‘If you take a close look at the Government’s economic predictions, you have to wonder if the Weather Bureau hasn’t taken over the forecasts’.

We have a rising stock market, car production up nearly 30% on last year, humungous orders from the Farnborough Air Show (£28 billion), the economy has grown at the fastest rate in 4 years. We are also told that at this time the Government is showing a £5 billion profit on its bank shares. Does this mean divestment can’t be far away, and will the small but beautifully formed George Osborne stick to his idea of flogging the shares to small investors a la Maggie’s privatisations? The OECD is worried about inflation. The IMF is worried about deflation. Or the other way round. What a gwaan, man?

A week for gaffes by both the PM and Deputy, if we are to believe some sections of the meeja.

Cleggikins declared the Iraq war to be illegal which won’t endear him to his Tory comrades in the Government of all the Talents (hereinafter known as the ‘Brokeback Coalition’, thank you, David Davis). He reminds me of Beverley Baxter’s quip about Lord Beaverbrook – ‘He is so pleased to be in the Government that he is like the town tart who has finally married the Mayor’.

Dave said that the UK had been the junior partner in the ‘special relationship’ (not that again, purleeze!) since we fought the Nazis together in 1940. Not big on history, our Dave. Then young Milliband got in on the act by saying that in 1940 ‘Britain stood alone against the Nazis’. Apart from the Canadians, South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians and all the rest of the far-flung Empire, I suppose. It really is time that politicians who were not even a twinkle in daddy’s eye at the time stopped harking back 70 years and started harking forward.

The Beeb reported that on Dave’s visit to the Big Apple he had a hot dog with Bloomberg. We really need to know that. He then had lunch –eh? – with a raft of big-shots, including the ‘former politician’ Newt Gingrich. Is the old rogue really ‘former’?

Lockerbiegate refuses to leave the front pages here. This is Richard Ingram’s piece in The Oldie:

'By failing to die as predicted by Britain's top cancer specialist, the "Lockerbie bomber" Abdel Basset al-Megrahi has embarrassed David Cameron, who is now worried that the controversy over his release on compassionate grounds could cast a shadow over his visit to Washington next week. Accordingly, our ambassador in Washington, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, has issued an apparently heartfelt statement claiming that Megrahi's release was a mistake and is regretting "the continuing anguish" that it has caused to families of the Lockerbie victims. In addition, it is now claimed that BP was in some way responsible for Megrahi's release, as it helped to further good relations with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. While the media pursue these red herrings, the most likely reason for Megrahi's release will go unmentioned. It is generally forgotten that, at the time of his release, he was engaged in a lengthy appeal hearing against his original conviction. Evidence showing the flimsiness of the case against him would have been produced; well-founded allegations of the bribery of witnesses and the possible planting of evidence on the crash site by the CIA would have been aired. It could all have ended with the exposure of one of the most scandalous miscarriages of justice ever acknowledged in a British court. No wonder that in the circumstances the Justice Minister, Jack Straw, was so keen to see the back of Megrahi and the discontinuation of his appeal hearing'.

It was briefly reported that Senators had asked Her Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (retired) to attend upon them and explain his actions over the Lockerbie prison release, to which our Jack replied ‘Go forth and multiply’. Did the Senators really expect Jack, the Scottish Justice Secretary et al to come running? Or is this really a bit of grandstanding for November? Jack had probably briefed Condi yonks ago over fish ‘n chips ‘n mushy peas at the 'Star of Helmand' Halal chippy in Blackburn. A public enquiry is a non-starter and they all know it. Can you imagine the CIA, MI5, Special Branch and others with fingerprints all over the case turning up and spilling the beans? Should it happen, I would advise buying whitewash futures.

Scarcely had I posted my prediction that sooner or later someone would leak when the Sunday Times front-paged a leaked letter from the Deputy US Ambassador which said ‘The US position is that compassionate release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer’. We also learn that shortly after the release Occidental, Chevron and Exxon signed deals with Libya. Purest coincidence, of course. The Libyan sovereign wealth fund set up in London with a wedge totalling £80 billion shortly afterwards.

And you probably read Heffer’s Saturday piece about the myth of the SR. In case you missed his subsequent blog, here it is.

'I wish Dave – despite his shaky grasp of history – had reminded his critics on the Lockerbie bomber of some home truths: namely, that even after that outrage, and, in fact, until the seismic horror of September 11, many Americans thought the IRA were freedom-fighters, lavished money on them to finance their acts of murder, and cheered when their courts refused to extradite terrorists to face justice in British courts. America's record on terrorism before the events of 2001 was a real stinker. The hypocrisy of their whinging now needs to be seen in that context. The bomber should never have been released; but there was a time when they, conceivably, would have done the same as the Scots'.

The ST had an editorial in similar vein entitled ‘Hold tight, Uncle Sam, and look in the mirror’. I for one am heartily sick of the hysterical Yankee-bashing that is a daily feature of the meeja and the blogs, although to a certain extent O triggered this by his constant references to ‘British Petroleum’, which has not been the company’s name for years, as if to imply that the Brits as a race were responsible for Deepwater. This brought bitter references to Piper Alpha, the US-owned North Sea rig that exploded and killed 168 men. All the compensation was paid by the UK taxpayer.

Returning to a previous theme, a Government report into the collapse of the Icelandic bank KSF, reveals that it was solvent at the time, until HMG purloined its deposits to the tune of about £800 million. I have previously given my humble opinion that this action has no legs because (a) anti-terrorist laws were used to seize the funds and it was never the intention of Parliament that anti-terrorist measures should be perverted in this way; and (b) the customers’ deposits are liabilities, not assets. Ah well; as Kipling said ‘politics is a dog’s life without a dog’s decencies’.

And a word of advice to Hillary Clinton who seems to be literally growing into the job. With a butt your size, never wear trouser suits. And never travel economy class (as if you would). You will never get out of the seat again. (The ever-rude English would say ‘Barge-arse’).

To add to the gaiety of nations, Nick Griffin, the Obergruppenfuehrer of the BNP, got the red card for his cuppa with Her Maj. Protocol requires the Palace to invite all MEPs to the annual garden party just to show that it is not too fussy about the company it keeps (well, we used to go every year), so it had no alternative but to invite the egregious Nick. The courtiers must have done handstands when he sent out an e-mail to his supporters soliciting questions to put to the Queen. That gave them the excuse to withdraw the invitation because he had abused it for political purposes.

The EU continues to astound us with its planetary reach. It is now proposing to ban kangaroo products from Australia on the grounds that when the Ockers shoot a mummy roo they brain the poor little joey. That’ll teach the barbarians of Van Diemen’s Land. I was not aware that there was a vast trade in kangaroo filet mignon in Europe, but I remember when I was in the US years ago the big scandal was that mountains of burger steak were dumped when it was discovered to be roo not moo. If the Aussies were to ban hunting during the breeding season, as is the case in the civilised world, what would the joey-huggers say then?

'We're alright, Jack'

Simon Heffer's recent column on American cultural imperialism is not up to his standard. While he makes some good points, much of what he says is professional griping with alarming generalizations. He changes tone toward the end, almost as if he were apologizing for the previous shoddy reporting. Most importantly, by challenging Dave's statement about your being our junior partner in WWII he brings more attention to it than it deserves.

There has been entirely too much bitching about the US over there with the end result being we over here are becoming victims of your propaganda. It seemed to have started with the BP situation and alleged widespread UK bashing. Now its our cultural imperialism. All Simon has to do to dispel the cultural imperialism thought is to listen to some of our TV and radio adverts with their variety of British accents trying to subtly convince us that if a UK accented person flogs product A, it must be good; after all, the Brits endorse it.

Simon's moaning reminded me of my 18th year where I found myself in a cold and damp youth hostel in Earl's Court. The matron, complete with dingy gray dress and head wrap warned me that I was to behave myself as she knew full well what we Yanks were up to. She then went on to complain about our violation of the tea ceremony by the use of tea bags. It was the first time I ever heard the expression 'ducky' which, I surmised, meant me.

Let it go Simon, and we will get along just fine. Remember, the big complaint about America only a few years ago was that we were completely void of culture. Now we have so much we are exporting it. And the very idea that the Yanks are more foreign than the Frogs or the Italians, well I never. Might I expect that some Lincolnshireman will one day hang a monkey claiming he thought it was an American? My message to Simon, Dave, and all, is we (you and us) are all right, Jack. Now to business.

BP is decidedly page three news. The first of two relief wells is about to penetrate the drill stem of the DH well and has everything in place waiting for a change in the weather. We had a bit of a scare from tropical depression Bonnie which turned out to be a tempest in a teapot. The BP Lockerbie connection is lost on most readers and a bit too intangible to induce anything but apathy.

Larger headlines revealed that BP is about to start a deep oil well off the Libyan coast. To most of us here, this means that the Libyans had better beware as BP is not very good a deepwater drilling. To others, it hints at a warm relationship between BP and Qadaffi. Your welcome insights into the Libyan connection reinforce my conclusion that it is indeed done and dusted and should be left alone. I especially like Paul Foot's footnote about the Lockerbie bomber's lack of guilt.

It is quite certain now that Afghanistan has morphed into an unpopular enterprise. O convinced us during the early months of his administration that we needed to defeat al-Qaida who, along with bin Laden were holed up like wild west outlaws in mountain caves. Little by little we all realized that al-Qaida is like a ball of mercury capable of changing shape and location before our very eyes. Now, we are left holding the Afghanistan bag full of Talabans. One of our generals responded to the question of how long it will take to train Afghani security forces replied with the observation that they can't read and they can't shoot. Moreover, the national police force trainees are the primary source of ammunition for the Taliban.

I also agree with Dave that we should get out of Afghanistan ASAP. Let Karzai deal with the buggers and let them all stew in their own ignorance and convictions. O has been severely criticized as of late, and at last, for having failed miserably to focus on problem number one here, the economy. He ratcheted up the war, he proved we still can introduce health reforms, he constructed a finance reform bill, but he did not attack the job situation, the lack of credit and the underlying factors acting to protract this, our great recession.

Ben Bernanke's recent statement that he is unusually uncertain about an accelerated economic recovery does not help. My call is that Ben is making a rather clumsy effort at Greenspan-speak.

Apropos to your genetically-modified mosquito note, we have just discovered that incidents of dengue fever in Florida are more serious than previously thought. Indeed, the Florida is now officially the host of dengue bearing mossies as the illness can no longer be attributed to contact with visitors from the tropics. Well done Florida. We can now classify the mossie imports along with the Burmese boa constrictors that infest the Everglades. What's next, big cats, imported vipers, the odd orangutan?

‘Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy’.

Apropos to your Dear Leader's visit to mine, BP is the central issue, at least that's what the media claims. As you well know, the cap fits, but perhaps too well. Surface bubbles of methane are appearing within a two mile radius of the bore hole. Pessimists speculate that the methane gas is leaking lower down in the bore hole because the cap has acted to contain formation pressure that would ordinarily be expelled through the bore hole annulus. BP affirms, on the other hand, that the methane is unrelated to Deepwater Horizon issues. There is good reason for BP's stand. Namely, my Dear Leader insists that BP be penalized for its DH exploits based upon the volume of oil lost. This means that someone has to calculate what volumes have issued from the bore hole and to identify and calculate any related gas or oil losses around the formation. In short, the recovery effort has become politicized. I do hope our respective heads of state possess the wisdom to defuse the entire issue and put their minds to work at resolving issues of war and finance.

There is so much hype surrounding DH that I have given up efforts to identify the issues. There is no good reason for the UK and the US to begin eating each other's flesh as the media would have us believe. Such fabricated international acts of political cannibalism sell newspapers and air time. In addition, the press has managed to vilify otherwise decent people and institutions with reckless abandon. The American pubic has absolutely no idea what the main actors in this drama are other than through ingesting characterizations prepared and disseminated by the media.

What's it all about?

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

England produces a unique species of saloon bar philosophers (no women; they never talk about politics, only about sex, tattoos and the latest fashions in body hair).

They sit in the pub pontificating about the state of the nation, the economy, politics, the universe and everything. With each succeeding pint the analysis becomes more perceptive, the wit sharper, and the conclusions more brilliant. The last comment, as they stagger out into the night, is usually ‘If only they would listen to us’.

The SBP doesn’t exist as such elsewhere, maybe because there are no saloon bars. But there are SBPs manqué everywhere, except amongst the political glimmerati.

The two Grumpy Old Men responsible for these observations are natural saloon bar philosophers. They are both exiles; one in Texas the other is one of 78,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock in the middle of the Irish Sea aka the Isle of Man.

Both are International Development Consultants, so many of these despatches originate in far flung corners of the ‘developing’ world (now, there’s an oxymoron for you). Our man in Texas is a political scientist, rancher, and entrepreneur. The other is a lawyer by trade, a profession mid-way in public esteem between a politician and a brothel keeper.

They have chosen not to identify which of them wrote which missive. But here’s a clue.

One of them can’t spell.

You can source the quotations yourself.

These blogs are taken from a latest batch of about 1000 e-mails that have bobbed to and fro across the Atlantic over the last six years, amounting to about 1 million words on ‘the situation’ as seen by the ordinary joe. So there is plenty more to come.

And remember, folks, that the only class enemy is the political class.

rum, bum and the lash

There have been breathless reports here that O has given tacit approval to take-over bids for BP. Complete bollox. The UK Government would veto it on the grounds that BP is a strategic industry (they don’t come much more strategic) and the EU regulator would invoke anti-competition powers. The story probably emanates from BP’s apparent intention to sell its Alaska field, and it is reported that O has already tipped the wink at this. A letter in the press from Houston suggests that BP’s problem was not its own safety regime but its failure to bring Amoco up to speed after the merger. Of course, all this will come out in the wash once O appoints a public inquiry. Won’t it? For the time being it’s all a matter of ‘if the cap fits..........’ Also, I learn that BP’s Director of Communications was previously with Lehman Brothers; say no more!

And according to a Democrat politician it was BP that got Megrahi released. Is there any other major malfeasance that politicians would like to place at the door of BP? Here it is widely believed that Megrahi was released to prevent his appeal being heard, as this might have revealed that the whole inquiry was a stitch-up and that Megrahi was just the fall-guy.

A more solid piece of oil news is that the North Sea is taking off again, big time. This is partly due to decreased price volatility but mainly because the Government changed the rules a while back to make it possible for smaller companies to get a drilling licence. Previously it was prohibitively expensive for all but the big boys. Production has quietly increased considerably in the last year or so. On the downside, we hear that they have failed to find the black stuff in the Falklands, although they know it’s down there somewhere. Then perhaps Hilary will revise her stance on Argentina’s claims to ‘Los Malvinas’. Also on the downside the EU is contemplating a ban on oil exploration west of the Shetlands, so we had better stay pally with those nice Arabs for a while yet.

Do you have Fairtrade Fortnight in the US? It will be here shortly. Despite its ‘do-good’ presentation it is really a marketing exercise. Fair trade is anything but. It offers only a very small number of farmers a higher, fixed price for their goods. Simple economics will tell you that these higher prices come at the expense of the great majority of farmers who are left even worse off because the Fairtrade subsidy unbalances normal market forces. It stands to reason that if you subsidise an internationally traded commodity to some producers but not all, the subsidised growers will be able to undercut the non-subsidised. This in turn encourages over-production and is a disincentive to agricultural improvement. Many of the farmers helped by Fairtrade are in Mexico, Argentina, and other relatively developed countries, and not in places like Ethiopia.

We recently bought oranges that we later discovered were marked ‘Fairtrade’. They came from Argentina which has a higher GDP PPP than Poland, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece and Portugal in the top 40 richest nations. And it is blindingly obvious that oranges in European supermarkets don’t come from poor peasant farmers. They come from large commercial estates.

It doesn’t help economic development. It keeps the poor in their place, sustaining uncompetitive farmers on their land and holding back diversification, mechanization, and moves up the value chain. Just 10% of the premium consumers pay for Fairtrade actually goes to the producer. Retailers pocket the rest. It’s a racket. Fairtrade arose from the coffee crisis of the 1990s. This was not a free market failure. Governments tried to rig the market through the International Coffee Agreement and subsidized over-plantation with the encouragement of well-meaning but misguided aid agencies. The crash in prices was the inevitable result of this government intervention, but coffee prices have largely recovered since then.

However, it probably helps addle-pated numpties feel that they have done their bit to save mankind without actually exerting themselves. For ourselves, we refuse to buy anything marked ‘Fairtrade’, ‘organic’ or ‘GM free’.

And just to confirm my belief that we are now going through a re-run of the Decline and Fall, I recently picked upon a copy of ‘Soldier’, the official magazine of the British Army. The cover picture was of a gay trooper in one of the cavalry regiments (what do you expect if you kit them out in tight red riding breeches), the editorial was about the wonderful time that gays have in the army (you betcha), a main feature article was about individual soldiers who were happily openly gay, and another main article featured pictures of two lesbians in their lovely butch combat gear, and how well they were doing. I started wondering whether I had stumbled into ‘Gay News’.

Mind you, it was said by Winston that the real tradition of the Royal Navy was ‘rum, bum and the lash’.

the great russian spy scandal

Here we call July and August the ‘silly season’ because for some reason there is always a shortage of hard news so the meeja outdo each other in producing stories of complete dottiness. Sure enough we have The Great Russian Spy Scandal. You couldn’t make it up. The beautilicious woman whose ex-father-in-law was an MI5 spook, the househusband, the release on bail of one of the prime suspects and the consequent amazement when he gapped it. Needless to say the Fleet Street smelly-socks once again demonstrated their originality and command of the English language by vying with each other in the frequency of writing about the ‘Mata Hari’ – not that anyone under the age of 103 would have any idea who this was.

Scene 2: the Russkies will now round up any passing American, preferably photogenic females, and put exactly the same number on trial. Scene 3: all will be quietly exchanged. Meanwhile, Hollywood, the press, Max Clifford and other attention-seekers will announce that they have offered squillions to put Mrs Chapman under contract. The emerging details are hilarious. When British spooks were caught out in something equally inept in Russia, Putin said that they could stay in case MI5 replaced them with people who knew what they were doing. The KGB won’t like being laughed at. Perhaps the ‘spies’ were actually sent by Central Casting to make ‘Carry On up the Kremlin’.

The meeja are also harping on about James Bond, but it is more John le Carre than Ian Fleming, and no doubt we shall soon be treated to spook argot, like ‘sleeper’, ‘plumber, ‘safe house’, ‘night watchman’ and all the rest of the Cold War stuff.

Now here’s a funny thing. If you read ‘Gideon’s Spies’ you will be aware that Israeli sleepers have infiltrated every aspect of American life; that Robert Maxwell was a Mossad agent who stole the Daily Mirror pensions to fund Mossad; that the Israelis stole the enriched uranium needed for their nuclear weapons from the US. The usual outcome of this would be a suspension of diplomatic relations and US aid. Did anything happen? Noooooo.

It certainly seems to have knocked BP off the front pages. O has also gone quiet on the subject, presumably with the revelations that everybody has been by-passing the environmental reviews required by the regulators, 210 of them on O’s watch. Glass houses, anybody? It is reported that Gaddaffi is sniffing around BP, and the Arabs generally are looking for a bargain, hence the rise in BP’s share price. How do you like them apples, O?

Kuwait already owns a big slice through its sovereign wealth fund. The Chinese are said to be interested after their failure to get a US firm a while back. No chance of Shell or Exxon; the anti-trust regulators in US and EU would can that idea. There is also speculation that a quiet deal has been done with O for the $20 billion to be the limit of liability. This would cause a credit crunch in the legal profession. Shame! Meanwhile it seems that Louisiana is not jumping with joy over the drilling embargo.

And still in Libya, it is one year since the release of the Lockerbie Bomber who had 3 months to live, and he may go on for another 10 years. Ah well, not even medics are perfect.

Irwin ‘Alka’ Selzer in the ST returned to his theme of bashing O’s hostility to business, and points up the fact that many US companies are awash with cash because of their fear of O’s fiscal policies. This is a major obstacle to economic growth. In a separate piece, the ST business news does a big job on the take-over of UK companies by Americans, partly as a result of needing somewhere to invest their cash mountains. The latest is Tate and Lyle’s sugar business which has been in the same refinery in Woolwich since 1857, and other targets include British Aerospace (which would give the Yanks a slice of Airbus). I reckon our masters in Brussels would veto that one. What the article fails to mention is that the UK is and always has been the biggest single investor in the US, and we own swathes of the US economy.

In the same issue, Andrew Sullivan does a splendid hatchet-job on the US poodle-press, accusing papers like the NYT of conspiring to suppress news likely to be embarrassing to the Government. He says that the shenanigans in General McChrystal’s HQ were widely known by the meeja, but it took a magazine to run the story. The others were more concerned about ‘access’ and worried that if they printed anything the Government didn’t like they would be shut out. If this is true, it wouldn’t seem as if the concept of investigative journalism has very deep roots in the US.

I have no doubt that the same thing happens here. The Great Expenses scandal, probably the biggest-ever peace-time scoop, was offered to The Times which turned it down. The TORYGRAPH, house-journal of the Tory Party, is still running it, and has seen its circulation leap. The biggest cover-up ever was the Fleet Street conspiracy of silence over King Edward VIII’s affair with Mrs Simpson. The eventual denouement had the fortunate outcome of saving us from being ruled by a Nazi-sympathiser and a tart.

However, our press is largely of the Rottweiler persuasion, and media competition is so fierce that they will gnaw at a story like dogs on a bone. Also we have bolshie journals like Private Eye that thrive on exposing the wickedness of our masters. Presumably the National Enquirer and Rolling Stone have a similar role. The flight from subservience and deference began in the 1960’s with Peter Cook (who founded Eye) and Dudley Moore, David Frost, Monty Python etc. Now it’s no-holds barred.

An interesting take from Quest on the economic situation in Thailand; according to him, the economy is holding up extraordinarily well, with a growth rate not unadjacent to 6%. Manufacturing is booming, with ready access to the growth markets of Asia, and the whorist trade is rapidly recovering from the troubles. The view from ground zero in Bangkok is that Thais are aghast at what they have done, and have no desire whatsoever to repeat it. Insh’allah.

Meanwhile back in la-la land, Kitten Heels May has just announced that the Equality Act which was the last measure to be steered through the Commons by Mad Hattie Harperson is to be implemented. Amongst many other PC abuses, it requires employers to submit details of pay rates for men and women to ensure that they are the same, but where real trouble is brewing is the implication that Churches will be required to conduct homosexual ‘marriages’. Plus ca change!

In almost the same breath Cleggikins announces that there will be a referendum on the voting system on the local elections day next May. This means the merde hitting the fan at a time when all the Government’s efforts should be going into sorting out the fiscal crisis, not buggering about with the franchise.

Even worse is the proposal to have 5-year fixed term Parliaments.

One of the great advantages of the present system is that if the Government fails to keep a majority the people can throw the rascals out. Under the fixed term arrangement you will simply get the squalid party deals that characterise most Continental assemblies, which apart from the open invitation to corruption that is another of their characteristics, public spending increases because of the need to give lashings of pork to minorities who hold the balance of power. It is also proposed to reduce the number of MPs to 600, a nice round number that means if the Tories get 299 and Labour the same, the Government is controlled by the 2 minority MPs.

No good will come of it.

And as MPs have little to do, now that UK is governed by the Fourth Reich, they could reduce the numbers to about six.

the dave 'n O show part 2

We are reassured that the Special Relationship is alive and well and - er - special. Dave gave O’s kids different coloured wellies so that they can quarrel who gets which (the auto-spell checker changed wellies to willies – you can’t be too careful). I imagine that you saw the Press Conference which was covered in its entirety here, first on Quest and immediately afterwards by Randall. As befits an Old Etonian and Cambridge-educated toff, Dave came across as very polished and articulate. O came across as likeable (in contrast to W who always came across as risible) but not too comfortable without an autocue. They avoided getting entangled in the BP/Lockerbie spat; in fact they seemed ad idem on all the contentious points which was not difficult for Dave since he could lay it all on the Jocks. There will be a compromise on the Mad Hacker.

It is reported here that Hillary has got in on the act regarding BP and the release of the Lockerbie ‘bomber’. Willie Hague has said that it was a ‘mistake’. Well, he would wouldn’t he? He might care to have a little chat with Dr Jim Swire whose daughter was killed on the flight and has spent his entire time since then ferreting out the truth. Sooner or later somebody is going to leak something and then the ordure will hit the air conditioning. Beware the law of unintended consequences. Linking BP smacks of that great American tradition, the Witch Hunt. BP’s position is that they were angling for a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya, which is not a release, and you can bet that the US oil companies were doing the same.

I totally fail to understand the point of raising Lockerbiegate yet again except for the purpose of rubbishing BP. It’s all done and dusted and Mr M is not going to be returned to the Scottish bridewell. Hillary says that she is going to ask Willie what the UK Government knows of all this. His honest answer ought to be ‘Bugger all’, because this was a matter for the SNP-controlled Scottish Weenyparliament . Dave was able to say ‘Not me, Guv’. Hillary must be careful what she wishes for. The footnote says that it was Bush Senior who put Maggie off pursuing the prime suspects.

There is a huge amount of material about Lockerbie on the internet; a sample is (literally) the footnote – written by Paul Foot, the investigative journalist.

There are some real unsolved mysteries. There is the Case of the Missing Body. The Police surgeon who first arrived on the scene located 59 bodies and labelled them. Later he found that all his labels had been removed and there were only 58 bodies. Then there is the Case of the Missing Suitcase. A local farmer found a suitcase on his land full of packets of white powder that he suspected was cocaine. It was never seen again. These are deep matters, my dear Watson. There are strong rumours that a team of US intelligence agents returning from the Middle East were also on board.

Does the US really want to re-open this can of worms in order to rubbish BP? It’s all getting like Groundhog Day.

Still on BP, the financial press here is speculating that BP will reconstruct itself into a smaller company with higher profit margins and room for new growth. It already seems pretty clear that it will divest large US assets, and it now looks as if it will get out of distilling and retails, flogging off all its filling stations. These two activities employ over half of BP’s 80,000 workers but generate only about 4% of profits. I reckon that it’s a near certainty that the Arabs will be buying heavily into the new company; Tony Hayward has been spending most of his time in those parts. Time for Linda to go back in? The 52 week high was 622p and the current is hovering around 400p on the LSE.

Iraq is back in the news with the resumption of the public inquiry. Elisabeth Manningham-Buller, the ex-head of MI5 gave evidence that was quite remarkable. She said that at no time was MI5 consulted on Gulf 2; keeping your domestic intelligence agency in the dark strikes me as the height of absurdity. No doubt MI6 was up to speed but told MI5 nothing. Shades of the FBI and the CIA! She said that as soon as the war started the reports of domestic terrorist activity went off the clock; MI5 couldn’t cope. So let’s hear it for Tony Blair, the man who brought you 7/7.

I read that a genetically-modified mosquito has been developed which will be impervious to the malaria parasite. This has the potential for malaria to wipe itself out without any help from us. This raises the burning question. Will the Greens object as they object to anything GM? My guess is that they will because they, together with the warmists, anti-globalisers, fairtraders, organic munchers et al have shown a fine disregard for the dirt-poor who make up the majority on this planet. Watch this space; very soon we will be given predictions of humungous mossies coming through the door and gobbling up the kids.

And another thing. Why do the assorted Greens use science to justify ‘climate change’ theories and reject the science when it comes to GM?

Matters in Afghanistan are twisting and turning. First we hear that Dave wants troops out by 2014. Then we hear that Karzi wants them gone as soon as his troops are up to the job (could be a long time). Now we hear hard on the heels of the Dave-O love-fest that Dave intends to start withdrawal next year. At the same time, Andrew Mitchell, the new DFID Minister, (with whom I have a desultory correspondence) proposes to stump up another £ 200 million for Karzi, which obviously will mean cutting programmes elsewhere. I feel that value-for-money would be best served by transferring the moolah directly to Karzi’s Swiss bank account, thus saving on bank commission. Is early withdrawal being trailed? If 2014 is the date it will be our longest war since 1815.

Pedant’s corner: the news that Syria is the latest place to ban the burqa made the front page of some of the red tops, allowing them to have a dig at the Grand Coalition for rejecting the same. But I am fairly certain that what is banned is not the burqa, which is the black tent, but the niqab, which is the veil.

Paul Foot's footnote:
There is, in my opinion (not necessarily shared by the families), an explanation for all this, an explanation so shocking that no one in high places can contemplate it. It is that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out not by Libyans at all but by terrorists based in Syria and hired by Iran to avenge the shooting down in the summer of 1988 of an Iranian civil airliner by a US warship. This was the line followed by both British and US police and intelligence investigators after Lockerbie. Through favoured newspapers like the Sunday Times, the investigators named the suspects - some of whom had been found with home-made bombs similar to the one used at Lockerbie. This line of inquiry persisted until April 1989, when a phone call from President Bush senior to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned her not to proceed with it. A year later, British and US armed forces prepared for an attack on Saddam Hussein's occupying forces in Kuwait. Their coalition desperately needed troops from an Arab country. These were supplied by Syria, which promptly dropped out of the frame of Lockerbie suspects. Libya, not Syria or Iran, mysteriously became the suspect country, and in 1991 the US drew up an indictment against two Libyan suspects. The indictment was based on the "evidence" of a Libyan "defector", handsomely paid by the CIA. His story was such a fantastic farrago of lies and fantasies that it was thrown out by the Scottish judges. In Britain, meanwhile, Thatcher, John Major and Blair obstinately turned down the bereaved families' requests for a full public inquiry into the worst mass murder in British history. It follows from this explanation that Megrahi is innocent of the Lockerbie bombing and his conviction is the last in the long line of British judges' miscarriages of criminal justice. This explanation is also a terrible indictment of the cynicism, hypocrisy and deceit of the British and US governments and their intelligence services. Which is probably why it has been so consistently and haughtily ignored

tax havens galore

We may soon expect to see more posturing and grandstanding about tax havens from St Vincent Cable, the UK Business Minister, and the White House Anointed One. Unsurprisingly, there is no evidence so far that they have any idea what they are talking about.

So here’s a brief tutorial for these two gents, especially Vince, who seems to have a thing about the Isle of Man. Perhaps he hates kippers.

Offshore banks attract two main categories of customer – individuals who want to put their stash in a low or no-tax country, and companies that are based in same so as to minimise their tax liabilities, such as the firm that has a debt-collection contract with the UK Tax authorities.

The UK government says that it is reviewing all 'tax havens', but they have been concentrating their fire on Lichtenstein. There, a former employee stole all the clients’ computer records. He was paid $5 million for their return, but, having trousered his bung, he then sold copies of the disks to UK, USA, Germany etc and was consequently convicted in absentia of theft.

We thus have a situation where governments have bought stolen property from a convicted felon - an interesting exercise in public morality. The thief has been given a new identity and a safe house somewhere in Europe. Unfortunately for him, there is a $10 million 'hit' out for him.

IOM is not a tax haven, whatever Cable says. The money laundering rules are very tight and have only recently been made even more so. Banks don’t take cash deposits without proof of the cash withdrawal, and all transactions must be in writing or e-mail. Depositors must give their home country tax details and income is declared to the home tax authority by the bank or a witholding tax is levied. Details are also supplied to the IOM revenue.

Cash purchases by anyone are limited to €15,000 so you can’t even by a new car out of the wedge in your back pocket. Depositors must have a permanent address, produce ID, and give details of the sources of the money.

In short, IOM is not a tax haven because you cannot escape tax when you either have to pay a withholding tax or be taxed on your off-shore deposits where you are tax-resident. What pisses off the nomenklatura in UK is that we have a top tax of 20% and no inheritance tax. Just envy, maties.

The UK Government is between the upper and the nether millstone with companies. The Treasury proposals to clamp down on British multinationals avoiding tax by using tax havens were quietly withdrawn when companies such as WPP (the world’s leading PR and advertising company) smartly decamped to Dublin.

But the Government is in another bind; over the years most public buildings have been financed through PFIs – public/private finance initiatives which are really lease-back arrangements where the money is provided by the private sector and the Government is effectively a tenant (it keeps it off the balance sheet, you see, but don’t try this at home – you could end up in the Jurby Hilton).

The £450 million Ministry of Defence offices are owned by a PFI outfit that is incorporated in Jersey and has a Dublin tax residency (Irish corporation tax is much lower). Even more embarrassing, the Home Office is owned by a consortium of financiers through a Luxembourg holding company and a parent registered in Guernsey. And the Trade Minister was Chairman of an off-shore bank which has been investigated for laundering money from Pakistan, Qatar and Zimbabwe.

Oh, and the Minister in the last Government in charge of beating up tax havens had £250,000 stashed in an offshore blind trust. Allegedly.

Oh dear!

The notion of fat cats hiding their money in tax havens is largely a myth as far as the Isle of Man is concerned.

When the Icelandic bank KSF failed the Isle of Man government gave immediate compensation of £10,000 per account for victims. This fully repaid 78% of customers. QED most depositors are small savers; many of them, in fact, are expats who cannot open a home bank account without a residential address in the UK under money laundering regulations.

The OECD and other meddlers having been pressing the offshore governments for some time over the issue of ‘transparency’ i.e. disclosing confidential customer information to thieving politicians The big tax evaders will go to the no-transparency jurisdictions like Panama, Singapore etc. And do these nitwits seriously believe that Switzerland and Lichtenstein are going to kill the golden goose to satisfy political windbags in Europe and the US?.

If Obama is looking for a place to start, how about the State of Delaware? Does he know that, according to a piece in The Economist, several US States have large tax-haven business? In Nevada, for example, there is one off-shore bank for every six people. No accounts or details are either sought or published. There is no tax on interest earned by non-state residents. So there you have it; complete secrecy and no tax. Perfect!

And would it surprise you, Vince, that the UK is the second largest tax haven after the US? Here is how to do it. Open the Internet. Create a company in about 20 minutes. Register nominee directors and shareholders. Issue bearer-shares. That’s all there is to it.

What kind of sanctions will be imposed on Panama where blind trusts abound and where (like Switzerland and Lichtenstein) disclosure of banking information is a criminal offence?

The reality is that Switzerland et al will jerk everyone around until the politicians find some other diversion from the real issues of how to put the Humpty Dumpty economy back together again, since they clearly have no ideas. Meanwhile, billions will be flowing out to Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore. One of our banks here made it very clear to us that in the event of UK interference with the financial services industry, deposits would transfer at the press of a computer key to another jurisdiction beyond the writ of Vince.

Why the authorities have so little understanding of how you avoid their unpleasant attentions is beyond my ken. When you discover oil under the back garden and have gazillions to shift, the procedure is quite simple.

You form a limited company in the Seychelles. The amiable regime there does not require a company to reveal its directors or shareholders or to submit any accounts, merely to re-register annually. You then open a numbered bank account in Switzerland at modest cost in the name of the company. You transfer all your well-deserved moolah to the account. There is now no paper trail between you and your money is safe from Westminster benefit cheats.

Job done and trebles all round!