Personal Blogs

As I began this blog with a comment on poverty and exploitation, I thought it appropriate to mention this Radio 4 programme for anyone who hasn't heard it and might be interested.

It was Helena Kennedy's  'A Law Unto Themselves' this morning (19-08-14) at 9:00am and again at 9:30pm. She interviewed the Norwegian-born, internationally renowned investigative judge, Eva Joly, who spent seven years uncovering corruption in the upper echelons of French business and political life.

It included members of the government and the state-owned oil company ELF whose company directors siphoned off billions of francs to pay for bribes and luxury lifestyles. She received death threats and needed 24-hour police protection. Eventually, thirty people were convicted.

She said she believes it was the tip of the ice-berg and likened it to a handful of people using a pump to suck tax payers money into their own pockets. Not just the hapless tax payer in developed countries but Third World countries stand no chance of developing their own economies until this scourge from the West is dealt with.

She is now an MEP for the Green Party.

For anyone puzzled why there is is so much poverty and austerity in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, here it is in one thirty minute programme.