'Out of hubris comes nemesis'

The solution to the Mad Pastor-Koran burning debacle was very simple. The UK Government should have issued an extradition warrant, as there was clearly a prima facie case of incitement under anti-terrorism legislation and for conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. Since the Pastor’s posturing had received enormous publicity in the UK and there had been disorderly demonstrations as a result, the jurisdiction of the English courts was established. Then he could have been comfortably tucked up in the slammer until 9/11 had passed. That would have stopped his farting in church.

If the warrant had been denied, this would have presented an ideal opportunity to abrogate the extradition treaty with the US which is grotesquely one sided and unfair. If the warrant had been granted, this would be the first time the treaty has been used to deport someone from the US on a terrorism charge. In fact, it has only been used once for its ostensible purpose, although it has been misused over 1000 times for non-terrorist offences. A win-win situation.

The Government says it is already ‘looking at it’. Expect no urgent action from Kitten Heels May; she is like the woman who reads the obituary column and wonders how people could die in alphabetical order.

‘We are all guilty’ seems to be the outcome of the BP Deepwater report. My analysis at the start of the drama seems to be justified that accidents are caused by a combination of events which are not necessarily catastrophic in themselves coming together to make a disaster, and that accidents never have a single cause. When I was learning to fly certain safety routines were dinned into me. For example, a pilot takes off, has an engine failure after take-off, turns back to the field, stalls and crashes. The cause of the crash was engine failure, yes? No. The pilot neglected to do the routine fuel test on pre-flight inspection. The engine failed because of water contamination in the fuel. The pilot then broke the golden rule ‘Never turn back’. It was a succession of events that caused the crash.

So who are the guilty men?

Nobody is going to come out of this smelling of attar of roses. The Sunday Times did a major feature the general theme of which is hubris. It says that the rig survivors were forbidden to take mobile phones and radios on board the rescue boat. It took 28 hours to get them to port where they were first forced to be checked for drugs and urine samples taken, and then ‘strongly encouraged’ to sign a statement that read ‘I was not a witness to the incident....and have no first hand or personal knowledge of it. I was not injured as a result... .’

Inspections before the spill revealed 26 components of the blow-put preventer to be in bad condition. The government official who should have checked the BOP didn’t. The rig crew had constantly warned of serious safety threats, but were ignored. BP, Transocean and Halliburton seemed to have been at constant loggerheads. The crux appears to be money; the rig was 43 days behind schedule at a cost near $1 million a day. Safety considerations took a poor second place.

The handling of the aftermath was the job of the Chairman of BP, but he was away on a cruise in the Far East on his luxury yacht with his mistress. The company’s spin doctor was invisible. POTUS seemed to prefer acting Mr Tough Guy instead of Presidentially. He reminded me of King Lear –

‘I will do such things --

What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be

The terrors of the earth’.

The media coverage was appalling and may well have done more economic damage than the spill. The maladroit Tony Hayward is low on my list – he was left to take the flak, but he’s a geologist not a PR man.

The Federal agency comes out of this as venal and ineffective, with an unhealthy relationship with the oil companies. An internal report 2 years ago found that employees were having sex and taking drugs with oil executives, falsifying contracts and receiving gifts.

Who comes out with credit?

The fishermen, restaurateurs, boatmen and ordinary people who got stuck in to minimise the damage would be top of my list, accompanied by the engineers and technicians who capped the well through almost unbelievable technology and inventiveness. Then there would be the Secretary for Energy who recruited five top-rank scientists to come up with a solution.

And who gains? Well, m’learned friends, of course!

Truly, out of hubris comes nemesis.

Back in la-la land, the Blair book-signing fiasco is a great irony. In the US he is still held in great regard. In the UK so many people detest him that he is unable to appear in public. If a Crazy Cleric could have been found to burn Tone’s tome, what a blaze that would be. People have been going into bookshops and shifting it to the ‘crime’ section.

Cameron’s judgment is being seriously called into question over the nefarious activities alleged against his spinmeister. The Trade Unions are threatening a winter of discontent over service cuts. The Brokeback Coalition is proposing to reduce the size of the armed forces in the middle of a war whilst ring-fencing the aid budget. It’s déjà vu all over again! Welcome to the 1970s.

I have been having a look at the blog stats, which are quite interesting. We have had hits from the US, Canada, UK, Thailand, South Africa, China, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, and Ireland. However, with no comments there is no indication as to whether our stuff is actually being read or whether the 500 hits represents a lot of people or just a lot of hits.

Grub Street news: 'The Queen and Prince Phillip are shooting guests at least twice a week at Broadlands'