David Cameron

Report damns Sellafield firm over clean-up

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/report-damns-sellafield-firm-over-cleanup-8930953.html

Security breaches and delays are rife as nuclear contractor ‘puts shareholders before taxpayer’

Image of Sellafield (formerly known as Windscale)
The £70bn project to rid Sellafield, Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, of its waste legacy is more than a decade behind schedule and is managed in shareholder, not taxpayer, interests, a damning confidential report reveals.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee chair, Margaret Hodge, said yesterday that the failings at the Cumbrian plant proved how “outrageous” the decision had been to trust a private company to decontaminate the facility.

The Independent on Sunday can reveal that nine of the 11 biggest projects to make Sellafield safe, including building a storage facility for radioactive sludge, are £2bn over budget. Seven will complete late, with a combined delay of eleven and a half years. The expansion of a huge waste processor, Evaporator D, is now expected in February 2016, a year and nine months later than planned.

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

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Continue ReadingReport damns Sellafield firm over clean-up

Iraq war inquiry blocked in bid to make Bush-Blair ‘kick ass’ memo public

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/10/iraq-war-tony-blair-george-bush

Cabinet Office resists Chilcot’s request to disclose what the allied leaders said in the escalation to war

Traitor Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George 'Dubya' Bush
Tony Blair receives the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour from George ‘Dubya’ Bush

Contents of key conversations between Tony Blair and a bellicose George W Bush, who declares he is ready to “kick ass”, are thought to be among documents relating to the Iraq war that the government is withholding from publication.

It emerged this week that the Cabinet Office is resisting requests from the Iraq inquiry, the body set up to draw lessons from the conflict, for “more than 130 records of conversations” between Blair, his successor, Gordon Brown, and Bush to be made public. In a letter to David Cameron, published on the inquiry’s website, the committee’s chairman, Sir John Chilcot, disclosed that “25 notes from Mr Blair to President Bush” and “some 200 cabinet-level discussions” were also being withheld.

The standoff between the inquiry and Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, has been going on for five months and has meant that the “Maxwellisation process”, in which politicians and officials are warned that they will be criticised in the report, is on hold.

As a result, a date for the final publication of the report has yet to be agreed, more than four years after the inquiry started.

Critics have claimed that the government is seeking to suppress embarrassing material that could harm the UK’s relationship with the US. Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru’s leader in Westminster, has said it is “absolutely unacceptable” for the records not to be published. Chilcot has described the delay as “regrettable”.
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Continue ReadingIraq war inquiry blocked in bid to make Bush-Blair ‘kick ass’ memo public

MPs summon bankers to explain their valuations of Royal Mail

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/08/mps-bankers-valuations-royal-mail-sale-taxpayers

MPs investigate whether the £3.3bn sale of shares in the Royal Mail shortchanged taxpayers

Image of Royal Mail postbox
MPs investigating whether last month’s £3.3bn sale of shares in the Royal Mail shortchanged taxpayers have summoned City bankers to explain how they put a price on the near 500-year-old firm.

The Royal Mail share price has soared some 70% since 11 October when the government sold a majority stake in the postal service, prompting criticism from unions and opposition MPs that the firm was sold off too cheaply.

It was revealed after the float that four investment banks – JP Morgan, Panmure Gordon, Deutsche and Citi – believed the Royal Mail was worth far more than the price achieved. Representatives of those banks will now have to explain their valuations to the Business Innovation and Skills committee.

Goldman Sachs and UBS, which led the float on behalf of the government, will have to justify their lower valuation. Business secretary Vince Cable and a representative from Lazards will also be questioned. Hearings have been scheduled for 20 and 27 November.

At the time of their appointment a BIS spokesman said UBS and Goldmans had been selected for the sell-off work because of their past experience advising the government on Royal Mail.
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How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

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What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
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Continue ReadingMPs summon bankers to explain their valuations of Royal Mail

Conservative pretend-Liberal Democrat achievements

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/unthinkable-editorial-legislative-cooling-off-nick-clegg?commentpage=1&per_page=50&orderby=oldest&tab=all#comment-28705937

cleggoccio[T]he Lib Dems did not just “join” the tories, they enabled an economically extreme rightwing administration to assume power and achieve objectives that even the previously most extreme version of rightwingedness would never have even tried. As a consequence:


# over one fifth of the NHS is run for profit (but without (say) a Virgin Health or Circle logo, but under the re-assuring NHS banner so we do not notice or worry;

# Royal Mail shares have been sold cheap to enable and ensure that they are quickly sold-on to the venture and vulture capitalists who (at the last count) recovered over a 500% ROCE from buying and destroying the Dutch equivalent;

# Over £20bn of “other” state services have been handed over to for-profit operations, with over £15bn more planned over the next 12 months;

# 500,000 fellow citizens depend on food-banks for at least three days in every month.

# One million children have since May 2010 entered poverty “the scar that demeans Great Britain”.

# 83% of English NHS hospitals report “critically inadequate” levels of Consultant cover.

None of this would have happened had the Lib Dems more conscience and honesty than a lust for power and chauffeured cars.

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

…
What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-known Orange Book forming the core of current Lib Dem political thinking. To understand how this disreputable arrangement has come about, we need to examine the philosophy laid out in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, edited by David Laws (now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Paul Marshall. Particularly interesting are the contributions of the Lib Dems’ present leadership.

Published in 2004, the Orange Book marked the start of the slow decline of progressive values in the Lib Dems and the gradual abandonment of social market values. It also provided the ideological standpoint around which the party’s right wing was able to coalesce and begin their march to power in the Lib Dems. What is remarkable is the failure of former SDP and Labour elements to sound warning bells about the direction the party was taking. Former Labour ministers such as Shirley Williams and Tom McNally should be ashamed of their inaction.

Clegg and his Lib Dem supporters have much in common with David Cameron and his allies in their philosophical approach and with their social liberal solutions to society’s perceived ills. The Orange Book is predicated on an abiding belief in the free market’s ability to address issues such as public healthcare, pensions, environment, globalisation, social and agricultural policy, local government and prisons.

The Lib Dem leadership seems to sit very easily in the Tory-led coalition. This is an arranged marriage between partners of a similar background and belief. Even the Tory-Whig coalition of early 1780s, although its members were from the same class, at least had fundamental political differences. Now we see a Government made up of a single elite that has previously manifested itself as two separate political parties and which is divided more by subtle shades of opinion than any profound ideological difference.
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Continue ReadingConservative pretend-Liberal Democrat achievements

Guardian editor to face MPs over Snowden intelligence leaks

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24876725

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger is to be questioned by MPs over the newspaper’s publication of leaks by ex-US security contractor Edward Snowden.

Mr Rusbridger will give evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee next month, a Guardian spokesman confirmed.

The Guardian has published information about how British and US spy agencies monitor communications.

The decision to publish the leaks was criticised by the leaders of UK security services on Thursday.

Documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper by Mr Snowden – who is currently in Moscow where he has sought asylum – revealed that agencies are able to tap into the internet communications of millions of ordinary citizens through GCHQ’s Tempora programme.

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Continue ReadingGuardian editor to face MPs over Snowden intelligence leaks