Quintin Jardine's blog

Thanks to Roanna and everyone else at Blackwell’s, Edinburgh, for putting together an excellent event last night. A full house on a Tuesday is pretty good, so thanks also for those who turned out on an evening when there was a fair chance of being soaked, there and back.

My gigs always feature a discussion session. I like to interact with readers and find out what they’re thinking. Normally there is a range of around a dozen potential questions, but yesterday there was a new one. As soon as I threw the floor open, a lady in the front row asked, simply,’Hearts of Hibs?’ I had to explain to her that when it comes to next Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final between the two Edinburgh teams, I am genuinely neutral . . . almost.

One more from the Brooks TV coverage and this time a couple of questions. Given that the taxpayer is footing the bill for the shambolic and grotesquely expensive Leveson Inquiry, 1) what was the cost to the public purse, of the inquiry counsel asking Rebekah B how Dave Cameron signs off his text messages and 2) was it in any way, shape or form relevant to the tribunal’s remit?

Just seen the oddest thing on the One O’Clock News: a black-clad solemn woman from the Crown Prosecution Service announcing, against a background would have suited any North Korean TV studio and with the gravitas of a Taliban executioner, that Rebekah Brooks, her husband, her secretary, her security guys, her chauffeur, and the family cat (I may have misheard the last part) have been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, an offence that can earn its perpetrators up to ten years in the slammer. I can’t recall such a staged intimation of a prosecution before, and I cannot help wondering how it was meant to serve the interests of justice, and how it can contribute to the right of the individuals involved to a fair trial.

After the very expensive Harry Redknapp shambles, the CPS has surely laid its head on the block with this one. Did it do so because the principal accused are good friends of  the Prime Minister, or in spite of that fact? Either way, it had better win, or a few heads will be falling into the basket.

This is a sad, sad story, but a great piece of journalism, all too rare in modern Scotland.

http://www.scottishreview.net/index.shtml

If you’re Sco’ish and  care about our nation, please be a Friend of the Review, but not by clicking a box on Facebook. Send them a donation to support their work, and spread the word.

So the Rangers saga moves into yet another phase, and we have a second preferred bidder. I’ve just watched Mr Charles Green’s interview with BBC Scotland. He seemed to say all the right things, he praised all the right people, and he spoke quietly and positively. Maybe he is the real deal. He’ll have to be, if his quoted claim to have bought Craig Whyte’s shares in Rangers PLC is correct, for that would make him already the de facto owner of the business, and its debt.

We know who Mr Green is, and his business CV is on the record. It’s not great, and his previous venture into the football business did not end all that well. Let’s accept that he has learned from that experience, but even then, we don’t know anything about his backers, the sources of the money he’s fronting for, the £8.5m that will be offered to creditors (after Duff & Phelps, the administrators have had their whack). Who are they, and what if any personal and business baggage do they carry? We’re told they’re from the UK, China, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Middle East, but so far no names have been put forward. That being the case, how can the new regime hope to pass Scottish football’s ‘fit and proper person’ test, the one that Mr Craig Whyte failed, about a year too late?

Then there’s the Creditors Voluntary Agreement itself, the legal device under which all those owed money are offered a hatful of cash and agree to divvy it up in a p in the £ settlement, leaving the debtor entity to carry on with its slate wiped clean. The target for acceptance in June 6, three weeks away, but forgive me, folks, how can any date be set before the Mills of God Tax Tribunal delivers its verdict on Rangers alleged misuse of employee benefits trusts and the tax consequences that will flow from it? If HMRC wins it will control the outcome of any CVA, and if my sums are correct, the money available to the other creditors will  be more or less halved. We are told that a decision is ‘imminent’, as it has been for the last six months. If it’s suddenly spat out now, to suit the HMRC timetable, it will spark serious doubts about the Tribunal’s impartiality. The administrators say this doesn’t matter. They say that if the CVA fails,  the deal with the Green consortium obliges it to go down a newco route instead. So, why not end the whole soap opera by going straight to that option?

Is it all over bar the shouting? I doubt it; if I was Ally I’d be taking my mobile with me on holiday.

Finally, has anyone yet commented on the ultimate irony, the prospect of Rangers  being chaired by a man named Green?

Three months ago, I made a public pledge to foreswear alcohol. Foolishly I pledged also to post regular bulletins. I’ve just been reminded of this in a comment by Nick. The question is, ‘How regular is regular?’ For me every three months is okay. Thus, I have to report that my record has been mixed, but that overall I am doing okay. I would add that any progress I have made has been against the background of  breaking my buns to finish Skinner 23, and other factors too numerous and personal to mention. Another big test is looming on Friday when I meet up with a group of friends for one of our regular lunch engagements. In the past these have been fairly liquid affairs, but this time I will pass; you  may take that to the bank.

The medical view of giving up the bevvy is interesting. When I discussed the subject with my doc, he suggested that the most important thing is not necessarily giving it up altogether, but being able to abstain every week for a few days at a time. Fine, but when does that become binge drinking?

Perhaps the best approach is that of a good friend of mine, sadly gone to Jesus, who took an executive decision that when it comes to alcohol abstention, white wine doesn’t count.

Having touched on the legal profession  in my previous post, I’m going to go back there. A few nights ago I saw a TV ad that grabbed me by its sheer artistry and made me watch it all the way to the end. You may have seen it. Built around a song by Rachel K Collier, it features a series of images of people  at significant points in their lives. It’s not until the very end that the viewer is told that the product being plugged is a brand called Quality Solicitors.

My first reaction was to yell disappointed abuse at the telly. There was a time when solicitors were forbidden, strictly, from advertising their services in a competitive marketplace, but somewhere along the line that was forgotten. In recent years we’ve been bombarded by the likes of Accident Lawyers 4 U, the Accident Helpline, Quantum Claims and all the rest, every one of them out to turn us into an aggressively litigious society by lighting up the £ signs, that most of us have somewhere in our peripheral vision. I detest them, and I was prepared to detest Quality Solicitors too, until I thought about what the ad was actually saying and how it was saying it. A little research informed me that Quality Solicitors is a network as are most of the ambulance chasers. However its pitch is different; it isn’t aggressive at all, and money is never mentioned. It’s saying to the viewer, ‘Look, at some point in life, you will need legal services. These are ours; we are sympathetic and we will be on your side.’

So now I’m fine with it. I’ve even bought the song, ‘A hard road to travel‘  on iTunes. That’s said, it’s still a competitive ad, and only those people who are within the QS network will benefit. So, might there not be a case for the Law Societies in Scotland and England to to a little generic advertising on behalf of the profession as a whole?

By now, I’m finding that my eyes go indistinctly bleary whenever the name Leveson is mentioned. As a chum of mine remarked in  the pub  last night, I wonder how much the lawyers are making out of all this. However I was struck by part of Rebekkah Wade Kemp Brooks’ evidence, her story of her disagreement with Rupert over her insistence on ramping up celebrity content over serious matter, and her reason for doing so. She looked at the audience for TV talent shows and other such crap, and determined that if there was such a public taste she was going to feed it for  the purpose of selling more newspapers. Commercially that can’t be faulted. Journalistically, it’s crap. It was based on following trends not setting them, and that to me is the death knell that is being rung over the corpse of most of British journalism. Our great newspapers have always been leaders. They used to call The Times, ‘The Thunderer’, and its editor was a great figure on the land. Today, along with the other broadsheets, its tone of voice is whinge, whine and whimper, and very few people have a clue who its editor is.

The Funeral Note ‘tour’ starts tomorrow with three public signings around Edinburgh, and more running through next week.

Check the ‘Events’ page for details.

The guy who performed my first wedding ceremony, 46 years ago was called Ian Forbes also. Any relation? As for your question, no it isn’t strictly necessary to read the Skinner series in sequence, but it helps, as the characters evolve, develop,  and on the odd occasion die.

On Sky TV last night, after a chicken, wearing Blackburn Rovers colours  released on to the pitch by fans, had been recaptured by the visiting goalie, commentator Alan Parry declared, ‘Well, there’ll be no eggs from him in the morning.’

But if there are . . . global religions have been founded on less.

I haven’t been following the World Snooker Championships very closely since Stephen Hendry was knocked out, but I did note  the result, and also the fact that the beaten finalist, Ali Carter, suffers from a condition known as Crohn’s Disease. That prompted me to do a little research into the condition. As a result, Mr Carter is something of a hero in my eyes. And so, for different reasons is Ronnie O’Sullivan, a guy whose family background reads like an Eastenders plot line, but who seems finally to have arrived at a good place. All the more sad then, that these two men, at the top of their sport, face being driven from it by the intransigence of Barry Hearn, snooker’s Gauleiter, whose grand plan for the game will require everyone to play 27 tournaments each year in global locations, often in cubicles with nobody watching.

Already Stephen Hendry has quit, prematurely in most people’s eyes, O’Sullivan is taking a six month break, and Carter’s medical condition, which is incurable, will never stand up, surely, to the rigours of  the new circuit. Mr Hearn was quoted only last week as saying that it was all part of being a professional and that he couldn’t care less about players’ concerns. Two years ago, Mr Hearn took a controlling interest in World Snooker Limited, the game’s commercial arm. Then he was seen as its saviour. Now it seems, snooker needs someone to save it from him.

Thanks again, but as a matter of fact I have American family from coast to coast, and I’m going to continue to rely on their advice, since all of them have their feet planted firmly on the ground. Also I have many friends in Canada, and I can understand that if you substitute ‘Mm-hmm’ for ‘You’re welcome’, you might draw the odd strange look.

Have fun writing your book. As a little background research, you might care to take a look at this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/8362003/Tally-ho-pardner-Foxhunting-in-America.html

I am disappointed. I know that the great days of Scottish journalism ended when the Barclay brothers bought the Scotsman and its associated titles, and were consigned to the dustbin of history when they sold them on to the hapless Johnston Press, but I had hoped that a spark of true quality remained.

Since February 14, thousands of Scottish media man hours have been invested in coverage of the escalating problems of Rangers Football Club, and the tenure of its ‘owner’, Craig Whyte.   Thanks to the likes of the intensely annoying Graham Speirs, and some very good football writers, we have been able to follow the saga as it has developed then unravelled, then developed again, as mysterious Singaporeans have come and gone, as Blue Knights have gathered at their Round Table, only to bottle out of actually undertaking the quest, and as an American with a sound business record but no possible idea of the complexities of our football culture seems about to take the reins from them, and ride forward into the unknown.

We know all there is to know about Rangers, until the next twist in the tale, that is. So why do I feel let down by Scottish journalism? This is the reason. When my wife asked me this morning, ‘Why isn’t this man Whyte in jail?’ I could give her no sensible answer.

In its coverage of this scandal, our editors seem to have become so parochial that they cannot think beyond football. This story is about more than Rangers, and the impact of their potential demise. Far too little attention has been paid to Whyte himself. From the moment he was unveiled as the new Scottish business hero, the self-made billionaire who was going to get the former billionaire, Sir David Murray, off the hook of owning Rangers, and rip its purse-strings from the miserly hands of Lloyds plc, he should have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny. For a business hero to be unsung, that’s one thing, but for him to have done all that high value corporate turn-around stuff, yet still have a personal profile below the threshold of visibility,  that’s another. Mr Whyte was a mystery demanding to be investigated, but nobody did, at least nobody who was any damn good at it. He is the real story, and has been since day one, but our media seems not to be interested in anything beyond Ibrox Stadium and Edmiston Drive.

If it wasn’t for my friend Bob, who has Rangers in his bloodstream, I wouldn’t know about this:

http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/south-west/70007-3m-shortfall-expected-after-pritchard-admin/

If it wasn’t for the fact that Bob has a friend who was invested with the firm at the heart of this drama, he might never have known about it either.

If it wasn’t for the reporter who investigated it, tweaked out the underlying facts and published them, I might never have known that  Craig Whyte was the company secretary of Pritchard Stockbrokers Ltd, a Bournemouth based  firm that went down the toilet on the very same day (yes, Valentine’s Day) as Rangers did, taking an estimated £3.4m of clients’ money with it.

In one final irony, Pritchard’s client list included, at the time of its collapse, Rangers plc, for whom it was holding £223,214. This doesn’t just beg the question, ‘Why did Mr Whyte lodge almost a quarter of a million with a company in which he had an interest rather than pay a few of his debts?’ It screams it. This story is worth the front page of any Scottish broadsheet. Maybe I’ve missed it, but I don’t think so.

The picture that the Scottish press has painted for us, through its editorial negligence, shows only Rangers, and the tangential issues seem to be all about punishment and the sanctions that should be applied to the club, for its cavalier attitude to its debtors, and in particular those who happen to be fellow Scottish Premier League members. The picture that I can see shows the entity that is Rangers plc as a victim, just as those who may lose out (but hopefully will be indemnified) through the collapse of Pritchard Stockbrokers are victims. How many others are there, to be found in the periphery of Mr Whyte? None, I hope, but a half decent editor would have sent his best business reporter to find out, some time ago.

Thanks for that, but I wish you’d left me your full name. I would hope that what you’re saying is correct, since I do try to push the envelope every time I sit down to begin a new book. As for the rest, the current estimated population of the USA is 313 million. Are you trying to tell me you’re familiar with the vocabulary of every one of them?

This has been a week of Murdoch bashing, and no mistake. The old man has been labelled unfit to run his company by the Labour members of a Commons select committee. These are people with short memories if they cannot recall the days when Rupert’s was the most assiduously kissed arse in Britain, or the fact that it was their own leader whose lips were the most puckered. Almost as distasteful has been the zeal of  the rest of the media in reporting their condemnation,and that makes it all the more important that their short-comings are not allowed to slip under the radar.

Once upon a time there was a fine British newspaper called the Daily Telegraph. It was the home of Bill Deedes, one of the great journalists of my lifetime, and of distinguished figures across the board. In its hey-day, its Page Three was better read than that of the Sun, by those in the know. If ever there was a titillating court case, the details of which were a little too fruity for the other broadsheets and contained words that were too long for the tabloids, you would find the full and unexpurgated version there, unless it was beyond the basest definition of good taste.

Then along  came the internet, with its on-line editions, and the world changed. The Telegraph joined the rest in the gutter, and worse than that, it became vicious and censorious into  the bargain. Even its news reporting became imbued by this and has reached a point where editorial thought seems to have disappeared. Here’s an example. A couple of days ago, a footballer got himself into trouble in the north west of England. He was arrested on an assault charge, then released on bail pending further investigations. A short time later he was arrested again, ater a motoring incident, and charged with driving while disqualified, while over the limit, and without insurance. If this man is guilty as charged, then I have no brief for him, but to me there seem to be three questions that need answering.

The first is for the police. How come this guy was released, under the influence, after being accused of punching a woman in the face? They may not have anticipated that he would go out and commit a raft of, alleged, motoring offences, but surely the safety of his, alleged, victim might have been a consideration. He was arrested at 3:30 am. At 5:30am the car accident happened, and the driver of the other vehicle wound up in hospital. Shouldn’t that have been prevented by the simple and normally routine act of locking the guy up for the night?

The second is for the editor of the Telegraph? If that very obvious question occurs to a simpleton like me, how come it wasn’t put by your reporter?

The third is also for said editor. His disreputable organ chose to publish, in its story, the address of the footballer involved, but not in its entirety, only the town in which he lives and the street. I’ve just had a look at it on Google Earth; we are not talking modest family terrace here, we are talking leafy suburbia and serious wealth. In recent years, the burglary of footballers’ homes has become a significant part of the black economy in the north west of England. That being the case the Telegraph‘s partial publication has put not only the accused footballer at risk, but potentially, the homes of every one of his neighbours. So my question for Mr T0ny Gallagher is this. Was your action one of negligence, thoughtlessness, or stupidity, or was it deliberate? And if it was the latter I’ll put a supplementary, one that was put to someone else along time ago. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last?

In less than two weeks, QJ will be on the road working his way through a series of events to launch Funeral Note, the twenty-second Bob Skinner novel. I’ll post these, and anyone in the vicinity will be welcome.

I’m pleased to say that pre-orders for the new book through http://www.campbellreadbooks.com have broken all previous records. They’re not sold out yet though, and can still be accessed simply by clicking the link on this page.

So it looks like Manchester City have finally bought success. Only Newcastle United stand in the way, realistically, of the best league in world football being won by a club that is to all intents and purposes state owned. Okay, I know that technically it’s an investment trust, but that’s run by a key member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, so let’s not split hairs, or kid ourselves, City fans; your team is state-owned. Those owners will have passed the ‘fit and proper persons’ scrutiny, I’m sure, but how can you apply such tests to a nation where democracy is practised only within the ruling group, and where dissent is not tolerated? Yes, football has financial fair play rules which in theory should keep the playing fields level, but these can be and will be manipulated.

My fingers are crossed for Newcastle on Sunday, but it won’t do any good. Money, and a playing style that recalls Don Revie’s Leeds United at its most cynical, will have had its way over flair and prudent financial management.

This probably sounds like sour grapes from a Man U fan, whose club wouldn’t be held to ransom by Carlos Tevez’ agent, wouldn’t pay ridiculous money for, and wages to, players whom they knew would be only peripheral first team figures, and wouldn’t fork out £40m for Kun Aguero. If it does, you’re right, it is. But consider this. What’s going to happen to City when the Arab Spring,  sweeps through the Emirates, as in time it will?

Yes, I plan to do another standalone novel. It won’t be a follow-up to The Loner, otherwise The Loner wouldn’t be a standalone. However that’s not to say I won’t do a follow-up to The Loner sometime down the road. Geddit?