It would be hard to find anything more tedious, and so I adopted my
usual pragmatic approach to problems, such as taking pot shots at the Assembly and
getting paid for not shooting Ramblers. My response follows in case you are interested,
as you can be quite sure that the Assembly will pay not the slightest attention.
Dear Sir,
Standards Committees.
In reply to your request for comments on Standards Committees, I wish to make the
following observations before responding to the details requested.
These Committees must be part of an overall structure so that it is impossible to prevent
matters being suppressed, usually due to corruption.
I believe it should be noted that in England the Treasury Select Committee, which
investigated Lloyd's of London, recommended that an independent enquiry should be
held, but this was never allowed to take place at the instigation of Michael Heseltine. The
reason for this was never known in public, and is therefore suspect.
I understand that Lloyds is now being investigated as the largest insurance fraud ever known in the United States, (and therefore in the world) by the US Postal Authorities, The Southern District of New York Justice Department (which includes Wall St) and the FBI.
The United States has suffered from organised crime more than this country as the
resources of that country are much larger, and the corruption could therefore become
even more influential. Failure to deliver justice was the root cause of the Mafia being
formed in Sicily, as innocent parties were unable get justice, and so vigilante groups soon
abused their power, emerging as organised crime in various forms, such as the Cosa
Nostra, and the Naples based Camorra.
One of the results of this was the 'RICO' (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organisations) legislation in the USA which I believe makes it impossible for any
political interference to prevent an investigation proceeding.
I am not clear as to the actual mechanism, but I think the "grand jury" system, which is set up in secret and operates with huge power, makes life difficult for gangsters seeking to influence its operation. I would be delighted to learn that it works as well in practice as in the theory.
As this area of South Wales is, in the opinion of one ex-banker I know, one of the most
corrupt in the UK, and that every million pound lottery grant in the UK gets skimmed by
organised crime, there is no point in having satisfactory Standards Committees, if the
result of their enquiries can be perverted higher up the system. As the National
Assembly of Wales can only enforce secondary legislation this problem needs
addressing.
It is most important that cliques cannot become entrenched, such as Welsh language
speakers, or Freemasons becoming over influential. For instance, there are two
predominant groups of organised crime in the USA, the Jewish Mafia, and the Italian
Mafia, with the Italians running the film industry in the West and the Jewish Mafia being
influential in the immensely rich East Coast, including New York.
Recently the Russians have arrived both here and in the States, to the considerable concern of the "establishment" gangsters, resulting in the price of assassinations dropping considerably.
Then there are the Colombians who are more ruthless than any other group that I know
about.
I have been reliably informed that one third of the Australian economy is influenced by
organised crime and so the "crime busters" are faced with the problem of wrecking the
Australian economy if they break the Mafia and the triads. One of the objects of
Standards Committees should be to prevent a small economy such as Wales, being taken
over as billions of dollars are available for such a project.
I was in Dominica for a while and the American mob were proposing to buy a
promontory and install the usual casinos, brothels and drug handling. I have little doubt
that this would have resulted in the whole of this poverty struck island being run by the
mob, with tax havens and money laundering legislation being passed "on the nod".
I explained this to an intelligence officer of the Royal Navy whose ship was visiting the
island, and the scheme subsequently seemed to disappear.
Due to Wales being part of the UK, and Europe, such schemes could not be implemented
here, but that does not mean that organised corruption cannot become endemic if it is not
already in place.
Standards Committees are the base line for enforcing proper standards, but are useless if
the structures above them are not totally impenetrable to corruption, given that politics
follows money and not the other way round.
I therefore think it difficult to give an opinion on many of the questions until it is
apparent who the Standard Committees answer to, and what happens to their unpalatable
findings, as if their findings get buried, as happens to Royal Commissions, then the
Committees are nearly useless.
I complained in a personal capacity about suspected corruption to the Gwent Police,
concerning the Forestry Department of the Monmouthshire County Council and the complaint was indeed quietly buried, which is what I expected and so it did not surprise me - as the Police are funded by the Monmouthshire County Council.
Yours faithfully, etc.
