Even worse news. Cameron’s much vaunted National Security Council will be headed by the FCO’s pro-torture Peter Ricketts, who is personally up to his ears in the policy of complicity in torture, and in its continued cover-up – including being personally involved in the censorship of this vital FOI release last week.
page 2
The appointment of Ricketts to what is touted as a key government position is a major blow to those like me who hoped that complicity in torture and attacks on civil rights will be rolled back.
You may have hoped for it but did you genuinely expect it?
MJ – yes. I still haven’t abandoned hope.
Gove gets Education.
I’d love to find a copy of that vid where he said that the new universities were second rate
Just heard Clare Short sounding very upbeat about the new government, saying that the coalition will restore power to the House of Commons and reverse the trend toward government by edict.
From wiki
” * Sir Peter Ricketts- chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the invasion of Iraq.
Ricketts gave evidence regarding the build up to The Iraq War in which he claimed there was a “palpable” threat that Saddam Hussein could have acquired weapons of mass destruction, though he went on to say that nobody in the British government was advocating Hussein’s removal at that point[1]. He also told the inquiry that the British government had been reviewing its policies on Iraq as early as 2001, in anticipation of the Bush administration taking power in the USA”
The truth won’t go away. Even I proved conclusively before the Iraq War started by a simple search of the US Govt, the UK Govt, and the UN web sites, which were all open to anyone on the Internet, that all parties knew that Iraq had been disarmed of all Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Most of the politicians may not have known it, because they were dependent on information supplied by Intelligence Departments run by people like Sir Peter Ricketts.
So in my view, he is even more guilty than Tony Blair, and yet it is This Serpent who remains in Control of our Destinies.
Which means, I was completely correct in not voting. It changes nothing. Even politicians at the highest level can change nothing because they are making decisions based on lies supplied by people like Sir Peter Ricketts.
Tony
I couldn’t see why people on the tube weren’t roaring with laughter at the free papers’ headlines – Lib Dems ‘behaving like Mugabe’; Lib Dems ‘behaving like harlots’. But they weren’t. And later on, after the anouncement, there still was just a stunned & pallid silence.
A young businessman & I agreed that the whole load of them should jump in a lake, though.
Chin up, MJ. I don’t think this can last.
@ MJ Sorry, I see your chin is already up! Did she? I suppose she speaks as someone utterly shafted by Nu labour.
Do people on the Tube ever roar with laughter?(!)
Suhayl Saadi,
They do when my wife’s parents from Lancashire talk to them, in exactly the same way as if they are on the bus to Wigan.
Its completely hilarious.
Tony
Craig and all.
I’m sorry, but you really are a silly billy if you believed engaging ‘the system’ would lead to ‘the system’ curing itself. And now that you’ve voted in it, you are guilty of its crimes.
Billy slogs Greece.
Lays it out straight…We ain’t seen nuffin yet…We will think Maggie was a pussy (in comparison) in the race to impoverishment for all but the very rich…
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=9632
“..these austerity programs..are deliberately designed to ensure that the public-private balance in an economy is irrevocably altered towards free markets and private production at race-to-the-bottom wages and conditions.
They promote environmental degradation as export markets are sought and local resources exploited with abandon. They promote significant increases in economic inequality as the wage share is cut in the hope that private investment will be stimulated.
They promote rising foreign-currency indebtedness as the “investors” move into pick the carcass made available at rock-bottom prices by privatisation. They promote foreign entry into service provision as the public service is hollowed out via outsourcing, contracting out or straight-forward privatisation.”
Tony
Did it never cross the minds of some on here that the lib dems fiercely opposed the Iraq war thinking there were votes to be won in doing so?.
They knew the feeling of the people.
Well there was a million of them on the streets.
The way politics works.
The Bruce…
Our lands and estates in the south will support Edward I.
Our lands and estates in the north will oppose Edward I.
This way we will plicate both sides. We can’t lose.
Ummm, that’s a quote from a Hollywood movie. And the insinuation that Lib Dems were not (most of them) genuinely horrified by the Iraq War is plain stupid.
Seriously, you need to have a little faith in LibDem leaders. If you really want to make a difference there is only one place to be, and that is in government. Listening to some people you would think they would be happier to be in opposition forever, never making a real difference, and how selffish and self-absorbed is that?
More than this, the only things you believe is things that have been written down. You can support or object to what has been agreed in the deal, but you can’t discount the impact the lib dems have had on the new policies of the government.
Tony, another juicy quote from the same source:
“This ideological slant of these austerity programs is not headline news. It is all about fiscal responsibility and living within your means. But imagine if the taxe rises were aimed at the corporate sector or the high income earners and the spending cuts on corporate welfare and military expenditure. Imagine if luxury cars and clothing and wines were banned to “improve the current account”. Then the ideological nature of these impositions would become transparent. There would be such an outcry the world over”.
‘that Lib Dems were not (most of them) genuinely horrified by the Iraq War is plain stupid.’
Yes craig you are right, but were ‘most’ of the lib dem leadership of the same mind?. There lies the question. We may soon find out the answer, so far it is not looking good…is it.
I didn’t vote to kill people (unless the UN agreed to it) but now that war is here, I’ll support it.
Swell.
When you first said you had joined the Lib Dems many on here told you what they were, you didn’t listen. You have lost some good and true friends. When will you ever learn Craig?.
OK, so agreement includes:
-A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
-The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
-Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
-The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
-Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
-The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
-The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
and some more. Plus scrapping the 3rd runway at Heathrow.
‘Ummm, that’s a quote from a Hollywood movie.’
Labour have been doing it to the workers versus big business since time immemorial. Playing both sides using the media as a hammer against the workers while pretending to look after them.
Now whatch the friends of Israel move within the conservative party to persuade their coalition partners and make out that an attack on Iran will be necessarry.