Industrial Disease

The Gabby Logan Show on BBC Five Live this week shows how the insurance industry ducks its responsibilities and allows many people to die long before they pay out.

There are two direct repercussions to this - 1) the person dies a particularly uncomfortable and painful death without any financial support and 2) the pay out is automatically reduced after death even though relatives will have shouldered the cost of care. Both are terrible but the latter is a belter - once the unfortunate person dies then only if there are dependents alive will the pay out be the nearly the same as the award to the suffering person. If not, then it is reduced as non-dependents are supposedly in less need of the money - a nice way to save cash. Dependents are defined as spouses or children under 18.

This is not rocket science. The expense associated with making a claim is huge and it is a lengthy process. As a family, we experienced this when my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma after working all his life for the same company, BP. His only interruption in service for the company came from a stint in the Navy (seconded to the Merchant Navy) during WWII. Despite this, and his being able to pinpoint the most likely period of his employment with the company when he got most exposed, the company denied and denied it. Fortunately, we found the insurers quickly, engaged a good lawyer and claimed. My father, after so long a service with BP for whom he sacrificed a great deal working all over the world and away from the family in places like Alaska and Aden, was heartbroken that his employer turned their back on him, when all he needed was some contribution to things like a downstairs shower or wheelchair.

Even after we had found the insurer, the process outlived him. As he fell to the worst part of the illness, he asked us to pursue the case as he was so upset that his company would deny him. Eventually, an award was made. We had a meal in his honour and opened a bottle of his favourite wine, Barolo, after his service in Italy for BP where he suffered a life threatening car crash after too many hours on the job commissioning a troublesome refinery and where our mother suffered a stroke at an early age. We bought a piece of machinery for the hospital in Swansea where he was treated which would make life a little easier for fellow sufferers - and it says something that a small unit at that hospital needed such kit for such a rare disease - and a bench at the Nursing Home for the terminally ill that he spent his final hours in.

I will not go into the disease other than to say it is the most virulent of cancers which is caused by asbestos and affects the lining of the lung - it is inoperable and terminal in all cases, yielding a terrible death.

Insurance executives should read such articles and view programs on it and think about how they would like to die. If they should contract such a disease from the negligence of their employer, then the one thing they would want is some comfort and help during their suffering.

That is the one thing insurance companies in these cases do not give. I have no sympathy or respect for that industry in total. Faceless executives betting and profiting on misfortune and making it onerously hard to get access to what is rightfully claimed. You need a cold heart to be successful in it - and most are.

Lack of Role Models?

It is fair to say that young people are sometimes wrongly led by modern role models. In a recent survey, careers at the top of young people's lists are no longer doctor or lawyer but singer or sports star.

I'm not sure how such careers got to the top of the list but certainly there is a growing belief, it seems, that success comes on a plate ala X Factor or scouts just arrive from Premier League clubs at your municipal sports ground. It appears that hard slog is no longer on the agenda - and some would say this a direct result of our 'Can Have' rather than a 'Can Do' culture of materialism and new found affluence, perhaps fuelled by the credit boom years since 1997. I don't know.

So scouring the Sunday Times on the weekend, I came across an article in the Appointments Section which intrigued me. Under a general article on the Law as a career, there was a pull out biography of a Mike Pullen, described as a 'Class Warrior'. Mr. Pullen has no doubt had an extraordinary and hard career, having not attended school until 12 as a fairground child. The rest you can read for yourself but suffice to say he is now at the top of his profession and he advises countries on how to deal with the EU and the World Trade Organisation. He cites that he gets on well with Iraqis as he also comes from a 'tribal society', having not lived in a brick building until he was 26. A great 'rags to riches story', it appears - the stuff of role models.

He claims he fought the class system as his accent was a negative for getting into the City, but he did. Pity for us Welsh too but we each have our cross to bear. Then it all goes belly up as he says, "If you want to be controversial, you would say the most disadvantaged minority is the white working class male. They've no role model, apart from drug dealers and footballers."

There was a bit of 'lawyer speak' up front so that you cannot say it was his real opinion but it is clear that it is by glancing at his background. It's the kind of comment that would appeal to Nick Griffin and the BNP Party - successful white lawyer fought prejudice to get to the top and it is a story tinted with colour. White working class men are at a disadvantage - and they don't even have role models.

I think his comment is both dangerous and laced with racial connotations and is not worthy f a successful person. You only have to look at people Lord Sugar or Sir Philip Green to see how people who come from a working class background can get to the top. I am always moved by the story of Bruce Oldfield who came from a Barnardo's Home to rise to the top of his profession - ah, but he was more advantaged because of his colour? There are many, many stories of not just sports people but business people who have made a great fist of their lives yet came from a working class background - and they would be people of any race, sex, colour, or disability. We might find that most people from a working class background who have made success are white - we may not. I would be more interested to know if coming from a working class background is a disadvantage at all - the opportunities are there for those with the commitment to to better themselves. I would suggest there are sectors of society far worse off than white working class males - if Mr. Pullen wants one great role model, look to Simon Weston. Neither his accent or his horrific burns or lack of education has held him back when any one of those could.

I don't see why white working class males should have a role model who is the same as them in terms of colour of their skin - what has that to do with it? I doubt if Tiger Woods thought about his origins when rising up to become the most brilliant golfer in the world in a sport dominated by white people, nor Arthur Ashe or Barack Obama for that matter but in professional careers and business we can all think of many people who rose to the top from working class backgrounds. Looking across the array of successful business or legal people, I suspect that there is a whole array of stories of hardship to get to the top, and it would have involved all sorts of race, sex and disability stories to go with it.

I come from a working class area although my father, a man with no degree, worked his way up from a working class background to become a highly rated professional in the oil business that gave me an advantage in life that I was very grateful for. He was always my role model because he worked hard for what he got and he developed skills and expertise of his own to become an invaluable commodity to his company, BP. It killed him in the end but that is a different story.

It also taught me that you may think you are disadvantaged in life but if all you do is wallow in your situation then it is highly likely that you will stay there. In my final year at college, I was the only graduate in my class who had got a job before my course ended. There was a good reason for that as we were in the turmoil of miner's and steel strikes - the same time as Mike Pullen was graduating the 'University of Life' - I applied to 72 companies, got 55 first interviews, made 23 second interviews and got offered two jobs. I went to work for Hewlett Packard, about who I had no idea when I applied, and the interviews were with real managers who were looking for something different in what was then, and now, a company that held talent in high regard rather than looked at your home background. My accent or background never held me back.

I think Mike Pullen is doing himself a disservice but he is definitely doing a disservice to others. I fail to resonate with his point and I think it is remark savoured by the wrong sort of people and serves as little inspiration to any working class person let alone white males. It is the kind of remark that is at the heart of the BNP's illogical ideal - if you are a white working class male, blame everyone else for your plight except yourself as you are disadvantaged.

How you better yourself has plenty to do with race, colour, age and disability and Britain has a track record of prejudice in all those areas. But to say that white people are discriminated against in Britain is worthy of the BNP only and it's why it is representative of the 'blame culture' that is growing in our society.

We are in a modern world and opportunities to grow ourselves abound. Mike Pullen could be a role model but he didn't have to be white to be one. If he wants to see what disadvantage is all about, take a trip to Africa and see at first hand. His eyes may just get opened.

Oil And Terrorism Don't Mix

You don’t have to be a chemist to realise that a solution of oil and terrorism doesn’t mix. But politicians are would-be alchemists and in their eyes the two are intertwined, particularly when the goal is vast financial gain.

I don’t know about you but I have watched the whole saga of the Lockerbie Bomber’s release and the subsequent series of revelations totally aghast yet knowing that I should not be surprised. The whole genre of the current Government has been based on spin, deception, double dealing, incompetence, cronyism and sleaze and yet we still seem to accept it all well within our stride. In fact, it some ways it would still not surprise me much if Gordon Brown not only survives his own leadership battle but actually wins the next election – it is that perverse.

You see, we could have all bet our shirts that there was some sort of deal involved in letting a mass murderer go that involved oil and money. It is just so unpleasant how people try to lie about it, try to make it sound as if it is good for us all and that everyone was acting in a straightforward way.

But what came as a huge surprise to me, given the appalling history we have with Libya – the Yvonne Fletcher shooting, the Lockerbie Bomb, the IRA semtex and training grounds - is that Libya has been so welcomed back into the international mainstream and the speed at which the reconciliation has occurred, let alone its totality. For any minister to think that the public would swallow Gadaffi’s new bonhomie as being a good reason to forgive the nation for the atrocities we have all been told they perpetrated enough to show a jot of compassion - dead, alive or nearly dead - to a man who was convicted of blowing 270 innocent people out of the sky and onto the rooftops of Lockerbie is verging on the insane.

But Straw, Brown, Milliband and, no doubt, Mandelson seem to think that ‘All is fair in love and terrorism’.

Now we have the equal farce of the pursuit of compensation for the victims of IRA bombs which contained Libyan semtex. I had to admit, I had no idea that such compensation was being asked for and I was a little surprised. Not least, such claims cannot be viewed in isolation. I mean if IRA victims are to be compensated by rogue states who sell raw materials willingly, then where does it stop? Do Loyalist victims have similar claims? Moreover, do suppliers of money like the US, where Noraid was the front for the influx of considerable sums of money to purchase such weapons for the IRA, also have to be stood up and be counted? The question then extends to what people would like to think is the ‘ethical weapons trade’. Should we pursue all those manufacturers of weapons who allow their products to end up in the hands of terrorists and insurgents? I don’t know.

What I do know is that we have the idiotic sight of Gordon Brown openly telling relatives of the victims of IRA bombs that it was not in our interests to pursue claims for compensation from Libya in one sentence, then to say that he actually did support it in another and now for him to say support, yes, but directly against Libya, no. And then he has the complete chin to say that there are no background deals going on – maybe he is right, perhaps it is so obvious that there are deals but that he can deny that they are background or underhand as they are real and right in our faces.

I have been disillusioned with this Government for a long while and never, ever trusted them on an economic policy that I knew was flawed although even in my wildest nightmares could I have even guessed what havoc and cost it would cause. But while I am pro-free trade, I have a strong social conscience and it’s why, I think, a lot of people got sucked in by Tony Blair and his spin-merchants. The messages appealed to our sense of personal wealth status while answering our concerns on the social things around us. While the dream seemed real, the reality has been the opposite and pretty hurtful for a great deal of people. There has always been a lack of trust of the integrity of several individuals in the Government, not least Blair himself. But the one guy we all thought was too straight, sombre, cerebral and downright boring to be crooked was Gordon Brown. Full of his own economic importance, and incompetent at that, yes - crooked, no.

Well the whole affair over the Lockerbie Bomber and the subsequent shenanigans has changed all that. Brown is just as crooked as the rest of his sleazy ministers and he finally has proved that the Government is absolutely morally bankrupt.

The High Price of Oil

You will notice, over this Bank Holiday Weekend, that prices at the petrol pumps are around £1.05 per litre, the highest price for fuel since October 2008. The price of oil has over doubled since that time and retailers would have us believe that they are merely passing on the rises. In fact, they will go higher as a new fuel duty increment is due to come into effect at midnight tonight, adding a few more pence per litre.

But there is a much, much higher price to oil. The weekend papers have revealed, in shocking detail thanks to leaked letters, the suspicions I voiced on my blog last week that the Lockerbie Bomber's release was part of background negotiations by the Government in exchange for oil. The papers go into much detail about Blair's visits to Tripoli on behalf of a £15bn contract for BP and Jack Straw's letters to Kenny MacAskill about how the Bomber's name could not be excluded from a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) between Britain and Libya, effectively overruling any sentence imposed by the Scottish Legal System for his crimes, as negotiations had reached a 'delicate stage'. We all know what happened next - the bottleneck was removed, the contract was signed and BP had their oil.

This left the nasty issue of Megrahi and how to repatriate him under the agreement. Technically, the Government denials are right - Megrahi's release was not part of the PTA agreed with Libya under the terms of the BP deal. He was released on compassionate grounds, so they can all stand piously - Brown, Straw and Mandelson - and say they had nothing to do with it; it was a decision by Scotland's Justice System with no pressure from the Government. Indeed, any such inference was a heinous crime in itself - the Government 'Thought Police' were going into overdrive.

Everyone was at pains to point out to aggrieved American officials that this was not a prisoner transfer but a compassionate release, even though for many of us it was the first time we had ever heard of a Prisoner Transfer Agreement.

Medical experts have lined up to question whether Megrahi was 'terminal enough' as the grounds for compassionate release should be only 3 months left to live. I think many were pretty shocked at the rather healthy looking individual being hugged by Saif Gadaffi and his father, the Dictator. I may be being a little callous here as new pictures were released over the weekend of the Bomber in hospital in Tripoli, but I cannot shake the belief that Megrahi's release came as part of the price of agreed trade between Libya and Britain. All the leaked evidence now points to the fact that Megrahi's release was part of the deal and what is actually different about his release was that Britain (with Scotland very much part of it) used Megrahi's illness as a convenient cover.

Would the public mind if he lived longer than 3 months and show a miracle rejuvenation like the other compassionate release recently, Ronnie Biggs?

Oil is a demon of a commodity. The West rode roughshod over the Middle East to get it. When these states fought back by reclaiming their territory and voice, we have systematically split the Middle east into friends, foe and people we don't care about - the latter being those who do not have oil. Iraq was amongst the biggest of the foes. After 9/11, George W Bush famously labeled Iraq the 'Axis of Evil' suggesting that the 9/11 attacks emanated from there while asserting that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and was refusing to comply with international law by handing them over. The Second Gulf war proved many things, the most poignant being that Saddam was a spent force, he did not have WMD and that 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq.

What it did achieve was to rouse just about every would-be terrorist to rally around a cause and a visible enemy.

Oil has a very high price indeed. The few extra pennies of duty we will see tomorrow morning no doubt pays for the commission required by Ministers who helped negotiate the deal with Libya, the state responsible for shooting a Policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher, on a street in London and for blowing 270 people out of the air over the sleepy town of Lockerbie.

The British Government, in its infinite wisdom, went along with Libya's ruse to get us all to accept the country by telling us it was dismantling its nuclear program in return for the prize asset, oil. But there was a far greater price to pay as, somehow, Libya had all the negotiating chips in this international reconciliation process despite supposedly having a rogue capability to bomb us with nuclear devices.

No, we sat down in tents, listened to Gadaffi fart and burp and then did exactly as he wanted.

That is the price of oil. Several names in the Government will be slightly embarrassed about all this but as Jack Straw said about the leaks, they are 'academic'. You see, the clever ruse of compassionate release deflected the blame for such negotiations as the most helpful of all things made sure the Government could point its finger elsewhere - cancer. How convenient that has supplied a neat smokescreen, a disease you would be hard pushed to get consistent care for in Britain today.

The letters prove otherwise. The unhealthy relationship between Gadaffi's son and Peter Mandelson is another to be behold with splendour while the obsequious entourage of background negotiators made sure a British company gets the ability to continue to find enough oil so we can be taxed heavily on it.

Drinks all round - the Government could not have hoped for a better result.

Compassion or Dispassion?

The sight of a Scottish flag being waved outside the plane carrying the convicted Lockerbie bomber home to Libya amid ecstatic welcomes only worthy of a national hero must gag in the throat of every member of a family who were directly affected by the actions of the man, let alone the rest of us who still remember exactly where we were the terrible night it happened.

President Obama found it 'Highly objectionable', Alistair Darling found it 'Distasteful' and Prime Minister Brown had even pre-begged Libyan Leader Colonel Gadaffi to act with restraint on the bomber's return but it did not stop his son personally leading the celebrations and hugging the mass murderer or the Colonel himself later greeting him as a long lost relative.

In some respects, you reap what you sow. After the events of 9/11, for no obvious reason, the US' perennial nemesis, Libya, was invited back into the mainstream despite it being a clear hotbed of terrorism and anti-Western activity with the Colonel himself right at the centre. But as with all things in Politics, everything is negotiable and there was lots to be gained by healing the weeping sores caused by Gadaffi in the US. So they stopped bombing him and started loving him. Repeated visits and ceremonious meetings have occurred since and there was even a Royal visit scheduled this year - a momentous year being the 40th since Gadaffi ceased power.

There are fundamental issues at stake here. On the one hand we have the Political grandstanding as Menzies Campbell took the opportunity to criticise an inexperienced SNP Government who he clearly feels are not fit to rule a nation yet. It brings into stark question whether Britain should have so avidly pursued devolution and allowed Scotland to govern itself. It brings into fuzzy focus the reasons as to why George W Bush and Tony Blair decided to allow Gadaffi back into the global race and take a seat like a true statesman at places like the UN.

On the other hand we have the issue about a compassionate legal system that allows sick prisoners to go home to die amongst friends and family or get a hero's welcome for having blown 270 people out of the air above Lockerbie. In a week which saw Ronnie Biggs go home to make a remarkable recovery, we now see another piece of compassion be thrown right back into our compassionate faces and watch in shock as a mass murderer became a national hero.

There is the final aspect and perhaps the Libyan view. This man was a scapegoat and had the blame for the horrific events pinned on him in the absence of no one else obvious to blame. That is something that may well have run through the Scottish Justice Minister's mind when making this incredible decision.

In terms of homecomings, it was a very different hero's welcome afforded to the 4 fallen heroes returning from Afghanistan who got the now customary slow procession through the streets of Wootton Bassett. But somewhere in all the froth of politics and self-interest there is a connection.

Wars and terrorism start with politics and they are a direct consequence of bad politics.

In this instance, there was always going to be some ulterior motive as to why a convicted mass murderer would be allowed to go home to die. Now we see it - trade. Gadaffi's son is now reported to have said that the Lockerbie bomber's release was always on the negotiating table when it came to trade and back in 2007, Tony Blair wafted through a huge deal on behalf of BP, the sort of favours that get you seats on boards of investment banks. As late as a few weeks ago, Lord Mandelson met Gadaffi's son on the fancy yacht in Corfu and by some odd coincidence within a short space of time we see the bomber released.

Miliband has rather defensively said that it would be a 'slur' to say the Government was involved in the release of the bomber so that Scotland can be isolated as the floating 'turd in the swimming pool' here. But we would all be very naive to think that a man who put a bomb on a plane and blew 270 people out of the sky gets released just because he is dying.

You can bet your shirt that there are some politicians, back room mandarins and investment bankers who might just have been a little embarrassed about all this and the their involvement. Compassion was the last thing on their minds - they will rather dispassionately get on with the business of making money to morrow when the furore dies down and gain as a result.

For there is one thing you can be sure about, the Lockerbie bomber was a pawn in a much bigger game where the stakes are very high.

You want to know the biggest reason why I say that - go read Gordon Brown's letter to Col Gadaffi. That was the clearest sign that this was a pre-planned exercise and that he also knew that Libya would make great mileage out of it.

As usual, we will never get to the bottom of this matter. Politicians will point fingers but there are no better people at covering their tracks. For certain, the one body of people who were never consulted on this whole 'compassionate affair' were the relatives and loved ones of the victims of Lockerbie. They were the last people on the minds of the people who were complicit in this decision.

As they did that fateful night, I am sure our hearts go out to them and we all bow our heads in shame that they should relive the terrible pain because someone, somewhere wanted more trade with Libya - and once again, bad politics.

For shame on us all.

Time Called on Non-Executive Directors?

The role of Non-Executive Directors (NXDs), or perhaps I should say lack of, in the explosion of the banking system has really had little scrutiny. It is perhaps a relief that a Treasury sponsored review by Sir David Walker is finally taking a hard look.

The only real prominence on NXDs was the role that McKillip and Scott played in Fred Goodwin's pension scandal - but it is worth noting that the Government official sent to supervise the whole fiasco was a serial NXD in Lord Paul Myners. They look after their own, those boys. Meanwhile, on the regulatory side, Lord Adair Turner, the Chairman of the FSA, has around 10 jobs, many of which are highly paid NXD roles.

McKillip was castigated for his foul up on Goodwin and because of it he lost one of his prize roles, a place on the Board at BP. You see, in the stratospheric world of high-end NXD roles, once you are on the gravy train, it is very difficult to get off it. And the fact is, once you are on it, you have 'form' and so you are offered many more jobs and build yourself up a nice portfolio of highly paid, very part-time roles where you are responsible for nothing and never held accountable for anything.

Sir David Walker intends, amongst other interesting things like curbing city pay scales, to make NXDs a more accountable role, have them better trained for the job and make them play more of a part in the Governance of the Companies they are paid by. Fat chance.

The whole review thing is too late anyway. The financial gravy train has picked up more fuel and is underway again with no new regulation in sight and big bonus payouts just on the horizon. The chance of getting any kind of controls and checks in place on the City are about as likely as me winning the British Open this week. The astute among you may spot I am not actually playing in the Open and that is my point. Sir David Walker is a side show. The City will ultimately decide what happens because it has the stranglehold over the Government.

In fact, now that we own so much of the banks, they have us exactly where they want us - we pay the bills and they will make enough returns to get the public money back on the share outlay, but only if Government butts out. If the Government does interfere then there is a risk that the money does not get paid back and where would that leave the PM in the run up to an election?

Rest assured, the City will get its way. The Government has sold its soul to ensure that.