Institutional Corruption.

The report also found that one of the detectives at the heart of the investigation into Stephen's murder was corrupt and had links with the gangster father of one of his killers.

The officer allegedly reported back to his superiors with "personal evidence" about the family and "tactical intelligence" to help brief senior figures in the Metropolitan Police. 

This revelation is  scandalous but it surely undermines the conclusion that William Macpherson's infamous report made- that the police were institutionally racist. If it is the case that one of the officers investigating the murder had links to a suspect's family then there is a more direct explanation for the failures of the initial investigation. One which has nothing to do with race.

Macpherson's methodology was shoddy- he arbitrarily attributed all failings to racism despite a lack of evidence. In doing this he made little or no effort to consider other reasons- like police corruption.

Given the numerous occasions on which police cover ups and crookedness have been uncovered over the last twenty years it seems like corruption is more of an institutional issue for the police than racism.

Nice Business You've Got There- Shame If Anything Were To Happen To It

People often think of the relationship between politicians and big business as being business corrupting politicians through the influence of their cash.

In actual fact the relationship seems to be more like a case of politicians seeking rent from business. Politicians know they control the ultimate levers of power and can in effect run a protection racket. As this piece on Microsoft in the late 1990s makes clear:

But it grated on Hatch and other senators that Gates didn't want to want to play the Washington game. Former Microsoft employee Michael Kinsley, a liberal, wrote of Gates: "He didn't want anything special from the government, except the freedom to build and sell software. If the government would leave him alone, he would leave the government alone."

This was a mistake. One lobbyist fumed about Gates to author Gary Rivlin: "You look at a guy like Gates, who's been arrogant and cheap and incredibly naive about politics. He genuinely believed that because he was creating jobs or whatever, that'd be enough."

Gates was "cheap" because Microsoft spent only $2 million on lobbying in 1997, and its PAC contributed less than $50,000 during the 1996 election cycle. "You can't say, 'We're better than that,' " a Microsoft lobbyist told me on Friday. "At some point, you get too big, and you can't just ignore Washington."

"You can sit there and say, 'We despise Washington and we don't want to have anything to do with them,' " the lobbyist said. "But guess what? We're going to have hearings about the [stuff] you do."

It's no shocker that lobbyists think companies should hire lobbyists. But so does Capitol Hill -- Orrin Hatch included.

In a 2000 speech to technology companies, Hatch called Microsoft "knuckle-headed and hard-nosed," according to Wired magazine. "I have given [Microsoft] advice, and they don't pay any attention to it." In that same speech, Hatch warned: "If you want to get involved in business, you should get involved in politics."
"The industry had an attitude that government should do what it needs to do but leave us alone," one Hill technology staffer complained to Business Week at the time. "Their hands-off approach to Washington will come back to haunt them."

After the Hatch hearings, Microsoft complied. Its PAC increased spending fivefold in each of the next two elections. In the 2010 elections, Microsoft's PAC contributed $2.3 million to House and Senate candidates. The PAC has contributed the maximum $10,000 to each of Hatch's last two campaigns.

I would regard the Leveson inquiry as of a similar ilk- News International's behaviour has undoubtedly been poor, but it is hard to believe the fact that Tom Watson- the leading MP behind the attack- is a noted loyalist of Gordon Brown is a coincidence. When he and other Labour MPs went beyond what had been dicussed at the committee and concluded that Rupert Murdoch was not a fit and proper person to run News Corp, it was similarly thuggish- if the press oppose us we try to sabotage their business.

Facts About Jeremy Hunt

1. He appears to have not made any effort to be impartial in a his quasi-judicial role overseeing the takeover bid for Sky by Rupert Murdoch.
2. He should be asked to resign.
3. He is a mate of David Cameron.
4. He won't be asked to resign.

The Clay Davis Effect

Black members of Congress are far more likely to be investigated for ethics violations than their white colleagues, and understandably some people are upset:

The facts say this: African-Americans make up 10 percent of the House, but as of the end of February, five of the sitting six named lawmakers under review by the House Ethics Committee are black. The pattern isn't new. At one point in late 2009, seven lawmakers were known to be involved in formal House ethics inquiries; all were members of the Congressional Black Caucus. An eighth caucus member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, had also been under investigation, but his probe was halted temporarily while the Justice Department undertook an inquiry of its own.
All told, about one-third of sitting black lawmakers have been named in an ethics probe during their careers, according to a National Journal review.

This isn't too surprising given the existance of congressional districtsdesigned to ensure most voters are black. Most black representitives do not have to worry about appealing to non-black voters- this encourages politicians to play the race card to succeed and when elections become a matter of ethnic identity rather than competence or integrity- more corrupt individuals thrive.

This can be thought of as the Clay Davis effect:



It is also one reason why ethnically divided countries without a single demos tend to be more corrupt as voters take the attitude that they need a bigger crook representing them than their neighbours.

Police Baseball Team?

The case of the six police officers filmed smashing up a stolen car with baseball bats bothers me. The man who bought the stolen vehicle is a criminal who was trasnporting stolen goods at the time, so I don't feel sorry for him.

First of all they can clearly be seen smashing the car in places where it does not make it easier to open the door and remove the driver- who did not appear to be resisting in any case. Secondly why were the officers going round with baseball bats and pick axe handles anyway? Either they were part of the Met's baseball squad or they routinely go equipped to smash things up for no obvious reason.

Apparently the Enfield Crime Squad have been accused of corruption before, in light of the behaviour in the video it is difficult to believe that those accusations are untrue.

Why Is Pakistani Cricket Corrupt?

There is an idea that international sports stars get paid vast amounts for very little work. In the case of the Pakistani cricket team it really is not true- the basic salary for international cricketers is £22000. While that is a considerable sum in Pakistan, it probably goes fast if you are travelling the world almost non stop in countries where the cost of living is much more that in Pakistan.

With millions of pounds being made through betting on cricket and so little being paid to the players it is not difficult to see why so many of their players were corrupt.

So the next question is why are they paid so little and the answer to that seems to be that their is no competitive market for cricket players- the money is largely in international cricket (the IPL is a positive step in the other direction.and players cannot simply offer their services to the highest bidder.

Despite football having teams from nations even more corrupt than Pakistan there are few credible reports of match fixing in international football because the clubs will pay players from poor countries what they are worth.

From Top To Bottom

Russia and China come bottom of bribe-paying survey

Companies from Russia and China are most likely to pay bribes when doing business abroad, a survey suggests.

Surely that puts them top of the bribe paying survey. It's like when people talk about "one of the worst serial killers" it's always actually one of the best ones whose killed loads of people.

Bad Job Interview Techniques

A woman is released from jail after police officer is found to have planted evidence. So how did this fabrication come to light?

The fabrication emerged after Harding, seeking a job with the CIA, bragged that he had fabricated evidence, apparently to impress the interviewer. The CIA notified New York authorities, and the investigation began, eventually leading to several other investigators to plead guilty to evidence tampering or fabrication, and the re-opening of several criminal cases.

It does suggest that this sort of corruption wasn't seen as outlandish in his own police force, if he thought it was something that would impress other law enforcement agencies, which is slightly disturbing.

Via

Title

I'm sceptical about the benefits of hosting big sporting events like the World Cup, so I'm not too upset that England did not win. However the brazenness of FIFAs corruption is startling. The fact the the two winners of the contests to host the 2018 & 2022 events (Russia and Qatar) were also the two countries whose shortcomings were highlighted by FIFA's own technical committee demonstrates that they could not possibly have believed that they were the best bids. Qatar isn't much more than a city state and absolutely tiny compared to any cup host since Uruguay in 1930. Russia has the opposite problem- utter vastness with poor transport links. The one thing the two countries do have in common is a willingness to bribe FIFA officials.


It also shows what a waste of time England's kowtowing to FIFA's crooks was, appeasing the likes of this guy by sending the England team halfway across the world is not only undignified but also a waste of time. They were always going to be outbid by even more overtly corrupt.

I suspect that by diminishing their prestige event so badly they have ensured that the future of the game lies with the clubs.

Minorities Not Hardest Hit

On a weekly basis an article will appear in the Guardian or Independent claiming that ethnic minorities will be hardest hit by the cuts in public spending. However the coalition government's dedication to keeping the WaBenzi in the style to which they are accustomed belies the idea that they don't care about black people.

Policing The Police

Apparently the police are free to confiscate people's property and refuse to return even after they have been ordered to by a judge. After trying to prosecute somebody for possessing child pornography even though they knew that he was in possession of the material due to being an expert witness for the defence team of somebody who had been charged with possessing it, they then refused to return it after being ordered to by a court.

So what happened to the Chief Constable who had refused to obey the law? Nothing:

Mr Port put his 35-year career on the line by refusing to comply with a High Court order made in May to return 87 hard drives and 2,500 photographs of abuse.

However he handed over the seized items on Monday night.

Mr Bates's legal team pressed ahead with an application to have the chief constable fined or imprisoned for contempt over his delay in complying with the court order.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton, sitting in London with Mr Justice Wilkie and Mr Justice Calvert Smith, ruled there was no contempt because the order did not specify a date by which compliance was required.

Oh I'll remember that the next time the police ask me to do something- "Yes officer I know you wanted me to pull over and I was going to do so next Friday."

12 Men Good & Dumb

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich who was caught on tape brazenly discussing how to sell Barack Obama's senate seat has been found not guilty on 23 out of 24 corruption charges by a jury. This begs the obvious question where do they get the morons to sit on juries?

This is a problem over here as well where there is nothing to stop people who are retarded fantasists from deciding the fate of somebody's life.

The problem seems to me to be that the people who sit on juries are usually the people who have nothing better to do, people who have not been entrusted with any great responsibility by anyone who actually knows them are the ones who get to determine whether someone is guilty or not.

The jury system needs quality control in order to actually work.

Ali Dizaei: Exclusive Footage Of His Crime.

Many people have commented on the recent troubles of bent copper Ali Dizaei. What exactly happened on that night, where his victim reportedly approached Dizaei at a party and asked to be paid for designing his website may never be truly known. Unless someone was lucky enough to have acquired footage of the entire incident, some one like me:

So Here's To You Mrs Robinson.....

The ongoing Iris Robinson train wreck in Northern Ireland looks as if it will make her husband's position as First Minister untenable. The fact that she had an affair with someone 40 years her junior and then proceeded to give him financial favours looks corrupt and the fact that her husband helped her to conceal it after the fact is bad (though understandable). It also makes the 19 year old look like a gigalo.

In 2007 Peter Robinson's predecessor as DUP leader and First Minister, Ian Paisley, resigned after months of controversey about his son's involvement in property deals. To lose two leaders over the sleazy behaviour of their families ought to persuade the DUP to stop acting like a family business run by two clans and to actually become a normal political party.

More Afghan Bribery

This supports the idea of using bribery to buy off the Taliban's foot soldiers:

A Taleban commander and two senior Afghan officials confirmed yesterday that Italian forces paid protection money to prevent attacks on their troops.

After furious denials in Rome of a Times report that the Italian authorities had paid the bribes, the Afghans gave further details of the practice. Mohammed Ishmayel, a Taleban commander, said that a deal was struck last year so that Italian forces in the Salobi area, east of Kabul, were not attacked by local insurgents.

The payment of protection money was revealed after the death of ten French soldiers in August 2008 at the hands of large Taleban force in Sarobi. French forces had taken over the district from Italian troops, but were unaware of secret Italian payments to local commanders to stop attacks on their forces and consequently misjudged local threat levels.

Note the attacks only happened after the bribes stopped being paid, it was the Italian failure to tell the French of the arrangement that caused the failure, not the bribery itself.

Not that the Italian method of paying off a local chief is ideal, it would be better to pay the individual gunmen because there is a very strong possibility in Afghanistan that the money won't reach the people who need buying off.

This also shows the dangers of being allies of Italy. In Mark Bowden's "Black Hawk Down" (which the film was based on), he refers to suspicions by the Americans that the Italian forces in the country were cooperating with the local warlords in exchange for a quiet life, even to the extent of tipping them off before US raids.

Paying The Piper.

A bill is going through parliament to ban our intelligence services from paying bribes. Presumably they will now work on the basis of moral exhortation. Previously our intelligence services were to have been exempt.

Bribery is wrong but it can often prevent greater wrongs, in Afghanistan part of the reason the Taliban collapsed so quickly outside their heartlands in 2001 is because we paid off their formerly allied warlords. It has been claimed that the Allies bribed some of General Franco's advisers during the Second World War in order to keep Spain neutral.

This would be illegal nowadays.

How Corrupt Is The European Parliament?

Well put it this way the "Party of European Socialists" which includes Labour and most of the other principle left of centre parties in the EU, consider that denouncing corruption earns you a place alongside neo nazis in their pantheon of "12 Terrible Candidates".

An Example To Follow.

Troughing MPs, take a look at how corrupt politicians redeem themselves in other countries:

The former president of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, who had been under investigation for alleged corruption, has apparently committed suicide.

A spokesman said Mr Roh, 62, appeared to have jumped into a ravine while mountain climbing near his home and had left a brief suicide note.

Just saying.....

I predict conspiracy theories will now emerge, but as I don't speak Korean I will not be able to say "I told you so".

Non Job Axed.

When Barack Obama won election to the senate back in 2004 one of the first things he did was secure a $1 million earmark for his wife's employers, who a few months later nearly trebled her salary overnight. It's the Chicago way- "Pay to play" I believe they call it.

She didn't actually do anything that enabled the hospital to treat patients more effectively, quite the opposite in fact, she was in a diversity make-work role that involved transferring money that could have been spent on medical care to political clients.

Obama defenders were insisting that it was a very valuable job and that she was being paid for the job she did. Yet amazingly now that the position, which was previously of such importance that it merited a $300000+ salary, is no longer filled by someone whose spouse can deliver the federal largesse, it turns out that the position is no longer needed. I'm shocked I tell you!

Oh Mandy!

Peter Mandelson's only been sacked from the cabinet for corruption twice so far, so he deserves another chance. Even Joey Barton would struggle to get as many "second chances" as Mandy.