01 October 2015

Week in Brief: UK

CYBERCRIME: According to The Times, less than one in every hundred cases of online fraud is investigated by the police, with 3,200,000 frauds over the last year resulting in less than 9,000 being followed up. A computer program is used to identify which cases warrant action by the police.

Research carried out by a number of European universities is alleged to indicate that figures presented by Google to advertisers have been inflated by including hits which are known to have been machine generated. A spokesman for YouTube has said that such hits would be extracted from the system before the charge to advertisers is generated.

CONTAMINATION: Implants made by Silimed will not be used by surgeons in the UK until concerns over contamination have been cleared up.  Concerns were raised when German regulators withdrew its CE mark following an inspection of its Brazilian plant.  Silimed’s products are used for breast enlargements, muscle repair and gastric bands.

LABOUR LEADERSHIP: Mr Corbyn has indicated that he will regard as binding policy decisions made at the Labour Party conference. He has also indicated that Labour will now oppose the benefit cap, apparently differing from his work and pensions spokesman Owen Smith who has acknowledged that some limit is necessary.  His comment to the New Statesman that he has always supported a unified Ireland has drawn hostile reactions.

Mr Corbyn will go into the Labour Party conference against the background of unfavourable poll ratings. Although the results from Ipsos Mori showed that he was seen to have a better understanding of the issues of ordinary people, he fell well behind Mr Cameron on whether he would make a capable leader.  Overall the poll had the Conservatives at 39% and Labour at 34%.

FARMING: The shadow environmental secretary Kerry McCarthy has said that meat-eating should be treated like smoking, with a public campaign to discourage it.  Ms McCarthy, whose remit includes agriculture, is also against the consumption of dairy products.

TATLER TORY: Mark Clarke, the Conservative party activist who has been banned from the party conference for the alleged bullying of a young man who committed suicide, has denied all allegations of bullying and harassment.

BRITISH MUSEUM: German Hartwig Fischer is to take over at the British Museum when Neil MacGregor moves to lead the setting up of the Humboldt Forum at Berlin. Doctor Fischer, who is director of the Dresden State Art Collections, co-curated the Kandinsky exhibition which was shown at the Tate Modern in 2006.

DIESEL: An article in The Times indicates that the U.K.’s Department for Transport received a report eleven months ago from the International Council on Clean Transportation indicating that measures which reduced the nitrogen oxide count in tests might not be achieving a similar restriction on the road.  No action was taken at the time.

ELTON JOHN: Following an incident earlier this month when Elton John was called by Russian pranksters pretending to be Mr Putin, the singer has received a call from the Russian leader himself who indicated that he would be willing to meet Mr John if their schedules permitted it to discuss any issues of concern to him.

GUANTANAMO BAY: Shaker Aamer, the last Briton held at Guantanamo Bay, is to be released after nearly 14 years there. His family live in London. The US authorities allege he was an important figure in al-Qaeda and fought in Afghanistan. When captured there, he had a fake Belgian passport. It is anticipated that he will claim compensation from the UK Government, alleging complicity in his rendition and treatment.

UKIP: Douglas Carswell, the party’s only MP, has been fiercely attacked by Nigel Farage and a major party donor, Arron Banks, over his refusal to switch from one Eurosceptic campaign group, Eurosceptic Business for Britain, to another endorsed by Mr Farage and led by Mr Banks, Leave EU.

ASYLUM: 4,305 requests for asylum in the UK were made in July, the highest monthly figure since 2009 and the fourth highest in Europe.

EAST LONDON: A café in Shoreditch serving only breakfast cereal was attacked by a mob, some wearing pig masks, protesting at the gentrification of the area exemplified, in its view, by the sale of food at prices which the local community could not afford.

STEEL: Financially troubled Sahaviriya Steel Industries announced that it has decided to mothball its Redcar steel plant and lay off 1,700 of the 2,000 employees as a result of the collapse in the price of steel. SSI, which is controlled by Thai interests, bought the historic plant from Tata of India in 2011.

RUGBY WORLD CUP: After dominating play for most of the match, England contrived to lose to Wales 25 – 28. England’s captain Chris Robshaw has been criticised for deciding not to take a penalty kick at the end of the match which could have resulted in a draw. Scotland beat the USA 39 – 16.

HELP FOR HEROES: It appears that 5 recovery centres for service personnel established by the charity have been under-utilised to a significant extent. An ex-army officer, who was involved with the project, has alleged that it was badly handled by both the charity and the Ministry of Defence.

LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE: Jeremy Corbyn suffered a set-back when he failed to get Trident put on the agenda.

The Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said in his speech that he would reduce the deficit but without austerity. He said Labour would force ‘people like Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon, and Google and all the others to pay their fair share of taxes’, claiming that an additional £25 billion could be recovered from businesses. He also said Labour would introduce a real living wage higher than that proposed by the Tories and end the assessment of disabled peoples’ fitness to work.

Jeremy Corbyn’s leader’s speech was light on detail but expressed a wish for kinder politics. He repeated his commitment to the cancellation of Trident, the nationalisation of the railways and bringing academies back under the control of local authorities. He proposed maternity/paternity leave for the self-employed and attacked the Government’s involvement with Saudi Arabia. He said nothing about the deficit, immigration, the EU referendum or the loss of the General Election. It emerged afterwards that parts of the speech had been taken from one written in 2011 by a professional writer and offered to other Labour politicians.

MINICABS: Transport for London are proposing to introduce regulations which will impact companies such as Uber in the face of a sharp increase in the number of minicabs in the capital. They include a requirement that a minimum of five minutes elapse between a cab being booked and its arrival at the customer’s pick-up point and for all taxi companies to have a landline. Some argue the new rules are simply designed to protect black cab drivers from competition.

PRISONS: David Cameron announced that agreement has been reached with the Jamaican Government for the funding by the UK of a new gaol there which will enable it to repatriate Jamaicans held in UK prisons (over 600 currently).