zaterdag 22 december 2012

Exchanging one risk for another

   My attention was drawn towards this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/21/britain-deploy-troops-gulf-cameron.
It all sounds very attractive: troops withdrawn faster from dangerous Afghanistan. The Afghan troops can handle things themselves, they will be able to fight off the Taliban/Al Qaida.
   Being a bit older it has a very familiar ring to it: things went like that in Vietnam too. And half a year later the so called very able troops were smashed by the Vietcong.



   Next interesting thing is the 2.5 Billion deal: selling Typhoon jets and stationing more military in the Gulf, the states of the UAE. It sounds very attractive, too good to be true. A nice flow of income and a nice friendship with the UAE.

   The reality is a bit different. The jets and the troops are meant to give protection against a big neighbour. I don't mean Saudi Arabia but Iran. In the states of the UAE is a lot of unrest you hardly hear about in the UK and other western countries. The states are ruled by wealthy and powerful families, their heads - the emirs - are in fact no more than dictators. And the people want more democracy.


                                          
   The problems are enlarged by the fact that the ruling families are sunnis while an overwhelming majority of the people are shiites. The shiites not only want more democracy - like I mentioned before - but even more freedom for celebrating their own holy days and holding their processions like they have done for centuries. The ruling families fear these celebrations because they often lead to riots and more demands for freedom and democracy.

   Because the ruling families lack enough protecting forces often the Saudi army is called for help and they have employed an official militia with arabs from other countries. The militia is very provocative and has caused riots by itself. It has led to bloodshedding and even imprisonment of doctors and nurses who dared to treat the wounded. The story that has been made up is that the medics were hiding criminal looters and telling lies to the international press about was what going on.

                                               5th fleet

   The interests of the western countries here is a bit different than in the cases of the revolutions in Egypt, Lybia, Tunisia and Syria. Because all eyes are on big bad Iran. Everything is about protecting the region against this country. Because of that there is the American 5th Fleet in Bahrain. So it is important to keep the situation stable (like it is).

  I see a big risk in this. The Americans and soon the British will be considered by the people as an occupying force with all the risks involved. As military who help to keep the ruling families in their power. So the people will go to to the streets to have demonstrations and even riots. Knowing that Al Qaida was born in this region (NOT in Afghanistan and certainly not in Iraq) I'm afraid that this will cause reactions from people who are related to Al Qaida too. We have seen what these reactions can be: bombs in western capitals.

So this nice article about a 2.5 Billion deal makes me worried.

vrijdag 9 november 2012

Going to the Norwich Playhouse

And yet another experience! Going to see a comedian, to see John Shuttleworth.
It was the first time for me to go the Norwich Playhouse. According to my wife there would be no problem going over there with the wheelchair.

                                           John Shuttleworth

We were a bit early and decided to have a drink in the theatre bar. It was quite a struggle to get in because the entrance was narrow, there wasa threshold and there were people sitting very close to the door.
It was packed so we drank our drinks outside with the smokers. We were lucky it wasn't that cold and it didn't rain.



After the drink we had a bigger struggle to enter the Playhouse from the garden. Another threshold and an automatic door closer that made it almost impossible to enter. My wife had to get out of the wheelchair to be able to get in.  Together we held the door open and took the wheelchair in.

After getting in my wife wanted to go the toilet. It was surprising to see the ladies' toilet down a flight of stairs and no way was she able to get there. We were discussing this situation when a nervous lady walked up to us.  According to her badge she belonged to the staff. But she had no idea how we could get to the toilet or even to the theater... as another stair was involved.  According to her she was new to the staff of the theater.



My wife already decided to forget the toilet. A ticket seller came to join our little gathering. He told us he had a solution for coming in. We had to wait a bit until things were not that busy. He left us and went back to his place behind the counter.
After a while he came back to us and explained to the nervous lady what to do and gave her a small torch . So she helped us to get out of the building and we walked around into a pitch black alley. Her torch didn't help a lot.  A door at the end was openened by the ticket man. The lady jumped up and down a bit while we entered the side entrance of the theater.



Indoors the first thing that caught our eyes were the stairs. Even entering the theater like this meant that we had to climb down a bit to reach our seats. We managed and I was asked to put the wheelchair downstairs at the sideof the path. Later a woman with a zimmer frame was asked to do the same; she had to climb without it even more steps than us.



I looked around and could not help to make a remark about the theater. Only the most needed things have been taken care of. There is a stage, lights, seats and stairs leading to them. The walls have been left like they were after this storage building was changed into a theater. A few windows have been taken out and the opening have been filled with bricks. It was Funny that John Shuttleworth made exactly the same remark which caused a big laugh from the audience.  It was a very enjoyable show and even while I could not grasp everything I had a few good laughs.

                                         Indoor wall in the Playhouse

After the show we had an hour before the pubs would close (11 PM), so we went to the nrely opened Norwich Tap House which is pretty near. We had heard that one of our favorite types of beer is being served over there.



To get in the pub took great effort. There is a threshold of more than a half meter, so my wife again had to leave her wheelchair and we carried the wheelchair in together. The staff watched the scene interested.
While my wife visited the invalid toilet (with a difficult entrance for a wheelchair) I found that they really had Westmalle Double. So I ordered and we enjoyed it. A bit pricy, so we decided to enjoy it double!
And it also had to be the last one too. Taking the last sip my wife ordered a taxi and we struggled to get outside while the staff very interested looked at the scene again.



We were lucky again, no rain and the taxi came quick. The driver asked if we were okay putting the wheelchair in. It was not very easy but I managed while the driver patiently waited behind the steering wheel.
Interesting evening it was!
==============================================================

zaterdag 3 november 2012

Struggling after curfew

We were aware of the way the cutbacks in Norwich work.
After 12 PM no more streetlights in the neighbourhood.
But yesterday we were really surprised.



There is the luxury of the Fat Cat Brewery Tap closing it's doors at 12, so we don't have to gulp down our drinks at 11 PM. But we realise that when we go home after 12 the streetlights will be off in the neighbourhood. So like the law abiding citizens we are, we go home a little after 11 PM.
We didn't realise that the cutbacks were getting worse!
Reaching our neighbourhood at 11:40 PM we saw the street in complete darkness. We were lucky that it was not totally clouded, so the moon gave a little light. It's obvious that the County Council decided to turn off the lights at 11 PM!



We already made the City Council aware of the bad condition of the pavement on lots of the streets we have  to use and the parked cars don't make things better. Things are quite difficult that way when using a wheelchair.
Yesterday we saw a car that had been parked ON THE PAVEMENT. So we were forced to walk on the street and without any lights that's a very risky business. People in cars will notice you only at the last moment. This already has been the cause for deadly accidents.

I keep thinking about the City Council and County Council as an organisation that sells you a product.
You pay tax and in return you get good roads and good lights on the streets.
Like when you go to a bakery and you pay money and you get a loaf for your money.
The City Council and County Council do things differently.
First they demand your money by council tax and then they do a very surprising thing.



Think of your baker asking the mouldy loaf back, opening the package and removing 6 slices.
Complaining about this didn't help, the County Council is not returning our 6 slices to us.
Instead they now decided it will be 7 slices!

What's next?


vrijdag 5 oktober 2012

Serco

My wife was really amazed getting a letter from Serco in behalf of the NHS.
This was completely new! The National Health Service was always fully capable of sending their own letters.
The letter my wife got was sent at a totally wrong moment. It made us think what this was about. Why is Serco sending these letters and what is Serco?



We found out at the website of Serco what this company is doing exactly. That the name is short for Service Company is obvious. (http://www.serco.com/media/pressreleases/index.asp)
And on Wikipedia you can find a wiki about Serco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco
You can see that Serco is a division of RCA and RCA has been bought and split up before selling by General Electric. If General Electric still has an interest in Serco is not very clear.



Serco has a remarkable field of interest. They are exploiting nuclear power stations, prisons, electronic tagging devices, border guards, railroads (even involved in Abellio, a joint division with Nederlandse Spoorwegen), buslines, metro lines, traffic monitoring, drivers license bureaus, parking meters, speed camera systems, laboratories, education controls, leisure centers, waste collection services, nuclear weapons, naval bases, air traffic control, health care and so on and so on. Revenue in 2011 was 4,646.4 million pounds.
And they are slowly getting a grip on the health care in the UK (just like Richard Branson's Virgin company).
It's very disturbing to see that health care is seen as a way to make a profit.



And I think it's more than worrying to see how much power Serco has in the world. Imagine a world where Serco merges with for instance Facebook and you would have a controlling system over the people in a way George Orwell (1984!) could never even have dreamed of.
Of course that they are dealing with the health care in the UK and showing that they don't know what they are doing or should be doing is mere irritating. And is bad for the reputation of the NHS.
But what can we do?
=========================================================

donderdag 6 september 2012

A Reorganisation (part 1)

Working for the Objections Department at the Tax Office meant working in a thorough manner.  Most of our letters consisted of three quarters of legal humbug. But it had to be done that way because the next step might be fighting in court against the plaintiff.  We were bound to strict rules regarding the time we were supposed to spend on a case.  Officially we had 6 weeks after receiving a letter to handle the case so far that the decision was mailed.  In some cases we were allowed to extend that time to 10 weeks. The customer (like the tax payer was called)  was to be informed in time to do this. And only if he would say that he agreed it could be as long as both parties thought was needed.

This time schedule was difficult to maintain. One reason was the slow delivery of letters in the office:  to register a case would often take 2 weeks for the system; to make the calculations by the central system would take 4 weeks.  This was needed to be able to send a standard decision to the plaintiff and to the department responsible for collecting the right amount of money.



At least this was the best possible way, because often the computer systems didn't work and the civil servants couldn't do anything else on a day like that  than drinking coffee and reading the newspapers.
Most of the systems were quite old. Even people with hardly any knowledge of computers are aware of the fact that systems working under MS-DOS are extremely old in 2008 or 2009.  Because of cutbacks there was no money to improve things on a short term.

If you wrote a letter you had to give a reasonable time for the plaintiff to react, say 3 weeks. And in a reminder there would be a term of 2 weeks. If you count these weeks you'll see that the limits were slightly impossible.

In 2008 and 2009 Parliament reacted on complaints made by people to members.  It was demanded that the pace of making decisions speeded up.



So a new system was introduced to register the complaints and objections. But NEXT to the already existing system. The workers was told that this double work was needed to make the management able to follow the whole procedure on different cases and to see if some workers needed extra guidance regarding their slow way of working.  (Even in 2012 the management could not get any information from the systems.  When workers got a review about their way of working the responsible manager would say that he had the impression that things went okay.)

The next step was to centralize the incoming letters. So letters would often get into the department on Monday, they had to be sent to the central post unit and the department would get them back the next week.
A lot better!



A manager came up with a brilliant idea.  If you phone people you get a quicker response.   Of course the workers were already aware of this, but the higher management considered this a breakthrough. The workers should be trained to phone people. So workers with 30 sometimes even more than 40 years experience were sent to workshops where actors would curse behind screens. After a few months the management calculated that a certain part of the job was been done with just a phonecall.  A success!
It was never measured how much was done with just one phonecall before this training.



All this made the workers less happy in their job and we lost almost one third of the workers in the department because they escaped to other jobs in or out of the tax office.  So we needed more and more support from other departments to help us out. Of course they also had their own jobs to do, so the work for the objections department was thought of as a secondary task. Things altogether went slower again.

At the end of 2009 the management decided to put more pressure on the workers.  A task force of legal experts was sent in to bully the workers to work to a higher speed. Of course this led to  a selfdeclared success and the bullies were rewarded with a bonus.



In 2010 a new system was introduced so things would improve, no more working with MS-DOS on this but with Microsoft XP, while the department still was using Microsoft Office 1997 for letters, spreadsheets and such.  But the system did not work on it's own, it needed support from another new system.  Both systems were very vulnerable and often workers were having days of drinking coffee and reading newspapers again.

The management had enough of this and had a brilliant solution: A REORGANISATION!

dinsdag 4 september 2012

Efficiency at Barclays

Barclays Bank has been in the news regularly in the last months and every time it was not exactly positive.
Libor scandal and laundering of criminal money were the most shocking things that popped up.
Here in this part of the city of Norwich the local branch is going to shut down.
So what to do with a small sleeping account in this bank? Cancelling the account is very logical.



We were near the biggest branch of Barclays Bank in Norwich so decided to go in and do this.
On entering we were stopped by a young man. He asked what we wanted in the building. So we told him.
He took us to a lady who was already talking to another couple. She was writing their names down on a pad. Our names were written down too and we were asked to take the lift to the first floor and wait in the waiting area.

The lift was nice and the waiting area existed of a few settees which were comfortable.  Around the waiting area there were workspots where workers of the bank were talking to customers. When they finished with a client they walked downstairs with a notebook. It was soon clear that they had to ask who was next to be dealt with.

                                         Working spot

They would come back and ask that person to follow to a workspot. Things went quite slow; in one workspot there were three guests, one had to stand because there were only 2 chairs for guests.
A lady next to us started complaining about the Bank. She was quite annoyed about how slow they worked.
I suggested internetbanking but she said she hated this. "If help is needed you get the helpdesk in Mumbai and can't understand any of the advice".

After some time a lady with a pad came up to us and asked if we were there. She also asked the name of the person who was standing in the workspot. He leaned over the top and shouted that he was already  being served. The lady assured us that we would be helped soon.

Two people from workspots left after their guests were gone. They didn't return as far as we could notice. The 3 persons in the workspot next to us left and that worker went downstairs. She came back and called our name and we followed her. We explained what we wanted and within a minute everything was taken care of.

We took the lift again. Downstairs long queues were formed in front of the counters. The young man and the lady were still busy writing down names.
We went  out and felt like having an icecream.
==========================================================

zaterdag 18 augustus 2012

Steeple Chase with a wheelchair

After having stayed in Norwich for a few months, I'm getting used to the poor condition of the pavements here.  So I keep my eyes in front of my wife's wheelchair and try to prevent bumping into holes.
At least I can do that.  It's impossible for me to keep the wheelchair completely upright when the pavement is really crooked, I'm in peace with that now. Sometimes the pavement makes you almost need to jump, but  pushing a wheelchair, that's impossible. Try to do the steeple chase while pushing a wheelchair!

                                         No possibillity to get off the pavement

Walking along I have noticed that cars are certain of getting good care. Wherever needed the kerb is lowered so the tires will not be damaged. It's really a priority.
Secondary in care is the way people in wheelchairs, on mobility scooters and with strollers are treated.  It takes me quite some strength to lower or uplift the wheelchair off and on the pavement where the kerb is not lowered.

                                         Blocking access totally

The people with cars have their own worries. The streets are often narrow (the city is old or wide streets maybe too expensive) so when they park they seek safety and so park their cars on the pavement.
That pedestrians are forced to walk on the road is not their problem. And of course the same goes for the people in wheelchairs and such.

                                          The car is safe!

It causes dangerous situations. More than once cars have passed us by while honking for minutes. I wouldn't like to try to walk with the wheel chair after midnight. In the neighbourhood it's pitch black because the local government is trying to save 20 pounds sterling a year for every streetlight they don't use in the night. So the lights in the neighbourhoods are switched off between midnight and 5 AM.
So we are restricted to the house after midnight.

                                          Blocking the pavement totally

My hope is that in the future the city council would do more about access to the pavement for people in wheelchairs and such. Maybe a member of the council should sit in a wheelchair and experience what the people do. Maybe car owners could consider the space for pedestrians and people in wheelchairs a bit more while they are parking their car. I do understand that they don't want their property being damaged, we can only hope that the city will provide more parking space where this is needed.
=====================================================

zaterdag 5 mei 2012

Teflon Man

Some  people say that all the travelling and exploring of outer space only gave us one good thing: teflon.
It's almost hard to imagine that there are frying pans without this material. It's great that our food will not stick to our pans like in the old day. You had to soak pans to be able to clean them.

                                                              Former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok

When I, as a Dutch man, look at British politics and especially at the Government, I am amazed.
In the Netherlands the prime minister, ministers and even the whole Government will step down when something happens that can be named a scandal or wrong doing. Even when things happened in the past, this might occur. For instance: The Dutch cabinet of Wim Kok stepped down after the reports about Srebrenica were published.
It all happened years before, but they accepted responsibilty for the things that went wrong even when they were not even in power at the moment when more than 7,000 moslem men were slaughtered by Serbs.

                                         David Cameron and George Osborne

In the United Kingdom we see David Cameron and his crew sticking to the power, while everything that can be blamed to them is gliding off them like their career is polished with teflon.

                                         Rupert Murdoch with his wife

I have seen plenty of good reasons for them to step down.  Let's see if we can remember them:

1. The scandal of the phone hacking by News of the World, the Sun, tv station Sky News and maybe by more of the newspapers of the Murdoch's News Corporation.
Murdoch's men were even hired by the government. I name Andy Coulson. He was hired after some pressure from George Osborne, who doesn't even have to appear in front of the Leveson inquiry.
Murdoch's men were put in high positions within Scotland Yard. I name the daughter of  Neil Wallis, deputy editor of the News of the World. Wallis was later arrested  on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. This only cost Assistant Commisioner John Yates his job. He will not be punished;  it has been declared that "he made a poor decision".


                                         Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron

David Cameron was a good friend of Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World, who got arrested a few times because of being a main person in the hacking scandal.
David Cameron had several nice conversations with Rupert Murdoch. It seems that for help on the buying of more shares in tv channel BSkyB Murdoch was promising good support for the Tories. (He has been a very important money contributor in the funds of the Conservatives since the days of Margaret Thatcher.)
It didn't stick to David Cameron!

                                         Peter Cruddas

2. Conservative Party co-treasurer Peter Cruddas told undercover journalists that for 250,000 a person can get real influence on government business. For that price you can enjoy a dinner with David Cameron at 10 Downing Street, which is public property, yet used for party interest. Cash for access this was named. It seemed normal policy.
It only led to the resigning of Peter Cruddas. The whole story was dimished by naming it mere boasting of this man.

                                         Chris McManus

3. The failure of freeing Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara in Nigeria.
These men were taken by terrorists on May 12 2011. It was said that the British and the Italian government would work together on getting them free. Yet the Italians were informed at the moment the mission impossible already was taking place. Both men were killed during the liberation action of British forces and Nigerian military. The Italian government was furious. Nobody in the British government was blamed for this.



4. The scandal of the obligation for people getting an unemployment benefit from the State to work for free for supermarkets like Tescos and ASDA for periods up to 6 months. This with the threat that their allowance would be stopped if they would quit or get fired. When this became public knowledge the rules were adjusted a bit.
Nobody in the government was blamed for this either.

                                                     LibDem's Nick Clegg

This all makes me really astonished.
When somebody is being blamed it's just a person lower in rank in the system. And mostly nothing happens.
So nothing can happen to David Cameron and his crew?
I think they underestimate the common British people. They are fed up with it and show it. Not only were there some fierce student demonstrations but unions showed too that they are angry.
And the local elections of May 2012 made things even clearer. The Tories have lost 1/3 of their councillors in these regions. The LibDems of Nick Clegg lost even more, as much as half.
The next national elections will show exactly what the people think of all this scheming and dealing.

May 15 2012
Rebekah Brooks is arrested together with 5 others for perverting the course of justice. One of them is her husband, a friend of Cameron for some 30 years.
By now we know that Mrs. Brooks and David Cameron were texting on a very regular basis.

                                          Andy Coulson

More news:
(Former) Communications chief of David Cameron Andy Coulson (former employee of the Rupert Murdoch corporation was hired without the normal procedures of screening. This never happened before in history with any prime minister.

May 31 2012
Andy Coulson has been accused of perjury yesterday. According to the police he has been lying under oath about his knowledge of the hacking of phones.

                                         Lady Warsi

Lady Warsi, the co-chairman of the Conservative Party is under fire about dishonest claiming expenses.
She claimed having expenses because of having to stay in London. But she seemed to have stayed in the house of a friend for free. So there were no expenses. Now she states she payed someone else.
Her claims will be investigated by a parliamentary commision.

Lady Warsi is very important for David Cameron. She is a very outspoken lady. After losing the latest elections she declared that Labour was the real losing party for not gaining more seats. It was a real landslide, Labour gaining more than 850 seats in local councils.
She was parachuted in government by giving her nobility. After becoming a baroness she could get a seat in the House of Lords and so get into the government.

The dirt gets closer and closer to this government.

In other countries the coalition party (LibDems) would step out of the government and would stop supporting it. Nick Clegg is not doing this because this would lead to elections. Having elections in this period would be a disaster for his party. It would be swept from parliament.

June 4 2012
A bit of news again.
There are new developments in the Lady Warsi case.
She admitted not to have included rental income from a flat she owns in Wembley in her income in the Lords register.
More and more politicians ask her to step down from government while investigations go on about her falsely claiming expenses about renting a house while she stayed there for free.
The person accusating her is Wafik Mustafa, an influential conservative man who runs an Arab Network.

She apologised for not letting be known that she owned a business together with a relative. This company was involved in outreach events of the British High Commission in Pakistan.
David Cameron has asked Alex Allan to check if no ministerial code has been breached.

                                         Jeremy Hunt

And then there are the problems Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, got in.
He had to handle the bid of Rupert Murdochs company News Corporation on BSkyB, taking this over from Vince Cable who had quite a bad relation with  News Corporation. He was supposed to look at it in an unpartial way, but it has been proven that he had a very warm contact with the bidder. Even giving him important information without being asked.
This was initially denied in the House of Commons. More facts and messages to and from Murdoch showed up at the Leveson inquiry.
Within 25 minutes after being questioned, David Cameron could already tell Jeremy Hunt did nothing wrong in the process. This while most people are convinced that Hunt has lied to the members of the House of Commons.
The problems already caused the resignation of his special advisor Adam Smith.

                                         Adam Smith

Maybe things now really start to move. Nick Clegg was being asked if he would support Hunt in the House of Commons. Clegg refused to tell the reporters he was going to do such a thing.
Without the LibDems supporting him Jeremy Hunt will not get through a voting about his functioning.

June 5 2012
Amazing!!!!
Even the celebrating of the Queens Jubilee can result in a scandal.

                                         The stewards under the London Bridge

The pageant needs to be guarded, people guided and protected so private companies are hired to give safety. Because the police can't do it, caused by cutbacks and therefore shortage of policemen.
But the private companies want to do things cheap.
So the Work Experience Program came in very handy.
The firm Close Protection UK "hired" 80 jobseekers and persons on "apprentice" wages to do the work.
They were transported by buses from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth to London.
They arrived at 3 AM and had to wait under London Bridge till the morning.
Then they had to change clothes in public, putting on a sort of uniformed clothing. The women in this group were told that they could change in a bus. Because the bus was closed they had no choice but to change in public too.
This group of stewards had a work day of 14 hours without payment, working under the threat of losing their benefits if they would refuse or not delivering a good job.
After their long working hours they were brought to a swampy area where they had to sleep in tents.
For 24 hours they had no access to a toilet.

                                           Molly Prince

The managing director, Molly Prince, denies that the group has been exploited. She stated that the clothing was worth 100 pounds. And she added that if her company will get in trouble because of this, it would result in the firing of hundreds of workers. And she will evaluate what happened.

                                         Lord Prescott

Former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott has questioned Theresa May, the Home Secretary, about the whole thing. Asks if no laws or employment standards has been breached.
Of course you can ask too if safety of the public wasn't at stake. The stewards were not qualified for this type of crowd controlling work. I don't want to think about what could have happened!

                                         Theresa May

In a country like the Netherlands the Home Secretary would be declared responsible and there would be a lot of people asking her to step down. Again, I'm very interested what will be the result.

July 24 2012
It just became clear that Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks have to stand on trial because of the listening in on phones and the messing around with texts on phones. Against Coulson there are 4 accusations, against Brooks 3. With them there are 6 journalists who worked for News of the World who will face charges.
So again: the legal threats are getting nearer and nearer to David Cameron. How can he ever be sold as trustworthy again?

Then there is the continuous ridiculous story about the safety for the Olympics. Company G4S was given a contract worth lots and lots of money. But more and more it became clear that they totally screwed up.
How can you train your staff handling x-ray scanners in 20 minutes? It's clear that you can't.
G4S was going to supply 10,000 security people. Only a fortnight ago they admitted they could only submit 7,000, so the military have to fill the gap by sending 3,500 personnel and they have already 1,200 extra close by in case it will show that G4S is causing a bigger gap. A good example of how you can make a mess by privatising security.
We already saw that during the celebration of 60 years of governing by Queen Elizabeth the "voluntary" security staff had to spend the night under a bridge and had to change clothes in public view.

December 1 2012
Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks will stand on trial because of phone hacking and bribery.

                                               J.K.Rowling (one of the victims who spoke out)

Today and yesterday there was a lot of discussions about the Leveson report about the abuse by the Murdoch press. Leveson comes with propositions about having more control of the press.
David Cameron won't have any of it, is not going to do anything with the report.

                                         The report

The victims are very angry: they ask why they had to go through all their misery again giving evidence to Leveson and his committee while the prime minister knew in advance he would not do anything against Murdoch and his newspapers. Now members of parliament are thinking about making a new law based on the report themselves.
David Cameron will get away with it. Like always.

I expect that Rupert Murdoch slowly will sell his British newspapers and will withdraw from the UK totally. In the meantime he already bought the Dutch tv rights on Eredivisie football (and is expected to buy the rights on the national team as well). And he owns a large part of SBS, so he can give the Dutch what the British are despising: Murdoch's way of giving the news.
==========================================================