Charles Kennedy

This is going to be incoherent, a jumble of memories and opinion, as I take in the news which I woke up to. Charles Kennedy has died at the age of 55 leaving a young family who I weep for.

I do not subscribe to the motto "never speak ill of the dead", but it is truly difficult to find bad words to say of Charles Kennedy. His one great handicap, his alcoholism, has long ago been recognised as an illness rather than a character flaw. There is no doubt that it marred his leadership of the party, causing him to miss engagements and key speeches, but in my opinion he was not well served by hangers-on who prevented him and the party from coming to terms with it.

He will be remembered in political history as the man who alone among the major party leaders - and the party had become a major force in his time - stood out against the Bush-Blair Iraq adventure. It is not generally known that he was initially prepared to go along with the Establishment line. He was convinced by advisers of the moral and electoral value of resisting the calls to war. Having once been persuaded, he was resolute in his opposition.

However, the stronger memories are on a personal level. I met him twice. The first time was after the leadership hustings in Cardiff on a hot morning in 1999 when we exchanged words about the effect on a rugby match that was being staged later that day. The second time was during the 2006 Dunfermline and West Fife by-election after his resignation in contentious circumstances as party leader when he might have been expected to keep his head down. His entry to the campaign headquarters on an unexciting industrial estate in Fife two or three days in was greeted with spontaneous applause by us volunteers. Everywhere he went, he connected with people immediately. As Mike German said on Radio Wales this morning, he was the next-door neighbour you could have a chat with over the garden fence.

It is a pity in a way that he was so charming and witty because his image tended to be that of a lightweight. Behind the humour was an acute political thinker as his speeches in parliament, rather than on TV, particularly on the subject of Europe, showed.

There could have been so much more. Fate has deprived us of someone who surely would have been a leader of the fightback for the party. More, at a time when European cooperation and civil and human rights are coming under increasing attack, not only from the government benches, Charles Kennedy would have been alongside us in the resistance.

Sad memory of the Top Rank

Forty-three years ago, Lee Harvey of the group Stone the Crows touched an unearthed microphone while standing in a puddle on the stage of the Top Rank in Swansea. Harvey was dead from the electric shock before he reached hospital, in spite of the best efforts of the band's tour manager, Dennis Sheehan, whose death last week has been announced.

I had other things on my mind at the time - the imminent birth of our second daughter and programming under pressure as part of the team forming the V part of DVL, so the sad event did not lodge in my memory. However, it occurred to me that my former council colleague Tony Wyn-Jones may have known more. This report from the Evening Post confirms that he was at the Top Rank then, but Tony also had only happy memories of 1972.

Income tax leniency

As part of a government which savagely cut HM Revenue jobs, Margaret Hodge must surely appreciate making the best use of resources. She will surely approve the concentration on serious tax avoidance and evasion as the Revenue confirms that it will accept reasonable excuses for late returns.

Molotov - Ribbentrop revisited?

The Liberal and Democrat bloc in the EU is concerned about the rapprochement between Marine le Pen of the French National Front party and Vladimir Putin in Russia. It is reported that le Pen's party has obtained loans worth €9 million from a Russian-owned bank and le Pen regularly meets members of the Russian government. This all should be no surprise to us who see little distinction between autocracy of the "right" or of the "left".

Spent lead ammunition in the environment

As a parliamentary candidate some time ago I was put on the mailing list of the Countryside Alliance. Because of mailing-list inertia presumably, I have not been taken off. I generally give their newsletters, dominated by shooting and field-sports interests with the occasional mention of more general rural concern, no more than a once-over. This recent item worried me, however:

Our Executive Chairman Barney White-Spunner explains why he has resigned from the Lead Ammunition Group on behalf of shooting interests.

Explaining resignation from the Lead Ammunition Group

Last week I had cause to resign from the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG). I did not take this action lightly but did so in protest at abuses of process and evidence that I feel render the group's work so flawed it can never reach any scientific conclusions.

The LAG was set up under the Labour Government in 2010 at the behest of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the RSPB, on the back of scientific evidence from America. The purpose of the group was to advise Defra on any risks to wildlife, human health and livestock from the use of lead ammunition, and how to mitigate them. It has not yet produced a report. As Executive Chairman of the Countryside Alliance I have served on the LAG since 2013, representing the shooting community.

The Chairman, John Swift, circulated a draft Lead Ammunition Group Report in April which the majority of the group had no part in drafting. That document is very far from a reflection of the LAG_s discussions and draws incorrect conclusions from that evidence which the LAG has agreed. More seriously, many of those conclusions are based on evidence that the LAG has simply not agreed and were presented to the rest of the group as a fait accompli.

I submitted a total of 172 detailed comments of evidence and process on the Chairman's draft report, highlighting the number of flaws I believe to be present. With this and the overall negativity of the report in mind I cannot continue to serve as the representative of the shooting community on the LAG. I have profound disagreement with the way the process has been conducted.

Be assured, however, that neither I nor the Countryside Alliance will be walking away from this issue. Given the failure of the LAG process we will be consulting with the shooting community, other representative shooting groups and public bodies as to the best way to proceed.

You can read my letter of resignation in full here (http://countryside-alliance.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ce598cb66b49390b21df1f52c&id=a956d9f974&e=f190db1ca1) . Read Shooting Times' report here (http://countryside-alliance.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ce598cb66b49390b21df1f52c&id=4acf585786&e=f190db1ca1) .

Barney White-Spunner
Executive Chairman

I do not have the knowledge or experience to judge the quality of the evidence on either side. However, the alleged action seems of a piece with government's method of dealing with ad hoc advisory bodies in other areas. The LAG should have been encouraged to produce a timely report which reflects their majority view. If that conflicts with government policy, or government advisors find the evidence faulty, then these things can be debated in the open.

Blatter: the Welsh FA does not have clean hands

The English FA can point to its exposure of attempts to solicit bribes by named members of FIFA, though only after a bid to stage the World Cup failed. For whatever reason, the Welsh FA remained loyal to Blatter and his cronies. When the final indictments are brought by the FBI in the United States, the WFA will need to explain its motives.

Many other domestic jurisdictions will have to examine themselves, given that Andrew Jennings exposed corruption in FIFA as long ago as 2002.

Update: the Welsh FA has withdrawn support from Blatter: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32910117

Wouk's prediction

Following on from yesterday's piece on Aurora Dawn, I cannot resist quoting from the author's introduction to the 1956 edition of the book. Substitute "quiz shows" for "parlour games", and "electronics engineer" or "data processing specialist" for "electrician", and he was spot on.

In the decade since this novel was written, radio has given way to television.

Who would have dreamed, a mere ten years ago, that the money crammed world of radio was a bubble about to burst?

Or who would dare to suggest today that commercial television - with its mammoth floods of cash, its huge studios, its racketing parlour games, its jigging advertisements, its solemn potentates - may some day be pricked by an electrician who will devise a more agreeable entertainment tool?

Herman Wouk

Today is the anniversary of Herman Wouk, best known for writing The 'Caine' Mutiny, the book upon which the film of the same name was based. Another of his books, Marjorie Morningstar, was also turned into a movie. Not only is he still alive, I see from the Web that he sold a new novel less than five years ago.

I have a soft spot for Aurora Dawn, a satire on the advertising industry. As such, it was not original even in 1943 when Wouk started writing it but its assuredly florid style harking back to English masters of earlier centuries I found captivating.