I'm a bit of a periodic blogger, and find I don't really get the time to write as much as I'd like to. That said, I saw something yesterday which inspired me to put pen to paper.
I was watching the news as Mark Duggan's family traipsed out of the Royal Court of Justice on the Strand. Duggan was the alleged drug dealer whose shooting set off the riots in London.
The police officer giving evidence yesterday was the one who shot him. While Duggan didn't have a gun on him immediately after he was shot, the police officer insisted he'd seen one in his hand and was in fear for his life. A gun was found on the other side of the railings behind Duggan after he was shot. In the absence of a gun tree, it is not unreasonable to assume that it ended up there after flying out of Duggan's hand. 'Liar' was the unanimous chant from assembled family and friends.
All that is, however, beside the point. What interested me was the 'solidarity' shown to the Duggan family by relatives and friends, and the similarity between that and two recent deaths local to me.
In both of the cases I'm thinking of, the 'victims' - neither of whom were killed by the police - were the sort of low-grade drug dealer which inhabits far too many otherwise quiet streets. With their claimed traveller backgrounds, extended families and proud history of unemployment and housing benefit they were the sort of dealers beloved of those slightly higher up the chain.
Both acted one way or the other as enforcers for larger dealers. Neither had a pot to piss in. They gained their council houses by intimidation of council staff, and proceeded to make everybody else's life a misery in their street. Everybody else was too frightened to speak out, and the local police were too frightened to act. They inhabited a world where 'family' was important, but they had a horde of kids they never saw. A world where trivial insults between a stranger and a distant relative were an excuse for a blood feud and perpetual bad feeling. A world where there was no problem which could not be solved by violence and intimidation.
And yet, following their deaths, you'd have thought from a casual glance at Facebook that they were saints, not sinners. People's profile pictures changed to those of the 'victims'. Messages of condolence. Outpourings of sadness. The most common sentiment in both cases was 'I can't believe you've gone'.
Well, I can. I'm only amazed it took so long.
I'm sure both of them started off thinking they'd make it big, but lacked the intelligence, drive or ability to make it in anything but dealing and violence. Both were big men physically. I'm sure they were attracted to the idea of large guns, flash cars and wads of cash. The reality was rather more sordid. Like so many dealers, it was life on a diet of fast food, catching the bus because they couldn't afford a car, and beating hapless stoners half to death because they owed the local dealer a tenner.
So what made such useless plastic pikeys local cultural icons?
Firstly, they left behind a large family composed of people remarkably similar to them. Woe betide anyone who dared to suggest that they'd got what they deserved, or indeed any of their assorted hangers on or 'wanna-be' minions who didn't profess shock, surprise and grief.
Secondly, and more widely, there is a whole world out there populated by the sort of people the middle classes only see on Jeremy Kyle. A world nearly devoid of positive male role models, and where the ideals of self-restraint, moderation and consideration only apply to others, never to oneself. A world where the food is put on the table by the state benefits system, and luxuries are provided by whatever scams are going on the side to earn a little extra cash. Petty pilfering, small scale dealing, fencing of stolen goods and the flogging of smuggled Eastern European cigarettes and tobacco. The two local 'victims' were the cocks of this dung-heap, strutting their stuff and puffing up their chests, unable to tell the difference between friendship and fear, and leaving behind them a legacy of the same.
What is the answer? I'm not sure that there is one. In the world they inhabited, people have learnt that morals will do them few favours. The moral strength to say 'no' to such people earns no plaudits, only a kicking and further intimidation. A standard police response - "It's your word against theirs: there's nothing we can do". A world where the moral outrage of a streetful of residents is less important than the 'human rights' of people such as these, because nowhere: not the schools, not the Councils, not the police - is there the moral will to draw a line in the sand and say 'no more'. Until we find a way of re-instilling such moral strength in our communities, little will change.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Qui bono? Who wins when the PM invites the CEO of a UN sanctions busting company to dinner?
The name of one of the Tory's 'premier league' donors caught my eye when they finally published the list of donors who had bought a £250,000 dinner at 10 Downing Street - Ian Taylor.
Taylor is the Chief Executive Officer of a company called Vitol. I first came across Vitol some years ago while researching something else, but what stuck in my mind was two things: firstly, that they had broken UN sanctions during the Yugoslav civil war, and secondly that Alan Duncan MP had worked for them. Having seen the name, I thought I'd bring myself up to date on what else they had been up to in the intervening years.
Back in the 90's, Vitol had paid a war criminal, Arkan - also known as 'the butcher of Vukovar' after he murdered 250 hospital patients - $1m as a go between to sell Vitol oil to the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosovic, in contravention of UN sanctions. Arkan 'persuaded' a former business associate of Vitol to ignore a court ruling in his favour.
It seems that this breaking of sanctions is a profitable business to be in. In 2007, Vitol was fined £17.5 milliion in a New York court for paying kickbacks to members of Saddam Hussein's regime in return for oil shipments under the UN Aid for Oil programme. In case you miss the point, if the sanctions had been watertight, it is not inconceivable that the Hussein regime would have toppled, and there would have been no need for the 2nd Gulf War.
Then there was the contaminated oil scandal, when Vitol sold 280,000 tons of contaminated oil to Pakistan, failing to mention that it was contaminated, and causing £140 million of damage to oil infrastructure.
And then, by complete coincidence, Vitol is the company chosen by the British government to have exclusive rights to trade with the Libyan rebels: a deal agreed by a secret committee on which Alan Duncan - a close friend and associate of Vitol owner Ian Taylor - was represented. It is estimated that Vitol made up to £650 million from the deal, and other international oil companies - including British Petroleum - were not approached.
To add insult to injury, it isn't Vitol plc or Vitol Ltd which makes the money: its Vitol SA, a Swiss company, which has a global turnover of £114 billion annually. Which means it pays little tax on its profits here in the UK - echoes of Mittal Steel and Labour, perhaps?
I scarcely know where to begin with this one. Are these the sort of people the Prime Minister should be publicly associated with? Is Alan Duncan a suitable person to make decisions which favour - rightly or wrongly - a multi-national company he has worked for, and for whom he acts as a consultant and/or director in a number of subsidiaries? Were the donations made to gain a veneer of respectability for a business which was fundamentally shady and dealt with war criminals and other international undesirables in breach of UN sanctions? Qui bono?
Surely common sense would have said that no good could possibly come of this for the government, and as all of the above are matters of public record, it is inconceivable that the government did not know: after all, you're reading this here, and that's without Taylor giving you £200k, eh? Did nobody think, " Hang on, that Taylor chap, didn't his company hire a mass-murdering psychopath to put the frighteners on an oil trader in Serbia so they could take a cut of an UN santions busting oil deal with a regime which practised genocide?". Clearly not. With such forward thinkers at the head of government, I can only quote Private Fraser.
"We're doomed".
.
Taylor is the Chief Executive Officer of a company called Vitol. I first came across Vitol some years ago while researching something else, but what stuck in my mind was two things: firstly, that they had broken UN sanctions during the Yugoslav civil war, and secondly that Alan Duncan MP had worked for them. Having seen the name, I thought I'd bring myself up to date on what else they had been up to in the intervening years.
Back in the 90's, Vitol had paid a war criminal, Arkan - also known as 'the butcher of Vukovar' after he murdered 250 hospital patients - $1m as a go between to sell Vitol oil to the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosovic, in contravention of UN sanctions. Arkan 'persuaded' a former business associate of Vitol to ignore a court ruling in his favour.
It seems that this breaking of sanctions is a profitable business to be in. In 2007, Vitol was fined £17.5 milliion in a New York court for paying kickbacks to members of Saddam Hussein's regime in return for oil shipments under the UN Aid for Oil programme. In case you miss the point, if the sanctions had been watertight, it is not inconceivable that the Hussein regime would have toppled, and there would have been no need for the 2nd Gulf War.
Then there was the contaminated oil scandal, when Vitol sold 280,000 tons of contaminated oil to Pakistan, failing to mention that it was contaminated, and causing £140 million of damage to oil infrastructure.
And then, by complete coincidence, Vitol is the company chosen by the British government to have exclusive rights to trade with the Libyan rebels: a deal agreed by a secret committee on which Alan Duncan - a close friend and associate of Vitol owner Ian Taylor - was represented. It is estimated that Vitol made up to £650 million from the deal, and other international oil companies - including British Petroleum - were not approached.
To add insult to injury, it isn't Vitol plc or Vitol Ltd which makes the money: its Vitol SA, a Swiss company, which has a global turnover of £114 billion annually. Which means it pays little tax on its profits here in the UK - echoes of Mittal Steel and Labour, perhaps?
I scarcely know where to begin with this one. Are these the sort of people the Prime Minister should be publicly associated with? Is Alan Duncan a suitable person to make decisions which favour - rightly or wrongly - a multi-national company he has worked for, and for whom he acts as a consultant and/or director in a number of subsidiaries? Were the donations made to gain a veneer of respectability for a business which was fundamentally shady and dealt with war criminals and other international undesirables in breach of UN sanctions? Qui bono?
Surely common sense would have said that no good could possibly come of this for the government, and as all of the above are matters of public record, it is inconceivable that the government did not know: after all, you're reading this here, and that's without Taylor giving you £200k, eh? Did nobody think, " Hang on, that Taylor chap, didn't his company hire a mass-murdering psychopath to put the frighteners on an oil trader in Serbia so they could take a cut of an UN santions busting oil deal with a regime which practised genocide?". Clearly not. With such forward thinkers at the head of government, I can only quote Private Fraser.
"We're doomed".
.
A letter to Peter Cruddas
Dear Mr Cruddas,
I would really like to meet Mr Cameron. I take note of your comment that £200,000 to £250,000 is enough to buy 'premier league access' and a private dinner at Number 10.
Unfortunately, unlike the captains of industry, Chancellors of the Exchequer and Prime Ministers to whom you usually speak, I have had to work for a living all my life. My parents, though remarkable people, could only ensure I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.
As you will understand, as I have had to work, the government has already taken well over £250,000 from me in income tax and national insurance over the 28 years of my working life to date. When I spend what is left, it then takes another 20% in VAT. When I drive to work to earn more money, the government takes 75% of what I spend on fuel, in addition to £200/year to put my car on the road, £50 to MoT it, and £20 in insurance premium tax. In case the peasants should revolt, the army is now being trained to drive fuel tankers.
In my leisure time, I enjoy smoking and a pint. The government, represented by Mr Cameron, takes 80% of what I spend on cigarettes, and 70% of what I spend on beer.
When I am at home, the government taxes me roughly 1% of the value of my rented home a year. If I want to heat it, it charges me another 5% on the cost of gas and electricity. Since a previous Conservative government sold the gas and electricity supply companies to multi-national corporations - even though I along with every other taxpayer owned them, and we saw nothing in return - the cost of these staples has gone through the ceiling. If I need to drink water - which falls out of the sky free of charge - I must also pay through the nose.
I consider that I have easily met not just the £250,000, but probably closer to £500,000, which must surely lift me out of 'premier league' and catapult me into, say, Murdochian realms of access. Admittedly, these sums have been for the benefit of the British people and not the Conservative Party, but as successive custodians of the office of Prime Minister have proved largely indistinguishable from each other, I am sure you will not feel that that makes a difference. I therefore look forward to receiving my invitation.
Yours faithfully,
Every working man and woman in the country
.
I would really like to meet Mr Cameron. I take note of your comment that £200,000 to £250,000 is enough to buy 'premier league access' and a private dinner at Number 10.
Unfortunately, unlike the captains of industry, Chancellors of the Exchequer and Prime Ministers to whom you usually speak, I have had to work for a living all my life. My parents, though remarkable people, could only ensure I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.
As you will understand, as I have had to work, the government has already taken well over £250,000 from me in income tax and national insurance over the 28 years of my working life to date. When I spend what is left, it then takes another 20% in VAT. When I drive to work to earn more money, the government takes 75% of what I spend on fuel, in addition to £200/year to put my car on the road, £50 to MoT it, and £20 in insurance premium tax. In case the peasants should revolt, the army is now being trained to drive fuel tankers.
In my leisure time, I enjoy smoking and a pint. The government, represented by Mr Cameron, takes 80% of what I spend on cigarettes, and 70% of what I spend on beer.
When I am at home, the government taxes me roughly 1% of the value of my rented home a year. If I want to heat it, it charges me another 5% on the cost of gas and electricity. Since a previous Conservative government sold the gas and electricity supply companies to multi-national corporations - even though I along with every other taxpayer owned them, and we saw nothing in return - the cost of these staples has gone through the ceiling. If I need to drink water - which falls out of the sky free of charge - I must also pay through the nose.
I consider that I have easily met not just the £250,000, but probably closer to £500,000, which must surely lift me out of 'premier league' and catapult me into, say, Murdochian realms of access. Admittedly, these sums have been for the benefit of the British people and not the Conservative Party, but as successive custodians of the office of Prime Minister have proved largely indistinguishable from each other, I am sure you will not feel that that makes a difference. I therefore look forward to receiving my invitation.
Yours faithfully,
Every working man and woman in the country
.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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