Police find missing woman’s body and search continues for second, which they believe is of victim from case years ago Police investigating the murder of Sian O’Callaghan believe her body had been moved before it was recovered from an area near the village of Uffington, about 15 miles east of Swindon. A postmortem on the 22-year-old woman, who went missing after leaving a nightclub early last Saturday, was under way, Wiltshire police revealed at a press conference on Friday. A suspect being held on suspicion of kidnap and two murders had also led police to a location near the Gloucester village of Northleach in the Cotswolds, where they are now searching for a second body, said Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher. He has not been charged and police said that an application might have to be made to magistrates for his continued detention. Police have carried out searches at the house of a Swindon taxi driver named locally as 47-year-old Christopher Halliwell, as well as at Savernake forest in Wiltshire, where O’Callaghan’s phone is known to have been taken after she vanished. Fulcher, who was taken personally to the two areas under investigation by the suspect, said: “We believe Sian’s body was moved to the Uffington area by this individual.” The Northleach search had continued through the night. It was “a painstaking, slow process”. If there was another body, “we believe it relates to an incident some years ago and it is an adult,” said Fulcher. Wiltshire police only had one such missing-person case on its files, he added. The man in custody was arrested on suspicion of kidnap on Thursday after police stopped a green Toyota Avensis estate car. O’Callaghan disappeared after leaving the Suju nightclub in the Old Town area of Swindon at 2.52am on Saturday. She had been expected to walk the half mile to the flat she shared with her boyfriend, Kevin Reape, 25, but did not arrive and was reported missing a few hours later. People have been leaving flowers, cards and candles at the entrance to the nightclub. Police have appealed to those using pubs and nightclubs locally “to do so wisely”. Crime James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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Officers prepare new tactics to contain criminal activists, but have no strong intelligence on what TUC insists is a family protest Police chiefs believe “a small but significant minority” will try to hijack Saturday’s march in London against government cuts to stage violent attacks on property and the police. The Metropolitan police, under fire for its use of kettling in previous protests, is deploying new tactics for an expected turnout of 100,000 to 300,000 people in the biggest protest in eight years. Analysts will be used to monitor live CCTV footage if groups are detained by police. They will tell officers on the ground which protesters are not suspected of violence and can be let go and which are suspected of criminality and should continue to be detained. A senior Met source, involved in the planning for the march, told the Guardian: “Some people on Saturday will try to use the event for their own ends or violence.” However he said the Met had no solid intelligence that groups were trying to cause violence and described much of the “chatter” on the internet and in leaflets as aspirational. “There are people who will turn up and if the opportunity arises, will resort to something that may lead to violence or damage. Some want to occupy buildings and that is an offence,” he said. In separate comments, the Met’s former head of counter-terrorism, Andy Hayman, claimed to have “strong intelligence” that extremist groups were planning illegal acts at the march and rally on Saturday. He accused the police of failing to act pre-emptively to avoid violence, saying they “prefer to deal with things on the day”. The Trades Union Congress, which has organised the march, issued a last-minute plea to any protesters planning to disrupt the event to “let Joe public have their moment” to demonstrate peacefully. A spokeswoman acknowledged there was evidence on the internet that some groups were planning illegal action but insisted the TUC had worked intensely with the police and Liberty observers to ensure the event runs as smoothly as possible. “This is a family event,” she said. The march is expected to be the biggest in the UK since the protests against the Iraq war when up to 1 million people took to the streets. Hundreds of thousands of trade unionists will be joined by a broad coalition of groups from pensioners and doctors to families and first-time protesters to highlight opposition to the government’s programme of spending cuts. Police say those on their way to the march carrying objects such as balaclavas to cover their faces to avoid detection will be stopped, and officers have been reminded of their stop-and-search powers to tackle people alleged to be carrying objects that could be used to cause trouble. Amid confusion about the degree of force that police can use if asked to clear areas, the senior source said officers had been given a “use of force lecture” setting out the law. “It is a dilemma in public order policing, but every officer is responsible for their own actions.” The source said “the odd brick or bottle” would not prompt police to wade in, and even if officers needed to don riot gear, commanders would aim to get them back into regular uniforms and baseball caps quicker than on previous marches. The source said it was believed officers wearing Nato-style riot helmets for too long could incite some people, as well as block communication with protesters, which is a key tool for controlling tensions. Police chiefs believe TUC organisers will ensure the main march is peaceful and that stewards will clamp down on any disorder. The concern centres on breakaway or feeder marches which, given the number of people and the area in central London that will need to be policed, cannot be stopped. Police say these marches also cannot be stopped because they are legal. Writing on the website of the Policy Exchange thinktank on Friday, Hayman said: “There is strong intelligence that extremist groups are planning illegal acts of violence at the TUC march and rally on Saturday with the sole aim of disrupting a well-intended peaceful protest. This pattern of behaviour starts to call into question whether it is at all possible for any law-abiding group to exercise their democratic right to protest without interference from violent activists.” He said the police would be trying to manage the safety of tens of thousands of peaceful protesters, while containing any outbursts of violence from the minority. “The tactics and numbers of police officers needed to police both scenarios couldn’t be more different. The lawful protest requires a light of touch approach with the main aim to preserve public safety whereas the potential violent rally calls for a higher police presence that imposes itself on the event hoping to quickly nip a problem in the bud before it escalates,” he said. He called on the police to “aggressively target activists” who use the internet to openly plan illegal protests. “Ahead of Saturday’s event it is curious that such a variety of sources seem to be pointing towards an unlawful protest and yet the police do not appear to be acting on the information, preferring to deal with things on the day.” The TUC spokeswoman said: “The Met has introduced many different tactics to avoid conflict. We are encouraging people not to join feeder marches because it adds to the complication. The overwhelming majority – over 100,000 people – want to come to London because they feel so strongly about what the government is doing and they want to send a powerful message to the government. “We ask that ordinary people are allowed to send a strong message to the government and that people don’t distract from that by causing problems.” Some groups attending the march are calling for occupations of Trafalgar Square or Hyde Park. Police have said that because those areas are public spaces they would not stop that happening – it would be up to the owners of the land, in Trafalgar Square’s case the Greater London authority, to seek a civil court order if they wanted people removed. But the senior source said officers would step in if damage was done, such as attacks on property or statues. It will be the biggest operation to police a march since the 2003 protest against the Iraq war. A total of 4,500 officers will be deployed, with at least 150 drafted in from forces in the home counties. That is the same number of officers as on the streets for the Notting Hill carnival, which attracts crowds running into several hundreds of thousands. Protest Public sector cuts Police TUC Trade unions London Vikram Dodd Polly Curtis Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Cenk Uygur Slams Gingrich and Rumsfeld for Having No Credibility to Criticize Actions in Libya
March 25, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Whether any of us agree or disagree on the president’s decision to go into Libya, Cenk Uygur is right here about hypocrites Newt Gingrich and Donald Rumsfeld and their recent comments on the subject. They have absolutely no credibility to criticize anything. UYGUR: Look, the Republican Party is the how-to guide on how not to deal with the Middle East. Listening to the GOP for advice on the Middle East is like going to Bernie Madoff for financial advice. Dave already wrote about Newt’s flip-flopping here — Gingrich leads the right-wing hypocrisy brigade on Libya: First slams Obama for not acting, then slams him for acting . This is the interview with Politico that Cenk was referring to in the clip above — Donald Rumsfeld: White House lacks goals, vision for Libya . As Uygur mentioned, it appears NATO has agreed to take over the no-fly zone in Libya — NATO to take over no-fly zone . It looks like the United States is still going to be flying the bulk of the missions there for who knows how long though. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me why we can afford this but we can’t afford to pay our teachers. When are we going to have some calls for some “shared sacrifice” from the have-mores for these military interventions?
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The Law Society’s decision to back an application by its regulatory arm to oversee alternative business structures applications is a significant step The march towards alternative business structures (ABSs) took a significant stride forward on Thursday. ABSs, commonly dubbed “Tesco law”, represent the radical relaxation of the tight ownership restrictions on legal businesses and mean that from 6 October this year, non-lawyers will for the first time be able to invest in and own them. It could even mean law firms floating on the stock market. On Thursday the Law Society decided that its independent regulatory arm – the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) – should apply to regulate ABSs as well . As the dominant regulator in the sector, this will make the introduction of ABSs far more straightforward for the overarching regulator responsible for doing so, the Legal Services Board. The other, smaller legal regulators can apply to issue ABS licences – one already has – and the Legal Services Act 2007, which underpins this regime, introduces the slightly odd concept of regulators competing with each other for ABSs’ business. It will be for the board, which is not overly keen on this aspect of the act, to ensure there is not a race to the bottom. Had the Law Society not approved the application, the act would have forced the board itself to regulate ABSs, making it both a supervisory and frontline regulator. This could have in turn unravelled the whole regulatory infrastructure and led to the end of the SRA and its ilk, and the board morphing into a Financial Services Authority for lawyers. Given that prospect, the Law Society’s options were not huge, despite residual concerns about ABSs on principle and also the ability of the SRA to deliver effective regulation of these new businesses. Indeed, the group representing 4,500 sole practitioner solicitors is considering whether to call a special general meeting of the Law Society and then trigger a profession-wide poll on solicitors’ support for ABSs – although any result would be symbolic at most. They argue that allowing commercial interests to dominate the law will damage the independence of the profession and ultimately access to justice. Certainly one of the SRA’s biggest challenges will be to ensure that the “fitness to own” test it will apply to all prospective non-lawyer owners is sufficiently robust. Law firms, through holding client money, have a quasi-banking role and access to other’s people cash, making them “attractive targets for organised crime”, the Law Society chief executive, Des Hudson said on Thursday. ABSs aim to promote competition and innovation in a market where both are lacking. While it is commonly held that there are too many solicitors (there are about 10,500 law firms), competition between them is gentlemanly – there is no “We’re cheaper than Bloggs & Co” advertising. Instead law firms tend to sell themselves in similar ways, as a quality, personal service, making it hard for consumers to distinguish between them. The Legal Services Board and its consumer panel are looking at the problems consumers have in identifying quality in legal services – research shows that people focus on service levels, which they can understand, rather than the ability of the lawyer to do the job, which is much harder to judge. They hold lawyers with a degree of respect “bordering on awe”, the panel reported recently and trust that the lawyer knows what he or she is talking about. It is into this void that solicitors fear brand names will come and offer a consumer-friendly service that will win the loyalty of a public intimidated by the legal process. A recent survey by YouGov found that 60% of people would consider buying legal services from one of 16 named brands, from Barclays to Kwik-Fit, indicating interest in the concept but also a certain reticence at such a radical change in the traditional model. Research consistently shows that there remains a place for an accessible, quality and local legal service, and there are fledgling efforts to bring order to the current chaos, most notably in the form of QualitySolicitors , a franchise-like grouping of rebranded existing law firms up and down the country, while other initiatives such as HighStreetLawyer.com and Face2Face Solicitors are also trying to get off the ground. This is in addition to the flourishing number of comparison websites. Nobody yet knows what the new market will look like – and Hudson says that anyone predicting whether ABSs will be good or bad for the public is “chancing their arm”. But this is what makes it exciting; without doubt some people are quietly hatching some groundbreaking ideas. There has been growing interest in the market for some time as only a relatively small number of legal activities must actually by law be handled by qualified lawyers working in law firms or barristers’ chambers. A few big names have made their intentions clear, most notably the Co-op, which since 2006 has grown its legal services from offering nothing to a £20m-plus business and intends to become an ABS. Others, such as the AA, Saga, Halifax and a host of other financial services businesses have dipped their toes into the water by offering online legal document production and other relatively straightforward services. For many years lawyers have largely ignored the oncoming storm, but with less than seven months to go, they can do so no longer. To generalise, lawyers are second movers and there is a great deal of “wait and see” going on at the moment, although the profession’s history is littered with moments when it has let others take the initiative and eat its breakfast. This October will not be the “big bang” some characterise it as – the law just doesn’t move that quickly. But in five or 10 years’ time, the face of legal services could look very, very different. Neil Rose is the editor of legalfutures.co.uk Alternative Business Structures Solicitors Neil Rose guardian.co.uk
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Don’t think of the clocks going forward as losing an hour’s sleep – a few more minutes of sunshine can change us for the better Many people moan like mad at the thought of losing an hour’s sleep. I do. But the move to British Summer Time is actually about opportunity, not loss. One can mitigate for sleep deprivation by going to bed progressively earlier during the week leading up to the clock change, even if that means shortening time spent drifting off in front of the TV. The complainants are surely providing an example of folk being ridiculous. The advent of British Summer Time enables us to strengthen our relationship with nature. The longer evenings allow us to do a little in the garden – without sacrificing a chunk of precious weekend, or wander through the park or woods to experience the subtle daily changes of spring, and to get home without suffering brain-damage-by-headlight-glare. Our relationship with nature has waned so much, in the main due to sublimation by technology, that we’ve invented a new, narrower term for it – “biodiversity” – as a way of reducing it down into something that fits the modern idiolect, and which excludes us from it. TIn fact, nature includes us and we can have a relationship with it. There is growing evidence that a dose of nature is seriously good for us – physically, mentally and dare I say it, spiritually. A few minutes of sunshine and green leaves can change our day for the better, and can help us sleep – assuming the eructation of mad March frogs in the garden pond (or late night car door slamming) permit it. The problem is that none of this fits in comfortably with the modern obsession of measuring everything. But nature doesn’t do targets, monitoring and reporting, as the biodiversity enthusiasts will duly find. Then there are those beastly birds that wake us at dawn. But surely they are preferable to an alarm clock, or to one’s partner’s snoring? And of what do they sing? Why not listen to them and work it out for yourself. The dusk chorus is easier for us to cope with than its dawn equivalent, so just try listening to your local blackbird one evening (mine is called Percy Bysshe) – you should be able to hear him above the traffic. We’re talking of five minutes of your time. If you can’t face that, listen to it online . Above all, the changing of the clocks announces the end of winter (although April snow is not uncommon) and, better still, provides us with the chance to immerse ourselves in spring. And spring is all about radical positive change and the promise of summer. It should have a capital S. Our great outdoors – garden and countryside – transforms itself over a few short weeks, allowing us the chance to change with it. This spring I’ve launched my own personal campaign, called must change my life. I’m tweeting the highlights . The campaign’s about enhancing my personal relationship with nature, and sharing it. It’s not about pursuit of knowledge but depth of experience. Best of all, although spring is notoriously variable, this spring seems to be winding itself up spectacularly – trees, butterflies, primroses, daffodils, birds, frogs et al. Now is the time to seize the moment and explore the great outdoors, and deepen your relationship. Then bring on the great British summer. Matthew Oates is a nature conservation adviser and butterfly expert for the National Trust Biodiversity Birds Wildlife Conservation guardian.co.uk
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Russell Howard’s Good News and Frank Skinner’s Opinionated are the latest in a slew of programmes offering a satirical take on current events. Are you still laughing? In retrospect, perhaps this wasn’t the ideal week for Russell Howard’s Good News to return. Writing topical comedy is hard. Writing upbeat topical comedy is harder. Writing upbeat topical comedy during the least amusing week in recent memory is just plain stupid. Between the stories of bombings and war and death and financial cuts and impending nuclear catastrophe, Russell Howard should probably consider Thursday’s episode a success by managing to go the distance without curling into a ball and weeping into his clenched fists. But he’s not alone. Right now you can barely move for televised topical comedy shows. As well as Good News, a new series of Frank Skinner’s Opinionated starts tonight, competing with Channel 4′s 10 O’Clock Live and Stand Up for the Week – not to mention the current Mock the Week repeats on BBC Two and the impending return of Have I Got News For You. That’s an awful lot of programmes competing for what isn’t a particularly big patch of turf, and it’ll be interesting to see what the result of this bun fight is. In general, topical comedy lives and dies by the quality of the news. If it’s been a big, busy week then there should be more than enough to go around. But if there’s been a tragedy – or, worse, no news at all – it could mean several shows will end up all scraping the bottom of the same empty barrel. But there’s a plus side to this sudden glut, of course. This is the first time in years that viewers can pick and choose from a smorgasbord of different topical comedies rather than just mopping up whatever scraps are fed to them. Not that the differences between these shows will be immediately clear, of course – despite the recent comedy boom, there’s still a tiny and slightly incestuous dollop of talent to go around. For example, Stand Up for the Week features Jack Whitehall (Mock the Week, Tonightly, TNT Show), Andi Osho (Mock the Week, Tonightly), Kevin Bridges (Mock the Week, Have I Got News For You), Rich Hall (Have Got News For You) and Jon Richardson (Have I Got News For You). And the pool of topical comedy writers is even smaller – it’s not uncommon to find a 10 O’Clock Live writer has also written for Mock the Week or Have I Got News For You, or that a Stand Up for the Week writer has written for Tonightly or 2DTV or The Friday Night Project. Most of these have also written for Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Almost all of them helped to write Robert’s Web. As a result of all this interbreeding, you could argue that many of today’s shows lack a distinct voice; something that’s always been intrinsic to the success of news-based comedy, from David Frost to Stephen Colbert. But look closely enough and there are still a few differences to be found. Perhaps the best example is the manner in which each show dealt with the Japanese earthquake. Being a weekendy, home from the pub affair, Stand Up for the Week barely even mentioned it at all, paring it down to a brief acknowledgement at the start and a line in a Rich Hall shaggy dog story about Mothra’s inability to cope with bureaucracy. Having slightly more of a Daily Show-esque leaning, the steadily-improving 10 O’Clock Live at least allowed Charlie Brooker a Newswipe-style deconstruction of how the tragedy was reported, albeit one indirectly followed by Jimmy Carr in a slaphead wig telling a string of end-of-the-pier “bunga bunga” Berlusconi gags in a slightly offensive Italian accent. Of this week’s new shows, it’ll probably be Frank Skinner who’ll broach the subject more openly. The format of Opinionated is more loosey-goosey and guest-driven, so a discussion of events could feasibly take place without derailing the episode completely, but whether or not it will actually happen is anyone’s guess. So what do you make of this sudden influx of news-based comedy shows? Are there too many and, if so, which would you rather avoid? Your thoughts below, please. Comedy Television Stuart Heritage guardian.co.uk
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Creating infrastructure and bike lanes is easy – the real challenge is changing perceptions about cycling and cyclists Since I last wrote about the New York bike lanes controversy , there have been some interesting developments. Arguably, the most surprising was that a Guardian headline got a round of applause in a public meeting . To recap quickly. Michael Bloomberg’s administration has put in over 250 miles of bike lanes in New York city over the last four years, entrusting this modest but significant shift to pro-bike policy to his transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan , who has also made waves with a couple of high-profile pedestrianisation projects, including Times Square. Bike use in the city is estimated to have doubled in this period, with bike lanes also showing significant safety benefits for all road users (not just cyclists). But not everyone has bought in to the programme. And one bike lane in particular, the now world-famous Prospect Park West (PPW) bike lane, has become the focus for a concerted counter-revolutionary push. A posse of Prospect Park residents have signed up a hotshot corporate lawyer, on a pro bono basis, to sue the city for having abused its authority by installing this bike lane, alleging that it connived with the pro-bike lobby to misrepresent the need for and effectiveness of the measure. Sniffing blood, namely Sadik-Khan’s, the New York Post (a tabloid) and the New York Times have raised the temperature. And from the PPW bike lane battle, other skirmishes have broken out all over the media – including a civil war in the hallowed corridors of the New Yorker magazine, where economics writer John Cassidy aired his view that the city had been hijacked by the bike lobby in “a classic case of regulatory capture”. After an even more classic takedown by Reuters financial blogger Felix Salmon , Cassidy tried to extricate himself from the hole he’d dug by digging some more . And some more . Until the New Yorker’s political writer Hendrik Hertzberg came along to bury him . This was all good fun, and shows the depth of engagement of serious people with an issue sometimes characterised (wrongly) as trivial, but it was essentially a sideshow to the serious business of transportation policy in the city. With the lawsuit against the PPW lane under way, it was clear that a serious pushback had begun – which is what prompted me to write my last post here . At last, though, the backlash seemed to have provoked a reaction from the supporters of bike lanes (who actually constitute a majority of New Yorkers, according to the most recent poll ). A community board meeting in Brooklyn largely endorsed the PPW bike lane – which is not altogether surprising since the neighbourhood’s community board had requested the bike lane from the city’s transportation department in the first place, and the majority of local residents approve it. In a typically comprehensive piece of reporting , New York magazine (not to be confused with the New Yorker) returned the focus to the PPW bike lane’s larger bearing on city-wide policy – asking: “Is New York too New York for bike lanes?” This was met by a surprise move from deputy mayor Howard Wolfson, who responded with a memo (pdf) to “interested parties” robustly defending the case for bike lanes. Since then, Wolfson has also appeared on National Public Radio, on the Brian Lehrer Show , fighting the city’s corner, putting out some necessary, absent facts and rebutting the criticisms of the PPW lawsuit attorney, Jim Walden, who had appeared on the same NPR show the previous day . This now feels like a critical moment. Instead of appearing to wash his hands of his transportation commissioner, Mayor Bloomberg has clearly moved to back her, getting a senior executive like Wolfson out in front of the media to own the policy and speak up for it. As Aaron Naparstek ( @naparstek ) of the influential Streetsblog told me: “We’ve never had anyone as senior in city government advocating for bikes before. It suggests City Hall is fully supportive of what Janette Sadik-Khan is doing. And that’s great … Given there’s now a clear message from the top of the administration, I’d expect that will cool things down in the press.” So, is that the happy ending to the saga? Hardly. For one thing, there is the lawsuit, which will be heard in Brooklyn’s Kings County supreme court. On the face of it, there is no case to answer: the department of transportation followed procedure, answered a call from the community board, conducted a survey, delivered the results; the community board voted approval and the bike lane was built. But Walden is subpoenaing everyone’s email records in an effort to make his charge of collusion between bike advocates and city officials stand up. With a sympathetic press and possibly a sympathetic judge, what appears a threadbare strategy might make headway. And even if the lawsuit runs into the sand, its backers will continue to carry the fight into the realm of symbolic politics. And then, though apparently unrelated, there is the New York Police Department (NYPD) ticketing blitz against cyclists. I already reported the beginning of this campaign , which seems to have consisted largely of squad cars observing cyclists riding recreationally around Central Park when the roads are closed to traffic and then handing them $270 fines for going through red lights which, by custom and convention (and possibly by law), only apply when the roads are open to vehicles. But the latest phase in this bizarre approach to enforcement has been truly surreal. On Tuesday morning, NYPD officers used a radar gun to catch cyclists “speeding” in the park, and handed out 10 tickets . Questions were bound to be raised as to whether this constituted a useful deployment of police resources and justifiable expenditure of taxpayer dollars, but the NYPD’s embarrassment was complete when it turned out they’d enforced the wrong speed limit, which is 25mph for cyclists, not 15mph. Officers have now made house calls to cancel the tickets and apologise. Yet the red light ticketing looks set to continue. I attended a public meeting in on Central Park West where Captain Wishnia, the officer responsible for the enforcement, debated the policy with an audience of about 300 concerned residents, park users and cyclists. It was evident that he was acting on instructions from above, though it was not clear whether these came from City Hall itself, or from the upper echelons of the NYPD. For a somewhat beleaguered biking community, it would be tempting to see some connection between the bike lane backlash and the cops’ “get tough” policy. But the likelihood is that the two issues have merely coincided, and are not part of a generalised persecution of cyclists. If there is a link, it is that both affairs have a “culture wars” dimension as New York adjusts to a new idea of itself and of cycling’s role in the life of the city. Naparstek says of the NYPD: “They tend to have a deep ‘windshield’ perspective on the city. Many now live outside the city, in the suburbs, and drive in to work. Culturally, they don’t seem to get why anyone would cycle in the city.” Worse, since the bitter confrontation at the 2004 Republican national convention in New York , where hundreds of Critical Mass cyclists were arrested and manhandled, the NYPD’s rank and file tends to see cyclists “as a force for disorder and chaos”. The irony of the crackdown, Naparstek observes, is that “a lot of people in the bike advocacy community would support real enforcement” on city streets, as opposed to in Central Park. The problem, he says, is that the NYPD simply doesn’t know how to do it. So, instead of real enforcement that would actually encourage compliance, there is this “completely bogus ticketing blitz, where the only metric of success is the number of tickets written”. And the easiest way to catch a large number of cyclists with a small number of personnel is to go to the park. Naparstek believes the best way forward is for bike advocates, like Transportation Alternatives , to sit down with the NYPD and work on enforcement and compliance together. But that will take a culture shift on both sides. Can it be done, or is New York really “too New York” for cycling ever to be acceptably mainstream? That remains to be seen – and I’m optimistic – but what has become painfully obvious is that putting in place the infrastructure, the bike lanes and paint on the road, is the easy part. Changing perceptions and altering the way people think about cycling and cyclists is the uphill bit. Cycling United States New York Matt Seaton guardian.co.uk
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Jenni Simpson applies to court of appeal for right to take on case amid fears it could lead to claims being traded like commodities A vast, speculative market in negligence claims could be created if a widow from Norfolk persuades the court of appeal to let her pursue someone else’s NHS compensation case. The highly unusual legal manoeuvre threatens to congest the courts with thousands of applications that could force public authorities to pay out massive sums to avoid being bankrupted by litigation costs. Jenni Simpson, from Norwich, paid £1 for the “right” to take over the compensation case of former hospital patient Alan Catchpole, also from Norwich, who contracted an MRSA infection while undergoing surgery in 2005. The NHS Litigation Authority, which paid out £827m in claims and costs last year, warned that if Simpson’s case succeeds it would be a “worrying development” that could lead to claims “being traded like commodities”. Her novel method has twice been struck out by lower courts. “It’s a very strange case,” a spokesman for the NHS Litigation Authority said. “It’s the only claim of its type.” The authority is funding the hospital trust’s defence. Catchpole, the court of appeal was told, decided not to pursue any claim himself. Simpson’s interest in picking it up is not financial: her husband was diagnosed with the same superbug at Norwich and Norfolk University hospital before he died. She wants to highlight the hospital’s alleged failure to control the infection. But her success could open the floodgates to a secondary market in compensation claims driven by profit and buoyed up by no win, no fee agreements. Simon Redmayne, representing Simpson, said her motive was not financial, but to see the hospital’s infection control procedures tested in court and to “heighten the appreciation within the hospital that it needs to deal with MRSA”. He said there was no principle of law preventing alleged negligence victims assigning their right to take court action to third parties and, even if there was, it was anachronistic in light of the Human Rights Act and modern attitudes to access to justice. Although he now has no direct interest in the case, the court heard Catchpole “cares about the result” and would like an apology from the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital NHS trust. But Jeremy Morgan QC, for the trust, said it was against public policy for Simpson to be able to step into Catchpole’s shoes and pursue his damages claim herself. If the arrangement between Catchpole and Simpson were upheld, there would be nothing to prevent solicitors and “claim farmers simply buying causes of action from injured people and running the cases for themselves,” he told the court. “There would be a ready market for the sale and purchase of claims,” he said. NHS trusts would also find themselves “on a hiding to nothing” in trying to defend claims by impecunious claimants – backed by legal aid, or no win, no fee deals – and would be forced to settle cases for more than they were really worth, just to save legal costs. “By substituting a person of straw as a claimant, it ensures that, whatever the merits of the dispute, the rational course for the defendant is not to go to court itself, but to buy off the claim as cheaply as possible,” he added. Judgment has been reserved until a later date. NHS Health MRSA and superbugs Court of appeal Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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Managers ousted after damning audit reveals that £2.4m has been spent, but school project has not even broken ground The managers of Madonna’s charity in Malawi have been ousted after they squandered $3.8m (£2.4m) on a school that will never be built, it has been reported. The damning audit came as Raising Malawi confirmed it has scrapped plans for a $15m elite academy for girls. The charity’s executive director, Philippe van den Bossche, the partner of Madonna’s former trainer, left in October after criticism of his management style and spending at the school, according to the New York Times . “These included what auditors described as outlandish expenditures on salaries, cars, office space and a golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school’s director,” the paper said. In a shakeup at the charity, the board of directors has been removed and replaced by a caretaker board that includes the 52-year-old singer and her manager, it added. The abandonment of the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls – backed by prominent Hollywood figures and Madonna’s associates in Kabbalah – was announced in January. This caught the Malawian government by surprise and caused anger among villagers who had surrendered their homes to make way for a 117-acre construction site near the capital, Lilongwe. When the project began to turn sour, Madonna, who has reportedly invested $11m, turned to the Global Philanthropy Group for help. Its report on Raising Malawi’s work, seen by the New York Times, was critical of the way Bossche oversaw both the building plans and the curriculum. “Philippe’s level of mismanagement and lack of oversight was extreme in both aspects of the project and the lack of success of the players on the ground is in large part a result of his inability to effectively manage project plans, people and finances,” it was quoted as saying. The audit also gave a withering verdict on Anjimile Oponyo, who was supposed to head the school. “Her charisma masks a lack of substantive knowledge of the practical application of educational development, and her weak management skills are a major contributor to the current financial and programmatic chaos.” Trevor Neilson, a founder of the Global Philanthropy Group, said $3.8m had been spent on the unbuilt school, much of it on architects, design, salaries and two cars for employees who had not yet been appointed. “Despite $3.8m having been spent by the previous management team, the project has not broken ground, there was no title to the land and there was, overall, a startling lack of accountability on the part of the management team in Malawi and the management team in the United States,” he was quoted as saying. “We have yet to determine exactly what happened to all of that $3.8m. We have not accounted for all the funds that were used.” Construction of the academy was also delayed over a dispute between Raising Malawi and villagers who claimed they were not adequately compensated for land. The building had been due for completion in December this year. Michael Berg, a co-director of the Kabbalah Centre and co-founder of Raising Malawi, accepted defeat this week. He wrote to the centre’s contributors: “A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, as it was originally conceived.” But Madonna, who has adopted a boy and a girl from Malawi, insisted the charity will continue to work in the impoverished African nation. “There’s a real education crisis in Malawi,” she said. “Sixty-seven per cent of girls don’t go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable. Our team is going to work hard to address this in every way we can.” Raising Malawi has made progress despite the setbacks, she added. “While I’m proud of these accomplishments, I’m frustrated that our education work has not moved forward in a faster way.” In January, Madonna said she would focus on building secondary schools across the country so she could reach thousands rather than hundreds of girls. In an interview last month Neilson, now leading the charity’s efforts, told the Associated Press: “Basically, what we’d be doing is expanding the ability for a group of nonprofits to provide education to more kids. “Madonna increasingly began to have concerns about the effectiveness of the existing strategy and management team, and as a result has made sweeping changes in order to better serve more children in Malawi.” The Kabbalah Centre, once a part of the project, is no longer involved, Neilson added. Malawi Madonna United States New York David Smith guardian.co.uk
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Troubled retailer HMV denies it is in takeover talks but confirms it may sell book chain and Canadian operation HMV confirmed this morning that it is looking at selling off the Waterstone’s chain of booksellers, but insisted that it is not in talks about a takeover for the whole group. Shares in the troubled retailer jumped 7.5% to 18p, a rise of 1.25p, after it updated the City on its plans, which could also include finding a buyer for its Canadian operation. Speculation has swirled that its shareholder, the Russian oligarch Alexander Mamut, could break up the business ever since HMV posted a shock profit warning following poor trading over Christmas. Mamut has now assembled a 6.1% stake in HMV. There has been speculation that Tim Waterstone, the entrepreneur turned novelist who founded the bookshop in 1982, is plotting a bid for Waterstone’s with Mamut . He previously teamed up with Mamut to invest in Bookberry, a now bankrupt Russian bookstore chain. “In response to press speculation, the board confirms it is exploring strategic options in respect of Waterstone’s and HMV Canada,” HMV said. “The board also confirms that no discussions are taking place with respect to an offer for the group.” Amid worries that it could breach loan covenant tests, the company stressed that its lenders “continue to be supportive, our banking facilities remain fully available and the group is continuing to maintain a regular and constructive dialogue with its lenders”. HMV issued its second profit warning of the year at the beginning of the month, saying trading conditions had remained difficult since the start of the year. It also admitted that it expected to fail some parts of a critical loan covenant test next month and was busy renegotiating borrowing conditions with its bankers. The company is already planning to close up to 20 Waterstone’s outlets and about 40 HMV stores as part of a cost-cutting drive. HMV Retail industry Waterstone’s Booksellers Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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