What a true assessment of the economic costs of mass immigration would include

Robert Henderson

The politically correct never cease to tell us that mass immigration is a net benefit to Britain. By this they mean that immigrants pay more in taxes than they cost in publicly funded services. To make such an assessment the following statistics would be needed:

1. The amount of income tax and National Insurance paid by immigrants.  Because of the type of work involved – seasonal, work offered by foreign gangmasters and so on –  it is reasonable to assume a  disproportionately  large proportion of those working in the black market are immigrants. There is also a practice of immigrants working and paying tax until they exceed the single person’s tax allowance in a tax year, ceasing to work in the UK for that tax year and then reclaiming all the income tax paid at the end of the tax year. That rebated tax  needs to be deducted from the tax paid figure held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

2. The costs arising  from the native population who are denied jobs which immigrants have taken. This will involve the benefits native workers have to collect because they cannot find a job, the costs of having to move to a new area to either seek work or because  the new benefits cap will not meet their rent and the costs of having to take children out of one school plus the costs of registering with a new GP because a family is forced to move .

3. The cost to the native population of a reduction in wages caused by immigrants increasing the pool of labour. This will mean  less tax paid and more in-work benefits

4. The cost of  benefits drawn by immigrants when they are not working.

5. The cost of benefits drawn by immigrants when they are working, for example, working tax credits, housing benefit.

6. The cost of NHS care given to immigrants.

7. The cost of education given to immigrants, this to include the additional costs arising from those with poor or non-existent English.

8. The cost of benefits, education and NHS care for the children of immigrants born in the UK.

9. The costs of benefits paid to immigrants to support children born abroad and living abroad.

10. The inflation of  housing costs caused by immigrants and their children born in the UK increasing the demand for housing.

11.  The costs involved in a decline in the quality of NHS care and educational standards because of the pressure placed on the NHS, schools and higher education by immigrants.  The inadequate English of many immigrants employed in the NHS in particular must reduce the efficiency of the service and increase the likelihood of error. The difficulty of teaching in schools with huge numbers of pupils lacking English as a first language speaks for itself.

12. The costs involved  in the British economy generally from a loss of efficiency through the inadequate English of immigrants and their lack of understanding of British customs. It may be cheaper for an employer to employ an immigrant in terms of wages,  but,  especially where the immigrant is dealing with the public, there must be a substantial the loss of efficiency in terms of  extra time taken to conduct conversations with customers, misunderstandings of what is wanted and an inability to explain  to customers what is on offer.

13. The loss of expertise to Britain of skilled Britons who seek work abroad because of opportunities the UK being blocked by immigrants, for example,  newly qualified British doctors and nurses have encountered difficulty in obtaining British posts despite the frequent claims of NHS staff shortages (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9272640/New-doctors-will-face-unemployment.html),  while positions at British medical schools are cut and large numbers of foreigners recruited (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2407585/NHS-recruits-thousands-doctors-Third-World–limits-places-deny-British-students-chance-study-medicine.html)

14. The costs – which can be lifelong –  of the loss of work experience for Britons  unable to get work at all, whether skilled or unskilled.  This is particularly important for the young.

15. The costs in terms of wear and tear on the roads because of increased traffic arising from immigrants.

16. The cost of criminal activity amongst immigrants.

17. The cost of criminal activity amongst the descendants of immigrants.

18. The costs of guarding against Islamic terrorism.

19. The costs of the remittances made by immigrants and their descendants to their ancestral countries.

20. The costs of meeting the requirements of the “anti-racist” legislation which puts considerable burdens employers. These are  particularly severe for any employer who is funded in whole or part by the taxpayer.  Such employers have to not merely be non-discriminatory,  but they have to prove that is what they are as a result of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/34/pdfs/ukpga_20000034_en.pdf). The police are particularly keen to show how PC they are (http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/edhr/2010/201001EDHREDH01.pdf)

21. The cost of dealing with visa requests, asylum claims,  claims regarding family reunions  and claims based on compassionate grounds. The costs include employing civil servants to process claims to stay in the UK, the cost of staffing of immigration tribunals, the costs arising from the court time taken by the cases  which go to the courts, the  legal costs of those trying to stay in the UK (which are normally paid by the taxpayer), the cost of running immigration detention centres and the cost of removing people from the UK .

22. The ongoing cost of the descendants of immigrants – potentially through many generations – of racial and ethnic groups who continue to display high levels of unemployment, high benefit dependency,  low-skills,  poor educational attainment, low payments of tax and  abnormally high levels of criminality.

I defy anyone to find a piece of research which comes close to including all those costs or even a majority of them.

Of course the economic arguments are not  the most important thing about mass immigration which is that it changes the nature of a society because immigrants arriving in large numbers from the same country will invariably colonise parts of the country and resist assimilation.  Nonetheless, it is important to thoroughly examine the weaknesses in the economic claims made by the politically correct because it is their favoured ploy to try to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.

The costs fall most heavily on the poor, the rich being, as yet, largely untouched because they arrange their lives so that they do not encounter the supposed joy of diversity and have no need to seek work in a competitive situation.

Parliamentary pay, expenses and conditions: a remedy for corruption

 

Robert Henderson

Parliamentary pay and expenses are never  far from the public eye these days. Neither the Commons voting on its own remuneration nor the setting up a supposedly independent pay review body has proven satisfactory from the point of view of the public. Nor did an earlier attempt at linking pay to that of a middle ranking civil servant avoid the difficulty of the initial setting of the peg by which MPs’ pay should be decided. .

As for expenses they have been a standing cause for Parliamentary shame ever since the Daily Telegraph exposed the gross abuses which were going on in 2009 when they purchased records of Parliamentary expenses which politicians  had done their very best to keep secret (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5297606/MPs-expenses-Full-list-of-MPs-investigated-by-the-Telegraph.html).

MPs Pay

MPs’ pay  should be comfortable but no more than that,  let us say  three times the average national wage. That  would take it up to around £80,000 at present. I think most people would accept  that as  reasonable if MPs were banned from taking other paid  work and expenses abuse, both legal and illegal, was tightly controlled. It would give the backbench MP a salary akin to that of a doctor or a solicitor.  In addition, they have a seriously generous pension by present day standards, subsidised food and drink within the Palace of  Westminster and a substantial payment to tide them over should they lose their seat.  There might be a case for removing or lessening such perks, but for the moment I would let them stay. The subsidised food is justified by the ending of any expense claims  allowed for meals in London and the transition payment is reasonable if  MPs are allowed no  outside of politics  employment whilst an MP. The pension is more vulnerable to attack because there is a case for saying MPs should not have a more generous pension regime than is the norm for British society.

We can be sure that there would be no shortage of takers at £80,000 pa even with the other conditions I have proposed.  Indeed  the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), which has recently recommended an 11% rise,  admits that the current £66, 000 is quite sufficient to entice many to be parliamentary candidates (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10516391/No-evidence-MPs-66000-salary-deters-people-from-standing-for-Parliament-pay-watchdog-admits.html).  The idea that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys should produce a hollow laugh from anyone who has paid attention to how MPs behave, whether  in terms of being dishonest or lazy or simply incompetent. Our present remuneration system produces all too often MPs who act as though they see being an MP as merely a ticket to ride the  gravy train and  an ego trip.  Few  show any real independence of thought or action for very rarely does an MP, even a backbencher, step radically out of line on a party policy, even where, so often these days, the policies are self-evidently not in the national interest, for example, the continuing mass immigration in the UK and the ever increasing suppression of dissent against the ever tighter grasp  of political correctness.  

Their pay should  be uprated up or down in  accordance with the rise or fall of the average wage.  That would provide both a simple and transparent system for the public to understand and give MPs a direct reminder once a year of how their stewardship of the country is going. It would also get rid of any squabbling over who makes the decision and remove, after the initial decision on the multiple of the average wage to be used, any further human decision making. Consequently, there would be an appearance of objectivity top any rise.

The job of an MP should be full time  for two reasons. The first is a matter of practicality:  the size of the average UK constituency is large (68, 000 – http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/elections-and-voting/constituencies/ ) and requires a good deal of time spent on it if people are to be represented properly . In addition,  much of the present business of Parliament goes through with precious little  scrutiny because MPs are so often absent – even the Commons committees routinely have MPs missing. 

The second reason is fundamental to the office of MP: if they have outside interests there is a strong likelihood they will be compromised, because their extra-Parliamentary work will very often impinge on Parliamentary business.  That is not just the obvious cases such as back benchers being sponsored by unions,  being in receipt of non-executive directorships or receiving   consultancy fees, but also that deriving from seemingly innocuous employment such as practising at the Bar or working as a doctor because these can readily give them vested interests.  For example, a barrister would have a vested interest in changes to legal Aid; a doctor in the alteration of the terms of general practice. MPs are supposed to declare any  interest but they can still vote.  In principle,  Ministers have to be not only honest in actuality, but show themselves to be like Caesar’s wife above suspicion. This they do  by divesting  themselves of  directorships and placing any shares they may have in blind trusts. If it is thought necessary for ministers to have such, it should be doubly  necessary for backbenchers because they would prima facie be much more in the way of  temptation when it comes to satisfying their own selfish interests rather than those of the country because they have far less pay than a Minister.   

The post-office legalised bribes that come in the form of sinecures on the boards of companies must also be stopped.  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10516295/Whitehalls-revolving-door-speeds-up-ex-ministers-and-civil-servants-seeking-jobs-in-private-sector-doubles.html ).

MPs Expenses

It might be thought that after the revelation  by the Daily Telegraph in 2009 of the  grotesquely inappropriate  things for which MPs were allowed to claim,  caution if not morality would have greatly curbed the abuses.  Sadly, it appears there is still some bizarre  poking of Hon Members’ noses into the expenses trough, for example, the brawling Scottish MP Eric Joyce, who sits as an independent since losing the Labour whip, stung the taxpayer for  £229 for a pair of designer glasses. (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/disgraced-mp-eric-joyce-stung-2896178).

The only expenses MPs should be allowed are for accommodation when they are in London and have constituencies a fair distance from the capital and the cost of travel between their constituencies. It is reasonable to expect them to meet their food costs whilst away from home, not least because of the subsidised  meals they can get within the Place of Westminster.

Housing can be met one of two ways,   build a furnished hostel to house MPs or simply put out contracts to London hoteliers for a bulk rate. Fully furnished accommodation with no need for  MPs to buy any household goods.

As for travel, the government should negotiate a bulk contract for MPs and their families with the rail companies. The spouses and children could be restricted to a set number of trips a year.  I doubt whether any MPs live far from a  railway station.  I would restrict them to railway travel if the taxpayer is paying. Those who  live  a genuinely long distance away, for example, in the far north of Scotland or Northern Ireland,  could be covered  by a bulk buy contract with one or more airlines.

If this seems somewhat Spartan rations,  remember that MPs who have constituencies too far from Westminster to make a daily commute practical  probably only spend Monday-Thursday nights in London. In addition, the Commons only sits for about 6 months of the year. Consequently, the argument that MPs need a flat or house in London to maintain family life is clearly untrue.

If such a regimen was introduced expenses fraud would vanish because an MP would have little  opportunity for it. Their  accommodation in London would be paid for by the government directly, there would be no household purchases needed because the accommodation would be furnished and travel expenses would be paid for by the government directly. MPs would have to claim nothing.

The other great abuse is the employment by MPs’ of their relatives or friends as staff.   As this is public money being spent it is reasonable that these positions are put out to open competition. But even if that was done, the  MP would still be likely to choose the relative or friend.  That is a good reason to ban MPs from employing anyone close to them. A second reason to ban their employment  is that a close relative or friend would be more likely on average to turn a blind eye to bad behaviour by an MP and MPs would be aware of this and moderate their criminal tendencies. The third reason is that some MPs at least have employed relatives and friends who have done precious little work. Someone unknown to the MP before employment is much more likely to do the work for which they are paid.

To help ensure that MPs are not illicitly enriching themselves, a full statement of assets including those held by close family members should be included in the Members Register of Interests. These should be checked against the actual material circumstances of each MP  when they first become and MP, once a Parliament and when the MP leaves Parliament.

There is also a crying need for a proper investigation into the way Parliamentary  expense administrators and the special HMRC unit dealing with MPs pay have failed to apply the HMRC’s  “Wholly, necessarily and exclusively incurred in the performance of the job”  expenses test. It was clear from the Telegraph data published in 2009 that well over half of MPs had claims which comprehensively failed the test, yet very few were brought to book over it.  Consequently, the Parliamentary administrators and the HMRC unit should be investigated for systematically failing to apply the test. 

The House of Lords

The Lords is a mess. It is neither political fish nor fowl nor good red flesh. Trying to reform it is really a lost cause because most of the hereditary peers  are gone (which removes the idea of independent members  beholden to no one) and the vast majority of the regular attendees are placemen of the major political parties. It would be better if the House was abolished and replaced by an entirely new chamber with none of the placemen in it so there is a genuine change of political personnel. (Personally, I would favour a House of 1,000 members selected by lot from those who were willing to serve with a single term of eight years. They would act as a kind of jury to oversee the legislation of the Commons but would not initiate the legislation.  The primacy of the Commons would not be challenged and political parties would not be able to control the house). 

However, there is no prospect of any radical change in the foreseeable future so what should be done under present circumstances?

Peers do not get pay, but  an attendance allowance and expenses, including London accommodation if they live far enough away. . They cheat  by selling influence , claiming illegitimate expenses and by abusing the attendance allowance rules. The last they do by signing on for the day then leaving the Lords shortly afterwards having pocketed £300 from the taxpayer (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/video-tory-lord-hanningfield-exposed-2934895#ixzz2nj1KwOwp)  It is doubtful  whether this abuse of the attendance allowance is illegal because there are no clear duties for peers, but it is clearly an abuse and should be stopped. As for the selling of influence, that  should be made a criminal offence. Expenses should be  restricted to travel and overnight accommodation and could be included within whatever arrangements are made for MPs.  

How could things be improved on the attendance allowance front?  By paying a salary? That is not really a starter because most of the peers entitled to sit in the House – there are approaching  800 at present – do not wish to attend regularly. The so-called working peers – almost all placemen and women of the major parties – might be given a salary while the others continued with a more rigorously policed  attendance allowance scheme  but that would be a messy arrangement.   The best option would be payment based on objective criteria such as participation in debates and voting  rather than simply clocking in.  This could be linked to definite duties such as I discuss in the next section.  

Terms of service

Apart from abuses in drawing expenses,  some  MPs neglect their political duties, both  at Westminster or in their constituency.  For example, Gordon Brown is notorious for very rarely being in the Commons since his  resignation as Prime Minister – he has even started describing himself as an ex-politician  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/10415046/Gordon-Brown-Im-an-ex-politician.html). In addition  there is no general public scrutiny of the performance of  a constituency MP, the only real test of the latter being the opinion of their constituency party because the vast majority of constituents will never have cause to go to their MP seeking personal help. 

MPs can get away with such neglect because there is no legal requirement for an MP to do anything either at Westminster or in his constituency. There is a Code of Conduct for MPs but observation of the Code  is not a legal requirement.  Complaints under the Code  can be referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Commissioner’s report on any investigation  he or she may undertake may  be considered by the Committee on Standards (until the beginning of 2012 the Committee on Standards and Privileges http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/standards-and-privileges-committee/). In principle, the House of Commons can also take action as a House if it so chooses. 

Apart from the lack of legal teeth, here are two problems with this system: first, the penalties which are imposed are normally  minor, for example, a reprimand and instruction to apologise to the House; second, even the relatively  minor sanctions that the Committee for Standards can mete out are all too often not imposed.

MPs can be excluded from the House, sometimes for years, but these are rare punishments, especially where powerful and influential members are involved. Think of Peter Mandelson under Blair who was forced to resign a  ministerial position not once but twice: the first time over his false declaration when applying for a mortgage  and his acceptance of a very large loan accepted from a political colleague, the second after the Indian Hinduja brothers received British passports in questionable circumstances after Mandelson had taken a hand in the matter  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/3130348/The-scandals-that-brought-Peter-Mandelson-down-twice-before.html). Nor would the police investigate Mandelson for his false declaration when applying for a mortgage, despite this being an established fact – I made a complaint to the Met asking them to do so but the police refused to even register the complaint (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/laws-are-for-little-people-the-mandelson-mortgage-fraud-cover-up/).

The Code of Conduct is a document which shares something with  the 1936 Soviet Constitution. The latter was a wondrously cornucopia of democratic goodies; the Code of Conduct is splendidly ethical statement of how an MP should behave. Neither the Soviet Constitution nor the Code of Conduct had or has any connection with reality.  Consider these extracts from the Code of Conduct:

“Selflessness

Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.

Integrity

Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties.

Objectivity

In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.

Accountability

Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.

Openness

Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.

Honesty

Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.

Leadership

Holders of public office should promote and support these principles by leadership and example.” (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmcode/1885/188502.htm#a1)

How far  this is from reality is epitomised by the IPSA chairman claiming that the 11% pay rise for MPs is necessary otherwise they would return to large-scale abuse of expenses. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10512763/Increase-MPs-pay-or-risk-another-expenses-scandal-Ipsa-chairman-says.html).

The Code of Conduct needs to be enforced rigorously, but that would still leave MPs free to  devote too little time to their political duties. Consequently, there needs to be a legal enforceable job description which requires MPs to do things such  hold regular constituency surgeries, respond to constituents mail within a certain numbers of days  and attend Westminster whenever Parliament is sitting unless they have a reasonable excuse for being absent such as attending to ministerial duties or undertaking official Parliamentary business away from Westminster.

What improvements in politicians’ behaviour would result?

The changes I propose, or something like them, would remove from Parliament those who are there to enrich themselves. The remuneration (including perks) would be sufficient to enable an MP to live decently but not extravagantly.  Because MPs would have all the previously legal ways of enriching themselves through such things as  absurdly lax expenses rules, employing relatives  or spending large amounts of  time on non-political work, only surreptitiously selling influence would be available to them.  However, with proper oversight  such as checking the actual material circumstances of  an MP even that would become decidedly risky. Make selling influence a criminal offence with a hefty prison sentence and it would be most unattractive prospect.

If MPs come to the business knowing they cannot be a law unto themselves but will be subject to the type of constraints which the general population are held by in their work, that in itself will tend to produce politicians who are interested in formulating and implementing policy and serving their constituents rather than serving their own interests.   What I propose  would not be a panacea but a good beginning in the sorely needed attempt to change the ethical weather in Parliament.  There is nothing more corrupting than seeing those with power being corrupt for it  taints the whole of society by example.

 

Mandela – The long walk to a myth

Robert Henderson

The shrieking sycophancy of the British media as they respond to Nelson Mandela’s death was as predictable as the sun rising in the East in these politically correct times.  To judge him from these panegyrics it would be thought that Mandela was an unblemished character suited only for a  secular version of sainthood. Amongst the vast cache of hysterical idiocy offered up I award the palm for incontinent emotional excess to Peter Oborne of the Telegraph for a piece entitled   “Few human beings can be compared to Jesus Christ. Nelson Mandela was one” (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100249502/few-human-beings-can-be-compared-to-jesus-christ-nelson-mandela-was-one/)

The state of South Africa now

Back to reality.  Mandela was a man with a messy private life and a public life  which after his release from captivity in 1990 was accompanied by a great deal of hullabaloo but little improvement in the general conditions of life for most of the population.  The indignities of apartheid were removed but violent crime soared, corruption ballooned and the lot of the poor did  not substantially change.  That is not to pretend that apartheid was preferable to what exists now for the large majority of the population – the indignity of formal legal inferiority is a tremendous burden and its removal counts for much –   but rather to question whether the  present  general circumstances of South Africa are  substantially better than what existed before the end of apartheid.

The South Africa that Mandela leaves behind him is a mess. Violent crime is probably the worst problem and it is rising with the official South African figures showing murders  rising from 15,609 murders in 2011/12 to 16,259 in 2012/13 and  attempted murder rising from 14, 859 to 16, 363 (http://www.africacheck.org/reports/factsheet-south-africas-official-crime-statistics-for-201213/).

To put those figures in context, South Africa has a population of about 52 million, the UK a population of  over 60 million (https://www.google.co.uk/#q=south+african+popluation+), yet in most years the UK  has less than 1,000 homicides (including manslaughter).  (http://www.citizensreportuk.org/reports/murders-fatal-violence-uk.html).

Nor is the South African crime without ethnic or racial dimension even in official eyes, viz:

“The crimes above are not easy to reduce through policing alone.  This is because most (around 60% to 70%) of murders, attempted murders and rapes, occur between people who know each other and occur as a result of a mix of particular social and economic factors. These crimes are often referred to by the police as ‘inter-personal’ violent crimes.  Only between 15% and 20% of murders and attempted murders are the result of aggravated robbery while inter-group conflicts and vigilantism make up the rest.” – See more at: http://www.africacheck.org/reports/factsheet-south-africas-official-crime-statistics-for-201213/#sthash.RnKUEIEu.dpuf.

The position of whites

The situation of South African whites has worsened both in terms of impoverishment for many and  as the target for violent crime. The long serving BBC foreign correspondent John Timpson went as far in May 2013 to question whether whites in South Africa had a future in South Africa – “Do whites have a future in South Africa? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22554709. In the article Simpson described the white squatter camps which have sprung up and the creation of an army of perhaps 400,000 whites who have been severely impoverished.

Perhaps the most telling fact about the situation of whites in South Africa is the number (several thousand) of white farmers who have been murdered since the fall of Apartheid.  Simpson sums up thee situation of white farmers starkly: “In South Africa you are twice as likely to be murdered if you are a white farmer than if you are a police officer – and the police here have a particularly dangerous life. The killings of farmers are often particularly brutal.”  According to Simpson the number of white farmers in South Africa has dropped from 60,000 twenty years ago to 30,000 now.

The anti-white racism goes to the top of the ANC: “At a centenary gathering of the African National Congress last year, Zuma was filmed singing a so-called ‘struggle song’ called Kill The Boer (the old name for much of the white Afrikaner population).

As fellow senior ANC members clapped along, Zuma sang: ‘We are going to shoot them, they are going to run, Shoot the Boer, shoot them, they are going to run, Shoot the Boer, we are going to hit them, they are going to run, the Cabinet will shoot them, with the machine-gun, the Cabinet will shoot them, with the machine-gun . . .’

Alongside him was a notorious character called Julius ‘Juju’ Malema, a former leader of the ANC youth league, who is now Zuma’s bitter enemy and is reportedly planning to launch a new political party after Mandela’s death.

A bogeyman to white South Africans, Malema is popular among young blacks, and has also been an enthusiastic singer of Kill The Boer and another song called Bring Me My Machine-Gun.

Polls this week showed a huge surge in support among young black South Africans for his policies, which he says will ignore reconciliation, and fight for social justice in an ‘onslaught against [the] white male monopoly’.” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351339/Mandelas-passing-looming-threat-race-war-South-Africas-whites-widow-mourns-latest-murdered-white-farmer-chilling-dispatch-nation-holding-breath.html)

Post Apartheid South Africa is also a seriously  corrupt society,  being ranked 72^nd out of 177 countries in  the 2013 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), a worse ranking than the year before (http://www.thesouthafrican.com/business/sa-remains-in-bad-company-in-2013-corruption-rankings.htm). Worse, corruption goes right to the top with the current president Jacob Zuma  accused of using millions of pounds of public money on his own house and grounds  (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/29/jacob-zuma-accused-corruption-south-africa).

Mandela’s private life

Mandela’s private life does not show him in a pretty light. His first wife Evelyn Rakeepile bore him four children of whom one died in infancy. Mandela was promiscuous during this marriage and had a number of affairs. When Mandela divorced her after 13 years of marriage he left her with three young children to raise and contributed little if anything to their upkeep in the  years before being imprisoned for life. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/may/05/guardianobituaries.southafrica).

Rakeepile understandably railed against the adulation Mandela attracted: “How can a man who has committed adultery and left his wife and children be Christ? The whole world worships Nelson too much. He is only a man.”  (David James Smith 2010 Young Mandela p59 ). An unkind soul might say that Mandela displayed classic black male model behaviour, namely,  being sexually incontinent, deserting his wife and children and failing to provide for them.

Mandela and violence

There is also the question mark over Mandela’s commitment to non-violence after his release.  He certainly was not an advocate of non-violence before he was imprisoned, having formed the guerrilla group  “Sword of the Nation” (Umkhonto we Sizi) to carry out terrorist acts using bombs.

The claim that the explosions he supported before his imprisonment were all directed only against property with its implication that this was humane terrorism will not stand up. No substantial explosion directed at property can ever be guaranteed to be non-lethal, because  there is always a chance that it will kill someone who is there which the bomber does not know about or cause a fire which engulfs more than the immediate target of the explosion.

Then there is the behaviour of the ANC during his imprisonment and afterwards.  The ANC were seriously violent to not only those who were agents and supporters of apartheid, but also to their own members who were thought to have transgressed (and  also to any unaffiliated blacks who displeased them).  Mandela failed to unreservedly condemn these acts during or after his release from prison.

To that general failure can be added his failure to condemn the support for violence and wholehearted advocacy of the sadistic practice of “necklacing” – the placing of a tyre over the victims head and over their arms to pinion them before coating the type with petrol and setting the tyre alight – by his second wife Winnie  who famously declared at a rally “with our matches and necklaces, we’ll liberate this country!” (go in at 3 minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP_r5ET5CFU&feature=youtu.be).

Apart from her devotion to necklacing, Winnie Mandela also had a nice line in intimidation and violence up to and including murder. She ran a bunch of thugs known as the Mandela Football team  and was convicted of  assault and kidnapping in 1991 after the death of ANC youth activist, Stompie Seipei Moeketsi.  The sentence was six years in prison initially but this was reduced to two years suspended on appeal.  Ghosts from her Mandela United Football Club past may be about to return to haunt her with an investigation into the deaths of two other youths now in progress (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/bodies-exhumed-in-anc-murder-case-linked-to-winnie-mandela-8531758.html)

Winnie Mandela has a remarkable record of escaping punishment. In his evidence to the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission a senior police officer said that although the police at the end of the apartheid era had compiled a list of 30 crimes they believed Winnie had committed – from high treason to murder – the attorney general had refused to prosecute her because she was regarded as “untouchable”.( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10502171/Nelson-Mandela-and-Winnie-portrait-of-a-marriage.html)

Even when Mandela was experiencing  the most constricting of his prison years, it is difficult to believe that he had no news of what the ANC was doing or how his second wife was behaving. But he never condemned the excesses of the ANC  or the barbarities of his then wife. It was not until 1992 (two years after Mandela’s release) that he separated from Winnie  Mandela  and 1996 before they were divorced.

Tellingly, Amnesty International refused to classify Mandela  as a prisoner of conscience stating that    Amnesty “could not give the name of ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ to anyone associated with violence, even though as in ‘conventional warfare’ a degree of restraint may be exercised.” (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/POL10/001/1965/en)

After his release in 1990, in his first speech Mandela banged the violence drum: “Our resort to the armed struggle in 1960 with the formation of the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was a purely defensive action against the violence of apartheid. The factors which necessitated the armed struggle still exist today. We have no option but to continue. We express the hope that a climate conducive to a negotiated settlement will be created soon so that there may no longer be the need for the armed struggle.” (http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4520)

Mandela’s communist leanings

As for Mandela’s commitment to racial and ethnic inclusiveness,  this may have been simply a consequence of ideological capture. Back in the 1950s the ANC was divided between the Africanists who wanted only blacks to be involved and the communists who took a class based stand which included all South Africans – blacks, coloureds, whites, Indians and Malays.  The question of whether Mandela was a member of the South  African Communist Party ( SACP) is perhaps a matter for debate, although he most probably was.  What is not in dispute is his ideological infatuation with Marxism. Here is the South African writer Rial Malan commenting on Mandela’s depiction as a wholly good person committed to democracy:

“In the early Sixties, Special Branch detectives came upon a piece of evidence that made this a bit tricky in Mandela’s case – a handwritten essay titled, “How to be a Good Communist”, (https://archive.org/stream/HowToBeAGoodCommunist/Mandela#page/n5/mode/2up)  in which the leader of the ANC’s newly formed military wing opined that “South Africa will be a land of milk and honey under a Communist government.”[RH note: The essay also contains ‘In our own country, the struggles of the oppressed people are guided by the South African Communist Party and guided by its policies’]

We were told that Mandela was innocently toying with Marxist ideas, trying to understand their appeal, but this made no sense. Almost all his co-conspirators were Communists, wedded to a Sovietist doctrine that envisaged a two-phase ending to the South African struggle – a “democratic national revolution”, followed by a second revolution in which the Marxist-Leninist vanguard took power.

If Mandela wasn’t in on this plot, it would have been exceptionally stupid of him to participate in it, and Mandela was never stupid. Which leaves me believing the evidence recently presented by historians Stephen Ellis (of Amsterdam) and Irina Filatova and Apollon Borisovich Davidson (of Moscow): Mandela was secretly a member of the South African Communist Party’s innermost Central Committee.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10502173/Nelson-Mandela-he-was-never-simply-the-benign-old-man.html).

To this can be added Mandela’s first speech on leaving prison in 1990. This showed him still in Marxist fellow travelling mode:

“I salute the South African Communist Party for its sterling contribution to the struggle for democracy. You have survived 40 years of unrelenting persecution. The memory of great communists like Moses Kotane, Yusuf Dadoo, Bram Fischer and Moses Mabhida will be cherished for generations to come.” (http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4520)

He also said this in the speech “I am a loyal and disciplined member of the African National Congress. I am therefore in full agreement with all of its objectives, strategies and tactics. ” Ibid.

That is a very Marxist turn of phrase.

In 1991 in a speech he made in Cuba we find him saying “Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro … (https://archive.org/stream/HowToBeAGoodCommunist/Mandela#page/n1/mode/2up)

On a visit to the USA he made this incredible statement about Cuba “There is one thing that country stands out head and shoulders above the rest. That is in its love for human rights and liberty.” Ibid

He also seemed to have a fondness for dictators generally for visiting Libya a week later he praised Gaddafi for “His commitment to the fight for peace and human rights in the world.” ibid

At the least one can put comrade Mandela down as a very serious fellow traveller.

[The South African Communist Party have since claimed that Mandela was not merely a member when he was arrested in 1962 but a member of   its central committee http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=4151]

Mandela’s later career

A Machiavellian explanation of Mandela’s career from the late 1980s onwards is that those with power in South Africa had calculated that they could no longer maintain apartheid or indeed anything which was not at least formally representative democracy. Why they would have done so is far from clear. This was especially the case from 1989 onwards following  the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union, an event which ostensibly improved the apartheid state’s survival prospects because the Soviet’s were strong backers of the ANC which they saw as a vehicle to promote the power of the SACP because the Marxist sympathies of many in the ANC hierarchy.   Perhaps it was because behind the scenes the Americans were withdrawing tacit support, or because big business in South Africa  was threatening to leave, or perhaps it was simply that the  ruling elite had  become weary.

Once the decision was made by the apartheid era power brokers, both political and business,  they were faced with the best way  (from their point of view) of making the transition.  What better way than to have someone like Mandela,  who was already through the efforts of the Western media and politicians been raised to iconic status, to provide the rhetoric of inclusiveness, of forgiveness, of  a peaceful transition? Whether Mandela was willing to take the role because he was still an observant Marxist and was playing a long game or whether he had undergone a Damascene conversion during his years of captivity to the happy clappy multiculturalism of the white liberal is neither here nor there. What matters is his willingness and ability to play the role.

Mandela certainly played the part required of him, but he went much further than merely preaching reconciliation.  Take  his reported sudden conversion from a belief in nationalisation to the market economy:

“Mr Mandela once explained this conversion with his characteristic self-deprecation and humour. Referring to Davos business delegates, he said: “They had a dinner where they listened to me very politely, before explaining to me exactly what would happen if we carried out the plans we made in prison.

“I went to bed thinking while I had been out of the real world for 27 years, things had changed. Nobody told me I was stupid. But I could see that they thought I was not very clever. I woke up the next day and realised nationalisation would be the wrong policy for my country.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10499740/Nelson-Mandela-champion-of-economic-freedom.html)

This is a remarkably trivial way to make such a sudden ideological volte face if that was what it was.  More plausibly it was simply a glib explanation for having got into bed with the real power brokers in South Africa at that time, Big Business.

It should be remembered that Mandela had little time in office. He served only one presidential term and for the last two years of that he handed the reins of power to his deputy Thabo Mbeki. It is also questionable what real political power Mandela exercised even before handing over power. He was 76 when elected president and with the best will in the world a man of that age will most probably not have the energy or desire to impose his will in the face of serious opposition. To that can be added the fact that he had spent nearly three decades outside the normal cut and thrust of politics.  It is not unreasonable to imagine that a man who had been in prison for 27 years would  have become institutionalised and find decision making difficult.

Looked at coldly, the role Mandela played since he stood down as President has been purely that of a PR tool, but even before then he was performing the function.  What is truly remarkable is that this happened despite the fact that  as a public performer he had  little going for him, being at best an uninspiring speaker and often downright boring , as he delivered strangely punctuated sentences in a jerky manner. Nor did he often have anything of real importance or interest to say beyond general pleas for reconciliation. Amazingly, his communist sympathies and continued belief in violence, which should have marred the myth, simply did not register with the general public. The Western media had created a fabulous figure who could do no wrong and, like the emperor with no clothes, the crowds he drew, acting often enough in the manner of  teenagers screaming at pop groups, could either not see there were no clothes on this emperor or were constrained by fear of pointing out the unfortunate fact.

What is the future likely to bring? The odds must be on South Africa falling into the completely dysfunctional mess which is general  lot of black Africa, perhaps quite gradually because it is much more sophisticated than any other sub-Saharan African state.  There is no indication of the crime and poverty problems being solved and every indication that ethnic and racial conflict will worsen because of the lack of satisfaction of the hopes of  poor blacks.

Whites are still required to keep things running , but the failure of  ANC governments since the first elections after the end of apartheid to take any serious action to prevent the slaughter of white farmers together with the often bellicose anti-white statements by ANC leaders suggest that we may well see in the next ten or fifteen years the type of squeezing of the white population as happened in Zimbabwe. But whites are not the only minorities who may face an increasingly frosty future. The Coloureds, Indians and Malays are also likely targets. In addition there  is plenty of inter-tribal strife, for example  between Zulus and Pondos (http://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1227/osouth.html/(page)/2) or Xhosa and Sotho. (http://allafrica.com/stories/200109100307.html)

It is not a legacy to be for which to be remembered warmly.

Operation Elveden and Piers Morgan – The Metropolitan Police Commissioner brought into play

To:

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe

Commissioner

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0207 230 1212)

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

5 December 2013

Dear Sir Bernard,

In January 2013 I submitted to Operation Eleveden a complaint against Piers Morgan and others regarding the illegal receipt of information from a Met police officer by  Morgan when he was editor of the Daily Mirror.  The evidence against Morgan could not have been stronger, because I supplied Elveden with a letter sent by Morgan to the PCC in which he admitted receiving information in circumstances which could only have been illegal. I attach a copy of the Morgan’s letter in facsimile.

Despite my requests that I be interviewed by Elevden  and make a formal statement,  Elveden denied  my requests and eventually after six months of prevarication refused to investigate my complaints without giving any meaningful reason. This refusal was clearly absurd because they had a letter from Morgan admitting his guilt.

At that point I wrote to the DPP to complain about the failure to investigate a cast-iron complaint. . This prompted a referral of my complaint to the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards, where it was dealt with by the head of that unit, Det Chief Superintendant Alaric Bonthron .

Mr Bonthron has had the complaint for  more than three months. I have received nothing more than holding emails from him, the last of which was sent on 2 October. He has ignored my requests to meet him and has failed to answer my last email to him dated 8 October.

It is now more than ten months since I made the original complaint to Elveden and Morgan and the others mentioned in my complaint have still to be investigated. The evidence I have provided is unreservedly conclusive of the crimes alleged  and the bald failure to investigate constitutes prima facie both misconduct in a public office and a perversion of the course of justice.  The way to judge what has been going on is simple: just ask yourself what the general public would make of the Met’s behaviour in this matter.

Because I cannot get any meaningful response from anyone I have dealt with within the Met, I ask you, as the head of the force, to intervene and ensure an investigation into my complaints is begun immediately.   I also seek a meeting with you to discuss the matter.

I include in this email my complete correspondence directly with Elveden and the other correspondence arising from Eleveden’s behaviour.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————————————————-

My last email to the Met Police Commissioner elicited these replies and my responses:

From: “Bernard.Hogan-Howe@met.pnn.police.uk” <Bernard.Hogan-Howe@met.pnn.police.uk>
To: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Friday, 6 December 2013, 12:18
Subject: RE: The Met’s Directorate of Professional standards still refuses to meet me

Mr Henderson

Thank you for your e mail.I am sorry to read of the frustration you have encountered.

Unfortunately it is not possible for the Commissioner to become involved in individual allegations, however I asked that you receive a response from those dealing with this matter.

Best Regards

Neil

Neil Williams

Detective Chief Inspector

Commissioner’s Private Office

 ——————————————————————————————————————–

To:

Neil Williams

Detective Chief Inspector

Commissioner’s Private Office

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0207 230 1212

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Det Chief Superintendent Alaric Bonthron

(Head of the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk9

9 December 2013

Dear Mr Williams, I have your email of 6 December. You say the Commissioner cannot become involved  in individual allegations,. Please answer these two questions:

1. What legal bar is there to prevent him doing so?

2. Are you claiming that in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police has (1829 to date) has there never been a case where a  Commissioner has intervened?

Bear in mind when answering that unless there is a legal bar to him acting in this capacity, I would need to find only example where a Commissioner has intervened to knock the legs from under your claim.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

    

 ——————————————————————————————————————————–

 From: “Andy.J.Dunn@met.pnn.police.uk” <Andy.J.Dunn@met.pnn.police.uk>

To: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Friday, 6 December 2013, 11:54
Subject: Your Correspondence with the Commissioner Concerning Operation Elveden.

Dear Mr. Henderson,

I am sorry for the delay in replying to your messages. As you are aware this is a complex matter with a considerable history and it is taking us some time to gather together all the relevant information so that we can provide you with a proper reply. I am afraid that we are still having trouble getting together some of the older material so I thought I would take this opportunity to thank you for your patience, to let you know what is happening and to clarify a few issues with you.

I am the Chief Inspector in charge of complaint support within the Directorate of Professional Standards in the MPS. This means I have responsibility for the way that complaints about officers are dealt with. As such, DCS Bonthron has asked me to review the issues you have raised. In order to assess them properly could I just check my understanding with you? Following the Leveson Enquiry, you asked Operation Elveden to investigate criminal allegations you are making against Piers Morgan and the way that he obtained information for an article about you that appeared in the Mirror in 1997. The background to this is an article you wrote for Wisden Magazine and the subsequent correspondence you entered into with Mr. and Mrs. Blair, the then Prime Minister and his wife. You allege that information about this was supplied to the Mirror by the police. You now wish to complain about the fact that Operation Elveden have refused to investigate that criminal allegation. I appreciate that this is a very brief summary but is it basically accurate?

I am less clear about the following: I also understand that you may have made similar criminal allegations previously in around 2002? These were referred to DCS Simon Foy and you then made a complaint about the way he dealt with them, which in turn was dealt with by DCS Tony Dawson of DPS? This is the older material I referred to above and our files seem to be incomplete. Can you confirm whether the matters that you raised at this time were the same criminal allegations you are now making about Piers Morgan, or is this a different issue?

Once again, thank you for your patience.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Dunn.

Total Policing is the Met’s commitment to be on the streets and in your communities to catch offenders, prevent crime and support victims. We are here for London, working with you to make our capital safer.

—————————————————————————————————————

To:

Chief Inspector Andy Dunn

Head of complaint support

Directorate of Professional Standards

Metropolitan Police

23rd Floor North

Empress State Building

Lillie Road

London SW6 ITR

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (Commissioner)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

9 December 2013

Dear Mr Dunn,

I have your email of 6 December.  This is not a hideously complicated matter either in its detail or in the way I have presented it to Operation Elveden. In fact, I would go as far as to say I have done most of the spadework for the bringing of charges because the evidence I have provided is so compelling.  The only reason it seems complicated is the large amount of correspondence it has generated, a fact which is down to the failure of the Met Police to do their duty and investigate cast-iron evidence of wrongdoing.

Having explained the position concisely but fully in my correspondence with Elveden, I really should not need to go over the matter yet again. However, your email suggests you do not possess the full papers relating to the case, which if I am correct is rather disturbing because you are meant to be reviewing the case. It also suggests that Alaric Bonthron has not been working from the full papers because  presumably you are working from what he gave you..   Consequently,  I will write yet another summary to ensure there is absolutely no room or opportunity for a claim of misunderstanding on your office’s part.

The whole business did start with the publication of an article of mine in Wisden Cricket Monthly (WCM) entitled “Is it in the blood?” This created a storm of media protest which severely libelled me. To this I was allowed no opportunity to reply.  I  could not afford to sue   so I went through all the possible channels – the PCC, my MP, the BBC complaints system and so on  – without any success.  I then wrote to the Blairs for help: Blair because he was odds on to become the next PM; his wife because she was a noted human rights lawyer as well as being Blair’s wife.  All I got was non-replies  from their offices.

At the beginning of the 1997 general election campaign I sent copies of my letters to the Blairs together with the non-replies from their offices  to every mainstream media outlet in the country. It was then that the Blairs went to the police and tried to have me prosecuted under the Malicious Communications Act.   They obviously had not been worried by the letters  as letters  because they only went to the police after I had supplied copies to the media not when they received the letters. Presumably their motivation was a  concern their non-replies showed them in a bad light. The police referred the matter to the CPS immediately and the CPS sent the papers  back to the police on the day they received them marked NO CRIME. (I obtained all this data using the DPA).

Blair then set Special Branch  on to me – you will find that mentioned in the Mirror story –  and I also used the DPA to prove that both Special  Branch and MI5 had opened files on me. I then endured the ten years of Blair’s premiership being harassed by one or more of  Special Branch, MI5 or some other  agency  with everything from the ostentatious opening of my post to incitements to attack me posted on various social media which included my name, address and phone number.   The harassment stopped as soon as Blair was out of office. The general circumstances of the affair are summarised in an Early Day Motion put down by Sir Richard Body MP, viz:

Early Day Motion put down on my behalf by Sir Richard Body on 10 November 1999:

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

 Sir Richard Body

That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see  http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

My complaints to Eleveden are these:

1. That Piers Morgan when editor of the Mirror obtained information from a Met Officer(s) in circumstances which can only have been illegal. The letter from Morgan to the PCC which I have supplied to Elveden and which you have a copy of in facsimile conclusively proves this.

2. That Jeff Edwards when chief crime reporter for the Daily Mirror illegally received information from Met Officer(s).  Morgan’s letter plus the story printed by the Daily Mirror about me conclusively prove Edwards received such information.

3. That both Morgan and Edwards  committed perjury when questioned under oath about receiving information illegally from the police. I provided Operation Elveden with the relevant Leveson transcripts.

4. That Det Supt Jeff Curtis committed misconduct in a public office and perverted the course of justice by claiming he had investigated my complaints against Morgan and Edwards when the reality was that he failed to conduct any investigation at all, and that  despite having Morgan’s letter to the PCC and the Mirror article about me.  Curtis eventually shamefacedly admitted to me in a phone call that he had  not spoken to anyone at the Mirror including Morgan and Edwards and consequently there had been no  investigation of the Mirror’s accounts  and other records to see whether any money had been paid. Curtis failed to investigate Morgan and Edwards despite his promise to do so in an interview with me which I recorded. I have supplied Eleveden with a copy of that recording so you can hear  him making the promise on which he reneged.

That I could not get any redress when I made my original complaint against Morgan and Edwards was simply a consequence of the powerful people involved in the affair, most notably the Blairs.    My complaints to the police were deliberately not acted upon because they involved the Blairs, either directly or indirectly. There was no way I could do anything at the time because I had no money to employ lawyers nor any access to the media.  This was a very clear who shall guard the guards? territory. In short, it was a perversion of the course of justice.

Those were my complaints to Elveden. It would already be perfectly reasonable for me to make complaints of misconduct in a public office and a perversion of the  course of justice against  those in Eleveden who refused to investigate the clearest evidence of criminality (criminality which definitely falls within its remit). Whether I proceed with such complaints will  depend on whether an investigation is made.  In view of the strength of evidence I have provided, it is extremely difficult to see how such an investigation  could not result in charges being brought against, Morgan, Edwards and Curtis.

You will find below your email to me the complete correspondence arising from my complaint to Eleveden.  As your department is reviewing the case you should already have this, plus the tape recording of my interview with Jeff Curtis which I supplied the Elveden.  The correspondences is grouped so that emails to each person or office appear in a block. In addition to the correspondence and the tape I passed these documents to  Holborn Police:

 

The documents I  passed to PC G James 423EK and PC L Scully 471EK  from Holborn police station were:

1.Piers Morgan’s Letter to the PCC date 16 October 1997  in which he admits receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

2. A copy of the Daily Mirror  story about me dated 25 March 1997 which produced the complaint to the PCC  which caused  Morgan to write the letter in which he admitted receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

3. Copies of the then director of Presswise Mike Jempson’s correspondence on my behalf with the PCC relating to the Mirror story dated 23 December 1997, 9 January 1998, 20 January 1998, 18 February 1998, 2 March 1998.

 4. My evidence to the Leveson Inquiry of  Morgan ’s perjury dated 23 December 2011

5. My evidence to  the Leveson Inquiry of Edwards’ perjury dated 25 March 2012

6. My original submission to the Leveson Inquiry dated 25 November  2011

7. Sir Richard Body’s Early Day Motion 10th November 1999 which dealt with the general context of the events surrounding the Mirror story  with the role of the Blairs at its heart.

8. A copy of my Wisden Cricket Article Is it in the Blood? (from the July 1995 edition). It was my gross mistreatment by the mainstream British media after the publication of the article that led me ultimately to write to the Blairs asking for their assistance after all other available avenues of redress had failed me .

9. A copy of my final letter to  Det Supt Curtis dated 2 December 1999, Det Supt A Bamber’s reply to that letter 13 December 1999 and the PCA’s letter dated November 1999  refusing  to investigate further

10. A letter addressed to the new head of Operation Elveden Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh dated 21 January 2013.

To date, despite my repeated requests, I have yet to meet  anyone from Elveden or your office to give a formal statement and interview. That in itself says a great deal. Why not break this dismal pattern Mr Dunn by meeting me?

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

    

       Click on the tag Operation Elveden for the full story