Author Archives: Mark Griffin

Going Gordo on a Scale of One to Ten

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As my contribution to the debate about the Prime Minister’s temper, I would like to offer this scale to assist those who may be risking life and limb in approaching him, so they may be aware of the level of danger they face, or warn others accordingly.

Force One: Is calm and placid
Force Two: Becomes agitated
Force Three: Throws a dark look
Force Four: Throws a small item of stationery
Force Five: Throws an insult
Force Six: Throws a mobile phone
Force Seven: Throws a tantrum
Force Eight: Throws a large item of office equipment
Force Nine: Throws a punch
Force Ten: Kicks the furniture over

Hat tip to Iain Dale for the details.

The Reader’s Digest, fondly remembered

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This is really sad news. Reader’s Digest in the UK has gone into administration. I remember as a child in Singapore many years ago that, despite being surrounded by learning at an outstanding boarding school, in particular spending hours in a well stocked library, Reader’s Digest was my most valued source of knowledge and the real agent for the broadening of my outlook on life.

The magazine had a wide and eclectic range of essays, all well written in an accessible, informative style. I enjoyed the mix of jokes and real life anecdotes, even the adverts seemed to impart knowledge. But I especially treasured William Funk’s word quiz in particular. So valuable was this magazine to me that I would use some of my modest allowance to buy a copy and devour it, every page, cover to cover.

It was in Reader’s Digest that I read about the life of President Kennedy; of the dangers of smoking (even then!): and of real life struggles against adversity by many extraordinary yet ordinary people. In some respects, Reader’s Digest was a forerunner of Dorling Kindersley’s books in the way they explained and illustrated their stories. I didn’t get the same buzz again until many years later when I bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica.

I tried a subscription to it here in the UK a couple of years ago, but I think really our 24 hour news culture and the Internet had killed it off. Practically everything I read in it I had already read about somewhere else. We have an incredibly wide source of knowledge and information today. My main sources are the Viigo rss feed on my BlackBerry, and through it Huffington Post, the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, Slashdot and Techcrunch. I also use Google and Wikipedia a lot, and for a good handle on what passes for the current conversation, Facebook and Twitter.

Given all that, it’s hard to see how there could be a role for Reader’s Digest in any format. But I still have a great sense of loss.

Remembering the brave boys of Bomber Command

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War is an ugly, horrible business as anyone who has been involved will tell you, whether combatant or civilian. And while time heals all but the deepest wounds and former adversaries can meet again in peace, that’s not to say we should forget those wounds because I can’t think of a single war fought between two sides who were both the “good guys”. Inevitably, wars are between good and evil and in the interests of celebrating the triumph of good over evil, the good guys should be remembered and they deserve to have their sacrifices honoured.

That doesn’t always happen, and it hasn’t happened yet in the case of 55,000 courageous young men who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives for our freedom. They served in the RAF’s Bomber Command and had a worse chance of survival than a world war one infantry officer. 55,000 killed out of 125,000 aircrew is a devastating loss ratio, yet those who survived one raid went back out on the next one. They received no Campaign Medal for their extraordinary bravery, and they still do not have an official memorial. Dresden is often cited as the reason.

This weekend marks the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. Over the course of two nights, 1300 heavy bombers dropped 3900 tons of bombs resulting in a firestorm that claimed up to 25,000 mostly civilian lives, and it remains one of the most controversial acts of world war two. I lament any death, but what is special about Dresden? Other cities had a worse pounding, don’t their dead count for anything? Or is it okay if civilians are only killed in ones and twos? Is it because they died in a firestorm and some other method of killing them would have been okay?

We should remember the loss of all civilians killed in the war, and not single out the unfortunate residents of Dresden and forget the rest. So why do we do that? Quite simply, Dresden remains controversial because of the enduring effect of Nazi propaganda during the war, and Soviet propaganda after it. The Nazis and the Soviets both wanted to demonise us. Würzburg was bombed a month later and suffered more devastation, even though far fewer bombers were involved in one brief air raid. Why do we not remember those poor victims the same way? Is it because “only” 5,000 residents were killed? No, it’s not about the people, Dresden is a touchstone for pacifists while Würzburg didn’t have the benefit of Soviet propaganda.

The propaganda machine continues to crank away, only with different hands working the handle. War is an ugly, horrible business; there is no “nice” way to kill people. But sometimes it is necessary and all that had to happen to prevent Dresden was that Germany had to stop fighting. Yet even children were put into uniform and armed and sent to fight the advancing allies. Is there a practical pacifist response to a ruthless and desperate totalitarian system? The war against the Nazis was necessary, and pacifism was tried first, sincerely and earnestly.

We didn’t choose to go to war lightly and frivolously. We were still weary after the first world war, “the war to end all wars.” But we were confronted with a ruthless, aggressive Germany the Nazis had motivated ready to fight a total war. That included purging Germany of all Jews, Gypsies and the mentally and physically disabled. The good burghers of Dresden were as thorough as any other town or city in sending all their Jews and others to the concentration camps.

Here is the eyewitness account of a Jewish slave worker:

Roman Halter, now 82, was working as munitions worker in Dresden at the time of the attack. A Polish Jew, he had survived the Lodz Ghetto and selections at the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He says, “There were cartwheels of fire chasing oxygen and we had to throw ourselves down on the tarmac. The tarmac was already hot. And as we went through people were jumping from buildings.

“People were jumping around with flame. It was horrendous this vision. We had more sympathy for these people than the SS who only cared about guarding us.

“But we felt really that they started the war. We knew that England was bombed, that Coventry was bombed and they deserved whatever they’re getting.”

After the war, Mr Halter came to London and received schooling from former Bomber Command pilots. Inspired by the beauty of Dresden, he became an architect. He says, “Fifty five thousand of them were killed. Everyone of them should have been honoured because they did their duty.

“They didn’t protest; they felt that if Hitler wins, Europe and the world will be thrown into a darkness for a thousand years. And if it had not been for Churchill and the RAF boys we would not have won.”

The contribution of Bomber Command to the war effort was fully understood by the Nazis too. Albert Speer, minister of armaments wrote this after the war:

“The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion in Europe … Defence against air attacks required the production of thousands of anti-aircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who in addition had to stay in position by their guns, often totally inactive, for months at a time … No one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side.”

Roman Halter and Albert Speer are both right. And Bomber Command should have its memorial, for without their sacrifice the Nazis would have given us a thousand more Dresdens.


The Robin Hood Tax

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Everyone knows the Sheriff of Nottingham is the bad guy. But he’s not just any old bad guy, he’s cunning with it too. He’s conceived of this great new wheeze to extract yet more taxes from us, and he’s got everyone squealing, “Tax me! Tax me!” by the simple expedient of calling it the Robin Hood Tax and pretending it applies to someone else. All across the land, people are casting their vote on a pretty web site calling for this new tax to be introduced. At a stroke, it is claimed, it will combat poverty, tackle global warming and guarantee another season of “Big Brother”. Sheer genius.

Robin Hood’s not best pleased about his name being hijacked in this way and he’s got a few questions he’d like to see answered. I’ll do my best to oblige.

Who is going to pay this tax? Us, the poor peasantry. It is claimed this is a tax on cash-rich irresponsible bankers, the ones we all hate anyway, so this is made out to be a particularly delicious tax. Except, the tax is on transactions of our money; when we pay a bill, or use a credit card abroad, or our pension fund makes an investment, a small tax will be added to the transaction charges. But it is not a small amount, it adds up to billions. £250 billion a year, the web site claims. How else could it achieve any of the stated aims unless it was a substantial amount of money? Does anyone serious believe that tax will not be passed on to us?

Who is going to collect it? The Sheriff of Nottingham. You won’t see his face while the money is being taken from you, but it will all end up in his coffers nonetheless.

Who is going to spend the money? The Sheriff of Nottingham. Think about this for a moment. What is the track record of any government in tackling poverty? Or global warming? Or any of the lofty objectives the Robin Hood Tax proponents put forward? If government had a good track record in any of these areas they wouldn’t be problems in the first place. Giving them more money will lead directly to more inefficiency and waste. Little will end up being applied to the purposes for which it is being collected.

Who will decide what the money is to be spent on? The Sheriff of Nottingham. It will be he who allocates funds according to his own political objectives, as they change with time, and as he sees the need to boost his own popularity.

Who thinks any of it will end up being used for the reasons claimed? Only those poor deluded peasants who are acting as his cheer leaders. And Gordon Brown.

Do you know the funniest aspect of all of this?

Every penny of the Tax will be passed on to us, of course, but because the banks will certainly add their own charges on top:-

– The banks will actually make money out of this.

More bonuses for the bankers!

History repeats itself in the Gulf of Aden

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I lived in Aden as a child in the 1960s. I have very fond memories of the place and a clear understanding of how and why we, the Brits, came to be there, and how and why we left. History is full of little ironies, and Aden highlights several.

A period postcard

The first irony is why we were in Aden in the first place. One of the main reasons we went there over 170 years ago, was to combat piracy from Somalia and from along the southern tip of Arabia. It was seriously disrupting global shipping trade passing up the east coast of Africa and across to India. As most of that trade was ours, it was our job to deal with it. We dealt with it by established a naval base at Aden from which to patrol the Gulf of Aden and suppress piracy from Somalia, and by afterwards signing peace treaties with the various sheiks and sultans along the coast. They agreed not to allow piracy from their territories, and we agreed not to invade them. They became known collectively as the Trucial States. It’s a sign of the times that it now falls to the American and Chinese navies, amongst many others, to deal with modern-day Somali piracy.

The second irony is that having once kicked us out, Yemen has applied to join the Commonwealth. Aden in particular wants to break away from Yemen, which it became part of after independence, and has a specific goal of joining the Commonwealth. Yemen as a whole has already applied for membership so it’s not a contentious issue there. Similarly, Somaliland, a British Protectorate until 1960, wants to break away from Somalia, which it became part of after independence, and it too wants to join the Commonwealth. As much as I am a fan of the Commonwealth, I don’t see it as a “magic bullet” solution for failing states. Being a member of the Commonwealth hasn’t ensured that Pakistan, for example, has been able to deal with its own troubles in the North West Provinces. If anything, it has been a conduit that has eased the spread of al Qaeda to the UK, a route they have already started using from Yemen.

Third, the reason Yemenis wanted us out was to assert Arab nationalism, encouraged by Gamal Abdel Nasser who was in turn supported by the Soviet Union with money, weapons and ideology. Neither of them are around any more, but there is a more virulent and dangerous threat now in the form of al Qaeda, who have established a large base of operations in Yemen and thrust Aden back into the news headlines. Bin Laden has a more radical and dangerous agenda than Nasser ever had and, since the Cold War has ended and we have dropped our guard, he doesn’t need the resources of a superpower to back him up. Our own resources, such as the Internet and ease of travel, serve him well enough.

Fourth, the circumstances of our withdrawal from Aden have been, and may be, repeated in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were fighting a rear-guard action against two rival factions vying with each other for domination after we were gone – they had to be seen to be kicking us out. As well as fighting amongst themselves, they continued attacks on British troops even after we had begun to pull out. Bringing the warring Sunni and Shiite factions together has been the biggest challenge for the post-Saddam regime in Iraq. Afghanistan may be a different story unless the warlords can combine to challenge the Taliban.

Fifth, we had the support of Adenis loyal to the local sultans and they suffered vicious retribution afterwards. That pattern may well be repeated in Afghanistan, making anyone – police, army, civilian workers – associated with Hamid Karzai or the UN or Nato likely targets for the Taliban. In Aden, they remained loyal to their sultans and on our side until the end, will that be the case in Afghanistan?

Sixth, while we allowed the sultans to run their own areas outside the port of Aden itself, they were corrupt, autocratic and incompetent. It was as much to get rid of them that the insurgents, as they would now be called, were fighting. That is certainly true in Afghanistan today.

Seventh, the other reason we were in Aden was to establish it as coaling station to service the Royal Navy and our vast merchant fleet. In the post World War Two trade boom, Aden became the second busiest shipping port in the world and in 1958 only New York had more ships per day. But coincident with us pulling out Nasser closed the Suez Canal in 1967 following the Six Day war with Israel, and at a stroke wiped out Aden’s economy. It remained closed until 1975 and pushed South Yemen, as it had become, even further into the hands of the extremists. Afghan villagers have one cash crop – opium. We can’t just wipe that out, we need to ensure they have a viable alternative economy or the effect will be the same, to force them to support their own extremists, the Taliban.

We should try to learn from our experiences, positive and negative, in Aden (1960s), Iraq (1920/30s) and Afghanistan (1840s, 1870s, and again in 1919), as well as in other parts of the world where we have had to deal with insurgencies. Malaya (The Emergency), Kenya (the Mau Mau), and Palestine (Irgun, the Stern Gang) are just three more recent examples of many. We’ve got it right in some places, and dreadfully wrong in others.

History repeats itself because the people and the issues are always the same.

Fantasy Government and Fantasy Finance

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We have elected an incompetent government that has presided over an ever growing culture of lies and greed. They have allowed lobbyists and special interests to influence policies for the price of an agreeable lunch and a few favourable headlines. Spin and deceit have replaced honesty and open government. And without giving it any serious thought, people are saying capitalism has failed. This has nothing to do with capitalism. It has no more to do with capitalism than the USSR had anything to do with socialism. The same people also say these financial institutions are the wealth creating sector of the economy. No they aren’t. The real wealth creators are the factories and the people who make things, and those who distribute and supply them.

By what twisted logic does it make economic sense to close profitable factories which give gainful employment to thousands, send those jobs overseas, knock down the factories and build houses in their place to sell at inflated prices to the now unemployed workers? If ever there was a formula for creating a sub-prime mortgage crisis, that has to be it. And that, in essence, and on a colossal scale, is what has been going on for years with the complicity of the government and all its regulators. Now, the institutions responsible for this merry-go-round of economic madness are clamouring for taxpayer aid from the government and blaming everyone but themselves for the mess. We have for too long rewarded failure, now we will pay the price.

More than two decades ago ICL, Britain’s last major computer manufacturer, had trucks ferrying unsold computers from one depot to another in a desperate attempt to give the impression of activity and mask how close they were to collapse. It didn’t work, but it’s uncannily similar to how some financial institutions have behaved in recent years. Smoke and mirrors; sleight of hand; cryptically-named financial products. Banks everywhere competed with each other to build the biggest market share in worthless investments, often having no idea what they were buying. Why did they do it? Because they paid themselves huge bonuses for doing so. Lehman Brothers, for example, paid out a staggering $9.5 billion in “bonuses” only nine months ago.

It’s hard to accept the term “bonus” as a fair description of the money they have looted, especially as in the case of Lehman Brothers it must have been crystal clear to those at the top the payments were entirely unwarranted and potentially fatal to the business. But such was their greed, they went ahead anyway. This is nothing to do with capitalism, or free market economics, it is the inevitable consequence of a corrupted financial system, plain and simple. President Nixon once famously declared, “I am not a crook.” I would like to see the leaders of the remaining great financial institutions say the same thing. And I want them to prove it because frankly I have no confidence in the regulators to investigate and prosecute wrong doing.

Who set the framework in which the institutions and the regulators operate? Step forward Gordon Brown, he was at the helm at the Treasury for a decade, making all the rules. Of course, he didn’t do it alone, thanks to “revolving doors” he had City people come and work at the Treasury where they shaped government policy before returning to the City to exploit the newly relaxed standards they helped bring about. Now as Prime Minister it is evident for all to see how completely incapable Brown is of leadership. Yet to listen to the government, their track record would seem to be above reproach. But the fact is, this government lives by deceit. It spins, it lies, and it has no shame because it lives in a fantasy world where it makes its own reality.

We need to go back before the second Gulf War for a measure of how venal this government is. Britain and America went to the court of world opinion and lied on oath. There were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no connection between Saddam and al Q’aeda. The phials of biological weapons, the drawings of mobile chemical labs, the intelligence documents reporting shipments of Yellow Cake from north Africa, they were all fake and Bush and Blair knew it. So instead of confronting the real terrorists, we have spent billions of dollars and pounds and laid down thousands of lives fighting the wrong war in the wrong place. However, it has been to the personal enrichment of many of those best connected with both governments.

Simply put, democracy has failed. This is not the failure of capitalism or of free market economics. It is our collective failure as voters to hold to account governments that lie and deceive, that allow lobbyists and special interests to overrule our interests. What goes on in Washington and Downing Street is a travesty for government. What goes on in Wall Street or the City of London is a travesty for an economy. Both should be working for the common good, not self-preservation and self-enrichment. We need change. We cannot be apathetic the next time we have an opportunity to vote, we must seize that opportunity and put an end to the politics of spin and the economics of greed. We must have honesty and open government.

Sir Alan, You’re Fired

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I would truly like to know how the latest series of “The Apprentice” managed to get such adulatory coverage right across the media. The winner seems to be getting more attention than Prince Harry did for going to Afghanistan, the only thing missing was The Drudge leaking the result before it was officially announced. And this for a tired programme that over the years has turned itself into a send-up of “Wacky Races” with Sir Alan Sugar himself becoming a cartoon character of a businessman. If that’s how he treats people who work for him I certainly wouldn’t set foot inside his boardroom for a paltry £100,000.

When I started watching the first series it was in the hope of seeing bright young people showing ingenuity and business acumen, a showcase for British entrepreneurial talent. Instead, we see Dick Dastardly, Muttley the Dog, Penelope Pitstop and a whole cast of others compete in a series of wacky challenges with ever more emphasis given to celebrating failure. I appreciate that the exercises are little more than scenarios to let a group of people work together to see how they perform. They are just like team-building exercises where you have to cross an imaginary river with a piece of rope, a plank that’s too short and a lot of shouting at each other. Success, therefore, is not whether you get across or not, but how well you work together and how well one of you leads the team.

What we end up with is a “boardroom” meeting where skill at passing the buck is what gets you through to the next round. It doesn’t matter how useless you were during that week’s challenge as long as there was someone else you could make look more useless than you. The formula could have been used to accentuate the positive and in the early series that’s the way I tried to view it, open minded and optimistic. But the producers, as is so common today, have felt the need to go down-market for audience share, to compete with “Big Brother” on it’s own territory, to show us contestants disintegrating before our very eyes. It has not been a happy spectacle.

So Sir Alan, I’m sorry but, “You’re fired.”

A lesson in accountability from America

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What a contrast we see in the way the military is run in this country compared with the USA. Here, General Dannatt is being praised for his bravery in first speaking out about the abysmal housing our servicemen are expected to live in, and now for the near-poverty levels of pay for those in the lower ranks. He is holding his political masters to account. Over in America, however, the hobnailed boot is on the other foot. Secretary of Defense, Robert M Gates, has just sacked the four-star Air Force Chief of Staff and the civilian Air Force Secretary for “a pattern of poor performance” over control of nuclear weapons and parts. Last year he sacked a two-star general and the civilian Army Secretary over the shocking standards of accommodation at a top US military hospital.

Here’s what the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee had to say: “Secretary Gates’ focus on accountability is essential and has been absent from the office of the secretary of defense for too long.” Contrast that with our own part-time Secretary of State for Defence who is also the Minister of State for Scotland. Accountability is not a word he is familiar with. He has presided over a regime where increased demands on the armed forces have not been matched with increases in resources. The thin desert-pink line has been stretched to breaking point and it is no surprise that under the circumstances more and more servicemen are abandoning the armed forces.

Gates has made it clear that the American air force had suffered for years from a loss of expertise in handling nuclear materials. Is that what is in store for us? Are we going to have our own “nuclear incidents” caused by lack of experience or lack of resources? Two incidents hit the headlines in America. One happened last year when a B-52 flew across America with six armed nuclear cruise missiles, which was completely against regulations, but what’s more, the crew didn’t even know they had them on board. The more recent incident, which resulted in the sackings, was when four nose-cone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were sent to Taiwan, instead of some helicopter batteries that should have been sent.

The problems in America are certainly not due to resources, they are more symptomatic of complacency. Over here we have a dedicated, motivated, and professional armed services, but which is underpaid, poorly resourced and seriously overstretched. As a consequence ours are also haemorrhaging skilled men and women. Never mind the injustices that are being done to those who serve, and let’s not even get started on how shamefully the wounded are treated, where is the political will to see defence as nothing more than a part-time job? When will we get a secretary of state for defence who will focus on his job? When will we get some accountability?

Corporate Manslaughter in the NHS

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We haven’t properly sorted this one out, have we? Whenever members of the public lose their lives and it emerges that managers have been cutting costs at the expense of safety, we demand action. And that action never seems to be equal to the “crime” as we see it. It’s usually just a fine on the company concerned so modest it doesn’t even affect management bonuses, however egregious the failing, however obvious the dangers and however dire the warnings that were ignored. I’m not aware of anyone ever being jailed.

Such is the case for Linda O’Boyle. She has now died as the inevitable and predicted consequence of the NHS withdrawing free treatment. It was withdrawn because she voluntarily paid for some additional medication that was not available free of charge on the NHS. As such, she became classified as a “private patient” and therefore not entitled to further free treatment. She could not afford to continue at her own expense the treatment they had been providing, so the NHS left her to die.

Incredibly there is even a rationale for all this. According to Health Secretary Alan Johnson, allowing patients to supplement treatment at their own expense will create a two-tier NHS, with preferential treatment going to those patients who can afford the extra medication. He would rather see people dead than allow a two-tier NHS. Class hatred doesn’t come any more ugly than this.

According to the NHS, “It is explained to the patient that they can either have their treatment under the NHS or privately, but not both in parallel.” So if I need to be admitted to hospital, will I be refused treatment because I have been paying for my own Hay Fever tablets? No, of course not, that’s a silly question. But why is it a silly question? No, seriously? Where is this ultra-fine line? Why is there even a line in the first place? Private patients, like parents who send their children to private schools, are already paying double. First for the “free” services they are not taking advantage of, and secondly for the private services they are paying for instead.

Mrs O’Boyle was being denied treatment she was entitled to and to which she had been contributing all her working life, ironically in the NHS itself. How perverse is that? It is more than perverse. It is corporate manslaughter. The NHS is as guilty as any other business that takes cost-saving measures that results in someone’s death. That was the rationale behind Dr Shipman, who would terminate any old ladies whom he judged were a nuisance and costing the NHS more money than they were worth. He would be so proud of the lessons New Labour have learned from him.

Original Telegraph report here.

Landing on Mars

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These two photographs are separated by thirty nine years, and more than thirty five million miles. The inset is of Neil Armstrong stepping off the Lunar Lander of Apollo 11 back in July 1969. The fuzzy, low-resolution television pictures were beamed all around the world to a spell-bound audience witnessing for the first time man landing on a heavenly body that was not the Earth. It is slightly ironic that in this age of high definition tv, the new history-making image is as fuzzy as the one from decades ago. It shows the Martian probe, Phoenix, descending to the surface with the parachute visible above it. You can just about make out the trace of the parachute chords between the two. For all that it is a low-resolution image, it is nonetheless breathtaking and I find it far more interesting than the surface views taken from the lander itself, almost mesmerising in fact. Remarkably, the image was taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which is on an unrelated mission to Mars. It was launched in 2005 and arrived in March 2006, while the Phoenix Mars Lander we see in the image was launched in August 2007 and arrived yesterday. What will we see in another thirty nine years? Man landing on Mars? The chances are that to beam the first pictures back to us as soon as possible and at extreme range, they will once again be black and white and fuzzy.