Man of the Year

The Private Eye's Westminster HP Sauce column carried this little piece about Voice of Russia in a recent edition - which I presume must be related to Russia TV in some way.

Anyway it's good to see that George hasn't lost his knack for sucking up to and ingratiating himself with tyrannical, foreign leaders.

But I wonder who his Woman of the Year was for 2013 or his Gay Person of the Year  - though maybe that latter category might not go down too well in Russia.


As millions of people make new year resolutions to change and improve themselves, it's refreshing to note that some people never do.

At the end of December George Galloway, the Respect MP for Bradford West, popped up on Voice of Russia, the Russian government's international broadcasting service. 

It tends to run stories favourable to Russia and critical of the US, running interviews with, say, example, American wingnuts who think US statesmen were involved in 9/11, or pieces asserting that Russia isn't anti-gay, has no political prisoners and doesn't bully its neighbours.

Gorgeous George went  on air to declare that his Man of the Year 2013 was ... Vladimir Putin!

Discussing Putin's ability to wrong foot the west over Syria and prop up Bashar Al-Assad, he said" "I don't see how anyone could stand up against that nomination. He really has played a blinder....  

Russian Games (12 February 2014)

I'm not sure that it will do much good, but Marina Litvinenko, the  widow of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, has won a major court victory which means that government ministers will have to think again about holding a public inquiry into his death. 

Whatever the UK might do Russia has already given the main suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, immunity from prosecution and extradition by making him a deputy in the Russian Duma or Parliament.

So, a public inquiry will only tells us what we already know while having no powers to bring those responsible to justice.

All the same you have to admire the determination of Marina Litvinenko to keep the issue in the public eye - and I wish her well in her campaign. 

Spooks and Spies (6 July 2013)

I was rather surprised by the recent announcement that Eric Snowden, the former  American 'spook', is seeking political asylum in - wait for it - freedom loving Russia.

Now I can quite accept that America does not always live up to its billing as the 'land of the free and the brave' .

But the last time I looked Russia was playing fast and loose with its constitution to allow Vladimir Putin a third term as President, operating virtually as a one party state, passing legislation that openly discriminates against gay people - and murdering exiled dissidents like Alexander Litvinenko.

And with exquisite timing along comes another scandal from Germany - which just goes to show that to a greater or lesser extent many of the most powerful nations in the world are snooping and spying on each other all the time.

In Germany a married couple - Andreas (54) and Heidrun (48) Anschlag - were jailed earlier this week after spying for Russia for more than two decades - during which they lived a quiet suburban life having entered Germany in 1988 via South America on false Austrian passports. 
  

Andreas and Heidrun (real names Sasaha and Olga) were passing information to Russian handlers - their espionage activities included making a payment of 72,000 Euros to a Dutch diplomat for top secret EU information on Georgia and details of NATO operations in Libya and Afghanistan.

Sasha was caught 'red-handed' (pardon the pun) while sending a short wave radio transmission to his Russian handlers whose private thoughts about modern Germany were worryingly hostile - describing it as the 'land of the enemy'.

Now wonder Angela Merkel gave Vladimir Putin a good kicking during her recent state visit to Russia - but it just goes to show how naïve spooks and spies can be, if Eric Snowden's bizarre choice of an adopted homeland is anything to go by.   

For their part the Russians don't seem too keen to welcome him with open arms - which can only mean that they have plenty of work for their home grown agents - at the moment anyway.

Safe Havens (16 July 2013)

While the former American spook, Eric Snowden, is thinking about seeking political asylum in Russia I wonder if he might like to raise the curious case of Alexander Litvinenko - with his new comrades and friends.

Now I'm sure that Alexander Litvinenko became a useful source of information to British intelligence handlers - a 'spy' in the very broadest sense of that word - but in no way could he have been regarded as an on-going threat to Russian security.

Yet he was murdered by consuming radioactive Polonium shortly after taking tea with two former Russian intelligence agents in a London hotel - an act which could only have been organised by a very sophisticated state machine with a motive to kill a Russian defector.

So Russia looks like a very unpromising place for an American spy to call his new home from home - although this is a very murky world where things are not necessarily as reliable or believable as they would first appear.

Andrew Lugovoi has since become a Russian MP, of course, which makes it unlawful for the Russian authorities even to consider extraditing him to the UK - where he is wanted for questioning in connection with a cowardly and vile murder plot.

Here's a little history of the Litvinenko case which I came across on the BBC web site - I can't say I'm surprised that the Government has decided not to proceed with a public inquiry.

Because what would that tell us other than it is almost certainly the case that Russia and its intelligence services - were responsible for Alexander Litvinenko's untimely and unnatural death. 

The Litvinenko case

• 1 Nov 2006 - Alexander Litvinenko has tea with former agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun in London
• 4 Nov 2006 - After three days of vomiting he is admitted to hospital, and dies 22 days later. His death is attributed to radiation poisoning
• May 2007 - The UK decides Mr Lugovoi should be charged with the murder of Mr Litvinenko. He denies any involvement but says Mr Litvinenko was a British spy
• 5 Jul 2007 - Russia officially refuses to extradite Mr Lugovoi, prompting a diplomatic row
• 20 Sept 2012 - Pre-inquest review hears that Russia's links to the death will be probed
• May-June 2013 - Inquest into Mr Litvinenko's death delayed as coroner decides a public inquiry would be preferable 

Mother Russia (9 February 2014)

I was idly flicking the TV channels the other day, as is my wont, when I stopped to watch a bit of Russia Today - an odd programme if you ask me, as it seems to be much more interested the the perceived faults of western societies while having little, if anything, to say about the many challenges facing Mother Russia.  

Anyway, the particular programme I stumbled across was about the changing nature of the urban environment in the UK and how city landscapes have been changing in response to  issues like terrorism.

According to the commentators on Russia Today, major towns and cities in the UK are much less welcoming that they were years ago - apparently many areas of land which were once 'public spaces' have been privatised by big business, in areas like Canary Wharf in London, for example.  

The programme also warned that UK citizens can all be tracked at will via our mobile phones as we go about our daily routine of work, rest and play - presumably by UK security services although the purpose all all this alleged monitoring was never explained.

Now having lived and worked in London during the 1980s, I immediately realised this was a load of old baloney - not least because Canary Wharf was not a lovely open public space like Hyde Park before it turned into the big commercial sector it is today. 

So, I thought to myself - "These people are talking nonsense!" - and on the screen at the time was a chap called Professor Stephen Graham who was burbling on about something or other which prompted me to 'Google' his name.

And here's what my Google search produced - a report from the BBC's web site from March 2013 which made me laugh my head off, as it confirmed all my suspicions about the kind of people who appear on these Russia Today programmes. 

"Dissociative state" indeed - that's just a fancy way of saying the man was completely drunk, off his head and out of control because why else would he be vandalising other people's property dressed in just his suit jacket and underpants?

I'll bet the neighbours felt terrorised and wished there was a bit more monitoring taking place of drunken vandals at loose in the streets of Jesmond, which I know well.

See post below from the blog site archive dated 14 December 2013. 


1 March 2013

Newcastle professor Stephen Graham to pay for graffiti spree

A report by a forensic psychiatrist found the professor was in a "dissociative state"

Prof admits 'arbitrary' vandalism

A university professor has been ordered to pay £28,000 compensation for scratching cars while dressed in his underpants and a suit jacket.

Stephen Graham, 48, from Jesmond, Newcastle, admitted four counts of criminal damage in January.

He was given a nine month prison sentence, suspended for a year at Newcastle Crown Court.

Graham scratched the words "very silly", "really wrong" and "arbitrary" on 27 cars in Jesmond in August 2011.

'Detached from reality'

Graham, who is based at Newcastle University's school of architecture, planning and landscape, had drunk alcohol mixed with medication before he caused £28,000 of damage to cars including a Mercedes, an Audi, a Volvo and a Mitsubishi.

The cars were damaged while parked on Northumberland Gardens in Jesmond

The spree took place in Northumberland Gardens, a few streets away from where Graham lived in Lansdowne Gardens.

A report by a forensic psychiatrist, Don Grubin, for the defence, found the professor was in a "dissociative state" when he scratched the cars, and was "detached from reality".

Judge Guy Whitburn accepted his behaviour was totally out of character but said the compensation - effectively the professor and his wife's life savings - must be paid in full.

He added he hoped Mr Graham would be able to resume his career.

Julian Smith, mitigating, said his client was not merely drunk, and he showed no signs of aggression when arrested, but had a bad reaction to the medication and alcohol.

A spokesperson for Newcastle University said: "We will be considering the matter through normal university procedures. We are unable to comment further on an individual employee."

Russia Today (14 December 2013)

I've taken to watching a new news channel recently - Russia Today - which as far as I can tell seems to consist of lots of people (presenters and contributors) who admire Russia greatly - while harbouring an intense dislike of the west.

Whenever Russia today covers some remotely controversial subject, a disaffected flunkey gets wheeled out to make an unflattering comparison between Nato countries like Britain or America - and good old mother Russia. 

During an industrial dispute or strike in Britain, for example, it is normal for some left wing politico, often an academic or swivel-eyed Trotskyist, to be wheeled out to tell the viewers that their country is going to hell in a handcart.

Because the Government is useless and politically corrupt - whereas we seldom see or hear very much about life under President Putin and his friends - for example, the recent barbaric treatment of Greenpeace activists.

Anyway I dearly wish that I had watched Russia Today during the great Grangemouth debacle involving the Unite trade union, its unimpressive leader Len McCluskey and the Labour Party selection contest in nearby Falkirk - which became bogged down in allegations of vote-rigging. 

Now that would have made great viewing I'm sure, for unintended comic reasons if nothing else, but my mind was on other things, I'm sad to say.

Yet every time I watch the programme, I ask myself the same question:

Do the people who control the editorial content of Russia Today understand that a similar programme could never be made in President Putin's Russia?  

If they do, then at least we can all sleep soundly in our beds - safe in the knowledge that, whatever else, irony is not dead.