A PARCEL of ROGUES! by Christopher Draper

YOU CAN tell what God thinks of money when you look at the sort of people he gives it to - he has a similar opinion of Britain’s Honours System and its recipients…

1) Jimmy Savile – Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE) 1972, Knighthood 1990 – from the 1950’s many people complained of Savile’s vile sexual abuse of victims aged from 5 to 75 (including corpses) but his money and social connections protected him until his death in 2011. Feeling increasingly threatened by gossip, in 1990 Savile confided to journalist Lynn Banks, “It was a gi-normous relief when I got the knighthood because it got me off the hook.”

2) Benito Mussolini – Knighthood 1923 – Funded from 1917 by Britain’s MI5, in 1919 Mussolini founded the Italian Fascist Party. Backed by blackshirted thugs, from 1922 Mussolini headed Italy’s terror regime. His dictatorship received the British seal of approval in 1923 with an Official Visit from King George Fifth who rewarded Il Duce with a Knighthood.

3) Harvey Weinstein – Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 2004 – currently serving 23 years imprisonment for numerous sexual assaults including rape.

4) Robert Mugabe – Knighthood 1994 – anti-colonial guerrilla leader turned murderous, homophobic dictator, responsible for genocide of 20,000 residents of Matabele land in the early 1980’s.

5) Jean Else – Dame 2001 – “Labour Luvvie” honoured as “Super Head” of Manchester’s “Whalley Range High School”. In 2004 Dame Jean Else was suspended and subsequently found guilty of making unauthorised payments and nepotism, which included promoting her twin sister from part-time clerical assistant to deputy head! Sacked and banned by the General Teaching Council.

6) Anthony Blunt – Knighthood – spied for Stalin from 1935-51. Although the authorities were tipped off as early as 1950 and Blunt confessed in 1964, as a pillar of the establishment – distantly related to the Queen, educated at Marlborough Public School and Trinity College, Cambridge, member of the British Secret Service and “Surveyor of the King/Queen’s Pictures” Blunt was honoured and the truth concealed.

7) Vidkun Quisling – CBE 1929 – founder of the Norwegian Fascist Party and Nazi collaborator honoured by George V for his murky role in “representing British interests” in the 1920’s as a rabid anti-communist member of the Norwegian Legation in Moscow.

8) Fred Goodwin – Knighthood 2004 – as CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland, Goodwin was honoured “for services to the banking industry”. He had no banking qualifications, gambled on a reckless policy of acquisitions and expansion and four years later RBS spectacularly collapsed forcing an unprecedented government bailout. While ordinary citizens continue to bear the costs Goodwin ensured that he walked away with an RBS lifetime pension of £703,000 a year.

9) Nicolae Caeusescu – Knighthood 1978 – Following the 1978 honours ceremony at Buckingham Palace the Queen gave the Romanian dictator “a rifle with a telescopic sight, his wife, Elena, received a gold and diamond brooch”. After the pair were executed in 1989 by firing squad during a popular uprising the Queen sent back the “Star of the Socialist Republic of Romania – First Class” awarded to her by Caeusescu but pleaded in vain for return of the Knight’s regalia she’d given him, “a purple mantle with a silver star and collar with gold roses and sapphires. The collar is estimated to be worth £15,000.”

10) Rolf Harris – Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) 1968, OBE 1977, CBE 2009 – Broadcaster initially famous for singing about “Two Little Boys” and tying down kangaroos, later infamous for sexually assaulting little girls including his daughter’s thirteen year old friend. In 2005 the Queen sat for Harris at Buckingham Palace whilst he painted her official 80th birthday portrait and in 2012 he performed outside the Palace for her Jubilee Concert. Two year later he was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault and sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison.

Britain’s Honours System is a tawdry confection, impressing naught but fools and narcissists. The above list of crooks, conmen, killers and paedophiles is merely the tip of the dung heap. Next on Northern Voices I’ll identify ten “Honourable Hypocrites” who broadcast their anti-establishment credentials whilst brown-nosing their way onto the Honours List.

CD 2020

Banker's Bargain Booze at Labour Conference

THE current issue of Private Eye reports that 'For all the talk of socialism at the Labour Conference in Liverpool, some bankers were still on hand to spread largesse:  the New Statesmen's invitation-only reception was sponsored by Nat West-a subsidary of state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland.'

According to The Eye though RBS was nationalised and bailed out by the public it 'continued to act like a bad private bank paying big bonuses at the top and squeezing small business.'   But at the Liverpool Labour Party Conference it dished-up the drinks for the party members at a party held at the  bar with a Guevara-chic theme catering in a 'pretend revolutionary cocktail bar?'  

Meanwhile, Shadow City Minister Jonathan Reynolds also enjoyed a private party with the bankers at the conference.  The Eye says:  'He was star guest at the invitation-only Lansons Financial Reception, also held in the REVOLUCIÓN DE CUBA BAR.'   Lansons is a lobbying firm which specialises in city clients, which The Eye claims represents 'overshore financial centres and tax havens like Jersey.'

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Banking Crisis, Blacklisting & Justice

Clearing the air in banking crisis & blacklist scandal
by Brian Bamford

LAST weekend, a Financial Times (FT) editorial explained the purpose of the legal process:

'The law tries cases and metes out punishment for a number of reasons.  Securing restitution for damage done and deterring future misdeeds are the most respectable and most often cited.  There ais subtler reason, though, one that is easily forgotten.  Justice often consists in simply setting the record straight, in saying  what happens in a clear, public and final way.  If this last element is neglected, old wounds can remain open.'

The F.T. editor was referring in this case to the financial crisis, and the current specific shareholder suit against the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as an example.  The RBS shareholders are after money compensation, and are seeking £700 million, claiming that they were misled by the bank ahead of a £12 billion rights issue in 2008, which was then followed by a state bailout and a further collapse in the value of the shares.  

Some of the shareholders who suffered from the shakedown by the bank and refused offers of a settlement say they want fundamental questions answered publicly.  'It's about seeing the ex-directors in court and for all what happened,' one said.

The F.T. editor focusing on the Royal Bank of Scotland writes:

'The shareholders would, more specifically, want to see former RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin in the dock.  Mr Goodwin has, to a degree, been punished already.  He has lost his job, of course, and his knighthood was stripped away five years ago.  After a fight he was forced to accept a reduction in his pension.  But, aside from an appearance in front of a Commons inquiry, he has not had to answer publicly for what he happened at RBS or his role in it.'

Essentially neither the banking crisis nor, more importance to us, the issue of blacklisting in the British building trade is about one man or about one bank or about one construction company.  They are both issues of concern to the country as a whole. 

The banking and the financial crisis with its mis-selling and price-fixing scandals has ended up involving the tax-payer, and the state is still saddled with three-quarters of ownership of RBS.  And the government has recently accepted that it may never square the circle.  Yet, as the F.T. editor points out 'nearly a decade after the crisis, no senior UK bank executive has yet been a defendant in a civil or criminal trial as a result of the banking sectors' decimation by bad loans, risky funding and ill-structured products.'

The blacklisted workers in the British building trade would immediately recognise this scenario as described above.  Despite blacklisting on a vast scale which is in all probability continuing, no culpable executive in the construction industry has had to appear in person before a criminal court in this country.  True compensation has been paid by the companies to the victims of blacklisting in out-of-court settlements, but apart from people like Callum McAlpine having to appear in front of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee with his solicitor by his side, there has been no proper admission of guilt.  Indeed, Mr. McAlpine told the Scottish Affairs Select Committee he'd been advised by hie solicitor that he couldn't answer any questions on the grounds of.sub judice.

It does not seem that the blacklisted electricians on the British building sites will ever get full justice through the courts; Dave Smith, as an agency worker, recently lost his case at the European Court of Human Rights  That is 'full justice' of the kind of sense of justice which according to the F.T. editorial above 'consists in simply setting the record straight, in saying  what happens in a clear, public and final way.'

Consequently, unless  the Labour Party comes to power in the forthcoming general election and establishes an independent public inquiry into blacklisting as promised by some including the Blacklist Support Group, the air will never be cleared in the British building trade creating much disgruntlement among the workers and trade unionists, and construction companies will continue to impose forms of blacklisting throughout the industry.  Thus, old wounds will remain open in the British trade union movement.