Naughty, Naughty!

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I wrote earlier of the unhappy Australian banker who was filmed live on television looking at naughty pictures on his computer while a colleague was giving an interview.

Naughty pictures on computers don’t only affect Australians, for a senior man in Welsh local government has resigned following an internal investigation after ‘inappropriate material’ was discovered on his work laptop computer.

Since this chap held down a job that paid £170,000 a year, this was a heavy price to pay, though you’d have thought that with a salary of this size the only things on his laptop would have been spreadsheets.

And, in case you are wondering, I don’t have any naughty pictures on my computer - that is if you discount those of MPs caught with their fingers in the till!
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And Now For Something Completely Different!

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To escape the dull Iraq Inquiry, Prime Minister’s Question Time in which he never answers a question, MPs expenses, etc., etc., I searched for something to lift the mood.

I found it with the story of the Australian banker who, while a colleague was being interviewed on television, was seen in the background to be looking at half-naked women on his computer screen until he realised with a shock that he was being filmed.

The man in question has reportedly been meeting executives to determine his future, while the bank has emailed all 11,500 staff around the world telling them to familiarise themselves with its internet policy.

Footage of the man’s stupidity has become a hit on the internet and probably in the process given the bank some good publicity.

The chances are though that anyone watching this particular interview was more likely to have been focused on what was going on in the background rather than what was actually being said by the man being interviewed!
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Short Not Short On Honesty

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The Iraq War Inquiry trundles on and, since the panel has no barristers on it, the questioning is hardly likely to be forensic as witness the masterful and anodyne way in which ‘Teflon’ Blair dealt with it last week.

However, now and again a light switches on to uncover the mist swirling around some of the things that have been said so far. One such example was the evidence given by the Head of the Armed Forces on Monday. Another occurred yesterday when Clare Short, the former International Development Secretary, delivered a blistering attack on Blair and shed light on some of the events leading up to the war.

Ms Short made it clear that, in her view, the Attorney General had been leant on to agree the war with Iraq was legal and that he had misled the Cabinet over this. She confirmed what many of us had already thought, that the Cabinet had not been a decision-making body. The Inquiry was also told that Blair’s evidence to it was ‘historically inaccurate’ and that ‘We could have gone more slowly and carefully and not have had a totally destabilised and angry Iraq.’

Ms Short, who quit the government two months after the war commenced, said much else and after a three hour session was given a round of applause.

By jingo, Ms Short doesn’t mince her words and you have to applaud her for it for she not only livened up yesterday’s session of the Inquiry and, maybe, introduced some honesty into proceedings which at times seem more like a discussion in a gentlemen’s club.
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Lessons Learned? Not!

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The Crimean War of 1853/56, one undertaken in some haste, was the first in which a war correspondent, William Howard Russell, was able to send regular despatches back home. His reports to the Times showed up the ineptitude of some of those in command of the troops and drew attention also to the army’s shortage of equipment and clothing and the lack of proper medical attention for those who had been wounded or taken ill.

Those events took place 160 years ago and one would have thought that all the lessons had been learned from it and subsequent wars, not only by those in command of the troops but, more importantly these days, by the politicians directing them.

Not so, for yesterday we had the Head of the Armed Forces tell the Iraq War Inquiry that ministers were warned of the serious risks involved because the military would not have all the equipment it would need to invade Iraq. He told the Inquiry that defence chiefs ‘simply didn't have enough time’ to source everything they wanted, and cited the shortage of body armour, desert combats and boots.

And, as we now know, British soldiers died as a result!
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Cheers!

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Under a Freedom of Information Act request by BBC Scotland, Strathclyde Police have disclosed that Buckfast Tonic Wine was mentioned in 5,638 crime reports from 2006 to 2009.

The fortified tonic is made from imported wine by the Benedictine monks of Buckfast Abbey in Devon who feel that it is hard to see how their wine could be ‘held responsible for all the social ills’ of Strathclyde.

One Scottish MEP has called on the European Union to ban Buckfast wine and other drinks that combine alcohol and caffeine. Against this, I think the local MEP has got it right when he says, ‘Do people honestly think that if Buckfast wine is banned, hooligans will start drinking tea?’

It’s a great story and one which must have produced the best publicity ever for the monk’s tonic wine. Drinkers all over the country will be queuing at their off-licenses to get it.
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'Super Injunctions'

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Until last week I and the majority of the nation had no idea that there existed something called the ‘super injunction’ which not only prevented the media from mentioning a particular matter but even the existence of the injunction itself.

The latest case was bought on behalf of a footballer to prevent publication of his misdemeanours with the girlfriend of a team-mate. The temporary injunction was lifted by a High Court judge because, ‘the nub of the applicant’s complaint is to protect his reputation, in particular with sponsors’.

Super injunctions are seen as the courts bringing in a privacy law by the back door and, in this case, the judge wisely decided that freedom of speech should take precedence over privacy.

A commentator on television this morning mentioned that there may be as many as two hundred of these super injunctions in force at the moment, and one wonders what sort of matters they cover or whether more of them are as as trivial as the one lifted last week.
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The Wrong Archbishop?

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It is reported that the Lord Chamberlain, the Queen’s senior adviser, met recently with the Archbishop of Westminster to express concern over the Pope’s offer that disaffected Anglicans could convert to Rome.

The Archbishop apparently told the Lord Chamberlain that the Pope’s offer had not been intended as a hostile act or to in any way destabilise the Church of England. I’m not entirely sure what that means in real money, but the liberalisation of the Anglican Church in recent years has caused much disquiet and disaffection.

I’m wondering if a conversation between the Lord Chamberlain and the Archbishop of Canterbury might have been more fruitful?
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