Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 20

Same-sex marriage: The Spanish experience

As MP’s in Westminster gather tomorrow to vote ‘in conscience’ on David Cameron’s gay marriage bill, let me share with them and all those interested in the subject, the experience of Spain as I have reported in this week’s Catholic weekly The Tablet.

From record youth unemployment to an increasingly volatile political debate on the future of Catalonia, there is no lack of gathering storms in Spain. And yet the issue of same sex-marriage is not one that is provoking floods of outrage these days. Spanish parliamentarians are not facing an intense lobby by religious groups, as in England and Wales. Nor are the streets of Madrid filling up with protestors, as in Paris.

In fairness, the Spanish Episcopal Conference has not gone totally silent on the issue. In the run-up to Christmas the bishops described the Spanish legislation allowing marriage between gays as “gravely unjust” for failing to recognise specifically the rights of husband and wife, or those of children to enjoy parents of different sex as the “heart of a stable family.”

The statement came days after Spain’s Constitutional  Court ratified the same sex marriage legislation-in fact a broadening of the civil code-which was approved by a majority of the Spanish parliament in July 2005 following the latest post-Franco equal rights initiative of the then newly elected socialist government led by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Back in 2005, opinion polls at the time showed that close to seventy per cent of Spaniards supported the rights to get married if they so wished. The Socialist government for its part resisted stirring the pot and held back from making any suggestion of an ‘opt-in’ or opt-out’ clause for religious groups. Nonetheless, debate around its drafting initially proved divisive nonetheless, with the then opposition party the centre right Partido Popular challenging it through the courts, and in an alliance with bishops and priests, organising mass demonstrations up and down the country on a point of religious principle.

“The new law had the (Spanish) Bishops Conference as one of its biggest opponents, with the support of Rome which feared that Spain would become the stepping stone for similar legislation in Latin America and other traditionally Catholic countries in Europe,” recalls Juan Antonio Rubio, Editor of the Spanish catholic weekly Vida Nueva.

The Vatican’s fears were not entirely without foundation. When the law was passed, Spain was only the third country in the world to allow same-sex couples marry, after the Netherlands and Belgium. Since 2005, an increasing number of countries have followed in Spain’s footsteps, including Portugal and Argentina, while other countries with sizeable Catholic populations like Brazil, Mexico and the US have allowed some gay marriages to be performed in certain states.

In Spain, however the power of the Church to sway opinion on this issue is today limited, not least because at a time of unprecedented and unresolved economic crisis, the current PP government does not have the political will to fight another battle over a war it believes is over.  The ruling PP has declared officially through its minister of Justice, former mayor of Madrid, and rising political star Alberto Ruiz Gallardon that it will accept the decision of the Constitutional Court despite another members of the cabinet, the minister of the interior Jorge Fernandez Diaz –with close links to Opus Dei-declaring their unwavering belief that marriage should only be between man and a woman.

Other critics include Andrea Hermida,a member of a PP Youth Association, tweeted that gays needed to be “cured”, while Luis Alfonso de Borbon and Duke of Anjou, Franco’s grandson and one of the current pretenders  to the defunct French throne , stated that “marriage between a  man and woman is a question if civilization. “

Nonetheless more extreme statements against gay rights generally have recently been limited to a handful of priests and bishops, and other throw-backs to some of the more extreme anti-liberal attitudes prevalent after the Spanish Civil War.

Nor has there been a repeat of the mass anti-gay demonstration that took place in Madrid in June 2005. “There is a de facto non-aggression pact on this issue between the PP government and the Church. The Bishops have toned down their calls to have the law repealed, while the PP has officially stated that it no longer has any intention of scrapping it. The Church is focusing on other issues where it is on stronger (political) ground,” says Vida Nueva’s Fr Rubio.

Apart from a pledge to fix the economic and financial mess inherited from the socialists, the PP government was elected with a mandate to roll back two key ‘social reforms’ in particular-those liberalizing abortion rights, and, separately,  those diluting the Catholic Church’s influence and power in state and private education..

While the ruling PP has remained united on abortion and education issues, it has struggled within itself over the issue of gay rights, not least because the party includes no small number of gays within its own ranks who have long been in favor of gay civil partnerships having the same equal rights as heterosexual couples but without calling it a marriage.

According to Walter Oppenheimer, London correspondent of El Pais, such political pragmatism contrasts with the “political and religious shambles” that David Cameron has made of the Coalition government’s equal marriage bill :  “In Spain, because of the legacy of Franco, the issue of same sex marriage was framed in terms of a broad commitment to equal rights… So most Spaniards don’t see it as an issue of religion but part of a modern, democratic society that was long denied to them by Franco.”

Even during Franco’s time, as Giles Tremlett points out in his book Ghosts of Spain, “an underlying seam of social tolerance appeared to co-exist with the regime’s homophobic rantings”  and prosecutions.  Aristocratic and pro-regime gays were allowed to carry on pretty much as normal, short of openly flouting the sexual act, with the picturesque Catalan resort of Sitges-home to artists and writers- leading the way in the counter-culture of the 1960’s with its toleration of a small number of gay cafes and bars.

Many Spanish men and women remain highly tolerant of the sexual choices of others. According to the Spanish National Statistics Office, since the 2005 reform – and up the end of 2011 (last full year for which reliable official stats on this issue are available) there have been just over 20, 784 gay marriage ceremonies  across Spain all of them taking place in  local authority offices and cultural centres. One of the most recent was held last December in the small village of Jun (population 3,500), near Granada, between the South Australian Social inclusion minister Ian Hunter and his partner of  22 years Leith Semmens. The widely publicized marriage ceremony took place in the village arts centre and was presided over by its socialist mayor.

There have been cases of Spanish priests discreetly celebrating mass for gay couples, and I know of one priest who had gone as far as blessing a marriage. And while it is true that no bishop has given his authorization to a religious gay marriage , there is little evidence that Spanish gays- or politicians for that matter- are pushing the agenda by demanding to be married in the full-rights of the Catholic church or any other religious denomination.

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Of Gladiators, a French boy, and Mourinho

 

If the last days of the Roman Empire were with us once again, the people would  have no need of prized gladiators-they would have Real Madrid and FC Barcelona players instead.

Increasingly the encounters between the two teams have both a tension and brilliance about them that easily surpasses any other encounter on La Liga, and reaches levels of collective and individual skill hard to find in any other league, or indeed sport.

The excitement was there from the opening minutes as Ronaldo led a series of devastating charges down the left wing. The game then developed into a fascinating engagement between two styles and philosophies of football, with individuals or groups of players performing as worthy exemplars of each.

Rafa Varane was the heart and soul of Mourinho’s generally brilliant defensive tactics, neutralising Messi’s  final assault on goal, and clinching the equaliser. Varana, not Messi or Ronaldo, emerged as the popular choice for man of the match, with a revelatory performance that mixed extraordinary courage as well as technique.

While Real Madrid’s distinguished itself in the speed of its rapier-like counter-attacks, Barca’s high points were at their  best holding and passing the ball, often in tight spaces, with instances of magical choreography involving Busquets,Iniesta, Alba, Xavi, and Cesc- all beneficiaries of the club’s youth training scheme, like Messi.

Varana is of course French, another superstar in the making at a club that under its President Florentino Perez has tended to promote individual foreign galacticos in preference to home-grown talent, and in the process risked the loss of a discernible cultural identity. For all the excitement generated by this nineteen year old former Lens captain, Barca has a generation of home grown  young players of similar potential to choose from like Thiago, Cuenca, Deulofeu, Dongou, Montoya, Tello, Sergi Samper, Marc Bartra and Alex Grimaldo.

But last night’s match reminded us in other ways of the extent to which these great sporting rivals inhabit different planets. Despite the absence, through injury and suspension, of Mourinho’s main bruisers, respectively Pepe and Sergio Ramos, Real Madrid was not short of shock troops, as provocative as their manager- fellow Portuguese Carvalho, and the Spaniards Callejon, and Arbeloa.

Finally this was a match in which even replacements excelled. Diego Lopez –my own, disputed, nomination for man of the match-on his return to Real Madrid showed himself a worthy contender for the first team spot  for so long monopolised by Iker Casillas. But credit  should also go to Jordi Roura, Barca’s assistant manager who is helping guide the team through an emotionally and physically  testing  season with his intelligence and dignified presence, on and off the bench.

Once again Roura’s discreet touchline antics and open engagement with the media contrasted  with Mourinho’s Bernabeu theatrics and post-match  stuntish grump after a week in which the alleged disunity in the Real Madrid dressing room took a new twist with Casillas’s TV star girlfriend Sara Carbonero claiming that the players can’t wait to rid themselves of the Special One.

Displaced for up to twelve weeks because of an injury and with Lopez on top form, Casillas must be considering his future, with or without Mourinho who will surely go to back to Chelsea next season. I reckon it would take only the encouragement of Casillas’s friend Xavi , backed by other La Roja colleagues like Iniesta, Pujol, and Cesc to entice him to Barca. I personally would love to see Casillas take over, once Valdes departs, in the steps of the legendary Zamora who put football before politics, and served his time brilliantly both in Real Madrid and Barca, to the joy of many fans, north and south. In times of political turmoil, Casillas like Del Bosque could  show the nobility  of spirit that Spanish politicians lack- true gladiators.

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Valdes, Iker Casillas, & the politics of Spain

Valdes, Casillas, and the politics of Spain

Victor Valdes’ irrevocable announcement  that he does not intend to renew his contract with FC Barcelona prompts me to suggest a possible solution to the antagonisms between Catalunya and Madrid- have Iker Casillas replace him.

The Real Madrid goalkeeper is at loggerheads with Mourinho, but enjoys good and enduring friendships with other players in La Roja , among whom are some Barca players. The presence of Iker in Barca would bring perhaps the best goalkeeper in the world – better than Valdes without a doubt-to the city that boasts not only that it has the best football club in the world, but also that this  is more than just a club. Together with Catalans- his friends Xavi and Pujol- and non-Catalan players of the quality of Iniesta, Villa & Messi, Iker would help turn Barca into an example of a possible federal constitution, both consensual and consented , and leaving those who chant Independence  when the clock strikes the 17th minute without a convincing argument.

Casillas has a noble and generous personality. He is also a consummate professional, both brave and talented. He belongs to a lineage of legendary goalkeepers who have graced the Spanish game over many years, both at club and national squad level. I am thinking here of The Divine One Zamora (who played for Barca and Real Madrid and RC Español), of  Ramallets, Iribar , Zubizarreta, Cañizares, Pepe Reina.  By contrast  who can forget another great Spanish goalkeeper who failed at the decisive moment? I am thinking here of Luis  Arconada , letting in Platini’s goal in the final of the European Champions in 1984. The Spanish goalkeeper, as I argue in my book La Roja, is a  Quixotic figure. He personifies those high ideals of imagination and sacrifice, a bastion against the enemy as well as an excuse for disaster.

So let me appeal to the sectarian politicians of Catalunya and the Castilian right to stop making our lives even more miserable with their extremisms. It is time, as Vicente Del Bosque has argued, for football to teach Spaniards of whatever region or alleged nationality how to be civilized with each other.

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Casillas y el Barca

Casillas y el Barca

La anunciada salida de Víctor Valdés del Barca me sugiere una idea genial para solucionar los antagonismos entre Madrid y Catalunya – que le sustituya Iker Casillas.

El portero del Real Madrid  se lleva mal con Mourinho pero tiene buenas y duraderas amistades con los jugadores de La Roja, entre ellos los que son del Barca.  La presencia de Iker en el Barca traería tal vez  el mejor portero del mundo – mejor que Valdés sin duda-a la ciudad que ya presume de no solo tener ya el mejor club del mundo, sino mes que un club . Al lado de Catalanes- sus amigos Xavi y Pujol-  y jugadores no Catalanes de la talla de   Iniesta, Villa, y Messi, Iker  ayudaría a convertir  al Barca en un ejemplo de una constitución  federal posible, consensual y consentida,  dejando poco a poco a los del minuto ’17 sin argumento convincente.

Tanto en su noble y generosa personalidad  como en su profesionalidad, valentía, y talento, Iker está en la línea de porteros legendarios del futbol en España, tanto a nivel de clubs, como el de la selección nacional . Pensemos en El Divino Zamora (que jugó en el Barca y en el Real Madrid, además del RC Español), de Ramallets, de Iribar , de Zubizarreta, de Cañizares, y Pepe Reina. Por el contraste quién no recuerda el portero que falla en el momento decisivo? Léase Luis  Arconada y el gol de Platini en la final  Eurocopa de 1984. Al fin al cabo, el portero  representa una figura Quijotesca, igual un gran ideal de imaginación y sacrificio para el bien común como una excusa para el desastre.

Que los políticos sectarios de Catalunya y la derecha Castellana dejen de joder  con sus extremismos. Es hora, como bien  argumenta Vicente Del Bosque, que el futbol nos enseñe la manera de ser civilizados.

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Pep’s wise choice

Pep Guardiola’s wise choice

Well who would have thought it? Less than twenty-four hours after Pep Guardiola was quoted in England as saying that he hugely respected the Premier League, setting off a fresh wave of speculation about whether  it might be Chelsea or Man City , it turns out it was all a bit of a red herring , if not a more calculating diversionary tactic designed to gain contractual time.

Now that we know he has chosen Bayern Munich, it seems it is one of those decisions that make quite a lot of sense. I have argued before about how moving to Chelsea would have represented a betrayal of much of what Pep has come to be respected for- a noble character, with principles, for which the ends never justify the means. He has already made his mark in history thanks to consolidating the creative, evolutionary process that began in Spanish football, and Barca in particular,  with Johan Cruyff and now  its maximum expression in the best games played by his club under his successor Tito Vilanova and La Roja- as adapted by Vicente Del Bosque. He has done so by prioritising youth development over star signings, and moulding a team with a collective ethos, both in its style and attitude towards winning.

There are  ex Barca people at Manchester City- but they are in management and are  not necessarily the driving force of the club’s personality, let alone its economic control. The club has tended to mirror Real Madrid’s big money galactico policy rather than Barca’s more nuanced ‘dream team’, producing no small quantity  of inflated underperforming prima-donnas as a result. To have gone to Man City would have also been a betrayal, inconsistent with the legend of Pep that has been built up since he volunteered to be a water boy at Barca’s first team training sessions as a young lad in La Masia, while reciting Catalan poetry.

But perhaps somewhere behind the decision , even if deeply buried in his subconscious, lies what for Pep must endure as something of a trauma, and indeed what forced him to take a sabbatical from the game: the tension  of having to compete with Jose Mourinho in a debilitating  war of attrition between the same national league’s giant rivals. The prospect of Mourinho moving away from la Liga to the Premier has gathered strength in recent weeks, and looks likely to prove more accurate than all the speculation about Pep going to England.

In Bayern, Pep will find himself in a club that believes in quality of play and democracy. He will also start with some players who are not exactly modest or easy to deal with. But Pep showed at Barca that he can deflate egos as easily as he can encourage players that he knows can contribute to the making of a great team. I suspect Pep’s  presence  in the comings months  with be felt not just in a more competituve Champions League but also in the way the  German national squad plays, making it one of the favourites to do well in Brazil next year, and Bayern a much better team than it is now.

I would not be surprised to see  some Barca players move to Bayern, in part because of the huge respect that many of them individually hold for him, but  also because there are too many good players in the Catalan club not getting enough prime time, and because, quite frankly Pep will need them to retain a sense of identity with his roots, and for the good of his soul. Unlike Mourinho, he is ill-suited to the role of a mercenary manager, in a foreign land.

 

 

 

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Robert Kee (5th October 1919- Jan 11th 2013)

Remembering Robert Kee: 1919-2013

 

I owe a personal tribute to Robert Kee, the writer and broadcaster, who has died aged 93.

It was Robert who gave me my first real break in journalism and taught me much about what I came to admire about the profession. The year was 1977. Robert was planning a documentary for the excellent Yorkshire TV on Spain after Franco. Born in Madrid, and bilingual in English and Spanish, I had been juggling with Marxism , Spain and Latin America as a student  , and had recently  left the London School of Economics with an MA in politics and government. He picked me as one of his researchers.

It was the days when TV budgets were limitless and the unions’ ‘closed shops’ still had a habit of proving counter-intuitive. Having obtained an NUJ free-lance card, I roamed Spain for two months with a generous expense account and only the vaguest of instructions from the programme makers. I then presented Robert with a schedule of scenes and interviews which I hoped would help him answer the essential question: Could democracy survive, and, if so,   in what form?

Once shooting got under way, I realised just what a real professional Robert was. Having befriended Professor Hugh Thomas-author of the seminal Spanish Civil War history-, he was well briefed on Spain’s disastrous legacy of intolerance,  and had read himself further into the subject with his own extensive reading of newspaper cuttings.

Luckily we concurred in our basic thesis that Spanish democracy was struggling to free itself from its totalitarian past after a dying Franco had invested his succession in an unelected Bourbon Prince. We called the documentary ‘A Democracy has been arranged’, the paradox barely hiding our scepticism about the way we thought things would turn out.

Robert was not always an easy person to work with. He was a complex character –absolutely charming one day, while prone to fly off the handle on another, if things did not go as he planned, or if, as very rarely happened, he fluffed his spontaneous piece-to-camera lines. He could also be reduced to physical and mental paralysis when the black dog of his depressive side gripped him, at which point the whole production  process ground to a halt and remained motionless for several days at a time. Without Robert’s central personality working at full strength, there were taped ‘rushes’ of film, but no driving narrative.

Luckily these mood swings did not prove the norm in Spain. For much of our time together, I witnessed an incisive and courageous journalist in action,with strongly held democratic principles,  whether forensically recreating the scene of the murder by right wing fascists of a group of left-wing trade unionists, or conducting a discreet interview with a human rights lawyer about cases involving the torture of Basque prisoners.

While never frivolous, Robert never lost his eye for a good looking woman, and retained a sense of humour about Spain’s liberation from the dark years of Franco, as when, on Barcelona’s Ramblas,  he had himself filmed  turning the pages of a new magazine which, as he put it, seamlessly mixed political exposes, clever cartoons, and sex.

We found a common bond in our appreciation of ‘liberated’ Spanish culture (including good food and wine) while sharing in our occasional frustration with the ludicrous levels of manpower that a British broadcasting union insisted we should retain at all times.

And yet Robert was respected enough to go unilateral when he felt the occasion demanded, as when he gave me his blessing to take just one cameraman- a veteran  from the Northern Ireland troubles- instead of a production  team of fourteen- to cover a pro-democracy demonstration which politically unreformed riot  police tried to suppress with terrible violence in Barcelona’s San Jaume square. “Get the shots, bugger the rest, and make sure you get out in one piece,” Robert advised me.

Much later I would reflect that much of Robert’s own fearlessness and liberalism predated his journalistic career . It drew on his  WW2 experience  as a young man, when he served with the RAF on bombing missions against Nazi Germany, was shot down, and escaped from a prisoner of war camp in Poland. He was later rearrested near Cologne-a subject he later drew on for a book he wrote once the war was over.

As well as being a TV broadcaster, Robert wrote novels and histories, among them his compelling account of Ireland- the Green Flag, which was made into another successful TV series.

After Spain, we lost touch for a while, until the Falklands War when I- as a foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires- and he as a presenter in London for BBC’s Panorama similarly struggled to feel dispassionate about a war we believed had been provoked by the lunatic ambition of a bloody military junta.

I sadly mislaid some time later a generous letter he kindly wrote me after the war was over.  In it, he thanked me for sending him a copy of the first edition of The Land that lost its Heroes where I recounted my arrest on suspicion of spying by the military junta,  and blamed the failings of British intelligence as well as the nature of Argentina’s militarised society for the invasion of UK territory that cost the lives of 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and 3 Falkland Islanders.

After that, circumstances conspired against more regular meetings although we occasionally bumped into each other on our way in or out of some  London gentleman’s club many of whose members were as opinionated as he was, but rather less heroic. Robert belonged to a time when journalism across platforms could still be fun as well as demanding, while retaining its quality, and when it could still be a country for older, wiser men like him. More than thirty years older than me when we first worked together, my memory of him endures as an inspiration. May you rest in peace, Robert.

 

 

 

 

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Tito’s cancer: the enemy at the gates

This was not something the Mayan calendar predicted but the news that Tito Vilanova’s cancer has returned has a fateful element to it.

Cancer has a terrible unpredictability about it. It is likely that Tito, under medical advice,  would have taken on the job of Barca manager, knowing that he was on borrowed on time, keeping the big enemy at a sufficient distance not just to live but to create.

We will never know how the sheer stress of succeeding Pep Guardiola and putting up with the pressure of  keeping Barca  as the best and most successful team in the world, may have played havoc with his remission, instead of acting as a distraction and speeding his recovery.

But it looks as if  Tito has been cut down like a tree in full leaf at the highest point of his professional career, having taken Barca to new heights with a successful first half of the season crowned by a magical win over Atletico Madrid. And he succeeded as one of the  most understated managers Barca and La Liga have seen for a long time-his thoughtful, quietly determined, and courageous  tactics  winning more hearts and souls, and matches,  that any amount of provocative role-play by Jose Mourinho.

If the truth be told, and I have reported it before, Tito hasn’t looked healthy this season- his pale, drawn face, and intense eyes giving the Barca touchline a stoic, suffering air about it, that, by contrast, has made most goals scored by that team seem so much more a cause for celebration, as if Tito had connected his lifeblood to his players.

There is an element of tragic irony in the news about Tito facing up again to a possible end game, just hours after fans had celebrated the contractual renewal of Messi, Pujol, and Xavi, three players that between them have contributed massively to Barca’s identity as a team and a club, now seemingly guaranteeing its  future. This week has served to remind Barca fans more acutely than ever that football does not substitute for life; it mirrors it, with its ups and downs proving uncomfortably steep at times.

The sense of lifeblood running through the Barca of today as a sporting institution, one that has taken it from Cruyff, via Guardiola, to Vilanova, makes it likely that if Tito cannot continue, his replacement will come most naturally from within the club not from outside it. It will be a controversial appointment nonetheless.

For all the early speculation of   popular household names like Barca veterans  Luis Enrique, Eusebio Sacristan, and Jordi Roua, none of them can claim to have had brilliant careers as managers in their own right. Which leaves Pep Guardiola, a great player and a great coach but who  quit as Barca’s manager just six months ago, exhausted after four successful and highly intense years at the helm, and who will need some persuading to go back, not least because of  the tempting challenge of  moulding another club in Barca’s image.

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The Litvinenko case: Truth must prevail

My old newspaper the FT with a typical understatement of a ‘non-core’ news story relegates the Litvinenko pre-inquest review hearing story to a page 2 read-through today. Others were rather bolder. The Times splashed on it, and the Spanish media have got pretty excited too.

Whichever way you look at it, the Litvinenko case , which the FT gave me both time and column inches to cover back in 2006 , is one that certainly needs revisiting, however much sectors of the UK and Russian governments would like it to go away. The available evidence shows that this was not just an assassination on UK soil carried out by agents of a foreign state, but one that could have put hundreds, if not thousands of others at risk from radioactive poisoning. I remember being told by an ashen-faced Home Office official soon after Litvinenko had been hospitalised that there was real concern that no one in Whitehall (that included MI5) knew for certain the scope and scale of contamination following the Russian’s movements across London’s West End. (As it turned down, radioactive readings, while providing useful clues as to Litvinenko’s likely killers, showed the ‘fallout’ to have been relatively contained.)

The most detailed forensic investigation into the case, carried out by British counter-terrorist officers, suggests that those most directly involved had connections with the Russian intelligence services. Among those charged by the UK authorities with Litvinenko’s murder is Andrei Lugovoi, former KGB officer-turned-businessman and a member of the Russian  Duha.

It was Lugovoi who in May 2007 claimed publicly in a Moscow press conference-presumably with Putin’s blessing -that Litvinenko’s had been recruited as a British agent soon after moving to the UK. Lugovoi suggested that MI6 had been involved in the death of Litvinenko after British agents had unsuccessfully tried to recruit him to collect compromising material on Putin.

What at the time seemed an attempt by the Russian state to cover Lugovoi’s back, is now being taken seriously by British lawyers acting for Litvinenko’s widow.  Ben Emmerson QC told a British court yesterday that Litvinenko was a registered and paid agent and employee of MI6 and had been for a number of years with a “dedicated handler, whose pseudonym was Martin”. At the time of his death,  Litvinenko was “not only working for the British secret services, but also, at the instigation of MI6, was working as a paid agent for the Spanish security services”, Emmerson said. He told the hearing that such a relationship “is sufficient to trigger an enhanced duty resting on the British government to ensure his safety when tasking him on dangerous operations”.

So- we now have not just the Russian state but British spies,and possibly Spanish spies as well,   at the heart of a case that is likely to turn into a hugely controversial full-blown hearing next year unless the British intelligence community succeeds in having it conducted in secret. Whatever its outcome Marina Litvinenko is determined to see the truth come out, and feels she deserves financial compensation. Right is on her side, certainly on the first part of her mission.

 

The history of spying suggests the possibility that Litvinenko was not what he claimed to be, and may have been not just a double agent, but a triple. In other words he could have been working forthe British and the Russians and for a third party, even himself. What is certain is that Litvinenko, while in London, had contacts with private security  services,and wrote and had published two books, wherein he accused the Russian secret services of staging terrorism acts to bring Putin to power. Days before his poisoning Litvinenko , introduced himself as a ‘former KGB agent’,   gave   a hard-hitting talk at London’s journalists’ Front-Line Club in October 2006 where he accused the Russian president of being directly responsible for the murder of  Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.  A YouTube video of this shows him pleading from the outset for maximum publicity around his claims.

For all the popularity generated by the figure of James Bond-007 licensed to kill-MI6 has in reality never been at the forefront of the killing game, whereas its Russian equivalent and associates have. It is interesting that Russian organized crime in Spain has now been drawn into the case although I understand from Spanish sources that the name Litvinenko  does not appear in any current ongoing criminal proceedings in the Iberian peninsula-although intelligence and police cooperation between the British and the Spanish on terrorism and criminal matters is pretty solid.

Nevertheless MI6 have a long record of  protecting the identity of the agents in order to safeguard ongoing and future operations, and their Spanish counterparts were today equally adopting an official “we neither confirm nor deny” position on the allegations. The problem for the spooks is that once again their in-house rule book is coming up again a public interest argument that they should provide the key to identifying the key to unlocking the mystery around an unlawful act, whose perpetrators and proven ‘handlers’ do not deserve to escape justice.

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Author’s personal favourite now on kindle

How time flies. I remember just two years ago finding myself berating a fellow passenger on a train from Washington to New York who was on the seat next to me reading from a kindle. “You are putting me out of a job!” I moaned. The book he was reading was not only not one of one my own but the thought of a whole new generation begining to opt for a download and a screen in preference to a firm hard back and a visit to the library filled me with horror.

But we authors have no choice these days- so our publishers and agents tell us. Bite  the bullet of new technology or your royalties will dissapear. I don’t believe it. I mean I don’t want to think too much  of a world without books you can touch and feel, and mark-if necessary. I love signing books with something personal. I fear we might be gaining new readers at the expense of human contact. Or maybe someone is going to make a greay deal of money, at my expense, on ebay-one day perhaps, sooner that I  expect.

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A bad week for journalism

Nothing quite like meeting up with old British media friends to be reminded what a good move it was to liberate one-self from full-time journalism when one still has the energy and spirit to do something altogether more worthwhile and positive-like choosing what to write, when and for whom.

While my former colleagues immersed themselves in gossip- an as yet unpublished scandal,  rumours of imminent redundancies, the slick performances of certain editors on Question Time, and the struggle of older journalists to feel appreciated- I could think only what a bloody awful week it had been for British journalism generally.

The site of editors across the political spectrum having a cosy breakfast together , and indulging in a similarly consensual love-in with David Cameron- the 2012 , national newspapers’ equivalent of the old beer and sandwiches fraternising  that went on between the TUC and Number 10  in the old Labour days’- made me feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Months of public exposure of the most self-indulgent, self-important, and in some cases corrupt representatives of the trade , and a key recommendation  for fundamental change made by the enquiring judge had come to nought.  Once again the core  political/media establishment  that runs the country were allowed to remain unregulated, deciding what best served their interests.

And all this when our self-regulated media were once again doing what led to the Leveson enquiry in the first place -subjecting a vulnerable individual to the glare of negative publicity with the justification that the story was in the public interest.

One can only hope that the suspected suicide of the nurse Jacinta Saldanha  will weigh heavily on the conscience not just of the Australian DJ’s who made that fateful hoax call to King Edward V11’s hospital, but all the journalists who ran and spread a story of little consequence other than it involved the unnecessarily , tragic death of a  human being.

In The Independent  today , editor Chris Blackhurst argues that while he cannot excuse this “thoughtless prank”, people “play jokes all the time” and “now and again, the consequences are out of proportion to the jape.”  Once again the gut instinct of journalism – here expressed by the editor of a newspaper that claims the moral high ground-is to defend itself or claim mitigating circumstances rather than admit the profession may be  at fault and out of  touch with the street.

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