The Strange Incident; Update

Firstly, the incorrect use of QC has been removed (thank you to those responsible for removal). I emphasise again, for the avoidance of doubt, that I am not a QC, nor have I ever held myself out as such.  I suppose I should take it as a compliment that sometimes I have to struggle to persuade people that I am not!   

I am aware that some trolls have suggested (in posted comments on the Veterans Today website) that I was making the Olympics aircraft incident up, however it has been CONFIRMED that an ASL KingAir, described by its owners as acting under charter to a Belgian television company, made a crash landing at Cambridge Airport. In addition to what is described as a 'total electrical failure' but was more likely an AC supply failure only, the nosewheel collapsed on landing.   Multiple failures like that on an aircraft as reliable as the KingAir call for comment.  They are apparently a nice plane to fly, with few vices.  
I am by the way making no criticism of ASL.  I am at the mercy of editors I'm afraid.  Some one put a reference to 'terrorism' in the headline of one of my online articles without consulting me.  There is not the slightest basis for supposing that ASL are involved in terrorism or anything of that sort.   They may have been on a counter-terrorist mission, ASL themselves using the word 'mission' rather than 'flight.'

I shall be keeping an eye on this one.   I imagine the AAIB investigation will be the usual farce, with respect.  AAIB still think the Comets crashed because of metal fatigue, a theory which I hope will not survive the publication of Spyhunter.


Interested to see Vladimir Putin, whom I am told by those who know him is an awfully nice man, attending the Olympics and having a quiet word with Cameron, out of earshot of the Cabinet Office.  I would be surprised if the conversation was confined to judo, a sport in which hitherto our rather lacklustre Prime Minister has shown little interest (the President of Russia is a black belt, ie has somewhat greater talent in the sport than the British Prime Minister, as well as greater political talents and a finer mind).


I hope the PM apologised for the Litvinenko nonsense.  The bogus allegation that the President sanctioned the 'assassination' of Lt-Col Litvinenko has done real damage to Anglo-Russian relations.  It just goes to show what can happen when people run off the deep end with wild conspiracy theories without first checking their facts.  Litvinenko probably died of peritonitis and the Po he ingested had an Iranian, not a Russian, signature.  It also arrived in Britain via Hamburg, from Iran.   There was no hit, let alone one sanctioned by President Putin.


It would be very helpful if the Litvinenko inquest were 'brought forward' (I am sure an inquest in Russia wouldn't take this long) and even more helpful if the post-mortem reports were gone into thoroughly at that inquest.  Ideally the Russian Government should be represented, since the Foreign Office, disgracefully with respect, have seen fit to ventilate an accusation of murder against the Russian Head of State.


I was not in the least bit surprised to see President Putin call for leniency for the members of an ill-advised pop group who took it upon themselves to get involved in what the authorities view as an illegal demonstration.  He is a long way from the villain he is painted to be in the mainstream Western media.   The noisy demonstrations over his election were probably sponsored from outside Russia (they have all the hallmarks of the DVD's ruthlessly efficient Propaganda Section). There is no reason to doubt that the election result fairly reflected Russian public opinion.


Good to see Cameron finally come to his senses over the LibDem sponsored attack on the privileges of the House of Lords.  True conservatives however, including myself, would like to see the ill-advised Blair attack on the hereditary peers reversed.   


Turning to more important matters poor old Andrew Strauss has really messed up in the Second Test at Headingley.   South Africa scored 419, having been put into bat.  The frustrating thing is that Strauss appears unable to learn from his mistakes - he's done this time and again, inserting the opposition on a flat pitch and being forced to watch whilst they pile on the runs.  The captaincy is not only affecting his batting it's also affecting his fielding - at the Oval he made the most expensive drop in modern Test history, spilling Amla, who went on to score more than 250 more runs.  He really ought to have resigned after England's humiliation.  Time to bring KP back.  If Hugh Morris, said to be the mastermind, if that is not too strong a word with respect, behind Pietersen's sacking, would also be kind enough to resign from the ECB that would be a bonus.  The sacking was a divisive move, which has done a lot of damage to English cricket.