29th July 2013
It seems to me the Gang are really scraping the barrel if they wish to resurrect our past difficulties with Spain over Gibralta. As I was growing up I remember they were in the headlines all the time, year after year. The two countries were like squabbling children. I see from Wikipedia that Spain permanently ceded the rock to us by treaty in 1713. However they have decided they would like it back. Things started getting difficult in the modern era when the Queen visited Gibralta in 1954. The border was shut in 1969 and did not reopen until 1985. Cover for the current trouble is that last week the Gibraltarians started creating an artificial reef using concrete blocks in it’s waters which Spanish boatmen claim will hinder their fishing activities. Over the weekend the Spanish state has been retaliating by conducting a go slow at the border. It took some vehicles nearly six hours to get through.
Last week it was announced Jane Austen would be on the reverse of a new design of £10 note. Some particularly wanted a woman’s face to be shown including the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez. On the day of the announcement the lady strated to receive msogynistic messages to her Twitter account, some 600 apparently over a 12 hour period. Ms Criado-Perez decided she wanted to fight back and went public on the story. Her action seems to have touched a public chord. Then the Labour MP Stella Creasy was on the World at One today. Some men have tweeted her threatening to go to her home and rape her. The point which strikes me about the story is, as such things have been going on for a considerable time it seems, how come the general public were not told about it. I thought that is what we have journalists for. It should not have to be necessary for two victimised woman, and others now speaking out, to have to wake us up like that.
Part of the trouble it seems have been Twitter themselves. They do have a reporting of abuse procedure but it is form based for each individual instance. There is no automated facility. The suspicion is they have set it up that way just to save money. I hope they will now create an internet age reporting system and take effective enforcement action against all inappropriate behaviour.
The talking starts in Washington today. They will not be substantive negogiations but just to agree procedural details and what needs to be discussed, and where, for the future. To show their goodwill the Israelis are releasing over 100 Palestinian prisoners. Both sides I think have decided to have a referendum on any proposed settlement. I feel that is sensible. With the history involved there will be a lot of unhappy people around whatever might be agreed. The best cover for the politicians I would agree is for them to have a majority of their voters behind them. That process would also act as a tool of discipline. There would be no point pushing the other side so far that their citizens would not find the terms acceptable.
There was a bad accident on a main road near Naples yesterday. A coach approaching a slow moving line of traffic on a viaduct bridge lost control, hit them and smashed through the barrier into the valley below. At least 38 have been killed including the coach driver. There are reports of a loud bang and damage to the coach before it reached the cars. I am sure the reasons for the crash will be ascertained in due course.
Then this evening came news of another train crash this time in Switzerland, near Bern. Two trains hit head on injuring at least 40. I would have thought that could have been a lot worse.
Today’s FT reports that the government have given the Serious Fraud Office £2 million so it can carry out a fully resourced investigation into allegations of misconduct in the private bail out Barclays received from Qatar Holding in the autumn of 2008.
30th July 2013
My business received a letter from the Head of Customer and Operational Insight at the Valuation Office yesterday. The government Agency wished me to know they have embarked on a research project to explore customers’ knowledge of their valuations and appeals process. Their customers are my clients. On a random basis they inform me they may have contacted some of my clients, using the information I have provided to them, for their research project.
That does seem a little strange to me. The say they wish to make subsequent contact with customers who have had dealings with them. That category does not include any of my clients. It is only me who deals with the Agency on their behalf. If the VOA have contacted any of my clients I hope they have had the sense to tell them to clear off.
Having written that paragraph though makes me think of something else.
The Rating Consultancy business I have been operating for the last 27 years is called Kites Surveyors. My website is now a little out of date. Under my professional indemnity insurance requirements I only now do rating appeal work. I had anticipated being fully retired around this time, as nearly all my instructions have been completed. However due to taxation considerations which have arisen this year I find I wish to continue trading for another 12 months. I offer an efficient, professional, courteous service. If any of my readers, or their acquaintances, would like me to check the corectness of their business property rates on a no win/no fee basis I would be pleased to do so.
It is reported this morning that Baroness Catherine Ashton, foreign affairs chief at the EU, had a two hour meeting last night with Mohammed Morsi at the secret location where he is being held by Egyptian authorities. I feel that is a positive step. The Egyptian army need to find a non violent way out of their situation.
It seems as though our powers that be want to make sure the finances of Barclays Bank are once and for all put onto a strong footing. They are a Footsie top 30 company with total assets of $2.4 trillion so troubles for them going forward are troubles for us all. The Prudential Regulation Authority in the Bank of England, now under the leadership of Mark Carney, have told Barclays that equity capital fron private investors must fund 3% of their balance sheet. That money will then be forfeited if they run into bad loan trouble or other financial loss in the future. The sum to be raised on the markets I believe is £7.8 billion.
There was a photo released last week of Mark Carney holding a picture of the new £10 bank note for it’s launch. He was standing next to three ladies. I did not realise until last night when I was watching Newsnight but two of his companions were Ms Criado-Perez and Ms Creasy whom I wrote about yesterday. Knowing how the Gang’s thought processes work I would say the Twitter story was more about Mr Carney then the ladies. The women were being used as stooges to illustrate to him how powerful the Gang’s hidden influence is and, if he wants a quiet private life, he should do what is expected of him.
The Commons Home Affairs Select Committee has published a report on internet fraud and say we are making it far too easy for the criminals, a quarter of whom are based in Russia and eastern Europe. It is far more profitable for them than robbing a bank and there is no virtually no chance of getting caught. We are the first target for gangs in 25 countries. Apparently we currently have 800 specialist law enforcement officers working on the problem. However up to a quarter of those could be lost in the current public sector budget cuts.
There was what the BBC refers to as a Taliban military attack on a jail in north west Pakistan yesterday which freed 240. First of all about 70 insurgents cut off the power supply to the compound, then set explosives around the permiter wall and then went in using loudhailers to give the names of the individuals they particularly wanted to free. Apparently it is an almost exact copy of the storming of a prison in the same region in April 2012 when about 400 escaped.
Indeed now I think about it you can see it must be a traditional technique of the Gang to get as many of their own kind on their side of the fence to continue their wars against the rest of us. With things now getting more difficult for them the pattern today is much more pronounced. I wrote about the Iraqi prison breaks on 23rd July 2013. I also see that at the end of June 2013 175 inmates were released when a jail in southern Nigeria was attacked by their friends.
There was a piece in Saturday’s FT about a £5.3 billion hostile takeover bid by a Canadian group of investors for Severn Trent water, made in May. The attempt was repulsed. For one month’s work Seven Trent’s advisors, Rothschilds and Citicorp, and their legal firm received fees of £19 million. As the author says that is a bit like winning the Lottery.
In the Magazine Gillian Tett was suggesting what is important in society is not what we talk about but what we chose to ignore, probably because we believe it to be irrelevant. I think the argument is we operate on the lines of convention and tradition. We take that as undisputed which cuts out an awful lot of what might otherwise be useful debate. Perhaps we should all try and think a bit more off the wall sometimes.
This isn’t a new story as today’s FT says Lord Justice Leveson was given some details during his Inquiry. It derives from a report written by investigative news agency Exaro about dishonest private investigators who illegally tricked HMRC, BT and British Gas into giving them personal details about individuals from their records. The technique used was blagging, pretending you are someone else on the telephone. Obtaining private information to which you are not entitled of course is what phone hacking was all about. Four private detectives were convicted last year. A document was passed to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee last week allowing main stream journalists to publicise the item I guess. Separately it seems the Serious Organised Crime Agency has a list of 102 companies and individuals who employed the sleuths. I understand the police know of 200 more clients probaably under their Tuleta investigations. I expect some journalists are pretty upset by the situation. They have been castigated for their misdemeanours. The investigators have been given a wide berth. I am sure there will be a lot more to be revealed.
The editorial in the paper notes that gas prices have gone up 41% in real terms since 2007. That is quite shocking in my view.
31st July 2013
The dodgy private investigators story is a rum business. I really don’t understand how there has been no significant reporting of the activities when four men have gone though the courts in public hearings and ended up in jail. It is impossible to argue, in my view, that we should not have been told. And, worse than that, lots of people will have known and kept it to themselves. The Home Secretary has announced today a new licensing system for the industry so presumably that was not drawn up on the back of a cigarette packet over a couple of days. Keith Vaz was on Today this morning and it feels like one of those subjects where no one wants to pick up the ball. Everyone has a reason to deny responsibility. The MPs have been warned by the police and SOCA not to publish the names of the client companies employing the detectives as there is no evidence yet they too have conspired to break the law. Yet law enforcement itself apparently is showing no vigour in pursuing matters.
Bradley Manning was found guilty yesterday of spying against the American state but acquitted of the more serious charge of aiding the enemy. From the comment on the story I am aware the Americans have 92 million documents in existence which are classified as secret. You wonder how they manage to trust anyone. As I noted on 12th June 2013 four million people have access to them but cannot tell anyone outside of their circle what they have seen. Those citizens I suspect feel securely locked in a big brother world. It is hardly surprising in my view, when your world operates like that, so many of us feel we have no control over the path of our own lives.
Today’s are the last of my diary notes under the current scheme of things. I feel a bit anxious about it as they have been a great source of comfort to me over the last twelve months, especially as the unstoppable disasters continued in my private life. However we all need to move on and and I think now is the time for me.
I have my, probably unachieveable, plans for those I love, and you silly lot out there as well. The trouble with both is that I cannot do it on my own. I feel I now have a better understanding than ever of how to bolster private relationships in a Gang dominated world. Whether I have the necessary personal attributes for that though I am not sure. I shall try my best to point the way to others and see where we get to. Exposing the hidden workings of Organised Crime to an outside world won’t be my decision either. I will be asking some people to do the right thing at the appropriate time. If they do not rise to the challenge, as I would see it, I shall let things go as far as my own initiative is concerned. I feel I will have done my bit. I shall be happy to let history be the judge.
I think I will want to make at least one more posting to my website to fill my reader in. It is possible however that may not be until the end of September.