Following Orders

Left is a picture of Priviledge Thulambo and her two daughters, Valerie and Lorriane. They fled Zimbabwe, via Malawi in 2000 shortly after Priviledge's husband, Macca was arrested and murdered, most likely by Mugabe's Central Intelligence Organisation.

The UK Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) have recently ruled they have no case for seeking asylum and after 7 years here they will be deported to Malawi on 29 December. As they are Zimbabwean citizens they will sent back to Harare, no doubt with a welcome from the local constabulary.

It is outrageously unjust for this family to be deported for three reasons. First, Macca Thulambo's murder is not a matter of dispute; his family having escaped would be sure to be targets of the Government police. Alex Duval Smith's report in the Observer gives a good flavour to the current level of danger for activists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/zimbabwe-mugabe-activist-missing-crimes

Secondly, the level of oppression and degradation in Zimbabwe has inspired several world leaders, including Gordon Brown, to call for Mugabe's removal. Deportation cannot continue along side such condemnation.

Third, the Government already announced in July a moratorium on deportations to Zimbabwe. The BIA are applying a technicality of the Thulambos's use of Malawian documentation. The application of some degree of humanity would be more apt.

The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe should be sufficient reason not to even contemplate deportation. Although Mugabe has tried to deny its existence, a spokeswoman for the South African Health Department described the outbreak as being, "on a massive, unprecedented scale." This crisis should be the end-game for Mugabe but probably won't be. If he can ride out 500m percent inflation, 85% unemployment, mass emigration, rigged elections, a collapsed economy and health service, then cholera is just another annoyance.

As the former colonial power, it is harder for us rather than neigbouring African countries to take the neccessary direct action to bring new leadership. They would be justified under international law, as Mugabe's regime threatens the stability of the region. When it happens, just watch a massive programme of investment follow. In the meantime, we watch the slow-burning tragedy unfold.

Some UK immigration officials think it is acceptable to return families to that bloody chaos. Shame on them.

Caught Soliciting

Coal has been a political issue in Britain for over 200 years. Now the mines are largely closed, billions of tonnes of the nation’s energy needs remains underground. But there are still tens of thousands of ex-miners suffering the effects of their industry. Two conditions in particular, respiratory disease and industrial white finger, were the result of the old British Coal's negligence in preventing long-lasting damage to its workforce.

In 1999, the DTI, under Stephen Byers, approved a compensation scheme for the miners which would obviously run into billions of quids. The Government contracted out the payment scheme and the solicitors in the old mining towns in South Yorks, Notts and South Wales realised a massive pay day was coming their way.

It is the ultimate concern of the Government who designed the scheme that about 40% of the £5.8 Bn paid out has gone on administrative and legal costs. But it does not prevent us also condemning the individual solicitors who hoovered up millions of pounds for precious little work.

One such grubby legal professional is the Doncaster solicitor James Beresford who has just been found guilty in a tribunal of 8 counts of misconduct. It was found Beresford failed to inform claimants they could get their masive legal fees re-imbursed by the Government. The Solicitors' Regulation Authority said Beresford also collected the costs from the DTI. He is appealing against being struck off as he claims he would be no longer able to making his living.

Beresford does not dispute his firm earned an eye-watering £115m in fees. In one year alone he himself coined nearly £17m, so no pressing livelihood claim there. In fact he could live off the interest earned by the interest. The 97,000 ex-miners who chose the 'reputable' firm Beresfords received on average £2,000. Beresford said in his defence, such as it was, there was, "absolutely nothing wrong" with earning such sums. Skinning sick miners, some terminal ill, puts Beresford down on the same moral level as serial fraudsters like Robert Maxwell.

But he, along with dozens of other firms have realised an absolute bonanza from the taxpayer too. The public ask rightly how the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) could allow this injustice to continue.

The Department, many years ago, had teams of inspectors and regional teams who would have a close feel for industries and individual companies who were exploiting loopholes or ripping off the customers or the Government. They were all pushed out years ago in favour of 'light-touch' enforcement regime which amounted to sending round circulars and relied heavily on the good will of businessmen.

The scale of these payments to solicitors like Beresford show how impotent Whitehall is in reeling in malpractise. There are more firms to be investigated but even now no-one is even suggesting they should give any of the money back.

Stop Making Sense

Believe it or not, it is a rare occurrence for both sides of the House of Commons to be shouting ‘shame’ and ‘disgrace’ at each other simultaneously. But Jacqui Smith’s statement yesterday on her part in the Damian Green débacle drew such an extreme division. She managed to increase partisanship on an issue, which all members agree, raises fundamental questions on the roles and powers of Parliament, Ministers, officials and police.

For the majority of the Government side, she had correctly stood back and allowed a vital criminal inquiry to proceed against a wannabee Tory mole. To the rest of the House, she had allowed the police to suppress legitimate democratic enquiry and at the same time absolved herself of any oversight responsibility.

Where she could have enlightened, she obfuscated. Where she could have explained, she was evasive. When she did not like the question she plain ignored it, sometimes repeatedly.
Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve gave his usual lawlerly list; she treated him with sweeping contempt.

Judging her by the answers she avoided most studiously, there appear to be two main unresolved issues to be examined prior to Monday’s wider debate. Firstly, how the police managed to gain consent to search Mr Green’s Parliamentary office and why "it was believed" by AC Bob Quick, no warrant was required. Speaker Martin and Ms Smith must know more than they are willing to share. The legality and mode of the police operation hinges on this.

Second, whether any document which was to be leaked had any bearing on national security. If not, then the case for arresting an MP as a ‘proportionate’ action falls apart. I retain severe doubts. If these documents contain such sensitive material then it makes no sense to use a very broad (and archaic) common law offence instead of the Official Secrets Act.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1989/ukpga_19890006_en_1

The Home Secretary’s oft cited use of “potential” threat as a justification for turning an internal disciplinary matter into a criminal inquiry will not do. Almost any major policy document across a number of Departments could be viewed in that way. That line cannot be sustained.

It also seems incredible Jacqui Smith is determined to make a virtue out of her ignorance of events. Ministers being divorced from the operational decision-making of the police is just a truism. It is not the same to say all should defer to the police to the extent they can act without any reference to a higher authority. Boris Johnson, as Chair of the Met Police Authority, was given notice and expressed angrily how ill-advised the arrest would be.

Any previous Home Secretary like Blunkett, Clarke or Reid would be somewhere between livid and incandescent to have not been informed in advance of such a high profile arrest. Her predecessor, John Reid in a restrained tone, said to the House, "I am surprised, to say the least [she] was not informed." He added, as Home Secretary he would have wanted to, "express a view on the matter." He then alluded to her error of judgement, “she has said that even if she had been informed, she would not have acted differently, I do not think that we should take that as a ruling that someone in her position should never be informed.”

The police have often shown they lack the necessary political sensitivity and media awareness to be allowed to pursue such exceptional cases without any level of ‘supervision’.

It is nonsense to say these lines of authority do not cross at all. Reid knows it, even Boris Johnson knows it and if Jacqui Smith does not, then after 18 months still hasn't got a grip on what a Home Secretary does.

Flatfoots and Flatheads

If you have ever heard MPs debate their own expenses, house sitting times or committee selection then you will know how self-obsessed they can be. The Speaker's permission to allow Mr Plod to empty Damian Green's Parliamentary offices last Thursday, purely for his political activities, will stir nearly all MPs (apart from Ministers) to rebel and kick back. As Tony Benn said yesterday, "Once the police can interfere with Parliament, we are into the police state."

Speaker Martin may have sealed his own fate if it proves correct he failed to advise or inform any Minister, at the very least Leader of the House Harriet Harman, about the police operation. MPs return on Wednesday for the Queen's Speech. Unless a majority see a reasonable case by then for such overkill (in the words of David Blunkett) then one can expect an unprecedented constitutional crisis of serial points of order being raised and no speech from Her Maj. Mick Martin has never been very forthcoming about the detail of the Speaker's deliberation and has shown to be very sensitive to criticism. It has all the makings of a bloody conflict.

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It has been revealed the Home Office 'mole' was an APS (Assistant Private Secretary in the Special Advisers office). That office is copied into every significant policy document and letter. He was arrested but not charged and no doubt has been given an empty threat of a jail term. There have been other similarly ludicrous cases of late but I would resist calling this a pattern - the rozzers are not that organised.

Yesterday Judge Southwell dismissed a case brought by Thames Valley Police against a local hack in Milton Keynes for talking with officers about current criminal cases. That's not conspiracy - it is just bread and butter journalism.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5254372.ece
The case wasn't so much as thrown out of court as catapulted. I suspect the basis of the problem is police officers with rather limited brain power taking it upon themselves to make quite far-reaching legal judgements. Why do they think they should? Their role is to uphold the law and not interpret it. Coming out of Hendon with a woodentop and a Merit badge in crowd control does not make you Director of Public Prosecutions.
Apparently the coppers described Green's Parliamentary office as 'crime scene' and fixed his personal e-mail so it returned messages with the Dalek-like reply of "Your message was not delivered because of security policies."

Their actions show these officers to be both legalistically incapable and politically dense.

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Jacqui Smith on the Andrew Marr show failed to take the hint the political heat was higher than she realised. She justified the police action in response to, "systematic breaches of security," when she really meant confidentiality. When asked by AM whether she could apologise to Green about the violation of his Parliamentary privilege she said to do so would compromise the operational independence of the police. It was quite early on a Sunday for such a jaw-dropping experience.

Lost Control Again

Here is the image of Sir David Normington, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office and it would seem Accusor-in Chief of shadow immigration Minister Damian Green. Sir David (for it is he) was getting pretty damn vexed about the leaks coming from his Department some of them landing in Green's in-tray. 'Sir Humphrey' Normington claimed, laughably, the leaks had "risked undermining the effective operation of my department". The Civil Servant whose actions threaten the entire department is of the lowest managerial grade.

Sir D has every necessary connection at the very top of all the parties and could have had a quiet word but instead called in the Met. Old Plod can usually be relied on to overreact, so they did not disappoint by sending several anti-terrorist officers to raid Mr Green's offices and homes in Westminster and Ashford. Then they convinced themslves there was sufficient reason to arrest the largely blameless Tory and held him for about 7 hours before getting round to questioning him.

The issues leaked were quite varied and certainly not restricted to immigration. The only official with access to all those documents would have to work in the Press Office or more likely in a Private Office, directly to Ministers. In other words, it could only be a handful of people and the leaker would have known that. The leaks say more about how Normington runs his department where staff seemingly cannot wait to disseminate embarrrassing material than it can ever say about Damien Green's threat to national security.

Leaks to opposition members is a decades old practice. Civil Servants Clive Ponting and Sarah Tisdall were both jailed for their leaking (under Official Secrets Act) and both were acquitted on appeal. There is no prospect of the junior official, currently suspended, being prosecuted.

Mr Green was arrested under the common law 'offences' of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office" and "aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office". Again no hope of prosecution -this is pretty much the legal equivalent of 'looking like you're up to something.'

Ministers claim to have not known about the arrest or the complaint but the job of any Perm Sec like Normington, if it could be distilled into a few words, is 'to inform and advise Home Secretary on everything'. If proven, then a resignation could not be resisted. Perhaps Normington thinks this is a 'shot across the bows' of officials and Opposition members alike. The British character usual rebels against such edicts so it could all be counter-productive for Normington. Certainly if the Conservatives form the next Government Normington will be, "so fired".

I can confess when I was an official, I leaked. It was usually the odd message left on a Guardian journalists voicemail. I rang Nick Clegg's office once when John Reid was due to announce some idiotic policy. Clegg used it in Parliament and Reid fumed at him. I felt like it was in the public's interest to know. I knew I risked the sack but would not have expected any 'standard issue' size 10s kicking my door in like they did for Damian Green.

This story will keep rolling yet.

Behold the Master of Cod Psychology

Ian Duncan Smith (pictured), keen to have a party role after his dismal attempt at party leadership, established for the Conservatives the curiously named 'Social Justice Policy Group'.

"Why is a right-wing Tory proclaiming the need to give social justice to the poor and working classes," said many...er... Tories. Well, they need not have feared. The title is a complete misnomer; it could be more accurately termed, the Clinging-to-the-Notion-of -an-Ideal-Society-which-only-existed-in-John-Mills-films-in-the-1950s Group.

The SJPG published their report on the 'Broken Society' seemingly for the third time today. IDS saw the publication as "timely" given the current case of the highly distressing death of Baby P in Haringey. But he chose the timing and so is putting party politics where it does not belong. Cameron's shameful bellowing of incorrect 'facts' about the case at PMQs last week did not underline his reasonable concern but brought shame on the Commons. Even Speaker Mick Martin's dignified appeals were ignored,"it is not good, at a time when we have heard this news about a little child who has gone before us, that we should be shouting across the Chamber."

IDS's report champions marriage as the great panacea to the nation's ills. Conservative policy at the next election is likely to include tax breaks for married people regardless of their level of income and none for the non-marrieds or for those with new unmarried partners termed disturbingly, "non-biological adults". Duncan Smith does not show any evidence how this discriminatory tax system would restore the marriage ideal. The report reads like a series of moral prejudices and mother's knee philosophy, employing some pretty disasteful terms such as, "black families" and "breeding."

It is an almost endless stream of generalist discrimination and suburban despair. For example, how's this for a sweeping statement, "it is no longer seen as a moral duty to look after ageing parents or blood relatives". Millions of carers up and down the country must be wondering to themselves why they spend so much effort looking after their mother, husband or child, if IDS is so sure their selfless committment is not derived from a sense of "moral duty".

IDS has always been somewhat removed from reality; his report paints a picture of English life disinfected from modern culture. The evangelical proposal to offer heroin addicts abstinence, rather than treatment, shows a total ignorance of the nature of drug dependence.

But IDS's unfamiliarity, if not disconnection, with human experience has been the hallmark of his political career. As leader, he behaved as if his considerable military experience would allow him to control his MPs like a battallion of compliant sappers. It did not - his 'loyal' troops de-frocked him with an unusual degree of alacrity, even for Tories. To put the failure of his 2001-3 leadership into context, he was only the second Conservative leader (after Neville Chamberlain) to be dumped without even contesting a General Election.

Iain's new role allows him to throw himself into 'people' issues and mix with minorities with a certain gauche enthusiasm - a bit like a Latin prep master 'getting down' to a Calypso at school assembly.

He's the kind of person who is the last to get the joke, if he gets it at all. His final billetting in the army was as bag-carrier to Lord (Christopher) Soames, last Governor of Rhodesia. Soames detested IDS's relentless sobriety and took to calling him, "Iain Drunken Smith," to which Captain Smith would reply meekly, "But, Sir, I've told you, I don't drink."

The only memorable quotation IDS contributed to political life was, "never underestimate the determination of a quiet man". For now, I wish he'd just shut up.

Did you stay up for Virginia?

It's just not possible to continue this blog without considering the election of Barack Obama on Tuesday night. I had 'done the numbers' as they say over there and could see Obama was going to win five or six red states and end up with about 350 electoral college votes. My confidence in Obama's victory was unwavering; other commentators talked of the 'McCain bounce' and 'Bradley effect'. Although I had been certain of his victory, when Obama finally spoke as President elect in Chicago's Grant Park, the prospect of his Presidency suddenly came as a shock.

Most candidates with progressive, liberal credentials are invariably eliminated before they even get a whiff of any Presidential election. Let alone one with black skin. When you think of Bush (either one), Reagan or Carter you don't think of them in any way as intellectual. Americans may not be generally very class conscious but they do hate to feel threatened by intelligentsia. This guy's a professor. He's more like a European ideal of what a US President should be. Or a Hollywood version.

Let's not forget his story. Obama's stint as a volunteer community organiser in the tough end of Chicago in the '80s was much derided by that parochial patsy, Governor Sarah Palin. Except these simple 'people' skills translated to the national stage, meant he organised about 8 million more votes than the dismal Republicans. Obama's campaign was as disciplined and professional as McCain's was disreputable and chaotic. Eventually, the ever erratic McCain was reduced to parading a bald-headed Walter Mitty from the plumber's guild as a symbol of his supposed connection with the working man.

The zeitgeist for the Republicans is very similar to the Conservatives in 1997, so they haven't even reached bottom yet. Sidney Blumenthal, adviser to Clinton, put it succintly, follow this link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/04/uselections2008-johnmccain

Obama's stated intention to return the country to the 1999 tax rates (before Bush gave $1.2Tn to the top 1% earners) was deemed 'socialist' or at times 'Marxist'. These pitifully transparent accusations belonged only at a Palin redneck rally but one interviewer even put them as serious points to Joe Biden. He treated them with the contempt they deserved.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=m3EkhDru23U&feature=related

Obama mixed-race heritage turned out to be a talisman rather than an albatross. The black vote was very motivated and allowed Obama to win in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina where vicious racism persists today. It is nothing short of a monumental political achievement.

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The coverage on the night was very mixed - CNN was the best with amazing vote analysis. The BBC 'roundtable' discussion, with Dimbleby in the chair, was the essence of restrained excitement - it was the equivalent of a kindly uncle turning up to cheer his nephew's debut for the first XV.
MSNBC intermittently switched to commentary on the latest swings in the Tokyo markets: it seemed incredible, at such a pivotal moment, anyone could be distracted by such tiresome trivia. It's like in a betting shop when they interupt the Derby coverage to give the result of some dog race at Walthamstow.
Fox News were predictably muted and begrudging - while desperate to avoid praising Obama, they spent an inordinate amount of time discussing Michelle Obama's dress. ITV's technology wouldn't work and the pompous Alistair Stewart kept referring to McCain and Obama as 'Mr' instead of 'Senator'. Sky were inexplicably based in New York; one can only assume all the hotels in DC were booked up.

One great moment was on CNN when they were trying to establish one defining reason for Obama's win from the serried ranks of experts.

"Not taking public funding gave him overwhelming advertising resources".

"Democrats always benefit in tough economic times."

In the middle sat the rotund, genial figure of William Bennett, former education Secretary under Reagan. He looked stupified by their observations and impatiently shouted over them, "It's the candidate! The candidate! This is one incredible candidate with a phenomenal ability to communicate with today's America. It's all about Obama." At least one Republican gets it.