Coalition of losers govern in United Kingdom

This is the headline the Conservatives and their apologists in the media would have screamed had the Liberal Democrats chosen to form a government with the Labour party, and left the Conservatives as the largest party and the opposition.

So on the grounds that no party actually won the election, the new Conservative Liberal Democrat government should also be called a coalition of losers. Of course its asking too much of the fans of the Tories to expect consistency. While I loath the Blairite Press Secretary Alistair Campbell, he succeeded in uncovering the clear pro Tory bias of the Murdoch controled Sky News and their political commentator Adam Boulton. Stunning.

I don't actually believe the headline in this post. Constitutionally speaking it is simply irrelevant that the Conservatives happened to win the largest share of the vote (36%). All that it is required is for a government to demonstrate it holds a majority in Parliament. Over 70% of Britain did not vote for the Conservatives. A rainbow coalition/support arrangement that comprised of Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties would have been just as legitimate as the Lib Con government that has just been formed, and in fact would have been more representative of a greater number of UK voters.

So why didn't the UK get a more progressive government?

The alternative so called 'rainbow' government was undermined by a number of factors. A significant faction of the Labour party, just like the born to rule Tories they really are, demonstrated an unwillingness to share power when they foolishly publicly dismissed an offer by the Scottish National Party to support an alternative government. Labour chastised the SNP for wishing to appear relevant, precisely because that is exactly what the SNP were - as vital to an alternative government as Labour. It is likely members of this faction, such as the loathsome David Blunkett, wished to drown an alternative government because there was too much danger of real electoral reform being the result. Some may have feared greater devolution of powers to the Scots and Welsh assemblies, even independence, but the result of this election is likely to increase pressure for this anyway - politically speaking the Kingdom is anything but United.

Another fear was that the SNP, the Welsh Nationalist party would demand some protection from the savage cuts to public spending as a price for their support. Actually this would have been a very democratic result. The Tories have no mandate outside Avalon - in Scotland they won a single seat and 16.7% of the vote, while in Wales the Conservatives won 8 seats out of 40 and 26% of the vote. In Northern Ireland they and their new partners won absolutely nothing. A coalition of losers indeed. It was England that voted for the Tories. So while the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish may have felt for the greater cuts imposed on the English, they would have had a simple reply - you got the policies you voted for.

I believe Nick Clegg chose to form a government with the Tories in the final week of the election campaign, perhaps even before. I discussed some of the rationale for this in my previous post. Nothing else seems to explain his pronouncement in the final week that he would first try and form a government with the largest party. He would have known then this was likely to be the Tories. Just as I predicted, this move cost the Lib Dems significant numbers of seats as voters ran back to the major parties. I believe in doing this Clegg had another purpose - he was preparing his party to back the Conservatives over Labour.

It is also apparent that the Lib Dems are closer to the Tories in terms of their approach to dealing with the deficit. Yet a programme of savage cuts to public spending threatens to deepen the recession - Herbet Hoover made a similar mistake in the United States in the 1930s, and despite this neoliberals across the world are demanding the same mistakes be made all over again.

In a touch of irony, apparently Cameron made his first speech as Prime Minister as a rainbow could be seen across the sky of London. Now how powerful would that have been if Britain had been welcoming a rainbow coalition instead?

Here is hoping Britain votes for electoral reform

Like many political geeks I have been following the run up to the British election. While it appears the tide is going out on the present Labour government, when the polls are converted into seats things are still close. To my mind progressively minded folks should have a clear aim - vote to obtain electoral reform.

Following the performance of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in the first leaders debate, the LibDems surged in the polls and leapfrogged Labour into second place, with the Conservatives with the most popular party by a small margin. Yet due to the deeply undemocratic First Past the Post (FPP) electoral system Labour could still gain the most seats and remain in Government despite receiving less support in the popular vote than the LibDems or the Conservatives.

Assuming the LibDems gained enough support to deny Labour or the Conservatives an outright majority, and Clegg keeps his backbone, this could be the last British election under FPP. Hopefully the result will make clear a real proportional voting system is needed, not just Alternative Vote which is FPP in drag. A fairer electoral system would also be of great benefit to parties to the left of both Labour and the LibDems, and would make it harder for the Conservatives or the right wing of Labour adopting Thatcherite policies again. A hung parliament is a means in order to obtain a better democracy. A website has started to help voters achieve this result.

It is most unfortunate Labour did not progress electoral reform while they were in government as this would have set the stage for a long term Labour - Liberal alliance with the potential to shut the Tories out of Government for a long time. Yet as Will Hutton notes the key problem is that senior Labour party figures hate electoral reform and wish to maintain the two party system. In the current situation Hutton suggests Labour should offer Nick Clegg the role of Prime Minister in a coalition deal. Under this scenario Clegg would have to front up to any issues faced by a coalition government, while Labour could develop an alternative PM in waiting.

Yet after the Guardian/Observer endorsed the LibDems, Nick Clegg sprung to the right and said he would not back Labour in a hung parliament if they came third in the popular vote - this essentially opened the door to the Lib Dems supporting the Conservatives, despite the Tories being even more strongly opposed to real electoral reform than Labour. Following this development, in an interesting piece of timing, the Guardian carried a high profile article by Gordon Brown calling on LibDems to back Labour in Labour/Tory marginals.

Yet on another level Nick Clegg's moves should not be such a surprise. Nick Clegg is known to be on the right of LibDems, and the record of the party in local government elections is to campaign to the left, but govern to the right. The Lib Dems are already in coalition with the Conservatives in a number of city councils, including Birmingham, Leeds, Warrington, Camden, Southwalk and Newport, Gwent. A coalition of cuts. Clegg's claims to lead a progressive force have a hollow ring when compared to their council record.

The UK media are deciding only to report on the fortunes of the three 'major parties', those being the Conservaties, Labour and the LibDems. Yet as John Oyston points out the fortunes of minor parties in the regions could determine the result of the election in a close contest. Conservative leader David Cameron knows this - he visited Northern Ireland this week in a bid to support the Ulster Unionist candidates who will back the Conservatives in Westminster. If the difference to forming a government comes down to 10 to 20 seats, the media could look like stunned mullets as they realise the influence small parties have on the formation of the next British government.

If small parties do well this will strengthen the case for electoral reform. There are quite a few seats where minor parties have a strong candidate with a good chance of winning. Neither Labour or the Lib Dems really deserve the votes of the left - at least in some electorates the left have better options. The Scottish National Party may gain more seats in Westminster than its current seven. The Welsh Nationalist party Plaid Cymru is also on the left of Labour. Respect have a good chance in Bethnal Green and Bow, Birmingham Hall Green and Poplar and Limehouse. Caroline Lucus has a very good chance of winning Brighton for the Greens, who are also putting in a strong showing in Norwich South. These will be the seats I will be watching.

The last few days of the campaign has seen Labour increase its support, and the Lib Dems fall away, most likely as a result of Clegg's monumental error in cuddling up to the Conservatives. Not only has Clegg suggested he will support the Tories if they are the largest party (which encourages LibDem voters to switch back to the two old parties) but he is also appears to be going soft on electoral reform by stating this is not a precondition of talks with the Conservatives. In response to Clegg's comments Green party leader Caroline Lucus summed up the situation nicely, highlighting how Clegg had previously said electoral reform was an "absoulute precondition"

"The Liberal Democrats have made a huge noise about being the party of change but when it comes down to it all they really are is the party of changing their minds. It's common knowledge that the Tories don't want electoral reform. Any coalition negotiations that don't set out electoral reform as a deal breaker will lead to five more years of the same old system and it's the voters who will suffer."

40 years of Monty Python and an anacdote from Idle

It was forty years ago today, a parrot sat on a perch to play...dead that is.

Oh alright, it was technically yesterday, but Britain will always be hours behind New Zealand.

On October 5 1969, one of my most favorite comedy series ever, Monty Python, first aired on TV. I wasn't even alive, but I don't know whether this means I had the same existential status as the parrot.

To celebrate their 40th anniversary, the surviving Pythons, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin have put together a documentary covering the history of Monty Python and the Python team. A not surviving Python, Graham Chapman, died in 1989.

Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyers Cut) screened in a UK cinema for one night on the 29th of September. Hopefully it will make its way here - having it on TV over Christmas would be good.

While this is being touted as the first time in 20 years the surviving Pythons have come together on a project, the team did a few sketches in an interview show hosted by Robert Klein in 1998. The Pythons apparently bought Graham Chapman along in an urn of ashes, which Gilliam 'accidentally' spilled on stage and attempted to clean the remains of Graeme with a Dustbuster. Cleese dipped his fingers in to taste it. Wonderfully tasteless!

Almost the Truth may be similar to the book, "Autobiography by the Pythons". While of course this was an very amusing read, I was interested in the mock military training young Eric Idle was forced to endure at boarding school in Wolverhampton in the early 1960s. The indoctrination started from the age of 11.

"Since I was head boy (by default) the school insisted I must be head of the CCF (Combined Cadet Force), which I didn't want to be. At the end of military training they made the mistake of sending us off on a Civil Defence Course which showed just exactly what happened when a nuclear bomb went off, and as a result I had become violently pacifist. During the Easter hols (1962) I went on the Aldermaston March, the annual Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally. We marched from Aldermaston in Hampshire to Hyde Park behind banners, signing protest songs, a distance of 54 miles."

"When I got back to school, the padre called me in and said, 'You're a hypocrite, Idle, you're the head of the CCF and went on the Aldermaston March'. I said 'Well I resign', and he said 'You're not allowed to resign'" (p. 40)

In response young Eric adopted an entirely reasonable attitude to enforced militarism and the insistence of its patently pathological underlying values.

"I refused to go to Military Camp at the end of term. It was just a sort of 'fuck you' to the school because they couldn't throw me out. I'd been accepted to Cambridge, I was on the Aldermaston March, I didn't take any of their fucking CCF seriously. I just went off in my own world and that was reassuring, that was really good for me because I could finally say 'Screw you'"

Germaine Greer on Thatcher

Feminist Germaine Greer tears Margaret Thatcher's legacy to shreds in a great article in the Guardian (UK). I liked this bit in particular.

"A story is often told of how, when she was leader of the opposition, Thatcher turned up at a seminar at the Centre for Policy Studies with a copy of Friedrich Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty, banged it down on the table and declared "This is what we believe". She claimed to have first read Hayek when she was at Oxford, but her version of his arguments is one he might not have recognised. Her commitment to a free market, wealth creation and lower taxation was absolute. She had no time for Hayek's misgivings and probably never knew that he believed that "probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all of the principle of laissez-faire capitalism". "Wooden insistence" describes Thatcher's style exactly...."

"Success and profit were identical. Her career shows a bland disregard of the principles of honest dealing that ought to underpin the free market in which she had such blind faith. One of the enduring mysteries of the 20th century will be how on earth she got away with it.From her first days in power Thatcher developed and refined ways of circumventing political protocol and procedure, partly because hers was usually a minority opinion."

Greer goes into some detail on Thatcher's dodgy arms dealings, believing it demonstrates "the kind of recklessness and lack of scruple that is now being blamed for the global financial crisis.". Thatcher exported arms to many a nasty dictator, including Saddam Hussein's Iraq (despite a ban officially being in place), Suharto in Indonesia and Pinochet in Chile. It has been suggested Thatcher's own wayward son Mark gained a commission of between 12-20m pounds from a deal involving the Saudi defence minister's son. While Mark Thatcher has denied this, it is not a good look for Maggie.

It would have been useful if Greer had also highlighted the reliance of the UK economy on the defence industry, as this is a useful context for the points she makes. The UK remains the second largest defence supplier in the world, with the defence industry a key source of export dollars. As Thatcher's policies had the effect of narrowing Britain's industrial base, her advocacy on behalf of the defence industry, is not a surprise. Moving Britain closer to a military-industrial complex was one way among many Maggie modelled the UK to be more like America. NewLabour have embraced this element of Thatcherism just like they have embraced the rest, with a Minister of State For Defence recently crowing with pride that the projected UK defence budget is now 10% higher in real terms than it was in 1997.

Given the difficulties now faced by the UK with the global financial crisis it is about time Thatcher's role in in all is revisited, given that she largely began the wholesale liberalisation of the banking and finance sectors. Lax regulation is now widely cited as a key cause of the crisis.

No doubt when Thatcher kicks the bucket the neo-liberal myth making machine will go into overdrive and produce all matter of sick making hagiography. Personally I liked this take on the death of Ronald Reagan...

Rooksmoor, a blogger in the UK also commented on Greer's article.

In 1980 Thatcher's famous catchphrase was "this lady is not for turning". Well to end on a lighter note - I always took this to mean Thatcher was denying that she was a vampire :)

Where is Labour's big idea?

In recent discussions with friends I am often left wondering when Labour will announce their 'big idea' for the election campaign. A big idea is seen as essential to their election chances.

Did Michael Cullen's tax cuts in April leave no money for big ideas? Perhaps, to give Michael some credit, this formed the reason for Cullen's reluctance to give in to tax cuts in the first place. Could tax cuts end up costing Labour the election?

Perhaps an historical example will help illustrate my point. Many have wondered why Winston Churchill was voted out of office so soon after leading Britain through World War Two. Part of the answer lies in the significant policy progress UK Labour made while part of the wartime coalition government. In the eyes of the British people Labour's ideas became more mainstream during this period, leading to the election of the progressive Attlee government in 1945.

Will Labour's tax cuts give encouragement for people to vote for National's irresponsible borrowing for bigger tax cuts? Me-too-ism could have a cost. I actually hope I am wrong here.

What if Labour had announced a plan to significantly improve public heath, education or housing affordability? Would this have quarantined the call for tax cuts to the struggling folk of Remuera? The new BMW would have had to wait.

In terms of big ideas - how about a housing affordability measure on the scale of the State Advances Scheme? While I do not entirely buy the argument that housing affordability measures will necessarily increase prices, perhaps the recent fall in house prices presents an opportune time to help young New Zealanders into their first home. Not only will the working class of South Auckland love such a policy, it could also ease the fears of middle class property owners who fear the paper value of their major asset will decline further.

Concerns about the Server in the Sky

The Herald reports that New Zealand is to be part of an FBI-led consortium that plans a global database of personal biometric information to "catch criminals and terrorists".

Biometric details and measurements, such as iris scans, palm and fingerprints would be swapped between countries, namely the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. As Iain Thompson points out, these five countries already co-operate in running Echelon, the global eavesdropping service that listens and records global telephone, radio and email communications. So while the public face may be in terms of police co-operation, its a fair bet the intelligence agencies will also be able to access this data. Perhaps the GCSB and the SIS see our participation as a way to gain greater access to US intelligence data in return.

While 'officials' in this country claim New Zealand is still considering whether to join the consortium, Police National Forensic Services Adviser Inspector John Walker said it was likely we would do so.

The FBI told the Guardian: "Server in the Sky is an FBI initiative designed to foster the advanced search and exchange of biometric information on a global scale. While it is currently in the concept and design stages, once complete it will provide a technical forum for member nations to submit biometric search requests to other nations. It will maintain a core holding of the world's 'worst of the worst' individuals. Any identifications of these people will be sent as a priority message to the requesting nation."
...
The FBI is proposing to establish three categories of suspects in the shared system: "internationally recognised terrorists and felons", those who are "major felons and suspected terrorists", and finally those who the subjects of terrorist investigations or criminals with international links. Tom Bush, assistant director at the FBI's criminal justice information service, has said he hopes to see a pilot project for the programme up and running by the middle of the year.

The proposal to share information about subjects of terrorist suspects is the most concerning. Suspects are not criminals, and should not be treated like criminals unless you wish to throw out the entire principle of 'innocent until proven guilty'. It is yet another example of governments using the excuse of 'anti-terrorism' to undermine core principles of the legal system for their own convenience.

Some elements of the police and security services in New Zealand have wished for a national biometric database of all citizens, whether they have committed a crime or not. This proposal has faced some resistance. But 'Server in the Sky' has the potential to implement this policy by default. The US now subjects all passengers, even those in transit to compulsory digital finger scans and photographs (which are also stored for an unknown period). Could the proposed consortium allow our police to import the finger scans of New Zealanders they are unable to legally obtain at home?

Even for those with criminal records the system could lead to some unjust outcomes. As a purely hypothetical example, supposing someone picked up a minor conviction in their teens. Years later they are wrongly implicated in a so called anti-terror operation. Due to their old record, their biometric information and criminal history could be spread about the world with little chance for correction.

I don't have so much of a problem with coppers sharing information about internationally active criminals convicted of serious crimes - but I suspect there are procedures in place for this already without the need for massive data sponge.

Interestingly, the US defence contractor linked with the proposed database, Northrop Grumman Corp, is the same company who created the IDENT1 database, an enhanced fingerprint identification system currently used by British police.

It is pleasing to see that the Server in the Sky proposal greeted with an element of scepticism in the UK media. This follows the embarrassing leak of detailed personal information on 40% of the British population late last year, and the case where an arrest for a terror offence by US investigators was based on a misidentified fingerprint match.

In the Guardian Nick Clegg is calling for the proposal to be treated with caution, as nothing, including biometrics, is fail safe. He highlights the importance of safeguards to ensure data collected under UK law remains subject to high data protection standards.
And once data is in the hands of the US authorities, there is no getting it back. We already send them massive amounts of information about air passengers, through a deal brokered by the European Commission, without any guarantee it will be properly safeguarded once it reaches the US. It would be foolhardy to start sharing further information without a simple guarantee: that data collected under UK law should continue to be protected even after it leaves Britain. We should share information when other countries can guarantee data protection standards that match, or exceed our own. Otherwise, who knows which one of us will be on the no-fly list next.

If the Government sign us up for Server in the Sky, at the very least they should be demanding this too. There also needs to be clear procedures to remove all traces of incorrect information. As the Zaoui case and the recent so called 'anti-terror raids' showed, both the SIS and our police are prone to bouts of Groupthink, where erroneous bullshit can only feed presumptions of guilt before innocence.

I hope we stay well clear of Server in the Sky. It can only fall down sometime.

Local body election decided by drawing pencils

In the recent UK local body elections the Wheathampstead ward created a dillema. For the seat based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats each had 1,132 votes, after three recounts.

According to the BBC, the seat was won by the party who picked the longest pencil.

After 'drawing pencils' the Tories lost the seat to the Liberal Democrats. I could make the obvious joke about the Tories lacking lead in their pencil, but I won't :)

Categories: Politics, UK, Elections

More evidence the UK helped Israel get the bomb

The BBC's Newsnight programme has revealed yet more damming evidence demonstrating how the British Government helped Israel develop nuclear weapons during the 1960s (hat tip NRT). Recently released papers show the British supplied to the Israelis many of the chemicals vital to the production of a bomb, including plutonium and uranium. To make matters worse, it appears relevant ministers, including technology Minister Tony Benn, were misled by public servants and were unaware of some of the transactions.

In 1966 Britain supplied Israel with 10mg of plutonium, despite strong warnings from the Ministry of Defence and the foreign Office that even such a small amount could be of significant military value, as it could be used as the basis for experiments to fast track the development of a bomb. There is also evidence that Michael Michaels, the public servant who pushed strongly for the sale, knew how useful small amounts of plutonium would be to the Israelis.

In August Newsnight revealed that the UK Government supplied heavy water shipments to Israel from June 1959. At the time officials claimed "It would be somewhat over-zealous for us to insist on safeguards" against military use. See my earlier post here.

It now appears there were hundreds of shipments of nuclear material from Britain to Israel during the 1950s and 60s.

Earlier this year I was debating Israel's nuclear status with GT (over a beer). I argued that putting pressure on Israel to disarm would strengthen the moral force of the diplomatic pressure currently being put on Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, as Iran would be less able to claim it needed nukes for defensive purposes. GT responded that Israel had possessed nuclear weapons for around 40 years and had not used them against anyone. While this is true, I replied that I suspected this probably had just as much to do with luck as intention.

Recalling this conversation as I read the latest New Statesman article - I found it particularly interesting to note the date Israel is thought to have gained a couple of working nukes. In the leadup to the Six Day War.
"They had a secret weapon - two, to be precise. In the weeks before Israel took on the Arab world in June 1967 it put together a pair of crude nuclear bombs, just in case things didn't go as planned."

As Israel's Arab enemies of June 1967 were nowhere near developing their own nuclear bombs, this suggests Israel developed its nuclear arsenal with a nuclear first strike capability in mind.

From a humanitarian perspective it is probably a good thing it was only a Six Day War. But as the world continues to grapple with the consequences of Israel's illegal land grab of 1967, perhaps talking about a "Six Day War" is somewhat of a misnomer.

Despite the hype, terrorism is in decline

A friend just emailed me a copy of Paul Robinson's article 'The good news about terrorism". While it was published in the Spectator in April, his commentary is still highly relevant and worth a read. Robinson is a Lecturer in Security Studies at the University of Hull in the UK.

"We are facing the gravest threat that this nation has ever faced.’ Elizabeth I, speaking of the Spanish Armada? Winston Churchill, in the aftermath of Dunkirk? No. Home Office minister Baroness Scotland on Newsnight, justifying the new Prevention of Terrorism Act by reference to the threat from al-Qa’eda."

‘Hang on,’ I said to myself on hearing the Baroness, ‘that can’t be right.’ My mum can remember lying in bed hearing bombs drop, and she once saw a V1 go over and heard the engine cut out as she watched.

Robinson argues that vested interests in the defence establishment have pulled off a confidence trick to convince us to live in fear, by in large to justify their own existence. "The collapse of the Warsaw Pact eliminated the need for 90 per cent of our armed forces" and a good deal other military spending to boot....

"Far from being more dangerous, the world is safer now than ever before; and far from being an ever-growing problem, terrorism has been in sharp decline for over a decade. This is not a matter of opinion. It is provable.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) and Canada’s Project Ploughshares both annually track the number of armed conflicts taking place worldwide. Sipri counts only those which result in 1,000 deaths or more in a given year, so its figures are slightly lower. Even so, it agrees with Project Ploughshares that the amount of fighting on the planet is declining. According to Sipri, there were only 19 conflicts in 2003, down from 33 in 1991. With its broader definition, Project Ploughshares reports a decline to 36 in 2003 from a peak of 44 in 1995.

More good news follows, I’m afraid. Battle-related deaths rose slightly from 15,000 in 2002 to 20,000 in 2003 because of the Iraq war, but even these figures are substantially down from the annual tolls of 40,000 to 100,000 during the Cold War. Global military expenditure also fell by 11 per cent in real terms between 1992 and 2000, and the Congressional Research Service in Washington notes that international arms sales fell from £22.8 billion in 2000 to £14.3 billion in 2003. In short, there are fewer wars, fewer arms sales and fewer people dying, each year, than at any time since the second world war.

Robinson also denies that global terrorism poses a new and unprecedented threat to our security. He uses figures from the Rand Corporation MIPT (Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism) database to show there was a big peak in terrorism in the late 1970s and early '80s, followed by a steady decline ever since. "During the 1980s, the number of international terrorist incidents worldwide averaged about 360 a year. By the year 2000, it was down to just 100....Bluntly, terrorism is a declining problem, despite our best efforts to provoke it."
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It also should be pointed out that conservative Republicians attempted to whip up fears about international terrorism when Reagan took office in 1981. Libya became the official punching bag. Qaddafi may have been a thug, but most importantly he did not have the military capability to effectively fight back against US aggression. Unlike the USSR Qaddafi did not possess nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the worst failure of the current foreign policy of the Bush administration is that it is teaching Iraq, Iran and North Korea that possession of nuclear weapons and other WMDs represent the only defence that will prevent a US invasion. In those countries, fear is rebounding on the US.

Do corporates get away with murder?

In the UK unionists and victims of the Hatfield rail disaster are dismayed the culpability of engineering firm Balfour Beatty (BB) has been limited to a £10m pound fine. On October 17 2000 a King's Cross to Leeds train came off the tracks at 115mph after a rail disintegrated, killing four people and injuring 102.

While Trade Union Council general secretary Brendan Barber welcomed the severity of the fine, he joined others in calling for tougher corporate manslaughter laws.

"The families of those killed will still feel cheated that no senior executives are to face punishment as a result of their safety crimes. The government urgently needs to address [the fact] that all the courts can do is to fine a company. What is necessary is both a new offence of corporate killing, with a wider range of penalties available, and new legal duties that make directors directly responsible for the health and safety of their staff and customers."

The Old Bailey judge put Balfour Beatty's failure at the "top of the scale", saying he regarded "Balfour Beatty as one of the worse examples of industrial negligence in a high-risk industry I have seen". While Justice MacKay was highly critical of the company, he cast out corporate manslaughter charges bought against Balfour Beatty, most likely due to the difficulty in securing convictions under present legislation.

Perhaps it says a lot about the company that BB did not admit breaching health and safety rules until the corporate manslaughter charges were dropped.

I would be interested to look into whether New Zealand has a 'corporate manslaughter' charge on its statute books and if so, what kind of burden of proof is required. New Zealand could come up with its own shady looking lineup of irresponsible corporates. As a couple of examples, the former Tranzrail and forestry company Juken Nissho have long records of heath and safety convictions - including incidents leading to deaths on the job.

Back to the BB case, the judge also voiced his own criticisms of the way the UK railways were privatised.
"The elimination of one of the indefensible features of the 1996 privatisation is now gone - the separation of the track from its maintenance - is now gone. Perhaps that is one good thing resulting from this disastrous affair."

In 2002 Tranzrail contracted out track maintenance to Transfield, who by most accounts maintained a better relationship with unions and did a better job than the privately owned Tranzrail ever did (that would not be hard). Following the renationalisation of the rail track in September 2004, the Government set up a new Crown agency to oversee the ownership and maintenance of the rail infrastructure on its behalf - OnTrack.

Given the clear warning the Balfour Beatty case represents, it is probably a good thing OnTrack decided to bring the maintenance work back in house, following a tendering process it is obliged to carry out under the agreement it made with Toll Holdings. Best of all, OnTrack purchased part of the present contractor, allowing staff who maintain the rails to transfer to OnTrack while maintaining their present terms and conditions of employment.

The Guardian - Hatfield victims and unions call for new corporate killing law
The Independent - Balfour Beatty fined £10m for Hatfield disaster

Categories: UK, New Zealand, Corporations, Law, Politics, Rail, Union, Safety

Random Historical Interlude #3: UK helped Israel develop nuclear weapons

In September 1958 the UK agreed to supply heavy water without safeguards against military use, enabling Israel to produce nuclear weapons. This revelation follows an investigation by BBC newsnight reporters of documents in the British National Archives. Other files on the matter remain classified.

The 20 tonnes of heavy water were part of a consignment which Britain bought from Norway in 1956, but the UK later decided this was surplus to requirements. While UK officials attempted to make it look like sale from Norway to Israel, the heavy water was loaded onto Israeli ships docked in a British port, half in June 1959 and half a year later (for some reason 5 tonnes was left outstanding).

These officials also attempted to conceal the deal from the US, according to the files, and may not have consulted their own ministers before approving the sale. It appears civil servants in the Foreign Office and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) approved the sale, without safeguards to prevent the heavy water from being put to military use, with one official scrawling that "It would be somewhat over-zealous for us to insist on safeguards".

The heavy water was a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Dimona, a secretly build underground reactor in the Negev desert of southern Israel (near Beersheba), built with French assistance. Frank Barnaby, who worked on the British bomb project in the 1950s says he had "no idea" about the sale, "heavy water was crucial for Israel...Therefore it was a significant part of their nuclear programme".

Like any country with a secret nuclear weapons programme, Israel lied about the true purpose of Dimona, and claimed it was a "manganese plant", yet the security measures employed suggest Dimona was far more important (a Libyan civilian airliner and a Israeli fighter were shot down for getting too close).

The released documents suggest money was the primary motivation for the sale. At the time the consignment of heavy water was worth £1.5m, or £20m in today's money.

In 1960 the UK Daily Express exposed the Israelis' work at Dimona, and highlighted the fact Israel was probably making a bomb. The following March, the UKAEA told the Norwegians they thought it was unlikely Israel could have the outstanding five tons, although the deal was commercially "attractive". This was, wrote Peirson, because of "the political sensitivity of Israel's nuclear activities".

Israel is thought to have exploded its first nuclear devices in the mid-1960s, possessing several dozen deliverable atomic bombs by the time of the 1973 war (when Israel went on full nuclear alert).

While the Guardian reports that the Eisenhower administration was "hostile to proliferation" and President Kennedy and his defence secretary Robert McNamara "strived" to stop Israel acquiring nuclear weapons, John Steinbach says the United States also helped Israel develop the bomb (Chomsky says the same thing).

Although the French and South Africans were primarily responsible for the Israeli nuclear program, the U.S. shares and deserves a large part of the blame. Mark Gaffney wrote (the Israeli nuclear program) "was possible only because of calculated deception on the part of Israel, and willing complicity on the part of the U.S.." From the very beginning, the U.S. was heavily involved in the Israeli nuclear program, providing nuclear related technology such as a small research reactor in 1955 under the "Atoms for Peace Program." Israeli scientists were largely trained at U.S. universities and were generally welcomed at the nuclear weapons labs. In the early 1960s, the controls for the Dimona reactor were obtained clandestinely from a company called Tracer Lab, the main supplier of U.S. military reactor control panels, purchased through a Belgian subsidiary, apparently with the acquiescence of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA. In 1971, the Nixon administration approved the sale of hundreds of krytons(a type of high speed switch necessary to the development of sophisticated nuclear bombs) to Israel.

Israel has over 200 nukes, and people wonder why Iraq, and now Iran want weapons of mass destruction? In 2003 George Bush and Tony Blair attempted to use Security Council resolution 687 as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. While 687 provided no such authorisation, it did call for the elimination of Iraqi WMD and delivery systems as a step towards "the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all other missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons." (Article 14). So if 687 is really to be upheld, then pressure must be put on Israel to disarm.

BBC - How Britain helped Israel get the bomb
Guardian - US kept in the dark as secret nuclear deal was struck
Guardian - How the UK gave Israel the bomb

Categories: Nuclear, Antiwar, Politics, Peace, Israel, International Law

UK police shoot dead innocent civilian in the name of the 'war on terror'

UK Police have admitted that man they shot dead in Stockwell tube station yesterday was not connected to the attempted bombings of London on July 21.

In other words - he was an innocent civilian.

This wasn't just a shooting - this was a summary execution, as NRT points out.
"They pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him" - Witness Mark Whitby

This amply demonstrates the reason why shooting people dead on the 'suspicion' of being involved in a terrorist activities is a foolish and dangerous precedent.

I simply do not buy the argument that the only way to stop a suspected bomber in a tube station is to ensure he/she dies by shooting them 5 times. Incapacitating/injuring someone may be justified in some circumstances, but death should only be the absolute last resort, and only when a threat is established as being genuine. In this case it is pretty clear the evidence of a threat was circumstantial at best.

While one passenger may have reported the man wearing a belt with wires coming out of it - the man was only guilty of being an electrician.

And last I checked, running away from plain clothes armed men was not a capital offence, even if they did attempt to identify themselves. While we may hear calls for sympathy for the officer who was forced to make a 'split second' decision, we should also have some sympathy for an civilian who was understandably freaked.

A tube station is a very controlled and predictable environment - there are few places for a person to go. The first thing I would have done in this situation if I was the police would have been to clear the station of any trains - and given the word, this can happen very quickly.

Given that most tubes have CCTV and the train was in the station at the time there is a high chance there will be video evidence of the execution.

Chefen from Sir Humphreys attempts to justify the police action on the basis of a cruel utilitarian logic.
"When it comes to mass murder, the numbers say take a hardline because you'll save more people that way. Tough, but such is life."

In a sense Chefen is arguing that innocent civilians should die on account of the slightest chance it may save others - and this is only a short step from celebrating them as martyrs in the war against terror. In doing so, we would only be adopting the justifications of the terrorists, as well as providing Mr Bin Laden rhetorical means to recruit more martyrs for 'his side'.

And if you want to justify actions on the cold calculation of numbers, Iraqis may also see the logic in taking a 'hard line' against the UK, given the mass murder of 39,000 Iraqi civilians since the American/UK invasion.

Worst of all, Chefen erroneously attributes the guilt for terrorism to racial groups.
"I'm sure all those out there who are expert in the deployment of root-causes arguments can word it much better than "Sorry missus, but your son was running away from armed police towards a tube station and we had four terrorist attacks yesterday and we couldn't take the chance he was going to murder a few dozen commuters just for jollies. I can't wait for the crowd who plead for understanding of why certain populaces have brought terrorism on themselves to try and wiggle this one around 180 degrees."

And 'bought it on themselves' sounds a lot like how the Nazi's attempt to justify the infamous persecution of another racial and other groups - the holocaust.

I was talking to someone last night who compared the Stockwell incident to the bus bombers in Israel. But this example really crystallizes the point - the vast majority of people do not want to live in a society where the police and the armed forces are permitted to kill on sight those who are suspected of a crime.

Perhaps a reason why right wing 'liberals' rail against the 'Nanny State', a state that aims to care for and value the lives of its citizens is that such misnamed 'liberals' really want another type of state altogether - an oppressive state, governed by fear, where the state has unlimited license for indiscriminate violence and persecution. Mostly in the name of defending gross property and income inequalities from the democratic majority.

Bush and Blair harp on about 'defending our values' yet pass draconian anti-terror legislation that takes away the values worth defending, such as the right to a fair trial and the assurance no free person will be imprisoned without charge.

When the terrorists are caught and convicted I don't want them to be executed or put in a jail cell 'with the key thrown away' - that's too easy. Following an open and public court process I would like to see prison, along with an involved and challenging restorative justice process that will allow families of victims the chance to force the terrorists to face the human costs of their actions.

The best weapon we have in the 'war on terror' is the maintenance of our own humanity and the highest level of respect for human life - this is one thing the terrorists can never have.

Categories: London, Politics, Shooting, Police, Bombings

PS: I do think it would be unfortunate if the good work of the UK police in the aftermath of the July 7th bombings was overshadowed by the latest incident. While they were unable to stop the bombs, they were on the case quickly with some good leads, information they shared with the public. I have a suspicion we will find the 'police' involved in the shooting were not ordinary bobbies.

Make Poverty History into a cheer squad for Tony and Gordon

ZNet carries an interesting article 'Inside the Murky World of the UK's Make Poverty History Campaign' (MPH). Stuart Hodkinson explains how conservative forces within MPH have sought to emphasise the role of celebrities and moderate MPHs anti-neoliberal policies to ensure its public face is indistinguishable from the policies of Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown. This has caused considerable tension within the MPH coalition.

"For the past six months, some of the UK's leading development and environmental NGOs have been increasingly vocal in their unease about a campaign high on celebrity octane but low on radical politics. One insider, active in a key MPH working group, argues there "has often been a complete divergence between the democratically agreed message of our public campaign and the actual spin that greets the outside world". He is angry: "Our real demands on trade, aid and debt, and criticisms of UK government policy in developing countries have been consistently swallowed up by white bands, celebrity luvvies and praise upon praise for Blair and Brown being ahead of other world leaders on these issues."
..
Critics argue that on paper at least, MPH's policy demands on the UK government are fairly radical, especially its calls for "trade justice not free trade", which would require G8 and EU countries, notably the UK, to stop forcing through free market policies on poor countries as part of aid, trade deals or debt relief....With additional calls for the regulation of multinationals and the democratisation of the IMF and World Bank, John Hilary, Campaigns Director of UK development NGO, War on Want, has a point when he asserts that MPH's policies "strike at the very heart of the neo-liberal agenda."

But when these policies are relayed to a public audience they become virtually indistinguishable from those of the UK Government. This is due, according to Hodkinson, to the conservative role played within the MPH coalition by Oxfam, the Trade Union Federation and Comic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis.

A recent cover story of the New Statesman 'Why Oxfam is failing Africa' warned that Oxfam's relationship, both in terms of people and policy was "far too cosy" to New Labour. It also pointed to the key role in MPH played by Oxfam's Sarah Kline, a former World Bank official who champions the organisation's 'constructive dialogue' approach with the IMF and World Bank.

In my previous post I argued that despite its political aims, the commentary of Live 8 was not political enough. Despite noble aims, Live 8 could only be a 'sticking plaster' if it continued to ignore the underlying power issues that lead to humanitarian disasters. Apparently Richard Curtis is to blame here (much as I love his comedy writing).

[T]he most destructive aspect of [Richard] Curtis's involvement, critics argue, has been his personal intervention in the public communications of MPH to ensure that the politics are routinely buried by the personality as part of his own personal and completely unaccountable strategy to change G8 policy: "Richard's philosophy has become painfully obvious to everyone in MPH," one critic argues. "He believes that we should support the efforts of the UK government to bring other G8 countries into its line on aid and debt, and is adamant that Brown and Blair should not be criticised."

A key Comic Relief official reported that Curtis "found it difficult" to turn against the government because of his personal friendship with Gordon Brown.

"Frustration would not perhaps be so intense if there was real pluralism and democracy in MPH's organising practices. But as the G8 draws near, MPH apparatchiks have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that come the 2 July rally in Edinburgh, only the branded, monolithic message and speakers of MPH are seen and heard. The MPH Coordinating Team, which includes Oxfam, Comic Relief and the TUC, has also twice unanimously vetoed the Stop the War Coalition's (STWC) application to join MPH on the Orwellian grounds that the issues of economic justice and development are separate from that of war, and STWC's participation in Edinburgh on 2 July would confuse the message. It will be interesting, then, to see if Oxfam bans itself - it is currently leading a global campaign for an international arms treaty on the basis that "uncontrolled arms fuels poverty and suffering". STWC has since been banned from even having a stall at the MPH rally.

While a focus on debt, aid and trade does offer opportunities to the global justice movement, Hodkinson warns the direction of the MPH campaign also threatens to actively derail the movement at the same time.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of MPH's blending of its message with that of the government's, and its exclusion of critics North and South, is that it enables the state and media to draw a sharp line in the sand between the 'good protester' attending the 2 July Edinburgh rally, and the 'bad protester' - anyone who is contemplating engaging in civil disobedience against what is, after all, an illegitimate institution and set of governments responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people each year.

Those UK development NGOs unhappy with MPH's direction know this only too well, but refuse to publicly walk away from a campaign that is actively derailing the global justice movement. Although it may sound cynical, the reason is simple: MPHistory is a money-spinner. "Although we hate the message and the corporate branding, some NGOs are making thousands of pounds through the wristbands," one arch critic admitted. "We have loads of new people on our database interested in our campaigns, and because the issues of trade, debt and aid are now suddenly sexy again, we have new funding bodies approaching us to do projects and research. MPH is paying for my job for the next 3 years."

Categories: UK, Politics, Live 8

Blair's re-election under FPP and some NZ comparisions

On Friday I watched BBC World for almost 7 hours straight. Home from work with a flu, I wasn't capable of doing much else. Luckily there was an election to watch. Overall I thought the BBC coverage of the UK election was excellent, my only gripe being the almost complete lack of coverage for the smaller parties (listing number of seats won as 'others' does not tell you much)

With thousands of the British left deserting Tony Blair for the Liberal Democrats over issues such as the Iraq war and 'top-up' fees, there was a danger the perverse electoral system known as First Past the Post (FPP) would split the anti-tory vote.

Through 7 hours there were many panellists commenting on the results as they came in. I found one recurring theme very interesting - the faults of the UK FPP electoral system. Both the presenters and 'commentators' felt the need to explain the vacancies of FPP to 'international viewers', remarking on how unusual it was for a European country like the UK not to have a form of proportional representation, where parties like the Liberal Democrats would gain a share of seats that reflected their level of popular support. I felt a great sense of deja vu - it reminded me of similar discussions in New Zealand on election night 1993, our last FPP election.

One BBC commentator pointed out that while many of the British people did not regard George Bush as a legitimate president in 2000 on the basis he did not win the popular vote, they did not seem to realise a similarly undemocratic result could also occur in their own backyard. This is exactly what happened in FPP elections in New Zealand in 1978 and 1981, where a National government was re-elected with a majority of seats, despite the fact the Labour party actually gained more votes.

Tony Blair has been re-elected with the lowest popular support (35.2%) of any government in UK history, yet Labour has gained 55.1% of the total seats. Over 64% of British voters wanted somebody else, with 32.3% supporting the Conservatives, 22% the Lib Dems and 10.4% supporting other parties.

In 1993 National kept the NZ government benches despite only gaining the support of 35.1% of New Zealand voters (gained 50 seats), a record low for NZ. The left vote was split between Labour (34.7%, 45 seats) and the Alliance (18.2%, two seats), a legacy of the forth Labour government's far right economic policy, including large scale privatisation and introduction of tuition fees. In 1993 NZ Labour was still led by a right winger (Mike Moore) and included right-wing MPs in its caucus (Prebble). Likewise, the split of the UK left vote in 2005 can be squarely blamed on the Blairites. Invading Iraq, removing civil liberties, allowing universities to set tuition fees and privatisation of public services ought to have undermined UK Labour's traditional support. Thankfully for democracy, it did.

Hopefully for democracy the emergence of genuine three party politics in the UK will demonstrate the need for electoral reform, as greater support for 'third' parties did in NZ from 1978 onwards. Once FPP may have looked like an innovation in democracy, now it's just a dinosaur.

Blair's Attorney General warned war was illegal

Ever since the leadup to the Iraq war in 2003 there have been persistent rumors the UK Attorney General first advised Tony Blair such a war would be illegal under international law. While a 'summary' of AG Lord Goldsmith's legal opinion was made public and appeared to give the war a green light, the Blair government have consistently refused to release the full 13-page document given to Cabinet ministers on the 7th of March. It is now clear why.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Goldsmith's original advice included six grounds in which the proposed war with Iraq could be challenged under international law. These caveats were excised from the summary when it was published 10 days later.

• In law, there was a strong argument that it was the job of the United Nations - not Mr Blair - to rule whether Iraq had defied the UN's order to disarm;
• Goldsmith stated UN resolution 1441 ("serious consequences") might not be enough to justify war because it did not include the phrase "all necessary", the UN's usual wording for war;
• It would be much 'safer' and desirable to go to war armed with a second specific UN resolution.
• He warned Mr Blair it could be difficult to revive UN Resolution 678 to justify war, as this resolution focused on removing Saddam from Kuwait and did not permit an invasion of Iraq itself.
• Goldsmith drew attention to the continuing work of UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and his team. On the same day the advice was written Blix said Iraq was being more helpful generally and no weapons of mass destruction had been found.
• The Attorney General explained that US President George Bush faced fewer legal constraints, as Congress had voted Bush special war-making powers. The US government's opinion on the legality of the war did not apply to Britain.
  

When Blair claimed that the advice was identical to the 'summary' which declared the war legal it is now clear he was not telling the truth. The AG changed his views, a suggestion given further credence by the uncensored resignation letter of Elizabeth Wilmshurt, who resigned her post as deputy chief legal adviser at the Foreign Office over the Iraq war. US National Security Council legal chief John Bellinger even went as far as to boast "We had a problem with your Attorney General who was telling us it was legally doubtful under international law. We straightened him out."

Demonstrating the folly of attempting to keep such potentially explosive advice under wraps, serving only fuel speculation of its contents, it has now come out a mere 11 days before a general election. Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy is right when he says the issue will "not go away" until Lord Goldsmith's legal advice is published in full. At the very least, this would allow an accurate assessment of Goldsmith's concerns over legality in their proper context of the entire 13-page opinion.

In response, Tony Blair is warning that attempts to "send me a message" at the ballot box may cause Labour to lose marginal constituencies and lead to a Tory Government by the back door. Perhaps Blair should have thought of that before he adopted a Thatcherite economic policy, involved Britain in a war of dubious legality, and then told porkies to cover his tracks. While I regard the Liberal Democrats as a right wing party with some left wing policies (such as on education), their presence in a balance of power type arrangement could be a positive influence on Labour in the next term.

PS: I attempted to post this yesterday, only to have blogger clear the post before I could upload it :(

Distorted media coverage of kidnappings in Iraq will only lead to more deaths.

Many aspects of the media coverage of the latest kidnapping in Iraq trouble me. I believe the case of Margaret Hassan especially highlights the biases of western media, not to mention the self-interested reactions of western politicians.

As news of the kidnapping broke, reactions in the media were full of surprise and dismay that a British person who has lived in Iraq for 30 years, is married to an Iraqi and considers herself to be an Iraqi could be the victim of the kidnap gangs. This is only a surprise if one assumes it is unusual for an Iraqi to be kidnapped. In fact, many more Iraqis than westerners have lost family members to the kidnap gangs, money often being the primary motive, as ransoms become a barbarous form of 'gangster capitalism'. Consider the following from a "girl blog from Iraq" Baghdad Burning, posted on the 3rd of October.

I'm very relieved the Italian hostages have been set free... and I hope the other innocent people are also freed. Thousands of Iraqis are being abducted and some are killed, while others are returned... but it is distressing to see so many foreigners being abducted. It's like having a guest attacked in your own home by the neighbor's pit bull- you feel a sense of responsibility even though you know there was no way you could have prevented it.

I wasn't very sympathetic though, when that Islamic group came down from London to negotiate releasing Kenneth Bigley. I do hope he is returned alive, but where are all these Islamic groups while Falluja, Samarra, Sadir City and other places are being bombed? Why are they so concerned with a single British citizen when hundreds of Iraqis are dying by the month? Why is it 'terrorism' when foreigners set off bombs in London or Washington or New York and it's a 'liberation' or 'operation' when foreigners bomb whole cities in Iraq? Are we that much less important?

Tony Blair said his government would do everything it could to secure Ms Hassan's release. "This is someone who has lived in Iraq for 30 years, someone who is immensely respected, someone who is doing her level best to help the country," he said. "It shows you the type of people we are up against, that they are prepared to kidnap somebody like this.". This is all he said on the issue, see Downing Street statement. By turning the issue into a simple US vs THEM dichotomy, Mr Blair does little to explain the possible reasons behind the kidnapping, and thus does not appear to be engaging in the key task of assisting Ms Hassan's release. To some, his comments could appear to be a politically motivated attempt to remind the anti-war faction of his party that they are 'terrorist' targets too.

Felicity Arbuthnot, an Irish freelance journalist and long-time friend of Ms Hassan appears to have given Blair a clear rebuke when she said she hoped that Blair would step back and allow the Irish government to lead efforts to secure her release. In contrast to Blair, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, said his thoughts were with the Hassans: "I stand ready to contribute in any way we can to help secure her release." (Guardian)

Blair's US vs THEM language go right to the heart of my second key concern regarding the media coverage, in which the kidnappers are described as terrorists, insurgents, or militants, often with a suggestion of a possible connection to Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In fact, such descriptions tell us very little. They also give the erroneous impression that the 'kidnap gangs' are a uniform group with a common goal. Consider the kidnapping of John Martinkus, as reported by his journalist friend Christopher Allbritton on the 18th October (click this link - its an amazing story).

We're not sure what all happened during [John's] captivity, but he was able to persuade his captors that he was an Australian and a friend to the resistance and not to the Americans. It appears, by the kidnappers' statements and questions, that they were nationalists and not jihadis, lucky for John. Also, he was lucky for not being American, because the kidnappers said if he had been, they'd have killed him quickly....

At one point, one man disappeared, saying he would check out John's story. He came back after about 15 minutes, John said, convinced John was who he said he was. We suspect they Googled John, because they referenced previous stories he had covered.
....
John was lucky -- very lucky. He was picked up by nationalists who, we hear, are getting out of the kidnapping and beheading business. He wasn't an American. He had a pedigree of lefty, anti-war reporter. And he fell in with a (more or less) kind-hearted bunch who were just doing their job as national resistance fighters. (He said they expressed concern that he wasn't married and that his living arrangements in the Hamra weren't safe. Bizarrely, they offered to let him stay with them the next time he came to Iraq -- I'm sure.)

Not sure I would go as far as to call them a "kind hearted bunch", but it does give some hope the violence will diminish when Iraqis are given back their country free of foreign armies. It might be unlikely that the group holding Ms Hassan are such a "kind hearted bunch", one can only hold on to the slim hope her captors also know how to google. Margaret Hassan strongly campaigned against the cruel sanctions regime, enforced by the US following the Gulf War of 1991. "In the build-up to the war last year, she warned MPs of the humanitarian catastrophe another conflict would bring. In January 2003, she travelled to New York and spent a week briefing the members of the UN security council and UN agencies on the dire consequences of military action" (Guardian, ibid).

If we are unable or unwilling to accurately ascertain the identity, motives and demands of those doing the kidnapping, more lives will be lost.

Ironic twist to Blair 'victory' at UK Labour conference

This afternoon the UK Labour conference voted down a motion calling for an early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. Many are calling it a lucky escape for Tony Blair. (Guardian report)

While at first glance the result looks like a sound victory for Blair, with 86% of the conference voting against the 'rebel' amendment (14% for), Blair only avoided defeat by gaining the support of the 'big four' unions at the eleventh hour, after days of tense negotiations.

The 'rebel amendment' was a moderate one, calling for Blair to set a date for the early withdrawal of British troops. Given that it is at last becoming widely recognised that a key driver of the insurgency is the presence of the foreign troops, sending a clear signal that Britain does not intend to have a permanent military presence in Iraq may help to calm the situation. A date would have been a clear signal, even if events transpired whereby the forces were there for a short time after the designated date.

Jack Straw attempted to claim that the US, UK troops in Iraq were not an army of occupation, but were there at the request of the interim government and with the support of the United Nations Security Council. But the credibility of Jack's justification is seriously strained by actions of its 'coalition partner', especially as the US appointed the government that made the 'request' and the clear US plans to have a network of permanent military bases in Iraq long after an elected government takes power. The military occupation of Iraq will last decades, not months or years.

When it is taken into account that the 'big four' control 40% of the Labour party conference votes it can easily be seen that the vote was far closer than it first appears - had the unions voted in consistency with their previous clear anti-war views - Blair would have lost (14% supported the motion today and 14% plus 40% is 54%).

There is a deep irony when today's vote is compared to the debate over rail renationalisation at the same conference a few short days ago (Guardian).

On Tuesday the conference overwhelming voted in support of renationalising the railways, despite the protests of the Labour leadership, including Chancellor Gordon Brown and Transport Secretary Alistar Darling. 64% of the conference voted to bring the private rail operating companies back into public ownership, with 36% voting against. Gordon Brown attempted to scaremonger, claiming that renationalising rail would cost £22 billion, seemingly ignoring the obvious option of buying up the long term contracts and phasing out the rest as they come up for renewal. Although the conference motion is meant to be binding, the leadership has already dismissed the possibility of rail renationalisation being included in the Labour manifesto.

BBC news reported that Labour's high command blamed the block voting of the 'big four' unions for the loss, with the Blairites rather pitifully claiming a 'moral victory' because a majority of electorate committees failed to support the renationalisation motion. While a majority of electorate committees voted against the withdrawal amendment today (70%*), Blair got 80% of the union votes - in the twisted Blairite logic does this make it a 'moral defeat'??

Today the British Labour party had a chance to save itself from the poor judgement of its leadership, under the glare of generous television coverage. Ultimately by defeating a moderate motion that called on Blair to set a date for the withdrawal of British troops, it may not escape being branded with Blair's mistake. With this is mind, the left may be best to organise elsewhere.

* these figures flashed up briefly on the BBC