Hugh Muirs diary: Behold the perils of giving advice to President Putin The Russian leaders got something for the tourists: a whole new territory • Not long now before about 1,000 bigwigs from the World Travel & Tourism Council jet into Hainan in the South China Sea for the bodys next global summit. Its a top affair. Last year, in Abu Dhabi, the key speaker was Bill Clinton. This time it is Kofi Annan. Location is important too. Previously the council headed to Mexico as the drug wars raged. They enjoyed Tokyo, with Tony Blair in tow, while Fukushima was still on the boil. For the travel heavyweights have the ear of heavy hitters around the globe. Just a fortnight ago, via the councils president, David Scowsill, they offered this advice to Vladimir Putin in Sochi: Russia needs to act now if it is to make the most of the opportunity to boost Russias economy through tourism in the future. Within days, Putin acted quite decisively, as we know. But then he has always had particular ideas about how to draw a crowd. • Another day, another revelation. We know that undercover cops were deployed to spy on those around the Stephen Lawrence family and, thanks to the BBC, we have good reason to suspect that a lorry load of info about police corruption was shredded. We also know attempts were made to coerce students to spy on each other, and that anti-racist protesters were urged to act as coppers narks. For every action a reaction, and here it manifests as a series of training courses teaching lawyers how best to bring court cases against errant police forces. Places are hard to secure; the first actions against the police (advanced) course sold out quickly, and a policing the police session scheduled for June seems just as popular. Twas ever the case; wheres theres murk, theres brass. • And ever was the case that revellers head for the Irish embassy expecting to make a good night of it. They are rarely disappointed. The high point came in 2006, when the then Bishop of Southwark drank a bit, got into a strangers car and sustained a mystery head injury. Everyone still speaks of it. At a St Patricks Day reception, ambassador Daniel Mulhall boasted that the embassy still puts on the best party in town. And the guest of honour was Pat Rabitte, Irish minister for communications. He behaved impeccably. But in keeping with tradition, one guest tripped down the open staircase, knocked himself out and had to be carried to an ambulance. At the partys end, guests were shown out via the back stairs. Roll on next year. • An impressive range of figures from literature, the law, showbiz and the arts join the victims of press excess by putting their names to the new Hacked Off declaration and newspaper advertisement. It calls for recalcitrant media to embrace regulation underpinned by royal charter, as imagined by Leveson. Sir David Attenborough is there, Kate and Gerry McCann, Bianca Jagger, JK Rowling, Paloma Faith. Award-winning American journalist Albert Scardino puts in a double shift – inexplicably, he is listed twice. And then theres ex-Sun head man David Yelland. Described as Editor (recovering). • A heros welcome for Todays Evan Davis as he returned to Oxford to deliver last weeks Philip Geddes memorial lecture. Hes flying high but he knows his place. Introduced as the voice of Today, he promptly set the record straight. John Humphrys may have something to say about that, he said. • Finally, there once was bad blood between Jonathan Aitken and the Guardian. He told lies in court. We proved as much, and famously he went to jail. But he emerged a stronger, bolder, wiser man. Thus in the titanic battle between us – guardians of the right to know – and a government hopelessly besotted with the snooping classes, Aitken backs your favourite journal, his one-time nemesis. Referring to the Edward Snowden and GCHQ, he tells the April edition of Cotswold Life: I am not wholly but somewhat on the side of the Guardian, because I dont think the intelligence services have much to fear from good scrutiny. Some journey, but he got there. Were just pleased for him. Twitter: @hugh_muir Vladimir Putin Hugh Muir theguardian © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 23:14:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015