22nd July 2013
I have been writing about secrets for a couple of weeks now, saying I do not like them very much. I believe the predominant emotion which causes people, and states, to be secretive is fear. Equally though if you value privacy you do not want the whole world to know about all your family affairs. Some in Gang influenced cirles might argue that a desire for privacy can be no better than wanting to keep secrets from others. I would agree they are similar concepts. The distinquishing feature though for me is motive. If I understand and have symphathy for the secret I would categorise it as a matter of privacy.
I listened to an edition of Profile on Radio 4 yesterday presented by that gentleman of the airwaves, Edward Stourton. It was about Samantha Cameron. It is plain Mrs Cameron does not wish to be in the public eye. I understand she made that strategic decision when her husband became Conservative Party leader. However in March 2013 she made a trip to a refugee camp in Lebanon as an ambassador of Save the Children. Because of that I heard her voice on Profile on Radio 4 yesterday, talking during the visit, for the first time ever. For some reason, using that journey as their excuse, some elements of the media appear to be trying to chip away at her desire for privacy. As though, all of a sudden, she is fair game to be written and speculated about all the time. Please would they stop it. It would be impossible to suggest her motive for travelling to a war torn area of the world was anything other than good. I expect she heard about children who had died there. She has had a child who has died. Her wishes should be respected as her husband respects them.
Having looked at the speech David Cameron gave today about online pornography, for which there is a link on the BBC website, you can see a lot of behind the scenes work has been put into getting industry agreement. For home environemnts the four biggest ISPs, Talktalk, Virgin, Sky and BT have said they will implement automatic controls to make acess to it more difficult. Images of rape will be legally banned. The Prime Minister is selling his policy on the basis of protection for chilren. In reality of course outsiders do not know which households contain children and which don’t. I feel he is hoping to change adults’ attitudes towards internet pornography. There is nothing at all wrong with that. I would rather he be a bit more honest about it but there again I am not a politican.
In a David and Goliath story a group of residents have won a high court case that the London Borough of Barnet were not entitled to increase the price of residents’ parking permits in their street to pay for road costs outside of their parking budget. The council have said they will appeal.
The Conservative MP Claire Perry, Mr Cameron’s adviser on the sexualisation and commercialisation of children, was on Today this morning. She said she and the Prime Minister have met the parents of April Jones and Tia Sharp several times over the last couple of weeks.
I wrote about the Litvinenko inquest last Friday. Saturday’s FT says the Home Secretary has now written to the coroner. In her opinion Mr Litvinenko’s family would learn no more from a public inquiry than from an inquest. The paper suggests the dead man may have been helping MI6 investigate Gang connections between Russia and Spain. And that his death was retaliation by one of the Russian gangs involved. It seems some prominent Russians were arrested in Spain in that connection in 2006 and 2008.
I hope the Israelis will be pleased that all EU foreign ministers, like America previously, have today agreed to categorise the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. That will enable financila sanctions to be levied against it.
23rd July 2013
Gavin Esler did a really interesting interview on Newsnight last night with the American singer Amanda Palmer. I did not know but, like a naughty child, the Daily Mail has published a photograph of her recently performing at Glastonbury with one of her breasts accidentally exposed. The mentality of such newspapers I am afraid is that if you can obtain such photos you push them for all you are worth. It will undoubtedly sell a few more copies for you. That fact the the celebrity might be upset, offended or even psychologically damaged by their action does not seem to seep into their conciousness at all. It’s all part of the game they play. I am sure they would say if such ladies cannot take the heat they should not be in the kitchen.
Ms Palmer said she was upset. However her British husband has explained to her what our press are like. She wanted to fight back and composed a ditty of reply. It might also have been better if the paper had done a bit of research into the sort of lady Amanda is. She does not mind nudity. A few months ago she appeared naked in public and her followers drew on her. She considers she has a very close emotional relationship with her fans which is important to her. She loves them and they love her. She found the reaction to her song most supportive. She fully understands however that the Mail has no respect for her as a human being. Indeed she told Gavin she has found that the publication is despised by a significant secion of our divided society.
Our Royal baby arrived yesterday afternoon. Once you become aware of an important fact I feel you should always try and keep it in your mind; let it have a bearing on how you think about the world. Prince William’s Mum died in tragic circustances. It cannot but have had a big effect on him. Now he has a gorgeous wife and a lovely baby son. He deserves it. In my view the family should have as much of our support, for as long as possible, as we can muster.
Following my note of 19th July 2013 a 25 year old Ukranian postgraduate student has been charged with stabbing 82 year old Mohammed Saleem to death as he walked home from prayers on 29th April 2013. The accused arrived in the UK five days before that under a work placement arrangement with a British company. He is also charged with intending to commit acts of terrorism between 24th April and 18th July. And with causing explosions on 21st June and 12th July contrary to section 2 of the Explosive Substances Act 1883.
A 44 year old man has been arrested today on suspicion of murdering PC Keith Blakelock during rioting on the Broadwater Farm housing estate in north London in 1985. At the time therefore he was 16.
David Cameron said to Andrew Marr the other day that Sryia is currently in stalemate. I expect the Gang Master agreed with that but, sitting at his desk over there in Connecticut, wondered what he could do to tip the balance his way. Perhaps his solution came on Sunday when al-Qaeda stormed the Abu Ghraib and Taji jails near Baghdad killing at least 20 security personnel. The operation freed hundreds of prisoners including senior al-Qaeda leaders. I imagine a significant number of those will now be making their way to Syria.
I wrote about a Panorama programme on 10th June 2013 which accused the government of being too afraid of the construction industry to do anything about the Consulting Association blacklist story which has been rumbling on for a long time now. The radio news this morning said that the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee are having another try at getting our political leaders to act. They have just written to the Business Secretary to express their continuing concerns. They say they have compelling evidence that workers are still being blacklisted on the Crossrail project.
Today reported on a Unicef statement this morning which says there are 125 million girls in the world who have been sexually mutilated as their parents believe the procedure will protect their vaginity. In Egypt for example 91% of new born girls are cut in that way.
I haven’t written about the onging corruption allegations in Spain before but the final Business News on the programme gave a concise resume. The allegation is that the Prime Minister has accepted illegal cash donations to his political Party. He has always denied any wrong doing, alleged by a single individual currently in prison, but equally refuses to talk about it. I expect he has used the argument that he is an honest man and people must trust that is the case. However the pressure has now built up to such an extent that Mr Rajoy has said he will make a statement to parliament within the next two weeks.
Last year a German lawyer pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe of £26.6 million from a Berni Ecclestone family trust in relation to a sale he was arranging of a 47% stake in Formula One from one party to another. Mr Ecclestone has always said he gave the money because he was being blackmailed by the lawyer who threatened to give false information to HMRC about Mr Ecclestone’s tax affairs. Last week though German prosecutors formally charged Mr Ecclestone with corruption.
The Formula One boss, whose company my business has acted for in the past, was the subject the Person in the News page of last Saturday’s FT. He grew up in south London and being physically small it is suggested he always needed larger friends to physically protect him. After leaving school in 1947 Mr Ecclestone dealt in second hand cars and in 1971 bought the Brabham racing team. His focus, and those behind him no doubt, was never on the motorsport itself but the making of money from it. Recognising the growing popularity of Formula One he saw to it that he became the sole owner of it’s rights, including crucially all broadcasting royalties. Mr Ecclestone’s wealth is estimated to be $3.8 billion. Not bad for a man of basic education from Dartford.
24th July 2013
The BBC has been quite keen to tell us how much worldwide interest there has been in the arrival of the Royal baby, with most clamour apparently in America, Canada, and Australia. The leaders of those three countries have all sent congratulations to the happy couple. President Putin I understand tweeted a supportive message which I feel was nice of him. With all the frenectic interest though I believe it is important to have the rules of the game well set. I personally do not think it a coincidence that baby Cambridge was born at about 4.30 pm but the media were not informed until 8.30. If the mindset of all those reporters out on the street was that the Royal family would feel pressurised into feeding their news channels at a moment’s notice, they were wrong. It was the people inside the hospital who were in control of events. I feel it was a good signal to send.
The Gulf Cooperation Council comprises Suadi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. Today’s FT reports that the Israeli foreign ministry has set up a twitter account for communicating with those in GCC countries and to receive their feedback. Israel has no diplomatic relations with the bloc but unofficial trade with them, through intermediaries, is estimated to be worth $500 million a year. I look upon that news as indicating Israel is in peaceful mood.
Imran Khan’s fall during the Pakistani election campaign three months ago broke his back apparently. However it could have been a lot worse. The metal in the bullet proof vest he was wearing cushioned his spine and he is now fully recovered. Jon Snow interviewed him on Channel 4 News this evening. He says the Taliban have splintered into about 25 separate groups each with their own, often blatantly criminal, agendas. The trouble is they see themselves as in the ascendency with the Americans leaving Afghanistan. Mr Khan is highly critical of the US drone policy. It provides incentive he says for idealised young men to become jihadists. We in the west simply do not get the truth. It is not possible to bomb a Taliban leader in a village and not also kill a lot of innocent civilians. Apparently the collateral deaths by drones over the last five years is 1500 including many women and chilren. 330 have lost limbs in the attacks. The number of militants killed for those numbers is 47.
I am not sure if it has got anything to do with the al-Qaeda jail breaks on Sunday, but Mark Urban reported on Newsnight last night the US Congress have given authorisation to the CIA to start sending arms through Jordan to the Syrian Opposition. At the end of last week the President’s chief military officer gave an assessment of the various American options in the civil war to Senators.
25th July 2013
I see from a photograph on the BBC website this morning that former president George H W Bush has a team of 26 Secret Service agents providing him with personal protection. The two year old son of one of their number has leukaemia. His treatment has involved loss of his hair. To show solidarity his father and the 25 colleagues have shaven their heads to look like him. The story has arisen because Mr Bush also wanted to express his support by going bald and the photograph was taken to commemorate the event.
Police Scotland have said this morning they feel there is currently insufficient evidence to launch a formal investigation over vote rigging allegations in the Falkirk parliamentary constituency. They will look at the matter again if more information comes to light.
As an example of how senior politicians have to be on their toes all the time nowadays I see a report is out this morning from the Commons Science and Technology Committee. The MPs say current planned changes in the field of criminal forensic science and back up for police investigations are chaotic. Unless the government get their act together on the subject the standard of legal justice in this country could be jeopardised. Another mess to sort out it seems.
I feel there was a piece of real leadership by the Archbishop of Canterbury reported on the BBC this morning. In an extremely complicated world you have to talk to people, in my view, who are not your normal bedfellows. Mr Welby has had a meeting with the boss of the Wonga payday loans company. They exchanged views in mutual respect. The Archbishop says he will be using the physical facilities of his organisation to help credit unions lend to people at reasonable rates of interest. The Wonga man said he is all for better consumer choice.
I was in London yesterday on work and read a copy of the Evening Standard. It had a piece there about the personnel changes on the Today programme, one of many I suspect currently appearing in our popular press. It speculated that the are not enough broadcasting hours to accommodate six presenters so one of them will be for the chop. Destructive comment like that will create a lot of pressure on the team in my view. It requires carefully handling by the editor of the programme. In privacy he needs to explain to his staff what his thoughts are. He will not get a good product unless he does.
My Gang director is a vexatious, obsessive individual in my view. I have often heard people say it is funny sometimes how light bulbs seem to fail in sequence. I don’t expereience that problem except for one track of five R63 light bulbs in my kitchen. For a few weeks now they have been expiring on a regular basis. Over a ten day period three have gone with a gap of two to three days between each, the most recent when I came down this morning. They cost less than £1 to replace. I have not got time to think about it too much but I am sure, if I were keeping records, I would find it was the older ones which have been failing so no obvious untoward pattern could emerge. Again I have never tried it myself but I imagine it is extremely easy to break the flimsy filament in a light bulb just by tapping it reasonably hard in a cupped hand.
An insightful article by Simon Kuper I feel in last Saturday’s FT Weekend Magazine after his return from leave. It was about Nelson Mandela. Simon says Mr Mandela mastered himself by understanding himself. He could attune to his feelings of rage and impotence within. He was able to overcome any bitterness he had over his 18 years of imprisonment and so show common courtesy and respect to all he met, friends and foe alike. Simon believes that through the process he was able to empower the Afrikaner elite: to overcome their deeply held fear of the black man.
The edition also has an in depth piece by John Lloyd. He explains that 90% of the competing press charter proposals are the same. The essential difference is that the press wish their own team to be predominant on the Editor’s Code Regulatory Committee. That stance, in my view, results solely from a lack of confidence and trust in others. It appears there are justifiable criticisms which could be made against the transparency of, and some of the people now involved with, the Hacked Off campaign. However the point which overshadows all that John suggests is newspapers are a dying industry. When the News of the World folded in 2011 it had 2.7 million readers. Th Sun on Sunday sells 1.9 million weekly copies. The readership of the Sunday tabloid newspapers has declined by 30-40% in the last twelve months to April. Rather than squabbling about details, it seems to me, the editors should be thinking about realigning their product.
UK GDP grew by an estimated 0.6% in the three months to June. The Chancellor has said our economy is on the mend. He puts that down to people holding their nerve and praises businesses and hard working families for their efforts.
Sergeant Danny Nightingale, whom I wrote about on 14th July 2013, received his sentence today. It was two years military detention suspended for 12 months meaning, as I understand it, that if he does nothing wrong in the probationary period no cofinement will be required. His family’s legal costs are £120,000.
There was a terrible train crash in north western Spain yesterday evening. A trackside security camera clearly shows the train was travelling too fast, at about double the speed it should have been, and could not take the bend it was going round. That speed caused carnage. Out of 218 passengers there were over 80 fatalities and 32 seriously hurt. It is plain the the cause was either the fault of the driver who has survived or regulator devices controlling the speed of the train. I expect it will be a combination of the two.
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 any accountable organisation storing personal data must be proportional in the private details it processes of citizens. The Information Commissioner’s Office held yesterday that the Hertfordshire Police Chief Constable was not doing that in relation to motorists passing through Royston. It appears every traffic lane in and out of the town is watched by cameras with number plate recognition technology. The ICO considers that to be an unwarranted invasion of our privacy. I wonder if the Chief Constable wished he were in charge of a section of our intelligence services. Then perhaps he could have told the ICO to get off his back as his action was in the interests of national security. Hertfordshire Constabulary say they will now work with the ICO to reach an acceptable compromise.
I believe Mr Obama is a person who tries his best to do the right thing. Yesterday America announced it was delaying delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt. 20 are due to be sent there of which eight have arrived. Proof that the desired message has been duly received, in my view, has been given by the response of Egypt’s military chief. He has reacted angrily and called for protests on the streets. The genteman should calm down a bit I suggest.
Just like the mother of the alleged Boston bombers before him I heard the father of the Ukranian postgraduate I wrote about on Tuesday, say on the radio news this morning that he did not believe it possible his son could have killed anyone.
The chairman of the Commons Health Select Committee was on Today yesterday talking about a report his group have written querying whether the NHS is prepared for the demands of next winter. It is a complicated difficult situation. However the advice is that each NHS component, A&E, social care, GPs and ambulances for example should have individual plans in place by the end of September for the challenging months ahead.
The radio news reported this morning the Pope saying, on his visit to Brazil, that the taking of drugs should not be legalised. He argued it would not help addicts.
There was a man on Today this morning from Monsato, the agricultural company which has been promoting the use of genetically modified crops in the EU. He said his firm has decided to withdraw from that sector of their business because of the political deadlock in the Union. I do find the timing of that announcement a little coincidental in view of my note of 20th June 2013 when Owen Paterson was saying GM crops are needed to provide the world’s future food basket.
26th July 2013
I have a concertina foldaway breakfast bar in my fitted kitchen. When I opened it this morning there was a young grasshopper on the lip. It was in a comatose state. As I tried to pick it up it managed one hop but that was it. I gathered it up between two newspapers and left it outside the front door.
The BBC this morning report that Italian police have arrested at least 115 people in an anti-Mafia operation. Three clans just outside Rome have been targeted plus the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria. In the south doctors, lawyers and businessman have been arrested in the town of Lamezia Terme. The report says the ‘Ndrangheta have links to Columbian drug cartels.
On 9th July 2013 I wrote a note about a barrister’s views on historic sexual abuse cases. I think it would be fair to say that the Attorney General Dominic Grieve and Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge do not agree with that opinion. On the application of the former in the appeal court Stuart Hall’s sentence has been increased from 15 months to 30.
That nasty law of unintended consequences was also in view today, this time for the Archbishop of Canterbury. I am not sure if he actually said it but headline writers were provocatively saying yesterday that he wants to put Wonga out of business. As he admits it is embarrassing for us to find out today that the Church of England indirectly invests in Wonga, through a company which owns them, to the extent of £75,000 out of their portfolio of £5.5 billion.
26th July 2013
A point Mr Welby made yesterday is that life is a complicated business. But that does not stop him trying to do what he thinks is the right thing. As an illustration there was a man on Today yesterday saying that C of E decision makers will invest in companies involved in payday loans, pornography or gambling as long as that activity represents no more than 25% of their total business. For military equipment it is 10% to friendly countries only. The wages and pensions of clergy of course have to be paid fron the Church’s investments.
When I was strolling between stadia at the Olympic Park last year a young man pushed a heavy supply trolley into the side of a walking lady in front of me. Initially I carried on but after about three seconds I decided I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. I went back and told him crossly I knew the silly game he was playing even if no one else did. If the lady had been hurt, rather than badly shocked, I would have taken it further. He made out to his two companions I must be a bit mad. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. This afternoon I had a very similar incident with an attractive 40ish, but young thinking I would guess, lady in a local supermarket.
For a change I thought I would do my food shopping in the village where I used to have my office. It has a store run by one of our big five groups. It is also a real Gang stronghold around here. Even on the fifteen minute drive there, without any advance warning, two motoring incidents were arranged for me. I and the lady first saw each other in the drinks section just as we were both finishing our purchases. It was then I think that she received a text on her mobile phone. She immediately followed me to the checkout. When she struck up the conversation she thought it was a secret joke I would willingly play along with. I imagine therefore she has had similar occurences before. When I was rude and difficult with her she was not phased at all. She is used to dealing with unexpected situations I am sure. She just remarked to the checkout operator I was obviously a bit strange. I sat on the bench outside the entrance on my way out. She had obviously had another message and been told to ask for the accompany to car service available to customers. That was a bit silly because when they got to her car she put all the bags into her boot herself. However as she walked past me she was distinctly anxious. Her friends thought she needed protection and that worried her. When she sits down this evening I hope she will think about the incident and realise she is on the periphery of a nasty, not harmlessly childish, group of people. She should say no thank you before it is too late.
I have no idea whether my actions will have helped her or not. She is one person. There are probably hundreds of thousands of people in this country like her. We cannot expect them to be able to better their lives unless we take the trouble to make the Gang story available to them should they wish to listen to it.
All the freezers and served chilled food counters in the shop were empty. The checkout girl told me the freezer equipment in the shop and warehouse had independently failed at the same time. They had managed to take some products to a nearby store but I imagine they lost a lot of stock. It must have been a very stressful time for the management.
On Tuesday I had a private meeting with two people in Maidstone. At one point the man raised the possibility of a person having a microchip embedded in their body. It did not seem to me to be particularly pertinent to what we were talking about at the time. I see from Wikipedia that pet chips, for identifying lost animals, do not have their own power source. They receive that from the scanner which reads them. However I imagine it would be possible to design one with a very small battery which would last for a year or so. On Thursday I had a visit from an advisor, a gentleman I trust, to my garden office. As we were chatting he mentioned about the microchipping of pets. I expect he might well have had a conversation with someone about it in his office just before he left to see me and it was fresh in his mind. From those incidents I wonder if someone wishes to give me a message. I had a hernia operation under general anaesthetic in my local hospital in 2007 as I describe in chaper 12 of my book. A mesh was inserted into my abdomen using keyhole surgery. A wonder if it had a Gang microchip within it.
If it did is it really wise for my Gang director to tell me now? Is that not a secret which would be best kept to himself? Is he not letting the cat out of the bag? I do not mind him knowing where I am if that is what turns him on. It makes me feel sorry for him but that is his problem not mine. After all if it were going to affect my health it would have happened before now.
I have mentioned before how a lot of us have to put up with the Gang pinpricks of life. With the Today programme those are in the technical field speaking to all those contributors away from their studio. They were talking about waffle this morning and played a clip from a December 2012 broadcast which I missed. The gremlins had been building up throughout the transmission until the unthinkable happened. John Humprys lost contact with the control room. To fill in he asked Evan Davies on air what he was doing for Christmas.
It has been a day of deadly protests in Egypt. Doctors say over 100 Muslim Brotherhood supporters have been shot dead in Cairo by the army. Because the generals did not order that action they seem to be in denial that it has actually happened. Well it did. They need to stop it.
I get so fed up sometimes that people do not seem to be able to understand how the Gang operate. If your soldiers are worked up, possibly in fear of their own safety and are encouraged to hate supporters of the Brotherhood, they are coils waiting to be unsprung. Put weapons in their hands feeling like that and you should not be surprised when they use them.
For similar reasons I believe it is why President Obama wishes to tighten gun laws in his country. 23 citizens would not be shot dead there every day if weapon ownership were less. The driver of emotion, it seems to me, is also why he should allow those who want, to consume narcotics in a regulated way, just as happens for alcohol. Without illegal drugs passing through Mexico the motive for killing 85,000 of their people since 2006 would have been removed.
On 28th June 2013 I wrote I was going to do a bit of analysis regarding use of my car. In fact it was all about my milk consumption which I wrote about in diary notes of 11th and 15th July 2011 in the chapter 12 appendix of my book. Those record me giving a part used carton of milk, which was making me feel unwell, to Kent Police for analysis. I also refer to a locked up feeling I get in my jaw and gums sometimes. It has been an ongoing story ever since then. I now keep my opened milk in a small fridge in my bedroom at night so that nothing can be added when I am asleep. The difficulty is what to do when I am out. In June I was leaving it in an ice box in my car. I have now moved onto different things. What I have been trying to work out since then is whether there is any correlation with how my mouth feels and the possibility that the Gang might have added anything to my milk or food I eat, such as my morning cereal. Through trying different variants I have decided I cannot be certain. Once I start thinking about my health I find it difficult to be certain what is actual and what is imagined. I think it is probably fair to say the way my mouth feels is more dependant on how I am in myself generally. If I am stressed or run down I become conscious of it for that reason not because I have consumed any form of drug.
28th July 2013
BBC radio news reported this morning that John Kerry has called on the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian army to step back from the brink. He has suggested a public inquiry should be held into yesterday’s killings.
From a report in Friday’s FT it seems the site of the Spanish rail crash was a piece of track where automatic overspeed protection should have applied meaning the driver could not go too fast. Perhaps the man realised that so thought the train could not come to harm even when he was acting stupidly. He is alleged to have readily admitted to journalists immediately after the accident that he was travelling at over twice the permitted speed. At that point he seemed to be looking at it as a game that had gone wrong. He had crashed a train. However perhaps the potential tragedy was also beginning to seep in. Apparently he said he hoped there had been no deaths because if there had he would have to have them on his conscience.
I have mentioned before that the Archbishop of Canterbury has by no means had a straightforward life. After listening to the Sunday Programme this morning I realise the same applies to the Pope who leaves Brazil today after a most successful visit. Approaching three million people have been with him overnight at a vigil on Copacabana beach. Cardinal Bertgoglio became leader of the Jesuits in Argentina in the 1970s. It seems he had an authoritarian nature and discommunicated two priests for not following his orders. That gave the State cover to be horrible to the two. It is alleged they were detained by the authorities for five months and tortured. Apparently the Cardinal subsequently appreciated he had done wrong when he was sent away to a province. He was absent for seven years latterly I think in Germany. When he came back he had transformed how he came over to people: to the man we see today.