Garlanded with awards, “The King’s Speech” has been for many people the film of the year.

Although there are a number of historical niggles – for example, unlike in the film, in reality Winston Churchill was a supporter of King Edward VIII’s right to marry Mrs Simpson and keep the Crown, it was nevertheless a good film.

So if we are not worried about historical accuracy, why didn’t they go all the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrSReCr3214

The Islington Gazette has the headline of the week:

“Holloway teen jailed after police discover crack in his bum”

Hat tip: Snipe

A few months I half-flippantly suggested that now that malware producers were offering their services via Twitter the next stop was an iPhone app.

Now I gather a “game” has been developed that links GPS technology in a iPhone app, so that:

“The application allows drug dealers to post prices for narcotics such as cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana.  A convenient built-in calculator automatically determines the prices in gram increments.  Prices can be set by location, so that the price offered in Bogota is cheaper than than in New York or Paris.  Moreover, the dealer’s prices are visible to their potential clients from within the app and can be adjusted in real-time in response to supply and demand.

Upon launching the app, drug-users can graphically view the location of all the nearest drug dealers on a lovely Google map and dealer and client can each navigate to each other to complete the buy.  The app even allows for price comparisons between dealers and prices can be further negotiated by exchanging private messages between pusher and purchaser.

The app even has an efficient reputation management system built-in so that clients can provide feedback on their dealers, allowing for comparison of quality and service.  “1 star only for Fast Freddy—that powder he sold me was baking powder.  There goes $100 down the drain!  Avoid Freddy at all costs—he’s a cheat.” What an efficient marketplace!”

Watch it here:

The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM DCiC* and Putative Deputy MOPC** (pronounced “Mopsy”) is in the Chair.  He has mellowed slightly since the beginning of the meeting.

Joanne McCartney AM was first on the buzzer to raise the vexed question of the Commissioner’s dinner companions, but Baroness Dee Doocey AM was quick to get in on the act.  They were following up yesterday’s Guardian story which dramatically headlined:

Phone hacking: Senior Met officers dined with News of the World editors

- actually for Baroness Doocey following up may be the wrong word as she was quoted in the story and it related to information provided to MPA members a few hours/minutes before the Guardian published it.

Deputy Commissioner Tim Godwin rushed to defend his boss, Sir Paul Stephenson (who is still away recuperating from surgery).  One of the unavoidable tasks of being Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis is to meet stake-holders, opinion-formers and the like.  And apparently – also unavoidably – some of these encounters have to take place over dinner.

No, he wouldn’t meet for dinner someone under personal criminal investigation, but if it was someone in a hierarchy that wouldn’t preclude meeting someone further up that hierarchy.

So, if Ronnie Kray was under investigation, the Commissioner wouldn’t meet him, but, if Reggie Kray was the more senior twin and not under current investigation, dinner in The Blind Beggar would be fine.

Actually, the reality is that for Sir Paul Stephenson, journalists feature even lower down the list of desired dinner companions than MPA members.  This was duty not choice.

*Dog Catcher in Chief

**Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime

BBC Radio 4′s “World Tonight”:

“Q:  So what do you know about the situation in Tripoli?

A: Well most of what I can tell you is from watching television all day.”

The lead story on the front page of today’s Sunday Times (behind the paywall) proclaims “China gives £50 million aid for Olympics” and reports that:

“A Chinese company is offering Britain £50 million of ‘aid’ to put in a free mobile phone network in time for the Olympics.

Huawei, one of the worlds biggest telecoms equipment firms, is presenting the offer for the London Underground as a gift from one Olympic host nation to another.”

This proposal has the support of Mayor Boris Johnson.

However, as the Sunday Times warns:

“The offer has been made only two years after intelligence chiefs warned that China could have the capabilityto shut down Britain by bringing down its telecoms and utilities systems.

They raised fears that equipment already installed by Huawei in BT’s network could be used to cripple vital services.

A deal would see Huawei, which has close military links, install mobile transmitters along the ceilings of tunnels so that commuters can make and receive calls for the first time while travelling underground.”

I have been concerned about Huawei for some time.  We are breath-takingly complacent about the vulnerability of our critical national infrastructure and – particularly in the current economic climate – there seems to be no appetite from the Government to prevent huge chunks of it falling into foreign hands.

This is potentially another example – aided and abetted by Mayor Boris Johnson.

Not all Tories are so relaxed (and Mayor Johnson has a reputation for being very relaxed!): Patrick Mercer MP has pointed out:

“… it absolutely answers a terrorists’ prayers to be able to detonate devices on the Underground.  …  It has been proven that a proportion of the cyber attacks on this country come from China.  I wonder when the eyes of the world are upon us whether there is sense in using a Chinese firm to install a sensitive mobile network.”

These are serious matters and a serious London Mayor should not complacently give his support, presumably he hopes that if his eyes are firmly closed and his fingers are crossed that it will all be OK.

Conservatives don’t like Europe.  In fact, they don’t like abroad generally.  However, it is also clear that they don’t care about Britain’s place in the world.

Hence, the cuts in the BBC World Service.

Jeremy Paxman in today’s Guardian sums it up:

I missed the article earlier this week in the British Medical Journal, in which Brian Deer sets out how the vaccine crisis sparked off by Dr Andrew Wakefield’s false claims about a link between the MMR vaccine, autism and bowel disease was intended to support secret businesses that were intended to make huge sums of money in Britain and America.

I would have expected this to attract a large amount of attention – particularly in those newspapers who covered Wakefield’s original claims in so much detail and carried on doing so even as they became increasingly discredited.  So far – in an admittedly cursory glance – the only coverage I can find is in The Sun:

“DISGRACED doctor Andrew Wakefield plotted to make £28million a year from the MMR jab panic he triggered, it emerged last night.

Wakefield – struck off last year – aimed to set up secret businesses to cash in on fears that the triple inoculation was linked to autism.

The ex-surgeon thought he could make a fortune in clinics offering parents diagnostic tests for their children so they could possibly sue health authorities.

Wakefield, 53, hoped to make even more by supplying “replacement” vaccines. But he had not even completed his MMR research – later discredited by experts – when he met managers at a top medical school to discuss business ventures.” 

I have to admit that I am not a regular listener to BBC Radio 4′s ‘Moneybox’ consumer advice programme. However, I happened to be listening to the first part of today’s programme and heard the presenter, Paul Lewis (whom I knew years ago when he was Deputy Director of the National Council for One Parent Families and we were both involved in the National Fuel Poverty Forum), explain to listeners that as a result of the Chancellor’s decision to raise VAT to 20% the public was now paying a fifth of the shop price as tax on non-exempt items.
At the risk of sounding like an old f*rt, I have to point out that he was, of course, wrong.
(For the arithmetically challenged, the correct answer is a sixth – if the base price of an item is £100, VAT of 20% brings the shop price to £120, so £20 or one sixth of the purchase price goes in tax.)
No doubt, the Chancellor might have liked to clobber those on low incomes even harder, but the fact is that he didn’t.
Presumably, Jeremy Hunt (not the biggest fan of the BBC given the famous ‘Today’ spoonerism) will see this as yet another example of BBC political bias.
I fear, however, that the most likely explanation is incompetence. The programme’s script-writers cannot do simple maths.
But it is a bit worrying for a programme that is supposed to provide its listeners with financial advice.

err ……. Yes!