Don't be a contrarian unless your facts stack up

In the long history of some news outlets, there are bound to be some slip-ups from time to time.  It is human nature to err.  And in trying to find a new angle that will garner an audience away from the usual guff being produced is attractive, especially if you rely for an income upon it.  But if you want to produce a contrary opinion, you'd better make sure that you can back up what you say.  I'm not in the habit on picking up on news stories because their sins are legion but I have been infuriated by one on the killing of Cecil the Lion, not because I have anthropomorphised the late big cat but because of its shocking, slack-jawed content.  Yesterday, Reuters entered the annals of shame with this article by Macdonald Dzirutwe.  I will reprint it in full in bold below and then give my response.

'What lion?' Zimbabweans ask, amid global Cecil circus

As social media exploded with outrage this week at the killing of Cecil the lion, the untimely passing of the celebrated predator at the hands of an American dentist went largely unnoticed in the animal's native Zimbabwe.

"What lion?" acting information minister Prisca Mupfumira asked in response to a request for comment about Cecil, who was at that moment topping global news bulletins and generating reams of abuse for his killer on websites in the United States and Europe.

The government has still given no formal response, and on Thursday the papers that chose to run the latest twist in the Cecil saga tucked it away on inside pages.

One title had to rely on foreign news agency copy because it failed to send a reporter to the court appearance of two locals involved.

In contrast, the previous evening 200 people stood in protest outside the suburban Minneapolis dental practice of 55-year-old Walter Palmer, calling for him to be extradited to Zimbabwe to face charges of taking part in an illegal hunt.

Local police are also investigating death threats against Palmer, whose location is not known. Because many of the threats were online, police are having difficulty determining their origins and credibility.

Palmer, a lifelong big game hunter, has admitted killing Cecil with a bow and arrow on July 1 near Zimbabwe's Hwange national park, but said he had hired professional local guides with the required hunting permits and believed the hunt was legal.

For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'.

"Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country," said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes hawker on the streets of Harare. "What is so special about this one?"

As with many countries in Africa, in Zimbabwe big wild animals such as lions, elephants or hippos are seen either as a potential meal, or a threat to people and property that needs to be controlled or killed.

The world of Palmer, who paid $50,000 to kill 13-year-old Cecil, is a very different one from that inhabited by millions of rural Africans who are more than occasionally victims of wild animal attacks.

According to CrocBITE, a database, from January 2008 to October 2013, there were more than 460 recorded attacks by Nile crocodiles, most of them fatal. That tally is almost certainly a massive underrepresentation.

"Why are the Americans more concerned than us?" said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. "We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange."

(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg; Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)

Is this article for real? It wasn't Zimbabweans saying 'what lion' - it was a member of the cosseted elite. The acting information minister who said 'what lion' is part of the same incompetent, ignorant governmental clique that caused the billion per cent hyperinflation and reduced Zimbabwe from a prosperous state to penury. And the government has acted, requesting the extradition of the slayer of Cecil, the American dentist, Walter Palmer.

Cecil the Lion was worth millions of (US) dollars and vital employment to its tourist industry, he was the safari's star attraction - vital foreign currency now denied to Zimbabwe's people; first world problems, huh? Even the term 'first world' is out-of-date - the terms 'developing' and 'developed' countries are less smug and prejudicial.

Why did Reuters interview people whose livelihood does not depend on safari income - because of the laziness of it's reporter(s) on the ground; couldn't be bothered to leave the capital Harare or Jo'burg. As for newspapers in developing countries, sometimes it cheaper to purloin foreign copy (indeed, nab it as free) rather than pay someone to go to court or wherever.

Cecil was also being monitored for scientific research and is a countless loss to such studies. Palmer was part of a hunt that knowingly lured Cecil off the national park (where lions do not form a meal to people) - even if he was ignorant then, he was part of the (failed) attempt to destroy Cecil's tracking collar, another crime under Zimbabwean law. 

Moreover, what do crocodiles have to do with this? Why mention their statistics?  It is a complete irrelevance to lions living in national parks, not to mention the broader story.  There has been only one reported lion attack inside Hwange national park, against a hunter (who escaped unscathed) searching for lions to kill in revenge for the death of livestock, who disturbed a lioness guarding her cubs.  A schoolboy was killed by a lion but that was outside the enclosed perimeter of Hwange and the rogue lion was despatched legally by park rangers (as would one a dog with a taste for human blood).  Cecil was reportedly docile around humans.  The point is not about the death of a lion; it is about what Cecil represented - his worth financially, scientifically and to biodiversity (his progeny will also probably now be killed by a rival), his friendliness and the barbaric and criminal way his life was ended by people who get their kicks out of killing animals.  In trying to go against the flow, Reuters ends up looking a complete arse by publishing this tripe!

One release deserves another

In 1987, Jonathan Pollard gave a guilty plea of passing classified American secrets to Israel that included details about US estimates of the Soviet military machine but also those of Israel's regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia.  US intelligence officials contend that some of the information Pollard sold to Tel-Aviv ended up in the Soviet Union.  Pollard was an out and out traitor who sold these secrets recklessly to a foreign government, which could have done incalculable damage to his own country had the Cold War not been winding down.  It was revealed today that he would be paroled in November.  Israel, which gave Pollard citizenship during his imprisonment, is eager to take him 'home', but the White House shot this down, saying Pollard had committed serious crimes and that when he is paroled, he must still serve out his sentence in the USA.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician whose abhorrence grew to the point he became a conscientious objector, told the British press of Israel's nuclear programme, contradicting long-standing (and still present) Israeli dogma that they would not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East (or 'the region' as they call it).  Vanunu was lured to Italy by a Mossad agent where he was drugged and abducted back to Israel and convicted in a trial behind closed doors.  18 years of imprisonment followed, including 11 in solitary confinement.  Even after his release in 2004, like a dodgy post-colonial state, Israel cooked up excuses to jail him again in 2007 and 2010, in sentences even the prosecution said were unusual (having asked for suspended sentences).  He has been repeatedly harassed in the interim.  On 7th May of this year, Vanunu reported that the restrictions against him leaving Israel (and becoming a citizen of a different country) were renewed for a 12th year after his 2004 release.  Israel considers him a traitor, the rest of the world, a heroic whistleblower, Amnesty International, a prisoner of conscience.
Pollard sold, Vanunu told.  If Israel wants clemency for Pollard to come to its land, they should set an example by allowing Vanunu to leave.  But that won't happen as successive Israeli governments, especially this current one, believe that the only examples that should be set are ones of force, not diplomacy.  But it would be an immense boost to Israeli soft power - and to Pollard - if it changed its mind on Vanunu.

Not an extinct franchise by a long chalk

When Jurassic Park came out in 1993, my mum was proud to boast that I was into dinosaurs well before it became fashionable.  And, contrary to what the hubristic characters say in Jurassic World, dinosaurs still are fashionable.  Why else would Hollywood return to the well when a serviceable trilogy already exists, given the safety-first nature of studio execs that stymies many an original idea (had Star Wars Episode IV been pitched today, it may never have got made).  Jurassic World has fulfilled all of the execs' expectations becoming the third most successful film at the box office of all time or somesuch (in the future) surpassable figure.  Towards the end of the picture, the ground is laid for another installment to take off like a pterodactyl.
As Alexander Walker used to do in his Evening Standard column in the interests of entertaining those who will not go to the cinema, I will dissect the film from start to end.  Jurassic World (even though most of the creatures habituate from the Cretaceous period) is standard Towering Inferno-style, man in trouble through man over-reaching and this particular Tower of Babel is a fully functional park attracting tens of thousands of visitors.  The trouble is that its operating costs continue to exceed its revenue and so the geneticist boffins must go for bigger, better. 'cooler' dinosaurs which never existed in the first place to attract the corporate sponsorship, hence the Indomnis Rex, a hybrid between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Velociraptor and some other animals that allow it to mask its heat and camouflage itself.  This time, unlike in the first film where the park was undone by human venality, here the park's steady collapse comes from the Indomnis tricking its human captors into entering the cage after they think it has escaped and then some slob of a guard opening the main gate to escape (his life expectancy is only enhanced by a couple of minutes) allowing the Indomnis to break free.  Thereafter it goes on the rampage, repelling all humans efforts to subdue it (this leads to a moment of great pathos when slain diplodoci litter the verdant landscape).
There are some awesome action scenes in Jurassic World, one of my favourite being a battle between the Indomnis and an ankylosaurus.  The attack by the pteranodons and other flying lizards on the tourists has a brilliant touch of air raid sirens whirring up.  Another delicious touch, given Steven Spielberg's helming of Jurassic Park and Jaws, is the great white shark, the ultimate predator in the latter flick, being fed to a mesosaur here.  The dinosaur's claws which subsequently turn out to be the talons of a bird is a nice nod to the prevailing theory of surviving dinosaurs becoming our current avian friends.
Chris Pratt is a likeable hero, continuing his turn from Guardians of the Galaxy (naturally he should be at home here after his TV role in Parks and Recreation).  Bryce Dallas Howard is a tolerable heroine, even if she does wear heels in all situations, including being chased by a tyrannosaurus rex (Pratt's character openly mocks this).  Apart from a few douchebag moments from the teenager, the two kids are far better than the scweaming pair from Jurassic Park.  There is a harassed British nanny (posh totty rather than Mary Poppins) here who may or may not have been eaten (it's not entirely clear).  Plus there is a role for the pimply, high-pitched dogsbody from The Simpsons, in human form, as the bubble car attendant - "I just work here."
The bad guys in Jurassic Park, the raptors, here are the good guys, have a change of heart to become bad, before re-evaluating their life choices and going good again.  It's very clever on a meta-level.  The real villains, Indomnis and some humans, get richly deserved evisceration.  The playboy owner, building on the legacy of Richard Attenborough's Hammond from Jurassic Park, isn't a bad person as such, but from the moment he gets into the helicopter to hunt the Indomnis, you know he's a goner and in some ways that brings it closer to the book Jurassic Park, rather than the film that was named after it.  The original park is explored and the banner that fell at the conclusion of the first movie "When dinosaurs ruled the world" is here wrapped up and burnt as a lamp round a raptor wishbone.
There are flaws. The sound quality isn't tip-top throughout and given the din multiplexes can cook up that isn't good enough, trying to glean from subsequent sentences or actions what was said.  At one point Pratt quips, "I was in the Navy, not the Nhuhuhuh."  It took me about 30 seconds to what out he meant Navajo which is smart but undermined through having to decipher it.  Some people laughed and even they have pitch-perfect hearing or are canned laughter audience regulars, guffawing at cues rather than jokes.  The Indomnis, like many a bad dinosaur B-movie, seems impervious to high-calibre bullets and a bazooka only slows it down - that's just silly.  The pteranodon attack doesn't have the courage of its convictions as only adults are attacked when surely the flying monsters would have gone after the bitesize children for snacks.  The conclusion is exceptionally lame as well, the tyrannosaurus and the raptor eyeing each other and, unlike in Jurassic Park where they savaged each other, here going their separate ways after fighting as allies.  Then we get the final cookie-cutter insult - dozens of people must die, as in Jurassic Park III (and billions in 2012), to facilitate the reunion of a divorcing (or divorced) couple and make the kids happy.  Very dubious morality.
So leave the moment the Indomnis gets its just desserts.  It's a blast for the rest of the time. 3.5 out of 5.

Defeat comes before another defeat

In the 2004 movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Bill Murray played the Jacques Cousteau-figure (right down to the red seadog's hat) of which the film, as tribute, was a brave but generally unsuccessful effort at esoteric comedy.  As is my policy, I will not publish a picture of Steve Zissou's appearance here (I expect you to look it up), but it seems that he has given up the life of oceanography for a tilt at the vacant Labour leadership role, swapping his red beanie for a black flat cap.  He has also changed his name to Jeremy Corbyn.
Bearded, white-haired and qualifying for an OAP bus pass, Corbyn has made the Labour battle for top spot come alive.  It has prompted interventions from Tony Blair and special advisor cronies of Blair's, while today John Prescott has rowed back on such pronouncements against Corbyn.  And all the while, the other three challengers seep further into the background.
Corbyn has some eccentric values, let's be clear.  He divorced his wife because she sent their children to a grammar school (a foolish Old Labour obsession that has made the country more elitist as the closing of grammar schools made private schools even more of a must for the middle-class).  He has some Galloway-esque links to Palestinian groups like Hamas.  He believes in a united Ireland (classic case for civil war if ever there was one).  Yet he also has some common-sense ideas like the scrapping of Trident and refusing to let the Tories set the economic narrative as austerity and more austerity (Obama refloated the US economy rather then cutting back and it's doing rather fine, thank you very much).  Renationalising the railways isn't a panacea but the current farrago of franchises must be sorted out.  If Corbyn wears a donkey jacket to the Cenotaph, we'll know his leadership qualities...
Interestingly, Blair attacks those who back Corbyn, saying they prefer the purity of opposition and then goes onto say he would not adopt a left-wing platform, even if it was a guarantee of victory - talk about mixed messages!  John McTernan calls Labour MPs who backed Corbyn 'morons' for wanting a 'diversity of debate'.  If anyone is a moron and an undemocratic one at that, it's McTernan.  Corbyn should not have been allowed into the debate for 'diversity' and for 'the whole Labour party to be represented' - his presence was needed for his philosophy and ideas to be demolished so Labour could appeal to the centre ground as more or less unified.  It's not the fault of those who nominated Corbyn that his opponents are such milquetoasts and can't hold a candle of charisma between them.
Liz Kendall is the best of a bad bunch but she's lagging badly in fourth and we barely hear anything out of her to make her stand out and 'define' herself.  Yvette Cooper is an identikit politician who does not inspire any warmth (is she being badly advised by her husband so he can make a push for leader when he returns to parliament).  And as for Andy Burnham.  The man would lose a charm contest with a mannequin (by the simple expedient of the latter saying nothing) and makes Mitt Romney look like JFK.  He is very much the man who finished fourth out of five in the last Labour leadership campaign in 2010.  Forget Corbyn; with Burnham in charge, Labour are definitely going down to defeat in 2020.  If Corbyn is Michael Foot, then Burnham is (1987) Neil Kinnock.

"Excellent"

It's been some break on the blogging but when you get off it, it can be hard to get back in the habit again.  One of the most striking pieces in my absence was Harry Shearer - voice of Montgomery Burns, Smithers and Principal Skinner -  leaving The Simpsons and then some days making an abrupt u-turn.  Some unkindly suggested that his pay cheque has been resolved, but I think his reason may have been more romantic.
Some years back, he was interviewed by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight on his long career.  She posed the question of whether he would ever leave The Simpsons.  His response was telling: "This is showbusiness.  If you tire of this, you tire of showbusiness."  After considering it a few days, it was the bright lights of showbusiness that lured him back to the record-breaking animated comedy show.  The Simpsons definitely seen better days (and better episodes) but it still gamely soldiers on and Harry knew it was as much as part of him as he was of it.

Greece's enduring protests

The European single currency project was never about economics and only gently touched on it. It was the price France demanded of Germany in exchange to let German reunification to take place. Europe in 1914 had been very well integrated but still war occurred. Rather than focus on what was present (i.e. a German culture of authoritarian militarism), the mainland statesmen of 1989 focused on what was missing – a Europe wide currency. Tying Germany into that would, they thought, ensure Germany never threatened her neighbours again.
The irony today is that Germany dominates the European Union far more comprehensively than had it retained the Deutschmark (and of course the European Central Bank headquarters are in Frankfurt). The law of unintended consequences is why it has become the bogeyman for many in Greece. Athens was allowed into the Euro club when it was patently unready and even that after the politicians of the day ‘cooked the books’ presented to the EU. Combine that with a mania for austerity throughout Europe in the wake of the 2008-9 financial crash and those on the Euro periphery were always going to suffer.
Before the referendum vote – first proposed back in 2011 by former Greek prime minister George Papandreou but subsequently cancelled under immense pressure – on Sunday 5th July, crowds came out enjoined by fear. Some protested that Greece should accept the conditions set by the troika (EU, ECB and International Monetary Fund) scared of being ejected from the Euro and the instability that would bring. Far more demonstrated against accepting the bailout terms for fear of having to endure (by the EU’s own reckoning) twenty more years of hardship. As Joseph Stiglitz in The Guardian stated, most of the ‘bailout money’ was going straight back into French and German banks, the Greeks getting a pittance and paying a high price for the stability of the northern European banking system. In the wake of the overwhelming ‘no’ vote and rejection of the troika’s terms, Greeks continue to protest so as to continue to add the legitimacy of people power to Syriza’s re-negotiations.
The referendum was not a choice to leave the Euro. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph claims that Alexis Tsipras and the higher echelons of Syriza did not think their arguments would win the referendum. Whatever the truth of that claim, Syriza now have a firewall should their country be ejected from monetary union and they should survive politically, depriving the troika of its alleged (by Stiglitz) wish to see a hard-left government (in coalition with unsavoury right-wing elements) fail. Had the Syriza administration fallen in the wake of a ‘Yes’ vote, Greece’s creditors may have been more accommodating – an untestable hypothesis.
With unemployment running at 25%, youth unemployment more than double that and those in work having their wages squeezed, it is the biggest peacetime economic collapse since Russia in 1991-93 and it is entirely planned that way. Just as ‘shock therapy’ (alluding to a discredited psychological practice) was prescribed by neoliberal for Russia in the 1990s so Greece is suffering for an ideology – Syriza has said the country is treated as a laboratory.
With so many people without a job, the protests may be said to be disproportionately swollen by those who have lost most in the current settlement to date. But the referendum result – to which Papandreou voted ‘yes’ – confirms an overwhelming silent majority are also fed up of the unrelenting despair that pervades their society now. There are still options available that is at odds with the orthodoxy proposed by the troika – an Argentina-style default (though this is unlikely to be successful given the big differences between Argentina in 2001 and Greece now) or a partial default of debt while remaining in the Euro as Greece’s kin in Cyprus did (though smaller countries are always granted more leeway). Russia, despite its own problems, would be delighted to stump up the cash to disrupt European unity and gain a pawn in the European halls of power and maybe that is the way Tsipras is inclined to go to frighten the dogmatic horses. Whatever the outcome, there will no winners but, depending on debt relief and flexibility, the losers could claim relative progress.

Last Post

Yesterday there was the respectful pause remembering the 38 victims of the Tunisian beach attack, 30 of whom were British.  On my work break, I observed it on television.  At the end came the trumpet tune that mixes mournfulness and melancholy defiance that accompanies times of remembrance for those fallen.  The BBC television presenter called it the Last Post.
Working for The Telegraph, I was issued with a style guide as to correct house style.  Though most defenders of the house style have left the newspaper and extremely gauche reports are frequent now I notice, I did nevertheless learn a good deal from it, such as the Last Post (or The Last Post) isn't the Last Post at all, simply Last Post.  I'm sure those who earn a living from the military do not make such errors.  So it speaks to a fundamental ignorance by those who use the erroneous definite article as to what they say.  And even if unconscious, it still is disrespectful to those being commemorated.  It is in the same vein as those who insert 'Lake Windermere' into their speech.  If one is determined to use a term, use it correctly.

Women's World Cup and same old story for England

Just typical that the first match I watch of England Women at the football World Cup in Canada is the match they lose that doesn't eliminate them (as many commentators immediately after the result claimed) but stalls the hope of true glory and of 32-year old coach Mark Sampson becoming Sir Mark.  Still, the Welshman will still only be 36 at the next finals if he stays in post.  At least the semi-finals is more than the men have achieved since 1990 and they might even go one better than Bobby Robson's charges and finish third, if they beat Germany.  Yet it was the same old story for England that just as the possibility that they might win the World Cup or at least reach the final, that cautious optimism is brutally snuffed out.
Many people are saying that England Women were unlucky.  This is really something I take issue with in this respect.  It was unfortunate that Lucy Bronze was forced off before the completion of the match with an unspecified injury and there were questions over the legitimacy of the Japanese penalty (the foul beginning outside the penalty box but doubts as whether it continued into it).  No blame attaches itself to Laura Bassett either, she the scorer of the freak own goal in injury time that won the match for the Japanese - had she not touched the ball it would have been a tap-in for the onrushing Japanese opponent.  Either way, a goal would have resulted.  The real blame lies with Barnett's colleagues, particularly those nominally up front.  Had England been more clinical, the own goal at the end would have been at worst an equaliser for the Japanese.  There were three glorious chances midway through the second half, a half England thoroughly dominated.  Profligacy tends to get punished and it was no different here.  England failed to ram home their advantage when on top (in counterpoint to the German men against Brazil at the World Cup last year) and paid the price.  So we must not rely on hard-luck stories - that is the language of complacency and regression, something on which England's men have fallen back far too often.  It is constructive criticism that will drive England Women forward to greater heights and their chances are far greater than that of their male counterparts.

Harm to Heathrow or Harmondsworth

During the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull during 2010, throughout all the disruption to air traffic, the residents of Kew and visitors to the Gardens could briefly enjoy a return to pre-World War Two Arcadia, with most flights in and out of Heathrow grounded.  On a visit of my own to Kew Gardens (in the winter), I noted how I could see the undercarriage of aircraft unfurling and the noise would have been unbearable had I lived in the environs - triple glazing but where's the fun being cooped inside the house all day, unable to enjoy the garden?
Such impressions coloured my view of any expansion to Heathrow.  Of course, it also meant I would not be hypocritical in opposing a Thames Estuary airport (Boris 'The Animal' Johnson chuntering on the radio today that it "will be built" - fear a prime minister Bojo).  Environmental groups also opposed it and bought up a plot of land and parcelled it out among paying supporters, forcing Heathrow to take every single litigant to court for compulsory purchase, time-consuming and expensive procedures.  Further, there was apparent room for expansion at Birmingham airport and with HS2 being built would make central London less than an hour away (faster than the Piccadilly Line on the London 'Underground' from Heathrow) - airports are just transit areas, not needing glamour, so does it really matter at what one you land?  Gatwick could also be expanded to two runways though there are attendant well-heeled protesters there as well.
Today though, the Airport Commission, chaired by Sir Howard Davies, ruled that a third runway at Heathrow (with attendant £17bn expansion) was its 'clear and unanimous choice'.  Gatwick expansion would be significantly less viable, dealing as it does with intra-European flights rather than those to 'emerging markets' destinations.  Increasing the size of Heathrow wouldn't be a free-for-all, with bans on night flights on the new runway, a legally binding 'noise envelope' plus stringent limits on air pollution and airport users paying a levy to help the surrounding community adapt (plus a community board so locals can voice their concern, though this sounds like a powerless talking shop) and, importantly, parliament should create a Bill explicitly ruling out any fourth runway at Heathrow.  All these conditions, the Commission says, should make Heathrow 'a better neighbour' than it is currently.
This will be of little comfort to those directly under the flightpath and even less to the villagers of Harmondsworth, which will largely be destroyed to make room.  The boundaries of an enlarged Heathrow would come up right to lych gate of the Norman Anglican church and the Five Bells pub and the Baptist Church should also survive but who would they serve?  Harmondsworth has a history going back to Offa the Great of Mercia in the eighth century and is mentioned in the Domesday Book.  The ecclesiastical parish used to encompass the hamlets of Sipson and tellingly Heathrow, yet will now be all but gobbled up by the new inhabitants of the latter.  The Grade I-listed Harmondsworth Great Barn, the property of English Heritage is north of the well maintained Anglican church, so it seems the planners of expansion were careful to minimise costs that would involve relocating esteemed buildings.
It gives me no pleasure to say it but a third runway at Heathrow probably has to be built, with the ensuing destruction of much of Harmondsworth.  But we are not Dubai, able to build in the middle of the desert.  Despite 'The Animal's proclivities and other Tory MPs whose constituencies lie under a Heathrow low flight paths, estuary airports either as a 'Boris Island' (Fantasy Island is more apt) or a Norman Foster-conceived Isle of Grain airport have been ruled out as non-starters both on grounds of cost and airline opposition (BA have publicly stated that they would only move to an estuary airport if Heathrow was closed and they would be expected to be compensated for the disruption).  'The Animal' treated the Commissions demands as the requirements for a new runway as a pack of lies and seemed to believe that that primacy of parliament when ruling out a fourth runway is not worth a fig - he has invested so much personal and political capital in opposing Heathrow expansion that he can't back down now.  It raises the interesting question of whether he would have to resign from the cabinet (no great loss, he doesn't have a post until he ceases to be mayor) if David Cameron pushed ahead on the third runway.  The proponents of Heathrow within government would avoid a defeat if the Labour Party was mature and voted for what they would have done had they won the 2010 election.  For some reason, no decision will be taken until the autumn and don't hold your breath that the whole issue won't be kicked into the long grass further then.

Sacré Bleu! Wikileaks shows US fingers around French purse-strings - US spooks French industry

“Like a mammoth vacuum cleaner in the sky, the National Security Agency (NSA) sucks it all up: fax, home phone, cellular phone, email, telex… No-one escapes. Not presidents, prime ministers, the UN Secretary General, the pope…” – Rogue State (William Blum, 2001), p. 200.

When it comes to economic espionage, it is usually the People’s Republic of China that is frequently accused, with Russia a distant second (the latter’s alleged cyber activities more disruptive than acquisitive). But on 29th June, Wikileaks, in their ongoing ‘Espionnage Élysée’ campaign publishing top secret documents regarding American surveillance operations against France, confirmed what had long been suspected – that Washington is far from averse from state-driven industrial espionage of its own against its allies.  

On 23rd June, Wikileaks exposed that three consecutive French presidents, as well as several cabinet ministers and the French ambassador to the USA, had had their phone conversations listened to by American operatives. That was embarrassing to the White House. Yet the revelation of a more than decade-long campaign tasked at surveillance of the French economy could have far more serious repercussions. 

There is the interception of all French corporate contracts and negotiations valued at $200m or more. There is also the key exposé that it was not rogue elements within the NSA ‘going off the reservation’ but a predetermined economic espionage policy created by the US Director of National Intelligence. Within the cache of documents, are two long-term spying orders (‘collection requirements’) where it is “clear that the NSA has been tasked with obtaining intelligence on all aspects of the French economy, from government policy, diplomacy, banking and participation in international bodies to infrastructural development, business practices and trade activities.”

Wikileaks also show that a wider spectrum of officials than previously revealed had their communications intercepted, including the French Finance Minister, a French Senator, officials within the Treasury and Economic Policy Directorate, the French ambassador to the United States, and officials with direct responsibility for EU trade policy. Though there is no evidence of sabotage, to have knowledge on French deliberations such as on their national budgets and especially at the World Trade Organisation is beyond sensitive and would have given any American official briefing an advantage over their French counterpart.

In a way, France is paying the price for not being part of the Anglophone world. The USA, in conjunction with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, operates the ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY) system of intelligence sharing. Other organisations to fall under the aegis of FVEY include Brazil’s Petrobras, Al Jazeera and Aeroflot, but the covert activities against French industry and its captains tops all that. As FVEY is such a multilateral partnership, all members were privy to the findings of the NSA. It suggests that Canada, Australia, New Zealand and especially the UK, a fellow European Union state, have all benefitted in their dealings with the French government.

The maverick head of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, still holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy under de facto house arrest, issue a statement on the nature of these top secret documents: “That covers not only all of France's major companies, from BNP Paribas, AXA and Credit Agricole to Peugeot and Renault, Total and Orange, but it also affects the major French farming associations. $200 million is roughly 3,000 French jobs. Hundreds of such contracts are signed every year.” He signalled his contempt for the UK connivance in being privy to these documents and added, “Do French citizens deserve to know that their country is being taken to the cleaners by the spies of supposedly allied countries? Mais oui!”

After the last batch of documents came out, Barack Obama had to apologise and the US ambassador was summoned by the French Foreign Minister for a severe dressing down. That operation had only taken place midway through George W Bush’s term and ended in 2012. The 29th June documentation that the economic spying had started in 2002 and was still in operation will significantly hurt Franco-American relations long into the future – Washington’s only hope is that the French are so distracted by the Greek currency crisis that large-scale public outrage will be muted, but it remains to be seen what kind of protest emerges. The USA and France need each other in so many ways that eventually a way will be found to patch things up, even if the French maintain a certain wariness. That said, the US ambassador had better build up some command badges as more than one strip will be torn off this time around.