EZONE CRISIS: Bundesbank slaps restraining order on Merkel, fires torpedo at EU peripherals.

Weidmann….has effectively doomed eurozone

Victory for Bankfurt over Berlin as Weidmann retaliates on firewall question

Yesterday afternoon’s decision by the German Bundesbank to refuse acceptance of Greek, Irish or Portuguese sovereign/bank bonds has dealt a blow to the Eurozone which few informed observers think it can survive. With the help of sources, The Slog digs into what’s really going on here.

As The Slog has always maintained – and Parisian sources have consistently affirmed – there are really three Germanies at the moment: Merkel Germany, Schauble Germany, and Banker Germany. Banker Germany has been led for several months now by Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank President; and as the Slog’s Bankfurt Maulwurf has been alleging for weeks, this last schism’s power is in the ascendancy. Schauble Germany consists of the Finance Minister and some of his aides: these are the leading players who have become increasingly pessimistic about ClubMed’s chances, while coming under more and more pressure from parts of the Bundestag and the Karlsruhe consititutional Court. Merkel Germany consists of Angela Merkel and the woefully uninformed German electorate.

Despite widespread scepticism earlier this month, The Slog also reported a detailed US-inspired plan to ‘amputate’ Greece as a source of debt contagion after close of business on 23rd March. I later added to this further detail explaining that the US felt ‘double-crossed’ by Germany, having given the ECB’s Mario Draghi the dollars to underpin eurobanks, but not seen Brussels ‘deliver’ by pulling the plug on Greece. What’s now becoming clearer is that Washington hugely underestimated both the power of Jens Weidmann, and the rift between him and the ECB. They weren’t double-crossed: the State Department had its lines crossed.*

The EU in general – and very badly shaken markets – now face the reality of a Spanish situation getting worse by the day; an effective civil war inside the EU’s biggest player Germany; and Greek bonds that have been rendered worthless. As Greek newspaper Ekathimerini reports this morning:

‘The development is very serious as it means that even the new bonds issued by Athens to replace the old ones after the private sector involvement in the haircut will have too low a value. Already their difference in yield compared to German bunds, known as spread, has grown by more than 200 basis points in fewer than 20 days, climbing to 1,940 bps….the credibility of the new bonds issued is no different to that of the old ones they have replaced. What is more, Greek banks will need to gradually seek funding from other sources and not the Eurosystem, which is not at all an easy proposition.’

Late yesterday evening I got this comment from the Bankfurt Maulwurf:

“As I said, by the wintertime there will be no eurozone as we know it. Merkel is now increasingly alienated. My guess is that, based on her history and personality, the Chancellor will switch sides.” [ie, and privately accept that FiskalUnion is doomed with any ClubMeds inside it].

The Slog’s regular and reliable source also disputed the main suggestion in last night’s Wall Street Journal piece, in which the Murdoch-owned paper noted that ‘Jens Weidmann reacted strongly after the ECB relaxed collateral rules for its second three-year loan tender in February. The looser rules allowed smaller banks to take part in the loan operation.’

“Of course,” he told me, “Herr Weidmann is opposed to such a crazy idea, but today’s aim was really to fire a shot above the Chancellor’s head. The Bundesbank’s management – and most of my colleagues – believe that the so-called firewall boost is madness. Not only will it not work, it is throwing very good German money after very bad ClubMed debt. We must hope that Frau Merkel’s head will now return to earth from the clouds.”

Earlier this month, The Slog ran a lengthy piece alleging an ultimatum given to Merkel by Frankfurt bigwigs.

My favourite Parisian diplomatic source also adds some colour.

“Yes of course Weidmann is dumping the risk back at the ECB and delivering a serious snub to Signor Draghi. But as you might say in Britain, the German Central Bank has placed an ASBO-tag on Angela Merkel. She is a very stubborn woman, but Jens Weidmann is a very patriotic and resourceful banker. This is a very bad development for the Eurozone.”

Market contacts I’ve managed to find this (Saturday) morning GMT responded similarly. “The eurozone was dead in the water anyway,” said a Madrid-based dealer, “Weidmann just torpedoed a dead duck. This means there’s no longer a debate about whether the duck’s dead or not.”

“I think what we’re seeing here is open warfare on several fronts,” said a leading UK wealth manager, “member State banks batting the ball back to Draghi, Frankfurt starting to reel Berlin in, and everyone scrabbling around for an exit plan. Another way to describe it, of course, is to say it’s every man for himself now. We’re expecting the Spanish bond market to need massive ECB support come Monday. We’ll see, but that has to be the most likely outcome”.

Anyone predicting the order of events from here on would have to be mad or dumb. Later today I hope to talk to some US sources, but in the meantime, the reaction to Weidmann’s move among the American the media set has been muted. More broadly, neither Reuters nor Bloomberg flagged the development,  and the FT – ! – doesn’t mention it at all so far online.

There are times when even an anti-conspiricist like me has to wonder about the Anglo-American business MSM, and whether there are some things they just won’t print. Rupert Murdoch loathes the EU and would do anything to sink Britain – hence the WSJ coverage. But most of them seem at times to look the other way when this kind of stuff happens.

*Since March 23rd, the Athens Government has twice postponed the closing date for English Law bond-swap involvement – a fact barely reported anywhere in the MSM. It was always my suspicion that the English law liability would’ve represented one of the many rationales cited to amputate Greece on that day. During this period, the Greek government has also illegally raided the bank accounts of Greek hospitals and Universities in order to raise the money required to settle some English Law debt. The story (later confirmed in the Greek media) was first posted here. I have yet to see it covered anywhere in the rest of the EU.

Also related: American doubts about Merkel (March 9th)

At the End of the Day

One of the things I most resent about spending 10-hour days deconstructing the bollocks put out by Those Who Run Things is that my recognition of the problem in 2004 interrupted a post-work Nirvana. Before the scales fell from my eyes about  crookery, hypocrisy, cowardice and can-kicking, I’d been pursuing three endlessly fascinating areas of human enquiry: neuroscience, social anthropology, and sub-atomic physics.

Don’t misread that opener: I am no unique brainbox prodigy. But I am interested in so many aspects of what makes us tick, my headmaster at Grammar School was moved to tell my parents, “Your son is a true Renaissance Man”. My Dad – who was mega-bright Salford lad, but left school at 13 through force majeur – asked what he meant, and my Mum (middle class and well-educated) said “It means he’s got a butterfly mind”. Northern mums say that sort of thing to keep their sons’ feet attached to terra firma at all times: but another way of putting it might have been to say “he is incorrigibly nosey”.

And I am. Anthropology as a whole (after I stopped going to an office in 2000) in turn led me to compare our species with the natural tooth-and-claw world of wildlife. This started out as a means to prove that Harriet Harman and most pcers are unhinged, but in the end became an interest in and of itself. So ‘At the End of the Day’ is usually a bit of R&R for me, in that it allows one to write about enjoyable things….as opposed to people I despise.

Anyway, last night a few ATEOTD threaders said that my latest post was far too dark and miserable, and can we have more about Coco the terrier puppy please. They were right, and I thank them for pointing it out. It’s just that often – after a day of wading through turd-filled waters of murky dissembling – it is hard to remember that there is always fresh air to breathe when one emerges from the sewer. So tonight’s effort will be a return to normal service; but the odd bit of underworld just might peep through from time to time.

We were out walking the dogs last week when we met other people similarly engaged. They’d found a baby badger, either abandoned by its mother, or the unfortunate side-effect of badger culls. The little mite couldn’t have been more than a few days old, and the helplessly fearful squeaks it was emitting went right through one’s chest cavity to the human heart beneath. As it happened, I didn’t have Rolf Harris’s number with me, but someone in the other group did have a local wildlife rescue hotline to hand.

I hope the badgerette survived. What I couldn’t believe on picking her up was the nature of its coat: like a sort of spiny sandpaper. Fully grown, they are magnificent creatures to observe, and with the increasing harassment of the species they are more often to be seen – startled by one’s presence – scuttling back into the hedgerows during the daylight hours. I remain unconvinced by the bovine TB data, but mainly I am unimpressed with the cynical way in which Farmer Giles gases or clubs the poor little buggers to death – and then leaves them by the side of various highways so they look like ‘roadkill’.

Badgers themselves are – like most wildlife – fiercely territorial and vicious when cornered: they have claws that could rip out your throat, were you silly enough to bend down while in their company. But the ‘roadkill’ scam isn’t very subtle. First off, most of the ones I stop to inspect are unmarked. Roadkill does, by definition, mangle animals pretty badly. And second, roadkill tends to leave animals where they were – halfway across the road when that ever-so-important DHL truck doing 75 mph hit them. Only rarely do the victims drag themselves back to the roadside in order to look neat and tidy.

Entry of underworld into post: were Lord Mandelson to be the Minister at DEFRA right now, he’d put out a viral rumour that such badger inspections were clear evidence of my being a fiend obsessed by urges of bestial necrophilia.

This afternoon, a lady chaffinch went BONK very loudly into our (closed) French windows. I know she was a lady, because in Chaffinch World the blokes get to wear the bright colours – whereas she was a muted symphony of delicate greys, browns and bits of yellow. Having fallen to the ground badly stunned by our triple-glazing, it was obvious one or other of our dogs, local rodents or birds of prey would ‘ave ‘er, as the saying goes, before too long. But you can’t be too intrusive with wild birds: just handling them can result in a heart attack later.

As she was spark out when I found her, she was gently plonked onto the terrace table. Her mate – something of a dandy decked out in bright orange waistcoat, red neck and jet-black hat – was kicking up a helluva din from the safety of our extension roof. Not offering to help, mind – just sqwarking his head off. Typical bloke.

Eventually, she came round and – the next time I approached – flew off unharmed. Thus was this day made worthwhile. Now there are those who would say, “You shouldn’t interfere”. Bollocks. When I was a kid, the chaffinch was the most common bird in Britain. That the bird is now more rare has a lot to do with my species; and Mrs Chaffinch’s concussion was entirely due to a man-made window. So it was my duty to help her survive. OK, so she pooed on my table. It’s not that big a drama.

And so to the progress of our newest canine recruit Coco. While I’ve never seen a dog bounce like Tiggs when she was little, Coco is the only puppy I’ve come across who will walk on two legs right across a room in search of a hand-held treat. Her balance is incredible. But then, so too is her ability to learn bad habits. The latest of these is a compulsion to chase sheep. This isn’t a good idea, in that farmers have carte blanche to shoot dogs that worry ewes while they’re lambing. A rigid programme of aversion therapy is now under way, under which Coco blinks uncomprehendingly as Jan and I make sheep noises and pretend to be dangerous. I’ll let you into a secret: it isn’t working. There is something about sheep that screams “We are not dangerous. We are harmless dorks”.

One morning last week, I was dozing as Jan showered, when I thought I saw a pillow propped up against our bed moving under its own steam from one end to another. After sixty, this is the sort of sight you dread: proof positive that you’re off your head and will soon be drinking with difficulty from the plastic beaker with holes in the spout. Thankfully, a scruffy little head appeared soon afterwards – Coco was trying to get back into bed by using the pillow as a jumping-off point.

It’s at times like those that the laugh-out-loud thing dogs can evoke is beyond compare. When Foxie was tiny, we went to visit chums in Suffolk who have a large Black Labrador called Nelson. Nelson has a bed-basket big enough to hold most Olympic events, with the possible exception of the Marathon. Foxie (who was about six inches long at the time) shot straight into the basket and claimed it as her own. Nelson looked first at his owners, then at us, and finally at Fox. It was priceless.

 

Is there any such thing today as a resigning matter?

‘The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post’.

(BBCNews website)

Are we surprised that Professor Antonio Ereditato has fallen on his collider on this issue? Not really. He has single-handedly set back the plan by Mario Monti to persuade sovereign debt investors that Italians know WTF they’re doing. In another age, he would’ve been hung upside down from a Milanese garage forecourt, and all his mistresses shot.

But resignations are rare things these days. Ever since Nixon resisted it until the very last chance he had to bag immunity in the early 1970s, it has become increasingly difficult to get proven pillocks to resign. Let me illustrate by example.

George Osborne continues to reside at No 11 Downing Street. He set out as UK Chancellor to reduce the UK’s debt by the end of this Parliament, and wipe out the annual deficit along the way. Nobody forced him to suggest he would achieve such an unlikely outcome: on the contrary, throughout the May 2010 General Election, he so often freely volunteered the promise to do so, the Shadow Chancellor resembled a Speak Your Weight machine – a Dalek determined to insist that his will would prevail: “I will exterminate the debt I will exterminate the debt exterminate exterminate exterminate”.

Last week, Little Osborne delivered a Budget whose opening admission (given the content) was that he would not achieve those ends. But not only did the Draper not resign, he didn’t even have the common decency to admit that he’d failed. Well, I ask you: wasn’t that, once upon a time in Blighty, a situation demanding a service revolver pointed squarely at the temple?

During the New Labour era, a standard not-resignation speech developed. It always began, “While it would be my instinct to resign, I feel that, as this [global pandemic/slaughter of the firstborn/avoidable train disaster/declaration of war on China] happened on my watch, it is my duty to see it through”. Note that this bollocks never closed with the phrase “and then I shall resign”. Which was incrediby truthful really, because they never ever did. Over the years, I watched in amazement as Patricia Hewitt squandered 20% of the NHS budget, Gordon Brown presided over the first major runs on banks for over 150 years, Peter Mandelson sat atop a disgraceful influence scandal at Business, and Tessa Jowell mislaid both the Olympic Budget and her husband. Every last one of the buggers had to be eased out or voted out: none of them did the decent thing.

Before he made his entirely disreputable promise to deliver the UK from its millstone of debt, George Osborne had brokered a meeting between David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch, encouraged Dave’s relationship with Rebekah Brooks, and firmly recommended Andy Coulson for the job as the Leader’s press secretary. Yet Ozzie is still there next door to the Prime Minister he landed in the mire. Very few ordinary electors understand the profundity of George’s incompetent guilt…but George does. Do we see any sign of Osborne putting the asp to his own throat? We do not.

I was comprehensively tickled to read the utter bollocks put out by Tory Treasurer Peter Cruddas last weekend: “I blustered a bit, but having given the wrong impression, I must do the decent thing and sign this resignation letter I’ve just been handed.” But really, the bloke’s double-thickness brass neck sums up what all these gargoyles are about: an addiction to Gravy Now, and a fervent desire that it should never end.

Il professore Antonio Ereditato himself managed to wait two weeks before leaving the sinecure that had allowed him to claim a spurious superiority over the great Albert Einstein. So I suppose the only thing left for me to wonder about is, what might God resign about?

He (or She) – if such should exist – is far from blameless. The Black Death. Tetra packs. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. Al Q’eida. Lawyers. George W Bush. Hitler. Belgium. Simon Cowell. Krakatoa and Vesuvius. Zips. We could spend 1,001 Arabian Nights going down the list.

Part of me thinks God resigned after the Holocaust – albeit under the duress of public opinion. But most of me thinks there is no God. There is, however, a cold intelligence watching everything we do: of that, I am certain. And I think that intelligence has marked the cards of all those who refuse to resign.

EU FIREWALL: SEVERAL BRICKS SHORT OF A LOAD

“There’s a hole in your firewall, dear Geli, dear Geli….”

Just released by the EU, this is from Reuters at noon GMT today: (my italics)

‘Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Friday on a temporary increase in their financial rescue capacity to prevent a new flare-up of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, but markets may judge it too small to be convincing.

Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter said the 17-nation currency area would combine two rescue funds for a year to make more money available in case of emergency. She put the total figure at some 800 billion euros, but that appeared to include money already spent to conjure up a more impressive headline number for investors.

You read it here first: Mountains & Molehills at Wednesday’s Slog

GALLOWAY WINS BRADFORD: What fun we shall have….

Gorgeous George (and his dubious allies) are back

If anyone doubts the possibility of leveraging votes based on demographics, they should look this morning at the Bradford West result, which once again sees the indecipherable rogue George Galloway back in Westminster politics. At least it’ll liven things up a bit.

Unlike after his 2005 election victory in Bethnal Green and Bow, Gorgeous George made it clear that this time he’s here to stay as MP for Bradford, rather than just serving one term.

“It is a very comprehensive defeat for New Labour, it is a pathetic performance by the Government parties. The big three political parties have had a very salutary, unkind lesson this evening and I hope that they all take note. The people of Bradford have spoken this evening for people in inner cities everywhere in the United Kingdom,” he said modestly.

Actually, what happened was that the Islamists and their fellow-travelling Useful Idiots won a game-changing victory. I’ve posted about GG many times, but he is really nothing more than a man who uses any dimension of social discontent to get himself elected. But this changes the game in showing doubtful Sloggers how a demographic concentration can destabilise the system. All around the coastline of the UK there are at least a dozen constituencies where 55+ Silvers can make their presence known in a decisive manner. We all need to learn from this: while keeping a wary eye on the scamp Galloway.

It’s been a lonely time in the wilderness for poor George recently – what with the tragic loss of his hero Muammar Gadaffi and whatnot. Now he’s back, we can all start digging again on what the security services really found once the Libyan Looney had fallen.

Anyway, the case continues: George Galloway – enigmatic charlatan? Or just charlatan?

Related: A big fat whopper from Gorgeous George

At the End of the Day

There is something about our species that can’t help turning every last tool into a weapon. In the Old Testament, Cain popped off his brother Abel with the jawbone of an ass, which showed imagination if nothing else. I once tried to write a silly piece about a bloke who killed people with the assbone of a jaw, but I could never make it work. After all, choosing the gob-skeleton of a donkey is surreal enough in itself.

We have this thing, we Homo sapiens, with re-inventing every available object in order to make it a homicidal exhibit. In the Courtroom, a flunkey passes a bicycle pump to the judge, as the prosecuting counsel explains to M’lud how Agnes Spleen thwacked her lover to death with it on account of his preference for a girl with drop-handlebars.

In the present era, this has become an art form. We used to have proper wars involving guns, cannons, tanks, bayonets and grenades. But with the coming of atomic weapons, we have been forced to endow formerly benign objects with the ability to defeat our enemies. Suddenly, there are dozens of new types of war: cyber, propaganda, energy, currency, surveillance, water….the list is very long indeed. There seems no end to the implements both concrete and abstract we will adapt in order to subdue others. All this has set me thinking.

Employing eccentric weapons is nothing new. The women of Troy waged sex war against their husbands in order to stop them going to war. (They succeeded commendably). For decades, British trade unions engaged in class war to bring the Toffs to heel. (They failed miserably). In the 1960s, the big fear was biological warfare. Employing bacteria as a form of mercenary may well have been the ultimate in human oddity. But there are many options still left.

Take rap for example. Somebody setting out to drive me away from a given territory would only have to bombard my domicile with rap music to have me high-tailing it to anywhere far, far away. Similarly, there  is no way I could cope with a steady stream of Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to my door: twice a year is fine, but twice a day would have me open to any suggestion within a week.

Technology manuals are perhaps the ultimate weapon. You would only have to issue an enemy with geek-written TV, DVD, pressure cooker or car instruction booklets to reduce them rapidly to a rabble unable to distinguish between CDs as a means of transport, or headlights as a form of cooking aid.

Future wars may well not involve anyone fighting and dying about territory: they may indeed consist of nothing more sadistic than pictures of a grinning Simon Cowell being waved above trenches. The thing is, such wars will be about individual surrender rather than death. Beijing’s troops will play Chinese opera to Russians, and the British will bombard the French with radio commentaries on cricket.

But whatever happens, the participants will discover this: there is a finite size to the pack with which one can identify. That size is limited to cultural media references pack members can easily recognise, and use as bonding glue. Ultimately, we will never put an end to war until the definition of culture grows beyond tribalism – and it shows no signs of doing that. A love of football cannot defeat the tribal support of a team. A love of music will never make Tchaikovsky fans like Bayernische oom-pah-pah. And a solid Old Labour trade unionist is never going to rub along with a liberal Californian ecology fan.

Noel Coward turned wit into a weapon. W C Fields did the same with sarcasm. Private Eye has waged war on the Establishment for fifty years with ironic satire. And Murdoch has worked tirelessly to bring British culture to its knees with vicious tabloid invention. I continue to feel that, as a species, we are an evolutionary mistake: in oxygenating our heads to facilitate escape from predators, natural selection eventually produced a born thug with a big brain. That perverted cerebrum has harnessed every means imaginable to attack its fellow human beings – from psychological torture to germs. It has invented, among many other horrors, death camps, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, slavery, totalitarianism, and chicklit.

But it has also been responsible for great art, magnificent architecture, timeless classical music, saints, genuine prophets, inspiring literature, hysterical comedy, and Bauhaus furniture.

Last year in France, I saw some exhibits by a sculptor who turned gun barrels, tin helmets, pistols and shell cases into beautiful ornaments. But he clearly didn’t belong in mainstream society…any more than Vincent Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, St Francis of Assisi, Tony Hancock or William Shakespeare did.

The human brain is capable of producing great wonders. It is, in fact, our best tool. It is also our most murderously dangerous weapon.

EXCLUSIVE: OIL – THE REAL MOTIVES BEHIND THE PRICE INCREASES

In this Slog special:

How the numbers on oil supply disruption don’t add up

Why the IEA doesn’t believe them

Why and how oilcos are profiting from the spin

What links Iran, Nigeria, Israel, and Greece in US foreign policy

Why Obama wants to open up the reserves, even though they aren’t needed

The carrot he’d like to offer the oil business to ensure his re-election

An in-depth investigation by The Slog reveals that disruptions in oil supply have been massively hyped – and used as the cover for naked oil company profiteering, US Presidential politics, market speculation, and broader geopolitical aims.

The reason I’ve waited until now before posting anything about the oil ‘shortages’ – and subsequent price hikes -  is that I truly could not get my head round them. It appears as of yesterday that the US, UK, France and Japan are thinking about starting talks to release some of their strategic reserves. Yesterday morning, the FT reported, ‘Industry officials said the four countries were quietly drawing up contingency plans for the release, which could surpass the size of last year’s use of the strategic stocks to offset the shortage triggered by the war in Libya.’ As the FT is wrong about almost everything these days, I decided to dig a little deeper. Having already invested a couple of weeks in the energy subject, it seemed the right time to do it.

Throughout the ‘liberation’ of Gadaffiland, I kept on seeing this statistic telling me that Libya produces just 2% of the world’s oil. So even if Libyan production had stopped dead – which it hasn’t – I figured that, in a global economy not exactly bounding along at the moment, there wasn’t a lot to worry about. To offer a comparison, oil production dropped by about 1 million barrels a day in 2005 when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced companies in the Gulf of Mexico to shut down many of their wells. It was a disruption, but not an economic catastrophe. The total output from Libya is roughly 1.6 million a day. At midpoint last year, it was estimated that the world had a surplus of some 4 – 5 million barrels a day.

Hmm. Maria van der Hoeven, the International Energy Association’s (IEA) executive director, claimed only last week, “As no specific supply disruption is currently under way, we are not planning any co-ordinated actions at the present time”.  And earlier this week, Business Week talked about ‘resurgent Libyan oil exports’.

The very latest ‘reason’ being offered for all this panic floating around the MSM is the gas leak in the North Sea’s Elgin platform. But all the price rise malarkey was taking place long before that happened. Late last week, Reuters suggested that, ‘Civil unrest, adverse weather and technical glitches disrupted 1.2 million barrels per day of global oil output in March’. But it added that such a combo was ‘rare if not unique’…and it didn’t, as such, give us a clue about where all this bad weather and glitching had happened.

However, the investment site thisismoney.co.uk recently instanced one example: ‘Disruption of supplies from unstable oil producer Nigeria’. Now this is more like it: 10% of US oil is imported from Nigeria, which is capable of producing over twice as many barrels per day as Libya. But other sources are quick to point out that Nigerian production is set to increase later this year with the sale of new drilling rights.

Another obvious ‘culprit’ is Iran. At 4 million barrels a day capacity, the Tehran regime could produce twice as much again as Nigeria, and has the third biggest reserves in the world. But because of its obsession with developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes (the way you do when you’re sitting on more oil than anyone could ever use) investment in oil machinery updates has lagged behind the search for atom-splitting street lights. Thus, since roughly early 2010, it’s been producing about 2.2 million bbds. And in recent months, that’s dropped a further 300,000 barrels.

Once again, it doesn’t add up, does it? The world has lost 2 million barrels from its fourth biggest oil producer – and nary a peep of pain from the West. Now it loses 300,000 barrels, and immediately the price sky-rockets.

Yet again, the IEA said that it “does not see any significant disruption”. I italicise the word ‘see’ there because I think it is quite significant. It’s in the present tense, and there’s no ‘think’ or ‘maybe’ about it. The IEA is politely saying it doesn’t know WTF the four countries planning to release reserves are on about.

You can sort of see why. Qatar, the world’s biggest producer of liquefied natural gas, increased its capacity to make natural gas to an annual 77 million tons last year with the start of its 14th liquefaction plant. It also opened the world’s largest plant that converts gas into liquid fuels such as diesel and jet fuel. Clearly, all this is unlikely to lead to gas rationing any time soon.

Nor is all this anything to do with fears about reserves. Huge new finds have emerged under the seas that lie between Greece and Israel, and around the coasts of Cyprus. Nigeria alone is known to have 53 billion barrels of reserves, and Chinese engineers talk of a potential 300 billion in total there. Every month now – as world demand makes exploration sensible once more – new fields are being found from the Maltese waters to the Mississippi delta.

Then there is the shale issue. Industry websites estimate that this method of gas production will rise to around 7000 billion cubic feet by 2021, or roughly 12% of the globe’s energy needs. Finally, thisismoney quotes warm weather across Europe, and the EU debt crisis, as further factors already depressing demand. As most Western leaders must have grasped in private by now, demand is not going anywhere northwards over the next two years. Yet some folks are predicting $140 a barrel by mid 2013.

The real motives behind the spin

So what gives? Why all the pressure to release reserves from the major industrialised nations? [Surprise, surprise, excluding Germany - which has massive reserves, and is doing its 'serves you right' display on this issue too]

Speculation is clearly a factor to some degree. Over-zealous trading makes the market more volatile than it would otherwise be. And speculation is definitely on the increase. The simple truth is that, according to the IEA, world oil demand is expected to increase by a mere 1.5% to around 90 million barrels a day in 2012. In reality, the market is already behaving far too capriciously to be based solely on supply and demand: look across the major traders and analysts in the sector, and you will note that almost ubiquitous is the frantic attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a bit like looking at the UK’s real estate sites in 2011: total, nonstop bollocks from end to end.

But there are much bigger factors in play behind the scenes. They concern geopolitics, profiteering, and re-election politics.

Geopolitics

The geopolitics of all this is pretty obvious, and not news to anyone who’s awake: we saw late last year how America’s control of the global Dollar transmission system brought Iran close to its knees, and we also saw how peace-loving Islamists in Nigeria blew up a church full of Christians on Christmas Day in Nigeria – as the formal kick-off for a murderous campaign of gentle killing. Some 3,200 Nigerian citizens have since perished – although the newish Government there denies this.

So, one reason why the price of oil is rising concerns the War on Terror, and the closely associated worry about Islamic fundamentalists controlling African oil production. What Nigeria and Iran have in common is Islamist nutters, and unstable government of a population in pretty bad shape. What they also have in common is Chinese technicians just gagging to lend a hand.

I wrote in the summer of 2010 about the inevitable flashpoint we will reach as a species when Beijing meets Allah in Africa. The Chinese already have a serious foothold in southern Africa (spend any time there, and one of the most common sights is Chinese blokes with surveying equipment) and they will soon effectively control South Africa. That the place needs propping up cannot be denied: I learned from S&P yesterday that they’ve downgraded SA debt again, citing  how (my italics) ‘…fundamental structural economic and social problems continue, such as very high unemployment, and a structural current account deficit that makes the economy dependent on external financing….’

The dominant Left Wing of the ANC now more or less accepts that it’s in hock to Beijing. The boss of one of its biggest banks and the biggest gold mining company has long been an enthusiastic traveller to and from China, initiating a two-way technical flow that benefited both countries. The Beijing politburo (itself in some disarray at the minute) sees precisely the same set of bankrupt, unstable politics in Iran and Nigeria. Iran in particular has kicked the West out…and is already heavily dependent on China for foreign currency.

This Friday, President Obama will without doubt sign off a Bill designed to turn the screw more tightly on Iran. He has also, off-stage, been fully briefed about Nigeria’s social problems. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan (that is his real name) was elected in 2010 on an anodyne reform programme, since when there has been little or no reform as such. Almost none of Nigeria’s oil wealth is trickling down to the poor folks, and Goodluck made a bad decision earlier this month when he decided to remove the petrol subsidy. Faced down by thousands of demonstrators, demands for his removal and a weeklong general strike paralysed the country. Mr Jonathan quickly gave in, partly restoring the fuel subsidy that — more than an Islamic insurgency in the north or a long-running conflict in the south — seemed to draw citizens onto the streets in rage.

In short, there really is going to be a potential oil shortage later this year or by early 2013. And a White House desire to increase its access to oil, while halting the marches of China and Islam, could very easily exacerbate the supply problems that already exist. All that’s happened thus far is the analysts, markets, hedge funds and sector experts have factored in what will probably happen….and got it kick-started in order to maximise the potential profit stream.  The suckered investors will eventually realise that a Global economy on its arse is not going to need anything like the oil it has already: at which point, the price will plummet.

The Electioneering politics

Barack Obama obviously doesn’t need a US in panic about gas-pump prices. So why is he hyping the whole business by talking about releasing oil reserves? Well, at this point we need to return to November’s Presidential Election.

There are powerful elements in the oil industry who do not like Barack Obama one bit. Again this Friday, Barry hopes to finalise and pass a Bill to remove the oilco tax breaks and subsidies. Even I as a lifelong capitalist would tend to view these subsidies as an outrage when most people under 21 can’t even find a job. But as with things here in Merrie Olde England, Americans are not really “all in this thing together”.  And to be fair – knowing the Obama Administration’s track record on, say, housing market intervention – they’d probably waste all the new money on hare-brained schemes that failed to address the real econo-fiscal problems faced by the US.

The sum of money involved – some $4bn net to the Treasury per annum – is a gnat bite on the bum to the oil business – it makes $200m each and every day. But with prices rising at the pumps, Barry desperately needs to show he is taking action against profiteering: for nothing riles an American voter more than some jumped-up Arab or fat oilco suit denying his eternal right to cheap motoring. What Obama won’t do (because he lacks the necessary cojones) is put forward a game-changing oil-tax bill – because the guys in the big hats would pass it on to John Doe, who in turn would stick it to the Black Dude in the privacy of the ballot booth.

Now the truth is, there is no financial point or logic to the removal of these subsidies: the Obamites are positioning it as the President getting tough with big oil, and the more downmarket Democrat voter base is too insular or thick to question that. The issue has no bearing at all on the pump-price of petrol – but it sounds good. (And, to my mind, it represents good governance over an industry that has been taking the piss for decades).

However, at the same time it enhances a threat to Obama’s re-election.

Oil company profiteering

Estimates suggest that 93% of oilco political contributions go to Republican candidates – added up, it comes to roughly $54m a year: but that doesn’t include the vastly greater amount spent lobbying Congress about tax; and in an election year like this, it doesn’t include the monies invested in getting rid of a bloke you don’t much care for. Just to get him this far in the Primaries, the oil business has contributed in excess of £2m to the Mitt Romney campaign alone.

But these guys are much smarter than that. They have much more subtle ways to help turf out the Black Dude from the White House: and they can make yet more money while doing it.

Read this startling admission from the California Energy Commission:

‘The Energy Commission cannot estimate profit margins based on average retail prices and observed wholesale market prices. This is because detailed data on refining and distribution costs, costs paid by approximately 10,000 retail locations, hundreds of wholesale marketers, jobbers, and distributors is not available.’

Nice work if you can get it, eh? Basically, the oil barons can hide, fiddle, manipulate and exaggerate the accountancy of all this any which way to suit their needs.

However, the Commission provides handy tables of the bare facts. Drilling down into these, we find out how all that money spent lobbying Congress about tax has kept all taxes on the oil business at 64 cents per retail gallon for some time. Since the end of January, however, the price of crude has risen 25 cents. What the oilcos need to explain to us is why, over the same period, the retail price has increased by 64 cents. What an ironic coincidence that the industry is raking off, in unjustified margin increases, exactly what the IRS takes per gallon….but only 25 cents of that reflect crude increases.

And there’s yet more. A funny little column three in on the best table there shows that, since the start of the year, ‘refining costs and profits’ have leapt from 19 to 54 cents a gallon. Now, fans of GAAP will know that that is just accountancy bollocks: something is either a cost or a contributor…it can’t be both. What we can say is that the oil business has trebled its take on refinery (which it does itself, of course) in 2012 alone…..the re-election year for a man whose fan club they have chosen not to join.

The White House is well aware of what’s going on. Just as Slick Willy once said ‘it’s the economy, stoopid’, it is also a truism that the US doesn’t re-elect Presidents who preside over petrol price hikes.

And this is the real reason why Barry and Dave were so cuddly-snuggly last time they met: because they both have an interest in keeping pump prices down. Cameron has his own additional strike problems, but right now they are friends in need. So too does Sarkozy want to be seen to be tough on petrol prices….he too is in the middle of an election. And with their own special ‘lost decade’ problems, the Japanese need rising oil prices like another Nagasaki.

Angela Merkel has flatly (and smugly) refused to join the Gang of Four. Not only does she have lots of reserves (and some intriguing influence with the Eastern bloc as was) she would also much prefer to deal with Mitt Romney than Barack Obama. Berlin has, as a whole, had more than enough of Obama plots and Geithner demands. She favours a more isolationist America: all the more room for her to be the undisputed Queen of Europe.

Stick and Carrot from Obama

Look at the US/UK MSM spin in recent weeks about unrest, glitches, supply problems and the Iranian threat: then look at the numbers (as I have done in this piece) and you see an immediate mismatch.

Barack Obama and others have hyped a supply disruption in order to be able to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

On Obama’s home patch, that ‘solution’ will involve unleashing massive barrelage into the US domestic refining process, telling the American people that this must inevitably bring down retail petrol prices….and then daring the oil barons not to fall into line. That barrelage should last just beyond November: it which point, the re-elected President Obama won’t give a tinker’s cuss about oilco profiteering.

Do you think Obama has the power to make this stick? If the bankers screw up again – and more banks start falling over – then a lurch to the Left – by damning Big Business generally – would play very well among the American middle and lower class voter. But me – I doubt it: for a calculating man like the President, that’s far too big a risk.

But supposing alongside the Rooseveltian Big Stick, he dangles a 24-carat carrot right in front of the oil industry’s dollar-dazed eyeballs? You may not realise it yet, but we are right back in Iran….and Israel…and Greece.

The win-double of compliant oilcos and good geopolitics

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Washington earlier this month well satisified with Barack Obama’s attitude and assurances. Since that time, several senior members of the US Administration have hinted that an American-led ‘solution’ to the Iranian problem would be vastly preferable to an Israeli one. There has also been much gobblydegook on both sides of the Atlantic about how the Tehran regime “represents a threat to global recovery by restricting oil output”. Again, the recent history and the facts associated with it simply do not bear that assertion out.

But Netanyahu and Israel also discussed the enormous mineral and energy wealth the Israelis have found in their own waters, stretching across to Greece and further still to Cyprus. Greece, Israel and Cyprus have already issued an accord about joint prospecting – albeit it vague and not as yet formally signed. And as we saw with the ‘amputate Greece’ plan, Obama wants friendly folks owning the Med’s undersea oil: folks he can influence by bankrolling the exploration. Further, the Americans have eyed Greece as a perfect military base from which to face off China, Russia and Islamism at the eastern end of southern Europe. Hence the desire to befriend a Greece which finds itself somewhat isolated.

However, the final ace up the White House sleeve is this: ensuring profitable oil concessions for the oilcos in a defeated/neutralised Iran and/or Nigeria – and with new best friends (like a eurozone-ejected Greece) in the Mediterranean.

As so often, it takes a long time to get to what’s really at stake in today’s 24/7 news events mania. But the bottom line on rising petrol prices is, I would suggest, very roughly 50% oilco profiteering from a groundless scare, 20% market speculation, and 30% politics. Plus ca change.

This essay was put together with the help of industry sources, Slog readers, media folk and political insiders in the US, UK, eurozone and Africa. My sincere appreciation of their efforts goes to all those concerned.

HACKGATE DAY 443: Aussie authorities decide to get tough with Murdoch.

G’Day.

Further to yesterday’s Slogpost about Newscorp routinely hacking into the computers and phone networks of competitors, company President Chase Carey said in a statement released yesterday (Wednesday) that the BBC programme nailing the nefarious activities of Newscorp spying subsidiary NDS “manipulated and mischaracterized emails to produce unfair and baseless accusations”. He didn’t comment on the Australian Financial Review piece that unearthed a further 14,000 surveillance-related emails last Tuesday. Well, he wouldn’t really, because it’s hard to deny the obvious in black and white, unedited emails that you never intended the world to see.

Just to recap here, Mr Carey got the job as Newscorp President on account of being pretty much the only staffer left not either about to be charged, or awaiting trial in the UK, for conspiracy to corrupt police officers, conspiracy to hack phones, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and (soon in the US via the FBI) conspiracy to remove competition by illegal means. So you’d have thought that Chase Carey himself might be about to face some cop grief himself.

Ooooooh, no. Australian officials said on Thursday afternoon (earlier this morning GMT) that  they’re not going to investigateFinancial Review’s claim that  News Corp. was involved in a piracy-promoting plot aimed at crippling its competitors. They cited ‘a lack of hard evidence’, so they’d obviously read all 14,000 emails by then. Wow. Those guys move fast.

There will be no action against Merdeschlock in Australia because Uncle Roop pretty much owns the media scene there. Largely thanks to his secret-squirrel, monopolist business model, Australians have the worst internet access at the highest prices compared to any other advanced nation anywhere. This must be true, because the CIA says so. And, as it happens, so does Dame Edna Everage Julie Gillaaaard, the Prime Minister. It’s just that, what with swiping aside leadership opponents and doing grubby deals via Wayne Swann with the mine owners, Julie’s been too busy to do anything about Newscorp’s mafia empire of muscle and illegal privacy invasion.

Come on Aussies, wake up here: why not get one of your MPs to at least ask a PMQ about why the police, faced for the first time with a complex business scandal, took just 36 hours to decide not to even investigate. How about some blogposts about the five other countries where NDS stands accused of the exact same behaviour? Why not a few  headlines in the two newspapers not owned by Murdoch about how first the Guardian (in the UK) and then the New York Times (in the US) had similar investigations denied and dismissed as rubbish by folks who, funnily enough, are now face charges relating to those very allegation? Why not circulate the whole smelly story of Hackgate around the Ozblogosphere?

What we need is more Rooper-Scoopers: don’t let the world’s most mulinational turd undermine the Rule of Law in Australia. He did it here in the UK, and he owns half of the US Congress. He must not succeed.

 

Anecdotage

Dentists and me: A brief history

I’m not fond of dentists. I don’t have any kind of phobia about them, and they’re a long way up the evolutionary tree for me from bankers, lawyers, accountants and politicians. But I have my doubts. The Slog jury is out on the subject.

My first dentist as a kid was Mr Green, who had a surgery in a massive, creepy early Victorian mansion on Cheetham Hill Road in Manchester. I remember Mr Green as a live skull who mooched about around the dentist’s chair and constantly told me that things wouldn’t hurt a bit. But they did.

In the mid 1950s, having any form of pain relief for root canal work was felt to be prima facie evidence of at best homosexuality, and at worst a congenital form of rank cowardice worthy only of the death penalty. Tooth extractions were made bearable by the use of NO2 (‘laughing gas’) a form of anaesthetic about as funny as global famine. A mask was forced onto every unwilling face, and the pulsating headache that accompanied the recovery of consciousness was only exceeded by the odd sound of veeer-veeer-wuuurrggh-boooiawaing in one’s ears.

On Mr Green’s retirement, we went to another dentist, Mr Batten. He promptly asserted that Mr Green had been both visually impaired and suffering from tertiary dementia. I had somewhere in the region of 200 fillings during the ensuing three months. Batten told me they wouldn’t hurt. All of them did.

This sort of mendacity became something I almost autonomically associated with dentists over time. They would tell me that irradiating X-Rays were perfectly safe, and then run to the far end of the street before pressing the button. The fact that, by then, I was covered in a lead jacket did not provide much reassurance.

What made things worse was that I had inherited my Auntie Mollie’s complaint of having been born with an extra row of forty-odd teeth too many. As my pre-pubescent choppers fought for space , it soon became clear that I would either have to have lots of them removed, or face a life shouting through the equivalent of tightly planted bamboo. Part of the indignity associated with this involved being paraded in a students’ lecture theatre as a freak show on the same basis as the Elephant Man. I was supposed to feel privileged, but on the whole I can only remember thinking that never again would I pay to see bearded ladies, or sheep with two heads.

A mouth crammed with far too many teeth is bad enough, but I have never entirely understood the tendency of dentists to fill one’s mouth with liquid extractors, cotton wool, and hygiene sheets before asking questions requiring detailed answers. What are they supposed to make of answers that go “Eyegle glot shrew got goo bean lie gat”? A few of them, in my experience, are control-freaks with strong opinions who discuss the big issues of the day knowing full well that you will have to lie there and listen to the rant without responding. But the vast majority are simply uninterested in your reply. It is a case of The Outer Limits: ‘We are in control. Do not adjust your oral set’.

I was back at the dentists today. I had a wobbly tooth that complained every time I used it for chewing. My current dentist is a very nice lady whose sole concern is not to cause pain. But at the end of the day, she is a dentist and thus can’t help herself. Having injected my gums and caused absolutely excruciating pain before any root canal drilling had even begun, she confidently promised zero trauma, and went to work. After I’d been pulled back down from the roof rafters, the dentist correctly surmised that more aneasthetic was required. She returned armed with a hypodermic syringe possibly designed for use on rhinos, and then terrified me by asking the dental assistant whether the practice had any WD40 in stock.

It turned out that she’d been having difficulty unlocking the medication cupboard. But she did clock the terror in my eyes, and was able to reassure me that the infected root had not rusted into my gums. Soon afterwards, following persistent enamel grinding of the kind I imagine is used to loosen rough diamonds set into igneous rock, there was a strong smell of burning. Ha-ha-ha said the dentist, patients are often confused by that – but it’s quite normal. Confusion wasn’t the emotion I’d experienced. Blind panic was nearer the mark.

So like I say, dentists always worry me. As I went to settle up, the admin lady said, “That’ll be £195 today thank you”, as if next time it might cost twice as much. In Soho, there are dominatrix women who charge similar amounts to lash unfortunate blokes into tumescence. I suspect they might be dental student dropouts.

GREEK EMBEZZLEMENT UPDATE: SLOGPOST VINDICATED BY ATHENS NEWS REPORT

From Athens News:

‘Six of the country’s universities say they face immediate closure after the recent bondswap reduced their assets to zero. An emergency meeting of university rectors on Tuesday heard that only 33m euros remained of 120m euros that 17 Greek universities had deposited with the Bank of Greece for their operating expenses, while six university accounts were now completely empty meaning they would soon be unable to stay open.’

You read it here first.

Stay ahead with The Slog. And while you’re at it, comment-thread at MSM sites asking why they aren’t reporting this utter disgrace. Bombard Brussels with emails asking why they are happy to be complicit in this obscenity. And pester Willy Vague until he accepts the fact that he is in a menage a 27 with anti-democratic and illiberal crooks.

The EU’s answer to a mountain it calls a molehill: pretend the molehill is a mountain.

When my devotions could not pierce thy silent ears,

then was my heart broken, as was my verse.

My breast was full of fears and disorder.        

    My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow,

                               did fly asunder:

Each took his way; some would to pleasures go,

          some to the wars and thunder

                               Of alarms.

From ‘Denial’ by George Herbert

As David Coleman would’ve said, “Thursday is the Big One”. At that eurozone FinMin’s summit, push meets shove in the face of a Germany desperate not to get exposed, an ECB desperate to inflate away debt, a Brussels desperate to make taxpayers the final debt guarantor,  and a US down-and-dirty desperate not to let contagion hit its shores.

The striking thing about all these aims – apart from the obvious conflict of interests – is that they are all ultimately unachievable. But from Day One, the EU’s approach to life has been to make a molehill out of a mountain.

Germany is about to get very exposed to a Spain becoming increasingly truculent and rapidly insolvent. (You read it here first). Indeed, Merkel’s rationale for bending a little on the ESM booster is that she is worried about Iberia in general: but being a scientist, one assumes her maths are good enough to know that she’d be peeing at a Tsunami by setting 700 billion euros aside to bail out Spain.

This leads us to the ECB where, whatever his public pronouncements might be, Mario the Bondholder Impaler has an excellent head for figures, and knows that only currency-printing on a massive scale will bail Spain out. It would also rapidly cheapen eurozone goods, and help in the process of stimulation desired by the man in the Italian mess, Mario Monti. Very quickly, however, it would mean exploding raw material costs – and simply deepen the slump. And of course, with every time that Signor Draghi’s finger hovers over the printing button, the Bundesbank, Berlin (and most of Bankfurt these days with the exception of Josef Ackermann) get an attack of the vapours.

Over in Brussels, the Mad Folks like Regler and Rehn have privately sussed that there is little appetite for ESM risk in the markets, and thus stealth taxes of one form or another are the only way. The fact that these taxes would be required to help countries who couldn’t pay the taxes because they need help wouldn’t occur to Klaus and Olli, because both men lost their enfeebled grip on financial reality a long time ago. Nor would they worry too much about the obviously depressive effect of those taxes on demand throughout the EU as a whole. Nor, ultimately, that most Europeans would rather hang these two useless incompetents upside down within easy reach of a pride of lions than pay any more to preserve The Great Dream.

Finally, we look west towards a Washington where euro-pooping is now widespread, indeed almost the anxiety of choice in the Obama White House. For some reason, the markets over there have reacted not to Ben Bernanke’s heavy hints of headwinds to come, but instead to his vague yes/no/reservations mini-hint about further QE. I say “for some reason” but I really mean one reason: here comes one last chance to pump up those share prices and fatten up those cash cows before we all accelerate away towards the hills yelling “F**k the women and children, run for yer friggin’ life”.

But the cool black Dude himself remains paranoid about debt contagion ruining his undeserved chance of a Second Term, and in this matter he is being regularly (and rightly) wound up by his main Fed advisor, Club Treasurer Tim Geithner. Both men wanted Greece amputated, and both men would still like to find a way of doing that. But realism is interposing its rude assertions into their thinking processes. The decision was taken by State and the Fed to ‘bet the farm’ on Germany early last year, and as both France and Sarkozy began to  unravel, this looked increasingly like a safe bet.

Now they think Merkel may well be just another dumb eurocrat who misunderstands the markets and does too little too late. The media-leak intelligence at the minute is very much that what Germany will do is agree to the most minimal option available for Firewall construction. The Obama Administration knows that won’t be enough, and its big hitters will become yet more pissed off. So too will Mario Draghi (who does understand markets) and Mario Monti (who knows that his much-hyped Italy will be a basket case alone requiring far more than 700 billion euros). So too will the Bundesbank and Frankfurt Germans, who will see German catastrophe just around the corner from this increased placing of the Hun neck on the block.

So everybody will leave the session pissed off, but the main players will come out to the press corps afterwards and change strategic tack 100%: this time, they will make a mould-breaking mountain out of a their miserably insufficient molehill.

That’s the thing with the molehill/mountain model: you can reverse it depending on the circumstances. It works for annual quoted company results one way, and bank liabilities in the other. It works in politics and banking pretty much all the time. But in terms of real economics and real insolvency, it doesn’t work at all. The markets will be completely unconvinced, and within 48 hours at the most, bond yields will be rising again in Spain.

And that’s it really. “Nothing to see here, move along please. Er…excuse me sir, would you mind kicking that can a little further down the road?”

 

HACKGATE DAY 442: NEWSCORP, A COMPANY BUILT ON ILLEGAL PRIVACY INVASION

For Rupert was an humble man

That Newscorp has been using various hacking and blagging methods globally to do far more than create celeb stories seems finally to have been nailed this week. Monday night’s revelations about activities with NDS in the UK were followed last night by a similar expose in Australia.

Significantly, the Aussie story starts in 1999 – surely further evidence that Newscorp embraced the technology the second it became aware of it….and has used it ruthlessly ever since. Australian newspaper the Australian Financial Review released 14,000 emails concerning one of the group’s security subsidiaries. Emanating from the hard drive of a former head of security at Murdoch sibsidiary NDS, they  show that the company paid computer hackers to work with its “operational security” unit….aka covert black ops…..to size up competitor weaknesses among pay-TV rivals across Australasia, Europe, and the US. The uncovering of activities in the US are a particular blow to Murdoch, as the laws against this there are especially unforgiving…..and the FBI is very happy to have such gifts fall into its lap.

And it’s not good news for the Met either: the emails come from the computer of Ray Adams, a former commander in the Metropolitan Police in London, who served as head of operational security for NDS in Europe from 1996 to 2002. Oops.

Here we go again….illegal activity to gain advantage, hiring and corrupting senior Met officials, undue political influence. The Murdoch Times attack on Cameron’s cash for access is an obvious piece of Murdochiavellian revenge, as his buttering up Alex Salmond is an attempt to escape English Justice.

The man and his empire of criminality are cultural anti-matter. He and they are not fit to own a broadcasting licence in Britain. We should be winding down the public enquiries, and winding up the police and broadcasting authorities to put the worst offenders behind bars, and clear out Newscorp’s British presence entirely.

Related: As Murdoch destroys our ethics, will Ackermann destroy our economies?