London Games, The Beginning…
Chapter 1
The dark wood-panelled courtroom was quiet and serene. After weeks of intense argument and dramatic revelations the moment of denouement was just minutes away. For now, for just a moment more, James Macpherson, the court usher, enjoyed the peace, the heavily pregnant peace that was about to give way to even greater drama as the jury returned to deliver its verdict.
A side door clicked open and Sam, the jury usher, gave James a quick nod before turning back to attend to his charges. James drew a last deep breath of serenity and turned to his duties: recalling the lawyers, the defendant and the public. As soon as he opened the main court doors there was a rush of fresh and expectant air and a growing hubub as the throng returned to its seats.
The elegant figure of Sir Damian Fremantle moved reluctantly away from the reassuring cluster of silk surrounding him and climbed the few steps back into the dock. Perhaps there was just the slightest humility showing now, a little uncertainty perhaps, possibly even fear…but no, it was a fleeting moment. The chin went up, the lofty nose was looked down and the supreme arrogance of Britain’s wealthiest banker was restored. It was as if he were waiting for the Judge to return and offer an apology for the great inconvenience that Sir Damian had suffered over the last five weeks.
“Rat-a-tat-tat!” The loudest, most peremptory sound allowed in the Court was the warning of the Judge’s entry. “All rise!” came next and as defendant, lawyers, jury and public rose to their feet, Mr Justice Weatherspoon assumed his seat, all sat, a few routine nods were exchanged and James rose to perform his final duty.
“Guilty”. The verdict resounded around the Court. Sir Damian looked disbelieving, outraged as his legal team slumped in their chairs, the youngest, female junior, her head in her hands, realising those flirtatious promises her client had made really would now come to nothing.
Sir Damian appeared to rally, a touch of cockiness returning to his posture but then slowly he slumped, his shoulders dropped, his world seemed to spin and he fell insensible to the floor. Now the collective gasp that had been building since the jury foreman spoke reached a crescendo. There were muted cheers. The doors slammed as journalists left, mobiles already at their ears. There was a general sense of relief and excitement as the Judge banged his gavel just once and said “Sentencing will take place in the morning. I need no reports. Bail is denied”.
Within seconds the Court was empty. Outside the “Bash The Bankers” demo had become a party. There was literally dancing in the streets. Pandemonium erupted. Strangers embraced each other. London had seen nothing like it since VE day when the last great threat to civilisation was finally defeated.
This was the final chapter in bringing to heel the avarice that had been allowed to run wild in the City. A year ago the first chill winds of reality had swept through boardrooms when Sir Jim Malouse had been extradited from Scotland to the US. Within a few weeks he had to stand in a tiny Alabama courtroom in a prison boiler suit, manacled at hands and feet, to hear his sentence described as 160 years without possibility of parole. Of course the appeals were in hand but meanwhile Sir Jim languished in a maximum security state prison, his massive lifetime pension of no comfort at all. His only friends the cockroaches that crawled in from the stinking mangrove swamp on which the prison was built.
A few senior civil servants had followed both in Europe and US but then the politicians had started to fall. Any British MP who had had any connection with the City, the Treasury or the financial system was ruined. From former Chancellors to junior ministers of state, more than 20 MPs, 12 senators and fifteen congressmen were convicted on criminal charges ranging from false accounting and conspiracy to straightforward theft. Ultimately Silvio Berlusconi was at last kicked out of office, not with his trousers round his ankles but with his secret dividend income statements from a raft of European banks.
Now with the conviction of Sir Damian, the night of the long knives was fast approaching dawn. In Britainthe destruction of the old financial system had created a massive new industry. Out of the very disaster itself had come the creation of thousands of new jobs in local financial councils, co-operative banks and the Regulator, the nationwide authority, part of the International Finance Treaty of 2011. A new optimism was in force throughout the country. People were back in work. A new culture of transparency and fairness had swept aside the old institutions.
Fremantle’s world was in ruins. As the unthinkable reality pulsed through his body he regained some sort of consciousness and found himself in a cold, slightly damp cell, a massive steel door being the only feature of note.
Before the horror of imprisonment could overwhelm him the door opened and there stood Bart James, his QC, despondency written all over him, his juniors almost hiding behind him.
“I’m so sorry Damian. We’ll start working on the appeal immediately. Believe me, whatever tomorrow brings you can count on us putting together the best possible arguments”
Fremantle looked directly at James, his face bemused, dull, incomprehending. Then, without the slightest acknowledgement, he turned away and lay down on the concrete shelf that served for a bed, his face to the wall.
…read more here.
London Games
London Games, my novel set in the spring and summer of 2012, is now on sale at Amazon.
It concerns an Afghanistan veteran suffering from combat stress, a disgraced ex-banker sent to jail amidst scandal and public outrage, a cocaine dealer with customers at the very top and the very bottom of society, a property developer on the cusp of making his fortune and a restauranteur starting to make his name as a celebrity chef. The story culminates as the games open at the Olympic stadium.
Please go to Amazon to buy it, enjoy and let me know what you think!
Welcome
I have decided to take my existing website offline because my main focus now is my work as leader of CLEAR.
Mischievous forces which oppose me have sought to blacken my character by twisting, misrepresenting and in some cases, falsifying my words.
I am fully aware that these snide individuals have a full copy of my site and will continue to harass and abuse me over it. That is the sad life that they lead.
For now, my only plan is to keep my site down for a year. I will decide what to do then. Whether I will add any new posts here remains to be seen.
Thank you to those who have followed my writing for so long. I will be back. I will continue to campaign and fight against all forms of prejudice, bigotry and hate, precisely the forces that have been targeted against me.
Have a great 2012.
peter@peter-reynolds.co.uk
Bigotry, Prejudice, Hatred And Prohibitionists Come In Many Disguises
Ask yourself, why would anyone go to such lengths to discredit me?
Why, at a time when the cannabis campaign is enjoying more success than ever with thousands of people joining together as never before, why do a few individuals go to such extraordinary lengths to smear my reputation.?
Out of 477 articles on my personal website, written over a period of three and a half years, two articles have been held up and misrepresented in the most despicable and dishonest way to accuse me of being a racist and a homophobe. Laughably I’ve also been accused of being a member of the EDL, attending an EDL demonstration in Weymouth and of selling Nazi memorabilia on a Swansea market stall! These are lies and nonsense.
Of course, in a civilised, adult world what people do in response to articles they disagree with is post comments and discuss – and some of those discussions become pretty heated. I’ve been accused of being anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish and for and against just about every issue you care to mention. My writing was intended to be provocative and controversial. Cannabis was only one of the subjects that I covered on my website and when I was elected leader of CLEAR I wrote:
The accusations of racisim and homophobia are entirely false. I could present a host of evidence to prove my “innocence” but the trolls and liars twist everything. My oldest and best friend IS a Jamaican. If Terry got his hands on some of the individuals that have been making foul slurs against me, they would not enjoy Jamaican justice. Two examples though – I used to live on a road called The Chase, just off Clapham Common. When the Gay Pride event was held there in, I think it was 95 or 96, I was a steward. When more recently I lived in Notting Hill and all my friends and neighbours were black, they used to call me a “wigga”, a “propa black white man”.
So, I say again, ask yourself why would anyone go to such lengths to discredit me at a time when under my leadership, CLEAR is achieving so much success? Why would they set up websites, multiple Facebook pages and groups and engage in hours and hours of trolling, abuse and misrepresentation?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because the individuals behind this are big time growers and dealers who rely on prohibition to maintain the ludicrously high price of cannabis and fill their own greedy pockets.
They pretend to be pro-cannabis because they seek to subvert, disrupt and undermine the cannabis campaign. They’ve been doing it for years.
Many believe that the main protagonist has an even more sinister role because he appears to be teflon coated when it comes to the criminal justice system. For all the times he has been arrested and charged, he has always walked away while others round him have been sent to prison.
He claims not to live in Britain anymore but the man is a liar and a fraud. He lives off his past reputation when he claims to have been growing and providing cannabis to medicinal users free of charge (a good cover story!). This is false. I have several emails from people who he used to supply who tell me that he used to charge them £5.00 per gram plus, believe it or not, next day delivery and packaging charges. At the time that price was top whack if not more.
It is extraordinary that over many years, every single time there has been disruption and conflict in the cannabis community he has been there, goading, provoking and fermenting divisiveness. Back in 2010 , when I managed to get MPs, members of the House of Lords and even the government’s chief drugs advisor to sign up to the BMCR medicinal cannabis initiative, he waded straight in and did all he could to destroy it by snide insinuation, bickering and negativity.
The man is a charlatan. Why would anyone go to such extraordinary efforts and lengths to disrupt the CLEAR campaign? Now you know. Grass is an old term for weed but perhaps one that is most appropriate in this case.
Tribalism Is the Enemy Of Reform
Some of the more gullible members of the cannabis community have been taken in by these attacks against me but I am greatly encouraged that by far the majority have not. The messages, emails and comments supporting me have far outweighed those against. Thank you to all. I WILL stay strong. I will stay focused. The idea is to distract and divert me from the campaign. That is not going to happen.
Being at at the centre of a trollstorm during the season of goodwill has not been pleasant. My mother and my sons have been very upset to see the abuse, lies and hate filled propaganda about me and my leadership of CLEAR posted on the internet.
These people aren’t engaged in campaigning for cannabis. They’re pursuing their own selfish, jealous and truly pitiful agendas by attacking the success that CLEAR has achieved under my leadership.
The cannabis campaign has failed to make any progress over the last 10 years. A lot of this is due to sheer incompetence and laziness. When I was elected leader I discovered that literally nothing was being done by the LCA and any initiative that was proposed was shut down by the “co-ordinator” he that “does not want to lead and does not want to be led”. The darker, subversive forces set out to fragment and cause conflict within the campaign and that suits their wallets very well indeed, thank you very much.
Most of all though it’s about tribalism. This is what has held us back for so long. The idea that if you’re in favour of cannabis being legally available then you must be on the left of politics, you must be anti-Thatcher and you must have at least three piercings – oh and you must not, under any circumstances, wear a tie – plus many other ridiculous prejudices. These people think they’re cool and hip and smart but they’re not, they’re dumb, bigoted and prejudiced, just like a Daily Mail journalist only they’ve got a joint hanging off their lip. Not so much Andy Capp, more Hopeless Hypocritical Hippy.
This is why so many were confused when back in Cardiff at the Million Marijuana march in May CLEAR launched the idea of “Hippies in suits”. These politically incompetent and naive people don’t really want you to be able to smoke a joint if you wear a suit. They are in fact as prejudiced and discriminatory as the attitudes they pretend to fight against. CLEAR welcomes members and supporters from all points on the political compass. We aim to be mainstream, not “alternative”.
All my life I have stood for liberty, truth and justice and against prejudice, discrimination and bigotry. Unlike the trolls I am a strong believer in freedom of speech and expression. However, the foul language that was posted on my and CLEAR’s Facebook page was horrifying. These are people who can’t express themselves without using disgusting swear words. They are as much victims of the mendacious individuals behind this hate campaign as anyone.
To those who feel offended by my opinions. I don’t mean to cause offence so I am sorry if I have. That doesn’t mean that I retract them though! I am entitled to my opinion as is everyone else.
There are of course many more honourable and decent people who have been involved in the campaign in the past rather than those who work against it but it is this tired, destructive tribalism that has ruined their efforts.
So tomorrow Britain returns to work and so do I. I shall not make any further comment on the dreadful events of the last few days and I advise all of you not to feed the trolls. That is the only thing that gives them any power. Ignore them. I will fight tirelessly to end the prohibition of cannabis, most particularly for those who need it as medicine.
£75 Billion? How Else Could We Spend It?
The current adult population of the UK is estimated to be 40 million. If we split the 75 big ones evenly, that’s £1875 each.
I wonder if that would do more or less to get the economy going?
When Will They Ever Learn?
Steve Jobs
The man, the genius, the inspiration that the whole world is feting and eulogising; it turns out he’s just another one of those dirty, disgusting, scumbag drug users.
The estate of Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, with exquisite timing, has released correspondence with Steve Jobs, a keen advocate for and user of psychedelic drugs.
David Cameron and Theresa May would have him sent to jail like Casey Hardison for 20 years.
Barack Obama would have him renditioned to wherever he wanted him and subjected to special interrogation techniques.
The Daily Mail and these days, to its eternal shame, even The Independent would have him ostracised, demonised, castigated and excluded.
I know who I think is smart and I know who I know is stupid.
A great man and a great example. The contrast between his intelligence and the ruling oligarchy is startling.
She Did Make It Up. She Is A Liar. She Is Unfit To Be A Minister Of the Crown.
Theresa May
How to make a twat of yourself over a pussy.
Ms May really is the most dimwitted, out of touch dinosaur, eclipsing even historical relics like George Osborne or Alan Johnson.
Quite how she ever became Home Secretary I do not understand. She appeared from nowhere and was immediately elevated to high office. The most obvious explanation isn’t credible because, without wishing to be unkind, she’s not exactly a honey trap is she?
The Human Rights Act is, in any case, very much a British creation. It is simply false to blame it on Europe. It was drafted by British legislators and, in general, is a proud and noble achievement. The very last thing we need is to abandon it on the say so of some third rate politician. It isn’t going to happen anyway. Ms May is just being used as a stool pigeon to appease the Tory right. She’s a muppet – sorry, I mean a puppet. Actually, I mean both.
If Two Boys Get Four Years For “Attempting” To Organise a Riot On Facebook,
How Long Does Gerald Kaufman Get For “Attempting” To Claim £8000 For A TV?
The Daily Telegraph
By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
7:00AM BST 16 May 2009
The former environment minister was asked to attend a meeting with officials from the parliamentary fees office to discuss details of another claim relating to £28,834 of work on the kitchen and bathroom at his London flat.
He told them that the work was necessary because he was “living in a slum”, though his second home, off Regent’s Park, is in one of the most fashionable areas of the capital. He was eventually reimbursed for £15,329.
On one occasion he asked a civil servant “why are you querying these expenses?” and on another threatened to make a complaint unless a dispute was settled by noon on the day in question. In one document, an official in the fees office noted that invoices Sir Gerald had submitted took him to “within 6p” of his annual limit. He also claimed £1,262 for a gas bill that was £1,055 in credit.
Between 2001 and 2008 the Manchester Gorton MP, one of the Labour party’s longest-serving members, claimed a total of £115,109 in additional costs allowances on his London flat, which he owns outright. In June 2006, he submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen Beovision 40in LCD television.
Peter Reynolds 