Set in the evening I would say there were at least eight low level Gang helpers in the room including a placid young lady apparently on her own who made a point of standing in front of me shortly before we walked into the studio. I wanted to be on my own so when there was an empty seat at the end of part of the front row I went for it. With hindsight I think it was anticipated I might do that and when the man behind me started brushing the back of my shoulder with his knee it fell into place. All those helpers were partly for me but also to provide him the protection he deserved. He was a Gang member in my view, my age, fair haired and someone you would not look twice at. You could tell he was high level from his confident air. He was the only member of the audience to call out, three times, not very considerate during a radio recording, and always about the same member of cast. It seems she is an up and coming member of her profession and I would say he has been allocated responsibility of watching her long term. I heard his innocent male companion intimate they came from Croydon.
I picked up an Evening Standard when I was in town yesterday and the front page story was about rich Gang helper Maythem Al-Ansari, the money laundering criminal whose Hummer I believe I saw in Barclay’s car park in …. in October 2007 as mentioned in my book. I shall ask Will to put a link for the article on the website. It seems that despite the efforts of our best law officers he fled back home to Iraq using a British issued passport in December 2010.
Looking on the internet I see Simon Israel’s sources told him in January 2011 that Operation Eaglewood started in April 2007 when police discovered the money launderer for a cocaine smuggling operation through Kent was a man running a taxi garage in London. It seems he then became too frightened to continue and at some point Mr Al-Ansari took over from him.
A bit like our Olympics I would say, the public way the old space shuttle Endeavour is being trundled through the streets of Los Angeles today, from it’s temporary storage at the local airport to it’s permanent museum, is giving a real confidence boosting fillip to the local population. All those interviewed on the TV say what an inspiring sight it has been.
14th October 2012
I don’t think I would go so far as to call Jimmy Savile a Gang helper, just a warped man who the Gang facilitated in their normal hidden ways as much as they could so as to help their own aims. To laugh at the BBC as much as anything else. I see the first instant of his alleged sexual abuse was made to the Metropolitan Police in 1959. He presented the first edition of Top of The Pops in 1964 and worked on BBC Radio 1 from 1968. He was awarded the OBE in 1971 and knighted in 1990. I suspect that Newsnight had sat on their expose story for some time but decided to go ahead after Mr Savile’s death in October 2011. I suspect the editor changed his mind though when he discovered that the Corporation were broadcasting tributes to Mr Savile.
I was early for the Rada Studios on Friday so decided to check my later journey back to the car. I walked up to Goodge Street station at 6pm to look at their tube map. That I did but the configuration of a fruit stall and newpaper stand men on either side outside was too obvious to ignore. I stood watching for about five minutes. The three newspapermen were bored when I arrived but then the one opposite me started shouting out for customers in excited fashion. The two men on the stall took no notice of me. Although I looked hard I could not see no transfer of drugs into paper bags as purchases were made. However most customers were buying large bunches of grapes so I think that must have been the means of transfer. One lady was so addled she could not walk in a straight line. The second stall holder was writing notes on a brown paper bag. I imagine that was of customer names so the appropriate charge could be made at a later date.
My only source for this story is the front page of Friday’s FT. Ken Clarke is a former health minister and David Cameron has given him the brief of selling NHS healthcare expertise to developing markets, especially China. Next year the government will launch Healthcare UK for the venture. The Chinese are said to have already shown interest. I wonder if the story has a milk connection.
On page three of the paper you find out Ken has also been asked to work on securing an EU-US free trade deal after the presidential election. That no doubt will give him a reason to travel to the US frequently. Then he is also going to lead inter-departmental projects from his base in the Cabinet Office using his connections from sitting on the National Security Council, committees on emerging powers, economic affairs, public expenditure and enterprise. I expect all that has only been announced after the Conservative Party conference to stop the Gang making waves over it.
The EU was awarded the Nobel annual peace prize this week and something I have not seen before is that in today’s paper two FT journalists put opposing, low key views about the decision side by side. Then in the editorial the paper came out for the EU’s achievements. That approach, of giving your staff more responsibility, is something Channel 4 News and the BBC have been doing for a year or two now. I also heard an advert for the Weekend FT on Classic FM today. It said you would read things you could not find anywhere else.
Saturday’s FT says French police have foiled a jihadists terrorist bomb plot by detaining seven individuals. Apparently it is the first time such a plot has been discovered since a Paris Metro bomb exploded in 1995 killing eight.
Israel reacted very calmly recently when they shot down an unmanned drone over their territory. On the same page the FT reports that Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hizbollah, has claimed responsibility for the flight.
A story in that paper relates how 2305 people were killed in gangland drug warfare in the Mexican city of Juarez in the twelve months to September 2010. Residents were too afraid to leave their homes. Many fled over the American border to El Paso. In the last twelve months however the dead have ‘only’ been 658 and the city has come back to life. Most think it is because the Sinaloa cartel have finally triumphed over the Juarez cartel.
15th October 2012
I am pretty sure now I will want to continue sharing my diary notes with Will’s help by posting them on the website, say on a monthly or weekly basis. That being the case I think I should record the following. In Chapter 12 of my book I refer to Machynlleth. My life now is very much my own private affair but I do not believe it a coincidence that April Jones was abducted from that town when she was and that her body has never been found.
You can tell the BBC is sensing that the 14 year old Malala Yousafzai story could turn into something big. The fact that she is on her way to Britain was given prominence on Radio 4 News this morning and there is a detailed BBC webpage up. As offered by the UK government last Thursday she is being flown to the NHS Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, who by chance had a team of doctors in Pakistan at the time, using an aircraft gifted for the trip by the United Arab Emirates. The cost of her treatment will be paid for by the Pakistani government. Pakistan’s interior minister has said the attack was planned abroad which I am sure he only knows from a foreign intelligence agency. I also see that Ban Ki-Moon appointed Gordon Brown to be a UN Special Envoy for Global Education in July 2012 and Mr Brown has launched a petition in support of what Malaya fought for.
Frank Gardner was on Today again this morning before 7am talking about how Saudi Arabia are upset with the Foreign Affairs Committee reviewing our relations with them and Bahrain. I expect they think that is a bit like stabbing a friend in the back. I think I see the hand of MI6 again who could have suggested their British ambassador ask to speak to Frank so they could put their side of the story. That they did and, as Frank made sure he said after his last appearance on the programme, they would not have done so unless they wanted him to report accordingly. He says they see us as unwittingly helping their old enemy Iran destabilise them.
Writing in today’s FT Edward Luce says that Mexico and America are now more closely aligned economically than any two eurozone countries, a fact which American politicians completely ignore.
As highlighted on Today and the BBC webpage this morning the planethunters.org website was set up in December 2010 so members of the public could search for new planets. It now has 170,000 members. Two of them in America have discovered a planet with four suns not that far from us in a dense part of our galaxy’s disc. It was missed by all the experts and their sophisticated computer programmes. It is a completely unexpected discovery as the gravitational pull of four suns should not allow a stable planetary orbit within our current knowledge. As I say in the book somewhere we ordinary citizens are not necessarily as stupid as we may look.
One of those interesting quirky reports on Today this morning. Gaza has had a period of relative calm in recent times and that has allowed the smuggling trade to flourish in the man-made tunnels on the Egyptian border, so big it would seem that even cars can be brought through. That apparently has allowed 100-200 men to become extremely rich as king pins of the smuggling trade and they in turn have tended to invest their money in land. Consequently land prices have doubled in the last two years. Not much good of course for the typical resident but it just shows you what can happen when a society gets out of kilter. The law of unintended consequences always applies.
Another piece on that programme was about the Cuban missile crisis starting this week in 1962 when the Americans found out the Russians were deploying missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba. That action followed the Americans messing around in the Bay of Pigs on the island in 1961. There followed 13 days of intense superpower brinkmanship with no one knowing how it would turn out. Eventually however the Soviets said they would take their rockets away. Subsequently it has been seen as the nearest our world came to nuclear war, and I trust taught our leaders never to be so silly again.
I haven’t seen any intervening media reports since my last Flame note but from a short piece in today’s FT it now seems established that Flame and Stuxnet came from a common source. It appears Kaspersky Lab have also found another cyber warfare platform called Gauss, and now Mini-Flame. Gauss targeted individual computers focusing on the banking sector in Lebanon. Mini-Flame is similarly highly refined operating in Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
16th October 2012
Early yesterday morning Essex Fire Brigade were called to the fire of a parked car close to the owner’s home on a Harlow housing estate. When they arrived they found a nearby house so well alight it seems that accelerants at the front and rear might well have been used. Of the Muslim Pakistani family of seven who came to this country in 2009, and who have lived at the property since 2011, the mother and four of her children have died. Both mother and father were doctors. The former Area Commander of …. Kent police from 2006 to 2008, and now head of Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, is leading the investigation. With that information it seems highly likely to me that MI6 were the foreign agency who advised the Pakistani government on the Malala Yousafzai situation and the Harlow fire bombing was direct retaliation for that involvement. It is not a coincidence therefore, in my view, that the father of the dead children works for the NHS nor that the difficult police investigation has fallen into the lap of the particular police officer involved. As far as the Gang Master is concerned the gloves are off in his private war with us all.
…. . It isn’t mentioned on the Kent Police website but Essex tell me he has also been head of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate since June 2011. Looking at the sites makes you realise how committed Essex police are in fighting crime. I do not get the same feeling with Kent police.
Today reported this morning on the conclusion of a six-year study by the UK Drug Policy Commission charity recommending that it should no longer be a criminal offence to use small amounts of drugs.
Another one of those stories tonight on New Tricks. It starts on 13th July 2007, involves Organised Crime and spies and is about a young lady who thought her dead father was bad when in fact he was good. It ends with her saying she has a lot to write on her blog.
I had not realised it but section 53 of the 2000 Freedom of Information Act allows a public body, official or government department to ignore a FoI request if that non-action is certified by a Cabinet minister or the Attorney General. The politician must have ‘reasonable ground’ to form his or her opinion. That process has now occurred in the case of some letters Prince Charles wrote to seven government departments and which were ordered to be shown to a Guardian journalist carrying out research by the High Court equivalent Administrative Appeals Chamber. In this case Dominic Grieve said his decision of veto was exceptional and the private letters formed part of the Prince’s preparation for kingship.
Michael Gove gave an interview to the Mail on Sunday last weekend where he said that he thinks it is time to tell the EU to give us back our sovereignty or we will walk out.
17th October 2012
The morning papers on Today earlier were passing on a Sun report that there are 66 people going for every retail job vacancy at the moment and 44 for an office job.
Last night’s 45 minute presidential debate was in town hall style, with both candidates having stools on an open stage, at a New York university. There are three clips on the BBC website and they are quite revealing. In one Mr Romney is on the stage talking about oil drilling permits. Mr Obama stands up when queries need answering. At one point Mr Obama gets up and Mr Romney, almost worriedly, asks him to sit down as he had just made a statement and not asked a question. He felt threatened. At another point Mr Obama quipped that he did not look at his pension that often as it was not as big as Mr Romney’s. On the face of it that looks like a cheap jibe but when you see the clip Mr Romney was talking about his Chinese investments, completely off the question on immigration. Mr Obama got absolutely frustrated and made the remark. However he had the sense to laugh about it. He was just making a joke.
A piece on Today early this morning included the chairman of the cross party Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Their report has reviewed the government’s record on their perceptions of human rights over the last year and found inconsistencies. The example given is that ministers boycotted Ukraine at the European championships because of the treatment given to the opposition leader in jail but said nothing at the time of the Bahrain grand prix about their rulers’ attitude to the human rights of their inhabitants. Bahrain is important to our strategic interests, Ukraine is not.
Yesterday seven works of art in a private collection on show at a museum in Rotterdam were stolen. They included paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Freud, Monet and Gauguin. They are all so well known it would be impossible to pass them on. Perhaps the Gang Master is feeling a bit low at the moment and wants some nice things to look at.
18th October 2012
I didn’t mention it at the time but a couple of weeks ago I went to watch a production at the Globe Theatre. I was in the gallery and opposite, in the ground level audience, was a young English looking lady. She was at the back nicely dressed in a knee length skirt, sometimes with the sole of one of her feet on the wall behind her. There was virtually no one around her as she was in an area where you could hardly see the stage. However she had a companion, a short dumpy woman in rough jeans who sometimes seemed to get quite excited when I was obviously looking over in that direction. The older lady was, in my view and language, her ward’s gangmaster.
In another context I suppose you could speculate the older one might have been a member of a trafficking ring. There is a BBC webpage published this morning on the subject and it seems such rings normally hold 10-15 victims but the number can be as high as 400. The police estimate there are 92 organised crime groups in the UK involved in human trafficking. Most victims apparently come from Nigeria and, within Europe, from Romania. Chinese and Vietnamese gangs are also involved. Victims have to commit crimes, become prostitutes and for two individuals it was planned they would become organ donors. The key to combat the problem the page says is to adopt a muti-agency approach at home and abroad.
The little girl who had survived the Harlow house fire has now died. The police say they have found no signs of an accelerant in the property. A detective superintendent is now the senior investigating officer for the incident.
William Hague was at Bletchley Park today announcing a GCHQ apprenticeship scheme to train 18 years olds as the state’s cybercrime experts of the future. It will be run by De Montfort University in Leicester. He said we may not be at war but he sees evidence every day of cyber attacks on our security and economic competitiveness.
Today’s FT reports that Angola, like Nigeria and Ghana before it, has set up a sovereign wealth fund to preserve it’s wealth for future generations. It is the second largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa and is aiming to initially build up a fund of $5 billion. By legally ring fencing a proportion of oil revenues in that way it will prevent it being squandered through corruption as in the past.
For me last Saturday’s FT shows an opening up of Russian society in it’s Person in the News column. It’s subject is the head of Rosneft, in London for the buyout of BP’s interest in the company. He is reputedly an ex Soviet spy and hard Kremlin man. Even so he is now making public speeches to investors in foreign lands and seeking new joint ventures with oversees partners.
20th October 2012
…. come from Colwyn Bay and last night a 20 year old woman and two children died in a first floor flat in a street in Prestatyn due to fire spreading from the flat below. The 45 year old man and 42 year old woman living in that ground floor flat have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
I heard on Newsnight last night that apparently Andrew Mitchell has lost a stone in weight over the last month. It seems that on Thursday he decided he did not have sufficient confidence from his colleagues to continue as chief whip and went to tell David Cameron at Chequers when the prime minister got back from Brussels yesterday afternoon. Ed Miliband calling him toast in the Commons on Wednesday was right. From a stern disciplinary Mr Cameron has appointed the emollient Sir George Young to replace him.
I have not commented on the story before. I was hoping it would blow over. However a man’s career has now been ruined. Mr Mitchell has previously said he had had a stressful day and in his resignation letter wrote that as he departed from the policeman he said ‘I thought you guys were supposed to f…… help us’. He has always denied he used the word pleb. In order to think it through it seems to me you first of all need to decide who you believe has lied, the policeman or Mr Mitchell. Everything else flows from that. I believe, for very predictable and understandable reasons as set out in my book, that it was the policeman. I think Mr Mitchell should have been completely open and transparent about what he said from the word go, also informing us why he was on such a short fuse at the time. That I believe would have allowed others to be much more understanding towards him.
21st October 2012
I drove past the …. parade in the village at 11.45am on Friday on my way to see …. . There was a Gang drugs retailing session in full swing.
Even so I think Gang pressure is on in the village. I walked down to the …. on Thursday and some branches had been pulled out onto the road opposite …. . Part of the drive wall at …. next door has been knocked over. Part of a clump of low dead trees have been pulled over outside …. and round the corner in …. again some more branches had been pulled onto the road.
I only heard it once, on a commercial radio news bulletin this morning I think, but a friend or relation of Karina Menzies from Cardiff has been recorded saying her death has terrorised the community. However no media outlet has written that down anywhere.
The anti-Syrian, Lebanese head of intelligence for their Internal Security Forces, a sunni Muslim, was murdered by a car bomb on Friday causing considerable unrest in the country. Although no one is hinting at it, my guess is that the international peace envoys’ presence in Damascus that day, is linked. He is trying to arrange a Syrian ceasefire over the four day Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Just after he met Mr Assad yesterday a car bomb exploded outside a police station nearby.
There has been heavy rain in the Lourdes area over the last few days, the worst in 40 years, causing the evacuation of several hundred Roman Catholic refugees.
22nd October 2012
There was an interesting short article piece in last Saturday’s FT about the public’s attitude to animal testing in biomedical research. 85% accept that use as appropriate in the right circumstances but even so this is 5% less than in 2010. The reason is put forward that the issue has slipped from public attention and therefore the basic emotionality of the situation has crept back in. We need to be reminded why rationally the research is necessary. 41 organisations including drugs companies, universities, charities and research funding bodies have launched a declaration of openness.
Another story picked up in the same paper which I have not seen elsewhere is that the Labour party are calling for the ICO to take further action following it’s investigation into Consulting Association in 2009. CA had identified 3213 building industry workers, now known to the ICO, who it considered trouble makers and therefore should not be employed. 40 construction companies used their services and 84 individuals have started legal proceedings against the companies for the unlawful conspiracy involved preventing them obtaining work. Only 194 workers know they have been blacklisted. Such groups as Liberty and the unions say the ICO should inform all victims of the position. It seems possible the company also had databases covering other industries.
The private member’s Mobile Homes Bill had an unopposed second reading in the Commons on Friday to make life better for the 160,000 people who live in mobile homes. The initiating MP referred to a minority of gangster site owners who would no longer be able to block sales by their residents through foul means.
New Tricks tonight is about a senior MI5 man, an old friend of Strickland’s, who other people in MI5 want to kill. Other characters are an extremely well informed journalist and an Organised Criminal selling drugs on behalf of the IRA to buy arms. The plot is that some in MI5 were protecting the criminal as one of their informants but Strickland was able to threaten them so he was cut loose from their association. The man was then charged for murdering one of Strickland’s old compatriots. The programme ends with the shit hitting the fan as certain powerful people start falling out with each other.
I have not noted it before but on 19th September 2011 six Muslim men from the Birmingham area were arrested for planning terrorism since Christmas Day 2010. Three of them, all pleading not guilty, have now gone on trial accused of planning a suicide campaign possibly using eight rucksack bombs that would have been more severe than 7/7. On Channel 4 news this evening Simon Israel makes the point that the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki by a drone in Yemen in 2011 took place 12 days after their arrest.
Following the new Hillsborough IPCC investigation the claim has arisen that senior South Yorkshire police officers told their juniors what to write in their statements about events at the Orgreave steel coking plant during the miners’ strike of 1984. Calls are being made for an inquiry.
Today’s BBC webpage says that Hilary Clinton has telephoned the Lebanese prime minister and they are setting up a joint probe to investigate last Friday’s car bombing in Beirut.
A story that Today highlighted this morning is that the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti has been caused by UN Nepalese soldiers. An American researcher has discovered that the strain is identical to that in Nepal. Before the earthquake cholera was an unknown disease in the country. Last year there were 7,500 cholera deaths. It is thought the epidemic started through untreated sewage being dumped by a river close to the Nepalese soldiers’ camp.
In December 1965 the James Bond film Thunderball was released about an atomic bomb lost at sea. A month later, during the height of the cold war, that actually happened when a B52 bomber collided with it’s refuelling tanker plane over the south Spanish coast. Both planes crashed and seven airmen died. Of it’s four nuclear bombs on board one dropped into the sea and three near Palomares. All four unarmed bombs had parachutes for such an eventuality but two failed to open causing disintegration on land impact and radioactive plutonium dust being spread over large areas. The one that drifted out to sea was eventually found four months later, recovered from a depth of 869 meters. Spain is still waiting for America to finish the land clean up.
The story on the Chinese telecoms company Huawei is all about the Gang in my view. It seems clear the business is very close to the Chinese state and some in America wish to create a monster to be fought at all costs. Last Saturday’s FT relates that Huawei say the recent US House Intelligence Committee report wanted to reach a predetermined outcome.
I did a diary note last week about some paintings being stolen from a Dutch museum possibly being destined for the Gang Master’s house. I am going to run with the hypothesis that he needed cheering up. Should that be right it would be my first indication that he might not be quite the man I, or even he perhaps, supposed. You see it over and over again where an individual’s ego is artificially inflated by hidden Gang members. In principle I cannot see why that situation should not apply to the Gang master himself. He may think he is in charge but possibly he is not.
This information would never have been released a year or so ago. Currently apparent RAF personnel operate five Reaper drones in Afghanistan to support British forces, from Creech Air Force base in Nevada. An extra contingent of five drones are now to be deployed on the battlefield this time to be controlled from RAF Waddington just south of Lincoln.
The emir of Qatar, home to Al Jazeera, has made a visit to Gaza no doubt greatly increasing the confidence of the people and Hamas. Since Syria’s power has waned Qatar has become more of a friend and has now pledged over $400 million for construction projects. Qatar of course is also a key American ally. Egypt will allow materials to be brought in overland across it’s border for the work so there will be no need to use the smuggling tunnels.
Good intelligence obviously led to the arrest of 11 al-Qaeda terrorists in Jordan this week apparently planning attacks for next month on Western diplomats and shopping centres in Amman. It is suggested the preparation was to give the West a bloody nose and warn the government against siding with America too much.
23rd October 2012
At Harlow the police have not come across any forensic leads. The fire started in the ground floor sitting room at the back of the property and no accelerants have been found. It seems they are putting their hope in human intelligence.
At Prestatyn the middle aged couple have been released, the man completely and the woman on bail whilst the police make further enquiries. From speaking to …. yesterday I would say she is my link.
A lady doctor MP was on Today this morning just before 7am talking about pharmaceutical companies apparently not producing all drug trial results if there are unfavourable towards their products. An example she cited was Tamiflu which has had a amount of research data held back.
A very interesting article by Simon Kuper in today’s FT called ‘The Art of Using Public Persona as a Weapon’, linking the stories of Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Savile. He refers to both men having enormous will power and using a few tried and tested techniques to keep the hounds away. They both tried to pull as many on their side with them as possible; he says it is an old mafia strategy to make everyone feel guilty.
24th October 2012
The BBC report this morning that a voluntary code for front-of-pack food labeling, to include daily guideline amounts and colour coding, has been agreed in principle between retailers and food manufactures. Although as if often the case it probably isn’t quite that simple. The analysis on the webpage says that after ten years of talks the government is saying now is the time for some sort of conclusion. They are trying to pressurise the industry to have something sorted by next summer and if not, no doubt, will go into some sort of Plan B mode.
The government announce today that MI5 have reduced the dissident Irish republican threat to the UK mainland from substantial to moderate. That means attacks are possible but not likely.
I’m not sure I have ever seen Matthew Engel write a deep piece before but there is one in today’s FT on sexual impropriety. He makes the point that invariably sexual predators cover up their actions, intentionally or unintentionally, by support of charitable causes. He says that the death of his unhappy and mixed up English cricketer friend Peter Roebuck has haunted him since he died. Peter committed suicide by jumping from a hotel window in November 2011 when reporting on a cricket match in South Africa, where he lived for six months every year, as he was about to be questioned by police about an alleged sexual assault against a Zimbabwean man. It seems likely to me he was set up by the Gang.
Although not mentioned in my book, in view of the hoo-ha on at the moment about the pulled Newsnight report on Jimmy Savile I would like to air the following incident. In the years I was trying to get my story out, the BBC as one might expect, was my first port of call. Eventually, after writing various letters, I walked into the BBC reception lobby in west London which houses the Panorama offices, on 17th January 2011 with a copy of my 1st March notes. After a difficult conversation I finally got the receptionist to ask a member of the production team to come down and I was able to personally hand the notes to that young lady. Silence as usual but then on 14th April I received a letter from an assistant to the editor. She wrote ‘Unfortunately the Panorama team feel unable to pursue your story at this time given the relative strength of other subjects presently under consideration’. She also returned my notes to me. No point in having those lying about the office where they might be noticed at some point in the future. My reply and copies were posted on 18th April 2011.
Am catching up at the moment and have just read a much longer article on the Consulting Association story in last Friday’s FT entitled ‘Construction industry faces claims for compensation over blacklist’. It says that CA was a trade association in Droitwich and when raided by the ICO, investigators estimate they only collected about 5-10% of various lists seen at the time. The construction industry list provided full names, dates of birth, home addresses, national insurance numbers, car registration numbers, details of past employment and union memberships. The suspicion is that some of the information could only have come from unofficial police or security service sources.
I talk about Graham Greene in my book. Today had a piece on him this morning and his attachment to Haiti. Apparently his surviving friend who lives there once asked him about being supervised by Kim Philby when in MI6. He told his friend he never suspected Kim was a spy but if he had found out he would have given him a couple of hours to escape and then denounced him. Channel 4 News had an interview with the star and director of the new Bond film on Monday. Apparently it is quite focused on UK politics. Daniel Craig talks about doing the right thing. Sam Mendes speaks of privacy, cyber terrorism and phone hacking, also whether there is a point in having a secret service.
As reported in today’s FT it seems that cyber warfare is being concentrated in the Middle east, probably I expect because it is easier. The key to combat it, it seems, is for victims to talk to each other across national boundaries. Various mutations of the original Stuxnet virus are beginning to emerge and Kaspersky Lab say that knowledge is now getting out to badly motivated people exponentially. Kaspersky are hoping to develop industrial systems with cyber security features embedded in the hardware rather than trying to parachute in protective software at a later time. Recently there have been attacks by a virus called Shamoon on oilfield infrastructure in both Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Interesting to see that there was no mention of America in last Friday’s FT article about UN intention to create a 6000 strong African nations military force to combat al-Qaeda linked Islamist militants based in northern Mali. France however is publicly backing the plan.
Also in that paper is a report which says the 30 something Taliban leader who ordered the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, and well known for his dislike of female education, has been hunted by US forces for about three years.
Since writing my Mali note I have read Monday’s FT and see the editorial pulls together one of it’s trademark well researched overarching views. It says the American, French and British intelligence agencies are very focused on the country since the government fell in March. It compares the situation to the insurgencies in Somalia which led to the Horn of Africa piracy problems and in Yemen from where we had various plots against western airlines. In short it suggests it is an issue which needs to be sorted before things get out of hand.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis a category two hurrican, Sandy, has hit south east Cuba. I see that on Saturday 27th October 1962 President Kennedy’s CIA adviser was sure his boss would order an attack on Cuba, leading to inevitable nuclear war, on the Monday. Fortunately for all of us that never happened.
25th October 2012
I thought the initial statements on the Jimmy Savile affair from ex-Conservative minister, Lord Patten, and now chairman of the BBC Trust, a bit tetchy. However I suspect, as has happened before, someone has had a quiet word with him. He was on the World at One today and said he thought it most unfortunate that the tsunami of filth of the story should start pouring over the director general of the BBC just 11 days into his new job.
It looks as though the government have a fight on their hands about their hoped for voluntarily agreed traffic lights system for food labeling. Nestle and Kellogs have said they are not prepared to introduce it.
From a John Gapper article in the FT it seems the BBC, with 2000 journalists and commanding 71% of UK weekly news viewing, is an organisation tightly shut into departmental boxes with a culture of no one talking to each other. It appears the Newsnight editor cancelled his journalists’ Jimmy Savile report without even looking at their most revealing interview. Last week’s parliamentary appearance by the director general does indicate a lack of leadership and paucity of strong personalities at the top.
27th October 2012
A very forward looking piece by David Pilling is on the opposite page (in the previous Thursday’s FT) implying that Europe has been lucky to have the EU for stability since the second world war. He worries that no such unifying organisation exists in Asia where there are many long standing rivalries. He hopes that China will see the need for some form of institutional framework in forthcoming years. Vacuums are dangerous.
28th October 2012
Am catching up at the moment for reasons I do not want to go into. Have just read a piece in last weekend’s FT Magazine entitled ‘The Natwest One’ about a former NatWest banker Gary Mulgrew. I was immediately attracted to it because it relates to the fallout from the Enron scandal and for me is an absolutely heart wrenching tale of how the Gang Master has destroyed a man’s life. Mr Mulgrew was indicted in 2002 for earning money through helping Enron’s chief financial officer dishonestly trade in investments. He was extradited with two others to the US to face trial in 2006 and served his prison sentence there and here being released in 2010. He says he was one of hundreds doing the same thing. He and the others were picked on as ‘stupid mugs’ to serve, in my view, as examples. He now runs a pub, alone in Brighton, a very different man from whom he was ten years ago.
I must be very careful in the future to try not to upset any duty manager Gang director when I am out. This afternoon I went to the London Museum Docklands sited in a converted warehouse just north of the Canary Wharf development. I walked in over the footbridge from the south but when I left at 5.50pm I thought I would head straight north for the parked car. For some reason that seemed to upset the Gang, I can only think because they lost me for a bit. Going over the walkway by Poplar DLR station I turned down Poplar High Street. After a bit I came across an overweight youth with no coat on just down a side road on my right. He had obviously been sent out to look for me and at the point of visual contact literally ran away in fright. Then I thought I would stop by the chap talking outside the pub in Bazly Sreet on his mobile phone, covered by the north African gentlemen walking on the opposite side of the street who got excited when he saw me do that. Lastly as I got to the car parked in the street they was another one facing it with a chap sitting inside with his headlights on. I drove home watchfully. The only incident was being flashed by a motorist coming towards me even though I was on dipped beam.
I see that the Radio 5 Live presenter Victoria Derbyshire has spoken out on behalf of BBC journalists in the Jimmy Savile affair. Ms Derbyshire was the reporter who interviewed Jessie James’ mother over Cristmas 2007 as mentioned in my book.
It looks as though we have a potentially nasty situation on our hands as ash comprise a third of our native trees amounting to 60 million plants . The chalara fraxinea fungus has already wiped out 90% of ash trees in Denmark and it has now been found in Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent. Imports of ash from abroad are being banned from tomorrow. I think it is just as well that the former Northern Ireland minister was recently appointed our Environment Secretary.
Farming Today This Week yesterday was all about badgers. At the moment vaccination of cattle against TB is illegal under EU law. One of our lady MEP’s was interviewed and she said at least three EU directives would need to be changed to give us the go ahead for that. 25 states would also have to see things the same way as we and Ireland do. She made the point that regulation can be put in place quickly if needs be, persuasion takes a lot longer.
The Gang were up to something yesterday morning when I went out just after 11am. Observing Gang helpers everywhere. I can only think drugs were being brought in. Just before I left the house I happened to be walking down the stairs and through the window saw a van stop on the junction outside. The girl in the passenger seat turned 90 degrees to her left and watched me watching her from my good vantage point.
Sunday this morning covered the Jimmy Savile story and it’s implications. As far as culture within an organisation is concerned a contributor said people shrugging their shoulders and remaining silent when they see wrong tends to creep up on people without them hardly noticing. Then something horrible happens or an outsider comes in and they suddenly realise. When you are in a group of people there seem to be three elements which determine behaviour, reason, obedience and empathy. If the ethic of obedience becomes too strong that is when things can go wrong. Applying that to myself I would say I am unable to obey others unless I can see the sense of what they are trying to do. From that point of view it could probably fairly be said that I do not mix well if I start expressing my true views amongst others who look at things differently from me.
An indication here I would have thought that the Gang have no political affiliations, unless they have misread the President as a man who is not capable of handling a politically difficult situation. Hurricane Sandy is making it’s way to the USA mainland today, a week before the Presidential vote. The worry is that it will merge with a winter storm approaching from the west at a time of full moon meaning tides are already high. And it is anticipated to pass straight over New York. All subway, bus and train services in the area will be closed from 11pm our time tonight and schools shut tomorrow. 375,000 people have been told to leave their homes in low lying areas and it is thought up to 60 million people could be affected overall. Authorities appear to be well prepared and the population have been urged to do as they are told, at short notice if appropriate. We can only keep our fingers crossed. The BBC website’s map very helpful shows some of the nearby states likely to be affected by the storm. It looks as though it’s heart will just miss Connecticut.
There was an item on the BBC TV news last night about the British Army psy-ops unit having won an award for their broadcasting in Afghanistan. The acronim stands for psychological operations and the unit is based in Bedfordshire. In this case though their mission is just to broadcast good quality, trusted information in Helmand. The interviewee said that approach is proving successful and their activities are being expanded.