Dog-In-The-Hunt News

Honestly, really TRULY ROOOLY - I was trying all this whole entire week to develop a couple of ideas for a new Bond villain... Some characterization besides the ugly guy or the guy with one eye or a scar or some other disfigurement intended to provoke an underlying empathy; because as you know there are theories around the place in creative writing schools to the effect that horror is a kind of mix of tragedy in which we can find some empathetic feelings, tied up with the extreme viciousness and malice of the dark subject that was explained by the personal tragedy involved.

Now I could say that the ordinary news itself provided sufficient material for sourcing some new James Bond movie villain ideas but the fact is, the news is not actually covering certain important matters that are up at that 'global domination(!)' level of story.

Henry Poole, I think... Pretty conservative.

We have seen remarkably little of the reporting regarding the scandals to do with Barclays Bank. 

Surprisingly, you might think, I am personally not one of those who thinks the then top dog at the Investment Banking arm of Barclays, Roger Jenkins, ever did anything illegal or even morally wrong in injecting a GBP322 million advisory services line into the Qatari government's bailing-out of Barclays following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. His thinking was that although he was being asked by the bank's Chief Executive and Board to find the required multi-billion dollar funding package, it was clear that they were happy to close up his Investment Banking side (which Jenkins was CEO of) by accepting enough to keep their own sides intact and funded and forgetting about everyone else. In the current court case brought by the UK's Serious Fraud Office against Jenkins and two others, it is inevitable that Jenkins will counter that the Qataris themselves would not want to invest so much in a bank WITHOUT an Investment Banking arm.

Jenkins will win the case on an objective view of the facts. That is to say, he will if the UK courts are honest, although it is clear they are not and have not been for a long time. 

Jenkins secured over 7 billion US Dollars for the bail-out funding of Barclays. In the process, there are taped phone calls between others at senior levels of the bank agreeing to unwritten conditions set by key people in the Singapore government's sovereign funds area, for 'pro bono advisory services' in exchange for the Singapore government's recommending the deal to the ruling family of Qatar. So much for the honesty and incorruptibility of the leaders in Singapore. ...As I have been saying for decades.

Just pretty standard Bond stuff.

Again, a lot of people will jump onto the Qataris but in this case I hardly think that is fair. In the whole saga, lost in the media-controlled narratives, we never see why Barclays was in trouble in the first place. The Qataris are super wealthy, we know that. And they are entitled to invest in stuff they think is worth buying. The problem is not what Qatar has done or still does -, but the problems come in because they are super ultra wealthy, that those going to them greedily seek to skim because of the sheer temptation of such large sums. 

So yes, I have been looking at the real world to find a Bond-style super villain but the crooks we see in the real world, are all so banal. I don't see Jenkins as a super villain - he is problematic and likely quite complex and difficult to deal with - but his ultimate boss at the bank, Bob Diamond seems far more sinister to me, yet at the same time he is so utterly banal and venal and in the end, just plain stupid.

Jenkins is glitzy enough and lurid enough in his lifestyle to be a movie figure, but he is just not completely sinister enough. 

...So I am still working on it.

Roger Jenkins - very very wealthy guy.
What if he ended up in a jail with Assange?! LOL
Won't happen, of course.

But once again, the back-story to the Jenkins issue (which begun to be heard in the UK courts this week), is the secret wire-tapping of phone conversations from a long time ago, by the UK Intelligence people - who ultimately were the ones pushing the narrative that Jenkins should be charged. The evidence in the court case however is only able to be heard sourced from the trading floor phone calls that were always taped as part of normal protocol, and from which the UK prosecutors are trying this American 'parallel construction' stunt to create the impression of wrong-doing. But what is really going on is naked jealousy on full display. Jenkins was very visible of a figure in his heydays at Barclays.   

I have business with Qatari sources. They're rich, you see. I have 'a dog in the hunt,' as they say.