A bad month for the orchestrators of corruption means that April’s been a good month for the rest of us. First we learned that Panama — best known for its excellent hats and canals — has become a hideaway for the hoarded gold of a global elite of corporates, oligarchs and politicians. Then an inquest into the Hillsborough disaster finally afforded justice to the families of its 96 victims, confirming that police, politicians and much of the media had lied about the cause of the disaster.
As these veils of secrecy were lifted, more routine bad news occurred; former, current and future Mayors of London made racist comments in public, and the government and junior doctors locked horns once again. Roll on May!
Justice for the 96
An inquest into the Hillsborough disaster, which claimed the lives of 96 people in 1989, found that the victims were unlawfully killed due to the failings of the police and ambulance services.
With fans exonerated of blame, the inquest has effectively confirmed the existence of a massive institutional cover-up. ‘Drunken, marauding fans’ were blamed for the crush, and reports manipulated by the force to support the police line. These slurs were repeated in the press and by numerous politicians, with The Sun falsely reporting that fans had urinated on police and picked the pockets of the dead.
The cover-up may never have been exposed were it not for the tenacious campaigning of the victims’ families, who fought for 27 years to uncover the truth surrounding the deaths of their loved ones.
Strike Two
The impasse continued as junior doctors and the BMA launched a two-day strike over the 26th and 27th of April. This time, the strike was all-out, with junior doctors completely withdrawing their labour between the hours of 8am and 5pm and consultants covering emergency cases. Disruption to NHS services was low.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is refusing to back down, and continues to assert his right to impose a controversial new contract. This contract will not only reduce hourly pay but has been condemned by a director of the World Health Organisation for violating the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Hunt’s supporters argue that the changes are necessary to create a ‘7-day NHS’. Critics respond that if the government wants to improve care, it should hire more doctors rather than squeezing an already overstretched workforce.
The dispute is developing into an increasingly bitter stand-off, with few signs of capitulation on either side. Hunt may see the strike as his own miner’s strike moment, with any concession to the BMA tantamount to a devastating political defeat.
Oh No BoJo
Mayor of London Boris Johnson found himself knee deep in yet another political row when he was accused of “dog whistle racism” towards Barack Obama by Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.
On an official visit to the UK, Obama said that leaving the EU was not in the UK’s national interest. Johnson strongly implied that this stance was due to Obama’s deep-seated Anglophobia, and “a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire”, citing Obama’s removal of a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office (it was replaced by one of Martin Luther King).
Obama is certainly no fan of Britain’s colonial past — his grandfather was imprisoned and tortured by the British during Kenya’s struggle for independence, but bringing in the President’s ethnic background as evidence of his anti-Britishness was a step too far for many politicians and columnists. Nicholas Soames, a Tory MP and Churchill’s grandson, condemned Johnson’s comments as “appalling”.
The episode was the latest in the Mayor of London’s rich and chequered history of offensive gaffes. In a 2004 article about the Hillsborough disaster, he pinned the blame on Liverpool fans and pondered Liverpudlians’ “peculiar and deeply unattractive psyche.”
Long Live Czechia!
The Czech Republic — the country that gave birth to Milan Kundera, Jan Hus, Franz Kafka and golden Pilsner — is no more. In its place, long live Czechia. The central European state filed an official request to the United Nations to change the short form of its English name, replacing the cumbersome ‘Czech Republic’.
The English name ‘Czechia’, which some have criticised for sounding a little too much like ‘Chechnya’, isn’t a modern innovation. It was first used in 1841, and has long been one of the options to resolve the naming dispute.
Ken’s Anti-Semitic Suspension
Hot on the heels of Boris, former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone found himself in the centre of a storm after he said that Adolf Hitler had been a supporter of Zionism (the belief that Israel should be a Jewish state). The remarks caused an outcry within the party, and Livingstone was suspended. John Mann, a Labour MP and head of the Parliamentary group tasked with stamping out anti-Semitism, publicly confronted Livingstone, calling him a “liar” and a “Nazi apologist.”
The former Mayor seemed content to fan the flames, refusing to retract or apologise for his remarks, saying he was simply quoting historical fact. During a television appearance later in the day he mounted a somewhat incriminating defence of his anti-racist credentials, saying “a real anti-Semite doesn’t just hate the Jews in Israel.”
Livingstone had been defending Labour MP Naz Shah, who was suspended after journalists uncovered one of her Facebook posts saying that Israel should be relocated to the USA.
Labour has faced mounting criticism for the perceived anti-Semitism of some of its members, particularly among those most loyal to Jeremy Corbyn.
Panama Papers
Millions of documents containing confidential details of offshore account holders were leaked from law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca. The 11.5 million papers revealed that numerous high profile individuals, including heads of state, were hiding assets offshore. Among those implicated were close associates of Vladimir Putin and David Cameron’s father. David Cameron just managed to clear his name after publishing his tax return, and valiantly mounted his high horse to demand that Britain’s huddled masses stop being so rude about rich people.
The Russian President is not actually named in any of the documents. Putin managed to dodge the affair with characteristic panache, alleging that the leak was an elaborate ploy by the US government to destabilise Russia. Russian state media backed him up, pointing to a nefarious conspiracy between American billionaire George Soros and the US Agency for International Development.
Holding assets offshore, for the purposes of tax avoidance or otherwise, is not necessarily illegal. However, when senior political figures use offshore accounts it does suggest that they are keen to conceal the source of their wealth.
The Great Brazilian Reef
Good news for biodiversity as a huge coral reef system was discovered near the mouth of the Amazon. The reef, which is 600 miles long and covers an area almost half the size of Wales, doesn’t quite rival the Great Barrier Reef in terms of sea life, but scientists have already found over 70 species of fish, as well as a host of crustaceans living within it. The system eluded scientists for so long because of its unusual location. It wasn’t thought possible for a reef to grow near the mouth of a large river. Coral is usually found in clear, shallow water, rather than the ‘turbid’ and ‘goopy’ conditions at the mouth of the Amazon.
Parts of the sea bed where the reef was found had already been sold to oil companies by the Brazilian government. The reef’s biodiversity is already under threat, as drilling and exploration are thought to be taking place right on top of it.
Weapons of Reason issue #3: The New Old, is available to order now.
