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On Conspiracy:
I don't believe in the "Nature or Nurture" dichotomy; it seems clear to me that they work together. Likewise, when it comes to those in power, I suspect that Conspiracy and Cock-up both contribute to the mix.
Most often, I suspect, events start with a cock-up, and there is then a conspiracy to try to conceal it. The shooting of Mr. Menezes was clearly a first order cock-up; there is no doubt that, from the moment when the police tried to claim that he had jumped the ticket barrier in Clapham station, and that unfortunately none of the video cameras in the station were working - both statements subsequently proving to be untrue and very unlikely to be genuine mistakes, until now, with evidence that a photograph produced in defense of the police action has turned out to be doctored, there has been an element of conspiracy to conceal cock-up.
Sometimes, there is a conspiracy which descends into cock-up: Blair's plans, with Bush and others, for an illegal, reviled and ill-planned war in Iraq, was certainly a conspiracy; arguably, it was a cock-up from the very beginning, and the conspiracies to conceal the conspiracy, while initially successful, eventually tripped over their own complexities.
Unfortunately, by definition, we will not become aware of the successful conspiracies. Only God could know how many of those there are.
Also unfortunately, we are weighted down by the conspiracy theories of the truly bonkers: the Twin Towers were blown up by the CIA; Diana Spencer was eliminated on the orders of Prince Philip; Elvis Presley is alive... Because the fact is that there are conspiracies, but the loony conspiracies get the press attention and the ridicule which taints anybody who tries to examine the real thing.
10c.