Plebgate's Back

You may remember that about three months ago the former UK Secretary of State for International Development and then Conservative Party Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign the Whip post after it was alleged in the press that he'd sworn at police officers guarding Downing Street and called them "plebs" after they refused to let him ride his bicycle through the vehicle gates. The police officer who claimed to have witnessed this has since been arrested for misconduct in a public office and CCTV footage has been released showing the police officer was not present at the time of the incident. The suggestion being that the police officer made up in the story in order to force Mitchell's resignation as a protest against government cuts to police budgets.

Coming as a report into the BBC's mishandling of the Jimmy Saville case is released there is an attempt to dress the latest development in the plebgate story as another instalment in the argument into press ethics encompassed by the Leveson Inquiry. There is also a further attempt to disguise it as a debate into the UK's international aid spending with specific reference to India and Rwanda. In reality though it's about Egypt which is currently halfway through it's plebiscite vote on it's constitution. Although a strike by judges in protest against the constitution  means that this referendum will now not be completed until Saturday (22/12/12) unless there is a big surge in no votes the referendum will most likely be adopted. As the the constitution will block Egypt receiving IMF loans worsening Egypt's economic situation combined with it's controversial nature this could well provoke a second Egyptian revolution. In those circumstances the loyalty of Egypt's security forces (police & military) will be key to Morsi's survival. The UK want him to survive because with the constitution locking Egypt out of the global economy it's economic problems will make it very dependent on aid from Gulf nations such as Qatar boosting Qatar's growing influence across the middle east. The UK's help will go a long way to ensuring the supply of Qatari gas.

On a somewhat related note the report into the September 11th 2012 (11/9/12) on the US consulate in Benghazi was released yesterday. The primary finding that the security plan was not sufficient but because no-one wants to get into the wider tactical reasons of why the US was keeping a small security footprint this is being dressed as discussion of the Rihanna/Chris Brown thing. That's quite a flawed discussion because the thing that annoyed me about that was it was so weak you got the impression the person who planned it wanted it to fail. The other main finding of the Benghazi report was that neither the para-Olympic closing ceremony nor the wide distribution of the "Innocence of Muslims" trailer provoked protests to mask the assault on the consulate. As a result it was clear what had actually happened and the group responsible for the attack were quickly eliminated. So I'm inclined to say the US really needs to make a gesture before all the people who've been carrying them for four years become disillusioned. After all it's no accident January's inauguration will be funded by corporate sponsorship rather then exhausted donors.

14:00 on 19/12/12