Gales View March 2018 Roger Gale MP

Westminster View - March 2018

March. The long arm of the Kremlin reaches out to the Wiltshire market town of Salisbury and the repercussions reverberate around the world. That does not stop Mutti Merkel, The Tramp and J-C Druncker from congratulating Vlad Putkin on his `stunning` rigged victory in the Russian Federation`s Presidential `election`. The Speaker of the House of Commons faces accusations of bullying and `Mad Hattie` Harperson goes on manoeuvres as a successor should Speaker Bercow fall. Hamas` friend `Red` Jerry Corbyn faces the wrath of the Jewish Board of Deputies and calls from his own party to resign over anti-Semitism. The youth of America is en marche as the anti-gun lobby finds a voice, The Tramp faces crossfire from a Playmate and a Porn Star and embarks upon a trade war with China. The founder of Facebook , Mark Zuckerman is on the rack and the head of Cambridge Analytica is on gardening leave over the alleged mis-use of personal computer data in support of The Tramp`s election campaign. The young royals tread on political ground where previous generations have not dared to venture: Royal bride-to-be Meghan Markle espouses the “Me Too” and “Time`s Up” women`s rights causes and her fiancé, Prince Harry, calls for more financial support for the armed forces with which he has, of course, seen active service. The Young Un goes to China and The Darling Bud goes to Brussels where she garners a twenty-one month Brexit transition deal and the support of, ultimately, twenty-three nations in pursuing sanctions against Russian acts of aggression and attempted murder. Britain`s new ¬`sacre` bleu passports are likely to be produced by a Franco-Dutch company which reduces the Bourgeoise Women`s Tabloid to an apoplexy of synthetic sales-improving outrage and the De La Rue Company, purveyor of passports to half the world, to howls of sour grapes. The Scottish industry cries stinking fish over the `sell-out` of fishing rights that our Prime Minister continues to promise will be re-patriated as part of the Brexit deal , the Christian festival of Easter is turning into a replica of the Christmas sales-fest, the Australians are bowled out for cheating during the Summer Game in South Africa . It`s a hard day`s knight as the Beatles drummer Sir Ringo Starr goes to Buck House to pick up his gong. And a Votes for Life bill takes a first faltering Commons step towards the statute book.

Vladimir Putkin, the newly rigged-elected ballot box stuffed `President` of the neo-Soviet Union has denied Russian involvement in the attempt to murder, by poisoning with the weapons grade nerve agent Novichok. So that`s all right then. Apart from the fact that the Russian Federation has been making and stockpiling this and other chemical weapons in breach of international conventions for yonks. How do we know this? Well, that`s what spies are for, is it not? That, and the fact that Putin had sworn revenge on the ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, now resident in the UK and with British nationality, and old habits leaned at the hands of the KGB die hard.

For those who have recently returned from another planet or who have just emerged from the jungle to discover that World War Two is over the story, so far, is that Sergei Skripal, the former Soviet double-agent and ` a thirty-three year old woman` that turned out to be his Muscovite daughter Yulia who was visiting him, were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury which is a pretty market town with a magnificent cathedral on the Wiltshire/Dorset border. The first police officer on the scene, Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, sought to assist Father and daughter and in so doing risked, as it transpired, his own life when he came into contact with the residue of the poison used in the attempted and nearly successful murder. As it happens the UK`s top secret military research laboratories, Porton Down, are just a spit and a cough up the road from Salisbury (which led to one bizarre Russian suggestion that the UK had actually applied the nerve agent) and in fairly short order led to the identification of the offending substance as from the Russian-produced group of Novichok agents and in turn to the Prime Minister giving the Kremlin less than twenty four hours to come up with a plausible explanation or face `meaningful action` in consequence. At the despatch box in the House of Commons The Leader of the Opposition got the tone of the event horribly wrong. Comrade Corbyn stalwartly refused to condemn Putkin while trying to link the event to Russian Oligarchs` donations to the Tory Party while his own troops winced in embarrassment all around him. With Police Sergeant Nick Bailey fighting for his life the police officer`s Labour-voting Father-in-Law described Corbyn`s performance as `mealy-mouthed`. In the United States Rex Tillerson,then still Secretary of State, described Russia as `a force for instability` and the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg talked of `great concern` over what Prime Minister May had described as `a brazen attempt to murder on British soil`.

, As men and women in chemical warfare kit scoured Salisbury for clues accusations of “withholding information” began to appear under “City infected with fear” newspaper headlines telling the tale of “The Russian Spy Drama”. More to the point the good burghers of Salisbury scarcely knew whether they were coming or going as roads were closed, then opened, then closed again as investigations developed. Talk of the exhumation of other Russian exiles and family members to test for novichok followed as did the death, on the twelfth of the month, of Nikolai Glushkov, found strangled in his South London home. Glushkov , on the Kremlin hit-list, was the right-hand man of Putkin`s sworn enemy and Oligarch Boris Beresovsky, himself found hanged in his Surrey Mansion.

Russia `will retaliate against sanctions` says Putkin as The Tramp, Merkel and Macron all express `solidarity` with the UK over the poisoning. The United Kingdom expels twenty-three Russian `diplomats`, which is a euphemism for `spies` and examines the case for introducing a `Magnitsky law` to further facilitate the confiscation of corrupt Russian funds invested in Britain in a direct attack on Putkin`s `Oligarch cronies’. The National Security Council determines to target `regime linked money` and promises a `really aggressive financial strategy`. .Mayor Boris, our Foreign Secretary, accuses Putkin of personally ordering the attack on the Skripals which the `President` describes as `total nonsense` and for good measure Johnson the warns of the `emetic prospect` of Putkin self-glorifying in the hosting of the forthcoming World Cup as Hitler exploited the 1936 Olympic Games for his personal self-aggrandisement. This leads one Maria Zakharova, a Kremlin mouthpiece, to assert that “Johnson doesn`t know any history” which suggests that the fragrant Ms. Zakharova knows little or nothing of Boris Johnson. Unilateral withdrawal from the World Cup series would have little effect and it is abundantly plain that other major participants have, for their own national reasons little stomach for such a gesture. Prime Minister May therefore takes the issue to the World, pointing out to her European counterparts in particular that Russian aggression is not a British but a global issue.

Mutti Merkel, with a Russian gas pipeline and her own weakened position clearly in mind, was swift to congratulate Putkin on his `re-election`. The Tramp, ignoring advice, also rang Putkin to congratulate him and did not mention `the Salisbury incident` and not surprisingly J-C Druncker, the former Leader of Luxembourg County Council, was swift to metaphorically kiss Putkin`s backside but President Macron contented himself with `wising the Russian people well` and others were more coldly less effusive. When push came to shove twenty-three nations including sixteen from the European Union, the United States and the United Nations have expelled `diplomats` in a concerted effort that will, at least temporarily, have crippled the Russian spy network. And Donald Tusk in contrast to Herr Druncker, has talked of `additional measures`. Even the Shadow Chancellor and Marxist John Mc Donnell has condemned Russian actions, leaving Comrade Corbyn marginalised and isolated.

At the time of writing Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey has been released from hospital having gone through what he and his family have described as `a life changing experience`, Yulia Skripalova is said to be out of danger, at least from her current experience, and is, one hopes, under very heavy guard because as a Russian citizen the neo-Soviet authorities `would like to interview her`. (You bet they would). Sergei Skripal, meanwhile, remains in a critical condition. And Ben Wallace, our security Minister, has announced the freezing of a Russian Oligarch`s £22 million property assets in London under the Criminal Finance Act`s provisions and an `unexplained wealth order`. Perhaps the first of many because for Mr. Putkin`s McMafia buddies there can be no hiding place in Britain any longer.

As a footnote to the above Sputnik, the Russian propaganda blog, reported that `a team of top politicians` which included the disgraced former President of the Council of Europe, one Pedro Agramunt, who was flown by private Russian jet to Damascus to shake hands with the Dictator Assad ,and his Spanish colleague on PACE the ex-ALDE (Liberal) Leader, Jordi Xucla,had been invited to Moscow to observe what in Russia passes for `free and fair` elections. The aim was to give the impression that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had sent an observer mission to Russia. It did not. PACE does not observe rigged elections in which the main Opposition candidate is arrested and barred from standing.

Speaking at the Mansion House at the beginning of the month the Prime Minister called upon Europe to `meet us half way in the Brexit talks. Leaver Mayor Boris described this speech as containing a `convincing vision` of a future relationship while Remainer and former Minister Nicky Morgan proclaimed that it was based on `realism and compromise`. Mr Barnier, across La Manche, referred to `clarity`, `trade offs` and `the facts of life`. The Mansion House speech paved the way for a post-Salisbury attack meeting of the European Council and a different tone of something approximating agreement albeit at the inevitable price. It is generally accepted that The Darling Bud emerged from Brussels with her head held high and her reputation enhanced. The Old Knuckleduster ant Mr Barnier were able to appear against a wallchart of coloured-in areas of mutual accord and, most notably, confirmed that rather than the dreaded `cliff edge` departure from the EU there would be a 21-month transition period during which Is would be dotted and T`s crossed before the Decree Absolute is announced. Areas on the chart still to be coloured in include, of course, the future status of Gibraltar, the United Kingdom`s border with the Irish Republic and post-Brexit fishing rights. On the latter point the Prime Minister does her best, in the teeth of a gale of “sellout” accusations from North of Hadrian`s Wall, to re-affirm that our territorial waters and our fishing rights will, after departure, be secure and that only during the transition period will there be a continued `foreign` fishing presence. This does little to appease the concerns of those who prefer the grievance to the solution, however. It also prompts those increasingly irrelevant populists Mr Mogg and Mr Farridge to move seamlessly into stunt mode and to dump a catch of fish into the Thames off the Palace of Westminster for the benefit of any passing cameras. Unfortunately the Happy Couple spent so much time being photographed that they literally missed the boat but those who cannot resist jumping on any passing bandwagon will have got the message. It is also, of course, the case that many of those `rights` have, in the form of quotas, already been sold by British fishermen to their European counterparts and which poses another interesting question about who will be allowed to fish precisely where when the divorce settlement is finally agreed!

Meanwhile the future of Gibraltar remains between The Rock and a hard place and in spite of much-vaunted `technological` solutions the Irish Border Issue remains as intractable as ever. Without a free trade agreement or the soon to be discarded Customs Union there have to be border checks and in the context of the Belfast Agreement that, to the real architect of peace in Northern Ireland, Sir John Major and to Mr “I feel the hand of destiny on my shoulder” Blair, is unthinkable and unacceptable. They, as a consequence, both rush for the airwaves to demand a second referendum.

Also missing from the Davis/Barnier colouring chart is the small matter of EU and UK citizens` rights post-Brexit and here confusion still reigns. Has a deal been struck or not? If “yes” what does that deal embrace? We hear much about how EU citizens resident and working in the UK will be allowed to remain, although the cut-off point for `residency` is not yet entirely clear, and we are told that similar rights will apply to UK citizens living in individual European countries. Britain is, though, one country and the rest of Europe is twenty-seven individual Member States. So, as Kathryn Dobson has questioned in the ex-pats` “Living” magazine, where does that leave `free movement` between those other Member States and what will be the effect upon a Brit living in, say, France and providing on-line services to a company located in Germany? Will there, also, be reciprocal healthcare arrangements and, again, if so will those provisions be applicable throughout the remaining European Union or just in the country of residence? Many ex-pat citizens would, because of age or pre-existing medical conditions, find it impossible to obtain meaningful private health insurance at any affordable price. And will UK pensions be uprated in line with UK inflation. At present this uprating applies only in countries with which Britain has a reciprocal agreement and excludes, for example, Canada and Australia. Will there be twenty-seven individual reciprocal agreements or one blanket deal> Because if not the bottom will be kicked out of the argument that successive Governments have shamefully deployed for not uprating paid-for UK pensions anywhere in the World (Yes. I am aware that National Insurance is not actuarially based but those who have paid contributions and taxes before leaving the UK have done so at precisely the same rates as those still resident and drawing full benefits from the UK system). There are, it seems, a number of questions still requiring detailed answers and the `broad brush` approach normally favoured by The Old Knuckleduster is not likely to satisfy those with real concerns for their ex-pat futures. David Davis is a friend of long-standing and I am going to invite him to clarify these issues for publication in a future `View`

Culture, Media and Digital Secretary of State Matt Hancock has suggested that the “Wild West” days of Google and Facebook are coming to an end and I am one of probably many who would like to think, wishfully, that he is right. Certainly the antics and denials of Facebook`s founder Mark Zuckerman in the light of the Cambridge Analytica saga suggest that the time has come to ignore the “free speech libertarians” and curb what has become the exercise of power without either responsibility or accountability. Zuckerman was once the golden boy of social media, a multi-millionaire with a predicted American Presidential future ahead of him. The acquisition, by Cambridge Analytica, of ill-guarded personal data drawn from Facebook`s 2.5 billion account holders that was then used to target support for The Tramp’s Presidential campaign has blown the gaffe on much that is wrong with regulation and as Facebook`s shares and Zuckerman`s reputation fell in the light of his failure to respond positively to the `invitation` issued by Damian Collins, the Chairman of the Media Select Committee to return and clarify some `misunderstandings` given in earlier evidence Zuckerman must have been left wondering precisely where he went wrong. The answer is simple. Like so many in high places he believed his own publicity and invincibility and those around him were too supine and too scared for their own futures to tell him the awful truth: the idol has feet of clay. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair”. Or to put it more prosaically “Come in, Number One, your time is up”.

Which brings us back to the Commander-in-Chief. The Tramp has had an uncomfortable month. During nine hours of evidence to the Home Intelligence Committee his Communications Director, Hope Hick, the fourth to fill the post during his brief Presidency, admitted to telling `white lies ‘on her boss`s behalf. The twenty-nine year old gatekeeper and media guru subsequently resigned. The Tramp`s

Economic adviser, former Goldman Sachs` financial wizard Gary Cohn, has also thrown in the Trump Towers towel precipitating a fall in share prices.. Cohn, a rare Democrat in this administration, could not stomach the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium. In Pennsylvania, normally solid Republican heartland, The Tramp took another dent in his wafer-thin House of Representatives majority as the Democrats took the seat. Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the FBI has accused the President of the United States of seeking to undermine investigations into Russian interference in the US Presidential elections. The Tramp has next dispensed with the services of his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, seen as the safer pair of hands on the administration`s foreign policy. Tillerson has been replaced by Mike Pompeo, Kansas Congressman and Director of the CIA with a Harvard and West Point military background. Pompeo is in turn replaced by the first female to become Director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, the woman described by those who think they know her as `a career spymaster’. It is, though, his `zipper problem` that may yet prove to be The Tramp`s undoing. While possible meetings with The Young Un and trade wars with China and congratulatory phone calls with Putkin and other affairs of State may occupy the mind of the man in the house on Pennsylvania Avenue it is those other long-discarded, affairs that sting like gadflies. Whether you believe the testimony of Stephanie Clifford, better known to her adult movie audience, apparently, as `Stormy Daniels` or whether you buy into the allegations of former Playboy model Karen “I`m not that kind of girl” Mc Dougal who says that she was installed in a New York flat during her ten-month affair with the ex-reality TV performer is almost immaterial .There is something about this present incumbent of the White House that makes the antics of the late Kennedy brothers, Jack and Bobby, seem almost wholesome.

In other news if March began badly for `Red Jerry` Corbyn, then it ended ended if anything rather worse. Having made a pig`s ear of his performance at the despatch box during the statement following the Salisbury nerve gas attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter the Momentum-backed Hamas-supporting Labour Leader then found himself under sustained attack for his seemingly entrenched anti-Semitism. His 2012 support for the preservation of an anti-Semitic mural portraying villainous-looking Jewish bankers came back to haunt him and his `I didn`t look closely enough at the picture` limp apology cut little ice. The Board of Deputies backed an unheard-of demonstration against Comrade Corbin in Parliament Square and the man who invited his friends from Hezbollah and Hamas into the Palace of Westminster found himself dubbed `the Poster Boy for anti-Semitism by fifteen of his own MPs. His Party`s membership is said to be on the decline with 3% of supporters leaving in the last month.

The Salford Broadcasting Corporation is under scrutiny having allegedly `stitched` up high-paid presenters by persuading them to be paid through Private Service Companies in order to save the Corporation large sums in National Insurance contributions. This has resulted in the presenters now facing demands from Her Majesty`s Revenue and Customs for large payments of tax arrears. Ironically, one of those said to have been `bullied` into this arrangement is Paul Lewis of “Money Box” fame. The Beeb has also abandoned plans to switch off FM services in favour of DAB having encouraged thousands of listeners to purchase expensive Digital Audio Broadcasting receivers and Auntie has taken the unprecedented step of calling upon the United Nations to protect its journalists working in Iran on its Persian Service. Meanwhile the BBC is embarking on an enterprise to teach young people how to identify `fake news`. And Bill Giles, once the doyen of Weathermen who retired in 200o after seventeen years in front of the isobar charts has complained that the Corporations current weather maps show “too much of Europe”. Can`t guess how Bill voted in the Referendum.

The Italian elections went well, didn`t they? The Five Star Movement led by thirty-one year old Luigi Di Maio secured 32.6% of the vote, The League took17.4%, Forza Italia secured a 14% share and Matteo Renzi has resigned. In the hands of `populists and Eurosceptic` Italy is now described as `ungovernable’. Never mind. In Germany Frau Merkel has finally cobbled together a coalition with her rivals and has survived a confidence motion with a majority of nine.

Ballswatch

Liberal MP Jo Swinson has described as “sexist” Westminster Council`s rejection of a plan to place a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square. Reason for the `handbagging`? “It could be vandalised”.

Wolf whistlers in France face the possibility of a £300 fine under “sexist and sexual affront” laws.

“Easter Trees” and appropriate baubles including spring lambs and bunnies have been on sale at John Lewis, Tesco and Lidl outlets in a `decorate the house for Easter` dive to replicate the Christmas retail celebrations.

Fake news travels faster than fact. Mark Twain`s “ a lie is hallway around the world before the truth has got its boots on “has been given a new twist by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who reveal that on twitter seventy per cent of fake news is `re-tweeted`.

The world`s oldest message in a bottle has been found on an Australian beach. The Nineteenth Century gin bottle was thrown overboard from the German sailing barque Paula on June 12th 1886 to be retrieved 132 years later. Today`s litter is, of course, plastic.

One hundred and ninety thousand members of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) are to be asked to vote on the extension of its remit . Founded in 1971 to promote ales and ciders only the “revitalisation project” is proposed to include, not unreasonably, `craft beers`. But lagers? Never.

For four generations John Bielby`s family have maintained the 1857 White Horse of Kilburn in Yorkshire . Now the landlords, the Forestry Commission have banned the spring-clean. The curse of `elf `n safety strikes again.

At the 90th Oscars ceremony in Hollywood the Best Actor award went to Gary Oldman for his portrayal of Churchill in Darkest Hours. The star then rang his Mother to say “put the kettle on Mum – I`m bringing Oscar home for tea”.

Valete

On May 6th 1954 Dr Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Supported by pacemakers Sir Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher the timekeeper Norris McWhirter ( who then went on to create the Guinness Book of Records and Guinness Superlatives with his brother, Ross) recorded a world record of three minutes and fifty nine point four seconds, Bannister was eighty-eight when he broke through the celestial tape.

The creator of the clockwork radio, Trevor Baylis, has closed the door of his garden shed workshop on Twickenham`s Eel Pie Island in the Thames for the last time at eighty. He was moved to devise the wind-up wireless because of a perceived need for communications in Africa during the worst of the AIDS epidemic in the 90`s and the realisation that batteries were too expensive for ordinary people to buy. He revealed his invention on the Tomorrow`s World programme in 1994, received to OBE in 1997, upgraded to a CBE in 2015 and was the holder of the, in 1999, coveted pipe-smoker of the year award.

Ninety-one year old Howard Green, father of the Ashford MP and former Cabinet Member Damien, was a regional editor during the golden age of regional newspapers (before online fake news) in the 1960s and 70s.He helped to revolutionise the production of local papers with Roy Thomson (Lord Thomson of Fleet) and pioneered the daily Reading Evening Post.

Sir Ken Dodd has gone to Diddy Heaven at ninety. Born in Knotty Ash in 1927 he lived in the same eighteenth century farmhouse and married his partner of forty years there just before he died. Professor Yaffle Chuckabutty, Operatic tenor and sausage-knotter and the creator of “Happiness”, “Tears” and The Diddy Men, Sir Ken was widely regarded as the consummate performer and `the last of the great music hall stand-up comics`.

Hubert de Givenchy, who has departed at ninety-one, was the creator of `the little black dress, that adorned Audrey Hepburn in 1991 in Breakfast at Tiffany`s. He also dressed Jackie Kennedy, Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.

Sir Richard Body was a pig farmer, barrister, Quaker and Member of Parliament. First elected as a Conservative in 1955 for Billericay in Essex he stood down in 1959. In 1966 he stood again for Holland and Boston in Lincolnshire which became Boston and Skegness in 1997. He retired in 2007 and the former Chairman of the 1975 Get Britain Out movement joined UKIP in 2009. Warren Hawksley who has died at 74, was the Member of Parliament for the Wrekin and, in 1992, for Halesowen and Stourbridge. And Lord Crickhowell who, as Nicholas Edwards, was the Member of Parliament for Pembroke and Margaret Thatcher`s Secretary of State for Wales has departed at eighty-four.

Brenda Dean was the General Secretary of the print union SOGAT who became the moderate voice confronting Rupert Murdoch during what became known as the `Wapping Wars` following the move of The Times and The Sun newspapers from Fleet Street to Wapping . She was made a life peer in 1993.

Cardinal Keith O`Brien has been recalled at eighty. Known as ‘The Cardinal of Controversy` he was the Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh

The half-Italian, half-Russian Katie Boyle (91) was the multi-lingual voice behind the Eurovision song contest in 1961,1963,1968 and 1974. Lady Saunders, as she became, was the TV Times` `Agony Aunt` and also appeared on What`s My Line and Juke Box Jury.

Judith Simons (93) began writing for Die Welt and covering the Ravensbruck trials before becoming a pop journalist writing for the Daily Express. `The Beatles` Friend` was the inspiration for `Hey Jude`

Bill Maynard (89) starred in many `Carry On` films and in `Heartbeat` between 1992 and 2000.

Professor Stephen Hawking has finally succumbed to the motor neurone disease that has afflicted him since he was 22 at the age of 76.The father of three children and best-selling author and scientist is described by his wife as having led `an extraordinary and courageous life`. His `Brief History of Time` sold ten million copies worldwide although how many of those copies were read remains a moot point. Hawking received the CBE for his work but declined a knighthood.,

And forty-four year old husband and father Lt. Col Arnaud Beltrame will forever be remembered as the police Commander who gave his life to save a woman in a hostage-swap during a siege near Carcassonne in Southern France. The former paratrooper died of multiple knife and bullet wounds.

And finally………..

Celebrating the 80th anniversary of HMS Belfast, the historic floating museum moored in the river Thames, was 104-year old, John Harrison, the Cruiser`s last surviving original crew member. The mainbrace is reported to have been spiced.