The case of Prue Leith

 On the latest Food Programme on Radio 4, asked about her political stance Prue Leith said "we are probably woolly liberals". Yet unusually for her generation - my generation - she voted for Brexit. There is certainly an anti-authoritarian strand in traditional liberalism. Leading up to the 2016 referendum, the Brexiteers' PR machine, helped by the BBC, exaggerated the control exercised by the European Commission and dismissed that of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. This may well have deceived liberally-inclined voters who ventured no further than the Daily Mail and BBC current affairs programmes in forming their views on political topics. I know several grass-roots members and former members of the Liberal Democrats who felt that way.

But I suggest that the real reason that Ms Leith did not see the necessity for remaining in the EU was her background. She had been brought up in comfort in South Africa, disagreeing with apartheid (indeed she said she went on demos. against it), but nevertheless benefiting from the privileges it afforded. South Africa, although being committed legally to supporting the UK and the rest of the Empire against the Nazis and Japan, was distant from the main action and thus virtually unscathed. Those of us born in Britain in 1945 and earlier, and brought up here, would have been all too well aware of the damage, both physical and social, wrought by conflict between European nations. Politicians returning from action against Nazi Germany, like Harold Macmillan, Denis Healey and Edward Heath, supported the move to create a tighter bond between European nations so that war in Europe would be impossible in future. Our wartime leader Winston Churchill, a survivor of previous conflicts, also wanted to see Britain as part of such a community. As an immigrant to London in the 1960s, when the economy was apparently booming after a decade of austerity, Ms Leith would have missed all that.

"Liberal" would certainly not fit her son, Danny Kruger, Tory MP for Devizes. In his relatively short time in the Commons, he has consistently voted against increased devolution to Scotland and Wales, against fair votes and against evening up the size of constituencies. He has also voted for a meaner redundancy package for civil servants and for a hostile environment for EU nationals. 

None of the foregoing excuses the nasty tweets and other communications which the two have received. Feelings are strong, especially on Brexit, but we should not resort to thuggery.

 

When will something be done to prevent these auditing failures?

 It is clear that the big four financial services firms in the UK treat fines by the Financial Reporting Council as no more than an unwelcome overhead. The Patisserie Valerie auditing scandal has been known about for some time, but Grant Thornton has only just been brought to book over it. Another recent ruling has been against EY for failures in auditing the transport firm Stagecoach in 2017. The 2019 judgements against PWC have proved no deterrent. 

These continuing scandals damage London's reputation as a place to do business in and must be a deterrent to long-term investment in companies quoted on the LSE. 

UK liaison with US Congress

 Now that we are out of the EU, has the government set up an equivalent to the European Parliament Liaison Office in Washington DC? Or are Johnson and company still under the delusion that all power in the US resides in the presidency?

Petrol hoarding hits nurses in Wales

 The Royal College of Nursing has warned that the inability to get fuel could affect NHS care in Wales.

Some nurses had faced aggression when trying to identify themselves as key workers at stations, said Diane Powles, of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). She called for key workers to be given priority over fuel, and urged people to act responsibly.

This is yet another argument against the closure of local hospitals and concentrating medical care on fewer and fewer large centres. Nurses and ancillary staff should not have to make the long journeys to work in facilities not easily accessible by public transport.

HGV driver shortage - an opportunity for rail?

 Michelle Meagher in the Guardian sees a bleak future for convenience stores as a result of the plethora of online shopping apps. But these still depend on a supply chain where large lorries form a link or links. One advantage which locally-owned stores have is that their owners need only vans under the 3.5 ton weight limit and thus do not need a HGV licence to pick up supplies. There may be scope for more warehousing near rail stations where bulk supplies of non-perishables can be delivered more efficiently than by road, leaving the final stage to be completed by the local store-keeper with his or her light van.

An electoral first for Iceland

 The final vote in Saturday's election is not yet in, but it is already clear that there will be a preponderance of women members in the new Althing. This will be a first for an elected national assembly, in Europe at least. It also appears that the  ruling coalition has slightly strengthened its position. Euronews reports: 

Iceland’s coalition government appeared likely to continue after voters rallied around the political centre in a volatile parliamentary election. The outcome may become historic: The incoming members of parliament were 54% women on Sunday morning, when nearly all votes had been counted. If the number holds, Iceland’s Althing parliament will have a female majority for the first time. According to data compiled by the World Bank, no country in Europe had ever passed the symbolic 50% mark, with Sweden leading the way with 47% female MPs. Polls had suggested a victory for left-leaning parties in the unpredictable election, which saw 10 parties competing for the Althing’s 63 seats. Instead, the centre-right Independence Party took the largest share of votes, and there were big gains for the centrist Progressive Party.

[Later] Not so fast. The final count shows that males will still predominate - just. Reuter says:

  

a recount of votes on Sunday showed there will still be more men than women in the chamber, state broadcaster RUV reported.

One wonders whether Iceland will still beat Sweden, the previous record-holder.

Stop demolishing buildings, say engineers

 The Royal Academy of Engineering, which one might have expected to have an interest in lots of new building, has set that aside in the interests of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. BBC reports:
Britain’s top engineers are urging the government to stop buildings being demolished. Making bricks and steel creates vast amounts of CO2, with cement alone causing 8% of global emissions. They say the construction industry should where possible re-use buildings, employ more recycled material, and use machinery powered by clean fuels. They are concerned about "embodied emissions", which is the CO2 emitted when buildings and materials are made.

A stitch-up which even Kigali would be ashamed of

 There is a lot to criticise in the way A Killing in Tiger Bay was presented. The intrusive, portentous music, the repetitions and the gimmicky way in which the testimony of the main protagonists was produced had me shouting "get on with it!" at the telly. It was a two-hour series, or maybe even a three half-hour series, of programmes stretched to three hours. For all that, even those who had followed news of the investigation of Lynette White's murder must have been shocked at some of the revelations, and those who came new to the case must have been devastated. Five young men, who were guilty only of petty crime and being non-white, were blatantly framed for a murder which early, admittedly scant, evidence clearly showed was committed by a single unknown white male. One accused and four "witnesses" had been harassed and coerced into giving false evidence, against not only the spirit but also the mandated practice of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. 

The lives of five young men, even of the two who were found not guilty, were permanently blighted and those of several family members cut short by the effect of the longest-running criminal trial in England and Wales. On top of that, even after the perversion of justice had been exposed by the legal appeal - only obtained by persistent campaigning by family and friends of the accused - the police officers concerned, named by the TV programme, were not convicted of any offence. Finally, a shadow of guilt ("no smoke without fire") was only finally removed by the use of DNA matching and thus identification of the real killer.

Three other unsatisfactory murder investigations by South Wales Police come to mind. In 1985, two men were wrongly convicted of the murder of the manager of a sex-shop in Swansea. Closer to home, the court threw out charges against a man accused of a murder in Skewen in 2008. Between those two came the case of Dai Morris, who was convicted of the Clydach murders in 1999 and who recently died in prison. Whether he was or was not responsible, the dubious use of character evidence in the trial may have significantly swayed the jury. We are promised a TV documentary on this case, possibly looking at new evidence, later in the year. Given the revelations of A Killing in Tiger Bay, one cannot take the verdict of the programme-makers for granted.

We are assured by the current Chief Constable, and his predecessor, speaking at the end of A Killing in Tiger Bay, that South Wales Police are totally reformed.