This page is now both archived here - and appears as a Blog here

warmwell.com

Mikhail Gorbachev said, "The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe" "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -- Tacitus (A.D. c.56-c.115)

Transcript: John Humphrys and Tony Blair. Sept 29 2004 Extract:

" ..Look. - in the end with this thing, I totally understand why people have a very strong view on it and, you know, you're entitled to have a view and everyone is entitled to have a view. Just understand why I took this decision. I took the decision - I, you know, as I said yesterday - I'm as fallible as anybody else, I may be wrong in it, but I don't believe I'm wrong..."

---

Feb 23 2005 ~ Labour backbencher Bob Marshall-Andrews has declared the Prevention of Terrorism Bill " the greatest attack on the nation's liberty in three centuries."

Yorkshire Post today: David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, criticised the decision to fast-track the Bill.
"The Bill removes, for the first time in modern times, the presumption of innocence of the accused and it also removes the right of the accused to see the evidence and charges against them. Further, the Government are introducing emergency measures that they say they will not need to use – why are these included in the Bill? Parliament needs more time to debate these issues.
Our civil liberties and system of justice are worth more than two days of hurried decisions."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said: "Charles Clarke's proposals are going to have a very rough ride through Parliament. It is wrong in principle, and dangerous in practice, to allow British citizens to be locked up in their homes on the say-so of a politician.
Controls on suspects' movements and communications should only be made by a judge. "..."

February 2005 ~A spokesman for Amnesty International has said: "Just as the internet is a tool for freedom, so it is being used as an excuse for repression"

The Committee to Protect Bloggers (opens in new window) is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on Tuesday to the "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day".
Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran. It is salutary to remember that this website can say what it likes - to the relief of many and to the irritation of many. However, there is a growing backlash among powerful authoritarians against Freedom of Speech. We would be wise not to take it for granted - or to think that freedom of speech is a right we need not bother to defend.
BBC "Amnesty International has recorded a growing number of cases of people detained or imprisoned for disseminating their beliefs or information through the internet, in countries such as China, Syria, Vietnam, the Maldives, Cuba, Iran and Zimbabwe. It is also shocking to realise that in the communications age just expressing support for an internet activist is enough to land people in jail."
Many companies offer easy-to-use 'templating software' to create a blog and publish it in minutes to a global community. See, for example, http://www.blogger.com/start

February 2005 ~ Conspiring in torture, betraying our freedom. Charles Clarke is a disaster

Simon Jenkins "On friday the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, will ask the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders to help him to infringe the rule of law. He will tell them of a threat facing Britain that is greater than anything since Hitler. There are people out there, he said last month, who “want to kill hundreds and thousands of people who are innocent of everything”. Surely Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy will not want to impede urgent legislation — and just before an election?
Mr Clarke is emerging as one of the weakest home secretaries of modern times. He has capitulated to the dark forces behind every government who do not care a cat’s whisker for civil liberty. He wants to allow himself (which means them) to impose “control orders” on anyone he (which means they) choose. The victims may be Muslims, Irish, animal rights activists or anyone the Home Secretary “suspects of terror”. Mr Clarke wants curfews, electronic tags, internet and phone bugs and restrictions on contacts, all without court orders. Yesterday he withdrew passports from two British former Guantanamo inmates without explanation. He eschews the phrase “house arrest”, preferring to “restrict people to the premises where they live”. Authoritarians love euphemisms. .......
......... Mr Clarke is about to deny British citizens their freedom on the possible say-so of an Uzbek sadist, a Syrian thug or an electrode-wielding Egyptian. A British court says he can do this provided only that a chap from MI6 is not involved — which I would have considered a safeguard. I cannot see what conceivable weight can be put on such “intelligence”. At least in Tosca’s day Scarpia was in the next room. Even assuming that Mr Clarke’s conscience has gone to sleep, what has happened to his brain?
Control orders are a deep offence to British justice. Despite being based on unreliable intelligence and “outsourced” torture, they will become entrenched, like all past “prevention of terror” laws. They will alienate the Muslim population and make martyrs of hoodlums. No court can treat their evidence as usable. As America and Germany show, this will severely compromise the bringing of real terrorists to justice.
Mr Clarke may think that he is hanging tough for his boss at election time. But he is making Britain less free and less safe. Mr Howard and Mr Kennedy should have nothing to do with him on Friday." Read in full

February 2005 ~ How even the Chief Scientific Adviser was gagged by Number 10

An article from last March in the Independent reveals how Number 10 controls what is said to the press and media. In March, Ivan Rogers, Mr Blair's principal private secretary, told Sir David King to limit his contact with the media after he made outspoken comments about President George Bush's policy on climate change. He was told:
"....to decline any interview requests from British and American newspapers and BBC Radio 4's Today ....Sir David, who is highly regarded by Mr Blair, has been primed with a list of 136 mock questions that the media could ask if they were able to get access to him, and the suggested answers he should be prepared to give....
The leaked memo came to light after a computer disk was discovered by an American freelance journalist, Mike Martin, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, where Sir David gave a lecture. ..... Mr Rogers' memo, written a few days before the Seattle conference, was aimed at limiting his exposure to questions from US and British media. While in Seattle, Sir David sat on a panel of scientists at one carefully stage-managed press conference, but his press office said he was too busy to give interviews afterwards to journalists. .." Read in full
When the Chief Scientific Adviser submits to his political masters' script even on a subject that is evidently very close to his heart, one wonders even more what "independent scientific advice" can amount to.

February 2005 ~Sir Alistair Graham: 'Tony Blair and the Government are open to the charge they want to control everything'

The Monday Interview: Independent "..... When he became chairman last year, some people dismissed the former chairman of the Police Complaints Authority as an establishment figure who would balk at criticising ministers. But nine months on, Whitehall feathers have been ruffled and ministerial egos bruised. ......
"The danger for the Prime Minister and the Government is that they are open to the charge they want to control everything,"
"The public said to us they wanted politicians to tell the truth as it is, in the commonsense meaning of that."
"Our survey showed that in key areas, for example, cronyism in public appointments, there was a perception that things had got worse rather than got better. "
......."All of us in our role as citizens have the right to ask tough questions and be sceptical about what people in authority may tell us"
One way of rebuilding trust would be for the Government to be more open about releasing its policy papers. The use of clear language is another way of restoring trust, and one Sir Alistair wants to pursue.
With a general election looming, the issues of trust, standards and integrity will be high on the political agenda, and there are no signs that Sir Alistair is prepared to step back from the debate...... With rumours rife in Whitehall of a ministerial whispering campaign against him, is he worried by the Government's spin machine? The Geordie sleaze-buster shrugs and smiles. "I am not worried," he says. "It comes with the territory."
Read in full

6/7 February 2005 ~ “What is he really saying? Provided somebody raises the words ‘national security’ you can do anything to anyone? But is that not exactly the same that any right wing dictatorship has ever said?"

Will Charles Clarke learn to regret his words following Martin Mubanga's claims that British secret services played a crucial role in his abduction and that British intelligence officials played a key role in consigning him to Guantanamo Bay. Mr Clarke thought fit to say "I am absolutely unapologetic in saying it, that anybody in my job has to have national security at the centre of their concerns. And if there are people who threaten national security, it is necessary to deal with that and address it in a very rigorous way. ....”
Fair Trials Abroad director Stephen Jakobi responded angrily saying national security was no excuse to “rush out trying to lock up people and torture them”... “What is he really saying? Provided somebody raises the words ‘national security’ you can do anything to anyone? But is that not exactly the same that any right wing dictatorship has ever said?" See Scotsman

6 February 2005 ~ Sir Humphrey's top tips

- by Roland White in the Sunday Times

1. On no account attempt to reply within the stipulated 20 days. You know how unreliable the post can be these days.
2. In the unlikely event of a further inquiry, respond that you must first consult widely within the department.
3. Consult widely. Refer the application up, refer it across, refer it down, refer it to the necessary ministers, refer it to the necessary former ministers. Do not expect any early replies. Remember, they too will have read these guidelines.
4. On receiving the results of your consultation, deploy the catch-22 defence. Write to the applicant in hand-wringing tones to say that, alas, they have not been specific enough. What is it exactly that they want? If they knew what they wanted, they wouldn’t need to ask for it.
5. If the applicant still persists, say that the documents required must be examined by legal advisers to consider the public interest. If you can’t think of anything else, insist that there are human rights issues.
6. You know what legal folk are like. This step could take years.
7. Announce in delighted tones that the application has cleared all the necessary stages: administrative, consultative, legal. But the decision has been taken to withhold the material.
8. If the applicant obtains a legal notice demanding the release of the information, inform the relevant cabinet minister. He or she can always issue a veto blocking the release of the information.
9. If all else fails, revert to Whitehall Emergency Plan 3b: “We regret that the documents in question are no longer available as they were accidentally shredded by a junior clerk on work experience.”

4 February 2005 ~ ID cards 'could fall foul of human rights law'

Telegraph "Compulsory national identity cards raise "serious questions" about the protection of individual privacy under human rights law, MPs and peers said yesterday. The Government's plans could also breach legislation forbidding discrimination by making some people subject to the ID regime while others are, for the time being, exempt. In a report, the joint parliamentary committee on human rights casts fresh doubt on Government claims that an ID card would help tackle crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. It points out that the phased introduction of the cards and the accompanying National Identity Register will mean that a compulsory scheme, with penalties for non-compliance, will exist alongside a voluntary one. From 2007, anyone renewing a passport will automatically be issued with an ID card and number, while those who do not need a new passport or do not possess one will not be subject to the regime.......... Simon Hughes, of the Liberal Democrats, said: "This committee expresses deep dissatisfaction that the Government has not explained how its ID card plans are compatible with human rights."

2 February 2005 ~ Government attacked for 'hypocritical' attitude to Freedom of Information Act

By Robert Verkaik and Marie Woolf in the Independent "Ministers' promises to usher in a new age of freedom of information have failed to materialise, with scores of requests to open the Government to public scrutiny being rejected. .....
Scores of requests have been refused and some departments have been using stock replies to deny access to information, issuing refusal letters to different people using identical wording.
Of the 70 inquiries made by The Independent only 10 have been successful. Almost half were turned down flat; the remainder are still awaiting reply. In two of the replies the Government conceded that it had breached its own legislation by failing to meet the deadline of 20 working days that expired yesterday. Ministers also admitted they had no idea how many of the 362 requests made on the first day the legislation came into force had been answered. Yet, in 2000, Labour postponed the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act by four years to give government departments and 100,000 public bodies more time to prepare for the new right of access. .." Read in full. The article compares "Freedom of Information" here with elsewhere in the West. See also Independent's "Is this freedom of information?"

30 January 2005 ~ "the most audacious ministerial power grab ever tried in peacetime. .."

"....the really sinister aspect of Mr Clarke's proposals is the lack of any judicial supervision over 'control orders' in the gift of the Home Secretary alone. Mr Clarke has made a last-ditch choice for nations at war into a policy of first resort.
Memories of Auschwitz highlight how easily comfortable civilisations tip into tyranny, but few people seriously worry that getting heavy with a few terrorist suspects will usher in a police state. And so Britain, thinking itself vigilant, grows complacent. It is easy, while paying homage to the past, to think of hatred and persecution as museum pieces. They are not....
.. .Mr Clarke's measures would make it more, not less, likely that Bluewater or any other shopping centre gets blown up. They would feed the glee of Islamic extremists satisfied that liberal Western governments are as cowardly and oppressive as the overlords of terror always preached.
Internment without trial harms the incarcerated, taints the free and delivers victory to agents of turmoil. Home Secretaries are fond of saying that parliament, not judges, makes the law. It will be for parliament to halt a measure that would storm the narrow borderline where democracy stops and tyranny begins." Mary Riddell in the Observer

30 January 2005 ~ "..By its over- reliance on spin, its corruption of the civil service and its mendacious presentation of evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the government has lost its reputation for honesty.

Without trust, many people simply will not believe that the Home Office has a case for detaining suspects when it fails to produce evidence. ..." Leading article in Sunday Times

28 January 2005 ~ "The Home Secretary's plan to intern British citizens without trial stinks. He must know it. His colleagues must know it.

Sir Simon Jenkins in the Times.
"Some politicians need to have their heads banged and their ears shoved to the ground so they can hear the echoing drumbeats of history. Yesterday I listened to Charles Clarke trying to defend his proposals on the radio. He sounded miserable and unconvincing. He implied that his critics were ignorant of some massive threat known only to him and his secret advisers. He seemed in thrall to forces of darkness which lurk deep within all governments but which stronger politicians hold in check. ..
Those high on the narcotic of power lose their nose for right and wrong. Mr Clarke says he will use his powers “reasonably”. All authoritarians say that. He may not eat babies or beat Arabs in Belmarsh with rubber truncheons. But when four tortured British citizens were freed from Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday — imprisoned under the same rules as Mr Clarke espouses — he casually incarcerated them a further day, lest the dark ones think him soft on terror. It was a gesture of puerile cruelty.
Mr Clarke appeals to “the intelligence community” as his guide in assaulting British liberty. That community is on probation as the most tarnished in Whitehall. The dossiers used to create a climate of fear before the Iraq invasion were entirely false. Yet their authors are Mr Clarke’s best friends in deciding who is to be called a terrorist. For Mr Clarke to use them as a test of “reasonableness” is unbelievable.
For two years intelligence has been used by Downing Street as an agency of public fear. Britons have been threatened by “intelligence” with sarin, anthrax, smallpox and nuclear attack. Last month the authorities warned Londoners of a “significant threat” of a “Bali-style” bomb in a nightclub, cinema or theatre. This casual scaremongering may have hit West End profits for a while. Coming from the people who brought us the dodgy dossiers and the weekly “Tube menances” they were crass. Yet Mr Clarke is suspending habeas corpus on their say-so.
..... hands up those who think a majority of MPs will boldly cry “Liberty” and walk through the division lobby to stop Mr Clarke’s monstrous arrogation of power. Not a hope."

27 January 2005 ~ Lord Hoffmann suggested that the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act itself was a bigger threat to the nation than terrorism.

We are not reassured that the government proposes that the eleven foreign terror suspects held without trial for three years at Belmarsh, Woodhill and Broadmoor are to be "released without charge" since new civil orders could be granted using secret evidence gathered by the police and intelligence services which still need not to be disclosed to the suspect. Proposals would extend the Government's emergency terror laws to British citizens but still require the Government to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights. See Independent report in full. The new "control orders" will be imposed by the Home Secretary, and not by a court of law. ".. Suspects will be subject to curfews, tagging and a potential requirement "to remain at their premises", or house arrest. These conditions will restrict movement, restrict association and communication with "named individuals" and limit access to telephones, the internet or other technology." Independent
To echo Scott Ritter, "Where is our shame and rage?"

January 19 2005 ~ "many of the measures contained in this bill, particularly relating to arrest powers and restricting protest give disproportionate power to the authorities..." Liberty.

An emailer draws our attention to clauses 123 and 124 of the Serious Organised Crime Bill "..... these clauses could be invoked to stop groups of people lobbying their MPs.
Of more immediate concern is the proposal to create an offence of 'spoiling the visual aspect ....'
This is specifically aimed at removing Brian Haw .." (read email in full)
Iraq protester Brian Haw is "spoiling the visual aspect" at Westminster. His 24 hour, seven day a week vigil against UK and US government policy towards Iraq began on 2 June 2001. In October 2002 a landmark High Court ruled in favour of Mr Haw and his right to protest on the site on the grounds that he was exercising his freedom of expression and assembly under the Human Rights Act.
On the 14 December 2004 a charge of assault against him was dismissed at Bow Street Magistrates Court when police failed to produce any evidence that Mr Haw had attempted to assault an officer and gave conflicting accounts of the "incident". A further charge of ‘failing to leave a cordoned area’ was upheld. Once he'd been arrested, the "security cordon" was removed. The Chinese president was visiting Westminster the following day.
Bruce Kent, Tony Benn, and Canon David Partridge all testified to his restraint under continuous provocation over three years and to the seriousness of his campaign.
He says, "I want to go back to my own kids and look them in the face again knowing that I've done all I can to try and save the children of Iraq and other countries who are dying because of my government's unjust, amoral, fear - and money - driven policies..." He has been sent messages of support from all over the world.
One of the measures (page 87) in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill is entitled ‘Behaviour in vicinity of Parliament’. See http://www.publications.parliament.uk for the Bill in full.
John McDonnell's EDM "....considers it misleading and inappropriate to use anti-gangster legislation such as the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill against peaceful, principled political protest." There is very little time to urge one's own MP to sign this Early Day Motion.
View Liberty's response to the Bill (pdf file) Extract:
" ..We are extremely concerned that many of the measures contained in this bill, particularly relating to arrest powers and restricting protest give disproportionate power to the authorities....a trend towards marginalisation and criminalisation of legitimate protest.."

January 12 2005 ~ "Home Office researchers have been going through about 30 newspapers, broadsheet, tabloid and regional, covering five years.

They've then worked out the importance of organised crime issues by number of column inches and number of stories. Organised immigration crime came first, with drugs second.
Yes, we know, this is potty, because great swathes of these stories are likely to have been driven by Home Office initiatives, press releases, ministers' speeches and comments, and so on. Which is of course one of the key flaws in Blunkett's pitch that fear of crime, terror, and the unknown (code for foreigners) should drive government action even in the absence of data justifying such fears. As a rough and ready measure of this The Register searched homeoffice.gov.uk for documents including all the words "home office immigration crime press release" (613 hits); "drugs crime press release" (728 hits); and "press release" on its own, which yielded 2,225 hits. This certainly shows the Home Office doesn't talk about drugs and immigration crime all the time, but it sure as hell talks about them a lot..." Please read John Lettuce in the Register. His articles are very serious, mercifully funny and shine a much needed light on the demise of democracy.

January 1 2005 ~ "... a number of exemptions may be applied to protect information properly kept confidential..."

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, anybody may request information from a public authority which has functions in England, Wales and/or Northern Ireland. The Act confers two statutory rights on applicants:
• To be told whether or not the public authority holds that information; and if so,
• To have that information communicated to them.
  There are a huge number of Exemptions
  Reuters says: "... Freedom of information laws coming into force today are set to pose Prime Minister Tony Blair a fresh test over Iraq as a newspaper tries to unearth his legal case for war. The Guardian says it has asked to see advice to Blair over the legality of the 2003 invasion, hoping powers vested in Information Commissioner Richard Thomas will force disclosure. Thomas could order the information's release on public interest grounds, raising the prospect of a government veto. The paper said the outcome would play a big part in determining public confidence in the new information law...."

  December 26 ~ "The collapse of Mr Prescott's dream has raised a hefty question mark over this chaotic system.."

  Booker's Notebook "With the possible exception of David Blunkett, no minister suffered a greater personal humiliation in 2004 than John Prescott, with the overwhelming rejection of his plan for an elected regional assembly in the North-East.
  It was intended to be the forerunner of similar assemblies in seven other English regions, thus completing the greatest project of Mr Prescott's career: his personal crusade to complete the "Balkanisation" of the United Kingdom by dividing it into 12 "Euro-regions", each with its own elected parliament.
  Generally missed in the wake of Mr Prescott's defeat, however, is the extraordinary shambles that has been left behind, which now threatens to blow up into a political scandal. When he set up his eight unelected regional assemblies in 1999, the legal standing of these bodies was remarkably inconsistent and unclear. Their members were nominated by local authorities or local organisations, such as trade unions. The money to pay for their offices and hundreds of employees was given on an ad hoc basis by local councils and central government, with the idea that this would in due course be regularised by elected assemblies. The collapse of Mr Prescott's dream has raised a hefty question mark over this chaotic system. Who is legally responsible for employing all those officials, paying their salaries and providing for their pensions? Many of the local authorities that have helped to foot the bill of £30 million a year are becoming restive. Yorkshire East Riding council has already pulled out of the Yorkshire and Humberside Assembly, saying that it is no more than a "money-wasting talking shop". ..... "Read in full

  December 19 ~ ".... Lord Scott described the current regime, which permits the Home Secretary to lock up untried suspects for as long as it pleases him, as being “the stuff of nightmares

  associated with France before and after the revolution, with soviet Russia in the Stalinist era, and now associated, as a result of section 23 of the 2001 Act, with the United Kingdom”.
  Sunday Herald - read in full
  "Indeed. Well said. So now what happens? One might imagine the government, sufficiently shamed, will take immediate steps to repeal this disgusting and thoroughly uncivilised piece of legislation, and, in the process, make some attempt to explain themselves. Perhaps they could plead temporary insanity due to the horrors of September 11. What else could have possessed those claiming to fight the enemies of civilisation to have begun a process of dismantling the very justice and freedom upon which our own is based?
  But no, the government has not issued an apology or excuse. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has pronounced the law lords to be “simply wrong”. In response to Lord Nicholls, who said that “indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial is anathema in any country which observes the rule of law”, Straw counters that the right to life is “the most important liberty” and that the government has a duty to protect people from terrorism.
  Precisely what part of Lord Nicholls’s statement contradicts this in Jack’s confused mind is not made clear, ....
  ..... if the authorities can identify someone so accurately as being a threat that they require detention, then surely those individuals can be brought to trial with the evidence that makes the intelligence agencies believe this to be so?
  Like the authority in The Trial, the Kafkaesque nightmare is that our government seems to be displaying signs not of irrationality, but of insanity. ......
  .... Since we now know that the Iraq war was not to save us from oblivion but instead to fulfil some self-interested Blair political agenda, we must also assume that neither ID cards nor detention without trial are to protect us either.......Surely those in the party who can see that Blair has gone quite mad, can find the impetus and means to remove him and his team of increasingly fiendish allies from power? ..... " Read in full

  December 16 ~ "Britain's highest court dealt a huge blow to the government's anti-terror policy ...

  ...Thursday by ruling that it cannot detain foreign terror suspects indefinitely without trial." Associated Press Nine judges in the House of Lords ruled in favor of a group of foreign men jailed without charge for up to three years. Their lawyers say their detention is a violation of human rights.
  The British government had argued that the detention without trial of some terrorist suspects is a tough but necessary measure to protect a free society from the threat of devastating attacks.
  The Home Office said Parliament would now decide whether detention without trial continues, and that the suspects would remain in prison for the time being.
  The nine law lords -- members of the House of Lords who constitute Britain's highest court of appeal -- voted 8-1 against the measures brought in after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, under which foreign terrorist suspects may be detained indefinitely without charge or trial if they cannot safely be removed to another country
  Lord Bingham of Cornhill presented the majority opinion. "The measures unjustifiably discriminate against foreign nationals on the grounds of their nationality or immigration status and are not strictly required since they provide for the detention of some but not all of those who present the same risk," he said. Read in full

  December 13 2004 ~ Labour's bugbear

  Independent letter "Sir: John Rentoul (7 December) is being remarkably complacent if he thinks erosion of support for Blair's government can be ascribed simply to non-serious, "inevitable" entropic processes involving the peeling away of, in his rather patronising phrase, "clumps of students, hunters and anti-war activists".
  Does he really think of those who opposed the Iraq war as some sort of special-interest group? New Labour apologists simply reveal their own blindness in representing the Government's bugbear as "Iraq". The problem isn't a specific political issue per se, but a party so mired in unreality that it cannot challenge a prime minister who attempted flagrantly to mislead us all because he misled himself, and who has been incapable ever since of even basic honesty over the issue.
  MICHAEL AYTON
  Durham

  December 13 2004 ~ "British politics - the brash, populist edge ...... a prime minister who respects nothing but power....."

  Guardian Comment The sofa of total power by David Clark "....The centralisation of political power in Britain is a subject that is frequently discussed yet rarely analysed, and it would benefit from the detailed attentions of someone with Butler's experience and knowledge. .......the only constraints on our elected leaders are their willingness to uphold established conventions about the conduct of office and their desire to get re-elected. Guarantees as flimsy as this were never likely to survive contact with a prime minister who respects nothing but power.
  What distinguishes Blair from all his predecessors, and what has furnished him with unprecedented power, is the innovation of direct democracy in the form of leadership election by one member, one vote (Omov). He is the first prime minister in history who does not owe his status as party leader to his parliamentary colleagues.
  Cabinet government, as practised by Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson, was a function of their need to build and sustain coalitions of parliamentary support. They deferred to colleagues to the extent that they represented currents of thinking too powerful to be ignored. Blair is untroubled by such considerations. He can appeal over the heads of MPs to the party in the country, which in turn takes its cue from the mass media. It is this that has given British politics the brash, populist edge of which Lord Butler complains..... http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1372489,00.html

  December 9 2004 ~ "Very few people know what reasonable force means, including the police

  From "Spin, scaremongering and the facts about burglary" by Colin Brown and Jason Bennetto "Tony Blair announced yesterday that the Government will consider changing the law to protect householders from prosecution if they tackle burglars. ....an adept piece of political manoeuvring that turned the tables on Mr Howard .... Figures show, though, that the risk of being burgled is at its lowest for 20 years, with recorded cases falling 8 per cent over the past year in England and Wales.
  ...... Many police chiefs are privately uneasy that security in the home is becoming a political football ­ with less regard paid to the facts than to the opinion polls. One chief constable ­ who asked not to be named ­ described the latest calls for a change in the law as a "typical knee-jerk reaction". Many police would instead prefer to see minimum new guidelines and clarification of the existing law to reassure the public. While they know first-hand how traumatic burglary can be to those on the receiving end, they point out the figures paint a different picture to the impression left by headlines. ......The number of break-ins is falling ­ and has been for years. ....
  There will be suspicions that the proposed law change will become another component of Mr Blair's strategy to win the election with a campaign based on fear. Prosecuting officials point out that there have been very few cases of action being taken against a householder confronting a burglar .."

  December 5 2004 ~ "So marvellous are the promised benefits of ID cards that we wonder why we haven't had them sooner ..."

  The Leader in today's Observer "..from the beginning, Labour's motives for introducing the cards have not been clear. We have heard a wishlist of advantages which expands ad hoc to include any current matter of public concern. Crime? They'll fix that. Illegal immigration? Yes, that too. In particular, the claim that they will help protect us from a 11 September-style terrorist attack, although the cards were envisaged before then, just seems cynical.
  Opponents of the bill do not welcome terror or fraud. They fear the cards will be a distraction from the real tasks of government and that, by requiring citizens to log their movements with the state, they will criminalise the vulnerable who are already marginalised. .." Read in full

  December 4 2004 ~ "major failure in the Nafis communications system throughout England and Wales".

  The Independent reports the leaked memo from Bruce Grant, the head of Scotland Yard's fingerprint bureau about the collapse of the national automated fingerprint identification system (Nafis). The Independent says it is " the latest embarrassing computer failure to affect a public body and will raise fresh questions over the Government's plans for a national identity card system, which will include "biometric" details such as fingerprints. Nafis holds more than four million records. It cost the country £96 million only six years ago.
  It went offline on 24 November and was shut down completely until Monday. By Dec 3 one police force, not identified by the Home Office, was still offline.
  We read that " ..in the Metropolitan Police area alone, 600 sets of fingerprints are taken every 24 hours." 600 people every 24 hours?
  Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman: "..... this could be a real warning shot to the Government over any national identity card database."

  November 27 2004 ~ "I was pleased that the government was doing something to keep us all safe and thought it would be selfish to refuse. 'I don't mind at all,' I replied, 'as long as it doesn't take a huge amount of time.'..."

  "........My goodwill towards the police began to give way to alarm. I reached for my mobile to call the lawyers and explain that I was going to be late for my meeting, but the constable stopped me. 'Turn that phone off,' he said. 'You're about to be arrested....He had problems applying my fingers to what appeared to be a sophisticated and expensive fingerprint-scanning machine, and with each failed attempt he became angrier and angrier. Tired and fed up, I gave in to the temptation to needle him. 'Having problems with your new toy?' I asked. He replied, 'Shut the fuck up, you arsehole.' ....." The article in the Spectator is essential reading.

  November 24 2004 ~".... Parliament itself is a showcase to wrong-headed thinking about security.

  John Lettuce in The Register ".. A security screen fencing off most of the public gallery went in over Easter and in May a group of protesters who had sneakily obtained seats in the unscreened part (for MPs' invited guests) threw a condom filled with purple powder at Tony Blair. Then shortly after that stable door was shut (nobody now gets to sit in the unscreened seats) a bunch of hunt protesters came in through the chamber door instead. .." Read in full

  November 21 2004 ~ The Law Society has warned that the Government is planning legislation to give police powers to arrest people suspected of any crime.

  Ben Russell in the Independent today
  "Tony Blair faces a backlash from lawyers and civil rights campaigners over the string of anti-crime Bills and measures against international terrorism expected to dominate tomorrow's Queen's Speech. ......warned that the generations-old principle of innocent until proven guilty risked being eroded by the expected anti-crime legislation. The Law Society, which represents solicitors, warned that the measures could be seen as a step "in the direction of a police state". ...... Measures in the speech include the Bill to introduce ID cards, a Bill to establish a Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and laws to allow on-the-spot fines to deter antisocial behaviour. .....Mr Blunkett is also planning a crackdown on activists who target directors, shareholders and employees in companies that do animal experiments....
  .... Mr Blunkett told ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme yesterday that the Government was not attempting to trade on fear in the run-up to the general election. .." Read in full

  November 19 2004 ~ "...government could invoke "the security of the United Kingdom" to repeal the 1911 Parliament Act and therefore suspend general elections indefinitely

  Telegraph letters Nov 19 "News that the Civil Contingencies Bill, as presently drafted, will allow a government to suspend on request "any Act of Parliament if there is an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare, the environment or security of the United Kingdom or a place in the United Kingdom".
  In other words, a government could invoke "the security of the United Kingdom" to repeal the 1911 Parliament Act and therefore suspend general elections indefinitely. The Government refuses to exempt any Act from this extraordinary extension of executive power, except the 1998 Human Rights Act. It argues that the Human Rights Act provides sufficient protection from any arbitrary exercise of power.
  If this is the Government's actual position, it is wrong and probably disingenuous. Although the Human Rights Act gives judges considerable power to interpret legislation in a way they perceive to be compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights, it most certainly does not give the courts power to override an unambiguous Act of Parliament..." Read in full and see warmwell page on the Civil Contingencies Bill

  November 13 2004 ~".. We see legislation increasingly introduced to reduce essential guarantees on pretext of security"

  Independent "... Europe's human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, told the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, that he could find no justification for the internment without trial of 10 men in Belmarsh and other prisons for nearly three years. ...... Ministers have justified the move on the grounds that the threat posed by groups such as al-Qa'ida present a public emergency and a threat to the life of the nation. But Mr Gil-Robles said it was not justified. He said yesterday: "I do not believe that the circumstances we now face justify detention under these terms." He said that, across Europe, a number of governments were "taking steps to overstep the limits on the pretext of the fight against terror". But he argued: "The democratic system is strong; its strength is conditional on a society being bound by a faith in fundamental rules. Terrorism cannot be combated in the long-term by weakening the rule of law. We see legislation increasingly introduced to reduce essential guarantees on pretext of security." ......He said he expected the Government to respond to any recommendations he made." Read in full

  November 11 2004 ~ "For years, Bush has schooled himself in the machinations of the religious right"

  Things in the US are more threatening towards liberal thought than even we had realised. Here is Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, explaining in today's Guardian how "the religious right is exerting its power"
  "...narrow margins in the key states of Florida, Iowa and Ohio, and elsewhere, were dependent on the direct imposition of the churches. None of this occurred suddenly or by happenstance. For years, Bush has schooled himself in the machinations of the religious right....
  ...From the White House, Karl Rove held a weekly conference call with religious leaders. Evangelical churches handed over membership directories to the Bush campaign for voter registration drives. A group associated with the Rev Pat Robertson advised 45,000 churches how to work for Bush. One popular preacher alone sent letters to 136,000 pastors advising them on "non-negotiable" issues - gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion - to mobilise the faithful. .."
  Blumenthal concludes with a quotation from Jefferson "History," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." Read in full

  November 6 2004 ~ Yes, groaning reader, here we go again — and here we shall be returning repeatedly now that English regional assemblies are off the radar: to that hoary old perennial, the West Lothian question.

  Matthew Parris in the Times ".....There is something worryingly capricious about committing an entire party, the whole apparatus of state, and the loyal efforts of all your regional backbench MPs, to a proposal with profound constitutional implications, just to get a tiresome colleague out of your hair . . . but why waste our breath saying so? It has become this column’s familiar refrain that life is too short to deconstruct the mental processes of the Prime Minister. “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” sings the Mother Superior in The Sound of Music. “How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” and the same may be said of Mr Blair’s interior life. How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? A flippertyjibbet, a will-o’the-wisp, a clown? Goldfish, as they circle their bowls, are said to have so short a memory-span that by the time one circuit is completed they have no recollection of ever having been there before. By this time next week Mr Blair will have forgotten all about regional government, let alone travelling to the North East to campaign for it.
  But in other minds there was a deep reason for these proposals, and corresponding proposals for regional authorities in the North West, and in Yorkshire and Humberside. This had less to do with what it is now fashionable to call “good governance”, than with a constitutional problem that has nagged modern British politics like a dental cavity that hurts not quite badly enough to drive you to the dentist, yet too much to put permanently from your mind.
  Yes, groaning reader, here we go again — and here we shall be returning repeatedly now that English regional assemblies are off the radar: to that hoary old perennial, the West Lothian question. ..." Read in full

  November 3 2004 ~"I think it is an utter disgrace. Next they will be printing barcodes on the insides of your wrists..."

  MP Tim Loughton in the Children's Bill debate yesterday, quoted a user of the Brook Young People's Information Service in his spirited criticism of the proposed children's database. He also quoted (as we have done below) the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, warning in an article in The Times, that we risk "sleepwalking into a surveillance society". He added, "The arrangements have already been referred to as "Big Brother for children" in The Guardian.
  Children Now magazine recently warned: "We need to avoid making professionals slaves to technology by placing undue burdens on them to record information. And we should question whether the benefits of storing copious information about children are offset by the disadvantages of information overload and creeping surveillance."
  We are grateful to Mr Loughton for his attempts.

  November 1 2004 ~ thank you for the "executive summary", Mr Blunkett, but we would now like to see all the raw data for the surveys used to produce the consultation summary document

  The Register is unhappy about the ID card. The Great 'standalone' ID card Swindle by John Lettice has this footnote: "We have a legal query. The raw material for consultation documents, the responses, is according to Cabinet Office guidelines retained, and made available for scrutiny on demand. The Cabinet Office (we asked about this) makes some huffing noises about preserving the confidentiality of individuals who may not have understood that their names might be made public, but it strikes us that rules is rules, so tough if that's what we want to know. But it isn't what we want to know at this juncture. The latest ID card consultation document tells us that: "People tend to be motivated to write in because they are opposed to the proposals under consultation", the point here appearing to be that the views of these people (who by definition are going to know something about the subject in hand) should be discounted, while surveys and focus groups (of people who turn out to know stuff-all about the subject in hand) provide a more valid gauge of public opinion. Well OK, if you say so. But if the outcome of a "public consultation" is to be determined via surveys and focus groups, then all of the source material for these should be available for public scrutiny, right? So thank you for the "executive summary", Mr Blunkett, but we would now like to see all the raw data for the surveys used to produce the consultation summary document, and all of the videos, transcripts and notes from the focus groups. We trust this request is in order under Cabinet Office guidelines." Read in full

  October 31 2004 ~ Britain's top judge 'forced out by bullying Blunkett'

  The Independent on Sunday reports on what seems to be a growing trend; the systematic bullying of those who may be influential in casting doubt on the government's wisdom. Now it is the much respected Lord Woolf. (see warmwell pages)
  "...Lord Woolf is poised to step down as Lord Chief Justice four years early because he is tired of being bullied by ministers, it was reported last night. Friends said that England's most senior judge had grown weary of being the target of repeated attacks by David Blunkett Lord Ackner of Sutton, a retired Law Lord and friend of Lord Woolf:... "Harry Woolf has been the subject of a grossly unfair criticism by the media, and David Blunkett in particular," Lord Ackner was reported as saying. "He was angry and irritated at being totally misrepresented..."
  Read in full

  October 31 ~ the terrifying extent to which Mr Straw is playing with words

  Booker's Notebook "..... On Friday Jack Straw confirmed, on the BBC Today programme, the main arguments which will be used to persuade the British people to vote for the constitution in a referendum early in 2006. He and Mr Blair will tell us that the constitution is "very positive for the UK" because it gives "greater power to national parliaments", allows for "powers to be handed back to national parliaments", and "strengthens the role of the nation states within the EU".
  Informed commentary on each of these points would only demonstrate the terrifying extent to which Mr Straw is playing with words.
  In no meaningful way does the constitution do any of these things. In every significant respect the constitution extends the powers of the new "government of Europe" - as in foreign policy, defence and justice - in ways which make a complete nonsense of Mr Straw's claims. The last thing he and Mr Blair want is a proper, open debate that might allow the British people to grasp what is really at stake. The only consequence of that would be to make their defeat in the referendum even more likely than it looks today..." Read in full. See also The Great Deception: The SECRET History of the European Union

  October 29 ~ the press office wanted information for 10 Downing Street's news management "grid".

  The Independent reveals the extent to which the government used intelligence to sex up the dossier. "John Morrison, one of the most senior intelligence analysts at the Ministry of Defence, said intelligence had been used as a "public relations tool" to be used to win the public debate since Mr Blair came to power."
  There was a culture of news management that came in after 1997 which I had never seen before and intelligence got swept up in that,"
  "I felt somebody had to speak up about the misuse of intelligence by MI6, in not handling it properly, the misuse of intelligence by the senior management in the Defence Intelligence Staff and misuse of intelligence terminology by the Prime Minister in talking about a threat when no threat existed,"
  "It got to the point at which individual analysts were being rung up by the press office and were being asked to say, 'This is great, isn't it?'. I wasn't having that."
  "Once bitten, twice shy. What I did, in effect, was, within my crisis staff, set up, in effect, my own press office to handle the MoD press office. I took a very senior and tough-minded analyst and told him, 'This is your job, to keep the press office off the analysts' backs and make sure we only say in public what we are absolutely certain about'. "We were under constant pressure to field talking heads at the press conference, to have themes for individual days and it was a very tricky balance not to reveal what one shouldn't." Read in full

  October 26 ~"....the limitations of the European Social Forum"

  From the article by John O'Farrell at lark.phoblacht.net "At its worst, it exemplifies the sort of easy and irresponsible gesture politics that made the left so unattractive to voters. Livingstone donated £400,000 of local taxpayers cash to host the event, and prised hundreds of thousands more in donations and help-in-kind from the trade unions. He turned the Millenium Dome into a giant hostel for over 5,000 participants. In turn, he was accused of control freakery.
  The other side of the coin is the genuine sense of altruism that emanated from the 20,000 participants, the desire to contribute to politics in an age when no party can get people like these to join them or even vote, the willingness to fight for a freer and fairer world, the complete absence of ethnic or racial superiority, the sense of real internationalism, the hunger for knowledge about how the world works and how it can be changed.
  The immediate consequences of the ESF on European politics will be minimal. The activists will feel emboldened, and plans are afoot for another international Day of Action on Iraq, probably on Febuary 19th 2005. And one left with the distinct impression that some twentysomething participant at the Palace will, in two or three decades, be running things in Italy, Germany, Britain, Palestine, Poland or Ireland." See also Independent Student Newspaper

  October 25 2004 ~ "In parlous times like the post-9/11 environment, demagogues grow powerful and American values are endangered."

  Professor Juan Cole writes in defence of Professor Joseph Massad at Columbia University. "A concerted campaign has been gotten up against him by the American Likud, aimed at getting him fired.... We don't have to be sitting ducks and put up with this. ..... We don't fire professors in the United States for their views when we are in our right minds. ....Massad is the canary in the mine shaft of American democracy." Read in full

  October 25 2004 ~ "My sad conclusion is that the world is in deep trouble

  and that conflict and bloodshed are likely to continue for decades unless we can achieve a change of direction. The UK Government - a Labour government - has played a central role in the mistakes that have brought us here, and this has happened partly because British constitutional arrangements and the democracy of the Labour Party have been grossly undermined." Clare Short
  Abridged extract from An Honourable Deception? (Simon & Schuster, 2004) published on 1 November, £15. © Clare Short 2004 Independent

  October 24 2004 ~ EU sneaks in back door of UK police college

  Booker's Notebook "..... a further giant step towards an integrated EU police force.
  A document issued by the EC this month, COM (2004) 623, sets out the arrangements for making Bramshill the headquarters of Cepol, the "European police college" that will direct the integration of all the EU's national police into one structure, sharing a common code of training and procedures.
  ....... a huge acceleration in the integration process, involving the transfer of a tranche of national powers to these new EU bodies. But none will have more far-reaching implications than the raising of the "ring of stars" over what is now to become the EU's own police college in Hampshire." Read in full

  October 23 ~ "Kick him out. This the European Parliament can do by rejecting the proposed new Commission in its entirety — the only power available to it.

  Senhor Barroso said: “Is it reasonable to make a commission fall because two or three commissioners aren’t satisfactory? No. One must keep a sense of balance.” I say: yes, entirely reasonable. .." Please do read Matthew Parris in the Times today on the subject of Justice Commissioner-designate, Rocco Buttiglione.

  October 23 2004 ~ "....northeasterners know when they are being conned..."

  Simon Jenkins writes in the Times "Opinion in the North East appears to be going against Mr Prescott. I find it near incredible that anyone should say “no” to an offer of more democracy. But northeasterners know when they are being conned... A yes to a North East assembly will trigger yet another reorganisation of local government in Northumberland and Durham into fewer, larger authorities. This means that power will move upwards from local communities to distant bureaucracies, more easily controlled from the centre. .."

  October 23 2004 ~ Yet there is hope. The ghosts of the Nevilles and Percys are stirring in the magnificent Northumberland hills.

  That county is in uproar over a council plan to abolish its distinctive three-tier school system. ...a local doctor, Richard Taylor, stunned the political community by winning a seat in Parliament on the single issue of saving the local hospital. His “party” has now taken over the local council. In Northumberland, 35,000 people petitioned to save the schools. This has spawned a pressure group led by John Harrison named K3 which is exploiting an unnoticed provision in the Local Government Act 2000. This allows a petition of just 5 per cent of local electors to demand a referendum for the direct election of a mayor (or governor). In a highly charged atmosphere, such a referendum is likely to pass. A mayoral candidate committed to saving local schools or hospitals then stands a good chance of beating any conventional party candidates. Under a mayoral constitution, the council as such would vanish. True, Whitehall will do all it can to balk such democratic insubordination. The Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, went up to Gateshead this week to warn education authorities not to think that they could decide their own schools policy any longer. But a Northumberland mayor/governor directly mandated to save the middle schools would be hard for Mr Clarke to crush. .. " Read Simon Jenkins' article in full

  October 23 2004 ~ Ms Short alleges that Mr Blair deliberately misled the country - a charge which would, if proven, force him to resign.

  Clare Short says she saw the intelligence reports on Iraq's alleged arsenal as International Development Secretary. Independent "In An Honourable Deception?, Ms Short alleges that Mr Blair deliberately misled the country - a charge which would, if proven, force him to resign. Rejecting the findings of the Butler inquiry that the Prime Minister acted in good faith, she says: "I am afraid it is clear that the Prime Minister did knowingly mislead." read in full

  October 22 ~ The denial from Caroline Flint

  See below " we can perhaps take as meaning that whatever happened was nothing to do with the Home Office, and you lot might as well stop asking us about it.
  The Home Office's apparent lack of interest in court orders from non-UK jurisidictions being enforced on UK soil without the involvement of UK law enforcement agencies would however seem a fertile area for further questions..." The Register reports

  October 22 2004 ~ Jeremy Corbyn asks ".. which UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the seizure of computer disks..?" Denial from Caroline Flint.

  Hansard 20 October
  

  Mr. Allan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the seizure of computer disks containing material published by Indymedia from the London offices of Rackspace. [192111]

  Caroline Flint [holding answer 18 October 2004]: I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter referred to in the question posed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam.

  Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what powers, and acting under what information, officials of his Department seized web services belonging to Indymedia; and if he will make a statement. [192814]

  Caroline Flint: I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agencies were involved in the matter referred to in the question posed by my hon. Friend. In the circumstances I do not therefore believe that it is necessary for me to make a statement.

  Once again, a PQ - this time about the seizures in the UK reported below which amounted to what has been described as "intimidation of legitimate journalistic inquiry" - is unable to elicit a proper response from the government.

  October 21 2004 ~ " if national governments were accountable to the people, then civil society would not have to campaign as a separate entity against government policies that are implemented without their consent."

  Daily Times.com "In this age of accelerated globalisation, we do not have an effective body to protect the interests of the world’s poor. That is because all the institutions that claim to do just that, such as the UN, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO are run by the world’s richest nations. This means that the world is run in order to protect the interests of the rich.
  ..George Monbiot’s latest book, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order ... points out that while we claim that democracy is the prevailing system of governance today, it is really nothing more than a “dictatorship of vested interests”.
  ..... if national governments were accountable to the people, then civil society would not have to campaign as a separate entity against government policies that are implemented without their consent. That they must do so highlights the fact that those who run the world are accountable to no one. If the rich governments of the world are not accountable to the people who elect them, then how can we expect them to be held accountable by the world’s poor?
  George Monbiot is right when he calls for the world’s people to reclaim the world and make it their own - to make the system representative and accountable; to remove power from the realm of national governments and give it to the worlds’ people. As the present system stands, “everything has been globalised except our consent”. (details and reviews of George Monbiot's Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order)

  October 19 ~ "..once the No arguments start to hit the public the Yes vote will begin to collapse. I very much doubt this debate will be reported in the Journal."

  Neil Herron ".... A hand count was taken for 'Yes.' There were no hands. A hand count was taken for the 'Noes.' Fifty five. There was one undecided (and she was actually John Cresswell's wife!)..." Read in full We hope that Mr Herron is wrong and that the debate at Hexham will be reported in the Journal. We wait and see. Meanwhile, the Telegraph article today was scathing of Mr Prescott's claims that " he had met more pro- than anti-assembly voters among the public..."
  "...Earlier plans for referendums in Yorkshire and the North-West were shelved this summer, ostensibly over postal ballot problems but effectively because Mr Prescott realised that both regions would vote down his plans. A Mori opinion poll revealed yesterday that even in the North-East region Mr Prescott was heading for defeat..."

  Oct 15 ~ humans will be chipped...

  "..... tiny, passive RFID devices, called VeriChips, are injected under the hide. They do not contain the medical data in question, but instead store a unique ID number that is used to access records on a remote server maintained by Applied Digital, using a handheld reader. The chips are legal in numerous applications, but cannot be used as medical devices without FDA approval - which they now have got..." Read in full

  Oct 15 ~ "... the Blair state and the state of Blair - where the role of Backbenchers is nothing more than to be there."

  We very much liked this email from a reader who watched last night's This Week with dr David Starkey.

  Oct 14 2004 ~ ID cards will be issued along with passport renewals ".... the full text of (Mr Blunkett's) speech was mysteriously unavailable until a few days ago."

  The Register "Blunkett announced the move some considerable way into his speech to the Labour Party Conference ten days ago. Reporting of the speech at the time concentrated on anti-crime measures and more funding for counter-terrorism, and the full text of the speech was mysteriously unavailable until a few days ago. According to this text: "... we will legislate this winter to upgrade our secure passport system, to create a new, clean database on which we will understand and know who is in or country, who is entitled to work, to services, to the something for something society which we value. As people renew their passports, they will receive their new identity card. The cost of biometrics and the card will be added to the total of passports."

  October 14 2004 ~ Home Office seeks spin doctor to sell cuddly ID card brand

  The Register "......the job ad is interesting (applications in by Friday please) because it tells us quite a lot about how the government is going to pitch the scheme, and what it's going to cover. .... The job will include "responsibility for all aspects of positioning and promoting ID cards and ID card services to its customers and stakeholders" and: "During the passage of the Bill, this will include communications with Ministers, MPs and others." So as you see it is absolutely wrong to say the Home Office is going ahead with the scheme without bothering about MPs. On the contrary, it seems to be hiring somebody to sell them it. Isn't that political lobbying?...." Read in full ....

  October 14 2004 ~ " This is probably the last year of Britain as a liberal democracy yet the mainstream media is (as usual) asleep at the wheel."

  "It is up to bloggers to raise the awareness and ring the alarm bells in the hope that some opposition can be stirred into life...." From "http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/006757.html"A very English coup" about the Civil Contingencies Bill
  "...Envisaged, ostensibly, as a means of giving the government sufficient emergency powers to deal with terrorist threats (as if they do not already have enough powers), the actuality is a lot darker and goes a great deal further than that. The effect of the Bill, once passed into law, will enable any senior government minister to delcare that an 'emergency' has happened or is about to happen and, entirely at his own discretion ......... set out just what those ministerial fiats can do:
• provide for or enable the requisition or confiscation of property (with or without compensation);
• provide for or enable the destruction of property, animal life or plant life (with or without compensation);
• prohibit, or enable the prohibition of, movement to or from a specified place;
• require, or enable the requirement of, movement to or from a specified place;
• prohibit, or enable the prohibition of, assemblies of specified kinds, at specified places or at specified times;
• prohibit, or enable the prohibition of, travel at specified times;
• prohibit, or enable the prohibition of, other specified activities;
• The Bill will also enable said minister to abolish any law or statute at the stroke of a pen..." Read in full

  October 12 2004 ~ "By 2020, no aspect of your life will be safe from prying eyes, or from interfering official nannies ..."

  Paul Lashmar in the Guardian ".... The apocalyptic school of civil libertarianism holds that the freedom of the individual is already being seriously compromised, and that the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 gave politicians an excuse to introduce ever more repressive laws and technology......
  Simon Davies...... ...... "If you look at Labour's policy documents and legislation it is riddled with concepts of 'the common good' which take their cue from Etzioni's philosophy," says Davies. "It is this concept of acting in the interest of the majority that has caused the erosion of the idea of individual freedom and privacy. In this dogma all individualism is seen as an expression of selfishness. It allows the government to justify potentially repressive laws." ....It matters that these issues are thrashed out now .....we live in a time of centrist government and economic prosperity, where there are no great issues rending society: exactly the kind of period in which freedoms can be limited without anyone kicking up too much of a fuss. ......the Georgian statesman and judge John Philpot Curran:
  "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt."

  October 10 2004 ~ "an intolerable and intrusive international police operation against a network specialising in independent journalism"

  IFJ The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the global organisation representing over 500,000 journalists worldwide, today called for an investigation into the action by police in Britain in co-operation with other agencies that led to the temporary closure of 21 of the more than 140 Indymedia web sites worldwide. "We have witnessed an intolerable and intrusive international police operation against a network specialising in independent journalism," said Aidan White IFJ General Secretary. "The way this has been done smacks more of intimidation of legitimate journalistic inquiry than crime-busting." .... police seized two web server computers in London used by the Indymedia network. The servers were located on the premises of the Rackspace company, which is now not giving out any information.
  Initial reports suggested FBI officers themselves had seized the servers. The seizure follows visits by the FBI to Indymedia personnel in the US inquiring about the publication on the French site Indymedia Nantes of photographs of Swiss undercover police photographing protestors. The photographs remain available on other websites.
  .... The IFJ believes the seizure may be linked to a September 30 court case in San Jose California, in which Indymedia San Francisco and two students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania successfully opposed an application by Diebold Election Systems Inc to remove documents claiming to reveal flaws in the design of electronic voting machines which are due to be used widely in the forthcoming US Presidential election. .."

  October 10 2004 ~ "The world is changing; we will win"

  We must believe so. Whatever we think we are putting up with from a government without ethics it is nothing to what the Chagos islanders suffered. "The world is changing; we will win" is certainly what the islanders of Diego Garcia believe in spite of their island having been wrested unlawfully from them, their pet dogs rounded up and gassed and their home turned into one of the biggest American bases in the world - and in spite of a victory in the High Court in 2000, which ruled their expulsion illegal. Now "...the islanders are going to the European court of human rights, and perhaps beyond. Article 7 of the statute of the international criminal court describes the "deportation or forcible transfer of population ... by expulsion or other coercive acts" as a crime against humanity. As Bush's bombers take off from their paradise, the Chagos islanders, says Bancoult, "will not let this great crime stand. The world is changing; we will win." Paradise cleansed John Pilger

  October 3/4 ~ Powers assumed by the home secretary under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 are to be challenged

  The case is an appeal against an October 2002 decision by the Court of Appeal that indefinite detention is compatible with UK and international law.
  "....Human Rights Watch said that with 11 suspects currently in indefinite detention and with seven detained without trial for more than two years, it was vital that the judges overturned the law.
  "It is impossible to overstate the importance of the decision before the House of Lords," said the organisation's Holly Cartner. "If the law lords decide that indefinite detention is acceptable, Britain will have abandoned a cornerstone of its liberty - that everyone is equal under the law."
  The case may also involve a decision on whether evidence from third countries obtained under torture may be used in indefinite detention cases. Cartner said: "It is absolutely vital that the Lords repudiate the use of torture ..." epolitix.com

  October 3 2004 ~ "... He had searched for "Nesno" on the internet but all the resulting references had led him to Mr Herron's "North-East No" campaign.."

  Booker's Notebook: "...Last week Neil Herron of the rival and long-established "North-East No" campaign - which, to the surprise of local people, did not get the designation - received a telephone call from the Electoral Commission in London. The caller had been told to travel north to hand over the commission's cheque for £100,000. He had searched for "Nesno" on the internet but all the resulting references had led him to Mr Herron's "North-East No" campaign. So could he please be told how to contact the now-official "No" campaign?
  Mr Herron naturally obliged. But many people would like to know how the Electoral Commission came to give taxpayers' money to an organisation so inept that it offers John Prescott his only hope of winning the November 4 referendum - and so obscure that even the commission has difficulty in finding it."
  See also the letters written to the Electoral Commission by a warmwell reader. She has yet to receive a reply.
  The EUreferendum Blogspot can be accessed here.
  Neil Herron's North East No Campaign site is here and his own blogspot is here.
  That the North East referendum is being rigged by the government seems an inevitable conclusion to those who are following the twists and turns of this campaign. And Neil Herron's latest messages are here.

  October 2 2004 ~ Is there no limit to the credulity of the British media?

  "....Holy cow, what else is the guy going to say? This is a man whose eternally triangular relationship with the twin sisters Truth and Belief is by now surely a matter of public record; the man who only this week told us “I only know what I believe”, and whose beliefs are as the clouds scudding across our autumn sky: forming and re-forming into fantastical shapes – dragons, cows, electoral reform; Saddam and Osama arm-in-arm; the rescue of Africa.
  This is the man who believes that the war against terrorism is a simple question of Good versus Evil, and that George W. Bush will force Ariel Sharon to the negotiating table; a man who believed that there would be a referendum on the single currency in his second term and now believes that there will be a referendum on the European constitution in his third.
  This is a man who believes all kinds of things: believes them before breakfast and unbelieves them by lunch. .." Matthew Parris Lies, damned lies and Blair's brand of pure showmanship

  September 30 ~ "..As one who will be expected, should the Yes Campaign prevail, to contribute to the costs of an assembly which I do not want,

  I would feel more confident of having received fair treatment if you were to present details of the submissions of both the No campaigns for public scrutiny. It is hard for ordinary members of the electorate to understand your decision when we have not seen the specific evidence which convinced you that NESNO “represented to the greatest extent those campaigning for a ‘No’ outcome.”
  Since they are not against regional government as such, NESNO cannot represent the views of those of us who do not think an assembly will benefit the north-east of England, however great its powers..." Read Gill Swanson's letter in full

  Sept 26 ~ Criminal Sanctions "In any democratic system of government, the fundamental changes outlined in the Green Paper would be the subject of a major and prolonged public debate

  with full media participation, discussion shows, polls and the rest. But all it gets is a debate in an obscure committee in the House of Commons, whence the deadline for comment will drift past unheeded..." says Dr Richard North's EUreferendum blog on the subject of the " thin edge of a very large wedge that has been waiting in the wings since Maastricht, 14 years ago."
  The House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee in its conclusions on this matter wrote:
  Some of the Commission’s proposals for the next five-year justice and home affairs (JHA) work programme affect policies which are at the core of national sovereignty. Moreover, we are particularly concerned by the following issues
  One ESC recommendation was a full debate on the floor of the House. Instead, a small committee with limited time, and with no media coverage except (as far as we know) for the increasingly popular Blog above, covered this matter "at the core of national sovereignty" Extract:
  "..... Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): I draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 3.1.8 of the Green Paper. Under the heading, ''Enforcement of criminal penalties'', it states:
  ''Suspended enforcement of a penalty is possible in only a minority of Member States''.

  That is patently not true; it does not include UK jurisdiction. I wonder whether several parts of the document that I have read are accurate. I hit on that example during a cursory glance and I am concerned. Has the Minister had a chance to read that paragraph?
  (Caroline Flint's answer was that she would "examine it further"....)
  Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab): I welcome the Minister's statement as reassurance on the matter. However, does she agree that wording such as
  ''should be, analogous to a unitary State in which a single system of law is to apply'',

  which is included in the European Scrutiny Committee report, rings alarm bells? ..." ( Read in full)
  What rings alarm bells is that MPs have not read the Green Paper in full and that this urgent matter of sovereignty is not being reported by the major media. We are being quietly led into the Super State, complete with its own prosecutor, border guards and police force, by our unwitting noses - and by a largely ignorant parliament.

Sept 24 ~ High Court Writ to be Served on Deputy Prime Minister by No Campaign

See Press Release from North East No Campaign "Following the notice served on the Rt. Hon Nick Raynsford yesterday and the failure of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to take any positive action to correct the factually incorrect leaflet 'Have Your Say' for all 1,900,000 voters in the North East Referendum, the North East No Campaign has been left with no choice but to launch an action in the High Court today..."

Sept 23 2004 ~"Decision-making in the Labour Party today is a closed loop.

The Prime Minister appoints the party chairman, who then ensures that the party supports the Prime Minister. The National Policy Forum recycles Downing Street's ideas through a bogus consultation process ..... All this might be tolerable if the conference was remotely entertaining..." George Monbiot on the European Social Forum taking place in the UK in mid-October ".... if you choose your seminars carefully, you will hear the world's newest thinking on everything from agriculture to xenophobia...."
But, points out George Monbiot, there is the age-old paradox...
"...We all know what's wrong with the world. We are much less certain about what needs to be done, and have only the faintest idea of how to do it. As Susan George has pointed out, unless we move on to questions two and three, we are wasting our time. And so we encounter the age-old paradox of transition. For a political movement to remain large, it has to remain diverse. For a political movement to be an effective agent of change, it has to pursue a programme. The process of choosing a programme involves a battle against diversity. In battling diversity so as to produce a set of workable proposals, you run the risk of losing the popular support on which the proposals are supposed to be founded. This is the battle the Labour Party has fought, and in which it has suffered a crushing and disastrous victory...." Read in full

Sept 21 ~ "We are being manipulated into a regional assembly up here."

An emailer from the North Eastfinds the adoption of NESNO as official opposition to the Yes Campaign in the run-up to November’s referendum deeply disturbing. She has sent two letters which should be taken very seriously indeed. Extract:

"...On 15 September, within minutes of being designated the official No Campaign and awarded £100,000 of taxpayers’ money, a representative of your chosen people, NESNO, should have appeared before a House of Commons Select Committee to give evidence. NESNO said sorry, none of them could make it. Neil Herron has since stated in the Newcastle Journal that he was fully briefed and ready to go to Westminster to argue the No case. Your decision made this impossible, thus depriving many north-east voters of fair representation before the committee.
What have NESNO done to deserve selection? Any undecided member of the electorate consulting their website would find nothing at all in the section entitled “Our Case”. They have issued no press releases since the initial one in July. They have no plans for public meetings. How did all this lack of activity qualify them for government funding?
Intriguingly, NESNO were listed by name as the chosen opposition to the Yes Campaign in an ODPM Committee Press Release issued on 9 September, a whole five days before you made your decision. How was this possible? Is the Deputy Prime Minister clairvoyant? Was he given prior information regarding your choice? Or did he lead, and you follow? The implications are disturbing..."

Read in full

Sept 21 ~ Mr Blunkett frees the " terrorist supporter and a threat to national security.."

The Home Office is tight-lipped. Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) confirmed he was a threat to security, Mr Blunkett frees prisoner D while his solicitor, Natalia Garcia, said: "I told him this morning that he was to be released. He was absolutely choked. All he could say was 'I don't understand, I don't understand'. He feels he's been locked up for three years just on a whim."
Deputy Mayor of London and Green Party MP Jenny Jones told a rally at the beginning of April that it was a "complete injustice" that people should be held without trial in a country which prided itself on its democracy and justice system
Today's Herald: ".... even though an independent commission 11 weeks ago confirmed he was a terrorist supporter and a threat to national security.. the home secretary, announced his decision to revoke the detention certificate of prisoner "D", who was removed from his home under anti-terrorism laws brought in after the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Mr Blunkett said: "I have concluded, on the basis of all the information available to me, that the weight of evidence in relation to D at the current time does not justify the continuance of the certificate. I have therefore decided to revoke the certificate with immediate effect. In revoking D's certificate I have made clear that any further activities that are assessed to be a threat to national security could lead to him being certified again."

Sept 18 2004 ~ This bill would give, not Parliament but the government of the day, in times of peace, far greater powers than were ever granted to any of our coalition governments in times of real war.

Cumberland News - one of the very few papers to warn about the Civil Contingencies Bill ".....If this bill is passed in its present state, it would certainly be possible for the Government, upon a whim, to declare any strike unlawful, to ban any march or public meeting, to censor public communications (though, surprisingly, the BBC seems to enjoy special exemption from this clause) to prohibit travel between specific places or at specified times and to requisition or confiscate private property. It may also order the evacuation or relocation (to a place of its own choosing) of individuals or groups of people.The original bill was heavily criticised by a joint Parliamentary scrutiny committee, but the Government's predictably arrogant response to its report was to reject the majority of this committee's recommendations and to re-introduce those few which it did accept, albeit with different, but even more inclusive wording, in the small print of section two of that bill.Overall, this bill would give, not Parliament but the government of the day, in times of peace, far greater powers than were ever granted to any of our coalition governments in times of real war...."

Sept 13 ~ The Civil Contingencies Bill permits the government to suspend parliament and ban all rights to assembly whenever it decides that it is confronting an emergency

Wednesday's debate in the House of Lords grows closer. Legislation these days is impenetrable - except for a few wholly misleading phrases placed clearly near the beginning designed to give a false sense of security - and busy MPs and peers may well not have read the bill properly.
Michael Moore in his latest book expresses disbelief that the majority of the British people - particularly those millions of us who marched cheerfully to oppose Mr Blair's involving Britain in the Iraq war - should not have forced an election

"My God, you actually have a mechanism to remove him - ­elections! We have to wait four years and then we can't even be sure the ballots will be counted. You can force elections right now. But then, of course, you have the same problem the liberal major­ity has in America-who the hell is going to lead you? Where is the alternative? .."

But perhaps even Moore is not aware of just how far towards the US Patriot Act we are heading - and that such a peaceful march may soon be a thing of the past. As George Monbiot says,

"..When some of us complained that the Terrorism Act 2000 was so loosely drafted that it could be deployed against almost anyone seeking political change, the government told us we were being hysterical. Since then peaceful protesters all over Britain have been arrested as potential terrorists....
... The Civil Contingencies Bill, which permits the government to suspend parliament and ban all rights to assembly whenever it decides that it is confronting an emergency, passed its second reading in the Lords last month. It could become law later this year."

And will - unless the peers can once again (before their powers are completely removed) ride to the rescue and raise awareness of its dangers. See Civil Contingencies Bill page

Sept 12 ~"... it is getting so Orwellian that we no longer know if we speak our minds whether we will be risking a year-long investigation or not"

Booker's Notebook (Sunday Telegraph) makes for grim reading.
On district councillors and the so-called Standards Board which prevents them from voicing concerns: "... the conduct of local councillors is being policed by the Standards Board of England (with its army of Ethical Standards Officers on £61,000 a year), it has become increasingly baffling for those prepared to serve their communities in this way to know what it is safe to say...."
On the ignorance of Ben Bradshaw: ".... Mr Bradshaw first claimed he was not aware that it existed, then said that he was "not interested in some communication by the Commission to the European Parliament which I have not seen". In fact, not only is COM130 the key text on the subject that Mr Bradshaw is paid to know about, but it was addressed last year to the EU Council of Ministers, of which Mr Bradshaw is supposed to be a member..."
On documents produced by both Government and Conservatives on the proposed EU constitution: "...Just why, as taxpayers, we should fund the Government's White Paper is a mystery. It is simply empty propaganda, and almost every line cries out for a commentary to show which bits are half-truths, which wholly false and which just laughable..." Read in full

Sept 10 2004 ~ Delete records, or profile the whole UK, says DNA print pioneer..

The Register ".. geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys speaking at a briefing marking the 20th anniversary of DNA fingerprinting at Leicester University yesterday, also expressed doubts about current UK policy on DNA record retention. Suspects have their DNA recorded, but for several years now the police have been allowed to retain the DNA profile whether or not the suspect is subsequently charged or convicted. This make it a lot easier for them to grow their National DNA database, and indeed here we find the Home Office salivating over bigger and better DNA retention when it passed the two million mark last year.
According to Jeffreys it's now over 2.5 million, which suggests nearly one per cent of us were suspicious or worse in the last 14 months. ...
.Jeffreys' concern is that in some parts of the country retention will lead to an overrepresentation of certain ethnic groups. His solution is either for the DNA data to be destroyed if a suspect is cleared, or to extend the database to include everyone in the UK. We fear the Home Office will greet his words with enthusiasm. No prizes for guessing which option it's going to like.."

Sept 10 ~ "Public service broadcasting can and must make an important contribution to the democratic process. It can do so only if not cowed by those in power..."

"Today's Humphrys censured by BBC for continually interrupting minister - Guardian "...Humphrys became increasingly frustrated with her (Hazel Blears') refusal to accept that the Home Office bore sole responsibility for some of the failings identified in the Bichard report following the murder of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Focusing on the Home Office's failure to fund a computer project, he asked pointedly: "How much money are children's lives worth?"
In response to another question, Ms Blears replied: "We take this really seriously." Humphrys interrupted and said: "Pity you didn't take it really seriously at the time."
......Humphrys declined to comment yesterday, but in the MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh last month he warned that BBC staff could, quoting a phrase from the Hutton report, be "subconsciously influenced" into shying away from difficult subjects. He said he would quit if he was ever told to tone down his interviews. "The idea that tough questions prevent politicians from giving answers, and gentle chats seduce them into candour is, frankly, risible. We need more, not less, investigative journalism. We need much more straightforward political analysis. Public service broadcasting can and must make an important contribution to the democratic process. It can do so only if not cowed by those in power." .."

Sept 8 2004 ~ "Government ministers who want to dodge awkward questions from MPs

are being given powers from this month to put the queries in the bin.....Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, said: " It takes long enough to get answers as it is. This would simply allow ministers not to give them at all."
Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, said: "Even when you get an answer after a long delay it is often unsatisfactory. I am planning to take one cabinet minister, Margaret Beckett, to the parliamentary ombudsman for failing to provide an adequate reply." .....The changes followed protests from MPs about the huge increase in ministers' promises to write to them during the recess and put the answer in the Commons library. These answers are never published in Hansard - and are sometimes never deposited in the library. Such cases have jumped from 432 in 2000 to 1,556 last year. The worst offenders are the Home Office and Ministry of Defence, the latter partly because of the Iraq war." Guardian

Sept 8 2004 ~ Independence of the BBC?

In the Independent today Director General Mark Hudson ".. is phlegmatic about the increasingly active role played by the BBC governors and is reconciled to the fact that there may be "bumps" along the way. "This is going to be a different relationship than for previous DGs," he said, adding that two of the last four director generals were dismissed by the governors."
There may well be bumps if the BBC tries actually to earn its reputation for being objective and uninfluenced by the powerful.
The "two posh ladies" referred to by Greg Dyke in the Observer, it seems, were those who bayed most loudly for Mr Dyke's removal. They are still BBC Governors.
Baroness Sarah Hogg served as head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit between 1990 and 1995.
Dame Pauline Neville-Jones DCMG, is a career diplomat who served in various diplomatic missions. She was the deputy secretary to the Cabinet office before becoming Head of the Defence Secretariat of the Joint Intelligence Committee. She is the former managing director and head of global business strategy for NatWest Markets and chairman of NatWest Markets France. She became vice chairman of Hawkpoint Partners Ltd., the corporate advisory arm of NatWest Bank. She is chairman of the Information Assurance Advisory Council and also currently the chairman of the Qinetiq group plc ( UK privatised military research/services company)
A QinetiQ webpage says, "... Although information operations are traditionally considered a military activity QinetiQ also develops information campaign strategies that can benefit governments, businesses and other organisations."
Dame Neville-Jones is a member of the Bilderbergs, the group of rich, powerful, and influential people from around the world who meet behind closed doors with no press releases and no available information on topics discussed.
See also The BBC and the Propaganda model By Alex Doherty

Sept 6 2004 ~ an Act which would in effect permit the setting up in this country of a dictatorship as sweeping as anything achieved under Hitler."

" In 10 days' time the House of Lords will be debating one of the most extraordinary pieces of legislation ever placed before Parliament, the Civil Contingencies Bill.(see warmwell Civil Contingencies Bill page) ..... Only in Part Two, after 13 pages, does the truly extraordinary nature of this legislation suddenly explode off the page, as Section 21 sets out the powers it will give to a tiny group of ministers and "regional co-ordinators" in the event of an emergency being declared.
The conditions for this could hardly be more loosely or widely defined, including anything from a terrorist incident to flooding, a chemical spill or a recurrence of foot and mouth. .......senior ministers (including whips) will be given virtually unlimited powers to do anything they think fit, virtually without parliamentary control. They will be empowered to "disapply" any law or act of Parliament they choose, simply by issuing regulations. .....
Yet when this Bill had its second reading in the Commons on January 19, MPs were only allowed time to discuss its innocuous Part One. (One or two honourable exceptions, such as Richard Shepherd and Bob Marshall-Andrews, did try to ring alarm bells on Part Two.) The Bill was then approved by 286 votes to 138.
When it first came before the Lords late on the evening of July 5, again one or two peers protested at its more extreme provisions. But unless they are joined on September 15 by enough others to provoke a real rebellion, we shall have an Act which would in effect permit the setting up in this country of a dictatorship as sweeping as anything achieved under Hitler. It would be scant consolation to know that this was sanctioned by Parliament, even if MPs had scarcely been given a chance to discuss it." Booker's Notebook Read in full

Sept 5 2004 ~ to undermine our civil liberties and live in fear because of the possible

is "a life-paralyzing agent worse than any biological or chemical weapon." Elie Shneour, a biophysicist and head of the Biosystems Research Institute in San Diego strenuously objects to the current definition of weapons of mass destruction – a term that grows looser by the day. "Chemical and biological weapons are not weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear, high explosives and incendiaries are the only weapons thus far devised that can cause real mass destruction." To think otherwise, he argues, is not only imprecise, but dangerous." Article at San Diego.com

Sept 5 2004 "... realisation dawning that John Prescott's forthcoming referendum on an elected regional assembly for the North-East could presage a mighty earthquake in England's local government."

Booker's Notebook "Speakers for both sides deplored the fact that Mr Prescott had linked an elected assembly with the reorganisation of local government, which they argued should have been kept as separate issues. The linkage was made, it is believed, on the personal insistence of Tony Blair...
...a completely new system of local government. The provision of services will be taken away from genuinely local councils, and given to a remote authority which cannot be properly accountable to local people " Read in full

Sept 5 2004 ~ "... last week's events in Italy show what happens when people are deprived of their democratic right to oppose policies with which they strongly disagree.

The only way the Government can hope to meet its obligations (to the EU's landfill directive 1999/31 ), as scores of landfill sites are declared illegal, will be for John Prescott to introduce "guidance" allowing central government to override local planning procedures and dictate where incinerators are to be built. (Mr Prescott made a similar provision last month for windfarms, in order to meet our obligation to the EU to produce 10 per cent of our energy from "renewable sources" by 2010.)
Whether British protesters will be prepared to take their opposition to the same lengths as the residents of Acerra remains to be seen. But last week's events in Italy showwhat happens when people are deprived of their democratic right to oppose policies with which they strongly disagree." Read in full

Sept 3 2004 ~Labour 'cowardly' on Whitehall reform

Yesterday's Guardian "Labour has failed to tackle Whitehall's "culture of amateurism", says a leading consultant with close family connections to the Blair cabinet and top reaches of the civil service. .." (read in full)

Sept 3 2004 ~ "We claim to be citizens of representative democracies.

Our democracies are built on a foundation of law, and our success as democratic societies stipulates adherence by all - governed and governing - to this law. For our societies to function, the means are the ends; due process must be respected. "How western we are," says another chorus member, chiding us for allowing ourselves to fall victim to the trap of putting democratic process before the elimination of a dictator. I look back at my years of defending this process and respond, with pride, "Yes, how western I am." Thank you, David Hare, for helping to remind me. .."
Scott Ritter on David Hare's new play "Stuff Happens" in the Guardian

Sept 3 2004 ~ "a deliberate attempt by the prime minister, not by Campbell, to fabricate the evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat"

Gavyn Davies on "Stuff Happens" "Hare's version of the history of 2003 wisely gave no truck to the war against the BBC waged by Campbell from Downing Street, a diversionary and irrelevant tactic that sucked in the British media but which is now laid bare for what it always was. However, Hare does have a strong view about the production of the flawed "intelligence" dossier produced by No10 in September 2002 to justify the war. This is depicted as a deliberate attempt by the prime minister, not by Campbell, to fabricate the evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat to UK interests because this falsehood was needed to make the war legal. Surely this can't be true, at least according to the gospels of their hand-picked lordships, Hutton and Butler? Presumably not, but the Olivier audience seemed disposed to view their lordships' exonerations as works of fiction, while placing credence in the Hare version of history.
And as for me? All I have learned is that, in the murky world of Whitehall politics, stuff happens."

Sept 2 2004 ~ Blunkett announces 'spy in the sky' satellites to track criminals

Big Brother's latest scheme for our protection. The Independent reports on Mr Blunkett's "pilot scheme"

".....Up to 120 offenders in three police force regions ­ Greater Manchester, West Midlands, and Hampshire ­ are to be fitted with the tracking devices in a year-long pilot study.
The scheme is aimed at people convicted of sex crimes and domestic violence and persistent offenders. Criminals who have served part of their sentence and have been released from jail on licence could be fitted with the tags, as well as those placed on home curfew.... "

Children may be fitted with tracking devices "for their safety" http://library.lp.findlaw.com

Aug 30 ~ "Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has attacked the prospect of an American detective replacing him as the country's top policeman as an insult and outrage

to his British colleagues. Sir John has also criticised the fascination with US-style policing and argued that politicians and the public ought to have more pride in what the police have achieved in the UK.. David Blunkett's apparent love affair with American policing styles and officers is causing disquiet nationally among police chiefs. Last September, he appointed Paul Evans, the head of the Boston police, to run the Home Office's standards unit, which oversees national police performances. He has also paid for Mr Bratton to come to London to give British police chiefs a pep talk.... ." Independent

Aug 29 ~ "...Mr Prescott's desperation is evident in the latest "information leaflet" put out by his office, in eight languages, to the North-East's 1.9 million voters.

Although this paean of praise for the benefits of regional government purports only to be giving "information", the game is given away by its carefully staged illustrations. These contrast young, attractive, affluent-looking Yes voters, giving the thumbs up to an elected assembly, with "typical" No voters, such as an old man with a cloth cap and a stick, a diminutive Asian shot in shadow and an Afro-Caribbean lady: a selection so blatant it should earn Mr Prescott an interview with the Commission for Racial Equality..." Booker's Notebook

Aug 27 ~ Electoral Commission condemns all-postal ballots - but North East Region referendum will be 100% postal "because it is too late to make changes"

Trials in June's European and local authority polls were beset with logistical problems and claims of fraud. The Independent says: "The experiment, designed to increase turnout, saw chaotic scenes before the elections as thousands of voters failed to receive their ballot papers in time. "The Commission acknowledges that based on the evidence gathered in these pilots, and in particular the strength of public criticism of a single voting method, all-postal voting should no longer be pursued for use at UK elections," the Commission said in a report. It added it was too early to conclude whether the increased use of postal voting had led to a rise in fraud, as only two allegations leading to an arrest have so far been made across the country despite widespread allegations of abuse in the media. ...... It called for more to be done by the government to ensure postal voting was efficient and secure. ..... However, the Commission said a referendum in November on whether the North East should get its own regional assembly should be an all-postal ballot as planned because it was too late to make changes."
Telegraph: "Yesterday the commission admitted that it had made a mistake, and that in future it would be best to offer voters a choice of electoral systems, including the option of going to a polling station."

Aug 25 ~ under the draft Bill they would have the power to destroy the constitution -- to abolish judges and Parliament and create a dictatorship...

Lord Lucas commenting on the Civil Contingencies Bill.
Speaking at the second reading of the bill in the House of Lords on 5 July, he added: "Are we opening up our system to the equivalent of what happened in Germany in 1933, where it became possible for an extreme party legitimately to hijack a democracy and turn it into something totalitarian? .
Bryn Wayt sends this detailed email about the Civil Contingencies Bill. Like Lord Lucas, he reminds us of the parallels with 1933. He urges all to take some action about what he, Lord Lucas and many others who are awake, see as a real and present threat. The bill goes back to the Lords on September 15th. See warmwell's page on the Civil Contingencies Bill

Aug 24 2004 ~ Robin Cook ".. raids under the Anti-Terrorism Act which are now running, staggeringly, at 10 times the level of three years ago."

Independent ".... the "staggering" rise in numbers of anti-terrorist raids by police threatened to alienate British Muslims.
... "There were 30,000 raids under the Prevention of Terrorism Act last year, from which less than 100 individuals were charged with offences relating to terrorism."
"There's a real risk that if we continue ... we will end up alienating the very people we need for a successful multi-cultural society and a successful appeal to people around the world of a different culture." Mr Cook ... warned Tony Blair that such a military campaign could not be repeated in another part of the world. He said: "Iraq is unique, it's a one-off. It's exhausted Tony Blair's capacity to take the nation to war against any substantial resistance...If he hopes to bring back to the Labour Party all those millions who opposed the war or those who supported it on the basis he sold it to them, he's got to make it plain that he's learned the lessons from the past two years and that [he] is going to be different in the future." Read in full Remember too that the a recent US State Department report into patterns of global terrorism found that terrorist attacks are at their lowest ebb for years. In spite of all the hype about al-Qaeda in Britain, there is little sign of terrorists queuing up to attack. ...." Important article - 'War on Terror' games

Aug 22 ~ Civil servants improperly sought advice from the Home Office about whether to delay publication of embarrassing immigration statistics to head off criticism

Reuters "...David Davis, home affairs spokesman for the Conservative Party, said the files showed that the independence of the ONS had been compromised. "It is wholly wrong of the ONS to seek instructions. It just shouldn't be offering those options. An independent statistical organisation shouldn't be seeking any views on what to publish," he told the paper. A Home Office spokeswoman was not immediately able to comment on the accusation that the department had sought to have the publication of the statistics delayed. The ONS was not immediately available for comment."

Aug 21 ~Matthew Parris quotes from a Man for All Seasons

"As Robert Bolt puts it in A Man for All Seasons (in the mouth of Sir Thomas More), we may cut down all the laws of England in pursuit of the Devil if he tries to hide behind them, but when he turns round and comes for us, we will have flattened the very protection that we need. .." Read Mob rule rules: the law now panders to primitive emotion in the Times.

Aug 18 ~" Any self-respecting judge would take one look at this tower of garbage and demand that it never darken the door of a British courtroom again.."

Simon Jenkins in the Times today asks, Why isn't your conscience torturing you, Mr Blunkett? "...Three appeal court judges inexplicably found in favour of Mr Blunkett, albeit one of them with reservations. Lord Justice Laws declared himself “quite unable to see” why the Home Secretary should not rely on evidence “gained by torture”...
..evidence against the detainees, so they claim, was based on material passed to British intelligence by interrogators in Guantanamo Bay and Bagram base in Afghanistan. Such intelligence is utterly tainted. Horrifying stories of torture are now emerging from these prisons, from jailers, soldiers and prisoners alike, and from prisons in coalition-occupied Iraq. Charges based on such material are vulnerable to a prima facie defence of duress. Three recent British detainees in Guantanamo confessed under extreme pressure to having “met Osama bin Laden”. They had not done so, and British intelligence validated their previous alibis which was presumably why there were released.
....Lord Justice Laws appears to give the Home Secretary licence to do what the Pentagon has been doing for years. He can sub-contract the gathering of intelligence by illicit methods to private agencies and less-fastidious states abroad. The removal of any “duty of inquiry” into how evidence has been gathered is a green light to British prosecutors to trawl that murkiest of oceans, for “global terrorist” accusations.." Read in full

Aug 17 ~ "The fact is that we have not had a proper discussion of the most important part of the Bill, which affects our civil and political liberties"

The Civil Contingencies Bill - now has its own page on warmwell. It is the UK equivalent of the notorious "Patriot Act" in the US. Only a few amendments have been made in the Commons. On 15 September it will be discussed on the floor of the House of Lords. Lord McNally quotes Richard Shepherd MP who said in the House of Commons: "The fact is that we have not had a proper discussion of the most important part of the Bill, which affects our civil and political liberties" [Official Report, Commons, 24/5/04; col. 1406]:

Aug 17 2004 ~ "security" triumphs over freedom and justice every time

The EU Directorate General Justice and Home Affairs is to be renamed: "Justice, Freedom and Security" It has been noticed by more than Sir Humphrey Appleby in happier days that "many good words and phrases ... are contradicted by others that undermine them. ." The current thinking seems to be that the people (including journalists) lack concentration and the will to look very far. They will latch on to a few significant sounding words and fail to notice that they are merely the sugar coating around noxious contents. Mr Buttiglione is now Commissioner for ""Justice, Freedom and Security". Tony Bunyan, of Statewatch comments: "This simply scrambles the "Area of freedom, security and justice" into a new EU acronym which changes the wrapping and leaves the same policies in place, where security triumphs over freedom and justice every time" Statewatch also links to Moderning police powers to meet community needs (pdf) The Home Office consultation paper on: "Moderning police powers to meet community needs". Includes dropping restriction on arrest to "serious offences", extending use of search warrants, allowing fingerprinting outside of police stations to establish "identity" (no requirement of an offence being suspected), "covert DNA and fingerprints", protests outside homes and powers to impose conditions on demonstrations "in the vicinity of Parliament Square" (ie: including Whitehall and No 10)

Aug 16 ~ Beware rise of Big Brother state, warns data watchdog

The Times "... Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, says that there is a growing danger of East German Stasi-style snooping if the State gathers too much information about individual citizens. He singles out .... David Blunkett’s identity card scheme; a separate population register planned by the Office for National Statistics; and proposals for a database of every child from birth to the age of 18.
...His job is to promote greater public access to official records while ensuring that the State does not collect more information about citizens than is necessary. ... “I don’t want to start talking paranoia language, but data protection has a strong continental European flavour. Some of my counterparts in Eastern Europe, in Spain, have experienced in the last century what can happen when government gets too powerful and has too much information on citizens. When everyone knows everything about everybody else and the Government has got massive files, whether manual or computerised.”
..... “I don’t think people have woken up to what lies behind this,” he says.
.... Mark Oaten, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said he was concerned about the proliferation of databases: “While the Government can sometimes justify each measure individually, the danger is that we are slipping into a Big Brother society by stealth.” Read in full

Aug 15 ~ EU orders health ID cards for all tourists

Independent on Sunday Britons travelling in Europe are to be issued with a new card to give them swift access to the health service when they fall ill. The technology for issuing the cards - which could be a forerunner to more widespread identity cards - is being prepared by the Department of Health, on instructions from the EU Commission, which wants a standard card in use across all 25 EU states. ....... Simon Davies, director general of Privacy International, warned: "We knew from the very beginning of ID cards' gestation that access to the NHS was one of their core targets. If there is an economic argument for ID cards, this is it." David Blunkett....says that all British adults should be compelled to register for the purpose of obtaining an ID card, just as they are compelled to register to vote. However, since the cards are likely to be replace driving licences and passports, they would in effect become compulsory for anyone who wants to drive, travel abroad, use the NHS, or receive state benefits.
His plans were criticised by the CBI last week, because the Government is not prepared to accept responsibility when companies use information that appears on the ID registry which then turns out to be incorrect. Another problem, which neither the Home Office nor the Health Department has yet solved, is that there are many foreign residents in Britain who would not be entitled to an ID card, even though they do qualify for free health care."

Aug 15 ~ "...Mr Prescott is railroading through the greatest revolution in local government that Britain has ever seen.

Its centrepiece is his plan to divide the UK under 12 regional governments, as part of the creation of a "Europe of the regions".
He has already given four regions their governments: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. He hopes to embark on the final stages of the process in November, when the first referendum on creating similar governments for the eight remaining English "Euro regions" is held in the North East.
Prescott's further plan to create "sub-regions", which will override much of the existing county and borough council structure, is still largely under wraps. The starting point is four "sub-regional" bodies for London. It is a condition of the new regional governments that county councils be abolished, to be replaced by "unitary authorities". Contrary to their name, these will be subordinate to two tiers of regional government above them.
The masterstroke in the engineering of Mr Prescott's revolution has been to make sure that he never explains clearly what he is up to. .." Booker's Notebook Please do read this week's Booker's Notebook in full. It is impossible adequately to summarise the importance of what he says.

Aug 15 ~ we are faced with a new system of government, like nothing the world has seen before.

Booker "....Dennis McShane, our "Europe minister", was rightly excoriated last week for wheeling out, yet again, the tired old claim that anyone who dares criticise the EU is a "xenophobe". The point is that we are faced with a new system of government, like nothing the world has seen before. To suggest that this system is inefficient, corrupt, undemocratic and doomed ultimately to collapse, is not a matter of xenophobia. To those of us who observe its workings in detail, alas, it is simply common sense." Read in full.

Aug 15 ~ "Eurocodes": 57 incredibly complex technical manuals which by 2010 will radically change the way in which Britain's buildings are designed and constructed

Booker's Notebook "...Until now, construction has been governed by a mass of British Standards and codes of practice, refined over decades. Soon, in the name of EU "harmonisation", these standards will be replaced by a new system known as "Eurocodes": 57 incredibly complex technical manuals which by 2010 will radically change the way in which Britain's buildings are designed and constructed. Switching over to this new system will impose huge costs on Britain's engineers, many of whom fear that the new codes - patched together after years of argument between the 15 countries responsible for drawing them up - may result in structures considerably less safe and efficient than at present. .." Read in full

Aug 14 ~ The use of torture to obtain evidence against suspected terrorists was endorsed on August 11th 2004 by the British Court of Appeal.

Independent

".... The controversial guidance emerged in the court's decision to reject appeals from 10 foreign nationals held for more than two years without charge or trial in British prisons under emergency terror laws introduced by David Blunkett after the 11 September attacks.
None of the men is accused of terrorist acts, only that they belong to banned terrorist organisations. Two of the 10 have voluntarily left Britain and are bringing their appeals from abroad. But Mr Blunkett, writing in today's (12th Aug) Independent, says yesterday's judgment on the fate of the detainees is a clear vindication of his policy on terrorism. "As Home Secretary. I must balance legal theory with the practical job of protecting people,"

It was a two-to-one judgement. The dissenting judge, Lord Justice Neuberger, warned that by "adopting the fruits of torture" Britain would be weakening its case against terrorists.

"by using torture, or even by adopting the fruits of torture, a democratic state is weakening its case against terrorists, by adopting their methods, thereby losing the moral high ground an open democratic society enjoys."

Aug 13 ~ Police to get wider arrest powers - Crime is at a record low, so why does Labour talk of crackdowns?

Alarm at plan to use community support officers to tackle beggars, drinking and carrying weapons Guardian
"..The overhaul includes a new power to impose conditions on all demonstrations at Westminster and ban long-term protests in Parliament Square.... The police will also gain powers to