Before I went to bed the evening before last, there was a trail that Donald Trump was about to make an urgent address to the nation which he urged every American to watch. It was indicated that the subject of his address was likely to be about elections and I immediately thought that Trump might be about to announce that the mid-term elections (which he is predicted to lose heavily) were being cancelled or postponed. Although my worst fears were not actually realised, Trump was evidently trying to de-stabilise the whole of the election process in which, under the American constitution and federal system, electoral issues are firmly under the jurisdiction of the individual states and not the central government. Donald Trump has been accused of using an address to the nation to make totally bogus claims of interference in the 2020 US election. The US president used a 25-minute speech on Thursday night to contradict assessments from America’s own intelligence agencies, alleging China had carried out the largest compromise of election data in history He said he was declassifying sensitive information that showed Beijing had illicitly acquired 220 million voter files, including names, addresses and other data used to register to vote. He claimed members of the US intelligence community deliberately suppressed what Beijing had done. Many of the documents released alongside the speech, however, are redacted. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US. An assessment conducted in 2021 under then US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, who is now the CIA director, found no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election, which Mr Trump lost to Joe Biden. Mr Trump did not present any evidence in the speech that any ballots were tampered with or that foreign interference altered voting systems or changed the outcome of the election. The heavily redacted documents appear to be consistent with the Trump policy, seen in the Epstein file releases, of flooding the political arena with a mass of documents, even if heavily redacted, with which to bamboozle the public. Once the World Cup is over and both America and Europe enter holiday seasons, this might be seen as the initial shots in a campaign to mitigate the effect of what might prove to be disastrous elections for Trump and if the Democrats make striking gains then Trump’s freedom of manoeuvre may be severely restricted for the rest of is presidency. Meanwhile, we have the accession of Andy Burnham to which to look forward and I think that most of the nation will be watching how power is going to be devolved to the regions, a National Care system established, defence expenditure raised and the NHS adequately resources in an era when frankly ‘there is no money’ There are hints of a wealth tax but even this would not raise large amounts of money quickly. Thinking what I would do if I were to be Prime Minister, I think I would search for new avenues in which to raise money (taxing parcels, going after the internet giants) and then after some fierce opposition from the Treasury have hypothecated taxes with the issue of Defence Savings Bonds (to fund military expenditure) and a chunk of National Insurance devoted to the NHS. I would guess that many in the population would not resent some slight raises in taxation if they could ascertain exactly where the raised money was to be spent. But there again, I am not Prime Minister or likely to be!
An incident occurred yesterday morning, the likes of which I would not like to ever see repeated. As I was in the middle of exercising, I got a call on my landline on the unit which I keep in the bedroom and it was the Fraud Department of my bank indicating that a couple of Amazon payments had been detected, one small but the other of the order of several hundred pounds and would I like these to be payments, detected by the bank’s Fraud department, to be refused. I was directed to get onto my account online in my main computer which I did and was then directed to log off and to consult a validation program on the web. This I did but when I was passed from one female foreign-sounding voice to a male manager to help make my account secure, I started to wonder. I was given information that my account may well have been compromised by a dishonest member of staff working in my local branch and I was asked when I last visited it, was I given a reference code and how far away was my local branch. At this point, my suspicions were well and truly aroused so I immediately terminated the telephone call, had a rice cake by way of breakfast and made my way straight away to the branch of my local branch where fortunately they still have a presence. There I was fortunate to see an experienced middle-aged member of staff who quickly confirmed to me that the whole episode was a sophisticated scam. She was able to access my account and to assure me that it was absolutely safe and secure, which fact I checked for myself the minute I arrived back home. For what it is worth, I was given some very good advice from the female manager who informed me that if my account had been compromised, the fraud department would block it first and then invite me to telephone them so that an investigation could take place and any necessary unblocking of my account be effected. My suspicions were aroused by one or two little odd quirks in the conversation and I was correct to be suspicious as it turned out but it shows how careful one needs to be. The scammers had indicated that it was ‘Amazon’ attempting to take a payment and, apparently, they can rely upon so many people having an Amazon account that this all sounds quite plausible. Whilst I was in the High Street, I visited my local horse sanctuary cafe and had a nice chat with the volunteer on duty there and then visited a local supermarket to buy a few salad things I thought would need in the next day or so as the weather will be fine for a few days. I telephoned my American friend who had just returned home from a hospital appointment and we have agreed to meet this evening in the cool of the park so that we can share the news of the day with each other. As we have not met for a few days now, we actually have quite a lot to communicate to each other and, of course, a walk in the relative cool of the evening with a good companion is always a pleasure.