Middle East Peace Talks

While the American media and the entire Internet has been ablaze with discussion over US President Obama's comments on the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates another friend of Obama's named Gates has been quite busy. Robert Gates, Defense Secretary has been in Israel discussing the best way to restart peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The exact details of what was discussed has not been made clear but it is believed that they did not go well because Israel once again flatly refused to halt the building of settlements on the West Bank.

Aside from the obvious wars settlement building is the most controversial aspect of Israel's relationship with its neighbours. The practice began after the six day war in 1967 when Jewish extremists who think it is their mission from God to clear all non-Jews from the land between the River Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea began setting up home in small settlements on the land that had been seized by the Israeli army. Although the Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit the settling of civilians on land seized by an invading army the Israeli government has fully supported the practice. Over the years they have given money to help the settlers, use the army to forcibly clear areas for settlement, issued permits for illegal construction projects and connected the settlements to Israel's power and sanitation infrastructure alongside sending the police and the army to provide security on special "Jews only" roads that like the settlements to Israel. The Netanyahu government have also taken the irrational step of trying to differentiate between legal and illegal settlements which is impossible because any settlement on land seized in 1967 is indisputably illegal.

Israel's renewed refusal to adhere to international law threatens to undermine any hope of any future peace talks with the Palestinians. Both Hamas, the Palestinian's elected representatives and Fatah, the only Palestinian representatives that Israel will allow America to talk to have indicated that they will be unable to engage in peace talks with Israel until it halts settlements because otherwise it would mean that they are trying to talk peace with a neighbour who is actively involved in an ideologically committed to expanding into and settling in their rapidly shrinking territory.

The Ministry of Defence Shows its True Colours..

Since Tony Blair's election in 1997 it has been clear that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has not got on well with the Labour government. It would appear that the government's commitment to diplomatic solutions was at odds with the military's necessity to find violent ones. The relationship deteriorated dramatically in 2004 when Britain's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan started going wrong and British soldiers started being killed and injured. This led to three years of accusations that the MOD was not receiving the funding it felt it deserved, calls for special treatment for members of the armed forces and ultimately the ousting of the Prime Minister. After Gordon Brown became Prime Minister the animosity continued and will no doubt be a major contributing factor in the Labour parties upcoming election defeat.

Now with Britain's elected government deposed in all but name it is the MOD's time to shine finally giving Britain's troops the high quality treatment that they claim the Labour government had been denying them for all these years. It is telling then that it was the MOD who yesterday took two British servicemen to court in an attempt to claw back compensation they had received for injuries sustained in the course of their service. The first serviceman, a solider, was shot in the thigh in Iraq. During treatment for the injury complications arose leaving the solider with one leg short then the other. The MOD's argument is that they should only have to compensate the solider for the gunshot would not the other injuries he sustained as a consequence of the gunshot wound. The second serviceman, a marine, sustained a similar injury while on a training exercise. Although the judges in a test case that could potentially affect thousands of British servicemen and women is not expected to return a verdict until the autumn the MOD have already made it clear that if the judges do not find in their favour they will simply appeal to a higher court. Today the Defence Minister, Bob Ainsworth, intervened and announced that he would force the MOD to review their compensation structure although it is unclear if the MOD will now drop the case.

Britain's courts were a busy place yesterday because they also saw the conviction of Ricardo Morrison for the murder of his girlfriend, Amy Leigh Barnes. During the trial and it coverage in the media a great effort was made the emphasise that Morrison was a dangerous, violent and psychologically controlling man who killed his girlfriend out of the selfish motivation that if he couldn't have then no-one else could. The agenda for this story is quite clear, Amy is Amy and I'm the dangerous killer. Aside from the obvious slander I suppose I should be quite pleased at the story because at least the Brits are now accepting that as long as Amy is on the path they laid out for her she's as good as dead. That's a sort of progress.

On a complete tangent today I saw a televised fundraising appeal for a British charity called Merlin. Merlin is an international development charity that operates rather suspiciously in countries such as Zimbabwe, Iran and Burma. One of the things that makes them so suspicious was that they were able to spend millions of pounds a year with no visible fundraising apparatus. That means I'm taking their decision to boost the profile of their fundraising efforts as a clear indication that they are very much still on the game, especially when operating alongside Save the Children, and MI6 doesn't have the ability to change up their operations.

Big Green Gathering Shutdown.

The Big Green Gathering (BGG) http://www.big-green-gathering.com is an environmental and sustainable living festival that has been held in Somerset, UK for 15 years. While the festival features some singing, dancing and possibly even laughter it is not a traditional music festival like Glastonbury or the V-Festival because the stages at the BGG are all powered by 12v solar power and are strictly silenced, by the sun, at midnight. The main entertainment at the BGG comes from workshops, exhibitions and market stalls that allow people to promote techniques for sustainable living including a field demonstrating organic farming methods and an equestrian centre. There is even a green business zone where environmental entrepreneurs who meet with investors who can held them develop the bright ideas into commercial ventures.

I know that this might make the BGG sound like the more rebellious and disorderly Climate Camp but the organisation of the two couldn't be more different. While the Climate Camp is semi-legal operating on a squatted site the BGG takes place on Fernhill Farm with the full permission of the landowner. The organisers also comply fully with the local councils licensing department spending around £150,000 obtaining all the correct permits and licenses. As part of this compliance the security and safety infrastructure of the festival is handled by Stuart Security, a well established events company who manage security at a variety of festivals including Glastonbury, T in the Park, the Reading festival, Womad and the Royal Bath & West Country show. In order to meet these costs the 15-20,000 festival goers all pay £120 for a ticket and the event is sponsored by a select group of financial service companies and green energy suppliers while one of the major stakeholders is AEG who own the O2 Arena. In short the Big Green Gathering is about as subversive as a traditional English country show of the sort that are dying out across rural Britain.

This mild and legal approach hasn't stopped the BGG becoming a target of the powers that be though. In preparation for the 2009 festival which was scheduled to take place between July 29th and August 2nd the organisers applied to Mendip Council who decided that they were happy with plans for the festival and issued a license on June 20th. Then on July 24th, five days before the start of the festival, Mendip Council, acting under orders from Avon & Somerset police sought an emergency injunction to suspend the license and stop the festival from happening. This is unusual because, firstly, the injunction was not just taken out against the company that organises BGG, which has limited liability, it was also taken out against two named directors of the company who have unlimited liability. This appears to be an attempt to discourage BGG from contesting the injunction by backing the named directors personally responsible for any legal costs incurred. It is also unusual because the main grounds for the injunction was that the festival organisers had not gained the correct permissions for road closures from the Highways Agency. The problem is that the organisers applied to the Highways Agency for these permissions back in May. The Highways Agency have yet to process this application.

After their legal team advised them of the potentially very high personal cost of contesting the injunction the BGG organisers felt they had no other option then to call off the festival and hand back the license at a multiple agency meeting on Sunday July 26th. Before this meeting had even ended the Chief Inspector representing the police got on his radio and gave to order to begin "Operation Fortress" a large an pre-planned police operation that involved setting up road blocks and vehicle check points to make sure that none of the festival goers who were already on route were able to gain entry to the county. During the meeting the same Chief Inspector told the BGG organisers that the decision to shut down the festival was a political one and the order had come down from the head to the constabulary. It was also inferred that the decision had been made by Central Government in London.

This coupled with the involvement of the Highways Agency makes it appear that the British Security Services have been involved in a high level conspiracy to not only shut down the 2009 Big Green Gathering but bankrupt the company that organises it by waiting until the site had been set up and all up-front costs had been paid before withdrawing permission. There are a number of reasons for why they may have done this;

1. They simply saw the words "Green Energy" and "Sustainable Living" and decided to shut down the BGG in a panic that it was part of the world wide conspiracy behind the Climate Camp.
2. They fully understood that BGG and Climate Camp are separate entities yet see the BGG as an "acceptable" approach to environmental problems. Therefore they shut it down blaming an association with the "unacceptable" Climate Camp in the hope of splitting the protesters off from the main stream and stop environmental problems being a political issue.
3. Again they fully understand that the two are separate entities yet see the BGG as unacceptable because it's professional and organised approach along with it's backing by not exactly anti-capitalist hedge funds adds credibility to environmental concerns making them more mainstream. Therefore the would prefer it if Climate Camp became the centre piece of the British Environmental movement by boosting its attendance because it organisational structure and more amateurish approach makes it easier to portray the environmentalists and their concerns as a fringe group of malcontents.

Which of these is the correct motivation depends on which agency was the driving force behind the shut down. If it was simply a police operation then the first reason is probably correct because the police only really act to prevent disorderly protest and have little interest in setting the political agenda. If the order came from higher up though then the other two options are the more likely although which approach will be followed up depends on other events over the next six to nine months which will be absolutely critical for the environmental movement.

So What Have I Missed?

Since Monday I have been cutting the grass under my father's close supervision. There isn't that much grass to cut but somehow this simple task has managed to take up three days of my life and due to mechanical failures is still unfinished. This means I haven't had much time to watch the news and from the bits I have seen there doesn't seem to be much happening.

The only real highlight was Britain getting itself into a bit of a tangle over it's Swine Flu advice to pregnant women. On Sunday one government department issued a statement advising pregnant women to avoid going out in public and to avoid crowds. This was mainly for my benefit because on Sunday morning my sister turned up for a visit and my brother turned up for dinner in the evening. Someone obviously decided that filling the days news agenda with images and stories about pregnant women avoiding swine flu would give me the impression that the Bristol contingent is now pregnant causing me to go into a panic that would help the state long planned counter offensive along. It didn't work and the best bit is that the story managed to confuse quite a few other government departments which released a flurry of statements all offering different advice. After two days of chaos they finally agreed on a statement that advised pregnant women to "practice good hygiene to protest themselves against swine flu."

There has also been the bit of local news that Croydon Council are now out of the running to become a sort of regional development zone. I haven't read up on the details of this but I'm aware that Croydon have been chasing this status for a number of years and are so upset about the financial consequences of failure that they're threatening legal action against the Greater London Assembly. I don't think Croydon had much chance of success in the first place but the story still made me smile because it brings to mind the old adage that things that can't learn to be flexible often end up broke.

Iranian Protesters Defeat Themselves.

On Friday (17/7/09) Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani a senior Iranian cleric and former President who has been seen as a supporter of the opposition addressed Friday prayers at Tehran University for the first time since the countries controversial election. In highly diplomatic speech Rafsanjani seemed to accept the validity of Ahmadinejad's re-election but declared that there were still sections of Iranian society that needed to be convinced. The main thrust of his speech though was to call for the humane treatment and timely release of those Iranians who had been arrested during recent protests. Ignoring the fact that many of those arrested have probably committed criminal offences up to and including murder and would face long prison sentences in any country in the world the main reason that so many people have been detained for so long is as part of a form of martial law designed to prevent further unrest and violence.

Outside of the university around 10,000 opposition supporters assembled in the largest such gathering in recent weeks. When the crowd began chanting anti-government slogans and, according the BBC report, attempted to storm the university the police moved in to disperse them. This led to the usual scenes of violence with the police deploying tear gas and baton charges while the protesters threw punches and missiles. That is the absolute last thing the protesters wanted to do because the longer that Iran goes without large and violent protests the more peoples memories will fade and the harder and harder it will be for the security services to justify the emergency powers that are keeping all those people in prison.

It would seem that Friday's violence was helpful to the British government though. It appears to have provided the final bit of pressure that was needed to get the Iranians to release the British Embassy official who had been arrested on suspicion of inciting and taking part in the earlier violence and was expected to stand trial on espionage charges. Releasing this prisoner seems to be an incredibly civilised move by the Iranian authorities because simply putting non-uniformed combatants on trial is hardly the western way of doing things.

Meanwhile the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has warned that American offers of discussion over Iran's nuclear program is a strictly time limited offer and will not last for ever. This seems to be a particularly harsh piece of timing because with the recent unrest Iran is hardly in a position to enter into dialogue with America or any other country on any issue let alone one as sensitive as nuclear enrichment. Clinton's aggressive stance could be seen as a response to Israeli attempts to put fresh pressure on the Americans in order to get the necessary support and equipment for an Israeli attack on Iran.

Phone Hacking Scandal.

Back in 2006 there was a scandal across the British press when the police announced that a journalist working for the Sunday Tabloid The News of the World (NOTW) was being investigated for illegally listening into the mobile phone calls and voicemail messages of members of the Royal family. Eventually the journalist was jailed for four months, the editor of the NOTW resigned and the whole story was forgotten about until July 2009 when rival newspaper the Guardian published an exclusive which revealed that the phone hacking was much more widespread then first thought with the NOTW tapping the phones of some 3000 public figures including Rebekah Wade the editor of the Sun, the NOTW's sister paper. These revelations prompted the police to launch another investigation into the matter and caused a House of Commons Select Committee to investigate the issue further not to mention the fact that it opened News International, the NOTW's parent company, up to potential lawsuits far exceeding the £1million they'd already paid out over the matter.

Personally I can't see what all the fuss is about because intercepting mobile telephone calls is such a standard investigative practice that pretty much everyone routinely does it. All the newspapers do it, private investigators do it, private companies do it to their rivals and to protests groups that may be targeting them, some of the smarter members of MP's staff do it and I know as fact that the Guardian newspaper most certainly do it. In fact there is a strong belief that the police themselves are none too keen to investigate the matter properly because such an investigation would not only reveal the police's own extensive practice of illegally intercepting mobile phone but also reveal some of the tactics they use to do so.

The practice is so widespread that I'm a bit surprised that the Guardian would want to draw so much attention to an illegal practice they're involved in. It's even more unusual because it goes against the unwritten rule of the British press that dog doesn't eat dog which is to say that despite the rivalries that exist between journalists and newspapers they do not attack each other. The Guardian is currently trying to justify breaking this rule by suggesting that because the NOTW is owned by News International they're not attacking another news paper they're merely striking blow against Rupert Murdoch, the scourge of liberals worldwide. The Guardian are also appealing to their left-wing readership by trying to dress the story up as an attack on the Conservative party because Andy Coulson, the editor of the NOTW at the time, is now the head of communications (spin doctor) for David Cameron the leader of the centre right Tories.

In reality I think that the Guardian's real motivation is much more spiteful and directed firmly against News International. I don't think I'm giving away any great secret when I say that the Guardian have been strong supporters for the Climate Camp movement and other related matters. Since the G20 protests there has been some strong and it has to be said deserved criticism of the G20 Climate Camp especially and the whole direction of the Climate Camp movement. Due to some other problems they've been having the Guardian seem to have taken this criticism as something of a personal attack and seem to be lashing out at News International who they see as being behind the criticism. Aside from the fact that this stupid, a bit childish and goes against the accepted conventions of Fleet Street it also seems to be an incredibly bad time for the Guardian to be doing it because the summer Climate Camp has been scheduled to take place in the last week of August/first week of September so you would think that the organisers of Climate Camp would be busy enough at this time without the Guardian raising the temperature by provoking a infighting amongst the media.

Swine Flu Weirdness

Like most of the rest of the world swine flu is gradually making its way through the British population. In the last two weeks the path of the epidemic reached an important milestone when the disease started killing people with no previous, underlying health problems. One of those people believed to have died from the virus was a GP, Dr Micheal Day who is suspected of catching the virus from patients he was treating although his exact cause of death has not been confirmed. Yesterday the local police in Bedfordshire took the unusual step of announcing that the autopsy showed Dr Day had died from "natural causes" This is peculiar because it is not standard practice for the police to make public the results of an autopsy in a case that is not suspected of being a murder. Also simply announcing that Dr Day died of unspecified natural causes doesn't even tell us if he died of swine flu or some other medical condition.

Rather then having anything to do with Swine Flu this announcement seems to be a response to a new wave of rumours surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly. For those of you who don't know Dr David Kelly was a British Government weapons scientist who worked on all those nasty little projects that the government doesn't want to own up to running. He also formed part of the UN weapons inspection team tasked with finding out if Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. After British Intelligence, in the run up to the Iraq war, claimed that Iraq had WMD's that could be deployed in 45 minutes Dr Kelly contacted the BBC with evidence that this claim was false. Acting on the information provided by Dr Kelly the BBC broadcast a series of news reports which destroyed Britain's case for going to war and essentially accused the Prime Minister of lying to Parliament and the British public. In the ensuing political storm the BBC was forced to reveal it's sources and Dr Kelly was dragged up in front of a Parliamentary Investigations Committee. Days after his grilling by MP's and with his career in tatters Dr Kelly was found dead in fields near his home after apparently committing suicide. Due to the circumstances of his death and Dr Kelly's involvement in a number of highly sensitive military projects a number of conspiracy theories, some from very credible sources, began to emerge proposing that Dr Kelly was assassinated by the Intelligence Services in order to keep him quiet.

Over the years these conspiracy theories have investigated thoroughly, if not publicly, and it is widely accepted that while British Intelligence did no directly assassinate Dr Kelly they deliberately and purposely created the conditions in which Dr Kelly would decide to kill himself. An assisted suicide if you like.

The more traditional definition of "Assisted Suicide" in which terminally ill or seriously disabled people end their own lives with the help of a doctor or a close friend has been a major topic of discussion in Britain in the last year to eighteen months. The current round of discussion began last year when Debbie Purdy, a woman with Multiple Sclerosis, appealed to the Law Lords to clarify if her partner could be prosecuted under the Suicide Act if he helped her travel to a country where assisted suicide or euthanasia is legal. Although the Law Lords felt it wasn't their place to rule on the issue Purdy's case is seen as the motivation for Lord Falconers amendment to the Coroners and Justice bill when it was debated in the House of Lords two weeks ago.

This makes me think that the sudden re-emergence of the discredited Dr David Kelly conspiracy theories is an attempt by the Intelligence / Civil Service to lobby the House of Lords to pass the amendment. The message seems to be that is assisted suicide was legalised it would take alot off pressure of the Intelligence Service in issues such as the Dr David Kelly case. Of course this would be an attempt to drive the direction of the discussion rather then to reach a logical conclusion because it is as unlikely that changes to the Suicide Act would have any bearing on the Dr Kelly case as it is that members of the Intelligence Services would ever be prosecuted for any offence. As the law change wouldn't actually protect any members of the Intelligence Services there must be a hidden agenda behind this lobbying and it recently just revealed itself. Over the last two days it has emerged that within the next decade or so Britain will no longer be able to meet its pension obligations or its obligation to provide social care to the disabled. Therefore it would seem that they want to legalise euthanasia because the state would prefer it if the old and the sick could just be put down by doctors rather then forcing the state to do it's job properly.

Yesterday it was also announced that a young British girl called Hannah who underwent groundbreaking heart surgery by having a second donor heart transplanted in to her in order to allow her existing, damaged heart to recover has made a full recovery. The name Hannah is a long standing tag used to identify an imaginary female MI5 officers and this story has been doing the rounds in medical circles for a number of years. The public announcement of success seems to be acting to lay the story and the possibly the whole strategy to rest. It was probably also announced on the same day as this swine flu story was a way to confuse everyone.

The Glorious Twelfth.

On July 12th 1690 the English Protestant King William defeated the Irish Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne leading to over 200 years of English rule over Ireland.

To this day the anniversary is remembered by Church of England Protestants as the "Glorious" Twelfth. In Northern Ireland it is celebrated in Protestant communities with festivities including parades by paramilitary groups, barbecues, firework displays and an informal competition to see who can build the biggest on bonfire on which to burn an effigy of the Pope. The semi-masonic Orange Order take the celebrations one step further by marching through Catholic areas singing songs about how much fun it is to kill Catholics. Obviously this doesn't go down well with the local residents who, in the past, have often tried to stop the marches taking place. Frequently this is ended in violence and on one occasion led to a five day stand off during which all of the provinces police and most of the army had to be deployed to keep the different groups apart.

Over the last five or so years celebrations of the twelfth have been largely trouble free. This is partly because of falling unemployment across NI but mainly due to a local council practice of using taxpayers money to pay for the Protestant celebrations on the condition that they do not overtly display sectarian regalia and sing Loyalist songs. Yesterday violence returned to the celebrations yesterday when the Orange Order, who had already held their main march, felt the need to march home through several Catholic areas. In County Antrim and LondonDerry were met by protesters who blocked roads and threw bottles. The worse of the violence took place in Belfast where rioters fought a seven hour running battle with the police in which they threw rocks, fireworks, petrol bombs and blast bombs at the police. Gunshots were also fired at the police but none found their target. The police responded with baton charges, water cannon and rubber bullets but were unable to prevent 21 police officer being injured and damage to property that included several police vehicles.

Aside from the obvious provocation of the Orange Order marches yesterday's violence seems to be a response to a perception that once again the police are giving Protestant groups a free reign across the province so government spending will be unfairly distributed amongst Protestant communities. In that case similar scenes of violence could back fire on Northern Ireland's Catholics because they are already being used to portray the rioters as a group stuck in the past and intent of sectarian violence while the Protestants who are marching to celebrate what is essentially a 200 year sectarian massacre come off looking like a group of forward thinking progressives peacefully exercising their democratic rights.

Animal Magic

While the deaths of British troops in Afghanistan last week seem to have shaken Britain's government to it's core and provoked an unseemly episode of political point scoring the propaganda arm is still very much in business. Last week it was announced that scientist at Whipsnade Zoo are working to discover what makes Cheetahs so fast. As part of the experiment researchers, led by professor Wilson, are getting female Cheetahs run along a specially designed track by making them chase a dead chicken tied to a piece of string. The Cheetahs are filmed as they make the run so when the recording is played back in slow motion the scientists can examine how the Cheetahs bodies behave while running.

The methodology of the experiment is really that important because as with most animal interest / natural science stories the idea of talking about the research is to convey a hidden message. Initially the talk about Cheetahs which sounds like cheaters would make people think that Britain released the story was to reassure interested parties that research and investigation into me was going ahead on schedule. This is only partly true because the use of female cheetahs would indicate that the hidden message relates to a female subject and the professor leading the research shares a surname with a female test subject that is indirectly linked to me. Therefore the agenda of the story is to reassure interested parties that the research project known as the Bristol Abuse Case (BAC) is progressing on schedule whilst at the same time increasing the pressure on the BAC test subjects which in turn helps the research project along.

The fact that Britain is choosing to tell this particular story in terms of cheaters is interesting because it indicates that they are now accepting, publicly at least, that the BAC is not a credible situation and are focusing their attention on how one participant was able to cheat herself into it. Finding the answer to that is hardly going to be solving one of life's great mysteries. Int he run up to the BAC little miss no life was living a stress free existence working in a cafe whilst concentrating on her hobbies with only the one thing to focus on. By comparison she was up against someone who was in the process of moving house in dramatic fashion while carrying out precision work at several locations spread over around 400 miles while still finding the time to play an active role in the Israel/Lebanon war. When you consider that massive imbalance the result of the contest was no great surprise so much so that you would think that it had been planned that way. This means that once again Britain is researching it's own actions, something you would think they would have understood at the time of acting.

I think the story came to light last Wednesday so I apologise for the delay in posting but if you thing this was a dull read you should try writing it.

Oh What a Suprise.

At around 12:00 Central European Time (CET) the leaders of the G8 nations plus the leaders of the G5 nations assembled in Italy to discuss global warming and climate change on the second day of the G8 Summit. As with all G8 Summits the purpose of this meeting wasn't so much to reach an agreement on the issues as to lay the groundwork for a future summit that may or may not reach an agreement.

By an amazing coincidence at around 12:00 CET protesters assembled in Tehran for what was billed as the first large demonstration since the country's disputed election. In the end only about 300 people turned up and were quickly dispersed by the police. I'm not sure exactly what happened because for once the BBC had decided that there was no need to report on an Iranian protest.

In more local news my saga with the Help the Aged cleaner has come to an abrupt end. After her first day of work three weeks ago the cleaner failed to turn up last week and today we have been informed that she won;t be turning up for work again. This means that Britain's much vaunted counter attack against me has lasted for the sum total of 53 minutes.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Fairest of Them All?

Or to put it another way the G8 Summit is coming up next week and everybody's kind of forgotten about it.

Sandwiched between April's emergency G20 Summit and December's Climate Summit this years G8 meeting is likely to be something of a lost summit. No doubt there will be a range of topics discussed including the world economy, the war on terror, global development and global trade rules but unlike previous summits there will be no clear single issue that will focus the meeting. The most widely discussed projects will probably the recent Iranian elections and the apparently growing threat of a nuclear armed North Korea although progress on that last point is unlikely to be made without the Chinese who are not a G8 member so the debate will probably evolve into a wider discussion about further engagement with China.

The events in Iran mean that I've been unable to research the agendas of all the delegations at the summit but Britain's is obvious and focused on two clear objectives;

• Restoring Britain's legitimacy to call itself one of the eight most powerful and therefore competent and able nations on earth. This status was called into serious question at April's G20 Summit when the British Prime Minister's economic and social policy was rejected by Britain's own head of state let alone the heads of state of the other nations at the summit.

• Lay the groundwork for December's Climate Summit. Despite the impression given by Britain's elected representatives Britain's position for this summit will be to do everything in its power to make sure that it breaks up without agreement. There are a number of reasons for this position but it is mainly because Britain's ruling establishment have clearly proved themselves to be lacking in the intellectual ability to cope with a free market economy let alone a more complicated carbon based economy.

To achieve these ends Britain will try and make the situation in Iran one of the most widely discussed things at the summit. The idea behind this is that if you were looking for a country that best mirrors Britain's power and social structure Iran would be top of that list. In both nations ultimate power is held by an unelected head of state who is considered to have been appointed by God to make sure that the countries population adhere to religious law. In Iran this head of state is known as the Supreme Leader while in Britain they are known by the gender specific titles of either King or Queen. Beneath the head of state power in both countries is held by an unelected group of religious scholars and community elders. In Britain this is known as the House of Lords while in Iran it is more loosely organised but broadly defined by the Guardian Council. Below the scholars and elders the next position of power is held by a single, elected politician. In Iran this is the President and in Britain it is the Prime Minister. At the bottom of the power structure both countries have an elected Parliament.

This symmetry between the two countries mean that the British G8 delegation will be able to use discussions about Iran to generally spread confusion by making statements like "there are doubts over whether the head of state supports the first minister" which leave people unclear of exactly who is being referred too, Brown or Ahmadinjed. The will also be able to provide a coded reassurance that Britain doesn't expect Gordon Brown to be it's Prime Minister for very much longer.

The unrest in Iran will also help Britain in what the 2012 Olympic sponsors are already calling the "Fight against Climate Change!" because seemingly even before they began the Iranian protests were dubbed "The Green Revolution." Of course the original Green Revolution has it's roots in the US Army Corp of Engineers who, in the early 1960's, after spending years trying to divert the flow of the Mississippi river began to accept that human science and technology could never truly conquer the forces of nature leading to a revolution in the way humans saw their environment. Much to my annoyance some ill-informed modern politician's have begun using the term Green Revolution to describe the modern climate change movement and the implementation of low carbon technology.

In their planning of the Iranian unrest the British envisioned that I would lead the protests and the whole thing could be passed off as the work of the environmentalists. This little bit of misdirection would have allowed the British to spend their time at the G8 Summit complaining about how the Iranian unrest were jeopardising the American led heart and minds surge in Afghanistan and making statements about how they think the Green Revolution is a bad idea and share the good news that they expect the Green Revolution to die out soon. All this would help them build up a negative association with the environmental movement and the idea of adopting a low carbon economy.

As with all globalised summits protests are expected throughout the G8 week and while I haven't had the opportunity to look into what exactly is planned I suspect it will the standard red-zone assault which all of the G8 Security teams are well versed in dealing with. Therefore there is little chance that the red-zone will be breached and in the unlikely event that it is there will be little risk to the delegation primaries. Outside the venue it is likely to be a different story because this will be the first time that the G8 has returned to Italy since Carlo Guiliani was murdered by the police in 2001. This along with the fact that Alexis Grigoropoulos'murder in Greece and Ian Tomlinson's murder in London are still fresh in the anarchist movements memories means that I expect there to be plenty of people prepared to punish the police where the law has failed to do so. Added to this the growing dissatisfaction at the state of the economy within the Trade Union movement that is expected to boost the number of protesters in a town that following April's earthquake is still a maze of derelict buildings and ad-hoc campsites. Plus the Italian police have long history of treating public order situations as an opportunity for a fight and a reputation for allowing fascist militias to join in. Besides if the protest organisers plan is as good as their mobilization video it looks like being a very lively affair indeed.

This prospect of an explosive couple of days makes me think that Berlusconi's last minute decision to move the summit from Sardinia to L'Aquila must be his kind of punishment for the people of that earthquake hit city who dared to suggest that Mr Berlusconi might like to put the teenage girls down for just long enough to do something about the damage.

Dr Freddy Patel Strikes Again!

As you may remember Dr Freddy Patel was that pathologist who carried out the initial autopsy on Ian Tomlinson, the man who died at the G20 protests in London in April 2009. Dr Patel soon became a figure of derision after it emerged that he'd failed to notice that Mr Tomlinson's abdomen was full of blood as a result of blunt force trauma and concluded that the death was a result of pre-existing coronary artery disease leading to cardiac arrest. It then emerged that this was not Dr Patel's first time dealing with a controversial case.

In 1999 he carried out the autopsy on Roger Sylvester a 30 year old schizophrenic man who died after being restrained by the police. After concluding that Mr Sylvester had died as a result of pre-existing coronary artery disease leading to cardiac arrest Dr Patel was reprimanded by the General Medical Council for giving false and misleading information about the case. In 2002 Dr Patel carried out the autopsy of a woman who had died suddenly in a strangers flat. Although the body showed head injuries, extensive bruising and a bite mark to the woman's inner thigh Dr Patel ruled the death to be as a result of pre-existing coronary artery disease resulting in cardiac arrest. After Dr Patel's ruling of natural death led to the case being closed the male occupant of the flat went on to murder and dismember two other women.

Although Dr Patel has already cemented his reputation as possibly the worst pathologist to ever disgrace the profession it appears he's been at it again. In October 2006 Sandra Allen, a 61 year old schizophrenic woman, was detained in a North London psychiatric hospital under section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983. At 00:05 on the morning of October 2nd Mrs Allen was observed repeatedly stuffing sandwiches into her mouth as part of an apparent manic episode. In spite of this she was allowed to return, unaccompanied, to her room. At 00:15 Mrs Allen was discovered, by Nurse Deborah Chamber, on the floor of the room's toilet, she was apparently not breathing. Nurse Chamber immediately called for assistance and attempted to clear Mrs Allen's airway but crucially did not begin to administer cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Within 5 minutes the hospitals Senior House Officer, Dr R Patel, arrived on the scene and again attempted to clear food from Mrs Allen's airway before finally attempting CPR. An ambulance eventually attended the scene after being delayed for an indeterminate length of time at the hospital gates by a security guard who had fallen asleep at his post. Upon arrival the ambulance crew used specialist equipment to remove food from Mr Allen's airway and began advanced resuscitation before transporting her to Whittington Hospital where Mr Allen was pronounced dead at 00:55.

On October 5th Dr Freddy Patel performed Mrs Allen's autopsy and despite being informed of the fact by two doctors and a nurse was unable to find any evidence that the deceased's airway had been blocked by food and concluded that Mr Allen's death was caused by, you've guessed it, pre-existing coronary artery disease leading to cardiac arrest.

As a direct result of Dr Freddy Patel's diagnosis of death by natural causes the investigating coroner, Dr Reid, was able to rule that article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (article 2) did not apply in the case so there was no need for an independent inquiry and no need for the inquest to be held in front of a jury. Initially Mrs Allen's family launched a legal challenge to this decision that was rejected on the strength of Dr Patel's evidence so the inquest went ahead without a jury and without the families involvement. Within a matter of days the coroner, Dr Reid, concluded that the lack of supervision on the ward was not relevant to the death, the failure of ward staff to administer CPR was not relevant to the death and the delay in getting an ambulance to the scene was not relevant to the death so he ruled that Mrs Allen's death was a completely natural event that the hospital staff could have done nothing to prevent.

Since then Mrs Allen's family have been involved in a long and arduous legal campaign to have a judicial review held into the legal decisions made in that initial coroner's inquest with a view to having the case re-opened. This lead to the application being heard by the Law Lords/Queen's Bench, the highest court in the land which owe more to Iran's Guardian Council then it does to America's Supreme Court. On June 25th 2009 the Law Lords returned an interesting verdict on the application. While they ruled that the initial judges decision had no basis in law and that Article 2 most certainly did apply in the case meaning that the in initial inquest had not be carried out in accordance with the law they found no reason to grant a judicial review or re-open the case. The family have been given leave to appeal this peculiar decision but have been informed that they won't receive legal aid to do so.

I have been following this case for a number of years and have been seen to follow it. As recently as three months ago it seemed to be going nowhere with little chance of being heard before the Law Lords. Then six weeks ago matters suddenly picked up pace with the Law Lords announcing that they would hear the application and all interested parties were invited to a series of meetings at the House of Lord, Britain upper chamber of Parliament. Unfortunately the Lords were unable or unwilling to meet my appearance fee so I did not attend but the impression that I got was if I were to help Britain by leading Iran's Green Revolution then the Law Lords would find in the Allen family's favour. Of course that couldn't possibly be true because if it was then it would mean that rather then being made in accordance with principles of Law or Justice the decisions of Britain's highest court are made in accordance with the older and more informal principle of graft. That would mean that their rulings can only be considered illegitimate

Conspiracy Files: 7/7 Bombings.

I've just realised that last night the BBC screened a documentary examining the conspiracy theories that have sprung up surrounding the terrorist bombings in London on July 7th 2005. I haven't actually watched the program nor am I that familiar with the conspiracy theories that the program addressed because like all of the great conspiracy theories they make little sense and rely on a massively inflated sense of the intelligence services capabilities.

What I do know about British intelligences involvement in Islamic extremism in the UK is that throughout the 1980's MI6 ran a number of so called Mudjadeen schools to recruit British Muslims to go and fight the Russians in Afghanistan. This was done because Muslim lives are considered to be worth less then Protestant ones so it's cheaper if they're killed. Throughout the 1990's these schools continued with graduates being sent to fight the Russians in Chechnya. When the Global War on Terror began MI6 found themselves swamped and couldn't cope with these operations anymore so palmed them off to MI5 who are considered a junior service. MI5 then tried to run these schools as part of a so called waterfall operation where potential terrorist are still identified but rather then having their extremist views encouraged before packing them off to fight the Russians their views are challenged in the hope that they will return to their home communities and reduce the level of domestic terrorism by contesting the views of other extremists. Sadly because MI5 aren't even the smartest guys in the room when they're taking a shit they lost control of the operation and Britain's terror network was born.

Since then MI5 have been funding and promoting various conspiracy theories, the wilder the better, in order to fulfill two main objectives;

• By giving attention to lunatic conspiracy theories it diverts attention from a serious discussion of intelligence service failures that led to the terrorist attacks. This was seen extensively in America where all the investigations into 9/11 spent so long rebuffing stupid claims of the towers being brought down by controlled demolition that they failed to answer questions like why did Mossad, having extensive intelligence networks within Islamic terror groups, somehow forget to warn the CIA that an attack was imminent.

• The conspiracy theories keep people talking about the bombings and allow the intelligence services to keep the attacks alive in every one's memories and by extension allow them to hold anniversaries of the attacks every year in the hope that it will help maintain public support for the wars that provoked the attacks in the first place.
  

How's This For The Power of Suggestion?

Throughout this week Britain is experiencing a mini heatwave with temperatures set to peak at 32C which admittedly isn't that hot but will be the highest temperature Britain has ever experienced. On Sunday this prompted the government to issue a public warning that advised people to take care of themselves by making sure they drink enough water, use suntan lotion and stay out of the sun during the hottest part of the day.

Since then my father has opened all the doors and windows and is frequently seen standing round the house in shorts with his shirt undone fanning himself and complaining how hot it is. This makes me look at the thermometer and point out that it's actually a reasonable 27C and the breeze brings it down to a perfectly pleasant 25C. It is expected to get hotter before then end of the week but I love the logic that because the people on TV are telling everyone it's hot everyone's automatically decided that it's hot.

Sorry but that's pretty much but that's pretty much all I've got today.