Guido Fawked – Hunt The Kool-Aid

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC), famous for being absent and totally ineffective as Phonehackgate kicked off on its front lawn, has a new chairman to replace the mainly invisible Peta Buscombe. David Hunt, former Tory MP for Wirral West, and loyal servant of leaders from Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, is the third peer from the party’s ranks to take the job.

And getting the inside track for an interview has been the Guardian’s Roy Greenslade, discovering that Hunt wants self-regulation to continue (and, moreover, succeed), that he is committed to press freedom, that he wants to present his thoughts on reform of the Commission before Leveson reports, and that “the greatest challenge is with the bloggers”.

Name in paper does not equal fame

Hunt, however, appears not to have a wide knowledge of the blogosphere, and names only one, the Guido Fawkes blog, domain of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole, the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere. The name check has rather gone to Staines’ and Cole’s heads, and they have posted suggesting that Hunt has been calling them.

Sadly, this is complete drivel. There is a world of difference between David Hunt seeking out The Great Guido, and Cole leaving a message, only for yet another gofer to call back later when they’ve finished dealing with the really important people. And Hunt’s message, that of keeping statutory regulation out of blogging, won’t be helped by the Fawkes’ blog’s remarks about Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver.

The assertion that Ms Weaver solicited phone hacking and blagging is, like so much on the Fawkes blog, unsubstantiated bluster and clueless tribalism in lockstep. The newspaper group at the top of the Operation Motorman blagging charts was Associated – who own the Daily Mail and Mail On Sunday. The Fawkes blog has a nice little earner with Associated and won’t be going there.

The cluelessness and tribalism continues with a post eagerly asserting that “Mulcaire hacked on behalf of the Mirror”. Sadly, the headline from the Press Gazette only manages “Mulcaire notes suggest Daily Mirror link”. If Mulcaire was working for the Murdoch press, they might have had something to say if he was also hacking for the opposition. This has not occurred to The Great (and clueless) Guido.

What has also not occurred to Staines and Cole is that, if they want to stick it to the rotten lefties, they have one weapon available to them: do some investigation of their own. But that is too much like hard work, so they will not. Meanwhile, I am more than happy to see Staines believe that he is some kind of minor sleb, knowing that pride comes before a fall.

And right now, Paul Staines is brim full of Pride. Or maybe it’s Guinness?

Del Boy Blames The Beeb

Amidst all the froth generated by the Eurozone – and also the wider EU – some clearly believe that what they call “Euroscepticism”, or more correctly forthright Europhobia, should be rather more on the march than it is. So James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole has stepped in to talk up the prospects for his team, while putting the boot into those supposedly holding it back.

Del Boy’s stance will be familiar to those who have observed the modus operandi of our old friends at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse): he presents his position of screaming anti-Europeanism as “mainstream”, digs out one recent opinion poll as clinching evidence, and concludes that anyone not following his One True Path is another of those rotten lefties.

So which political party satisfies the Del Boy agenda? Not the Tories: after all, Del has already condemned Young Dave by comparing him unfavourably to Sailor Heath, who took us into the then EEC. The thought that Cameron is having to manage the first peacetime Coalition for 80 years does not enter. Instead, Del comes out for Nigel “thirsty” Farage and UKIP.

This, in Delingpole’s world, is the home of true Conservatism, and the only reason that UKIP is not attracting more than a 7% opinion poll rating is down to one thing: it’s being ignored by the dastardly BBC. Coincidentally, that’s the same BBC that broadcast “Science Under Attack”, where Royal Society president Paul Nurse did Del Boy up like a kipper. Twice.

So Del’s talk of “the BBC-led media” has to be seen in context, that context being that Del is generating large amounts of the northbound by-product of a southbound bull. Even in broadcast media, Sky News (“first for breaking wind”) and ITN do not follow the Beeb’s line. And many papers (think Sun, Mail, Telegraph, Express) are consistently hostile to the Corporation.

The problem that fringe parties like UKIP have – and Delingpole at least touches on this – is that they all too often rely on one high profile individual to raise and maintain their profile. With UKIP it is Farage, who talks the talk, but only walks the walk as far as the nearest watering hole. No significant part of the electorate has ever trusted him at UK Parliamentary elections.

I’ll go further: if that electorate was better informed about the UKIP presence at the European Parliament, and what it was costing (£2 million for Farage’s expenses) versus what the party was actually achieving there, many of those voters who had previously supported them at EP elections would have second thoughts.

Young Dave was right when he said UKIP were “a bunch of ... fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists mostly”. Del Boy needs to get out more.

Little Man Syndrome

[Update at end of post]

Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and by happy coincidence unopposed in both of the elections that he has faced so far, may not be short in stature. But by comparison to his father Hafez al-Assad, who ruled the country for 29 years before his death in 2000, he doesn’t have the “big man” presence. Old man Assad was one mean SOB; Bashar by comparison looks like an extra from the Muppet Show.

That isn’t to say that the son is just as capable as the father when it comes to ordering acts of violence, repression, human rights abuses, and the occasional massacre. But Bashar doesn’t carry his father’s sense of menace. So the urge to over-correct – to show everyone he’s really tough, a flaw that also affected former Pakistan leader Zia-ul-Haq – comes to the fore.

This readiness to show he’s the country’s hard man has been deployed rather too much as the Syrian people have of late tired of the al-Assad benevolence. So there have been many civilian deaths and serious injuries as protests against the regime in Damascus have spread and continued, in the face of strong-arm tactics from the Police and military.

The bloodshed has stirred the Arab League – which previously moved against Libya’s legendarily flatulent leader Muammar Gaddafi – into expelling Syria, although stressing that they aren’t (yet) asking for a no-fly zone or any other external intervention. The Syrian Government has not taken kindly to the expulsion, which came with a package of sanctions attached.

So what now for Bashar al-Assad? He’s already given the impression that the violence will end, then gone back on his word. His neighbours are tiring of the effect the disturbances are having on the region. Syria’s main ally, Iran, is under threat of further sanctions or worse over its bellicose attitude towards its nuclear programme and threatening behaviour towards Israel.

With Gaddafi, I said it was going to end badly, and that he had passed the point where he could row back and save his regime. That same point has already been passed in Syria: the best that al-Assad can hope for is that the Iranians give him and his family asylum. Otherwise he will join Nicolae Ceausescu, Benito Mussolini and, yes, Muammar Gaddafi in being humiliatingly and summarily executed.

It’s over, Bashar. Step away from those levers of power and leave the stage. Or someone else will cause you to leave.

[UPDATE 15 November: what did I tell you? King Abdullah of Jordan - who has read the unrest across the Middle East rather better than his fellow heads of state - has called for al-Assad to go, telling "if Bashar considers the interest of his country, he would step down". When the bloke next door tells you the game is up, it could be worth listening.

There have been pro-Assad rallies, especially in Damascus, but then, there were big pro-Gaddafi rallies in Tripoli, and look how that one turned out. Time to go, Bashar]

Arrivederci Duce

For much of the last two decades, one man has been Prime Minister of Italy: Silvio Berlusconi, media magnate, serial adulterer, peddler of dishonesty, pillar of corruption, yet nevertheless a great survivor. While he has survived, his country has enjoyed minimal growth, organised crime has flourished – particularly the Camorra in and around Naples – and debt has ballooned.

And now he has tendered his resignation, to the relief of many of his fellow citizens who would rather he had done it earlier. Looking back, one has to wonder what, apart from control of five of the country’s top seven TV stations, making it easier to get away with false accounting and embezzlement, and flunking his response to the Credit Crunch and Euro crisis, he has achieved.

Press freedom – paradoxically for a country with a media man as PM – has declined significantly, while the Heritage/WSJ economic freedom index also shows a decline, to a world ranking of 87th, and 36th out of 43 European countries. The Berlusconi years have seen, above all, so little progress, so little reform. And the man himself has compared himself to a previous Italian leader whose tenure ended badly.

This blog has often referred to Berlusconi as “Duce”, the nickname preferred by Benito Mussolini, who ruled the country as a dictator from 1922 to 1943. But Mussolini at least attempted to benefit his country, despite the violence and intimidation that came with the consolidation of power by the fascists. Berlusconi has been more interested in benefiting himself.

And, as if to confirm my characterisation, Berlusconi has himself made the Mussolini comparison, telling that he has “felt in the same situation”. He has an interesting view of his predecessor, having asserted that Mussolini “never killed anyone ... [he] sent people on holiday in exile”. Thus he has built up the view that he holds a less than complete grip on reality.

But Italy’s progress – or lack of it – under Berlusconi sounds one warning for countries like the UK: we have plenty of powerful and opinionated media figures ever ready to give advice to the Government of the day. “Duce” Berlusconi shows the kind of result we might get if one of them were to get their hands on our own levers of power.

That’s one thought that the Fourth Estate will not be discussing with its readership over the coming weeks.

Murdoch Is Served (62)

For so long, Phonehackgate was reported only by the Guardian and Observer, and later by the Independent, the unwritten code of Omerta around the dunghill that is Grubstreet holding firm and proving true Nick Davies’ phrase “dog doesn’t eat dog”. Shamefully, this even extended to the unfair dismissal case brought by Matt Driscoll against the Screws where he was awarded almost £800,000 – a record.

Even as the grim story of Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked, and the possibility that the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman had had theirs accessed illegally, unfolded, most of the press pack merely followed the story as the Screws was closed down. But yesterday that changed: the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre has clearly put the word out, and the Daily Mail has begun to lead on the affair.

Under the by-line of Stephen Wright, the Mail told “Hacking Police find ‘bombshell’ emails: now detectives may want to question James Murdoch”. Wright speculates as to whether Junior will be questioned, or perhaps arrested, as part of Operation Weeting, the potential of a cover-up which may also involve the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks, and possible deletion of emails.

It’s true that the Commons Home Affairs Committee has been warned that hundreds of thousands of emails were deleted at News International’s request recently, and that more than one organisation was thus involved. And there is the potential here to test Junior’s repeated assertions that he was not the “mafia boss” as characterised by Tom Watson, but merely badly informed.

And that poses a problem for the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, where a report into Phonehackgate, informed by its hearings going back to 2009, when Nick Davies showed them a transcript of the “For Neville” email, is in preparation. The Guardian has suggested that the Committee will indeed conclude that Junior was not the real villain of the piece.

But the Committee’s potential dilemma is, on this occasion, the supporting act. Because the move by the Daily Mail, firstly from Omerta to merely following, has crossed the journalistic Rubicon: Dacre and his hacks are now prepared to lead on the story, which suggests they are confident that the Murdochs are sufficiently damaged as to be beyond salvation.

Or, as the Mail piece puts it in signing off: “It is possible the most shocking revelations in the phone-hacking scandal are yet to come”. It Certainly is.

Express Invents Euro-Storm

Both the Mail and Express are equally hostile to the EU. Both are also alert to any threat to house prices. So a story that coupled both the EU and a threat to house prices would be a perfect storm of frightening. But how to achieve it? Well, today, the Express has done just that, as its front cover thunders “EU Rules To Slash House Prices”. Except – no surprise here – it’s not true.

What the Express is alluding to is the proposed (as in only being discussed right now) Mortgage Credit Directive, which is to do with responsible lending, balanced and clear marketing of mortgage products, comparable and clear pre-contractual information, sound financial advice, good creditworthiness assessments, and supervision of brokers and other intermediaries.

However, eagle-eyed observers will have noted the date on the document: 31st March this year. So the proposal has been around for seven and a half months before the Express has hit the panic button. Why should this be? Ah well. Someone at the paper has discovered that buy-to-let mortgages could, maybe, no longer be based on projected rental income.

And it is this group that the Express is now championing unequivocally, telling that this would “force hundreds of thousands of people to sell up”, which, if they had already secured mortgages on their properties, it would not. So no crash in house prices would be caused, although new mortgages may prove more difficult to secure. But the proposal is still just that – a proposal.

Moreover, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has, as would be expected, made its own submission, working with the Treasury. The FSA has put at the top of the list of changes it would like to see “the exclusion of ‘niche products’ from the scope of the directive ... such as buy-to-let lending”. And the news coming out of discussions on the proposal suggests that buy-to-let will indeed be exempted.

But none of this is disclosed by the Express to its dwindling band of readers. Instead, there is the usual frothing pundit from UKIP, and comments from the Building Societies’ Association and the Association of Residential Letting Agents which are suitably qualified and give the impression that both spokesmen were fed the story as the Express has published it.

Cheap and nasty knocking copy that demonises a favourite bogeyman, while in reality not being even partly true, and all just to frighten the readers into buying an equally cheap and nasty newspaper? That’ll be another Benchmark Of Excellence.

TPA – Demonise And Be Damned

Someone who occasionally looks in on Zelo Street has suggested I check out the latest attempt by the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) to demonise those in society least able to defend themselves against knocking copy, that being the disabled. The TPA has not produced its own copy on this, but has instead (tellingly) taken a Daily Mail attack piece as data.

Leading the TPA charge against the alleged ease with which some access Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is non-job holder Emma Boon, their Campaign Director. This title means she is available for issuing soundbites for broadcast media, formulaic copy for hacks, and otherwise to look smart and presentable so the more gullible viewer misses her putting the boot into the poor and vulnerable.

No further checks on the story is indeed unsatisfactory

Such is the modesty of Ms Boon that her Twitter background consists entirely of stills from TV appearances by Herself Personally Now. But her action in suggesting that DLA is being accessed fraudulently is deadly serious, and not at all pleasant. And the Mail, having splashed another pic of the totally modest Ms Boon alongside its knocking copy, has now cynically dumped her.

Currently perfect? You ought to know

The original Mail story, under the by-line of Kirsty Walker of EU flag frightener fame, asserted dishonestly that 94% of new claimants for DLA started getting payments “after only filling in paperwork”. Then it was claimed that 16% received DLA – “worth £70 a week” – after “merely filling in a claim form”. It was only later in the piece where Ms Walker conceded that 78% of claimants provided backup evidence.

Did you bother finding out about even one of them?

The article went on: “Critics warned that thousands of benefit cheats were being allowed to ‘slip through the net’”. The only independent critic quoted was Ms Boon: indeed, she also told that “there is a chance that more cheats have slipped through the net”. Emma Boon and her fellow non-job holders at the TPA have between them supplied details of cheats totalling precisely zero.

Am not demonising, and am totally modest

Moreover, FullFact has cautioned against unconditionally accepting the Mail story. And, although the Mail followed up Ms Walker’s knocking copy with a comment piece of singular nastiness “Of course, there will always be people who are too ill or disabled to work ...but”, the paper, under the same hack’s by-line, has now performed a volte-face.

“Disability benefit crackdown ‘will hurt the most vulnerable in society’ claim campaigners” is today’s headline. Comments have been sought from Mind, the Disability Alliance, and the National Autistic Society. The emphasis is on concern for those who may lost benefits. But there is no room for the TPA: Emma Boon has been dropped, as has her talk of “cheats”.

Swim with the sharks, get bitten. You know how it is, Emma. Stay modest.

In Remembrance

Today is the eleventh day of the eleventh month. And it is because the Armistice that ended the Great War came into effect at the eleventh hour of that day, and on that month, in 1918, that this is Remembrance Day. Who do we remember on this day?

From that Great War, the last war when the ruling class instructed the rest of the population to go and fight on their behalf, we remember more than nine million dead from the military of the two sides. It is as if most of the population of Greater London had been systematically wiped off the face of the earth over a four and a half year period.

From the Second World War, we remember well over twenty million dead, military and civilian, as the Third Reich and Japan waged aggressive campaigns around the globe. The numbers may not have included as many dead from the UK, but in campaigns such as that in Russia, many millions died in the most bloody, intimate and unyielding of conflicts.

From campaigns since 1945, we remember those who died in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Middle East, Central America, Afghanistan, the South Atlantic, and those lost to acts of terrorism.

But above all, this is not a celebration of war, nor an approval of it. It is when we remember those who went to fight for their country, and never came home.

And perhaps our leaders will remember the haunting conclusion of Harry Patch, who survived the Great War that consumed so many of his contemporaries: “It wasn’t worth it”.

Flagging A Dead Horse

[Updates, two so far, at end of post]

Are you frightened of the EU? If not, you may not be benefiting from the collected wisdom (or, maybe, lack of it) of the obedient hackery toiling in the service of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre. This has been demonstrated superbly today by Kirsty Walker, whose name appears on the Euro-Frightener “After Fifa poppy fiasco, the latest bright idea from Brussels? EU flag on England shirts”.

Sadly for Ms Walker, not only did viewing this headline set the Zelo Street bullshit detector ringing loudly, but also the thought occurred that we’ve been here before, although that was in July when the Maily Telegraph’s resident contrarian Christopher Booker made similar claims. The idea of athletes being forced to wear the EU flag was drivel then, and is still drivel.

And the Mail piece concedes this, starting “The measures stipulate that the EU’s blue and yellow flag should be worn by all our teams”, but then adding “member states should be allowed to make the final decision on whether the EU flag should be displayed on clothing”. Ms Walker asserts that this was “following an outcry”. Bullshit. There hasn’t been an outcry, and no change has been made.

Also giving off a particularly rank aroma is the attempt to turn FIFA into some kind of EU associate organisation, by including the “poppy row” in the piece. FIFA, as any fule kno, has nothing to do with the EU and is based in Zürich, in Switzerland, which is, er, not in the EU. Most likely it has been included because of the poppy business, and because it’s full of people who talk foreign.

But Ms Walker is in the misinformation groove: next comes “Brussels already has the power to fine organisations in certain circumstances for not flying the EU flag”. No it doesn’t. Next? “Recently it emerged that the University of Northampton was fined more than £56,000 for not displaying the EU logo to acknowledge it had received funding from the European Regional Development Fund”.

It didn’t emerge, Kirsty, because there was no fine. Northampton Uni didn’t acknowledge that they’d been partly paid by an EU fund and so didn’t get the full grant from the UK Government who were administering the funds, and who allocated the money elsewhere. No-one was fined. Nor were Daily Mail readers told about the main thrust of the EU resolution on sport.

Europolitics has a rather different headline: “MEPs recommend measures to ‘clean up’ sport”. That’s because much of the resolution is about combating hooliganism, doping, match-fixing, illegal betting and money laundering, while improving the lot of retired athletes and looking at standards for sports agents.

The Daily Mail and its readers could agree with all of that. But it would not sell papers and demonise the EU.

[UPDATE 1: Mark English, who is Head of Media at the European Commission office in London, has also found adversely on Kirsty Walker's piece, and a further article which recycles Jonathan Isaby's misinformation from the so-called Taxpayers' Alliance, which I considered earlier]

[UPDATE 2: Chris Moncrieff, yet another of the rabble that make up the Dacre hackery, has confirmed that this is a bone which the Dacre attack doggies are not for putting down. He has dishonestly told that "MEPs were voting to urge ... sporting teams ... to have the EU flag emblazoned on their national team shirts", which they were not.

But Moncrieff, like Kirsty Walker, is in the misinformation groove, continuing "this ludicrous, and indeed sinister, proposal ... is, of course, yet another small and stealthy step towards the creation of the Europhiles' dream: a United States of Europe". Facts, eh? Who needs to bother with them when you've got Dacre in your ear and a nice full bottle of Kool-Aid?]

TPA – EU Accounts Whopper

One of the hoariest of EU-bashing chestnuts is the assertion that the accounts have either never been signed off, or haven’t been signed off for many years. This has been recycled into appropriate knocking copy by Jonathan Isaby, the newest non-job holder at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), who has claimed unequivocally that “The EU’s Accounts Are Not Signed Off ... Again”.

Isaby then homes in on what is called the “error rate” of 3.7%, this being around €4.5 billion for 2009-10. The inference he draws is that something less than honest is going on here, but as with anything claimed or inferred by the TPA, a reality check is in order. And that reality is that “error” does not mean “fraud” or “waste”: moreover, the accounts actually have been signed off.

So why do these “errors” happen? This is because most – around 80% - of EU spending is administered by national Governments. Not all of their processes and controls pass muster with the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg. And there are, on occasion, breaches in such things as procurement rules. Some member states are not keen on an independent audit of problem items.

And how does the UK measure up on the EU audit standard? Ah well. Sir John Bourn, UK Comptroller and Auditor, has said that if the UK had a similar test to the EU one, he might have to qualify the whole of British Central Government Expenditure. That’s another way of saying that the EU standard sets the bar high, as well as conceding that the UK might not.

The latter suggestion is not hard to point up: the 2009-10 Commons accounts had to be qualified after the Auditor General refused to sign them off. The National Audit Office (NAO) refused to sign off the MoD’s accounts – for the fourth year in a row – stating that the Ministry had failed to account properly for £6 billion of equipment. That’s more than half as much again as the EU’s “error rate” in one department.

But what about that suspicion of fraud? The proportion of the EU budget affected is not 3.7%, but 0.2%, and this is, remember, suspected fraud. And the figure does not appear anywhere in Isaby’s post. Jonathan Isaby is an intelligent individual, who could have found all these figures and links, had he been so inclined. That he has apparently not been so inclined suggests one conclusion.

And that is that the TPA – not for the first time – is generating knocking copy to fit its own agenda, rather than considering the fact of the matter. Thus the EU accounts myth is propagated, the TPA get their copy in the papers, and another organisation marked “Government” is casually demonised.

No change there, then.

Guido Fawked – Wrong Call On Hacking (Again)

It is hard for some to break the habits formed over the years, and apparently impossible for the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole, the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere, at the Guido Fawkes blog. Staines called Phonehackgate wrong at the start – Cole, at the time blogging as Tory Bear, did even worse – and they can’t climb out of their rut of cluelessness.

At least they're holding it the right way up

So the appearance of Murdoch Junior before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee yesterday, instead of being assessed strictly on its merits, was used by the Fawkes blog for yet another cheap snark at Labour MP Tom Watson, with the headline “Watson’s Grandstanding Slammed – Won’t Stop TV Headlines Though”. In support was a Tweet from, er, a Daily Mail hack.

Watson’s shot at Junior – “You must be the first Mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise” – might not have pleased Staines and Cole, but the characterisation is entirely apt for a company that exercised power over elected politicians by fear, hacked phones, blagged information, indulged in surveillance and whose newsrooms saw a culture of bullying.

Moreover, the Murdoch empire carried on that way substantially because it considered itself untouchable. The Mafia comparison runs deep, and the headline writers (not the TV ones) knew it. So even Rupe’s troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun have reported the remark. The Express has gone with “MP’s Mafia Boss Jibe At James Murdoch”.

Even the Daily Mail – pals of Staines and Cole – has come up with “Don’t Call Me A Mafia Don”. Online news source the Huffington Post – not TV, folks – has splashed with “You’re Familiar With The Word Mafia?” to head its coverage. So why has the Fawkes blog fixated on “TV headlines”? Simples. Staines is equally fixated on the BBC as the source of all that is evil in the media.

That means he and Cole yet again look the wrong way as Phonehackgate breaks out from the rule that “Dog doesn’t eat dog”. But their pals in the Fourth Estate are equally clueless: Quentin Letts (let’s not), trying in vain to generate humour at the Mafia remark, told “Mr Whittingdale allowed it to stand, so I suppose he’ll now have to be sent to the bottom of the Bay of Naples wearing concrete boots”.

Very good, Quent. But organised crime in and around Naples is not the business of the Mafia, but of the Camorra. Small wonder that the Fawkes blog is routinely clueless, when its pals in the MSM are equally so.

Murdoch Is Served (61)

So today, Murdoch Junior returned to face the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and encountered a suitably fired-up Tom Watson, plus full supporting cast. And the MP for West Bromwich had a surprise for Junior: he’d been speaking to Neville Thurlbeck, former chief reporter at the now-defunct Screws. And Nev says Junior saw the email containing transcripts of hacked messages.

Watson offered Junior the chance to come clean and admit he misled the Committee back in July. The offer was declined. Instead, Junior dropped former Screws editor Colin Myler and legal man Tom Crone in the mire, suggesting it was they who had done the misleading. Crone described Junior’s evidence as “disingenuous”.

And Crone isn’t the only one on the legal side that has suggested Junior may not have been totally candid about what he knew, and when he knew it. As the current issue of Private Eye (#1301) has pointed out – it’s on Page 6 and the magazine is on sale at all good newsagents for just £1.50 – blaming the lawyers didn’t work with Harbottle & Lewis, nor with Crone.

Moreover, it didn’t work with Julian Pike of Farrer & Co, who told the same Commons Committee that “there was wider involvement in phone activity than [Clive] Goodman”. News Group’s own counsel Michael Silverleaf concurred: “There is overwhelming evidence of the involvement of a number of senior journalists in the illegal enquiries ... a culture of illegal information access”.

These comments come from 2008. That’s a year before Nick Davies and the Guardian first began to prise the lid off the Murdoch can of worms. And it’s the same year that Davies brought us the go-to book on the workings of the Fourth Estate, Flat Earth News. It was while talking about the part of the book examining The Dark Arts when Davies was aggressively challenged by Stuart Kuttner of the Screws.

“Nick Davies lives on another planet. What’s he talking about? It was one journalist at News Of The World, who did it once, and he was fired and went to prison” asserted Kuttner. Davies knew this was untrue, and the tone of Kuttner’s attack caused someone with more information to contact Davies. The Murdoch empire had effectively advertised its guilt to the world.

The aggressive tone continued when the Guardian first splashed on Phonehackgate, with the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks suggesting that the paper was misleading the public. The Metropolitan Police, coincidentally being advised by former Screws hack Neil “Wolfman” Wallis, leant on editor Alan Rusbridger to back off. The reek of corruption is unmistakeable.

And now the Murdochs have turned on their own lawyers. Everybody’s out of step bar Junior, as far as he can recall. Roll on the next revelation.

Climate Change For Libertarians

The latest word has come from the International Energy Agency (IEA): the world is headed, they reckon, for “irreversible” climate change within just five years, unless the existing energy infrastructure changes. Its chief economist has used the ominous phrase “the door is closing” to point up the rapidly diminishing window of opportunity for mankind to take action.

This, it might be thought, would serve as a call to any and all interested parties to get real about the situation, but that would be to misunderstand the denialist lobby, for whom any restriction on seeking out, extracting and burning fossil fuel resources is held to be an assault on their fundamental freedoms, and moreover can only come not from rational human beings, but mere rotten lefties.

Also, anyone also thinking that the denial lobby could not sink lower that the welter of sneering abuse routinely hurled at anyone opposing him by James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole” should wise up: some out there in Libertarian La-La land have dispensed with Del Boy’s wordiness and have instead resorted to effing and blinding as their favoured intellectual weapon.

None in this field is more expert at liberally (but only classically, folks) scattering the original and genuine F-word around his writings than Chris Mounsey, wisely no longer the face of the Libertarian Party UK, but still sounding off at the Devil’s Kitchen blog, despite the unfavourable reception of its contents last year by Andrew “Brillo Pad” Neil on the Beeb’s Daily Politics.

So when the arguments started over Cuadrilla Resources and their use of hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) at a test site near Blackpool, Mounsey linked to a suitably slanted analysis – asserting that an earth tremor of 2.3 magnitude is in itself no big deal (true) while managing to miss the fact that there has only been a test well bored so far – and then let loose against campaign group Frack Off.

Those folks are characterised as having “absolutely f*** all idea about science or economics ... stupidity [twice]”, being “arseholes ... stupidity [again] ... pig-ignorant”, although Mounsey does not tell what his own qualifications are, rather like Del Boy and his pal Christopher Booker, who rubbish the expertise of anyone they dislike, while having no scientific background themselves.

Hopefully for Mounsey, his scientific and economic expertise is better than his grasp of geography: on Twitter recently he asserted that I was “in the area”. Very good Chris – Crewe and Blackpool are around 70 miles apart. For those in the south-east, that’s like saying Northampton is in the Central London area. And that won’t do the “humble devil’s” credibility any favours.

Which is probably as well, given the cluelessness of his insights.

TPA On HS2 – But Missing RFG

The desperation exhibited by the Comfortable of Tufton Street at the lack of traction their opposition to HS2 is gaining was clear yesterday as the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance’s chief non-job holder Matthew Sinclair span a report from the Commons’ Transport Select Committee to suggest that the project should be called in for review. But that wasn’t what the Committee actually said.

Moreover, Sinclair cites in support the Maily Telegraph’s deputy editor Benedict “famous last words” Brogan, though no link is provided, and the words attributed do not appear under his by-line. Brogan’s Twitter feed for the last few days does not mention HS2, so either he is being uncharacteristically modest, or Sinclair is pulling a fast one.

Sinclair also continues the TPA policy of inflating its own propaganda, by describing its press releases as “research notes”, when they are nothing more than knocking copy cobbled together from figures of their own invention (already dismantled HERE and HERE). But the latest offering from the TPA’s “rail expert” Chris Stokes has at least, and at last, mentioned the previously missing F-word.

That’s F as in Freight, the capacity for which is already constrained on the southern part of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and also on parts of the East Coast Main Line (ECML). That’s not good, because demand for container and other intermodal traffic is rising inexorably. We know this because the Rail Freight Group (RFG) lay out the figures HERE in a letter to the Transport Secretary.

While Stokes suggests in the report cited by Sinclair that putting in a grade separated connection at Nuneaton will somehow be good enough to satisfy the demand for freight paths, RFG Chairman Tony Berkeley is clear that this will only satisfy “some” demand, and that by 2030 – soon after the first part of HS2 is due to open – that demand will need far more capacity.

What Stokes and the TPA also don’t appear to appreciate is that running 125mph passenger services and 75mph freights on the same railway is not a good use of capacity. Two pairs of tracks enable them to be separated, but that in turn constrains the ability to provide 100mph commuter and regional services. Transferring most of the fast services to HS2 eases that constraint.

So while the TPA continues to pretend that the WCML can be enhanced – with little or no disruption – to deal with future demand, bodies like the RFG are unequivocal on the need for HS2. As Tony Berkeley has said: “The country needs it”.

World Class? No Chance (2)

Back in May, I posted on the shortcomings of Manchester Airport, supposedly owner of the title “Best UK Airport”. At that point, I reckoned that it would be difficult to challenge the combination of retail experience overkill, lack of fitness for purpose and general ineptitude thus offered. But the smaller and supposedly leaner and fitter operation at Liverpool has taken up the challenge.

Flying in yesterday afternoon from Madrid’s Terminal 1 – that’s the oldest part of Barajas airport, but all the kit works – the feeling that this was not going to be the happiest of terminal transits started as the aircraft, instead of turning right onto the apron at the east side of the terminal building used exclusively by EasyJet, carried straight on, and on to a stand needing a bus transfer.

Two modern Cobus shuttle vehicles awaited disembarking passengers. What could go wrong? Well, after over 80 bodies crammed on to the first bus, what was already wrong became apparent: the vehicle had been sent out with a soft tyre, which promptly went flat under load. A substitute bus was provided, but had rather less standing space. A tube-style crush ensued.

It got worse: the queuing space available for punters waiting at the “UK Border” sign wasn’t enough for just 130 bodies. So many passengers had to queue outside for a couple of minutes. Fortunately it was merely damp and windy. The time taken to process a flight of almost all EU citizens was around quarter of an hour, and to what point? We’d all shown our passports in Madrid already.

Then some bright spark thought it A Good Idea to have anyone passing through the Customs “green channel” run the gauntlet of a sniffer dog and its humourless handler. Again, to what point? We all got security scanned before boarding. The only thing with the same danger level as a Class A drug likely to be inbound from Madrid would be a bottle of Chinchon from the airport duty free.

But the icing on the cake came outside the terminal. Liverpool Airport does not have a rail link, but there are frequent bus services to nearby South Parkway station, from where there are direct trains to Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Leeds, and, yes, Crewe. So I headed for the bus stand that was clearly marked “Rail Link”, only to see no sign of the timetable for the direct rail link bus (Service 501).

And then a 501 drove past without stopping. The duty Arriva bod explained “it can’t use this stand, it’s a bendy bus, it’s too long, so it has to use Stand 1”. Then put that information somewhere on Stand 4, which you marked “Rail Link”. And no, I don’t care if it’s Arriva’s fault, or Merseytravel’s, or the Airport’s. This is a basic error of clown proportions.

Fortunately I caught my train (just). But sort yourselves out. It’s not good enough.

Phil Space On HS2

It started so promisingly: Daily Mail hack Michael Hanlon looked at the fall-out from the horrific accident on the M5 near Taunton last Friday and could only conclude that the idea of raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph was thereby shown to be less than A Good Idea. Sadly, any credibility Hanlon had in store was then sprayed up the wall yesterday with an appallingly uninformed piece on HS2.

Because the attack, “We must slow down this high speed rail project”, is mere formulaic knocking copy filled with misinformation. Hanlon demonstrates this at the outset when he tells that HS2’s time saving of 23 minutes for London to Birmingham is “One and a half billion pounds a minute”. But the cost he used (£32 billion) is for the whole “Y network” including Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.

Moreover, his existing London to Birmingham fastest time of 72 minutes does not exist: the only train scheduled to do the journey this quickly runs the other way, from Birmingham to London (Hanlon’s “fastest trains” [plural] characterisation is therefore wrong; a more typical fastest time is 82 minutes). And to this has to be added a little journalistic exaggeration.

“Trains to Devon and Cornwall dawdle along at velocities that would embarrass I K Brunel” pontificates Hanlon, who, had he bothered to inspect the National Rail journey planner, would have seen that the fastest trains [plural] from London to Plymouth average a shade over 75mph, a speed that Brunel would have been more than happy merely to achieve momentarily.

But, as the man said, there’s more: “Of course, the network really needs to be taken back into public hands” tells Hanlon, apparently unaware that the network, overseen as it is by Network Rail, is already in public hands. And as for “New signalling and some line upgrades would mean that many services currently restricted to 125mph could run at 140mph or more”, this too is bunk.

British Rail (remember them?) concluded that the maximum permissible speed with conventional signalling was 125 – after trials of 140mph running. To go faster would need adoption of cab signalling by any train using lines supposedly upgraded, as well as an appropriate train protection system. For mixed use lines, that would mean spending serious amounts of money.

And much of the rest of Hanlon’s piece is similarly muddled, so much so that it does not need any in-depth knowledge of the rail industry to see through it. This means that any attempt to damage the case for HS2 is likely to have exactly the opposite effect. But Hanlon does concede that “I would support HS2 if ... the plan was extended to ... Northern England”. Which it already has been.

So it was hardly worth Hanlon’s while turning up, then.

Ending The Iberian Journey

Today is time to head home, to leave behind the always interesting city of Madrid, its magnificent architecture, its welcoming population, and its chirruping pedestrian crossings (no-one visiting can get that sound out of their heads after a day or two). And it’s a good opportunity to look back at the prospects for Spain and Portugal as both countries journey further into austerity.

Thus far, all that those austerity programmes have brought is cuts, lessening of demand, hiking of prices (including eye-watering VAT increases in Portugal), and the inevitable worsening of unemployment. Both countries – and, whisper it quietly, the UK too – need a strategy for growth. Because without growth, the economic situation will not markedly improve.

And growth is the issue that politicians are either ducking, or not addressing with sufficient vigour. That is true, whether the country concerned is within the Eurozone or not. So why all the hot air expended on blaming “Brussels” (so convenient to dump the blame on a city), the Germans, the French, and of course anything even remotely connected to the EU?

As with so much else, this keeps a legion of overmonied and untalented hacks in employment (I almost used the term “gainful”, but that would have been a word too far). Many of them are the equivalent of passed-over Majors, most are writing to order – that doesn’t just include the Daily Mail nowadays, sadly – and the frothing and ranting is held to sell papers.

In the face of this wave of punditry, it’s easy to lose sight of the real issue: economies around the world are doing badly, whether they are part of the EU, or not. Currency zones do not explain away the endemic problems. This much will endure, until the assembled hackery is proven as wrong as ever, and then the passed-over Majors will be nowhere to be seen.

And with that thought, this Iberian journey concludes.

Slow Death Of Casa Mingo

There are few eateries in the city of Madrid that have been frequented by young and old, rich and poor, singles, couples, families and groups over the years. One such is Casa Mingo, a short walk from the Metro at Principe Pio and a city institution, where the main item on the menu is roast chicken – just the one, mind – washed down with a bottle of the house’s own brand Asturian Cider.

It’s one of those places that seems busy, but where they always find space for you (and your party, however large). But times change: Casa Mingo has become more expensive over the years – the cider now comes in at €5.80 a bottle – and times are less good. Two years ago, the place seemed to be weathering the downturn pretty well, but tonight the place was well and truly dead.

Two tables were occupied in the whole place when I arrived, making a 50% table occupancy increase. Four waiters seemed embarrassed at having to take turns to serve a whole extra customer. The order – Pollo, Pan y Sidra – did not in any case need writing down to help later recall. Another dozen or so arrived in the next hour, but this was dire compared to a decade ago.

There was nothing wrong with the fayre – Casa Mingo chicken and cider is always good – but more potential diners are going straight home, visiting cheaper places, or eating on the go. The idea that “well, it was only Monday” doesn’t wash. This place was always at least ticking over, even on the quietest day of the week. I’d hate to see it go to the wall, but you never know.

Times are indeed hard in Madrid right now.

Mel Is Just Mad For It (Again)

What is it about the Daily Mail and its motley band of pundits? Research appears not merely optional, but is routinely bypassed. Granted, a comment piece is opinion, and one should not expect lack of bias, but making up history to suit the line being taken is unacceptable, as is the deployment of the “Littlejohn Defence” to bat away complaints. “Mad” Melanie Phillips is in that groove today.

Immigration is Mel’s subject du jour, and she starts with a false assumption: “Immigration probably sits at the very top of the public’s concerns” she asserts. Well, at least we got the “probably”, but this could have been checked by five minutes’ Googling – clearly too much for overmonied Mail hacks – to see that the latest Ipsos/Mori survey puts it third, behind the Economy and unemployment.

Never mind, and Mel doesn’t: to give a historical perspective, she dispenses with fact altogether, and tells that “1997, the incoming Blair/Brown Government (for Mel, only two men ran that Government, and one of them was Gordon Brown, so that is Very Bad Indeed) decided to lift existing immigration controls in order to create a new kind of society”. Thus she mines a seam of pure bullpucky.

Then, after pretending that inward migration to the USA somehow doesn’t happen, Mel is off again: “Labour despised the very idea of national identity based on Britain’s foundational culture, history, religion and traditions”. Mel, you’re journeying beyond Barking. But there’s more: “Anyone who objected was damned as a racist. Thus the cultural identity of Britain ... was changed without its citizens ever being consulted”.

How can I put this, Mel? My “cultural identity” has not been changed. Movements of people across borders do not change my, or anyone else’s, “cultural identity”. No Labour politician has, to my recollection, damned as a racist anyone wanting to raise the issue of immigration. There are, of course, ways in which some folks raise the issue that is racist, but that’s not the same thing.

And there is no such thing as the “cultural identity” of the nation. This is mere flannelspeak. A nation like the UK does not, cannot, and did not (even in the supposedly halcyon days when nobody had to lock their front door, and there was no elf’n’safety or human rights or anyone reading the Qur’an with intent) have a single “cultural identity”. We’ve been an amalgam of cultures since at least the Romans.

Moreover, a country can’t become “profoundly demoralised” as Mel asserts. So there cannot be, and there isn’t, a “crisis over Britain’s very soul”. Melanie Phillips might please diehard Daily Mail readers and on-line commenters starting towards frothing at the mouth and falling over backwards, but this ranting shows a disturbing lack of contact with reality, together with an exaggerated sense of self-worth.

As Ted Rogers once put it, “Take her away – she’s been rejected”.

Spanish Lack Of Practice

Those opposed to the various Occupy protests will be glad to hear the following news: the demonstration and encampment in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol is over. This imposing open space, the centre of Spain and location from where all distances out into the country are measured, has been returned to its customary status as a stop on the tourist tour, with a transport interchange beneath.

Puerta del Sol this morning

But that does not mean that all is now well in Madrid and across Spain. The number of unemployed – taken from this morning’s 20 Minutos free sheet, folks – is over 4.36 million, which is over 21% of the workforce. It is not difficult for the hacks to find those who have been trying to get into work not just for months, but for as much as three years.

And, with a General Election looming, it should come as no surprise to see that there will be more demonstrations in Puerta del Sol. This includes a countrywide “mobilisation” on November 13, despite the Board of Elections trying to ban it. It appears that a number of squares and open spaces are being targeted, because they are to be used for political rallies and party meetings.

So what are the major parties offering the electorate? Austerity, austerity and yet more austerity, although no doubt not necessarily in that order. Central Madrid may be as busy as ever, but the satellite and dormitory towns are showing signs of, well, being very, very quiet. Local shops, restaurants and other businesses are closing. Many suburbs are like ghost towns.

Some building continues – the kind of houses being built, though, may not be within the reach of any except the well off. In northern Madrid, the suburb of Pitis has been left partially built, with the development ending some hundreds of metres short of the railway and Metro interchange. The roads have been laid out, but nobody wants to build. And few want to buy what is built.

Everything costs more than it did two years ago – a single fare on the Metro has been hiked by 50%, although a 10-journey ticket is just 27% more. Eating out costs more. Wages stay the same. The protesters, when they reconvene, will be taking aim at the banks, as in the UK, but say that they will be politically non-partisan, and against an “unjust and unsustainable” economic model.

Winter is cold in Madrid. Maybe it will be the same across Spain.