jack straw

The revelations in the Telegraph may be the Jack Straw that breaks the camels back. As Gordon 'son of a preacher man' Brown is included in the list of expenses claims - New Labour's true dodgy dossier - how much longer can he survive?

What is the point of this administration?

However, the Tories have the strangest claim: Two packs of Tampax at £1.11 each, claimed by a Conservative MP who lost his seat in 2005. His seat? His? What on earth was he using them for?

Once again Martin Bell nails it: Where's the remorse?

Mandy isn't showing any remorse

Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has given evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. It was something he had been struggling to do so actually being able to sit in front of a Parliamentary committee and demonstrate that the UK government regularly received intelligence obtained by torture was something of an achievement. Craig Murray was sacked from his job as a UK ambassador for raising the alarm about our government's complicity with torture. He has been smeared by New Labour and attempts have been made to censor his writing.

Mr Murray's appearance before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights is now available to watch on YouTube.

I've often compared Labour party members feelings towards the party as being like a battered wife, constantly making excuses for the abuse she takes, harking back to 'good old days' that never existed, and clinging to the unrealistic hope that she can change him for the better.

Sadly, few have the courage to look truth in the face and walk away.

We've often asked Labour party members - who actually pay for the honour of being George Bush's minions - to justify themselves on moral and ethical grounds for choosing to remain in a party that took us to war on the basis of lies, that practices torture, rendition and has created a surveillence state. Years ago, Labour party members would protest in the streets about issues like these. Today they make excuses.

They hum and haw, some have the grace to look embarrassed, but they mumble out some meaninless dribble.

Charlie Brooker has woken up and smelt the coffee. When will the rank and file members of the party?

Oh dear. After Jack Straw gave us all the details about rendition, it seems Condi has dropeed him and Milliband in it again.

A British overseas base was used for American "torture" flights the Government has been forced to admit, despite categorical denials of British involvement from both Tony Blair and Jack Straw.

More worryingly, the story continues:

Mr Miliband made clear that the Government expected the US to seek permission if it wanted to render terrorist suspects through UK territory and airspace.

He said that permission would only be granted if the Government was satisfied that it was in accord with British law and the UK's international obligations, including those under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Translation: Rendition will continue.

Just a quick update to the previous buggers story - Nick Robinson is claiming that it was Thames Valley Plod, not the Met, who bugged Mr. Khan and Mr. Ahmad.  Probably reasonable given the location of the prison, so apologies to the incompetent murderous mendacious bastards at the Yard.

However, given that it seems to have been initiated by a TVP copper acting on his own initiative, it's quite possible the Met and indeed every other force in the country is happily reaching for the RIPA 2000 and bugging anyone and everyone without bothering to inform a judge or the Cabinet.  This leads to the following bit of speculation:

If you or I went round blabbing details of anti-terror surveillance operations we'd be in Paddington Green trying to remember Gareth Peirce's phone number* before too long.  Doesn't seem to apply to the Sunday Times and the Tories, however, who evidently both received this information, so who leaked it?  Whose noses would be put out of joint by a lot of ordinary coppers getting in on the domestic surveillance game?  Whose paper is the Sunday Times?  Answers on a postcard (left in a dead letter drop in the Brompton Road) and addressed to 'MI5, Thames House, London'.

OK, so what would the spooky calculation be?  Let slip that the fuzz are bugging MPs and suddenly Straw and the boys (and the Tories, hence the leak to them) are put on the back foot, realise what a monster they've created in allowing the police unchecked surveillance powers, put uppity Plod and his Acme Listening Kit back in his box and go running back to the professionals.  Perhaps.  All seems rather neat, really, but there's a plausible case here to say that genuine MI5 anti-terror surveillance operations (which I'm certainly not opposed to, see Shami Chakrabarti's comments) could easily be badly compromised if there's a police operation unknown to them going on.  If that's the case, the leaker's done us all a favour.

The only unanswered question is what on earth TVP thought they'd pick up - Sadiq Khan MP isn't a terrorist, he's Jack Straw's PPS FFS.  I suggest they did it because they could and because there's no accountability *at all*.  Thus are police states run, you don't have to have a reason to be arbitrary.

Talking of which, Olbermann is in fine form (via ChickYog).  There's more from SpyBlog too, and Tony Benn makes the obvious, if paranoid, point that the Wilson Doctrine never meant that much anyway.

One of the big predictions of the Right when New Labour came in was that some day the mask of Thatcherite copycatting would slip and the cloven hoof of unburied dead, rubbish in the streets and mass walkouts would return.  I don't like to give the bastards too much credit, but New Labour forcing (through indifference, incompetence and Gordon Brown's meanness when it comes to public sector pay) the prison officers out on strike does fit the pattern rather.  The slight difference is that the strike is illegal and the reason that it's illegal is that the Conservatives banned prison officers from striking, a position confirmed by that leading light of Socialism and defender of liberty David Blunkett (although of course he
spun it as giving them back their right to strike).

It really is outstanding how Blunkett's legacy is the opposite of what he intended.

Incidentally, since this is important, the course of events seems to be this (derived from Hansard):

* 1994 - Conservatives outlaw industrial action in prisons in Section 127 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.  Labour's shadow Home Secretary, one T. Blair, writes to complain.
* 1997 - Labour elected on manifesto including a promise to repeal Section 127
* 2001 - a voluntary agreement is signed where the POA promise not to strike
* 2003 - Blunkett gets a lot of credit for his announcement, thought to take about 9 months to implement
* 2004 - the voluntary agreement is ended in anticipation
* 2005 - a Regulatory Reform Order is made to suspend Section 127

However, there's a gotcha in here (isn't there always?).  The suspension is only conditional on the POA and Government having a legally-enforceable voluntary agreement.  Here's the money quote:

In other words, the prison officers have full union rights on condition that they don't use them!  How wonderfully New Labour.  It's not the 70s coming back after all, it's business as usual, screwing the workers.  Further evidence for this comes in the revelation that after representations from private prison operators, Section 127 was kept in force for their benefit.

Jack 'Man of' Straw has apparently announced that there'll be an inquiry into the Iraq War 'at the appropriate time'. Blair is on board with this, although he wasn't last week and the wrong time to have an inquiry is 'while the troops are out there' as it will 'send the wrong message'. Judging by ARRSE, the message the troops have got - 'we expect you to fight for a lie without adequate equipment' - hasn't exactly done wonders for their view of Mr. Blair. I'm sure big, tough, cynical British squaddies aren't squeamish about Parliament having an inquiry into what they know is a crock of shit. Mr. Straw must have rather a low opinion of them, which is just one reason I have rather a low opinion of Mr. Straw.

Of course, the right time for an inquiry, from Tony Blair's point of view, is about a nano-second after his private jet leaves UK airspace, heading west.

BBC

Tony Blair's sycophantic fawning over George Bush and his policy of putting a torch to the Middle East is causing more repercussions in the Labour party. That Blair doesn't seem to think that Israel's response to Hezbollah is disproportionate is unsurprising. What is surprising is that no one has put the question to Blair that directly and so allowing him to avoid this aspect of the issue. This might be about to change. It is not just the usual suspects on the backbenches who are expressing alarm at Blair's stance.

This is bad enough for Blair but now the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, another loyal Blairite, has weighed into the argument and criticised the Prime Minister.

Of course the fact that he lost his job in May on the orders of Bush in a cabinet reshuffle shortly after making comments about an attack on Iran being "inconceivable" and "completely nuts" might have some bearing on the matter. Another reason for him to break ranks with Blair might be the large Muslim population in his constituency of Blackburn and some opportunistic repositioning in anticipation of Blair's departure. As the conflict continues to escalate an attack on Iran is less inconceivable than previously thought.

I wonder who will be next to abandon Blair's sinking ship.

Lenin's Tomb has an interview with Craig Murray in which he dicusses his book and experiences in Uzbekistan.

Read the whole interview here.

Under legal advice, Craig Murray has been forced to remove the documents from his own website. However, the threat of an injunction only applies to him. So, untill we receive a letter from the Treasury Solicitors, our mirror is staying up, as is Dahr's, and as are then numerous other mirrors that have sprung up.

Of course, if the FCO pursue all of us who are now hosting the documents, then they have a very long and ultimately futile job ahead of them and will show just how desperate they are to stop you seeing them. If they do not, then their punitive vindictive attempts to make life as difficult as they can for Craig will be seen for what they are.

For the moment, it looks like they are playing the man, rather than the ball.

Meanwhile, the first review of the book has appeared on amazon.com.
[The book is not available from the US site yet, to buy it, go to amazon.co.uk]

So it has started.

As Craig isn't contravening the Official Secret's Act with the documentation he has published in support of his book 'Murder in Samarkand' on his site, here at Blairwatch and Dahr Jamail's site, they are trying to use the Crown Copyright Laws to keep him quiet.

See this letter from the Treasury Solicitors [pdf]:

and further email correspondence on Craig's site Lenin's Tomb.

We await further news...

Dahr Jamail has added a torrent file to share, and a zip to download of all the documents directly.

The Council of Europe investigation into Extraordinary Rendition is to report tomorrow and according to Newsnight [listen to a 4mb Lo Fi mp3 grab here]. It is a damming indictment of US and European complicity in a spiders web of rendition flights spun across the globe.

It accuses 14 countries of being involved.

It finds evidence that there are indeed 'black sites' or secret prisons in Europe, in Poland and or Romania, and that the British Government have handed people over into the rendition and Black sites process.

So perhaps Mr Blair would like to reconsider his recent protestations of ignorance, made at a press conference last December. Do listen, it's only a 200k mp3 file.

Now Mr Blair does know, I wonder if he has anything to add to his previous Home Secretary's protestations of ignorance?

A superb article in Open Democracy by Iain Orr, on the opportunity afforded this government to go some way to righting a historic injustice - that perpetrated against the Chagos Islanders by HMG in the 1960s.

More on the fate of the Chagos Islanders over at the Disillusioned Kid, just click the "chagos" link in the archives on the sidebar.

It appears Jack Straw is to throw his hat in the ODPM ring - along with Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson.

The phrase 'like flies round shit' springs to mind...