LBC Nigel Farage versus Nick Clegg EU debate 26 3 2014

Chaired by Nick Ferrari

(The full debate can be viewed here http://www.lbc.co.uk/watch-lbc-leaders-debate-live—26th-march-87667)

Robert Henderson

Farage walked the debate with a YouGov poll of 1003 people giving this result:

57% Farage

36% Clegg

7% undecided

Even that figure probably understates the size of the victory because YouGov weighted the data to in practice favour Clegg by assuming UKIP supporters would be disproportionately likely to watch or listen to the debate:

1,003 completed this survey between 8.00 and 8.10. We weighted the raw data to (a) the voting intentions in our latest regular daily poll for the Sun (Lab 37%, Con 35%. UKIP 11%, Lib Dem 9%) and (b) to our most recent data on whether the UK should remain in the European Union.

An alternative approach would have been NOT to have corrected the political skew among our original 3,000 sample. The argument for doing this is that any assessment of audience reaction should take the audience as it is – in this case, accepting that UKIP supporters were much more likely to watch or listen to the debate than supporters of other parties. Had we done this, I estimate that the verdict of the audience would have been Farage 65%, Clegg 28%. Those who prefer to cite this figure, rather than to adjust for the UKIP-rich nature of the audience, are of course free to do so. ( http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/03/27/farage-wins-debate-clegg/)

It was also telling that many of those who were not UKIP supporters thought Farage had won, viz:

Not surprisingly, almost all UKIP supporters preferred Farage. But he was also considered the winner by: 

• 69% of Conservative supporters
• 42% of Labour supporters
• 20% of Liberal Democrats
• 30% of those who said before the debate they would vote to keep the UK in the EU  (Ibid)

 

It is rare in a two man debate on any subject for a win to be so crushing and that is doubly so when politicians with  such polarised views are put up for the judgement of the public.

Why was the result so emphatic? Well, negative messages are always a very  hard sell. Clegg’s   position was one of fear and mistrust of Britain and Farage’s one of confidence in his country.  Clegg was selling the message “Britain isn’t up to looking after itself”, Farage the message  “ Britain could and should be independent and sovereign”.    While Farage was saying things such as “Surely the benefit system is for the citizens of this country” , The Anglo-Saxon rule of law”  and “The best people to govern Britain are the British”, Clegg  was tedious ly  intoning  “We get more power rather than less by being part of an economic superpower “ and  talking about the ill effects of “pulling up the drawbridge “ to exclude immigrants. (Clegg spent a great deal of time worrying about  drawbridges being pulled up).

Farage also displayed much more energy in his delivery than Clegg,   who as ever sounded like a prefect ineptly playing the role of a weary adult before  a school debating society. He was  deeply irritating for that reason alone, but his whole persona seemed manufactured, from  the deeply wooden arm gestures he makes  to the studied use of questioners’ names.    Farage  was perhaps  too shouty at times and  weak in his responses to some important questions, such as failing to explain how UKIP’s claim that  75% of British laws are being made in Brussels was calculated. But he  had one massive advantage over Clegg: he was able to tell the truth all the time or at the least not tell deliberate lies.  Farage at least seemed like a real human being, with unmanufactured  body language,  and if he allowed his ill-temper to intrude, judged by  polls such as the YouGov one,  it must have seemed like justified irritation with the British political class as represented by Clegg  to the majority of those watching and listening.

Clegg’s wilful dishonesty is perhaps best exemplified when the subject of immigration from the EU came up. Clegg referred to a recent UKIP pamphlet which claimed that Farage had claimed that “29 million Romanians and Bulgarians” were coming to Britain. This was untrue said Clegg because “They’re aren’t even 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians in Romania and Bulgaria”.  Apart from  not being what UKIP had said  – the party had simply pointed out that 29 million would have the right to come to Britain –  as of 2012 Bulgaria had a population of 21.33 million and Bulgaria 7.305 million, 29 million bar a few hundred thousand.( https://www.google.co.uk/#q=population+of+roumania). Not that it would have mattered in they were a million or two short of 29 million. The point at issue was the existence of millions of people from countries with living standards a fraction of those in Britain who were now entitled to come here.

Unlike Clegg , even when he was making a bit of a mess of things Farage  attempted to answer questions directly even when they raised real difficulties for him.  For example,  a question from the audience raised the subject of  the trustworthiness of politicians and  cited the LibDems’  broken promise over tuition fees and Farage’s employment of his wife as a paid helper as examples of things which destroyed trust.  Clegg failed to explain why the Lib Dems had broken their promise and just waffled about the importance of  trust,  while Farage answered the question directly  by saying the responsibilities of leading the party meant that he  needed someone on tap at home to help him. He also denied that he had ever said publicly that he would not employ his wife.   On another occasion the subject of UKIP’s opposition to gay marriage came up and Farage again dealt with a  potentially very tricky question by simply saying that UKIP would review the situation if the threat of European judges imposing  gay marriage on religions was removed.

Farage was generally  very forthright  and nowhere was this shown to better effect than when he attacked the  EU’s interference in the Ukraine’s dispute with Russia.  This naturally caused  a tempest of  politically correct huffing and puffing after the debate and clearly appalled Clegg. Such forthrightness will  have appealed to most of the general public who are sick of politicians presenting weasel words to them.

Clegg  shamelessly trotted  out the tired old discredited Europhile mantras because any Europhile true believer really has nowhere else to go. These included

–          3 million  British jobs are at risk if Britain leaves the EU  (After Ferrari had intervened to say there are  questions marks over the research on which the claim was based,  Clegg tempered his bald statement by saying  it would not be three million but it might be  two million, one million, 500,000 and so on ).

–          Immigrants are a boon to Britain and pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits (Farage pointed out that Migration Watch recently demolished this argument http://www.migrationwatchuk.co.uk/press-release/380)

–          Britain needed to be in the EU to get the best trade deals (Farage pointed out the Iceland had recently negotiated a lucrative trade deal with China)

–          The European arrest warrant is allowing Britain to  extradite murderers, terrorists and paedophiles  (Farage pointed out that it was a grotesque breach in the protections for the individual provided by  British law )

–          One and a half million Britons live and work in other EU countries and if Britain does not have freedom of movement within the EU then those one and half million  Briton  will be put in jeopardy.  (Farage missed a trick here. Apart from the fact that forced expulsion of EU foreigners  from Britain or Britons from other EU countries is wildly improbable, he should have pointed out that the British  living in other EU countries are  likely to either be someone doing a skilled job or be retired with money, while the EU foreigner  in Britain is likely to be doing a low skilled or unskilled job. Hence, if it did come to a forced exchange of Britons abroad for EU foreigners in Britain,   Britain would be the material  gainers. )

The Lib Dem leader also had a new statistic to play with, namely, that only 7% of British laws come from Brussels (patently  absurd because the massive range of supranational competence the EU now has).  Clegg said the source was the Commons Library and did not qualify in any way his claim by, for example, by saying it was difficult to quantify and only a broad range could be offered.   The 7% turns out to be false.  This position is much more complicated. Here  is what the 2010 HoC research paper entitled How much legislation comes from  Europe says:

“EU regulations, unlike directives, are not usually transposed into legislation at national level, but rather into quasi-legislative measures, administrative rules, regulations or procedures etc which do not pass through a national parliamentary process. How, then, can one be worked out as a proportion of the other? The term ‘national obligation’ might be more appropriate, but is it possible to identify the sum of national obligations arising from EU laws? Increasing use of regulations, particularly Commission regulations, “decouples national transposition procedures” (Christensen), thereby increasing the unquantifiable element of EU activity. All measurements have their problems. To exclude EU regulations from the calculation is likely to be an under-estimation of the proportion of EU-based national laws, while to include all EU regulations in the calculation is probably an over-estimation. The answer in numerical terms lies somewhere in between the two approaches, and it is possible to justify any measure between 15% and 50% or thereabouts. Other EU ‘soft law’ measures under the Open Method of Coordination are difficult to quantify as they often take the form of objectives and common targets. Analyses rarely look into EU soft law, the role of EU standard setting or self-regulatory measures.”

And

“In the UK data suggest that from 1997 to 2009 6.8% of primary legislation (Statutes) and  14.1% of secondary legislation (Statutory Instruments) had a role in implementing EU  obligations, although the degree of involvement varied from passing reference to explicit  implementation. Estimates of the proportion of national laws based on EU laws in other  EU Member States vary widely, ranging from around 6% to 84%. (file:///C:/Users/robnefrt/Downloads/RP10-62%20(2).pdf)

You can take your choice between Clegg shamelessly  lying or Clegg being stitched up by researchers who supplied him with false information.

In this context, it is very  important to understand what  Statutory  Instruments  (SIs) are. They provide the mechanism by which primary legislation is implemented. Frequently, SIs will expand the remit of primary legislation  beyond what is envisaged by those drafting the primary legislation and the politicians who vote for it. The “gold plating “ of EU directives is largely accomplished through SIs. Consequently, to concentrate on primary legislation stemming from Brussels is grossly misleading. The fact that SIs relating to EU derived primary legislation are not routinely   scrutinised by Parliament makes the opportunity for greatly expanding the powers of the primary legislation. It is worth describing  the Treaty obligations which place horrendous limitations on British sovereignty:

1 Types of EU legislative acts

There are three types of EU legislative acts. Under Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU):

A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

A directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form  and methods.

A decision shall be binding in its entirety. A decision which specifies those to whom it is addressed shall be binding only on them.

Opinions and Recommendations have no binding force.

EU Legislation  Standard  Note SN/IA/5419   http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05419.pdf

On the question of a referendum on the EU, Clegg squirmed as he tried to represent the LibDems as  having a consistent position from the time when he promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty  in 2008 until now.  There was an element of farce about the way the discussion began when Clegg answered  a question  (go into recording at 8 minutes 33 secs) from Ferrari about a Lib Dem poster  of 2008 which seemingly promised an unqualified  referendum by saying that people could not read the small print. Clegg actually meant that they literally could not read the small print of the poster Ferrari was holding up to the audience and cameras,  only the headline.  There was a ghastly serendipity about this,  because whatever Clegg meant  he then made very  clear there was indeed small print surrounding any LibDem promise of a referendum.  Clegg said  that in 2008 his position was exactly the same as it is now,  namely, a referendum should be held if there were substantial powers taken away by further treaties.

Farage picked Clegg up on this very strongly, pointing out that if only powers taken away by Treaty would trigger a referendum, this might well be a dead letter because  there was a strong possibility that new treaties would not be forthcoming  (this could well be the case because so much is decided by Qualified Majority Voting now) and that in any case there is a constant drip drip drip of new EU legislation which whittles away sovereignty, some of it substantial such the expansion of the EU’s foreign policy and the EU’s attempt to control the City of London. Clegg had no real answer to this.

Frarage should have asked Clegg to  explain why the British people could not be asked (in an IN/Out referendum) about all the powers which had been taken away without any referendum over the past forty years. Sadly the question went unasked.

It has to be admitted that Farage was weak in answering some  questions on statistical detail. The two worst instances were the proportion of British laws which originate from Brussels – when asked where the 75% UKIP figure came from Farage feebly said it was their own calculation with out explaining how they had reached it – and  on the cost of the EU to Britain and.  Ferrari asked Farage to justify the £55 million a day cost in a UKIP pamphlet.  Farage fumbled his reply by failing to make clear immediately that it was the gross amount  paid and taking too long to explain that even though it was the gross amount what money Britain received back had to be spent as the EU determined . However, I would doubt whether such statistical lacunae would register significantly with the general public, who will have largely switched of their minds when politicians start hurling stats at them.

After the debate the  politically correct media and politicians flapped around after the thumping poll win for  Farage claiming variously  the result was unimportant  (absurd), it was score draw, (http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/03/the-room-spun/) or that in reality Clegg had won (utterly fantastic).   This might have been expected from the likes of the Guardian and Mirror, but the supposedly Eurosceptic   Daily Telegraph also had a full hand of regular commentators – Mary Riddell,  Dan Hodges, Tim Stanley,  Toby Young – who all , with varying degrees of enthusiasm, stated that Clegg had come out ahead  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10725571/Verdict-who-won-in-the-Clegg-v-Farage-debate.html). The widespread  dismissal of  the YouGov poll by the mainstream media and politicians encapsulated the inherently anti-democratic mentality of those with power and influence in Britain.

The debate  was not deeply penetrating nor did it address all the important EU  issues adequately, for example,  the loss of democracy resulting from the UK’s EU membership  was barely touched upon.  Nor was it clear why the subject of gay marriage was raised within a debate on the EU unless it was simply to try to embarrass Farage and UKIP.  No matter. The value of the debate lay in giving the British public an opportunity to express their feelings through polls such as the YouGov one cited above  and  its naked demonstration, in the form of  Clegg,  of the chasm between the l public and the British elite.  Most of the British public display the natural human instinct of wanting their own national interests to be protected by their own people; the British elite wish to either submerge Britain into a united states of Europe or labour under the pathetic  delusion that the imperial tendencies of the  EU can be restrained from within.  Faced with a choice between Farage and Clegg it was no contest; they plumped for someone who shared their natural instincts.

 

 

 

The Old Buffoonian treads on dangerous ground

Robert Henderson

Boris Johnson  has suggested that the radicalisation of Muslim children should be treated as child abuse and children subjected to such an environment should be taken into care:

“At present, there is a reluctance by the social services to intervene, even when they and the police have clear evidence of what is going on, because it is not clear that the “safeguarding law” would support such action. A child may be taken into care if he or she is being exposed to pornography, or is being abused – but not if the child is being habituated to this utterly bleak and nihilistic view of the world that could lead them to become murderers. I have been told of at least one case where the younger siblings of a convicted terrorist are well on the road to radicalisation – and it is simply not clear that the law would support intervention.

“This is absurd. The law should obviously treat radicalisation as a form of child abuse. It is the strong view of many of those involved in counter-terrorism that there should be a clearer legal position, so that those children who are being turned into potential killers or suicide bombers can be removed into care – for their own safety and for the safety of the public. “(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10671841/The-children-taught-at-home-about-murder-and-bombings.html).

Even for the Old Buffoonian this is extraordinary obtuseness. Johnson has failed to recognise three very obvious facts: (1) removing Muslim children from their parents will also certainly radicalise the children;  (2) it will provide potent ammunition for Islamic extremists and (3) you can bet your life that once the principle of “bad” ideas is established as a reason for the social workers to come in, it will be extended to many other “bad” ideas, for example, in these  pc times anything which is non-pc.  Let us have a look in detail at those disturbing implications of Johnson’s proposal.

To begin with at what age would children be removed from the family? If at birth or shortly afterwards,   the child and eventually the adult will feel that their lives have been ruthlessly changed by the state and may well turn to extremism to revenge themselves on the society which has treated them so. If  taken away at an older age the child, especially if they are old enough to have imbibed the radical message, is likely to be not merely confirmed in their radical ideas but  have them substantially amplified.

Of course  it is not only parents who could be a radical influence within the home. What about brothers, sisters, Aunts and Uncles and cousins who were Jihadists? Would they be grounds for removing children? Would they have to be banned from having any contact with the children?

There is also the ticklish question of what constitutes an idea radical enough to sanction removal of the child.  Would it have to be direct exhortations to kill non-Muslims? If less than that, where would the line be drawn? At Muslims telling children non-Muslims are damned to Hell?  At  Muslims simply telling their children that they should not associate with non-Muslims?   

Then there is the question of where the children would be placed after they were removed. Most would probably end up in care because if  the policy was enforced rigorously,  thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of Muslim children would have to be removed. This might seem extreme but think of the hundreds of Muslims  who have already been convicted in Britain of terrorist related crimes (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24454596)  Think of the hundreds or even thousands  who are reported to be fighting abroad in places such as Syria and Afghanistan (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25893040). They will often have children or  be uncles,  cousins and aunts to Muslim children.    

Even with much smaller numbers the chances of a Muslim child being left in  care would be strong because Muslim adopters and foster parents are thin on the ground. If they are left in care that would be likely to provide an unhappy childhood which  would engender a strong sense of victimhood, fertile soil in which to plant Jihadist ideas. The child would also be brought up as a Muslim to ensure that he was not denied his “cultural heritage” and would consequently be exposed to other Muslims who might well be Islamic radicals.

Adoption and fostering might provide more palatable lives for the children than care,  but they would have difficulties of their own. The current politically correct adoption and fostering policies  very strongly favour placing a child in families which are racially and culturally akin to those of the child. That would mean most, possibly all, of such children ending up in a Muslim family. That family  might be moderates who treat their religion in the same way that the average C of E worshipper does, as a tepid private observance rather than a fervent matter of public policy. But even in such circumstances, the child would still be regularly be exposed to Muslims with more rigorous Islamic ideas and could easily become radicalised or have  radical ideas obtained before their removal from their birth parents enhanced.

Then there is school. Whether in care, foster homes or an adoptive home, the child is likely to be in a school with a significant number of  Muslims because of the emphasis on providing a racially and ethnically environment which matches the child’s original circumstances. To achieve that the child will almost certainly be  living in a town or city which has a substantial Muslim population. There will also be pressure on those responsible for the child to place them in a school with a healthy Muslim intake. The child might  even be placed in a Muslim  school if  he or she  is adopted and the adoptive parents favour such an education.

Aside from all this, there is the Internet. Any child forbidden to have contact with anything whether it be  radical Islam or pornography is likely to be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

The propaganda value of Muslim children being forcibly removed would be immense. Muslim terrorists would use it to justify their violence and, because the issue is such an emotive one, they would gain sympathy  from Muslims generally in the way  IRA bombers enjoyed a sympathy amongst the wider republican movement along the lines of “I don’t agree with their methods but…”  the practice  would undoubtedly resonate throughout the Muslim world and have effects far beyond those willing to engage in violence. In particular, it could seriously affect trade with Britain.

Such a policy  would almost certainly have an antagonising effect on other minorities, both because they would fear that the same might happen to them and because of a sense of solidarity with Muslims, for  they are all  part of what one might call the victimocracy,  the army of  those who harbour a grievance,  justified or otherwise, simply because they are minorities or from some notion that white Western society owes them something.  The policy would also be a fundamental questioning of the policy of multiculturalism which has ruled the British elite roost for over thirty years.

There would also be the danger that in a bid to boost their pc credentials to offset the non-pc draconian removal of children. For example,  concessions could be made to Muslims generally by the British political elite, concessions such as the relaxation of immigration rules for Muslims and allowing sharia law to be expanded in Britain from the supposedly voluntary sharia courts which now exist to Sharia courts which were compulsory for Muslims.

 In short doing what Johnson proposes would make matters considerably worse for all concerned, for Muslims and the general population of the UK. What should be done? We need to start from the fact that there  is no realistic way that Muslim children can be shielded from radical Islam. Nor is there any hard proof that most radical Muslims in Britain were radicalised by their families or became radicalised when they were children. Radicalisation within mosques or through a radical   preacher operating outside the mosque at a fairly advanced stage of childhood or in early adulthood seems far more common. Moreover, Britain’s inability to control her borders whilst within the EU will always allow radical Muslims to come from abroad.   Short of expelling every Muslim in the country (several million)  and  allowing none to visit the country, the danger of Islamic terrorism, home grown or otherwise, will be a constant. Just as Irish republican terrorism had to be managed rather than exterminated, so Islamic terrorism will have to be managed.

All of that is depressing enough, but the really sinister aspect of what Johnson  proposes is the opportunity it would provide for the interference by the state in how parents generally bring up their children.  This could be in part a politically correct desire to create a spurious equality between Muslims and non-Muslims, but it could equally be an ideological  vehicle for the extension of political correctness.

As things stand,  the politically correct  legions in our midst  incessantly chomp at the bit as they try to ensure that  any opinion but their own is at best driven from public debate and at worst made  illegal in any circumstances. An excellent recent example of the  totalitarian mentality of such people is the leader of the Green Party Natalie Bennett’s call for cabinet ministers, senior public officials and political advisers to be sacked unless they unquestioningly backed the idea of man-made global warming (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/the-british-green-party-expose-their-totalitarian-mentality/).

If it was allowed that Muslim children could be removed from their homes because of the beliefs of their parents (or any other family member), why not permit the removal of children whose parents disapproved of mass immigration, were members of the BNP or the EDL, refused to accept the claims of the man-made global warming believers, thought gay marriage was a nonsense  or simply ridiculed the idea of human equality?

This might seem fanciful at first glance,  but think of the absurdities  the politically correct have forced upon us in the name of racial and sexual equality and multiculturalism  and the use of the law to intimidate and increasing charge with criminal offences those who speak out against the effects of political correctness, for example, http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/courage-is-the-best-defence-against-charges-of-racism. 

Piers Morgan’s criminality: The Met Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards prodded into action

Neligan’s response came the day after I sent an email  to Theresa May informing her of Morgan’s criminal behaviour and the failure of the Met to investigate it . (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/operation-eleveden-and-piers-morgans-criminality-the-home-secretary-brought-into-play/).

The DPS’  response looks like a very hastily cobbled together  piece written simply to cover the backs of Neligan and his department because of the inordinate delay in responding to me.  Much of the text was  taken from my previous correspondence with Elevden, the CPS and the DPS. It is largely a cut and [paste job.

The rejection of the complaints is farcically thin. All Neligan does is baldly assert that there is no misconduct or grounds to investigate in the cases of Morgan and Edwards. In the case of D-Supt Jeff Curtis  he tosses aside the fact that Curtis did not interview Morgan and Edwards.

I shall be appealing and will post that appeal here.

I have written a further email to the Home Secretary Theresa May in response to Neligan’s emailhttps://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/operation-eleveden-and-piers-morgans-criminality-the-home-secretary-brought-into-play/

—————————————————————

Directorate of Professional Standards

 Empress State Building

22nd Floor

Lillie Road

West Brompton

London

SW6 1TR

Telephone: 0207 230 1212

Email:

Your ref:

Our ref: PC455/14

Date:   10/03/14

The outcome of your complaint against police.

 

(by e-mail)

Dear Mr. Henderson,

Thank you for all the information you have provided concerning your complaints about Operation Elveden. We take all complaints seriously and I am grateful to you for bringing this matter to our attention.

In your latest e-mail, you explained that you had made the following criminal allegations to Operation Elveden:

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.

On 13 June 2013, you received the following response to those allegations from Detective Inspector Daniel Smith:

Dear Mr Henderson,

I write in relation to the allegations you made following your contact with DC Rooke in January of this year. I have reviewed the matters raised by you in this, and subsequent communications, with DC Rooke.

I understand that the matters raised by you relate to an article published in 1997 and that the matter was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service (Complaints Investigation Bureau). The matter was referred to the Police Complaints Authority in 1999.

I understand that there is no new evidence or information available and as a result I have decided that no investigation will be conducted into the points raised by you.In relation to the Perjury allegation, having read the transcripts provided, I do not believe there is evidence that shows an offence has been committed. As a consequence this allegation will not be investigated.

Yours sincerely,

 

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith

You subsequently complained about this decision and as the Professional Standards Champion (PSC) with responsibility for Operation Elveden, I was asked to deal with that complaint. The legislation surrounding complaints against the police requires that the relevant force (referred to as the Appropriate Authority) considers the outcome of any complaint investigation. A PSC for a particular department is the senior officer that has been delegated by the Commissioner to act as the Appropriate Authority for that department.

I have now reviewed all the correspondence you have submitted, including the clarification of your complaint that you supplied to Chief Inspector Dunn, and the police records that relate to this matter. I am now in a position to inform you of the outcome of my enquiries. The police do not have to record or investigate an allegation of crime if there is evidence that no crime has taken place. The information you supplied to Operation Elveden was properly considered, as is evidenced by their correspondence with you in which they seek to clarify matters and identify any new evidence or information. The matter was then properly referred to one of the Detective Inspectors leading the operation to consider whether further investigation was required.

Detective Inspector Smith, as he explained in his e-mail to you, decided that the first two of your allegations had previously been recorded and investigated and as there was no new evidence or information, no further investigation was justified. He also reviewed your allegation of perjury and found that following initial investigation (a review of the relevant transcripts) there was evidence to indicate that in fact no crime had been committed.  He therefore decided that this allegation did not need to be recorded or investigated. His actions and decisions comply with the Home Office National Crime Recording Standards and the MPS Crime Management Policy. These are decisions he had the authority to make and they were made through the appropriate process, in line with the relevant policy and guidance and were made after giving all the information due consideration.

As Appropriate Authority, I am required to consider the findings and conclusions of complaint investigations to determine:

whether the report should be referred to the Director of Prosecutions (CPS);

• • whether or not any person to whose conduct the investigation relates to has a case to answer in respect of misconduct, gross misconduct or no case to answer;
• whether or not any such person’s performance is unsatisfactory;
  • what action, if any, we will take in respect of the matters dealt with in the report; and
• what other action (if any) we will take in respect of these matters.

After considering these points I am satisfied the outcome does not need to be referred to the CPS.

I can also inform you that it has been determined there has not been a breach of the professional standards by any officer. Furthermore, I have conducted review of the officers’ performance, which I found to be satisfactory. This means that no further action will be taken in respect of your complaint.

In addition to the points above it has also been considered whether you received an appropriate level of service from the Metropolitan Police. This means how you were dealt with overall and not just by any one individual. After reviewing the circumstances of your complaint the Chief Inspector (CST) is satisfied there has not been a failure identified in the way we dealt with you. Your complaint is therefore not upheld.

We are grateful to you for raising this issue and giving us the opportunity to review the actions of those concerned. It is always useful to receive feedback on how our officers and staff perform; as an organisation it allows us to learn and develop and to identify ways we can improve our service in the future.

If you do not agree with the outcome of this investigation or its findings you can appeal to the Appeals Unit of the Directorate of Professional Standards. There is no right of appeal to the IPCC. You have 28 days from the day after the date of this letter to make your appeal. The 28^th day is 07/04/2014. Appeals received after 28 days may not be allowed unless there are exceptional circumstances.

You can appeal on any one of the following grounds (you will see that not all of these necessarily apply to your case); that you:

have not been adequately informed about the findings of the investigation or any proposals resulting from the report;

disagree with the findings of the investigation including whether a person has a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct;

disagree with the police proposals for action – or lack of them – in light of the report;

disagree with the decision not to refer the report to the CPS.

 If you do decide to appeal, this is the address to write to:

DPS Appeals Unit,

Metropolitan Police Service,

22nd Floor ESB,

Lillie Road,

London

SW6 1TR

 Or by email to ‘Appeals@met.police.uk’

Further information about how to appeal can be found on the IPCC website:

www.ipcc.gov.uk

You also made a fourth allegation:

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.  

This amounts to a complaint about Detective Superintendent Jeff Curtis, who retired in 2003. This complaint appears to arise from events that occurred between 1997 and 1999, some 14 years ago. I also note that the PCA were involved and decided that no further investigation was required. There is a statutory time limit of 12 months in which a complaint can be made and as a result, unless you can provide reasonable grounds to account for this time delay, an application to “disapply” your complaint will be submitted. This means that although your complaint has been recorded, no further action will be taken.

If you disagree with this, you need to provide further information to show why your complaint is not out of time. You need to do this within 28 days from the day following the date of this letter. The 28th day is XX/XX/XX. Please provide your representations in writing to the postal or e-mail address shown above.

Any representations you make will be taken into account before a final decision is made as to whether your complaint will be investigated or not. If no representations are made or your representations are deemed to be insufficient, then your complaint will be disapplied.

If your complaint is disapplied then no further action will be taken with it. Further information about disapplications can be found on the IPCC website: www.ipcc.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Name   Tim Neligan

Detective Chief Inspector

DPS SI

Operation Eleveden and Piers Morgan’s criminality – the Home Secretary brought into play

To:  Rt Hon Theresa May MP

Home Secretary

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

CC Rt Hon Dominic Grieve MP (Attorney-General)

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 March 2014

Dear Mrs May,

Operation Elveden are failing to  investigate serious crimes committed by Daily Mirror staff despite having  cast iron evidence. I provided the evidence.

The full story is in the correspondence I reproduce below -. However, I realise that you are an immensely busy woman,  so to take you to instantly to  the heart of the corrupt behaviour of Operation Elveden please read first the attached facsimile letter Piers Morgan  sent to the PCC whilst editor of the Daily Mirror. In this letter he admits receiving information from the Metropolitan Police in circumstances which can only be illegal, viz: “The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect)…”.

The other document you need to  read is my initial email (dated  21 January 2013) to the then head of Operation Elveden  Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh – see first  document below this letter.   That will give you the background to and the range  of crimes Elveden are  failing to investigate.

I have provided Eleveden with a copy of Morgan’s  letter, together  with other evidence of criminal behaviour on the part of the Mirror’s erstwhile Chief Crime Reporter Jeff Edwards,  in receiving information illicitly from the police. I have also supplied Elveden with evidence that both Morgan and Edwards  perjured themselves before the Leveson Inquiry.  Finally, there is the misconduct of the police in not investigating these crimes for which they have cast-iron evidence.

Despite having the Piers Morgan letter (amongst other very strong evidence), DI Daniel  Smith (see letter dated 13 June 2013) informed me that no investigation would be undertaken without giving any meaningful explanation.

The Metropolitan Police’s ’ Directorate of Professional Standards is now supposedly investigating the failure of Operation  Elveden to investigate the crimes I have reported to them.  However, they have had  my complaint for more than seven months and have not come to a judgement.

As you will see from the correspondence, I have also tried without success to get the DPP to act on what is a clear failure on the part of the police to investigate serious crimes .. They have made the spurious excuse that they cannot direct the police to investigate a complaint.  The excuse is spurious because in a recent case of rape they had done just that. That  involved  Acting Detective Constable Hannah Notley  who wilfully mishandled the investigation. After a third party intervened with the CPS the matter was taken up by the police, viz: : “In April 2012, after an independent representative supporting the alleged victim contacted the CPS, Notley finally confessed, and last month admitted a single charge of misconduct in a public office.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10500744/Detective-jailed-after-failing-to-investigate-alleged-rape.html).

Since I made my complaint to Eleveden  I have not been interviewed by any person from Elveden, the DPS  or the CPS, this despite my frequent requests to be interviewed and to give a formal statement. This is a very strong indication that all of those  in the police and justice systems who have been involved  with the matter  know  very well that my complaints are exceptionally well founded.  They will not meet me because they do not know how to tell me to my face that black is white.

I ask you to take up this matter and to  use your influence to get my allegations of criminality investigated thoroughly. I would greatly welcome a meeting with you to discuss the matter.

If the police are not brought to book over this, it will mean they are a law unto themselves.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————

156 Levita House, Chalton Street, London NW1 1HR

Tel: 0207 387 5018   Email: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

To:  Rt Hon Theresa May MP

Home Secretary

2 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DF

CC

Rt Hon Dominic Grieve MP (Attorney-General)

Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Det Chief Superintendent  Alaric Bonthron (Directorate. of Professional Standards)

Detective Chief Inspector I Tim Neligan (Directorate  of Professional Standards)

Chief Inspector Andy Dunn (Directorate of Professional Standards)

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

18 March 2014

Dear Mrs May ,

My email to you of 9 March concerning the criminality of Piers Morgan, Jeff Edwards and  D-Supt Jeff Curtis jolted the Department of Professional Standards (DPS) into a decision. After months of prevarication it provoked an immediate and definite response from the DPS in the form of Detective Chief Inspector Tim Neligan ‘s email  which you will find  below (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/piers-morgans-criminality-the-met-polices-directorate-of-professional-standards-prodded-into-action/).  I doubt whether any disinterested third party would think it anything other than a panicked  reaction to the stimulus of  superbly founded complaints of extremely serious  police misbehaviour being circulated to influential people.

DCI Neligan’s email to me  bears all the hallmarks of having been cobbled together in a tremendous rush,  resting as it does very heavily on cut and pasting from the previous correspondence arising from this  case and the reiteration of spurious reasons  why no investigation is to be made.  He rejects my complaints by   ignoring the conclusive  evidence of both the initial offences of which I complained and my further complaints about the behaviour of Operation Elveden officers who have failed to investigate the clearest of evidence of serious crimes.

On my complaints about Morgan and Edwards  receiving information illegally from the Met , DCI Nelligan  simply  ignores the damming evidence I have supplied,  most notably the letter from Morgan to the PCC in which he  admits to receiving to receiving information from a Met officer in circumstances which can only have been illegal.   With  my accusations of perjury by Morgan and Edwards,  he unquestioningly accepts Detective Inspector Daniel Smith’s  opinion that perjury had not been committed despite the fact that  DI Smith  provided no meaningful explanation of why he had come to that conclusion.  The transcript of the Leveson hearings which I gave to Elveden points very strongly to perjury.

As for D-Supt Jeff Curtis, the fact that he  did not interview Morgan, Edwards or anyone else at the Mirror  is  conclusive evidence of a wilful and criminal failure to investigate.   The failure of the then Police Complaints Authority to Act when I complained  of Curtis’ failure is clear evidence of a wilful and criminal failure to address my complaint honestly.  The  refusal of Operation Elveden to start an investigation of D-Supt Curtis  when faced with such strong evidence of criminality as the Morgan letter and a tape recording of Curtis promising me that he would interview Morgan  is clear evidence of a wilful and  criminal failure to  act on clear evidence of criminality on Curtis’ part. The failure of the DPP to act on the spurious ground that they cannot direct the police to investigate is clear evidence of a wilful and criminal desire  to stop this matter becoming public knowledge.

In short, all DCI Nelligan has done is accept unquestioningly what previous officers and authorities have claimed was the case. He has made no attempt to assess the evidence I have provided.

This scandal comes down in the end to the age old  question of who shall guard the guards? At every stage of the complaints I have submitted there has been a wilful determination by those within the police and justice system to ignore evidence which on its own is enough to bring charges.  Right from the time I made the initial complaint to the Metropolitan Police (which was  eventually dealt with by Jeff Edwards) there has been a failure to investigate not because of an absence of evidence but because of the strength of the  evidence and the people involved.

I could get nothing done while Labour was in power because the story behind Morgan’s letter and the Mirror article which led to Morgan writing the letter to the PCC leads ultimately to Tony and Cherie Blair.   The Blairs  attempted to have me prosecuted  on charges , which as lawyers they must have known were bogus, during the 1997 General Election. Having failed ignominiously (the CPS returned the papers marked “No Crime” within hours of receiving them) the Blairs set Special Branch and MI5 on to me (the Mirror article about me fingered Special Branch and using the Data Protection Act – DPA –  I subsequently proved that  both they and MI5 have files on me). I then suffered ten years of harassment  which ranged from death threats to a persistent ostentatious opening of  my post. The harassment ceased as soon as Blair left office.

Sounds fantastic? Well, this should dissolve your  scepticism. The Conservative MP Sir  Richard Body put down this Early Day Motion of my behalf:

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

Any prosecution of Morgan and Edwards when I made the original complaint would have caused serious problems for the Blairs.  That explains why I could not get the police to act then.  The police will not act now,  doubtless partly still  because of the Blairs’ involvement and that of other powerful people who have come into the story over the course of the past 17 years , but also because of the failure of senior police officers  who have comprehensively failed to do their duty.

Please reflect upon this. If you do not act and I get story into the public fold you will have become part of the corrupt behaviour which has been the dominant and persistent  feature of this case. Ask yourself how you would stand before the media and explain with a straight face why no investigation was made when  the police have the Morgan letter to the PCC.

Is it likely I will get the story out? Well, Piers Morgan lost his CNN job four days after I circulated.  to the mainstream media in Britain and the USA his letter to the PCC in facsimile with a covering note – a copy of that email is below DCI Nelligan’s email. I do not like coincidences at the best of times and in particular I do not take to them when the coincidence involves, as this does, a complicated sequence of events to occur if it was just a coincidence.

I call upon you again to act directly as the police are unambiguously refusing to act not because they do not have evidence but because the evidence is hideously dangerous to them.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————-

For an introduction to the story go to

https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/piers-morgans-illegal-receipt-of-information-from-the-police-his-perjury-and-operation-elveden/

Click on Operation Elveden tag for all posts on this story.

How the BBC fixes the political bias of Any Questions

Robert Henderson

The programme is fixed generally because all those invited will on subjects such as race, immigration, homosexuality and feminism  toe the pc line to a large degree. (Ask yourself when was the last time you heard someone on Any Questions saying that mass immigration is an unalloyed ill). They will do this either from ideological conviction or the fear of the consequences if they become accused of a pc “crime”.

There is also a more particular built in bias which will generally result in preponderance politically correct  and left leaning answer. To demonstrate this I have compiled  the details of panel members  for a couple of recent two month runs of Any Questions – June-July 2013 and January-February 2014 (17 programmes). These details are shown at the bottom of this blog post.

Then there are  the biases produced by race, ethnicity and employment. Those who are there as right leaning representatives,  but are immigrants or the children of immigrants, members of a racial or ethnic minority or compromised by receiving public money or favours such as those bestowed on the quangocracy will often be left leaning in certain areas such as the desirability of mass immigration or the worth of public service, regardless of their nominal political orientation.

In the four months covered by the two periods chosen, the leftist, politically correct bias is clear: on every panel at least two (half the panel) of the participants are formally left leaning and in a number of cases more than two. A good example is the 28 2 2014 programme where at least three members (Hughes, Eagle, Greer)  are of the left and arguably all four because Chua being the child or immigrants and a member of an ethnic minority will in many areas automatically be pc (for example immigration)  even if she has some non pc ideas as well.

There is no example of any programme with more than two right leaning members  on it. Moreover, many of those classified as right-leaning will be right leaning only in the area of economics and even there someone who supports laissez faire economics is veering into the leftist world because the effects of globalism feed into the liberal left internationalist credo.

It is also noteworthy that although there are a few members of panels who may  reasonably be categorised as of the hard left, for example, Diane Abbott and Laurie Penny,   there is no one who represents the far right.

It is reasonable to suspect that the BBC packs all its audiences for political and current affairs programmes in a  similar way.

28 2 2014

The Bath Literature Festival with Justice Minister Simon Hughes MP, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Maria Eagle MP, Yale Law professor and author Amy Chua, and writer and broadcaster Germaine Greer.

Political count: two left-leaning MPs (Hughes and Eagle), an immigrant and radical feminist (Greer) and an ethnic minority representative  and child of immigrants to the USA (Chua).

21 2 2014

Blundells School in Tiverton, Devon, with Secretary of State for Scotland and Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael, Conservative backbench MP Nadhim Zahawi MP, New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny and Labour backbench MP Frank Field.

Political count: two left leaning MPs (Field and Carmichael ), one ethnic minority  immigrant  and right leaning MP (Zahawi) and one member of the hard left (Penny).

14 2 2014

Central Hall Methodist Church in Walsall with Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee Keith Vaz MP, Fisheries and Farming Minister George Eustice MP, Pauline Black from The Selecter and UKIP Party Director Lisa Duffy.

Political count: ne Left leaning MP, immigrant  and ethnic minority representative (Vas), one right leaning  MP (Eustice), one ethnic minority  representative  (Black) and  one right leaning representative from a minor party (Duffy).

7 2 2014

Altrincham Grammar School for Girls with Defence Minister and Tory MP  Anna Soubry, journalist and poverty campaigner Jack Monroe, the Liberal Democrat MP Jeremy Browne and the Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw MP.

Political count: one Tory MP but with a strong streak of political correctness (Soubry), two left leaning MPs (Browne and Straw) and one leftist journalist and campaigner (Monroe).

31 1 2014

Purfleet in Essex with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles MP, Labour backbencher Diane Abbott MP, author and columnist Simon Heffer and the new Green party peer Baroness Jenny Jones

Political count: one centrist Tory MP (Pickles), one hard left MP who is the  daughter of immigrants  and an ethnic minority representative (Abbott), one right leaning journalist (Heffer) and , one hard left peer, (Jones).

24 1 2014

Gwyn Hall in Neath, with the First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, Jill Evans Plaid Cymru MEP for Wales, Conservative Vice Chairman for Campaigning, Michael Fabricant MP, and the former leader of the Liberal Party Lord Steel.

Political count: two  left leaning politicians (Jones and Evans) and one right leaning  MP (Fabricant) and one left leaning peer (Steel).

17 1 2014

Greenbank High School in Southport with the former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham, Supermarket Ombudsman Christine Tacon and Liverpool based textiles businessman Tony Caldeira.

Political count:  one right leaning MP (Mitchell), one left leaning MP (Burnham), one member of the Quangocracy (Tacon) and one businessman who is a Tory Party supporter (Caldeira).

10 1 2014

Heythrop College in London with Justice Secretary Chris Grayling MP, Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan MP, Patrick O’Flynn the new Communications Director for UKIP and former coalition minister the Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather.

Political count: two left leaning MPs (Khan and Teather), one right leaning Tory MP (Grayling) and one rightist representative for a minor party (O’Flynn).

27 7 2013

Endellion, Cornwall with Lord Hattersley, writer Jessica Mann, Times columnist Phil Collins and Jacob Rees Mogg MP.

Political count: one leftist peer (Hattersley), one rightist MP (Rees-Mogg), one immigrant  who has been part of Quangocracy (Mann), one left leaning journalist (Collins) .

19  7 2013

Bridport in Dorset with Lord Ashdown, Kate Hoey MP, Baroness Julia Neuberger and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson.

Political count: two left leaning peers (Ashdown and Neuberger), one centrist Tory peer (Lawson) and one left leaning MP (Hoey). Neuberger is the daughter of an immigrant mother and a member of an ethnic minority.

12 7 2013

Bushey in Hertfordshire with Chuka Umunna Shadow Business Secretary, Vice Chairman of the Society of Business Economists Bronwyn Curtis, Grant Shapps Chairman of the Conservative Party and the Speaker’s Chaplain the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin.

Political count: one left-leaning immigrant and member of an ethnic minority MP  (Umunna), One immigrant Australian economist (Curtis), one right leaning MP (Shapps) and one ethnic minority immigrant representative (Rose Hudson-Wilkin).

5 7 2013

from Keswick in the Lake District with Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron, Shadow Europe Minister Emma Reynolds MP, Deputy leader of UKIP Paul Nuttall and Leader of the 1922 Committee Graham Brady MP.

Political count: two left leaning MPs (Farron and Reynolds), one right leaning member of a minor party  (Nuttall) and one right leaning MP (Brady).

28 6 2013

Titchfield in Hampshire with John Denham MP, Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee Bernard Jenkin MP, Chair of the Bar Council Maura McGowan QC and Minister of State for Justice Lord McNally.

Political count: one left leaning MP (Denham), one right leaning MP (Jenkin), one criminal lawyer  with no obvious political affiliation (McGowan) and , one left leaning peer (McNally).

21 6 2013

Purley in Croydon. The panel are Labour peer Baroness Oona King; editor of Prospect magazine Bronwen Maddox, Foreign and Commonwealth minister Alistair Burt and the novelist, journalist and human rights activist Joan Smith.

Political count: one left leaning ethnic representative peer (King), one right leaning journalist (Maddox), one right leaning MP (Burt) and one left leaning journalist (Smith).

14 6 2013

Great Yarmouth Racecourse in Norfolk with Daniel Hannan MEP, commentator Mehdi Hasan, Communities and Local Government Minister Don Foster MP and Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Mary Creagh MP.

Political count: one right leaning MEP (Hannan), one son of immigrants and left leaning ethnic minority representative journalist (Medhi Hassan) and two left leaning MPs (Foster and Creagh)

7 6 2013

The Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, Wales with Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Owen Paterson MP, Labour’s Peter Hain MP, Leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Woods, and commentator James Delingpole.

Political count: one right leaning MP (Paterson) one left leaning MP (Hain), one hard left representative (Woods)  and one rightist journalist (Delingpole).

1 6 2013

Slough in Berkshire. The panel includes the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers MP, the director of the think-tank British Future Sunder Katwala, Business woman Julie White and Labour peer Lord Adonis.

Political count: one right leaning MP (Villiers), one left leaning ethnic minority representative who is the son of immigrants (Katwala), one business woman whose company D-Drill gets a good deal of its work from government (White) and one left leaning peer (Adonis).