Quintin Jardine's blog

Word is spreading of QJ’s folly. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a light-hearted non-crime novel, set in days gone by and drawn from my time as a political spin-doctor, has been posting steady sales since I published it on Amazon’s Kindle platform. Today I can reveal that I am in talks which could lead to its publication in printed form. Watch this space.

Sepp Blatter promised change when he slithered back into the presidency of FIFA. He led us to believe that he would clear corruption out of football’s global body, that he would improve its administration and  that he would reconnect it with the real world. He has just demonstrated the depth of his sincerity and his grasp on reality by banning British international football teams from wearing the poppy emblem on their shirts in the friendly games that will be played this Remembrance weekend. An arcane FIFA regulation has been produced to justify this, backed by the threat that referees will call off a match in which Blatter’s Ban is defied.

Is that so?

Am I alone in hoping that the Home Nations’ governing bodies summon up the courage to tell the twisted Swiss idiot and his lackeys what they can do with their prohibition? Does anyone seriously imagine that if England remove their tracksuits on Saturday to reveal poppies on their white shirts, in honour of our war dead, any referee in his right mind would refuse to blow his whistle for the kick-off? I’ll go further; if our football authorities bow down to this their cowardice will be insult the memory of those whose courage and sacrifice the poppy celebrates.

Just found this on the BBC website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15617811

An interesting question no doubt, but it raises another. In the great scheme of human endeavour, does it actually matter at all?

I’ve met Craig Levein, the Scottish national football manager on a few occasions. I like him and I rate him very highly as a coach. People in his position are under pressure from the moment they’re appointed, unless they’re over-the-hill Italian martinets with contracts so bloody lucrative that their employers can’t afford to sack them. The rest can’t afford to take chances, and that probably explains why Craig’s original squad for a forthcoming Scotland friendly international included only three players drawn from within our domestic leagues. I’m not knocking him for that, it’s how it goes. However there was a day when we had things called League Internationals, where the participants were home-based. There was nothing in the rules even then that said foreign-born players couldn’t be selected, but they rarely were. How about bringing them back, guys, so that people who choose, or are compelled by  circumstances, to stay and play in their homeland have a chance to pull on the blue shirt.

What did I just ******* say?

As I write, Motherwell are playing Celtic at Fir Park, and the official attendance has been announced as 10,440. That is around 25% short of the ground’s current capacity and around 200% short of the attendances that fixture generated when I was a kid. Yes, I know, we have all-seater grounds these days, but even allowing for that unnecessary imposition on supporters, it’s a sad reflection on the decline of what we kid ourselves into thinking is our national game.

By the way, it’s 1 — 1 with fifteen minutes left, but Celtic will score. There is one requirement alone if you want to be a true Motherwell fan. In other matters you can be the sunniest individual on the planet, but when it comes to football, you have to be a fatalist.

Scotland waits with bated breath this afternoon as the votes that will determine the new leader of the Scottish Conservative Party are counted. Can you feel the tension? No, I thought not. I suspect that very few of the 8,000 (are there that many left?) electors will have heard of all four of the candidates, and that the diehard tweed and twin-set rump of a party that once polled more that 50% of the popular vote in a Westminster election will not support any of them with enthusiasm. Although I no longer have a personal interest, I’d like to see Murdo Fraser win. The central plank of his platform is the dissolution of the party he strives to lead and its replacement with ‘something else’. The first part of that will be easily done; the truth is that rightly or wrongly, the Scottish public perception of Margaret Thatcher killed the Tory Party north of the border twenty years ago. The second part will be rather more difficult. Murdo seems not to have noticed that ‘something else’ already exists. It’s called the Scottish National Party.

As  write this, the three Pakistan test cricketers found guilty of corruption are being sentenced. I’m following court proceedings courtesy of the BBC journalist James Pearce, and his Twitter account. While it’s remarkable in one sense that we can do this, I find it ridiculous that in the 21st century we should have to. If someone out there has a coherent argument against TV and radio being allowed to broadcast the  sentencing phase, at the very least, in criminal proceedings of significant public interest, then please let me hear it. I’m trying to come up with one, and I can’t. It would be a damn sight cheaper than Strictly Come Dancing, etc, and the viewing audience might be just as high.

I must quit iTunes. Can’t stop playing ‘Ceremonials’ the new album by Florence and the Machine. What a voice the girl has. They’ll be on Jools tomorrow night; I plan to record and watch later, so I can focus on the good stuff.

I have an event next week, and I’m looking forward to it very much. Next Friday, November 11, 7:30pm, I’ll be at the Reading Festival of Crime Writing, sharing the platform with my old friend, Michael Dobbs, creator of House of Cards, the Winston Churchill novel series, and most recently the Harry Jones thrillers. Baron Dobbs of Wylye is one of our greatest raconteurs, and I may tell the odd story too. If you can, please join us.

Maybe I’m in a minority . . . time will tell . . . but I have mighty admiration today for George Papandreou. He’s had the courage to listen to the voice of his people, stand up to the hectoring and bullying of Sarkozy and Merkel, and say to them, bluntly, ‘Back off, you two. Greece is the cradle of democracy, so before we condemn ourselves to decades of penury in order to remain in your currency club, it’s only right that we have a vote on it.’ He says that he wants a ‘yes’ vote. I’m not sure I believe that, but otherwise he strikes me as a politician of integrity, a rare breed. Or am I wrong, Paul?

Will there be any follow-ups to The Loner? As of this moment, George, it’s a one-off, the story of a man’s life. But you never know. I have a couple of ideas.

From the moment of his appointment, I’ve thought there was something odd about the current Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed, I see him as a curse cast upon the Church of England by Tony Blair, who, having done so, promptly buggered off to become a Catholic. There is nothing right about Dr Rowan Williams, least of all his politics. For openers he is an adherent of two religions, the other being druidism. You’ve heard of the anti-Christ? Then the A of C has to be the anti-Anglican; someone should check under his cassock for cloven hooves.

He is also, it seems, an idiot, if today’s Financial Times is anything to go by. He wants the government to sign up to a new European impost on financial transactions, named the Tobin Tax after its economist inventor, but labelled already by the media as ‘The Robin Hood Tax’. There is precious little under Dr Williams’ hood if he does not see  the iniquity of such a measure.

The proposal is that it will be levied on the sale of shares, bonds and foreign currency, raising envisaged billions to be invested in the developing world. The reality is that it will be passed on by financial institutions to their customers, people with equity based pension funds and other investments intended for their retirement, and people who need a few hundred euro, US dollars or other currency for holidays or other trips abroad. The irony is that it is being proposed by the geniuses who have led the eurozone into its present parlous state. Its effect will be to pillage the savings of ordinary people who have worked damn hard to build up some meagre resources; yes, folks people like you and me. And what are the chances of any of this stolen money going anywhere near the developing world? Slim and none, and Slim’s already left town. No, it would go to shore up the euro. Simples.

What has brought on this latest rush of blood to what is left of Dr Williams’ head? The sight, it seems, of a few screwballs in tents camped around St Paul’s Cathedral, a public outrage that instead of condemning, he is tolerating and even encouraging. But that should surprise nobody. Recently, England’s senior cleric accused the government of committing Britain to ‘radical, long-term policies for which no-one voted’. Actually many people did, but I do not recall Church of England members voting for him. Indeed I suspect that if they were offered a referendum on his fitness for office, the druid archbishop would soon find himself banished to a Welsh hill-top, condemned to watch endless reruns of ‘The Wicker Man‘.

Today, I had occasion to call NHS 24, a new experience for me. I’d no idea what to expect. I suppose it’s fair to say that I was a bit cynical about the idea of a health call centre. Not any more. The problem was dealt with very quickly and an appointment was made for us at our nearest out-patient centre, within 90 minutes. I’ve sat in our local surgery for almost as long as that waiting to be seen. We got there on time, and were diagnosed and treated within 15 minutes. It’s good to know the system works.

Back in Gullane, and as the wonderful Kim MacArthur is fond of saying, Happy to be Here. However . . .

Funny the things that tick one off: I was out in the car this morning en  route for Haddington. Approaching Ballencrieff I saw a permanent road sign warning me that there was mud on the road. There always is, when it’s remotely wet, as it always is, so I’m wondering why East Lothian Council, as well as installing their helpful sign, don’t take action to ensure that the farmer who makes a mess of the public highway, accepts responsibility for hosing the bloody mud off!

I’m happy to hear that you enjoyed Xavi’s ghosted autobiography. No way is the big geezer going to be lured back to Edinburgh, that’s for sure. However his mate Skinner has a place in Spain, which he’s been neglecting of late. It’s not impossible that the two of them will meet up over there

Just seen the greatest interview disaster of all time on BBC News channel, when Simon McCoy, the presenter, attempted to grill/Paxmanise, Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and head of the marketing giant WPP, as part of a highly slanted presentation that the Beeb is running today on directors’ remuneration. Sir Martin is one of the smartest men in the world, as poor old Simon found out when his ‘victim’ demolished his case with his first answer then took him to places he’d never been, and fired information at him that might have been part of his briefing but wasn’t. After several minutes of not getting a word in, Simon said, ‘I’m sorry but we have to go to the weather now. If I come back to you in five minutes will you still be there?’ Smile by Sir Martin; ‘Probably not.’ Wonderful.

I was 1) surprised, 2) bewildered, 3) annoyed 4) blazing angry this morning when I read a BBC report that the NHS in England is to review the evidence for breast cancer screening, following the publication of a questionable analysis into its efficacy by the Danish-based independent Nordic Cochrane Research Centre, and the publicly announced refusal by an academic of screening, on the grounds that she is concerned about the effects of over-diagnosis. I can only assume that Professor Susan Bewley believes that under-diagnosis would be better. She heads the department of complex obstetrics at King’s College, London, but I don’t find anything complex about the issues involved, and can only wonder why she’s trying to start a bandwagon rolling.

I’m going to declare an interest here. A few years ago, my wife went for a routine screening mammogram. It showed an anomaly, and she was asked to go back for further investigation. This revealed the presence of a very small tumour. It was removed almost immediately, there were no metastases, and, happily there’s been no recurrence. The incident was dealt with so effectively that when I happened to mention the subject in another context a few days ago, it took her a few seconds to recall that she was a cancer survivor herself.

If the screening programme wasn’t in place, that tiny tumour wouldn’t have been detected until it was a large tumour, her surgery would have been much more radical, and she’d have undergone debilitating and  destructive follow-up therapy. I don’t like to consider what the outcome might have been. Hers is just one case among thousands of success stories for the breast screening programme. Like every woman, she had the right to decline her mammogram. Professor Susan Bewley had that right and exercised it. But in my opinion, she does not have the right to use her academic position to undermine public confidence in the programme, if by doing so she might deter even a single woman from going for screening and thus allowing a treatable tumour to go undetected until it’s too late.

As for the Nordic Cochrane Research Centre, the brief research I’ve done on it myself makes me wonder whether it might be to general medicine what the Church of Scientology is to the treatment of mental illness. It can play with numbers all it likes, but it can’t be allowed to play with lives. Any time spent by the NHS reviewing its allegations will be time wasted. Time is money. If that money is available, it should be invested in enhancing existing screening, not questioning it.

My friends will tell you that I am a long way short of being a Christian fundamentalist. These days I’m only in churches for weddings and funerals. However, I believe that the right of worship is fundamental to all faiths and that it is intolerable that the right of access to any church, mosque, synagogue, etc,  should be blocked wilfully by any individual or group, whatever their cause.

That’s why I’m more than mildly appalled that St Paul’s Cathedral was closed to worshippers yesterday and remains closed today, because a crowd of  posh anarchists, sundry attention seekers,  and general toss-pots have chosen to mass around it in their silly little tents, for a reason which has nothing to do with God and is purely mammon-based. They seem to be trying to make their point by hi-jacking a symbolic building. But why St Paul’s? If they really want to draw attention to the focus of their campaign why aren’t they camped outside the equally iconic Bank of England, or better still Harrods?

The biggest ‘Why?’ of all of course is ‘Why are they still there?’ If they were parked outside the London Stock Exchange itself, just round the corner . . . and they do call their campaign ‘Occupy LSX’ . . . or outside one of those other institutions, they’d have been hosed off the street by now, you can be sure of that. So why are the Met treating them so leniently where they are? Do they think they have a right of sanctuary, or is the LSX more important than Jesus?

Hi, Norah. I’m not surprised your memory is vague; that happened a long time back. The book you’re trying to recall is ‘Skinner’s Ordeal’. Your next Skinner fix will be next June, and the title to look out for is ‘Funeral Note‘.