1st September 2012
Listened to Farming this Week this morning which was solely about farming cooperatives. Apparently nine farmers formed a mustard growing cooperative in East Anglia in 2006 after a devastating harvest so that Colmans could keep using the term English mustard. But it came over as quite a nebulous concept with no proper rationale put forward why that is the best way forward. Some cooperatives have failed. Then they interviewed the person responsible for global cooperatives at the UN. She said they have the ability to withstand sudden shocks. Just one of those rings really.
In last weekend’s FT Merryn Somerset Webb was saying we are now getting into a eurozone depression of standard type. The economy is shrinking through private bank lending drying up and the ECB will have no alternative but to create some massive QE, to the tune of 3 trillion euros. At the moment the euro is irrationally, massively over-valued and that must change.
The BBC reports this morning that up to 10,000 American campers, recent stayers at a Californian National Park site, have been told by authorities that they are at risk of catching the deadly Yosemite virus for which there is no treatment. The virus is spread by infected rodent droppings, a third who catch it die and it can take six weeks to show up. Two people have died so far.
5th September 2012
I haven’t heard any commentator see David Cameron’s shuffle in the same way as me. Which is that it has got nothing to do with politics: he wants to have as many safe hands around him in the challenging times he sees ahead as he can manage. It would have been better if Iain Duncan Smith had agreed to move to Justice but he did not trust enough to do that and Mr Cameron did not force the issue. I am not sure what Chris Grayling will make of that ministry. It was a very clever move in my view to keep Ken Clarke in the cabinet as Minister without Portfolio from where he will have a completely roving brief. I suspect another trusted aid will be David laws as a junior education minister where he can keep an eye on . . . . . The other move that interests me is Owen Peterson going from Northern Ireland to be Environment Secretary.
There has been a conference today at the Foreign Office attended by private businesses, addressed by William Hague and Vince Cable, on cyber crime. Also speaking will be Iain Lobban head of GCHQ. The message is that business does not take cyber theft seriously enough.
Michelle Obama has been at it again. This time she was yesterday giving the wife’s speech at the Democratic presidential candidate convention. Apparently it is entirely her own work and took her a month to compose. From today’s Evening Standard picked up at Stratford station I know she said she now loves her husband more than ever. She sees the concern in his eyes and determination in his voice. He is motivated by his personal convictions and his wish to help the American people. Her husband has been tested in ways she could never have imagined. Being president doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are. When it is time to make a decision all you have are your experiences, your values and your vision. I agree.
7th September 2012
A really strange story started on Wednesday when an Iraqi man, his Iraqi wife and her mother, living in Surrey, were killed by two shots to the head whilst sitting in their BMW estate parked in a remote forest car park in the French Alps near to the Lake Annecy camp site where they were staying. Daughters aged 8 and 4 were also in the car who survived although the elder one was shot as well. She is stable in hospital. A French cyclist was also shot dead who seems to have come across the attack in progress. I would say it was a Gang event because a British ex-serviceman cyclist was around who has given the police some sightings evidence. Very early on it came out that the dead man had a security service file although that line of reporting was soon dropped. Then today it was reported there was a family squabble over money. My hunch is that information also came from security service sources. However this evening the elder brother concerned has contacted British police to say no such difficulties existed. All very murky and I suspect the real story will be in the man’s job for Surrey Satellite Technology which I think may have contracts involving NASA equipment. My guess at the moment is that there is some embarrassing detail there for intelligence agencies which they will not want to come out. However so far the investigation seems to be going well with good cooperation between the French and British authorites. I would say the French have been briefed on Gang ways. It is all very transparent. French police are coming to London to continue their investigations. The achilles heel for the Gang I suggest will be the 8 year old’s evidence when she is well enough to say what she saw.
I liked Mr Obama’s speech yesterday although by his standards it was quite low key. However he did say he had never been more hopeful about America ‘not because I think I have all the answers, not because I’m naive about the magnitude of our challenges. I’m hopeful because of you.’
8th September 2012
Went up to the village at 8.15 this morning and I believe walked straight into cover for a drugs run this morning. Three minutes after slamming the door a fully kitted cyclist came down . . . . . He will have been sitting in . . . . on standby. A man was rubbing a red car there as I walked past. Then I was passed by another cyclist just after . . . . , then a light plane and a posh sports car before . . . . . A young bronzed man was just into . . . . and an old man further down. The interesting thing was a Gang member with a little yappy dog went into [a local shop] with me. He was my age, small, well built with white hair. I reckon there was probably four or five helpers in there with him providing protection.
9th September 2012 (after hearing a guest appearance on a radio programme that morning)
Max was a bit like my three policeman in . . . . that evening (last paragraph of chapter 3 of book). He couldn’t stop himself talking. In effect he was saying he has been very lucky in his business life, is very competitive and has a deep desire to help other people.
Earlier in the week there were a series of earthquakes in south west China which have killed 80 people. It has not been in the headlines here because, I suspect, it is known they were completely natural.
11th September 2012
A very typical Gang story came out on the Channel 4 dispatches programme last night in my view arising from Michael Gove’s relationship with Dominos Pizza. Mr Gove has relaxed school food nutritional standards meaning, some say, that standards are slipping. One of the supposed culprits opening fast food outlets near school gates is Dominos Pizza. The chairman of Mr Gove’s Surrey Heath constituency party is the largest shareholder in Dominoes UK whose family control 76 outlets. Dominos have given over £55,000 to Mr Gove’s constituency office in recent times. Jamie Oliver has said Dominoes have a large slice of the schools’ food market in the States and they will be sharing information with their UK counterparts about what young kids will want to buy.
Then another Gang influenced story on the same day, in my view, was the Tory MP for Banbury who, whilst he was parking his car in the town last Friday, from a stationary start I believe, crashed into four cars. The photo shows his vehicle significantly damaged. Please let me be clear, I am not saying he did that deliberately. However it is a very unusual thing to happen. In 2005 he was reprimanded by the House of Commons privileges committee for the way he recorded business interests in Sierra Leone and his irregular use of Commons notepaper.
A man who has just come into his Gang knowledge I would say, as a result of the Annecy shootings, is Francois Hollande. Today’s FT reports him as having been on French television telling viewers he is in a combat situation to get the French economy moving ahead.
Today’s paper also reports that Japan’s 73 year old financial services minister, in post for three months, has been found dead at home after an apparent suicide.
12th September 2012
The value of Facebook shares have almost halved since their debut in May and there was a very interesting, extremely concise and well argued clip on this morning’s BBC webpage of Mark Zuckerberg explaining his company’s philosophy. For him it is simply mission. However he realises that in order to attract the best people to work for them Facebook needs to make a ‘bunch’ of money. Therefore the two desires are complimentary to each other. The boy will go far.
That Gang man is completely round the bend. Thanks to Today this morning alerting me, I think we have had three connected stories in the news this morning. First it appears Mr Netanyahu wanted a meeting with Mr Obama on the fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York at the end of the month. Mr Obama has said that would not be convenient for him. Then this morning the Daily Mail has reported, picking up on local media reports, that about a fortnight ago Sir John Sawyers visited Israel. It seems he went as a personal emissary of David Cameron having meetings with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Barak and other officials. He told them not to be so silly about attacking Iran but it appears Israel’s leader was not prepared to state Israel’s intentions. Then overnight the American ambassador to Libya was killed in an attack on their consulate in Benghazi. Details about it are sparse. The Gang cover for that was a protest by Muslims against a US-produced film said to insult the Prophet Muhammad.
13th September 2012
The Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans died occurred in 1989 at Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium just before the start of that year’s FA Cup semi-final with Nottingham Forest. The stadium was decrepit and did not have a current safety certificate. Lverpool fans were entering through turnstiles to the Leppings Lane end of the ground which was already full. A build up was developing on the entrance side of the turnstiles so the police decided to open a wide gate beside the turnstiles. That allowed a whole mass of people onto the already full terracing with people starting to be crushed. When a crush barrier gave way panic broke out. The game was stopped at six minutes past three. The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report came out yesterday and found that after the abandonment there was no effective action by the police nor the ambulance service. No one was in charge and chaos reigned. 41 people had the potential to survive if they had been quickly treated. Afterwards the statements of some policemen there were systematically changed by their superiors so as to throw blame onto the fans themselves for the accident. More than 160 Witness Statements were changed. There is a call now for the inquest to be reopened so the accidental deaths verdict can be changed to manslaughter and for criminal charges to be brought against the culpable policemen involved.
The Olympics might have given our spirits a boost but from the annual American think tank GMF Translantic Trends survey, I would say we are the most disaffected nation in Europe. James Blitz reports on it in today’s FT. 64% of respondents agreed that war was sometimes necessary to achieve justice. 51% approved of keeping military spending at current levels. 52% were not in favour of EU membership. Only 50% thought we were right to intervene in Libya.
After listening to the commentators I think I am going to alter the order of yesterday’s note. It seems likely the planned first event was the killing of the ambassador, who was lured to the Benghazi consulate, to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11. Mitt Romney tried to make as much political capital out of the attack against Mr Obama as quickly as he could. The leaking of Sir John Sawyers’ visit and Mr Obama’s refusal to meet with Mr Netanyahu would then be information to generally muddy the water. Along those lines there have also been attacks today by crowds against American embassies in Egypt and Yemen.
Today reported this morning on some peace talks coming up next month in Oslo between the FARC and the Colombian government. The FARC man was hopeful something could be sorted out.
Brett Martin the ex-RAF pilot from East Sussex who came across the murdered al-Hilli family has given a video interview to the BBC. I could never express it to another person as it is just a gut feeling but . . . . . . . . . I have heard it said his sequence of events is not the same as some other witnesses . . . . . Something I did notice was that Brett talked about seeing the 7 or 8 year old and initially thinking she was playing with a ‘sibling’. Later the interviewer, Tom Simons, interrupted him to ask if he could see the smaller girl in the car and he said he could not.
14th September 2012
A Gang story has been rumbling along at the council owned Port of Ramsgate in my view over the last couple of weeks. It has just come to a head with the live exports of animals being suspended. On Wednesday a lorry load of sheep for the continent arrived of which 41 had to be put down by the RSPCA. One had a broken leg, 41 were severely lame and one diseased. In a separate incident two more drowned when they fell into the water. The agriculture minister David Heath had got involved and has told the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency to take a zero tolerance approach to enforcing and maintaining animal welfare.
There is certainly a French angle to the news at the moment with the Annecy killings and topless photos of Kate following Diana’s problems with French paparazzi many years ago. However I suspect the real story is the just leaked advanced merger talks between defence contractor BAE Systems and European aerospace firm EADS. That would be a strategic alliance with our European partners rather than our American friends across the pond.
Thursday of last week had the FT saying cracks were appearing in Israel’s security cabinet about whether a strike on Iran should be made. And I feel the Gang Master has also concluded that action by them is slipping off the agenda. I reckon that is why we are in the middle of anti-American protests in such countries as Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan and Tunisia. In my view it is his pique and will ultimately blow over without too much harmful effect. The chap’s power is waning.
15th September 2012
The speaker on Thought for the Today this morning was Brian Draper, a lecturer at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. He was talking about personal morality in relation to the Kate photos and said if we look at them in private on the internet we really know that is wrong. . . . . he was developing some of my book themes and saying it is all about whether you would be happy justifying your actions to others. It is not an ideal I can keep to at the moment, I believe because my way of rationalising to myself my continuing existence in this world would not be considered appropriate by 99% of people. Perhaps I may find out in the long run that I am fooling myself. I am not sure whether I want that or not.
Salman Rushdie was on Today this morning and he is being interviewed by Andrew Marr on a special Start the Week on Monday. He was saying that the word respect in relation to Muslims is code for fear. Fear of upsetting them in case they do something silly. In that context he joined the attacks on the Satanic Verses in 1988 to 9/11, to 7/7 and today’s Muslim paranoid reaction to the amateurish film the Innocence of Muslims which he calls a piece of garbage. He said that if you believe in freedom of speech you have to defend the right of people to put forward views you strongly disagree with. He said the ugly reaction to the pin prick of the offending film should be named as such. Talk to the elephant in the room.
Then there was also an article about Salman in today’s FT and how he was kept in fearful isolation by our security forces for many years. It did cross my mind that . . . . I have been allowed my privacy to get on with my life as I think best.
Radio 4 news this morning were pushing the story of a spate of deaths in the Czech Republic from poisoning by bootleg alcohol. 19 people have now died, the worst such incident in 30 years. I suspect it is the government’s reaction which is the most telling to Gang story watchers. They are running scared and have banned all the sale of spirits 20% proof and above from every retail and eating outlet. Norway is donating an antidote.
16th September 2012
They were saying on Sunday this morning that the House of Bishops has come up with new wording regarding women bishops. It is very simple apparently and whilst I don’t understand it’s meaning, it relies on the word respect. The nice thing is that it is the idea of a lady member priest of The Synod from the Newcastle area, the Reverend Janet Appleby.
17th September 2012
AS you might expect the Gang now have a bit of a thing about the M40 and me (chapter 5 of the book). Going up to Hewell today the group of three or four lorries ahead of me seemed quite obvious as I approached. They just looked out of place. No foreign lorry involved and the lead vehicle was an supermarket articulated truck. One lorry was hanging back to try and obscure my warning view. As I came up in the middle lane, as I expected the following lorry started to overtake the supermarket vehicle inviting me to travel behind him, pull alongside the supermarket lorry and drive beside it. Coming back the only squirrel I have ever seen run out onto a motorway came out of the undergowth just before the M25. It was too early for me to hit but hesitated just after the first lane and then carried on. There is no way it could have survived.
Simon Kuper was writing in his FT Magazine column on Saturday after a book he has just written about the second world war in Holland. Even though citizens collaborated with the Nazis to such an extent that more Dutch Jews were exterminated than in any other western country he does not categorise the helpers and fighters as good or bad. Those that helped were just muddling through and trying to keep themselves out of trouble.
I listened to Andrew Marr talking to Salman Rushie on the radio going up to Hewell this morning. I think I see what has been going on . . . . in relation to my story. . . . . . It seems Ayatollah Khomeini called the fatwa for his own political reasons to try and shore up his own position. Salman was under state protection, in accommodation he had to arrange and pay for, and move himself as required, for just under ten years. He was tricked by the state into apologising for his book when he was at his lowest ebb. That only made things worse because he was tempted to self hate for not being true to himself. He split up badly with his then wife which I think he still resents although he accepts she just did not want to put up with all the hassle.
18th September 2012
A BBC news London webpage was published yesterday about illegal and potentially unsafe meat being sold at Ridley Road market in Dalston, including cane rats. The story has been beefed up by FoI requests to Hackney Council about their inspections at the market and the piece also makes a link to mafia-style gangs in Wales who steal sheep and goats, slaughtering them in unlicensed abattoirs.
Philip Hammond gave one of his Newsnight interviews last night on the recent spate of green on blue killings in Afghanistan. From the News at One just now it seems there has been a bit of a panic in Washington telling Isaf something must be done about it. Isaf suggested this morning that joint military operations with Afghanis would be stopped. That caused Mr Hammond to appear on the programme to say British policy under battalion level had not changed. Then [my MP] took part in a studio discussion. I have no doubt his words were genuine but his argument had an intimidatory slant. It was that our present policy in Afghanistan is wrong. We should not worry about the Taliban but the corrupt government. If we do not there will be civil war. If there is civil war it will affect Pakistan. And if Pakistan gets destabilised we all know what that could mean for us. That caused Martha Kearney to immediately shy away but I imagine he meant Pakistani terrorist attacks here.
19th September 2012
The two lady police officers shot dead in Manchester yesterday were lured to the private address thinking a burglary had occurred. It my view that was direct retaliation by the Gang Master for his Colombian drugs lord lieutenant being lured I suspect to a public phone box in Venezuela so he could be captured, as I describe in Musing45 (a different file for international events).
It seems likely that the man who has given himself up, Dale Cregan, was from an organised crime gang who earlier this year, several months apart, probably killed father and son Mark and David Short. Four men have been charged in connection with at least one of those deaths but the police were also investigating Mr Cregan. They were offering £50,000 for his apprehension but the climate of fear surrounding him was such that no informant had come forward. If I am right about the Colombian connection it just shows what a dastardly lot the Gang Master and his team are. Presumably the deal with Mr Cregan will be to look after him in jail. Otherwise he would have lost his life.
It is reported this morning that Colombia’s main drug baron, Daniel Barrera, has just been captured in San Cristobal, Venezuela with the help of Venezuelan, British (MI6 I later heard) and US intelligence agencies. I think he was lured to a public telephone box for the purpose. Looking at his photograph I would say he is a Gang member. He had a $5 million American bounty on his head, the same as for Osama bin Laden. He had been in the business for 20 years and is the third Colombian big man to have been detained in the last year. (To be cross referenced with note in domestic events file, Musing44).
There was lady on Newsnight last night saying that a cellphone recording of Mitt Romney making a private speech from May which has just come out will probably lose him the presidential election. Apparantly 47% of Americans do not pay income tax, and by implication rely on the state. Mr Romney said that such people would never vote for him and, by implication, good riddance to them. Mr Obama’s response has been that if you are president you should do your best for all the people, those who vote for you and those who do not.
Today’s FT has an interview with the Speaker of the Iranian parliament saying, for me, that they are aware change is likely to come in Syria and they want to be part of it.
70% of North Korea’s foreign trade is with China and just 1.5% with Russia. Nevertheless Russia has announced it is writing off 90% of North Korea’s $11 billion of debt to Russia presumably in the hope of gaining influence in the country.
20th September 2012
We are really getting there. Manchester Police are playing their current difficulties exactly right, using them as an opportunity to tell the two crime families involved to stop their feuding. Enough is enough. I suspect another aspect of that strategy is the publicising of Osman Orders which the police issue to individuals whom they consider are subject to a threat to their life. There is a sample notice on the BBC website from Hampshire Constabulary. Basically it tells you to live your life like a hunted animal. Yes, thank very much for telling me about those and for not involving me in such a horrible system.
Mervyn King is currently giving a live interview on Channel 4 News. On the Libor scandal he says he was spoken to by ‘the regulators’ as a result of which he wanted as a third party to pass on to the Barclays chairman how worried the regulators were about the situation at Barclay bank.
21st September 2012
Amazing the things you never knew. New Zealand banned nuclear weapons from it’s territory in 1985. America retaliated by suspending it’s defence treaty with them in 1986. As a result no New Zealand naval ships have been allowed to visit American ports since. Leon Panetta is currently on a trip visiting Tokyo, Beijing and Auckland and has announced the defence treaty is now being reinstated.
Justin Webb had a piece on Today this morning from Florida. He used the example of a four way stop road intersection where motorists go in turn, to point out that ordinary Americans are very genteel and well mannered people. Why then is there so much hate in politics and the media which seems to be spilling out everywhere. One theory is that as pioneers of a new country Americans had to be thrusting individuals and those continuing characteristics are damaging in today’s inter-connected world. Another is that with the downturn carrying on, people cannot afford, nor have the confidence, to be nice to each other. Lastly the view was put forward that in the internet age we are bombarded with good and bad information. We can find anything, if we look, that will accord with our prejudices and misconceived views. Once we find those to support us we become more dogmatic and inconsiderate towards others with different ideas.
24th September 2012
At last we have the other side of the story. I have just seen Michael Crick on Channel 4 News report that Andrew Mitchell says that all he said to the policemen was ‘I thought you fucking lot were meant to help us’.
Saturday’s Today reported that African Union soldiers are preparing to capture the southern Somalian port city of Kismayo, Al Shabaab’s last remaining stronghold in the country.
Just after that, again with an eye on the significant events in history I would say, the programme highlighted a speech Charles de Gaulle made in the West German town of Ludwigsburgh fifty years ago. Today’s French and German leaders look upon it as changing the course of mainland European history as it enabled reconciliation between the two countries after the second world war.
Tobias Buck writes in today’s FT that Benjamin Netanyahu is in danger of overreaching himself in his demands in America that a red line is drawn in dealings with Iran. He is being accused of meddling in American politics, siding with the Republicans and within Israel of taking his rhetoric too far.
The YouTube trailer blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed caused a lot of unrest in Pakistan last week. It seems their government tried to plot a middle course by promoting a day of love for the Prophet yet not criticising America. That strategy backfired a bit when their Railways Minister, an emotional man it would seem, offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who killed the film producer. The government distanced itself from the remark.
There was a chap on last weekend’s Sunday Programme saying that al-Qaeda is becoming a stronger brand all the time, especially in Yemen and North Africa. It is also a beneficiary of the Arab Spring by filling the security and governance vacuums that now exist in some Arab counties.
I was alerted to this story by the Radio 4 1pm news on Saturday and I suspect it might well be a significant Gang story, as for the recent Venezuelan arrest, but on the other side of the world. If so it will be solely down to actions by the Chinese authorities. Last October a seemingly untouchable Burmese warlord, operating in drugs and smuggling for over a decade in the Golden Triangle of Thailand, Laos and Burma, killed with others 13 Chinese sailors on the Thai side of the Mekong river. In April he was captured in Burma and then taken to China. He is just about to be sentenced by the Chinese court.
25th September 2012
There was a piece in Friday’s FT on the city. It ended by saying that greed is not necessarily bad. It is so much more productive than fear.
Have just watched a chap on Channel 4 News say that the stationary storm over northern England, there since Sunday, has been caused by a kink in the jetstream holding it in place. It has caused the worst September storm for 30 years and some places have received two month’s rain in 24 hours.
Heaven knows whether it was planned long in advance but Barack Obama spoke at the United Nations General Assembly today. He said it is the obligation of all leaders to speak out against violence and extremism. It is time to marginalise those who use hatred as a central principle of politics. That brand of politics could not deliver freedom. It makes it harder to educate our children and so to create the opportunities for them they deserve; it becomes harder to protect human rights and to extend democracy’s promise.
26th September 2012
JK Rowling’s new book The Casual Vacancy, about the life and politics of a village, is published tomorrow. She has given a deep interview to Will Gompertz illustrating she hads been through some difficult times. On giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry she says she was put in a paradoxical position of trying to maintain her privacy whilst allowing others to intrude into it. She thought long and hard about what to put into her Witness Statement. In the end she left a couple of things out as it would have been too invasive.
28th September 2012
There is a story up this morning about Charlie Brooks saying to the Racing Post that once he was playing tennis with Davis Cameron at Chequers when Mr Cameron was told Barack Obama was on the phone but Mr Cameron said he would return the call after completing his game. No 10 has let it be known that no calls were received from the President on the one occasion Mr Cameron did play tennis at Chequers with Mr Brooks. That is a pretty sure indication to me that Mr Cameron at least spoke to, if not met, Mr Obama in New York this week.
There was a BBC webpage up yesterday about an 8.7 magnitude earthquake off Sumatra on 11th April 2012 very close to an existing tectonic plate boundary. Apparently it produced 16 aftershocks with the conclusion being made that a break up of the plate could be occurring in that region. That of course is the day David Cameron was in Indonesia. A thought not being expressed I suspect is that if you mess about with nature by producing artificial earthquakes you are bound to get strange things happening.
29th September 2012
Today this morning highlighted British Crime survey figures showing that drug taking has significantly decreased over the last decade. Ten years ago 13% of questioned adults said they had used drugs in the last year, now it is 9%. The big change apparently is in cannabis use. But still half a million people used ecstasy during the last twelve months. For 16-24 year olds 24% did say they had tried drugs, now it is 11%. Mark Easton then widened it out to say that there are figures around to show that young people are also now smoking and drinking less than ever before.
For the second time in a couple of weeks Today highlighted this morning the hidden listening, using microphones in lamp fittings, of German prisoners in our POW camps during the war. Transcripts of the conversations were discovered in 2001. They had an aged gentleman on whose job it was to do the listening.
The BBC were reporting this morning how Fox News broadcast a man shooting himself dead on live television, shown from a helicopter, after a police car chase in Pheonix. There should have been a five second delay in the broadcast. However the feed went out due to gross human error. On their website the BBC had a map showing us exactly where Pheonix is.