Tony Blair's Corruption Is Getting Exposed - By MI6!
I said yesterday that Tony's corruption chickens were coming home to roost, but I didn't think they're be coming this quick. Yesterday His spokesman refused to comment on the Tanzanian radar story or if he would be discussing 'good governance' with the institutionally corrupt Tanzanian government, whose President is due to meet Blair. I can imagine the conversation
Tanzanian President: How's the BAE corruption investigation going, you know the one you didn't personally block?
Tony: Lovely weather we're having for this time of year, don't you think?
Nobody is going to take us seriously on corruption again. That's another of Blair's little legacies.
But the Saudi/BAE Deal isn't dead yet
A group of 130 campaigning groups has asked Blair to reverse his decision to scrap a corruption inquiry into the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Tony's response? The Attorney General set out the reasons for the decision on that and I have nothing further to add
Now the reason Lord Goldsmith gave was national security.
Today MI6 disagree and the newly Kinghted John Scarlett has refused to sign another dodgy dossier that Blair is hoping to present to an OECD enquiry into the matter, as Britain has signed treaties making bribery a criminal offence.
Goldsmith, and Blair have also tried to justify themselves by saying there was little evidence and it probably wouldn't have gone to court. The SFO disagree.
What a mess. According to
What a mess.
According to the Guardian all Lordy Goldsmith did was tell Parliment that the Intelligence Services agreed with Tone's assesment that national security was in jeopardy.
So the real story is Tone makes the assesment of security, hoping all will come to his rescue as usual. Lordy Goldsmith does his usual and protects Tone's arse. But, John Scarlet has got his knighthood, so he can now put up two fingers to the establishement and pretend he has some integrity, unlike his actions on the dodgy dossier.
The only question is will the mainstream media be brave enough to actually run with a story like this?
There's a good rule of thumb
There's a good rule of thumb to say that if your leader starts acting as his own intelligence officer, get a new leader or find a nice, quiet cave somewhere. Hitler, Stalin, Macnamara - there's a long list of people who didn't get the right answers from Intelligence and went ahead anyway. The results weren't pleasant.
Can someone remind me which is MI6's house newspaper? Telegraph or Sunday Times, but I get them muddled (the other one is the MI5 house journal). It's not the Grauniad, anyway.
Funny thing, want a bus and
Funny thing, want a bus and 3 come along. There we are talk ing about corruption and Tanazania and there is President Kikwete out here in our midst and hi-fiving with Tony, the Blessed Margaret and Lord Triesman who it appears is still FO MInister for the Heart of Darkness as well as the PM's personal envoy on the Law of Returns and here is the fag end of the Ni 10 Press Release which someone kindly sent my office...
The Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, today met President Kikwete of Tanzania on the second day of his three-day official visit to the UK. The President had also met the Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Chancellor Gordon Brown, Development Secretary Hilary Benn and Minister for Africa Lord Triesman.
(Note Gordy the Great White Hunter out of Africa gets a look in and Blessed Margaret is way down the pecking order)
Notes to editors:
* UK's largest bilateral development programme in Africa is in Tanzania and will amount to around £400 million (TSh1,000bn) over 2007-10.
* Development Secretary Hilary Benn yesterday announced that the UK has committed £105 million (TSh 262bn) of general budget support for 2007/8. This is an increase of over 15% from 2006/7.
* Economic growth in Tanzania has exceeded 5% per annum since 2000.
* Tanzania is making tangible progress towards tackling poverty - primary school enrolment has increased to 96% (***) and infant mortality has been reduced by a third over the last five years.
* Britain is one of Tanzania's largest trading partners and its largest source of foreign direct investment. UK companies have invested about £230 million in Tanzania over the last 11 years. (WOW !!) Trade between our countries continues to grow. In 2005 UK exports to Tanzania were worth £71 million - Tanzanian exports to the UK were worth over £36 million.
(Ends) Press Office, Downing Street (West), London SW1A 2AL
*** Nyere old memoried old farts will remember was exceptionally keen on education and a great follower of Ivan Illych of De-schooling Society fame. He was also what we used to call a socialist.... which Lord Triesman of the Heart of Darkness will remember because he was once.
What I want to know is - if
What I want to know is - if Goldsmith gets roasted about misleading parliament how will things turn out. I reckon there are some serious parallels here with the War/Legality business - did Blair assure Goldsmith that MI6 were really bricking it about the Saudis throwing a hissy fit? And if that was the case, and the heat turns up on Goldsmith, will he squeal???
I won't bother with the whole thing, but there's more on my blog:
www.InMyHumbleEtc.co.uk