Looting: just another excuse for a left/right dust-up - that’s the real problem. And years ago, a workmate had a problem providing an alibi

I’m sure the news of the rioting and looting which took place in Britain last week is common knowledge in most parts of the world. It isn’t that rioting and looting is unknown in other parts, it is that is is quite rare - though not unknown - in Britain. My first reaction when I say the live coverage on television was bafflement. Being a well brought-up, middle-class chap, it has never occurred to me to go looting just as it has never occurred to me to smash up a telephone kiosk or bus shelter for the hell of it. But in the days after the looting, it became obvious that being well brought-up and middle-class had nothing to do with it: quite a few of those who have already been brought before court were patently not the dispossessed, disaffected, jobless black youths the left would so dearly have loved them to be in order for their theories and ideologies to be confirmed. There were as many whites as blacks (and, it has to be said, given the amount of interracial coupling that has taken place over these past 40 years the description ‘black’ is used pretty loosely), there were apparently as many employed as unemployed among the looters and by no stretch of the imagination were they all ‘dispossessed’. Take a look at the six mugshots below (of men who have appeared in court these past few days): these guys look more like

white career criminals than dispossessed and angry blacks. The most bizarre revelation was the identity of one of the looters: she was a 20-year-old foreign languages student at Exeter University, the daughter of a millionaire who grew up in some comfort in Orpington, Kent. She cannot, of course, be regarded as typical of the rioters, but her presence does suggest one motivation for many of the younger rioters to take part. In the words of one, excessively stupid girl interviewed in Birmingham by the BBC, the looting ‘was great’ and she and her friend had a ‘brilliant time’. Others, of course, went on the rampage as soon as they heard what was going on because they fancied acquiring goods without having to pay for them: plasme TVs, cothes, booze, shoes, anything really. It didn’t matter.
That attitude initially made it all rather inconvenient for the left to shoehorn the event into their ideological explanations, until a day or two later they came up with a quasi Marxist explanation: consumerism is to blame. There, they had managed it. Now, counterintuitively, I shall partially agree: consumerist attitudes were part of the make-up of the psychology of the looters. But it is 24-carat bullshit to suggest the they were the cause. What about all those with a consumerist attitude who chose not to go looting?
Sadly, both the left and the right have very quickly adopted their fall-back positions: for the left society is to blame; for the right it is a breakdown in law and order. And by quickly adopting those positions, any analysis of why it all happened and what could be done to cure what is undoubtedly a chronic social problem here in Britain, becomes ever less likely. Ironically, of course, the kneejerk reactions of both political wings are equally symptomatic of the social problem. There is a suspicion that neither side is particularly interested in sorting out what went wrong: they are more interested in winning the debate of what happened and why it went wrong.
As far as I am concerned the canker which lies at the heart of society and which led to the scenes we saw in London, Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol and Birmingham was a long time in the making, and it will take equally as long to get rid of it, if we ever manage to. (It should also be pointed out that such rioting and looting is nothing new in Britain; it’s just that we have not had a lot of it for the past 60/70 years, but the Victorians were quite accustomed to it.) But at the end of the day, I am inclined to agree with the right’s analysis: the moral compass of too many in Britain has gone awol. The benefits the state pays have gone from being help we give those in a fix to see them through while they get back on their feet to an ‘entitlement’, a ‘lifestyle’ choice. It is also my view that the left as adopted the payment of generous benefits no questions asked as a useful means of buying popularity. For example, recent government figures have shown the three of every four jobs created in Britain over the past few years have been taken up by EU migrants from Eastern Europe. So it’s not as though there has been no work available and that people were obliged to live on benefits.

. . .

When I left university, I spent five months living at home, then went to Italy to teach English for five months. When I returned, I went up to Dundee, where I had studied, to visit friends. What was to be a two-week visit eventually lasted ten months stay. For the first eight of those ten months I worked as a barman. Then, courtesy of the schizophrenic girl I had ‘fallen in love with’, I was bust for possession of dope (er, cannabis, not heroin, which I understand is also called dope). It’s a rather involved story which I shan’t recount here. But a previous boyfriend had been a dealer and she had on her an ounce block of Morrocan. She, her flatmate and I went to the cinema and she purposely dropped the cannabis. (Why? She wasn’t playing with the full set.) A copper on the beat was in the foyer at the time, saw the ounce on the floor, came over and told me I had dropped something. I quickly picked it up and put it in my pocket. Then, when he searched me, I didn’t - as I should have done - explain it wasn’t mine, but being a green-behind-the-ears idiot, I took the rap for ‘the girl I loved’. We were, of course, taken to court, but one upshot was that becasue, coincidentally, Mick, the barman I worked with in the public bar of The Galleon, had gone sick, the cops stuck in an ‘undercover’ officer to work with me and pump me for information. They assumed that because the dope had been an ounce block, no more, no less, that I was dealing. Anyway, this idiot was hopeless. Within five minutes of him starting a chatty conversation, I cottoned on to what was going on - it didn’t help that at the time when everyone was wearing very long hair, this idiot, who claimed he had just graduated from art school, had a regulation short-back-and-side - I said as much - my exact words were: ‘You’re asking a load of fucking questions, aren’t you?’ - and I walked out. My next job was working for a landscape gardener, and one of the guys I worked with was a very friendly, very rough and tough, ginger-haired chap. We got on well, then one day at the end of the day he said goodbye. I asked him where was he going. He said he was due in court the following day on burglary charges, he was pleading guilty and he was bound to be jailed. Oh, I said, did he do it? No, he told me, he was innocent of the charge brought against him. So why plead guilty, I asked. Well, he said, he would not be able to give an alibi. Why not? I asked. Because he was burgling another house at the time, he said.

Are all twitterers nutters or do I just attract them? And anyone still fond of modern consensual policing?

A few months ago and against my better judgment, I signed up with Twitter. And that’s about where I left it until yesterday. I have never been able to see the point of Twitter (of Facebook for that matter), but then there’s no denying that I am not ‘the demographic’ for whom these things are, apparently, vital. Twitterettes and Facebookers don’t feel the need to stretch every limb in their body for five minutes just after getting up and before doing anything else: they simply spring out of bed in one bound and switch on their computer or smartphone to check whether or not perchance their cyber-friends have just taken a dump or are about to buy a bus ticket to go to work, that fascinating information being passed on to all and sundry courtesy of Twitter and Facebook. But it ain’t me, I’m afraid, not by a country mile. Some of you might reasonably point out that there is precious little difference between twittering and pontificating in a blog such as this, to which I can only reply: don’t get technical on me. Or to put it another way – fuck off.
But what with the riots, a colleague persuaded me to re-energise my cyber life a little and get back to Twittering. She is pretty and thus had little trouble convincing me. This morning I posted my first tweet re the rioting which has been taking place up and down the land these past few days here in Britain. I wrote (in just under 142 words, which is all part of this arcane cyber nonsense): ‘Would it be tactless to recall Enoch Powell' 'like the Roman' speech? Given that many of the scum were white, I suppose it would be, yes.’ It was a tad contentious, I admit, but needs must.
Ten minutes ago, I checked my email and was informed that I now have two Twitter followers: there’s AncientAlienTech who believes that ‘studies of Ancient earth ruins such as the Mayan and Egyptian Pyramids, suggest that humans were assisted by ancient alien technology’ and Rukma Vimana who is located ‘Deep Inside Planet Earth’ and who believes ‘flying machines from the ancient future landed in India in 6000BC’.
Oh Lord.

. . .

As for the rioting itself, the various liberal apologists who are apt to add their two ha’porth worth on these occasions have been strangely quite as have The Thin Blue Line, our splendid police. Actually, I feel very sorry for our rozzers: they’re damned if they do and they’re damned if they don’t. As one pointed out on the radio, if, after last Saturday night’s looting and arson in Tottenham they had deployed several thousand men, ready in willing, in Transit vans just around the corner from where trouble was expected, they would have been accused of ‘provocation’. So, tactfully, they didn’t, so when the rioting did start, they weren't around. Well, there was one, a community police officer with a bag of mints and a book of bedtime stories. He was part of an initiative to test a new softly, softly policing approach. Added to that the imperative of ‘modern consensual policing’ to ‘engage in dialogue’, and the thousands of black and white thugs who fancied acquiring a new plasma TV with a five-finger discount had a free pass. But that is not to say the cops were happy just looking on. The problem with the liberal approach to policing is that it assumes the other side is rational and prepared ‘to engage in dialogue’. When they show themselves more willing to stick up two fingers to ‘modern consensual policing’ than sit down and discuss ‘issues’, you’re way, way further up shit-creek than you ever imagined. In essence, it’s the liberal dilemma.
To have a fair society, everyone must play fair. And, of course, there are always more than enough out there who who don’t choose to play fair and will take advantage of all the fair play to grab what they want, whenever they want it. Lenin once spoke of ‘useful idiots’ and although he applied it in a different context, the phrase in pertinent here. So what to do? Suggestions, please, on the usual postcard.

Disaffected youths engage in dialogue in support of modern consensual policing

Why blame to Germans? And when does ‘exercising your agenda’ become straightforward looting?

I’ve been reading up on the BBC News website about the euro crisis and came across their correspondent Gavin Hewitt’s blog and subsequent comments by readers. And what struck me was a noticeable anti-German sentiment among many of the comments. This is grossly unfair and naïve to boot. The general tone of the anti-Germanism was that sooner or later the ‘Germans will take over’, that the future of Europe should not be in the hands of a country which ‘started two world wars’ and similar bullshit. This is nothing but barroom talk of the most ill-educated kind. And what has Germany done to attract such animosity? Well, nothing as far as I can see. What it has done is to run a tight ship, keep its state borrowing down and to make sure everything runs smoothly and efficiently. What exactly is wrong with that?
There is a useful phrase which cynically, but accurately, describes a curious aspect of human nature. You might know it: No good deed goes unpunished. It seems to me apt in the circumastances. It so happens that the German governments of the post-war years have been enthusiastic about the EU and its institutions and so far that enthusiasm has ensured that Germany is providing the lion’s share of the bailout cash for Greece, Portugal and Ireland. It’s true that it isn’t just goodwill which is behind their actions – if the eurozone goes up the swannee and Germany’s customers for its exports can’t afford them any more, that is bad news. So Germany is doing its best to ensure that crisis never happens. But that isn’t the full story. For better or worse Germany – or rather its government – still believes in the EU and that the peaceful future of Europe depends upon it. And that is another reason why it is taking a hit to bail out the feckless Greeks. (Incidentally, it is well-known that the better off you are in Greece, the less tax you pay.
Part of the problem has been that successive Greek governments have simply let that state of affairs continue.) But there could well come a point, and it might well come sooner than we expect – or some fear – that the Germans tell themselves ‘enough is enough’ and ask themselves ‘why are we putting up with this shit?’ And that thought might occur to the electorate sooner than it occurs to the government. The next federal elections in Germany are in just over two years, and that is not a long time in political terms. It might be about now that both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats take the pulse of the country and decide a little less euro jubilation might be called for if they are to have any chance whatsoever of beating the opposition.

. . .

For the past two nights there has been rioting in London in mainly black areas. It has carried on all day today in different parts of London. Actually, what mainly went on in Tottenham on Sunday night was looting. It started after a man was shot dead by police in Tottenham, but that seems to me a poor excuse for a bout of overnight all-out thieving. On the radio this morning an community activist, or something like that, from the area, spoke of unemployed black people ‘exercising their agenda’, whatever the fuck that means – nothing, I think. I don’t doubt that unemployment has a lot to do with it, but I can’t see why that justifies all-out looting. It also becomes rather murky when the number of blacks rioting is equalled by the number of whites, which rather make me think that any talk of this being caused be racism – which it might well soon from those intent on convincing us that the looters were ‘exercising their agenda’ – is just so much bullshit. It would be useful to point out that there is a considerable number of unemployed blacks and whites who don’t choose to ‘exercise their agenda’ by indulging in a spot of looting.

Rioters exercise their agenda in Brixton, South London, on Monday

UPDATE: The rioters have now set fire to buildings in Croydon, which is to the south of London, and the rioting has now spread to Kilburn, West London and Birmingham. I've been watching the news live on TV, and it is pretty obvious that this is action by hooligans. There is nothing in it to do with racism.

Barroso fucks up big time, while those at the bottom of the pile are reminded that the best advice as far as hope is concerned is to forget it. Plus ca change . . . Oh, and I go for a walk

For these last few entries, I have been banging on about how doomed the euro is, how the eurozone is bound to collapse and how the EU will go the way of the dodo. I don’t know about you, but I have no stomach at all to bang away for another entry. What has been happening over the past few days in no ways persuades me that I am wrong and about the only sensible and useful comment that can be added is: what kind of total fuckwit is Jose Manuel Barroso (or Manolo Blahnik as he calls himself when he’s in London selling shoes). We have a saying (of which there is any number of variants, and of which the Australian variants are by far the most amusing): he’s a sandwich short of a picnic, or given the bureaucratic nature of his existence, he’s a reassurance short of a total fuck-up. If you

Shit! I think I've fucked it. Me and my big mouth
think I am being harsh, let me remind you of how he poured oil onto a smouldering fire rather than, as would have been wiser, onto troubled waters. (And if that doesn’t win Hollywood’s Most Convoluted Simile next year or even Most Contrived Addition To Most Pointless Blog next year, there’s no justice in the world.) Just to remind you of quite how assinine he proved to be, he sent a letter to the head of states of all the countries in the Eurozone which can easily be paraphrased: ‘Lads, we’re in deep, deep shit, but don’t panic. If we all pull together, some of us might still get out of this alive. Don’t count your chickens, but don’t give up quite yet.’ If there were anything which Brussels might hope would inspire a little confidence in ‘the money markets’ (in this context quote marks imply that if they are not yet crooks, they are just a deal or two away from gaining that hallowed status) Barroso letter of reassurance was not it. Not by a million miles. Stock markets throughout the world (and, by some accounts, in Alpha Centauri) took fright as investors sold up and took off for an early weekend. Can you blame them. With ‘presidents’ like Barroso, who needs nasty little Englander eurosceptics like David Farr-Wright?

. . .

What bothers me more than anything is that it will be the same folk who will carry the brunt of the coming bad times as it always is: those at the bottom of the pile. When economies contract, as they invariably will, ‘labour flexibility’ will once again come into vogue and firms will ‘lay off’ — that is sack — as many of their workforce as will allow the bosses to survive. They will undoubtedly do so with ‘a heavy heart’ but when they do and when they confess their sadness at what ‘economic forces’ ‘oblige’ them to do, remind yourself that in this world there is nothing cheaper than words. In the meantime, our politicians, esteemed these days by ever fewer of their electorate, will retire to whatever comfortable bolt hole they have arranged for themselves, to write their memoirs, pass on their wisdom, admit candidly — now that the danger has passed — that they made mistakes and generally reflect that, on balance, life isn’t quite as simple as it might be. No, it isn’t, and it is even less simple for all those who have absolutely no control over circumstance but who have to live by the stupid decisions you make.

. . .

I realise I am getting rather incoherent here, but I put that down to anger. For all my life I have been cursed by an ability to see much from both sides, and, on the one hand I could here and now write the apologia of those politicos who meant well, stuck to their principles and who were desolate at how it all turned out, as I hear the desperate cries of unemployed folk throughout history who have been comprehensively shat upon only because they are apparently of no consequence and who have no control whatsoever over their destiny. I fully understand what is meant by and what are the advantages of ‘labour flexibility’. In a certain context it makes complete sense. But I also feel nothing but contempt for those who regard ordinary folk as nothing but an economic factor. And there are plenty of those. All my life the right has regarded me as a leftie and the left has regarded me as of the right. To this day I don’t know where I belong. But I do know one thing: you cannot treat people like shit. Not now, not ever. And that is what will happen yet again over the coming years as the euro goes phut, as the world economy grinds to a halt, as economically Asia gets the upper hand over Europe and the world as we 61-year-olds have known it is transformed into something entirely different. It will happen again as those who, for whatever reason, find themselves cleaning their lavatories see their wages cut because that is what economic circumstance and ‘the market’ demand, while those who are already earning too much will be paid even bigger bonuses for coming up with suggestions as to how to get out of the economic mess their kind produced in the first place. Am I a Tory or a Leftie? I really don’t know.

...

For a guy who lives in the depths of North Cornwall on the edge of Bodmin Moor and in an area which for many others is a holiday destination where they can find fresh air and peace and quiet, I spend scandalously little time out-of-doors. Well, this afternoon I decided to do something about that. For these past three or four weeks I have been feeling curiously out-of-sorts. Nothing physical, it’s just that I can’t get enthusiastic about anything. So earlier today, I decided that what I needed was fresh air. My son is now 12, but six years ago, he used to enjoy taking me for a walk and showing be corners of the village he had discovered. Unfortunately, he is now far more in love with his Xbox and the PC, but, hoping against hope, I asked him whether he would like to go for a walk with me. His answer was inevitable. ‘Er, no, not really.’ So I took myself off and visited - well, it’s not even a hamlet. It’s called Bradford and there are about four cottages and a farm more or less near each other. There is a pretty little bridge over what are the beginnings of the Lank river, and I sat there doing absolutely bugger all for quite a while, just enjoying the breeze and the flow of the Lank. Here are three piccies. They were all taken on my, now exceptionally ancient, Samsung mobile phone.

Relief all round, the EU has found a solution: put Greece even further in debt

The newspapers are full this morning of how the fat was pulled out of the fire at the last minute and the euro has been saved. Greece will get another trillion billion of euros to help get it out of the shit, and this time, at the insistence of Germany's Kanzler Angela Merkel, those nasty moneymen, much distrusted by every right-thinking European, will also shoulder some of the burden. They won't acutally contribute any money, they will merely 'contribute' by not having the money they lent Greece repaid for another 30 years rather than after 10. Eveyone feared the worst and the 'markets rose' all over the world at the news that a soltuion had been found. Already, I'm sure, parades are being organised throughout the lands to celebrate this demonstration of unity. But hold on a minute.
Greece's problems will not be solved. The solution is merely that a country so in debt that it cannot afford even to pay the interest on money it had previously borrowed, is simply being lent even more money. In any other context the appropriate reaction would have

been a huge 'what?' and those coming up with the solution would have been hauled off by the men in white coats. The only excuse for putting forward what in any other circumstances (and a more rational society) would have been regarded as completely bonkers is that there was simply no other option. If Greece had gone down the pan, they say, then Portugal and Ireland would also have done so, and then it would have been the turn of Italy and Spain. This would have caused a severe economic depression in the rest of Europe and then the rest of the world. There would have been a global slump. So that's all right then: the world has been saved. Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. The grand plan rests on the hope that Greece, Europe and the rest of the world will start growing their economies again, things will get back to normal and Greece will slowly come up out of the shit and start behaving like a good European. This seems to me rather like a bankrupt going to the races and betting his last sou on a sure thing: certainly his horse might romp home, but equally certainly it might not. The only abiding image of yesterday's meeting finance directors which is at all truthful is a lot of guys in expensive suits sitting around nervously and crossing their fingers.
What no one has been tactless enough to mention, so I'll mention it, is that we just shouldn't be in this mess in the first place (and I must now say we because even non-euro members are equally threatened). Twelve years ago when all those EU fuckwits were waving flags and setting off fireworks and treating the arrival of the new currency as the Second Coming, they all knew - all of them - that several of the member states signing up to join the euro had cooked the books to be able to do so. Never ming the figures, they said, feel the joy. This, they said, is the European dream.
Meanwhile, a great many economists were warning that the Europe-wide interest rate that would henceforth be applied to all those countries joining the euro was inappropriate given the disparate nature of so many EU economies. Well, here's a thing: why are Greece, Portugal and Ireland now in the shit? Why are Irish pensioners and those on benefits having their pensions and benefits cut? Why are the poor in those countries getting ever closer to penury? Why? Because when the economies of each of those three countries started to go awry, the one financiall measure they should have taken to cool down their economies - cutting interest rates - was no longer available to them. But no one has been honest enough to admit that, yes, they were wrong. In the real world, heads should have rolled. But you can bet they won't roll in Brussels.
My sister, who is a fan of the euro, thinks I'm some kind of Cassandra, only too keen to see the whole euro project collapse. She thinks that I'm talking pie in the sky when I claim that it can only get worse and that eventually those who have nothing to lose could even turn to violence in the streets. That has already happened in Greece, yet it is early days of the austerity measures. It is tactless to say so and given that the notion of 'democracy' began in Athens, quite ironic, but the tradition of democracy is still a little shaky in Greece which less than 45 years ago had a few years of dictatorship, and Salazar's 35-year dictator ship of Portugal only ended 45 years ago. How would Brussels react if in either or both countries a 'strong man' or a group of 'strong men' tried to grab power with the support of poor people who decided they had nothing to lose? Such a grab for power need not even be successful . It could well lead to civil war. And if that happened, how would Brussels react? The point I made to my sister was not that this is bound to happen, but that we would be foolish to think that such days are long gone. She said that 'government wouldn't allow it'. I pointed out that to stay in power, governments need the support of the majority of their people, and once they lose that support, they might well find themselves out of office, to be replaced by less salubrious types resorting to naked nationalism. It's not as though that hasn't happened in the past, and I can't understand why she and others insist it can't and would not happen again. When people are unemployed and have nothing to lose, they reckon they might as well try anything.

Some pix and news of three concerts. Finally a Screws, euro and Murdoch-free blog entry

Here are a couple of pics I took today, in no particular order and of no particular merit. I have also changed my blog pic for a while, just for the crac.

The picture below is one I saw a chap taking as I was driving home. 'What are you doing,' I asked him, and he told me he had been commissioned by Bradford City Council to compile a series of photographs taken in each EU member state which celebrated diversity in community which are intended to show solidarity with the European Union. Well, if it's good enought for him, it's good enough for me I thought, especially as he had a load of very expensive looking equipment whereas my pic was snapped on a GE C1033 on offer at E Leclerc in Lagon.

The table and chairs in the next picture were sitting next to me in the cafe in Bazas cathedral square and we fell into conversation (as you do when you are abroad) and the stories they had to tell! They were very good about having their picture taken and managed to keep quite still when I took it, keeping their natural Gallic exuberance in check.

There's a rather amusing story attached to my next picture. It seems that several years ago the Socialist mayor was defeated over some minor issue and never came to terms with his fate. Apparently, he began behaving in ever more odd ways daubing various buildings at night with Socialist slogans and symbols until finally the prefecture had to have him sectioned. He was a keen nuclear abolitionist in his youth and the people of Bazas, who were otherwise very fond of him decided the last symbol he painted before his arrest should be preserved in his honour.

Below is the pulpit in the parish church in Illats where I am staying. Last year, when the village got to hear that I keep a blog, they voted in (by a rather slim majority, but let's no go there) a district ordinance giving me squatter's rights whenever I am visiting (that is, I can preach from the pulpit whenever I like). I'm not too sure whether it is just a symbolic right or whether I could, in fact, exercise it, and so far I have decided to err on the side of caution.

Finally, no collection of holiday snaps would be complete without a pointless, though pretty, shot of a small river taken from a bridge. Here is mine, taken just a few minutes drive down the road.

. . .

Part of my stay was taken up going to concerts, although as I couldn't get away earlier in the month, we weren't able to go to any of those which are part of a Baroque music festival. However, we went to three, of which I enjoyed two and a half. Let me get the half out of the way I didn't enjoy. It was at the Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte in Martillac, about 25 minutes drive away, in which a Roger Muraro (I'm reading from the programme - I'd never heard of him, but then I've never heard of most of these people) played pieces by Liszt, Schuman and then Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique rearranged for the piano by Liszt, or bloody Liszt as I like to call him. I like Schuman (although he can get a little close to the mid-nineteenth century lush romanticism of which a little goes a very long way) but I don't like Liszt. Nor, for that matter, do I like Chopin. They spend far too long aimlessly noodling around on the keyboard, and the main impression I get is that they are rather keen to show us how clever and versatile they are. In addition, Liszt does bang about on the keyboard as though it were a tympany. I think I had only heard the Symphonie Fantastique once before and it wasn't a piece I was in a rush to hear again, so you can imagine just how much I enjoyed Liszt's interpretation of the piece. It went on for way over an hour and at one point I think I even stopped breathing.
However, the night before was a treat, as was the night after. Monday's concert was at the same chateau, although part of a different festival. It started at 5.30pm with a masterclass given by a chap called Maxim Vengero (and my aunt can't get over that I had never heard of him. Then, in the concert proper, he played Brahms sonatas for violin and piano, encoring with a piece by Ravel, which I have yet to identify, but which was joy.
Last night at the Chateau Gravas a Barsac was a much smaller concert of French Baroque music played on a harpsichord, viol de gamba flute accompanying a soprano. And the older I get, the more I like that kind of music. Stuff bloody Liszt and Chopin, crash, crash, crash bang, bang.
Also at the chateau was an exhibition of work by some chap called Paul Flickinger (he's not German but from Alsace). My aunt like his stuff, I didn't. It reminded me of what I've decided to call 'corporate art', the kind of stuff huge conglomertes like Shell, Pepsi, Ford and Transnational Acquisitions pay through the nose for to hang in their lobbies and corridors. As soon as I saw it, the word 'contrived' came to mind. But then what do I know (except, of course, that Liszt and Chopin, and for that matter Wagner, are a pain in the butt. One reason why Wagner goes on and on and on was that he was paid by the hour. That always brings the worst out in a composer.)

Those crafty lads at the FSB: now, apparently, they are running al-Qaeda. And the ‘hacking scandal’ – it gets even murkier, though one thing is clear: the Murdoch’s are on their way out

A rather contentious, not to say very odd, claim has come my way that the FSB, Russia’s successor to the KGB is, if not actually now running, at least in a good position to guide al-Qaeda. On the face of it, it would seem to be so much nonsense, but when you get into the detail, you have to agree that it can’t be dismissed out of hand.

At the moment, I am staying in the Bordeaux region for a week to attend a series of Baroque music concerts with my stepmother’s sister. She is a retired English teacher who most recently taught at the Bordeaux University and who regularly gets copies of The Spectator which are passed on to her by a friend. You might or might not be familiar with my opinion of The Spectator, but briefly although on occasion some of its writers can be quite amusing, I don’t much like it. I just get tired of the general pose of ‘isn’t modern life just awful. It’s counterpart The New Statesman is equally tedious with its neverending maudlin refrain of ‘God aren’t the right/Tories/middle class/Daily Mail readers such heartless bastards. Shooting is too good for them’. To sum up both are as bad as each other.

I happened upon a recent edition of The Spectator (the June 25, 2011, if you’re interested) and immediately turned to page whatever when I read on the cover the come-on ‘Are the KGB running al-Qaeda?’ In essence, a writer with a suitably Eastern European name claims that Bin Laden’s successor, an Egyptian called Ayman al-Zawahiri, was taken up by the then KGB and schooled for six months in an establishment it has in the North Caucasus. The course is is said to have been enrolled on dealt in all sorts from how to run an organisation so it does what you want it to – impeccably Leninist that – to clandestine operations. Interestingly, the KGB eventually did admit that al-Zawahiri was in the North Caucasus for six months but that he had been picked up as an illegal alien and held for the six months while it tried to establish his identity, and then expelled when it couldn’t. That’s plausible, of course, but not particularly convincing, although not being convincing doesn’t mean The Spectators claim is true. But to add a little to the claim’s credibility are comments made by the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko who was bumped off in London (most probably by the KGB using a radioactive material) that al-Zawahiri was indeed the KGB’s man. Again claiming as much doesn’t prove anything, but the balance of probability is that the chap did have some sort of connection with the KGB and now with its successor, the FSB.

The Spectator’s tame Eastern European goes on to claim that once he had graduated from the KGB place in the North Caucasus, al-Zawahiri was sent to Afghanistan and told to infiltrate al-Qaeda and get as close to the top of the organisation as he could. Well, succeeding Bin Laden more or less achieves that goal, and I’m sure that – if the claims are true – a case of vodka and several kilos of Beluga caviar were sent on their way to brighten the chap’s leisure time. Though, on reflection probably no vodka. The obvious question is: why would Russia want to control al-Qaeda? To that the reply is that as the country’s economy is a bloody mess and it depends on the export of oil and gas, instability in the Middle East is to its advantage. It is also keen to portray the troubles in Chechnya not as a country’s struggle for independence, but as part of the global islamist troublemaking. And it also wants to be seen as a player in the anti-islamist movement. Or something. Anyway, as they say: believe it or not. Me, I’ll leave the jury out there for a while pondering the pros and cons.

. . .

Well, the Hacking Scandal – I think that by now it deserves the honour of capital letters, although I’m not too sure whether ‘Hacking Scandal’ is the name agreed upon or whether it is known as something else, Hackgate or something – is evolving by leaps and bound. I must, thought, admit that it is no interest whatsoever to anyone outside Britain except a few excitable careerists in in the US Justice Department who see it as a chance to climb the greasy pole and assorted swivel-eyed lefties wherever they live who regard Rupert Murdoch as the Devil’s representative on Earth – a sort of anti-Pope, I imagine. But for those who are inexplicably interested – I had a rather plaintive email from a pensioner in Sarawak who has asked me to outline what is going on exactly – I shall do my best to summarise the main points. And the first main point is that everyone is in the shit and sinking increasingly deeper, except the saintly Guardian, which over the past few years and especially the past few weeks has garnered so many journalistic Brownie points that it will soon be able to hold its own jamboree.

And by everyone, I do mean everyone, from Rupert Murdoch, Prime Minister David Cameron, virtually everyone in the Metropolitan police to everyone in the Labour Party, who were more assiduous in lining up to suck Rupert’s dick than anyone else. What is interesting (although I am bound to admit that I must use the word ‘interesting’ loosely) is that all those involved are involved in a slightly different way. There is nothing straightforward about the matter and there is talk of calling in the BBC’s cricket commentator’s to interpret it all, given that with their intricate knowledge of cricket, they are the only ones who can be relied upon to find understand such arcane detail.

Rupert and his idiot son James are in very real danger of seeing Rupert’s life’s work, skilfully and intelligently built up over the past 50 years unceremoniously go down the pan. David Cameron is fighting off claims that by employing the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson he is ‘guilty of an error of judgment’ (and a more severe failing it is hard to imagine. It makes Pol Pot’s genocide look like a minor social gaffe). The Met rozzers stand accused of accepting backhanders from News International hacks on an industrial scale. Labour assiduously sucked Rupert’s dick as much if not even more than the Tories which is making all their attempts at scaling the high moral ground utterly pointless. Our noble MPs, who were not at all averse to almost universally faking the expense chitties and were hauled over the coal by the Press for doing so, are relishing getting their own back and there is loose talk of ‘regulating the Press’. Well, their motives are lost on no one and. Only the saintly Guardian looks like coming out of this at all well.

Then there is the whiff of conspiracy about it all. Rebekah Brooks, the ‘flame-haired’ former Screws editor and former News International chief executive who finally resigned at the end of last week, is due, with Rupert and James, to appear before a Parliamentary committee tomorrow (Tuesday) to be questioned by loads of MPs. She was expected to give a full grilling on all aspects of the matter, not least about who among the Met was accepting backhanders, how much they were getting and for how long was this going on. Then out of the blue she was yesterday arrested by the Met on suspicion of whatever – because it doesn’t really matter: now that she is arrested, the MPs are pretty much restricted in what they can ask her because they will be warned that they could prejudice any possible future court action. And Rebekah will now be entitled to refuse to answer any question which, she could claim, might lead her to incriminate herself. No one really knows whether her arrest was intended to stymie the MPs questioning or whether was just the unfortunate decision of some cack-handed plod. I suspect it was intentional but then I’m just a sad old cynic.

Another development yesterday was the resignation of the Met’s Commissioner. He had rather blotted his copybook by appointing a former deputy editor of the Screws as a special advisor at a time when the Met was investigating the phone hacking and by also accepting £12,000 worth of free accommodation and treatment at a health farm which also employed that former deputy editor as a PR advisor. The Commissioner, a Sir Paul Stephenson, was called in by Boris Johnson, London’t mayor, and resigned after the meeting. The question everyone is asking – OK, not everyone but every Westminster and media anorak – is did he jump or was he pushed. And in his resignation letter, Sir Paul made a few cryptic allusions to ‘not wanting to compromise’ Prime Minister David Cameron which sound rather ominous.

In America those Justice Department careerists are wondering whether any phone hacking by Nws International went on in the US, where it is a federal offence and could see the Murdoch’s hauled into court. It’s a long shot and their motives are transparent in that the Murdoch’s enemies aren’t just confined to the shores of Old Blighty, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do a hell of a lot of damage. To add to the Murdoch’s woes, the board of SkyB, is beginning to ask whether having James as its chairman might not be doing the company, of which the Murdoch’s crucially don’t have a majority shareholding, rather a lot of harm. This one will, as they say, run and run.

. . .

The pussycat which has stood in for me as my profile photo is being retired as I have finally come up with a picture which doesn’t necessarily make me look like a raddle old fool and with which I am content. All I ask is that you indulge me in this piece of innocent vanity.

RIP News International? RIP News Corp? Remember Thomson Newspapers? No, hardly anyone else does, either. And the euro shit gets ever closer to the real world fan

When I first started in newspapers in the mid-Seventies a job with Thomson newspapers was something like the gold standard. Thomson’s paid well, were comparatively enlightened employers and the holidays were good. But above all they were successful in producing newspapers. The Times and the Sunday Times were Thomson, as was The Scotsman and a string of regional papers owned by a subsidiary, Thomson Regional Newspapers.
In July 1978, I joined The Journal as a head office reporter. The Journal was a Thomson paper, and one of the perks was a discount on a package deal with Thomson Holidays. (Incidentally, my stint with The Journal was not particularly distinguished. I was, technically, as good a reporter as any other, but unfortunately I wasn’t a reporter at heart. I don’t give a flying fuck about what passes for news for one thing, and just can’t get into the mindset. Also, the really good reporters, the ones employed by the national for very good money usually have the morals of an alley cat and would sell their mums for sex if needs must. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t. Then, about halfway through my time on The Journal, my inexperience landed me and the paper in an awful lot of trouble when I accidentally shut down Newcastle airport. But more on that another time, if ever, because it was not my finest hour.)
In the Sixties and Seventies, Thomson papers were respected. In those days, admittedly at a time when, as we now know, television was more or less in its infancy, there was no local radio or the internet, and many more people turned to read newspapers, both local and national, to keep up with what was going on, they did have a little more to boast about. The Sunday Times, under the editorship of Harold Evans didn’t rely on tarted up tittle-tattle and lifestyle pieces about what aftershave to use when opening a bottle of Californian red, but was, for example, known for the exposes of it Insight team. It also pioneered the magazine format and it had real photojournalism, not just glossy piccies of rich men’s yachts around the world and features on how to decorate your second home. (If the majority of its readers didn’t have a second home, they were self-regarding enough to believe they jolly well should have one and that, all things being equal, getting one was just a matter of time)
My point is that in an ever-changing world, Thomson Newspapers were a fixed point. But no more. These days, the Thomson Corporation is a multi-billion dollar enterprise but it doesn’t own a single paper, TV station or radio. (Lord Thomson, the man who began it all, got going when he bought a down-at-heel shop in provincial Canada which, among other items, sold radio sets. He realised that sales of these sets were so low because the area had precious few stations to tune into. So he simply started one. That sort of thinking lay at the basis of his business brain.) It might be a similar story with News International – in Britain – and News Corp worldwide: to suggest that a time when neither exists could be sooner than expected sounds mad. But don’t bet your shirt.
The problem for both is the both are Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, who might have become a naturalised American, but who thought and acted like the Australian he was born, is not just the brains of both companies, but their soul. His son and heir apparent James is, by all accounts not a patch on Rupert. I was talking to a guy here at work who was a Times reporter for ten years and sat through many talks given by James. James, the man expected to steer News International and News Corp from strength to strength refers to ‘readers’ as ‘users’ and ‘newspapers’ become ‘the end-product’. It might be impeccable and classic Harvard Business School speak, but in the real world of newspapers it is the kiss of death.
Rupert is in his mid-eighties, and from where I sit, the guy who once had one of the sharpest brains in the business and was not afraid to roll up his sleeves and muck in with the troops – which is why so many of those troops are loyal to him – had lost it. For all his brilliance, he did not know when to take a bow and leave the stage. It might be that in his heart he knows James is a duffer and that he didn’t want to relinquish the reins to a man who sooner or later is bound to fuck it all up. I don’t know. But his behaviour over the whole News of the World phone hacking scandal and his backing for that idiot Rebekah Brooks seem to indicate just one thing: he’s lost it.
. . .

But why should this mean that News International and News Corp could go to the wall a lot sooner than expected? Well, I am just another armchair pundit whose experience of finance and big business is restricted to shoving my debit card in a cashpoint every few days. So please bear that in mind. But I can see the following happening: already a staggering £4billion has been wiped off News Corp’s share price because investors are getting queasy about the whole hacking affair and how it is being handled. Who knows? Rupert pops his clogs in a few months’ time, James takes over, the investors don’t like him in charge and vote in another chairman, the new board decides to ‘rationalise’ the company (whose parts might be worth more individually than they are as divisions of News Corp), and within a few years the once mighty News Corp is no more. That’s just one scenario, but … (I reckon the same will happen to Apple, too, when Steve Jobs finally pops his clogs.)

. . .

The shit is getting every closer to developing a mind of its own and going for a head-to-head with the fan. Guess who’s going to come off best? I’m talking about the euro, of course. Now the, more or less ‘official’, talk is that it might not be such a bad idea if Greece ‘defaults’, the posh word for telling those you owe loads of money to fuck off and stop bothering you. The new big worry is now Italy. It is no longer just idiots like me who just wish the EU would just get on with it and bite the bullet. The trouble is that when the bullet is bitten, it will be the Ordinary Joes throughout Europe who will carry the can. All those dicks in Brussels will simply retire to their country of origin, accept an honour or two, allow themselves to be granted a sinecure and settle back to write their memoirs and how they knew it was all going to go wrong and said as much but no one would listen! Plus ca change …

What’s worse than an unsentimental hack? A sentimental hack. Lord save me from them and their bullshit

Back at work after a week off sick when, coincidentally, the News of the Screws went to the wall, and I am fed up to the back teeth with all the maudlin crap from colleagues about 'how sad it is that the Screws is closing'. If I come across one more boasting of how they have bought three copies of the final edition 'because it's historical', I'll kill someone. The only sad thing about the whole affair is that around 200 people have lost their jobs, the huge majority of whom will be completely innocent of the skulduggery that went on at the Screws. Furthermore, the paper being superbly produced - and I am not talking of its worth as a newspaper but the professionalism of the hacks who brought it out every week - the vast majority of those 200 will be working in equally well-paid jobs within two weeks. They will be snapped up because of their kind they are the best of the best. By the way, last week not 200 but 1,400 will be lost at a firm called Bombardier which makes trains because the Government has handed a vital contract to a German firm - no hacks crying tears over them, you'll notice, and few if any of them will have been on the rather splendid salary the Screws will have been paying its staff.
As for the paper: good riddance. Don't believe a word of the self-serving crap about what important stories it 'cracked'. Off-hand I can't remember one. The Screws specialised in digging for dirt about those in the public eye - for example, Max Moseley who runs Formula One and who liked nothing better than being whipped by tarts dressed as Nazis - and then publishing it for the titillation of folk whose lives are otherwise dull, dull, dull. Someone this morning suggested that printing the story of one David Mellor, a Tory Cabinet minister who was playing away and who liked to shag his squeeze dressed in a Chelsea football strip was the kind of worthwhile story the Screws printed. Why? Because Mellor was a Cabinet minister. Give me a break. And 'the Great British Public' should also shoulder some of the blame: if it were not so bloody prurient and ready to soak up the latest salacious details of some D-list turd's sex life, the Screws and its rivals wouldn't bother publishing it.
There's a well-known saying - well, well-known to me, anyway - that 'news is what doesn't appear in the newspapers', so given that, with one or two honourable exceptions, our national newspapers choose to print nothing but celebrity tittle-tattle, diets, 'lifestyle features', property columns and pieces on where best to save your money, the next time someone brags about Her Majesty's Press, do me a favour and tell them to fuck off.
The one thing that does concern me is that after the MPs' expenses scandal of last year, those same MPs, many of who got away scot-free with more or less dipping their fingers in the till, will be queuing up to table motions about 'regulating the Press', 'harnessing and out-of-control' Press' and all the rest of the hooey. If and when it comes to a confrontation with MPs, I shall most certainly stand by my colleagues to fight against any control. But I shall still be obliged to hold my fingers to my nose in the company of some of them.

Has Murdoch pulled it off? The Devil closes the News of the Screws and claims ‘I am blameless in this whole affair. Now bloody well get a move on and let my buy all of Sky’ . . . UPDATE. . . UPDATE. . .

Well, the news flows so fast that even this award-winning* blog can’t keep up (*St Breward and District Gardening Club (incorporating Blisland and Temple Green Fingers and Mount Friends of the Earth) Blog of The Year 2010). Yesterday, the news came through that several firms were so disgusted by the behaviour of the News of the World that they would be withdrawing their advertising. Their principled charge for the high moral ground came after the Screws admitted that the mobile phone of a young murder victim had been hacked into and it was further revealed that the mobile phones of the relatives of those who British soldiers who had died in Afghanistan were also hacked into.
The issue was obvious: the News of the World and all who sailed in her were scum and firms including Ford, Renault, 02, Butlin’s, Sainsbury’s, npower, Mitsubishi, the Halifax, Aldi, Virgin Holidays and the Co-operative were shocked to the core by the revelations and did not feel their good names should be associated with such a publication.
Well, forgive me if I don’t organise a parade in admiration for such high-minded action.
Notwithstanding the specific instances of abysmal behaviour — sanctioning, or at the very least, condoning the hacking into the phone of the murder victim Milly Dowler and the phones of war victim relatives — those firms will most certainly have been aware that thereunto the Screws’ reputation was not exactly on par with that of a virgin bride on her wedding day. You will have to be under 12 or living on the North Pole not to know of the many, many complaints over the years of ‘tabloid intrusion’ into people’s lives and as arguably the most successful red-top Sunday paper it was highly unlikely the Screws was the exception to the rule, especially as over the years it has been sued for libel and carried sensationalist stories every week. So the various firms’ newly adopted stance of ‘goodness me, who are we dealing with!’ is disingenuous to say the least. What will have been on their minds is that because of the shit the Screws had landed itself in, they would be in a very strong  and very welcome position to ‘re-negotiate’ ad rates and get the same volume of advertising for a lot less moolah. Naturally, this could not be allowed to happen overnight, but their ads would have slowly started appearing over the next few weeks — at a far more favourable rate, of course — in conjunction with lofty corporate statements along the lines of ‘the News of the World and its owners News International have re-assured [name of saintly firm] that it has dealt severely with staff responsible for past unacceptable journalistic practices and that such practices are are a thing of the past. In the light of this solemn assurance [name of saintly firm] is happy to continue . . .’ etc. ad nauseam. But in view of yesterday’s ‘shock announcement’ that is no longer how it will all play out.
For yesterday, Rupert Murdoch played, if not a masterstroke, a very clever move: he simply shut down the News of the World.

. . .

How clever doing so was remains to be seen. The point is that the big prize is ensuring that his company News Corporation, which owns News International, manages to get complete control Sky or, strictly, BSkyB, although calling it that was merely a sop when Sky took over — or officially merged with — the abysmal and failing British Satellite Broadcasting, whose unique selling point was the ‘squarial’, a ‘square aerial’. (Why this should somehow have improved whatever crap they were intending to broadcast I really don’t know.
In fact, the Brits have form in the way of utterly daft unique

selling points: the first Austin Allegro was touted as being rather special and different because it had a ‘square steering wheel’. That was soon dropped, but not before several hundred drivers had died in crashes while trying to get to grips with this important motoring innovation.) The whole phone hacking scandal was very damaging, not only to the Screws itself, but arguably to Murdoch’s bid for full control — so why not shut it down? It kills the hacking scandal far faster than it might otherwise have gone away and Murdoch can blame a corrupt culture in the Screws which had nothing to do with him and can attempt to claim moral high ground by shutting the paper and sacking staff who might have been responsible.
Furthermore, the Screws might have a long history, but in the upper echelons of hackdom folk aren’t nostalgic. More to the point, Murdoch can launch a ‘Sun on Sunday’ to take the place of the Screws, re-hire the Screws staff he values and get rid of any dead wood. All those oh-so-moral advertisers who announced that buying ad space from the Screws was now more than they could stomach can now buy ad space in the newly launched Sun on Sunday in good conscience (and most likely dealing with the same people they previously dealt with). And, dear friends, a new, more perfect era can begin. Naturally, everyone will know what is really going on, but all those anti-Murdoch critics who continue to call for blood — as they will — will now begin to look rather silly with News International claiming they had dealt with the problem decisively, there can be no doubt that the wrongdoers had been brought to book and further criticism was in bad faith.
The main flaw in this strategy is that Rebekah Brooks, now News International CEO, who was editor of the Screws when much of this is going on, has not been sacrificed, and critics can legitimately ask ‘why not’. Murdoch could, of course, announce that she had been given a stern talking to and that her canteen privileges have been revoked for a month, but the truth is he needs her and he needs her to keep her mouth shut, so she is in no real danger. Her successor as editor, Andy Coulson, is, we are told due to be arrested today, but I don’t think he is in much danger of doing time. Labour’s leader Ed Miliband has been banging on about how David Cameron appointing Andy Coulson as his director of communications was a ‘catastrophic failure of judgment’, but sadly for Ed that just sounds like so much politicking and no one give a toss. Anyway, it wasn’t. Cameron probably asked Coulson ‘were you involved’, Coulson probably said ‘yes’, and Cameron then probably said ‘well, we’ll see how it goes. If it gets too hairy, I’ll have to cut you loose, but let’s play it by ear.’
Meanwhile, the National Union of Journalists and all ‘concerned’ journalist — i.e. those on papers which hardly sell at all: the Guardian and The Independent — are all still banging on about the whole affair, but truthfully by closing the Screws, Murdoch has pulled the rug from under their feet. There’s also another ‘big story’ brewing — unprecedented famine in the Horn of Africa — so all those who still might have something to lose if the hacking scandal does linger on will be praying that it hurries up and gets far worse and starts taking everyone’s mind off the matter. God bless them all. It’s at moments like this that I thank my lucky starts I am nothing but an utterly insignificant little tick who drives an £800, 11-year-old Rover and is invisible to every good-looking woman he encounters. Actually, forget that last bit: it still irritates me.

. . .

Let me repeat what I have written here before and which will probably earn me the sheer disgust if not the outright hatred of many: when he bought The Times in 1981, Rupert Murdoch was asked to give his solemn assurance that he would not interfere in editorial policy of the papers. He is said to have replied: ‘I didn’t spend several million pounds buying The Times not to interfere.’ So the man can’t be all bad.

. . .

Since writing the above, I have a special edition of Radio 4’s The Media Show (available on all good radios) in which the usual suspects were trotted out to pontificate and observe, including the former Guardian editor Peter Preston and Bill Hagerty, a former editor of the Daily Mirror (now The Mirror) and The People, as well as Carole Malone, with whom I once worked with who could broadly be described, a la Private Eye, as one of the Street’s foremost Glenda Slaggs. It was, in my view, the usual whitewash and how the Screws always did its best ‘to get things right’ etc. Well, yes, but to keep their lawyers happy and to ensure not to much dosh was wasted on avoidable libel trials. And the observation that it always did its best ‘to get things right’ is pretty bloody irrelevant when the story you are doing your best ‘to get right’ is as vitally important as to whether Ryan Giggs is cheating on his wife or whether Blue’s Duncan James also bats for his own side. The distinction was made long ago, and is worth repeating here that what is ‘in the public interest’ and what ‘the public are interested in’ are not necessarily always (or even ever given the gormless nature of much of the tabloid readership) the same thing.
I don’t doubt that in the wake of the Press’s extensive coverage of MPs’ expenses scandal, that gang will not try their utmost to muzzle us as much as they can and then some. They have been handed a grand advantage thanks to the idiots on the Screws. And they mustn’t be allowed to do so. But please let us draw the line somewhere: yes, every democracy needs a free and, within reason, unfettered Press, but that doesn’t and will never mean that we should defend up to the hilt each and every nasty thing the Press does. It boils down to this: if a democracy wants a free Press, it must take the rough with the smooth. But I, for one, am not going to spend a single second arguing that the rough the Press gets up to is in the slightest bit necessary.
Another update concerns Rupert and his son James: apparently it was James who insisted on the strategy of shutting down the Screws. Rupert had to be persuaded.