Channels of Disinformation

Yesterday, most interestingly, the story of the FV Gaul hit the press again. The contents of the 'news', their suspicious timing and the opportunity it gave the police and the John Prescott/Alan Johnson duo to keep tabs on and manipulate the victims' families we shall not comment on at this moment.

Yesterday, some elements in our society decided that it was the day when they wanted to alter the FV Gaul Wikipedia entry so that much of its content was removed and the link to our site deleted. See in the image below the muddy footprints of the vandal's boots on the Wikipedia Revision History page. The boots came from Yorkshire.

The crudity of the attempts to re-write history gives further clues as to who might be behind them.

(More to come...)

Great suggestion

"Police corruption is now so rife that radical reform is the only answer" - Henry Porter

http://gu.com/p/3jyve/tw via @guardian

Indeed, corruption is so rife that the Police have been instrumental in the Gaul cover-up and in the cover-up of the cover-up.

Happy Tidings

We hear from the Daily Mail that

"Lord Prescott is at the centre of a £75million legal case over allegations that he tried to undermine coal miners’ compensation claims – because he feared Labour could lose union donations. Court papers seen by The Mail on Sunday allege the former deputy prime minister colluded with a major law firm to put pressure on an insurance company to refuse to underwrite the miners’ legal bills – forcing them to drop their action." 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2496415/John-Prescott-tried-undermine-compensation-claims-coal-miners-feared-Labour-lose-donations.html

I think we need to get in touch with the claimants.

Trident and the White Fish Authority

In the 1975 and 2009 official investigations into the loss of the Trident, officers of the White Fish Authority (later Seafish) gave testimony to the effect that they had employed a ‘hands off’ approach to the way they administered the conditions associated with the award of Government grants for the purchase of new fishing vessels. 

Original formal investigation, Day 4 Page 50, Mr Sutherland Chief Surveyor for White Fish: 

In both investigations the court spent considerable time in trying to lay down the idea that the lax policies that White fish had in place at the time that Trident was lost were quite normal and that no blame could be attached to the organisation for not insisting that the terms of their grant be met. 

The Government was very eager to avoid the obvious conclusion that, had the White Fish Authority done their job correctly in matters pertaining to Trident’s stability, she would not have been allowed to put to sea until her stability shortfalls had been addressed – and she would not have capsized.

Surprisingly, at the time of the original inquiry, there was a White Fish publication in existence that precisely specified the White Fish stability requirements associated with the award of a government grant. Although this publication would have been highly significant in both official investigations, White Fish (and later Seafish) did not reveal its existence to the court. 

The existence of the publication in question was a serious inconvenience for White Fish, as it proved that their very own ‘Rules for the construction of wooden fishing vessels’ did not countenance a ‘hands off’ approach - White Fish surveyors were, in fact, obliged to attend inclining tests and to approve the stability information for all grant-aided fishing vessels. 

A copy of the section in these Rules that deals with stability, with key provisions ringed in red, is reproduced below:

Weighty Matters

During the past 40 years, the Department for Transport (DfT) has gained a wealth of experience in the art of data manipulation and disinformation when conducting official investigations into fishing vessel casualties, especially those in which dubious stability was thought to be a factor in their loss. This expertise is currently being used quite blatantly by the DfT (via MAIB) to both cover their own backs and safeguard the interests of their many business ‘clients’.

Generally, the DfT only feels threatened when it has made a mistake - when there is something it did not do, that it should have done or it did something that it should not have done - and lives were subsequently lost at sea.

In the case of the FV Gaul, the DfT approved her stability (see copy of the stability certificate below), for unlimited operation at sea, just 14 month’s before the trawler capsized and sank (in February 1974), with the loss of 36 lives.

Following the loss of the Gaul, the official investigation, led by the DfT, was quick to put on record that the Gaul had met the IMCO minimum stability standards for deep-sea trawlers “with a substantial margin”. 

In our posts of 1 January 2010 [LINK] and 8 February 2010 [LINK] we were able to point out that this official statement was, in fact, incorrect and we gave details of the Gaul’s ‘arrival in Port’ and preceding sailing conditions where the IMCO minimum stability standards were not and could not be met. 

Trident 
 

In our post of 4 August 2010 [LINK] we also described how the stability records for the calculated lightship and sailing conditions of the Trident, which capsized and sank in 1974, with the loss of 7 lives, were callously modified by the Trident RFI experts (hired and paid for by the DfT) to give credence to the “official” view that, at the time of her loss, the Trident substantially met the IMCO stability standards of the day – an official requirement for grant-aided fishing vessel purchases in the early 1970s. 

We also noted in our posts of 28th February [LINK] and 27th April 2011 [LINK] that considerable sums of money had been squandered on worthless model tests, which were deliberately fed with doctored data, to give the results that our officials desired [1]. 

This blatant deception was only attempted because, contrary to official policies, the Trident’s lightship particulars (and stability reserves) had not been accurately established and verified [2] at the time that she was built. 

Gaul 

The Gaul’s lightship particulars (and stability reserves) were also left unverified when she was built [3], the data used being merely a copy of those derived from the inclining experiment, held in February 1972, on the Ranger Calliope (subsequently re-named Arab).

Testimony by Mr M. Scott (DfT surveyor) - 1974 Formal investigation into the loss of the Gaul - Day 12 page 27 : 

Surprisingly, if you check out the lightweight figures in the footnote below [4] you can see that an additional 11 tons of solid ballast has somehow managed to make its way into the calculations of the DfT, the shipyard and the Owner’s Consultants. When their investigations into Gaul’s stability were put in hand for the 1974 inquiry, it became an integral, unspecified part of the Gaul’s lightship weight. 

This 11 tons of notional ballast was useful in subsequent calculations in that it lowered the Gaul’s vertical centre of gravity (by 180 mm) - and would therefore be readily adopted by those who did not wish the tag of ‘deficient stability’ to be linked to the Gaul’s loss. Nonetheless, at the original FI hearings, the Builders, Brooke Marine, the Owner’s consultants, Y-ard and the DfT all managed to imply that solid ballast was not necessary on the Gaul to meet the IMCO minimum stability requirements (see below):

Mr M. Scott (DfT) - transcripts day 12 page 45 

Mr G. Donaldson (Brooke Marine) transcripts day 9 page 67

 

Mr A. Gilfillan (Y-ard) transcripts day 11 page 43 – in proposing improvements for Gaul’s 3 remaining sister vessels: 

This notional ballast was also an integral but invisible part of the Gaul’s lightship weight during the subsequent lengthy and expensive testing carried out by Morral in the late 1970s at the National Maritime Institute. This was another instance in which taxpayer’s money was spent on extensive model testing, but in which the basic data was skewed, to give the results that our officials desired. 

If we exclude this 11 tons of phantom ballast (it was not present on the Gaul) from the Gaul’s lightship and then check out her reserves of stability, we can see that this was degraded to the point where she did not meet the IMCO minimum stability criteria on arrival at distant fishing grounds. Furthermore, if she then did not proceed to promptly fill her fish hold with a significant catch of fish, she would be unable to meet the IMCO minimum stability standard throughout the rest of her voyage!

_______________________________________________________

[1] In 2005 the DfT also deliberately destroyed a number of folders of evidence and video that was unfavourable to their desired outcome.

[2] Neither an inclining experiment nor lightship check was carried out on the Trident. 

[3] The Gaul’s lightship data (displacement & vertical and longitudinal centres of gravity) were not obtained from a unique inclining experiment; they were copied instead from an inclining experiment held on the Ranger Calliope (a sister to the Gaul) on 1 February 1972; however, a simple lightweight check, to verify the integrity of the copied data, was not carried out on the Gaul. 

[4] Lightship data obtained from the inclining test on the Ranger Calliope: 

Displacement = 1099.63 tons, 

Vertical centre of gravity = 20.2 ft above base 

Longitudinal centre of gravity = 9.46 ft aft Midships 

Gaul Lightship data - used for all official stability investigations: 

Displacement = 1110.6 tons, 

Vertical centre of gravity = 20.02 ft above base 

Longitudinal centre of gravity = 9.99 ft aft Midships

The age of the shills

I know very well that this blog is no longer the right place to make disclosures, however, it ought to be recorded, here as well, that the Counsel for the Department for Transport (Jeremy Burns) made a seriously false statement both verbally and in his affidavit for the court.

We are not quite sure what the motive was - but it has recently dawned upon us that these falsehoods could have given us an unfair advantage against his client.

(We would like to know why and who put him up to it - so expect a big scandal as well as a formal complaint. Hopefully, you will thus realise that having threatened us to keep quiet was a bad idea.) 

It may be tempting for the State to block access to this information, but there are many other ways in which it can be made public. Just like the info regarding a few other members of the legal profession. 

And another thing: any more threats will only make matters worse.

Where they are now

Recent thoughts of the formal investigations that we have referred to on this blog prompted our curiosity to find out more as to the whereabouts of the judges who acted as chairmen in those unfortunate inquiries.

Sir David Steel, for instance, is no longer judge at the Commercial and Admiralty Courts in London. David Steel was involved twice with the FV Gaul: first in a partisan position as lawyer for the Insurance Company, then in a neutral position as chairman of the 2004 RFI.

Although not yet arrived at the age when, as a poet said, passions relax their hold, or when expired judges are customarily wheeled out of HM’s Courts, in October 2011, Sir David Steel quietly left his judicial position and returned to the bar in a less demanding, though no less cushy role of Arbitrator at 10 Fleet Street. Simultaneously, he was also appointed Appeal Arbitrator for the London insurance market. Quite surprising!!! The commercial literature advertising the nobleman’s services now refers to Sir David Steel in terms of “the retired judge”.

The other honourable judge, Sir David Young – the former Sheriff Principal of Grampian, Highland and Islands – who presided over the more recent public inquiry into the sinking of FV Trident has also left his judicial position early, that is immediately after the conclusion of the Trident inquiry.

Justice Anthony Coleman, who chaired the MV Derbyshire investigation, in his turn, left the High Court in 2001, immediately after the MV Derbyshire inquiry had ended, and set out to the Czech Republic to advise the Ministry of Justice there on procedure with a view to the Czech Republic’s accession to the EU. Sir Anthony Colman then went on to become an International Arbitrator for that temple of austerity which is the Dubai International Financial Centre.

So, all these three former inquiry chairmen are no longer judges. The Brotherhood, it seems, has its own, discreet code of honour. Still, we are left with the feeling that these three judges fared far better than the victims of their judgments. This is Britain today – long live the Queen!

More to come

Penchant for injustice

It now transpires - http://fw.to/sMbtyZb - that Tony Blair, using his contacts in the US (cemented by taking this country to war) - helped Colonel Gaddafi avoid paying $1.5billion in damages to the relatives of the seven Americans killed when a bomb exploded on a Paris-bound passenger jet in west Africa.

This puts the FV Gaul and the MV Derbyshire RFIs into a clearer perspective.

ECHR

Selections from our recent complaint to the European Court of Human Rights:

48. Following suggestions received from different quarters, including from the most creditable sources (i.e. most kindly, from within the Royal Family*) – suggestions validated to some extent by the Applicant’s personal experience – the Applicant was given to understand that the UK government has been placed under pressure by the US administration to obstruct any legal process that could make the abuses complained of by the Applicant and details of his disclosures public and proven in a court of law. What is more painfully apparent is that the Applicant and his family have been placed, in their turn, under tremendous pressure (duress) with the aim of preventing the Applicant from pursuing his claims further. The Applicant became aware that there were fears that details of his complaints of harassment suffered outwith the workplace (especially the events which took place during his secondment in Brussels and in which foreign nationals/agencies were implicated ) might be aired in public, and names and affiliations publicly disclosed. As it is understood that some of the Applicant’s former work colleagues had links to the intelligence services, there were also fears that identities, methods and embarrassing details about the conduct of those services could emerge. What was more, the Applicant’s disclosures, if dealt with, would have also tainted/incriminated a number of senior political figures and high-ranking officials from within the British Establishment.

49. It has been also implied that the UK, for the sake of some unspecified political interests, could not contemplate defying the US’s calls for secrecy. When faced with the difficult quandary of deciding how to reconcile the US administration’s demands with the obligation of having regard to due process and the rule of law, the UK, it seems, has chosen to comply with the former, while giving only the appearance of following the latter – to the effect that the Applicant was deprived of a fair hearing of his claim.

We have also complained about the UK government monitoring and interfering with our mail, telephone and electronic communications while we were preparing our case for the UK courts and the ECHR. These actions placed us at a disadvantage in relation to our opponents (i.e. the UK government) by allowing the latter foreknowledge of matters concerning evidence, legal strategy, search for witnesses etc. and the possibility to interfere with these matters. This was another serious breach of the principle of equality of arms and hence of the right to a fair trial.

The complaint also provided evidence of the UK courts' used of blatant falsehoods, legalistic quibbling and disregard for the law in order to avoid hearing our complaints related to the fraudulent public inquiries referred to on this blog.

More details will follow...

_____________________

* That was when the Tory PM did not appear as vulnerable politically

Memorials to the Hull fishermen lost at sea

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-22921747

Awareness

“Life is real! Life is earnest” William Wadsworth Longfellow

Knowledge is an indispensable asset of the free individual, and, as any self-respecting despot knows, free individuals are a danger to government absolutism. Our governments expend therefore a lot of effort in preventing the masses from learning the true facts of the world they live in, while acquiring more and more information about what the rest of us do and think. 

 

The official narratives offered to the public about the State’s aims and conduct, are ever more deceptive. Yet, because so extensively promoted by the mainstream media, they gain credibility, rendering all alternatives as serious errors, the result of some deviations from the norms of morality, which deserve punishment by the law.

Creating an illusory world in place of the real one is a patently devilish occupation. Devilish also are the State’s grand-scale intrusions into our privacy, which conjure up the image of those flying demons in The Master and Margarita, jetting over the city, lifting the roofs of all the houses below and exposing the lives of the people therein.

Once in a while, the official narratives can contain actual truth, delivered, however, with considerable delay and timed to suit political interests. Take for instance the phone hacking scandal, the Bloody Sunday investigation, the Hillsborough inquiry, and several other abominations perpetrated by ministers and officials under the pretext of national security etc. etc., left to fester - wrapped up in layers of secrecy - for years, then disinterred at a time when they could be used as political paybacks or when some other benefit could be extracted and consensus had been built across political factions for a controlled release of the facts. As they all live in glasshouses, the throwing of stones is not something governments do without careful forethought.

There is also what often goes by the name of ‘open secret’ – that is truth acknowledged by many but never publicly confessed, never disseminated through the media, truth kept in a state of limbo, either because the time is not right to disquiet the masses or because public acknowledgement would entail some penal consequences that the Establishment doesn’t like to incur.

Official infamies are never spilled out in their crude, unadulterated format, but are filtered and with their asperities blunted by the press. There is no truth outside the mainstream channels - only the mainstream media, the umpire of our perceptions, is capable of giving events the stamp of authenticity.

The official narratives, nowadays, can also be the expression of non-reality, of theatrically staged events or things that never happened  – a far more dangerous phenomenon than the traditional conspiracies, as it involves not only serious, state-sanctioned villainy, but also an elevated degree of madness.

Like the veil of maya that can only be pierced through transcendental knowledge, the official narratives and deception will only be demystified by individuals’ understanding of what is in their nature and what is cunningly intended to condition it. 

 

Peaceful countryside

Great excitement on the road from Stockbridge, yesterday afternoon!  Following a few verbal warnings received previously, yesterday, we may have received a physical reprimand. That is our car did, when, on a less circulated road, another vehicle (purposely, it appeared) rammed itself into ours, then accelerated away, leaving us with some useful fragments of its body (which we have collected). Three minutes later, the driver returned in the same aggressive rush, going back whence he had initially come. Busy maneuvering out of the way and into a more convenient ditch by the roadside, we were unable to physically stop the driver and formally introduce ourselves - our gestured attempts to stop him being rudely ignored.

Shortly afterwards, we were given the impression that a local police crew may have had some involvement in the matter, or, maybe, it was just another strange coincidence. 

Could it be that our recent complaint sent to the ECHR (see the blog post below) sent some shivers through the backs of the British Establishment? We already know that car smashing is their preferred modus operandi. We shall have to look into this further – by ourselves – as our government and State have already proved to be too timorous to tackle criminal behaviour and corruption within the higher ranks, being too concerned about their own interests and safety.

P.S. Our complaint also made reference to the involvement of the US administration in aiding the corrupt within the higher levels of our ruling elite (the former US-subservient Labour government and institutions).

Offshore justice

The legal case that we started against the UK government a few years ago has now reached Europe. We are very curious about the outcome.

More fascinating, however, is that some of those affected are already brimming over with confidence that Mr Cameron, as regional distributor of US government policy and seasoned negotiator, will have the muscle to interfere and save those concerned from embarrassment and responsibility.

We cannot but wait and see.

Happy Easter!

The champions of censorship

Having shown an ambivalent attitude to much of the clamour and orchestrated tumult, the public finally got what it deserved - state regulation of the media, including of what is published on the Internet. 

It was sad to note that society did not vigorously oppose this totalitarian assault on the freedom of expression, confirming, once again, the old claim that the masses love tyranny. In this, the newspapers themselves deserve much of the blame, having cultivated the public such that it would have no inclination to rush to their defence. It might have been a good idea, perhaps, pointing out more clearly the link between the individual’s means of subsistence and the freedom of the press to stir up scandal on his behalf. 

Tethered both directly, through decisions of Parliament, and indirectly, through the appointment of overseers, the media will now become even more subsumed within the ghetto of politics. That is not to say, of course, that subordinance to the so-called apolitical arms of the State would have been a more salubrious option. 

The demand for press regulation was not an act of revenge by some celebrity figures outraged by their treatment at the hands of the press, as some seem to think, nor was it promoted by the aggressive banality of the arguments of the ‘pro-regulation’ campaign; it all looked rather like a well planned action, melding into the wider-ranging political strategy of the Left. (Pity that the press lacked the temerity to fully investigate this aspect even when its own fate was at stake.) 

It is no surprise that the British Labour were the first to embrace the idea of state-control for the press; apart from the fact that Labour stands to lose the most from serious investigative journalism, the left-wing ideology has never been tolerant of alternatives, nor would it consider leaving it up to the man in the street to discern between right and wrong. Freedom of expression is, in their view, something dished out by the State, rather than a necessity of our nature. 

To be true, the media in Britain has never been really free from the start – if it had been, we wouldn’t have needed amateur news sites to expose the corruption of the elite, neither would we see press articles used as political assault weapons, hinted menaces, disinformation and other diversionary tricks. If the British press needed anything nowadays, it was to be allowed more freedom and more curiosity.
Hence, it would have been more useful to explore the field of forces - extending way beyond the media corporations’ management boards - that restrict reporting on matters of serious public concern and the crimes committed by those who are making the rules.

Commemoration

We commemorate today 39 years since the loss of the Gaul. The blame for the tragedy still rests with those who lost their lives on the trawler.

SHILLS

SHILL - (Definition from Wikipedia) - A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that he has a close relationship with that person or organization.

(More to come about the UK government's use of shills)

Gangland Britain

After posting this message and trying to contact the Gaul families for further disclosures - we have received threats.

Pressure has been placed on us to prevent us from naming the shills in the GAUL RFI etc. Our cowardly UK authorities are protecting, in fact, not the shills, but their lawyers ( a special caste that is). 

Obs.

Does anyone know who the owner of the following IP address is: 77.86.117.135 - Kingston Upon Hull?

NOTE

We are trying to organise a meeting in Hull with the Gaul families, in order to deliver to them, personally, a number of documents revealing the rapports between the families representatives, government (and the opposing parties). This message is one way of bringing this event to the attention of those who may be interested.