There are two burning issues in London this week; one more literally burning than the other.
The revelation that Facebook passed on personal data to Cambridge Analytica is causing an outcry here. Unlike the USA, where corporate wrongdoers can generally protect themselves against political investigation by funding one side of the political divide, all sides are out for Facebook here.
Damian Collins is a Conservative MP who chairs the House of Commons committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. He was once one of the most prominent campaigners against the award of the World Cup to Qatar and he has been outspoken on FIFA corruption.
This week however, he has been all over the media portraying what seems like very genuine outrage about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, and the Government Minister responsible for those fields, Matt Hancock, seemed almost apoplectic when asked about the speed with which Facebook closed down the account of Chris Wylie an alleged whistleblower during a debate in the House of Commons.
“Of all of the different things that have surprised me and shocked me in this revelation, the decision by Facebook to take down the Facebook account, and also the removal of the WhatsApp account and the Instagram account, of the whistleblower was the most surprising.
“I thought it was outrageous, and I’ll tell you for why. Because Facebook have got some serious questions to answer here.
He then contrasted the speed with which Facebook acted in Mr Wylie’s case with the sloth with which they remove offensive, racist and pro-terror accounts.
“And to answer it by blocking an account, when at the same time we know in this House they don’t act fast enough to block other accounts of obviously outrageous behaviour. I’ll tell you what, it shows that when they need to they can block things incredibly quickly and they will need to do a lot more that.”
And he, remember, is a Conservative Minister, perhaps holding some remaining anger over Facebook’s foot-dragging on closing accounts like Britain First, the racist group whose videos were re-tweeted by Anne Coulter and Donald Trump, and a number of militant Islamicist clerics.
Matt Hancock’s anger at Facebook in the House of Commons seemed very genuine
But of course, it is not only Facebook in the dock here.
Given the Cambridge Analytica’s relationship with the Donald Trump campaign, it seems that the Committee’s findings could have serious implications in the USA if criminal activity is uncovered and those crimes are also illegal in the USA.
This suspicion would seem to be affirmed by the apparently regular requests made to committee members from American cable news media outlets and newspapers.
Analytica also assisted one of the two Brexit campaigns here, although there is no serious suggestion of the referendum result being nullified. More in hope than reality, Labour’s Stephen Kinnock told the Guardian that if Cambridge Analytica were proved to have been “in flagrant breach of our electoral rules, that would place a pretty huge question mark over the referendum result”.
But the data issue, although it may eventually go to the heart of government in both nations, isn’t as directly connected with sport as the other.
The attempted murder of former Soviet Spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia through toxic nerve agents has incensed the British public and its elected MPs. The Government immediately expelled 23 Russian diplomats. The Russians retaliated by expelling 23 British ones and closing the British Council building in St Petersburg. Both Skripals remain in critical condition.
In the midst of an increasingly inflamed rhetoric, Russian oligarch Vladimir Putin was re-elected in an election widely dismissed as tainted in every possible way by the disqualification of opposing candidates and his total control of the media.
The British problem is that, shorne of the traditional tactic of ‘sending in the gunboats’ (because Russia can fight back), there is very little it can do alone. Its traditional allies have already promised support. US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and various EU luminaries have talked about unilaterally backing Britain.
London is skeptical.
Yes, the USA might ‘back Britain’, but some fear only to the point President Trump is informed and Mr Putin asks him to stop that backing. No-one here seriously thinks Trump will confront Putin over the attempted murder of two Russians on English soil. Mr Trump may put America first, the reasoning goes, but he puts Russia a close second.
The EU has said the right things. But skeptics here fear that this is exactly the kind of issue the Europeans can use to demonstrate to the departing UK, why the UK might regret the loss of the political solidarity that EU membership brings. So far no-one at the top level of the EU has done so, maybe out of principle, or maybe because Putin is equally a threat to expatriate Russians anywhere if he gets away with this.
Sanctions against Russia are already in place after their invasion and pseudo-annexation of the Crimea but unless aimed specifically at Putin’s business cronies, they tend to hurt the Russian people more than Putin himself.
This leaves one area where Britain can hit back. It was announced very quickly after the Skripal attack that no member of the Royal Family or Government Minister would attend the World Cup finals this summer. No one outside these borders really sees that as much as a threat. If UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson doesn’t go, there is no shortage of Borises around Moscow to compensate. And Russia is a country where they assassinate royals.
So what happens if threatening participation in the World Cup is all a weak and powerless Britain has left?
We’ll explore that tomorrow.
