FFS, stop with the everything’s OK really shtick

It is increasingly in the interests of people in high places and countries not going places to pretend that things really are changing for the better. This has probably been the dominant theme of most major news stories for the last three years. But every day that passes shows how the data about, and the behaviour of, such people and sovereigns makes the claim an obvious lie.

I’ve never met Yanis Varoufakis, but I have corresponded with and linked to him for some time. In my view he remains the best recorder of Greek reality, and his latest post is of the highest quality. In it he lets the data do the talking, and effortlessly reveals what a pavanne of mendacity the entire Troika/EU/Greek élite is. I urge you to read and marvel at the Grand Canyon that lies between what the neoliberal bollocks-merchants claim, and what exists. The bottom line being, of course, that Greece is down the toilet and Samaras is a thin-lipped liar. This is what distinguishes him from the lard-arsed liar Benito Veryzealous, the man who has four lunches and three offices every day of his life.

Out of interest, I was at another popular site (not Greek) this afternoon where my prediction of Greek default without help by May 21st was being discussed in a comment thread. Four separate contributors used the same phrase to rubbish my findings: ‘Greece has made great efforts and is nearing to exit recession’. To keep denying the existence of paid trolls is akin to joining the Flat Earth Society.

Health Secretary Ezak Hunt works inestimably hard at his task of trying to appear sincere and caring. It must be very tiring work trying to prove the impossible, and perhaps this is why most of his attempts at variously imitating an entrepreneur, an honest public servant, and a man free from psychopathy so often come to grief. Having rather foolishly briefed his pr chaps to tell the world how rich he was going to be after selling his monopoly-to-quango facade Shitcourses, Ezak was hoist by the accountancy facade which didn’t impress the purchasers…who promptly back out with the brio of an Italian tank engaging all five reverse gears in rapid succession.

But now it looks like Mr Frunt-Bottomley is facing a bit of an issue about NHS personal information. He does have considerable experience in list-brokering as a result of his glittering career as a course info sauce, and so perhaps – on finding himself in possession of the world’s biggest mailing list – he couldn’t resist the thought of flogging sick people’s details to the likes of, ooh I don’t know….PPP, BUPA, Arkwright Funerals Ltd and so forth. Or perhaps, we are simply witnessing here the naive incompetence of a silly little Pinocchio twerp of very wooden brain.

Either way, during terse (some would say angry) exchanges at a Parliamentary sub-committee meeting last week, it emerged that the health and social care information centre (HSCIC) – formed to manage the patient records database of patient records – would only be able to publish details of data releases after it was set up in April 2013….as its predecessor “no longer existed”. Oh FFS.

The man who offered this flaccid “explanation” of an obvious arse-cover-up, Max Jones, director of information and data services at the HSCIC, might do well to recall that the Ministry of Defence, for example, has a direct genetic line to the Ministry of War in 1940, but nobody at Defence is suggesting that the previous incarnation’s records have vapourised

Even Tory MP Sarah Wollaston was infuriated, noting that in January 2012 the hospital admissions records of 47 million people from 1989 to 2010 were handed over to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries for setting insurance premiums. And in the same year, the Department for Work and Pensions had a request for access to confidential patient data turned down. Perhaps IDS really stands for Intimate Data Sales.

Ominously for Ezak, Tory chairman of the health select committee Stephen Dorrell said, “I will write to the secretary of state [for health] and pursue it”. Within 48 hours, Hunt announced that Insurance companies will not be able to buy patient medical records through the NHS data scheme.

But that’s not what we want to know, weasel face: we want to know exactly what data was sold, and by whom. The case continues.

Sir Brian Leveson “pulled his punches” over evidence of “serious police corruption at the very highest level” because it was “too hot to handle”, according to a complaint that has been lodged with the judicial watchdog by a News of the World hacking victim.

In a letter sent to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office by former Spy Ian Hurst, the one-time security officer says Sir Brian “covered up” the existence of a Scotland Yard intelligence report detailing a corrupt relationship between a very senior former police officer and a News of the World executive – neither of whom have ever been charged with criminal offences.

I think such people need to stand in the queue and wait their turn. Boris Brooks and several Andies are, I suspect, nearer the front than they. But even so, it’s nice to know that Leveson didn’t just reserve his bent observations and accusation for the largely innocent blogosphere.

Finally, while not a Christian myself I do sign up to the secular ethical side of the Nazarene’s alleged teachings. David Cameron tried to suggest last year and this that the problem with paedophiles is that they’re difficult to spot. So it was that with a fanfare of, er, faring fanny or something, Cameldung announced a way to root out these ne’er-do-wells with the help of our gloriously stain-free ISPs. All, he said, will change for the better – and our young offspring will be suitably protected.

Last Friday I posted to show what tosh that all was. I shall now leave the last word to the not entirely secret Christian Voice site.