Breathing into the swamp
Thursday 19 April 2012
The story on wind farms three days ago had a Bradford councillor contemptuously dismiss voters' concerns about windfarms on a heritage site, saying: "I think we have got the situation here where members of the public are against something because it is in their back gardens".
This was Labour's Imdad Hussain, about whom some interesting facts have emerged, courtesy of Bradford's newest MP, George Galloway. Hussain, it appears, was formerly a director of Claimwise Legal Services Ltd. After cash withdrawals totalling £845,341, including payments totalling £84,950 made to a bank account in the sole name of Hussain's wife, the company went into liquidation with an "unexplained deficiency as regards creditors totalling £314,873". As a result, an order was made on 10 February last year, disqualifying Hussain as a company director for seven years from 3 March 2011. Charges includes failing to provide "satisfactory and verifiable" accounts. That Hussain is an extremely dubious character has been well known to Council leader Ian Greenwood, who has taken no action against his errant councillor, and none is proposed. Greenwood will be anxious not to upset the ethnic balance of his group in the run-up to the local elections. Galloway is picking on this, calling for the odious Greenwood to resign, as well as the dubious Hussain, the law itself not requiring councillors to resign for such matters. What is really interesting though is that, with Galloway rampant, breathing a dose of fresh air into the corrupt, foetid swamp of Bradford politics, the local newspaper is beginning to respond with stories hostile to the council. The status quo is now beginning to look distinctly shaky, and heads look set to roll. As much as the political classes would wish otherwise, and are pretending that it is a "one-off", it looks as if the Galloway effect might be here to stay. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 19/04/2012 |
Calling time on the pretence
Thursday 19 April 2012
While the media and body politic so determinedly immerse themselves in lightweight fluff, the real world goes on, where decisions taken mean life or death. The Western political way, though, is to ignore the hard decisions, and focus on the populist issues, in the hope of gaining headlines and obscuring the lack of activity elsewhere.
And no more is this the case than in Afghanistan which, apart from the occasional flare-up, has dropped so far down the news agenda as to be almost invisible. But, calling time on the Western pretence that Afghan security forces are anywhere near being able to take charge are the Russians, in the form of foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov has sharply criticised Nato's plan to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 2014, saying that, "As long as Afghanistan is not able to ensure by itself the security in the country, the artificial timelines of withdrawal are not correct and they should not be set". This might be taken with a pinch of salt, given that it was the Russian withdrawal which was in part responsible for the present mess, but it is nevertheless fair to say that Russian concerns are legitimate. It regards the military effort in Afghanistan as crucial for its own security, including helping to prevent instability from spreading into ex-Soviet Central Asia. And, to be fair, Russia is stepping up its assistance to Nato, providing air corridors and railway routes for carrying supplies to and from the country, making good the loss of routes after Pakistan blocked supplies from crossing its territory in November. Lavrov and Nato ministers are currently discussed a plan to give the alliance a new logistics facility in Ulyanovsk, on Russian territory, enabling the alliance transfer military cargo to and from Afghanistan. This is a considerable step forward as, hitherto, Russia has refused to allow the transit of overtly military equipment such as weapons and ammunition. One can see, however, the Russian entreaties being ignored. Western governments – the British and US in the lead – rest on the fiction that the situation is improving in Afghanistan, and that the country will have stable and effective security forces in time for a major Nato pull-out in 2014. In UK terms, that gives The Boy time for his victory parade and mutual congratulations and the opportunity then to "park" Afghanistan before it becomes an election issue. Russian worries are well down the list, and will remain so. Short-term electoral consideration are far more important. COMMENT THREAD |
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