For entertainment studios around the world, Kim Dotcom probably looks a lot like King Henry VIII. To them he is rich, rotund, and chopping their businesses off at the head.

Two of those attributes, at least, are factually true. The third is in legal dispute.

Kim Dotcom, the founder of recently indicted file sharing company Megaupload, was born Kim Schmitz. A German native who legally changed his surname to Dotcom ten years ago, he has a speckled past. This includes accusations of credit card fraud and criminal hacking, as well as a confession of embezzlement. Now Kim lives in a New Zealand mansion allegedly worth $30 million and owns high-end vehicles like a Rolls-Royce, a Maserati, and a Lamborghini.

It’s all legitimately-acquired wealth, according to Megaupload spokesperson Bonnie Lam.

In accordance with German’s “clean-slate” law, Dotcom’s record has been wiped clean of his previous offenses, and he has paid his due after his convictions, Lam said.

“He has matured, learned from his past mistakes and is a successful businessman,” Lam told Cnet. “Kim is one of many shareholders at Mega and not involved in most day-to-day business decisions.”

He is, nevertheless, a colorful character. Dotcom co-produced and appears in a popular promotional video for Megaupload that came out in December, 2011 (that’s him in the screen shot above). The video, which included such popular music stars as Macy Gray, Will.i.am, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Serena Williams, Snoop Dogg and a host of others, was targeted by Universal Music Group for unspecified reasons, briefly removed from YouTube, and then reinstated to the popular video-sharing site shortly afterward. Megaupload filed its own suit against Universal immediately after the incident. The video has now been seen almost 12 million times.

Dotcom, who is married and a father of three, was charged this week with five counts of copyright infringement, along with money laundering. He was arrested at his own birthday party on Thursday, along with other employees of Megaupload and its various properties, including Megaporn, Megavideo, Megaclick, and Megarotic. When the police came calling, he barricaded himself inside the mansion’s safe room with what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun.

Megaupload is the company’s flagship site, founded in 2005. It lets people upload, store and transfer files around the globe, a service that can be used for legitimate purposes (transferring a large data file to a business associate, for instance) but which, the FBI alleges, is also used for distributing copyrighted video and audio. The company’s headquarters are said to be in Hong Kong, though its servers exist in other countries as well. The US FBI took action after discovering servers in Virgina holding unlicensed copyrighted material. Indeed, the US calling this a “Mega Conspiracy.”

The indictment served yesterday listed assets owned by Dotcom and his fellow employees, which tallied to around $175,000,000. Expensive vehicles, artwork, electronics, and a laundry list of bank accounts were named.

On Friday, police in New Zealand raided Dotcom’s home and seized many of these assets, including a Rolls Royce, numerous Mercedes-Benz cars, cash and allegedly guns. Dotcom is known for enjoying his fast cars and attending the Gumball 3000, an automobile “rally” that has drawn celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Johnny Knoxville and others.

In response, the loose hacker collective known as Anonymous retaliated by taking down the Department of Justice and FBI websites with a denial-of-service attack.

Dotcom has been in trouble with the law for money before. In 2001, the Megaupload founder pocketed 1.5 million euros after promising to invest 50 million euros into failing company LetsBuyIt.com. He pulled the fraud off by purchasing 375,000 euros worth of stock in the company, made his investment announcement, and watched the stock price soar. After the stock had climbed a considerable amount, Dotcom cut and ran, having never possessed enough money to make the 50 million euro investment in the first place. In 2003, Dotcom admitted to embezzlement and was flown from Thailand to Germany for the trial.

According to New Zealand-based website 3 News, New Zealand’s government initially denied Dotcom’s application residency when he failed a “good character” test. However, he then donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Fund and invested $10 million in government bonds, and his application was subsequently approved.

Now Dotcom is facing even more financial charges. He and his alleged co-conspirators are accused of paying third parties to upload copyrighted material.

Dotcom remains positive, however. When faced with three of his coworkers before the press in a New Zealand court room, he invited pictures and video. When a lawyer asked the press to stop, Kim Dotcom interjected with, “We have nothing to hide.”

If you're just starting out with a DSLR camera, you're probably pretty overwhelmed with all the different settings you have available. This cheat sheet from weblog Living In the Stills will help you keep it all straight.

We talked about a lot of these things in our Basics of Photography Night School, but when you're out and about and don't have time to flip through a full guide, this cheat sheet can give you a quick glance at what different aperture, shutter, ISO, and other settings will do. You still need to have a basic understanding of what certain terms mean—like exposure or depth of field—but you won't have to know off the top of your head which values correspond to which ends of the spectrum. Check out a larger version of the cheat sheet below, and hit the link to read more about it.

 

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills that sound like they have a mildly positive aim but, in reality, have serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. While the Obama administration has come out against SOPA, effectively shelving it indefinitely, the very similar PIPA bill is still alive and well. Both SOPA and PIPA put power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language is vague enough to target sites you use every day, like Facebook and Google, making these bills a serious problem. Here's what you need to know about the bills and what you can do about them.

What Are SOPA and PIPA All ABout, and Why Should I Care?

The idea behind these bills sounds reasonable. They came about in order to try and snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited that many people are downloading their products without payment or permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn't really matter whether you're in support of piracy, against it, or just don't care. The methods are ineffective. Here's what they are and why they're problematic.

SOPA and PIPA were initially designed to do two things. The first was to make it possible for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are simply capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement. This would have been bad for everyone because such a measure doesn't actually prevent piracy. The reason that blocking a domain name isn't effective is because any blocked site can still be accessed via its numeric IP address. For example, if lifehacker.com were blocked, you could still find it by visiting a number-based address. In fact, before the bills were even supposed to come to a vote, tools were created to automatically route domain names to their IP addresses to completely render this measure of SOPA and PIPA useless. As a result, the IP-blocking provisions have been removed from both bills.

 

The other, still-active measure present in the SOPA and PIPA bills would allow rights holders to cut of the source of funding of any potentially infringing web site. This means any other companies doing business with this site would have to stop. Whether that means advertising, links in search engines, or any other listings would have to be removed.

There is, however, an important difference between SOPA and PIPA. SOPA targeted any site that contributed to copyright infringement, even if it was simply facilitating the act by providing a tool that could be used for illegal purposes (regardless of intention). PIPA, on the other hand, requires the targeted site to have no significant use beyond copyright infringement. Basically, PIPA can only be used to censor a site if it's more likely to be a source of illegal content than not. This is still problematic because a tool designed to accept user-generated content is, to some extent, at the whims of its users. If infringing content is found, rights holders already have the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to help them request the legal removal of that content. They also have the ability to sue infringers for damages, as we've previously seen with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) when they, for example, sued a 12-year-old for downloading music. SOPA and PIPA provide a means to censor the tool that provided a means for the infringing content to exist on the internet rather than the content itself. This puts a lot of power in the hands of rights holders and has significant potential for abuse.

This is, of course, our interpretation of these bills. Because we love the internet and oppose censorship, we have an obvious bias. While we believe the right thing to do is to oppose these bills, you should make an informed decision on your own. For more information, please read the exact content of both the SOPA and PIPA bills.

What Can I Do About SOPA and PIPA?

Currently Twitter, Google, Reddit, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Zynga, Facebook, and several other sites have spoken out in opposition of SOPA and PIPA. In fact, many sites are censoring their logos (e.g. Google) or completely taking down their sites (e.g. Wikipedia) in protest on January 18th, 2012. There is incredible opposition to these bills because they don't just affect users like you, or small startups, but even very large companies with a large stake in the great things the internet and modern technology have to offer. If you'd like to join in your protest, there are a few things you can do.

 

First, call your congressperson on the phone. This is especially important if you live in a state with SOPA and/or PIPA supports or sponsors. Nonetheless, if your congresspeople do not support these bills you should still contact them to voice your support for their position.

Second, get the word out. Post this article, the American Censorship Day web site, or any other information about SOPA/PIPA on your social media accounts. Send emails to friends and family. If you oppose the bill, help others to understand why you believe they should oppose and encourage them to read more so they can make an informed choice.

 

Let's End the Fight and Start a Discussion

Finally, if you know a supporter or person in favor of SOPA and/or PIPA, have an open discussion. Myself and many others believe that the root of this problem stems from a lack of communication on both sides. Despite what my articles may suggest, I'm not a supporter of piracy. I do believe there is a compromise that both sides can reach with enough discussion, education, and understanding. It's important to remember that both the supporters and opposers of SOPA and PIPA have legitimate concerns. This should not be a fight but rather a cooperative discussion to find a solution. Whichever side you're on, please encourage a conversation that will move us towards change that is good for everyone rather than extreme measures that won't help anyone.

 

 

Hundreds of websites (TechCrunch included) have gone dark or visibly changed their appearance as a protest against the Stop Online Privacy Act and its Senate doppelganger, the PROTECT IP Act. It’s a powerful statement and many are saying that it is already producing effects: Senators are changing positions, awareness is rising, and the opposition is becoming a dinner-table topic.

But is this activism?

I’m not asking whether it’s a good thing (it certainly is) or whether it is effective in guiding policy (it certainly might be), but whether it is right to call it activism.

It’s not just a question of semantics; the distinction is material. Activism is like-minded individuals working to support or oppose a cause. What we are seeing today, in large companies and organizations acting together to sway an outcome, might better be termed collective bargaining.

It just seems a bit strange that after months of outrage by individuals, what seems to cause notice is action by larger units: Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and the like. Although we as individuals may have contributed to their decisions, ultimately the choice was theirs. And while we are all thankful to these organizations for doing what they feel is appropriate to signal their disapproval, it’s significant that we individuals are largely without means of effectively banding together online.

I wrote before that “people, not things, are the tools of revolution.” I know this to be true. But things, and means, are also important. Do we have the means to affect our country’s policies and decisions via the internet?

One thing that this whole SOPA thing (and COICA before it, and others before that, and surely more to come) shows is the complete disconnect between the informed, online community and the legislative and governing bodies. The incredible increase in our capability to propagate and discuss issues and events has not been matched by a corresponding receptive capability on the part of our representatives and officials. This must change.

The state of feedback between the governed and the governors is deplorable. Very little of the innovation driving internet companies is being applied to this problem, and as we have seen, it is a very serious problem.

There is much to be said about the whole Washington ecosystem of lobbyists, career politicians, favors, vendettas, and all that. What is relevant to us right now, however, is not the vagaries of a representative democracy, but creating a reliable, official, and secure means for citizens to make their opinions felt by those in office. We may discuss and blog and comment and promote all we want and our senators might be none the wiser. We need something other than votes and campaign contributions that will make these people hear what their constituents are saying. The internet has very little that can be called activism.

We can consider today, with its blackouts and wide visibility, a success. But it doesn’t seem to me that we can call it activism when so much of it has to do with powers outside our own making choices that just happen to coincide with ours. The internet is a powerful tool for communication and advocacy, but right now it is divorced from the decision-making process. The best we have is things like White House petitions and automatic email systems for contacting your senators. The level of engagement is wholly inadequate. As citizens we should expect more, and as evangelists of technology we should be making the tools to take the next step.

Apple has released a list of hardware component suppliers (and many of their human rights and environmental violations) as part of its 2012 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report.

This list, the company says, accounts for more than 97 percent of its of Apple’s procurement expenditures
for materials, manufacturing, and assembly of iPads, iPhones, iPods, MacBooks and various other personal computing products worldwide.

In this year’s report, Apple says it conducted more audits of manufacturers than ever — 229 audits altogether for various partners along Apple’s supply chain. The number of audits represents an 80 percent increase over audits conducted in 2010 and includes more than 100 first-time audits.

While the company says it has educated more than a million employees at Apple’s manufacturing partners around the world about worker’s rights, on-the-job safety and more, the audits unearthed some ugly facts about the companies making iDevice components.

In Chinese partners, Apple’s investigations found issues with payment of workers, benefits for workers and environmental practices. Some suppliers were found dumping wastewater at a farm near the plant, using unsafe machinery, forging payroll records and even administering pregnancy tests to some workers.

Perhaps most troubling of all from a human rights perspective is the continuing instances of child and involuntary labor in Apple’s supply chain. Although Apple says it maintains a a zero-tolerance policy for such labor and that the 2011 audits found that instances of child labor “were down significantly,” the company can only verify that no underage workers were found at final assembly suppliers.

“I would like to totally eliminate every case of underage employment,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told reporters.

“As we go deeper into the supply chain, we found that age verification system isn’t sophisticated enough. This is something we feel very strongly about and we want to eliminate totally.”

In a email sent today to Apple staff, Cook wrote, “We are taking a big step today toward greater transparency and independent oversight of our supply chain by joining the Fair Labor Association.

“The FLA is a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving conditions for workers around the world, and we are the first technology company they’ve approved for membership. The FLA’s auditing team will have direct access to our supply chain and they will report their findings independently on their website.”

While Apple certainly seems to be trying to tackle these overarching issues of international business and manufacturing, we are nevertheless disturbed at many of the things we’re reading in this report. After all, 78 percent compliance with involuntary labor requirements still means 28 percent noncompliance, which translates to coercion and debt bondage being part of how your your iPhone was made.

Still, all our electronics come from plants such as these. At least Apple is making an effort to be transparent about this process, to find violations, to correct those violations, and in some cases, to stop doing businesses with companies that consistently ignore human rights and environmental regulations.

Here are some other highlights of the report, as well as some graphs we created showing percentage of compliance, based on data from the report:

Overwork

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93 facilities had records that indicated more than 50 percent of their workers exceeded weekly working hour limits of 60 in at least 1 week out of the 12 sample period. At 90 facilities, more than half of the records we reviewed indicated that workers had worked more than 6 consecutive days at least once per month, and 37 facilities lacked an adequate working day control system to ensure that workers took at least 1 day off in every 7 days.

Inadequate pay

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42 facilities had payment practice violations, including delayed payment for employees’ wages and no pay slips provided to employees. 67 facilities used deductions from wages as a disciplinary measure. 108 facilities did not pay proper overtime wages as required by laws and regulations.

Slave & child labor

---

Two facilities were repeat offenders in the category of involuntary labor. Apple’s report states, “We terminated business with one supplier and are correcting the practices of the other supplier.”

[In] 15 facilities… we discovered foreign contract workers who had paid excessive recruitment fees to labor agencies… Some of our suppliers work with third-party labor agencies to hire contract workers from countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. These agencies, in turn, may work through multiple subagencies in the hiring country, the workers’ home country, and, in some cases, all the way back to the workers’ home village. By the time the workers have paid all fees across these agencies, the total cost can equal many months’ wages, forcing workers into debt…

We discovered a total of 6 active and 13 historical cases of underage labor at 5 facilities. In each case, the facility had insufficient controls to verify age or detect false documentation. We found no instances of intentional hiring of underage labor.

Health & safety

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126 facilities did not have the appropriate administrative documentation or approval for at least one item in the health and safety protocol. Examples included workers who performed certain tasks without the legally required licenses, expired elevator permits, and lack of labeling of maximum load for shelving. 78 facilities had at least one instance where a workstation or a machine was missing the appropriate safety device such as a gear guard, pulley guard, or interlock. 58 facilities had workers who were not wearing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), such as earplugs, safety glasses, and dust masks. In some instances, the facility had not provided the appropriate
safety equipment. In others, the workers neglected to use the equipment or were using it improperly. Also, 72 facilities lacked procedures for PPE management.

Next Story: Asemble your own MLG Pro Circuit Controller from Mad Catz (video)

Venezuela's consul general in Miami has been declared to be persona non grata and must leave the United States, a State Department spokesman said Sunday.

Spokesman William Ostick declined to comment on specific details behind the decision to expel Livia Acosta Noguera, who has headed Venezuela's consulate in Miami since March 2011.

The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington was informed of the decision Friday, Ostick said in a written statement, and the State Department said Acosta must depart the United States by Tuesday.

It was unclear Sunday whether she remained in the United States.

There was no immediate response from the Venezuelan government.

Last month, a group of American lawmakers said they had "grave concerns" about Acosta and called for an investigation after the Spanish-language TV channel Univision aired a documentary alleging that she was among a group of Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats who expressed interest in an offer from a group of Mexican hackers to infiltrate the websites of the White House, the FBI, the Pentagon and U.S. nuclear plants.

The evidence that the plot was real, according to Univision, are secret recordings with diplomats who ask questions about what the hackers can do and promise to send information to their governments.

Univision interviewed a purported Mexican whistle-blower -- a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico named Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo. The student told Univision he was recruited by a leftist professor who wanted to wage cyber attacks on the United States and its allies.

Munoz told Univision he secretly recorded a meeting in 2008 with Acosta, who was then the cultural attache of the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. According to a recording Univision aired as part of its report, Acosta is heard saying that she can send the information gathered by the hackers straight to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez has called the report "lies."

One of the Iranian diplomats told Univision that although he, indeed, was presented with a hacking plot by the Mexican group, he turned it down, in part because he thought they were CIA agents.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month, Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, David Rivera, Mario Diaz-Balart and Albio Sires asked the State Department to require Acosta's "immediate departure" from the United States if the Univision report proved true.

One group of Venezuelans in Miami said Sunday that they supported the U.S. government's move.

"The consul of Venezuela in Miami had not only conspired with Iranian officials to attack the security of the United States, but also had converted the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami into a spy center to monitor the activities of Venezuelan activists especially in South Florida, with the intention of neutralizing us," said a statement from the group, which included several organizations of Venezuelan exiles.

A State Department spokesman said last month that the United States did not know about the alleged plot, but that it found the Univision allegations "very disturbing."

However, "we don't have any information, at this point, to corroborate it," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

On January 6th reports of Symantec (makers of Norton Anitvirus) being hacked surfaced. The group of hackers behind the attack behind the attack were from India. In a statement issued by a member from the Lords of Dharamraja group (badass name!), the guys said:

As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI

Ignoring the typing error, gaining access to Indian Military’s Intelligence servers is pretty damning for the agency. The hack got covered since the hackers claimed to have acces to Norton’s source code. Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Let’s take a moment for that to digest. Here’s an image from the documents underlining the relevant part:

The documents contain snippets of emails sent by members of the USCC. Apparently, RINOA SUR platform has been declared a success and the Indian Navy has shown interest in the same. The leaked military documents suggest, RINOA were arm twisted into providing backdoor access in exchange for operating in India:

While the Indian government recently gave the nation’s premiere spy agency—RAW—permission to access any citizen’s electronic communication, the Department of Telecommunications has reached out to the Interpol for help in decrypting communication via services like RIM’s BlackBerry.

Since walking out of Downing Street in June 2007, Mr Blair, the most successful Prime Minister in Labour’s history, has struck a number of lucrative deals that have earned him millions of pounds.

Tony Blair is a burgeoning brand. He is an adviser, sometimes paid, sometimes unpaid, to foreign governments - and in some cases dictators; a hugely in demand, highly paid public speaker; an international business consultant; and a philanthropist with two charities in his name and another devoted to improving the plight of Africans.

He is also a Middle East peace envoy with an office in Jerusalem and author of a best-selling memoir, the proceeds of which he gave to charity.

Mr Blair is paid in the region of £3 million a year to advise both JP Morgan, the US investment bank, and also Zurich International, the global insurer based in Switzerland. On top of that he runs his own consultancy firm - Tony Blair Associates - which advises the oil and gas rich governments of Kuwait and Kazakhstan.

It is a confusing mix of business, politics and philanthropy that is administered by a complex system of companies, operating out of plush offices in Grosvenor Square in Mayfair in central London.

There are two parallel companies both with similar structures. One is called Windrush Ventures and another is called Firerush Ventures.

The structures are seemingly complex, consisting of a number of limited companies, limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and limited partnerships (LPs).

Windrush Ventures Limited is the management company that runs the Windrush Ventures Group. It is described in emails sent by Mr Blair’s staff as the “trading name” of The Office of Tony Blair.

Within the group there is - besides Windrush Ventures Limited - a Windrush Ventures No.1 Ltd, Windrush Ventures No.2 LLP and Windrush Ventures No.3 LP. The LP - because it is a liability partnership rather than a limited company - does not have any legal obligation to publish accounts. Firerush Ventures has a similar set up.

It is the publication of accounts, running to 22 pages, of Windrush Ventures Limited, which casts at least some light on the scale of Mr Blair’s income - and his corporate tax arrangements.

Lodged with Companies House on Dec 30, in the quiet period between Christmas and New Year, they are audited by KPMG and signed off by Catherine Rimmer, one of Windrush venture’s directors. Ms Rimmer, a former Downing Street aide, is officially Mr Blair’s strategic director. Incidentally, Windrush Venture’s highest paid director, presumed to be Ms Rimmer, earns £200,000, according to the accounts.

What the accounts show is that in the 12 months to March 31 2011, Windrush Ventures recorded a group turnover of a little over £12 million. In other words, Mr Blair’s management company was being paid £12 million - most of it coming from the secretive Windrush Ventures LP - for “the provision of management services”.

The accounts show that about £3 million of it went on office and staffing costs. What happens to the rest of it is not entirely clear. Windrush Ventures employs 26 people with a total wage bill of almost £2.3 million at an average salary of £88,000. It has office rental costs of £550,00 and a further £300,000 is spent on equipment. With a profit of £1 million - on which he pays tax of £315,000 - that leaves Windrush Ventures with about £8 million of “administrative expenses” unaccounted for. There is no obligation under company law to say what happens to that money.

The accounts also show that in the previous year, Windrush ventures received about £8.5 million and paid tax after expenses were deducted of £154,000. That means that in the past two years, Windrush ventures was paid £20 million for management services and paid a total of £470,000 in tax. There is no suggestion that the accounts are anything other than legitimate.

It is not clear what monies go through Windrush and what income is channelled through Firerush. Mr Blair is tight-lipped about the corporate structure - even going so far as to refusing to say why the companies are so named. There have been reports that Firerush is the structure set up to handle income from Tony Blair Associates, which if true - and on the scale of the Windrush accounts - would suggest the Blair Empire, including his charities, have incomes far beyond what anybody had realised. Firerush’s accounts have only partially been published and reveal little, although fuller accounts are anticipated later in the year.

As recently as September, Mr Blair protested that if he was really only interested in making money, he would not devote so much of his time to charitable causes and other unpaid activities.

“I probably spend two-thirds of my time on pro-bono activity, I probably spend the biggest single chunk of my time on the Middle East peace process which I do unpaid,” he said in an interview with an Indian television company. “So if what I was interested in doing was making money I could make a lot more and have a very gentle and easy life.”

In all, he reckoned he had 150 staff working for him in various guises across his charities and consultancies.

That interview was in response to a Sunday Telegraph investigation into Mr Blair’s friendship with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, whom he visited at least six times after leaving Downing Street. At least twice, Mr Blair flew to Libya on a private jet paid for by Gaddafi.

An email from JP Morgan, seen by the Sunday Telegraph, suggested one of those visits was linked to a multi-billion dollar loan deal the bank was trying to set up between the Libyans and a Russian oligarch - although Mr Blair has denied any knowledge of the deal.

Mr Blair’s is undoubtedly a jet set lifestyle. But there are home comforts too. In the UK, his property portfolio of seven homes is worth £14 million and includes a £4 million Georgian townhouse in central London and a country estate not far from Chequers.

In office, he was the labour’s most successful prime minister. Out of it, he appears to be doing even better.