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With the EU referendum in Britain now less than a month away, one of the strongest arguments of the “Out” campaign is the ‘loss of sovereignty’ resulting from the U.K. being a part of Europe. Given the decision taken by the North Yorkshire County Council yesterday, this argument is laughable.

Sparrow Chat has long espoused the view that the U.K. is now little more than a satellite of the United States (Obama’s exertions to keep the U.K. in the E.U. served no other purpose than to provide the U.S. with a leverage in Europe, via Britain) and the democratic process is being similarly, systematically, eroded in the United Kingdom as in the nation with which it claims its “special relationship”.

Fracking was suspended in the U.K. in 2011 following minor earthquakes, but in April 2012 the U.K. government gave local authorities the option to allow drilling in their area. Until this week, none has given permission, due to huge public reaction against the process.

Yesterday, North Yorkshire County Council decided to ignore the demands of its voters, and agreed, by a 7-4 majority, to allow fracking to commence in the area.

Planners had recommended the Kirby Misperton plan was approved, but acknowledged the majority of representations received in consultation were objections.
Vicky Perkin, a council planning officer, told the committee that of 4,420 individual representations, just 36 were in support of the application.
But her report also said it should be noted there was a “national policy support for the development of a shale gas industry in this country and this is an important material consideration”.^[1]

Despite objections to the fracking running at 122-1, North Yorkshire County Council still decided to override the democratic process and grant permission for the company, Third Energy, to proceed with fracking in the area.

What is ‘Third Energy’?

Tracing the money back isn’t difficult. Third Energy (originally Viking Oil) was bought out by Barclays Natural Resources Investments in 2010. BNRI is a private equity arm (read ‘hedge fund’) of Barclays Bank, which in turn is the operating arm of Barclays plc, the 25th largest company in the world.

In 2015, Barclays, along with Citigroup, JPMorgan and RBS, were between them fined $6 billion for manipulating the price of US dollars and euros. The company is hand-in-glove with the U.K. and U.S. governments and operates a ‘revolving door’ principle by which lucrative employment is offered government ministers and high officials from both nations while temporarily ‘out of office’.

Quote:

Thomas David Guy Arculus, an independent non-executive Director from 1997 to 2006, was a member of the UK Government’s Better Regulation Task Force within the Cabinet Office from 2002 to 2005.

Sir Richard Broadbent, the former Chairman of HM Customs & Excise, has been a Senior Independent Director at Barclays plc since 2003. He is Chairman of transport services company Arriva PLC.

Mark Clarke, currently Director-General of Finance at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, worked at Barclays from 2000 to 2003.

Sarah Cox of the Cabinet Office’s Business Support Group worked at Barclays plc from 2001 to 2004.

James Duddridge, Conservative MP for Rochford and Southend East since 2005 worked at Barclays Bank 1993–2002.

U.K. Life Peer Robert Fellowes, Lord Fellowes of Shotesham, was Chairman of Barclays Private Bank from 2000 until December 2009.

U.K. Life Peer Digby Jones, Lord Jones of Birmingham, who was Minister of State for UK Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008, was a Senior Advisor to Barclays Capital from 2006 to 2007.

Sir Andrew Likierman, an independent non-executive Director since September 2004, was a Non-executive Director of the Bank of England and was Chief Accountancy Advisor at HM Treasury from 1993 to 2003.

Francis Maude, Conservative MP for Horsham, is a member of Barclays Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee.

Jami Miscik, who became Global Head of Sovereign Risk at Barclays Capital after it bought Lehman Brothers, was Deputy Director of Intelligence at the CIA from 2002 to 2005.

Sir Anthony Reeve, Ambassador to South Africa 1991-96, was Director Barclays Private Bank Ltd, 1997–2001.

Barclays Bank plc employee Howard Spiers was seconded to the Department for Trade and Industry from 1998 to 2001 as an export promoter.

Robert K. Steel, a Non Executive Director of Barclays Bank plc from 2005 to 2006, was Under Secretary, Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2006 to 2008.

Sir David Wright, a former British diplomat and Group Chief Executive at British Trade International, became Vice-Chairman of Barclays Capital in 2003. (For references see Wikipedia – ‘Barclays’)

It’s easy to construe from this that North Yorkshire County Council were merely spearheading a much larger and more powerful group composed of a huge, multi-national, private company in league with the British and United States governments. One can only theorize just exactly what the elected members of the North Yorkshire County Council received in return for playing Judas to the constituents they’re supposed to represent in North Yorkshire, but it surely has to be substantial.

Democracy and sovereignty are long dead. What we are living with today are merely the ghosts of both.

^{[1] “Landmark North Yorkshire fracking operation approved” BBC, May 24th 2016}

So much has been written in the last twenty-four hours on the demise of Flight MS804 that there is little more to impart. It now seems likely the aircraft developed a catastrophic technical fault, causing it to crash into the Mediterranean Sea.

Information received from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (see above) suggests smoke was detected, first in the aircraft’s toilet, then in the avionics (electrical systems) directly beneath the cockpit, shortly before the crash.^[1]

Given the lack of any known claim of responsibility from terror groups, until a full investigation is completed technical failure is now the most likely cause of this disaster, which claimed the lives of sixty-six people.

The plight of MS804 is now ‘off the radar’ for most news outlets. The plane’s been located – at least part of it – and the evidence of fire on board has taken much of the mystery away, leaving major outlets with other matters to fill their front pages.

Life moves on. The work of assessing exactly what caused this crash will take many months, if not years. By the time we know for sure these last few days will be a distant memory for all, except of course, for the families and friends of the sixty-six who never came home.

^{[1] “Crash: Egypt A320 over Mediterranean on May 19th 2016, aircraft found crashed, ACARS messages indicate fire on board” Aviation Herald, May 21st 2016}

The EgyptAir A320 Airbus designated Flight MS804 left Paris at 21.09 GMT. It was due to land in Cairo at 01.15 GMT. Twenty minutes prior to landing the plane made a series of abrupt course changes and disappeared from the Greek air traffic control radar that was tracking it.

General speculation suggests either a bomb, or catastrophic failure, caused the aircraft to crash into the Mediterranean Sea.

While the latter remains a remote possibility, the chances of it being a bomb seem equally unlikely. U.S. satellite sources state the aircraft could not have blown up, as the blast would have registered on their equipment. Also, historically, most explosive devices placed on airplanes have been timed to explode within an hour or so of take-off. Waiting until twenty minutes prior to landing could have caused the bomb not to explode until the aircraft was on the ground, had it arrived early at Cairo – a distinct possibility on a four hour flight.

Catastrophic failure is virtually unknown on an aircraft that has almost completed its flight. Take-off and landings are the times of most airframe stress, not at 37,000 feet and with the engines throttled back to cruising speed.

The pilot made contact with Greek ATC at 23.24 GMT, approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes into the flight. At 00.27 GMT Greek controllers failed to make contact with the plane, either on normal or emergency frequencies. Yet the plane was still being tracked by radar and appeared on a normal flight-path for a full 2 minutes and 40 seconds before it disappeared.

Egyptian radar lost track of the aircraft 20 seconds later, at 00.30 GMT.

According to the Greeks, the plane made an abrupt turn to the left before plummeting to 15,000 feet. At 10,000 feet they lose sight of it. ATC radar is designed to track aircraft at high altitudes, so it may be the aircraft dropped below radar level very quickly, but didn’t necessarily crash into the sea.

Of course, this is all speculation, but where is the wreckage? This is the Mediterranean Sea, not the wilds of the Southern Indian Ocean where MH370^[1] supposedly crashed. It’s barely a mile deep in the Levantine Basin, where MS804 is alleged to have gone down. An aircraft plummeting from 37,000 feet into the ocean would break apart on impact, scattering debris over a wide area. Either the search aircraft and vessels aren’t proving very observant, or the aircraft isn’t where everyone says it is.

There is another option: a simulated crash. The aircraft is forced into a steep, spiralling, dive down to 10,000 feet, or probably less, to give the impression of a crash, before levelling out and ‘wave-hugging’ until reaching the coast of a designated country. Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, all border the Mediterranean in that area.

Even as this is being written debris of Flight MS804 could be pulled from the depths, and the mystery, at least partially, solved. Maybe the aircraft did crash somewhere in the Levantine Basin, but in an area of many local fishing communities, heavily trafficked, why did no-one see or hear anything as this aircraft came down? And why is the wreckage proving so difficult to locate?

A fatal crash, or a very clever hijacking? Only time will solve that mystery.

^{[1] “MH370 – Flight To Armageddon” Sparrow Chat, January 29th 2015}

^{[2] “EgyptAir flight MS804: What we know” BBC, May 19th 2016}

ADDENDUM: Sadly, it now looks like MS804 did indeed crash into the Mediterranean, with the loss of all on board. Reports are coming in of debris: seats, luggage, even body parts being found.

The remaining question is what caused this crash. Some experts are saying that the erratic course changes the plane made prior to being lost from radar, point to interference on the flight deck, rather than an explosive device:

Mike Vivian, former head of operations at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, told the BBC that the plane’s sharp manoeuvres before disappearing from radar were more likely to be caused by human interference than a bomb.

“It looks highly unlikely that this was consistent with some sort of explosive device,” he said.

“One’s inclined to go towards the theory that there had been some interference in the aircraft and on the flight deck, with the control of the aircraft.”^[2]

If that’s the case, what sort of interference, and by whom? If, as one would anticipate, the cockpit door was locked and reinforced, then how could anyone gain access? Or, was the ‘interference’ by the pilot, or co-pilot?

There’s still a slight possibility that catastrophic failure, perhaps somewhere within the wing structure, may have caused the erratic behavior of the aircraft prior to it plunging to its doom in the ocean.

It may be a long time before these answers are known.