If one accepts that chasing motorcycle ‘paparazzi’ were a major contributor to the accident that resulted in the death of Princess Diana 20 years ago, Channel 4 are behaving no better 20 years on.

The term ‘gutter press’ used to apply to certain Fleet Street publications, but is now equally applicable to broadcast media now.

All of us have said things in private we would not want broadcast either now or years after our death. This is not ‘public interest’ that is being served by the broadcast of excerpts from these tapes. Most of us have a pretty good idea how grim things were in the marriage between Prince Charles and Lady Diana. We do not need private utterances to be publicly aired. Diana herself would be appalled that simple camcord recordings would later be broadcast to the whole nation. Did she give permission for this? No, of course not.

The Duke of Cambridge and his brother have given a good account of their position in recent years. They do not deserve in the slightest that such dirty laundry concerning their parents be aired now.

Channel 4 say that their motivation is the public record. It is not! Their motivation is financial profit, pure and simple.

My heart goes out to the two princes – they have done nothing to deserve this.

As I write, there are displaced people in London unable to return to their homes in a tower block. Much as I feel for them, their lives will return to normal again, sooner or later. What feels unfair is that their plight is being given more air-time than people such as myself whose lives are on a semi-permanent hold at the moment.

I am a British citizen who has lived on the mainland of Europe – by choice – since 1980.

I have a job and support myself, and live quite happily in my ‘adopted’ country, the Netherlands.

Until David Cameron made good on his promise of a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, there wasn’t a cloud on the horizon. I wasn’t a burden on the UK tax payer, and am fully insured, also for health, in the Dutch system.

It all went pear-shaped for me a year ago. Of the around 1 million UK citizens living abroad, only those still possessing voting rights in the UK were allowed to take part in the referendum. That was the first downer for me!

The result, clearly the second!

By the time I retire, just after the Brexit deadline in 2019, there will be serious consequences for my pension. EU rules allow for consolidating pension entitlement from different countries; that will not apply to me post-Brexit with respect to my UK contributions. I would have to apply separately for that – and the UK rules now are a minimum of 10 years’ contributions. I have 7. That means I can kiss goodbye to any OAP entitlement from the UK. I am not allowed to buy in to it either.

I will now have to rely on my pension entitlements from the countries I have lived in within the EU. My most recent summary would not even pay my rent, let alone leave me money for anything else. Losing the UK component – which I worked for – will be decisive.

Bitter? Yes! Very many Brits go abroad only for holidays, and then only to places where they can still get their fish-and-chips. Fractionally just more than half of those that voted last year following the most farcical campaign in recent history, voted to leave the EU. I was not allowed a say.

Yesterday, the UK government announced in the Commons the ‘deal’ they proposed for EU nationals living in the UK. Their counter demand is that the EU allows Brits in EU countries the same rights.

What they have forgotten is that the EU actually does not have the power to determine how member countries treat non-EU citizens! Each country has the right to decide the terms themselves. It doesn’t seem likely that 27 countries will agree on a common, generous approach!

I am getting really tired of Scotland, Northern Ireland and London claiming that they voted to remain. The referendum was not a regional one – it was a poll of the whole, combined, electorate of the United Kingdom. Any suggestion to the contrary should have been stated during the campaign and on the ballot paper.

I don’t like the result either, but why should specific regions suddenly claim attention just because the results in their area happened to end up bucking the trend? Hard luck Scotland, Northern Ireland and London (since when was London a separate entity??): the UK as a whole voted to leave. Deal with it!

2nd November 2016 – The families of six Britons jailed in India are “begging” Prime Minister Theresa May to help with their case.

Very understandably relatives of people caught up in trials abroad feel that the British government must surely have a magic wand or one of those infamous ‘get out of jail free’ cards we look forward to in Monopoly.

A couple of comments made in this particular case worry me though.

“Lisa Dunn, a sister of one of the men, says she is “sick to death” of being told the UK government cannot intervene in another country’s judicial system.”

“She cannot waste this opportunity face-to-face with Modi, she has six British men at her mercy, and can’t just waste it talking about her trade deals. There were six British soldiers who served this country and they need help.”

I am “sick to death” of airport security, but I don’t think my reaction to it carries any weight in the real world! I am “sick to death” of waiting at traffic lights, I’m “sick to death” of paying taxes, and so on.

The arrogance of thinking that being sick to death of something is enough justification for declaring something we don’t like to be unreasonable is dangerous. To my mind, the whole populist political scene is driven by that kind of thinking.

As for relegating trade deals to a Prime Minister’s private fetish, words fail me. Some people seem to have forgotten very quickly what Britain voted for with Brexit. Non-interference from Brussels was one thing, and placing ourselves outside the European single market was another.

A Japanese trade advisor interviewed on Newsnight last night put it more clearly than I have heard any British politician explain things. We may want ‘a way’ of remaining in the single market, or at least not have to pay tariffs, but Europe does not see it that way. There is no sign, much less precedent, that the UK will be allowed trading terms in Europe on a par with what we enjoy now. Trade negotiations now with countries outside the EU are vital therefore to Britain’s future and rank higher for a Prime Minister than the plight of nationals who have fallen foul of foreign laws.

Put another way, we should throw the book at these men for embarrassing Britain on the world stage like this!

31st October 2016 – There will be no inquiry into the notorious events at the so-called “Battle of Orgreave”, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has announced.

It is actually hard to understand just why this should be such a battleline for the opposition parties in Westminster. A public inquiry – more than 30 years on, nota bene – would be a costly and lengthy and would achieve almost nothing of public interest. Recommendations would be pointless since they would arise out of circumstances which no longer have relevance to the present day. Add to that the fact that nobody was killed during the incident and since there were no convictions, no miscarriage of justice, the justification for such an inquiry becomes very thin indeed.

That the police employed tactics never before seen in action is undoubtedly a fact, but establishing that it happened then would have no bearing on policing today. Indeed, historians would be better placed to document the public face of policing all through the high-profile labour clashes of the previous century. Even if it could be established through an enquiry that Orgreave represented a turning-point in the way the police dealt with mass situations, it would still have no further meaning. The very nature of such an enquiry could not exclude the possibility that it was a one-off deviation.

An enquiry cannot turn the clock back. It cannot repair the damage done by the steady closure of coal mines. No new jobs would be created. Nobody’s traumatic memories of that ‘battle’ will be erased!

The government’s priority is not auditing the history books, but dealing with the issues which face us in the here and now. The Home Secretary has, in my opinion, taken the right decision.

In Nice in France, a terrible tragedy has just taken place. A lorry mowed down people crowded on the seafront for the Bastille Day celebration fireworks.

From the French President down, through the media reports, and even in the USA, the immediate assumption was made that this was a terrorist attack. That may yet prove to be the case, but not a single piece of evidence has yet been brought to light to support that.

There is however evidence that the driver of the lorry was somewhat mentally unstable, and anti-social, and possibly even off his meds.

I miss two lines of reasoning in the media reports I am reading and watching on television:

• what if the driver was acting alone and this was nothing to do with terrorism but failed mental-health care?
• what if France, from the President down, have to eat their words?

There was a mention that some of the arsenal the driver had with him was fake. Is that true?
His father in Tunisia seems to have records showing his treatment for mental health issues. Is that true?
To date (also very soon, I admit) there is no evidence that this man had been radicalised. Is that true?

Will the French investigation solely focus on trying to establish a terrorist element / link? Or will it also be open for a non-terrorist explanation?

From time to time we read of lone escapades, some with a deadly outcome. The murder of the British MP Jo Cox was one of those. It was not a terrorist action.

But what if the death toll rises beyond 80, as in this case? A terrorist inspired plot would comfortably/uncomfortably explain what happened; someone with mental health issues armed with just a lorry but causing such carnage – that is even harder to contemplate.

Spoiler alert! What I do not want to see, although it has already started to happen in the wake of this incident, is that followers of Islam get the blame for a deed that was not instigated by extremist terrorists. That there is such a thing seems to be a complete curve ball for everyone concerned!

Theresa May will take over as Prime Minister tomorrow – and will be faced with the immediate challenge of heading the negotiations on Brexit. Out of the potential candidates, I personally think she is the most suitable.

Yet opposition parties are calling for a snap election! Really? Which planet do they live on?

The UK is still a member of the EU. Now the referendum result is clear, they are waiting for the UK to get on and make it happen.

That does not mean: wait until an election has taken place!

Those that voted for Brexit may not care any more about the rest of Europe, but the UK is still bound by its rules and obligations. It is now time for action, not an election!

The mistake being made here by certain opposition parties is that the electorate vote for a certain leader. Really, they don’t! They vote for the party that best reflects their wishes. The Conservatives won the last election outright – albeit with a slim majority. They kept their promise to hold a referendum, and May has reiterated that “Brexit is Brexit”.

Now is the time for the party in government to start working on that, not to hold Europe to ransom while an election campaign is held!

For the last ten years I have been working as a clerical assistant to a prominent Dutch legal advisor (specialised in aspects of scientific medical research and privacy) and ethicist.

Since he also published in English, one of my tasks has often been to translate or correct his publications. Over the years I have become familiar with his thinking and terminology – and we all know what familiarity breeds….!

In Brussels, preparations are being made for the new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). On behalf of scientists – who by definition are only searching for the facts – he is one of those championing the cause of researchers threatened by a wing-clipping exercise. He has been working on a document he hopes will influence the debate on health data.

We are all supposed to be concerned about our privacy in this age of internet and electronic data, although very, very few people have actually had their ‘data’ misused. I am not referring to identity theft here, but the release of personal (intimate) information about ourselves to people who might know us personally.

My boss is passionate on the subject of allowing scientific medical research to continue making use of data culled from patients. He would not normally use the word ‘statistics’, but that is what it boils down to: meaningful statistical data which stands the test of scientific scrutiny.

Our present health care is based on the interpretation of what patients in the past have experienced. Only then can we correlate things like the incidence of lung cancer and smoking, for example.

More than forty years ago a man I knew personally very well was employed by a firm that amongst other things offered demolition services to customers. Nobody was aware then of the risk of asbestos to health. Indeed I remember staying in a holiday camp where the chalets were entirely constructed of asbestos!

Now scientific medical research has amply demonstrated the danger to health of inhaling asbestos particles. The chap I knew just about reached retirement, but he did die a premature death as a result of the demolition work he had carried out years earlier and his exposure to asbestos dust. His widow has been awarded a claim for compensation which at least softens the blow of losing her husband so early, and the income from his pension. Without that research, we could not establish these facts – it is as simple as that.

My boss makes the point – somewhat forcibly for the first time (for me) that Brussels is erring on the side of defining the legitimate use of patient data as being appropriate only when the need is ‘highest’. That sounds good until you ask the question: who decides that?

We are all aware that the tobacco manufacturers martial a formidable political lobby. Governments end up balancing the need to warn of the dangers versus the revenues tobacco sales generate. It begs the question: if politicians had been allowed to decide if research into the correlation of lung cancer to smoking was allowed or not using (statistical) patient data, would scientists have been able to demonstrate so effectively that smoking tobacco releases carcinogens that dramatically increase the incidence of lung cancer?

Governments today have to be seen to be promoting healthy lifestyles. In reality, the longer we live our ‘healthy’ lives, the more money we eventually cost to maintain by the state (state pensions, long-term geriatric care, etc), and the less revenue is obtained from the substances (tobacco, but also alcohol for example) which effectively curtail our life expectancy!

People (patient) empowerment – the right to decide based on the facts – is crucial. Empowerment only exists when (potential) censorship is taken out of the equation. This elevates the discussion about whether a ‘researcher’ who happens to know us personally can see personal details (like whether we have had a child or not – and that data has already been stripped of the ‘name and address’ details) ultimately to whether or not those governing us (national and ‘federal’ governments)  could be armed with the right to block research into something that might, in their opinion, turn into a ticking time-bomb under their administrations (and finances)!

We do not hold researchers to account; their peers do that, effectively and, if necessary, brutally – based on the data, the facts. We have the responsibility of holding those governing us to account. Politicians alone should not have the monopoly on releasing or disallowing the information we have a right to in order to make informed decisions.

I don’t even know if kids today are taught these stories any more; I suspect they may not.

The moral of the story is that you can end up shouting ‘wolf’ once too often, such that people won’t believe you when there actually is a wolf around.

A man stabbed a couple of people at a London Tube station – and this wouldn’t be 2015 if there wasn’t already cellphone footage circulating on the internet. This very aggressive man apparently shouted ‘this is for Syria’, prompting headlines that this was being treated by the police as a terrorist attack.

Of course I am not in possession of all the facts, but even the police spokesman said on camera that although they weren’t ruling that out, they were not specifically ruling it in either.

In the good old days, an attack was only officially classified as such once an organisation had claimed credit for it – often authenticating the claim by using previously agreed codewords. We didn’t have the internet then, and the so-called Islamic State seem to choose their moments for claiming credit for an attack. Quite possibly they are happy to see us running around chasing our tails while we try and work it out.

Back to the guy in the underground station. The footage we have seen showed a guy that was not cool and calculating, but very wound up. By now the police will know if that was due to alcohol, drugs or some long-standing mental problem. Muslim eye witnesses got the impression they guy was not a Muslim himself. To put it as diplomatically as I can, it sure looked as if the guy was at the very least unbalanced.

Which brings us to the next point: when is a terrorist attack not a terrorist attack? I honestly didn’t think world leaders were simply using the definition of anything that strikes terror into the rest of us. If that were true, many would ask for spiders to be included in that list!

Countries maintain lists of groups that are proscribed. Hell’s Angels might strike the fear of God in you but they are not defined as terrorists. The so-called Islamic State however is. But even then, it used to be that such a group needed to have orchestrated an attack in order for it to be called as such. I’m sure during the Troubles that local attacks took place by sympathisers who were not members of, or instructed by, the IRA. That would not have warranted the headline ‘Terror attack’ back then, probably something more like ‘Partisan attack’.

In short, are we in Britain so keen to climb on the bandwagon of terrorist attacks (again) that we need to headline this deranged chap’s violence as a terrorist attack? Would that mitigate his actions actually? No!

At the end of the day, it is the person that pulls the trigger, detonates a bomb, or forces a pilot to crash a plane who is personally responsible for his or her actions. Motivation or orchestration by others does not absolve them. I have no difficulty in also trying to eradicate the organisations that order terrorism on a mass scale, and stifle or counteract their ‘teaching’. Unfortunately ‘we’ sometimes have more scruples than is good for our rhetoric. Some former IRA ‘leaders’ are now welcomed as elected representatives, and are even greeted politely by members of the Royal Family. The callous murder of Lord Mountbatten, for example, is all but forgotten outside his family, and on camera at least, the Prince of Wales recently shook hands with one of those probably involved in some way at the time in ordering the assassination.

Whilst ‘terrorism’ is up there at the top of the list of things we condemn, my vote goes to ‘political expediency’ as a qualifying candidate.

In the debate on whether the UK should assist in the bombing of so-called Islamic State targets in Syria, Jeremy Corbyn has probably rightly pointed out that one of the consequences will be that terrorist attacks will also focus on the UK. If such an attack occurs, he will be the first to shout “I told you so!” or words to that effect. At that moment his proclaimed pacifist stance will be overshadowed by events.

However he is wrong when he uses the argument of reprisals to advocate no military action. I can forgive younger people only recalling terrorism instigated by al-Qaida, but some of us remember vividly the terrorism of the IRA campaign.

I worked in London in the mid seventies and commuted in from the south coast. The IRA used bombs placed in litter bins on central London station platforms at that time. Did I stay at home and not go to work because of that risk? No! Did I think that Westminster should have given way to the Republicans in order to remove the threat of bombs? No.

As a nation, Britain was dominated by ‘the troubles’ forty years ago. Most of the horror took place in (Northern) Ireland, but the extension of terrorist activities onto the ‘mainland’ of Britain was a fact for a while.

Should we give way to terrorists? No! Should we seek them out and neutralise them? Yes, if possible.

I cannot help mentioning another sorry parallel between now and then: the rest of the world saw ‘the troubles’ as Roman Catholics against Protestants, just as now a lot of people are quick to condemn Muslims for so-called IS terrorism. The Bible no more defended the IRA’s tactics of killing and maiming than the Koran does for the supporters of IS. Both religions have waged wars in the past, and both are also grounded in non(-essential) violence.

We need to choose our motives wisely – the memory of ‘WMD’ is still fresh in our minds. That led us into a chain of military action which, according to many observers, has left the Middle East as unstable as it was when we started.

France’s declaration of war on the so-called Islamic State caliphate may have been premature – we have no recent precedent in dealing with a caliphate –  but we do need to stand shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies here. Hiding behind Jeremy Corbyn’s skirt’s will not do.

My father was a pacifist. A conscientious objector in the second world war, on religious grounds. But I will never forget when I was being bullied on my way to junior school, it was my father that told me to stand up to them and fight back! I never did quite reconcile that attitude.