A Legal View on Megrahi
My posts on Megrahi seem to be getting a lot of hits, as obviously and quite rightly people are concerned and interested in the case.
I found this post by Jonathan Mitchell, QC. It covers the law and some of the reactions in detail. This is the opening paragraph.
If Megrahi was indeed rightly convicted of mass murder, which I doubt, it is not in doubt that he acted on the orders of the Libyan government. He was a senior member of its intelligence service. Yet both the UK and US governments have for some years been on friendly terms with the people who, they say, ordered the destruction of PanAm 103. They dine with them. They have cocktails with them when they meet at mutual friends. The week before Megrahi’s release, as reported in the Washington Post, a delegation of four American senators led by John McCain met with Colonel Gaddafi to discuss the sale by the US to Libya of military equipment. In April, Hilary Clinton welcomed another member of the Gaddafi family, the régime’s National Security Adviser, to Washington. She said “We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya. We have many opportunities to deepen and broaden our cooperation. And I’m very much looking forward to building on this relationship. So, Mr. Minister, welcome so much here.”
Read the full article.
Defence Spending
A report in The Sunday Times says that British defence spending is out-of-control and actually harms the efficiency of the armed forces. A few damning paragraphs.
The author of the report, Bernard Gray, a leading businessman and former special adviser to Labour defence ministers, writes: “How can it be that it takes 20 years to buy a ship, or aircraft, or tank?
“Why does it always seem to cost at least twice what was thought?
“Even worse, at the end of the wait, why does it never quite seem to do what it was supposed to?”
Was it though ever any different? I have been involved in planning defence projects since the early 1970s and I’ve heard complaints of this nature all the time. And not just from the British, but from high-up engineers in a major US defence contractor.
I’ve also spoken to senior military men, who have always had good reasons to believe that the armed services never really get the equipment, they need to do the job. Usually it is over specified to do too many roles and hence so costly, that we can’t afford enough of them.
We need much better value for money and equipment that is much better suited for the job.
Prudence Stays Silent
Gordon Brown has said nothing so far about the Megrahi affair.
Is he being Prudence?
I think though it is interesting to look at reactions on both sides of the Atlantic. Here we put the emphasis on justice and as I said in a previous post, I don’t think anybody got that. But a lot of the comment in the US seems to ignore the truth and put the emphasis a lot more on vengeance.
Megrahi for Oil?
I said in the previous post, that according to The Times, that Megrahi might be being released to improve relations.
Now in this piece from the BBC, Gaddafi’s son has said that was true.
Of course Gordon Brown has denied it. Let’s hope that Prudence is the biggest casualty.
Kenny MacAskill
Kenny MacAskill is the Scottish Justice Minister at the centre of the Megrahi case.
I didn’t know much about him until I read this profile of him on the BBC web site.
He is an interesting character and judging by his anti-English views, he is not the sort of person, I would get on with. It may have been to a appreciative audience, but his views on the England football team as “The Great Satan”, was a bit much.
Afghanistan
I have two views on Afghanistan; we should stay and we should come home.
It’s difficult and I think that whatever we do, the number of casualties we are suffering in the country, can’t be sustained for ever. Although rightly, we focus on the number of dead, there is also a real problem in the number who are injured. Wikipedia gives a lot of details.
One telling figure in the article is that between January 2006 and June 2009, we have had to medically evacuate 2,192 personel from Afghanistan for medical reasons. That’s an average of just over 70 a month. Almost three times as many troops have been admitted to UK Field Hospitals for reasons of disease or non-battle injuries, than for those caused in battle.
Can we sustain those losses? And how long before everybody in the UK knows someone who has been killed or injured?
Whether politicians like it or not, we are getting to the point where we have to negotiate our way out of Afghanistan.
The Corby Scandal
The word scandal is rather mild for the issues surrounding the cleaning up of the steelworks in Corby.
With echoes of Thalidomide and the toxin problems in California exposed by Erin Brockovich, the Borough Council has fought every inch of the way and they have now lost a battle in the Court of Appeal. Incidentally, the News page on the Corby web site is blank. Could this be because they are still in denial over their role in the scandal.
I’ll now put my statistical hat on.
The geographic cluster of the birth defects would appear to be obvious. So why did the council try and find what the problem is, rather than bring up a whole battery of legal defences?
If I lived in the town, I’d make sure that all the councillors responsible would be voted out.
I’ve also worked on chemical works for a company, ICI, that cared a lot about health and safety. From what I’ve read, the precautions taken as the works was dismantled were not of the highest standard. Why? And have the workers suffered any ill effects?
I suspect that we will hear a lot more in all sorts of directions about this scandal.
Is Publishing Statistics a Good Idea?
Statistics published today about heart operations show a very strong increase in success. This is despite warnings from the medical profession, that publishing statistics on success rates, would lead to conservative procedures.
This is a real result for openness.
I believe strongly that publishing information responsibly is always for the better. I think too that politicians are finally getting round to this belief, with David Cameron wanting all government and political expenses to be published on the Internet. He’s right, but he doesn’t go far enough.
What would I do?
The Health and Safety Executive has set a small precedent by publishing reasonably detailed lists of fatal incidents on their web site. But they don’t go far enough and the data is not published in a form that can easily be downloaded from the web site. This would enable analyses to be made to see if there are ways of increasing safety.
Obviously, databases of this type should be desensitised before they are put on line. For instance, I might be described as male, white, between 55 and 65 and living in St. Edmundsbury.
But suppose the following databases were available on-line and in a form such as Excel that was easily downloaded.
- Births by sex, post code, multiple birth etc.
- Deaths by sex, age, cause, smoker etc.
- Serious road accident by vehicle involved, post code, road type etc.
- Crime by type, post code, victim, clear up, sentence etc.
- Prisoner by sex, offence, age, prison etc.
- Illegal immigrant by country, sex etc.
This would remove much of the speculation beloved of the tabloid newspapers, who publish a statistic that proves their bigoted point of view.
The government and industry might like to try to keep hold of this data. They will cite confidentiality, security and other spurious reasons. However, as precedents are set, it will be extremely difficult to keep things confidential.
We will all benefit through access to these databases.
Is it Usury?
I was rather surprised that Provident Financial, who reported good results this week, charge some of its customers an interest rate of up to 545% on loans. Martin Narey of Barnardos is not amused. And neither am I!
But to criticise the company is wrong, as they are merely filling a gap in the financial services market, that should be catered for by micro-finance companies and credit unions. As to the latter it has always puzzled me why they have such a low profile in this country, compared to the United States. They seem to be ideal for the times and also for lending small amounts of money in more stretched communities. Especially, as any profits stay in that community.
Could it be that the regulations are framed to protect the banks? After all, no credit union has ever taken the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the British Grand Prix or other major sporting event. And they probably don’t pay anything to the government, except perhaps VAT and Income Tax for employees.
At least though, the spam I used to get from doorstep lenders like Providential has stopped. (They didn’t send any incidentally! Or not to me at any rate!) This offered me loans at high rate and it came from spam companies in the United States. However, a letter to my MP, who talked to the government, stopped the process in days.
There’s another moral in that tale. Don’t underestimate the power of your MP! If you have a problem write to them!
Nasty to Esther
Esther Rantzen is standing for election in the next Parliament.
I wish her luck.
But the celebrity ex-MPs on BBC Breakfast Time were not very welcoming of her actions. Humm! Perhaps they are jealous of her energy and guts!
The Anonymous Widower 