Phone spies: Town halls using anti-terror powers to bug residents’ calls and emails

By James Slack
05th June 2008

Town hall snoopers used controversial anti-terror powers to delve into the phone and email records of thousands of people last year.

They wanted to check for evidence of dog smuggling and storing petrol without permission – and even to trace a suspected bogus faith healer.

In one case they were inquiring into unburied animal carcasses.

Some councils are allowing middle-ranking staff to authorise covert operations under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which is intended for use ‘in the interests of national security’.

Council spies: Local authorities are using anti-terror laws to spy on residents just like the film, The Lives of Others

Many of those spied upon will have no idea they have been subjected to surveillance, as those who are innocent have no right to know.

Last night Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: ‘This is a stark demonstration of how the surveillance society has got out of control with the improper use of very broad powers – powers that the public would expect to be used only for serious crime and security threats.’

Using Freedom of Information laws, 152 local councils were asked if they were using the power to intercept details of who a person phoned or emailed plus when and where the call took place.

The answers revealed that town halls looked into the private data of 936 individuals and only 31 councils did not use these powers at all.

If the same pattern were repeated across the remaining 322 councils, it would make a totalof around 3,000 people having their phone and email records accessed by bureaucrats.

Outraged: Jenny Paton and Tim Joyce were spied on because Poole Council wrongly suspected they were lying about living in a particular catchment area

The Freedom of Information requests also revealed the range of offences councils have used the anti-terror law to probe.

Kent County Council carried out 23 telephone subscriber checks as part of probes into storing petrol without a licence and bringing a dog into the UK without putting it into quarantine.

Six of the 16 checks carried out by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council were intended to identify and locate a bogus faith healer.

Lewisham Borough Council’s 18 checks included six on a rogue removal firm and one on a rogue pharmacist.

Bolton Council requested subscriber details for a mobile phone number in connection with a probe into unburied animal carcasses.

Warning: Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said surveillance was ‘out of control’

Snoopers at Birmingham City Council carried out 89 checks, the most in the survey.

Councils insist they are using the powers properly to investigate or prevent a crime.

But opponents said it proves RIPA, passed in 2000 by Labour to regulate spying and surveillance by police and the security services, is far too widely drawn.

Civil rights group Liberty said: ‘You can care about serious crime and terrorism without throwing away our personal privacy with a snoopers’ charter.

‘The law must be reformed to require sign-off by judges, not selfauthorisation by over-zealous bureaucrats.’

RIPA also allows undercover council staff to watch individuals.

Operations can be justified on the grounds of anything from national security to ‘protecting public health or public safety’, ‘preventing a crime’ and ‘protecting the economic well-being of the UK’.

This can cover dog fouling and even putting out a sack of rubbish on the wrong day.

The latest findings follow a string of alarming examples of how the anti-terror power is being used.

Poole council in Dorset spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

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Officials in Derby, Bolton, Gateshead and Hartlepool admitted using covert spying techniques to deal with dog fouling, while Bolton spied on suspected litter louts.

Officials in Kensington and Chelsea used RIPA powers to spy on a resident suspected of misusing a disabled parking badge.

Conwy council in Wales spied on an employee who was working while off sick.

Mirza Ahmad, chief legal officer at Birmingham City Council, said: ‘We are committed to putting citizens first and will use whatever powers exist, where appropriate, to catch rogue traders, doorstep criminals and scam artists who prey on some of the most vulnerable in our society.’

The Home Office said a person investigated using the Act would not be told by a council. It would only come to light in the event of a prosecution.

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Kremlin Rules

It Isn’t Magic: Putin Opponents Are Made to Vanish From TV

James Hill for The New York Times

A talk show host, Vladimir R. Solovyov, flanked by the politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, right, and a professor, Mark Urnov.

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

Published: June 3, 2008

MOSCOW — On a talk show last fall, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail G. Delyagin had some tart words about Vladimir V. Putin. When the program was later televised, Mr. Delyagin was not.

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ATV

In a still frame from video, the incomplete digital erasure of a Putin critic named Mikhail G. Delyagin from an episode of the program “The People Want to Know” can be seen. Mr. Delyagin’s leg and hand remain visible, to the right of the man holding the microphone.

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James Hill for The New York Times

Mikhail G. Delyagin, a political analyst, fully visible in his Moscow office, but not on a talk show broadcast last fall.

Not only were his remarks cut — he was also digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily, leaving his disembodied legs in one shot.)

Mr. Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from TV news and political talk shows by the Kremlin.

The stop list is, as Mr. Delyagin put it, “an excellent way to stifle dissent.”

It is also a striking indication of how Mr. Putin has increasingly relied on the Kremlin-controlled TV networks to consolidate power, especially in recent elections.

Opponents who were on TV a year or two ago all but vanished during the campaigns, as Mr. Putin won a parliamentary landslide for his party and then installed his protégé, Dmitri A. Medvedev, as his successor. Mr. Putin is now prime minister, but is still widely considered Russia’s leader.

Onetime Putin allies like Mikhail M. Kasyanov, his former prime minister, and Andrei N. Illarionov, his former chief economic adviser, disappeared from view. Garry K. Kasparov, the former chess champion and leader of the Other Russia opposition coalition, was banned, as were members of liberal parties.

Even the Communist Party, the only remaining opposition party in Parliament, has said that its leaders are kept off TV.

And it is not just politicians. Televizor, a rock group whose name means TV set, had its booking on a St. Petersburg station canceled in April, after its members took part in an Other Russia demonstration.

When some actors cracked a few mild jokes about Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev at Russia’s equivalent of the Academy Awards in March, they were expunged from the telecast.

Indeed, political humor in general has been exiled from TV. One of the nation’s most popular satirists, Viktor A. Shenderovich, once had a show that featured puppet caricatures of Russian leaders, including Mr. Putin. It was canceled in Mr. Putin’s first term, and Mr. Shenderovich has been all but barred from TV.

Senior government officials deny the existence of a stop list, saying that people hostile to the Kremlin do not appear on TV simply because their views are not newsworthy.

In interviews, journalists said that they did not believe the Kremlin kept an official master stop list, but that the networks kept their own, and that they all operated under an informal stop list — an understanding of the Kremlin’s likes and dislikes.

Vladimir V. Pozner, host of “Times,” a political talk show on the top national network, Channel One, said the pressure to conform to Kremlin dictates had intensified over the last year, and had not eased even after the campaign.

“The elections have led to almost a paranoia on the part of the Kremlin administration about who is on television,” said Mr. Pozner, who is president of the Russian Academy of Television.

In practice, Mr. Pozner said, he tells Channel One executives whom he wants to invite on the show, and they weed out anyone they think is persona non grata.

“They will say, ‘Well, you know we can’t do that, it’s not possible, please, don’t put us in this situation. You can’t invite so and so’ — whether it be Kasparov or Kasyanov or someone else,” Mr. Pozner said.

He added: “The thing that nobody wants to talk about is that we do not have freedom of the press when it comes to the television networks.”

Vladimir R. Solovyov, another political talk show host, said Mr. Pozner was complaining only because his ratings were down and he was looking for someone to blame if his program was canceled. Mr. Solovyov, a vocal supporter of Mr. Putin, said he had never been bullied by the Kremlin.

Yet last year, his show, “Throw Down the Gauntlet,” regularly featured members of opposition parties. This year, the only politicians to appear have been leaders of Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia, and an allied party.

Asked why he had not invited opposition leaders lately, Mr. Solovyov said: “No one supports them. They have nothing to say.”

Vladimir A. Ryzhkov, a liberal and former member of Parliament who used to appear on the show, said Mr. Solovyov was covering up for the Kremlin.

“He lies, of course,” Mr. Ryzhkov said. “My programs with him were among the highest rated programs of any in the history of his show.”

Mr. Ryzhkov said he was usually allowed to appear in lengthy segments on only one major channel: Russia Today, the English-language news station, which the Kremlin established to spread its viewpoint globally.

“I can go on Russia Today only because they want to make it seem that in Russia, there is freedom of the press,” he said.

After the Soviet Union’s fall, several national and regional networks arose that were owned by oligarchs. Though they operated with relatively few restrictions, their owners often used them to settle personal and business scores. One network, NTV, garnered attention for its investigative reporting and war dispatches from Chechnya.

Mr. Putin chafed at negative coverage of the government, and the Kremlin effectively took over the major national networks in his first term, including NTV. Vladimir Gusinsky, NTV’s owner, was briefly arrested and then fled the country after giving up the network. From that point on, executives and journalists at Russian networks clearly understood that they would be punished for resisting the Kremlin.

All the major national and regional networks are now owned by the government or its allies. And since the presidential election in March, neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Medvedev has indicated any interest in loosening the reins.

“Our television is very often criticized,” Mr. Medvedev said in April. “They say it is boring, it is pro-government, it is too oriented towards the positions of state agencies, of those in power. You know, I can say that our television — in terms of quality, in terms of the technology used — is, I believe, one of the best in the world.”

Valery Y. Komissarov, a former host on a state channel who is now a governing party leader in Parliament, said television coverage was a convenient scapegoat for opposition politicians and antagonistic commentators.

“These are people who are not interesting for society, who are not interesting for journalists,” Mr. Komissarov said. “But they want publicity and perhaps they want to explain away their lack of creative and political success by the fact that they are persecuted, that they are included on the so-called stop list.”

While the Kremlin has focused on TV because it has by far the largest audience, many radio stations and newspapers also abide by the stop list, either ignoring or belittling the opposition.

There are exceptions: a few national and regional newspapers regularly publish critical news and commentary about Mr. Putin and comments from those on the stop list. In addition, the Internet is not censored, and contains plenty of criticism of the government.

A small national network, Ren TV, pushes the boundaries, as does a national radio station, the Echo of Moscow, which has become the voice of the opposition even though Gazprom, the government gas monopoly, owns a majority stake in it.

The Kremlin seems to tolerate criticism in such outlets because they have a limited reach compared with the major television networks. The nightly news on Channel One, for example, is far more popular than any of its counterparts in the United States. It regularly is one of top 10 most-watched programs in Russia.

Mr. Delyagin, the political analyst edited out of the talk show last fall, said he was surprised to have been invited in the first place. He said he last appeared on a major network several years ago, before he began attacking the Kremlin and supporting the opposition.

“I thought that maybe she forgot to look at the stop list,” he said, referring to the program’s host, Kira A. Proshutinskaya.

(Last week, after a Russian-language version of this article was posted on a blog run by the Moscow bureau of The New York Times, Mr. Delyagin was invited to appear on a show on NTV.)

Ms. Proshutinskaya’s program, “The People Want to Know,” had been censored before.

Mr. Ryzhkov, the liberal former member of Parliament, went on the show last year, but its network, TV Center, refused to broadcast it.

In an interview, Ms. Proshutinskaya conceded that Mr. Delyagin had been digitally erased from the program. She said she had been embarrassed by the incident, as well as the one with Mr. Ryzhkov, explaining that the network was responsible. The Kremlin had so intimidated the networks, she said, that self-censorship was rampant.

“I would be lying if I said that it is easy to work these days,” she said. “The leadership of the channels, because of their great fear of losing their jobs — they are very lucrative positions — they overdo everything.”

The management of her network would not comment. But the network’s news director, Mikhail A. Ponomaryov, said journalists and hosts of talk shows had no choice but to comply with the rules.

“It would be stupid to say that we can do whatever we want,” he said. “If the owner of the company thinks that we should not show a person, as much as I want to, I cannot do it.”

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You can’t preach the Bible here, this is a Muslim area

(What a community policeman told two Christians)

By Steve Doughty and Andy Dolan
02nd June 2008

Readings from the Koran: Naeem Naguthney

Two Christian preachers were stopped from handing out Bible extracts by police because they were in a Muslim area, it was claimed yesterday.

They say they were told by a Muslim police community support officer that they could not preach there and that attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity was a hate crime.

The community officer is also said to have told the two men: ‘You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.’

A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district.

It comes amid growing concern over the development of Islamic ‘no-go areas’.

The preachers, Americans Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, are demanding an apology and compensation from West Midlands Police.

They say their treatment breaks the Human Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of religious expression.

The preachers, who have the backing of the Christian Institute pressure group, say they will take the force to court for breaching their human rights if they don’t receive an apology.

They have accused the officer, PCSO Naeem Naguthney, of behaving in an ‘aggressive and threatening’ manner. A complaint by their lawyers said he interrupted as they spoke to Muslim youths about their beliefs.

Mr Abraham, 65, who was born a Muslim in Egypt and is a convert to Christianity, said: ‘He told us we were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity and that that was a hate crime.

‘He was very intimidating and it concerns me that somebody holding his views can become a police officer, albeit at PCSO level.’

Mr Cunningham, 48, a fellow American Baptist missionary, said: ‘He realised we were Americans and then started ranting at us about George Bush and American foreign policy.

‘He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said he was going to take us to the police station.’

Mr Cunningham added: ‘I am dumfounded that the police seem so nonchalant. They seem content not to make it clear that what we were doing was perfectly legal. This is a free country and to suggest we were guilty of a hate crime for spreading God’s word is outrageous.’

Outraged: Arthur Cunningham

Seeking an apology: Joesph Abraham

According to a complaint by the men’s lawyers, Mr Naguthney summoned two other officers in support, one of whom, a full constable, is said to have told the men not to return to the area.

Mr Naguthney, 30, was recruited as a community support officer last year after being unemployed for eight months.

Earlier this year, he had a prominent role at a conference to launch the West Midlands branch of the National Association of Muslim Police. He gave a reading from the Koran before the audience heard a recorded contribution from Gordon Brown, a speech from Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, and contributions from several chief constables.

Mr Naguthney declined to discuss the row.

His brother, Nadeem, said: ‘Naeem is a community man, that is why he joined the police.’

The Alum Rock area was at the heart of a terrorism inquiry last year, which ended with the conviction of local resident Parviz Khan for plotting to kidnap and behead a British soldier.

A senior Church of England bishop, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, warned recently that it is hard for non-Muslims to live and work in some areas where radicals and clerics are trying to impose an Islamic character.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said an investigation into the complaint had concluded that the PCSO had acted ‘with the best of intentions’ when he ‘intervened to diffuse a heated argument between two groups of men’.

A statement added: ‘Following this investigation, the PCSO has been offered guidance about what constitutes a hate crime and advice on communication style.’

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Bin police force residents to hand over personal medical details

By Steve Doughty
27th May 2008

Families will be forced to name somebody to be in charge of their rubbish under a council’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to bin collections.

The named individual faces £100 fines and a criminal record if their household then puts the wrong rubbish in its wheelie bins, puts them out too soon, or puts them in the wrong place.

They will also be told to give officials a breakdown of everyone who lives in their home, together with intimate information including details of medical conditions.

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The strict questionnaire that residents will be forced to fill out about their rubbish

They will even be asked to number babies and toddlers who use disposable nappies.

Letters and forms – which threaten fines for those who fail to comply – have been developed to enforce strict recycling rules and make families and individuals obey instructions on how to put out their bins.

The demands, to be sent to homes in Tory-run Plymouth, call for the name of an adult, their age, and a signature.

Those signing are told they must ‘ensure that your household conforms to our requirements’.

The methods were condemned by critics as draconian and intrusive. But they were condoned by the Government and town hall chiefs – which indicates they are likely to be followed around the country.

Officials at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said councils are legally obliged to make clear to households what is expected of them.

The Local Government Association, which speaks for councils, said it was vital to ‘recycle as much as possible’.

Waste of time: Residents are furious because there is no way they can stop other people using their bins

The councillor in charge of Plymouth’s rubbish collections, Michael Leaves, has produced the scheme to ’send a clear message of zero tolerance to those individuals or businesses who continue to spoil our environment’.

Letters drawn up to be sent to those suspected of breaking rules warn that ‘if you fail without reasonable excuse to comply with any requirement specified in this notice you will be liable on summary conviction to a fine’.

Officials said the forms are designed to go to a ‘minority’ of the population – a definition that means they could be sent to as many as 50,000 homes.

Messages written by officials say that ignoring rubbish rules is a growing problem and that it is difficult to identify which bin belongs to which family so that fines can be imposed and prosecutions brought.

The questionnaires are intended to go out with the letters threatening fines. Headed ‘wheeled bin information form’, they ask families to provide the number of adults and children in their home and to give reasons why they might have trouble putting the bins out as demanded by council rules.

Other questions ask for ‘reasons why a member of your household generates more rubbish than average (eg a medical condition)’.

The form continues: ‘Please nominate an adult from your household who will take legal responsibility for your bins.’

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Councils have taken away rubbish for more than 100 years without needing to know people’s medical histories, so they shouldn’t be asking these intrusive questions now.’

Christine Melsom, of the council tax protest group Is It Fair?, said: ‘My advice to people who get these letters is to throw them in the bin. Just make sure it’s the right bin.’

A council spokesman said: ‘The letter, which has not yet been approved, is something we were preparing for those who do not heed initial warnings.

‘We are looking at a questionnaire, which would include more detailed questions such as how many people are in a household and whether they have any medical needs that we need to take into account that will enable us to help them rather than prosecute them.’

Repossessions crisis ‘could be worse than 1992′

By Sean Poulter
27th May 2008

More homebuyers are at risk of losing their homes than during the property bust of 1992, new research says.

A report published by insurance giant AXA yesterday said as many as 1.8million buyers will be struggling to cover monthly repayments by the end of this year.

The figure is 200,000 higher than in 1992, when the country was gripped by recession, rising unemployment and mortgage interest rates of 15 per cent.

Home buyers face the risk of losing their homes

There are now 11.82 million mortgages in Britain – two million more than in 1992 – meaning there is a larger pool of borrowers vulnerable to missing their repayments if, for example, they are made redundant.

The AXA research suggests that if the percentage of mortgage arrears by the end of this year is even half what it was in 1992 then that period’s grim total of 75,000 homes being repossessed in a year could be repeated.

AXA said: ‘Many homeowners are stretched to the limit already to meet mortgage repayments, so would struggle if they were suddenly unable to work.

‘At the end of 2007 the number of mortgages more than 6 months in arrears was 0.48 per cent – or 56,800, well below the 3.54 per cent recorded at the end of 1992.

‘However, AXA analysis shows that if mortgage arrears at the end of 2008 were only half of that recorded at the end of 1992, then approximately 200,000 more households would be experiencing mortgage payment difficulties, leading potentially to much higher rates of repossessions and bankruptcies.

‘UK homeowners have failed to learn the lessons of 1992 – there are more people at risk of falling into mortgage arrears or having their home repossessed, and the vast majority of homeowners have no protection in place to guard against possible financial hardship.’

The boom of the late 1980s saw lenders offering loans of 100 per cent and more.

However rising unemployment and interest rates left thousands unable to make repayments leading to debt and misery. In 1992, when 75,000 homes were posessed, the average mortgage was a relatively modest 2.5 times salary.

AXA points out that a lending boom over the last ten years has seen huge mortgages, worth up to six and seven times income, being handed out.

Many of these loans have been made without proper checks on the finances of customers and their ability to make repayments.

Now, even small increases in the headline rate of interest means repayments on these mega-loans can generate crippling increases in repayments.

There is a particular concern around so-called sub-prime home loan customers – people who have a black mark on their credit history and typically have to pay higher interest rates.

More than a fifth of this group have fallen behind with mortgage repayments, according to separate research.

The proportion of borrowers with poor credit histories who are more than 30 days in arrears rose to 21.73 per cent in the first three months of this year.

That is up from 19.41 per cent seen during the previous three months, and compares to 18.11 per cent for the same period last year, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

S&P’s data showed that those sub-prime borrowers falling into ’serious delinquency’, 90 days or more behind, edged into double figures at 10.6 per cent.

The reports from AXA and S&P add to the growing body of evidence this year suggesting more and more homeowners are struggling to make ends meet.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders(CML) is predicting around 45,000 home repossessions this year, however some analysts suggest the figure could top 70,000.

CML figures show that some 1.6m households had experienced mortgage repayment problems by the end of 1992, while 3.54 per cent of mortgages were more than six months in arrears.

Ministry of Justice data showed that a total of 27,530 mortgage repossession orders were made during the first three months of 2008. That was up 17 per cent on the same period a year ago and the highest level for 16 years.

Iain Mallon, Director of Protection Marketing at AXA, said: ‘The economic growth experienced in the UK in the past 15 years has encouraged a short-term view of finances with a buy today and pay tomorrow attitude.’

S&P analyst Kate Livesey said while the current repossession figures are low, people looking to remortgage generally have to switch to a more expensive option.

Miss Livesey said: ‘Two years ago those looking to re-finance would have got a better rate from a competitor. But lending criteria has tightened up recently, so that’s not so much the case now.’

As we all feel the pinch, MPs say: ‘Pay us £100,000 a year’

By Ian Drury
27th May 2008

MPs are demanding an extra £38,000 a year each under plans to stamp out abuse of expenses.

The move would take their annual salaries to nearly £100,000 – at a time when millions are struggling to cope with soaring living costs and police, nurses and teachers have received below-inflation wage rises.

The politicians want a pay increase of £15,000 each.

As Gordon Brown prepares to hit motorists with road tax hikes, Michael Martin (left) is suggesting MPs should get an extra £23,000 a year

Commons Speaker Michael Martin is also considering giving each MP an extra £23,000 a year to replace the controversial second homes’ allowance.

It would bump up their annual pay from around £62,000 to just under £100,000 – an inflation-shattering 60 per cent.

Such extravagance will outrage hard-pressed families who are feeling the pinch as pay deals are capped while food, fuel and mortgage costs spiral alarmingly.

It will also cause astonishment at a time when Gordon Brown is preparing to hit 18million motorists, including drivers of family cars, with road tax hikes of hundreds of pounds a year.

But senior MPs say the move would bring them closer in line with the salaries of public sector staff such as council officers, headmasters and GPs.

Derek Conway was one of the first MPs to be hit by an expenses scandal when it was revealed he employed his sons

Sir John Butterfill, a Tory backbencher, said: ‘MPs’ salaries have gone up by substantially less than inflation each year since 2002. We are due a catch up.’

Another senior Tory said: ‘Civil servants and GPs get considerably more there is an argument for giving MPs more in their pay packets and scaling back on allowances.’

Labour backbencher Martin Salter, MP for Reading West, has also argued that there is a case for MPs to be paid more and then funding their London living allowances out of their income.

But Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance pressure group, said: ‘People are angry that some MPs are already abusing taxpayers’ generosity – the last thing we want is to pay them even more.’

A £38,000 rise would place MPs among the most well-remunerated of Europe’s politicians.

A backbencher receives a basic monthly salary – without expenses – of around £5,151, more than France (£4,138), Sweden (£4,521) and Finland (£4,671).

The £38,000 rise would put them on about £8,166 a month, again without expenses.

MPs on the House of Commons Commission, which is chaired by Speaker Martin, asked for the pay rise in submissions to a review led by Sir John Baker, head of the Senior Salaries Review Body.

He will present his findings to the Prime Minister within weeks, then MPs will be asked to vote on them.

MPs believe that bumping up salaries by between £10,000 and £15,000 by 2010 would broadly bring them into line with council officers and headmasters.

There was unhappiness at Westminster this year when MPs were cajoled into accepting a 1.9 per cent pay rise.

Meanwhile, the Commons’ Members Estimates Committee which is overseeing a shake-up of Parliamentary expenses is expected to propose giving MPs a tax-free lump sum of £23,000.

It would replace the additional costs allowance (ACA) of up to £23,000 a year.

Although not all MPs claim the full amount, the perk is controversial because it allows MPs to run and furnish a home near Westminster.

Because the new lump sum would be a ‘block grant’, MPs would not be forced to submit receipts.

That has led freedom of information campaigners to fear the move would perpetuate the abuses of taxpayers’ money by shrouding what MPs spend in secrecy.

MPs currently claim an average of £135,850 on expenses, including living, office and staffing costs. This does not include their pay.

Health and safety zealots tell youngster her 2ft paddling pool needs a lifeguard

By Beth Hale
27th May 2008

For nearly a quarter of a century, Lourdes Maxwell has celebrated the arrival of summer by putting a paddling pool in the garden.

This year, however, her two grandchildren and the children of her neighbours may have to find another way to cool off in the heat.

Miss Maxwell’s local council has decided that the pool – which is only 2ft deep – needs a lifeguard.

The 47-year-old divorced mother of three has also been told she must have insurance before she can inflate the toy outside her house in Portsmouth.

Cooling off: Lourdes Maxwell (left) and neighbours young and old enjoy a dip in the pool which the council says needs a lifeguard

The health and safety edict came after she wrote to the city council asking for permission to put a bigger pool in the communal garden outside her home.

Not only was she told it was too dangerous, but the council told her to empty the existing pool.

After her MP intervened, the local authority softened its stance, saying Miss Maxwell could have a pool if she paid for insurance and ensured supervisors were on constant watch.

Residents near the communal gardens already have to obey a raft of rules governing their use.

They are even supposed to ask the council for permission before having a barbecue.

Miss Maxwell, who is a full-time carer to her son Aiden, said yesterday: “It is absolutely pathetic.

“I have had a paddling pool outside the front of my flat every summer for 24 years, ever since Aiden turned one year old.

“Neighbours’ children would come and enjoy the pool and I would give them ice lollies. It was always a very social occasion.”

She added: “Now suddenly I’m not allowed.

“I asked around for insurance and they just laughed at me. No one offers insurance for paddling pools.

“I’m always there to supervise but they’re trying to tell me I need lifeguards for a kiddies’ pool as well – it’s crazy.”

Nigel Selley, Portsmouth Council’s neighbourhood manager, defended the ruling yesterday.

He said: “We did not have sufficient assurances that the risks associated with providing such a facility would be well-managed.

“We have since spoken to Ms Maxwell and she is aware of our concerns for child safety and the risks associated with drowning.”

Steven Wylie, the councillor in charge of housing, added: “I want to encourage people to enjoy the communal gardens.

“We want to help where we can to ensure that it is a fun and safe place for everyone to use.”

Indiana Jones should be banned in Russia for being ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’, say communists

He’s battled with Nazi soldiers, escaped from an Egyptian snake pit and seen off a Bedouin swordsman.

But Indiana Jones didn’t reckon on his latest challenge –after riling Russian Communists with his new adventure film.

Controversial: Harrison Ford, as Indiana Jones, swipes at a Soviet soldier in new movie, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which Russian communists called for to be banned

They have condemned Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as crude anti-Soviet propaganda and want it banned from the country.

The movie stars Harrison Ford as an archaeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

Cast: Front, from second from left, Ray Winstone as Mac, Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett as Agent Irina Spalko

Communists, however, say the actors are serving as the ‘running dogs’ of the CIA.

Party member Viktor Perov said: ‘ What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathised when Bin Laden hit them.

‘But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists.’

Communist numbers have dwindled since Soviet times, but its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.

They fear Russian children are being fed revisionist Hollywood history and have appealed to Russia’s culture ministry to ban the Indiana film to prevent ‘ ideological sabotage’.

Action: Indy escapes from a damaged Jeep

Britain faces an ‘economic crisis’ as soaring oil prices threaten to pile £700 onto the average family’s fuel bill

Britain is facing an ‘economic crisis’, a minister warned last night, as soaring oil prices threatened to pile £700 onto the average family’s annual fuel bill.
In a frank assessment, trade minister Baroness Vadera said the UK was facing a ‘very testing period’.

Yesterday, in the latest blow to the cost of living, the price of oil soared to a record high, hitting $135 a barrel and leaping by $5 in just 24 hours to more than twice what it cost a year ago.

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Price hikes: Prices at the pumps will continue to rise for the next eight years

Motoring organisations said it heralded a ’summer of misery’ and would mean petrol prices going up by two-and-a-half pence a litre within four weeks.
As well as increasing pain on squeezed households, business leaders warned companies were being pushed to the ‘absolute edge’ by the rising prices.
The crisis will pile pressure on Gordon Brown, who has blamed Labour’s collapse in the polls on the ‘hurt’ felt by ordinary families.
The Prime Minister is now under mounting pressure to scrap a planned 2p rise in fuel duty and abandon plans to increase road tax.
Some campaigners are demanding that he not only abandons future rises, but cuts duties using soaring revenues from oil prices.

Fuel protesters are preparing for fresh action next week over the highest fuel taxes in Europe, and probably the world.
Some 57p of the cost of a litre of petrol in Britain is tax, compared with 31p in Spain, 45p in Italy, 48p in France and 52p in Germany.
City accountants Grant Thornton say the Government could afford to slash fuel taxes at the pumps by up to 9p a litre thanks to the oil tax windfall swelling Treasury coffers by £5billion.
The oil price crisis will be at the top of the agenda on Friday when the Prime Minister holds talks at Downing Street with the Prime Minister of Qatar, the Gulf state which will provide 20 per cent of UK gas supplies by 2010.
Baroness Vadera, a close adviser to Mr Brown and a former investment banker, said: ‘We are facing a very testing period in the economy. It is the first real economic crisis of globalisation.
‘With a small start in Texas, the global credit crunch is combining with international prices, and this is also impacting on food prices.

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Costly: More misery for drivers and householders across the UK looks to be on the cards with the latest big jumps in oil prices

‘We are facing a rather uncomfortable situation caused by the global liquidity squeeze still being worked through in the US, and rising world commodity prices, but I strongly believe that the UK is relatively well placed to face these challenges.’
With increasingly gloomy forecasts from economists, she urged people not to ‘fall into the trap of talking ourselves into a recession’.
But the oil crisis is pushing up prices in almost every area of British life.
Families are facing higher bills for food and power as well as holiday flights, while hauliers transporting food and goods face every higher costs.
Motorists have endured a 30 per cent hike in diesel and 19 per cent rise in unleaded in a year.
On Thursday petrol hit a new record of 113.98 pence per litre, diesel at 126.35p.
The price-comparison website PetrolPrices.com expects unleaded to hit £1.50 a litre by the autumn.

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Inflated: An investor monitors commodity prices. Traders pushed oil futures up to $140 a barrel

AA president Edmund King said: ‘The leap in the price of oil will add potentially another 2.5 pence to the price of petrol.
‘The threat of even higher prices in the pipeline will perch like a vulture above UK forecourts waiting to pick an even bigger hole in the pocket of drivers and consumers.’
Air passengers are facing rocketing fuel surcharges – now paying £158 extra on a return transatlantic BA flight.
Household fuel bills are expected to rise by 50 per cent this year – with dual-fuel gas and electricity bills rising by £433.
And grocery bills are soaring by up to 19 per cent – contributing to the biggest increases in food prices for a generation.
Business leaders, meanwhile, say they will have no option but to pass more of the extra costs they face on to consumers.
The CBI said nearly a third of the 540 firms surveyed this month said they expected to put their prices up over the next quarter – the largest number for 12 years.
Ian McCafferty, the CBI’s chief economic adviser, said: ‘Manufacturers are really feeling the impact and having to pass their increasing costs on.’
British Chambers of Commerce policy head Chris Hannant called for urgent action, warning oil is around double the cost of 12 months ago.
Mr Hannant said: ‘Oil prices hitting new highs of 135 dollars a barrel is pushing businesses to the absolute edge.
‘Something needs to be urgently done or increasing numbers of companies will be left with no choice but to pass extra costs onto customers.
‘Sending a positive message to business would make a huge difference and the Government should start by announcing that they are scrapping the next 2p hike in fuel duty.
‘The Treasury is already receiving a massive windfall from above expectation oil prices, which makes any extra fuel levy totally unjustifiable.’
Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle also urged the Government to scrap future fuel duty rises and called for windfall tax on oil firm profits.
‘People have to be able to afford to use the car,’ he said.
‘You can see people’s faces looking at the clock as it’s ticking away merrily and it’s the sheer expense now of taking your car out and of road transport.’

The dangers we all face when police are too terrified to think for themselves

By KEITH HELLAWELL - 17th May 2008

This has been a difficult week for West Midlands police. It is rare for public servants to be sued for libel, and the High Court apology the force gave to Channel 4 and the Dispatches programme was both humiliating and unprecedented.

For all its unique features, however, this case is symptomatic of a broader set of failings: a loss of nerve, a warped sense of priorities and, in particular, a culture of weak-minded politicisation that should concern us all.

Undercover Mosque, the edition of Dispatches at the heart of the legal case, made disturbing viewing.

Broadcast in January last year, it showed clerics at mainstream mosques making extreme and inflammatory statements, advocating the murder of homosexuals, for example, and praising the killer of a British soldier in Afghanistan.

Yet, instead of lauding the programme makers for their careful and enterprising work, West Midlands police said Channel 4 should be prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred.

They accused Dispatches of deliberately distorting the views of the clerics through misleading editing and, when their own investigations foundered, they complained to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.

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Disturbing: Undercover Mosque showed clerics making inflammatory statements

The whole sorry episode reached its conclusion on Friday with a joint apology from the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and a promise to pay £100,000 – out of public funds, presumably. They had no evidence to support their case.

Such an astonishing lack of judgment is difficult to comprehend, perhaps, but it is by no means unusual. Police forces around the country grow ever more bizarre in their decisions on who and what to prosecute, leaving the public angry and confused.

How can it be, for example, that prominent figures from the worlds of art and fashion seem immune from prosecution despite clear evidence of drug-taking, while unassuming office workers are dragged through the courts for dropping an apple core or placing the wrong piece of rubbish in the wrong bin?

Why do complaints from ethnic minorities appear to be given so much more attention than those from the majority?

Why do police forces take action against parents who shout at their children while refusing to act in cases where property has been damaged by fully grown adults?

As a former police officer of 36 years experience, who worked my way up through the ranks to become Chief Constable of Cleveland and then West Yorkshire, later becoming “drugs tsar” for the Government, I am disturbed by what I see around me.

I know of a 14-year-old – the daughter of a serving police officer, as it happens – who attempted to intervene in a case of playground bullying.

One month later, the local Violent Crime Squad banged on her door and she was arrested – because another girl had ended up with milkshake on her coat following the dispute.

I have rarely come across such a waste of time and money with so little public interest at stake.

Now I have left the force, I have time to write a regular column for my local paper, the Huddersfield Examiner, and I know from our readers that these puzzling inconsistencies abound.

One man told me he found his car being smashed by vandals, who turned on him when he remonstrated. Yet he was told by police it would be best not to complain because the thugs might return to exact vengeance.

I know of a vicar in near despair because his church is under siege from vandals. The police do nothing.

Yet he knows for a fact that a single concerned phone call from the local mosque will bring an immediate police response, often from senior officers.

Which brings us back to the strange behaviour of the West Midlands force. There are numerous causes of this sorry situation, but two stand out.

First is the behaviour of central government, which for more than a decade has stripped its police officers of autonomy, preferring to believe its university-educated advisers know better than themen and women paid to do the job.

This has left police forces terrified to take independent action, believing – wrongly – that judgment and discretion play no part in their job.

Second is a national culture of political correctness that elevates concerns for equality above those of ordinary policing. On both counts, the micro management and the politicisation – a poisonous mixture – New Labour has been the greatest culprit.

The first signs of danger came under a different regime when, in the mid-Nineties with Michael Howard as Home Secretary, the Conservative Government introduced centrally directed policing priorities.

There was nothing sinister in this attempt to make the national force more effective, but from that moment on central control has grown and police autonomy has dwindled.

Then we had the decision to abolish tenure for chief constables and put them on fixed-term contracts. Now no one can expect to be in post for more than five years.

There may be benefits, but it means forces are run by people fearful for their career prospects and unwilling to speak out.

But the real damage came in the years following 2001, when David Blunkett arrived at the Home Office. He seemed determined to take personal control of almost all aspects of police operations.

Chief constables were picked out and humiliated in public.

Ministers now seem to prefer politically sympathetic figureheads to those with any real experience of reducing crime.

A new financial regime has ensured that forces receive no extra cash unless they agree to implement the Government’s pet projects, such as the introduction of “Community Support Officers”.

Terrified to speak their minds, terrified to act without permission, some in the police force have forgotten how to think for themselves.

One result is a lack of even-handedness, which diminishes the force in the eyes of law-abiding citizens. Why, they ask, should some people be punished disproportionately while others are judged too sensitive for scrutiny?

The damage goes way beyond the principle of equity, important as that might be.

Political cowardice-now hampers the authorities in the most serious matters and has, in my view, already contributed to the appalling scenes of 7/7 and the London bombings.

Large areas in our inner cities, primarily those occupied by minority communities, are no longer policed effectively and these include those streets where home-grown terrorists have lived and conspired.

For fear of appearing racist, police forces tolerate levels of crime, including drug dealing, that should properly demand immediate action.

The victims, ironically, are overwhelmingly the very members of the ethnic minorities that the university-educated police chiefs are trying so ineffectively to appease.

The recent appalling series of black-on-black murders in London is evidence of this.

Community elders express their fears, but only in private because, with teenage gangsters operating beyond the law, they dare not speak out.

If the problems have been caused by politics, politicians must find the answers. Police forces must have their power and autonomy returned, however uncomfortable that may be for central government.

Until we return to the sort of policing I recognise and that the public demands, this dangerous state of affairs will not merely continue, it will get worse.