In today’s world, oil products – whether they be the petrol, diesel or fuel oil most directly obtained from refining crude or the plastics, chemicals, medicines etc derived by further processing – are the most sought after substances; excepting (possibly) illegal drugs.

So with markets like that, how the hell can an oil refinery go bankrupt?

To be fair, the headline on the news was a little misleading. It is the parent company which owns the refinery which has gone bust.

But the point still applies.

There has been a lot of scaremongering about the possible effects as the refinery supplies 20% of south-east England’s fuel needs; scaremongering no doubt put about to raise fuel prices. I would expect that some other company will take it over sooner rather than later.

Menawhile Britain’s debt has reached 1 trillion pounds* for the first time.

The Coalition cuts are working well to reduce the debt then, aren’t they?

I also see UK growth was -0.2% for the last three months. Not much scope for joy there.

Why are these idiots repeating the mistakes of the 1930s?

*That amount being illustrated on the BBC news last night as £1,000,000,000,000 is, to my old fashioned eyes, actually a million million or what we used to call a billion. Well, it was before we took up US descriptions of such things.

I must say at the outset that I shall not be going to see it – not least because the good lady (my good lady) is still too scarred by that woman’s actions that she cannot bear or contemplate anything to do with her.

I gather the film portrays its heroine as frail and dotty. (I suspect this may be a dramatic necessity for the purposes of making the film.) I have heard a speaker on Radio Scotland – a Tory MP – English of course – complain that it went beyond good taste as the person concerned was still alive and it therefore compromised her dignity. Well, that was rich.

Firstly and brutally, if she is frail and dotty she won’t know, will she?

Secondly, did she in her prime give a shit about the human dignity of all those she condemned to hardship and penury, everything she destroyed, as a result of her policies? You could call it karma.

In any case there were signs in her late Premiership that she was unhinged, if not deranged, so its not surprising she’s not all there in her dotage.

Yet none of this is to do with the thrust of this post.

Coincidentally I read an article from Tuesday’s Guardian that, as part of the setting up of Sky, Thatcher made the BBC pay £10 million a year to have their channels broadcast on Sky’s platform. Yet one more example of the baleful influence the woman had on British public life. And these payments persist: they are happening now.

Is this circumstance more widely known? Because I was outraged.

Does any other broadcaster – anywhere – have to pay another to have its own programmes shown on that other’s channels? Surely not.

Doesn’t the BBC sell programmes/formats around the world rather than pay others to broadcast them? Don’t the BBC, ITV and Channels 4 and 5 pay to the originator for US (or Australian or whatever) generated programmes? And doesn’t Virgin have to pay Sky to have Sky channels on its (Virgin’s) service? Doesn’t Sky itself pay HBO hefty amounts for their programmes?

We all know the reason why there would not have been much protest from the BBC at such an arrangement. The perceived power of the Murdoch Press. The pusillanimity of politicians of all parties with respect to that power.

That power may now be a busted flush and despite the Tories’ antipathy to anything that smacks of public endeavour surely the BBC ought to be demanding an end to this public subsidy of a private company. For that is what the arrangement amounts to.

As it stands it is – and always has been – a total waste of licence fee payers’ money to throw it away on Sky for no content in return.

The boot should be firmly on the other foot. Sky ought to be paying the BBC – and handsomely – for any access at all to BBC programming. Not to mention providing adequate compensation for all the years in which money has been shamefully drained away from the BBC in this way.

Edited to add:- my good lady says the speaker on the radio was none other than Jeremy (H)unt – her parentheses.

The police shoot a man (who may or may not have been an immediate threat to life but certainly did not have a gun on him when shot.)

As a result there’s an outbreak of rioting – the worst for nearly thirty years.

The remedy for this is …

for the police to be allowed to shoot people!

Have I suddenly woken up in a fascist state?

But the emphasis of the news coverage seems askew to me. The focus of attention is on whether smoke from a fireworks display (or perhaps fog) was a contributing factor.

In essence it doesn’t matter, either – or both – may have reduced visibility.

And I believe neither was the cause the accident.

It is more likely that drivers did not adjust their driving to the prevailing conditions. Fog, or reduced visibility, means that they should have slowed down; even if the fog was patchy or intermittent. In all probability some (most?) did not.

The accident – like the majority of road “accidents” – was probably the result of poor, perhaps even dangerous, driving. It is that, as a counter to the dangerous notion that drivers are somehow put upon by laws intended to restrict their speed, that should be hammered home time and again, whenever deaths occur on the roads.

Contrary to what some people seem to believe a car is not an expression of individual freedom, it is merely a means to get from A to B in the most efficient way – and it is also a lethal weapon, needing to be handled with care.

I hope that this incident gives pause to those who wish to raise the motorway speed limit. They say people ignore the limit. Is that a good reason to change the law? After all some people rob banks, so should laws against theft then be changed? In any case, the people who break the speed limit now will most likely break the new one too; they don’t care unless they’re caught. Motorways will be many times more dangerous than they are now.

If it doesn’t give them pause and the limit does end up being raised we can expect more Tauntons, or worse, in the future.

While I bought mine a week ago I haven’t put it on yet. Armistice Day isn’t till this Friday (I’ll have a special post for that) and Remembrance Sunday is seven days away yet. I think wearing one for more than a week is excessive. And I have a category dedicated to War Memorials.

So I wasn’t going to mention it this year. But they’re at it again. Hardly a TV programme I’ve seen during the past couple of weeks has had anyone without a poppy. Even Benjamin Zephaniah had one on Question Time; though his was white. I also find the ostentatious inclusion of a poppy on the shirts of English Premiership football teams in the past two rounds of fixtures somewhat bizarre.

On Saturday, Football Focus (for whom a previous instance has to be considered) interviewed David Beckham – presumably in the US (as he’s just helped LA Galaxy into a final or something) – and there he was sporting a poppy. Now where did he get that? While I fully expect Beckham would be extremely keen to wear one I can’t believe they’re on general sale in the US.

And I noticed on flicking through the channels on the TV that Johnny Depp was wearing one on the Graham Norton Show two nights ago.

However, a real nadir was reached tonight (perhaps last night as I never watch the programme concerned.) After Countryfile – whose presenters both this week and last naturally wore poppies (Naturally? How long ago were the items actually filmed?) – on came the results show for Strictly Come Dancing and we were given the spectacle of a troop of barely clad young women writhing about – all with poppies attached to what little costume they did have.

Might I submit that this display was rather inappropriate, not quite sober enough, as a mark of respect for the sacrifice of the fallen?

Oh for someone to appear on TV in late October or early November with, in place of a poppy, a sign saying, “They died for my right not to wear a poppy.”

Is this a spectacular case of double bluff?

Failure to take on the bankers in any serious way at all, no curbs on bonuses, proposals to remove the 50% income tax band – all could have been designed to foment revolution.

Given the actions of our esteemed leader since he got hold of the reigns of power in Downing Street we could have been forgiven for believing that a KGB agent is exactly what he is.

Their lead story was “Lockerbie Bomber Escapes Justice Again.”

Really?

Escapes justice?

Again?

Apparently the new Libyan regime will not extradite Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet Al Megrahi to the West.

And why should they?

ITN was peddling utter tosh. Twice over.

Even putting aside the fact that he is almost certainly innocent, Megrahi has not escaped justice. He was convicted, and served a term of imprisonment from which he was released on compassionate grounds under the terms of the justice system concerned.

So he did not “escape justice” even once: still less once more.

The BBC news earlier in the week wasn’t much better, though. A reporter knocked on his door in Tripoli and received no answer and on these grounds decided Megrahi had fled and had thereby broken the terms of his release.

Now, if you lived in Tripoli would you have answered your door this past week? And, if he has fled, wouldn’t you have in his place?

While he has survived way longer than we were led to expect he would, the man is still clearly ill. Given that he has already been duly processed, if under extraordinary provisions, it would be a crime to subject him to further detention.

And let’s have none of this “the victims want this to happen.” (That is to say the victims’ relatives.) They most certainly do not – or at least not all of them do.

That there is talk of US snatch squads apprehending him is an outrage. To do so would be a clear breach of international law and would put the perpetrators on an equal footing with any other law breaker.

Edited to add:-
It seems Megrahi is now at death’s door and has been found in his family home so perhaps we’ll hear an end of this.

Gadaffi has still not been found as I write and continues to spout defiance. It could be a long time yet.

Aren’t these two erstwhile members of the Bullingdon Club, whose activities consisted of exactly the sort of thing they were condemning?

Where is the difference between what they are said to have got up to in their youth and what we have seen on our TV screens?

I found it particularly ironic when David Cameron said the perpetrators would, “feel the full force of the law,” and Johnson that they would, “regret it.”

Did Mr Cameron feel the full force of the law?

Did Johnson regret his actions? (“We got drunk, trashed the Ritz & then went down Piccadilly to loot a few items from Fortnums” – Boris Johnson in his autobiography, 1986.)

Or is it just that they could get away with it because their daddies were rich?

I hope the rioters do not get away with it. Nothing excuses such wanton acts of violence and vandalism. (Whether their daddies are rich or not.)

Parliament has been recalled for Thursday. Expect a whole series of speeches ploughing the same themes – none of which will be along the lines of why people might have been motivated to act in this way. Get to the root of that and the problem – for there clearly is a problem – might be on the way to being solved.

I’m not optimistic. I feel further restrictions on civil liberties coming on.

I listened to Mr Irresponsible’s speech today and his answers to the subsequent questions. This may or may not turn out to be David Cameron’s Iraq or Black Wednesday but it was certainly his Ed Miliband moment.

I lost count of the number of times he repeated the phrases “second chance” (must have been around twenty repetitions) and “resigned all over again” (ten? fifteen?) Was it he who came up with these formulations or one of his scriptwriters? Whatever, he stuck to them like a limpet. Or a comfort blanket.

Before that, though, he said we the public look to the police to protect us, to politicians to represent us and to the press to inform us and that all of them have been let down. I’ll repeat that. All of them have been let down. The police, politicians and the press have been let down?

In such a carefully crafted speech can this have been a slip? (Freudian or otherwise?)

Or does it betray Mr Cameron’s true attitudes? I think the latter part of his performance argues for him still not seeing where he has erred.

Second chance…. second chance…. second chance….

Resigned all over again…. resigned all over again….

These phrases were clearly designed to put Mr Cameron in a positive light. Yes it is entirely worthy to give someone a second chance. I wonder, though, how far David Cameron’s enthusiasm to rehabilitate others would go. Will he now be employing any ex–burglars do you think? Former fraudsters? Rapists? Murderers? Licence-fee dodgers? Others who have had to resign from their jobs for underhand, dodgy or illegal activities? Tax evaders? Oh wait a minute… He’s probably done that last one.

However, “resigned all over again” can have had no other meaning than that Andy Coulson had already been punished for his misdemeanours, indeed had been overpunished. That phrase (despicably, to my mind) tries to cast Mr Coulson as the victim, something which he is very far from. It is there purely to attempt to exculpate: whether Mr Coulson or Mr Cameron I’m not sure. And let’s not forget there was no punishment. Mr Coulson walked into a – presumably well paid – job with Mr Cameron. And, moreover, precisely because of his former job and its connections.

There is also the more pressing question of police entanglement with News International’s operatives (including the apparent payment of money to serving police officers for information.) Is it any surprise that initial investigations into News of the World’s reporters’ activities were tardy and incomplete? The police are there to uphold the law, not to provide juicy tit-bits to journalists; certainly not to benefit from such provision (beyond any help it may have in securing further information from the public.) Press releases and press conferences are fine; underhand undercounter payments for exclusive access are not.

I am reminded of the old Latin tag, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (“Who guards the guardians?”) Are the Metropolitan Police in any position, now, to investigate these matters? Are they not, like the Prime Minister, utterly compromised?

Then there is the implicit protection being part of Mr Irresponsible’s team as Leader of the Opposition and then in Downing Street itself must have given to Andy Coulson. Is it any wonder the police did not pursue him too closely to begin with? When he got the job with David Cameron he must have thought he was fire-proof. No wonder he gave “assurances.” Assurances that were not worth the breath they were uttered with.

Please let David Cameron not get away with this catastrophic misjudgement by pretending to lance the boil the way he pretended to over the MPs expenses scandal. (The main scandal there being actually that those who could pay back their spurious or fraudulent claims have got away with it. Many members of the present UK cabinet included.)

The cosy relationship between politicians and the representatives of News International, the currying of the favour of that organisation politicians (all politicians) undertook – perhaps in the mistaken belief that an interest other than the corporation’s own might then be followed – the hands off treatment of that organisation’s tentacular growth, have all been large contributors to public apathy with the political process. Vote X get Murdoch. Vote Y get Murdoch. Let’s not vote; we’ll get Murdoch anyway.

A free press is indispensible to a functioning democracy. A cohort of politicians in thrall to one section of that press is not.

Today David Cameron promised Public Inquiries. Let their remits be as wide as possible and let them start as soon as possible so that they can take advantage of any information the police investigations turn up. Only under those two conditions will his credibility as PM be restored.

One steaming cess-pit down. How about The Sun next?

(Oh and are the Murdochs fit persons to be in charge of any news organisation?)