Abuse of Protesters Human Rights

Anyone who thinks that human rights in the UK are a one-sided affair in favour of hardened criminals and others who usually would not attract much sympathy should take time to look through the court injunction obtained by npower who want to dump 500,000 of waste ash into Radley Lakes, an area rich in wildlife and much loved by the ordinary folk of the surrounding community.

A copy of it can be seen at: http://www.epuk.org/News/475/the-npower-injunction-in-full

RWE NPower and Oxfordshire County Council have between them concocted a scheme which will destroy a beautiful lake, an area rich in bio-diversity that should be protected. To ensure there is no reporting of the ongoing devastation nor many voices raised in protest, the same legal team who tried (unsuccessfully)to injunct £5million folk on behalf of BAA have done a similar hatchet job on protesters, press photographers and others who now face jail and/or ruin for even uttering a person’s name or protesting against the destruction.

When we protested that freedom from harassment legislation would be abused to stifle legitimate protest we were condemned by Cameron et al and the right-wing press as rabble rousing liberals.

How right it appears we were when the right to defend these wetlands is defeated by the abuse we warned would follow.

Millions of criminals in green wellies

What do 5 million people have in common?

They are all to be banned from approaching Heathrow airport as members of the National Trust, Woodland Trust, RSPB, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

What a sight it will be to see commuters on the Piccadilly line, or lads nipping off for a knees up in a European city hiding behind a rubbish bin, or breaking down in tears confessing to our well armed police officers seeking out terrorists, that they forgot to cancel that direct debit that maintains their membership of the National Trust and therefore are law breakers in defiance of the injunction.

Motorists on the M25 and M4 will be swerving from lane to lane as they rummage in the glove box for the receipt they were given when they visited that bird sanctuary last year just in case they signed up to the RSPB.

What planet would a judge have to be on to allow that one to slip through under the guise of stopping Swampy and friends from disrupting CO2 gushing flights leaving the capital’s best known airport?

Apparently this one.

If this wasn’t actually happening, you’d have to wonder if you were still asleep.

No justice for dead workers

So the Government have conceded defeat and published an amendment to extend the scope of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill to allow Prisons and police authorities to be prosecuted over deaths of people held in custody.

This is indeed a right decision (arm up the back or not), but it is really an amendment to a proposed law that falls well short of holding the real criminals responsible - the directors and senior management who pocket the dosh whilst workers are mutilated and killed.

Lets take a look at the reality.

Firstly, the bill proposes criminalizing a firm as opposed to the managers or directors. We’ll see massive fines and public humiliation. What a load of tripe!

If you are a doctor or driver, or indeed the ordinary 5’8” in the street, you can be held personally liable for causing a death by doing something otherwise lawful so badly as to come under the legal definition of manslaughter. If this is the case, then why not someone like the head of an oil company who could be said to have run the company so badly as to be liable for deaths caused by his firm when they cut the safety budget?

If you are looking for logic in this proposed law, then you are looking in the wrong place. Try a glance toward who really holds the power – big business.

They wield power unimaginable to the ordinary citizen – they get what they want, when they want. Just look at the bribes scandals; the cash for honours; and now this poor cousin to the original quest and desire for justice.

Blair leaves office wealthy beyond the means of the combined wealth of thousands in the poverty trap and he lets his big business friends off the hook.

RIP all those who will never see justice, and those yet to die who will leave families in the same situation because our MPs were spineless.

George is the only one with RESPECT here!!

We are told that Respect MP George Galloway is facing suspension from the House of Commons for 18 days, following an investigation by Parliament's standards committee.

The MPs say he "damaged the reputation of the House" in his comments about the inquiry into his Mariam Appeal charity. Apparently he should have looked a little closer at the money he received (all of which was used for the charity) before allowing the funds into the charity. Worse still, he actually had the cheek to enter a debate in an institution that is a debating chamber!

What an absolute joke!

Parliament - full of parties who have nominated peers who have (by sheer coincidence) provided them with a nice little wedge, and who have received donations from rapists and other dodgy characters - now feel that George Galloway’s conduct has damaged the reputation of that place.

I’m sure that the rapists, donors and lobbyists who have provided “support” to all the major parties must be laughing their socks off.

Catch a grip – parliament has the reputation it deserves and it’s not down to the alleged actions/omissions of one MP alone. The reality is that they simply can’t handle anyone who doesn’t fall over when they demand it.

Hear what the condemned has to say for himself: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/otherparties/story/0,,2128329,00.html

Time for change on our terms!

Some of the runners in the deputy leader’s election within New Labour have mooted an interest in revising the constitution of the UK. Of course New Labour will never let this happen, at least not to their detriment when it comes to imposing draconian laws on the ordinary working man and woman.

So, despite this, if we are to ensure that ordinary working people are protected from the likes of New Labour now and in the future, should we not be debating whether there needs to be a fundamental restructuring of our constitution? Indeed, do we actually have one today based on how it operates in reality as opposed to what scholars and academics think?

In this short article, I will discuss what we actually have and how it is being manipulated. I will also look at issues we should be debating now.

We need to look at what we do have by way of a constitution and thereafter how it works today.

The UK constitution has no fundamental written source, and is ever changing. It relies much on unwritten convention. This results in what has been described as an electorate that are politically sovereign. In reality, Parliament is legally sovereign and our constitution is an uncodified body of law which constitutes the rules for how the country functions. It consists mostly of written sources (not a document(s) such as the American constitution), including statutes, judge made case law and international treaties.

A constitution should impose limits on what Parliament could do without a legal majority. To date, the Parliament of the UK has no limit on its power other than the possibility of extra-parliamentary action (by the people) and of other sovereign states (pursuant to treaties made by Parliament and otherwise).

What prevails is a system that uses of the parliamentary party’s lobby fodder to push through the unacceptable, such as de-listing the Commons from freedom of information legislation.

What we have seen at under New Labour is an abuse of the constitutional system we supposedly have in this country with decision making removed from the collective responsibility of the cabinet (when is the last time any of them retired following a political/ministerial error) and ultimately either no scrutiny by the commons, or railroaded, knee jerk legislation pushed through by use of pagers to call the faithful to vote.

Today we are more likely to be subject to laws that started off on a settee in the PM’s office, or in a focus group meeting where what sounds good is advanced as being good if it can be pushed through in spite of our so called constitution.

On top of this, we see attempt after attempt to bring in laws that avoid even this limited scrutiny combined with constitutional skulduggery by going straight to the Queen seeking the archaic royal prerogative such as was granted to New Labour to crush the courts judgment in 2000 when the Chagos islanders won a historic victory in the high court, which ruled their expulsion from Diego Garcia was illegal.

So what should we be looking for?

The first step could be a codified constitution setting out who could do what and providing a clear separation of powers between the normal division of branches of government into the Executive (in our case the closest we have is the Prime Minister and his Cabinet), the Legislative (Parliament), and the Judicial (Courts) to avoid situations such as we have seen recently with the Attorney General stopping the investigation of crimes for political reasons as with the BAE bribe allegations where Blair is alleged to have personally intervened.

Also, with a written constitution we could set in stone the ability of the courts to intervene or for the citizen to ask them to do so on their behalf. The present system of Judicial Review can only ask the decision maker to go away and reconsider their actions. The exception we see to this system at present is the court’s ability to overrule on Human Rights matters.

The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law has granted us the citizens specific rights and gives the judiciary some power to enforce them. Courts can encourage Parliament to amend legislation by a "declaration of incompatibility," and courts can refuse to enforce or "strike down" any incompatible secondary legislation.

However, any actions of government authorities that violate these rights are only illegal except if carried out pursuant to an Act of Parliament. A written constitution could specifically prevent this happening thus placing rights before political ambition.

Ironically, one of the best examples of a written constitution is that of the United States of America as referred to above. It has clear separation of powers and specific rights that are codified and set out for all to see with a Supreme Court to enforce them if required. Not all rights under the US convention will meet with everyone’s approval (such as the right to bear arms), but they have a mechanism for revising the defined rights under their system. Maybe we should ensure that the ability to revise, remove and add rights is written into any proposed convention.

What is clear is that our present constitution is failing us due to the present regime of spin and be damned with the PM sending the children of the working class off to war (because he can for whatever reason he wants under the current system) without as much as a nod to the millions who took to the streets in protest. Even an attempt under our current system to challenge the decision to go to war was unsuccessful as seen recently in the case of R (Gentle and Clark) –v- The Prime Minister and Others [2006] (which may be successfully appealed).

It is about time we looked at the revision of our constitution before it is hijacked by capitalists who will use any proposed constitution to further erode the rights of working people, whether here at home or in some foreign field where they have been sent to die.

New boss, old routine

What a sight the mounted police in Manchester were during Sunday’s Stop the War demonstration. Indeed, so numerous were they that you could believe there were more horses in Manchester on Sunday than took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Of course the GMC mounted force was well supported by many more officers on foot and a very noisy helicopter.

The image of thousands of Stop the War demonstrators hemmed in on all sides as they moved through the city in stops and starts, under the control of the folk in yellow who were clearly instructed not to crack a smile, should have allowed you to consider the strength of feeling and arguments of all involved.

However, the sad reality is that you were denied seeing it in the British “free” press as spin and control seized the helm of the media, just as TB had taken control during his time as PM/Dictator.

Save for a few outlets, there was little if any coverage of a demonstration led by the parents, siblings and friends of those young people sent to die in a far off field so that a gallon of petrol flowing into the tank of an SUV in Jerkwater USA is as cheap as it can possibly be. No respect for their point of view in the press. No acknowledgement of their sacrifice by the media or governmet.

Instead, all we had was a man who stood unopposed and surprisingly “won” bowng to us, with his victorious deputy making a speech wherein she told the great and the good of New Labour that the government should acknowledge the anger felt over Iraq, but at the same time support British troops.

So seriously did Brown and New Labour take her on the day, that not one person in the party acknowledged the thousands outside the conference who were showing their anger, to include people like Rose Gentle who still awaits being told why her son Gordon died at the age of 19, sent to war on a pack of lies.

If anyone thinks that New Labour and the mainstream British media will depart from TB’s idea of spin and lies, then just reflect on just how long it took for Gordon et al to fall back into the same old routine – a matter of hours.

Not missed at all Goldsmith

So Lord Goldsmith has decided to leave office at the same time as Blair and as he goes, it is clear that no one individual has done more to encourage the call to de-politicise the job before.

The man who was treated with such contempt by Reid when he announced in the press that the new Ministry of Justice would be formed before telling him (even the most senior judge found out from his Sunday paper to be fair), and who when asked by members of a select committee what it was he did even stumbled through that one, will not be missed by some.

His decision to stop the investigations into alleged corrupt dealings between BAE and the Saudi government left him wide open to attack for this and refusing to stand aside from his constitutional role in determining whether any prosecutions should proceed in the cash-for-honours affair. In reality only he and those who depended on him thought this not to be a problem.

What he did more than any other of Tony’s Cronies was to confirm just what little protection those who should be doing an impartial job have from political interference from a Prime Minister determined to win at any cost.

One must wonder if Gordon is any different after fixing even his own rise to the top from any challenge.

Too straight our George is – that’s his crime!!

We hear on the same day that Lord Goldsmith denies that he hid details from the OECD of payments from BAE Systems to ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, that the Charity Commission has criticised George Galloway and other Mariam Appeal trustees for failing to make sufficient inquiries into the source of donations.

What a load of rubbish!

We have no evidence of this and the very person they needed to speak to in order that charges and accusations could be put to him and a response obtained – George Galloway – they never even had words with! Where is the natural justice? Where is the evidence of “sufficient” enquiry to be seen here?

The reality is that if you are one of Baby Bush’s cronies, you are given a free ride – oh by the way, did you know Father Bush works for the Saudi royal family? No clash of interests there then.

I am at a loss as to why this hatchet is continually handed on from one government or public body to another in an attempt to land a lucky blow.

Too straight our George is – that’s his crime!!

When good men did something

Listening to the reading out of hysterical emails on the radio yesterday, or to the unwise comments of former military commanders who referred to the successful defence pleaded by Toby Olditch and Philip Pritchard against charges of criminal damage in the B-52 case as “bullshit” (yes, and on Radio 2 during lunch yesterday!), you could be forgiven for thinking that traitors were running wild in the country. In reality, they are not and these were simply two brave men who stood up to be counted.

Both admit that on the face of it, they were guilty as they intended to damage B-52 bombers in an airbase on 18th March 2003, something they never denied. They knew that the information they were carrying with them when they went into the base gave the prosecution all the evidence necessary to pursue charges.

However, and to the clear agitation and displeasure of the “hang em high” brigade, the law makes provision for the fact that a person may do something that would otherwise be criminal while acting to prevent a greater crime or while trying to protect the property of another. That crime was of course the illegal war in Iraq.

Having listened to a week of evidence on the consequences to Iraqis of "Shock and Awe" and the indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions and depleted uranium, the jury found them not guilty. Further, it was stated in court that there was never any intention to endanger the flight crews, as they took the step of carrying signs to forewarn the ground and flight crews of the damage they attempted to carry out. Maybe some of those who thought they should have been put up against a wall and shot should have actually listened to the facts before suggesting that they endangered military personnel.

To their credit, both men did not think that this was a victory, for as Toby pointed out after the verdict: "The worse case scenario for us would have been prison - but nothing compares to the horror that has been inflicted on innocent Iraqis."

Ironically some who argued against their direct action referred to what Toby and Philip were protesting against as not being war crimes, using the illustration of the Nazi concentration camps as an example of what they considered to be a “real” war crime. In doing so, what they completely missed was their point, that is that if those who stood back when those camps were being built and used had protested in some way similar to Toby and Philip, there may not have been the slaughter of the innocents.

As Edmund Burke put it, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Tony Boy - Gordon

So Mr Brown twisted enough arms to secure 308 nominations prompting left-winger John McDonnell to concede.

John was 16 nominations short of the 45 required; or to put it another way, New Labour managed to avoid any semblance of a democratic process in shoehorning Gordon through the front door of Number 10. John rightly called this sham a "blow to democracy".

Well it looks like it is full steam ahead for the New Labour machine, stifling democratic processes where it matters whilst funding the side-show that is the election of Gordon’s deputy.

McDonnell's challenge would have given Labour voters a chance to vote for a left-wing alternative to Brown, but unfortunately Blairism reigns on. You can’t profess to be a new man when you stoop to the Old Master’s tactics.

So what do we have to look forward to.

Firstly we have the disaster that is Iraq – we’ll back the USA says Brown.

We have lack of investment – we’ll stick to PFI.

I could go on, but I think you know what Tony Boy Gordon will do – the market rules!

Get some RESPECT

With the May 3rd elections, we all have the opportunity to get a little "respect" by voting RESPECT!

So lets get together and show what true politics is, free of big business and crawling to the US drum nowhere to be seen.

Get out and vote!

Speak up now, or Iran is next!

So the US aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis has been sent to the Gulf as part of a buildup of forces that Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, hopes will show Iran that the US is serious about using military might. This comes as the rumor factory is running the “attack in two weeks” message.

What is clear is that regardless of the cost, the US strategy of using “preventive” (not to be confused with preemptive) force to bring governments to heel, will be used in the Iran situation. However, Iran is no walkover like Iraq was.

The rationale behind the US approach is that the “threat” to US interests must be so weak, that they fall like a deck of cards in a summer breeze as the armed forces of the greatest military power the world has ever known washes over them. In doing this, the rest of the onlookers become paralysed with fear and the US is allowed to do whatever it wants.

Unfortunately, what we have seen in Iraq is that the “war of the flea” is not as easy a victory as the high tech US military predicted. What with the “just in time” introduction of military personnel and assets, Uncle Sam is feeling the heat as a rag-tag band of civilians keeps them pinned down and bleeding on regular basis. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really isn’t that worried after the display of impotence displayed by the very expensive, body bag adverse US military machine.

The reality is that working class kids from GB and the US will die in what George Galloway described as something akin to “ ..the film Zulu, but without the happy ending”. In other words, more body bags and big contracts for Bush’s corporate mates who get paid to supply the bombs that destroy the buildings that they later get paid to rebuild – though they never seem to be able to do that.

Please do mankind a favour Bliar and tell Bush it’s not on – if you have the guts.

The Cowboys strike again!

What is clear to everyone now is the heavy price Britain is paying for the total disregard the US has not only for its “enemies” (previously regarded as the good guys when they did Washington’s bidding), but also its allies.

This has been once more illustrated by the fact that a failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq is seen by many as the reason why just weeks later, the Iranian’s seized 15 service personnel belonging to the US’s ally – the 15 British sailors and marines.

Not only can we see once more the cowboy approach to international law – ignore it if it gets in the way – but also an incredible lack of foresight and the taking of responsibility for the potential consequences of these illegal actions.

The British service personnel detained by the Iranian’s are there not just because they were seized by Iran, but because the US have once more started something British forces will have to spill blood to finish.

The Attorney General -v- The Constitutional Affairs Committee

What a joy it was to see the RT HON Lord Goldsmith QC having to be lectured by Alan Beith and his fellow committee members on the Constitutional Affairs Committee about what he actually does for a living.

What we were privy to was a fine example of the man who advised the PM about the legality of going to war, getting confused about the most basic thing we must all know – our own role in life and work. See: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmconst/uc306-i/uc30602.htm

The problem we have here is that whilst he bounced off the ropes under intelligent, but nonetheless 'wet lettuce leaf' questioning, he was unable to define his own role and worse, his role in some of the most important decisions taken by our own government.

An example of this was the issue of discontinuing the enquiry into the alleged bribes in connection with the Saudi arms deals. Despite admitting that he had the overall superintendency of the SFO and the DPP, and that he attended meetings where the decision to discontinue the enquiry was discussed, he insisted that the decision was not his, but was down to the Director of the SFO.

We can of course imagine a meeting with the boss where a significant issue is decided and even though we are supervised by that boss, he didn't have any input into that decision!

The truth is of course that the boss not overriding the decision is the same as participating in the final outcome – in this case the decision not to continue with the investigation into bribes that the SFO were about to confirm with the paperwork awaiting them in Switzerland.

On the question of 'advice', he even undertook to make known the advice of counsel on other issues, but to this day we await the sight of his advice to invade Iraq. He is OUR lawyer, but cannot tell us what his decision making processes were when advising OUR government.

Turning to the latest hot potato, the 'cash for honours' scandal, he as a lawyer can see no problem in sitting with the government, and at the same time being the supervisor of those who will potentially be tasked with prosecution of the members of that government. Is there not a conflict of interests here?

There are two ways to interpret what we saw on the 7th.

One viewpoint was that we had a man who doesn't even know what our unwritten constitution entitles him to do, and he the governments own lawyer; the other was a man protected and enabled to do as he pleases by our wholly inadequate and unwritten constitution, even if what he is doing is saving his boss and colleagues from the full application of the law.

Time for a clearly defined separation of powers then.

Son of Star wars, or Son of a Bliar?

Well it appears we nearly have another done deal with the US about hosting their missile defence system nicknamed “Son of Star Wars” after the original Strategic Defence Initiative - or Star Wars.

One would not be surprised to learn that having such a system sited here in the UK would actually make it more dangerous for us. However that really doesn't seem to be a problem that Bliar wants to get in the way of yet another sop to the US of A, so much so that he decided to start the deal rolling without the decency of speaking to our elected representatives about it.

Bliar will leave office with a legacy, but not the one he wants. He'll be remembered for dragging us into wars and exposing us to the increased threat of a nuclear attack that would be triggered in Washington or Moscow with nothing we could do about it, other than to die of course.

Spies in your computer

Have a look at this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYOUolZnGIs&eurl

If you don't think it's happening, then think again.

Here we go again!

With the Trident vote only weeks away combined with the looming threat of war spreading to Iran, I now think I am feeling just as concerned as my parents were during the Cuban missile crisis.

With two young children, whose future I now fear for, I think we should all speak up against this latest rush to war and the funding of a wholly unnecessary missile system.

The ratcheting up of pressure to get Iran to bend to the will of George Bush is wholly unacceptable. He sends in carrier fleets like James T Kirk puts the Enterprise into orbit - threatening total destruction, 'shock'n'awe', unless his idea of good order is imposed, regardless of justice or international law.

There are many countries who have developed nuclear know-how, but we never threaten nor invade them. We did trample all over Iraq (and you know my views on that) because they were weak, so why are we surprised that another country George doesn't like (more unfinished business I think) strengthens their weapons capability?

If we didn't allow the neocons to attack the defenceless and pulled out of these brutal overseas adventures, then we would not see the scramble for the bomb.

Turning to Trident, I see no contradiction, even in the current circumstances, in opposing this unnecessary weapon when we can't even provide care for the vulnerable in society.

We have hospital units closing in all over the UK, dozens of community nurse posts being cut throughout the country (the very people the Health Secretary says will pick up the shortfall in hospital provision) and pensions wiped out. This blog is too short to allow me to list all the problems.

A fraction of the £billions we intend to spend on this latest bomb to end all bombing, would give us all a standard of living and free public services we could only dream of.

I oppose the march to war with bigger and better bombs and would ask that you too voice opposition to these looming disasters.

Petition claims first victim - the truth!

Only Bliar could turn recent events around to sound like he is the victim.

In a recent article, Tony gave off about people criticising him for allowing the debate on road pricing via No. 10's on-line petition. He whined about the criticism he was under for allowing the petition, but left out a few facts:-

1. The public did not criticise this petition, it was one of his own ministers who wanted to know who the “prat” was who dreamt up the idea; and

2. The only criticism the public have is that he refuses to take 1.5 million people seriously and is 'driving' through the scheme despite those millions of protesters.

Why are we not surprised?

Why do the media hate George?

What is it with the so called mainstream media and their witch-hunt of 'Gorgeous' George Galloway?

The Serious Fraud Office confirmed that recent allegations in the Guardian and Evening Standard were without basis in fact. To top it, they didn't even ask for a comment that would have checked their 'error'.

We have seen photos and reports of Galloway meeting the Iraqi dictator, whilst those of Donald Rumsfelt squeezing his hand and providing weapons are forgotten.

It seems the papers push their own agenda (for it is no coincidence that we have elections in May) because they know that RESPECT would move to curtail the gutter press from reporting tittle-tattle and they'd have to write something that had content.

It's a pity we have to once more witness such drivel.

Charter flight to hell

For the third time in less than two years, a 'charter flight' left RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 12 February carrying 38 Iraqi-Kurdish asylum seekers, who had been rounded up and arrested across the UK, to Erbil, Kurdistan (Northern Iraq).

AMNESTY have said that forcing people back to Iraq will put people's lives at risk and they remain opposed to any forcible return of asylum-seekers to Iraq, including to the Kurdish region.

What message do we send out when we return people to a hell-hole that every sane person wants our own troops out of?

Maybe those who deport for political reasons should take time to look at the impact their actions have on these poor souls.

We are each one a "prat" then!

Well, Douglas Alexander for the government states that over one million people signing No. 10's own web petition, and who oppose road pricing, are only “one contribution to the debate”. Indeed, so valued is their contribution that a pilot is going ahead anyway.

What is all the more interesting is not the issue itself, but the response of this government to people actually expressing their views.

Firstly Alexander states that “It's no doubt that those people who initiated the petition had a particular point of view in mind”. What a genius! Of course they do; that is what a petition is all about!

Indeed, not only does he respond negatively to the size of the petition, but we actually have spokespeople from No. 10 who actually think that debate in itself does not produce policy. If debate does not, then what does? Is this not what a democracy is actually about?

Another but more disturbing response is that of a yet to be named minister reported on by the BBC who labelled the controversial on-line petitions on Downing Street's website as an own-goal thought up by a "prat".

Now there's a minister who values debate in our modern democracy, as long as it agrees with government policy.

HUD secret today - actually out a while ago!

Head-up displays (HUD) were pioneered in fighter jets. For the pilots of these craft, information overload was a big problem and this nifty device solved it.

We now see the US government and military going ballistic given that a video of their HUD with voice recording showing the fatal attack on the patrol that killed Lance Corporal Matty Hull, is now out for all to see.

Well don't worry – it's been out for years!

The writer purchased a computer game in 1997 that was called “A10 Cuba”. It featured the opportunity for wannabe A10 pilots to sit in the cockpit of an A10 and (you guessed it), use a HUD.

Full switches and an explanation of how it worked was included and you could blow things up all day if you wanted, delivering ordinance with pinpoint accuracy- thanks to the HUD!

So, all you spies just slip into the local gaming outlet and see more than the grainy images now on TV and the net could ever reveal. Meanwhile, could the MOD and US government stop telling lies to Matty's widow ?

Public Money; Private Profit

Well not surprisingly, an article in the British Medical Journal by Professor Allyson Pollack and his colleagues at University College London dismissed government claims that its private finance initiative (PFI) provides a good deal.

Despite this, the government still deny that this is indeed the case. What a surprise!

They say their findings are wrong, but deny them access to vital documents that would allow them to compare and contrast. What have they got to be scared of if it is such a good idea? Despite this, the report came in with the goods and the interested parties supporting PFI's must hate them for it.

So what is a PFI?

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are basically the private companies running public services for profit, not a sense of public concern. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is the most frequently used type of PPP. The key difference between PFI and public funding to provide public services, is that the public does not own the asset (hospital, school etc.). That is, whilst we pay a huge “rent”, as do their children and children's children, we the public never own what should be a our asset financed by our taxes.

These companies are usually a consortia including a building firm, a bank and a facilities management company. Even if the scheme starts in “British” hands, soon the companies sell on their interest to anyone and we have the ridicules situation where anyone with a dollar can own elements of the public services we need in the UK. How can we plan, when any Tom, Dick or Harry hold the asset?

The fact is we cannot, as we have to service the rent payments to make things attractive for the potential landlord The powers that be will concentrate services in places that are not necessarily the most appropriate place in respect of provision, but instead serve the number crunchers in government who are falling over themselves to make the investment appealing and well off the ledger to give the impression that the books balance.

Iraq & the Middle East - George Galloway's Speech in Parliament

Note from Sam: I usually do not simply "cut and paste" anything into this site. However, this is such an important speech that I will not contaminate it with my editing or paraphrasing. Why we do not see more people getting up on their feet and saying the same, I do not know. When we pay the price for this government's mad foreign policy, it will be of course young working class service personnel who will act as our bankers and currency exchange - god help them.

"When I was his warm-up act, I used to describe the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) as the best Foreign Secretary we never had, and his speech this evening showed why. Indeed, an alternative Administration of all the talents became clear on the Labour Benches, including the right hon. Gentleman's friends the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), and the hon. Members for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). How much stronger the Labour party's position would be in the opinion polls today if those were the men sitting around the Cabinet table, rather than the men and women who are. What a contrast there was between those shafts of light and the myopia displayed by the Foreign Secretary. So rose-tinted were her glasses that she had even spotted the first elections in Saudi Arabia. As one who follows events in the Arab world closely, I must tell the House that I missed the first elections in Saudi Arabia, probably 24 Jan 2007 : Column 1498 the un-freest, most undemocratic and most anti-democratic country on earth. So keen was the Foreign Secretary to describe the success of Anglo-American policy in the Arab world that she prayed in aid a grant to the youth parliament in Bahrain. But those were not the most foolish of the things that the Foreign Secretary said in her long speech. She talked about supporting the Government and people of Lebanon. Well, let us split that proposition. She was not much help to the Government of Lebanon when its Prime Minister was weeping on television and begging for a ceasefire, and when the British and American Governments alone in the world were refusing, indeed blocking, any attempts to demand an immediate cessation of the Israeli bombardment. Worse, she was not much help to the Government or the people of Lebanon when British airports were being used for the trans-shipment of American weapons to Israel that were raining down death and destruction on the very people of Lebanon whom she now claims to stand beside. But, of course, that was code for saying that she does not support the 1 million demonstrators in the square in Beirut who are demanding democracy. The Foreign Secretary describes the Government of Lebanon as a democratic Government. If the Minister will listen, I can educate him. There is no democratic Government in Lebanon. The Minister should know that. If there were a democracy in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah would be the President, because he would get the most votes. But of course he cannot be the President, because you have to be a Christian to be the President, and you have to be a Sunni to be the Prime Minister, and you have to be a Shi'ite to be the Speaker. What they have in Lebanon is precisely the opposite of democracy. It is a sectarian building-block Government that they have in Lebanon, and moreover one based on a census that is more than 50 years out of date. If those 1 million demonstrators had been in Ukraine or Belarus or Georgia, they would be described as the orange revolution, or given some other epithet—perhaps even "the cedar revolution". So myopic was the Foreign Secretary that she talked about the peace process in Palestine and refused to condemn the theft, as the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton put it—he used the word—of $900 million, stolen from the Palestinian Authority. The right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), without a hint of irony, advanced the extraordinary proposition that we are fighting for democracy in Iraq, while we can steal the money of the Palestinian Administration in the occupied territories because the people voted for a Government whom Olmert, Bush and Blair did not like. So myopic was the Foreign Secretary's view that she prayed in aid an opinion poll from Basra which told us that the people had every confidence in the police—we had to send the British in to blow up a police station and kill umpteen Iraqi policemen because we said that they were about to massacre the prisoners in their jails. The Foreign Secretary prayed in aid the Iraqi Government—a virtual Government—saying that, more importantly, the Iraqi Government do not consider that they have a civil war. Of course they do not, because there is no Iraqi Government. As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton put it, we have installed a gang of warlords in power in Baghdad, the 24 Jan 2007 : Column 1499 heads of competing militias, some of them at war with our own soldiers in the south of Iraq. It is not a Government, but Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" that we have put in charge in Baghdad. That is not my concept. That is the concept of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. So myopic was the Foreign Secretary that she had her finger out and wagging at Iran, warning it of what it must do, or must not do in terms of nuclear weapons. She is the Foreign Secretary of a Government who are about to spend £75 billion on our own nuclear weapons, who declare themselves the best friend of Israel, which has hundreds of nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the non-proliferation treaty, and who say nothing about Pakistan, a military dictatorship acquiring nuclear weapons. It would make you laugh if it did not make you cry. Most serious of all was the extent to which the Foreign Secretary sought to lull us to sleep walk into a coming conflict with Iran. Invited by one of her colleagues to describe, as the former Foreign Secretary had, an attack on Iran as inconceivable, she refused, preferring instead the formulation that no one is contemplating it. But they are contemplating it. Israel has a war plan carefully worked out to do it. As we know from the journalism of Seymour Hersh, the greatest of all American journalists, who brought us the stories from Vietnam, American generals have to the nth degree worked out an attack upon Iran. The Foreign Secretary says that we stand by our soldiers. We stand by them so much that we pay them so little. We had to give them a Christmas bonus to make up their wages. Their families are claiming means-tested benefits and living in houses that you would not put a dangerous dog in. We send them, ill clad, ill equipped, ill armed, without armour, on a pack of lies into war after war after war. Let me invite the House to contemplate this and see if I am as right about this as I was about Iraq four years ago. If a finger is raised against Iran by Israel or the United States, the first people to pay the price will be the 7,000 young men and women of the British armed forces that we have stationed in the south of Iraq, where Iran, thanks to us, is now top dog. If Members want to know what that will look like, think about the film "Zulu", but without the happy ending. That is how irresponsible our Government are. They are part of an axis that is contemplating a war against a country that we have made powerful in a place where we have our soldiers standing in a thin red line in the sand. For the moment, the trial of Tony Blair merely takes place on Channel 4 television. The day will come, and it is coming soon, when a real trial of Tony Blair will take place in a real court."

RIP Freedom of Information Act 2000

What is it with this government?

We were told that introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would do away with anyone hiding what they would do in our name. Indeed, we are told by the Information Commissioner that “[f]rom the Data Protection Act to the Freedom of Information Act, we regulate and enforce the access to and use of personal information.”

What better accountability could we wish for in a modern democracy – control of and access to the information needed to scrutinise those using our data or making decisions in our name.

Well, forget it! We are now told that there are to be rules introduced to limit the costs spent on providing the information we are entitled to.

In addition, the costs will include time spent assessing the costs and the list of rules that apply when calculating the overall cost. There are rules about rules, rules about who can ask for information and whether simply asking the same question asked by someone else is considered acting in tandem thus depriving you of the opportunity to ask in the first place.

The fact is that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 has been a great success and has uncovered details that have embarrassed those in power by exposing matters that they wished never to see the light of day.

It is this that they hate and now they want to hobble anyone using it to get an answer. They say it is to save £100 million, but this is a joke as the same people want to spend 10's of £Billions looking at us, down to uncovering where we buy our knickers.

Why is it that they have all the funding they want to look at us, and we are denied a fraction of that in order that we can scrutinise them?

The Price of Privacy

The government's proposals to allow cross departmental dissemination of personal private data is a breach of our right to privacy.

Time and time again we are told that it is for our good, but the reality is that soon we will have no privacy left as every civil servant will be able to peruse details that will be unrelated to their professional needs, simply because access will be there.

Potentially they may want to monitor the individual for reasons other than serving their needs and whilst some think this unlikely, such open access would allow this. This is so as the IT approach to collecting this data will be riddled with error, open to abuse and will fail me and every other citizen who will pay billions in tax for the disservice.

What a price to pay for so little in terms of value for the citizen

I remember David Blunkett as Home Secretary proposing that emails should be accessed by, amongst others, the local fire authority. This was a disgrace then, but here we are again with a sledgehammer to crack a nut approach.

I recall back then asking a colleague who could not see the wrong in this, because she had “nothing to hide”, if she would object to a lowly clerk at the fire authority reading an email she had sent concerning a visit to her GP dealing with her medical treatment. She replied she would object and I pointed out that as she had nothing to hide, and by her own 'logic', she could not protest. She quickly changed her mind.

Essentially there is no difference in what I discussed back then, and what we face today. One of the other objections I have is that the public are not being told what these measures will mean to them, just as my colleague back then did not appreciate the impact of Blunkett's proposals because he did not publish them fully.

We as citizens endure scrutiny on a scale unimagined less than a generation ago. It permeates every interface with government. It involves a trade-off of the right to privacy, with the demand for access to your privacy, in order that you can access services.

An example of this is that if you want to renew your passport, you are obliged to allow your personal data to be disseminated to both public and private sector organisations in the UK. The only way you can control this, is to not renew. That is a direct assault on your rights that you are unable to resist, if you simply wish to exercise your right to travel. This is wrong.

I do not think that I can put it any better than Shami Chakrabarti who recently said “...when absolute rules like the prohibition on torture are compromised by our political rulers, how much harder to defend more subtle and qualified rights like the presumption of privacy from the chilling slogan politics of "nothing to hide, nothing to fear".”

There is a terrible wrong being done here and the foundation for that wrong was set by this government's willingness to ignore the rights of people for short-term political gain. We should all resist the rush toward a “Big Brother” society, if indeed we are not there already.

The loss of all that dosh - sad innit!

Tony Blair has said dropping a fraud probe into a Saudi arms deal was not a "personal whim" but based on "the judgement of our entire system".

Mr Blair needs to come up with something big now that there are reports that MI6 (who he has fallen out with) have refused to endorse his claim the probe into Saudi bribes would harm the UK's national interest, as opposed to worries about the loss of all that dosh.

It looks like Blair has nobody to back him up. If M16 do not know what would harm the UK's national interest, then who does?

The destruction caused by his intervention, of the separation of powers between law maker and law enforcer that is essential in a free democratic society, has come back to haunt Blair.

What price will we all pay for his abuse of our constitution (you know, the one that exists, so we are told)?

Iraqi MP Mohammed Al Deeni - a true democrat

The Iraqi MP who exposed prisoner abuse, including torture, rape and murder was refused entry into Britain on 10 January 2007. His visa application was turned down by British embassy in Jordan. Embassy officials declined to give their reasons to the British parliamentarians who had invited him.

Mohammed Al Deeni, an independent member of the parliament frequently described by British ministers as the most democratic in Iraqi history, wanted to address a meeting in the House of Commons as part of his ongoing efforts to highlight human rights abuses in Iraqi jails. He has in the past paid for his stand when 10 cousins were murdered in cold blood after being seized from a minibus following a meeting with him.

What sort of democracy are we that allows people such as Al Deen to fight for what we say we stand for, but on the other hand refuse him entry to Britain when what he has exposed in that fight embarrasses us?

He has paid dearly and we undervalue his sacrifice.

If you have the money, then why not?

Ruth Kelly's decision to purchase educational provision from the private sector for her son who has special educational needs is yet another sign of New Labour hypocrisy.

One of the Kelly's justifications for this decision is that she wants the best for her child, but in reality which parents do not want the best for their children? I know I do.

The fact is that she is getting it because she has the money whilst the vast majority of ordinary working people do not because they have no money to spare. This is a travesty. Why can they not get it? Is one of the reasons being what she knows already, that is, the help doesn't exist in the state system either partially or at all?

I interestingly heard a mother on the radio the other day who stated that to appeal the decision of her local education authority who would not statement her child, she had to attend a tribunal and pay for her own expert witnesses.

She won and succeeded in getting what her child needed despite the resistance of the purse holder. Her child had the same problems as the Kelly child. In both cases, this is something a parent would do their best to address.

She went on to say that what had annoyed her was not that Ms Kelly had done what she had, but that she had not gone through the experience that the lady had to endure herself, and as such will never be able to appreciate what it was like.

I cannot see how this Minister can now sit in judgment of anyone who has to battle through the system that we all have to use in order to get what is best for our children - or our parents, or our disabled relatives, or hospital treatment, or access to resources of any kind - when she went as far as she did to avoid this burden.

It is hypocrisy at the highest level. Kelly and this government know it is so.

Saddam Looking in a Mirror?

The pictures of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein being heckled and verbally taunted as he was about to be executed were horrible.

I know there are those who will plead the right of those animals present to behave as they did, citing the terrible deaths suffered (possibly by their own kin) by innocent Iraqi's in the past, but this was worse.

It was worse because the death of Saddam was meant to show that there is a new Iraq, free of barbarism (though one must wonder if hanging is not a form), run by democratic and decent folk – step forward the hecklers!

Bush and Blair are responsible for their cronies and butt kissers who they put into positions of responsibility acting in every way as badly as Saddam.

What a mob of gangsters (both in the coalition and Iraqi government)!

Proletariat 0, Bourgeoisie 1

How come the former world boxing champion "Prince" Naseem Hamed has been stripped of his MBE following his 15-month prison sentence for dangerous driving, and Lord Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (created Life Peer by Major in 1997), is not stripped of his title?

What is going on?

It seems that there is one rule for those in power and another for the rest of us.

Of course what Naseem did was appalling, but this is not the issue. We need to have confidence that the building blocks of the institutions of government cannot be used and abused by criminals with impunity.

It's about time we had a written constitution that gets rid of this ridiculous situation.