Alastair Campbell: still fighting the last war

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The Mail on Sunday's Simon Walters has a go at Alastair Campbell, for comparing Blair's misinformation about WMD to Churchill's "bodyguard of lies"wartime deceptions.

This came from a speech Campbell gave on Thursday in Australia, and the full text is on his blog here, which doubtless is where Walters got it from. We are in an era where the commentariat do all their sleuthing via armchair data mining (as I do, but I don't have their salary or expense account).

In a fight between two unsavouries, I find myself rooting for neither. Campbell's speech was about presentation in an age of easy fisking, and accordingly it's easy to reverse engineer Walters' attack and show what really happened and how angled the MoS piece was.

On the other hand, Campbell's fearsome rep as Number 10 spinmaster was founded on his knowledge of journalists' own personal vulnerable areas. In 2009, he put a shot across the bows of Andrew Marr, who had asked awkward questions about the then PM Gordon Brown's medication. Campbell wrote on his blog:

"It was sad to see Marr, perhaps with an eye to a few Monday morning cuttings, feel that he had to raise blogosphere rumours about Gordon going blind, or being on heavy medication of some sort. I know it will give him the passing satisfaction of pats on the back from journos … But it was low stuff. I'm sure Andrew would agree that everyone has certain areas of their life that they'd prefer not to be asked about live on TV."

It was a clear threat to disclose what Marr was at that time trying desperately to conceal, namely the story about his alleged love-child. Interestingly, this is no longer on Campbell's blog. Down the memory hole goes that piece of yesterday's news. Will we have to copy and paste everything in future, just to be sure it doesn't get "lost"?

Campbell seems still to be working to rehabilitate the reputation of his former boss Tony Blair (described by Clarissa Dickson-Wright in her first autobiography as "a mimsy psychopath"), and as the IRA told Margaret Thatcher, "We only have to be lucky once." I wish he would give it up: it's not just the Coalition lives lost, it's the Iraqi deaths too, running into six figures. But of course he won't stop, because his own reputation has to recover too. The Dodgy Dossier clanks behind him like Jacob Marley's account books.

In fairness, here's the bit from Cambo's blog that Walters semi-misused:

There has always been comms. There has always been public affairs. There has always been PR. There has always been spin. Read the bible for heaven’s sake. What is new is not spin but the reality of a globalized media age, an information economy, a world where technology is accelerating the pace of change on an exponential basis. Nor have there been political and media systems which for most democracies mean that even if people wished not to tell the truth, the pressures are all to do so, and woe betide those who don’t.

That’s not always been the case.

I read a book recently on the relationship between (SLIDE 8) Churchill and de Gaulle, who could regale each other with stories of their public deceptions, and perhaps in doing so deceived each other too. Another recent book, Ben Macintyre’s Double Cross, showed how Churchill got actively involved in the preparation of what he called the ‘bodyguard of lies’ to accompany the truth that an invasion across the English Channel was being planned. Macintyre states as a fact that after the invasion, Churchill lied to Parliament to keep various deceptions going.

Yet if the pollsters were to do a survey, who had a greater commitment to wartime truth, (SLIDE 9) Churchill in World War 2 or Tony Blair in Iraq? I think we know what the answer would be … it just wouldn’t be true. Interesting paradox in a world full of them.

Mr Campbell, too, has his interesting paradoxes.

Who is the Mail's "David Rose"?

UPDATE (3 June): It's NOT Hari:

 

Yet another excited boost for critics of the climate change lobby in the Mail on Sunday today, by David Rose, who sees our economic salvation in near-limitless shale gas and lambasts green ninnies and nimbies.

He may be right. But does he exist?

I can't find this "David Rose" on Twitter - it's not the deputy news editor by that name:

- or on Facebook.

Debate on his existence has swirled about the internet for at least a couple of years - in 2011 "Jack of Kent" seemed to be speculating that it might be Johann Hari in disguise.

He appears to have phoned cannabis legalisation campaigner Peter Reynolds last year, who includes this photo of him:

 

- which seems to have been taken by someone at the Guardian, if you look at the photo credit here.

 

And it looks like the David Rose in this video, interviewing Binyam Mohammed in (I think) 2009.

 

Yet he seems so elusive that I still suspect this climate-sceptic "David Rose" to be a dummy, a byline for thirdhand material from undisclosed sources that the Mail wants to put in as propaganda and disinformation.

 

A shame, because there's proper debate to be had. If you really exist, Mr Daily Mail Science Writer David Rose, please do step forward out of the shadows.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Lions and donkeys

It's Armed Forces Day and concidentally I've just finished reading David Blakeley's "Pathfinder". This book is about a 2003 UK special forces mission behind enemy lines in Iraq and it's full of lessons, including a couple that the British Army should have learned long ago.

As the US Marines seized Nasiriyeh, a town that against military intelligence analysis had turned out to be strongly defended by some of Saddam's most committed troops, a small airfield at Qalat Sikar, some 80 miles behind the enemy's front line, became an important part of the battle plan. If this could be secured by the Parachute Regiment it would be a valuable stepping stone for the advance towards Baghdad.

The job of the elite Pathfinder (aka PF) platoon is to get vital on-the-ground intelligence while risking only a few personnel. The obvious tactic was for them to get to Qalat Sikar by para drop, but air resources were not available. So instead, they had to take three Land Rovers straight up the road, with a network of rivers and canals (not on our maps) on one side and wooded, difficult terrain on the other. They passed a number of previously unsuspected Iraqi positions but were spotted at last and a big Toyota pickup-borne Fedayeen ambush set ahead for them.

The team called HQ but were told that there was no possibility of air strikes or evacuation by helicopter. So the only option (other than a long, almost certainly fatal Bravo Two Zero-style foot-slog) was to drive back again, this time through a series of ambushes by a fully-alert enemy. This was running the gauntlet with a vengeance, and only a combination of acutely-honed mobile firing skills, courage, improvisation and luck got them back to the Marines alive and (scarcely believably) unhurt.

There had been far more enemy than the intel had suggested, maybe two thousand very well-armed troops in a number of locations along the road. They had not been spotted by satellite and were well dug-in and camouflaged. But thanks to the PF excursion their positions were now known and Blakeley and co. passed on the information to the Marine commander, who called in air strikes that cleared the way for the Coalition forces to speed northwards.

Blakeley comments more than once on the difference between resourcing for the Americans and the Brits, and how we are so often the poor relation. The whole gauntlet could have been avoided if we had had (or diverted) what was needed to do a HALO (high altitude, low opening) para drop; the adventure they had makes for a stirring story but luck and courage shouldn't be the core of your plan. I recall a programme about the early days of the special forces Long Range Desert Group in North Africa in WWII, and how when someone asked about food for the long missions behind and back from Rommel's lines, an officer said the men could "live on their fingernails". Is there something about British leadership that prefers Captain Scott to Ernest Shackleton?

And then there is the attitude of the Ministry of Defence to its own when they are most in need. Blakeley was severely injured in a vehicle rollover not long after the Qalat Sikar escapade, and on getting home to recuperate received a form letter warning him that if he was on the sick list for more than 18 months the Army reserved the right to terminate his contract. "It didn't even wish me a get well soon. Nice. I was a war-wounded soldier just a day out of hospital. I'd taken a look at the name of the MOD pen-pusher who'd signed it, and I'd memorised it. I resolved to meet up with him in a dark alleyway sometime in the near future, and get even. It's still on my list of things to do." His spirits were raised instead by a handwritten note from Prince Charles, accompanied by a vintage bottle of the Prince's own Laphroaig. What a contrast; and a similar MOD letter is presumably sent to many others in the same plight. All that Army training manual stress on morale and leadership, and not two minutes' thought given to standard official communication with men at their most vulnerable.

Penny wise, pound foolish. In his SAS memoir "Seven Troop", Andy McNab contrasts the mental health support given to US Special Forces personnel with its lack for their British counterparts, commenting that given the huge expense of recruiting and training elite soldiers, adequate psychological counselling for them would make sense merely from a coldly financial point of view.

The negligent attitude extends to soldiers' families, or used to. When our father broke his back in Aden in the Sixties and subsequently lay crippled in hospital, his pay was frozen until one day our mother packed some food and drink and took my little brother to the Army offices, and told them she and he were staying there until she got something to live on. It worked, but it shouldn't have had to.

It's nice that Mr Cameron has flown out to see the troops in Afghanistan, though I'm not quite sure who is gaining more. Our military commitments are heavy and the future darkly unpredictable, yet thousands of regular soldiers are being made redundant and TAs are expected to take up the reins and defend our country and our national interests on the cheap. Perhaps we should rely less on luck, pats on the back and sentimentality, and weigh the potential costs of defeat against those of adequate defence provision.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Killing the small investor

Yesterday at Marylebone railway station, London, I saw a banner poster from Blackrock Investments, urging savers to consider getting out of cash (with the usual perfunctory, statutory warnings about risk).

Yet according to Testosterone Pit (htp: John Ward), the smart money is dumping investments as fast as it can:

“We think it’s a fabulous environment to be selling,” said Leon Black, CEO of PE giant Apollo Global Management. With stock markets having more than doubled since their 2009 lows, average prices for leveraged buyouts have jumped to nine times earnings, he said. His firm had already dumped about $13 billion in assets over the last 15 months. “We’re selling everything that’s not nailed down,” he said.

This reminds me of 1999, when an investment house sent its representatives around to IFA meetings to persuade us to encourage our clients into tech stocks because of the coming second, "super-boom". I smelt a rat and suspected that our mom-and-pop savers were being set up to help large, favoured clients cash out of their positions. 

The stockmarkets (Dow and FTSE) have halved twice since 2000. I had hoped that when the first crash bottomed out (2003) we would be back into a sensible investment environment, and if that had happened I would probably still be in the industry, since I could have squared investment recommendation with my professional conscience. I hadn't reckoned with our wildly irresponsible governments, who flooded the market with cash and created the property bubble, then crashed interest rates and pumped in more cash to support the busted banks.

So, down twice, up twice - and now, possibly, about to go down for the third and final time.

Meanwhile, I have been trying for over a year now to get my MP merely to ask a question in Parliament about the restoration of safe, index-linked investments for ordinary savers. No joy. Apparently we are to be thrown to the wolves.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Indolent charity

The only difference between Timmins's dinner and his neighbour's was, that he had hired, as we have said, the greater part of the plate, and that his cowardly conscience magnified faults and disasters of which no one else probably took heed.

...guilty consciences, I say, made them fancy that everyone was spying out their domestic deficiencies: whereas, it is probable that nobody present thought of their failings at all. People never do: they never see holes in their neighbours' coats—they are too indolent, simple, and charitable.

William Thackeray – A Little Dinner at Timmin’s

I suspect many of us have what Thackeray calls a cowardly conscience – imagining that other people pay more attention to us than they ever do.

Yet many people in public life appear to have no such thing, or rather they understand what Thackeray might have called the simple, indolent charity of their audience. They are well aware that their inadequacies may be obscured behind the crudest dishonesty, misdirection and sheer chutzpah so essential for serious political aspirants.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Ethical investment in African farming

See Josh Altman's new piece on the Agriculture Page.

Money is Pouring into Farmland Investments in Africa - But Can They be Ethical as Well as Profitable?

As the average age of populations in western countries continues to creep slowly upwards, institutional investors such as pension funds are increasingly seeking investments that throw off a steady stream of income with dependable increases in capital gains. One asset class that has seen a huge inflow of investment into it is farmland, as many investors are very favorably disposed to the asset class due to the ongoing agricultural "super cycle" as coined by noted farmland and commodities investor Jim Rogers.

In the UK for example, over the last ten years, agricultural land has appreciated roughly 13 per cent per year in the according to Investment Property Databank (IPD).  The US and other Western countries have seen similar farmland investment returns. Farmland prices have therefore skyrocketed, reaching as high as £17,300 (approximately $30,000) per hectare in the northwest of England to take just one example.

As a result, investors are increasingly turning their interest in farmland investing to areas of the world where prices are starting from a much lower base, thereby providing much greater upside potential. One area where this has been particularly prevalent is Africa, where hedge funds and other large institutions have been making large agricultural farmland investments. Hedge funds and private equity funds alone have purchased 148 million acres of farmland in just the last three years. Just to take one example, last year the UK’s well known Guardian newspaper outlined how a full 5pc of African agricultural land had been purchased or leased by outside investors, and that more than 200m hectares (495m acres) of land – roughly eight times the size of the UK – were sold or leased between 2000 and 2010.

Given the long history of colonial exploitation in Africa, there has been increasing resistance to what is perceived by many Non-Governmental Organisations as well as African citizens as a “foreign land grab.” Whilst some of these feelings may be based on old stereotypes rather than current conditions, there is no question that some abuses have occurred. Just to take on example, in 2009 the US magazine Businessweek had a comprehensive piece detailing abuses by an American investor named Dominion Farms - this article is well worth a read if you want to understand the legitimate concerns many Afrricans possess regarding foreign land investments in their countries.

Large institutional investors frequently make deals directly with the central governments of African countries, and unfortunately, given the amount of corruption and generally poor governance that still exists in Africa, the investment capital frequently disappear into the pockets of corrupt local officials whilst local farmers are forcibly removed from their homes and lands.

By the same token, it is far from true that all foreign investments in African farmland are predatory and exploitive.  Global consultancy McKinsey recently produced a report on the future of Africa which noted that the continent had over 25 per cent of the globe’s arable land yet produced only ten per cent of agricultural output.  McKinsey argued that up to $50bn/year of African agricultural farmland investment would be needed to bring the sector up to global standards and allow African agriculture to maximize its potential output.

Given the need for investment in African agriculture, there is no reason that foreign farmland investment on the continent cannot be structured as a win-win for both private investors and the host country populations. With the right guidelines and intentions, foreign investment in African farmland can be both ethical and profitable.  The major issue is whether a set of basic principles for “win-win” farmland investment in Africa can be developed.  Just as an example, the following principles can be used to evaluate the fairness of foreign farmland investment in Africa:

1. The farmland investment was negotiated directly with local villagers and tribal chiefs, so there was no chance for corruption at senior government levels;

2. The investment was directed at completely unused land, and none of the local population has been removed from any of the land since it was not in use as a food source;

3. Farmland investments in developing countries should not simply be premised on the food security concerns of the foreign investors, who may want to simply ship the entire crop production back to their home countries;

4. The workforce should as much as possible be local hires who should be paid a fair wage well above the minimum for that country; and

5. Finally, foreign investors in African farmland should also have at least some kind of community re- investment programme in the host country.

Whilst these principles will not solve every concern of local African NGOs, they are at least a starting point for considering examining whether a farmland investment is structured as a win-win for both the investor and the local population, or if the investor is behaving in an inherently exploitative manner. One other interesting factor is that when farmland investment projects are structured such that retail investors can participate, the project is more likely to be fair, as individual investors are much more likely to demand that any project they are involved with be both ethical and profitable.

Josh Altman is with GreenWorld, an alternative investments firm specializing in such areas as forestry and farmland investments. The aim is to allow smaller investors to access such stable, "hard asset" alternative investments that pay high current income and also offer excellent opportunity of long-term capital gains. GreenWorld is on the web at http://www.greenworldbvi.com

UPDATE (22.01.2017): GreenWorld appears to have ceased trading and the website has been taken over by another user.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.