Daily Telegraph – Troops to start leaving Iraq next year: British and American troops will be withdrawn steadily from Iraq starting next year and are likely to be completely out of the country within five years, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said yesterday… Mr Straw may be seeking to assuage anti-war sentiment in Britain, particularly in his Blackburn constituency, which has a sizeable Muslim population. He admitted that “quite a lot of people are angry about Iraq” in Blackburn but hoped his constituents would recognise his efforts to avert a looming war between India and Pakistan in 2002. Among those running against Mr Straw is Craig Murray, a controversial former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who fell out with the Foreign Office over his criticism of the Central Asian republic’s human rights record.

Meanwhile, several of today’s papers comment on Straw’s relegation to the back row of “also rans” and junior ministers at Labour’s manifesto launch. Is Jack becoming an election liability?

This Is Blackburn – Man in the white suit wades in: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s record on Iraq makes him worse than disgraced former MP Neil Hamilton, according to anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell. The veteran journalist and ex-MP, who ousted the cash-for-questions Tory in Tatton in 1997, spoke out in Blackburn last night… He threw his weight behind the independent candidate for the Blackburn election, Craig Murray. “Tony Blair and Straw have committed far worse offences than Neil Hamilton. They misled the country and took the country to war. I have worked in war zones, I have been in the army. I know what war does… People here have a unique opportunity to stop another war and send a clear message to Downing Street”.

Jack Straw has admitted that his government uses information extracted under torture, but now he claims that Craig Murray’s criticisms are “just a smokescreen”. A smokescreen for what?

The campaign song, Hit the Road Jack (Straw), produced and recorded by Peace Not War The Rub, is now, once again, available for download:

Hit the Road Jack (Straw) (1.95Mb MP3)

Sunday Times – Muslim says Straw made peerage offer

JACK STRAW has become embroiled in a row with a wealthy Muslim businessman who claims he was offered the prospect of a peerage not to contest the foreign secretary’s Blackburn seat.

The disputed conversation took place in Straw’s constituency flat during a private meeting in which the minister sought to dissuade Yousuf Bhailok from standing against him.

Straw was targeted by Bhailok, a former general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, because of his pivotal role alongside Tony Blair in the Iraq war.

Although Straw won a majority of 9,249 in 2001, he could be vulnerable to tactical voting in the coming general election. He is already being challenged by Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

According to census data, the Blackburn constituency has the third highest proportion of Muslim voters in the country, at almost 20%.

The meeting with Straw took place on September 10 last year on the eve of Bhailok’s appearance before a parliamentary assessment board, which would determine whether he would be placed on a Conservative list of approved election candidates.

This weekend he said Straw told him he would not be suited to the life of an MP, stating: “Yousuf, it will be a hard struggle to win against me. You aren’t the type of career politician that it is necessary to have in the House of Commons.”

Bhailok added: “There is no doubt about the fact that he [Straw] mooted the fact that I was a potential peerage candidate. It has been mentioned before but it was mentioned in that conversation, so it had its implications.”

Bhailok, who described Straw as a “friend” whom he has known for many years, admitted that Straw made no direct offer. “I don’t think he was [so] crude [as] to suggest, ‘Yousuf you step down and the peerage is yours’.

“Jack was subtle in the sense that he mentioned, ‘You have been in the top of the list for quite a while and these things take quite a while as you know’.”

Bhailok emphasised he did his best to win the Tory nomination, offering to spend more than ?100,000 of his own money on a pre-election publicity campaign.

However, he lost out to a younger man, Imtiaz Ameen, for the Blackburn nomination, despite having shared a platform with Michael Howard, the Tory leader, when he made a headline-grabbing speech attacking the British National party in Burnley.

A spokesman for Straw confirmed that he met Bhailok on September 10 to hear him outline his plans to unseat him. However, he said the meeting was held at Bhailok’s request and he denied any suggestion of any impropriety by the minister.

“Mr Bhailok raised the issue of the peerage and Mr Straw made clear that these things are subject to rules. On no occasion did he say that Mr Bhailok was in line for one. He was in no position to make any offers like that and nor did he do so.”

Sources said Bhailok sent Straw a text message on September 14 implying that the minister had dangled the prospect of a peerage.

One source said Straw, who was not particularly close to Bhailok, “smelt a rat” and replied by text message repeating what he had said at the meeting and emphasising that strict rules governed the granting of peerages. The source added: “He kept these texts because he thought it was a slightly odd thing which had been raised with him.”

Straw’s account is supported by Mohammed Khan, the Labour deputy leader of Blackburn with Darwen borough council, who arranged the meeting in the flat and was the sole witness.

Speaking from Pakistan, where he is on holiday, Khan said: “Jack told him, ‘It’s your democratic right [to stand] but I’ve been here for 25 years’. Yousuf mentioned the peerage but Jack said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t promise anything to anybody’.”

However, Joe Smith, who was Blackburn Conservative association chairman at the time, said Bhailok told him of the alleged offer on two occasions. “He said Jack Straw offered him a peerage in order to persuade him not to stand. It’s as straight as that.”

Bhailok is now considering whether to stand in the Blackburn seat as an independent candidate.

The Guardian – Former envoy drags Straw into torture row (by Nick Paton Walsh)

The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has accused the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, of personally agreeing to the use of intelligence from the Uzbek government that had been obtained under torture.

Mr Murray claimed last night that Mr Straw had considered a complaint made by him in March 2003 about the Foreign Office’s use of intelligence from the Uzbek government that had been obtained through torture.

Mr Murray said: “I was called back [from Tashkent to London] to a meeting to discuss [the complaint] in March 2003 and I was told that Jack Straw had considered the issue … specifically and had decided it [the use of the information] should continue.”

Mr Murray was dismissed as Britain’s ambassador in Tashkent on Wednesday night after a 15-month dispute. He has vowed to take legal action.

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the claims raised “substantive issues, namely the use of material obtained under torture”. He said Mr Straw should give an explanation to the Commons.

Mr Murray, who says his opposition to the Foreign Office’s acceptance of such information led to his dismissal, has made a series of formal complaints to the Foreign Office since March 2003.

The latest, written in July, was leaked this week to the Financial Times. He wrote: “Tortured dupes are forced to sign confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe – that they and we are fighting the same war against terror … This is morally, legally and practically wrong.”

He told the Guardian: “No one [at the Foreign Office] has made a serious denial to me that information received from the Uzbeks was probably obtained under torture.”

He added that senior officials “have put it to me that even if information was obtained under torture it was legitimate in the context of the war on terrorism”.

“What worries me most about what has happened is that it sends a signal within the Foreign Office that you cannot argue from a liberal or human rights viewpoint on the war on terror without severe damage to your career.”

Mr Murray’s security clearance was withdrawn this week. Yet on Thursday he said he attended a meeting with his security vetting officer in which he and a union official were shown a report on his clearance which “carried a clear and unequivocal recommendation that my vetting be continued. There aren’t any issues around my security clearance. That was just a ruse to keep me in the country.”

The bitter battle with the Foreign Office began in July last year when Mr Murray was told to resign over 18 disciplinary charges. These ranged from being drunk at work to issuing visas to local women in exchange for sex. The charges were later dismissed.

Mr Murray has since had a nervous breakdown and says doctors have told him the stress partly caused him to have a near-fatal pulmonary embolism. This has led to the serious medical condition of pulmonary hypertension.

He said: “I have no doubt the extraordinary experience of the last year when the Foreign Office confronted me with these false charges, demanded I did not speak to anyone about it and demanded my resignation, has both damaged my health now and will shorten my life expectancy.”

He said he would sue for damage to his health and declined to put a figure on the damages, but said the loss of 15 years’ more earnings alone would come to ?750,000.

He continued his attack on the foreign secretary, saying that Foreign Office documents he had obtained under the Data Protection Act showed that Mr Straw was “regularly briefed on the progress of … the disciplinary charges against me and the demand that I resign my post”.

The Foreign Office declined to comment specifically on the allegations against Mr Straw and said it could not comment on other issues because of the prospect of legal proceedings.

Craig Murray

? Born in 1958

? After grammar school he attended the University of Dundee where he met his wife, Fiona

? He took the Foreign Office entrance exams in 1984 after a period as a student union leader. He passed the exams easily and served initially in the Foreign Office’s African department in 1985

? His first posting the following year was as second secretary to the Nigerian embassy before moving back to London in 1990

? In 1994 he was appointed first secretary in Warsaw where he spent three years. In 1998 he was made deputy head of the African department (equatorial)

? The following year he moved as deputy high commissioner in Accra, Ghana, where he spent three years. During this tenure he helped negotiate a peace deal in Sierra Leone for which he claims to have been offered – but turned down – an honour.

? In August 2002 he moved to Tashkent as ambassador to Uzbekistan. Since February he has been separated from his wife and in a relationship with a 23-year-old Uzbek woman

? He has two children and his personal interests include eccentric ties, single malt whisky and reading. His favourite band is Status Quo