Lovely moment from an unpublished interview by Matt Kennard here, dating from 2006, in which Jack Straw forgets the particular lies he is supposed to be telling and dissolves into incoherence a la George W Bush:
MK: I was going to ask you about Craig Murray and Uzbekistan ?” the situation there. I was reading about you allegedly were trying to suppress his memoir. Is that correct?
JS: We were trying to get him to obey the rules. You need to get the lines off John on that if you don’t mind. But if you’re a diplomat you’re expected to abide by your responsibilities which include… you accept, again, privileged position, good money, access to all sorts of confidences, you got to… yeah, that’s the issue there.
Fascinating interview all in all. No wonder the student journalist, Matt Kennard, did not end up in the UK mainstream media – he’s much too good.
Yes indeed.
I can’t help but notice,increasingly in these last few months, Straw has been stumbling in his speech and employing the “you’ll have to ask someone else..or see someone else for those files/letters etc…”
Very very poor but very very telling.
Hmm. Who is “John” in this situation?
He rather seems to be saying: “we pay them handsomely to shut their traps”, which doesn’t say much for his beloved Establishment, does it?
Matt Kennard-oh yea he does Gardening programmes now.
Straw the serial liar went on to lie his way all the way to Hell and back.
As he got older lying on reflex got to be a bit more difficult.
That the crib sheets and autocue are no longer so readily to hand is sure to be a sign that the elites this guy sponged off and whose bidding he did all his political life have finally finished with him.
Sadly these elites have probably not yet finished with us and we can expect with full certainty that they have a replacement for Straw in position on the sub’s bench.
you got to.. ..toe the line?
..toe the US line?
..tow-rag!
..Tony?
Maybe he was going to say that you have got to admire him for risking his entire career?
Heh Apostate, tell us your thoughts on the Jews doing 911!
Larry,
Craig has just deleted your previous off-topic comment – yet you can’t take the hint. If I was him, I would be seriously considering banning you by other means, as your entire objective is not contribution but disruption.
Tony
Jack Straw is a man who supported a war not because he thought it was morally justified but out of loyalty to his party and leader. What sort of man is that?
Straw – march 2006
“the situation is very serious [in IRAQ]
“I actually left feeling optimistic…”
“..on the verge of a democratic breakthrough”
“but it is very serious [in Iraq]
“..grave danger of civil strife…”
“as long as the Iraqi government – (s)elected…”
So Mr straw from what you said it seems to me countries that illegally invade and murder thousands of children and maim, orphan and traumatise many more do so, ‘out of a mixture of principle and interest?”
“..we each bring something to the ‘party'”
You mean something like illegal death and destruction?
“We went into Iraq – – on the basis of United Nations Resolution”
So Mr Straw, we went into Iraq illegally then? It does not matter if there were 15 or 20 resolutions, none of them advocated force.
“you’ll have to go on the web site for that…” – because they [the soldiers] provide the detail.
Do you mean Mr Straw, the methods of torture?
At this point in the interview there follows a cold and chilling argument excusing the “gulag” and finger-pointing to the bad men as being “Afghanis.”
“you can’t discuss everything all the time in cabinet”
According to Clare Short, there was no real cabinet in the Blair government, where things got discussed.
“..that’s quite a separate issue [human rights] from whether a former ambassador should be allowed to behave this way.”
I understood Mr Straw that human rights was paramount for the highest representatives of government who typify an extension an extension of the policies enacted by that government, such as human rights and their abuses that are in conflict with an Internationally agreed norm.
“we’re bringing these wonderful things” [to Iraq]
You mean Mr Straw, a broken infra-structure such that polluted water or lack of clean water is causing disease (UNICEF) and death, especially in children.
“We didn’t by the way [supply weapons to Iraq]?
At the same time the Arab street wants many of the things that the West has…
You know Larry a wise Australian millionaire who made his money after taking a team of men up a mountain to mine copper ore, once said, Mark, if my horse throws me to the ground once, I always let it get back up, if it throws me twice, I shoot it.
You’ve have had your chance Larry, don’t moan if you get banned from here.
Perhaps the John to whom Straw was passing the buck was this unsavoury member of the gang of war criminals?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/18/foreignpolicy.iraq
Of Uzbekistan
MK: What do you think of the regime there, though?
JS: Well we’ve got a lot of concerns about the Uzbek government and if you look in our Human Rights Report which I publish each year you’ll see that it’s spelt out. That’s never been the issue ?” we’ve made protests to the Uzbek government about human rights but that’s quite separate issue from whether a former ambassador should be allowed to behave in this way.
In other words, Jack Straw is happy to talk about concerns over human rights, even publish papers on it every year, but he’s not at all happy if anyone tries to do anything about it!
Human rights to people like him are just a game you pretend to care about.
Jack Straw, in his own words, is simply a fraudster and hypocrite.
His account of government is no more than that of rogues covering for eachother in their crimes.
1,240 FAMILIES flee Afghan fighting. Nowhere to go. AlJazeera.
Is it possible that Harold Wilson’s Labour party which survived Thatcher, with a name change, will now self-destruct at the hands of its oldest followers, the likes of Jack Straw?
Mark Golding @ 10.02
Your brutal horse story is truly disgusting, and your Australian millionnaire death-dealing friend is shown as being far from “wise” if you have correctly repeated his anecdote.
Around 6AM your time I heard BBC Radio4 advance publicity for Murder in Samarkand .
What’s all this big hoohaa about Israelis murdering the Hamas guy in Dubai?
They’ve been doing things like that for years, and it’s mostly covered up.
So. What’s different this time?
Why have we got video and details and even identities, all of a sudden?
Why are all the normally friendly fingers pointing at the Israelis?
Surely their mates are not turning against the Israelis.
Oh dear. I feel a conspiracy coming on. Fatah and the Israelis acting in consort, against Hamas.
The evil conjurer distracts again…
What did the FCO know about the murder in Dubai?
“According to a Dubai “source” of The Independent ?” readers will have to judge what this means ?” the security forces of the aforesaid emirate informed a “British diplomat” in Dubai (presumably the consul, since the embassy is in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi) of the UK passport details almost six days ago and “did not receive an appropriate reply”. If this is true ?” the Foreign Office will be wrathful in its denials ?” then why didn’t the British immediately express their outrage at the use of forged British passports and cough up details of the equally outrageous frauds a week ago? This misuse puts every British citizen at risk.
Yet the Foreign Office ?” so keen to warn British citizens of the dangers they face in the Middle East ?” sat on their large behind and did bugger all. I’m sorry. If they had the details, they had a duty to UK citizens to speak up. If they hadn’t got the details, they should have told us. But they were silent. Why? Was there a cold breeze coming beneath a closed door?”
“The Dubai authorities apparently gave the British the (allegedly) forged Irish passports under the misapprehension that Dublin was still a major city of the United Kingdom. Things, needless to say, changed in Dublin almost a hundred years ago ?” although how many readers can name the date of Dubai’s independence from British rule? ?” but this elementary mistake suggests that the Dubai version of events (the inexplicable failure of the British to explain their silence) may contain a distressing truth. Don’t we (the British? Gordon Brown? etc, etc) care when killers use supposedly British passports?
It is too soon to give a reply. But I should add that the Dubai authorities have other information which they have not yet revealed. The world awaits.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-passport-to-the-truth-in-dubai-remains-secret-1901735.html
Matt Kennard works for the FT.
http://www.thecommentfactory.com/author/matthew-kennard
@Barbara
Interesting comment, and I have just visited your website. You seem to me the sort of fanatic that is hell bent on supressing free speech in our political arena. Your blog is comparable to raving loony ante western jihadi ravings except you are obviously ante BNP. We live in a democracy, and as such even the BNP is given a voice as well as all the lunatic Islamic parties in the UK that want to carry coffins through WB.
Oh, by the way,I have happened to have shot several horses during my time in Australia.
@Anno 12.47am
Just one of these ‘displaced’ families. Look at the frightened face of the little boy lying on the pile of family possessions, the desperate father and the cold and the mud. Shocking. It should NOT be happening.
That child is OUR child.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDVdO_b0oDQ
Simple Simon,
Yes, another Israeli false-flag – conquer by deception. Be warned DC’s ‘Friends of Israel’ ultimately want Great Britain’s politicians under their spell aka America.
I learned this powerful lesson from WebCameron (any past posters back me up here?)
“you got to… yeah, that’s the issue there.”
This is a secret 60s language which uses a “music code”. You combine it with Beatles music and get
“you got to… yeah,yeah,yeah, that’s the issue there.”
I’m with Barbara. If his horse threw him twice he’d probably fitted the saddle badly. I’d take a horse over an Australian mining millionaire any day.
Anyway Mark, hardly your kind of analogy, I would have thought.
Frazer: to pretend the vicious, really mad, rantings of Apostate et al are anything like the thoughts of your normal deluded BNP voter is pushing it. I suppose it’s kind to listen when the vile bile stops (usually to launch on some cliched anti democratic rant) but don’t confuse the two. Look at the 9/11 thread if you want some choice examples. Nice that you’ve shot horses – wasn’t there a song about that?
Re (on topic) Straw; the man has clearly been heading for a breakdown for years.
Frazer, I normally love reading your posts, but if Barbara objects to the unnecessary killing of animals, then that is her right. You may have had to shoot your horses, but it is insensitive to parade it in front of her with the sole aim of provocation.
Meanwhile you are welcome to oppose the “no platform” policy, but even as an ardent supporter of free speech, I am truly worried about the media exposure given to the BNP, given that it creates a spike in support for their fascist ideas. Hope Not Hate is fairly mainstream here in the UK, and is not at all the extremist group you paint it as.
Seconded, Jon. Also, Frazer, the one ‘lunatic Islamic party’ which wanted to bring home the fact that people with dark skins have been dying in their hundreds of thousands, was banned. Their planned action might have been ‘provocative’, but it was peaceful. They welcomed journalists, rather than beating them up. And yet, they were banned.
“Re (on topic) Straw; the man has clearly been heading for a breakdown for years.”–Technicolour
Is that sarcasm, or are you serious? I thought he looked very uncomfortable at Chilcot the second time, but not about to ‘lose it’.
As for the Dubai authorities and Dublin being a major British city, I’m amused. Largely because it wasn’t a few random citizens but the “Dubai authorities” who are supposed to have said that. I’ve dealt with ill-informed right-wingers in the USA who tried to rile me by referring to me as a ‘subject of the Queen’. I had to refer them to a political map to show them that there was an Irish Republic, and that Belfast wasn’t in it. One does wonder what Fox News does for the American people. (Or just how badly their standards of education have fallen.)
“They welcomed journalists, rather than beating them up. And yet, they were banned.”
Are you referring to the group who wanted to march in Wootton Bassett?
“as well as all the lunatic Islamic parties in the UK that want to carry coffins through WB.”
Ah, I missed that, sorry. And I thought that whole affair was very badly handled.
Hey dreoilin. No, I was serious. He confessed to having bad dreams about the invasion in 2005, I think. That’s years after he helped start it. Since then, he’s looked to me like a man in desperate internal denial. Unlike Blair, who looks like a man who has nothing left internally, just a shell. Could be wrong, of course.
Yes, Islam4UK were the group who wanted to march through Wootton Bassett. For Daily Mash take (often rather better than the news):
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/islam4uk-changes-name-to-brian-thompson-201001122371/
Not that there is anything wrong with being fat, bald, or white, per se. Some of my best friends etc (though they are really more a pink colour).
“I’ve dealt with ill-informed right-wingers in the USA who tried to rile me by referring to me as a ‘subject of the Queen’. I had to refer them to a political map to show them that there was an Irish Republic, and that Belfast wasn’t in it. One does wonder what Fox News does for the American people. (Or just how badly their standards of education have fallen.)”
dreoilin, apparently some Dubai authorities made a mistake and you have to make a comment about Americans? OK, so now I get where your inclinations on another thread come from. Just an irrational desire to harbor hatred for over 300 million people. Because you need that hatred.
I previously lived in Queens among a lot of Irish. I met a number of ill-informed and silly Irish people. Do you know what that told me about Irish people in general?
Absolutely nothing.