Anti-New Labour tactical voting by former Labour voters, and supporters of all other parties, looks set to deliver a local election result in London that will contribute significantly to sweeping Tony Blair out of 10 Downing Street.

As one indication of the difficulites that now face Tony Blair, the London Strategic Voter www.strategicvoter.org.uk website registered about 10,000 hits in the pre-election month of April, and interest has continued to grow rapidly in the days leading up to the vote tomorrow.

“If opponents of the war unite and vote tactically for the strongest challenger to New Labour the party of government could be defeated in every London borough. It is the first time the internet has been used to encourage and co-ordinate large-scale tactical voting in a London election.

Simply by typing in their postcode on the website, Londoners can find out which party stands the best chance of beating New Labour in their council ward. The interactive website will be a centre for vote-swapping between supporters of different parties in different boroughs, so that the power of tactical voting to create change can be exploited to the full.

London Strategic Voter spokesman Richard Wilson: ‘May 4th is a referendum on whether the voters want Tony Blair to stay or to go now. We want him to go.”

See also Blair at the voter’s mercy

From The Guardian (17.04.06)

The government will argue in Britain’s highest court next week that foreign officials who commit torture abroad should be immune from civil action in the English courts.

Christopher Greenwood QC, the international lawyer who advised the attorney-general that the Iraq war was lawful, will argue for the British government, which has intervened in support of Saudi Arabian officials accused of detaining and torturing four Britons in Saudi jails.

Saudi Arabia is appealing to the House of Lords against a court of appeal ruling that, while the state is immune from compensation claims for torture, individual officials who inflict it are not. Civil rights lawyers said the ruling in October 2004 was a historic victory, ending immunity for torturers abroad from claims in the English courts.

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From ISN

ISN SECURITY WATCH (Monday, 24 April 2006: 6.00 CET)

Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has told European Parliament that British and US intelligence services had used information related to the “war on terror” obtained from tortured suspects.

“Under the UK-US intelligence sharing agreement the US and UK have taken a policy decision that they will get testimonies obtained under torture in third countries. I say that with regret and with certainty,” the Brussels-based Dtt-Net.com news agency quoted Murray as telling European lawmakers on Thursday.

The European Parliament is investigating allegations that the CIA used European airbases to transfer terror suspects to countries where they could be tortured. The Council of Europe has already concluded that the CIA flights took place with the tacit approval of EU governments.

Murray said he saw “evidence of scores of cases of torture in Uzbekistan”, including people boiled to death, photos of serious injuries, mutilation of genitals, rape of individual in front of their relatives “until they would sign a confession”.

He said the CIA and MI6 did not participate in the interrogations, but did share information obtained from them.

Murray served as ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004.

He told European parliamentarians that he had shared his concerns with the British Foreign Office, but the conclusion was reached that “we should continue to receive intelligence material obtained from confessions under torture and that this would not contravene the UN Convention against Torture”.

According to Dtt.net.com, Murray said Foreign Office legal advisor Michael Wood replied in a letter that the UN Convention against torture only forbids information obtained under torture “to be invoked as evidence in any proceedings”.

“In this way, the British formal position can be maintained when they say ‘we do not condone, use or instigate torture’,” Murray was quoted as saying.

Murray was forced to leave his post in 2004 after condemning Uzbek authorities for their poor human rights record. As ambassador to Uzbekistan, Murray had also been a vocal critic of the British and US for what he said amounted to ignoring corruption and brutality in the former Soviet republic.

Murray’s protests led him to leave the civil service.

The former ambassador said these events left a “lack of credibility of the intelligence material obtained, intended to paint the false picture that Uzbekistan opposition people were linked to al-Qaida and bin Laden”.

Regarding reports of CIA secret detention centers in Eastern Europe, Murray said he had no evidence of their existence.

From EU Observer (20.04.06)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A British former envoy to Uzbekistan has revealed that western secret services obtained intelligence secured under torture from foreign detainees, with MEPs criticising the EU anti-terror coordinator for spinelessness.

Speaking before the European Parliament’s temporary committee on CIA activities in Europe on Thursday (20 April), Craig Murray said that UK intelligence had obtained information from detainees tortured by Uzbek security forces. He alerted British foreign minister, Jack Straw, of the methods used by Uzbek intelligence as far back as 2003.

“There is a plenty of evidence about torture carried out in Uzbekistan and I know that foreign minister Jack Straw officially approved using the information obtained through torture,” Mr Murray said, citing a secret report from a meeting held on 3 March 2003.

The German secret service was also cooperating very closely with its Uzbek counterpart, he added, while Britain and the US had taken a policy decision to obtain intelligence under torture in other countries as well.

“I say this with great pain but with absolute certainty,” the ex-ambassador stated.

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From The Independent

The local elections on 4 May could have a big impact on national politics and will provide a test for the leaders of all three main parties.

For Tony Blair, the battle for control of England’s town halls will be the most important local contest since he became Labour leader in 1994. The results could decide whether his party allows him to remain Prime Minister until 2008 as he apparently wishes.

Also see previous post on strategic voting in London

From The Guardian

Ever since the shooting dead of an innocent man who was mistaken for a terrorist, Brian Paddick has been on a collision course with the leadership of his own force. Soon after the police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22 2005, persistent allegations surfaced from within the Metropolitan police that senior officers feared within hours that the wrong man had been killed.

Within police circles, the name of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick kept coming up as someone who might have information challenging the assertion by his boss, Sir Ian Blair, that the force was unaware for 24 hours of its fatal blunder. Investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission interviewed a series of senior officers, including Mr Paddick, about what they knew, and when.

Some inside the force see the decision by Met bosses to try and move Mr Paddick from his job in territorial policing as punishment for his testimony to the investigation. One senior officer said: “This is retaliation for his statement to the IPCC.” Other senior colleagues will dismiss any linkage.

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Anti-New Labour tactical voting by former Labour voters, and supporters of all other parties, can deliver a local election result in London so disastrous for New Labour that a chain reaction will start that will go on to sweep Tony Blair out of 10 Downing Street.

This is the claim made by London Strategic Voter (www.strategicvoter.org.uk), the unique new London local elections website launched today by opponents of the Iraq war.

The website presents information showing just how vulnerable New Labour is right across London on 4 May. If opponents of the war unite and vote tactically for the strongest challenger to New Labour the party of government could be defeated in every London borough. It is the first time the internet has been used to encourage and co-ordinate large-scale tactical voting in a London election.

London Strategic Voter spokesman Richard Wilson said:

“Most progressive people have got the hang of tactical voting as a means of keeping the Conservatives out of power. Anti-New Labour tactical voting is trickier because voters are less sure which way to turn to maximise the effectiveness of their vote. London Strategic Voter gives ordinary London voters the information they need to use the May 4th local elections to send a powerful anti-war and anti-sleaze message to Westminster.’

Simply by typing in their postcode on the website, Londoners can find out which party stands the best chance of beating New Labour in their council ward. The interactive website will be a centre for vote-swapping between supporters of different parties in different boroughs, so that the power of tactical voting to create change can be exploited to the full.

‘May 4th is a referendum on whether the voters want Tony Blair to stay or to go now. We want him to go. Today, Iraq is a horrific and disgusting bloodbath, a disaster which Blair was instrumental in creating and for which he has no solution . For Londoners it’s a local issue. The 7/7 bombings happened because of Iraq ‘ and now we hear that the official report agrees with us on that.* How much more local an issue can there be than the danger we now face, as a result of Tony Blair’s policies, every time we get on a bus or tube train?

‘May 4th is shaping up to be the ‘perfect storm’ for New Labour – an utter electoral disaster, sweeping them out of councils in both inner and outer London. Only ordinary voters have the power to do this ‘ and London Strategic Voter shows them how.’

From The Guardian

“Once more there is talk of WMDs and regime change. Once again Britain is embroiled. But this US Secretary of State is clearly no dove…

As the stakes rise, Jack Straw has concerns beyond whether Condi will wear her Blackburn Rovers strip with pride. Though they did not seem to notice, the protesters who heckled her have bigger worries too. It’s not about getting Dr Rice miraculously to end this war. It’s about stopping her embarking on the next one.”

Right on cue, and in contradiction to the public pronouncements by Straw-Rice, we hear from The Telegraph that the Government is in secret talks about a military strike against Iran.

“The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.

A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is “inevitable” if Teheran’s leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.

Tomorrow’s meeting will be attended by Gen Sir Michael Walker, the chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Andrew Ridgway, the chief of defence intelligence and Maj Gen Bill Rollo, the assistant chief of the general staff, together with officials from the Foreign Office and Downing Street.”

The Public Administration Select Committee has been conducting an inquiry into ‘The Publication of Political Memoirs.’ We post here the uncorrected transcript of oral evidence given by Tony Benn, who presents a robust defence of openess.

“I believe Craig Murray, who was the ambassador in Uzbekistan, has been told that he cannot publish his diary. I think this is just in the interests of ministers; it is nothing whatever to do with the public interest, indeed quite the opposite, it makes it hard to hold people accountable for what they do.” Tony Benn

Oral Evidence Taken before the Public Administration Select Committee

on Thursday 16 March 2006

Witness: Rt Hon Tony Benn gave evidence.

Q386 Chairman: May I welcome Tony Benn, not for the first time, to the Committee. We draw upon you regularly, always to great effect and we are delighted that you are able to come to help us with one of our inquiries at the moment which is on memoirs. You of all people should be able to tell us about this as one of the great diarists of our time. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction or shall we go straight to questions?

Mr Benn: May I just briefly say, and I put it in my note, that the balance of information between the Government and the people is what determines whether it is democratic or not. Looking over history, the Heresy Act of 1401 meant that if a lay person read the Bible they were burned at the stake. That was an attempt by the Government to control people thinking out for themselves their religious beliefs. Then the Church of England was nationalised by Henry VIII because he wanted to control the Church. Charles II nationalised the Post Office because he wanted to open everybody’s letters – I looked this all up when I was Postmaster General – and Hansard was imprisoned for reporting what was said in the House of Commons.

All of these related to the availability of information. The position at the moment is that the Government want to know all about us. When I use my Oyster card the police know what station I went into, where I went and when I came out again. My phone is bugged, or can be bugged, quite legally now and everything about us is known, but we are to know very, very little about what the Government do. Under the 30-year rule I shall be 111 before I know what the Cabinet minutes for yesterday are. I think that there is an imbalance and I am making a very, very simple point, which is that the argument about secrecy and so on confuses the convenience of ministers with the national interest.

My experience, if it is of any help, and I was a departmental minister for 11 years, is that there are very, very few secrets in Government at all. I once put this either to Burke Trend or Armstrong, I forget which, and they agreed with me. Some relate to security. For example, atomic matters are very, very secret, but even there I once had a document marked “Top Secret Atomic UK Eyes Only, page one of 20 pages, copy one of two copies”, so secret that we used to say “Leak before reading. Eat before you read”. It said that we could enrich uranium by the centrifuge. When I was reading this, New Scientist was publishing every week that it could be done. All I knew was that we could do it. They said they thought they could do it. I do not think that there is much.

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From South Coast Today

The Sugan Theatre Company is producing the American premiere of one of the most thought-provoking political plays to come down the pike in a long while.

“Talking to Terrorists” by Robin Soans challenges a basic assumption held by many since 9/11–that terrorists are subhuman and should be treated as such. It’s an easy conclusion to reach and it may have made it easier to hunt down terrorists with few legal restrictions. But it has led to serious problems, such as the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, a controversial Iraq war, and a steep decline in how the United States is viewed by its allies.

There are serious questions as to whether this approach to terrorists is leading to less terrorism worldwide or actually fueling it.

“Talking” proposes that it’s fueling it and that it would be far more effective to talk and listen to terrorists without condoning their horrendous acts.

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From the Sydney Morning Herald

Truth or fiction? This lighthearted book shows you how to spot the difference.

Author: Andy Shea and Steve Van Aperen

Publisher: ABC Books

Lord Carlile, Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism laws, said last month that lack of public trust in the intelligence and security services over the terrorist threat was directly related to the way the Blair Government advocated war in Iraq.

“The trust issue,” he said, “has been very damaged by the intelligence information connected with the Iraq war which is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be inaccurate.” Thus Carlile touched on a fundamental issue of our age: the public has an uncanny knack of fingering a liar, no matter how much spin is deployed to cover uncomfortable facts.

Andy Shea and Steve Van Aperen are experts in distinguishing truth from fiction. Shea is a former London police officer and Van Aperen is an FBI-trained polygraph examiner. Their book provides a light-hearted examination of the trade and provides skills to determine whether a loved one, politician or journalist is lying. The authors ask readers to acknowledge that we all lie at various points in life, but only some lies are truly damaging. Context is everything.

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Robin Soans’s play finds the normal in the extreme

By Kevin Cullen in the Boston Globe

There was a moment when she was reading Robin Soans’s script for “Talking to Terrorists” that Carmel O’Reilly found herself almost unconsciously nodding in recognition. It was the line in which a British Army colonel remarks that had he grown up in Crossmaglen, a village hotbed of the Irish Republican Army, “I would have been a terrorist.”

O’Reilly, artistic director at the Sugan Theatre Company, grew up in a small village in County Fermanagh, a rural corner of Northern Ireland, and Catholic boys she knew joined the IRA after they’d been beaten or humiliated by British soldiers in the early 1970s. She became a teacher in a technical school, and one night she was stopped by masked men who had mounted a checkpoint. But the masked men weren’t men, they were boys — Protestant teenagers who had joined a loyalist paramilitary group to battle the IRA — and she recognized their voices behind the masks. They let her go.

The next day in school, she and the boys behind the masks greeted one another as if nothing had happened.

Now O’Reilly is directing Sugan’s production of “Talking to Terrorists,” which makes its US premiere tonight at the Boston Center for the Arts. Drawing on interviews with those who have committed, witnessed, or been victims of terrorism, the play suggests that terrorists are not psychopaths but often shockingly normal — extremists made by extreme situations.

O’Reilly doesn’t have to be convinced that, given a particular set of circumstances and experiences, anyone can become a terrorist. “I’ve seen it,” she says, “with my own eyes.”

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From the Scotsman: Taking prisoners to the edge of drowning ‘not torture’ says FO, by James Kirkup

FORCING a prisoner’s head under water until they believe they are drowning does not necessarily constitute torture or abusive treatment, the Foreign Office has said.

The equivocal statement has fuelled suspicions that Britain is turning a blind eye to practices by its allies that many international lawyers believe are illegal.

Holding mock executions is banned in international law, yet simulated drowning is specifically intended to persuade subjects that they are about to die.

Known as “waterboarding,” forms of simulated drowning have been used to torment prisoners since the Middle Ages. Victims experience an automatic gag reflex and acute terror, quickly and inevitably pleading for the ordeal to end.

In a written parliamentary exchange, the Foreign Office was asked whether “the infliction of simulated drowning falls within the definition of torture or cruel and inhumane treatment used by the government for the purposes of international law.”

Replying, Ian Pearson, a junior Foreign Office minister, gave what some saw as a vague answer. “Whether the conduct described constitutes torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment for the purposes of the UN Convention Against Torture would depend on all the circumstances of the case,” Mr Pearson wrote.

Waterboarding is one of the “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” that US intelligence officers are said to use against suspected international terrorists.

The CIA version of the technique sees the subject strapped to a board, feet raised. Cellophane is wrapped over the nose and mouth and water is poured over the head.

The technique has since been used on senior al-Qaeda figures in US custody, intelligence sources say. US officials have never denied those claims.

There is no suggestion that British military or intelligence officers have used waterboarding directly against prisoners.

Human rights groups yesterday condemned the Foreign Office’s ambiguous legal position on simulated drowning.

James Welch, the legal director of Liberty, said Mr Pearson’s answer suggests ministers are ignoring international treaty obligations. “It is incredible that a government minister, mindful of our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, UN Convention Against Torture and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, could possibly consider that holding someone under water with the intention of making them think they were going to drown was anything but torture,” he said.

Kate Allen, Amnesty International’s UK director, said the government must take a much clearer position against techniques like waterboarding.

“Instead of equivocating the government should be clearly condemning all forms of torture, including partial drowning, death threats, sensory deprivation and indeed all forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” she said.

From Rachel North

Why is it an insult when the father of a bomb survivor, a gentle man of God, who has never caused trouble in his life, asks for a public enquiry? Why is his question not answered?

The British government has tried to circumvent restrictions on the supply of military vehicles to the Uzbek government by allowing the sale of land rovers to be modified for military use by a third party.

From Hansard

Q56 Richard Burden: One thing that was in your submission was the Land Rovers, the Turkish made Land Rover Defender 110 military vehicles which were used by Uzbek troops during the massacre of 2005. What you have said about that in your submission is that they were a gift from the Turkish government to the Uzbek government, and you think it is likely that they were produced under licence from the UK by Otokar, the Turkish company, although 70 per cent of the components were exported from the UK and therefore you say there is a loophole. We actually put this to the Government and said what do you say about this then, and I would like to read out to you what the Government said in response to that, and then perhaps you can give your response to that. What the Government told us was: “We understand that Land Rover sells flat-pack civilian Land Rover Defenders to the Turkish company in question, which then assembles and re-badges them for onward sale under its own name, using its own products and components, and according to designs for which that company holds the intellectual property rights. It is the Government’s understanding that these are not Land Rover approved products and it is therefore inaccurate to describe the company concerned as an overseas production facility for Land Rover. Under the EC Dual-Use Regulations … the UK has no power to control the export of civilian specification Land Rovers. To the extent that the buyer in Turkey converts the civilian vehicles using his own technology and without UK involvement, this is a matter for the Turkish authorities as regards any export from there.” That is what the Government said to us and I would be interested in your reaction to that.

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From BBC Online

Italian prosecutors have asked a judge to let David Mills, the husband of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, be put on trial on corruption charges. Judicial sources said prosecutors had also asked for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to be indicted.

They claim Mr Berlusconi paid Mr Mills $600,000 (‘344,000) for giving helpful testimony in two court cases.

By SUE LEEMAN in Seattlepi.com

LONDON – Britain issued new rules for diplomats Wednesday to stop the publishing of tell-all memoirs such as a recent portrayal of Prime Minister Tony Blair as starstruck and senior ministers as “political pygmies.”

Ministers were chagrined in November when former ambassador to the United States Sir Christopher Meyer published his explosive “D.C. Confidential.” Meyer depicted Blair as starstruck and failing to stand up for Britain in the run-up to the Iraq war, and he described senior Cabinet members as “political pygmies.”

In the memoir, Meyer also told how, as a Downing Street press secretary, he would brief former Conservative Prime Minister John Major as the premier washed and dressed in the morning, sometimes while Major’s wife, Norma, lay in bed.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who has accused Meyer of breaking a trust, published new guidelines Wednesday which specifically prevent Foreign Office staff from “writing anything that would damage the confidential relationship between ministers, or between ministers and officials.” Meyer’s book was submitted to the Cabinet Office which also consulted the Foreign Office before it was published.

Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has published documents he says prove that Britain knowingly received intelligence extracted under torture from prisoners in the former Soviet state. Murray was sacked over the allegations.

The revised guidelines advise that “the good conduct of government requires ministers to have confidence that they can have full and frank discussions with officials, without concern that these may then appear in the public domain.”

Jowell facing new Mills questions

From the Scotsman

Tessa Jowell is facing renewed questions over her estranged husband’s financial dealings as he awaits a decision over whether he will be tried for corruption in Italy.

The Culture Secretary denied earlier this week that David Mills had ever owned shares in pub chain the Old Monk Company after reports at the weekend that he made ‘67,000 from dealing in them.

But Italian prosecutors looking into Mr Mills’s affairs have released a series of letters suggesting a company owned by Mr Mills did own the shares. In a hand-written letter the beneficial owner of the company said she had transferred the shares to Mr Mills.

Tory opponents say Ms Jowell should have declared that in the register of MPs’ interests. Tory MP Nigel Evans said: “This is a declarable interest that should have been declared in the register of members’ interests. It doesn’t matter at the end of the day that his name wasn’t on the share ownership. If it was on the company that owned the shares and he benefited from the profit then clearly they were declarable.”

Mr Evans has written to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Sir Philip Mawer, asking him to look into the claims.

Mr Mills, who split from Ms Jowell at the weekend, is expected to learn within days whether he and Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, will be put on trial for corruption. Both men deny that lawyer Mr Mills was bribed by Mr Berlusconi to give false evidence in another court case.

Magistrates in Milan are deciding whether to indict them, a move which would put Mr Mills’ financial affairs under renewed scrutiny.