Welcome to MY world

I have written before of my suspicion that a large proportion of the news we get from Afghanistan consists of very carefully worded press releases from the army media. A gloss imparted to forthcoming activities, undue attention to the part that Afghan forces may play, heartfelt appeals to those of us at home not to agitate by explaining just what a snafu it all is.

A lady of the press explains it thus "The MoD has a war to sell. The MoD wants the most positive coverage set before the biggest audience. Obviously. It has a war to sell which is now longer than the Second World War. And it is not going very well. And they want to get out. And...And...They have soldiers dying who were at junior school when the invasion and occupation (for it is both, whatever the spin) began. They have a problem. And the drip drip drip of Wootton Bassett homecomings are not helping, as they also privately acknowledge."

I am confident she is not telling porkies. It is nice sometimes to have one's prejudices confirmed.



http://snipurl.com/1bvq3u

The current hoo haa regarding the latest episode of Wikileaks threatened for the week-end intrigues me. I may have a better insight than many as to the problem; I was in charge of the Army CID in Belfast from 1970 to 72 and appreciate the task facing US forces regarding investigations into shootings and allegations against the military. The sheer volume of work now required into any serious incident can be overwhelming and, in some cases, impossible to achieve. For example, I was in Londonderry on what became known as Bloody Sunday and took the initial statements from troops involved. The Saville Inquiry into the events took many years and many millions to investigate that half-hour of engagement.

So, what might the senior service officers have done differently? I cannot really know - I wasn't there. However, it comes down to command and control. It all seems to start out well where obedience is implanted in Private Gomer Pyle. The system if properly implemented means that knowledge of what ever is done by the lowest gets escalated upwards. Whilst it is the Colonel's prerogative as to what happens, his salary grade does include responsibility for what is done by his men. And that is where things get fuzzy. Just as in the observation about fleas, he also has his fleas at higher command. They do not concern themselves with detail - "We want to be on top of that hill by nightfall" sparks of all the little fleas and a detailed plan is evolved. Gomer Pyle knows it is no use his objecting to the task or the method. His sergeant knows he cannot blame Pyle for his failure to accomplish what his lieutenant ordered him to do. A situation where a force commander has to acknowledge he is not on top of the hill is not acceptable. "the enemy won't let us go there" does not wash. 'All is fair in love and war' overcomes the Geneva Convention and can be the start of something that people safe in their beds in Washington get all huffy about.

The way in which war is waged has been codified. Reams and reams of paper have been generated but the problem remains of boiling these down into a piece of card maybe slightly bigger than a credit card which Pte Pyle can understand. Try your hand at a précis of this - "The United States is bound by customary law and international laws of war, by the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the United Nations (U.N.) December 11, 1945 -- all of which set limits beyond which, by common consent, decent peoples will not go. Under the Constitution, all treaties are part of the supreme law of the land. Humanitarian law rests on a simple principle; that human rights are measured by one yardstick. Without that principle, all jurisprudence descends into mere piety and power.

When laws of war were codified, military necessity ceased to be the final arbiter of human rights and civility. Nor do violations of the laws of war by one belligerent vindicate the war crimes of another.

For the high officials who planned and supervised military operations in Iraq, the "shock-and-awe" campaign encompasses three major types of war crimes, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949: The "wanton destruction of cities, towns, and villages" in violation of the Nuremberg principles. The premeditated use of weapons known to cause unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate destruction. The use of depleted uranium, the poison of radiation that is destroying the lives of untold numbers of civilians and soldiers, including American personnel.

We are not referring to incidental transgressions of humanitarian law, or even the war crimes of desperate infantrymen in the heat of battle -- like soldiers who recently fired bullets into crowds of anti-occupation demonstrators in Iraq -- follies committed out of fear, confusion, and the hatred that all war evokes. It's not the crimes of passion, but the crimes of calculation that require moral reappraisal.

The italics are mine and, in the context of Wikileaks, could be very significant. There is recognition that passion and hatred are found in the area where bullets fly. What is not covered is the deliberate and conscious rejection of civilised human conduct. Torture can never be tolerated. For clarity, I do not support the often claimed excuse that it is OK to torture someone on the off-chance they know where a large time bomb is ticking away. NCIS is not the real world. The game of rendition or pass the parcel of a prisoner moved about clandestinely so that he ends up somewhere where torture is a recognised feature of investigations, is not acceptable.

So, what might be done? Mumsy Clinton went off very well last night in condemning the brash Assange and his colleagues but as I see it, she really does not have a leg to stand on. Secret and confidential information revealed? The keepers of the data should have made it impossible to be improperly accessed; they wrote the stuff and should have secured it. Danger to indigenous peoples? The Taliban have shown that they have well tried sources of information so anyone exhibiting his new found informant's wealth would be known as would any villager getting too friendly with our troops. ANA personnel engaged in joint operations are another source of information leakage. It would be a farce to expect some form of military Witness Protection Scheme.

So, suppose the idea of 'crime' carried out in the course of battle is capable of being floated and accepted, that leaves the organised, deliberate and intentional offences that contravene the standards enacted. There exists in some countries the concept that a payment of money, (sometimes referred to as blood money), closes the whole affair - whether this exists in Iraq I cannot say. It seems so - "Tribal traditions in Iraq often allow a tribe to pay blood money to compensate for a murder committed by a member." Uncle Sam has a huge tribe and properly handled by a half-way competent spinner, everything could come up as roses.

That leaves the 'black' operations and clearly illegal actions. I cannot see that even so well resourced a country as America could ever investigate the sheer volume of these. Just to return to Iraq in pursuance of witnesses would be a extremely hazardous exercise made worse by the evocative nature of the inquiry.

The matters that will come out of full study of the new Wikileaks must have some official response other than disclosure being deprecated. In simple terms, a significant US personage saying mea culpa (maybe even mea culpa maxima)and we promise not to do it again. This need not be an empty promise and just requires a couple of days extra training for recruits and reinforcement on pre-deployment briefings. Senior officers as well as the doughboys.

Should Wikileaks have released this mass of documentation? On balance, I am in agreement. I think, even without my own direct experience, I would be naïve to think that such things didn't happen and I am not able to use 'not in my name' to dodge the issue. If it happened, I wish to know - even if only to be aware what is being done in any recurrence of fools rushing into some other John Wayne scenario.

Just a quote I came across whilst checking something - "Whatever shortcomings there may have been in Iraq and Afghanistan stemmed from failures and miscalculations at the top, not those doing the fighting and the leading on the ground. It has taken every ounce of our troops' skill, initiative and commitment to battle a cunning and adaptive enemy at the front while overcoming bureaucratic lassitude and sometimes worse at the rear."

So, why am I sitting in front of my machine at dark o'clock when there is not another house light in the village?

I sometimes enter horror movies when my dreams become such that they continue to run even when I am sitting up in bed with eyes wide open. Initial treatment is to read a page or two and then try again or to try and force my mind to leave the dark side of the brain and find some other space to colonise. Tonight the hoped for pathway was thinking "What if..." What if I had not said such and such. What if I had not done this or that. Personal actions didn't work so I went for 'what ifs' of others. What if Nap had said 'Yes tonight to Josephine' or if Adolph had withdrawn when Chamberlin warned him?

I then came up with a beauty that merits a blog I can look back at when the memory starts to fade.

It is 11th September 2001, The Twin Towers are down and still smoking. The majority of the world is outraged and in shock whilst some Muslim countries are celebrating Al Queda's actions. The President goes on television to address the world. He says that what happened was the work of a small group of fanatics. Whilst it would be a natural reaction to seek payback by unloading vast quantities of bombs in the direction of the civilians of the country giving a home to the terrorists, such action would be pointless and vindictive. This was the work of individuals and not a nation. Vengeance breeds violence in a long chain and, therefore, the USA would forgive. And pray for the aggressors.

This is the Daddy of all 'what ifs'. No Iraq War, no Afghanistan nonsense. No vast expenditure of lives and money and resources. Not just in America but in the Coalition Of The Conned as well.

This 'what if' surprised me - I had always taken modern day America as a pious country. There have been notable dissenters. "The phrase "An-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye ... ends in making everybody blind" has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. later used this phrase in the context of racial violence: "The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind" Jesus Christ: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Sadly, we have suffered the results of that Mr Bush reverting to the ways of early days and saddling up to ride off in all directions. What we have now though is a feud that will resonate like those of old.

I think that has been sufficient displacement activity and I can drain my cup of tea and toddle off back to bed.

The debate on Spending Review seems to be centered around who is most effected. The Very Rich, The Rich, The Middle Earners and The Poorly Paid. I think these classifications do not fully explore what has been done to whom. I have always thought of my financial situation in terms of my disposable income. I have only once been in a group that might be described as Rich when any employer determined he had to directly employ me to supervise something I had advised him on as a consultant. My time in HM Forces in the middle NCO ranks were times when the pay was low. In those days there was food on the table, clothes on the children's back and the Sergeants' Mess for entertainment. We didn't run to a car and would have been in difficulties had something unforeseen needed money thrown at it. In the halcyon days we ran two new cars, were up to date with London theatre life and entertained others quite well. It all came from the money remaining after our essential needs and consequent expenditure had been met. I cannot really say that I enjoyed one of the two life styles more than the other. I had the funds to do what I wished to do.

The group now described as poor may not be in that position - I say may - it is not intended as censorious or denigrating but I seem to see a lot of cigarette smoking and quite a few of the guys in the local pub seem to be there at both lunchtimes and evenings. The infants ride in buggies that cost quite a few pounds. The announced changes that are referred to as unfair to the poor will certainly reduce their income; I wonder if it will effect their lifestyle? But, is it fair to expect them to change where those with some positive balance of income over outgoings may not need to economise - are we not all entitled to our 'luxuries' however these may be defined?

The Chancellor's idea of rich or poor may be responsible for what I see as a potential waste of money. The idea that a child aged two needs subsidised education. "There will be funding for 15 free hours of early education and care for all disadvantaged two-year-olds as part of a "fairness premium" which will extend from toddlers to undergraduates. The existing entitlement of 15 hours a week for all three to four-year-olds will be maintained." The 'education' a two year old requires is more socialisation than 1+1=2. Will 'disadvantaged' classification be assessed - and by whom? This all smacks more of 'child-minding' than child education. There used to be much coffee-morning debate about how cruel and hard it was for a child starting at five years. "It is going to put tremendous strain on very young children who haven't reached that stage of development," she said. "We are left with about three years of being able to call our children our own. After that, the Government will dictate what you are allowed to do with your child — when you can go on your holidays, when you can't, what you have to do for homework. That will go on for the rest of their childhood from four years onwards. It is an extremely sad day." If a parent is deemed unable to bring up a young child it must be questionable as to whether they can guide and mentor their offspring until university beckons. If their 'disadvantage' is low family income, they will see and experience little that might make them realise the benefits of education. Not all ugly ducklings grow up to be swans.

I have concerns about those who receive disability benefit. The disability is likely to cause them to live a circumscribed life and they have no real opportunity to improve their lot by working in the black economy. More and more Service personnel are likely to end up classified as disabled - what is there for a guy with both legs and an arm left in the corner of some foreign field? The Government made much of what it was going to do for these but it was all based in greater integration with the NHS. "I have said for some time that mental health will be my welfare priority if I am the next defence secretary, so I am delighted today to announce that a Conservative government will establish a new mental health screening service for all service leavers, including reservists. Together with my colleagues in our Health team, we have agreed funding for a PTSD treatment programme within the NHS. I hope that together we can defuse the potential time bomb of mental health problems, and I am very grateful for the support that Combat Stress has offered us."patient care is at risk. "Research by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland found that more than half of nurses (54 per cent) said they were prevented from providing dignified care to patients to a standard they were happy with.Of these, 76 per cent blamed a lack of staff for the lower standards they felt they were able to deliver. It comes as the NHS in Scotland is cutting staff numbers by almost 3,800, including more than 1,500 working in nursing and midwifery. Research by The Scotsman shows that more than 1,200 out of the 3,800 posts have already been cut, with the rest expected to go by the end of the financial year" So, what chance there for some poor Tom who meets up with an IED tonight?

Looks as if I'll have to book some theatrical make up in the near future if I am to get by.

...only hardships. My knowledge of economics must date back to when Keynes' book was a pre-order at Amazon but I did get into it as a constituent of the seemingly pointless examinations I went through.

With that bliss that comes of ignorance, I have been forming opinions about Dave's revelations as to the future of our armed forces. Overall impression is 'What future?' Initial opinions from those who know better seem to agree with me.

The greatly reduced Army available for deployment is not all fighting fit, fit to fight warriors. Amongst them are the support services. My immediate query is regarding the medical cover in theatre. The hospital in Afghanistan has a great record in saving life and ameliorating serious trauma. There is a equation as to the number of troops required to overcome a number of opposing forces; we would be hard pressed to overcome a small tribe of third world dissidents. I see the Army of the future as a threat only - "if you come any nearer I'll let the dog off the leash" sort of thing. We do not know the nuts and bolts as to how the reduction was decided. Did it include any provision for assets such as might be needed in an unlikely war zone or will there be a repeat of troops going from tropical Malaya to fight in a Korean winter in their lightweight clothing?.

I cannot understand the ten year outlook for getting troops out of Germany. There will be a saving but spread over ten years? I understood we were in dire straits and any saving had to be very quickly accomplished. I suppose the reasoning is that we have no proper barracks for them to go to and no habitable quarters for their families. The run down will be shorter than ten years and the people-less accommodation will need to be maintained in the interim. I cannot see Dave's Wider Society ideas producing a lot of volunteers to soldiering in place of cost-carrying professionals. If we do have to send troops anywhere where the bullets fly, the reduction in fast air cover could be very significant.

We will see tomorrow what else is to happen. Lost jobs is rightly a very common concern. Getting on one's bike is going to be very hard if it involves relocation - renting accommodation or sell/buy a home is in the doldrums. Demands on social services will be hard as relationships come under strain from all the cut backs and redundancies. We have forecasts of numbers who may be getting their cards but a fair number will be entitled to redundancy pay - has this been costed and provided for?

There will be considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth. Already, I have the feeling that much of what the coalition Cameron/Clegg/ANOs government says is condescending waffle. The people who propose and make the decisions have comfortable salaries or private means and I cannot really believe that they have much idea of the life of a single mum, maybe poorly educated, with three kids living hand to mouth on a slum estate. She has no union to protect her rights and essentials.

I was quite concerned when I saw this. Those who were in Korea had spoken just what it was like to face an enemy that advanced like a flood tide. The machine-gun barrels melted but still they came on. Not all had weapons but they just picked up weapons from fallen comrades and carried on.

But, then something led me to have a Google round and I found this. Equally impressive in their drill. Drill is a result of cohesion. Cohesion is what leads to fighting discipline as described by the Korean veterans.

We are all still here so perhaps drill is not the be all and end all of military success. Better media now shows us just what fighting entails; for civilians just as for the actual participants.

Remember this when the 11th of November approaches and add something to the widow's mite.

The Sunday Telegraph has come out strong on the hostage rescue operation. The article is headed "Linda Norgrove: how the rescue operation was bungled. The rescue operation was planned meticulously, so how did it lead to the aid worker's death?" We may never know.

The longer it takes to assemble the evidence and come to a judgement, the more the fabric of the evidence is abraded. The rescuers came from a very specialised team and will have discussed the incident immediately afterwards. Unless efforts were made to segregate all individuals when the initial suicide bomber idea was disputed, debate will have continued. Men who live and work very closely develop their own esprit de corps. Where three or four are gathered together and the rescue mission arises they will come to a consensus as to what happened. Not from any improper intent to pervert the inquiry but where there is a difference of recollection, the version proffered by the strongest individual is the one that will prevail and be reiterated when personnel are interviewed. That is assuming the questions put are not answered by "It all happened so quick I don't really remember in detail"

The team used are described as "The highly secret unit, equivalent to the Special Boat Service of the Royal Marines, is composed of operatives battle-hardened from years of "kill-capture" missions waged in the mountains of Afghanistan since 2001" Just what is meant by 'kill-capture', we cannot know but the Wikileaks article contained references to what were really assassination squads that engaged in 'kill-capture'. We may assume from the drone penetrations into Pakistan that defeating the enemy has priority over fussy procedures to determine actual guilt. And that is where things could go very very wrong.

The results of any investigation will attract world-wide interest. Officialdom will not want it bruted about that such units exist. If so, the statements taken by US Army CID will be very much redacted before getting into general knowledge and the whole thing veers into politics and away from a post-engagement debate as to tactics. There are already questions that need to be put to the planners of the operation and those who agreed that these should be implemented. "The special operations forces team flew to the site on a night with no moon and "quick roped" down to the ground, immediately getting into a large and lengthy firefight, during which at least nine militants were killed."

The operation was against an isolated community in very remote country. At night, the slightest noise can be heard from a long way away. Certainly, a helicopter hovering overhead at a height to allow rappelling directly into compound would have been heard with sufficient time for the hostage-holders to get into position before the first attacker was on the ground. One of the factors that has been advanced has been awareness that the captors were absolutely ruthless and the value of Ms Norgren's life was zero. Even if she were not in fact killed by a suicide bomber, the likelihood that she would be executed must have been very high.

Another problem for the organisers are the reasons advanced for using an American team at all. The excuse was that the SAS were very busy elsewhere, the Americans knew the terrain described as very arduous. It shows scant regard for the value of the life of a UK citizen if it really was considered impossible to get together a SAS team of about a dozen for a,at most, four day absence from 'elsewhere' Image intensifiers (night sights)do not work in total darkness and there has been no mention that thermal imagery was available for every man to be so equipped. Knowledge of terrain must be immaterial - the Regiment is well used to operating in Yemen and other difficult areas. Satellite etc photographs of the compounds and surrounds would be available in such detail as to plot a route from remote landing point to front door. Loading way points into a GPS device would make the terrain problems look like the M6 on a Friday night. The SAS specialise in a procedure where troops are parachute dropped at a high level and then use free fall techniques to glide silently to the ground. Designed and taught for clandestine insertions.

Hague and Cameron are fingered as having given the final go ahead. So far as I am aware, neither has any direct personal knowledge of clandestine operations so they would only have considered the political aspect. I can see some Sir Humphrey giving them the briefs with a comment "The spams have a military plan" and that would be as much vetting as as the tactics ever got.

The main point much advanced by those supporting the saga is that 'we' did not kill the woman; the terrorists did. I find that an argument that I will leave for debate by better philosophers than I but it does seem that things could have been done better.

I had never really known much about Chile until the news came out of the miners who had been trapped underground. I recall a heavy earthquake earlier in the year but it fell into that category "major incident - not many British killed" that The Times used for problems in 'foreign' far away places. I resorted to my old Q & A resource of Wiki and it reveals a success story in which the colonising Brits went somewhere and did not decimate the locals with exotic diseases or put them to the sword if they refused to kiss the Bible.

It would be nice to think that it was the start and our continuing presence which led to the rescue of all the trapped men. I suspect that we had little part. It all seems to have gone so swimmingly from step to step. The first thing I expected was that any opposition party would weigh in and castigate everything that was being done. The party in power would then riposte that it was all the fault of the previous government and it would all fall into the Punch and Judy politics we do so well. It seems that this is yet to arise or, even, whether such time and energy wasting debate will surface at all. The President may be the factor of change. He appears to have decamped to the makeshift village at the well head and then made sure that all concerned knew he was there. Not by interfering or indulging in micro-management. Reports from hard-bitten reporters used to creating a negative spin are all favourable, He just walks about without a mass entourage and willingly answers in English or Spanish any questions put to him. I do not detect any Press or Media Office with their insistence on controlling and regimenting everything. There are, obviously, effective controls. The cameramen have been provided with good opportunities without the rucks and mauls we see all too often. The plans for action have all been freely released well in advance of execution.

All in all, a fine job. I suggest we could learn quite a bit from it; and not just in the area of mine rescues.

The Special Air Service has many unorthodox talents.All 'badged' members of The Special Air Service are parachute trained; however, there is a need for members of The Regiment to be trained in military free-fall techniques in order that operational tasks such as covert insertion by parachute into hostile territory, from high altitude, can be employed as and when needed.

Note the term 'covert insertion' i.e. landing troops into somewhere without making a lot of noise or otherwise attracting attention. I am sure that we all know the noise levels of military helicopters. Having one hover whilst attack forces deploy down a rope, in a remote area where such noise is rarely heard, cannot be described as 'covert'. The advance on foot to the compound where a hostage might be held would allow ample time for the dissidents to get into defensive positions and plan their tactics.

American special forces were within "seconds" of rescuing the kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove when she was fatally wounded by a suicidal explosion triggered by one of her captors. We cannot know how long it took for the rescuers to get to the compound from their landing spot but one has to wonder why the silence of a HALO insertion was not used. The training of SF allows almost pin-point accuracy of landing; certainly all in the middle of a compound.



http://snipurl.com/1ane7d

"But in Chelsea on May 6, 2008, the scale of force deployed to deal with a single cornered, drunk, deranged man — some 59 firearms trained officers with a hundred guns — would have been more appropriate for a sighting of Osama Bin Laden." Well, that is what Max Hastings has to say on the matter. Whilst the Inquest concluded yesterday that the Metropolitan Police behaved lawfully in shooting dead barrister Mark Saunders, the Coroner drew attention to the way the operation was organised.

The barrister Mark Saunders was lawfully killed when he was shot by police marksmen, but the Scotland Yard operation had major failings, an inquest jury has ruled.

Officers used reasonable and proportionate force when they shot at the drunk divorce lawyer armed with a shotgun, the inquest found. They had been firing in self-defence or in the defence of colleagues.

But the jury of six women and five men made three major criticisms of the Metropolitan police's handing of the siege at the 32-year-old lawyer's £2.2m London home on 6 May 2008.

Officers did not give enough consideration to letting his wife, Elizabeth, or barrister friend Michael Bradley contact him early in the five-hour siege. They gave "insufficient weight" to the fact he was an alcoholic who was very drunk, and therefore vulnerable. Their confused command structure on the night meant there was a "lack of clarity" over who performed the key role in charge of the police snipers."

Back in the day, specialist groups of the Met were known as 'Squads'; the Murder Squad, Stolen Car squad or Special Patrol or some such. They reverted to giving them CO (for Central Office) number prefixes. Just as well or CO19 would possibly gain the nickname of 'Murder Squad'. There just seem to be so many incidents where someone has died following contact with police regardless of whether or not firearms are involved. I am not going to list them here lest someone feel I have been piling on the agony. I do not use them in my conclusion that led to the 'Murder Squad' comment.

"In all, 59 officers armed with more than 100 guns surrounded his flat, the inquest heard. In his final 20 minutes there were 15 armed officers visible to him at the back of his premises and a helicopter hovering overhead to drown out the noise of installing powerful halogen lights. The lights were turned on two minutes before he was shot, flooding his flat with "Blackpool illuminations".

The manual of the Association of Chief Police Officers stated that in such cases officers should consider taking cover or backing off, if safe, and giving "time and space" to the person, the jury heard. Early negotiation was also recommended. Those tactics could defuse tension, and allow alcohol or drugs to wear off and the subject's mental and emotional state to stabilise. Such tactics were not employed.

While finding police had given insufficient weight to Saunders's problems, the jury said it was not likely this contributed to his death. They found there was a lack of clarity between the key roles of the firearms tactical adviser and the firearms "bronze" adviser, with Superintendent Michael Wise, the "silver" commander in charge of tactical decisions on the night, believing one officer was performing both roles." 59 men armed with the latest weapons. All receive psychological evaluation and considerable range and tactics training. In military terms, 59 to 1 is about two infantry companies - overkill. Co-ordination of such a large group would be difficult. Any one of them would have been capable of neutralising the threat. Adrenaline runs high even for trained and experienced men. There may have been some rousing words - "The key words ­spoken that evening were those of an ­unidentified officer briefing ­colleagues at the scene before Mark Saunders was shot at 9.32pm: 'He let some off at Old Bill and that changes the rules' In the minds of the modern Met, once Saunders, mad or not, fired his gun, he made himself a legitimate candidate for killing. I reject the view of an anonymous marksman who gave ­evidence at the inquest, saying his action was ‘absolutely ­necessary’, as part of the police role in putting themselves ‘between the public and the bad man’

The effective range of the ordinary shotgunfiring buckshot is about 50 metres. We do not know how close the nearest officer was. The rifles used by the police would have effective ranges of many hundreds of metres so there was no need for any of them to put themselves at a range where Saunders might harm anyone - their justification for the fatal shooting. Post mortem established that 5 rounds hit him; 7 officers fired so some more range work needed there.

There was really no need for fatal shooting anyway. Our Special Forces have used blast and gas cartridges fired into the room where a gunman is. These give an opportunity to storm the premises and effect an arrest. I am aware of the self-defence response but the plain fact is that none of the police needed to be in a location such that a man armed only with a shotgun was in position to harm anyone. I have no concern that they shot to kill rather than to wound or disarm - that sort of shooting exists only in spaghetti westerns.

As I see it, the essential is that police re-examine their tactics; especially in the area of command and control. There is concern that Mumbai-type attacks could occur in UK and we have a terrorist prime-target of the Olympics. In light of the way 59 officers dealt with the solicitor, I am concerned at how the police might cope with a considerable number of terrorists armed with assault rifles and explosives in, possible, multiple locations.

There was one other matter for concern. "In the wake of the inquest it has emerged that the Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, who had earlier denied any confusion, wrote to the IPCC last week acknowledging inquest evidence had shown "confusion on this point" The last occasion we heard of Met Commissioners writing to IPCC was when Commission Blair involved himself in an IPCC matter was the Brazilian plumber. If IPCC are dealing, they should be left to do just that without any covert warning from a senior policeman that he had already come to a judgment.

I suppose I have always followed the advice "you should not give in to evils, but proceed ever more boldly against them" Maybe it was that which led to my choice of employment in HM Forces and, briefly, as a civilian. My early years were in the late 1930s when there was a strong regard for morals in the days when "nice children do not do that" was backed with physical reinforcement if not learnt the first time.

It seems from my aged standpoint of today that that has all been swept away. Children are mostly feral and self-raising and say and do much as they wish with no let or hindrance. On the other hand, it seems as if we have changed attitudes to children. As a seven or eight year old I was outside the house, alone for much of the day and early evening. I knew there were 'dirty' men that I should avoid but my parents never had to consider whether I would disappear off the face of the earth into the hands of such as Myra Hindley and Brady. Paedophilia has benefited from the electronic age.

There is considerable anguish about sex education. I have no memory of one of the fierce dragons known as 'lady teachers' showing me how to cover a banana with a condom as now seems prevalent. I do recall, even now, the locations of such as air-raid shelters where females of my age (12'ish) would gather and sex education became homework. The whole world of male and female relationships has now changed. It was once the done thing to tell a girl-friend or other female just how beautiful she looked as one held the door open for her to exit or as she walked along the pavement with me between her and the traffic. Try that now and one would find the door slammed firmly into one's face or receive a push under a following bus. I remember the early days of the Womens' Liberation movement. Two adherents worked in my department and it seemed that never a day went by without some drama where one of them went by without my having to adjudicate on a perceived disrespectful remark or action.

The preceding ambling on has been set-off by a current court case in Edinburgh involving alleged perjury by a husband and his wife. It is alleged (yes, by me I know) that he is typical of the new breed of sleaze-ball politician and lied about pursuing his sexual activities out-with the marital bed. Press coverage has images of her. She typifies the 'Stand by your man' culture. Whenever I see her photograph I ponder just why this might be. She is a stunner. All without the need to flash her assets about. She follows the footsteps of Mary Archer who has explained why she stood by the damaged-goods husband. This new admonition regarding comments on females may well lead to suggestions from the bra-less community that I am referring to her in a sexual manner. No. She is the sort of woman I would have been proud to take home to my mum to face a grilling far more stressful that a High or Sheriff's Court appearance.

Just to clarify though. There are women in the public eye that would cause my sex machine to rev up. Sorry that should be would have caused; it never gets above zero revs now. There are just some women who cannot, unfortunately, be seen other than as objects of sexual desire. They would most certainly never have met Mum.There are many photographs of Sophia and Kate where they are dressed very formally -as for Ascot one might say - but nothing destroys the lusty image. I think it is the facial bone structure that does it!

Today's Times devotes a page to Elish Angiolini who is stepping down as Lord Advocate, Scotland. (No link as Times is behind a pay-barrier) The article detailed her idea that communications technology could corroborate a victim's account of a sex attack. She supported use of mobile phone company records and social networking sites and had seen a rise of securing convictions. Scots law requires corroboration of a witness's testimony and she had introduced this with expert opinion evidence from psychologists who examine mobile and Facebook records for clues as to a person's behaviour after being attacked. This can encourage victims to come forward where they might fear that they would be believed.

Of course,all this has attracted the criticism of the Human Rights Squad who describe the expert evidence as pseudo-science.

The old Judges Rules governed what police officers should do in the course of their investigations so as to show Judges that things were done fairly. The very first of these rules allowed the police to question any person with a view to finding out whether, or by whom, an offence had been committed. 'Question any person' gave approval to the use of experts and this should include psychologists.

Persons accused of a crime have many routes open to them to avoid questioning or to dispute such evidence. It is, of course, open to them to retain their own expert. These give the man in the dock an advantage over the forces of law and order. My contention, formed from having been an investigator, is that all relevant evidence should be put before a Judge and Jury. The Judge would decide whether it was relevant and the jury - possibly with guidance at summing-up time - would rule as to which side had made it's case. This should happen regardless of how the information was obtained (short of torture obviously). If the accused was shown to have used some form of trickery in the commission of the offence, why is it wrong to bar the police from using trickery in their investigations? We now have international courts of appeal so the idea that the law could ride rough shod over some harmless but unlucky defendant is obsolete.

I have been reading up on our ancestors and came across this.

"Old Man
Estimated age: 50,000 years
Date of discovery: 1908
Location: La-Chapelle-aux-Saints, France

This individual, who was 30 to 40 years old when he died, had a healed broken rib, severe arthritis of the hip, lower neck, back, and shoulders, and had lost most of his molar teeth. This indicates that Neanderthals may have had a complex social system that included care for the elderly."

There are other accounts of finds where skeletons were found with withered arms, tooth loss and severe osteoarthritis such that they could not have fended for themselves in a hunter-gatherer community.

I have also read up on the suggested changes in the NHS and the impact - especially in Scotland - of cost savings likely to be imposed.

It would seem that our new Government does not even come up to the standards of Neanderthals.

No Neanderthals were harmed in the research for this report.