As frequently detailed on this site, Jack Straw’s relationship with British Aerospace has been a consistent thread in his political career and in government he has been especially helpful to them, over the sale of Hawk jets to Indonesia, the stopping of the Saudi bribes investigation, corruption allegations in Tanzania, and doubtless in other ways I do not yet know fully about. Not to menoion the billions in arms sales they have made from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which he helped to promote. It probably was not entirely unhelpful either that Jack Straw’s wife, Alice Perkins, held Treasury and Cabinet Office jobs which involved policy on defence spending. Among the benefits to Jack Straw which are declared in public are substantial payments for his election expenses by a BAE director.

The huge bribes which the sleazebags in BAE gave to disgusting Saudi crooks were channelled through middlemen including Wafic Said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/29/topstories3.politics

As the Guardian politely puts it: “Wafic Said is one of Britain’s wealthiest men. But how he accumulated his estimated £1bn fortune is somewhat opaque.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae17

In other words, he is a crook.

http://intl-news.blogspot.com/2006/11/uks-bae-systems-caught-bribing-saudi.html

But in this brave new world where Universities exist not to advance the sum of human knowledge, but to oil the wheels of commerce, being a succesful crook opens the door to governing boards and gilded statues amidst the groves of academe. Witness the (vomit warning) Oxford University Wafic Said Business School.

http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/news/archives/Main/Wafic+Said+creates+25+million+fund+for+Said+Business+School.htm

And who is this on the Said School’s Business Advisory Forum – oh look – it’s Alice Perkins, aka Mrs Jack Straw!!

http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/corporate/baf/

Some may think it is a bit strange for the wife of the Minister for Justice (sic) and Lord Chancellor to sit on the board of the foundation of a suspect in a major crime who has just been let off by the government on grounds of “National Security”. But in these brave days of New Labour, it doesn’t matter at all.

Jack Straw’s wife was a senior civil servant and I am sure she was entirely competent. But there are many thousand retired public employees around of equivalent rank, and they don’t get nominated to positions by dodgy Arab arms dealers, or for that matter to the board of that rip-off mis-managed monopoly, the British Airports Authority.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/aug/20/businesscomment.theairlineindustry?commentpage=1

Incidentally, there are some lovely people on the board of Said’s business school. There is the former chairman of Centrica, owners of British Gas who just put the price of fuel up 35%. And there is the former chairman of the Charities Commission. See my post on the Smith Institute immediately below.

Here are statements from Corner House and the Campaign Against the Arms Trade on today’s deeply shocking judgement by the Law Lords:

The Law Lords have this morning upheld an appeal by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the High Court’s ruling that he acted unlawfully in terminating a corruption investigation into BAE Systems’ arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

The appeal followed a High Court judgment in April that the SFO, acting on government advice, had dropped the investigation following lobbying by BAE and a threat from Saudi Arabia to withdraw diplomatic and intelligence co-operation if the investigation were not dropped. This judgment was in response to a judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House.

Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House said:

“Now we know where we are. Under UK law, a supposedly independent prosecutor can do nothing to resist a threat made by someone abroad if the UK government claims that the threat endangers national security. The unscrupulous who have friends in high places overseas willing to make such threats now have a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card ?” and there is nothing the public can do to hold the government to account if it abuses its national security powers. Parliament needs urgently to plug this gaping hole in the law and in the constitutional checks and balances dealing with national security. With the law as it is, a government can simply invoke ‘national security’ to drive a coach and horses through international anti-bribery legislation, as the UK government has done, to stop corruption investigations.”

Symon Hill of CAAT said:

“BAE and the government will be quickly disappointed if they think that this ruling will bring an end to public criticism. Throughout this case we have been overwhelmed with support from people in all walks of life. There has been a sharp rise in opposition to BAE’s influence in the corridors of power. Fewer people are now taken in by exaggerated claims about British jobs dependent on the arms trade. The government has been judged in the court of public opinion. The public know that Britain will be a better place when BAE is no longer calling the shots.”

CAAT and The Corner House will issue a more detailed statement following an analysis of the Lords’ judgments.

They are going to have to chisel off the blindfold from the famous statue of justice at the Old Bailey. The Law Lords have killed off the cherished notion that justice is blind to outside concerns and does not discriminate between persons or favour the wealthy and powerful. They have also reversed the lesson of the beheading of Charles I – that the Executive is not above the law. Be ye ever so mighty, you can now stand above the law with impunity.

I am deeply shocked by the Law Lords’ judgement in the case of the bunch of crooks at BAE. The government of this country can simply suspend the rule of law by invoking “National security”, and can do so in the interests of the some of the worst corporate sleazebags in the world and the equally unlovely Saudi Royal Family. The government’s assertion of “National security” is itself deemed unchallengeable in the courts.

We have indeed moved far from liberty in this land. We have also lost as a nation any right to criticise African or other governments for corruption, when we actively connive at bribery and at protecting crooks.

My very soul feels sick.

Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary, Chris Huhne, has written to the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, calling on her to overturn the ban on the anti-Bush march on Sunday. Referring to the recent 42 day detention without trial vote he says: “Just because the votes of these protesters cannot be bought does not mean that their voices should not be heard by those in 10 Downing Street”

It seems that more than one MP is now waking up to just how serious this governments attack on civil liberties and British traditions has become.

Dear Home Secretary,

I am writing to urgently request that you review the

decision of the Metropolitan Police to ban the anti-Bush

march taking place this Sunday 15 June from marching down

Whitehall. As you will be aware the Stop the War Coalition

have organised dozens of peaceful marches past Downing

Street, and I am deeply concerned that the request has been

denied.

In this country we have a long tradition of peaceful protest

and I would be shocked if British civil liberties were

curtailed at the request of a foreign government. I hope

that you can also confirm that the decision of the

Metropolitan Police was not made at the request of the US

authorities.

A static demonstration in Parliament Square is no

replacement for a protest march down Whitehall and I urge

you to work with the police and the protesters to ensure

they are able to make their voices heard outside Downing

Street. Just because the votes of these protesters cannot

be bought does not mean that their voices should not be

heard by those in 10 Downing Street.

Kind Regards,

Chris Huhne

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary

Stop the War is planning a protest in London on that day against Bush and his war policies, and against the British government’s continuing support for his wars.

For more details go here

Update: Stop the War have applied to demonstrate down Whitehall but so far the police, presumably under instructions from US security, are banning them. They are challenging the ban and are inviting supporters to send messages of complaint to the Home Secretary:

* Telephone: 020 7035 0198

* Fax: 020 7035 0900

* Email: [email protected]

You can also complain to the Metropolitan Police about the proposed ban: Telephone: 020 7230 1212.

A protest is also be organised for when George Bush goes to Windsor for tea with the Queen at 3.00pm.

The London elections loom. On 1 May 2008 people will be voting for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly, which has both constituency and London-wide members.

London Strategic Voter is an website not linked to any single political party. It claims to provide independent advice to voters looking for a progressive alternative to New Labour and the Tories, but who are frustrated by the unrepresentative first-past-the-post system we are currently saddled with. And there are more of you than you might think. According to LSV, in the 2004 elections 48% of Londoners voted for parties other than Tory or New Labour.

This site gives ward-by-ward information on how the 2004 London elections went, which can be accessed by postcode. The project aims to build a strong base of London progressive voters ready, willing and enabled to vote strategically at the next General Election to target a hung parliament by getting rid of pro-war, anti-environment and pro-privatisation New Labour MPs across London.

You can check out their advice and perspectives at: http://www.strategicvoter.org.uk/

The Unsubscribe campaign at AI (UK) is asking people to pressure their MPs to reject the latest UK government attempt to extend executive detention without trial. This Tuesday proposals to extend pre-charge detention get their second reading in Parliament.

On 1 April (no, its sadly true…) proposals are being put in front of Parliament to extend the time people can be held without charge in the UK to 42 days – in other words the government want to be able lock people up for six weeks without having to say why. A clear and unnecessary erosion of habeus corpus.

The good news is that there are a lot of MPs and Lords prepared to fight this – but they need your encouragement and support. Others may be persuaded to make a stand if their constituents demand it.

So here’s what Amnesty suggest you can do:

1 Write to your MP and ask them to stand up for our civil rights and oppose this draconian extension of pre-charge detention. Simply pop your postcode into http://writetothem.com and the site will channel your mail to your own MP. It is important that you write in your own words (inspiration here).

2 Get everyone you know to sign their petition http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/notadaylonger

3 Spread the word everywhere you can on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, blogs and anywhere and everywhere you are active online.

Having been a member of the Senior Civil Service for six years, I can assure you of two things:

a) The logging and tracking system for MPs’ – let alone shadow cabinet members’ – letters arriving into No 10 is very tight. It is not possible David Davis’ letter was lost and unrecorded. Nor do I see any reason to doubt that Mr Davis sent it.

b) There are some very right wing people in the security services. It is essential for our democracy that they are not allowed to interfere with our lawmakers.

Jack Straw has gone for the usual government whitewash ploy of choosing a safe conservative judge to mount a long inquiry. In fact, if Straw had any interest in the truth he could find out in a couple of hours if Sadiq Khan MP was bugged, particularly as the individual who allegedly did the bugging has come forward. It looks like this may well lead back to the appalling Sir Ian Blair yet again.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2252618,00.html

But one thing that nobody seems to be commenting on is the position of poor Babar Ahmad, whose wife and father I have had the privilege to meet. Ahmad has been in jail for many years, without a single shred of evidence against him being produced to any judge, ever. It is unclear what exactly he is supposed to have done. It relates apparently to websites supporting the Taliban and Chechen separatists, though supporting in what sense has never been spelt out.

Babar Ahmad denies any connection to any such websites anyway, and I repeat again that no evidence of any kind has ever been produced, nor do the police have any. That is why they have been bugging him for years. The bugging has produced no result either.

Ahmad is being held under the appalling 2002 extradition agreement with the US, which places the UK in the position of a vassal state. Provided the forms are filled in properly, the UK has to extradite its nationals to the US without any evidence being produced by the US that there is even a prima facie case to answer. Astonishingly, our lackey government signed up to this with no reciprocity – we have to extradite our citizens to the US, but the US will not extradite its citizens here without a hearing of evidence by a US court. This is one of the more startling proofs of the abandonment of UK autonomy by Blair that morphed the “Special relationship” into one of master and servant.

The other interesting angle being ignored is, of course, that the results of bugging could not have been used in court here either. Commentators are generally puzzled by the government’s refusal to make bugging material admissible as evidence in court, and tend to take the view that this is a last vestige of liberalism.

In fact this is the opposite. Bugging material is in fact used in court, sanitised as “intelligence”, and given in tiny out of context clips to judges in camera to justify continued detention without trial or control orders. It is also used at the Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal, a de facto terrorism court. Brian Barder’s account of his resignation from that little known body is interesting.

http://www.barder.com/ephems/348

The defence and the “suspect” are not shown the “intelligence” or even given any hint what they are supposed to have done.

So the government’s objection to the use of bugging material in court is that it would, 99 times out of 100, help the defence. Rather than giving one or two apparently damning sentences out of context as “intelligence”, they would have to make full disclosure of all the transcripts to defence lawyers. As in the case of Babar Ahmad, the fact that years of covert surveillance revealed no bomb or terrorist plots, (which I know for sure) and may have revealed anti-terrorist views (which is speculation), would help the defence.

The same is true, incidentally, of the so-called liquid bomb plotters, some of whom were also bugged for over a year, revealing no plot to bomb up airplanes. Not helpful to have all that in court if you are trying to hype the terrorist threat.

This is not speculation. Remember I was on the inside of this “War on Terror”. I know.

I am really sorry Peter Hain has resigned. Of course, part of me is delighted to crow at the exposure of yet another New Labour financial scandal. But other feelings overrule this.

Peter Hain was the hero of my childhood, who inspired my interest in politics, and helped cement my values, through his anti-Apartheid campaign. I joined the Young Liberals and was soon on their National Executive and a contributor to Liberator. Hain was a talented footballer, and playing against him at a Young Liberal conference in Great Yarmouth around 1975, the only way I could cope with him was to kick him in the bollocks and have him carried from the field.

There was an amazing parallel to this in 2000 when I was playing alongside him in a charity game in Accra, and broke my shoulder in a nasty tackle – he helped carry me off the field.

It was the existence of Peter Hain as a Minister which was one of the factors which led me naively and disastrously to believe for a long while in Uzbekistan that our government could not be knowingly receiving intelligence from torture, and it must be a low level operation. When the government in consequence of my interventions on this issue tried to frame me with false allegations, in a personal way it came home to me hard just how completely Hain and the other New Labour careerists had sold their souls.

Yet I feel sorry for him now, which shows what a sentimental old twit I still am.

Occasionally there is a moment of revelation, when an image makes plain an underlying truth. I think the Palestinian breakout through the Wall from Gaza into Egypt is such a moment. The joy of the ordinary Palestinians as they poured through the gap to do simple things like stretch their legs and shop, brought home graphically a truth which the Western media has been hiding for years: that an entire population is imprisoned in Gaza.

The images were so obviously reminiscent of the joy at the fall of the Berlin Wall, that it is going to be difficult to convince public opinion in most of the world that it is a good idea to wall the Palestinians up again. Only the most purblind can fail to realise that this terrible imprisonment and degradation is a major cause of Islamic radicalism, not only in the rise of Hamas but worldwide. It is essential that Egypt now resist pressure from the US and Israel to intern the Palestinians again.

Where is Tony Blair, the Middle East “Peace Envoy”? Not speaking out for the Palestinians right to freedom, certainly.

No doubt Aaronovitch and the Times will now call me anti-Semitic again.

Meantime back at home the government blindly pushes ahead with increasing Muslim grievance with yet another “Anti-terror” bill designed to curb our civil liberties still further. There is no possible justification for the desire to introduce internment at home. This will merely stoke still further the sense of grievance and alienation that can lead a tiny minority into violent reaction.

1800 policemen have demonstrated in London over pay. The demonstrators estimated their own number at 450.

A consultation has been initiated by the UK Home Office on the rights to demonstrate near Parliament.

The consultation paper Managing Protest around Parliament stems from a Governance of Britain green paper in which the government committed to consulting on the sections of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act covering demonstrations near Parliament.

This consultation takes another look at sections 132-138 of that act, and explores whether there is another way to address the situation that would both uphold the right to protest while also giving police the powers they need to keep the peace.

Time is running out for expressing an opinion so if you are concerned about this issue get involved.

The report ‘ Managing Protest around Parliament’ can be read here

The consultation closes on 17 January 2008.

Samina Malik should not be glamorised. The information we have on her is partial, but plainly in at least one aspect she is a stupid young woman with some desperately unpleasant fantasies. She was given to writing poetry that sickeningly depicted political violence, and delighted in it. She indulged her fantasies on the internet.

I disapprove, strongly, of the “Lyrical terrorist”, but disapprobation of society should not entail criminality. Thoughts should not be crimes, and there is no evidence at all that she had any intention of actually committing violence. I am pleased she has not got a further custodial sentence, but we should not forget that she already spent five months in jail. That is wrong, just as I believe it was wrong for Austria to jail David Irving for his equally misguided views. If you persecute an idea, you strengthen its attraction to some, and unpleasant thoughts of marginal attraction acquire the glamour of grievance.

There is not much difference between those who have seriously penalised Malik for her thoughts, and those who would persecute a school teacher for the naming of a Teddy. Those of us who believe in freedom must uphold it – everywhere.

I have been busy surfing for arguments in favour of the government’s proposal for six week detention without charge, so I can counter them, but I haven’t found anything so far that can begin to be described as an argument in favour. Can anybody help me?

You read it here first:

Just like Tony Blair and WMD, the same applies to Ian Blair and Andy Hayman:

– Never take the word of a proven lying bastard.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/met_chiefs_lie.html

People who are prepared to engage in lies in one sphere are generally not trustworthy in any. So Hayman’s fighting of terrorism from exotic holiday resorts with young female police officers, paid for by you and me, and his improper contacts with the investigation into the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes, are no surprise at all.

Doubtless they’ll quickly find another uniformed propagandist to take his place.

In the interests of public welfare, I post no photo of Wendy Alexander. If you thought Alisher Usmanov was ugly, you should see Wendy Alexander. Strangely, she is actually photogenic, in that her stunning, almost superhuman level of repulsiveness in the flesh does not really come through in photos, where she just looks plain ugly.

Anyway, the leader of the Nulab minority in the Scottish parliament has been caught not only with her own dodgy donations, but blatantly lying about them. A stream of documents leaked from her private records include a signed personal letter of thanks to a donor she claimed never to have heard of. Best of all is a document from her husband’s computer listing donors in one column and their false identities in the next.

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1874620.0.the_lies.php

The Nulab strategy at the moment is to use their control of the BBC in Scotland, the Scotsman, Daily Record and most of the other Scottish media to prevent anyone learning the facts of the case. The Sunday Herald has done a very good job to try to break through that.

The Procurator Fiscal in Scotland is not quite as well buttoned up by New Labour as the Met and, especially, the Crown Prosecution Service are in England. So Ugly Wendy may yet be the first senior NuLab figure to go to jail. I do hope so.

I am not in general prejudiced against ugly people. It does not inevitably follow that their ugliness is a metaphoric reflection of their inner disposition. But in Wendy’s case, it is. If you are very ugly, dear reader, please don’t be offended, I mean you no harm.

Anyway, I strongly urge MSPs to carry cheques with them and to wave them at Wendy every time she stands up to speak in Holyrood.

This gentleman is Bennie Abrahams, father of David Abrahams aka David Martin, Labour’s “property developer” peculiar donor, whose ability to get planning permission for major developments in areas next to the A1 where development is banned, is of course in no way related to his secret donations to New Labour.

Bennie Abrahams was a Labour Councillor in Newcastle for decades including throughout the 1960s, when he was one of T Dan Smith’s men in what was perhaps the most famously corrupt local government in British history, with the Poulson scandal only a chip off the tip of a very large iceberg. David inherited most of his massive property portfolio from the beautiful Bennie whose relationship with T Dan Smith was unlikely to have been unhelpful to the development of those property interests.

It is particularly interesting to me as I met T Dan Smith, as a small child, in our house in Peterlee. I am not sure if I also met Poulson. My father had a gaming business, Cam Automatics of Seaham Harbour, operating in Newcastle and throughout the North East, and he had to “keep happy” the Labour Party bigwigs who controlled all the various licensing bodies, including Newcastle City Council. He told me that Get Carter was an absolutely accurate portrayal of the atmosphere of those times, of the complex interlinking between all types of organised crime and local government, and of the levels of violence often involved.

It may have a smoother face now, but I learnt in standing for election in Blackburn that the corruption, both financial and procedural, arising from long term Labour domination of councils is as hard-nosed and vicious as ever. Scotland has countered this by introducing proportional representation for local elections, effectively eliminating one party mini-states. England is of course a comparatively benighted country.

As our political parties have become ever more monolithic, with huge staffs and huge advertising budgets, they have also all become less popular, with party memberships and voting turnout both tumbling. These two developments are linked. The major political parties are no longer groups of people working for a common belief, but large corporations attempting to get their hands on the levers of power for the enormous personal benefit this brings to those who control them. The local campaign and efforts of local people in a constituency, on the whole, is now drowned out by the massive national advertising and coverage of huge, expensively glitzy rallies.

The answer is to cap donations, from companies, individuals and trade unions, at £10,000 a year, and for parties simply to shed their armies of spinners and researchers, and dispense with control of every billboard in the country at election time. A candidate in a constituency election has “strict liability* for offences like bribery and treating. He has no defence of ignorance if someone from his campaign does it. Similarly any donation offences should be of strict liability, with Party Leader, Chairman and Treasurer all liable to three years imprisonment for any offence.