HOME PAGE
MAIN PAGE
Parts 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15

Self-Sufficiency in Style

stop the world?

part eleven

In parts one to ten we introduced you to Britain's Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth epidemics and made some startling claims about their worldwide significance. 

The writer introduced himself and his wife into the story and told you that we caught the government officials faking the records on three quite separate occasions. 

We told you how the police warned us to be careful and how we used many different channels of complaint, even notifying a Select Committee of the House of Commons that there was a cover-up under way. 

They used a former SAS officer to try to force us out of our home for daring to complain to Parliament in retaliation, but the Speaker of the House of Commons refused to offer us protection.

We introduced the possibility that Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne of England was involved - and risked ridicule, but today, nobody is laughing at the writer, St James's Palace is in disarray with a whole series of allegations, including  irregular accounting in his agricultural estate - The Duchy of Cornwall.

The situation was about to get even worse. Escalating to this very day and introducing now the possibility that not just BSE and vCJD, but also SARS, the new human epidemic, is involved.

In part 10 we started to talk about computers, not such a dull subject as you might imagine...we continue the story

He knew about handling emergencies, he knew about computers and communications, about telephones and telex, about radio and handling staff in the field twenty-four hours a day.

His companies were amongst the first with ship to shore radios, mobile phones, faxes and emails, even one of the first Apple dealers in the UK.

The micro was hardly out of the Californian garage before we had one rigged up to help with customs entries and communications.

Communications were the basis of the businesses.

Routine matters.

An absurd story.

Some were British, some from overseas. Everyone knew there was a crisis and the State Veterinary Service were pleading via the media for help and assistance, especially in reporting and locating pigs.

Their telephone system collapsed. It was seven weeks before they got a working system. It was impossible to contact Bury St. Edmunds even via their HQ in London.

...at least that was the official story carried in the provincial press at the time.

It was a fabrication. They did not want their telephones to work. The year was 2000 not 1950. The area around swarms with military bases and has two of Britain's biggest seaports. It is close to Cambridge - Britain's "Silicon Fen."

Telephone systems simply do not break down for seven weeks. It is as impossible as it sounds. The writer, in the same area, in less advantageous times, set up emergency telephone systems in less than 24 hours.

The government veterinarians did not want any incoming reports of sick pigs, so they made sure the system did not work.

The office at Bury St. Edmunds is just a few miles from Cambridge University, Britain's top scientific centre.

They were staying in the best hotel in East Anglia and were not reaching their office until after 0900 hours.

In a crisis?

It was also apparent at that time, that despite all the fuss about inadequate resources and national crisis, the office was not manned until after 0900 hours. Not even London could raise them until after breakfast.

Despite the public pronouncements they already knew which pigs could be sick with Swine Fever (CSF) and which could not be. Incoming phone calls were an unnecessary distraction.

In fact, the vets all had mobile phones and perfectly adequate outgoing facilities. They could contact one another and contacted the farmers when they wanted to.

The press stories and the pleas for help and information were all a smokescreen.

The army commander in Cumbria, the famous Brigadier Alex Birtwhistle, solved a very similar "crisis" in communicating with the government vets by sending to the shop and buying his men mobiles. The story is well known.

With the experience of similar problems during Swine Fever, the writer wonders what stunt was being played on the British Army by the State Veterinary Service.

The vets all had mobiles that worked the previous autumn. We saw them.

The army sorted it out.

Why Not?

This is the government agency responsible for all Britain's farms.

Farmers and smallholders had been filling in dozens of forms each year detailing their activities, yet there was no list.

The small number of abattoirs and markets, the livestock haulage companies all have lists of livestock owning customers, but weeks after the crisis started, the State Veterinary Service still had no list.

They were still wandering about, calling at the gate asking if there were any pigs.

Any office junior with the most basic of computers could have collated and processed the quite small volume of information needed.

But it was not done. Why not?

It first noticed when the writer repeatedly asked for the email address for the Chief Veterinary Officer of the United Kingdom, to ask for his protection (see Stop the World 6 )

The email address provided by a Divisional Veterinary Manager in writing turned out to be incorrect (as was a subsequent offering).

We later learned that the woman concerned was previously an assistant to the man himself and she did not know the correct email address for her boss?

The writer has no history of sending abusive emails and at that time had never sent an email to the Chief Vet; although he had complained politely by email about blood test faking. This seems to have triggered an email trap.

We eventually, with great difficulty, had to send a fax.

The whole communication system seemed designed to frustrate any attempt to contact them, whilst allowing them complete freedom to communicate outwards and between themselves.

They had built a George Orwell inspired "loudspeaker" system to control the countryside.

1984 had arrived a little late, but it was here.

No email for complainants.

Working from home?

We first noticed a gobbledegook email arriving from their Edinburgh office correctly addressed. Odd, since we had never been in communication with them.

Then a much more serious incident. Mr "X" , now one of Britain's top government officials, emailed the writer from his home computer with a virus and accompanying Trojan. We had never been in contact with this man, aside from emails to him at the Bury St. Edmunds office and his visit to our home. We presume the sender's address was not forged.

Naturally, we called the police for the fourth time. A specialist police officer attended, agreed that prima facie a criminal offence had been committed - and that in his opinion this fell outside any Crown Immunity from prosecution. He took the data and promised to get back to us.

We actually told the policeman that we thought that he would be stopped from investigating. 

He was sure he would not be...that was early 2002, but nothing has been heard since. We were right, of course.

Two Cardiff Law Professors, David Campbell and Robert Lee have just completed a report making just that allegation, in great detail.

"The Power to Panic: The Animal Health Act 2002"

It has been published in "Public Law" and is available on the internet via Warmwell.

also

"Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic" by the same authors.

about to published in "Social and Legal Studies"

The writer is saying that the illegal activities were evident the previous summer...and that he told the government.

The implications are awful.

Either the State Veterinary Service are "institutionally corrupt" and the government hid it, or

there is a link between Swine Fever (CSF) and Foot and Mouth (FMD) which the government are now hiding.

Bearing in mind that the SVS were also involved in the BSE (Mad Cow) cover-up. Anything is possible.

We do know that there is a widespread cover-up in respect of the PMWS epidemic - a disease that came between BSE and CSF in the UK.

Following the trail.

Despite the need in Britain, little has been achieved here. The computer systems in the Agriculture Ministry have been in total disarray for years.

What has been conveniently overlooked in that Britain was a world leader in tracing systems in complex environments for more than twenty years.

Systems more-or-less identical in functionality and in scale for those needed to trace animals from pasture through abattoir to supermarket were already tried and tested.

Once you put a numbered ear-tag on an animal it becomes for functional purposes indistinguishable from a container. The contents correspond to the meat produced.

The system is robust. It has to be secure against theft and smuggling, against breakdown and manipulation.

Why wasn't the maritime system adopted?

It was probably too good.

Same job - tried and tested.

We hear snippets, meaningful too.

It was all in the numbering system - primitive and years out of date.

They wanted a system that could be overridden by individual veterinary surgeons. They wanted to retain their discredited discretion.

The power to choose who would be favoured and who would be persecuted; who would be controlled and who would be exempt.

Not to put too fine a point on it, they wanted their protection racket to continue.

They wanted the big multi-nationals who have their in-house vets to be regarded as above suspicion and the small farmer to be tightly controlled.

The very people that brought disaster on Britain were to be encouraged to continue creating animal health risks. The innocent were to be driven to despair.

As the saying goes "a nice little earner."

Surely one of the ironies of this strange and sinister business.

In fairness, the British Government has recognised the unreliability of the SVS, they now only operate in the sea and airports under HM Customs & Excise supervision. They are, no doubt, being closely watched.

What a humiliation for the braggarts and bullies of the countryside!

Now under proper supervision.

Still tracking millions of containers through multiple ports, safely and securely.

Well, twenty years ago or so, he was the Chairman of the design team that introduced the biggest of Britain's maritime computer systems, and became a founder Director of the company set up to run it.

It worked. He was even invited by the United Nations to Hong Kong to lecture on the system.

The writer is long retired, but the system is still there, working away.

You can read about it, as it is today, on MCP Plc

One of Britain's technical triumphs.

computing the cost and evening the score

from

 the appropriately  named Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.