Am I losing my marbles or becoming a totally grumpy old man?  Has no-one else made any comments about the delayed undercover police report?  All attention diverted because of the another guy – not in the terms of reference for the Kennedy case – giving a false name in court under oath thereby skewing the whole weight of evidence – I think not!!!  This seems to be the latest in a series of new tactics which give the semblance of transparency whilst sticking solidly to delivering nothing of substance whatsoever or even postponing it for a better day for the sitting administration.   The Russians are past masters at this stuff even having a military doctrine entitled maskirovka which means keep the patsy’s eyes fixed on the unimportant stuff whilst sneaking the important stuff through unseen

I have no doubt that the inquiry was conducted with integrity and depth and that great tomes will be written on the lessons learnt on police undercover operations.  What I would question is whether or not the report will make any comment at all on the overall management and credibility of the police officers who managed this operation.  7 years this guy was undercover; 7 years of taxpayers money to pay him and his support team; 7 years of opportunity costs to pay for those people who did what he would have done in the active police force – this was a costly operation. The Telegraph estimates around £250000 per annum for just the first two – £1.75m over 7 years.  They also intimate that there were another 15 officers in the same operation.  The National Public Order Intelligence unit must have a fairly substantial budget to be able to deploy resources on such a scale.  As a result the trial collapsed when he swapped sides.   He, by the accounts of the red tops at the time, had a fairly enjoyable time not subject to police disciplines and all those irksome things we find so tiresome – like getting up for work in the morning.  But, I ask you, 7 years infiltrating a climate change group, hardly the main caucus of Al-Qaeda GB was it?.  How on earth did they, or he, manage to con the reviewers into maintaining the operation?  Who made those decisions to carry on or was it just left to drift? Who scrutinises this lot; one would presume it is the Home Secretary?  Has she sacked anybody because a disaster on this scale in military terms would certainly get someone their P45. probably not because that would cost money and in any case it would be easier to blame Labour for something else.

This is the main point of my diatribe this cold but frosty morning in the depths of rural East Anglia, in order to actually win the next election, at some point David The PR Guru will have to stop blaming Labour and claim some stuff for himself.  One wonders if he will run out of time or can he blame labour for the downturn in world economics.  Perhaps he can blame the Euro-zone on Labour – well if he lets that particular rabbit off within his party the end result will be a melt down of Chernobyl like proportions.  Day before the election – hardly, how will he claim he led the country out of disaster and surely he doesn’t think the British Electorate is as daft as that?  Hmm they did almost vote him in didn’t they?  It might work David – keep trying !