24th June 2013
From the Live Page on it’s website I know there was due to be a report on Today last Thursday about Norway’s parliament voting overwhelmingly to conscript women into it’s armed forces as well as men. In the event it wasn’t broadcats no doubt after it was pushed out by other items. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it seems the only western European countries which currently have compulsory military conscription are Norway, Greece and Cyprus. Estonia, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Finland all have some form of alternative service. Sweden abolished conscription in 2010. The trend I would say is definitely for citizens not to be made to show loyalty to their country in that way.
It is reported this afternoon that a data glitch within it’s systems has exposed email addresses and telephone numbers of about six million Facebook users, to any people presumably who visit a particular person’s page. The BBC webpage says the error was discover by a programmer outside the company.
The brother of the man and three others, killed near Annecy last September has been arrested in Chessington today on suspicion of being involved in the murders.
I have just watched Dispatches on Channel 4 about the Special Demonstration Squad as I wrote about last Friday. It was based on the revelations of a former Met Police undercover officer both about the Stephen Lawrence enquiries and relationships with female activists. Stephen, who was black, was stabbed to death at a South London bus stop in 1993 in a random racial attack by white youths.
It appears that instructions were given to the squad to infiltrate circles containing friends and contacts of Stephen’s family, who wanted to expose the disinterested nature of official investigations, to see if any embarrassing details cound be unearthed. The intention presumably would then have been to leak those to the press to discredit the family. The police today have not denied that happened. David Cameron has said the allegations are horrific and we must get the truth out. The Home Secretary has asked for the matter to be included in an inquiry being carried out into police corruption from the time by Mark Ellison QC and also Operation Herne which is looking into secret policing aspects. On 22nd April 2013 I wrote about the high profile turn out, which surpised me, at the memorial service for Stephen at St Martins in the Fields. That makes a lot more sense to me now.
In some ways though I feel the other expose is more important as it throws a light on the way ordinary people work. Over the last few moths we have found out about cases of men having sexual relations with children. This is about heterosexual adults having sex with each other, a mainstream leisure activity. It seems to show how some women can fall in love with men extremely easily. And how some men can use that tendency to promote their own egos to themselves. Such traits I feel can make women unequal partners in our society. The commander of the SDS at the time seemed to think it was quite acceptable for his men to have sex with women in their targeted groups. Secrecy of course was paramount and his advice apparently was to wear a condom and not to fall in love. The programme interviewed some of the women involved. One said that after being deceived like that you find it very hard to trust again. Close or loving relationships become out of reach. I think today’s top Met policemen realise they will be facing the music in due course. Their statement says that at some point this generation will have to account for the activities of their predecessors. For the moment however they are concentrating on obtaining an accurate record.
Andrew Mitchell was on Today this morning speaking to a paper he has written on the future of international aid. In Mr Mitchell’s view our priority should be on encouraging entrpreneurship in developing countries not just giving money to alleviate suffering. He says that is what the Commonwealth Development Corporation, now CDC Group Plc, was set up to do.
I suspect there may be a lot more to come out on the CQC story. I think I understand better now what the MP on the World at One last week, as I referred to on Saturday, might have been thinking. For a start even this morning it is difficult to work out the facts of the matter, which is a good sign in itself of Gang activity. However after listening to the deputy chief executive of the CQC on Today this morning my present understanding is as follows, contrary to what I wrote last week. The internal review in fact had nothing to do with the investigation into the deaths at Furness Hospital. It was a review into the newly created CQC’s regulatory role, to establish that at University Hospitals of Morcambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust responsible for Furness Hospial, the CQC were properly carrying out their statutory function. At that fateful meeting in March 2012, with four people in the room, it was decided the review as presented was not up to standard. I imagine the lady who wrote it might have been quite upset by that put down and possibly that is why recollections now of what was said between the four differ so markedly. Indeed it seems she might have felt so badly done by, with a little help from her friends, that she mistakenly thought she had a terrible story to reveal. At any rate Grant Thornton were informed of the existence of that internal regulatory review as soon as they were appointed later in the year. They decided to believe one version of what was said at the meeting rather than others. The fact that they redacted names when they published their report last week was, as far as the press are concerned, like a red rag to a bull. In the view of the lady on Today it created a media feeding frenzy. I would like to make two comments relating to those events.
I have remarked in my notes about cars driving around here in pairs. The senior person is in front and the lowly Gang helper follows. There is no pervading danger to anyone however where I live as far as I am aware. It is all completely pointless. I am sure it is supposed to be to protect the leading senior Gang helper. In fact I think it’s real purpose is to make that person fearful. To make them think they need protecting. I suspect the redactions of names was probably along the same lines.
Then I had always thought Grant Thornton were an accounting firm. However looking at Wikipedia I see that must have been the position some years ago. Now they are a global network of independent firms providing professional services, accounting and consulting. I wrote about the Stobart Group on 4th June 2013. Similary my impression had been that Eddie Stobart was a trucking firm. Now they are an international multimodal logistical concern. The Guardian tells me the Mr Stobbart then in charge sold his interest in the business in 2004 and moved to Coventry from Cumbria to start a business building horse boxes. He filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and died in 2011 at the age of 56 from heart problems.
The author of the Francis report, Robert Francis QC, was also on the programme talking about performance generally in the NHS. One interesting point I understood him to make was that NHS staff shouldn’t try to be bigger and better than they actually are. Their job is to look after patients. They should wish and do that as honestly and transparently as they can, admitting all the warts they find on the way.
George Osborne has tweeted this morning that he has reached agreement with all spending departments for future government expenditure restrictions. Nick Robinson said on the broadcast that he thought there had been a lot of political shenanigans going on. He suspected one of the purposes of bringing in the cuts now was to embarrass Labour; and the Ministers who resisted hardest were those with political ambition.
Edward Luce gives a whole string of reasons in today’s FT why he thinks the Republican Party are losing touch with the changing nature of the American public. It seems that most of them are a pretty ungovernable bunch. Perhaps it will have to be the political wilderness that brings them to their senses in due course.
25th June 2013
I hope the coincidential nature of this is not passing anyone by. First Edward Snowden was on the egde of Chinese jurisdiction in Hong Kong; with a Gang hope, I suggest, that America and China would fall out over him. Now, by all accounts, he is sitting in a Russian airside airport hotel so he is not technically inside Russia. If that is right he currently shows no sign of moving. You can almost feel the blood pressure of American and Russian commentators rising.
Ian Brady, the Moors Murderer, wants to be transferred from a mental health hospital to prison. His application is being heard by a three person tribunal where he is held. Normally such cases are heard in private but this one is being beamed live to interested journalists and members of the public elsewhere. I think that is a good thing. It would not have happened a couple of years ago I feel.
I heard on a Newspaper Review on Today this morning that Ed Miliband will be going to this morning’s meeting of the National Security Committee at the invitation of the Prime Minister. It is the second time he has attended. The first was soon after military action started in Libya in 2011. It is anticipated Syria will be discussed.
The have been a few people around this morning, as well as Stephen Lawrence’s father last night, saying the only way of getting to the bottom of the workings of the Special Demonstration Squad, is to have a judge led public inqiry. One of the Lawrence family’s lawyers was on Today this morning. Michael Mansfield QC said that the SDS, in existence for some 40 years and containing up to 130 officers at one time, must have been funded and authorised by some pretty senior Met policemen.
Sir Bernard Hogan Howe was out and about during the day making conciliatory noises. I feel he was saying he is happy withe the Home Secretary’s dual enquiry approach. However he did leave the door open for a focused Leveson type investigation. If that was what the government or parliament wanted he said he would of course support it.
I wrote about sexting on 12th December 2012. Unlike young teenagers being manipulated by their elders it is where they are horrible to each other in an unthinking gang like culture. Today were talking about it this morning. There is no single solution it seems but with ones so young I do not think you should want to attribute labels of criminality.
Today’s FT reports that the head of Euopol says the financial crisis has led to an explosion of Organised Crime. He tells us there are 3,600 criminal syndicates active across the continent dealing in counterfeit goods, with 60 or more nationalities in some groups, and turning over 2 billion euros annually.
A piece in that paper quotes a former congressional insider as saying there are a hard core of about 30 Republican Party members in the House of Representatives who will not betray their beliefs, as I expect they see it, no matter what their leadership does or says to them.
Sheikhdoms are conservative institutions. It is surprising therefore I think that the 61 year old Emir of Qatar is stepping down in favour of his son. Qatar is small and rich and has been instrumental in the support of the Syrian rebels. I feel it likely that will have been a factor in the mix somewhere.
The Brazilian president has made a detailed response to protestors today. She is proposing reforms in five specific areas and also envisages a referendum in due cousre to allow the people to have a final say.
Where it has come from we haven’t been told but Channel 4 News played a recording of two senior executives of Anglo Irish Bank talking on the telephone this evening a couple of days after Lehman Brothers went into liquidation in September 2008. It is a real eye opener. They were fully aware that their bank was insolvent but that did not mean anything to them at all. The crisis just triggered a new phase of the game. They knew their government would be in a state of panic. One said to the other that the way to play it was to pull the state into their sticky swamp for a reasonably small sounding number. Once they were in they could take them for as much as they wanted. The government would not be able to climb out. The back of the fag packet number was 7 billion euros; the final amount nearly 30 billion.
President Obama has chosen to speak in front of young people again, this time at Georgetown University, when giving his climate change speech today. He wishes to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels, by the end of the decade. He is starting off by using his executive authority to make changes. Because of Republican opposition he would not be able to get any laws passed by Congress.
26th June 2013
As far as I know our courts cannot change statute but in the States it appears they can, Their Supreme Court, by a 5-4 verdict of nine judges, has overruled the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act because it defines marriage as only possible between a man and woman, thereby discriminating against same sex couples. That would be against the American Constitution I believe. Twelve states currenly recognise gay marriage and 30 do not allow it to take place in their jurisdiction.
Following my note on Saturday Julia Gillard has now lost her job as Australian Prime Minister after her Party voted for Kevin Rudd to be their new leader. A general election is currently due in September. I see a comment on the BBC website by Nick Bryant that the two were once friends but she ruthlessly deposed him as leader in 2010. They have fueded ever since. Their public comments this time have been generous. Ms Gillard says she will be leaving politics.
A former airline pilot has been jailed for life today for murdering his wife as they were about to be divorced. Somehow he got her to get into the passenger seat of his car. He then crashed it and she was killed instantly. He adopted the brace position and was not seriously hurt. Her seatbelt was undone and her airbag did not work: his did. In my view the husband would not have had the confidence and resources to go through with that wicked scheme without the hidden help and encouragement of the Gang.
A BBC webpage yesterday reported that the German justice minister has written to the government asking for clarification about excatly what GCHQ has been up to, and whether their activities have impinged on German citizens. (I later heard that a reply went back by return asking the Germans to please address their query to GCHQ). Also that Liberty is applying to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to rule whether the security services have breached the right to privacy of some of it’s staff under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act. The campaigning group obviously has reason to believe other people know private things about them they shouldn’t.
Liberty are in the news again today, this time because it would like to see an amendment to the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Bill so that in future any undercover policing operations must be approved by a High Court judge. At the moment only a senior police officer’s authorisation is required. The government suggests going forward that the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, a division of the Home Office, should be the regulator.
At her suggestion Theresa May is meeting Stephen’s mother Doreen tomorrow in the company of her lawyers. The government is obviously open to argument. David Cameron said in the Commons today if more needs to be done it will be. The requirement is that truthful answers are finally found for the Lawrence family.
Today William Hague is in America. It is not secret as he has given a public speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in California on the invitation of Nancy Reagan. He is clear in what he wants to say. The secret services of both nations are there to keep us safe. Some countries wish to control their citizens using secrecy, some wish to spy on other countries in secret, the furtherance of war is plotted in secret, terrorists wish to harm us within secrecy, criminals wish to steal from us in secret. With all that going on the good guys have to act in secret as well. A point very well put.
Yet it all comes down to the T word again. It is not that I don’t want to believe Mr Hague, I do. But when you have battled against the odds, not only in recent years but all your life, he is asking a lot. Trust in my view should not be given, it should be earnt.
In chapter 5 of my book I write about another speech made by Mr Hague at the Foreign Office in November 2011. I refer to the heads of our three security services as sitting in the front row grinning like Cheshire cats. One of those three is no longer in his post. Mr Hague would not have flown over 5000 miles solely to make a speech at a private library in my view. I have looked on the internet but can find no detail about his trip. Whatever his reasons for being in the States at the moment we are being asked to trust that he is acting in the nation’s best interests.
Sarah Montague is in Afghanistan for a few days for the Today programme. This morning she spoke to our commander at Lashkar Gah. After the problems of attacks by turned Afghani personnel he said you have to learn who to trust. He has personal protection when he thinks he needs it but the local army leaders he knows he has absolute confidence in. His aspiration is that he will go back as a tourist in ten years time to see that area in tranquility. Yesterday the presidential palace and neighbouring CIA offices were attacked by the Taliban. Afterwards President Obama offered his support to President Karzai in a video call which I feel was good of him.
I have been up in London today. I was observed by a Gang director I believe whilst in a Macdonalds, just to amuse himself no doubt. It might have been unjustified bravado or it could be they know something we don’t.
George Osborne announced spending cuts of £11.5 billion in the Commons today for the finacial year 2015/16 taking us into the start of the next parliament. The security services are the biggest winners with an increase in budget of 3.4% to £1.7 billion.
I heard on the radio news this morning that News International is changing it’s name to News UK after 20 of the group’s jornalists have been arrested in connection with phone hacking enquiries. Within the bulletin it is explained it is a rebranding exercise so that we don’t associate the new name with those past troubles. I appreciate the confidence of the BBC to report that. It is amazing what you can do just with names. It is a perception thing.
Mr Putin was in Finland yesterday where he compared Edward Snowden with Julian Assange, two men who want to expose secret information to the public. I think he is exactly right. And that commonality no doubt is why it is said Mr Snowden has Wikileaks lawyers with him. I hope they have Mr Snowden’s best interests at heart. Mr Snowden’s complaint of course is against the American state which I don’t think the President feels particularly kindly towards. But even so Mr Putin indicated he did not wish to get sucked into Edward’s story.
27th June 2013
A BBC webpage published this afternoon reports Equador as saying it cannot give Edward Snowden asylum at the moment as he has not reached any of it’s diplomatic premises. You can only imagine he has not got on a plane yet on the advice of the Wikileaks lawyers with him. Exactly why they feel that is a productive thing to do you can only speculate.
Mr Obama has been speaking about the Prism programme and Mr Snowden whilst in his Africa trip, in Senegal today. He wants a healthy effective debate on America’s surveillance programmes. He himself is satisfied the existing balance between privacy and national security is about right. He is not going to get het up about Mr Snowden who may have details of some of America’s secrets he has not yet disclosed. The President makes the point that all countries are part of a global community and should have an interest in abiding by international law.
I wrote about police trailer contact points rotating around my local supermarket car parks on 18th Januery 2013. Apparently it was an election pledge of our Police and Crime Commissioner to increase rural policing and that is now being rolled out through the provision of six new dedicated units, presumably using Kent Police’s budget. The mobile stations will make 360 visits to 180 locations each month where it is felt they are most needed.
Doreen Lawrence said her meeting with Theresa May this morning was encouraging. Labour are also now calling for a public inquiry as well as Mrs Lawrence. She is meeting with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe tomorrow. He aappeared this morning before the London Assembly. I thought he spoke cautiously. He said he could not guarantee improper practices do not still take place within his force. He is alert to the possiblity but as far as he knows the Met is clean. All checks take place to keep it that way as can be devised.
Early, Today this morning reported on a speech made by Egyptian president Morsi a year after his election. Things are difficult, people are fighting amongst themselves. The president recognises that but he does not seem to be a uniforming force.
The news had a recording of the new Australian prime minister in reflective mood in parliament. He reminded members we all have families and emotions. He did not sound hopeful but he asked if they could try and be a bit kinder and gentler with each other.
The Sentencing Council is a statutory advisory committee comprising judicial and other members. The programme reports that the body is proposing sentences for fraud should be more related to the harm that is caused to the victim. The more hateful the crime, such as charging old people inordinate amounts for little jobs around their homes, the more severe should be the sentence. Apparently 16,000 people were sentenced for fraud in 2011 which cost the UK economy £73 billion last year.
Much mention was made of shale gas, as I mentioned on 12th Decemebr 2012, throughout the transmission. It seems we have more than we thought trapped in our rocks and need to find out how economical it would be to extract it. The attitude of local people near drilling sites is also recognised as an issue which needs addressing.
Today’s FT reports that besides the intelligence services, counter terrorism policing has been protected from the general 4.9% reduction in the policing budget of forces in England and Wales. In 2012 that provision took it’s full share of the 20% cut in the police funding allocation.
An article in the paper says that President Obama’s trip to Atrica is all about trade and the promotion of commercial ties. He will announce the creation of the Power Africa Fund to support the development of electricity infratructure across the continent. That area of course is where Pakistan has a lot of difficulties at the moment.
28th June 2013
I went out yesterday afternoon for a pre-arranged appointment in my local town. I left my car in my normal place at the side of the road in a limited parking bay. When I got back a man was standing on the pavement by the car. The previous time I went out in my car by appointment I parked at my local Sainsbury’s. A most unsavoury looking man, but in a very nice car, left with me. Ever thought someone is trying to tell you something? I am pretty sure now that the Gang have obtained a copy of my car keys from Ford. If so I think I know what they are up to. However, in order to be sure, I need to cut out one or two variables which I will do over the next couple of weeks. It is a long story. I shall let my dairy know.
Having written that, I remember I need to follow up my note of 1st June 2013 about my stockbroker. I had decided to raise an invoice for £100 dated 1st May 2013 for the time and expense I had been put to in dealing with the error. The firm interpreted that as a claim for compensation and credited the sum to my dealing account on 17th June 2013. Regarding the direct debit failure they told me new information had come to light but did not tell me what is was. As a result they contacted HMRC and wrote to me on 5th June 2013 to say they had been authorised to repair my ISA for last year. I was invited to make my 2012/13 subscription. When I raised the practical query that the company’s computer systems are set up to put any subsrciption into my 2013/14 plan the complaint handler asked me to let him know when I make the payment. He would then ensure it is transferred back. I am a bit short of spare cash at the moment but I will do that when I can.
I wrote about the Russian meteor on 15th February 2013 and subsequently. A BBC webpage reports this morning that some published material in the Geophysical Research Letters produced by a group including a man from the Atomic Energy Commission in France say the shock wave from the asteroid travelled around the globe twice.
A sermon will be read out during prayers in 500 mosques today reminding the faithfull the Koran instructs Muslims to protect children and the vunerable. The author says he wants to get over the taboo of talking about sex in the Mosque. If men are disrespectful against girls they will be disrespectful towards them when they grow up.
The father of Edward Snowden was speaking on US television this morning. Whether anyone has spoken to him I do not know but he seems to have a good appreciation of how these things work. He says he has not spoken to his son since April but of course that does not mean he has had no, possibly indirect, contact with him. He says he is worried that Edward is being led up the garden path by Wikileaks lawyers who he suspects wish to push their own agendas. Mr Snowden Senior must also be a man of action. His solicitor has written to the US Attorney General to establish whether America would be prepared to allow Edward bail if he returned home, could speak freely if he wished and not have a trial venue imposed on him.
A BBC webpage reported on Wednesday that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says the UK has the biggest market in the EU for legal substances that imitate the effects of illegal drugs. 23%, 670,000, of our 15-24 year olds have tried them. However the problem apparently is twice as bad in the USA than Europe.
A Vatican former banker cleric, a former secret service agent and a financial broker have all been arrested today on supicion of trying to illegally import 20 million euros into Italy from Switzerland. The means of transport would have been a goverment plane which I understand was on the Swiss airport tarmac for a couple of days before flying off empty. It seems likely some of the suspected crooks realised they were being watched and got cold feet.
It look as though American politicians could be dividing along seniority lines. Yesterday half of Congress,the Senate, passed by a good margin an immigration reform bill to allow 11 million clandestine resident outsiders to become legal citizens of the country after they have lived there for 13 years. For legally established people who feel the need of protection in the future an extra $38 billion will be spent on Mexican border security. New items will include 20,00 additional guards, extra fencing, electronic surveillance and unmanned spotter drones. The House of Representatives however are still not convinced. Many of them cannot stomach that law breakers should get away with it. Business leaders, the weight of new voters and many christians however think the change would be a sensible move.
Today has been reporting this morning on a solution to prevent inherited lack-of-energy miltochrhondial diseases. Arrarently one in 6,500 babies are affected by the condition. It is caused by defects in about 37 of the 20,000 genes we start off with when we are born. The process is to replace those bad ones from the mother by replacing them with good ones taken from a donated egg from another woman using IVF techniques. All human characterists of the baby, inherited from it’s parents, are left unaltered and when adult the little one will pass on that new protection to it’s own progeny. The government are going to introduce legislation to authorise the process later this year and expects it to be up and running within two years. We will see how that goes but I would be surprised if there are great objections for such an obviously good reason. Nevertheless the potential irony of the situation is clearly there. It might be we will not object to genectically modifying ourselves but many of us do for plants growing in the ground.
Before 7am I learnt that the goverment have allocated £160 million so that all court hearings can be fully computerised by 2016. Any documents within the legal system will be accessible by the judge in the courtroom and counsel for both sides. I hope that will cheer up the lawyers a bit.
I personally think it is absolutely essential when you are trying to bring about change that you only try and take with you those who want to come. The ones who feel uncomfortable or fearful can join when they are ready. In that vein about 99% of vascular surgeons are publishing the results of their operations on the NHS Choices website today accessible for any interested person to view. That leaves about 30 who are not sure about it. There is no problem about that at all. Their views should be respected.
As a heard on Yesterday in Parliament on the broadcast Liberal Democrat Treasury Minister Danny Alexander announced the government’s intention to spend £100 billion on improving our infrastucture in the future, half of it in 2015/16. That is a large figure which will create quite a few jobs although some people are saying it is not all new money. Anyway it will go on everything from new homes, road improvements and flood defences to new schools, better broadband and shale fracking. I listened to the speaker make a couple of interventions but I think in part he subsequently lost his voice.
To date we have lost 444 servicemen in Afghanistan with our presence in the country costing us, according to a former Kabul UK ambassador, £40 billion. Sarah Montague interviewed a very considered Commander of British Forces in Helmand on the programme. He felt the local population in his patch will not allow the return of the Taliban. They have a taste of the freedoms available when the insurgents are not around. His sense is that they will not let that opportunity drop. He says the Afghan fighting forces are impressive.
I mentioned lap dancing on 15th February 2013. The edition had an interview this morning with a a former shop manageress who is now a lap dancer. She was completely unaffected in my view. She said she loves the job and finds it empowering. She gets paid about £50,00 a year. Human beings are marvellously complicated. We should not try to over simplify them.
Yesterday the energy regulator, Ofgem, warned of the possibility of power shortages in a couple of years time. I suspect the statement was Gang influenced. As it is their job to look after us I think that touched a bit of a raw nerve with the government. Energy Minister Michael Fallon was on Newsnight last night and appeared to pour cold water on the idea. Today however their comment has been a bit more measured. If National Grid thought it appropriate to balance out demand, by making payment to large consumption businesses to vary their usage for example, the government would have no objection at all.
29th June 2013
On 28th April 2013 I wrote about the Chinese being personal with Mr Cameron. I am pleased to see from yesterday’s FT they have got over it. We are no longer in their deep freeze and consequently there will be a summit between our our two leading ministers later in the year.
But much more significantly than that, in my view, a turn of the page tells me that China has for the first time has said it will contribute combat troops to a UN peacekeeping mission. They will also send policemen, medics and engineers to a contingent that is being created for Mali. It is a small start in a continent where they have big strategic interets but even so roll on that world government.
Anna Fifield has a piece in the paper remarking how public opinion in America has changed so rapidly on the subject of gay marriage. Neither Hilary Clinton nor Barack Obama supported the principle in the presidential campaign in 2008 but it will definitely be in her list if Mrs Clinton runs for that high office in 2016. Overall 55% of the American public consider same sex couples should be free to marry. For those under thirty the majority is about 80%. I think politicians should lead. In this case perhaps someone might have a quiet word with the Republican Party about where they should be facing.
A report in the edition says that Iran, Russia and China are protecting the Syrian economy financially against western sanctions. With their recent military gains I imagine that makes the regime feel pretty good.
A piece there also passes on a Guardian report saying that America brought in email surveillance in 2001, immediately after 9/11 I would think. The names of senders and recipients were recorded I believe as well as the Internet Provider for the sender but not the words within the email. From 2007 American emails were included in the trawl. The programme stopped in 2011.
The edition also goes through the case of an Australian gentleman who was working for Royal Bank of Scotland in New York in 2009. He recieved some insider information from a friend, traded some shares when he shouldn’t and made $8,000 profit. By December 2012 he was working for the bank in Hong Kong and agreed to reurn to America to face trial. The extradition process from Hong Kong took three months in which time he was kept in solitary confinement in a psychiatric prison, permanently held in handcuffs. He is now in America on bail waiting for his court date to be set.
I think Philip Stephens’ message in the paper in meant for the Chinese leadership as much as anyone else. We live in fast changing times. The poorer parts of the world are getting better off. As that process accelerates young materially comfortable people realise how dissatisfied they are with the corruption, poor public services and inequality they see around them. They are not political but they know the difference between right and wrong. Unless Chinese leaders can see the signs in the tea leaves provided by recent unrest in Turkey and Brazil they may come to regret it. In the past I think our politicians thought it was all about money. The Gang still do. It is not.
I did not notice but a man called Marc Rich died last week. A contributor writes about him in the issue. He created one of the world’s largest natural resources companies in the 1970s by trading directly with developing countries cutting out the restrictive practices of large global companies. In doing that he became involved in bribery and corruption. He saw bribery as a normal business cost, breaking various laws on the way. In recent years the FBI wanted to arrest him. The author though feels that overall he did an immense amount of good for emerging states.
It is stating the obvious I suppose but I thought David Cameron made a very political speech in Brussels yesterday, for his home audience, at the end of an EU two day meeting. He praised the Daily Telegraph for exposing an apparently inappropriate and costly children’s book produced to explain the workings of the European Parliament. Then he also had a dig at some of the other leaders for ambushing him at 1am to try and change the terms of the previously agreed UK budget rebate. He resisted he said with great vigour.
A very different feel to Today this morning. We were played out to a lovely live folk song from Glastonbury. Mick Jagger, son of Dartford in Kent, told us how he sees the world. It really raised the spirits.
I have just listened to an interesting start to Any Questions originally broadcast yesterday evening. The question was whether the panellists were surprsied by the past corrupt practices of the police in relation to the Stephen Lawrence affair. No doubt wishing to appear right and proper three said they were and the fourth sounded neutral. Then Jonathan Dimbleby asked the audience, from affluent Hampshire, for a show of hands on their view. The vast majority said they were not surprised at all.
One of the persons on the stage was the barrister chair of the bar council. I was pleased to hear her give us her views on the various issues of the day. She said that currently QCs are paid £500 per day in court for the most complicated criminal cases. The government propose that the figure should be reduced to £350. I had a builder tidying up and painting my swimming pool enclosure in the garden for me last week. (He said he found some death watch beetle in the window frames.) His charge out rate was £200 per day. I was very happy with the job he did for me.
I was never told about the 1937-45 Sino-Japanese war at school. I am not sure why because it was obviously quite a significant world event. Possibly 15 million Chinese lost their lives, nearly twenty times the number of all British and American war dead combined. Separately Japan joined the second world war in 1941 after it’s attack on Pearl Harbor. With a history like that you cannot expect older Chinese and Japenese people to think kindly towards each other. Indeed Simon Kuper says in last Saturday’s FT magazine that some Chinese hate their nearby neighbours with such fervour it embarrasses their own government. The Gang are just the sort of people who will try and exacerbate underlying tensions like that. The Chinese leadership, in my view, will have to handle things carefully.
The paper that day notes that the extra banking controls introduced by the new Prudental Regulation Authority seem to have been thought up in the the two weeks before, possibly at the suggestion of it’s chairman Sir Mervyn King. It was decided a new leverage test should be introduced to make sure financial institutions hold sufficent capital funds to protect their normal business operations. On that basis Nationwide Building Society came out worse and will have to find an extra £2 billion. It’s chief executive was not at all pleased.
The edition also reports that Russia is taking steps to stimulate it’s economy as it is slowing like the west’s after our 2008 shock. $13.7 billion is going to be spent on infrastucture projects.
The same page has a much longer report on what was going on in the Chinese economy the week before. It seems they had a credit crunch, again just like we did in 2008. The authorities knew exactly what to do however and immediately released funds into the system. It only lasted one day I think. As the government control all aspects of the economy the analysis is that it was as much down to human error as anything else. Ludicrous as it sounds, after the Dragon Day holiday last month the authorities seem to have forgotten to put liquidity back into the banking system.
Geoff Dyer writes there about a difference in personalities between President Obama and his Secretary of State. It seems Mr Kerry is much keener than Mr Obama to actively involve America in the Syrian civil war and take risks in the Middle East peace process to get things moving. No two people can see eye to eye on everything. I am sure they will be able to work it through.
Further in a small piece confirms that the 49 year old BT chief executive is unexpectedly resigning his job, for which he was paid £8.5 million in the last period, and is to be ennobled by the government. David Cameron has persuaded him to become the coalition’s Trade Minister, sitting in the House of Lords, starting in December. I have a BT email account. Until last summer I felt that not all my email traffic was performing as it should. It was a worry to me. At that time however BT introduced Microsoft Office 365 which has an encryption system I think for emails. Everything has been fine since then. It has made a big difference to me.
David Cameron has been in Afghanistan today supporting the troops on Armed Forces Day. Then he made a personal visit to see Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace which was attacked during the week, to show his support there also I feel. That was good of him as well.
30th June 2013
President Obama is currently on the second leg of his African trip, in South Africa. Today he will visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was kept in jail for 18 years. He says that the lifetime moral courage of Mr Mandela has been an inspiration to him personally and should be to the world, now and in the future.
A BBC webpage reports this morning that the World Health Organisation at a conference in Kuala Lumpor is recommending that HIV treatment for affected patients in developing countries should start earlier than currently. If implemented they reckon it will save 3 million lives by 2025. As always though, of course, the sting is in the cost. It will increase the treatment budget by 10% or £15 billion.
I see that Andy Murray is writing a blog on the BBC website during Wimbledon. I feel that shows great maturity and confidence. He has quite enough else to think about at the moment trying to win his matches. I think he wants to do his bit for us.
I wrote on 15th June 2013 about us getting used to communication surveillance, there to keep us safe we hope. With the help of his Wikileaks lawyers, I suspect, Edward Snowden has been in contact with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. He has told them that EU offices in Washington and New York have been bugged by American authorities in the past. Not unsurprisingly the head of the European Parliament has been pretty shocked by that.
Apparently three quarters of the world’s 7 billion people live in countries with significant restrictions on their religous freedom. Baroness Berridge, chair of parliament’s All Party Group on International Religous Freedom was on the Sunday Programme this morning. She said that the only official currently dealing with the problem at the UN has a part time voluntary post. She does not think that is good enough. The subject is likely to become the big human rights issue of the next ten to twenty years she feels.
The programme had a piece on the Supreme Court gay marriage ruling in the States last week. It played a clip of Republican Tea Party lady Michelle Bachmann speaking about it. She said the decision was an attack on the God created institution of marriage. I don’t think she is right about that. Churches derive their faith and practices from God but the responsibility for what they do must be theirs alone. God did not create marriage, we did. You cannot cannot transfer responsibility onto an unseen deity who very few people believe they can talk to directly.
The Today Programme had a discussion during the week about hospital chaplains. They are paid for by the NHS as part of their holistic service and are being reduced in numbers within overall NHS efforts to stop it’s care bill increasing. I found out on the Sunday Programme that the information about the reduction has come from research commissioned by BBC local radio stations. An excerpt was played from a Radio Essex broadcast. The lady said that she found the visit from the hospital chaplain to her nearly unconcious father to be inspirational. She referred to the Reverend as a knight in shining armour.
This morning David Cameron was in Pakistan talking to the new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, about regional stability, trade and security. This afternoon he has travelled to Kazakhstan, which I see is a former Soviet Union republic rich in natural resources and the size of western Europe. It is due north of Afghanistan nort east of the Caspian Sea.