In sympathy with Paris we should pass the snoopers charter... apparently?

Dan Hodges thinks that is we have sympathy with the victims of the Paris bombings we should demand the snoopers charter be passed, and passed now.

He says so here, I kid you not.

The problem is that the argument does not stand up to a great deal of scrutiny.

The 7/7 bombings, the Charlie Hebdo attacks and these latest attacks all featured some people who were known one way or another to the security services. In the UK that's currently around 3,000.

Now MI5 and MI6 don't have the resource to follow all of them so they prioritise. We don't get to see the carnage that this prioritising prevents, only that which slips though. It was ever thus. If MI5 and MI6 were perfect then we wouldn't know of them or care. In fact some would probably cut their budget.

But here we are. If they (MI5 and MI6 along with GCHQ) had all the resource they needed to put surveillance on all these 3,000 they 7/7 would not have happened. So lets make that job easier by giving them 60 million innocent people to watch?

Does that really make sense to anyone? Really? Seriously?

If they (MI5 etc) want to look over every aspect of the 3,000's lives, let them get a warrant. A secret one, perhaps one that once granted can't be questioned (though must expire).

Let that warrant if it needs to extend automatically to watching contacts of the 3,000 and if evidence emerges that would lead to another warrant, then get one that does the same.

Above all, perhaps more resource.

But whatever you do, don't burden them (MI5 etc) with the job of looking through all my browsing history. It will not make anyone safe.

Corbyn would not order a shoot to kill policy!

Apparently Jeremy Corbyn would not order the security forces to shoot to kill.

See Guido here for example:

Thing is it isn't within the Prime Ministers gift to order to shoot to kill or not*.

Who shoots what and how is an operational decision that is the final responsibility of the person with the gun**. If they are faced with a hostile armed assailant (or have a reasonable belief they are armed) they can use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances. This obviously includes up to lethal force.

We do not live in a country where the Prime Minister can arbitrarily order death, or restrict self defence on a whim.

*Obviously a PM can order forms of military action highly likely to result in the use of lethal force.

**What people may not appreciate is that you don't need to be a police officer. If you are at home, cleaning your shotgun and someone breaks in, you can shoot. If they are leaving you can't. If you are walking down the street with your hunting rifle in a bag on your shoulder (does happen, not often in cities) and someone starts firing, you can fire at them to save life in self defence.

Has Tsipras played a blinder in getting the deal Greece needs?

Odd question you may think, given the nature of the deal that Greece appears to have been forced to swallow, and the nature of the humiliation.

Tsipras threw a less nasty deal back in the faces of Euro negotiators the week before last, held a referendum to tell the Euro group where to get off, then went back and accepted a worse deal... or was it?

Well, they did get a third bailout and with a bit of luck will get some liquidity back in their banks. The former wasn't on offer last time and the latter wasn't actually necessary until the IMF default which caused a run on Greek banks. So what else have they got?

I suppose it depends on what your looking for. When Syriza won the election, it wanted to end austerity and deal with corruption and the client state built up over the years. Some numbers I came across (from an article in the Telegraph by a Greek barrister, Pavlos Eleftheriadis who is a fellow at Oxford university and a member of a new left of centre Greek party.

Firstly, there is virtually no welfare state or state healthcare in Greece. So 90% of the unemployed get no help except for charity. Those who do not have private medical insurance also have to rely on charity.

Makes you wonder what they spend all that money on then?

Well, the answer is, part the client state. The last right of centre government inherited a state the previous socialist one had burdened with tens or hundreds of thousands of "civil servants" who just collect a salary and do no work for the state. Its answer? Not clear them out but hire 150,000 of their own. So there may be 200,000 of them. Maybe 300,000. At say €10,000 each a year that could be anywhere from €1.5 billion to €3 billion.

You wonder why Greeks don't want to pay taxes for that? I don't.

Then there are some systemic forms of tax avoidance and evasion. At the beginning of the Greek crisis a professor of computer science offered help to collect tax. He compared government databases and found some very poor (according to tax records) Greeks living in some very expensive parts of Athens driving new cars costing over €100,000. The tax inspectors union went to court to shut him down. They won, I kid you not.

Then there is the "My property is not finished yet" scam. Greeks pay a property tax, but only on completed properties. Go ask someone who has been to Greece how many places they have seen which are both lived in (or indeed fully functioning hotels) that are still not quite finished.

Many in Greece think this sort of thing is normal, and that is the way governments work in Europe, perhaps the world. They don't have other terms of reference. However many of the first Syriza cabinet have both worked and studied abroad and not only know that it isn't how other countries work but they can't do what they want to do without first clearing up the mess.

So Syriza got elected. One of the things they were going to do was clean this mess up, and why not, Greece could not afford a welfare state with that burden. In fact, Greece couldn't afford anything much. No left or right of centre government we would call sensible could operate.   The problem was that the vested interests and state clients suddenly turned to Syriza supporters so what could be done?

Alexis Tsipras could not rely on his parliament to get reforms through... so why not do what Jim Callaghan did (according to Dennis Healy)  in the 1970s and effectively call in a third party to crack the whip (In that case the Bennites in his cabinet wanted more and more public spending). And in order to do that whilst looking like a hero at home, he seems to have poked the Germans in the eye and kicked them in the shins so that they came back with some clear conditions on what Greece should do in the way of reforms.

Some of the reforms the Euro group have dumped on Greece I'm sure are unwelcome, however many must secretly please those in Syriza because they know that Greece can't afford for Syriza to do what its political predecessors have done and fill the state payroll with its own clients.

I don't have any evidence for this theory but on the other hand many involved in the negotiations are a long way from being stupid, yet they poked the rest of the Eurozone in the eye, told them to poke their deal (such as it was), held a referendum... and then went back and accepted what looks like a worse deal. Nothing else makes much sense.

Women being abused on the internet?

I have just listened to Caroline Criado-Perez again talking about internet abuse as a women's issue. Saying that women who wish to get involved in the political debate are being shut down... She even implied that Isabella Sorley had been abusive because she was probably brought up in a misogynist environment.

Well, there are a few home truths here..

Abuse happens on the internet. It isn't pleasant, clever or nice. It would be nice if it stopped, but it isn't directed at women. It is directed and men and women.

Anywhere there has been interaction in an um moderated way on the internet there is always some sad sorry individual who will happily issue all sorts of abuse, including death threats. Where such places are moderated those death threats tend to go to the moderators. I know, I've had a few as well as an on and off stalker.

So, Caroline Criado-Perez, stop trying to monopolise internet abuse as either your own personal cross, or a mostly women only cross, it's a cross we all have to bear and the police devote relatively little resource to dealing with it who ever you are.

The BBC has this.

What of the Olympic legacy?

I have been thinking about this. London 2012 is of course only half over, we still have the fantastic spectacle of the Paralympics to go, but what of the venues and the fantastic infrastructure built to get people to and from them?

There has been much talk of legacy, of bits you can take down and so on.

Stop.... why? Haven't we the imagination to make use of the most fantastic stadia built?

There is just so much that could be done.

Lets start with the main stadium, well it could be the most spectacular concert venue ever! Did you see those light shows! Only shame is that ELO are no longer about, but wow!

That would provide quite a lot of the running costs, then, athletic events could be held there, even televised, and here's an idea, what about an annual or biannual British youth games?

The tickets would have to be cheap, and given to family members of competitors but what could we do with seeing the best of our youth competing?

Can you imagine a better way of inspiring the next generation?

UK in recession? I don't believe the numbers.

I know people will think that I don't believe the numbers because I don't want to.

Well, it's not that I don't believe the UK GDP could have shrunk by 0.7%, it's just that I don't think it could have done so whilst at the same time the number of people employed could have risen by 180,000 In fact we have had 3 quarters of employment growth matched by 3 quarters of GDP contraction. It's simply not credible to believe both numbers at the same time, the maths just don't add up. Imagine if I said what happens if you take 2 from 2? How could you get 4?

So what is actually going on?

I haven't got a clue, other than to say there is something odd going on.

The disparity is of course not completely inexplicable, as I can see some special factors that could lead to a growing economy with an oddly shrinking GDP.

Well, there is people working either short time, part time, or self employed. This could well be a large factor leading to employment being buoyant whilst the economy is slack, but we are at record employment rates at the moment.

Other things are playing a part as well. For example oil. if you look at this current graph on the BBC* you will note that in March the price of Brent crude was $125 a barrel, and fell as low as $90, over the same period the pound has risen and fallen to end at roughly the same vale, or in short if the same amount of oil and gas was produced from the North Sea, it's actual value dropped by 24% which is a huge drop. So how much is the oil and gas industry as a percentage of GDP? Well apparently from what I have googled the best  estimate I could come up with is around 6% of GDP. So in one quarter that fell by around a quarter, or 2% of GDP, but "production" in which this sector falls, fell 1.3% total, of which actually oil and gas is huge (About a half so 2% reduction in GDP would mean a fall in production of something like 15% to keep it to 1.3% means a massive growth in other parts of the sector). There must have been massive growth in the rest of production to hold the numbers up that well.

There are some other odd factors. Garden centres. Sounds lame, and this production is lost, but they haven't been busy during a very wet spring. Garden furniture and bedding plants remain unsold.

So what's the story? Personally I think there is growth, and indeed strong growth, hence the jobs numbers, but crucially, oil and gas as well as all other commodities are very volatile, and we produce a lot of oil and gas.

The next thing is construction. Well the sector is far from a boom, but one of it's problems has been the rain. There is a lot of construction that can go on rain or shine but a lot that can't be done in the rain. In short I expect construction to grow in the next quarter.

* This graph will take you to 12 months historical figures from the date you click on the link not when this article was written.

Costa Concordia Captain's lucky escape!

Apparently Francesco Schettino, Captain of the cruise liner Costa Concordia did not abandon ship, he tripped and fell into a lifeboat.

How lucky is that? I mean what are the odds?

Rumours that he tripped over 3 disabled people and a small child have been strenuously denied.*

Meanwhile Captain Schettino has hired Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf as a public relations consultant to shore up his reputation and provide credible answers.**

The BBC has this.

*I made that up.
** That too. Should I become a journalist?

Cameron was wrong to use the EU veto for city interests!

We have heard allot about David Cameron wielding the veto in European negotiations for the UK's national interests as far as our financial sector was concerned. It was wrong to wield the veto for that reason.

It is true, that were they the only reason to use the veto, I would have done it, however a better reason is that the deal on the table, whether it involved us or not, was wrong for the following reasons:

1. It does nothing to actually address the Euro's sovereign debt crisis, which was the purpose of the summit. Crucially there is no stated mechanism for the ECB to become the lender of last resort.
2. It proposes a set of rules that Euro members promised to keep to last time, and most did not but the Euro countries promise to be really good from now on. It's not credible.
3. The rules allow a country to run up it's debt to GDP ratio in good times as well as bad, creating an automatic structural deficit if a recession hits. (Gordon Brown would have met those rules.)
4. It has too little flexibility in the event of an actual recession for those countries who have behaved well to borrow what they need to as a recession hits. 

So, I don't disagree with the veto being used, but it should have been used because the deal does not fix the problems of the Euro zone, it makes them worse, and punishes the UK for it.

What we could do with though, is counter proposals. The French and German governments are busy trying to look like they are doing something useful, and forcing others to back them when all they are doing is coming up with quarter measures to keep their electorates on side. This will work in the short term. Sarkozy has an election next year. The problem is last weeks summit will only work until the new year, and then only if they are lucky. The ink will never dry on the last deal to be signed in March 2012 because it will be renegotiated at least twice before then.

The BBC has this on the state of the Euro. The Independent has this on the maths in the Euro.

Worlds smallest steam engine? No!

The BBC has an article entitled: World's 'smallest steam engine' built in Germany, except if you read the article, it is obviously not a steam engine at all.

It is in fact a Stirling engine, originally invented by the Rev Dr Robert Stirling (and his brother) in 1815 as a safer alternative to steam engines because many of his parishioners had died in boiler explosions. It is positively not a steam engine and is nothing at all like one.

I know journalists love to bask in utter ignorance, but this is really irritating. You do have to wonder where else they talk compete and utter rubbish because they are simply ignorant of the facts.

That may sound like an unfair rant, and in some ways it may be. However the news media spread knowledge and information and it is dangerous when they get it wrong as they frequently do.

Nabila Ramdani twitter spat Another thought.

I want to point that Nabila Ramdani seemed to make it her business as a French citizen of Algerian decent to keep popping up on places like the BBC claiming that Libyans were as a group, inflicted with a tribal mentality such that they could not get on without Gaddafi to keep them in some kind of line. Should he fall Libya would, by implication turn into some version of Somalia. Whilst Libyans were dying in numbers, it is unsurprising therefore that Libyans seemed to take some exception at being described as such and as a consequence may have described Nabila Ramdani in terms which were either less than charitable or possibly not repeatable in polite company. Given the nature of her comments, were you to cast Libyans as a race her comments would be racist and as such I can entirely understand their anger.

Then when Gaddafi met his fate, it appears she changed her tune a bit. (In part because spouting the same somewhat inexpert nonsense would not do her any favours.) Some began to speculate at he volte face and indeed possible motivation for spouting bile about Libyans in the first place and subsequently changing her tune. It is in this context that the tweet was made and the reply given which was retweeted by me.

The moral of the story is, calling 6 million people who are dying to overthrow a vicious dictator a bunch of tribal ingrates may not get polite responses from them.

If after reading what I have just written you think my actions are capable of any criticism I would welcome hearing why.

The Nabila Ramdani twitter spat update

There is now a blog post over at the Telegraph here, by Katharine Birbalsingh who claims to have read my blog post but clearly had not properly (is she supposed to be a good teacher?).

It has had some of the more defamatory elements removed. However a comment by Andy Cooke here is a very good summary of the events so far, and it is here:

Hmm.
So, the facts of the case are:
1. Mr White (who, according to the blog linked above, grew up in the Middle East before his family fled the violence), was understandably interested in the Libya campaign and followed (and contributed to) the discussion on Twitter

2. Ms Ramdani also was involved in the Libya discussions, repeatedly opining (in wider media sources as well as online) that if Gaddafi were removed, Libya would fall into chaos and tribal warfare.

3. A number of people on Twitter (including Mr White) disagreed with and attempted to debunk her claims.

4.  When Gaddafi finally fell, Ms Ramdani "popped back up saying that maybe Gaddafi deserved it and her tone changed"

5. Some of the people on twitter who had taken exception to her implication that Gaddafi's removal would be a bad thing for Libya, highlighted the sudden change of tone with an implication that she had had a financial interest in the issue.  Specifically, the Twitter uses "LibyaNewDay" stated it in a disbelieving tweet that BBC news were broadcasting her, to which Mr White responded "Yes, but she did say that Gadaffi getting it was his fault ... maybe she isn't getting paid any more"

6. "LibyaNewDay" responded "Exactly what I was thinking, @NabilaRamdani has toned down her love of Gaddafi. No more paypacket #Gaddafiwhores", which Mr White retweeted.

7. Ms Ramdani blew the incident up to the police and papers, including writing an article for the Guardian accusing Mr White of calling her "an immigrant prostitute", claiming that they used a 'whore' hashtag and "spiced up their principal insult with as many sexual allusions as they could fit into the 140 characters that Twitter allows".  the latter appears to be completely unfounded.

8. Ms Birbalsingh pops up and uses the spat - well, as seen in the article above, whilst claiming to have read Mr White's version posted on his blog (which, incidentally, contains links to the primary source (the Twitter feed) unlike Ms Ramdani's version.

I've seen plenty of discussions on the internet, and terms like "commentwhoring" and "karmawhoring" (aiming to write comments specifically to gain support rather than to engage in debate), and, of course, "attentionwhoring".  None of them ever seem to be interpreted to mean that the person discussed (usually more frequently male than female) is in fact a prostitute.
Of course, anyone aiming to blow these comments up out of context to make a point unsupported by the facts would of necessity separate the "whore" bit (as Ms Burbalsingh did above) or drop off the rest of the word entirely (as Ms Ramdani has done).  None of Mr White's comments even seem to imply anything sexual at all, let alone her being "an immigrant prostitute".

On the face of it, it seems that Ms Ramdani has used the incident to try to make a political point that isn't there, using it as an excuse to try to slam the Conservatives.  An unkind observer would possibly suspect mischief on her behalf.  Ms Burbalsingh has used the incident to lament the fact that such claims damage the chance of a full Tory Government in power, and baldly state that Mr White is guilty of "racist and misogynist behaviour".   Similarly, this would seem to be playing into Ms Ramdani's hands - explicitly claiming that her accusations are true but trying to wash the Conservatives hands of Mr White.

Personally, if I were Mr White, I'd wonder if Ms Ramdani's statements were actionable, and Ms Burbalsingh's likewise - a number of the statements in the article above being apparently unsupported by the facts (which Ms Burbalsingh states she had access to via Mr White's blog and link to the relevant discussion) and heavily insulting of Mr White's character, yet repeated in a public organ with wide circulation.  It does call into question Ms Burbalsingh's reliability on any article she has published.

Looks like a good summary to me. My previous article on the subject is here.

Police don't investigate Tory activist not calling woman a whore shocker!

Police are apparently not investigating a Conservative activist (me) for not calling Nabila Ramdani a whore. That said you would not get that impression from the article on line at the Evening Standard here currently titled "Police investigate after Tory activist tweets woman is 'whore'" though its previous title which was even more defamatory towards me has been changed , or presumably from their paper edition.

What does appear to be true (though I am only taking Associated Newspapers word for it) is that the police/police watchdog are investigating why the police are not investigating. (Presumably because there is no crime, for there is none made out).

This stems from Nabila Ramdani presumably being short of work and therefore looking to raise he profile as some kind of victim of hate, misogyny and racism, which of course she is not.

I will start with the context, for here context is key.

I had been following the Libyan situation on twitter, primarily because it was the only way to keep up once the main stream media had got bored with it.

Nabila Ramdani kept on popping up as being some kind of Middle East/North Africa expert (Which she obviously isn't) and discussing the state of Libya as the war with Gaddafi raged. She took the position that in essence Libya would fall into chaos, tribal warfare etc without Gaddafi, that it was beset by tribal issues and so on. By implication it would be better if Gaddafi stayed.

Many Libyan's following the situation and I on twitter noted her "expert opinions" and from their knowledge denounced her statements. On the 20th of October Gaddafi was captured and then either executed or died of his injuries. On the same day Nabila Ramdani popped back up saying that maybe Gaddafi deserved it and her tone changed.

In this context I tweeted:

@LibyaNewDay @NabilaRamdani Yes... but she did say #Gaddafi getting it was his fault... maybe she isn't getting paid any more.

and @LibyaNewDay tweeted (which I retweeted)

@BenedictMPWhite Exactly what I was thinking, @NabilaRamdani has toned down her love of Gaddafi. No more paypacket #Gaddafiwhores

You can see the relevant time line here.

What is clear is that at no point did I tweet that Nabila Ramdani is a whore, and the tweet I retweeted had the hashtag #GaddafiWhore which clearly implies a non sexual use of the term in this context.

I will do some more digging later and add to this article.

Science is lies, religion is truth!

That might sound like an odd statement for a rational person to say who has studied Physics to university level, but it is true.

Today we learn that a theory that proved Newton's laws of motion were wrong* is possibly in itself wrong because neutrinos may in fact have travelled faster than the speed of light, fired from CERN to Italy. (The BBC has this)

This is not actually either a surprise or unusual. Real scientists (Not Richard Dawkins) are always finding out that what they believed last week was not quite right and so knowledge progresses. There can be no truths in science, because if there were it would become a religion and so not gain further knowledge. That said parts of the science community do turn religious in their dogma holding things up for a while.

Religion on the other hand is truth. This is not because it can be proven in a scientific sense but because it tells us something beyond fact about ourselves, our relationships with others, the world and our responsibility over it. Religions vary, but most contain some parts which many people would call a truth.

On the other hand with science you must always be testing and breaking the current position or else it does not move forward.

*I am being a bit hard on Newton's laws of motion, they work quite well at the level of practical human experience. 

VAT increase to cost families £450! Did I hear that right?

I am just watching BBC's Newsnight. Ed Balls has just said that the VAT rise from 17.5% to 20% will cost the squeezed middle £450. Did he really say that as a sound bite?

The thing is, that if you work it out, to get taxed £450 more by the VAT increase you would have to spend £18,000 on VATable goods that are taxed at the full rate. That excludes most food, vegetable plants and seeds, books, children's clothes, rent, mortgage and of course newspapers.

So who spends £18,000 on luxury items a year who is in the squeezed middle?

So why is UK growth so sluggish?

Well, that is a whole matter of debate, but what I can say is this: Birmingham is no longer quite the industrial hub it once was.

The problem is this: A lot of our industrial output, like cars particularly (but not exclusively) Nissan (capacity 340,00 cars per year), Honda (250,000 per year) and Toyota (137,000 per year) are reliant on parts made in Japan. UK manufacturers have also been affected as they are also reliant upon Japanese imports which have been cut short by the tsunami. In short, 0.2% growth is fantastic under the circumstances.

Now lets get back to the phrase "under the circumstances". It's actually quite important. Making cars in the UK is quite cheap particularly if you only have to deal with one union but making components here is less so when you have to deal with the tax office who want you to write off plant long after you have had to scrap it because it is cost-efficient. This is something for which the whining Ed Balls was responsible when he was telling Gordon what to do, but it was also the case before Labour got into power in 1997.

The boss of Nissan UK thinks he wants to buy more parts in the UK. Good. Get that past the Treasury and we are in a win win situation.

Meanwhile, Japan is recovering from the tsunami and so will our production. Growth next quarter will be 0.6 to 0.9% of GDP which will make Ed Balls look a bit silly.

That said, looking at tax rules on plant would seriously help in growth without being too costly.

The BBC has this.

NOTW to close: 200 innocents pay whilst guilty keep their jobs

So, in a move to deflect growing anger of the News of the Wor;ld phone hacking scandal, 200 innocent journalists are to lose their jobs whilst Rebekah Brooks can keep hers, as the News of the World will publish it's last edition this Sunday. You can read James Murdoch's statement here. The BBC has this.

This is disgusting. What's more it looks like Murdoch will be starting a paper called the Sun on Sunday, possibly as soon as the following week. In fact the domain names for thesundaysun.com and thesundaysun.co.uk have already been registered. In fact there seems to have been a plan to make the Sun a 7 day week operation (See The Guardian here).

What will be interesting to see if there are claims for unfair dismissal.

So, if the editor and staff of the News of the World want to start a new paper put me down for £100 in share capital. If I can spare more I will.

Should there be a public inquiry over phone hacking?

No. That would cost the taxpayer millions.

What taxpayers should do is just boycott the tabloids, and anyone who advertises with them.

It would be much quicker, more effective and very very cheap.

So ... boycott News International and the tabloid press. Job done.

I also have this on the original story, and this on how the News of the World got Milly Dowler's mobile number.

How did the NOTW get Milly Dowler's mobile phone number?

As readers will know from my last article I had an opinion of journalist that was low, of print journalists doubly so and tabloid ones quadripartitely so to a point that it could go no lower. I have now had to revise that and my opinion has dropped to depths I had hitherto thought impossible.

However a question sprang to mind which is ... how exactly did the people at or working for the News of the World get hold of Milly Dowler's mobile phone number in order to hack it? After all their families home phone number was ex directory and the NOTW got hold of hold of that by unlawful means.

So how did they get it?

From the family? Well, they couldn't get the families home number so I really doubt that they could of got it from the family.

Friends of Milly? Well how many would they have had to have asked to get the number, and if but one friend asked was concerned, that would have blown the operation out of the water so they would have had to have got lucky first time. Does anyone think they would have risked it?

The telephone companies? Well which one? The phone was a pay as you go mobile phone, need not have been registered, and the NOTW would not have known which provider to ask, so would have had to have worked their way through several.

So who then? Well... we do know one group of people who would have had the number and according to Rebecca Brookes in evidence to a parliamentary committee have form for selling information to journalists and that is the police. Seems to me to be the easiest most secure and least likely to backfire method available.

So the police have huge amounts to answer for and indeed this also explains why they have been hitherto completely lax and uninterested in investigating any further than they have been pushed. After all the investigation was and is bound to lead directly to them.

The story has now got much worse, with the Telegraph leading with a story that victims of the July the 7th bombing had their phones hacked as well as the family of the Soham murder victims Jessica Wells and Holy Chapman. (The comments above about how phone numbers were obtained also applies to these cases).

Just how disgusting can this get? Just how up to their necks in it are the police and is that why they have been dragged kicking and screaming to investigate? In fact you have to ask, how can we be sure the police are the right body to investigate?

Milly Dowler: Boycott News International!

I have a very very low opinion of journalists, from the fantasist (Robert Fisk) to the great fictional writers (Johann Hari), the faux I hate the privileged, but privately educated immensely privileged and overpaid staff at the Guardian, the venal distasteful tabloid journalists and not forgetting the editors on all media who decide what sells papers and frequently decide what the news is and fit the facts to the story not decide what the story is based on the facts.

I was not prepared to have such a low opinion and low expectations lowered still let alone by the degree and manner of the Milly Dowler phone hacking story (Lest we not forget, reported to us by the over privileged, over paid Champagne socialists at the tax dodging Guardian media group).

Lets get this straight. They hacked a 13 year old girls mobile phone message service. Just how low can you go? They deleted messages when the mailbox was full, possibly interfering with a police investigation, in order to get fresh copy to sell more newspapers. This action caused the family to have hope where there was none, and may well have diverted the police investigation.

This is behaviour more disgusting than even I could have imagined. Not surprisingly none of the tabloids mention this on their front pages, because one suspects they would have done the same, if that is, they did not try.

So I call for a boycott of all News international outlets, especially the newspapers, The Sun, The News of the World and the Times (and the Times on Sunday) and if possible Sky News.

I would also ask people not to buy any tabloid. They have kept silent on the phone hacking story, I suspect because of a guilty conscience.

Ryan Giggs named as super injunction footballer!

Ryan Giggs has been named as the footballer who took out a super injunction (via Schillings, lawyers to the rich and dubious) to prevent details of his alleged affair with Imogen Thomas.

He was named as such by John Hemming MP in parliament this afternoon. John Hemming later justified his actions because he was concerned that tracking down lots of people from Twitter and jailing them would be wrong particularly as many of them would not have the means to defend themselves.

My understanding is that Ryan Giggs took out the injunction because he was concerned about the affect on his family and in particular his children. Whilst this is an admirable aim, were he that concerned he need not have had an affair in the first place. Even if you are wealthy things things do eventually come out.

On a wider note there is something odd about super injunctions, particularly those concerning corporate bodies such as Trafigura. Whilst they are legal individuals they are not real individuals within the scope of section 8 of the human rights convention and are not entitled to a private family life.

The BBC has this.