Boundary Commission Leak Shows Absurdity Of Embargoes

Full leak of Westminster shakeup online leaves newspapers and broadcasters struck dumb – and irrelevant – until midnight.

Crumbling reporting restrictions…

Why on earth did the Boundary Commission think that releasing the results of its reshuffle of English and Northern Irish Westminster constituencies should be kept under wraps until midnight? The shape and size of constituencies is a subject of near obsessive interest to MPs – who like newspapers and broadcasters have already been briefed on the proposals today. All have told to keep quiet until the first minute of tomorrow, but in such an environment leaks are inevitable.

Guido Fawkes has published a complete set of the reform proposals – you can read that here. Some local media are already discussing them – here is something about the Isle of Wight if you are interested. Twitter is, well, atweet with similar details – Nick Bent who was a candidate at Warrington South at the last election has published a link to the proposals for the North West. And MPs are ringing the Guardian to comment, or would like to, were it not for the fact that this newspaper is under embargo.

It’s a nonsense. This is the modern day equivalent of the old 14 day rule – the rule that used to prevent the BBC from discussing any area of policy that had been debated in Parliament in the last fortnight. The 14 day rule was dropped in 1957 because it was obviously a nonsense then. That was the era of Suez. But, in an era where news moves that little bit faster, it seems to have returned in a new guise. Broadcasters and newspapers cannot report on or explain the changes to Westminster constituency boundaries, when the whole of Westminster knows the proposals and anybody interested can read all about it online.

If traditional media keep this up, they can look forward to the blogosphere cheerfully stealing some of the easiest scoops known to reporting. Somebody ought to stand up for serious journalism and break ranks. It’s only an embargo after all.

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Rescued ‘Slave’ Criticises Police Raid At Bedfordshire Caravan Site

Man helped from Travellers’ site brands Leighton Buzzard arrests ‘rubbish’ as nine men refuse to help investigation

Police guard the Greenacre caravan site in Leighton Buzzard.

The police investigation into a suspected slave camp at a Travellers’ site in Bedfordshire has been challenged after nine of the 24 alleged slaves refused to help police with their inquiries.

One of the nine accused the police of heavy-handed tactics and described the five arrests as “complete rubbish”.

Police insist that the four-month undercover operation has broken up an “organised crime group”, and were questioning 15 alleged victims, who were being treated for malnutrition and other medical problems.

Police continue to question four men and are looking for two further suspects. One heavily pregnant woman, who is expected to give birth imminently, has been released on bail. No charges have yet been brought.

DCI Sean O’Neil, from the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire major crimes unit, said: “Those people who we continue to help are appreciative of the support that is on offer, but it will take some time to work through with them what has happened.”

He said he was confident the operation, called Operation Netwing, had broken up a criminal network.

Police have arrested suspects on slavery and servitude offences under section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act.

“The new legislation has allowed the investigation more scope and takes into account emotional rather than physical harm,” O’Neil said. “I am confident that while the investigation is in its early stages this is a family-run ‘business’ and is an organised crime group that has been broken up by the Netwing operation.”

At the well-established Greenacre caravan park in Leighton Buzzard, which has 16 mobile homes, one of the men taken by police, who did not want to be named, said he had been living in a caravan on a Traveller plot for several years, working as a paver and was being paid £50 a day.

“I think it’s all a load of rubbish and they just hate Travellers,” said the man, who is in his 50s. “Plenty of men who were here wanted to be here and they were getting paid. The police coming in heavy-handed like this is just wrong.”

More than 200 police officers raided the site in the early hours of Sunday, aided by a helicopter and dog patrols. Armed officers were also present.

Four men and a woman were arrested on suspicion of slavery offences, while 24 men were taken to a medical centre.

Police said the men had been kept as virtual slaves in appalling conditions, forced to work long hours doing physically demanding jobs without pay.

However, the man told the Guardian he had worked for 15 years with one Traveller family who had provided him with work and accommodation when he had nowhere else to go. After refusing to answer police questions he made his way back to the site.

He said: “The police told me I couldn’t come back but I told them it was my home and if I wanted to go back I would go back.”

Speaking at the door of her mobile home, one woman – who said she was the wife of one of the arrested men but did not want to be named – said the police claims were “ridiculous”.

She added: “The men who were taken were getting paid £30 a day, they had somewhere to live, this is all a load of nonsense.”

Police claimed the suspects lured vulnerable men from dole queues and homeless shelters to work at the site. But the woman said they came voluntarily because they knew Travellers would give work to men down on their luck.

“Isn’t it better that they have a roof over their head?” she said. “What are they going to do now – when the police have finished with them they will be homeless. It’s up to them how they kept their homes, but they could come and go whenever they pleased.”

She accused the police of harbouring prejudices against Travellers. “It’s complete lies and they are trying to make Travellers look bad. There are two sides to this story,” she said.

A police spokeswoman said the 24 men taken from the site were being offered help: “We are giving help to all of the men, but if they do not want it then obviously we are not forcing them to take it.”

Paul Donohoe, spokesman for Anti-Slavery International said that, although he could not comment on the details of this particular case, it was not unusual for victims of slavery to resist help from the authorities.

“We do often see the Stockholm syndrome coming into effect – it is not unusual for people who have been ‘rescued’ to psychologically identify with their enslavers.”

Police said on Monday that of the 24 men taken from the site, nine had left the medical reception centre and had chosen not to support the police investigation.

The remaining 15 continue to be assessed for welfare and health needs, and would be interviewed by detectives. Police said it would take a number of days to establish exactly what had happened to them on the site.

Of the men helping police, eight are British, three Polish, one Latvian and one Lithuanian, with two men of unconfirmed nationality.

The youngest person to be found on site was 17. Police said he has rejoined his family.

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When Dave Was Tapped Up By The KGB

Here’s one for Robert Harris’s next plotline: David Cameron has claimed that the KGB sought to sign him up as a double agent.

Double agent: David Cameron (with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev).

Regaling students at Moscow State University this morning, the Prime Minister recalled his first visit to Russia as a student on his gap year between school and university in 1985.

‘I took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Nakhodka to Moscow and went on to the Black Sea coast,’ he said.

‘There two Russians – speaking perfect English – turned up on a beach mostly used by foreigners.

‘They took me out to lunch and dinner and asked me about life in England and what I thought about politics.

‘When I got back I told my tutor at university and he asked me whether it was an interview.

‘If it was, it seems I didn’t get the job.’

Quite how the KGB gags, if that’s what they were, will go down with Mr Cameron’s already prickly hosts remains to be seen.

Over breakfast (served with large quantities of alcohol, perhaps explaining Russian male life expectancy of 59), the PM and his policy advisers discussed how to approach the first visit by a British leader to Russia for six years.

The Prime Minister will not have been pleased by the headline on page one of this morning’s Moscow Times: ‘Kremlin Sees No “Reset” in UK Visit’.
The message from Sergei Prikhodko, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s chief foreign policy adviser, could not have been clearer.

Now and then: The Prime Minister on his visit to Moscow, left, and in an undated photograph, right, as he may have looked in 1985.

‘No-one is expecting any breakthroughs, and in fact they are not needed,’ he declares. ‘Why fight? It is not necessary for us to have a “reset” with Britain. We will continue to work the way that we have been working in the past.’

Which, if he means what he says, means not terribly well, if at all. Officials admit Britain has had no formal contact at all with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin since 2007, when he made a cursory phone call to Downing Street to mark Gordon Brown’s arrival as Prime Minister.

Mr Cameron acknowledges he is walking a tightrope on the visit, which, in what is becoming a trademark for his foreign visits, comes with a planeload of business leaders anxious to sign contracts in tow.

The PM does intend to make at least a passing public reference to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London – the only hostile nuclear incident ever to take place on British soil – which plunged Anglo-Russian relations to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

Poisoned: Alexander Litvinenko died in 2006, but Russia has steadfastly refused to extradite the prime suspect in the case, Andrei Lugovoy.

Russian dissident Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London five years ago in what is alleged to have been a state-sponsored assassination.

But demands to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, the former KGB officer who is the chief suspect in the murder, will fall on deaf ears. Lugovoy, now a member of Russia’s parliament, also had a message for Mr Cameron this morning.

‘It’s impossible to say who left the polonium,’ he boasted from the comfort of a fishing trip in the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East.

But Mr Lugovoy does have a theory, which he is anxious to share. Litvinenko, he suggests, was involved in the trade of polonium and was killed not by the Russian secret service… but by MI6.

Back to Robert Harris!

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Autumn Of Strikes Edges Closer

Unions have moved closer to an autumn of strikes as the Government was warned it faces a huge campaign of civil disobedience over spending cuts and “attacks” on workers’ rights.

Millions of public sector workers could be taking industrial action in protest at planned changes to their pensions, possibly on November 29, when the Government announces its autumn financial statement.

An announcement could made within days of widespread ballots for action, heralding the biggest outbreak of industrial unrest for decades.

Plans to co-ordinate industrial action will be discussed at the TUC on Wednesday, but sources said a large number of unions were now moving towards balloting for strikes.

At the conference on Monday, delegates agreed to consider a legal challenge against the coalition, alleging breaches of international labour law, and to campaign against “anti-union” legislation.

Officials lined up to attack the Government over its spending cuts and moves to strengthen laws against strikes and other forms of union action.

Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB union, said that if the Government brings in more laws, it would be in response to strikes against public sector pensions, which he warned looked set to be joined by millions of workers.

He said: “Bad laws have to be broken. Civil disobedience in protest at erosion of civil liberties and freedoms have a place in our history. Millions of people inside and outside of trade unions can and will fight. If going to prison is the price to pay for standing up to bad laws, then so be it.

“We will give politicians the biggest campaign of civil disobedience their tiny minds have ever seen.”

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, said unions should not “meekly accept” anti-union laws, adding: “If tax avoidance is lawful and unpunished, let’s plan for anti-union law avoidance in the same spirit.”

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The Front – British Cabinet Minister In New Hacker Scandal

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer is the latest figure to become entangled in the telephone hacking scandal involving News International, the British news division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

The London Independent reported today (Monday) that the chancellor, George Osborne, was among those targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, a private detective working for NI’s News of the World , the Sunday tabloid that was shut down in the wake of the scandal.

Also targeted, said the Independent , was former prostitute Natalie Rowe, who was photographed with Osborne at a party in 2005 with what appeared to be a sheet of paper with a line of cocaine in front of them.

The photograph was featured on the front of two “red-top” newspapers, the newspaper said, referring to the red ink used on the mastheads of scandal sheets like News of the World. Rowe, the Independent said, is due to be interviewed sometime this week on Australian television and may shed some light on the question of why Osborne subsequently recommended that Andy Coulson, the News of the World editor at the time the scandalous photo appeared, be appointed Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications chief.

One broadcasting source was quoted by the Independent as remarking “Why put someone forward for a job, as Osborne did, when you know what a disservice they have done you?”

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Profile: Met Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe

Bernard Hogan-Howe, the newly-appointed Metropolitan Police Commissioner, fits the bill for the “single-minded crime fighter” sought by the home secretary.

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

Theresa May had made the call after his predecessor Sir Paul Stephenson, and his assistant John Yates, quit amid criticism of the Met’s role in the phone-hacking scandal.

And the former Merseyside Police chief was well-placed to take on the job of the UK’s top police officer, having been called on to act as the Met’s deputy commissioner in the wake of the resignations.

During five years on Merseyside to 2009, Mr Hogan-Howe developed a high profile via regular web chats and broadcasts, appearances on local radio phone-ins and horseback rides through the city centre.

And he earned admirers for his tough approach to anti-social behaviour and stance on gun crime in the wake of the fatal shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones.

Born in Sheffield, the football enthusiast’s rise through the ranks began with South Yorkshire Police in 1979.

‘Tough stance’

He worked as a traffic officer, detective and district commander, gaining an MA in law from Oxford University and a diploma in applied criminology from Cambridge University along the way.

In 1997 he moved to Merseyside police and four years later joined the Met as an assistant commissioner, before returning to Liverpool in 2004.

During that time, crime dropped by a third, and the force claims anti-social behaviour rates were cut in half through a zero-tolerance approach.

Bernard Hogan-Howe’s career

1979: South Yorkshire Police

1997: Assistant Chief Constable, Merseyside

2001: Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police

2004: Chief Constable of Merseyside

2009: HM Inspectorate of Constabulary

He hit the headlines in 2006 for sprinting after a suspected drink-driver after spotting him from his chauffeur-driven car.

Mr Hogan-Howe was the man in charge in 2007, when 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead as he walked home from football practice.

The killing horrified the nation and there were grumblings from some in the media when there was no immediate arrest.

But Mr Hogan-Howe got his man in December 2008 when Sean Mercer, 18, was jailed for life and several members of his gang were also locked up.

‘Clear philosophy’

That year, he accused some judges of being lenient on gun crime by overlooking mandatory five-year sentences for possession of a firearm.

He also called for those shielding gun criminals from police to be evicted from homes.

Mr Hogan-Howe set up the specialist Matrix team to tackle gun crime – the first of its kind outside London.

The home secretary and London mayor were “of one mind” in appointing Mr Hogan-Howe.

The unit’s former head, Det Supt Geoff Sloane, said: “When he came he had a clear philosophy. It was to tackle organised crime, gang-related crime but also to make sure victims were properly supported, which was backed up by strong neighbourhood policing.”

Before leaving Merseyside, he applied to succeed Sir Hugh Orde as chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

However, he withdrew from the application process to take up a role with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies.

He was called back to the Met in July to support Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin – later a rival for the top job – in bringing stability to the force after Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation.

The home secretary and London Mayor Boris Johnson said they were “of one mind” in their decision to appoint Mr Hogan-Howe.

Mrs May cited his “excellent track-record” in reducing crime had proven the deciding factor.

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