Yesterday on BBC News24 during an interview, presenter Jon Sobel asked the critical question about this government concerning the fact that while the crisis situation was unfolding in the Middle East involving Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, the UK government's Middle East envoy Lord Levy was being questioned in a police station. The people of the UK deserve better.
BBC News Friday, 14 July 2006, 09:23 GMT 10:23 UK
Ministers quizzed in donor probe
At least two ministers have been questioned by police as part of the "loans for peerages" inquiry.
Neither Science Minister Lord Sainsbury nor Trade Minister Ian McCartney was cautioned before the questioning, say their spokesmen.
Supermarket millionaire Lord Sainsbury is one of Labour's biggest donors and lent the party £2m before the election.
>Mr McCartney was Labour chairman before the election and signed nomination forms for the party's new peers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5178730.stm
The Guardian Friday 14th July 2006
Police consider conspiracy charges as cash and honours inquiry widens
By Patrick Wintour and Rob Evans
· Prime minister likely to be questioned by detectives
· Labour fundraiser and Yard trade accusations
Until now it had been thought any charges would relate to the sale of honours or a failure to disclose loans on the form sent to the Lords Appointments Commission nominating individuals for peerages. Conspiracy may be an easier case to make because detectives would only have to prove that there was an intention to commit a criminal offence. Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates also indicated to MPs at a private briefing that he planned to interview Tony Blair within the next two months.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,1820063,00.html
The Independent Friday 14th July 2006
Minister questioned in cash-for-honours probe
By Nick Hodgson, Andrew Woodcock and Joe Churcher, PA
A government minister has been questioned by police investigating the cash-for-honours allegations, according to reports today.
The Science Minister Lord Sainsbury is the first minister to be questioned by police during their investigation into whether or not people have been given honours in return for making financial donations to political parties.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1174407.ece
The Times Friday 14th July 2006
Looming date with police overshadows Blair's holiday
By Andrew Pierce and Rajeev Syal
Sources tell The Times that the Prime Minister will be questioned about 'cash for peerages'
Tony Blair will fly off on his summer holiday knowing that on his return he will be the first serving British prime minister to be interviewed by police in a corruption investigation. |
Downing Street publicly denied again yesterday having been given any indication that the Prime Minister would be interviewed by the Scotland Yard team of detectives leading the cash-for-peerages inquiry. But The Times has learnt that Mr Blair and Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, will be interviewed over the summer before the party conference at which his leadership was already certain to be an issue.
They will be questioned about what they knew of peerages that were offered to four millionaires who lent more than £5 million to the Labour Party before last year’s general election.
They will also be asked whether they knew that the curry magnate Sir Gulam Noon was asked not to declare his £250,000 loan to the House of Lords appointments watchdog and whether the terms of the loans were changed this March.
The last occupant of Downing Street to be interviewed in a corruption inquiry was David Lloyd George in the 1920s. His sale of peerages led to the 1925 Act that makes it an offence to offer honours for cash.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2269717,00.html
A little over 20 years ago Ed Koch was sworn in for his third term as New York City's Mayor on 1st January 1986. It was the beginning of the end as an incredible corruption scandal surfaced whcih destroyed the Koch administrationn. Two years later in 1998 Jack Newfield and Wayne Barret published their marvelous book documenting the extent of the corruption entitled City For Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York (Harper & Row, New York 198
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The inside jacket's second paragraph described the devastation: "But in the frantic three months that followed his inauguration Mayor Koch found himself overwhelmed by a scandal of unprecedented proportions. By this time the full extent of city corruption was uncovered, a dozen major city leaders and nearly a hundred minor officials would be convicted of crimes ranging from accepting bribes to outright extortion."
On the inside of the book jacket's rear cover Ed Koch was succintly characterised: "At the center of City for Sale, of course, stands Ed Koch, who was seduced not by money, like his commissioners and political allies, but by power. Koch is revealed as a tragic figure who compromised his ideals to win office; a man who apportunistically abandoned reform and became both a convenient conservative and malleable pawn of the party bosses; a chief executive who consistently looked in the other direction whenever the decay of his government threatned to be revealed."
On the back of the book's jacket was this comment by Seymour Hersh: "This is an immensely readable story of how a big city went wrong in classic dimensions: corrupt leadership, passive press, apathetic citizenry. It's not just the story of New York City; it's a dark vision of what can happen to any American city. Consider this book a warning." Seymour Hersh might very well have added that this was a warning for government anywhere which is now being revealed in the UK twenty years later.
Although apathy characterised many in New York during the 1980s and the UK in recent years, I'm not one of those. My story reflects the impact of this corruption which I directly experienced in New York in the 1980s and more recently in the UK the latter of which is now beginning to unravel. Mine is a story of a deliberate effort to silence me with death in each of these situations because I was anything but apathetic. Some of us have struggled to address the impact of corruptiion on the daily lives of the people. Corruption does not have to involve money as described above. It can be the quest for power at any cost at the expense of the governed.
While everyone focusses on those at the top are on trapped in their web of deceit, the real story is the impact on the lives of everyone else who have been denied essential government. In each of these situations (New York in the 1980s and London during the last decade) it's the impact on the daily lives of everyone that is most important. This goes unreported by the "passive press." This is the corruption politicians attempted to cover up and ignore. At the beginning of City For Sale the authors include a quote from Bob Dylan:
"Don't follow the leaders
watch the parkin' meters"
--Bob Dylan
Subterrean Homesick Blues
This was literatlly true in New York City during the 1980s since the Parking Violations Bureau (PVB) was at the core of the scandal, but it is symbolic of the essence of corruption which was widespread in New York and London as I have directly experienced. This is my story which I am telling in this web journal against the background of survillance technology used to silence me in London during the past eight years. In New York during the 1980s it was organised crime who tried to destroy my life's activity and kill me. I survived that one. However, this is far worse in London than organised crime for it is the government itself carrying out the destruction and attempted murder.
There is another important aspect of my lif'e direct experience which involves corporate management. The kind of corruption which I experienced in a corporate environment for which I blew the whistle is the same kind of corporte corruption which gave the world the likes of the collapses of Enron, World.com and the pension fund abuse from Robert Maxwell. Overall, millions of people have been impacted in very negative ways from these criminal problems which passed for corporate and government management. In my case I blew the whistle at a time to stop this corporate abuse from getting worse. I was sacked a half year later, and my experience since that time has led me through the impact from the New York City corruption scandal to my more recent experience in London with similarly charged stepping stones along the way. Crime and corrupton have become the standard.
I will be writing about all three of these key experiences to show how those in positions of authority ensure that the corruption gets worse to the point of organisational or government collapse. This total experience has covered the past three decades. The two decades before that are equally important and will also be described since they provided my foundation which led me to address the problems as I have done when they occurred. Had there been more people like me these extreme problems would not have occurred. The fact that they did is a key issue with which I intend to explore.
There is a serious imbalance which has developed over past decades and left millions of people with serious negative problems resulting from crime and corruption by those in positions of authority and responsibility. What I see now being proposed for the future will make this worse unless it is changed. Unless change comes about as it should, then it will be imposed from without by means of a collapse. The ultimate collapse is depression of an extreme kind in a world without the democratic rule of law because not enough people recognised his/her responsibility to maintain it.
Heed Bob Dylan's advice and "watch the parkin' meters." Do not follow the leaders for they will only use, abuse and discard. To avoid this speak up at the beginning and address the problems responsibly. Waiting will not cure them for they will only get worse until it is too late to do anything.