Category Archives: Uncategorized

Thatcher Cabinet stifled Kincora child sex abuse inquiry 30 years ago

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Lord Prior; pic courtesy of uk.parliament

Lord Prior; pic courtesy of uk.parliament

Jim Prior,now Lord Prior. blocked the opportunity for a full-scale public inquiry into the notorious Kincora child abuse scandal, Cabinet minutes released under the 30 year rule revealed today.

The minutes of the Cabinet meeting (see http://bit.ly/19zxFqT ) reveal on 10 November 1983 Jim Prior, then Northern Ireland Secretary, proposed not to have a full Tribunal of Inquiry – the same mechanism, used to investigate  the Bloody Sunday atrocities, the North Wales child abuse scandal and the Dunblane massacre.
The minutes reveal the Cabinet – who included the now all ennobled Leon Brittan, then home secretary, Michael Heseltine,defence secretary and Norman Fowler, social services secretary, bought the Royal Ulster Constabulary line that there was nothing in it. He said he was being “pressed to hold an inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry”. But he didn’t believe Parliament would buy it.
But he said two police investigations had discovered nothing and no further criminal charges were likely.
Instead he proposed to hold a much lesser inquiry, which he did later, to, as he put it “to halt further spread of rumour and unfounded allegations.”
This particular Cabinet minute now looks sick in view of the decision of the Police Service in Northern Ireland to re-open an investigation into the historic allegations at the children’s home where children were sexually abused in the 1970s and early 1980s. As Fiona O’Cleirigh reported on Exaro News the scandal will now be re-opened.
The question is were Thatcher’s Cabinet in 1983 hopelessly naive or were they covering up something they did not want to be ruthlessly exposed in the public domain.

NHS 101 :Bye Bye NHS Direct, Hello rip off merchants

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The announcement today that NHS Direct is to pull out of the NHS 111 services should be no surprise to anybody.
As readers of this blog will know the chief executive already had deep misgivings as https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/exclusive-byebye-nhs-direct-leaked-chiefs-e-mail/ revealed.
It was already clear that private profit making providers were taking over many services – putting in cheapskate staff in call centres who are probably Googling your symptoms on the net as you speak. And a lot of them don’t have qualified medical staff on board on a 24 hour basis. This is certain if you want to cut costs from £20 to £9 a call and make a profit on each call for their directors.
No wonder NHS Direct couldn’t compete and accident and emergency services are flooded with calls.

The statement says: NHS Direct is seeking to withdraw from the NHS 111 contracts it entered into as these have proved to be financially unsustainable. The Trust will continue to provide a range of web, mobile and telephone services for patients which complement NHS 111 and support the NHS. These services are unaffected by the discussions currently taking place.

Nick Chapman, NHS Direct Chief Executive said:
“We will continue to provide a safe and reliable NHS 111 service to our patients until alternative arrangements can be made by commissioners. Whatever the outcome of the discussions on the future, patients will remain the central focus of our efforts, together with protecting our staff who work on NHS 111 to ensure that the service will continue to benefit from their skills and experience.”

I would suggest anyone using NHS 111 for advice should ask the call operator for his or her medical qualifications and quiz her or him about the source of the information. If unsatisfied demand to speak to someone who has medical qualifications, because for every call made to NHS 111 the private owners are making money out of you as a taxpayer. Otherwise be wary of using the service at all.

Crosby Textor reaction: You’re just a two bit blog

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managing director and business partner of Lynton Crosby

managing director and business partner of Lynton Crosby

Swift  and arrogant reaction to a rather critical piece today on Lynton Crosby’s  forthcoming libel action in Australia against Labor defence material minister, Mike Kelly.

A splendid exchange between Tom Watson and Mark Textor on Twitter followed publication.

  2. .@tom_watson pity about gross factual errors herein. Quoting 2 bit blogs now Tom? Poor old thing. Nite!

    3:04 PM – 21 Jul 13 ·

  3. @markatextor Oh, and if you don’t know the author of the blog, he’s @davidhencke. He’s very well known in the UK. Have a nice day now.

  4. @tom_watson @davidhencke couldn’t even get the name right. Lolz!

     3:11 PM – 21 Jul 13 ·
    Tweet text

  5. @markatextor I’ll let you get some sleep. It sounds like you need it.

Evidently Mark Textor’s sole objection to the piece was an error I made – which I am happy to apologise and have already corrected – mispelling his name –  substituting an e for an o.

The managing director modestly describes himself on the Crosby Textor website “As Australia ‘s most successful pollster and campaign strategist, Mark Textor is acknowledged as the most astute judge of public sentiment in Australia today.”

Indeed he may well be but I hope his clients who pay him millions get better advice than he gives himself. All I would say is beware of two bit blogs they sometimes can bite.

Will Lynton Crosby be downed by a man who felled a Somali warlord?

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Official Australian Government portrait of Mike Kelly MP, defence materials minister and twitter libel fighter

Official Australian Government portrait of Mike Kelly MP.

A perfect storm is gathering for David Cameron in the autumn. His Downing Street spin doctor friend Andy Coulson and Rupert Murdoch’s favourite News International employee, Rebekah Brooks, are facing trial for alleged phone hacking .Now Lynton Crosby, his Tory election strategist, looks likely to be embroiled in a libel action in Australia while the country is engulfed in an election campaign.

The two cases will overlap and will mean a very interesting examination of Crosby and partner Mark Textor’s election disputed ” push  polling” techniques to denigrate Labor opponents and might well provide a useful insight into how Crosby will try to get Cameron re-elected.

The case has been bought by Crosby and Textor against a Labor minister, Mike Kelly for tweeting as the Sydney Morning Herald  reported “”always grate [sic] to hear moralizing from Crosby, Textor, Steal and Gnash. The mob who introduced push polling to Aus.” This led to a libel suit on the grounds that it damaged their business and ” push polling ” is meant to be illegal in Australia. They also deny doing it.

They seek aggravated damages because they say Dr Kelly failed to apologise, used sensational language and published the tweet knowing it was false, or with reckless indifference to its truth or falsity.

But what is really interesting is the man Crosby is fighting. He is not the guy  you might think is an obvious Labor or Labour politician.

No the defence materials minister is something else. Crosby is taking on an Australian military hero – a rare case of a soldier turned politician. He has a  decorated military record. He has worked with the UN peacekeepers in Timor and hostage rescue in Kenya.

He was involved in the legal prosecution of Saddam Hussein and the execution of a Somali warlord after he was convicted of 31 murders. He also served with the International Red Cross in Bosnia.

The warlord  Hussan Gutaale Abdul  had attacked and killed 16 aid workers and repeatedly driven an armoured car into emaciated refugees awaiting food distribution He was arrested by an Australian patrol, held in a cage at Baidoa airport and later flown to Mogadishu to be held by US forces. He was found guilty of 31 counts of murder.

When the death penalty was pronounced  Gutaale physically attacked Kelly and Kelly wrestled him along the road to his place of execution.

For his bravery,Kelly became a Member of the Order of Australia for ” exceptional service or performance of duty”

Kelly told the Sydney Daily Telegraph :

“There was quite a bit of scuffling. I got attacked. He had always threatened he was going to take me with him if he went down. He jumped on me in the court room. I had to use my rifle to subdue him by buttstroking.”

He said a price was put on his head as a result of his work to bring warlords to justice: “There were continuous radio broadcasts calling on people to do all sorts of nasty things, to disembowel me. It wasn’t an office job.”

The cancerous Lynton crosby

The politically “cancerous ” Lynton Crosby

Crosby of course is none of these things. His previous life as a farmer’s son is sketchy but his main interest at Crosby Textor the company co founded with MarkTextor, is pretty vicious campaigning for right wing parties in Australia and the UK. Their client list is secret but the ones that have been disclosed involve tobacco, fracking and banking.

I don’t know who is going to win the libel action. But if I had a choice of buddies it would be Kelly over Crosby.

Kelly is brave and  has  been  fighting against evil dictators and war lords and trying to bring peace and stability to the world. Indeed he might deserve a place in the Imperial War Museum in Lord Ashcroft’s  roll call of military heroes.

Crosby seems to be solely motivated by money and is filling his boots with gold from a product that will  spread cancer world wide. No wonder David Cameron can’t give a straight answer to journalists about his involvement in dropping plain packaging for cigarettes.

Crosby is a cancer in the heart of Whitehall. He and Textor’s contribution to the world is to help increase cancer rates and damage the environment  for their own  private gain through a company that hides its clients from public view.

Justin Welby: An apology on sexual abuse is not enough

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Justin Welby: Apology not enough Pic credit: The Guardian

Justin Welby: Apology not enough Pic credit: The Guardian

The decision by the Church of England Synod spurred on by  Justin Welby and John Sentamu,  archbishops of Canterbury and York, to apologise for past sins of child sexual abuse is welcome. But it is not nearly enough.

The words are fine. They offer to apologise unreservedly” for the failure of the Church of England’s systems to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by its clergy and others and for the failure to listen properly to those so abused.

They add: “The sexual and physical abuse that has been inflicted by these people on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame for years to come.”

But as I reported on Exaro News  for an independent inquiry. Graham Wilmer, of the Lantern Project, calls for a Commission for  Truth and Reconciliation ( see http://www.ctruk.org.uk/)

They are big fears as the Stop Church Child Abuse put it : “is this a game, another in the decades of games played out in the public,to present a church responsive to its past failings and moving forward in harmony with survivors; until the next time, the next case that reveals further abuse, cover up and denial, and the inadequacy of effective procedures?” 

Unless there is a real rethink by all the churches and public institutions we are going to get nowhere. In my view from  limited investigations into historic child sexual abuse  the temptation to cover up abuse is enormous. Perpetrators  are often subtle, cunning and very plausible. They know how to get around systems – and are often helped by institutions that don’t want to face up to the shame of public disclosure.

We need to go much further and involve all churches including the  deeply reluctant Roman Catholic church to tackle what amounts to a tidal wave of historic abuse in this country with no fewer than four police investigations involving hundreds if not thousands of cases that have been uncovered.

That is why I am delighted  that Tom Watson, Labour MP who made the original allegations about a historic sexual abuse ring in Parliament is now  going to concentrate on pursuing this investigation – and will no longer be drawn into the time-consuming  battles that  are at present engulfing Labour’s campaign machine.

 

The Murdoch Tapes: Fleet Street, Hypocrisy and the Police

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Are the Met Police on Operation Elveden interested in Rupert Murdoch’s comments? This seems to be the point of this blog which is highlighting that the audio ( there is no actual tape) has re-opened the whole issue of payments to police officers and public officials By Fleet Street for stories. I have also put this up as a summary of all the latest development and links to blogs and articles for those keen to follow events.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

MurdochLast month, Private Eye reported that Sun journalists had taped a meeting with Rupert Murdoch in March 2013.   The Executive Chairman of News Corporation was quoted as taking a supportive view of the position of arrested journalists.  This story was not followed up at the time.  It broke again this week when the investigative journalism website, Exaro and Channel 4 News claimed an exclusive on the story and released a transcript of the recording.

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Exclusive: Gotcha! Shocker Sun Tape Reveals the Real Rupe

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rupert murdoch picture courtesy of The Guardian

rupert murdoch picture courtesy of The Guardian

Today  I have  read a transcript and heard a rather sensational tape of Rupert Murdoch facing the music  for 45 minutes from his embattled Sun staffers and executives as his organisation hands over loads of information to the Met Police in the current hacking and bribery investigations.

Full amazing story is on Exaro at: http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5025/rupert-murdoch-secretly-admits-i-knew-about-bribing-officials

Exaro provided extracts of the audio to Channel Four News for a special report tonight and a  full transcript – suitably redacted to protect people for legal reasons – is on the Exaro website: http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5026/transcript-rupert-murdoch-recorded-at-meeting-with-sun-staff. Tomorrow you can hear 13 minutes of  the great man, sometimes angry, sometimes put out as a grown man sob about his plight at a private meeting inside  the mighty News International (now News UK) London  HQ. All will be revealed on the Exaro website.

In a series of extraordinary revelations the media mogul reveals:

He knew the practice of paying public officials had been going on for years at The Sun and the News of the World

He attacks Britain ‘s judges ( Lord Leveson watch out)  for being biased against News International and put his faith in juries to acquit them all.

He describes the Met Police and other police forces as ” totally incompetent ” in their investigations into News International. He cites the way police turned up to arrest Rebekah Brooks as a particularly crass example. Another staffer reveals the police pulled up his floorboards in searching his home.

He says the police inquiry into the Sun is about “next to nothing.” This contradicts what he said to Parliament.

Hints that he may give the arrested journos their jobs back – ” even though I am not supposed to say this.”

Names checks Lord Puttnam and people close to Gordon Brown ( Tom Watson Mp?) for wanting to get at the Sun for years.

Claims the Management Standards Committee set up by Murdoch is refusing to hand over stuff now to the police after journos complain about a decade of expenses and authorised payments being turned over to the Met.

Also  the recording reveals that the Sun’s  agony aunt,Deidre Sanders, read out a letter to Murdoch from one of the wives of the newspaper’s executives. The letter is so poignant that the executive bursts into tears , interrupting Murdoch’s  angry reaction.

News UK in a statement to Exaro deny some of this. “The Sun has been and continues to be supportive of its employees. Mr. Murdoch has great empathy for those whose lives have been overturned and continues to believe everyone charged deserves the right to be presumed innocent unless proven otherwise.  It is simply false that Mr. Murdoch knew payments were made to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK Authorities. The MSC continues to cooperate with those authorities, under the supervision of the court.”

However what is really revealing is how different Murdoch  is at this meeting in comparison with his appearance before the Commons Culture,.Media and Sport. The bumbling elderly media boss who had never heard of Neville Thurbeck and never knew anything because it was only one per cent of his Empire is transformed into a man who says spends an hour every day worrying about his staff and has a great grasp of detail about people who have been hacked.

Perhaps the super rich have a secret stash of regenerative pills- not available on the NHS – so they improve with age. Or perhaps it is all the adrenalin flowing in front of his staff.

Altogether this is an amazing revelation of what the real Rupe is like in private. Just for the record, Rupe,to obtain this story no phone or computer hacking was used and no payments were made by me.  But I must congratulate you  for the way you have trained your staff and executives to make covert recordings. It does you credit when it is in public interest.

No animals or children were hurt in this investigation.Only the rich and powerful.

Atos deaths: A letter to Mr… Smith

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This is an appalling situation. Officlal statistics on the deaths of disabled claimants -particularly in the climate where individual suicides have been already been reported- should be kept. I can well see it is remarkably convenient for the DWP to save money by not bothering to produce them. It seems to me part of  nastyagenda- saying the government does not want to know the consequences of its own policies. Part of the view of the right wing that there is no such thing as society as Margaret Thatcher once said.

Mike Sivier's avatarMike Sivier's blog

Atos: Welcome to Hell

Is the Department for Work and Pensions unable to compile data about the number of incapacity benefits claimants (including IB and ESA) who have died because it is underfunded – or understaffed?

That is the main question in Samuel Miller’s latest letter to Iain (Something) Smith, which you can find over at http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.ca/2013/06/my-latest-letter-to-iain-duncan-smith.html

This blog mentioned a few days ago that LieDS and his department have decided to withhold up-to-date information on the number of deaths involving people going through the assessment process for benefits (via Atos), who have been refused benefit or who are appealing against a decision.

Vox Political has put in a Freedom of Information request, requiring the DWP to produce that information, and we know that many of you have followed that lead.

Mr Miller has been in the fortunate position to write an authoritative inquiry – as the person who made the original request all…

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Tom Watson MP: SEVEN Boxes Of Evidence Recovered !

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Tom Watson’s point here shows that his controversial allegation is not based on mere party political point scoring or fiction. The fact that seven boxes of evidence exist and are in the hands of Metropolitan Police speaks volumes. Tom Watson’s source had three days to study the documents and the first investigation was inexplicably closed down after four months. It is not the case now.

gojam's avatartheneedleblog

From the 24th October 2012, Tom Watson MP at Prime Minister’s Questions.

“The evidence file – used to convict paedophile Peter Righton – if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring. One of it’s members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former Prime minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad. The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and Number 10″.

Did the Met recover this evidence ?

Yes they did ! Seven boxes of it, recovered from a repository in Leicestershire !

More on this later but I’d just like to take a little time to thank The Needle team member Daedalus. Daedalus works quietly behind the…

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Loving care at Gossoms End: An unsung NHS success story

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The view of Gossoms End garden from the terrace of the dining room. A good NHS facility

The view of Gossoms End garden from the terrace of the dining room. A good NHS facility

The  NHS is taking a beating from the press and media at the moment – just at the point  Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, wants to open it up to the private sector. Here is a rather heart warming story of why it is still very good. Not everybody is being neglected by uncaring nurses and health professionals.

The entrance to Gossoms End Community Hospital.| Pic courtesy: NHS Herts

The entrance to Gossoms End Community Hospital.| Pic courtesy: NHS Herts

Unless you live in the Chilterns town of Berkhamsted you probably will never have heard of Gossoms  End Community Hospital named after an ancient hamlet adjoining the town.

This unsung place is providing excellent physiotherapy for my wife, Margaret, who is recovering from a stroke after a rather dramatic rescue by air ambulance from the Isles of Scilly – see my earlier blog  at David Hencke.

What is particularly good is that some one has properly planned this facility so that stroke victims and people recovering from serious injuries can get proper physiotherapy and nursing care in a decent environment. The hospital unlike Watford, the main accident and emergency hospital for West Herts, is under no pressure to throw people out at the earliest opportunity. The cost of running it is much less than using a ward in acute hospital.

But the real key is that this is a nurse and physiotherapy led unit – with a weekly visit from a consultant and a doctor on call. The result is that the driving force  behind the care is to find the most suitable  rehab treatment for the individual patient.

Also if there is an emergency – my wife was discovered to have two new blood clots on her lungs – the patient can be taken for urgent medical care at Watford General Hospital. In her case suspicions by the doctor at Gossoms End led her to being scanned and then treated at Watford and she was able to go back to Gossoms End for  rehab after five days.

There are other human qualities. It is small – just 20 beds – some patients like my wife have their own room.The food is home cooked on the premises, there is a cheery dining room overlooking a small park. There is a terrace and gardens outside. It also does out-patient physiotherapy,  has a GP surgery attached and is surrounded by sheltered housing. Even two private retirement developments are now located near this hospital. My sister-in-law , who is a community nurse, was so impressed that she thought it might be a private facility. But it is not. Indeed it has just had a £200,000 refurbishment ( see http://www.hertfordshire.nhs.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/2010-press-releases/208-refurbishment-at-gossoms-end-complete.html).

Berkhamsted is extremely lucky to have this facility. From what I can see there are other such places – but no national directory of how many there are. It seems this provision is very hit and miss.

Yet at the same time the coalition and Labour are supposed to be planning major changes to help Britain’s elderly population by concentrating funds to keep them fit and healthy and provide proper support. I challenge  Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat minister responsible for social care, and Andy Burnham, Labour ‘s shadow health secretary, to visit Gossoms End and see how the unsung part of the NHS is working. They need to listen, learn and then act. So far the pair of them are ignoring my emails.Perhaps the minister and the opposition health spokesman aren’t bovvered.

My receovering wife, Margaret; my daughter, anne, and grandchildren Tegan, Leon,Ryan and Daryan on the terrace at Gossoms End

My recovering wife, Margaret; my daughter, Anne, and grandchildren Tegan, Leon,Ryan and Daryan on the terrace at Gossoms End

PS Many thanks to all those who sent Margaret get  well cards, messages of support and  have taken the time to come and visit her. You  have all been very kind and caring.