Gove in bed with Murdoch.

The malignancy that is Murdoch has crawled back into the daylight. Just as Voldemort needed his fawning acolytes to do his foul bidding, so does the Dirty Digger. Among the higher echelons of the Tory party there are only too many willing and eager to do the Digger’s bidding. Step forward Michael Gove. 

“Gove responded to the recent one-day strike by teachers by going to Boston on one of his frequent fact-finding trips to learn from US schools policy. The highpoint was the keynote speech he gave to the annual conference of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a ‘reform’ charity founded by Jeb Bush, brother of former US President George ‘Dubya”. The event was funded by Rupert Murdoch’s online education firm, Amplify, a regular supporter of Bush events.

Amplify wants to replace trained teachers with online material supplied by Murdoch’s News Corp; but its computer systems have already failed in some schools. Nevertheless  it is still well connected – not least to Gove. Before the hacking scandal broke, Murdoch and his staff, including Amplify boss Joel Klein, had regular meetings with the education secretary to discuss setting up News International schools in the UK.....

.....Other sponsors of the conference at which Gove spoke included ‘K-12’, a US company that replaces state schools with ‘virtual’ schools, where pupils don’t see teachers but sit at a computer either at home or in a lab. How long before Gove proposes cyber schools in the UK?” Private Eye No. 1352

On a brighter note, the revelations currently pouring out of the Old Bailey may do their bit to remind even Tory scum like Gove, Cameron and Hunt, that brand Murdoch is still a tad too toxic to be seen to close to at present. 

How to make a Balls of Shoesmith

Under the intense scrutiny of the slavering hounds of the tabloid press, Balls did what all bullies do when put under pressure – he caved in. By summarily sacking Sharon Shoesmith without recourse to due process, he achieved the worst of all worlds. Having won her appeal against unfair dismissal, Shoesmith is now entitled to a compensation payment of some hundreds of thousands. Cue massed outrage from the rabid right and various ministers of state who really should know better. 

Despite all his blustering, “it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth” and harrumphing, Balls has only himself to blame. Not that he will. The man who single-handedly is the gift that keeps on giving to the Tory party is not the most sensitive of souls. He was very involved with that slimy ‘smear-meister’ McBride and was at the heart of the nastiness in the feud between Brown and Blair. 

Why is it his fault? Simply because he wanted to look tough when the media outrage was at fever pitch. He could - and should - have waited for due process to take its course. That would have taken a degree more bottle (or even Balls?) It is not difficult to imagine that given a fair hearing Shoesmith would have been sacked ––without any pay-off. 

All those of you who poo-poo ‘due process’ need to remember this is a system that has evolved over many years to do as much as possible to ensure fairness is built into employment practices. A much saner method than rule by witch-hunt. And as Minister of State for Education at the time, Balls should have known better.

Power for the people

Each week another member of the ‘Big Six’ club of power companies announces rises of between 8% and 10%. Anyone saying that these drip-drip-drip announcements are a coincidence needs a reality check. Do they draw lots to see who gets to go first? The first  always cop for the most flak whereas those ‘going’ 5th or sixth are met with resigned shrugs. 

The Tories can huff and puff all they like but the responsibility for this fiasco lies completely within their bailiwick. A country’s power network is a vital element in its infrastructure. It has a strategic significance. Without power, or the capacity to create power, a country is much more vulnerable to economic and political enemies.

Driven by the scent of greed and a dash for cash, Thatcher’s Tories embarked upon a massive privatisation plan. Even their own supporters accused them of ‘selling off the family silver.’ Well they were right and we are reaping the rewards. One of the ‘big 6’ makes great claim on its website that it has a main aim - to increase the amount of dividend it pays to its shareholders year on year. As the profit it made last year was in excess of £1billion this is not inconsiderable. Forget quality of service, reliability, planning ahead, helping the needy and customer service – think about the money.  Add in the massive exec salaries and bonuses and community good is trampled into the mud by corporate greed.

50 years ago the nation had a nationalised electricity network. It was run by experienced engineers who had a strong tradition of service. Above all these engineers strived to ‘keep the lights on.’ They improved the national grid, developed nuclear power stations and made the UK self-sufficient in energy. No £2million bonuses for these men - and they were mainly men.

Of the Big Six, two are owned by massive German companies (NPower and E.On), one is owned by a Spanish company (Scottish Power) and another by a French state-owned company (EDF) who run the nuclear stations. Hinckley Point Nuclear station is to be built by a consortium comprising a Chinese state owned company and EDF. Quite staggering that the Tories deride Ed Miliband as ‘Red Ed’ yet it is the Tories who are pushing billions of public cash into one state and one communist company. 

Red Ed is far too timid. His call for a price-freeze is unrealistic and quite puny. He should set out his stall to re-nationalise the power industry. We are in a crisis which demands strong measures. 

It would also be worthwhile to turn loose independent auditors on these greedy power bastards and trawl through their books looking for evidence of cartels and price-fixing.

35 World Leaders

Hands up all those of you who think there are many, many more world leaders than 35 being bugged. The memo revealing what went on was dated 2006. That was seven years ago. Plenty of time for the spooks to complete their Spookermon set. 

2006

Bush was President. 

His best mate Blair was Prime Minister. 

Brown took over in 2007 and Cameron in 2010. 

It was admitted today by a spook that Cameron had been bugged “but not deliberately.” He had been talking to another world leader who was being bugged so Cameron was recorded indirectly. So that is alright then. 

What about Brown? 

And Blair? That would be truly weird considering how far up Bush’s backside he was. 

Talking of Cameron, it was noticeable just how quiet his arrival at the EU Summit was. The principle representative from ‘Slippery, Slithery and Slidey & Co’ (aka the UK Government), was on very dodgy ground. As he marched steadfastly into the conference he must have been very aware that the one-way street known as the ‘Special Relationship’ was about to bite him on the bum. All that co-operation between GCHQ and NSA. All those precious secrets which have helped our corporations steal a march on their competitors been so vital in the war on terror. So vital in fact, that we cannot possibly disclose anything about it for fear of compromising national security. Harrumph. [Telegraph readers can insert a few more ‘harrumphs’ in here.]

Another significant change with the ‘Merkel Moment’ has been the reference to Snowden as a ‘whistleblower’ by BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardiner. Quite a shift.

GCHQ has even been mentioned too. 

Whatever next? Riffkind admitting to being on GCHQ’s payroll? Straw confessing he was involved in the rendition of innocent people? 

The Daily Heil admitting it was wrong to accuse the Guardian of treason? Naaah, that really is pushing it. 

A Merkel Moment

The Guardian ploughed a lone furrow for many months over the phone hacking story. The Murdoch press rubbished the story, as did The Heil and the rest of Fleet Street. Then came the Millie Dowler moment and the world changed. 

Well the same may have just happened again only this time over the Snowden revelations. All this week there have been more releases and damning evidence;-

• Mexican President and his senior colleagues 
• 70 million French people having their calls and texts recorded
• Turkish delegation to G20 bugged

And as usual the news has been released by the Guardian to a deathly hush with odd exceptions. Tonight came the news that Angela Merkel, who by some way is the most eminent politician in Europe, has rung Obama to complain about her mobile phone being bugged.

Is this a Merkel moment? Is History repeating itself. Are the Guardian, despite the worst efforts of swivel-eyed Torys about to be vindicated? 

Well it did make the main item in the 7.00pm news tonight on the BBC.

And that marks a big change. 

The story of spooks bugging their own civilian population has always resonated so much more with the German people. They still retain some memories of the Gestapo and almost half the country have even fresher memories of the Stasi. They know what it means to have all your conversations and actions recorded.

Spookspersons

Last night President Obama phoned President Hollande to apologise for the behaviour of his secret services. Le Monde yesterday said that 70 million French phone calls and texts had been recorded in one 30 day period late last year. The former President of Mexico discovered that all of his communications with cabinet colleagues had been recorded too. 

Turkey: GCHQ spied on its Finance Minister and up to 15 others in a Turkish delegation for a G20 meeting. 

Alarm in the States is growing by the day. There are currently 3 bills going before Congress attempting to rein in the surveillance state. One of the Bills is being put forward by a man who was the mainspring behind the now infamous Patriot Act. The New York Times and Washington Post have both run the same or similar stories to The Guardian. No-one from the spooks have visited the paper’s offices and supervised the symbolic destruction of two hard-drives. None of the journalists working at the Washington Post or New York Times have been threatened.

Europe has become similarly exercised. Compare and contrast with the ‘shoot the messenger’ approach carried out on this side of the water. It is as though we live in a parallel universe. Spooksbod after spooksbod have lined up to waffle on about ‘threat to national security.’ We have even had a Tory MP demanding a parliamentary ‘debate’ on the issue. What a farce. On the substantive issue - the recording of billions of phone messages, emails and texts - Big Brother monitoring our behaviour and our thoughts – there is a deathly silence. 

The ‘event’ took place this afternoon and lasted barely half-an- hour. Julian Smith MP,  spooke for over 15 minutes with several interruptions from MPs hostile to his views. 

“It seems highly likely the Guardian has risked our security several times over,” Smith says, to cries of "rubbish" , "nonsense" and "hysterical scaremongering" from other MPs.

He was accused of promoting ‘outright McCarthyism’ by veteran Labour MP David Winnick. David Davis was also unimpressed and repeatedly asked if it was as serious as claimed, why has no-one been charged? Answer came there none.

Junior Minister James Brokenshire (crazy name crazy guy) flanneled on for a further 10 minutes allowing no interruptions to the point where he was accused of behaving ‘like a robot’  and at 5-00pm precisely the ‘debate’ ended. Just the two speakers and a handful of interruptions. Brilliant. 

Mother of all Parliaments? Hardly. 

Shining example of democracy? You are having a laugh ........aren’t you?

Nuclear madness

So let’s get this straight. The Tory-dominated government who have just privatised (aka ‘sold to their mates’) the Royal Mail, are the same ideologically driven government who are offering mega bucks to a nationalised company. Whoa! Surely not goes the cry round the land. Oh yes they are and in the critical field - in so many different ways - of nuclear power. Our right-wing ideologues are preparing to hand over a significant chunk of our electricity infrastructure to the Chinese Communist Party. Yes. The. Chinese. Communist. Party.

“The deal is still to be signed, but already some extraordinary claims are being made about Hinkley Point in Somerset, which will be the first nuclear plant to be built in the UK since 1995.

Here's chancellor George Osborne's take: "If it wasn't Chinese investment or French investment, it would have to be the British taxpayer. I would rather British taxpayers were spending their money on our schools and hospitals and those things, and let's get the rest of the world investing in our energy."

Put like that, you might assume UK taxpayers have hit the jackpot, that EDF of France and China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC) will bear all the financial risks and that energy bills in the UK are bound to fall sometime around 2020 as cheap nuclear energy comes on stream.

Forget it. The UK will be agreeing to buy electricity from Hinkley Point for 35-40 years at £93 per megawatt hour or thereabouts, according to the whisper from Westminster.

That is roughly twice the current market rate for electricity, and far in excess of the £40 per megawatt hour that was airily waved around by the Department of Energy only half a decade ago.

Nuclear power, it seems, can only be bought at a cost roughly equivalent to on-shore wind, complete with its subsidies to landowners. Maybe that is the price that has to be paid for secure low-carbon supplies, but at current energy prices, the first impact of Hinkley Point will be to add to consumers' bills, just as wind does today.

"In the long term," the chancellor continued, new nuclear should lead to "lower and more stable energy bills."

The key phrase there is "long term". The claim rests on the assumption that the costs of other sources of energy will continue to rise and make £93 appear a bargain sometime in the future. That assumption may or may not prove correct – but coming from a government that supposedly thinks fracking will revolutionise the energy market, it's a strange argument to hear.

But is £93 the real cost anyway? The devil will be in the detail of this contract – specifically, in the indexation formula for the strike price. If Hinkley Point's entire output is tied to the rate of inflation for 40 years, we could be staring at a truly astronomical cost by the end of the contract.

"The government surely can't be that dumb," comments one City analyst..... 

......The Department of Energy and Climate Change refuses to comment until the talks are completed, but Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich, has a blunt assessment of where negotiating power lies: EDF has the government "over a barrel" and the contract may be an "absolute disaster" for taxpayers.

Strictly speaking, judgment must be reserved until the contract is signed and published. But Osborne's Chinese spin should make us nervous.

How is it meant to be good news that, among all the possible sources of capital to partner EDF at Hinkley Point, we have ended up with a company controlled by the Chinese Communist party? Nils Pratley, Guardian 19/10/13

Then there is the small matter of decommissioning nuclear power stations. Dounreay on the north coast of scotland has cost taxpayers £2.5 billion to date. There are also the contaminated beaches and bays. Massive clean up costs paid for by the taxpayer not the company responsible. 

What will the final cost be for Fukushima?