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Tuesday 14 July 2009

Verity Murphy | 16:46 UK time, Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Here's what is coming up on tonight's programme:

From the web team:

Tonight on Newsnight a world exclusive interview with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

He told Newsnight's Tim Whewell that he is considering severing his ties with the UK after last summer's when there was controversy over a party on his yacht attended by the-then EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson and shadow chancellor George Osborne. Read more about that story

Our Science Editor Susan Watts has a strong new line on the swine flu story and we hope to be speaking to Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, the UK government's principal medical adviser.

Also, more on the claims that News of the World journalists hacked the mobile phones of public figures. Newsnight has tracked down the lawyer at the heart of this story and he tells Richard Watson he's preparing to launch a class action on behalf of 20 people.

Plus, lawyers representing , a British man accused of committing the biggest US military computer hack of all time, are making a last ditch bid to avoid his being extradited to the US. They say the "UFO eccentric" who targeted Nasa and the Pentagon should be tried in the UK because he has Asperger's syndrome and could suffer severe mental distress if sent to the US for trial.

Jeremy Paxman will be speaking to Mr McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp about the campaign to have her son tried here.

Do join Jeremy for all that at 10.30pm on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Two.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    McKinnon - Supine UK Government - beneath contempt. Not fit for purpose.

  • Comment number 2.

    Oleg Deripaska-large nickel interests-vast investment by RBS-UK Government encourage hybrid and electric cars, using nickel- no environmental benefit. Why?

  • Comment number 3.

    Oleg Deripaska to leave uk? well he can't go to the usa can he? given this




    and this




    i can understand why MPs might chat asking ofr money but why is he on NN?



    who are the 30 journalists implicated in phonespygate? why have they not been named? protection?

    its quite sad to watch sky news desperation to diss any development of this story. one used to think they were quality broadcaster of news but now it seems they are no different to fox news?

  • Comment number 4.

    It really does beggar belief. But there will be a glib story, just wait and listen...

  • Comment number 5.

    I am getting a little concerned that we are not being told the whole truth over swine flu....

  • Comment number 6.

    #5 leftieoddbod

    So am I but I have been since it started.

    /blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/07/thursday_2_july_2009.html

    been searching but haven't found what i am looking for. Why do we normally have seasonal flu which is at a peak over cold, damp, people in doors, winter months.

    This one seems unaffected by summer conditions. Is it just because as a new strain we have no background immunity? Is it more adapted to summer conditions? What will it do during the traditional flu season?

    Is it just a summer adapted strain or will it be more virulent during winter months. The last interview I saw with Donaldson he was either evasive, uniformed, or not a media person.

    This was a far as I am aware the only accurate model of FMD available in March 2001. PM Tony Blair was most pleased with it and was based around the Newsnight Special.



    It may answer some of your questions just consider it Flu and not FMD

  • Comment number 7.

    McKinnon. gordon/nulabour would sell their Grannies down the river, If they havnt already.

    when are we going 2 relocate them 2 Twatt so that they can become what they really are Twatts. (they were before)

  • Comment number 8.

    5. the local paper had a report the govt expects around 30 000 people in the uk to die from swine flu with a peak in september. i wondered why the national news never gave that number.

  • Comment number 9.

    Garry should NOT be sent to the states! the UK goverment need to stop this now before its too late. we are the largest Adult charity in the UK for adults. and the anxiety would be way to much for him to cope with we appeal to the UK GOV to stop this from happening!

    Kevin Healey
    CHAIRMAN
    SAAS
    Staffordshire adults autistic society
    CLLR for the National Autistic Society

  • Comment number 10.

    Its Official I am now A Muslim Transvestite. If you see a 6ft 2in Burka walking down Town in the south of England dont be Alarmed its only Me. (6ft 5in in High Heals)

    Interested 2 see what gordons/nulabour politiCally correct/Wrong PC's will make of it. They Can Arrest me if they like, Straight 2 the STUPID EuroPEEin court of Human? Rights/Wrongs for me. (you Suckers will be/are paying for It)

  • Comment number 11.

    Lord? mandy mentioned on NN again. Please Auntie can I not Twatt the Twatt 2 Twatt.

  • Comment number 12.

    Addendum (#4) Perhaps NN should have covered these topical events and give the intransigence of the perpetrators some thought instead of giving so much airtime to the dubious war agains the Taleban?

  • Comment number 13.

    Lets get this straight about Afghanistan. Our troops are fighting and dying so that Afghan women can be free from the tyranny of the burka? Would that be the same burka that is proliferating on the streets of the UK and which we are told to celebrate as cultural diversity?

  • Comment number 14.

    This Oleg Deripaska interview is a bit Martin Bashir Princess Di/Michael Jacksonish

    Oh Dear

    Anyway liked the Doors soundtrack



    Oh Dear

    Anyway it's gone to Newsnight Scotland so everyone else probably knows something about Swine Flu we up here don't

    Oh Dear

    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 15.

    Given Sept. 11th?

    Well the Americans should learn to secure their infrastructure?

    Was McKinnon really the only person snooping about their networks?

  • Comment number 16.

    Excellent interview by Jeremy with Janis Sharp, mother of Gary McKinnon. It is ridiculous to even think about extraditing him to the US - he is an Asperger's sufferer, and was unaware of what he was doing. As pointed out, he should be tried in an English court.

    Also loved the Deripaska interview by Tim :o)

  • Comment number 17.

    Why all the coverage of the Gary Mckinnon extradition. No excuse for breaking the law but why do we protect all the terrorists that are living in UK because to extradite them to the country where the crime was committed could infringe their human rights. Pathetic, what about the human rights of the terrorists victims.

  • Comment number 18.

    The American networks had more holes than my socks and it's all the fault of Gary McKinnon?

    He does seem somewhat of a lost soul rather like Nicky Reilly AKA Mohamed Abdulaziz Rashid Saeed-Alim.

  • Comment number 19.

    WOULD MEN CLIMB MOUNTAINS IF THERE WAS NO RISK? (#13)

    Would Spain watch the bull fight if the matador was in no danger? So it is, surely, with the extreme paintballing that is the Afghanistan invasion? Ever since primitive man formed hunting bands and took risks to win food, I suspect the cameraderie and the buzz (how often do we hear of the buzz?) has gone viscerally deep in him, and survives to this day. (Of course the politicians have yet another agenda, that will collapse when the truth of 9/11 is revealed.)

    The pathetic reality is that when 'democratic civilisations' are not crowing about how much trade they do, it is possession of nukes that counts, followed by the ability to wreck far of countries that are unable to defend themselves. Quite where 'whiter than white' Blair and 'all encompassing Brown' fit into this is hard to decide, without having the credentials to 'section'.

    Serious pomp and display in Britain is all marked with military flouncing; royal occasions the more so. Gun salutes, gun carriages and gun drill, with planes flying overhead. Barrels slope and bayonets gleam - then we go ape over kids with guns and knives (before tricking them into the forces.) But they mustn't hurt captives . . . Are we SURE about the civilised bit?

    And to cap it all, we have Gumby Bob Ainsworth - surreal.

  • Comment number 20.

    Disappointing coverage of McKinnon
    The questions that needed asking were:
    1) When will he be rewarded for uncovering the inadequate security procedures used by the US military. He should be consulting for them now.
    2) When will the supplier or part of the US government be prosecuted for endangering others through their ineptitude?
    3) No US citizen would be extradited if the boot were on the other foot. Remember the very real crime when a US pilot killed 20 skiiers in Italy 10 years ago? Trial held in Italy? Nope, North Carolina!

  • Comment number 21.

    I think perhaps it is useful to review the facts of Gary McKinnons case, what he did wasn't even what is considered proper hacking what he did is use a computer program he got of the Internet to scan computers on the internet for blank passwords, as detailed here-



    Someone who does this is called a rather unflattering name a "script kiddie" see here-



    Now lets look at the dollar amount of damage the Americans say he caused, this is entirely based on the amount required to secure these computer systems that should have been secured in the first place. If someone messes up the interior of your car because you left it unlocked are they responsible for changing the locks? No, obviously not, and so it is with his messing around in American military computers.

    He certainly can't be called a dangerous hacker, merely an unsophisticated, delusional and obsessive Auspergers sufferer who watched one too many episodes of the X-Files, I say this as one who met him at a meeting of computer geeks in London.

    Now let us contrast this with the IRA terrorists who the USA has given shelter to over the years, even parading in New York on St. Patrick's Day, not one of whom has been extradited from the USA to Britain.

    Perhaps there is a word for those who sell out their country to a brutal foreign power who's terrorists bomb its civilian population and offers up a mentally ill countryman as a whipping boy for their foreign masters, can anyone take a guess at the word?

  • Comment number 22.

    Great comments about the McKinnon case above!

    Surely the US should be prosecuting the idiots who were supposed to be in charge of these systems for failing in their duties.

    And if he did manage to do all this supposed $700k of damage then why don't they prosecute the idiots who were responsible for backing them up.

    Personally I reckon they should sack the lot of them and offer Gary McKinnon a job to check they're systems really are secure!

  • Comment number 23.

    Tim Whewell could have pressed Oleg Deripaska a bit further in the interview as to why he decided to sever ties with the UK. Does it have anything to do with the way political parties responded to the yachtgate incident? Does he believe his prospect of doing business in the UK had been significantly affected because of it? If opportunity suffices in the future, would he consider investing in a British car company to acquire its technical expertise ?

  • Comment number 24.

    mademoiselle_h (#23) "Tim Whewell could have pressed Oleg Deripaska a bit further in the interview as to why he decided to sever ties with the UK."

    Did you not hear about investigative journalists and Russians?

  • Comment number 25.

    Intersting article in . In fact, interesting comments in Peston's blog on GS. Anyone got anything to add? Maybe some of the critics here?

  • Comment number 26.

    #25 JJ

    From the Rolling Stone article:

    "planet-eating Death Star of political influence it is today"

    This is what amazes me, the laid back unconcerned attitude of many. They ate the planet to create the economic bubble. Then it burst. So the consensus of Governments is they must eat more of the planet, to re-inflate the bubble.

    But there comes a point (very very soon) when there is no more to eat then it is ecological collapse, which there is no recovery from. 100% extinction of all higher life forms.

    But it will be all right if we get carbon emissions under control by 2050. Which numpty came up with that?

    I've got a tin of beans in the cupboard, with a best before date longer than the Earth has. Get a grip.

    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 27.

    BUT WHY DIDN'T GOLDMAN SACHS CHANGE THEIR NAME? (#25)

    Shades of Sue Grabbit and Runne - solicitors. (Credit: Private Eye)
    If they had called the bank: 'Eminance-grise/Paperbags' they might have gone un-noticed - already.

    Miraculous resurrection from the banking near-death experience is poignant; especially for Judeo Christian speculators! Westminster intends to arise likewise, in the political sphere-of-chicanery. Our only hope is to - wait for it - wait for it -

    SPOIL PARTY GAMES!

  • Comment number 28.

    Jean
    You mention two very broad subjects: investigative journalism and the Russians. As much as I want to pretend to be intelligent on our humble little blog of NewsNight, I am not a minder reader. I know that Mr Deripaska has been accused of committing all sorts of crimes against his rivals in order to gain control of strategic businesses on the international scene, but that doesn't explain why he has specifically soured ties with Britain. Could you please elaborate and point me to some useful articles? Maybe I have missed something important on the news reports relating to the 'yachtgate' scandal.

  • Comment number 29.

    NOT AMOUNTING TO A TIN OF BEANS (#26)

    When they have eaten the Earth, they will eat each other. That is to say: Fart eating fart. And in the last days: "Great shall be the fart of it!" there goes 2 degrees. (:o)

    Your tin of beans will, appropriately, outlast mankind Celtic. Imagine its thought in the tranquil Post Hom Sap idyll!

  • Comment number 30.

    Tims piece went on too long, covered most of it in the first ten, why didn't Jeremy have a go at the 'pro send him to face trial guy' I was fuming at him. Fancy having him as your defence brief.

  • Comment number 31.

    #26 Mr Lion how long have we got left now? What with unemployment and lack of school places, it looks as though we will all be poor idiots in the future anyway, rapidly running backwards. Hhhhmm perhaps not such a bad thing then! No consumerism! ; ) I find it quite funny how us oldies keep blathering on about not wanting to retire at 65 and carry on working 'til we drop. With unemployment like that, some youngsters will never work!

    I didn't watch NN last night, I'm not interested in a cunning oligarch, but I wish I'd seen the piece about Mr McKinnon, why didn't the US put proper protection in place?!!!! I thought people with mental illness were unable to stand trial.

  • Comment number 32.

    KCL (#26) "This is what amazes me, the laid back unconcerned attitude of many."

    Study the Axis II Cluster B Personality Disorders at length. They are almost impossible for remotely normal people to grasp as they as 'missing something' which makes most people 'human'. That bit of humanity is easily unkindly described as 'wooliness', 'weakness', 'indecision', inefficient, etc - but what it comes down to is normal, healthy, behavioural inhibition, 'brakes', 'integrity' or 'socialisation'. To most people, other people matter in he same way that they themselves and their own families matter. Not the people I refer to above. For them, they are the centre of the universe like infants and they have rights, it's just that nobody else does as they don't relaly exist except as useful objects to satisfy their needs (see the infant thing?)..... It is not something you can teach them either, at least, not something which can be taught and retained for more than an expedient few minutes. Our prisons are full of these types, the smarter ones get to roam free and are allegedly 'good for the economy' - they told us so. They sre special people :-(

  • Comment number 33.

    Barrie (#27) "BUT WHY DIDN'T GOLDMAN SACHS CHANGE THEIR NAME? (#25)"

    Well, to reiterate the obvious (PC conditioning makes it incredibiy hard for this to stick) this is of course NYC, a new settlement after an exodus from the Pale at the end of the 1800s and early 1900s. One has to think of a) the current demographics brought about via immigration, and b) the Axis II PDs (see Kohut and Kernberg too).

    It's just a matter of demographics, prevalence and group pride and business is business I suspect.

    'If you have it, flaunt it'? Vanity is an odd thing...

  • Comment number 34.

    #31 Ecolizzy

    Lovelock et al would consider our deaths are inevitable. We have jumped out of the aircraft without a parachute. And we will we dead when we hit the floor.

    My own opinion but informed, (click back through last 6 or so posts, had the UK Government or media, Ö÷²¥´óÐã, Newsnight considered the continuation of the existence of life on Earth important or newsworthy, I could have given you a more definitive answer, open to objective assessment and peer review).

    I would say be have 3 years to completely resolve the global situation. The slide has already begun (if you hadn't noticed ;). If we don't then 20-30 years to total extinction. Though I think many would not consider the intervening years worth living.

    I am working on your Macro Economics of Planetary Management re the magnitude of the project we need to implement. Also I have previous work which answers your question in more detail. Which I will start posting.

    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 35.

    I CAN'T RESIST SHARING THIS:

    While Jimmie Brown was declaring, at PMQs, the absolute truth that 'our troops have the equipment they need' the camera obligingly swung onto Gumby-Bob, to find him massaging his tell-tale nose, vigorously. Lies, damned lies, and the GUMBY NOSE!

  • Comment number 36.

    #2 kingcelticlion

    Remember "don't do politics" on a Newsnight web page!

  • Comment number 37.

    BRITISH JOBS FROM BRITISH ENTERPRISE

    If the shipbuilders built tidal generators (Moon Power) to be backed up by clever control systems, devised by re-deployed atomic physicists, we could get really smart in clean energy. But I have not factored in vested interests have I! Another non-starter in culturally corrupt Britain.

  • Comment number 38.

    #25 Jaded_Jean

    When the far right who previously have seen climate change as evidence of anarchistic-Trotskyite manipulation start taking up the flag you know that what is going down is that they will use any device to try and put what is unreconstituted National Socialism.

    Hence the BNP are not a Nazi party - they merely revere Hitler and National Socialist policies.

    Hence they are "agnostic" on the Holocaust - but provide "evidence" that there was no Holocaust to refute their agnosticism and they won;t be taking said analysis to their comrade Djemjanjuk's Nazi war crimes trial.

    Hence they never really advertise that they would translate democracy into the tyranny of a fascist dictatorship.

    Hence they convince themselves that the "Jewish Communist International" are responsible for all ills and run everything. Von Bruun tried to kidnap a US Fed member on that basis and recently killed a security guard at Holocaust Memorial in the US. He was an American Friend of the BNP.

  • Comment number 39.

    #32 JJ

    I have looked at the Axis II Cluster B situation in sufficient depth for me to be aware of the situation.

    From this basic model or construct, I now have to make an extrapolation. If we say this is a genetic situation with an phenotypic or environmental expressive. All well and good.

    What concerns me is the dominant expression in the mainstream media, over and above the original %. It is over represented in the media. The media acts as a multiplier of what could be considered an aberrational syndrome. Analogously, culturally infecting the rest of the population.

    Take for example my own case. The media, Ö÷²¥´óÐã, Newsnight etc were not interested that a £50 billion per year project to resolve the global environmental imperative was shortlisted by the UK Government's own consultants. This was never made known to the public or in the public interest. It was deemed not newsworthy.

    Yet extensive coverage has been given to the unreal, imaginary even La La Land of economics. Every night vast swathes of NN was given over to people talking about things that had about as much relevance to reality as a plot line from the Teletubbies.

    The economics that is presented to us by Government's and the media mainstream is a fantasy bubble, that burst, so they just inflate another one.

    Why in the media is there an inverse relationship between what is trivial or unreal and the amount of air time and exposure allocated to it?

    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 40.

    kingcelticlion Jaded_Jean suggests:

    "For them, they are the centre of the universe like infants and they have rights,"

    You could describe National Socialism as a replacement aristocracy as Bertrand Russell did - but where their "flexible ideology" replaces the family tree as justification and bends to whatever truth is needed to obtain power.

    As somebody who is highly academically qualified and mixes with people of Nobel stature (I am trying not to laugh as I write) do your pals see the "science" of racial distinction, race "realism" as described by Jaded_Jean?

    Myself I am a humble person who subscribes to the view that as genetic variation is greater within a race than between races there is no such scientific platform.

    You seem very sanguine in dealing with people who try to kid the world there was no Holocaust and Hitler was a peace lover.

    Some of your best friends are Jews?

    How is Belfast these days - do you keep ion touch with the people you know there?

    That was where that poor Romany woman with a five day old child was beaten by misguided youths who had swallowed racist propaganda recently.

  • Comment number 41.

    #31 ecolizzy

    The other week you mentioned you would not visit London these days due to the racial mix.

    Then house prices rose.

    They have slipped back again.

    Could you reinforce your act and perhaps suggest some other large cities like Manchester or Birmingham?

    The BNP are not capitalists but my God they can boost house prices in a sentence.

  • Comment number 42.

    #33 Jaded_Jean

    Hitler was allegedly related to the Salomons - not enough to qualify him for the death camps according to the one sixteenth rule but he was not pure.

    I am not sure he would have made the SS?

    Therefore he may have had Jewish blood and according to your twisted ideological posture the race of somebody determines their views.

    Hence the "Jewish Communist International" largely run everything - the media and the banks and so on.

    Thats what Von Bruun thought in the US (as above US Fed member kidnapper and murderer of a security guard at a Holocaust memorial and friend of the BNP). I think Griffin subscribes to that view.

    I assume you consider all Jews just pretend to be different ideologically. I am not sure they know that.

    But as they control everything they would not need to pretend as they control all.

    Do your views differ from those of Von Bruun? How do you feel about the murdered security guard?

  • Comment number 43.

    On more sane issue the Whewell report was very interesting. I am not sure he could have encompassed the issue but when those like Milliband say Russia is a threat and there are those that think Litvinenko was a Russian "hit" should Mandelson still be considered to be a friend?

    On the one hand the guy is on holiday and friendship between Russia and the UK is a good thing.

    On the other hand if senior Tory and Labour put themselves into a position where any indiscretion (like the diplomat the other day) could leave them open to blackmail that is unwise to say the least.

    Deripaska is I believe still close to Putin?


  • Comment number 44.

    #19 barriesingleton

    "The pathetic reality is that when 'democratic civilisations' are not crowing about how much trade they do, it is possession of nukes that counts, followed by the ability to wreck far of countries that are unable to defend themselves."


    Most people would be thankful that those who revere Hitler who laid waste to Western Europe never got nuclear weapons.

    Non-democratic countries have nuclear weapons and so I think that your whole analysis is flawed - but then you know that.

  • Comment number 45.

    There are rumour's that long run Brown will cut Afghanistan troop commitments.

    Is the truth merely that this relates to finances and have Osborne and Cable had access to the Treasury information they asked for?

  • Comment number 46.

    Where is McBride? Surely he must have surfaced again by now. Don't one or more HoC committees want to have a word?

  • Comment number 47.

    Sorry completely off topic, Jean what do you think about this new initiative?

    More feminisation of education?

  • Comment number 48.

    thegangofone (#38) "Hence they convince themselves that the "Jewish Communist International" are responsible for all ills and run everything."

    Are you sure it isn't the Jewish Anarchist International? The Jewish Communist International (a group of them were sent into Russia by the Germans in 1917 to topple the Tsar remember) was purged by Stalin in the 1930s and officially closed down in the 1940s. The anarchists, on the other hand, many of who came via NYC by all accounts. Like all narcissists, they throw strops/tantrums when they don't get what they want, so whilst most people try to give them wide berth, this unfortunately just makes them even more attention seeking and bolshy! They'll do almost anything for a buzz. List your favourite celebrity...

  • Comment number 49.

    Ha,ha, and I see the Tonython wanders on.....

  • Comment number 50.

    Whatever



    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 51.

    DOES THE TALEBAN DO MOTIVATIONAL TALKS?

    ecolizzy (#47) "More feminisation of education?"

    This was definitely so two years ago #38, #39) according to the primary school data in the 2007 report, although, you wouldn't have thought so if you went by what Ed Balls said! Girls liked it... as evaluated by questionnaires! But then girls like that sort of attention, boys of course don't, not one bit. I can't imagine it has changed much.

    This was just very bad research, and an initiative in the same dismal class as Brain Gym. I emphasise it's just bad research and a bad initiative based on the evidence. I don't know how they get away with it, I really don't - depressing.

    Is it really any wonder that we're not producing anything but 'marginalised' people? It's a downward spiral, it really is, yet many don't see the danger, and that is most worrying.

  • Comment number 52.

    #51 Ah Jean much to my thinking! Someone very close to me is having to put this project into practice at the moment, and yes the girls do like it. It's very chatty, huggy, cosy, caring, but are they learning anything?! I find education these days very strange, even from when my kids were at school! It reads to me like control, manipulation and make (as in cannon)work fodder.

  • Comment number 53.

    #53 Ecolizzy

    had you not noticed Higher Education now comes under the Business and Skills empire of Mandelson.



    You are right. Education is just to feed the machine.


    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 54.

    The boys would probably approve of , the girls, maybe not.

    The anarchists/Bolsheviks tried this nonsense in Russia in the 1920s and in Hungary too. It was subversive. This is not a good idea at all. The Taleban almost certainly would not approve.

  • Comment number 55.

    THOSE WHO WISH TO DESTROY 'EUROPE' COULD DO WORSE THAN MAKE BLAIR PRESIDENT, TO DRIVE THEM MAD! (#47)

    What a hole in one! (Foot that is!!)

    Blair has destroyed everything he has touched so far, except the Middle East, which was already ruined, and on which he has had no effect. So YES! ANTHONY LYNTON BLAIR FOR EU PRESIDENT!!! Let's bring the whole stupid enterprise down, before it brings us down. Go Tony - deliver empty oratory till their 'competences' beg for mercy. Mess up their cockeyed cohesion with empty rhetoric. You did it for us - you can do it to them! Do it again Tone.

    Further: "Mr Blair's role in the Iraq war and Britain's failure to join the euro, could go against him." ONLY THAT??? As Charlie Brown (no relation - and yet . . .) was wont to say: "Good grief, I can't stand it."

  • Comment number 56.

    SCHOOL DESCRIBES THE GATHERING - EDUCATION IS NOT WHAT FOLLOWS.

    For generations, maturity has declined while institutionalisation (schooling) has increased. Small wonder we behave so ineptly, led by the super-inept into serial indiscretions.

    Hello Newsnight - Might you look into the institution of school, itself, from first principles? Thought not.

  • Comment number 57.

    According to the website - who represent Max Clifford in the 'News of the World' phone hacking allegations matter - Mr Clifford says, I want to know which journalists were involved, in case Im still dealing with them. I have a lot of clients phoning me all the time with confidential information. A lot of them have been in touch, worried, looking for me to get to the bottom of it all.

  • Comment number 58.

    mark-chapman (#57) Max Clifford - he's an enigma.. a bit like Katie Price. Has to be...

  • Comment number 59.

    barrie (#56) Hello Newsnight - Might you look into the institution of school, itself, from first principles? Thought not."

    Remember when they used to ask us what we wanted?

    I hope someone is summarising our offerings somewhere ;-)

  • Comment number 60.

    Back in the 1970's the then British Leyland spent an absolute fortune developing and testing to ultimate destruction Sherpa Van. After the division and sale of BL LDV as we now know it emerged as a relatively small van supplier with a loyal customer base. However, back in the late 1990's, several local authority customers excluded LDV from tendering for light commercial vehicle supply contracts because they did not have safety features such as air bags.

    Of course this severely dented total sales, the small traders who swore by them not being sufficient to support LDV in profit. Perhaps rather foolishly LDV were funded to develop an unnecessary new model and the bank let them due to the fact that the Corporate Multinational Cartel wanted the well designed long lasting Sherpa out of the market.

    Of course LDV could not afford the payments on the new loans so in comes wealthy Russian oligarch looking to set up a van manufacturer in his home country. It would appear that ( with minor cosmetic alterations ) he is successfully producing and even selling the old Sherpa. Meanwhile all the small traders no longer desire to by the latest LDV vans because they are potentially unreliable difficult to maintain front wheel drive. It is interesting to note that said oligarch has not simply transferred production of the " new design " to Russia if it was so good. He is not simply walking away from LDV, he has got a good design with a bright future for his investment.

    Perhaps there will be a good UK market for said Russian ( Gazelle ) vans in future although I suspect they may be excluded from the EU market on spurious environmental or safety grounds. That should suit the CMC, a competitor with the potential to undercut the opposition with a better quality product removed from the equation ?

  • Comment number 61.



    So all those virus writers disabling NHS computers will be prosecuted and extradited to Britain to take up even more cells in our over crowded prisons?

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