Violence, instability, dangerous leadership, and greed… how the world has gone downhill  

In an email to me last week, a Kenyan reader lamented the evil in the world and said:

“Sometimes I just switch off all media and information avenues.”

I know exactly what he means and I am often tempted to do the same, although I’d be out of a job if everyone did.

Naively, back in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War formally ended, I thought the world was at last heading for peace and prosperity.

CIVIL WAR
Alas, within a couple of years, Islamist fanatics flew an airliner into the World Trade Centre in New York, killing 3,000 people and heralding a campaign of anti-Western violence which continues to this day.

War became endemic in the Middle East: after the Iraq-Iran war came the Gulf war, civil war in Syria, violent unrest in Egypt and Yemen, an Arab spring that never was.

Outside of the Middle East, leadership at the very top took on catastrophic dimensions.

NUCLEAR

Vladimir Putin cemented his Czar-like rule in Russia, while Americans voted the scary Donald Trump into office.

In North Korea came Kim Jong-un, threatening nuclear war with the United States.

Here in Britain, a narrow majority of xenophobic citizens voted to take the country out of Europe, with inevitably disastrous consequences.

The latest convulsion concerns companies and individuals who stretched the law to its very limits to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

PARADISE PAPERS

Details were contained in the so-called Paradise Papers, 13 million documents leaked mostly from a leading firm in international finance.

They showed that the Queen has £10 million invested offshore, Formula 1 champion driver Lewis Hamilton avoided tax on his luxury jet, Bono of U2 is under investigation for tax avoidance, Apple has a secret tax hideaway on the island of Jersey.

No lives lost, you might say, no violence there. But where is the morality?

* * *
When a burglar tried to steal Annie-Laure Promonet’s laptop, she deliberately scratched him to get his DNA.

Police forensic experts were able to take scrapings from under her fingernails and found skin tissue, which was traced to Marvyn Mulvey.

When Ms Promonet, aged 42, found Mulvey in her flat in Watford, Hertfordshire, they struggled and he used a wine bottle to beat her to the floor.

But she managed to hold on to her laptop and Mulvey fled.

JAILED
She said later: “I thought I had to see if I could get his DNA. Maybe if I’d had a few more seconds, I would have realised it was a dangerous thing to do.”

Judge Graham Arran said Ms Promonet had showed “a very cool head… she did what was necessary to bring this defendant to justice.”

She is to be given an award of £350 from public funds for her bravery.

Mulvey was jailed for seven years.

* * *
The National Health Service is losing £1 billion a year due to fraud, according to Sue Frith, chief executive of the newly formed NHS Counter Fraud Agency.

Last week, she promised a vigorous crackdown on the scammers.

Many cases involve patients falsely claiming for exemptions from dental and prescription fees and dentists charging for work they had not done, she said.

False claims are estimated to cost the Service more than £200 million per year.

Payment is required for NHS dental treatment and prescription fees except if a person is under 16, over 60 or pregnant.

Ms Frith said: “It is despicable that people would claim for things they are not entitled to.”
* * *
Another crime of the “truly nasty” sort:

Simon Delow would approach families who had lost loved ones abroad and were unhappy about the investigation into their deaths.

Julie Sheppard’s son, Andrew, 31, died in France in 2010 and police ruled it was suicide.

His mother was not convinced and when Delow got in touch, saying he was a private investigator and would get the truth, she agreed.

“He seemed very convincing,” she said.

FRAUDSTER
She and her husband Ray handed Delow £18,000, but all they got was an “interim report” full of claims and fabricated leads.

The couple went to Durham police, who found that Delow had asked for sums totalling £100,000 from a number of families.

He would discover likely targets from grieving support groups.

At Durham Crown Court, Judge Christopher Prince sent Delow to prison for 10 years on 10 fraud charges.

He said, “You must have no conscience whatsoever, not one iota. Your behaviour was cruel.”

* * *

The teacher said to her class one day: “Please stand up, anyone who thinks they’re stupid.” 

Nobody stood up, so the teacher said, “I’m sure there are some stupid students in this class!”

At this point Little Johnny stood up.

The teacher said: “Oh Johnny! So you think you’re stupid?”

Little Johnny replied: “No, Miss, I just felt bad that you were standing up on your own.”

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