Another broken promise

In the Coalition Agreement published days after the General Election there is a section devoted to the restoration of civil liberties.

“The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion." 

Good - a much needed reaction to the appalling actions of NewLabour and its cringing posture towards 'security.' It also helped to get inconvenient issues such as torture and surveillance off the radar using the 'national security' cover all.

Included in the Agreement was this little nugget, "Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason."

Now move on a few months and tucked away in the Defence Review is a small paragraph. Plans to set up the ‘Interception Modernisation Programme’ were abandoned by the former Government ahead of the election, but they have now resurfaced in the hands of the Coalition. 

"We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework. This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public."

As Liberty put it on their website, "Communications service providers (CSPs) already hold large amounts of communications data and an EU directive that came into force in 2009 now requires that data is retained for 12 months. The proposed measure will require Internet Service Providers and telephone companies to store all the traffic details of their customers’ phone and web use for 12 months, including all third-party communications data that crosses their networks. 

This represents a huge extension of the data currently being collected.  It is also unclear whether the data will be processed differently – previously mooted proposals were to require CSPs to process data on each individual.

Hundreds of public bodies, not just the police and security services, can have access to this type of data, including local authorities.  And there is no need for them to go to a court or any other body to access the data – access can be self-authorised (under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000).  

While access to data already held by CSPs can be important in crime-fighting, the scope of this proposal goes beyond that which is necessary and sweeps the innocent up with the guilty.  

So much for the pledge to, "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason". 

We cannot rely on Labour to fight these proposals - their hands are tied by their awful record.

Shameful and Shameless

Having just watched Channel 4's Dispatches chilling programme on the Wikileaks revelations it is useful to see what an official Pentagon mouthpiece says on the issue.

"This is an extraordinary disservice to America’s men and women in uniform," according to Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell.

"More than 150,000 forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are already in considerable danger," he said. “That danger is now exponentially multiplied as a result of this leak because it gives our enemies the wherewithal to look for vulnerabilities in how we operate and to exploit those opportunities and potentially kill our forces. That is just shameful.”

Interesting use of the word 'shameful' by an American stooge. As well as being such a stupid thing to say it is deeply shameless. 

To shoot innocent civilians in their hundreds, collude with torture, cover up hundreds of civil rights abuses, bomb and murder children, create an effective Al Qaida network where none previously existed, spawn thousands upon thousands of insurgents and jihadis, jeopardise security and safety in participating countries, to promote the repugnant Ahmedinijad into some sort of heroic leader figure, to ally our nation with the vicious Israeli regime, to blacken the name of all those engaged in the enterprise around the world, to lower the standing of the invading countries, to not even count the number of Iraqi dead, to not prosecute those responsible for this unholy mess.

Now that really is shameful. 

Lies, Damned Lies and the good ole US of A

Whether it be Vietnam, Central America, Chile, Iraq, Afghanistan or even Western Europe, the USA stands repeatedly convicted in the court of world public opinion. Yet nothing changes. Generations of US citizens are brought up to revere their President despite tons of contrary evidence stating that as a bunch they are among the most mendacious, untrustworthy and downright dangerous people on the planet. 

The Pentagon's peculiar reaction to the latest Wikileaks revelations fit the template perfectly. Consider what the reaction would have been if the leaks had shown less civilian casualties and less atrocities whilst the US were in charge and so on. It would have been trumpeted from the rooftops about how good the US of A were and there would have been few qualms about the release of sensitive material. 

Drones which kill hundreds of innocent civilians and turn their families into 'insurgents'? You got em. Bombing villages into dust and creating many more anti-NATO insurgents? You got it. Killing thousands of innocent people by 'collateral damage' - (one of the most obscene terms in modern usage)? Ditto.

A military who had to, "Destroy the village to save it from the Vietcong?' You got it.

A CIA who engineered countless revolutions and had dictator after dictator imposed on long-suffering civilian populations in Central and Southern America?

You got it - over and over and over again.

They have learnt nothing. Commanders babble on about 'hearts and minds' and then do everything possible to turn 'hearts and minds' into bitterness and hate. 

A US who believe that Western Europe should co-operate with their military bases to the extent that at one point in the cold war there were many more American service personnel in the UK than British troops. It was not public knowledge then - how many are here now? What do you think the reaction in Hicksville would have been if it became known that there were more foreign soldiers on their sacred soil than homegrown ones?

And do not even mention the Chagos Islanders and the way the Wilson government removed them from their island paradise to make way for an American airbase. Also do not mention how successive governments ever since have fought tooth and nail through the highest courts in the land to maintain that immoral and sickening decision. Yes, that means you, Jack Straw, who used the arcane rules of Parliament to avoid even going to court to keep his tongue firmly embedded in the yankee arse.

Especial thanks should go to Mr T.Blair who took the UK further up the rectum of the USA than any previous Prime Minister. The latest revelations add further fuel to the charge that he should be indicted for war crimes immediately. Don't hold your breath. Although it is believed that he is very careful which countries he visits.

It is awful to appreciate the harm that has been done to our international standing and reputation for fairness by the egregious Blair and his supine cronies. 

We will have to live with the consequences for generations. Thanks Tony. 

And thank you Wikileaks for exposing the lies that we are told repeatedly by our leaders.

Speaking Truth to Power

That is what newspapers and the media are supposed to do in a democracy. Yet listening to the familiar whine from the MOD and the Pentagon, that is the last thing that should happen. Heaven forfend. The people might find out that their military get up to all kinds of illegal acts. And the people may rise up and say unto their leaders, "Piss right off. Up with this we will not put." And that would not do, would it? Think of all the arms sales lost because we actually realised that we were doing more harm than good. And think of all those politicians (of all parties) with very little willies, who get their rocks off making VERY IMPORTANT DECISIONS which we, the common herd would not understand. And think of all the oil we would be unable to make our millions from....

It is not as though the latest Wikileaks disclosures are a surprise. Throughout our recent history our leaders have always suppressed the truth whenever military action occurs. 

From the carnage of the First World War - with its reportage of 'great victories' when nothing of the kind was taking place (which lead inevitably to even more carnage); through the second world war fiascos of Slapton Sands, the uselessness of the RAF in the early years of the war (including an RAF Wellington bombing  one of our own airfields…true, see Max Hastings book 'Bomber Command'); the Korean War and General McCarthur wanting to use the atomic bomb on the North Koreans and the Chinese; many many Cold War incidents; Vietnam: Mai Lai; Iraq and now Afghanistan. Throughout, there is an underlying theme of saying nothing. 

First - cover it up. Second - blame the messenger. Third - launch an enquiry with a vague remit and kick the problem well into the long grass. Fourth - launch another enquiry (or in the case of the Iraq War, launch several, that way they can then disagree with each other- brilliant). Fifth - many, many years later - an approximation of the truth may emerge. By this time most of the villains of the piece will have been long dead. 

This process does not apply to third and some second world countries hence the appearance of certain leaders and ex-leaders at the War Crimes Court in the Hague. Unless and until Tony Blair and his ilk appear in said dock, the court will not be truly International - nor fair.

And this Ladies and Gentlemen is democracy in action (or democracy inaction). It's  sick bucket time again.

Dirty Digger Praises Thatcher and Cameron

Says all you need to know. The despicable head of News Corp tonight praised Thatcher in a speech to the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies. He also praised the drastic action that  Cameron was taking. Do not expect to see any critical voices in the Times, Sunday Times, the Sun, News of the Phone Tap and Sky. 

What is really sickening is the way New Labour arse-licked their way round Rupert's backside before and when they were comfortably in power and did not put in place the necessary controls to curb his empire. The current bunch will be just as craven. So much for telling truth to power.

Just how important this is cannot be overemphasised. New Labour did nothing to row back the Thatcherite policies they inherited. Both major parties were in hock to the City. The Lib Dems have fallen for the siren-song of power. The open festering sore that is the vast amounts of unearned lucre paid to Bankers and Wankers has not been addressed. Yet the Institute for Fiscal Studies looked at the governments figures released yesterday and declared, "poor people would be hit harder than the rich." 

As Tariq Ali wrote in a small column in the Guardian this week, "This is a country without an official opposition. An extra-parliamentary upheaval is not simply necessary to combat the cuts, but also to enhance democracy that at the moment is designed to further corporate interests and little more. Bailouts for bankers and the rich, an obscene level of defence expenditure to fight Washington's wars, and cuts for the less well off and the poor. A topsy-turvy world produces its own priorities. They need to be contested. These islands have a radical past, after all, that is not being taught in the history modules on offer. Given the inability of the official parliament to meet real needs why not the convocation of regional and national assemblies with a social charter that can be fought for and defended just as Shelley advised just under two centuries ago:

Ye who suffer woes untold

Or to feel or to behold

Your lost country bought and sold

With a price of blood and gold.

[. . .]

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you.

Ye are many, they are few."

No chance of a Sun or Screws reader rising from their slumber - kept fed on a celebrity and gossip diet. And the egregious Adam Boulton at Sky won't rattle any cages either.

Lift up the mat and see what crawls out?

The government made great play of the support from several 'Captains of Industry' (more accurately, cheeses in charge of retail and financial services). It is instructive to take a look at the credibility of some of the CEO's who put their names to the toadying letter in the Telegraph.

Prime suspect No.1 Ian Livingston CEO of BT who trousered £2,105,000 in 2010.

Anyone with recent dealings with BT will know he has not earned one penny of that wad. Have a problem? Dial our 'Helpline' (what a misnomer that is) and get through to Mumbai Madness. Talk to other sufferers and you get comments like, 'You cannot trust a word they say' and 'Read the small print - which is why despite the offers you always seem to end up paying more.' So - he has outsourced help to the point of it being unhelpful and runs a company you cannot trust. 

No. 2 Ruby McGregor CEO of the Mitie Group: This company is a major cleaning company in the UK. The great majority of its workers are paid the minimum wage or just above it. The simple little rule that a CEO should not earn more than 10X the lowest paid worker would give Ms McGregor about £100,000. This is some way short of the £1,157,000 she is currently stuffing in her handbag.

Finally, Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Marks and Spencer, the well known 'national treasure' who is paid £2,606,000 a year. This is the company who have closed down hundreds of clothing manufacturers in this country and have sent thousands of jobs to the sweatshops of the Far East.

Would you trust any of these leeches to provide the 500,000 jobs needed by those about to be made redundant?

With friends like these...

Thanks to the Independent for salary details

House of Frauds

'Baroness Uddin should repay £125,349 "to which she was not entitled" - saying claims were "made wrongly and in bad faith" - and be suspended until the end of the current parliamentary session, around Easter 2012. The report suggested she did not have the means to repay the money.' BBC Online 18/10/10

The fact that this thief can get away with it sticks in all the craw of all decent folk. All  this guff Osborne keeps parroting about 'benefit fraud' pales into insignificance against the daylight robbery carried on 'legally' by our so called leaders. Whether it be tax avoidance or Expenses fiddles - it stinks. And as the Despatches programme (Channel 4 18/10/10) made very clear, tax avoidance thrives at the heart of the Tory party, whether it be Cabinet Ministers or Tory donors. A Cabinet Minister claiming millions in dividends from his company does not even have to declare it in his interest record.

All within the rules but without a vestige of morality. Or credibility.

It all seriously undermines the current mantra, "We're all in this together." 

A 'Benefit Fraudster' walking off with over £100,000 would expect to go to jail. A Peer of the Realm? Suspension from the House of Lords! Big deal. How about, 'Stripped of Peerage' - Charged - and if proved guilty, thrown in jail'  Alongside the other two sleazeball peers recommended for suspension. 

And as for those egregious MP's who are fighting every inch of the way to avoid their day in court…….

Nothing like a few show trials to concentrate minds.