1255 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009: KHOODEELAAR! action update: E-mail from 'local' constituency MP George Galloway, received by KHOODEELAAR! on Monday 6 April 2009. The e-mail is in reference to the scrapping of the Crossrail hole in the Hanbury Street [Princelet Street] London E1.... ‘Muhammed’ is Muhammad Haque, the KHOODEELAAR! campaign organiser against the Crossrail hole scam Agenda... As we have published hundreds of items on our web sites referring to George Galloway, mostly in 2006, we do not need to repeat the facts here. Except to say - AGAIN - that at that time, George Galloway spoke more directly against Crossrail scam than ANY OTHER member of the ‘leadership’ of what was the RESPECT coalition prior to the final breakup with the ‘SWP’. KHOODEELAAR! is right now working on the final action programme about the defence of the East End of London against the remaining threats of attacks by Big Business-stooges and touts and via Crossrail... The finalized programme will be published here and on our associated websites and networks in due course..[To be continued]
Sent:
06 April 2009 11:55:42
To:
lawmedia@hotmail.com
Dear Muhammed,
I am emailing you about the very good news you passed on to members of Respect on Saturday at Dennis Flood's memorial meeting concerning Crossrail.
May I first of all say how pleased I am that it seems any idea of any hole of any size relating rto Crossrail in the Brick Lane area has finally been abandoned? This is a tribute to everyone who has campaigned so long and so hard against the Crossrail hole and above all to yourself and Khoodeelaar. We have not always seen eye to eye about everything, but I am unstinting in my admiration for the extremely hard and consistent work you have done to defend the community in and around Brick Lane.
I understand there is to be a meeting at 2pm in Hanbury Street today which I'm afraid I can't attend as I am just coming to the end of a speaking tour in North America to raise aid for the suffering Palestinian people of Gaza. However I give my best wishes to you and to everyone at the meeting.
There is still the very big issue of Stepney and Stepping Stones farm which is going to be so adversely affected by Crossrail digging. I, along with our Respect councillors and members, look forward to continuing to campaign alongside Khoodeelaar and others to try to stop the threatened destruction in this area.
With my best wishes,
George Galloway MP
33rd year AADHIKAR
0225 GMT Thursday 06 June 2013
AADHIKAR Media Foundation Editor © Muhammad Haque
Founding News Editor
Shah M Azizul Haque
AADHIKAR Media Foundation established with the publication of AADHIKAR the weekly on Monday 19 December 1980 from London E1 UK.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
KHOODEELAAR! action update on the campaign against Crossrail scam peddling personnel over the 5 years and 3 months so far
1200 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009: KHOODEELAAR! No to “Big Business corruption agenda couriers who have been peddling alleged benefits of ‘Crossrail’ to the East End of London!!!!!!!!....
One of the crucial ethical practices that Khoodeelaar! has been maintaining is that we do not name individual employees of any public body unless naming becomes ethically, morally, legally and evidentially unavoidable..
In the case of Owen Whalley, the CRASSRail plot-peddling employee in place in the Crossrail hole-inviter-clique-controlled Tower Hamlets Borough Council, our repeated efforts to allow him anonymity met with persistent confirmation by him that he would prefer to be named. So we have done our best to ethically shield him where [IF] he deserved such shielding...
Owen Whalley has not answered our questions.
We did not ask most of the questions by thinking of him. We put the questions by thinking, very generously, of the ethical, moral, collective duties on the part of any lawfully placed ‘leadership’ of a ‘deemed-to-be-democratic and deemed-to-be-legitimate’ group of elected councillors.
However, most of our questions about the Tower Hamlets Council’s Crossrail hole-scam-inviting role got passed on to Owen Whalley by or on behalf of or in the name whoever it was that called themselves ‘chief executive’ at the time. Or ‘leader’ or ‘lead councillor’ concerned that we had originally and on the relevant occasion addressed.
So when it came to his giving answers to our questions, Owen Whalley did make a limited number of communications.
Then he got entangled in such a transparently contradictory game of illusions and mirror-effects that we decided to give actually meeting him a try.
That proved as we had suspected as uninformative as it can be described.
We are being STILL kind to Owen Whalley.
It had been Owen Whalley that kept seeking a meeting with KHOODEELAAR!
We had not asked for a meeting with him. He wanted to meet.
Why?
Because that way, he must have thought, he could avoid having to put in writing whatever it was that he was not prepared to confirm in writing about Tower Hamlets Council’s dealings - and deals- with the Crossrail scam peddlers..
[to be continued]
One of the crucial ethical practices that Khoodeelaar! has been maintaining is that we do not name individual employees of any public body unless naming becomes ethically, morally, legally and evidentially unavoidable..
In the case of Owen Whalley, the CRASSRail plot-peddling employee in place in the Crossrail hole-inviter-clique-controlled Tower Hamlets Borough Council, our repeated efforts to allow him anonymity met with persistent confirmation by him that he would prefer to be named. So we have done our best to ethically shield him where [IF] he deserved such shielding...
Owen Whalley has not answered our questions.
We did not ask most of the questions by thinking of him. We put the questions by thinking, very generously, of the ethical, moral, collective duties on the part of any lawfully placed ‘leadership’ of a ‘deemed-to-be-democratic and deemed-to-be-legitimate’ group of elected councillors.
However, most of our questions about the Tower Hamlets Council’s Crossrail hole-scam-inviting role got passed on to Owen Whalley by or on behalf of or in the name whoever it was that called themselves ‘chief executive’ at the time. Or ‘leader’ or ‘lead councillor’ concerned that we had originally and on the relevant occasion addressed.
So when it came to his giving answers to our questions, Owen Whalley did make a limited number of communications.
Then he got entangled in such a transparently contradictory game of illusions and mirror-effects that we decided to give actually meeting him a try.
That proved as we had suspected as uninformative as it can be described.
We are being STILL kind to Owen Whalley.
It had been Owen Whalley that kept seeking a meeting with KHOODEELAAR!
We had not asked for a meeting with him. He wanted to meet.
Why?
Because that way, he must have thought, he could avoid having to put in writing whatever it was that he was not prepared to confirm in writing about Tower Hamlets Council’s dealings - and deals- with the Crossrail scam peddlers..
[to be continued]
KHOODEELAAR! diagnosing the lying by 'East London Advertiser' for Crossrail hole-inviter Tower Hamlets Council
1130 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009:
Khoodeelaar! Evidential Question and formal request
for explanation to 'East London Advertiser' 1850 GMT
31.01.2008
Question and formal request for explanation:
As it has become clear that the statement as contained
in the texts of the news item published by the ‘East
London Advertiser’ dated 18-19 December 2007 [on the
website] and 20 December 2007 [in the print edition of
the ‘weekly’ newspaper’] and as attributed to the
controlling group on Tower Hamlets Council about the
Crossrail hole in particular affecting the Hanbury
Street [and Princelet Street] was inaccurate and or
misleading and or untrue, we are making this formal
and final request for an explanation as to why the
item was published by you in the way that it was.
Other Khoodeelaar! questions that have been put to you
are still in need of substantial answers from the
‘East London Advertiser’ at this date and time.
Khoodeelaar! Evidential Question and formal request
for explanation to 'East London Advertiser' 1850 GMT
31.01.2008
Question and formal request for explanation:
As it has become clear that the statement as contained
in the texts of the news item published by the ‘East
London Advertiser’ dated 18-19 December 2007 [on the
website] and 20 December 2007 [in the print edition of
the ‘weekly’ newspaper’] and as attributed to the
controlling group on Tower Hamlets Council about the
Crossrail hole in particular affecting the Hanbury
Street [and Princelet Street] was inaccurate and or
misleading and or untrue, we are making this formal
and final request for an explanation as to why the
item was published by you in the way that it was.
Other Khoodeelaar! questions that have been put to you
are still in need of substantial answers from the
‘East London Advertiser’ at this date and time.
KHOODEELAAR! new complaint against 'East London Advertiser' to Press Complaints Commission: texts of e-mail to Malcolm Starbrook/editor
To Malcolm Starbrook
Editor
East London Advertiser
Via Email
This is to confirm that we shall be making another compliant to the PCC [THIS communication is being copied straight to them] against your LATEST lying plug for and about Crossrail. WE shall cite as evidence your lying promotion of the Crossrail hole scam-inviter clique on the ‘local’ Tower Hamlets Council. The item dated 3 April 2009 put on your web site about Crossrail is so false and untrue that we really will be challenging all of it
We can confirm that we are very aware that we have over the past 5 year and 3 months made several INCOMPLETE complaints against your lying coverage of the subject of CRossrail.
We have neither forgotten the fact that the complaints have remained incomplete nor have we altered a single one of the grounds and reasons for complaining in the past.
We know you are cosy with the PCC and so you show no evidence of recognizing that publishing lies is not on.
We can tell you that should you ignore this - which in all probability you will do on the evidence of your past conduct - you will find that there are so many eggs on your face that you will need a long period to RHETORICALLY SPEAKING [note this stress and qualification !!!!!!!!!] recuperate from the avoidable hassle of getting yourself covered in odious eggs...
Odious because EVERY SINGLE one of the ‘councillors’ that your false item has promoted by name and by implication, is on the record as having UNCONDITIONALLY backed the Crossrail scam.
More to follow
LAW Unit
KHOODEELAAR!
Editor
East London Advertiser
Via Email
This is to confirm that we shall be making another compliant to the PCC [THIS communication is being copied straight to them] against your LATEST lying plug for and about Crossrail. WE shall cite as evidence your lying promotion of the Crossrail hole scam-inviter clique on the ‘local’ Tower Hamlets Council. The item dated 3 April 2009 put on your web site about Crossrail is so false and untrue that we really will be challenging all of it
We can confirm that we are very aware that we have over the past 5 year and 3 months made several INCOMPLETE complaints against your lying coverage of the subject of CRossrail.
We have neither forgotten the fact that the complaints have remained incomplete nor have we altered a single one of the grounds and reasons for complaining in the past.
We know you are cosy with the PCC and so you show no evidence of recognizing that publishing lies is not on.
We can tell you that should you ignore this - which in all probability you will do on the evidence of your past conduct - you will find that there are so many eggs on your face that you will need a long period to RHETORICALLY SPEAKING [note this stress and qualification !!!!!!!!!] recuperate from the avoidable hassle of getting yourself covered in odious eggs...
Odious because EVERY SINGLE one of the ‘councillors’ that your false item has promoted by name and by implication, is on the record as having UNCONDITIONALLY backed the Crossrail scam.
More to follow
LAW Unit
KHOODEELAAR!
KHOODEELAAR! set to diagnose and update on the stooged role played by House of Lords Select Committee on the Crossrail Bill for CRASSrail agenda
1050 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009:
KHOODEELAAR! set to diagnose and update on the stooged role played by House of Lords Select Committee on the Crossrail Bill for CRASSrail agenda pushers, lobbyists and touts for Big Business....
[To be continued]
KHOODEELAAR! set to diagnose and update on the stooged role played by House of Lords Select Committee on the Crossrail Bill for CRASSrail agenda pushers, lobbyists and touts for Big Business....
[To be continued]
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! That the crassly conceived, crassly costed, crassly imposed London Crossrail is continuing to cost jobs and force cuts.....
Taken from the web site of the London EVENING STANDARD Wednesday 8 April 2009
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23673566-details/Boris+tells+TfL+bosses+they+must+slash+their+bonuses+and+salaries/article.do
HEADLINES:
Son 'wants answers' after G20 death..... Recovery will be green, says Brown..... Italy quake death toll reaches 250..... Attack victims' interviews on hold..... Man quizzed over girl's 1983 murder..... Sinn Fein MPs in flat expenses row..... Hundreds continuing Tamils protest..... Husband in court over model murder..... Airport set to charge drop-off fee..... Bishop hits out over Goody outburst.....
No increase: TfL chief Peter Hendy, left, will have his pay frozen on the orders of the Mayor
Boris tells TfL bosses they must slash their bonuses and salaries
Andrew Gilligan
08.04.09
Look here too
Mayor's top adviser backs Charles in row over barracks scheme
Music festival falls victim to lack of funds
LONDON transport chiefs are to have their pay frozen and their bonuses slashed on the orders of the Mayor Boris Johnson.
Transport for London Commissioner Peter Hendy will see no increase in his annual base salary of around £340,000 this year and has also been told that his annual bonus must be cut from a potential £170,000 to a maximum of £75,000.
This is substantially less than Mr Hendy has previously received. In 2006/7, the last year for which figures are available, he was paid a bonus of £115,000. The pay freeze will also cost him around £10,000 that he expected to receive as an inflation-related increase on his base salary.
TfL today insisted it accepted the cuts and would formally propose them to the board this month.
The bonus paid to Tim O'Toole, outgoing managing director of the Underground, has been cut from a potential £130,000 to a maximum of £70,000. The bonuses for all other senior TfL directors are capped at £50,000 - in most cases less than they previously received. The actual amounts of each manager's bonus will be decided by a TfL remuneration committee up to the City Hall-imposed cap.
City Hall sources said the cuts were necessary to reflect the growing strain on TfL's finances in the recession. The organisation is faced with falling passenger revenues along with growing demands for huge capital spending on projects such as Crossrail.
The Standard has learned TfL's overall bonus budget for the financial year 2008/9 was to have been £12.6 million - of which almost half, £5.7 million, was to have been allocated to a few dozen senior managers.
The rest was to have been shared among TfL's other staff, with around 13,000 operational employees, such as train drivers and ticket collectors, getting bonuses of £500 each and 6,000 junior managers and administrative staff sharing a bonus pot of about £300,000.
The bonuses for the junior ranks will remain but the value of the senior bonus scheme will be cut by around £1 million, with the biggest cuts coming at the top end of the pay scale. The cuts come amid growing controversy about TfL's large number of highly-paid senior staff.
Freedom of Information requests by the Standard revealed that in 2007/8,123 TfL managers earned more than £100,000 a year.
The average salary of TfL's six-figure managers is higher than the Mayor's. Fifteen TfL bosses, including the director of marketing, earn more than the Prime Minister. Only 16 of the 123 top earners, however, were directly involved in operating bus and train services.
TfL has pledged to cut costs by a total of about £250 million a year over the next nine years but Mr Hendy recently said the target was proving "challenging."
A TfL spokesman said: "Proposals to freeze senior pay and bonuses will be considered by the TfL board's remuneration committee."
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23673566-details/Boris+tells+TfL+bosses+they+must+slash+their+bonuses+and+salaries/article.do
HEADLINES:
Son 'wants answers' after G20 death..... Recovery will be green, says Brown..... Italy quake death toll reaches 250..... Attack victims' interviews on hold..... Man quizzed over girl's 1983 murder..... Sinn Fein MPs in flat expenses row..... Hundreds continuing Tamils protest..... Husband in court over model murder..... Airport set to charge drop-off fee..... Bishop hits out over Goody outburst.....
No increase: TfL chief Peter Hendy, left, will have his pay frozen on the orders of the Mayor
Boris tells TfL bosses they must slash their bonuses and salaries
Andrew Gilligan
08.04.09
Look here too
Mayor's top adviser backs Charles in row over barracks scheme
Music festival falls victim to lack of funds
LONDON transport chiefs are to have their pay frozen and their bonuses slashed on the orders of the Mayor Boris Johnson.
Transport for London Commissioner Peter Hendy will see no increase in his annual base salary of around £340,000 this year and has also been told that his annual bonus must be cut from a potential £170,000 to a maximum of £75,000.
This is substantially less than Mr Hendy has previously received. In 2006/7, the last year for which figures are available, he was paid a bonus of £115,000. The pay freeze will also cost him around £10,000 that he expected to receive as an inflation-related increase on his base salary.
TfL today insisted it accepted the cuts and would formally propose them to the board this month.
The bonus paid to Tim O'Toole, outgoing managing director of the Underground, has been cut from a potential £130,000 to a maximum of £70,000. The bonuses for all other senior TfL directors are capped at £50,000 - in most cases less than they previously received. The actual amounts of each manager's bonus will be decided by a TfL remuneration committee up to the City Hall-imposed cap.
City Hall sources said the cuts were necessary to reflect the growing strain on TfL's finances in the recession. The organisation is faced with falling passenger revenues along with growing demands for huge capital spending on projects such as Crossrail.
The Standard has learned TfL's overall bonus budget for the financial year 2008/9 was to have been £12.6 million - of which almost half, £5.7 million, was to have been allocated to a few dozen senior managers.
The rest was to have been shared among TfL's other staff, with around 13,000 operational employees, such as train drivers and ticket collectors, getting bonuses of £500 each and 6,000 junior managers and administrative staff sharing a bonus pot of about £300,000.
The bonuses for the junior ranks will remain but the value of the senior bonus scheme will be cut by around £1 million, with the biggest cuts coming at the top end of the pay scale. The cuts come amid growing controversy about TfL's large number of highly-paid senior staff.
Freedom of Information requests by the Standard revealed that in 2007/8,123 TfL managers earned more than £100,000 a year.
The average salary of TfL's six-figure managers is higher than the Mayor's. Fifteen TfL bosses, including the director of marketing, earn more than the Prime Minister. Only 16 of the 123 top earners, however, were directly involved in operating bus and train services.
TfL has pledged to cut costs by a total of about £250 million a year over the next nine years but Mr Hendy recently said the target was proving "challenging."
A TfL spokesman said: "Proposals to freeze senior pay and bonuses will be considered by the TfL board's remuneration committee."
KHOODEELAAR! action against the agenda of suppression, lies and sleaze Big Business-Facilitating STOOGED UK Parliament that rubber stamped CROSSRAIL
0755 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! action against the agenda of suppression, lies and sleaze Big Business-Facilitating STOOGED UK Parliament that rubber stamped CROSSRAIL scam
KHOODEELAAR! action against the agenda of suppression, lies and sleaze Big Business-Facilitating STOOGED UK Parliament that rubber stamped CROSSRAIL scam
KHOODEELAAR! action commentary against the crass agenda of Big Business Crossrail that is a contempt of democracy...
0448 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009:
KHOODEELAAR! No to Big Business poverty-creating, poverty-perpetuating, poverty-perpetrating CrossRail scam agenda-peddlers, touts and stooges on the ‘local’ Tower Hamlets Council… updating the contextual and comprehensive context of opposition to that agenda and the advancement of the evidential ground and reason for the scrapping of the Crossrail agenda by Gordon Brown.. If Brown does not scrap the CRASS rail scam then that failure or refusal will only reinforce the view that he has not got the democratic power to represent the truth as against the dictates of Big Business of which Crossrail is the current symbol and evidence…By boosting the pockets of crooks that are allowed to pose as ‘elected’ holders of publicly-paid for posts that are then employed solely to undermine local people and to impose the agenda of Big Business and their stooged operatives masquerading as agents of [the allegedly ‘democracy-mandated’] [and even more ridiculously: democratically installed ] UK central Government, the operators and the implementers of the “Blaired Regime Fronted by Gordon Brown” are only digging an even deeper hole for the consignment of their own petty careers … and for the creation of worse problems for society than any of the scripted sermons as delivered by the ridiculously light-weight performer Gordon Brown has shown to be able to foresee or recognise…POVERTY-Creation, jobs-loss, democracy-denial and the undermining of the environment are and have been the key features of the regime centrally and its repercussions being felt regionally and in the inner cities localities…… these are going to get even more difficult for the perpetrators and their masters and agenda-setter-mistresses to justify in the context of universally applicable and recognised and upholdable and valid and desirable Values than has been the case so far… How can it be a ‘Labour Government’ – to paraphrase the idiotic utterance in the 1980s by that stupidest of ‘leader’ Neil Kinnock - that is dismantling the almost plausible institutions of pro-democratic society that were built after centuries of battles and struggles? How can the player of the pathetic sermons-sounding scripts confected by agents of Big Business even imagine that his ploys have not been seen through? How can he ‘preside’ [!!!! He like Blair fancies himself as an ape of the occupying culture across the ‘big pond’ and designate himself as ‘president’] over the FURTHER SQUANDERING of the most precious of universal values [as opposed to his narrow, racist ignorantly contrived ‘vah-loos’] and not notice that he is at fault for not stopping the destruction… that he could start the process of bringing the destruction to an end by listening to sanity, to reason, to the truth and by showing respect and recognising the wisdom of the ordinary people who do not cause any multi -£billion consultancy fees or ‘procurement’ ‘bonuses?
[To be continued]
From the web site of the Independent London:
Johann Hari: Mayor Boris is a disaster on the two big issues of our day
He is making policy to insulate the very people who caused this crisis
Wednesday, 8 April 2009SHAREPRINT ARTICLE EMAIL ARTICLE TEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
Cripes and golly gosh: it's nearly a year since the outer ring of Londoners booted out Ken Livingstone and installed mop-topped Boris Johnson in the glittering glass testicle of City Hall. Liberal-lefties like me predicted BoJo – with his record of calling black children "piccanninies" and cheering when Bush refused to sign up to Kyoto – would be a disaster. But as far as the media coverage goes, it's been a quiet 12 months. So is Boris a better mayor than we thought? The answer needs to be absorbed across the country, because Boris's London is the test lab for David Cameron's "progressive conservatism" – a hint of what's waiting for us all after the next election.
Let's start with the positive. There have been two unexpected and excellent moves from the Mayor. He knows that most of Britain's half-a-million illegal immigrants have washed up in London, where they live in constant fear, can't approach the police, and face grinding, binding poverty. It's to his credit that he has called for an earned amnesty that will allow these people – who skivvy for us, and keep London's wheels turning – to come out of the shadows and live here legally.
He also changed the policy of the Greater London Authority so all its employees and contractors now have to pay their staff the "London Living Wage" of £7.45 an hour. This is the amount you need to earn so you don't fall below the poverty line – and it's made a hefty difference to thousands of people. And there's more: I think Boris's verbal acrobatics are to his credit. He doesn't talk in pre-processed politicsese but in a real, vivid language that doesn't send voters into a coma. The skills that made him an excellent comic novelist and poet make him a good – if odd – communicator.
Yet on the two great challenges of our time that threaten the future of London – the credit crunch and the climate crunch – Boris's policies have been shocking. As a commentator and MP, Boris was one of the most enthusiastic defenders of the deregulation of financial services, saying it would bring "an era of amazing prosperity". Once the model he cheered on began to collapse all around us, he lashed out – at the people who had been proved right.
He declared this winter that the British people should stop "whingeing" and succumbing to "neo-socialist claptrap". He then, astonishingly, became the only British politician I know of to continue to defend the "the sub-prime sector", saying: "These products allowed millions of Americans to own their own homes." When I read this quote to Paul Krugman, this year's Nobel Prize-winning economist, he said: "Wow. This is economically illiterate. The increase in home ownership by sub-prime mortgages has all been wiped out by repossessions. We're back where we were, only with all the terrible problems you see all around you, and massive debts for the people who took them out."
This isn't just a verbal outburst from Boris. He is making policy – and lobbying the Government hard – to insulate the very people who caused this crisis, and to rebuild their collapsed model. He says the Government's pathetically minor and overdue new regulations on the City are "a vindictive attack on one of the most successful industries in this country". He objects to even the pitifully low increase on the very richest people's taxes by just 5 per cent, claiming it is "not economically sensible". He is fighting to retain the system where Alan Sugar pays a lower proportion of his income in taxes than his secretary.
On the climate crisis, he is worse still. Until he ran for mayor, Boris opposed every single move to prevent the destabilisation of the climate, saying George Bush's trashing of Kyoto was "good for the world". But, like David Cameron, on the road to elected office he claimed to have a Damascene conversion and pledged "a greener, cleaner London". We need one, since this city is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Since millions of us live on flood plains, after Hurricane Katrina the London Assembly investigated our flood defences – and found many are "appalling."
But Boris in power has been true to his core beliefs. He has done everything he can to encourage car use, and binned Ken Livingstone's carbon-reduction plans. He has halved the size of the environment team, scrapped the expansion of the Congestion Charge to west London, postponed indefinitely the expansion of the city's "Low Emission Zones", and cancelled Ken's plans to charge ultra-polluting SUVs an extra £25 a day. Despite constantly inviting photographers to snap him on his bike, he has hacked £27m out of the budget for building cycle lanes, wrecking proposals for 300 new ones.
The political symbolism is exposed as a sham by the political reality. Other than planting a few trees, his environmental policy has been "totally appalling", according to Darren Johnson, the excellent Green member of the London Assembly.
And Boris is formulating all these policies as a part-time Mayor of London. He apparently can't live on a mere £130,000 a year, a wage that puts him in the top 0.5 per cent of British people, and 0.0001 per cent of human beings. So he makes two-thirds of his income not from the electorate but from the Barclay brothers, the mysterious right-wing billionaires who live as tax exiles on their own private island. They pay him for a weekly column in The Daily Telegraph. But doesn't London – especially at this time – deserve a full-time Mayor, accountable to us?
Boris has made other decisions that suggest darker policy decisions to come. He has appointed as his director of policy a journalist called Anthony Browne, who has claimed "there is little British left" about London, and that "Britain will be a foreign land" soon. He has raged against "the growing social fragmentation of Britain under the weight of Third World colonisation," blaming immigrants for spreading deadly diseases. His writings recycle preposterous urban myths as fact, like the claim that councils were banning black bin bags as "racist".
Browne has enthusiastically posted on a far-right US website V-Dare, named after Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World. The site is dedicated to exploring "whether the United States can survive as a nation-state" in the face of "mass immigration and affirmative action". The British National Party's member of the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, said of Browne's appointment: "I cannot help but think that this is at least a step in the right direction." Browne is now the main hand guiding Boris's policy-making.
What does all this suggest about how David Cameron would govern Britain? Like Boris, Cameron claims to be "a new kind of Conservative", committed to environmentalism and "a more moral capitalism". Like Boris, he claims to have undergone a Damascene conversion: until 2005, he was a standard right-wing backbencher who cheer-led deregulation, and whose only statement on green issues was to mock wind farms as "giant bird blenders".
The evidence from London suggests that, given power, he will make a few concessions to modernity on the margins – and regress to rampant right-wingery on the core issues. As George Osborne said cheerfully in 2002: "We have a lot to learn from George Bush's compassionate conservatism."
j.hari@independent.co.uk
KHOODEELAAR! No to Big Business poverty-creating, poverty-perpetuating, poverty-perpetrating CrossRail scam agenda-peddlers, touts and stooges on the ‘local’ Tower Hamlets Council… updating the contextual and comprehensive context of opposition to that agenda and the advancement of the evidential ground and reason for the scrapping of the Crossrail agenda by Gordon Brown.. If Brown does not scrap the CRASS rail scam then that failure or refusal will only reinforce the view that he has not got the democratic power to represent the truth as against the dictates of Big Business of which Crossrail is the current symbol and evidence…By boosting the pockets of crooks that are allowed to pose as ‘elected’ holders of publicly-paid for posts that are then employed solely to undermine local people and to impose the agenda of Big Business and their stooged operatives masquerading as agents of [the allegedly ‘democracy-mandated’] [and even more ridiculously: democratically installed ] UK central Government, the operators and the implementers of the “Blaired Regime Fronted by Gordon Brown” are only digging an even deeper hole for the consignment of their own petty careers … and for the creation of worse problems for society than any of the scripted sermons as delivered by the ridiculously light-weight performer Gordon Brown has shown to be able to foresee or recognise…POVERTY-Creation, jobs-loss, democracy-denial and the undermining of the environment are and have been the key features of the regime centrally and its repercussions being felt regionally and in the inner cities localities…… these are going to get even more difficult for the perpetrators and their masters and agenda-setter-mistresses to justify in the context of universally applicable and recognised and upholdable and valid and desirable Values than has been the case so far… How can it be a ‘Labour Government’ – to paraphrase the idiotic utterance in the 1980s by that stupidest of ‘leader’ Neil Kinnock - that is dismantling the almost plausible institutions of pro-democratic society that were built after centuries of battles and struggles? How can the player of the pathetic sermons-sounding scripts confected by agents of Big Business even imagine that his ploys have not been seen through? How can he ‘preside’ [!!!! He like Blair fancies himself as an ape of the occupying culture across the ‘big pond’ and designate himself as ‘president’] over the FURTHER SQUANDERING of the most precious of universal values [as opposed to his narrow, racist ignorantly contrived ‘vah-loos’] and not notice that he is at fault for not stopping the destruction… that he could start the process of bringing the destruction to an end by listening to sanity, to reason, to the truth and by showing respect and recognising the wisdom of the ordinary people who do not cause any multi -£billion consultancy fees or ‘procurement’ ‘bonuses?
[To be continued]
From the web site of the Independent London:
Johann Hari: Mayor Boris is a disaster on the two big issues of our day
He is making policy to insulate the very people who caused this crisis
Wednesday, 8 April 2009SHAREPRINT ARTICLE EMAIL ARTICLE TEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
Cripes and golly gosh: it's nearly a year since the outer ring of Londoners booted out Ken Livingstone and installed mop-topped Boris Johnson in the glittering glass testicle of City Hall. Liberal-lefties like me predicted BoJo – with his record of calling black children "piccanninies" and cheering when Bush refused to sign up to Kyoto – would be a disaster. But as far as the media coverage goes, it's been a quiet 12 months. So is Boris a better mayor than we thought? The answer needs to be absorbed across the country, because Boris's London is the test lab for David Cameron's "progressive conservatism" – a hint of what's waiting for us all after the next election.
Let's start with the positive. There have been two unexpected and excellent moves from the Mayor. He knows that most of Britain's half-a-million illegal immigrants have washed up in London, where they live in constant fear, can't approach the police, and face grinding, binding poverty. It's to his credit that he has called for an earned amnesty that will allow these people – who skivvy for us, and keep London's wheels turning – to come out of the shadows and live here legally.
He also changed the policy of the Greater London Authority so all its employees and contractors now have to pay their staff the "London Living Wage" of £7.45 an hour. This is the amount you need to earn so you don't fall below the poverty line – and it's made a hefty difference to thousands of people. And there's more: I think Boris's verbal acrobatics are to his credit. He doesn't talk in pre-processed politicsese but in a real, vivid language that doesn't send voters into a coma. The skills that made him an excellent comic novelist and poet make him a good – if odd – communicator.
Yet on the two great challenges of our time that threaten the future of London – the credit crunch and the climate crunch – Boris's policies have been shocking. As a commentator and MP, Boris was one of the most enthusiastic defenders of the deregulation of financial services, saying it would bring "an era of amazing prosperity". Once the model he cheered on began to collapse all around us, he lashed out – at the people who had been proved right.
He declared this winter that the British people should stop "whingeing" and succumbing to "neo-socialist claptrap". He then, astonishingly, became the only British politician I know of to continue to defend the "the sub-prime sector", saying: "These products allowed millions of Americans to own their own homes." When I read this quote to Paul Krugman, this year's Nobel Prize-winning economist, he said: "Wow. This is economically illiterate. The increase in home ownership by sub-prime mortgages has all been wiped out by repossessions. We're back where we were, only with all the terrible problems you see all around you, and massive debts for the people who took them out."
This isn't just a verbal outburst from Boris. He is making policy – and lobbying the Government hard – to insulate the very people who caused this crisis, and to rebuild their collapsed model. He says the Government's pathetically minor and overdue new regulations on the City are "a vindictive attack on one of the most successful industries in this country". He objects to even the pitifully low increase on the very richest people's taxes by just 5 per cent, claiming it is "not economically sensible". He is fighting to retain the system where Alan Sugar pays a lower proportion of his income in taxes than his secretary.
On the climate crisis, he is worse still. Until he ran for mayor, Boris opposed every single move to prevent the destabilisation of the climate, saying George Bush's trashing of Kyoto was "good for the world". But, like David Cameron, on the road to elected office he claimed to have a Damascene conversion and pledged "a greener, cleaner London". We need one, since this city is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Since millions of us live on flood plains, after Hurricane Katrina the London Assembly investigated our flood defences – and found many are "appalling."
But Boris in power has been true to his core beliefs. He has done everything he can to encourage car use, and binned Ken Livingstone's carbon-reduction plans. He has halved the size of the environment team, scrapped the expansion of the Congestion Charge to west London, postponed indefinitely the expansion of the city's "Low Emission Zones", and cancelled Ken's plans to charge ultra-polluting SUVs an extra £25 a day. Despite constantly inviting photographers to snap him on his bike, he has hacked £27m out of the budget for building cycle lanes, wrecking proposals for 300 new ones.
The political symbolism is exposed as a sham by the political reality. Other than planting a few trees, his environmental policy has been "totally appalling", according to Darren Johnson, the excellent Green member of the London Assembly.
And Boris is formulating all these policies as a part-time Mayor of London. He apparently can't live on a mere £130,000 a year, a wage that puts him in the top 0.5 per cent of British people, and 0.0001 per cent of human beings. So he makes two-thirds of his income not from the electorate but from the Barclay brothers, the mysterious right-wing billionaires who live as tax exiles on their own private island. They pay him for a weekly column in The Daily Telegraph. But doesn't London – especially at this time – deserve a full-time Mayor, accountable to us?
Boris has made other decisions that suggest darker policy decisions to come. He has appointed as his director of policy a journalist called Anthony Browne, who has claimed "there is little British left" about London, and that "Britain will be a foreign land" soon. He has raged against "the growing social fragmentation of Britain under the weight of Third World colonisation," blaming immigrants for spreading deadly diseases. His writings recycle preposterous urban myths as fact, like the claim that councils were banning black bin bags as "racist".
Browne has enthusiastically posted on a far-right US website V-Dare, named after Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World. The site is dedicated to exploring "whether the United States can survive as a nation-state" in the face of "mass immigration and affirmative action". The British National Party's member of the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, said of Browne's appointment: "I cannot help but think that this is at least a step in the right direction." Browne is now the main hand guiding Boris's policy-making.
What does all this suggest about how David Cameron would govern Britain? Like Boris, Cameron claims to be "a new kind of Conservative", committed to environmentalism and "a more moral capitalism". Like Boris, he claims to have undergone a Damascene conversion: until 2005, he was a standard right-wing backbencher who cheer-led deregulation, and whose only statement on green issues was to mock wind farms as "giant bird blenders".
The evidence from London suggests that, given power, he will make a few concessions to modernity on the margins – and regress to rampant right-wingery on the core issues. As George Osborne said cheerfully in 2002: "We have a lot to learn from George Bush's compassionate conservatism."
j.hari@independent.co.uk
KHOODEELAAR! action commentary against waste of public money by Crossrail scam-Big Business agenda courier Government..
0428 [0235] Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! action commentary against waste of public money by Crossrail scam-Big Business agenda courier Government..
0228 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009:
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! That Big Business Crossrail scam-peddling outfits behind the ‘Crossrail Act’ are callous..
When even the DAILY TELEGRAPH, of all parts of the mainstream media in Blaired Britain, is decrying the shortage of money being experienced by schools in Britain, today, when RBS is shedding ordinary employees and more and more people are being thrown into jobless holes, when even the London EVENING standards STANDARD is reporting Brown’s £40 Billion debts hole, BECHTEL is announcing that it is ‘pleased’ at grabbing hold of the key publicly-funded segments of the Crossrail scam... For BECHTEL knows that it still controls Gordon Brown’s agenda... just as it knows that other members of the war-mongering ‘economic principles’ [!!!] machine, the Military Industrial Complex that defies all of Gordon Brown’s over-faked ‘vah-loos’ is above all implications and consequences and demands of accountability, ethics and, demands for accountability... It knows that ordinary rules of economics are not for the Military Industrial complex to follow.. it is for ordinary people who pay for the greed and the callousness and the selfishness of the MIC and the Big Business... Gordon Brown is a prisoner in the hall of greed controlled by the likes of Crossrail Bechtel... Brown can spout the odd sermon and he can plead for the almost natural emergence of solutions to problems that are NOT caused by nature.. problem s that have been caused b y greed and by Big Business greed and hold on the political institutions.. On the players who play power via stooged parliament where Gordon Brown plays fakery.. with the connivance of his co-stooged leaders who too make their own bids as appearing to be in control of what they falsely claim to be democracy ... The cracy is in truth a Dummocracy where the rights to universal democratic say are openly defiled and stampled on, as is seen daily in and on the streets of Britain... When EVEN the Crossrail scam-peddling Guardian ‘obtains’ [as it was put late last night by the State-approved and State-promoting BBC NEWS Channel presenter Tim Willcox, who too has callously peddled the 2012 Olympic Games hosting propaganda and Crossrail scams] footage of police link to violence towards Mr Tomlinson an innocent passerby walking across the City of London during the strange demo against G20, there has got to be serious Parliamentary action against the decline of democratic freedom in Britain and there will NOT be any outcry of any significance in parliament as and if and when PARLIAMENT returns after the Christian religious holiday break that is currently on....…. There is no democratic fervour or commitment EVEN in the utterances of Vincent Cable, the Lib Dem post-holder who has been so hyped up that even KHOODEELAAR! the main outside commentator to first record the recognition of Cable’s ‘contributions, is no longer able or prepared to support any claim that Cable is a democratic role model, far less THE role model in the context of the UK Parliament, a status that Cable is being given by the plugs offered to him on the MAIL ON SUNDAY amongst others... No organ of ’British democracy’ is working now for the people... And it is KHOODEELAAR! campaign based in inner city East End of London that is pointing out this on the record that the so-called left, who boast of being ‘British socialists’ are not ANYWHERE near the centre of political action in this country...Those who pretend to be ‘socialists’ are in essence parts and parcels of the status quo, the British version of what used to be the so-called Eastern Bloc dictatorships... For Brown is in essence operating a dictatorship that Blair continued and revived from the era of Thatcher...And the contrast between the repressive regressive racist imperialist propensities in Britain with the realities in the world where EVEN the USA ‘political’ faces are now beginning to show [and that after the OTT stunts staged in London over the G20] that they are prepared to admit that the USA had been wrong on so many things and in so many countries in the world.…. [To be continued]
Bechtel "pleased" to land £400M Crossrail delivery partner role
1 April, 2009 | Updated: 1 April, 2009 10:47 pm | By Mark Hansford
The £400M Crossrail project delivery partner role has been to the Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra consortium, after three weeks of behind the scenes negotiations.
Bechtel and its partners Halcrow and Systra will take on responsibility for delivering the complex central tunnelled section of London’s £16bn Crossrail scheme.
The decision follows a three week delay, while “technical issues” relating to European Union procurement rules were ironed out. The consortium will be responsible for the design and management of the 21km tunnelled section.
Losing consortia were: Legacy 3 (Parsons Brinckerhoff/Balfour Beatty/Davis Langdon), Laing O’Rourke/Atkins and Capita Symonds/Northcroft.
The Bechtel, Halcrow, and Systra consortium said it was “extremely pleased” at the announcement.
Speaking on behalf of the three companies, Bechtel senior vice president Cliff Mumm said: “We are extremely pleased to hear today’s announcement. This is one of the most important and exciting construction projects in the world.
“We believe that we offer a proven, tried, and tested team, ready to deliver for London. We have a track record of managing large scale infrastructure projects on time and on budget, notably High Speed 1. We have complementary skills: Bechtel brings world-class project management, Halcrow is a multi-disciplinary consultancy offering world-class rail and tunnelling experience, and Systra is a world leader in railway systems, bringing technical expertise proven on the Paris RER network. The team has a wealth of experience of infrastructure projects in London.
“We are pleased that we will now have the opportunity to bring these skills to bear for the benefit of Crossrail and London.”
The team will be led by Mumm, who has substantial experience in managing large, complex, multi-disciplinary projects. He has been responsible for major civil infrastructure projects including railways; buildings; roads; bridges; water and wastewater facilities; airports; and power projects in the UK, Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the USA.
When Bechtel was called in to complete London Underground’s Jubilee Line extension in less than a year, with two years worth of work to go, Mumm led his team to an on-time completion and received an honorary CBE for his outstanding achievements.
The decision to appoint Bechtel completes the senior management line-up for the project following the appointment in recent weeks of Transcend as programme partner. This role is one of strategic programme management, or one of “seamless integration with the client team”, as Crossrail procurement director Steve Rowsell described it in NCE’s Building Crossrail supplement.
The delivery partner in contrast will need the “hard-nosed skills”, according to Rowsell, “albeit within a partnering approach”. It is arguably the biggest job on the project and the as a result Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra are expected to commit “significant resources” and people to the job.
“The selection of the Project Delivery Partner following such a competitive procurement process marks a significant milestone in the delivery of Crossrail,” said Non-Executive Chairman of Crossrail Douglas Oakervee. “With the appointment of Bechtel Ltd as Project Delivery Partner Crossrail will have world class expertise in place to oversee the project management of this new railway and delivery of the Crossrail tunnels through central London and on to Docklands and Woolwich.”
Preparatory works will continue throughout 2009. The main Crossrail construction starts in 2010. Crossrail is scheduled to open for service in 2017. Crossrail is promoted by Crossrail Limited (CRL). CRL became a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London on 5 December 2008.
KHOODEELAAR! action commentary against waste of public money by Crossrail scam-Big Business agenda courier Government..
0228 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 8 April 2009:
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! That Big Business Crossrail scam-peddling outfits behind the ‘Crossrail Act’ are callous..
When even the DAILY TELEGRAPH, of all parts of the mainstream media in Blaired Britain, is decrying the shortage of money being experienced by schools in Britain, today, when RBS is shedding ordinary employees and more and more people are being thrown into jobless holes, when even the London EVENING standards STANDARD is reporting Brown’s £40 Billion debts hole, BECHTEL is announcing that it is ‘pleased’ at grabbing hold of the key publicly-funded segments of the Crossrail scam... For BECHTEL knows that it still controls Gordon Brown’s agenda... just as it knows that other members of the war-mongering ‘economic principles’ [!!!] machine, the Military Industrial Complex that defies all of Gordon Brown’s over-faked ‘vah-loos’ is above all implications and consequences and demands of accountability, ethics and, demands for accountability... It knows that ordinary rules of economics are not for the Military Industrial complex to follow.. it is for ordinary people who pay for the greed and the callousness and the selfishness of the MIC and the Big Business... Gordon Brown is a prisoner in the hall of greed controlled by the likes of Crossrail Bechtel... Brown can spout the odd sermon and he can plead for the almost natural emergence of solutions to problems that are NOT caused by nature.. problem s that have been caused b y greed and by Big Business greed and hold on the political institutions.. On the players who play power via stooged parliament where Gordon Brown plays fakery.. with the connivance of his co-stooged leaders who too make their own bids as appearing to be in control of what they falsely claim to be democracy ... The cracy is in truth a Dummocracy where the rights to universal democratic say are openly defiled and stampled on, as is seen daily in and on the streets of Britain... When EVEN the Crossrail scam-peddling Guardian ‘obtains’ [as it was put late last night by the State-approved and State-promoting BBC NEWS Channel presenter Tim Willcox, who too has callously peddled the 2012 Olympic Games hosting propaganda and Crossrail scams] footage of police link to violence towards Mr Tomlinson an innocent passerby walking across the City of London during the strange demo against G20, there has got to be serious Parliamentary action against the decline of democratic freedom in Britain and there will NOT be any outcry of any significance in parliament as and if and when PARLIAMENT returns after the Christian religious holiday break that is currently on....…. There is no democratic fervour or commitment EVEN in the utterances of Vincent Cable, the Lib Dem post-holder who has been so hyped up that even KHOODEELAAR! the main outside commentator to first record the recognition of Cable’s ‘contributions, is no longer able or prepared to support any claim that Cable is a democratic role model, far less THE role model in the context of the UK Parliament, a status that Cable is being given by the plugs offered to him on the MAIL ON SUNDAY amongst others... No organ of ’British democracy’ is working now for the people... And it is KHOODEELAAR! campaign based in inner city East End of London that is pointing out this on the record that the so-called left, who boast of being ‘British socialists’ are not ANYWHERE near the centre of political action in this country...Those who pretend to be ‘socialists’ are in essence parts and parcels of the status quo, the British version of what used to be the so-called Eastern Bloc dictatorships... For Brown is in essence operating a dictatorship that Blair continued and revived from the era of Thatcher...And the contrast between the repressive regressive racist imperialist propensities in Britain with the realities in the world where EVEN the USA ‘political’ faces are now beginning to show [and that after the OTT stunts staged in London over the G20] that they are prepared to admit that the USA had been wrong on so many things and in so many countries in the world.…. [To be continued]
Bechtel "pleased" to land £400M Crossrail delivery partner role
1 April, 2009 | Updated: 1 April, 2009 10:47 pm | By Mark Hansford
The £400M Crossrail project delivery partner role has been to the Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra consortium, after three weeks of behind the scenes negotiations.
Bechtel and its partners Halcrow and Systra will take on responsibility for delivering the complex central tunnelled section of London’s £16bn Crossrail scheme.
The decision follows a three week delay, while “technical issues” relating to European Union procurement rules were ironed out. The consortium will be responsible for the design and management of the 21km tunnelled section.
Losing consortia were: Legacy 3 (Parsons Brinckerhoff/Balfour Beatty/Davis Langdon), Laing O’Rourke/Atkins and Capita Symonds/Northcroft.
The Bechtel, Halcrow, and Systra consortium said it was “extremely pleased” at the announcement.
Speaking on behalf of the three companies, Bechtel senior vice president Cliff Mumm said: “We are extremely pleased to hear today’s announcement. This is one of the most important and exciting construction projects in the world.
“We believe that we offer a proven, tried, and tested team, ready to deliver for London. We have a track record of managing large scale infrastructure projects on time and on budget, notably High Speed 1. We have complementary skills: Bechtel brings world-class project management, Halcrow is a multi-disciplinary consultancy offering world-class rail and tunnelling experience, and Systra is a world leader in railway systems, bringing technical expertise proven on the Paris RER network. The team has a wealth of experience of infrastructure projects in London.
“We are pleased that we will now have the opportunity to bring these skills to bear for the benefit of Crossrail and London.”
The team will be led by Mumm, who has substantial experience in managing large, complex, multi-disciplinary projects. He has been responsible for major civil infrastructure projects including railways; buildings; roads; bridges; water and wastewater facilities; airports; and power projects in the UK, Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the USA.
When Bechtel was called in to complete London Underground’s Jubilee Line extension in less than a year, with two years worth of work to go, Mumm led his team to an on-time completion and received an honorary CBE for his outstanding achievements.
The decision to appoint Bechtel completes the senior management line-up for the project following the appointment in recent weeks of Transcend as programme partner. This role is one of strategic programme management, or one of “seamless integration with the client team”, as Crossrail procurement director Steve Rowsell described it in NCE’s Building Crossrail supplement.
The delivery partner in contrast will need the “hard-nosed skills”, according to Rowsell, “albeit within a partnering approach”. It is arguably the biggest job on the project and the as a result Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra are expected to commit “significant resources” and people to the job.
“The selection of the Project Delivery Partner following such a competitive procurement process marks a significant milestone in the delivery of Crossrail,” said Non-Executive Chairman of Crossrail Douglas Oakervee. “With the appointment of Bechtel Ltd as Project Delivery Partner Crossrail will have world class expertise in place to oversee the project management of this new railway and delivery of the Crossrail tunnels through central London and on to Docklands and Woolwich.”
Preparatory works will continue throughout 2009. The main Crossrail construction starts in 2010. Crossrail is scheduled to open for service in 2017. Crossrail is promoted by Crossrail Limited (CRL). CRL became a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London on 5 December 2008.