Gaddafi now controls 20% more territory than he did before we started this odious bombing campaign. He has been able to hold more and better attended rallies of more genuine supporters in recent days than he ever could before we started bombing. Exactly as I predicted, the effect of NATO bombing has been to rally nationalist support around Gaddafi, whom we have stupidly put in a much stronger position than he was when he only faced genuine internal rebellion.

The French and British have now backed down, and both have agreed that Gaddafi will be able to remain in Libya as part of any transition deal. That amounts to an acceptance that he will be the power behind the throne. The problem is, of course, that it is Gaddafi who is growing stronger and NATO which is growing weaker, with political will to keep killing crumbling as surely as NATO economies and currencies.

Hague and Cameron have moved, from abject weakness, to a position of allowing Gaddafi to remain in Libya, which they adamantly rejected three months ago. Then, there was some hope Gaddafi might have accepted it. Now, he has no need to accept a face-saving deal for NATO. He can just sit and watch them dwindle.

It is, moreover, a facesaving proposal that mocks the International Criminal Court, revealing it starkly as a tool to be brought out and used against the enemies of the western alliance, but simply shoved back in its box if they change their minds.

Obama made a shrewd political move to distract from the abject failure of the Afghan occupation to achieve any of its stated goals, by assassinating Osama Bin Laden. Expect now a similar ploy in Libya, with attempts to assassinate Gadaffi by bombing – and possibly by other means – being radically stepped up in an attempt to rescue some “victory” from this humiliation.

Yaay! Let’s drink!

Time does not exist. It is an abstract concept invented by humans as part of our effort to rationalise the extraordinary fact of our existence. The past no longer exists, and the future has never existed. You can’t physically travel around time any more than you can physically travel around mathematics or ethics. All that exists is the fleeting instant.

I would not have thought that needed saying. But there you are. I am not however questioning the value of what sounds like a tremendous piece of research – only the BBC’s populist presentation of it.

Laziness. Sloth will kill the minstream media. All those well-paid journalists resting their fat bottoms on padded office chairs will become extinct as a breed, victims of their own inability to raise a sweat, just like the poor old dodo.

On Saturday, when I posted on Brevik’s links to Pamela Geller, a google advanced search for posts containing both Breivik and Pamela Geller brought up just two results.

Today, there are hundreds, mainly from the mainstream media, and including many comment articles. But all of the mainstream media articles are predicated solely on the endorsement of Geller’s website Atlas Shrugs in Breivik’s “manifesto”. Not one of these MSM pieces, not the New York Times or the Washington Post or the LA Times, picks up on the fact that Pamela Geller had posted a whole series of virulent specifically anti Norwegian-Muslim posts on her Atlas Shrugs website, that Breivik had posted comments on this website or – most importantly – that Geller had attended a hate rally in Oslo in 2009.

It took me half an hour on Saturday morning to discover all the above facts, but that is half an hour the mainstream media are not prepared to put in. One mainstream media outlet found the Geller references in Breivik’s manifesto – 24 hours after I posted – and the hundreds of other mainstream articles have been lazily based around that single fact.

I urge you to sign the Avaaz petition for the recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN. These petitions have more effect than you might imagine – politicians are scared of voters, and the Murdoch petitions on Avaaz undoubtedly had a role in thwarting his BSkyB bid.

I do not hold out enormous hope for recognition – this is an area where the EU’s adoption of “common positions” on foreign policy holds back progress. I also am no fan of a two state solution, much preferring a single, secular, ethnicity-blind state on the lands of Israel and Palestine. But recognition as a state by the UN would greatly strengthen the hand of the Palestinians in a variety of extremely important ways. Please sign,

I am posting, very late, about one of the most discussed mainstream comment pieces of all time. Charles Moore’s excellent comment piece in the Daily Telegraph, “I am starting to think that the left may actually be right” has attracted over 12,000 facebook recommendations and over 4,000 tweets in four days since it was published.

Moore is not, of course, actually saying he has converted to socialism. He is however making for him a gut-wrenching admission that our capitalist democracy is deeply flawed, and rather than a beneficient free market, we have a society in which institutions skew society horribly in the interests of a wealthy elite.

The revelations of the Murdoch affair have caused Moore’s epiphany, but I think his argument is precisely the same as the one I put forward on November 5 last year in my post “The Stew of Corruption.” On a much smaller scale than Moore, that posting remains the most visited of any archive post on this blog, being read around the world every day. The much greater reaction to Moore saying the same things makes it plain that this is an analysis that people believe captures something very important about what has gone wrong in our society. In fairness, I would say that the right wing commentator Peter Oborne has been doing tremendous work across these themes for years.

I have never met Charles Moore, but his parents Richard and Ann Moore had a fundamental and lasting influence on my political thought, and particularly my views on international relations. They also bought me my first ever pint in a pub, when I was 15, and introduced me to the joys of real ale! I was delighted to speak to Richard again in Birmingham last year, in his eighties but sharp and feisty as ever.

I fear there have not been a huge number of Charles’ articles with which Richard would be wholly in sympathy, but I am sure this is one.

UPDATE Almost two years after writing this post I finally managed to make contact with Robert Cooper at Freemason’s Hall in Edinburgh, and he could not have been more friendly and helpful, spending an hour with me on the phone going over various points and arranging to show me various material. I am not deleting the criticisms below as they are part of the record; but they are of course substantially altered.

There is a strange link between the warped mind of Anders Breivik and the biography of Alexander Burnes I am writing. Anyone who has read The Da Vinci Code or The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, knows the (dubious) story of a continued descent of the Knights Templar through the rites of Scottish Freemasonry (the Da Vinci Code, of course, finishes in Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland). Anders Breivik’s “Templar” manifesto, his signing himself as “Andrew Berwick” and his posing in Masonic costume all indicate he was influenced by this stuff.

Well, that story of the Scottish Freemasons inheriting the rites and knowledge of the Knights Templar was first popularised by Alexander Burnes’ brother, James Burnes, in his “Sketch of the History of the Knights Templar” (Edinburgh, 1840). James Burnes went on to become “Grand Precepteur de l’Ordre Souverain Du Temple” and “Grand Preceptor of the British Langue of the Sovereign and Illustrious Order of St John of Jerusalem”. The source for this is Robert Bigsby in his Memoir of the Illustrious and Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem, (Irongate, 1869).

James Burnes’ History of the Knights Templar describes himself as the Masonic “Grand Prior of India.” This is undoubtedly true – there are plenty of other sources. He also really was, as he claims, a Knight of Aquitaine and of the Royal Guelphic Order of Hanover and Saxe Coburg, created by reigning monarchs who were also masons. Bigsby says James Burnes was “best remembered for his zealous exertions in promoting Freemasonry in Scotland and India.” He apparently reached number two in the Scottish freemason structure, though I have yet to find his title.

His brother Alex Burnes, the subject of my biography, was also a zealous freemason and some sort of search for ancient masonic knowledge linked to Alexander the Great was a sub-theme of his wanderings in Central Asia – and links in of course to Kipling’s exploration of the same masonic themes in The Man Who Would Be King, which is at least in part based on Alex Burnes. Freemasonry was a fundamental part of the Burnes family’s life – Alex and James’ great-uncle, the poet Robert Burns was famously a freemason, and their are more Burnes (eight) in the list of members of the Knights of St John which Bigsby publishes, than any other family.

I genuinely have no agenda, pro or anti Freemason (to be honest I view them as harmless and a bit silly), in digging up this old stuff. But I hope that the above explains why I cannot leave this aspect out of a biography of Alexander Burnes. Yet I have contacted in writing the masonic organisations in Scotland and in India, and the Order of St John, to ask if they have any records relevant to James and Alexander Burnes. The Scottish Masons claim never to have heard of the Burnes, – that cannot be true – while the others have not replied to my letters.

They can hardly be surprised people think ill of them if they are so secretive and unhelpful. I am afraid their new (and I am sure unwelcome) association with Breivik will make them even more paranoid and hostile to anybody researching this stuff.

Last night two masked men in military uniform shot dead a 27 year old man in his home in Sandnes, Norway. Nowhere in the mainstream media can I find anybody wondering whether this is related to the massacre in Norway the day before – even though both were killings with guns, (very rare in Norway), and either this guy really was assassinated by soldiers, or both were carried out in false uniform.

Have I turned into a crazed conspiracy theorist, or is this lack of curiosity a little bit strange?

UPDATE
Can this second incident the same weekend in Norway of armed killers in uniforms relate in any way to the “two other cells” of which Breivik spoke in court? I am not claiming to know the answers, but there seem to me obvious questions here and I don’t understand why the media is not asking them.

This 2009 rally in Oslo was attended by Breivik’s heroine, Pamela Geller. On Saturday I posted about the comments Breivik made on Geller’s Atlas Shrugs website. There is a fuller analysis on the impact of the Tea Party on Breivik’s thinking here. It turns out that Breivik also references Geller’s Atlas Shrugs blog and a related hate filled website, The Gates of Vienna, in his tedious anti-muslim manifesto.

It is therefore highly likely that Breivik would have noted Geller’s visit to Norway and gone to hear her. The occasion was a rally in support of Israel’s Gaza massacre of over 1,900 Palestinians in Operation Cast Lead. It would be a fruitful line of inquiry for the police to investigate why Geller decided to go all the way from Tennessee to Oslo for such a small rally (the majority of people in that photo, those across the road, are demonstrating against the rally). Who invited the hate preacher? Why? And did she meet Breivik in person?

It is worth noting that the English Defence League, supported by both Geller and Breivik, also held pro-massace rallies at this time. This is Geller on the EDL:

The EDL is routinely smeared in the British media, as the Tea Party activists are smeared in the U.S. media. The corrupt, biased media defames any group, person, or organization standing against Islamic supremacism. They tar, feather and destroy the good name of good people who stand for life, liberty and individual rights. Libel and slander like “racist,” “fascist,” “bigot,” etc. color every news report of every counter-jihad action. The quisling media is the propaganda arm of jihad. It’s despicable. There is nothing racist, fascist or bigoted about the EDL.

This is Breivik on the EDL:

“I used to have more than 600 EDL members as Facebook friends and have spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders. In fact; I was one of the individuals who supplied them with processed ideological material (including rhetorical strategies) in the very beginning.”

One of the things we know about Breivik is that he was a dedicated video wargamer. On this online wargaming forum a poster calling himself Norge (Norway) says that he was at that rally and goes on to make numerous anti-Muslim remarks in very much Breivik’s calm style. Now, that is a small crowd to contain two rabidly anti-Muslim Norwegian wargame fanatics, particularly as various reports – including on that forum – indicate most of the pro-massacre group was elderly, and less likely to video wargame. If Norge is indeed Breivik, then he is in that photograph at Geller’s rally. If Norge is not Breivik, then police should trace someone whose interests and political actions were so close to Breivik’s, and see if they were connected.

Isn’t it extraordinary that right wing terrorists are seldom called terrorists, and are always said to have acted alone. Muslim terrorists, however, are always part of the international al-Qaida network, even when they and their motives were obviously homegrown. Any connection by any Muslim terrorist to any mosque or preacher is sufficient to condemn that mosque or preacher loudly in the media as an instigator of terrorism – even though they may never have heard of the terrorist. There are people in Guantanamo for approaching a decade just because they were at the same meeting as someone else. Yet exactly the same kind of links by Breivik to his right wing hate preaching US inspirers like Geller are simply glossed over by the mainstream media.

Right wingers always are just crazed individuals acting alone in the official narrative. But that is plainly untrue.

I can understand the line, adopted by all the mainstream media, that Breivik’s trial should be heard in secret because he should not gain a platform through his evil actions to spout his poisonous propaganda. But I cannot resist the suspicion that the right wing will be delighted to minimise the information that may come out about Breivik’s right wing connections.

These is a lack of subtlety evident in the use of “public inquiries” to whitewash governmental wrongdoing. The appointment of Sir Peter Gibson, the former Commissioner for the Intelligence Services, to head the judge-led inquiry into UK complicity in torture was a brazen act of corruption. Sir Peter has a choice; either he exonerates ministers and the security services, or he finds himself guilty of corruption or gross incompetence. He has already, in his capacity as Commissioner, certified as correct the conduct of the intelligence services in the period he is now “investigating.” If he had any honour or genuine intentions, he would have turned the inquiry appointment down. There is no conclusion possible but that Gibson accepted the appointment with neither honour nor good intentions.

It is equally astonishing that Judge Leverson accepted the leadership of the inquiry into News International when he had at least twice been a guest in Elisabeth Murdoch’s home. I simply cannot understand why in these circumstances he does not feel he must refuse the appointment. The concept of honour appears to have disappeared entirely from public life.

This was very predictable. Thirteen days ago I blogged “Murdoch’s main priority on this visit will doubtless be to work with Cameron to get the right safe judge appointed”. Power people like the Murdochs do not entertain people merely because they like them; everyone around that dinner table is there because they hold power or influence. If you wonder why precisely the Murdochs were cultivating judges, of course you now have the answer. Ordinary people have to wake up to just how real is the shroud of corruption cast over British society.

Anders Behring Breivik posted links to the Atlas Shrugs website of the Tea Party’s Pamela Geller. Here you can see him under the name of Anders Behring (his middle name) posting links to Geller’s “Atlas Shrugs” site. That cache page is bing translated from Norwegian.

Here is a video of Pamela Geller addressing the Tennessee Tea Party convention. This is a list of links I just copied off her Atlas shrugs website to a stream of virulent anti Norwegian-Muslim articles Geller has been publishing:

January 2009: NORWAY: Jewish children are not allowed to play outdoors –

April 2011: Norway: Muslim Taxidrivers Refuse to Drive Jews to Synagogue

May 2009: More Jewish Graves Desecrated in Norway

2009: OSLO: ANTI-ISRAEL RALLY TURNS VIOLENT

2011: Norway: ALL Rapes In Past 5 Years Committed By Muslims

2008: Jewish Genocide watch: Jew Hatred in Norway Part II

2009: JIHAD ON THE JEWS: Something rotten in the state of Norway

2008: ISLAM ATTACKS – Death for Writer! Norway Hides

2007: Massive Islamic Terror Plots: Germany, Norway, Denmark

2007: Email from Norway

2006: Norway calls for Israel Boycott

The links themselves appear to have been disabled. You could still see the links on Atlas Shrugs here as I type this. Someone more technically proficient than me might want to grab a screenshot before the list vanishes.

Geller has been actively promoting links between the Tea Party and the English Defence League. Geller states on her website that she had been in Oslo to attend a pro-Israel rally. It would be interesting to know whether Anders Behring-Breivik was also on that rally.

We are told that Behring Breivik acted alone. In truth he had ideological and communication links with organised far right networks every bit as solid as the comparable connections of Islamic terrorists.

Hateful lying racist propaganda. That’s the real reason.

I watched the disgraceful Islamophobic rantings on the BBC and Sky News last night in mounting disbelief. Security correspondent and security expert vied with each other to tell us that the dreadful attacks in Norway were the work of al-Qaida. One extraordinary American, introduced as from a Centre for Combating Extremism, explained that these Norwegian jihadists had international links and plans to attack London and the New York subway. Norway was a target, we were repeatedly told, because of its NATO membership.

There was at least six solid hours of this poisonous bullshit. I did not pick up on one single person who said that this probably was not Islamic terrorism – despite the glaringly obvious fact that the atrocity had a Norwegian domestic political agenda, being an attack on the Prime Minister’s office, and on a youth camp of the governing party. The internet was buzzing for hours with the news that the attacker on Utoya Island was blonde, without the broadcast media mentioning it. The American security expert I mention above had that base covered – he had obviously seen those reports, but did not mention them. However he said that jihadist groups had probably recruited European looking operatives to carry out the attacks, because they were aware that security services “consciously or unconsciously operated racial profiling.”

This morning Al Jazeera and Russia Today were carrying the news that the attacker was Anders Breivik – and even a picture of him – while the BBC and Sky still were not, and while they had stopped the blatant Islamophobic ranting, had still not admitted it was not an Islamic militant attack.

I would love to believe that this incident would cause the media to reassess the value of the numerous “security experts” whose companies, institutes, funding, profile and standards of living have been spectacularly boosted by the “War on Terror”. But I doubt it.

All terrorism is terrible. Islamic extremist terrorism is terrible. But not all terrorism is Islamic extremist. To presume it is, is just as valid as to assume that any shooting in the UK is carried out by a black person. If the BBC reacted to the next news of a shooting or stabbing, by six hours about crime in the black community, when it turned out the perpetrators are white, there would rightly be outrage. This is no different.

UPDATE

The mainstream media and those “Security experts” are now struggling to cover up and justify their blatant Islamophobia. The New York Times was right at the forefront of the Islamophobic ranting, attributing the bombing to a non-existent Jihadist group and then being quoted all across the airwaves as the authority for that attribution. It has now published this amazing self-justificatory bullshit:

Norway has about 550 soldiers and three medevac helicopters in northern Afghanistan, a Norwegian defense official said. The government has indicated that it will continue to support the operations as long as the alliance needs partners on the ground.

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s brutality and multiple attacks.

“If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda,” said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington. “One lesson I take away from this is that attacks, especially in the West, are going to move to automatic weapons.”

All the mainstream media are rushing to take down their crazed Islamophobic rantings from their websites this morning – the BBC did it just twenty minutes ago, and had a short period in consequence when they had nothing up on Norway. I expect newspaper sites will be doing the same. Print editions, of course, do not have that ability.

Mainstream media – all the hate and lies they can peddle. What would really be an interesting public inquiry, would be the links between “security” and “defence” correspondents and the security services whose propaganda they spread. I should love to know what security service briefings were behind yesterday’s Islamophobic lies.

“What’s a Grecian urn? About 20,000 euros a year plus another 30,000 in EU subsidy scams.” – The Catholic Orangemen of Togo, p.7

Amazing the gems of wisdom you find scattered through my books! That variation on an old joke reflects an important truth. Most of the EU, including us, have been subsidising Greece ever since it joined the EU, through regional funds and the CAP, but mostly through the cost of massive scams and fraud perpetrated in Greece on those and indeed all other EU budgets, not to mention VAT fraud. The euro bailout is only an extension of the EU’s continuing and expensive commitment to drag Greece along with it.

The world likes a narrative of goodies and baddies. The current narrative popular with left-leaning people is that the Greeks are plucky little Keynseans being hammered to disaster by evil governments and bankers led by the IMF and EU. That is simplistic nonsense. There are no goodies in the power players on any side. Ordinary Greek people are indeed the victims, but so are ordinary German people and ordinary British people.

Greece, just like Italy (and quite probably the other Club Med countries, though on them I don’t want to claim more knowledge than I have) never actually met the EMS and euro convergence criteria. Everyone is suddenly astonished that Italy has a national debt of 140% of GDP – it was that level when I was working on the European economies in 1985, and it has never really changed. Redefinition of terms allowed a fudge to let Italy enter the Euro (that particular criteria being 40%). Greece has never produced any vaguely credible national statistics anyway. Lawlessness, tax evasion, money laundering and systematic corruption are the warp and weft of the Greek economy – it is difficult to capture that in a statistical yearbook.

These countries were brought into the Euro because of the political dynamic of European Union, which was bought into by political elites across the continent, (and which I would say has a lot of very good aspects, but that is a long argument for another day). The idea was that momentum was extremely important; that it was OK in this context to ignore reality, because the beneficial influence of the European Union would enable reality to catch up quickly to fit the framework.

Therefore Greece and Italy were allowed into the Euro even though they plainly did not meet the convergence criteria, exactly as Romania and Bulgaria were allowed into the EU even though they plainly did not meet the acquis communitaire –
reality was suspended in the interests of ever greater union. The effects of that in the Eurozone are coming home to roost now. The effects of Bulgarian and Romanian EU entry haven’t really worked through yet, but I predict tremendous problems in five years time.

I write as a supporter both of the Euro and of EU expansion – but not of the crazy decisions to abandon genuine adherence to the criteria required to make them work. I also write with the humility of knowing I have been wrong on these things in the past. Around 1995 I wrote a paper for the Cabinet Office strongly supporting Polish EU membership, in which I argued strongly that we should not join Germany in seeking a delay on the right of Poles to come to the UK. In it I predicted that at most 200,000 Poles would want to come. I was wrong by a factor of over four! That paper was very influential on UK policy.

I do not regret it in the least – I am delighted so many Poles have come. They make Britain a much better place and are a huge boost to the economy. Germany will lose out from having given us the chance to host them first.

The Euro has always been a system of subsidy from Germany to Greece; the bailout only makes that more obvious. Greeks have been paying themselves much more than they earn for a great many years. That is not stopping or starting now. Levels of public spending are a tiny bit of the problem. The Euro is a massively overvalued currency as related to the Greek domestic economy. Greece’s economic problems are much more related to lack of rule of law, massive corruption, an elite super rich paying no tax, and a gigantic black economy, than they are related to public spending.

Greece’s total debt will actually be reduced under this bailout package, plus payments delayed and maturity dates postponed. Do not be too impressed by the news that the banks are taking a haircut, variously reported at 20% or between 30 billion and 50 billion Euros. Look at it this way. These banks have lent money to Greece, at interest rates of over 10% higher than those they can charge elsewhere. If you are making 10% extra interest a year over ten years, and you have to lose 20% of your total to secure that, you are still coming out way, way ahead.

Actually the net effect of this bailout is not European taxpayers paying more to help Greeks, it is European taxpayers paying more to secure super-profits for the banks. What a surprise!

In test match nostalgia mode recently. For my readers from non cricket playing countries, a cricket ball is solid and hard. They can and do break bones, can fracture a skull and in those days before helmets and padding would very occasionally kill.

I was hoping to find the point a little earlier in this innings when Close fronted up and just deliberately let the ball bounce off him, which was incredible. Again to explain, if the ball is not going to hit the stumps behind you, and you keep your bat out of the way, you are very unlikely to get out. But not raising your gloves and bat to defend yourself against a lethal projectile hurtling at your face and neck at 90 mph plus is an incredible discipline, especially as you need to play it if it is heading towards your stumps, and you have a millisecond to make that decision.

About 40% of the readership of this blog is from non-cricketing countries, which is why this is explained in non-cricketing language. Cricketers can just enjoy the video.

I am not sure there has ever been a more beautiful sight in sport than Holding running in to bowl.

Geoffrey Boycott just reacted on Test Match Special (Radio 5 Sports Extra) to the announcement that Mervyn King will be the teatime guest:

The words of Saint Geoffrey: “Ask him why the bankers aren’t all in jail. Ask him this: if it’s private enterprise, how come when they make a profit, they get the money in their pocket, but when they make a loss, we all have to pay for it. The bankers should all be in jail.”

Boycott immediately replaced by Tuffers. I think Boycott should replace Vince Cable.

Real Drama on the Fringe

I really do hope some of you will come to see Nadira play Medea in Edinburgh this Festival August. The producers are making a determined attempt to run full production value, professional, straight classical drama on the fringe – something which has become harder to find in recent years. There really are some brilliant actors in the cast, and the technical and creative directors are absolutely first rate.

Stella Duffy has reworked her translation especially for the show, and has been personally attending rehearsals. I have hardly seen Nadira this last couple of months of rehearsal, and I think this could all be a bit special.

I watched a 30 year anniversary documentary last night about Botham and the 1981 Ashes series, which for people of my generation will always be the Ashes series. I was somehow relieved to see John Major, Elton John, Mick Jagger and Stephen Fry, among others, talking obsessively about it, just as I do. It is probably hard now to explain that a sporting event could have such a profund grip on national consciousness.

I thought the documentary ought to have mentioned Graham Dilley in the Headingley test, without whom Botham’s great innings could never have happened. Indeed my recollection is that it was a couple of sparkling cover drives from Dilley that sparked Botham into what I am sure, at the start, was just the idea of having some fun, rather than slowly grinding to grim defeat. Dilley eventually got out when caught at cover off a drive as truly hit as any ever was, just short of his fifty. With the Aussie attack visibly on the ropes I was hopeful that Chris Old, the hook nosed Yorkshireman with a reputation for really belting it, would also go to town, but he never really got going – after thirty years I remember him as having made 26, not sure how accurate that is, but I don’t want to change any particle of my memory of this particular occasion. But the genius, the aura of Botham!

Then the great Bob Willis and those knackered knees, which didn’t get mentioned last night either – sorry for the cavilling, it was a brilliant documentary.

I watched it all with my friend Martin on a tiny black and white TV, on a narrow boat on the Oxford canal, with Blenheim Palace shimmering in the heat haze. Our two lovely girlfriends were doing all the boating and loch opening work, and cooking the meals, while wearing very little and looking wonderful, while we drank wine and watched cricket. Aah, the days when such unabashed sexism was considered strange by nobody, how I miss them!!

It its thirty years since that Botham summer. Happy memories. A couple of weeks after the Headingley test, of course, we had the Charles/Diana wedding. The truckload of royal bilge that must be in preparation by the media will soon clear my nostalgia.

The insurmountable problem for those who categorise any accusation of the state acting deliberately wrongly as a “conspiracy theory”, is truth. There is, beyond any doubt, a police operation to infiltrate left wing groups in the UK with spies.

The case of the extraordinary Ratcliffe Power Stations convictions shows how very wrong this can go. The courts have ruled not only that the police acted as agent provocateur, but that police colluded with our supposedly independent prosecutorial service to withhold vital information from the court.

The lord chief justice was among the appeal court judges who published this yesterday:

“It is a case which has given rise to a great deal of justifiable public disquiet, which we share. Something went seriously wrong with the trial. The prosecution’s duties in relation to disclosure were not fulfilled. The result was that the appellants were convicted following a trial in which elementary principles which underpin the fairness of our trial procedures were ignored. The jury were ignorant of evidence, helpful to the defence, which was in the possession of the prosecution but which was never revealed. As a result justice miscarried.”

The court here is making a stand against the contempt for political liberty that emanated from the very top of the Blair government and spread to affect the policy and operations of all governmental institutions in the UK. The mindset that made it OK for the government to set up young environmental activists, was no different from the mindset in which MI5 agents thought it was OK to collude in the torture of Binyam Mohammed.

But here lies the rub. The appeal court is trying to right the wrongs done to middle class white people. The amount of infiltration and agent provocatuer activity against “Muslim extremists” has been of a much higher order. The “fertiliser bomb plot” is one example of an attempted crime by deluded people who had been penetrated and very probably egged on from the start. The “airline bomb plots” and “Manchester Easter bomb plots” both involved the shadowy double agent Rashid Rauf.

Furthermore, precisely that openness by the prosecution the appeal court demands is deliberately denied to Muslim defendants on terrorist charges, who are frequently not allowed to see and thus to challenge the provenance of “Evidence” against them by the security services.

There has, thankfully, been a steady stream of overturning of crazy “terrorist” judgements on appeal, including the truly appalling conviction of the woman for writing “terrorist poems”. But it nonetheless remains true that we are yet to recover sufficiently from the Blair poison to give the full benefit of law to Muslims in the way we have just done to middle class white people.

The police investigation into bribes to police officers by News of the World is called Operation Elveden. It has not identified, suspended or arrested a single bent cop.

What’s in a name? To Norfolk people Eleveden is a notorious bottleneck on the A11, the main road into and out of the county. You can, literally, queue for miles and for hours to get through Elveden in either direction. It is a place notorious to Norfolk for frustration, obstruction and never getting anywhere. I myself have spent a huge amount of time being stuck by Elveden; it is extremely difficult to avoid or get round. Elveden means no progress.

Andy Hayman was Chief Constable of Norfolk before moving down to the Met.

Did the Met name Operation Elveden as a grim in-joke to indicate they would make sure the accusations never went anywhere?

UPDATE

I have just realised I am definitely right. Operation Weeting is the investigation into the News of the World phone hacking itself. Weeting is the village at the southern end of the notorious Elveden traffic jam.