Intelligence and democracy

We are in a mess. The acceptance in Parliament that the Government will pay several millions to claimants saying they were tortured with the connivance and collusion of the UK is very worrying. Labour cannot say a word as all this happened on their watch. Several ex-Ministers will be really pleased as the cloak of secrecy descends on the whole affair. The Libdems are tied into the coalition and are minding their p's and q's. As for the Tories? Mention 'National Security' and the majority of them roll over and wait to have their tummies tickled. It leaves one of the most shaming incidents in a legal limbo. We are relying on those MPs described as 'the usual suspects' to stick up for decency and transparency.

 Ken Clarke said, "We want to draw a line and move on." There was also much guff from all sides about the Inquiry (lead by a Security insider) and a lot of talk about 'National Security." It suits the political classes of all parties to 'move on.' They talk of realpolitik and necessary judgements. There is little or no talk of values, rights or justice.

Thankfully not everyone buys this consensus among our rulers. The Independent leader on Wednesday raised some serious concerns.

"There is a questionable relationship between the intelligence services and elected politicians too. The previous Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, under advice from the intelligence services, led an unsuccessful attempt to block the courts' release of evidence relating to Mr Mohamed's mistreatment. Mr Miliband argued that the information would harm national security and damage our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States. Yet when the evidence was made public by the Court of Appeal, it was immediately clear that it contained nothing that justified Mr Miliband's attempt at suppression. This setback has been casually brushed off by the intelligence services. They are now lobbying the present administration to retain control orders for terror suspects, despite a Coalition pledge to review their use.

This all adds up to a malign pattern of behaviour. The intelligence services have grown over-mighty. They do a valuable and often dangerous job in safeguarding the public. But they need to be subject to democratic authority and judicial oversight. In short, they need to learn their proper place." Independent 17/10/2010

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  Who watches the watchmen? Certainly not the present supine self-interested smug bunch occupying valuable space in Westminster.

The Royal Marriage

Pass the 10 gallon sick bucket. The media (and that means ALL of the media) are obsequiously tugging their collective forelocks and being ever so grateful for a 'good news story.' Delighted subjects chant how happy they are for the pair. Sloane Rangers line up to add their twoguineasworth. 'Call me Dave' milks it for all he is worth. A Government heading for distinctly rocky waters finds a lifebelt. A whole industry springs into life giving 'colour' to the story. Anyone with even the faintest connection to the two millionaires are rubbing their hands and ringing the cash tills. The Glenda Slags, Phil Spaces and the Sylvie Krins hug themselves with glee. Miles and miles of column inches given over to tosh, guff and grovelling.

The coverage so far has been appalling. 

When will we grow up?

And all this on a day when it became clear that the government acting in our name has all but confirmed its involvement in torture. BBC Newsnight devoted barely thirty seconds to the torture story - and over 20 minutes to Right Royal Drivel. 

Should you feel the same then please access the Beebs complaints procedure via its online website. Then just maybe there could be a bit more matter-of-fact approach to the whole thing rather than this vast outpouring of dog vomit across the airwaves.

Are you listening Miliband? Are you listening Straw?

You are a pair of lying bastards. Time after time you declared that the UK was above reproach in the matter of colluding with torture. Time after time you fought tooth and nail through the courts to prevent information emerging. And all of that time you knew. You knew that the UK co-operated with flights to so-called 'black prisons' in Morocco, Poland, Diego Garcia and Iraq. You knew that British subjects had been tortured by foreign agencies. You knew that British agents helped provide questions. 

The argument that you did not know does not hold water. As Foreign Secretary you would have to be told. The only plausible alternative would be that you were both complete gullible fools who did not ask any questions of security staff when these issues kept appearing in the media. 

Todays developments continue the establishment's desperate attempt to suppress the truth. Ministers appear to have decided on the advice of the security services that they could not afford to risk the exposure of thousands of documents in open court on how Britain co-operated with the US on the so-called extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. 

Still they try to cover up their crimes. Yet again 'National Security' is used to justify the unjustifiable. The latest wheeze involves using millions of taxpayers cash to buy silence. The judge appointed to hold the Inquiry into the whole affair is already complicit with the security services. So no surprise there. We are also waiting for the Police to complete their enquiries into two cases, "which could go on for several months." So why the rush to conclude these matters? 

Perhaps the money used to buy silence could come from the reprehensible Tony Blair? He has a bit to spare - although he would be well advised to put some on one side for the day he eventually appears in court.

Ken Clarke gave the game away in his statement to the House today. "We want to draw a line and move on." You bet they do. Straw and Miliband welcomed the decision to pay millions so long as confidentiality was maintained. No surprise there either.

Whichever way you look at it  - it stinks. 

Wormtongues suck up to Mr Sleaze

The news that the England World Cup bid team have written a two-page hand-wringing letter to the loathsome FIFA does not surprise. FIFA make most Bond villains look incredibly tame in comparison. Have the bid people not an ounce of self-respect? Is big money involved? Are bears Catholic? 

"We are ever so sorry, dear nice Mr Blatter, but we are unfortunate enough to live in a free country where we have no control over our media, unlike your wonderful organisation. Please don't hold it against us. We have done everything you have asked for. (And a lot more …) We made the strongest representations to the Sunday Times about their despicable way of exposing a couple of your committee. Please forgive us. Please do not judge us on the basis of investigative journalism. Please, please, please do not watch 'Panorama' (assuming the Beeb have the balls to broadcast it) and please give us the World Cup so we can all make shed loads of cash - I mean, have a wonderful competition." 

They know who and what they are dealing with. FIFA are a deeply corrupt organisation. Big Football is rotten through and through. Check www.transparencyinsport.org for further details. Andrew Jennings has exposed the way FIFA does business and is  barred from FIFA press conferences. To suggest that there are one or two rotten apples when the whole orchard is crawling with maggots gives a new meaning to 'rose-tinted.'  

Every time you think big football cannot get any worse along comes another pair of slimy self-serving toadying toe-rags to prove you wrong. 

Millbank

Among the chatterati there seems to be agreement that the taking of Millbank detracted from the aims of the demonstration. In the crowd at Millbank was a Guardian worker who said he witnessed students calming down their more fiery colleagues - basically telling them 'not to be a knobhead.' Their response to the dropped fire extinguisher was to chorus, "Don't throw shit." And they are angry at the unfairness of it all. Among the demonstration were many FE students who really have been clobbered. 

John Harris wrote in the Guardian, "While the coalition comes over all Churchillian, endlessly talking about the "national interest" and the spurious idea that we are "all in this together", there is also a low hubbub of noise about their shortage of a mandate. On Wednesday, the ire of the marchers was focused on all those Lib Dems who blithely signed the NUS's anti-fees pledge ("I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative" – yesterday, Nick Clegg limply said that he "should have been more careful" than to put his name to it). But there are also serious questions about the Tories – not just that they are pushing what Cameron recently called a "revolution" with the support of around one in five of the electorate, but also when it comes to the pronouncements they made during the election campaign."

"Consider, for example, a now-infamous quote from the PM, issued on the Andrew Marr show on 2 May: "What I can tell you is any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says: 'Here are my plans' and they involve frontline reductions – they'll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again." And really: they wonder why some people are increasingly angry."

Harris ends his article by bringing it back to the root cause of all our problems; outrageous greed.

"..on 3 November, a Treasury minister named Lord Sassoon served notice that the coalition's work on City bonuses was done: "The government has taken action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the banking sector," he said, and that seemed to be that. Six days later, Barclays announced that its latest bonus pot would total £1.6bn – which is about a third of what the government currently spends each year on university teaching. The annual season of big executive payouts is about to commence once again; at this rate, do not be surprised if the seditious spirit of Millbank spreads – and fast." Guardian 12/11/2010

One final thought. Apparently the Tory party rent Millbank from an offshore company.........

Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg

"Two months before the general election, Nick Clegg warned there would be "riots" on the streets if the Conservatives introduced extreme cuts. Now they have begun – and Clegg himself is the chief cutter.

There was a whiplash moment this Wednesday. Inside the House of Commons, a pale-faced and barely coherent Clegg was championing the trebling of tuition fees at Prime Minister’s Question Time, despite the fact he promised before the election to “implacably oppose” this move because it would be “a disaster”. Then, in a low rumble, the chants of the 50,000 betrayed students massed outside began to echo into the chamber. He began to stumble: “We have stuck to our ambition? our wider ambition?” (Laughter, jeers). “Our policy is more progressive?” (Hoots from all sides, including his own.) “The truth is before the election we didn’t know...” The chants got louder, and the excuses got more contorted.

Clegg is one of the great mysteries of British politics. Before the election, he told us “there isn't a serious economist in the world who agrees with the Conservatives... [that] we should pull the rug out from under the economy with immediate spending cuts.” Now he is one of the leading champions of doing exactly that. In just a few days after the election, he cleared a space in his swanky new ministerial offices and staged a bonfire of his principles." Johann Hari The Independent

Watching clips on 'This Week' last night, Clegg looked dreadful in the Commons. What this decision to collude with the Tory cuts is doing to his soul is the stuff of Faustian drama. How did he feel when most of the Tory benches cheered and roared their approval of Osborne's cuts speech? How does he look his party activists in the face back in his Hallam constituency?

"Whatever you think of these policies, how can anybody defend gathering the votes of millions of people on a clear mandate of opposing these Tory proposals, and then – as soon as the door of his ministerial limo swings open – championing each one of them? Remember: David Cameron got 36 percent of the vote in Britain, and even that was on a promise that “we’re not talking about swingeing cuts.” Some 60 percent of us voted for parties to his left. We could see the Britain he wanted to build – just this week, Great Ormond Street Hospital discovered it is facing a 20 percent cut in its budget – and we rejected it decisively. You can agree or disagree with the swinging of this scythe, but nobody can claim it is democratic." ibid.

To add weight to that argument. 35% of the electorate did not vote. Between them, the Conservatives and Liberals were supported by 38% of the electorate. Not such a mandate then.

And as for the students? The only question really is why it has taken them so long to get off their backsides and campaign against these iniquitous policies?

Actions not words

It emerged in the Guardian this week that secret tapes of people being waterboarded by the US have been wiped. And guess what? The CIA agents who did the wiping have been exonerated of any wrongdoing. So that is alright then.

This from the country who bang on about democracy and the rule of law until 'National Security' is mentioned. Then its throw away the rule book.

There is now a mound several metres high in Washington. 

It is made up of discarded rule books.