Democracy Watch ~ Stories from the Press 2002 ~ warmwell.com
See also: http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/siteinfo/links/links.html for articles monitoring the State and Civil Liberties in the UK and in Europe
"There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust." --Demosthenes
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Don't trust computers with e-votes, warns expert
Stuart Millar, technology correspondent Thursday October 17, 2002 The Guardian
Guardian
A world experts in electronic voting will today warn the government that trusting computers with the democratic process is a recipe for fraud and error. Rebecca Mercuri is assistant professor of computer science at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, who has given evidence to the US Congress. She is meeting the Cabinet Office in London today, and will urge reconsideration of alternatives to crosses on ballot papers, such as internet and text-message voting, because their results cannot be guaranteed to be secure and accurate.
She told the Guardian yesterday: "E-voting systems actually provide less accountability, poorer reliability and greater opportunity for fraud than traditional methods.
"People assume that electronic voting is just the same as other technologies we use in everyday life, like banking or airline ticketing, but there are crucial differences.
"With all these other systems there is a physical data trail, bits of paper that allow us to check that the transactions are accurate. E-voting offers none of these safeguards." ...more
Oct 17 02
Pupils urged to inform on problem parents
Telegraph
By Helen Hague
(Filed: 14/10/2002)Pupils as young as 13 are being encouraged to disclose sensitive information about their parents to the Government to help discover why they might be failing at school.
Details of problems such as drink and drug abuse, depression, eating disorders and frequent domestic rows would be sought by advisers.
The data, gathered without the consent of parents by the Connexions Service, which supplies careers and personal advisers to schools, could be shared with a number of government departments, the police and health authorities.
The methods used to collect this data, its storage and future use, is worrying child mental health experts, lawyers and privacy campaigners.
Information is gathered by Connexion staff under orders from the Department for Education and Skills to compile profiles on 13- to 19-year-olds and identify problems over academic performance.
Documents seen by The Daily Telegraph say issues to explore include "evidence of suicidal thoughts", "issues around food/weight", "evidence of substance use by parent(s)/carers" and "evidence of living in a criminal environment".
Some of the 3,000 advisers in schools, colleges and one-stop advice shops have a background in youth work. Others are trained to NVQ level four, equivalent to the first year at university. To gain a diploma, they attend the equivalent of 17 days' training.
Helen Rimington, a member of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Act Tribunal, said: "There are areas here where trained doctors, psychiatrists, educational psychologists and counsellors would tread very carefully."
Terri Dowty, from Action for the Rights of Children, said: "The equivalent of about three weeks' training can't possibly equip anyone to provide the level of containment necessary in such situations. It has frightening overtones of totalitarian regimes."
A DES spokesman said all 13- to 19-year olds had access to an adviser. Parental profiles could help advisers to identify the need for intervention from other agencies.
Tue 15 Oct 2002Now they want children to spy on their parents
Scotsman
Allan Massie
THERE are various versions of the proverb "the way to Hell is paved with good intentions". Among them I like Ruskin?s "you can?t pave the bottomless pit; but you may the road to it". It?s a harsh saying, but a true one. A good example has been offered this week.
The authorities are rightly concerned that some children do less well than they might at school. It occurs to someone that this might, in part anyway, be due to troubles at home. We can all accept that this may be the case. So what next? What do the bright sparks come up with?
Easy: they encourage children to disclose sensitive information about their parents. It is gathered by something called the Connexions Service, which supplies careers advisers and personal advisers to schools in England and Wales, and the information provided may be shared with a number of government departments, the police and health authorities.
Apparently the new Department for Education and Skills has asked the Connexions Service to compile profiles on 13-19-year-olds and identify problems over academic performance. The agency?s staff are invited to look for such things as "evidence of suicidal thoughts", "issues around food/weight", "evidence of living in a criminal environment".
It?s all, as you can see, terribly well-intentioned; who can be against helping the kids to sort out their problems? A pity that the road taken leads straight to Hell, down into the bottomless pit.
One of the characteristics of dictatorial regimes has long been the use of children to inform on or denounce their parents. It happened in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, especially during the Stalinist years, and we, in the liberal democracies, rightly found the practice deplorable, disgusting, horrible.
But it goes further back, to Revolutionary France at least. A very good new book, The Lost King of France, by Deborah Cadbury, tells how the little Dauphin, otherwise Louis XVII, a child prisoner in the Temple, was brought to sign a declaration presented at the trial of his mother, Marie-Antoinette, in which he affirmed that he had been taught "pernicious habits of self-abuse by his mother and aunt, and that they took pleasure in watching him perform these practices ... and that very often this took place when the women made him sleep between them".
Perhaps this is just the sort of thing the Connexions Service will be looking for - even hoping for. It sounds like it. After all, to justify its employment by the Department of Education and Skills, it must persuade as many children as possible to offer evidence of their parents? incapability or vice. Any child who then subsequently suffered from guilt on account of having denounced his mother and father would, we may presume, be ready for other and still more intensive counselling from experts, some of whom, it is reported, have received as much as 17 days? training.
Only people with the very best intentions and a high sense of their own virtue could authorise this sort of thing, and not see how iniquitous it is. So far as I know, this policy of encouraging children to inform on their parents is restricted to England and Wales. One would like to be assured that a variant of it will not be adopted here in Scotland.
Meanwhile it is further evidence of how the state sees the family as its enemy, and prey.Politicians waffle as EU onslaught continues
....... Friday morning's Today programme offered yet another example of how, as the EU makes its final moves towards full political integration, Britain's politicians and media seem to inhabit a different planet from everyone else in Europe. Our Minister for Europe, Peter Hain, yet again praised his boss, Jack Straw, for coming up with the brilliantly novel idea that the EU should have its own constitution, without pointing out that this is precisely what the 105 delegates to the EU's "constitutional convention" in Brussels have been discussing since March.
Sunday Telegraph
Michael Ancram, the Tory spokesman, then came on to rehearse his weary plea that the EU must become "more flexible", giving more power to its member states, without pointing out that this is so far from anything that anyone other than Britain's Tories have in mind that it is like a man confronted by an elephant plaintively wishing it was a sheep. John Humphrys sat pettishly in the middle, allowing them both to get away with this twaddle.
So far removed from the reality of what is going on in Brussels were these "Little Englanders" that once again one is left utterly baffled. Do they actually hope to fool us with this vacuous wishful thinking? Or can it be possible that they really have so little grasp of what is happening in front of their noses that they genuinely know no better?....more
Oct 13 02
SHAYLERGATE: British Press Gagged on Reporting MI6's £100,000 bin Laden Payoff By Paul Joseph Watson
Tony Blair has tonight ordered a D-Notice on British media reporting government officials signing court gag orders. This regards the case of former MI5 officer David Shayler, who has evidence to prove MI6 gave £100,000 to bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, arms to Iraq and had prior knowledge of several terrorist attacks on London in the 1990's.
From: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/shayler_gate.html
The original articles stated that top Labour MP's had signed gag orders, whereby upon mention of this evidence in court, media have to immediately leave the trial. Newspapers all over the country, including the Guardian, the London Evening Standard and the Scotsman have either completely removed or amended their articles. This evidence is damning. The British government is trying to bury the story before it buries them. ....
Here it is in Shayler's own words plus the actual MI6 Gaddafi plot document - MI6 Plot to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi: Police enquiry confirms Plot is not "fantasy" - http://cryptome.org/shayler-gaddafi.htm ......
The Scotsman also released a report which remains online but both the title and the article have been amended!!! The new article talks about new MI5 head Eliza Manningham-Buller, only mentioning the Shayler case in passing. It certainly does not include information concerning the Labour MP's involved and government prior knowledge of terrorist bombings in London.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1113312002 is the amended version - I archived the original at http://www.propagandamatrix.com/renegade_mi5_agent_to_face_jury.htm. The report was originally entitled 'Renegade MI5 agent ready to face jury' it is now called 'Has MI5 really emerged from shadows?' This is the report with the most damning information (the one they erased).
Here is the full text of the original Scotsman article.************* Renegade MI5 agent ready to face jury
KAREN MCVEIGH
DAVID Shayler, the former M15 officer branded a traitor by the government, is due to take on the legal establishment today, as his trial opens at the Old Bailey in London.
The renegade agent, who faces six years imprisonment for breaching the Official Secrets Act after making a number of sensational revelations about M15 to a national newspaper in 1997, will represent himself for part of the landmark case. The trial will centre around a number of allegations made by Shayler about M15 holding files on prominent politicians, including former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. He also claimed the secret services ignored warnings that might have prevented bombings in the London in 1993 and 1994.
Shayler, 36, faces two charges under section one of the Official Secrets Act for disclosing documents and information about the work of M15 and another under section four, for disclosing information about telephone taps.
He has failed so far to win his argument that his revelations were in the public interest. The High Court, Court of Appeal and the House of Lords, have all ruled that he cannot claim he disclosed information in the public interest or out of necessity. They also ruled out the main plank of Shaylers defence - that the Officials Secrets Act is incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
Shayler, who made other allegations for which he was not charged, including a claim that M16 was involved in a plot to assassinate the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, will argue that he is only guilty of "exposing wrongdoing".
"I aim to persist in my argument that the Official Secrets Act as it currently stands is totally incompatible with the Human Rights Act," he told a newspaper yesterday.
Some of the hearing is expected to be taken up by an application by newspapers objecting to plans to hold parts of the trial in secret.
The prosecution applied for hearings to be held in camera after its concerns that Shayler will make fresh allegations to the jury to back up his public interest defence.
Shaylers decision to defend himself, against the advice of his legal team, for part of the trial was prompted by the belief that he will be freer to argue his case than his barrister, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, whose hands are tied by earlier court rulings.*************** Even local papers such as the Leicestershire Mail and the Derby Evening Telegraph have removed the story from their websites! The original stories were here and here respectively. They were entiled ''SHAYLER AT OLD BAILEY FOR TRIAL' and 'SHAYLER ARRIVES FOR TRIAL.' As you can see by clicking the links, they are gone. As is a London Independent article that was entitled 'MI5 faces accountability test as new chief takes reins.'*************** UPDATE: It is now confirmed that all details relating to the Shayler case cannot be reported. The UK government have successfully gagged the cowardly pathetic mainstream media, but I will continue to track this story.
The Guardian reports - 'Shayler hearing'
'An Old Bailey court yesterday heard legal arguments relating to the trial of David Shayler, the former MI5 officer charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. The judge ruled that they cannot be reported. Mr Shayler's trial is now expected to be heard before a jury next week.' - Richard Norton-Taylor
Read this tiny blurb at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,806640,00.html (until they remove that too)Labour website spin 'like Orwell's 1984'
Professors accuse Labour of creating a 'social statistical utopia' David Walker
Guardian
Tuesday October 8, 2002 The Guardian
The Labour party has "systematically manipulated" data on its website to show improvements in health, schooling and other services, according to an unpublished study. Starting in the run-up to last year's election and continuing since, Labour has guided the public to misleading statistics for crime and unemployment as well as spending on schools and hospitals.
Figures have been "mangled" to give a better impression of Labour's performance at the local level.
In a research paper circulating among academics, after being presented at a recent Political Studies Association conference, four distinguished geographers take apart the website's figures for local areas. Led by professors Danny Dorling of Leeds University and Ron Johnston of Bristol University, the team argue that Labour has consistently adjusted and manipulated data without acknowledging it. ...(See more)Inspection as invasion
The US has been seeking to prevent a resolution of the Iraq crisis for the past eight years
Guardian
George MonbiotTuesday October 8, 2002The Guardian
There is little that those of us who oppose the coming war with Iraq can now do to prevent it. George Bush has staked his credibility on the project; he has mid-term elections to consider, oil supplies to secure and a flagging war on terror to revive. Our voices are as little heeded in the White House as the singing of the birds.
Our role is now, perhaps, confined to the modest but necessary task of demonstrating the withdrawal of our consent, while seeking to undermine the moral confidence which could turn the attack on Iraq into a war against all those states perceived to offend US strategic interests. No task is more urgent than to expose the two astonishing lies contained in George Bush's radio address on Saturday, namely that "the United States does not desire military conflict, because we know the awful nature of war" and "we hope that Iraq complies with the world's demands". Mr Bush appears to have done everything in his power to prevent Iraq from complying with the world's demands, while ensuring that military conflict becomes inevitable.
On July 4 this year, Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations, began negotiating with Iraq over the return of UN weapons inspectors. Iraq had resisted UN inspections for three and a half years, but now it felt the screw turning, and appeared to be on the point of capitulation. On July 5, the Pentagon leaked its war plan to the New York Times. The US, a Pentagon official revealed, was preparing "a major air campaign and land invasion" to "topple President Saddam Hussein". The talks immediately collapsed.
Ten days ago, they were about to resume. Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspections body, was due to meet Iraqi officials in Vienna, to discuss the practicalities of re-entering the country. The US airforce launched bombing raids on Basra, in southern Iraq, destroying a radar system. As the Russian government pointed out, the attack could scarcely have been better designed to scupper the talks. But this time the Iraqis, mindful of the consequences of excluding the inspectors, kept talking. Last Tuesday, they agreed to let the UN back in. The State Department immediately announced, with more candour than elegance, that it would "go into thwart mode".
It wasn't bluffing. The following day, it leaked the draft resolution on inspections it was placing before the UN Security Council. This resembles nothing so much as a plan for unopposed invasion. The decisions about which sites should be "inspected" would no longer be made by the UN alone, but also by "any permanent member of the security council", such as the United States. The people inspecting these sites could also be chosen by the US, and they would enjoy "unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq" and "the right to free, unrestricted and immediate movement" within Iraq, "including unrestricted access to presidential sites". They would be permitted to establish "regional bases and operating bases throughout Iraq", where they would be "accompanied... by sufficient US security forces to protect them". They would have the right to declare exclusion zones, no-fly zones and "ground and air transit corridors". They would be allowed to fly and land as many planes, helicopters and surveillance drones in Iraq as they want, to set up "encrypted communication" networks and to seize "any equipment" they choose to lay hands on. The resolution, in other words, could not have failed to remind Iraq of the alleged infiltration of the UN team in 1996. Both the Iraqi government and the former inspector Scott Ritter maintain that the weapons inspectors were joined that year by CIA covert operations specialists, who used the UN's special access to collect information and encourage the republican guard to launch a coup. On Thursday, Britain and the United States instructed the weapons inspectors not to enter Iraq until the new resolution has been adopted. As Milan Rai's new book War Plan Iraq documents, the US has been undermining disarmament for years. The UN's principal means of persuasion was paragraph 22 of the security council's resolution 687, which promised that economic sanctions would be lifted once Iraq ceased to possess weapons of mass destruction. But in April 1994, Warren Christopher, the US secretary of state, unilaterally withdrew this promise, removing Iraq's main incentive to comply. Three years later his successor, Madeleine Albright, insisted that sanctions would not be lifted while Saddam remained in power. The US government maintains that Saddam Hussein expelled the UN inspectors from Iraq in 1998, but this is not true. On October 30 1998, the US rejected a new UN proposal by again refusing to lift the oil embargo if Iraq disarmed. On the following day, the Iraqi government announced that it would cease to cooperate with the inspectors. In fact it permitted them to continue working, and over the next six weeks they completed around 300 operations. On December 14, Richard Butler, the head of the inspection team, published a curiously contradictory report. The body of the report recorded that over the past month "the majority of the inspections of facilities and sites under the ongoing monitoring system were carried out with Iraq's cooperation", but his well-publicised conclusion was that "no progress" had been made. Russia and China accused Butler of bias. On December 15, the US ambassador to the UN warned him that his team should leave Iraq for its own safety. Butler pulled out, and on the following day the US started bombing Iraq.
From that point on, Saddam Hussein refused to allow UN inspectors to return. At the end of last year, Jose Bustani, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, proposed a means of resolving the crisis. His organisation had not been involved in the messy business of 1998, so he offered to send in his own inspectors, and complete the job the UN had almost finished. The US responded by demanding Bustani's dismissal. The other member states agreed to depose him only after the United States threatened to destroy the organisation if he stayed. Now Hans Blix, the head of the new UN inspectorate, may also be feeling the heat. On Tuesday he insisted that he would take his orders only from the security council. On Thursday, after an hour-long meeting with US officials, he agreed with the Americans that there should be no inspections until a new resolution had been approved.
For the past eight years the US, with Britain's help, appears to have been seeking to prevent a resolution of the crisis in Iraq. It is almost as if Iraq has been kept on ice, as a necessary enemy to be warmed up whenever the occasion demands. Today, as the economy slides and Bin Laden's latest mocking message suggests that the war on terrorism has so far failed, an enemy which can be located and bombed is more necessary than ever. A just war can be pursued only when all peaceful means have been exhausted. In this case, the peaceful means have been averted.
Oct 8 02
Teenagers 'used to introduce ID cards by stealth'
By Helen Hague and Philip Johnston (Filed: 04/10/2002)
Telegraph
Children's campaigners have accused the Government of using teenagers to introduce a national identity card by stealth.
The Connexions Card - a "smart" card that carries personal data - is being offered to more than two million 16- to 19-year-olds. More than 175,000 have already been issued. The project, described as the largest in Europe, is being run on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills by Capita, the company behind the new Criminal Records Bureau, which has recently been criticised over delays in recruiting teachers.
Teenagers are not required to possess the cards, although they may be obliged to if their school or college uses them to record attendance. They are also encouraged to apply by the prospect of rewards. Holders accumulate points for good work or attendance that can be exchanged for trainers, CDs or days out. Since it displays the date of birth and a photograph, it is also being championed by the Government as a proof of age card. The card has been introduced gradually across the country over the past few months and a high profile national advertising campaign is planned for December.
However, while the Government says the scheme is both benign and voluntary, it is causing alarm among some campaigners.
Terri Dowty, from Action for the Rights of Children, said: "We are concerned that the Government is playing a long game and using the Connexions Card as a means of introducing an identity card by stealth. There would have been fierce objections to the introduction of such a card for adults."
She added: "We are extremely worried by the agenda underlying the Connexions service. The extent of the information being sought from young people and then made available to every conceivable government agency is horrifying."
One of the aims of the Connexions project is to "track" every young person, and ensure their visibility to government agencies.
Three thousand retailers - including Playstation, Panasonic and the British School of Motoring - offer rewards through the Connexions Card website. The department has set aside £100 million to put 2.4 million cards into circulation.
To boost the take-up, the card issuers have offered colleges £1 for each student record they supply - including name, address, date of birth, special educational needs, student enrolment number and digital photograph.
Sue Sampson, a smallholder in Herefordshire, was perturbed to discover that her 16-year-old son John had been signed up for a Connexions Card at school. "It smacks of an embryonic national identity card, softening up young people to release personal data by offering trendy consumer goods," she said.
"With such inducements, teenagers are more likely to get a card without thinking through the implications of releasing personal data," Mrs Sampson added.
"I'm very concerned about the Government's obsession with gathering personal information, and that big business will get hold of spending patterns to target young people. It is an opt-out rather than an opt-in system."
John has since cancelled his card.
A Capita spokesman said: "It is an entirely permission-based initiative - no young person has to have a card. Data on cardholders is not passed on to third parties and the data in the system is protected by extremely rigorous processes that ensure it cannot be abused."
Oct 4 02
The Prince is right
Simon Heffer
Spectator
.......The other day I was having lunch with a senior minister, and we got on to the fiasco of last year's foot-and-mouth crisis. Without blinking, he said it was the fault of the Civil Service. The old doctrine that ministers take ultimate responsibility for what goes on in their departments has been blown out of the water. Where he had a point, of course, is that the calibre of those in the Civil Service is not remotely what it was 20 years ago. There is a stark difference in tone now between mandarins in their late fifties, who joined the Civil Service in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and those a generation younger who have entered in the last ten years. The former include a high proportion of classically educated ex-public-school and Oxbridge types, themselves not from the old governing class, but shrewd enough to have imbibed certain aspects of it. The latter have been deliberately recruited from very different backgrounds, to make the Civil Service more "representative". It is not that they are not as clever as their predecessors, but that many of them have a different agenda. They are often highly politicised; they lack, for that reason, all the attention to detail that the truly objective tend to bring to their work. However, to blame them for the failures of the government is absurd. Last week's debacle at the Department for Education and Skills shows that for every spavined senior public servant there is always at least one completely incompetent minister. Executive abilities are almost entirely absent from the Cabinet, which is why it relies so heavily on the Civil Service; and if the Civil Service is declining in ability and morale at the same time, largely as the result of government policy, the outcome is sure to be ghastly. You would think that a generation of politicians so short on talent would welcome help from whichever quarter it comes, even if it is from a rich landowner like the Prince of Wales. However, the almost oriental desire that this new governing class has to save its own face in the aftermath of its own acts of incompetence prevents it ever from acknowledging such assistance. There will be no encouragement to the old governing class to bring their skills of disinterest, and their often extensive experience of what Lord Falconer has called "ordinary people", to bear on the problems of today. Their charitable role of old has been supplanted by the state; their political role by many utterly unsuited to it. And yet, ironically, when "ordinary people" cry out for a failed minister like Estelle Morris to "do the decent thing" after presiding over some catastrophe or other, they are still expecting very unaristocratic politicians to behave in an instinctively aristocratic way when they make a mistake. It shows a touchingly traditional, if now tragically anachronistic, interpretation of human nature
Oct 3 02
StatewatchSummary
This project looks at the struggle for openness and freedom of information in the European Union over the past decade. It starts with the Code of access to EU documents introduced in December 1993 [Chapter 1] and the first challenges in the courts [Chapters 2 and 4] and to the European Ombudsman [Chapter 3]. Despite their public commitment to openness, EU institutions - especially the Council of the European Union (the 15 EU governments) and the European Commission wanted to control which documents were released and which were not.At the heart of the issue was whether citizens could have access to the documents in the policy-making process before the final decision was adopted. Governments and the Commission wanted to keep under wraps all documents until a new policy was in place - except for selective leaks to "friendly" media outlets.
Civil society groups - journalists, researchers, academics and voluntary groups - argued that a democratic EU had to be based on true openness, that is, full freedom of information. Only then could all sections of society take a view on proposals and put forward their views. Around a number of successful court cases and complaints lodged with the European Ombudsman against the Council a civil society network came into being - journalists, academics and researchers.
When the Amsterdam Treaty was agreed in June 1997 the right of access to documents was written in to Article 255 [Chapter 5]. But we knew from experience that the "Dinosaurs" (as Mr Soderman, the European Ombudsman called them) backing secrecy would try and use a new treaty-based measure to set the clock back.
Our fears were compounded when the European Commission who were responsible for drafting the initial proposal failed to publish a "Green Paper" (to launch a public discussion) as is the normal practice - though Statewatch was leaked, and published, two unpublished drafts. When the Commission proposal for a new Regulation appeared in January 2000 it reflected the in-built secrecy of their existing practice.
As if things were not bad enough, just as all the Brussels institutions went on their summer vacation Mr Solana, the Secretary-General of the Council steamrollered through major changes to the existing code to meet NATO demands for secrecy - by written procedure, the least democratic policy-making instrument available to the EU [Chapter 6].
When the European Parliament finally got down to discussing the Commission's proposal in the autumn of 2000 their first reading report was by common consensus a "mess" and the first drafts of the Council's position was no better. At the turn of the year there were three quite different drafts on the table from the three Brussels institutions. None of these positions met the standard that the new Regulation should build on the existing code, including all the improvements brought about by civil society challenges in the courts and to the Ombudsman, and truly "enshrine" the right of access to documents in EU law as the Amsterdam Treaty promised[Chapter 7].
Instead of sorting out these differences in public, the institutions set up a series of secret "trilogue" meetings which made slow progress. So in February 2001 the civil society network called a meeting in Brussels with the three institutions in the European Parliament and told them that none of the drafts were acceptable and that the Commission should be asked to come up with a new draft proposal.
The "trilogue" meetings were a public relations disaster for the institutions as most of the discussions were leaked to Statewatch. The Presidency of the Council lost patience in April and cobbled together a typical Brussels "compromise" in which the politicians and bureaucrats effectively closed ranks and said that "this was the best that could be achieved". With the support of three of the main parties in the European Parliament this "compromise" was then adopted.
In the end, after a four year struggle in which civil society coalition won all the arguments, some of these were reflected in the new Regulation but many were not.
It has now been in force since December 2001 and new battlegrounds have emerged [Chapter 8]. The current state of play is that more information is now available, especially from the Council of the European Union. But even here there are glaring holes - thousands of documents circulated to meetings are not on their public register of documents and many are only released after people appeal the decision not to release the text of a document. Whether the new regulation has clawed back what the EU rigorously defends as the "space to think" - and what we argue is in reality the "space to act" away from public scrutiny - remains to be seen.
Since June 2002 the European Parliament and the European Commission have been obliged to make available public registers too under the new Regulation. Three months on the European Commission register is nowhere near meeting the requirements in the Regulation and only time will tell if it has any intention of opening up the most secretive of the EU institutions.
This project reflects our belief that:
"Democracy and democratic standards are not static, they are ever changing. While governments and ministers may, or may not, be open and transparent democracy cannot rely on them. Rather it is sustained by lively parliaments and an ever vigilant and critical civil society.
The fight for openness, freedom of information, and against secrecy in the EU is a small, but indispensable contribution to the maintenance of democratic standards"
Tony Bunyan
Statewatch
September 2002Straw: Britain does not need UN approval
Fraser Nelson Westminster Editor
The Scotsman
BRITAIN does not need a fresh United Nations resolution to attack Iraq and is approaching the Security Council for political rather than legal reasons, Jack Straw said yesterday.
The Foreign Secretary said that Saddam Husseins defiance of the 14 UN Security Council resolutions has given Britain "ample power" to take action under international law. He has also said that MPs will be given the chance to vote on Iraq - but not before military action.
In a hawkish performance in front of the foreign affairs committee, Mr Straw lined up with George Bush in making clear that he believes the UN resolution which sanctioned the Gulf War in 1990 remains valid now.
"We do not regard a new resolution as absolutely critical to any circumstances in which military action might take place," he said. "We think it is desirable, not least politically, to have a new resolution. But if you go through the existing resolutions there is ample power there and ample evidence of a material breach." The US has long argued that Saddams failure to surrender its weapons of mass destruction has violated the terms of the ceasefire agreed in 1991. Only the UK agrees with this interpretation.
Britain is this week expected to present a draft resolution for the UN, threatening military action should Saddam impede the task of weapons inspectors. It needs the votes of Russia, China and France, the three other permanent members of the Security Council.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, yesterday met defence ministers of Russia and France in a closed-door NATO forum on Iraq. He said he presented evidence linking Baghdad to al-Qaeda and the 11 September attacks. However, he refused to give any detail of the proof - save that it had been provided by the CIA and is classified.
Tony Blairs Iraq dossier, released on Tuesday, failed to mention al-Qaeda. Igor Ivanov, Russias foreign minister, yesterday said that even the limited information in the dossier represented a "propaganda furore".
Mr Rumsfeld has made clear that he does not see NATO playing any role over Iraq - drawing questions over its future after 11 September.
When asked about NATOs participation against Saddam, Mr Rumsfeld said: "It hasnt crossed my mind - I havent proposed it." The case against war was consolidating in Scotland yesterday as John Swinney, the leader of the SNP, said he was fundamentally opposed to an attack. ....
Sept 26 02
MPS TOLD RULES DON'T ALLOW VOTE ON CONFLICT
09:00 - 25 September 2002
WMN
Father of the Commons, Tam Dalyell, failed yesterday to secure a vote allowing MPs to directly oppose military action against Iraq.
The Labour veteran appealed to Speaker Michael Martin for a vote on a substantive motion declining to back a war unless authorised by the UN Security Council and the Commons. But the move was rejected by Mr Martin, leaving MPs opposed to any possible military action only able to force a vote on a technical motion at the end of yesterday's emergency debate. That motion will be for the adjournment of the House, a device regularly deployed for debate and usually agreed without a vote. Any vote on it will be symbolic of the strength of feelings among the anti-war tendency but would not allow a direct expression of their views.
In a point of order, Mr Dalyell (Linlithgow) said: "There are many Members on all sides of the House who are opposed to military action against Iraq on various grounds. "Many others who represent servicemen and women, who may be called to fight in such a war, have anxieties on behalf of them and their families.
"Will you accept a manuscript motion that this House declines to support a war against Iraq using the Royal Prerogative unless it has been authorised both by the UN Security Council and a motion carried in this House. "Only in this way can Members discharge their responsibilities to their constituents."
Another senior Labour backbencher, Gerald Kaufman (Manchester Gorton), said precedents on Iraq showed that when the House was recalled in September 1990, after Kuwait was annexed, the debate was on an adjournment motion and this had happened on subsequent occasions too.
Turning down Mr Dalyell's call, Mr Martin said: "Our rules do not allow this to happen. "Under standing orders Government business has precedence over other business except in certain defined circumstances. This is not one of those circumstances. "When the House is recalled under standing order No 13 the only business to be debated is that of which the Government has given notice.
"In this case that is the motion for the adjournment of the House."
Labour's Paul Flynn (Newport W) protested: "My constituents will not understand why I cannot vote against following the Bush agenda today."
Sept 25 02
This is not a dossier but an act of desperation
Timessimon jenkins
We still wander in a daze. Democracies rarely stay up all night seeking reasons to go to war. Normally they do the opposite. They talk, negotiate, compromise, take refuge in the United Nations. They do not like fighting, unless driven by an overwhelming logic of events.
Yesterday's government dossier on Iraq reads like a desperate quest for such a logic. Ministers cannot be quaking with fear at the prospect of an imminent assault from President Saddam Hussein. A year ago they claimed that their bombing was "containing" him, stopping him from harming even his own people, let alone his neighbours or British interests. Of course he seeks nasty weapons. Paranoid dictators always do. But nothing in the dossier constitutes evidence of an early threat, let alone a casus belli between Britain and Iraq. What is going on? I am no pacifist sap. I was convinced when past British Governments told me of threats to the British state. One threat was from Soviet Russia, and came complete with target maps, lists of vulnerable cities and an armoury of all-tooeffective weapons of mass destruction. Yet where were Tony Blair and Clare Short and others in the Labour Party? They wanted unilateral nuclear disarmament and claimed that the "threat" was dreamt up by warmongering Americans. They were wrong. Unlike many in the Labour Party, I believed that the Falklands war had to be fought against a palpable assault on British sovereignty. I thought the Gulf War just in that the invasion of Kuwait could only be resisted by main force. I felt the same about domestic terrorism. Mr Blair, supported by Ms Short and others, believed in releasing IRA terrorists from prison on the strength of vague promises of disarmament. This seemed naive and reckless appeasement, and so it has proved. People need no lessons from Mr Blair or Jack Straw in being"tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism". But yesterday's dossier is not serious. Mr Blair told us yet again yesterday what a nasty person Saddam is. We know that. The task of leadership is not to write tabloid front pages but to judge how far a threat to the nation's interest is real and, if so, how the nation should respond proportionately. Neither Mr Blair nor George Bush has yet explained what has suddenly led them to abandon containment of Iraq and to demand Saddam's head on a plate.
I...... For the moment it might seem that America's hands are tied. Yet on the assumption that weapons inspection proves as unsatisfactory as it did before, then war is back in play. On that assumption, America would be vastly reinforced in its view that Saddam is a prima facie threat. Reinforced too would be the demand that he and his arsenals be neutralised and the UN's will enforced.
There is little doubt that a renewed failure of arms inspection would secure a UN Security Council mandate authorising military enforcement of Iraqi disarmament. Whatever strongarm tactics America and Britain might deploy to win that mandate, mandate it would be. America would have done as it was bidden. Opposing American action to enforce the mandate would mean opposing the enforcement of the will of the UN. That in turn would be an intolerable boost not just to Saddam but to global lawlessness. At this point supporters of the UN would have little option. However thin the evidence of an Iraqi nuclear arsenal, however minimal the overt threat to peace, 3appropriate force4 to punish a decade-long and blatant defiance of the UN would be hard to question. The content and security of Third World arsenals is a reasonable concern to Western democracies. The UN might seem humiliated into a forced acquiescence of American aggression against Iraq. That would be better than the UN being humiliated by Saddam. That route, and that route alone, would justify Britain joining a war against Iraq. The route is long and tortuous. It might take months, even years. But the British Government yesterday failed to make a case for any short cut.
Sept 25 02
What the Connexions PAs are asking
Connexions Personal Advisers are trained to use something called the 'Personal Assessment Tool' or 'APIR'. This is a kind of questionnaire divided into 18 sections, exploring different areas of a young person's life, with a 'score' allocated for each section. These scores are then filled in on a little circular diagram. The PAs user-instructions for this Tool include 'suggested areas to explore' in each section.
arch-ed.org
Keep in mind that, unless the young person refuses consent, this information will be stored and shared with social services, health authorities, the police, probation & young offenders' services, LEAs, local authorities, youth services etc. Much of it depends on the subjective judgment of the Personal Adviser, who has to decide what is or isn't 'appropriate' - one of the most useful words in existence for making prejudice sound legitimate.
Generally, the first few sections are relatively predictable and factual: 'participation'; 'achievements'; 'basic skills'; 'key skills', 'aspirations'.
Others such as 'life skills', 'emotional/behavioural development' or 'identity and self-image' begin to feel somewhat intrusive, and allow for more subjective judgments on the part of the PA by suggesting exploration of such things as personal appearance and hygiene; self- confidence; relationships with others; 'intellectual effectiveness';evidence of 'parenting ability' where the young person is a parent - which the PA may well not be.
'Relationships within family and society' then come under scrutiny, with the PA looking out for 'age-appropriate' and 'age-inappropriate' friendships. This is followed by assessment of the likelihood of offending, seeking 'evidence of living in a criminal environment'.
One of the most offensive sections concerns the 'capacity of a young person's parents/carers'. If you are a parent, the PA will be 'exploring' whether you have aspirations for your child; demonstrate approval of education effort/achievement; ensure your child attends school and offer help with any difficulties. Are you ensuring that s/he has a positive self- image, and providing a stable family environment plus the right kind of guidelines and boundaries? Are you a role model? Emotionally supportive? Do you listen, show physical warmth, provide a hygienic, encouraging and stimulating environment, a proper diet...?' If, at this point, an overwhelming sense of failure is about to drive any parent to drink, stop at once! The PA is advised to 'explore' your substance misuse with your child, along with your 'parental strengths and difficulties'. The diploma training material advises PAs that if they 'identify developmental needs in parent/carers that could have an impact on the aspirations and development of the young person. ... then an offer to refer the parents to an appropriate agency or to offer information about the support available might be the way forward.'
As if this isn't bad enough, 'family history and functioning' wants to know all about a young person's parents and siblings. PAs are told to explore 'health experiences of parents'; 'education experiences of parents' and moves on to parents' 'life experiences'. Relationships between siblings - or between ex-spouses - are also fair game, and yet again 'substance misuse' crops up. And whether your household is 'disadvantaged' or poor.
Bearing in mind the right to privacy enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, how is it possibly acceptable that parents can have the intimate details of their personal life discussed between their child and a stranger without their knowledge, consent - or presence? Parents and siblings of a young person are also people who are entitled to their privacy. A young person may have given consent, informed or otherwise, to the storage and sharing of their own personal information, but there is no mention of seeking the consent of anyone else for the sharing of their private life in this fashion.
It is impossible to see how such potentially divisive behaviour provides any 'protection and assistance' to the family as 'the fundamental group of society' identified in the preamble to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, nor how a young person's respect for parents is encouraged by seeing such indifference accorded to their dignity.
After this staggering piece of invasion, a few sections on the local neighbourhood, housing and income follow. The APIR then suggests exploration of a young person's physical health and medical history - including 'sexual history and activity'. Finally, if you thought that serious emotional difficulties such as suicidal thoughts, self-harm and eating disorders were matters for a skilled psychiatrist or therapist, think again. The PA will 'explore' a young person's mental health and experiences in depth. This mental health section is, in our opinion, downright dangerous. Several of the 'suggested issues to explore' are ones that counsellors recognise as up to the client to broach, probably over a considerable period of time, with several of them requiring careful containment coupled with swift psychiatric referral.
Included in this shopping list of human distress is 'experience of abuse', an area where inept or intrusive questioning can be a potentially devastating experience for a young person who has already endured the worst kinds of intrusion. Human beings build their defences against emotional pain for good reason, and to start tinkering with these is to risk triggering the very behaviour that is being investigated. Having been 'explored' during a session with a PA, how is the young person meant to go home afterwards and carry on with life? Does the PA have the skills to put the worms back in the can, having ill-advisedly prised the lid off in the first place?
PAs receive training that amounts to one evening per week for a year; the most basic 'counselling skills' course at a reputable organisation takes twice as long - and does not in any way amount to a working qualification in counselling, far less in psychotherapy or psychiatry.
A PA may be genuinely well-meaning and concerned for the welfare of young people; s/he might come from a background in educational or youth work, and may have read the Connexions prescribed books on cognitive behavioural psychology, but none of those factors provides anything approaching the expertise - or personal insight - necessary to contain the emotional turmoil of a vulnerable young person on the edge. The entire APIR document (a 3Mb pdf file requiring Adobe Acrobat) can be downloaded from the government Connexions website.
Sept 19 02
Why everybody who believes in liberty should march
By Stephen Robinson (Filed: 19/09/2002)
Telegraph
This week I have been ringing some of the foot soldiers who toil within what might loosely be called the "freedom community" to see how many of them will be attending the Liberty and Livelihood March on Sunday.
John Wadham, head of the campaigning group Liberty, has been a good friend to The Telegraph's Free Country campaign since its launch last summer. His instincts are of the Left, though he is a scrupulously open-minded lawyer who has recently taken on the case, pro bono, of the metric martyrs as their judicial marathon heads to Strasbourg. But Mr Wadham and his colleagues will not be marching in defence of liberty or livelihood, and seemed rather surprised by the suggestion that they might.
There is a similar lack of urgency over at the offices of Charter 88, whose founding principles exhort the faithful to take action to protect "such civil liberties as the right to peaceful assembly, to freedom of association". Karen Bartlett, Charter 88's director, said her group saw hunting "as less of a civil liberties issue as a question of cruelty versus utility".
So, no Charter 88 banner will be borne along the streets of London on Sunday, no messages of solidarity will be sent from its east London headquarters to the farmers and stable hands who have travelled to the capital from all over the country. "A lot of our members feel very strongly we should not form an alliance with pro-hunting groups," Ms Bartlett explains.
I have never attended a hunt, partly because as a townie I suspect I would feel out of place there, but also because I believe, if I am to be honest, there to be something distasteful about the ritual killing of an animal. I say distasteful because I do not think hunting is specifically cruel if you consider how quickly the hounds dispatch the fox, and if you bear in mind the alternative methods of eliminating a rural pest. And I certainly do not think it should be banned.
I apply a similar, though not very logical, distinction to shooting. When I lived in America, I would enjoy an occasional trip to the southern states to shoot, rather inexpertly, at duck. There is something invigorating about rising before dawn, setting off across the bayou, and blasting away at the wild duck as they fly across your field of fire. Then there's the fun of the communal cleaning and de-feathering of the birds before breakfast, always accompanied by several comradely nips of Jack Daniel's.
As much as I enjoyed this sort of shooting (or hunting as it is known in America), I detest the idea of the ritualised, driven shoots popular in this country. Standing in a line of men who have paid a fortune to shoot hand-reared birds has no appeal to me, and nor does all the nonsense about how you are supposed to hold your shotgun. But that does not mean I think this sort of shooting should be banned or that I think less of those who enjoy it.
I find it distasteful (as well as embarrassing and faintly menacing) when an eastern European woman thrusts her baby at me on a Tube train and asks for money. But it seems to me she has a right to do so or, at least, even if some public transport bylaw technically prohibits her behaviour, she should not be locked up for trying to feed her child.
All manner of human activity is distasteful to some. A diner in a restaurant might resent someone smoking nearby; a Muslim might abhor the sight of bare female flesh; judging by the postbag, many readers of this newspaper deplore the idea of homosexual sex. The only proper and well-mannered response to each of these aesthetic or moral challenges is tolerance. This does not imply approval of the action. Indeed, the word tolerance actually suggests a certain disapproval - that is, I will have to live with what you are doing, even as I believe what you are doing is wrong.
If a cable television entrepreneur proposed that bull fighting be transplanted from Spain to a purpose-built arena in Milton Keynes, I would oppose it not just on the grounds that it would make a horrible and incongruous spectacle, but also because it is culturally alien to us. How could you explain the occasion to an eight-year-old? Bull fighting has earned none of the historical and cultural protection that should now be afforded foxhunting, which is shielded not just by its own history and rural custom, but by our common law tradition.
The indifference of the guardians of our civil liberties to the plight of those whose families have hunted for generations is disappointing, though perhaps not surprising. Defence of civil liberties and individual freedom are generally regarded in Britain as metropolitan, Left-wing preserves.
In America, the issue of gun control alerts conservative, rural Americans to the importance of the Constitution. Travel across the heartland and nine out of 10 people will be able to recite the Second Amendment enshrining "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". We have no equivalent of that protection or that culture - one reason why, after Dunblane, the Conservative government could abruptly remove the right of law-abiding pistol shooters to own their weapons.
Because his members are so overwhelmingly of the Left, John Wadham at Liberty will not speak up clearly on behalf of foxhunting, but he is certainly troubled by what he calls "the general trend to criminalise activities without good reason". Mr Wadham favours a new Bill of Rights with a clause specifically granting "freedom of action" taking account of tradition, and barring the creation of new criminal offences unless they be demonstrably necessary in defence of a democratic society.
When I pressed Ms Bartlett of Charter 88 about her blindness to the illiberalism of a hunting ban, she told me that readers of this paper did not care very much about the rights of homosexuals or asylum seekers. This annoyed me, first, because it is a cop-out on her part, and, secondly, because on the whole she is right.
I am not suggesting that marchers on Sunday should carry banners demanding a fair deal for gay Kurdish asylum seekers. But it would be excellent if there were a general recognition on the streets of London that freedom cuts both ways, and is too important to be obscured by something as trivial as political prejudice.
Sept 19 02
Big Brother
Guardian-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Private lives
The information revolution has brought us many benefits, which include the means to more efficient prevention and detection of crime. But this comes with dangers and one is the erosion of our privacy
John Wadham Saturday September 14, 2002
The Guardian
Your private life on show to civil servants? More bureaucrats, local and national, having access to your personal information - through data-sharing and data-matching bet- ween government databases, through access to your telephone and email data, through the national database that will lie behind a "smart" identity card. Your health records on tap to researchers by ministerial order - your doctor can't say no. Local authorities, even health trusts, able to put you under covert surveillance.
This, as Guardian readers will recognise, is not a Hollywood vision of 2054 but the UK, as the Government envisages it in the next couple of years. The data-sharing proposals came out in a Cabinet Office report in April; the first order on health records (under the Health & Social Care Act 2001) was scheduled for parliament in May; the proposed extension of communications data access was in the notorious "snooper's charter" RIPA extension order shelved under public pressure in June, but due back in the autumn. All capped in July by David Blunkett's plans for a compulsory identity card.
One of the problems in the privacy debate in recent months has been the linkage of everything to national security and tackling terrorism. No one is disputing the importance of getting the balance right in these areas - but it is only a valid argument in this context where the proposed extensions in authorities' access to personal data actually relate directly to terrorism (or, at the very least, serious crime).
Almost none of the government's proposals in recent months has anything to do with anti-terrorism - and yet it's still the touchstone to which the Home Office instinctively reaches. Even when it's patently irrelevant, it's a position from which the Home Office will only slowly, sheepishly withdraw. In truth, this repeated appeal to such deep and natural fears has restricted and undermined the broader debate that must be had on the right balance between individual privacy and the necessary functions of the state.
So let's be clear first about the issues of terrorism and national security in this context. The police and intelligence services - the only people who do (and should) - lead the intelligence and investigative fight against terrorism, can already access virtually all your information. Since the beginning of 2002, however, the government's proposals have extended the availability of your information to other bodies, and here the terrorism justification fails utterly. And the only wholly new element, the "entitlement card", as even Mr Blunkett has conceded, is not for tackling terrorism.
Still, with nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - Mr Blunkett tells us so. Only the guilty need worry. But his approach treats all citizens as suspects. If you've done nothing wrong, you won't - can't - mind who in government knows what about you; so you won't mind which researchers get your medical records, which investigators trawl through your financial records or communications data because they've mismatched your identity with someone with a similar name (more of that later). Even without the proven capacity for error, you might feel uncomfortable with the idea that so many people can find out so much about you for so little obvious reason.
As mentioned above, the government concedes that the proposed entitlement/identity card is not for tackling terrorism. Exactly what the card is for is harder to gauge - in recent months, ministers have claimed it will tackle any number of high-profile problems. The reality is that this vastly-expensive scheme will tackle none of them effectively - identity alone is almost never the issue, whether in relation to targeting terrorists, fraudsters, or illegal workers. That's clear from even a cursory look at the facts. But the card will have a serious impact on every innocent hard-working individual in the country.
The ID card, like the extra snooping powers above, won't make us safer. So what lies behind these initiatives? The obvious answer is that this government doesn't trust us - and wants to hoard as much information on us as possible, so it has as many ways as possible of checking up on us, for virtually any reason it chooses.
And peculiarly, a government that distrusts its citizens seems affronted that its citizens show less than absolute trust in return. How dare we question its need for this information, or its ability and commitment to ensure that information is only used where absolutely necessary, for the best possible purposes, with no possibility of misuse. Government hard-sells us advantages, but rarely acknowledges the drawbacks. True, Tony Blair has noted that the "great potential to make better use of personal information to deliver benefits to individuals and to society... will only be realised if people trust the way that public services handle their personal data". And the Cabinet Office report on data-sharing accepted, importantly, that "the level of public concern about privacy is on the rise". Yet ministers' actions continue to ignore the importance of these words.
They shouldn't - because that public trust isn't there. As the Guardian poll which launched the Big Brother series dramatically showed, most people are willing to give up some privacy if it can be proven to help in the fight against terrorism and crime. But only a small minority actually believes the government can be trusted to keep their personal data secure - and few would be happy to hand public bodies, other than law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the power to access their personal information.
Research accompanying the Cabinet Office data-sharing paper backed up these findings. It found that most people questioned about privacy were concerned about the government's use of personal information, and were not convinced of the virtue of data-matching or of the adequacy of safeguards. Their wide-ranging worries included: errors in data handling; infection with inaccurate data; misidentification; malicious provision of data from anonymous sources; "soft" data (eg professionals' opinions or assessments of individuals); being widely identified as a user of stigmatised public services; and unauthorised access to or disclosure of personal information.
So people are worried and they have plenty of reasons to be. The fact that 65% of records on the Police National Computer are inaccurate is just one example - there are enough documented cases of people failing security checks because their names and addresses were similar to those of convicted criminals.
The appetite for ever more information about all of us - both in government and the commercial world - combined with accelerating developments in technology, has created an urgent need for greater protection for privacy. It's not just email data: we have the highest concentration of CCTV cameras anywhere in the world (and rising); growing use of CCTV facial recognition technology; the ability to track the movements of individuals using the cell network of mobile telephones; the potential to put fingerprints, iris scans and other personal details on an entitlement card's chip; and so on. New technology increasingly threatens any individual's ability to keep their personal information to themselves. New technology can also protect personal information, using free and very robust systems of encryption. But now even encryption keys are subject to seizure by the authorities.
Perhaps ironically, given its bad press, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is the nearest thing we have to a privacy law. Liberty lobbied for its introduction because it does, along with the Data Protection Act, provide controls on the collection, retention and sharing of personal information. But both acts failed to deal with privacy and threats to privacy in a logical or structured way. Consequently, they have been heavily criticised both by those subject to them and those, particularly police officers, who have to use them.
And legal respect and protection for privacy is hopelessly inconsistent. It's a criminal offence to listen in to telephone calls without authorisation - but it's not necessarily a crime to place a listening device in a bedroom without authorisation. Independent checks aren't required before even the most intrusive kinds of surveillance. Telephone taps require the consent of a government minister, listening devices the consent of a commissioner and access to telephone records can be authorised by the police themselves.
The development of computer and communications technologies has changed our lives, in many ways for the better. But this doesn't come without dangers; and now is the time to stop the accelerating disappearance of our right to privacy. Otherwise, in the world of the Whitehall bureaucrat, you may soon be well-known beyond your wildest dreams.
John Wadham is the director of Liberty.
osted Sept 15 02
Blunkett attacks civil liberties lobby
(Filed: 14/09/2002) Home Secretary David Blunkett has attacked critics of surveillance measures taken by the Government after September 11 which give law enforcement and other public bodies greater powers to monitor individuals.
Telegraph
Mr Blunkett accused the civil liberties lobby of "pocketing without so much as a thank you" legislation introduced by Labour on data protection and freedom of information as well as introducing a Human Rights Act. Writing in The Guardian, Mr Blunkett said: "Taken together, all this amounts to more protection for the British citizen against the state than virtually anywhere else in the world.
"I don't resent this, I value it as a citizen. What I occasionally find irritating are self-styled privacy campaigners who denigrate or ignore protections not available to most of our European neighbours."
He said he found it "surprising" that some Labour MPs were "instinctively aggressive about the role of the state and insist on their absolute protection against it". Mr Blunkett's attack on the civil liberties lobby came as he urged Britain's European neighbours to co-operate in the fight against terrorism.
Ahead of his meeting later today with US Attorney General John Ashcroft, Mr Blunkett said that the threat of terrorism did not respect borders. He said Britain would support efforts for judicial co-operation between the European Union and the US. Mr Blunkett, in Copenhagen for the EU's informal Justice and Home Affairs Council, said: "We all know that to combat terrorism we have to tackle the global networks which now threaten all of us, and which transcend national boundaries.
"That is why European and global action is so important. Co-operation to tackle the organised criminal and financial networks as well as the terrorist cells, requires coordination and the use of the most advanced techniques, which are now being used by the terrorist themselves."
Mr Blunkett warned against complacency. "Recent weeks have shown that the threat has not receded, and underlined the need for countries to build on our combined efforts to eliminate terrorism at a global level," he said.
"The threat of terrorism does not respect borders, nor is any individual state immune."
posted Sept 15 02
Blunkett secrecy attack
Stuart Millar and Nick Hopkins Saturday September 14, 2002 The Guardian David Blunkett, the home secretary, today launches a scathing attack on critics of the government's post-September 11 surveillance measures which hand law enforcement and other public bodies greater powers to monitor individuals and their private communications.
Guardian
In an exclusive article for the second issue of the Guardian's Big Brother supplement, published today, Mr Blunkett accuses the "civil liberties lobby" of "pocketing without so much as a thank you" legislation introduced by Labour on data protection and freedom of information as well as the enshrining of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law under the Human Rights Act. "Taken together, all this amounts to more protection for the British citizen against the state than virtually anywhere else in the world," he writes. "I don't resent this, I value it as a citizen. What I occasionally find irritating are self-styled privacy campaigners who denigrate or ignore protections not available to most of our European neighbours."
In another intervention, the director of the national criminal intelligence service claims that highly controversial new snooping and data retention powers do not go far enough and reveals that work to tighten and extend them is already well under way. John Abbott, whose agency has played a key role in lobbying for greater surveillance powers, becomes the first high-ranking law enforcement officer to publicly argue for stronger laws to compel communications service providers to stockpile their customer records for long periods in case they are required by the authorities.
The anti-terror legislation introduced last year in the wake of the US terror attacks established a voluntary scheme, which is the subject of sensitive negotiations between communications companies and the government, but Mr Abbott warns that this would be open to abuse and risked creating internet "safe havens" for criminals.
In a rare interview, he says: "There are problems with a voluntary code. It means criminals can shift from one service provider to another. I hope that it is successful but my concern is that it is not going to be. I would like to see consistency to prevent safe havens. Ultimately we want a global system covering all service providers."
He says there is "great merit" in making service providers retain information about clients for five years and phone companies keeping details for two. Drafts of the voluntary code call for the retention of this material for 12 months. Mr Abbott also calls for an EU-wide data retention regime within five years. "We have to be synchronised [over] uniformity of data retention. It has got to be sooner rather than later."
Last week, a Guardian/ICM poll revealed that voters are broadly supportive of data surveillance measures on the strict condition that they can be proved to increase security. The data includes logs of telephone numbers and email addresses both called and received, websites visited and mobile phone location data capable of pinpointing the users' whereabouts to within a few hundred metres whenever their handset is switched on. But the information commis sioner, the official privacy watchdog, has warned the Home Office that the current surveillance regime may be illegal under human rights law.
Some 60% of voters agree that police and intelligence agencies should have these powers, although only 20% believe they should be extended to public bodies such as local authorities and NHS trusts.
In his article, Mr Blunkett again admits that the row which erupted after the Guardian revealed these proposals in July was "politically embarrassing" for the government, but argues that data retention powers are necessary to fight terrorism and serious crime. He is particularly critical of opponents of his measures from within Labour's own ranks. "I still find it surprising that so many people who consider themselves to be on the left of the political spectrum find themselves instinc tively aggressive about the role of the state and insist on their absolute protection against it."
He says that establishing the proper balance between liberty and security is "more pressing now than at any time since world war two". Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The UK has taken away more previously existing rights in the last year than any other European country.
"That suggests we are overreacting rather than doing the minimum necessary. The home secretary never does his cause any good by being intemperate and aggressive towards their many reasonable critics."
Sept 15 02
Blair declares war on democracy
We may be on the road to war with Iraq, but have we bypassed democracy on the way? By MP and former SNP leader Alex Salmond
Sunday Herald
WE may be at the end of the beginning of the build-up to war in Iraq. That is my reading of Tony Blair's speech to the TUC, and of President Bush's address to the United Nations General Assembly. In both cases, heavy stress was laid on the importance of the UN in an effort to turn around the growing opposition -- both domestically and internationally -- to a unilateral US/UK strike. But,significantly, Blair and Bush failed to commit to the necessity for a fresh UN mandate for military action, in the form of a specific Security Council resolution. significantly, Blair and Bush failed to commit to the necessity for a fresh UN mandate for military action, in the form of a specific Security Council resolution.
Tony Blair is being credited with the PR tactic of stressing UN resolutions as a justification for war, while carefully omitting the need for clear UN authority for military action.
The Prime Minister is thus deliberately fudging the central issue of the need for the kind of incontrovertible UN mandate that governed the Gulf war in 1991. Then, the aims and parameters of the campaign were defined in a UN resolution, which provided the basis for the 35-member coalition that ejected Saddam from Kuwait. This coalition encompassed Western, Muslim and Arab nations. It was because the Gulf war carried UN authority and a strong international consensus that the SNP supported Operation Desert Storm.
different situation now, with the only country giving explicit backing for the US/UK position being the state of Israel -- a country itself guilty of breaking UN resolutions.
This shows what is wrong with the Bush/Blair approach. Would Arab countries, if they were strong enough, be entitled to seize back Palestinian lands by force because Israel was in violation of UN resolutions? Or would Pakistan be entitled to attack India to enforce UN resolutions on Kashmir? Obviously not. But that is exactly the chaos that will reign if other strong countries take upon themselves the authority to unilaterally enforce UN resolutions, an authority that properly belongs to the UN itself.
The point is simple. Action in the name of the UN must be decided by the UN. The need to test the legitimacy of military action is exactly why we need a substantive debate on the Iraq crisis when Westminster reassembles the week after next.
The SNP were the first to write to Tony Blair demanding a parliamentary recall, but we wanted a proper debate resulting in a proper democratic policy for the UK. Instead of that, the only vote likely to take place is on the burning issue of whether the House of Commons should adjourn at 10pm or carry on into the wee sma' hours.
Of course, the reason for this madness is to ensure that all the power remains in the hands of Tony Blair and the executive. But in the recalled debate next week there should be a substantive government motion which is capable of being amended by MPs. In that democratic situation, the SNP and other MPs would propose the need for a UN Security Council resolution governing military action. Parliament would then decide on this basic point of principle.
In the United States, President Bush has promised Congress the final word and a proper policy debate on US action in Iraq -- just as his father carried a motion authorising the use of military force against Iraq in January 1991. There will also be public questioning of administration officials by up to six House of Representatives committees, starting in the middle of this month, in order to determine whether an invasion is justified and would work.
However, democracy American-style is not to be allowed in the House of Commons.
We are at the end of the beginning of war preparations. Let us hope it is not also the beginning of the end for the rule of international law, and for any semblance of democratic procedures at Westminster.
Sept 15 02
A free country
By Stephen Robinson (Filed: 13/09/2002) It could be argued that every person in Britain should be compelled to lodge a sample of his DNA with the ever-expanding national database. It would not be an argument that would find support in this newspaper, but there is no denying the power of DNA evidence in solving some types of crime. Anyone who publicly advances the case for a compulsory database should be listened to, and vigorously argued against.
Telegraph
So far, Parliament has declined to introduce a compulsory database because of fears about the erosion of privacy. Not that this omission has troubled chief constables who, under an amendment to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, have retained all DNA samples taken from suspects who have been interviewed, but not charged, about a crime.
The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled that this was in order on the ground that - as Lord Woolf argued - it "is obvious that the larger the databank of fingerprints and DNA samples available to the police, the greater the value of the databank will be in preventing crime and detecting those responsible for crime".
Even if it is true that a DNA databank might help detect criminals, it is difficult to see how it would prevent a crime. But this is not the central objection: yesterday's ruling stigmatises those who have been either acquitted or merely interviewed about a crime. It also endorses the creation of a national DNA database by stealth, and without Parliament's authority.
Kuwait is currently enforcing a requirement for all its citizens to supply a DNA sample to a central database. The emirate is not known for its commitment to privacy and liberty, but its government did at least feel it necessary to pass legislation, rather than create a national DNA database by the back door.
posted Sept 15 02
Our real opposition
We all depend on the unions to confront privatisation and the advance of corporate power
Guardian
George Monbiot A year and a day ago, the battle which may have determined the political future of Britain was about to commence. Tony Blair was to have told the annual conference of the Trades Union Congress that he would persist with his part-privatisation of public services, and the unions were due to respond with unprecedented anger. As Blair was waiting to speak, news of the attacks on New York reached the conference. The prime minister spoke briefly about his horror, then left. The TUC curtailed its conference, and the fight was postponed until today. Blair's reappearance at the conference this afternoon will be overshadowed both by the anniversary of the attacks and by rumours of war. The unions' response to his speech is likely to flicker across our television screens then disappear. So it will take us some time to grasp the significance of 9/10. This confrontation could prove to be the most important political event in Britain since the general election of 1997.
The battle the unions will resume this week is being fought, ostensibly, over low pay, the minimum wage, pensions, health and safety and the coming war with Iraq. But, as everyone in Blackpool knows, it is in reality about far more than this. Most of the unions fighting the transfer of staff from public bodies to private companies are concerned not only about poorer conditions for the workforce, but also about the quality and scope of public services. They see part-privatisation as symptomatic of the corporate takeover of Britain, and the government's capitulation to big business, in turn, as symptomatic of its willingness to side with power against the powerless. This is the week in which the trades unions become the United Kingdom's official opposition.
They are assuming this role not as a result of any grand ambitions (if anything they have been overcautious about making use of their resurgent power) but because no one else can do it. For the past five years the radical, progressive opposition without which all political systems succumb to corruption has failed to materialise. It cannot arise in Westminster: the three main parties, constrained by the distribution of marginal constituencies, are fighting over the same floating voters of the middle classes, while the smaller ones are obstructed by first-past-the-post elections and a funding system which relies on the benevolence of the rich. There is no sign of a sustained revolt among the senior civil servants who must implement the gradual demolition of public services. The government seems to have little fear of unaffiliated public protest.
The civil servants who run our public services know that the extra money the chancellor has found for health and education is likely to be swallowed by the massively inflated costs of permitting private companies to build and run our schools and hospitals. Three months ago this column listed nine serious and specific charges of public fraud and false accounting surrounding the "private finance initiative", and suggested that if the Treasury failed to answer them, the public should conclude that it has no defence to offer. The Treasury has not responded.
But they know too that, like nuclear waste, PFI is a problem which will trouble only future generations of administrators. By the time the costs of the initiative become unmanageable, most of today's senior managers will have retired. Their interests are best served by doing what they are told and hoping that they make enough money to buy private health insurance and insulate themselves from the inevitable collapse of the system they now run. They know it's wrong - I've seldom met a senior public servant who is not privately horrified by PFI - but they have no incentive to oppose it.
Nor will spontaneous public protest be sufficient to change the course of government policy. The private finance initiative is too complicated and too boring to generate a sustained mass movement among people whose professional interests are not affected. Part-time protesters struggle to compete with the businessmen who have all day, and plenty of resources, to lobby for privatisation.
The unions, by contrast, do have an immediate professional interest in confronting the seizure of the public budget: many public service workers whose jobs are transferred to private companies must work harder for less pay. It is greatly to their credit that the unions have, on the whole, resisted the government's attempts to divide this immediate interest from their longer-term concerns, by negotiating better terms of employment. They have not forgotten that their members cannot afford to buy their way out of the system when they retire.
The unions are also uniquely equipped to confront the privatisation lobbyists. Only they can afford to employ enough researchers and analysts, only they can sustain a mass mobilisation of the kind required to defeat a policy as complex and pervasive as PFI. The rest of us have, without admitting as much to ourselves, come to rely on the public sector unions to fight this battle on our behalf.
This tacit expectation appears to be reflected in the levels of public support for strikes which might, at other times, have generated only resentment towards organised labour. Six weeks ago, for example, a Guardian/ICM poll found that 59% of voters believed that the recent strikes by rail, tube and council workers were justified, while only 29% opposed them.
We have come to rely on the unions too to confront the corporations' other intrusions upon the public domain. The Enron and Worldcom scandals appear to have done nothing to dissuade Tony Blair of the superiority of big business over any other form of human organisation: perhaps, we hope, the unions can. And who, among the opponents of the impending unprovoked war with Iraq, has not secretly wished that organised labour will somehow prise Mr Blair away from Mr Bush?
Such hopes have been boosted by the recognition that the year's delay has enhanced the unions' position. Since Blair hurried away from the conference, his two most trusted lieutenants in the movement - Ken Jackson and Barry Reamsbottom, men who behaved very much like the business leaders they were supposed to confront - have been deposed. The TGWU has begun to rise from its slumber. Unison and the GMB are more confident than they have been for years.
The trades unions, in other words, should have no fear of inciting public hatred by exceeding their mandate. It may not be fair of us to expect them to fight our battles on our behalf, and it is certainly lazy, but when the public is ready to thrust greatness upon them, they should not be reluctant to accept it. We now expect them to articulate the concerns not only of their own members but also of all those whose needs have been subordinated to corporate greed.
In time, we should hope, a revitalised union movement will encourage the rest of us to organise more effectively, but for the moment the unions offer the most realistic means of confronting the complex of state and corporate power. So today, when Tony Blair flaunts his indifference at their conference, the unions shoud not fear their freedom.
Sept 10 02
Farmer takes case against Monsanto to Supreme Court
A Saskatchewan farmer is heading to the Supreme Court to try to appeal a lower court ruling that he violated a patent on herbicide-resistant canola.
Canadian Press Canada.com
On Thursday, the federal appeal court dismissed Percy Schmeiser's arguments that he did not violate Monsanto's patent on its Roundup Ready canola.
Last year, the Bruno-area farmer was ordered to pay $19,000 in damages for using the seed and another $150,000 to cover Monsanto's court costs. The farmer had argued that either the seed blew into his field from a passing truck or his crop may have been contaminated by pollination.
Schmeiser says the patent rights will be the "number one issue" of his application to ask the High Court to hear the case.
He says the stress from his legal battles with Monsanto has been hard on him and his wife, adding it's taken their life savings to fight the chemical giant to this point.
Sept 7 02
ID cards 'will sneak in fingerprint database'
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
Independent
The Government wants to give police the power to access fingerprint records of any British citizen as part of the new national "entitlement card" scheme.
Police and law enforcement agencies would be allowed to check millions of fingerprints to help to track down suspects of serious crimes or terrorist offences. They could centre searches on cities and towns in which crime had been committed.
Fingerprint information is intended to be included in the proposed new identity cards.
But civil liberties groups say the proposal, which will be considered as part of the Government's consultation on whether to introduce the cards on a national basis, is a gross infringement of an individual's privacy and would turn innocent people into potential suspects. Yesterday, they denounced the Government for slipping out the announcement during the summer recess of Parliament.
Roger Bingham, of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "We are talking about a national fingerprint or biometric database by the back door. The Government admitted the overwhelming majority of crimes are committed by people the police know about, but they still want to treat the other 58 million of us as suspects.".
Sept 4 02
Why Brussels wants to clear the herbalists' shelves
By Daniel Hannan
Telegraph
You may be one of the 20 million people in this country who, at one time or another, have taken a natural remedy. There is even a fair chance that you are one of the two million who regularly buy herbal medicines.
If so, your life is about to become a lot more complicated. Two directives are clanking their way through the EU machine which, taken together, will outlaw a good deal of what you are doing.
The Food Supplements Directive has passed through all its Brussels stages - although not without fierce opposition from Conservative MEPs - and is now awaiting implementation into British law.
It will ban hundreds of vitamin and mineral products, and restrict the dosage of others. The Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive is scheduled to become law in 18 months' time. It will affect thousands of natural medicines.
The combined result of these two laws will be to prohibit many substances that have been on the market for years without the slightest evidence that they are deleterious to our health. Natural remedies will be reclassified as medicines, making them subject to a rigorous testing regime.
It is not only each substance that must be tested, but every single product. In other words, if a herbalist wants to sell echinacea, it will not be enough to prove that echinacea is safe. He - or, more often, she - will also be required to submit her particular version of it, at a cost of several thousand pounds.
Thousands of products will be driven off the market. The bigger firms will be all right: some form of St John's wort will still be available at Boots. But many smaller herbalists, unable to meet the compliance costs, will be driven out of business.
Even by the EU's standards, the criminalisation of an activity engaged in by millions of consumers may seem rather heavy-handed. To grasp why it is happening, you need to understand a little about the Brussels system.
MEPs are rarely happier than when telling others what to do. In the three years since I was elected, we have restricted the amount of time you can spend on a tractor, demanded that you wear ear plugs in noisy places, and laid down an approved way of holding ladders against walls. The idea that herbal medicine is "unregulated" is, to most Euro-MPs, simply a loophole that needs closing.
This is not because of any suggestion that the supplements in question pose a health risk. Rather, the EU is following what it calls "the precautionary principle".
At the beginning of the 19th century, it was widely believed that the noise of a passing train would cause pregnant women to miscarry. Had we applied the precautionary principle, we would never have laid a single inch of track. After all, the rail operators of the day couldn't prove that they wouldn't cause miscarriages, any more than today's health stores can prove that their wares are not poisonous.
Most of the products in question have been used in parts of the world for hundreds of years without evidence of harmful side effects. One of the threatened substances, for example, is cat's claw, which is traditionally prescribed in my native Peru as a cure for inflammation and rheumatism. If it were dangerous, Peruvians would surely have noticed by now.
There is more to this, though, than an addiction to regulation. Whenever you see an apparently insane Brussels directive, ask yourself: cui bono? Someone, somewhere, stands to gain. Thus, the attempt to ban the British double-decker was largely driven by a handful of continental bus manufacturers who had their eye on our lucrative export market. The campaign against British lettuce was enthusiastically supported by Spanish lettuce growers.
And so it is with the directives on herbal medicines, which will allow the large pharmaceutical corporations to squeeze out their smaller competitors. These firms, like other multi-nationals, have discovered that Brussels is a lobbyist's paradise. Because the people who pass the laws are almost untouched by public opinion, measures can be pushed through which would never withstand the scrutiny of a democratic national parliament.
The EU is thus, in many ways, the opposite of a common market. The essence of a market is mutual product recognition. In other words, if a widget is sold freely in Britain, it ought to be available in Germany, and vice versa.
Instead, more often than not, the EU's approach is to lay down highly prescriptive rules on the size, shape and contents of widgets, which can have the effect of banning products which were never intended for export in the first place. And you'd be surprised by how often those standards turn out to have been proposed by some European widget manufacturer who happened to meet all the specifications anyway.
For what it's worth, I am rather sceptical about most herbal remedies - although my wife, a regular user, has converted me to echinacea. But that is not the point.
The essence of liberty, and the focus of this newspaper's Free Country campaign, is that we stand up for rights which we do not ourselves want to exercise. Even if you have never been inside a health store before, go into one now and sign the petition on the counter. This is not about science; it's about freedom.
Conversely, if you are a regular buyer of natural remedies, but have never before campaigned against an EU measure, try extrapolating from this experience.
You are now being treated as fishermen, art dealers, abattoir workers, hauliers and countless other victims of EU meddling have been treated before. It is not just this law that is wrong; it is the system that spawned it.
Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for south-east England
Sept 3 02
Blair in Mozambique
Blair declined to reply to a question from the British Press Association concerning his government's attitude to a possible US attack against Iraq.
All Africa.com
The press conference was extremely short, and only two questions were taken - one from the Press Association, and one from the Portuguese news agency, LUSA. None of the Mozambican media were able to ask questions. Had AIM been called upon to speak, it would have asked Blair what his government intends to do to ensure that African producers have fair access to the markets of the developed world.
Currently, the enormous subsidies that European and American governments offer their farmers sabotage African agriculture.
They lead to absurdities such as paying farmers in northern England to produce sugar from beet which is at least three times as expensive as Mozambique's cane sugar.
AIM would like to hear from Tony Blair whether the British government intends to move from charity to fair trade. Or will Britain's real, rather than rhetorical, relationship with Africa continue to be determined in Paris, by right-wing French farming lobbies
Sept 2 02
Blair losing control of party over Iraq
Jason Beattie
The Scotsman
TONY Blair was struggling last night to contain the growing revolt in the Labour Party over Iraq, with half of backbench Labour MPs in Scotland publicly warning against United States military action.
With Downing Street under pressure to distance itself from the hawkish line coming from Washington, Gavin Strang became the latest senior Labour figure to caution against a pre-emptive strike by the US military, warning of the "widespread unease" within the party about possible conflict.
Dr Strang, a former Cabinet minister, specifically criticised the recent sabre-rattling by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, claiming they had not considered the implications for Middle East stability should the US try to topple Saddam Hussein.
Dr Strang, the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh MP, is one of 19 Scottish Labour MPs who have signed a Commons motion noting the "deep unease" about the prospect of Mr Blair supporting a pre-emptive strike by President Bush.
Malcolm Savidge, the Labour MP for Aberdeen North, used an article in Tribune magazine to launch a excoriating attack on Mr Blair's foreign policy.
"Britain must not be drawn into immoral or illegal wars. Labour must not sacrifice its principles, moral values or British interests and lives to the false god of a specious, special relationship with the US hard Right," he wrote.
Aug 31 02
Christopher Booker's Notebook
(Filed: 25/08/2002) Tories challenge 'sneaky' asbestos legislation Customs officials continue to ignore new laws The pointlessness of the plastic cup
TelegraphTories challenge 'sneaky' asbestos legislation
In an unusual and dramatic move the leader of the opposition, Iain Duncan Smith, has intervened to stop the Government using the Parliamentary recess to sneak in controversial new regulations on asbestos which, as I revealed last week, threaten to become the most expensive law ever put on the statute book.
Mr Duncan Smith has taken the unorthodox step of writing to Andrew Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, demanding to see the still-unpublished regulations which the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) hopes to make law before MPs return from holiday in October.
In light of the cost of the new law, estimated by the HSE as £5.1 billion, although unofficial estimates put it far higher, the Tory leader has also asked Mr Smith to postpone signing the statutory instrument until Parliament has a chance to discuss it.
The main concern over the regulations, now shared by the Shadow Cabinet, is that they will impose astronomic costs on Britain's businesses by putting them at the mercy of 800 specialist contractors licensed by the HSE.
These contractors are already exploiting confusion over the dangers of asbestos by overcharging for work which often proves unnecessary either for legal or safety reasons.
In particular, contractors are peddling the myth that all types of asbestos are equally dangerous. In fact the most common form of asbestos product, the white asbestos cement widely used for roofing materials, poses no health risk at all in practical terms, unlike the hazardous blue and brown forms, based on a wholly different mineral.
By imposing draconian requirements on businesses, the HSE's regulations will only exacerbate the existing confusion which allows unscrupulous contractors to fool members of the public into paying ludicrous sums for work which can be safely carried out for a fraction of the cost.
Since my article last week, giving the e-mail address of a fully-qualified expert, John Bridle (jbridle@whiteasbestos.fsnet.co.uk), his advice has already saved 80 readers of this column unnecessary expenses ranging from £80 to £9,000.
Mr Duncan Smith has appointed the combative John Bercow as shadow minister to spearhead a campaign to force ministers to redraft the HSE's proposals in a way that could save the country billions of pounds, without endangering public health.
Mr Bercow will also be calling for a full investigation of the racketeers who have been profiting from the confusion about asbestos.Customs officials continue to ignore new laws
There is no more glaring example of how officials are now a law unto themselves in modern Britain, than the contempt shown by Customs and Excise for the recent High Court ruling that it was breaking the law by persecuting motorists bringing back cigarettes and alcohol from the Continent for private use.
On July 31 two High Court judges found that Dover customs officials were doubly in breach of the law: first, by ignoring the rules of the European Union single market which permit free movement of goods; and, second, by reversing the burden of proof, whereby passengers were assumed to be guilty of smuggling unless they could prove to officials they were not.
More than 10,000 motorists, including the three who won the case, have had vehicles confiscated, the vast majority for legally bringing in goods for their own use. On August 13, two weeks after the ruling, Captain Christopher Ward, a reader who had gone over with a friend for "a good lunch in Le Touquet" and to bring back three months' supply of cigarettes and wine, was subjected by the Dover officials to the usual grilling.
What was his occupation? "Retired naval officer." What had he done in the Navy? He had served for 20 years in submarines. Implying that he must be lying, the official told him he was "too tall" to have served in submarines.
The captain was then given a political lecture. The lower price of cigarettes in Europe merely balanced their higher rates of income tax.
Tobacco taxes in Britain were high as part of the Government's campaign against the evils of smoking (obviously no one had told the officials that the net effect of encouraging cross-channel imports by making tobacco taxes so high has been to increase cigarette consumption while costing the Treasury more than £5 billion a year).
After a warning that they were lucky not to have their car seized, Captain Ward and his friend were allowed to drive home. All this two weeks after the High Court had ruled such behaviour to be illegal.
Steve Lawrence of Hoverspeed, also a party to the court action, confirms that the officials are "still acting unlawfully and in flagrant defiance of the High Court ruling". Their excuse is that they plan to appeal against the judges' findings and until the appeal is heard, they have licence to continue breaking the law as much as they wish.
The pointlessness of the plastic cup
Next weekend huge quantities of cider will be drunk at one of the west country's most popular annual events, the Great Steam Fair at Tarrant Hinton in Dorset.
Those who sell the cider, including the Somerset cider and brandy-maker Julian Temperley, have received a remarkable letter from Mr Hudson of the Dorset police which encloses a document from "my colleagues at Dorset county trading standards office".
This reminds the cider-sellers that under EU rules, they are not permitted to sell cider by the pint. They can serve it in an officially stamped pint or half-pint glass or plastic container, but may only refer to it as a "large" or "small glass", or as "568 millilitres".
To refer to a "pint" is a criminal offence, and trading standards officials will be "inspecting operations" to ensure the law is complied with.
From long experience, Mr Temperley knows it is unwise to serve cider at such events in glasses or plastic beakers, which break and become dangerous. He prefers to sell it in paper cups, as he is freely allowed to do at similar events in Somerset. But under the "unique Dorset rules" this is considered illegal, because the cups cannot be stamped.
Mr Temperley therefore plans to display a notice that customers will be served in "hard, plastic, dangerous and environmentally unfriendly, stamped containers", for which there will be an extra charge of 30p. If customers then wish to pour their cider into "our safe, biodegradable paper cups", they will get their 30p back.
Trading standards officials and their police "colleagues" (who have no legal status in matters concerning weights and measures) will no doubt be kept busy puzzling out how to bring charges against Mr Temperley for an arrangement which is entirely within the law. But, for good use of police time, it certainly beats catching burglars.
Aug 25 02
Blair 'can't be trusted to oversee ethics'
By Andrew Sparrow, Political Correspondent
Telegraph
A new committee should be set up to oversee ethical standards in government because Tony Blair cannot be trusted to do it, say the Conservatives.
David Davis said yesterday that No 10's refusal to comply with a request from the committee on standards in public life showed the need for a new watchdog.
As Prime Minister, Mr Blair is in charge of ensuring that ministers comply with the ministerial code, the rulebook of government behaviour. Mr Davis, a senior shadow cabinet figure, said a tribunal consisting of privy counsellors and probably a law lord should do the job.
"It is the inability of the Prime Minister to distinguish between what is politically expedient for the Labour Party and what is proper for the government of the country that highlights the need for an independent external scrutiny of both ministers and special advisers," he said.
The committee on standards in public life is holding an inquiry into special advisers. Earlier this year it invited Alastair Campbell, the most powerful special adviser in government, to give evidence.
Sir Richard Wilson, the Cabinet Secretary, wrote back to say that Mr Campbell and other Downing Street advisers would not appear in public. Instead they offered to meet the committee in private.
Sir Nigel Wicks, committee chairman, rejected the offer. It was "established practice" to get evidence in public, he said. The committee will not hear from Mr Campbell before issuing recommendations.
No 10 said last night that a new watchdog was not needed.
Aug 22 02
What business has Labour got messing with parish councils?
By Greville Howard
Telegraph
The village where I am a parish councillor is fortunate in having a full complement of able and sensible people doing the job. Not everywhere is so lucky: nearly 40 per cent of parish, town and community councils fail to attract enough candidates, according to a recent study by the University of Wales. There is a crisis in local government.
The Model Code for Parish Councillors, recently introduced by the Government, is bound to increase the problem. Worse, it will reduce the quality of candidates, as the better ones are usually the busiest and thus the most difficult to persuade to give up their time. It will be for these that the code is most likely to act as the final straw.
Throughout England, parish councillors, with no reward and only rarely any repayment of expenses, give time and energy to their local community. They have virtually no power to take decisions; those are taken by the next tier up. Their role is to be consulted: they attend a few meetings a year, frequently very dull, but they are the frontline of contact between their community and government.
Some politician or civil servant, in need of an "initiative", saw this group of public-spirited beings quietly giving their voluntary service and thought: "How shocking that they are unregulated. How can this be? They might misbehave."
There was no thought that parish councils have been going for 800 years, with scarcely a blip; no thought that the matters over which parish councillors actually take decisions are minimal, and therefore the cost-effectiveness of controls (in the unlikely event that they have the effect they are intended to have) would be zero; no thought that it is already difficult to find people to serve as parish councillors.
No, if you see something, regulate it, and so the Model Code for Parish Councillors and the concept of "quality councils" were born. The full effect has yet to be seen, but already whole parish councils are resigning over what they see as unwarranted intrusions into their private lives.
As if all this were not enough, the rules themselves are both silly and being deliberately misinterpreted by the Standards Board for England. Clause 15 of the code says parish councillors must report gifts of hospitality of more than £25.
This provoked an immediate hullabaloo, but the Standards Board for England pointed out that a Christmas present from one's spouse would not need to be declared because clause 1(2) says the "code of conduct shall not have effect in relation to the activities of a member other than in an official capacity".
When I got this information, I asked one of the delightful and helpful antipodean women at the Standards Board to confirm that, if the scope of clause 15 (the £25 gift clause) is limited by clause 1(2), then clauses 12 and 13 would similarly be limited. (These clauses state that all interests - your job, your directorships, charities where you are a trustee, trade union membership, professional associations, political affiliations etc - must be registered.) After discussion, I was referred upwards.
Surely, I repeated, if clause 1(2) stretches out to limit the scope of clause 15, then it must also limit the scope of clauses 12 and 13: it cannot just bypass them. I was told that no, this was not correct. The reason appeared to be that this was what the Standards Board for England had decided.
When my local district council issued forms for parish councillors to record their interests, the council advised that all interests must be included. On being asked, a charming woman said that was what they had been told to do by the Standards Board for England.
However, Dr Alan Whitehead (then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions), in answer to a written parliamentary question, said: "The requirements about the discharge of this duty are set out in paragraph 13 of the Parish Councils (Model Code of Conduct) Order 2001. The Code does not have effect in relation to the activities of a member undertaken other than in an official activity."
This quite clearly shows there is no need for parish councillors to include all interests regardless. The Standards Board is exceeding its powers in demanding detail that does not relate to activity as a parish councillor.
If not impossible, it is certainly very difficult to conceive how membership of a trade union, trade association or professional association could have any relevance to the official activity of a parish councillor. Even membership of a political party would usually be irrelevant, as parish councils are not run on party political lines.
Another point that merits attention is "prejudicial interest". This occurs when the "personal interest" of a councillor could be regarded by a member of the public as likely to prejudice the councillor's judgment. So what is "personal interest"?
It is where (assuming my interpretation of the appalling drafting is correct) a parish council decision would affect "to a greater extent than other council-tax payers, ratepayers, or inhabitants of the authority's area, the wellbeing or financial position of himself"
Does this mean that anyone having more property - for example, a bigger garden - is automatically disqualified by the code from being a parish councillor? After all, virtually all decisions taken by a parish council will affect a larger property owner to a "greater extent" than a smaller property owner.
Following the argument through, are larger council-tax payers excluded because they will be affected to a "greater extent"? And how is one to know what "a member of the public" will think? What a treat for the lawyers to have to argue that one.
The code is yet another expensive, rotten piece of legislation, causing unhappiness and harm and administered by bureaucrats who are deliberately misinterpreting rules. It is difficult to believe that politicians and civil servants could think there is any point in introducing a code of conduct where there is no influence to peddle. Is there, as some have suggested, a hidden agenda to get rid of parish councils?
Two other impediments to the continued good working of parish councils have been introduced. "quality councils" and the one they tried to keep secret: "community vibrancy indicators". This last, if you have not heard of it, is an "indicator theme designed to measure the capacity of parish populations to fulfil their potential for improving their local quality of life".
Politicians and civil servants have already proved themselves incapable of running their bloated empires. Fat chance of their being any help in improving local life. The only contribution they can make is to leave well alone.
One of the rules of the code states that all complaints must be investigated. In my more mischievous moments, I contemplate gumming up the system by complaining about every parish councillor in England. What stops me is that the Government could use the cost of this to close all parish councils down on the grounds that they are too expensive to administer.
Aug 19 02
Re: Sidetracked by trivia
Date: 18 August 2002
Sunday Telegraph
To judge the political ability of a parliamentary candidate, male or female, on how he or she converses with a supermarket checkout girl plumbs new depths of Tory despair.
To "instruct" constituency associations to ensure that short-listed candidates are capable of holding a five-minute conversation with this assistant presupposes that the said individual is capable of participating in the exercise or indeed is desirous of so doing!
This is humiliating and irrelevant, absurdity in a political party claiming to be grown-up. It does nothing for morale and reduces the standards which should be demanded and expected of Conservative candidates. It is trivia.
From:
Beryl M Goldsmith, LondonWar on the peasantry
Mugabe's crimes pale next to what black small farmers endure in the name of development
Guardian
George Monbiot Tuesday August 13, 2002 The Guardian
The most evil man on earth, after Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, is Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe. That, at least, is the view of most of the western world's press.
Yesterday Mugabe insisted that 2,900 white farmers will have to leave their land. He claims to be redistributing their property to landless peasants, but many of the farms he has seized have been handed instead to army officers and party loyalists. Twelve white farmers have been killed and many others beaten. He stole the elections in March through ballot-rigging and the intimidation of his political rivals.
His assault on white-owned farms has been cited by the Daily Telegraph as the principal reason for the current famine. Now, the paper maintains, he is using "food aid as a political weapon". As a candidate for the post of World's Third Most Evil Man, he appears to possess all the right credentials.
There is no doubt that Mugabe is a ruthless man, or that his policies are contributing to the further impoverishment of the Zimbabweans. But to suggest that his land seizures are largely responsible for the nation's hunger is fanciful.
Though the 4,500 white farmers there own two-thirds of of the best land, many of them grow not food but tobacco. Seventy per cent of the nation's maize - its primary staple crop - is grown by black peasant farmers hacking a living from the marginal lands they were left by the whites.
The seizure of the white farms is both brutal and illegal. But it is merely one small scene in the tragedy now playing all over the world. Every year, some tens of millions of peasant farmers are forced to leave their land, with devastating consequences for food security.
For them there are no tear-stained descriptions of a last visit to the graves of their children. If they are mentioned at all, they are dismissed by most of the press as the necessary casualties of development.
Ten years ago, I investigated the expropriations being funded and organised in Africa by another member of the Commonwealth. Canada had paid for the ploughing and planting with wheat of the Basotu Plains in Tanzania.
Wheat was eaten in that country only by the rich, but by planting that crop, rather than maize or beans or cassava, Canada could secure contracts for its chemical and machinery companies, which were world leaders in wheat technology.
The scheme required the dispossession of the 40,000 members of the Barabaig tribe. Those who tried to return to their lands were beaten by the project's workers, imprisoned and tortured with electric shocks. The women were gang-raped.
For the first time in a century, the Barabaig were malnourished. When I raised these issues with one of the people running the project, she told me: "I won't shed a tear for anybody if it means development." The rich world's press took much the same attitude: only the Guardian carried the story.
Now yet another member of the Commonwealth, the United Kingdom, is funding a much bigger scheme in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Some 20 million people will be dispossessed. Again this atrocity has been ignored by most of the media.
These are dark-skinned people being expelled by whites, rather than whites being expelled by black people. They are, as such, assuming their rightful place, as invisible obstacles to the rich world's projects. Mugabe is a monster because he has usurped the natural order.
Throughout the coverage of Zimbabwe there is an undercurrent of racism and of regret that Britain ever let Rhodesia go. Some of the articles in the Telegraph may as well have been headlined "The plucky men and women holding darkest Africa at bay". Readers are led to conclude that Ian Smith was right all along: the only people who know how to run Africa are the whites.
But, through the IMF, the World Bank and the bilateral aid programmes, with their extraordinary conditions, the whites do run Africa, and a right hash they are making of it.
Over the past 10 years, according to the UN's latest human development report, the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than a dollar a day has risen from 242 million to 300 million. The more rigorously Africa's governments apply the policies demanded by the whites, the poorer their people become.
Just like Mugabe, the rich world has also been using "food aid as a political weapon". The United States has just succeeded in forcing Zimbabwe and Zambia, both suffering from the southern African famine, to accept GM maize as food relief.
Both nations had fiercely resisted GM crops, partly because they feared that the technology would grant multinational companies control over the foodchain, leaving their people still more vulnerable to hunger. But the US, seizing the opportunity for its biotech firms, told them that they must either accept this consignment or starve.
Malawi has also been obliged to take GM maize from the US, partly because of the loss of its own strategic grain reserve. In 1999, the IMF and the European Union instructed Malawi to privatise the reserve.
The private body was not capitalised, so it had to borrow from commercial banks to buy grain. Predictably enough, by 2001 it found that it couldn't service its debt. The IMF told it to sell most of the reserve.
The private body sold it all, and Malawi ran out of stored grain just as its crops failed. The IMF, having learnt nothing from this catastrophe, continues to prevent that country from helping its farmers, subsidising food or stabilising prices.
The same agency also forces weak nations to open their borders to subsidised food from abroad, destroying their own farming industries. Perhaps most importantly, it prevents state spending on land reform.
Land distribution is the key determinant of food security. Small farms are up to 10 times as productive as large ones, as they tend to be cultivated more intensively. Small farmers are more likely to supply local people with staple crops than western supermarkets with mangetout.
The governments of the rich world don't like land reform. It requires state intervention, which offends the god of free markets, and it hurts big farmers and the companies that supply them. Indeed, it was Britain's refusal either to permit or to fund an adequate reform programme in Zimbabwe that created the political opportunities Mugabe has so ruthlessly exploited. The Lancaster House agreement gave the state to the black population but the nation to the whites. Mugabe manipulates the genuine frustrations of a dispossessed people.
The president of Zimbabwe is a very minor devil in the hellish politics of land and food. The sainted Nelson Mandela has arguably done just as much harm to the people of Africa, by surrendering his powers to the IMF as soon as he had wrested them from apartheid.
Let us condemn Mugabe's attacks upon Zimbabwe's whites by all means, but only if we are