Craig Murray's Blog, page 197

Circuses, but Less Bread

The London Olympics are already achieving the number one aim of the politicians who brought them here, which is making our politicians feel very important indeed.

The media is quite frenetic in its efforts to make us all believe we should be terrifically proud of the fact we are hosting the Olympics, as though there were something unique in this achievement. If we can’t competently do something that Greece, Spain and China have done in recent years, that would be remarkable. Of course the Games will be on the whole well delivered, sufficient for the media and politicians to declare it an ecstatic success. Some of the sporting moments will be sublime, as ever.

But did it have to be in London? We won’t know the total cost of the Games for months, but it will cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion and I suspect a lot more. I also suspect the GDP figures will, in the event, show that the massive net fall in visitor numbers has hurt the already shrinking economy further.

But to take the most optimistic figure, holding the Olympics in London has cost every person in the country an average of £150 per head in extra taxes. That is £600 for a family of four. Actually it is in the end going to be well over £2,000, as of course the money has been borrowed on the never never, and taxpayers are going to be paying it off their whole lives, along with the sum ten times higher they are already paying direct into the pockets of the bankers through their taxes.

The very rich, of course, don’t pay much tax, so they are not worried.

But to take just the figure of £600 extra taxes for a family of four, the lowest possible amount, and not including the interest. Is having the Olympics here really worth paying out £600 for? If Tony Blair had approached the head of the family and said “We are going to have the Olympics in London, but it’s going to cost you £600, would the answer have been from most ordinary people: “Yes, great idea, this is that important to us”?

People are not disconcerted because they don’t see that they have to pay. There is no special Olympics tax, and they pay their taxes in a variety of ways, and individuals are not the sole source of taxation. But this is nonetheless real money taken from the people in pursuit of the hubris of politicians.

I love sport. I hate the corruption of the International Olympic Committee, Fifa and the rest; I hate the vicious corporatism and militarisation of our capital and absurd elitism of the transport lanes; the sport itself I love. But with the economy contracting, and the NHS being farmed out for profit, is it really worth £600 for a family – and many families are really struggling in a heartbreaking way – is it worth the money to have the Olympics here rather than in Paris?

Of course it isn’t. I think many of us will feel an extra pleasure watching the Opening ceremony because it is British. Patriotic pride will surge. It is not wrong to enjoy the spectacle tonight on TV. The corporate well connected and ruling classes will enjoy it in the stadium.

But after you have watched it on TV, ask yourself this question. How much more did you enjoy it than enjoy watching the Beijing ceremony, and was that margin of extra enjoyment something that everybody in the room would have paid out £150 for?

Because they just did.

Torture in the 21st Century

On Monday 30 July at 11am on Radio 4 there will be a BBC radio programme entitled “Torture in the 21st Century”, presented by John Sweeney. I was interviewed extensively for it, though I don’t know how much of my interview will feature. I shall be in Ghana then and iPlayer does not work abroad, so if anybody has the technical ability to make a sound file and send it to me, I should be grateful.

Britain has still not admitted, let alone sought to redress, its complicity in post 9/11 torture networks, and indeed its continued receipt on a regular basis of intelligence from torture from the security services of, for example, Bahrain. The worrying thing about the disingenuous vapourings of John Sawers, head of MI6, is that he still maintains that torture gets you the truth. It does not. It gets you whatever the Bahraini, Uzbek, US, or whatever government wishes to hear, which is a very different thing.

The Gibson Inquiry into complicity in torture was unceremoniously halted, a total fail like every other stated aim of the coalition government. It has presented an interim report to ministers who have spent two weeks considering the “security risk” of publishing it. This is nonsense as the interim report is purely procedural. It contains recommendations for how a resumed inquiry (ha ha) should conduct its business. Gibson’s interim report contains no reference to any evidence on any cases of torture or on the policy of complicity in torture.

In fact ministers are really stalling publication because they are hoping simply to let the entire notion of an inquiry die away.

This is the response I got from the Gibson Inquiry secretariat on the fate of my own evidence in relation to the interim report:

There was no specific reference to evidence from individual witnesses as we were in the pre-evidence gathering phase prior to being wound up and your evidence was provided to the police in relation to their investigation into the Libyan cases. The Panel has seen your evidence and will ensure that this is included in the handover materials that are to be stored and provided to the next Inquiry as and when it is established.

I am convinced there is no chance I will ever get to testify either in court or to a judicial inquiry. The powers that be in this country have great finesse. They don’t have to do anything too messy to inconvenient witnesses, they just freeze them out.

Plus Ça Change

I am currently reading David Brown’s Palmerston; A Biography.

In 1846 Palmerston had threatened the government of Spain with military intervention if it defaulted on its bond interest payments. Palmerston faced a Chartist candidate, George Harney, at the general election in his Tiverton constituency. At the hustings debate, Harney said Palmerston’s threat to Spain was unjustifiable:

“These Spanish bondholders are English capitalists, who lent some millions of money to the government of Spain, not, as has been represented, because they were anxious to help the people of that country to obtain “Liberal institutions”, but because they were promised a higher rate of interest than they could get at home. That money had been derived from the labour of the English people.”

Harney argued that Palmerston’s foreign policy was simply to deploy the resources of the state to defend the interests of the rich.

The Tiverton crowd greeted this assertion with “immense cheering” and Harney had a clear majority at the show of hands at the hustings, which was attended by most of the adult population of Tiverton. He withdrew from the actual ballot, however, in protest at the extremely limited franchise – only about 600 people in the constituency had the vote.

George Harney, forgotten hero. We could do with him today.

Obama Worse Than Bush (again)

Just when you thought our rulers could not get worse. Obama, taking time out from targeting teenagers for aerial assassination by drone, has surpassed the Bush regime by clamping new and extreme limitations on the right of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to meet the attorneys who are defending them in court. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself to believe this stuff is true as you type it.

At least one attorney has been told he will have no access to his client unless he signs a “voluntary agreement” which accepts that any meetings with his client are entirely at the discretion of the US authorities and not a right.

In another “technical” adjustment, the Obama administration has altered flight rules to allow unpiloted drones to fly over the United States, in places where previously only piloted planes were allowed. There has been no official reason given for the change in regulations, but it opens the way for unlimited aerial surveillance of US citizens, and the eventual sci-fi scenario of citizens being zapped from the air without warning if Obama does not approve of them, just as has happened to hundreds of people in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. That may found far fetched – but so does anti-aircraft batteries on the roofs of London apartment blocks and 17,000 army personnel patrolling the streets of London. Civil liberties have disappeared so fast in the past decade there is no telling where it will end.

Child Alert

Completely unthreatening small child found on aeroplane! More security hysteria! Are tanks needed at Manchester airport? Anti-aircraft batteries for roof of Old Trafford. Etc.

Zounds, the perpetual security hysteria is boring.

The Stench of the City

David De Jonge Weill

Something very fishy happened in the City yesterday. The stock of GCM Resources on the AIM market jumped a massive 40% in one day on the “intelligence” that it was about to acquire a licence to commence mining operations in Bangladesh. Simultaneously, Mr David Weill resigned as a non-executive director.

Long term readers will remember Weill as an old friend of this blog. He is an associate of hired killers Tony Buckingham and Tim Spicer. Weill sent me this letter:

I believe that you are simply dragging up these old allegations to create interest and controversy to sell books – which is of course your business.

You should be aware however of the nature of the tort of defamation, specifically libel. Your lawyers can help you with this if you can’t get your head around it.

You have made derogatory comments in print that have been published about a good friend of mine, Tony Buckingham, that would by their very nature bring Tony into a negative light by any reasonable member of the public.

Your comments are wholly false. Tony is the CEO of a FTSE 250 company, a man of integrity, and a supporter of western democracy. You should expect to be contacted by attorneys in due course.

You may think that you know better than the FSA and numerous other regulators and agencies. In my opinion however, you are just a sack of crap.

David Weill

Weill was set up by Lord Eothschild to manage a $1.2 billion fund subscribed by rich investors which made a spectacular loss of $600 million. This from the Independent of 30 January 1994 (pre web archive, sorry):

LORD ROTHSCHILD, one of Britain’s most eminent investors, is about to sever his connections with a Buddhist American investment manager whose $1.2bn hedge funds have embarrassed him by halving in value this year.

The funds, which are being wound down, are managed by David de Jongh Weill from Spencer House, a mansion overlooking St James’s Park that used to belong to the family of the Princess of Wales. Mr Weill’s office is rented from one of Lord Rothschild’s companies.

But Mr Weill’s rich clients have been disappointed this year by a fall of more than $600m in the value of the highly speculative funds, which bet heavily on a fall in interest rates that did not happen.

Given Mr Weill’s (ahem) colourful past and associates, it seems to me that the simultaneous occurrence of an instant leap in GCM Resources share values of many millions of pounds and his resignation from the board, is a matter that would warrant investigation if it did not occur in the mafia state which is Britain 2012.

It seems to me there are three obvious explanations:

a) Complete coincidence, Weill happened to resign the day the share price exploded

b) Weill’s resignation led to an instant leap in the value of the company

c) The old mining share scam of ramp, grab and run

Now I have no idea what actually happened. Further digging would be welcome. The truth is that the City of London is a vast pit of stench, and I just happen occasionally to glance at one of the oozing creatures within because it called me a “sack of crap”.

Interesting though, isn’t it? I see Bell Pottinger is also involved with GCM Resources. I certainly shan’t be investing.

Flying Blue Air France Con Trick

The invoice for “Free Tickets” from KLM/Air France Flying Blue

Taxes and surcharges Adult

Carrier imposed surcharge 372.28

UK air passenger duty 103.98

Airport fee 36.45

Passenger service charge 32.07

Passenger service charge 21.61

Passenger service charge international 13.93

French airport tax 12.72

Embarkation tax 4.50

Solidarity tax 1.00

Total per passenger 598.54

Number of passengers 4

Total including taxes and surcharges : £ 2,394.16

I fly around the world a great deal and had never tried to use any of the “airmile” type benefits I had accrued. As I kept receiving tempting brochures and internet offers, I decided to use my 420,000 Flying Blue miles on taking the family to Martinique for a holiday.

Flying Blue had been bombarding my inbox with a promo. I was stupid enough to invest an hour into trying to book this online. This is the bill I was presented with at the end for these “free” flights.

The taxes I can understand as they are passed on by the airline, but the “Carrier Imposed Surcharge” of 372.28 per person is simply an airfare. I phoned up Flying Blue to query this and was told it was a “fuel surcharge”.

It was stupid of me to believe I was actually going to be able to get what all that promotional material seemed to offer. On the face of it this is just a simple tale of Craig being gullible. But I can’t help feeling that the pointlessness of all those brochures and emails, of the rigmarole of your membership card and points accumulation and statements, all to attempt to sell you something you didn’t particularly want, by deceit, says something about the lack of values of straightforwardness in modern society. Or something.

Anyway Flying Blue is a confidence trick, and if this saves someone else the time and disappointment of bothering with it, that would be a good thing.

President John Atta Mills

I am very sorry that President John Atta Mills of Ghana has died today. He was a good and straightforward man whose Christian faith was absolutely central to the way he conducted himself. He completed the task of making Ghana a meaningful democracy, by taking the NDC completely away from the politics of fear and intimidation. While I thought his Presidency a little too conservative and non-dynamic, there are much worse faults. His country should be grateful for his period of calm and consolidation. I think calm is how he will be remembered; there are much worse qualities.

Ghana has been lucky in having John Kuffour and John Atta Mills as Presidents in its democratic era, and is further lucky to have John Mahama, whom I know well for fifteen years and greatly respect, to step in now as President. It has been my peculiar chance in life to get to know nearly all the senior Ghanaian and a great many of the senior British politicians personally. There can be no doubt that the Ghanaians are a great deal more impressive.

In a few months the Presidential election will be between John Mahama and Nana Akuffo Addo. Either one of them is worth six of David Cameron.

I sincerely hope that President Mills finds his place in the heaven he believed in so completely.

Massacre in Uzbekistan

This is a trailer for an extremely important documentary by Michael Andersen. The complicity of NATO and EU governments with the Karimov regime is one of the clearest glimpses of the evil motives that lurk behind the reasonable image that western politicians strive to portray. The complicity of the mainstream media in ignoring these facts is terrifying.

As NATO intensifies its logistical transit through Uzbekistan, as Britain increases training for the Uzbek military and secret services and looks to further arms sales, please bring this documentary to the attention of everyone you can, in any way that you can.

The appearance in the trailer of Pierre Morel, EU Special Representative for Central Asia, is noteworthy. He really is one of the nastiest men in Europe, with not even the slightest pretence of any concern for human rights except as a bureaucratic box to be ticked. What is the real interest of this arch European powercrat? You will hardly be surprised to hear it is Central Asia’s oil and gas.

One of the most important diplomatic developments in the last year – not mentioned anywhere in the lamestream media – has been the westward shift of the Government of Azerbaijan. Under hereditary President Aliev, son of Putin’s ex boss and mentor in the KGB, they had seemed the closest of Russia’s allies. But I noted a few months ago that remarkably on Syria they were voting with the U.S. and against Russia at the UN Security Council. Now they have agreed that an EU hydrocarbon pipeline can pass through their waters in the Caspian – thus negating Putin’s blocking move when he effectively annexed part of Georgia.

Germany now sees the eventual transit of Turkmenistan’s and Uzbekistan’s gas through Ukraine and Poland and into the Nordstream project, while bypassing Russia, as a tantalisingly close prospect. The furious courting of Central Asian dictators is therefore viewed as an unbounded success, and mangled corpses and tortured women an irrelevancy – along with the probable extinction of the sturgeon and other inconveniences. No wonder Morel looks self-satisfied.

I do hope the Central Asians who suffer grinding poverty and terrible repression will one day understand all this, and once they have their freedom will not forgive.

2nd Test Selection Exclusive

Following the humiliating result of the Oval Test, I have been given a secret look at the England selectors’ preliminary thoughts for the second test line-up. This is the probable team.

A. Strauss

J. Smuts

J. Trott

P. W. Botha

K. Pietersen

L. Voortrekker

M. Prior

N. Robben-Island

B. Afrikaaner

R. Apartheid

E Terre Blanche

12th man: N Mandela

Coach: Andy Flower

Andy Flower has commented that he would love to give jobs in the England team to more English people, but unfortunately they are all scroungers caught in a benefit culture (c. I. Duncan-Smith).

“They just don’t want to do this kind of hard physical work”, said Flower, “English people are too obese and can’t get up for an 11am start. They don’t have the skills and they don’t have the work ethic. They can only play cricket if it’s on their Playstation. That’s why the England team finds it more viable to employ South Africans. We are much more hard working and effective.”