Misleading the public

The Guardian are reporting that "A US military study officially acknowledged for the first time yesterday that Saddam Hussein had no direct ties to al-Qaida, undercutting the Bush administration's central case for war with Iraq. The study, based on more than 600,000 documents recovered after US and UK troops toppled Saddam in 2003, concluded there was "no 'smoking gun' [direct connection] between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaida"." This seems conclusive and is of course what the Guardian and its readers want to believe. However the facts are somewhat different... The executive summary does indeed say "his study found no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda" but if you look at the actual report then you would also read that (my emphasis) "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda-as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's longterm vision…...Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives...Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term) considerable operational overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the regional groups involved in terrorism. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a ‘de facto’ link between the organizations....Iraq was a long-standing supporter of international terrorism..."

Maybe the Guardian could look at the whole document not just the Executive Summary and maybe they could report a story truthfully not as they would wish it to be.




Thanks to Melanie Phillips for the spot.

Surveillance society

"Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert."

This is an extract from this Guardian article that also contains this line "One teaching union warned that it was a step towards a 'police state'."


I know that the parallels between George Orwell's 1984 and modern day Britain are often commented upon but I believe they cannot be overstated, we are moving rather quickly to become a surveillance society.

Psychologically flawed?

Take a read of this a report of an interview with Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's ex-chief of staff. It details how Gordon walked past Jonathan Powell's desk for over 12 years without ever saying hello. "Psychologically flawed" was the phrase allegedly used by Tony Blair to describe Gordon Brown, looking at the evidence it seems Tony Blair might have been right about something.

Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Nothing much in the way of coverage in the British media and especially not on the BBC. So take a look around the web for yourself and wonder what Barack Obama really thinks about the US and the world. He almost makes Hilary Clinton look electable!

Quote of the night

"I just can't bear to be touched from the waist up"



Nessa - Gavin and Stacey, series 2 episode 2

Shock horror, Gordon Brown has been fiddling the figures

This time it's CO2 figures - read the story here.

Jeremy Clarkson - WRONG

Just watching a repeat of the Top Gear Africa special and Jeremy Clarkson says that "there has never been a Mercedes rally car". Wrong Jeremy, wrong - maybe he should read this article. A 280E won the 1977 London-Sydney Rally, a 450SLC won another marathon rally, the Grand Premio Sudamericana in 1978, 190E 2.3-16 were entered in the 1981 WRC season.

"Iraq wounds worth less than Civvie back pain"

"A civil servant in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) who suffered back strain after lifting a printer has received a payout of £202,000 – more than three times the sum awarded to the youngest British soldier to be shot and wounded in Iraq.

Private Jamie Cooper, 18, a Royal Green Jackets soldier, was hit twice by mortar rounds in Basra in November 2006. His compensation was just £57,587 even though he lost the use of one leg and a hand and suffered internal injuries.

The disparity, revealed in an MoD annual report, has reignited the controversy about the level of compensation given to soldiers wounded in combat. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said some of the payments made to soldiers were “completely heartless”.

Cooper’s father, Phil, said: “It’s laughable really, isn’t it. You’ve got guys out there on the front line risking their lives and getting horribly wounded and then you’ve got faceless bureaucrats getting far more for straining their back lifting a printer."


As Kipling wrote:
"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!"

"Developer gave secret donation to Ken Livingstone"

The Sunday Times today report that "Ken Livingstone received a secret donation from a property developer with a conviction for fraud after the London mayor championed the businessman’s plan for a 46-storey skyscraper. Gerald Ronson, the tycoon jailed for his role in the Guinness share-dealing scandal, wrote a cheque to Livingstone for £4,990 – just £10 below the £5,000 threshold at which donations have to be publicly registered with the Electoral Commission. The disclosure raises questions over Livingstone’s use of a legal “loophole” which has allowed him to keep secret the identities of campaign donors. A spokesman for Livingstone, who is seeking a third term as mayor in May’s London elections, last night refused to reveal whether there were any other similar hidden donations. Ronson, 68, made the payment to the Labour mayor’s re-election campaign two years after he received planning permission for the Heron Tower development."



Read the rest, I found the explanation of why under £5,000 most interesting:
"The Conservatives claimed that Livingstone was exploiting a “loophole” in election law which allows him to hide cash gifts by maintaining they are payments to the Labour party rather than his personal election fund. If payments are made to a political party, only those above £5,000 have to be declared to the Electoral Commission. However, the threshold for individual politicians – the so-called “regulated donees” – is much lower at just £1,000. Boris Johnson, the Tory mayoral candidate, declares every donation to his campaign over £1,000. But Livingstone has never made any declaration as a “regulated donee”."

Northern Rock, Bear Stearns...

Who's next? My city friends are amazed that as of yesterday I had not blogged about the near collapse of Bear Stearns. Truth be told, I find it too depressing; it's one thing to tell people that we are living through a near re-run of 1929, it's quite another to realise that we actually are.

The booming economy of the western world has been built on credit and false valuations. The birds are coming home to roost, we are in for an extremely painful five years or so. Contrary to Alistair Darling's claims we in the UK are not better placed than most to survive the coming economic storm. If Alistair believes his claim then he is a fool, if he is just saying it then he is a knave.

Is it all over for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport?

When Leeds United Football Club went under, the extent of the extravagant spending was epitomised by the alleged lavish spending on goldfish at the Elland Road ground. I read this weekend that the aforementioned Government department are spending £24,000 a year on pot plants. I wonder what the equivalent punishment would be to fining them 15 points?

"Mr Balls is by some distance the most repulsive member of Her Majesty's Government"

Not my words, but those of Simon Heffer in his column in yesterday's Telegraph. His column covers the way that MPs can change the Hansard record to cover their embarrassment (as I have also covered) and has some rather pithy analysis of Ed Balls' character.

However in reading the line I have used as a heading for this post, I was reminded of the Major in Fawlty Towers; when the American guest says "This is the worst hotel I've ever stayed at!" the Major jumps to Fawlty Towers' defence by saying "No! I won't have that! There's a place at Worthing!". I feel something similar - "Mr Balls is by some distance the most repulsive member of Her Majesty's Government" - No, no I won't have that, there's Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, David Miliband and Harriet Harman for starters...

Class sizes

"Education, education, education"? The National Union of Teachers reports that the big increase, under Labour, of spending on schools has been wasted on bureaucracy and private consultants rather than on funding improvements such as smaller classes.

Who'd have thought it, the Labour government wasting money on bureaucracy...

A Christian country?

"Vicar attacked for 'being a Christian' after hate campaign by yobs who claimed his church 'should be a mosque'" So runs a report in The Mail. Apparently "A vicar was in hospital last night after being attacked in his churchyard by two youths in what is being treated as a 'faith hate' crime. Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head as one of the attackers screamed "f***ing priest". He was left lying on the ground with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes. The attack took place in the early evening after Canon Ainsworth politely asked three Asian youths who had gathered in the churchyard to quieten down...The incident happened outside St George-in-the-East Church in Wapping, East London. It has regularly had windows smashed by youths - who on one occasion shouted: "This should not be a church, this should be a mosque."... The church is situated in the heart of Tower Hamlets where the majority of the population - some 57 per cent - belong to black and ethnic minority groups. A third are of a Bangladeshi background.
In another attack on the church, families were showered with glass when a brick was thrown through a window during a service."

BBC staff arrested in police probe into paramilitary activity

The BBC are having to report that "BBC journalists are among eleven men arrested by gardai in County Donegal as part of a probe into paramilitary activity...They were arrested under Section 30 of the Republic's Offences Against the State Act."

One to follow over the coming days.

Could the Tibet uprising be spreading?

Even the BBC report that it may have spread to Sichuan province.

Is there such a thing as a "private life" in Labour Britain?

Clive James has his doubts in this article for the Ministry of Truth.


Here is an extract:

"Most of us are capable of grasping that if everyone could suddenly read everyone else's thoughts then very few people would survive the subsequent massacre, which would effectively bring civilisation to an end. If you were living alone in a cave, you might just stay alive until the following morning, but only if you were in there alone.

To live in society at all, we have to keep a reservoir of private thoughts, which, whether wisely or unwisely, we share only with intimates. This sharing of private thoughts is called private life.

Until recently, the concept of private life was basic to civilisation. Its value could be measured by the thoroughness with which totalitarian states and religions always did their best to stamp it out. But now we have to face the possibility that the latest stage of civilisation might also be trying to stamp it out."

"Tories must get lean and mean"

Some good policy and presentational ideas for the Conservative Party from Matthew Parris.

The state of Britain today

Read this and weep for what has become of our Country. A paramedic sues an elderly couple after twisting his ankle on their front step during an emergency call.

School discipline

When I was at school through to the early 1980s, if you misbehaved you were punished and if you attacked a teacher you would have been expelled - the end. Today after 20 years or so of the liberal elite and the ruination of the teaching profession, we have a country where it is all but impossible to expel a pupil. Take a read of this article and wonder at the state of the education system in this country. We may be beyond the point of recovery, I seriously think that this country may be irrevocably broken - thanks Labour.