While the horror of Haiti continues the quantity of TV images decreases although there are amazing rescues after two weeks, a large section of the capital’s population is moved to forty organised encampments and food and water are distributed for those who have their work, are too shocked and distressed to return to some semblance of normal life, cannot afford the escalating prices, or need the aid because there is no other food available. Medical assistance has also greatly improved with concentrated effort, not just to patch up and remove pain but to also save limbs and provide other operations which will enable individuals to look after themselves and their families more effectively in the future. The task of rebuilding the economy, of demolition and reconstruction, especially of family homes and schools is at least being planned alongside he work of identifying and burying the bodies and caring and protecting the children who appear to be without families. This is an important focus given the immediate wish for families across the world to foster and adopt and the risks of child exploitation given the darker side of humanity.
Wednesday was given over to the appearance of Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General at the time of the Iraq War, before the Chilcot Inquiry. The questioning was excellent and comprehensive covering all the areas of concerns, interest and relevance and he being one of the outstanding lawyers and advocates of his generation was well briefed and prepared. He also came over as a thoughtful individual unlikely to be persuaded against his better judgement. and her also convinced of the unusual ability to separate his legal judgements from his personal beliefs and inclinations. I say this having had great experience of lawyers over during lifetime.
In 1960 I saw how the full force of government directed law could turned on peaceful demonstrators and then as a child care officer was appointed to attend Juvenile, Family, County and some criminal Courts between 1963 and 1968 in a County and a London Borough. In 1980 at the invitation of a local authority, acting on the advice of the Health Ministry, I participated in a panel of Inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of a child in the community at which some fifty legal officers, QC’s barristers, solicitors and their clerks attended the opening and closing session to represent the authorities and agencies and the individual workers, while neighbours who complained and foster parents who had warned were unrepresented.
In one memorable instance a barrister argued and explained the importance of legislation designed to prevent children from entering or remaining in care as a justification for the actions of professionals in the case and when I challenged this, as a non lawyer, asking if the barrister was really say that this duty was equal to or overrode the duty to protect children in the community or when in care, it was admitted that this was a proposition, i.e. a try on.
As a senior and then chief officer working for a number of local authorities I had twenty years experience of working closely with lawyers, with some having considerable power, officially because of their role, such as in Cheshire, in the corporate management system when in their capacity as Assistant Chief executives they effectively controlled everything that was written and presented to the politicians. In other situation the power came from personality and connections. Then between 1992 and 2003 I had the experience when I found myself in the firing line or working on behalf of others and was appointed one of the leading law firms in the world, and an international human rights barrister to provide legal opinion, on a pro bono basis. These combined experiences has led to the view that most lawyers find it difficult to separate their personal beliefs, likes and prejudices from how they work, including looking to their own positions and advancement.
Lord Goldsmith could have earned vast sums of money while remaining in private practice before choosing to accept his position in the Labour administration. It is understandable that all those who opposed the war in Iraq want the inquiry to declare that British involvement was illegal, and as part of this for the inquiry to show that, The Prime Minister personally, and the Cabinet collectively, did not exert pressure for what they wanted to do to be declared legal and constitutional according to international law.
Lord Goldsmith explained at length and in detail, that there is a difference between something being lawful according the best interpretation of the rules and something being the right thing to do at the time or with the benefit of hindsight. His main contention was to go to the wording of the United Nations and which to my satisfaction he demonstrated that had the UN wanted to ensure that military action could not be taken with their approval without a further resolution then it should have said so, rather than using words which indicated their should be further consideration, which there was, although not a second resolution which would have meant the countries involved with the Security Council committing themselves to active participation. This was why France in particular was unwilling to agree to the second resolution but where representatives said in public and the first resolution provide countries with the legal means for action individual countries to intervene if they so wished. Accepting this position and that there were those who strongly disagreed and had argued accordingly at the time as well as subsequently. Lord Goldsmith faced the second major issue: why he then changed his position after several months of saying that the argument on both sides were finely balanced, and was it correct that he had been pressurised into doing so. He explained that he had been pressed to give a definitive opinion by the civil and in particular the Military who wanted to ensure that the position of the generals and the individual soldiers was covered in International law given the opposition and attempts to use the law to prevent involvement by other interests at the time. He denied categorically that pressure had been exerted by the Prime Minister directly or indirectly but said he had been influenced by what the British Ambassador to the UN had said to him on his visit there as well as by representatives of the US government. In an exchange about an earlier situation he conceded that when he had offered advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet he had felt it was unwelcome.
This brings me to the golden rule from my personal experience. If you are a politician or a senior officer in government, either national or local, you do not seek advice on the legality of what you want to do unless you are confident what the response will be. This does not mean you do not follow the advice if it is offered unless you can persuade a modified or different opinion to be given. Such are the unwritten rules of this particular reality. Tomorrow the former Prime Minister will be in the hot seat. I expect him to come out with all cylinders firing.
From the very serious to the ridiculous having tuned back in to Big brother Celebrity House as it reaches its final stages with last night two evictions, with a surprise, resulting in Davina entering the house as a surprise replacement albeit for an hour. Much of the programme appears contrived, and orchestrated
I have been working hard on the project during the past three days as well as tackling some basic house keeping projects. I need to get back to complete at least 100 new sets of work and more so if I am to gain ground lost over the past two years. One problem is although I have lot of records in a form which enables easy conversion into sets, the material is of interest which means I then devote hours time to reading and reflecting on issues, in this instance between seven and twenty years ago, and where some like press cuttings can be become part of the public work while most should or has to remain confidential within the lifetimes of those directly involved and in some aspects longer. It remains frustrating where one has information which might help relieve genuine injustice, but could also create injustice if communicated except in highly controlled circumstances. The process is therefore challenging and at times stressful for me so a few hours at time is all that I can cope with.
I enjoyed a bacon roll in mid morning and then a cottage pie before going out for some shopping and mid afternoon cup of tea at Asda Bolden before going to see George Clooney in Up in the Air. I arrived in good time hence the cup of tea and then discovered that the start time as ten minutes later than advertised. I do not buy snacks at the cinema on principle but because of the extra time checked what was now on offer and as horrified to discover that something like a large sausage toll and fizzy drink will cost £6.20 and a standard size popcorn box with two drinks is £8.45 with another £1 if you want to go large. A circular carton of the standard Pringles crisps was £2.90, with the supermarket price £1. Three scoops of ice cream cost £4.60 and 100 grams of sweets £1.18.
The film is excellent. George Clooney plays the star employee of a company which specialises in personally advising employees of companies why they are going “to be let go”, before handing them their severance package and requesting they clear their desks and hand over their keys. He spends almost every day catching an internal flight to a USA airport, undertaking the task, staying in a hotel before moving onto the next airport and assignment. He has reduced the amount of time he spends in travelling by perfecting getting through security and becoming a favoured traveller with the same airline, car rental firm and hotel chains. His ambition is to become 7th person to travel 10 million miles with the airline which gets him a unique travel status and perks. He had also perfected the way he breaks the news and tries to help the individual cope and see a positive side to what is happening to them although he also understands it is likely to be the worse day in their lives. He is also a star turn on the motivation lecture circuit asking those attending to imagine putting all their physical possessions into a backpack and then imagining its weight which they carry on their backs until they die, similarly the impact of friends, relations and close family. The message of all this is to divest yourself as much as possible if you want to make a success of your chosen work or interest.
This of course is a bastard philosophy perpetrated by the immoral and unscrupulous capitalists, the speculative traders and bankers and such like, akin to the Hitler’s and Stalin’s of the earth world, Christian fanatics in the past, Muslim fanatics to day, that it is legitimate to kill and ruin millions, for personal profit or for some belief or objective. The idea of minimalism is that you act in the present, then move on, never looking back, divesting yourself of photos and all other reminders of past experience to enable you concentrate on the future. My philosophy is to argue the opposite. What you do and who you do it with lives with you and then, and indeed lives within others and universe for eternity. While continual dwelling on past experience is an inhibitor upon engaging in new experience, it is undesirable and counter productive to try and deny the existence of one’s past experience although for some people, confronting the past is not of helpful and can be self destructive. This is an important point in relation to the film.
The film character practices what he preaches. He has a small apartment with no personal possessions, where he spend as little time a possible and has limited contact with his married sister and a younger sister who is about to be married. He has become used to having one night casual encounters with those who share in his lifestyle, that is until he meets one woman who appears to be as well travelled, and as fun loving and casual about relationships as he is. They have such a good time that they immediately try and find out when it might be possible for them to have a night together during their ceaseless travelling schedules.
Then two events occur which threaten to bring his lifestyle to a shattering halt. All the employees of the firm are brought back to HQ at the same time where the Chief Executive Officer announces that following the recruitment of a new trainee he has decided to implement a cost saving idea of undertaking the severance interview via a web can internet link thus reducing gravel and accommodation cost by 85%. The film does not disclose the back story of such an enterprise where senior executives of the firm will meet with the owners to negotiate the particular contract and obtains details for the particular severance package for the material to be printed together with any relocation information provided. Obviously by doing this aspect by teleconferencing it would be the logical step in further reducing costs.
This development not only threatens his way of life but undermines the ability to respond to each individual in as humane a way as practical. He demonstrates to the creator of the idea the limitations of her proposal with the consequence that he is forced to take her on the road with him to demonstrate the reality. She quickly discovers her limitations and he discovers her motivation. She was an exceptional business major who could have had the pick of offers made to her. However she chose the job because it appeared the best opportunity in the city where her fiancée lived and obviously the stay home idea was a high priority to her ambition to become a wife with a settled home and children. This falls apart when the boyfriend cannot cope with her constant absence and to cheer her up and to educate her on the realities of relationships and life in general they crash a corporate shindig together with the same casual relationship mentioned earlier. The relationship with this woman develops to the extent that he invites her to the family wedding where the groom gets cold feet and he is given the task of persuading the young man to change his mind. The wedding takes places and they have such a great weekend that he begins to change his philosophy and finds he can no longer go through with a seminar on his philosophy, walking out and taking the plane to ask the woman to settle down with him, now that the firm has decided to go ahead with the telelink approach.
To his shock he finds she is married with a family and the casual relationships and weekend break away was nothing more than escapism. To make matters worse he is awarded the 10th million traveller card on his way home and this only swerves to underline the falsity of his way of life until then and the enormity of the rejection.
However it is not all bad news for him because someone the young trainee interviewed has committed suicide and she resigns, paving the way for the telelink idea should be postponed so his way of life is restored although his feelings and understanding about the way of life has significantly and irrevocably changed. . He uses a million of his accumulated air miles to buy two round the world tickets for his younger sister and her husband and he gives the former trainee a reference which makes sure she is able to get her first choice occupational preference. It is sad ending for someone who does not set out to do harm and indeed in the postscript which many will consider odd, as several of those who he delivered the sack notice, admit they survived because they realised what was important to them was their loving and supportive relationships
It is obviously not as simple as that. I had reconstructed my personality and beingness through my work and therefore the loss of the work, prematurely, affected my being greatly, however although if took several years I eventually was able to realise myself more fully in a very different way.
Wednesday was given over to the appearance of Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General at the time of the Iraq War, before the Chilcot Inquiry. The questioning was excellent and comprehensive covering all the areas of concerns, interest and relevance and he being one of the outstanding lawyers and advocates of his generation was well briefed and prepared. He also came over as a thoughtful individual unlikely to be persuaded against his better judgement. and her also convinced of the unusual ability to separate his legal judgements from his personal beliefs and inclinations. I say this having had great experience of lawyers over during lifetime.
In 1960 I saw how the full force of government directed law could turned on peaceful demonstrators and then as a child care officer was appointed to attend Juvenile, Family, County and some criminal Courts between 1963 and 1968 in a County and a London Borough. In 1980 at the invitation of a local authority, acting on the advice of the Health Ministry, I participated in a panel of Inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of a child in the community at which some fifty legal officers, QC’s barristers, solicitors and their clerks attended the opening and closing session to represent the authorities and agencies and the individual workers, while neighbours who complained and foster parents who had warned were unrepresented.
In one memorable instance a barrister argued and explained the importance of legislation designed to prevent children from entering or remaining in care as a justification for the actions of professionals in the case and when I challenged this, as a non lawyer, asking if the barrister was really say that this duty was equal to or overrode the duty to protect children in the community or when in care, it was admitted that this was a proposition, i.e. a try on.
As a senior and then chief officer working for a number of local authorities I had twenty years experience of working closely with lawyers, with some having considerable power, officially because of their role, such as in Cheshire, in the corporate management system when in their capacity as Assistant Chief executives they effectively controlled everything that was written and presented to the politicians. In other situation the power came from personality and connections. Then between 1992 and 2003 I had the experience when I found myself in the firing line or working on behalf of others and was appointed one of the leading law firms in the world, and an international human rights barrister to provide legal opinion, on a pro bono basis. These combined experiences has led to the view that most lawyers find it difficult to separate their personal beliefs, likes and prejudices from how they work, including looking to their own positions and advancement.
Lord Goldsmith could have earned vast sums of money while remaining in private practice before choosing to accept his position in the Labour administration. It is understandable that all those who opposed the war in Iraq want the inquiry to declare that British involvement was illegal, and as part of this for the inquiry to show that, The Prime Minister personally, and the Cabinet collectively, did not exert pressure for what they wanted to do to be declared legal and constitutional according to international law.
Lord Goldsmith explained at length and in detail, that there is a difference between something being lawful according the best interpretation of the rules and something being the right thing to do at the time or with the benefit of hindsight. His main contention was to go to the wording of the United Nations and which to my satisfaction he demonstrated that had the UN wanted to ensure that military action could not be taken with their approval without a further resolution then it should have said so, rather than using words which indicated their should be further consideration, which there was, although not a second resolution which would have meant the countries involved with the Security Council committing themselves to active participation. This was why France in particular was unwilling to agree to the second resolution but where representatives said in public and the first resolution provide countries with the legal means for action individual countries to intervene if they so wished. Accepting this position and that there were those who strongly disagreed and had argued accordingly at the time as well as subsequently. Lord Goldsmith faced the second major issue: why he then changed his position after several months of saying that the argument on both sides were finely balanced, and was it correct that he had been pressurised into doing so. He explained that he had been pressed to give a definitive opinion by the civil and in particular the Military who wanted to ensure that the position of the generals and the individual soldiers was covered in International law given the opposition and attempts to use the law to prevent involvement by other interests at the time. He denied categorically that pressure had been exerted by the Prime Minister directly or indirectly but said he had been influenced by what the British Ambassador to the UN had said to him on his visit there as well as by representatives of the US government. In an exchange about an earlier situation he conceded that when he had offered advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet he had felt it was unwelcome.
This brings me to the golden rule from my personal experience. If you are a politician or a senior officer in government, either national or local, you do not seek advice on the legality of what you want to do unless you are confident what the response will be. This does not mean you do not follow the advice if it is offered unless you can persuade a modified or different opinion to be given. Such are the unwritten rules of this particular reality. Tomorrow the former Prime Minister will be in the hot seat. I expect him to come out with all cylinders firing.
From the very serious to the ridiculous having tuned back in to Big brother Celebrity House as it reaches its final stages with last night two evictions, with a surprise, resulting in Davina entering the house as a surprise replacement albeit for an hour. Much of the programme appears contrived, and orchestrated
I have been working hard on the project during the past three days as well as tackling some basic house keeping projects. I need to get back to complete at least 100 new sets of work and more so if I am to gain ground lost over the past two years. One problem is although I have lot of records in a form which enables easy conversion into sets, the material is of interest which means I then devote hours time to reading and reflecting on issues, in this instance between seven and twenty years ago, and where some like press cuttings can be become part of the public work while most should or has to remain confidential within the lifetimes of those directly involved and in some aspects longer. It remains frustrating where one has information which might help relieve genuine injustice, but could also create injustice if communicated except in highly controlled circumstances. The process is therefore challenging and at times stressful for me so a few hours at time is all that I can cope with.
I enjoyed a bacon roll in mid morning and then a cottage pie before going out for some shopping and mid afternoon cup of tea at Asda Bolden before going to see George Clooney in Up in the Air. I arrived in good time hence the cup of tea and then discovered that the start time as ten minutes later than advertised. I do not buy snacks at the cinema on principle but because of the extra time checked what was now on offer and as horrified to discover that something like a large sausage toll and fizzy drink will cost £6.20 and a standard size popcorn box with two drinks is £8.45 with another £1 if you want to go large. A circular carton of the standard Pringles crisps was £2.90, with the supermarket price £1. Three scoops of ice cream cost £4.60 and 100 grams of sweets £1.18.
The film is excellent. George Clooney plays the star employee of a company which specialises in personally advising employees of companies why they are going “to be let go”, before handing them their severance package and requesting they clear their desks and hand over their keys. He spends almost every day catching an internal flight to a USA airport, undertaking the task, staying in a hotel before moving onto the next airport and assignment. He has reduced the amount of time he spends in travelling by perfecting getting through security and becoming a favoured traveller with the same airline, car rental firm and hotel chains. His ambition is to become 7th person to travel 10 million miles with the airline which gets him a unique travel status and perks. He had also perfected the way he breaks the news and tries to help the individual cope and see a positive side to what is happening to them although he also understands it is likely to be the worse day in their lives. He is also a star turn on the motivation lecture circuit asking those attending to imagine putting all their physical possessions into a backpack and then imagining its weight which they carry on their backs until they die, similarly the impact of friends, relations and close family. The message of all this is to divest yourself as much as possible if you want to make a success of your chosen work or interest.
This of course is a bastard philosophy perpetrated by the immoral and unscrupulous capitalists, the speculative traders and bankers and such like, akin to the Hitler’s and Stalin’s of the earth world, Christian fanatics in the past, Muslim fanatics to day, that it is legitimate to kill and ruin millions, for personal profit or for some belief or objective. The idea of minimalism is that you act in the present, then move on, never looking back, divesting yourself of photos and all other reminders of past experience to enable you concentrate on the future. My philosophy is to argue the opposite. What you do and who you do it with lives with you and then, and indeed lives within others and universe for eternity. While continual dwelling on past experience is an inhibitor upon engaging in new experience, it is undesirable and counter productive to try and deny the existence of one’s past experience although for some people, confronting the past is not of helpful and can be self destructive. This is an important point in relation to the film.
The film character practices what he preaches. He has a small apartment with no personal possessions, where he spend as little time a possible and has limited contact with his married sister and a younger sister who is about to be married. He has become used to having one night casual encounters with those who share in his lifestyle, that is until he meets one woman who appears to be as well travelled, and as fun loving and casual about relationships as he is. They have such a good time that they immediately try and find out when it might be possible for them to have a night together during their ceaseless travelling schedules.
Then two events occur which threaten to bring his lifestyle to a shattering halt. All the employees of the firm are brought back to HQ at the same time where the Chief Executive Officer announces that following the recruitment of a new trainee he has decided to implement a cost saving idea of undertaking the severance interview via a web can internet link thus reducing gravel and accommodation cost by 85%. The film does not disclose the back story of such an enterprise where senior executives of the firm will meet with the owners to negotiate the particular contract and obtains details for the particular severance package for the material to be printed together with any relocation information provided. Obviously by doing this aspect by teleconferencing it would be the logical step in further reducing costs.
This development not only threatens his way of life but undermines the ability to respond to each individual in as humane a way as practical. He demonstrates to the creator of the idea the limitations of her proposal with the consequence that he is forced to take her on the road with him to demonstrate the reality. She quickly discovers her limitations and he discovers her motivation. She was an exceptional business major who could have had the pick of offers made to her. However she chose the job because it appeared the best opportunity in the city where her fiancée lived and obviously the stay home idea was a high priority to her ambition to become a wife with a settled home and children. This falls apart when the boyfriend cannot cope with her constant absence and to cheer her up and to educate her on the realities of relationships and life in general they crash a corporate shindig together with the same casual relationship mentioned earlier. The relationship with this woman develops to the extent that he invites her to the family wedding where the groom gets cold feet and he is given the task of persuading the young man to change his mind. The wedding takes places and they have such a great weekend that he begins to change his philosophy and finds he can no longer go through with a seminar on his philosophy, walking out and taking the plane to ask the woman to settle down with him, now that the firm has decided to go ahead with the telelink approach.
To his shock he finds she is married with a family and the casual relationships and weekend break away was nothing more than escapism. To make matters worse he is awarded the 10th million traveller card on his way home and this only swerves to underline the falsity of his way of life until then and the enormity of the rejection.
However it is not all bad news for him because someone the young trainee interviewed has committed suicide and she resigns, paving the way for the telelink idea should be postponed so his way of life is restored although his feelings and understanding about the way of life has significantly and irrevocably changed. . He uses a million of his accumulated air miles to buy two round the world tickets for his younger sister and her husband and he gives the former trainee a reference which makes sure she is able to get her first choice occupational preference. It is sad ending for someone who does not set out to do harm and indeed in the postscript which many will consider odd, as several of those who he delivered the sack notice, admit they survived because they realised what was important to them was their loving and supportive relationships
It is obviously not as simple as that. I had reconstructed my personality and beingness through my work and therefore the loss of the work, prematurely, affected my being greatly, however although if took several years I eventually was able to realise myself more fully in a very different way.
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