Tentacles of power reach a long, long way

Hello, reader. Have you missed me?

Contrary to the title of my blog, I have been out quite a lot recently, hence the lack of reading material over the past couple of weeks.

But then not many people seem to look at this blog unless a) I post something on Facebook or b) I send out a round-robin email.

My blog stats show just one or two “readers” a day since my last novelette. So, as a bit of a consumer test, I have just posted this without any notification.

But the stats also show an interesting twist to my popularity (?) – this blog has had 17 views from Russia.

I don’t know anyone in Russia so that’s a bit odd. I wonder how that happened. Is Mr Putin is keeping an eye on me?

But I digress. It’s been a newsy few weeks, with two standout stories as far as I am concerned.

The first concerns the disclosures about Edward Heath. Part of me asks why do these allegations crop up when someone is long dead. It seems very un-British to accuse someone of something when they cannot defend themselves.

But the Jimmy Saville affair gave some pretty clear clues why.

There is no doubt that attitudes have changed over the past 30 or 40 years.

In those days, we still believed in the Great and the Good and most journalists wouldn’t touch such an allegation for fear of incurring the wrath of the Special Branch.

Senior politicians, and “celebrities”, were generally wrapped up in a tight ring at a very high level.

Those tentacles of power reached a very, very long way. And to think, in the balmy days of the 70s and 80s we were afraid of the Freemasons! Mind you, most of the police I knew were members of the rolled up trouser leg and apron brigade.

The second news story that caught my attention was the jailing, for 14 years, of Tom Hayes, a former trader at Citigroup and UBS.

At last – someone paying for the havoc caused by greedy banking types.

Hopefully the first of many.