The Last Word

Some years ago I worked in a part of the Home Office dealing with the hand-in of firearms after the Dunblane massacre.

I had the occasion to read the Cullen Report which included a passage on what the perpertrator, Thomas Hamilton, had done in detail. It was breathtaking and deeply disturbing, at times impossible to read - it was clear this murderer was exceptional and belonged in Dante's seventh circle of Hell.

The trial of Anders Breivik in Oslo this week has already shown he is even more despicable still. This dim-witted sociopath has no regret whatever about the 77 murderers he committed. He is in effect a modern day SS guard, perhaps he would not even argue with that description. Except many of the loathsome crimes of the SS were driven by the extremes of war. This excrutiating individual has created grand enemies from the safety of his own bedroom, in any case he is intellectually bankrupt and despite his claims of some honour in his 'cause' exists in a moral vacuum.

Sometimes events show there is actual evil within people, very occassionally a person is simply intrinsically evil themselves. It is unfortunate he has the right to publicise his perverse and idiotic beliefs on Norwegian television. I, for one, will not listen or read another word he has to say.

Not Just Making this Up.

The 'Right to a Family Life' doesn't sound such a bad thing. But in context of immigration law it is an infuriating obstacle to Ministers' ability to deport thousands more foreigners.

The Home Secretary, for it is she, has decided to 'order judges' to ignore Article 8 of the ECHR when deciding on deportation cases. I didn't realise the law worked that way.

I thought laws had to be decided by Parliament or the courts and not in May's little Private Office. Nevertheless the UK is a signatory to ECHR and has also since 2001 brought it into domestic legislation. It cannot be willed away in the desire for favourable headlines in the Sunday Telegraph.

We've been here before of course when she embellished an old social myth about an asylum seeker's cat into the cornerstone of her conference speech.

This is often what happens to Home Secretaries, they lose the ability to listen to officials who might say the latest proposal is pointless, legally unsound and saving up for future embarrassment. They listen to their special advisers who say responds to the real people's expectations, and shows she's gonna act tough. I don't see how this changes anything and judges are not known for being susceptible to taking orders from Ministers.

The Worst Part of Us

We've been here before of course.
In September 2000, large, loud-mouthed truckers set up blockades preventing fuel deliveries and set in chain a mass hysteria from the car-driving public.
This time a potential strike by Unite tanker drivers has spooked Government Ministers to play Corporal Jones and actively encourage drivers to start hoarding petrol.
I rather agree with Ed Balls (for once) when he said the Government was having such a rotten week they needed a bogeyman to focus the nation away from their failings over budget and donors paying for access to the PM. It might have worked too if a strike had been called but without pickets, banners and braziers there are no 'militants' to focus the nation's ire on.
Frankie Maude made a right arse of himself suggesting drivers should peer into the far reaches of their "garage" and look for Gerry cans. It may be news to Maude but not everyone lives on Acacia Avenue and drives a Rover.
The panic twelve years ago showed a particularly foul side of the British character, which was irredeeably selfish and paranoid. But Tories had clearly not learnt from it and are still talking up "bringing in the army" as if the military can be deployed as some economic panacea to all industrial crises. The clear inference would be that any strlking union member would be up against our brave lads and so were by defintion unpatriotic if not actual traitors.
A footnote in the news coverage: OECD figures show UK is offically back in reession.

Any More for Any More?

David Cameron's political judgement has been twice called into question since the release of the tape showing Tory Party Treasurer, Peter Crudas, offering access and policy leverage for £250k a pop.

First, for hosting these dinners for donors at No.10, although such grandstanding to big business is rather in the Conservative DNA. But secondly, to try and fob off the media and the opposition these were entirely "private" affairs and we should all just cut along and mind our own business.

Does he need reminding he is in public office and No.10 is a public building? When he did take advice and shoe-horned a confession into a speech to a dementia charity later, he played it as if they were three dinners for some old friends. Then refused all questions. These old chums are all immensely wealthy and between them have shoved £10m to the party. A very bad stink, by any measure.

He had not the balls to face the House and flicked the ear of (millionaire) Francis Maude to defend the indefensible. It was Maude who seven hours earlier, on R4's Today, had dismissed the issue as "nonsense" despite the implication from Cruddas he was able to break the law and accept foreign donations. This picture does not quite capture how sick Francis looked at the dispatch box. A lamentable performance, where he spent nearly all of the time talking about Labour in spite of gentle reminders from the Speaker the purpose of a Ministerial Statement was to set out Government policy and answer questions on it.

Milliband annoyed him thoroughly following on from his successful attack on Osborne and his inequitous budget. He is building a theme here and an old familiar one at that: Conservatives can't help protecting the privileged and the powerful.

These Foolish Things

Budgets are always political but the specifics are usually only realised much later.
When Nigel Lawson knocked two points off interest rates in 1987 he fuelled an expanding economy into an overheated one, culminating in the 1990-2 recession.
The impact of George Osborne's big decision on tax rates will be felt much more immediately. It seems, from the leaked briefings, he intends to gift those earning in excess of £150k a tax cut taking the upper rate from 50 to 45p in the pound. This would be an 'adjustment' which can only benefit the wealthy and risks retoxifying the party as protecting the interests of the privileged. It hardly helps the front rank are well represented by Etonian millionaires, although I understand 'Oik' Osborne went to Westminster (his wealth notwithstanding) .
The Lib Dems have tried to temper the obvious iniquity by ensuring higher allowances before tax is paid for the poor (and the rich) and contributing to so much hot air about clamping down on tax avoidance. You would have thought we've all heard that one so many times.
The budget is likely to be remembered for this one tax break until the election and cannot be remotely justified in times of desperate austerity. Put it against the fact that about half of all young black men are without a job. The Government are also considering introducing regional pay deals which can only mean pay cuts in the north.
There goes 'One Nation' Conservativism at a stroke.

Carry on Dick

Dick Fedorcio was Director of Public Affairs for the Met for 14 years and his evidence yesterday to the Leveson Inquiry could be summarised as a 'comedy of errors'.

In spite of his proximity to sophisticated media operators, Dick came across as far from astute about the degree of ethics which was apt when engaging informally with journalists. Nor did he appear as well briefed on how to cope with the impending cross examination at Leveson as Yates or Hayman.

He struggled not to squirm over his son gaining a job at MPS (having previously been employed by News International at the Sun). But was thoroughly banjaxed by questions over his awarding a £1k a day contract to NOTW's Deputy Editor, Neil Wallis, throughout reports of phone hacking by that paper and an investigation by his own force into those charges.

He also had Friday meetings with NI journalists about stories, allowed one, Lucy Paton, to use an office computer to file a story.

Judge Brian Leveson's regular interjections on the critical issue of "reputational risk" became increasingly exasperated as the court's mind moved to the obvious conclusion the Wallis contract was "set up to get a result." Dick's furtive looks gauging Brian's reactions to his answers betrayed someone uncertain of their own evidence.

For all of Dick's attempts to portray this 'glad handing' as normal business he couldn't convince the court he was playing a straight bat. The tendering process included Wallis as a one man band and the huge PR firm, Bell Pottinger - hardly an equivalent outfit.

Leveson had to remind him his role was also to advise senior officers if their actions risked being perceived as acting in the interests of News International editors. At times his only defence was his amateurism. He appeared as the epitome of the 'old boy's network'. He hosted the meeting with DSI Dave Cook and Rebekah Wade in 2003 but claimed his memory was clouded by newspaper reports he had since read. Eh? His testimony showed he sat on his hands unwilling to moderate the unjustifiable behaviour of the NOTW intruding into the private life of one his fellow officers. For someone whose role was to network and intervene with the media, he appeared throughly passive, lacking curiosity and only waiting to be asked before lifting a finger.

His most oft use phrase was "what I know now." He repeatedly implied that the ensuing time meant his poor judgement at the time could be excused. After so many, too many, years of experience in that post one would have expected his judgement.to have become more acute. The questioning suggested it was swayed by complicity.

You Do the Math

This is the current rolling stock of the East Anglian line into Liverpool Street I am compelled to endure. It dates back to the late 70s when Jimmy Saville was suggesting it was the "age of the train".
They are slow, dirty and uncomfortable. There is no ticket office or machine at my station. The price of a peak return to London is £73.30.
Last year, the operating company increased its profits to over £43m.
The previous Transport Secretary, Philp Hammond announced a review of cost and revenues for the British railways. He said the choice was stark; either increase taxpayer's contribution to the subsidy or put up fares. He neglected to focus on the hundreds of millions paid out to the 28 operating companies. For example East Coast Line profits last year leapt to £182m and First Great Western scooped £127.8m for their directors and shareholders, an increase of 56%.
The current Sos, Justine Greening, will today be backing the findings of a DfT report which will suggest wacking the subsidy and so letting communters be skinned again and do nothing about the profiteering from our public services. Although the McNulty report recognises our fares are about a third higher than (state owned) European counterparts, he favours introducing airline style structure where peak prices will rocket. Many commuters coming in from the West of London pay thousands a year for the prvilege of standing in a packed train - a particularly loathsome experience in the warm weather.
It reads as a very partial report. When considering the efficiency of the old British rail it comes up with this civil service classic "results [were] inconclusive, with studies ranking British Rail as the most efficient, others as the least efficient, and some about average." Presumably the same can be said for the private companies although they could not argue the current fractured structure could offer equivalent economies of scale.
We should not be altogther surprised, the Conservatives have always been in thrall to business and relish selling the state's assets for large corporations at the cost to the individual.