Now There's A Suprise(!)

When the G20 Summit came to London in April 2009 a man was killed by the police during the demonstrations against the summit. Obviously there is absolutely no suggestion that any police officer will face any sort of prosecution over that incident but as news of the death sparked an inpromtu memorial service at the site the following day. As you can see from this video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V23PGWd46MM a Sargent in the Territorial Support Group to slap one of the women in attendance across the face and then give her a couple of strikes with his baton. Under the pressure of publicity that this video created and the relatively minor nature of the crime the police officer (Delroy Smellie) was charged with common assault and put on trial. That trial ended today and guess what? He was found not guilty of all charges! So apparently what you see in that video is not assault.

It might seem a strange thing for me to say but I'm taking that as a good sign. You see two of the stranger rumours about me are that I'm a policeman and that I smell. Therefore a judge ruling that the Smellie policeman is entitled to use force to protect himself could be a good omen. Of course though that's just spin and won't detract from the fact that Delroy Smellie will now be allowed to continue his career in the police where he has earned a reputation for being quick to violence.

In other news I've had that chat with the Doctor from Parchmore Road. They don't seem interested in sorting out the problem quietly so have instead called in local social services to investigate what they suspect could be serious mistreatment of my grandmother. That means the atmosphere in my house is going to get very hot right around the first weekend in May. It will then blow over as once again one department of Croydon Council decides it's not going to find evidence of mis-conduct by another department of Croydon Council. It's a good job then that plans to remove Croydon Council from the decision making process are already at quite an advanced stage.

Hello, Hello, Good evening and Hello.

Since I last posted I've been in the pub with my father so it's not been a difficult evening wasted then(!) To make matters worse since the UK government announced that they will be banning 4-methylmethcathione, commonly known as meow meow all the neighbourhood felines have been worried that they've been served with a gagging order and made illegal.

Apart from that I should make clear that the three people at the OPG I've been in contact with today are;

George Atkinson,

Heather Kirk,

Alison Moody.

Somewhere along the line I also got hit with a call from Dr Shaikh from the Parchmore Road Medical practice who I will be have to be talking to again at some point tomorrow.

See An Entire Day Wasted.

When the Brits tried to force through these LPA's they took a gamble. That gamble was that because I did not object after the solicitor informed the Office of Public Guardian I will have forfeited my right to object. What they didn't factor into this little calculation was that I was informed by the solicitor on November 26th 2009 (and can prove it) prompting me to contact the OPG on December 11th (and can prove it). This means that I had an open dialogue with the OPG from December 11th and raises the question of why they didn't independently contact me when the solicitor, who's conduct is in question, contacted them.

I have spent most of this afternoon scanning, uploading and emailing some of these documents to the OPG because if they were to look at them it would cause them to immediately fold. The trouble is that they've suddenly started having problems with their email system so while I can confirm that the documents are on their server the addressees have not received them. I would say that this means that the Brits now know that they're so far in the suck they've been forced to resort to stalling tactics in an attempt to stop this matter coming before the Court of Protection in a timely fashion. I think I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on these cunning little ninjas.

Fun as today has been and it has been quite fun I have not had the time to prepare a submission for the Haiti Donors Conference that is taking place in New York tomorrow. I will now only be able to submit a very poor skeleton argument which I will try and fill out when it is too late.

The first issue of the donors conference is that the various reconstruction agencies have only received less the 49% of the US$1.4bn they require. This is because many people who have very publicly announced donations to Haiti have so far failed to make good on those promises and provide the cash. I understand that in many cases this is the result of difficulties collecting the money from sub-donors and problems channeling the funds into appropriate projects but the conference needs to work hard to turn promises of help into actual help.

The second issue, which will also help with the first issue, is how to best make sure that the donors and people of Haiti get value for money by ensuring the money is well spent. The best way I can think of to achieve this would be to formalise and expand the UN's ad-hoc advisory group in order to turn into into a development agency. I have chosen this model because over the course of it's life the ad-hoc group has widely regarded as being successful and was instrumental in the production of the E/2009/105 report which lead to real and important improvements to life in Haiti prior to 2010's earthquake. It is also broadly representative of the global community while keeping the Haitian government at it's core. Despite these successes though it would be a mistake to simply give this group more powers. First I think that a few changes need to be made to it's structure;

• It needs to be larger. While its current size of seven permanent members of the UN is fine for an advisory role if it is to take a more proactive role then it needs to be expanded. I think the best way to do this would be to leave it as a seven/eight seat group but allow each of those seats to have two representatives plus support staff. For Haiti's guaranteed seat their representatives can be the Haitian President and the Haitian Prime Minister if they so wish.
  

• It needs a chairperson. Sadly the chair of the advisory group, Hedi Annabi was killed during the earthquake. This has created a vacancy and the opportunity to have the group chaired by a world class statesman who is skilled at negotiating with the variety of national governments and private corporations who are involved in the reconstruction effort. Bill Clinton is the obvious choice because he is already doing a similar job. If he has no interest in the job then any former US President would be suitable for the role along with a variety of other people including but not limited to Brazil's Lula Da Silva, France's Christine Lagarde and Canada's Michelle Jean provided they are prepared to leave their current offices.

• It needs a formal voting structure. With representatives of seven different nations decision making is always going to be difficult. Therefore I suggest a simple majority vote with the Chair and the Haitian delegation holding vetoes.
  
• It needs to be more representative. Although the current representatives from Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Spain and Trinidad & Tobago represent four continents and another Caribbean island. I am concerned that too many of them are members of the Paris Club, France has no representative despite it's long history with Haiti and that there is no representative from the far east or middle east. I also concerned that although Britain is not represented the Commonwealth is over-represented by both Trinidad & Tobago and Canada which appears to have given up on democracy in favour of direct rule from Britain. This is a serious concern because on the evidence available since the earthquake I wouldn't put it past Britain to try and ruin the reconstruction effort just to make me look bad. Therefore I propose that Canada steps down and France takes their place if the chair goes to an American or to America providing it doesn't hold the chair. I would also like to see an eighth seat added that would go to either Singapore or the UAE as these are both countries with sophisticated economies that are located in the eastern hemisphere.

Of course this stills leaves the large area of what this bodies remit should be and this is the area on which I have been unable to do any research whatsoever. However I think in the immediate term it should act as trust fund through which donations can be funneled and have full responsibility for the relief effort specifically getting the homeless into appropriate temporary shelter in time for the rainy season. Beyond that they should take responsibility for infrastructure projects such clean water at the provision of energy. It will of course retain is observatory role over other aspects of Haiti's development and can take on extra roles that the Haitian government wishes to give it.

I've Just Spoken to the OPG

On a recorded phone line they have just admitted that they have acted in error and therefore the statutory instrument cannot exist. What they have not admitted is that their "error" could well constitute a criminal offence. They have decided that they need to speak to quite a few people and will call me back with solution by 17:00.

To speed those conservations along I'll tell them now the solution will be that they will report themselves to the Court of Protection. They will also report the solicitor in question to both the CoP and the Law Society in order to open an investigation into him due to malpractice. They will then make gesture of around £1000 to compensate me for my trouble.

All in all they seemed much more helpful then they've been previously which suggests it's finally dawned on them that they have made a serious mis-calculation here.

Russian Train Bombings.

Today (29/3/10) separatist terrorists carried out two suicide bombings on Moscow's Metro rail system killing at least 38 and wounding more then 60. As these terrorist groups have been largely inactive for the last five years there was a possibility that certain elements may have encouraged them out of retirement in order to get Russia to change its policy on Iran. After the quick look I've had at the incident there is absolutely no evidence to support that. Of course some people will still try and use the incident to change Russia's position but it does seem to be just an internal Russian problem.


In less gruesome news London's entertaining Mayor, Boris Johnson has been talking to the media again. This time he's promised that London's 2012 Olympics will have the atmosphere of the Woodstock festival. Woodstock was of course so badly organised that it had to be declared a federal disaster zone so well done Boris!

Tomorrow I will be calling up this guy from the OPG and I strongly suggests that he makes himself available to take my call.

The 15:00 Deadline Has Passed.

And I have received no response from the OPG. That means they've decided to go about this the hard way that will result in them having to prove they've done something that I can prove they haven't. I don't understand their choice because all they can possibly achieve is building up bad feeling with me.

I know I shouldn't let it bother me but the whole episode has put me in the foulest of foul moods. That's because although it is only Monday I can already seen my entire week being wasted by yet another government employee who seems to think their job is beneath them. This is a real shame because todays bombing in Moscow makes it look as if the war on terror is about to take an unfortuante turn.

Now That Was a Little Bit Less Then Healthy.

last night my neighbours at number 50, henceforth known as the hen house, decided to stay up late and do their bit for the crown. Although there was no loud music involved they chose to be in their back garden 'till around 04:00 swearing, shouting and trying their hand at some less then convincing fake laughter. They regretted this slightly when I got up at around 05:00 to watch the Australian Grand Prix complete with the loud and screaming F1 engines.

After I watched the race I went back to bed for a few hours and awoke just in time to watch the repeat showing of the Grand Prix. This caused me to spend a good few hours of my day wondering if the last few hours had been a horribly predictive dream. To make matters worse old bloody fascist summer time began today so some of the clocks in the house were showing the correct time and some of them were set one hour forward. It is perhaps fortunate then that I had the malice and aforethought to prepare dinner before I became far too drunk to deal with that shiny, sharp, knifey thing.

The good spirits of the evening though has left me feeling warm enough to share with you a little secret. Keep it close to your chest and under your hat though because despite their high level of access the Brits haven't worked it out yet. In the F1 codebook I am both Jenson Button AND Lewis Hamilton. So I'm predicting a good season for Ferrari then.

While we're on the subject of competitive events tomorrow is Monday and the start of the British working week. That means that by 15:00 I will be expecting an email response from George Atkinson, my contact at the Office of Public Guardians (OPG.) Ideally this email will apologise for his most recent correspondence and inform me that all relevant LPA's have been cancelled due to a clerical error. If this is not possible then the email will contain a sworn statement admitting full liability on behalf of the OPG and details of how they will now be taking the matter to the Court of Protection (CoP) on my behalf. If not then George K Atkinson will have added himself and all those above him in the OPG's organisational structure to the list of people who will now have to be burnt from the pages of history.

So no pressure then.