Take the road to Rome, featuring Jack White, Norah Jones and musicians who worked on Ennio Morricone’s 60s scores Five years. That’s all it took for Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) and Daniele Luppi to turn their love of old Italian film scores into a new musical project called Rome. Then again, considering the album features Jack White and Norah Jones, plus musicians who performed on the original Ennio Morricone scores, it’s pretty clear why Rome wasn’t built in a day. Speaking to the Guardian last November , Burton described his passion for Piero Umiliani, Bruno Nicolai and Piero Piccioni – something few people would have expected when the producer first came to prominence in 2004 following his Beatles/Jay-Z mash-up, the Grey Album. Has Danger Mouse confounded expectations once again? Has Norah Jones revived her reputation? And is this the only record you’re likely to hear that links the White Stripes with Alessandro Alessandroni? The answer to that last question is “yes”, but let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Danger Mouse Jack White Norah Jones World music guardian.co.uk/music guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Take the road to Rome, featuring Jack White, Norah Jones and musicians who worked on Ennio Morricone’s 60s scores Five years. That’s all it took for Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) and Daniele Luppi to turn their love of old Italian film scores into a new musical project called Rome. Then again, considering the album features Jack White and Norah Jones, plus musicians who performed on the original Ennio Morricone scores, it’s pretty clear why Rome wasn’t built in a day. Speaking to the Guardian last November , Burton described his passion for Piero Umiliani, Bruno Nicolai and Piero Piccioni – something few people would have expected when the producer first came to prominence in 2004 following his Beatles/Jay-Z mash-up, the Grey Album. Has Danger Mouse confounded expectations once again? Has Norah Jones revived her reputation? And is this the only record you’re likely to hear that links the White Stripes with Alessandro Alessandroni? The answer to that last question is “yes”, but let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Danger Mouse Jack White Norah Jones World music guardian.co.uk/music guardian.co.uk
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Witness in US trial expected to say ISI officers were complicit in the 2008 terrorist attacks that killed more than 160 people The apparent involvement of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s premier spy agency, in international attacks carried out by Islamic militants is to be revealed in a trial starting next week in the US. A former member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a violent Pakistan-based extremist group with close links to the Pakistani military, is expected to tell a court in Chicago that ISI officers were complicit in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai , India’s commercial capital, in which more than 160 people died. The trial comes at a critical time, with relations between Islamabad and Washington at a new low following the death of Osama bin Laden. The hearings could acutely embarrass the ISI, which is suspected by many in the US and elsewhere of protecting the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The trial is also likely to fuel pressure in the US for the high levels of financial aid to Pakistan to be cut. Official court documents in the case have so far played down the role of the ISI, still officially considered by the CIA and other American agencies as a key ally in the hunt for al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan. They avoid mentioning the Pakistani spy service by name, for example. Spokesmen for the ISI have repeatedly denied any involvement in the Mumbai attacks to the Guardian. The key witness in the hearings will be David Headley, an American-Pakistani LeT militant who has already told Indian intelligence services that he carried out the surveillance for the Mumbai operation while working for the ISI. A report on Headley’s interrogation last June by Indian investigators obtained and published by the Guardian in October revealed that the 51-year-old double agent gave his questioners a detailed picture of close co-ordination between at least lower-ranking officers in the ISI and the LeT militants. Headley claimed he was trained by an ISI non-commissioned officer in clandestine techniques and that he kept his handler – named as “Major Iqbal” – up to date with planning for the raid. The ISI also provided training and facilities to the attack team as well as funding his own surveillance operations, said Headley, who changed his name from Dawood Gilani. American prosecutors have now indicted “Major Iqbal” along with three senior members of LeT and an American alleged to be involved with the group. Headley, a former bar manager who was arrested in October 2009 in Chicago while returning from Europe, has since co-operated with US authorities in return for a reduced sentence. LeT – whose name means “war party of the pure” – has had a close relationship with the Pakistani security establishment since it was founded around 20 years ago. Militants from the group brought a new edge of extremism and brutality to violence in Kashmir and since 2001 have been found fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, though in small numbers. Following the Mumbai attacks and under great international pressure, Islamabad ordered the arrest of a series of senior LeT figures. But successive Pakistani leaders have refused overseas demands to shut down the group. In the secret report, Headley is said to have told the Indian investigators he was recruited by the ISI in 2005 and that his handler had expressed enthusiasm when told which targets had been chosen for the Mumbai operation. Headley said too that he had informed his ISI handler about his involvement in operations that breakaway LeT factions planned to launch in Europe. The only man named in the recent American indictment who will be on trial in Chicago is Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago-based immigration consultant who is charged with material support of terrorism. He denies the charges against him. Two weeks ago the Guardian revealed that the ISI had been categorised with al-Qaida, Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and other militant Islamic groups in a 2007 “threat matrix” compiled to help interrogators at Guantánamo Bay. Links with all these entities were indicative of involvement with terrorism, the document said. Intelligence reports used for assessments of detainees in Guantánamo Bay reveal scores of references by captured militants to ISI support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Documents dating from 2002 to 2005 qualify many of these references with the warning that any such assistance to insurgents fighting western troops was thought to be the work of “rogue” ISI operatives. From 2006, there are no such caveats as US analysts appear to have decided that assistance for some militant factions was official policy. Pakistan Mumbai terror attacks United States Global terrorism India Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Witness in US trial expected to say ISI officers were complicit in the 2008 terrorist attacks that killed more than 160 people The apparent involvement of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s premier spy agency, in international attacks carried out by Islamic militants is to be revealed in a trial starting next week in the US. A former member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a violent Pakistan-based extremist group with close links to the Pakistani military, is expected to tell a court in Chicago that ISI officers were complicit in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai , India’s commercial capital, in which more than 160 people died. The trial comes at a critical time, with relations between Islamabad and Washington at a new low following the death of Osama bin Laden. The hearings could acutely embarrass the ISI, which is suspected by many in the US and elsewhere of protecting the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The trial is also likely to fuel pressure in the US for the high levels of financial aid to Pakistan to be cut. Official court documents in the case have so far played down the role of the ISI, still officially considered by the CIA and other American agencies as a key ally in the hunt for al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan. They avoid mentioning the Pakistani spy service by name, for example. Spokesmen for the ISI have repeatedly denied any involvement in the Mumbai attacks to the Guardian. The key witness in the hearings will be David Headley, an American-Pakistani LeT militant who has already told Indian intelligence services that he carried out the surveillance for the Mumbai operation while working for the ISI. A report on Headley’s interrogation last June by Indian investigators obtained and published by the Guardian in October revealed that the 51-year-old double agent gave his questioners a detailed picture of close co-ordination between at least lower-ranking officers in the ISI and the LeT militants. Headley claimed he was trained by an ISI non-commissioned officer in clandestine techniques and that he kept his handler – named as “Major Iqbal” – up to date with planning for the raid. The ISI also provided training and facilities to the attack team as well as funding his own surveillance operations, said Headley, who changed his name from Dawood Gilani. American prosecutors have now indicted “Major Iqbal” along with three senior members of LeT and an American alleged to be involved with the group. Headley, a former bar manager who was arrested in October 2009 in Chicago while returning from Europe, has since co-operated with US authorities in return for a reduced sentence. LeT – whose name means “war party of the pure” – has had a close relationship with the Pakistani security establishment since it was founded around 20 years ago. Militants from the group brought a new edge of extremism and brutality to violence in Kashmir and since 2001 have been found fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, though in small numbers. Following the Mumbai attacks and under great international pressure, Islamabad ordered the arrest of a series of senior LeT figures. But successive Pakistani leaders have refused overseas demands to shut down the group. In the secret report, Headley is said to have told the Indian investigators he was recruited by the ISI in 2005 and that his handler had expressed enthusiasm when told which targets had been chosen for the Mumbai operation. Headley said too that he had informed his ISI handler about his involvement in operations that breakaway LeT factions planned to launch in Europe. The only man named in the recent American indictment who will be on trial in Chicago is Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago-based immigration consultant who is charged with material support of terrorism. He denies the charges against him. Two weeks ago the Guardian revealed that the ISI had been categorised with al-Qaida, Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and other militant Islamic groups in a 2007 “threat matrix” compiled to help interrogators at Guantánamo Bay. Links with all these entities were indicative of involvement with terrorism, the document said. Intelligence reports used for assessments of detainees in Guantánamo Bay reveal scores of references by captured militants to ISI support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Documents dating from 2002 to 2005 qualify many of these references with the warning that any such assistance to insurgents fighting western troops was thought to be the work of “rogue” ISI operatives. From 2006, there are no such caveats as US analysts appear to have decided that assistance for some militant factions was official policy. Pakistan Mumbai terror attacks United States Global terrorism India Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
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• Standard & Poor’s gives country a B rating • Agency blames missed deficit target • Greek finance ministry says move based on ‘rumour’ Standard & Poor’s has again infuriated Greece by cutting the credit rating of the debt-laden country – from BB- to B – and warning that it could be slashed even further. The agency issued the downgrade amid speculation that the €110bn (£97bn) International Monetary Fund and European Union bailout is being renegotiated , only a year after being agreed, and its expectation that investors face losses on their bond holdings. Greece was quick to issue a statement saying that the downgrade “comes at a time when there have been no new negative developments or decisions since the last rating action by the agency just over a month ago and therefore is not justified”. In March, S&P had cut the rating to BB- and warned the country faced another downgrade if the 2010 budget or 2011 fiscal performance fell below expectations. “In fact, Greece missed its 2010 fiscal target (a budget deficit of 10.5% of GDP versus a 9.6% target) and achieving the 2011 target is uncertain,” S&P said. “We believe that many of Greece’s eurozone official creditors have concluded that the ensuing higher projected borrowing requirements have reduced the likelihood that the Greek government will be able to return to commercial markets for medium- and long-term issuance later this year or early next year as originally planned. Accordingly, they may see a restructuring of official and commercial debt as the best way forward,” the agency said. It indicated that half of Greece’s debts could eventually be written off in order “to restore Greece’s debt burden to a sustainable level”. The rating could be downgraded again, the agency warned, but said that it could be maintained at its current level “if Greece’s eurozone partners exempt commercial creditors from comparability of treatment while extending maturities on their official debt”. When the agency cut Greece’s rating to BB- in March, prime minister George Papandreou said the country was being downgraded not because of its policies but because of the EU’s handling of the crisis. He later said that ratings agencies were “seeking to shape our destiny and determine the future of our children”. After the latest downgrade, Greece’s ministry of finance said: “Credit rating decisions should be based on objective data, policymakers’ announcements and realistic assessments of the conditions facing an economy. Not on market rumours and press reports. When such decisions are based simply on rumours, their validity is seriously cast in doubt.” Secret talks were held Luxembourg on Friday between Athens and some of the key EU players and led to the conclusion that Greece will not be able to meet the terms of last year’s rescue by returning to the financial markets to issue more bonds. Its current rate of borrowing is regarded as prohibitively high, at 15.9%. Greece has never had a top-notch AAA rating but has been downgraded or warned of a downgrade eight times since January 2009, when it had an A rating. It was the first eurozone country to have its debt rating cut to junk a year ago. European debt crisis Ratings agencies Greece Europe Financial crisis Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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Detective Inspector Eddie Hall falsely claimed Tomlinson fell down twice before encountering PC Simon Harwood A senior Metropolitan police officer has been found guilty of “reckless” conduct after misleading two pathologists over the possible cause of Ian Tomlinson’s death. Detective Inspector Eddie Hall, the most senior Met officer involved in the Tomlinson inquiry, was investigated after it emerged he told two forensic experts Tomlinson had fallen to the ground in front of a police van before the newspaper seller came into contact with PC Simon Harwood. In his defence, Hall said an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigator had told him Tomlinson had fallen in front of a van. The IPCC investigator, Chris Mahaffey, denied this. Hall’s claim was formally relayed to two pathologists charged with finding a cause of 47-year-old Tomlinson’s death at the G20 protests in London. Video footage showed Tomlinson being struck with a baton and violently pushed from behind on 1 April 2009 on Royal Exchange Buildings. An inquest jury found last week that Tomlinson was “unlawfully killed” by the police officer, and died from internal bleeding as a result of injuries sustained by the push. Jurors heard evidence from four pathologists, including Dr Ken Shorrock, one of the pathologists formally instructed by Hall on behalf of the Met at St Pancras mortuary on 22 April 2009. The police officer told Shorrock that Tomlinson had been seen to fall to the ground on Lombard Street, minutes before the newspaper seller came across Harwood. The same information was supplied to Dr Ben Swift, the pathologist instructed by Harwood, who was also present during the examination. Tomlinson did walk on to Lombard Street as he tried to find a route home through the G20 protests and was forcefully escorted out of the road by police officers. But there was no evidence that even suggested he fell to the ground. Releasing the findings of its inquiry, the IPCC confirmed that “misinformation was supplied by the police to the pathologists”. It said there was never any evidence to suggest Tomlinson fell to the ground in front of a van on Lombard Street. Investigators found that while Hall did not “intentionally mislead” the pathologist, his erroneous briefing jeopardised the investigation, inquest and possible prosecution. “He did so based on what he believed to be the case at the time but he should have ensured he relayed factual information rather than his interpretation of the facts,” the report said. The inquest jury was told to ignore part of Shorrock’s report in which he said he could not rule out that the fall in Lombard Street had resulted in the fatal internal bleeding. The Met said in a statement: “The report concerning information supplied to the pathologists by an MPS [Metropolitan police service] officer found that although incorrect information was given, this was an honestly held belief and there was no evidence of intent to mislead and no lasting damage to the investigation.” Tomlinson’s family responded by the report by releasing extracts from a letter the IPCC sent to a top-ranking Met officer in March this year. In the letter, the IPCC said there was a “total lack of evidence” for the fall reported by Hall. “There is no evidence of any kind to suggest that Ian Tomlinson fell in front of a van,” the letter said. “No media footage portrays a fall; it was not said in any Gold Group [a forum designed to 'add value to the response to an internal or external critical incident'] meeting; no investigator workbook documents that there was a fall, there is no email traffic revealing such a view and there is no witness evidence that he fell in front of a van.” In a separate development, the Guardian revealed on Monday that senior police were told within 48 hours of Tomlinson’s death that police witnesses had seen him being pushed to the ground by Harwood. The three constables who witnessed the assault did not recognise Harwood, but the significance of their information was instantly realised and passed on to City of London police investigators. The IPCC is now investigating why City of London failed to pass the information on to its own officials, the coroner, the pathologist, the family or the media. Ian Tomlinson Metropolitan police Police Protest G20 Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Judith Miller thinks that whole debate over torture is so yesterday. I wonder what other crimes Judith Miller thinks should be excused because someone promised not to do them again? Given her history of playing stenographer for the Bush administration with their push to invade Iraq, I would imagine that list is quite long. MILLER: Yes, this is a replay of the old arguments we were having earlier on, before the election of Obama about what we did, why we did it. I think a couple of commentators pointed out that the techniques that were used under Bush, President Bush were not the techniques that were in place by the time he left office. And so you do have, we’ve had an evolution of thought about how you handle terrorism, what’s appropriate, what’s not. It was kind of a shame to see this whole thing come up again because pretty much the issue’s been solved. Sorry Judy, but it’s not been solved when no one’s been held accountable for it. And the people making an issue of it today are the endless supplies of Bushies running to the airways to try to justify their tactics that failed to catch bin Laden. Miller also goes on to say that talking about whether torture worked or not is “not the only standard by which we judge something like this.” Well that’s right Judy, but the standard should be whether we’re following the law or not. Alan Colmes spoke up and asked a good question which is why are we bragging about torturing anybody in the first place? What’s pitiful is after the last ten years of continually being propagandized by our media, the politicians and the movie and television industry, so much of the public does think it’s perfectly acceptable to torture someone and that it actually yields reliable information. Jim Pinkerton throws out the treatment of Bradley Manning as proof that the Obama administration is continuing Bush’s practices and I’m with Alan Colmes, torture is not acceptable no matter who’s running the country and I’m not about to defend the way Manning has been treated in custody just as Colmes wasn’t. I’m also not going to play this all sides are equal game either when you look at the long list of atrocities that were committed under the Bush administration and hold up Manning’s case as somehow equal to that as Pinkerton did here. It’s just not. And there’s nothing Pinkerton could say that would make me believe he’s actually got one iota of concern for Bradley Manning. He deserves a speedy trial and we need to find out the truth about how he’s been treated in custody. If Pinkerton is concerned for his well being, he sure as hell has not been advocating for it on Fox. What’s disgusting is that the fact that no one was held accountable for what happened during the Bush years, so now we’ve got these guys back on television instead of on trial and our media still defending their actions and calling waterboarding “enhanced interrogation” instead of what it is, torture.
Continue reading …Naomi Klein in 2000, talking about attempts to organize McDonald’s workers. I know a lot of media people read our site, so I wonder why they seem so oblivious to the ongoing economic pain suffered by so many through this recession. Do they know how clueless they sound? The middle class is being systematically hollowed out of our country, pushing people to the margins and leaving nothing but the economic extremes. From Andy Kroll at TomDispatch: Think of it as a parable for these grim economic times. On April 19th, McDonald’s launched its first-ever national hiring day, signing up 62,000 new workers at stores throughout the country. For some context, that’s more jobs created by one company in a single day than the net job creation of the entire U.S. economy in 2009. And if that boggles the mind, consider how many workers applied to local McDonald’s franchises that day and left empty-handed: 938,000 of them. With a 6.2% acceptance rate in its spring hiring blitz, McDonald’s was more selective than the Princeton, Stanford, or Yale University admission offices. It shouldn’t be surprising that a million souls flocked to McDonald’s hoping for a steady paycheck, when nearly 14 million Americans are out of work and nearly a million more are too discouraged even to look for a job. At this point, it apparently made no difference to them that the fast-food industry pays some of the lowest wages around: on average, $8.89 an hour, or barely half the $15.95 hourly average across all American industries. On an annual basis, the average fast-food worker takes home $20,800, less than half the national average of $43,400. McDonald’s appears to pay even worse, at least with its newest hires. In the press release for its national hiring day, the multi-billion-dollar company said it would spend $518 million on the newest round of hires, or $8,354 a head. Hence the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “McJob” as “a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement.” Of course, if you read only the headlines, you might think that the jobs picture was improving. The economy added 1.3 million private-sector jobs between February 2010 and January 2011, and the headline unemployment rate edged downward , from 9.8% to 8.8%, between November of last year and March. It inched upward in April, to 9%, but tempering that increase was the news that the economy added 244,000 jobs last month ( not including those 62,000 McJobs ), beating economists’ expectations. Under this somewhat sunnier news, however, runs a far darker undercurrent. Yes, jobs are being created, but what kinds of jobs paying what kinds of wages? Can those jobs sustain a modest lifestyle and pay the bills? Or are we living through a McJobs recovery? The evidence points to the latter. According to a recent analysis by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the biggest growth in private-sector job creation in the past year occurred in positions in the low-wage retail, administrative, and food service sectors of the economy. While 23% of the jobs lost in the Great Recession that followed the economic meltdown of 2008 were “low-wage” (those paying $9-$13 an hour), 49% of new jobs added in the sluggish “recovery” are in those same low-wage industries. On the other end of the spectrum, 40% of the jobs lost paid high wages ($19-$31 an hour), while a mere 14% of new jobs pay similarly high wages.As a point of comparison, that’s much worse than in the recession of 2001 after the high-tech bubble burst. Then, higher wage jobs made up almost a third of all new jobs in the first year after the crisis . The hardest hit industries in terms of employment now are finance, manufacturing, and especially construction, which was decimated when the housing bubble burst in 2007 and has yet to recover. Meanwhile, NELP found that hiring for temporary administrative and waste-management jobs, health-care jobs, and of course those fast-food restaurants has surged. Indeed in 2010, one in four jobs added by private employers was a temporary job, which usually provides workers with few benefits and even less job security. It’s not surprising that employers would first rely on temporary hires as they regained their footing after a colossal financial crisis. But this time around, companies have taken on temp workers in far greater numbers than after previous downturns . Where 26% of hires in 2010 were temporary, the figure was 11% after the early-1990s recession and only 7% after the downturn of 2001.As many labor economists have begun to point out, we’re witnessing an increasing polarization of the U.S. economy over the past three decades. More and more, we’re seeing labor growth largely at opposite ends of the skills-and-wages spectrum — among, that is, the best and the worst kinds of jobs.
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Tonight BBC4 will begin repeating this 1976 Doctor Who story. It’s the perfect way to honour to Elisabeth Sladen The recent death of Elisabeth Sladen , best known for her role as Doctor Who’s time travelling companion Sarah Jane Smith, prompted an extraordinary outpouring of grief from her peers and fans young and old. And when it came to asking which story the BBC should repeat in her honour, the candidates seemed endless. Planet of the Spiders, when Sarah Jane first witnessed a regeneration, Pertwee bowing out with the seminal line, “a tear, Sarah Jane?” The bravehearted face-off against Davros in Genesis of the Daleks? Her eerie vulnerability in possession caper Pyramids of Mars? Instead BBC Four will repeat 1976 story The Hand of Fear tonight and tomorrow. The four-parter holds all of those qualities that made Sarah Jane, and the woman who played her, so loved: the heart, the courage and the fragility. But it is of course most notable as being her final appearance in the classic series. The Hand of Fear itself is a classic from the Hammer-inspired period, with the disembodied hand of ancient species Eldrad causing havoc in a nuclear power station, feeding off the radiation to grow back into its true form and attempting a standard enslavement attempt. But it’s also among the strongest examples of its type: given the chance to film in a real nuclear plant (in 1976!), the producers could deliver expensive-looking wideshots, a world away from the wobbly sets of legend. The adventure is notable for the ridiculous Andy Pandy outfit Sarah Jane had to wear, but when she is possessed (as happens rather often), the childish costume, coupled with a dead-eyed Sladen camping it up, declaring that “Eldrad must live!”, means her porcelain face is every bit the killer dolly. It’s vintage Sarah Jane. It seems crazy now, but the original plan had been to kill Sarah Jane off, perhaps as a marker of how iconic the character had become. It was testament to how much affection had developed for Sladen that her request for that not to happen was met. It wouldn’t be fair on the younger children, she reasoned. Neither did she want to be married off, as had happened to her predecessor, Katy Manning’s Jo Grant. This wouldn’t be true to the character, she figured, and her unspoken feelings for the Doctor. So Sarah Jane’s exit feels low-key, but no less powerful. It’s a common criticism of old Doctor Who that the female characters are underwritten tropes who come and go like carousel horses. The worst thing you could say about Sarah Jane’s exit is it maybe feels a little tacked on compared to the epic story arcs that greet companions nowadays. But Baker and Sladen rewrote the scripts themselves to deliver something fitting. Cold from the ice planet, grumpy at being possessed once too often, an exasperated Sarah declares that: “I’m going to pack up my goodies and go home!” Exasperated that the Doctor doesn’t appear to be listening, bungling under the console, she storms off and does just that, demanding to return to south Croydon. While she’s off packing her goodies, the Doctor receives a summons to Gallifrey from the Time Lords, and “realises” that he cannot take a human to his home planet and Sarah must indeed depart. In many ways he’s behaving appallingly. The audience didn’t know at this point whether he was telling the truth (he never cared much for Time Lord custom in the past), or whether he had realised that he’d denied this woman a normal life for too long, and was breaking his own heart to do the right thing. As the domestic turns serious, Sarah’s face cracks, she claims she was only joking to get a rise, but they both know it’s over. As ever with this extraordinary friendship, it’s about what isn’t said. They part with some platitudes about how “travel really does broaden the mind,” and she scuttles off whistling, not imagining for a minute that she won’t see him again for 30 years. A little sad, but striding off into the future whistling. This was Sarah Jane Smith. We discovered the true emotional cost of what happened to Sarah, of the Doctor’s alien misunderstanding of human emotion, when they were reunited in 2006, Sarah having been unable to ever truly move on. We also discovered that rather than south Croydon, he’d actually left her in Aberdeen. Sarah Jane’s story eventually got its happy ending. For Elisabeth Sladen’s rather mournful one, I can’t think of a more suitable tribute. • Doctor Who: Hand of Fear, will be on BBC4 at 7.40 and 8.05pm on Monday 9 May, and again on Tuesday 10 May Doctor Who Television Science fiction Fantasy BBC4 BBC Television industry Dan Martin guardian.co.uk
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Dominique Strauss-Kahn pictured in €100,000 car, undermining socialist credentials ahead of expected bid for presidency In a country that has never forgiven Nicolas Sarkozy’s love of bling, it wasn’t the brightest idea for the French Socialists’ great presidential hope to be photographed climbing into a €100,000 Porsche car. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund and long-hailed as the only man who can beat Sarkozy, now looks certain to return to France and run for president in 2012. Secret meetings in Paris in recent days have mobilised his future campaign team. But “Porschegate” has created a headache for the man whose greatest challenge is convincing voters that he is not a haughty champagne socialist. From Washington, Strauss-Kahn has spent months trying to convey to the French electorate that he is not the voice of globalised fat cats and highly-paid technocrats but a true leftwing intellectual who can save the French social model. Sliding into a sports car outside his €4m (£3.5m) Paris penthouse with his millionaire wife was a faux pas, even if the vehicle was not his, but belonged to an adviser who works for one of France’s richest men. Sarkozy’s entourage could not hide their glee. So many Porsche jokes flew around the Socialist party that Ségolène Royal, a rival of Strauss-Kahn, ordered her supporters not to crack sports-car gags online. Things were made worse for Strauss-Kahn, as France on Monday marked 30 years since François Mitterrand’s 1981 election victory. Mitterrand is modern France’s only Socialist president; his sphinx-like public self-restraint went under the slogan La force tranquile (calm strength). Strauss-Kahn was quickly dubbed La Porsche tranquile . Strauss-Kahn – or DSK has he is known in France – has remained silent over his presidential ambitions owing to the impartiality of his IMF job. But his lieutenants in Paris said over weekend that he will declare his intentions on 28 June, the start of the Socialists’ race to chose a candidate. Polls continue to show him far ahead of Sarkozy. The latest survey for LH2 found Strauss-Kahn would take 23% of the vote followed by the extreme right politician Marine Le Pen (17%) and Sarkozy (16%). Not only would DSK beat Sarkozy, the incumbent would be eliminated in the first round. “To walk away now looks weak,” said a diplomat who knows Strauss-Kahn but wanted to remain anonymous. Jean-Jacques Urvoas, one of DSK’s close supporters, said he was “convinced” his man would run. But even advisers acknowledge that a return to Paris would not be easy. A former finance minister and economics professor, Strauss-Kahn will land in the middle of a party fighting over a primary race to nominate its candidate. His attributes – a presidential demeanour, experience of global politics, understanding of finance – are also weaknesses. He has been criticised for being haughty and arrogant, and worst of all “free-market” and not truly leftwing. Despite being regarded as the architect of the 35-hour week, a cause celebre of the French left, Strauss-Kahn is seen as to the right of his party. “He’s not a socialist,” said Roland Dumas, a former foreign minister in the Mitterrand government. The Socialists chose Royal over Strauss-Kahn to run in the last presidential election in 2007. He now faces another rival, her former partner François Hollande. The former Socialist party leader has emerged as a surprise challenger by positioning himself as a man of the people against DSK’s man of the establishment. In a poll this week, Hollande was seen as the Socialist who most resembled Mitterrand. The primary race will begin in June and end in the autumn. Strauss-Kahn’s greatest weapon may proved to be his third wife, Anne Sinclair, France’s answer to the Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman. She has helped neutralise his moneyed image by preparing a book about her art-dealer grandfather, suggesting the couple’s wealth comes from her inheritance rather than her husband. Sinclair has also set out to neutralise Strauss-Kahn’s troubled image as, what the French press politely call, “the great seducer”. In 2006, when he was last preparing to run for president, she told L’Express she was “rather proud” of his reputation, saying: “It’s important for a politician to be able to seduce.” Sinclair has remained silent over his brief affair with a senior IMF colleague. In 2008, an IMF investigation cleared him of harassment and favouritism over the affair while deeming it a “serious error of judgment”. When Porschegate erupted and the right took advantage, the MP Pierre Moscovici, a DSK lieutenant, warned against a campaign of “stink bombs”. It was interpreted not only as a warning against jibes about Strauss-Kahn’s wealth but also to silence rumours that the Sarkozy camp could go rummaging through his private life to catch him out during an election campaign. Olivier Ferrand, who is head of the thinktank Terra Nova and is close to Strauss-Kahn, said the Socialist party primary would work in DSK’s favour, giving him a “legitimacy” as the left’s true candidate if he won. The Socialist party, which could be dented by anti-globalisation candidates on the hard left, wants to avoid a repeat of the “political aberration” of April 2002 when an array of leftwing candidates split the vote and the Socialists were knocked out of in the first round by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National. France Nicolas Sarkozy Europe Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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