Category: Jack Straw

  • Polanski accuses Labour of ‘running scared’ over Jackdaw drilling decision

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/zack-polanski-accuses-labour-running-scared-over-jackdaw-drilling-decision

     Green party leader Zack Polanski stands with party members at King’s Place in London, after he was picked as the Green Party candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, Friday September 11, 2026

    GREEN Party leader Zack Polanski accused Labour today of “running scared,” following reports that Prime Minister Andy Burnham will delay announcing his decision on drilling in the Jackdaw gas field until after the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

    Mr Polanski, who was announced today as his party’s candidate in the election on October 8, said that Labour had “started the campaign with an act of dishonesty and betrayal.”

    He argued: “They are clearly going to allow new drilling in the North Sea but want to keep it under wraps during a byelection where they know the public want tougher action on climate, not backsliding.

    “Labour talks about change, but this is change for the worse. We have a climate crisis, but Labour is taking the side of fossil fuel corporations….”

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/zack-polanski-accuses-labour-running-scared-over-jackdaw-drilling-decision

    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says that he's going to permit the Jackdaw and Rosebank North Sea fossil fuel projects. He urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says that he’s going to permit the Jackdaw and Rosebank North Sea fossil fuel projects. He urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
    Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
  • Zarah Sultana: The enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy

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    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/enemy-working-class-far-right

    The fuse may have been set alight by online disinformation and secretive social media channels, but this explosion of far-right violence has been decades in the making. And while Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) and his mob of far-right agitators are its immediate instigators, much of Britain’s political and media class is complicit in laying the groundwork for this eruption of hate.

    This truth of how we reached this point flips the normal classist narrative about racism in Britain. The reality is that racism isn’t a bottom-up expression of popular discontent, but a top-down project propagated by people in positions of power.

    Just think about how the billionaire-owned rightwing press drip-feeds hate into British politics, splashing fearmongering headlines across their papers: “Islamist plotters in schools across the UK” – the Telegraph“1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis” – the Sun“Migrants spark housing crisis” – the Daily Mail.

    Or think how Conservative politicians normalise far-right rhetoric, dehumanising people and spreading hate. From “one nation” Conservatives such as David Cameron who as prime minister described migrants as a “swarm”, to the likes of Suella Braverman who as home secretary said there was a migrant “invasion”. Rishi Sunak’s “Stop the boats” slogan is now a far-right chant and just this week the Tory party leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said the police should “immediately arrest” people shouting “Allahu Akbar” on the street, the Arabic phrase meaning “God is great” – the equivalent of a Christian saying “hallelujah”.

    This rhetoric was propagated further by the privately educated, former City trader Nigel Farage, who claims to be a man of the people. In the general election campaign, he said many Muslims didn’t share “British values” and this week promoted the “two-tier policing” conspiracy.

    But it’s not just rightwing politicians, pundits and publications at fault. So-called centrists too often refuse to push back against this hate as well, sometimes peddling the same dangerous tropes or dismissing the concerns of those subject to this hatred.

    I was confronted by this painful reality just this week. On Monday morning I was invited on to ITV’s Good Morning Britain to talk about the recent racist riots, only to be interrogated – and it did feel like an interrogation – about why I, a Muslim MP, thought it was important to call the recent racist violence Islamophobic. “Why is it important to use that specific word?” Kate Garraway repeatedly questioned me.

    Almost before I could answer, and behaving with the same sneering condescension he did throughout the segment, the former Labour shadow chancellor and now broadcaster Ed Balls repeatedly interrupted me, seemingly incredulous that I thought this hate should be called by its proper name. The show has now been hit with more than 8,200 Ofcom complaints about that morning’s episode, many of them about his handling of my interview.

    This wasn’t a one-off, even for Ed Balls. In the summer of 2010, as he set out his Labour leadership pitch in the Guardian, Balls blamed “eastern European migrants” for a “direct impact on the wages, terms and conditions of too many people”. He’s far from the only Labour figure to echo rightwing talking points: from then leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw, who in 2006 said that he asked veiled Muslim women to remove their veils in meetings with him, to the former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth recently claiming asylum seekers can stay in hotels for “the rest of their lives”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/enemy-working-class-far-right

  • Craig Murray is the authoritative source on UK complicity in rendition and torture

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    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

    Theresa May specifically and deliberately ruled out the Committee from questioning any official who might be placed at risk of criminal proceedings – see para 11 of the report. The determination of the government to protect those who were complicit in torture tells us much more about their future intentions than any fake apology.

    It is worth reflecting that the Tory government has acted time and time again to protect New Labour’s Tony Blair, David Miliband, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown from any punishment for their complicity in torture, and indeed to limit the information on it available to the public. The truth is that the Tories and New Labour (which includes the vast majority of current Labour MPs) are all a part of the same elite interest group, and when under pressure they stick together as a class against the people.

    Despite being hamstrung by government, the Committee managed through exhaustive research of classified documents to pull together evidence of British involvement in extraordinary rendition and mistreatment of detainees on a massive scale. The Committee found 596 individual documented incidents of the security services obtaining “intelligence” from detainee interrogations involving torture or severe mistreatment, ranging from 2 incidents of direct involvement, “13 to 15” of actually being in the room, through those where the US or other authorities admitted to the torture, to those where the detainee told the officer they had been tortured. They found three instances where the UK had paid for rendition flights.

  • Commentary on and analysis of recent political events

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    Why did Jack Straw try to make it illegal for children at childrens’ homes to speak out about abuse? Was Jack Straw influenced by the fact that some of his friends and fellow politicians were paedophiles? Was this a desperate attempt to stop the truth coming out not only that Labour politiicans are paedophiles but highest level politicians of ALL parties?

    Fifty new nuclear plants could be goal in official energy plans

    Up to 50 nuclear power stations could be built under plans being looked at by the government. The remarkable figure – 10 times the number the government is openly discussing – is revealed in documents submitted to the Department of Energy and Climate Change by one of its own advisory bodies.

    The documents are likely to raise questions as to what extent the government’s energy policy is weighted in favour of nuclear and away from renewables such as wind turbines. It comes as Brussels begins an investigation into whether Britain is providing up to £17bn of potentially illegal public guarantees for the first nuclear power plant in a generation, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which aims to provide 7% of the country’s electricity.

    Image of GCHQ donught building

    NSA leaks: UK and US spying targets revealed

    More details of people and institutions targeted by UK and US surveillance have been published by The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel.

    The papers say that the list of around 1,000 targets includes a European Union commissioner, humanitarian organisations and an Israeli PM.

    The Guardian writes that GCHQ targeted the UN development programme, Unicef, German government buildings and the EU Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia.

    Latest Snowden revelations expose Obama’s lies on NSA spy programs

    Just hours after receiving a report from his hand-picked advisory panel on National Security Agency surveillance operations, President Barack Obama used his end of the year press conference Friday to deliver an Orwellian defense of unrestrained US spying both at home and abroad.

    “I have confidence that the NSA is not engaging in domestic surveillance and snooping around,” Obama said, despite the cascade of revelations proving just the opposite. These revelations, including the latest from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have established that the agency is collecting and storing billions of files recording the phone calls, text messages, emails, Internet searches and even the daily movements of virtually ever US citizen, not to mention those of hundreds of millions of people abroad.

    “The United States is a country that abides by rule of law[!], that cares deeply about privacy[!], that cares deeply about civil liberties[!],” he added. Who, at this late juncture, does the American president think he’s fooling? One only has to read the ruling by a Washington, DC Federal District Court judge—which was then stayed in the interest of “national security”—finding the surveillance methods of the NSA to be “almost Orwellian,” and its activities unconstitutional, i.e., criminal.

    UK reneges on promised independent inquiry on rendition, torture

    The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has abandoned its promise to carry out an independent inquiry into Britain’s involvement in “extraordinary rendition”, detention”and torture carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Instead, the inquiry will be undertaken by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), whose record is one of covering up the activities of the intelligence services.

    Only last month, the ISC questioned the head of the internal security service MI5, Andrew Parker; the director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Sir Iain Lobban; and Sir John Sawers, head of the foreign intelligence department MI6. The hearing was meant to demonstrate unprecedented openness and accountability to Parliament of the secret state apparatus, after revelations by US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden that the UK agencies worked with the US to monitor the Internet and phone activity of most of the world’s citizens.

     …

    Clare Algar, executive director of the human rights organisation Reprieve, criticised the decision to hand the investigation to the ISC: “If the government takes this course, it will be breaking its promise to hold a genuine, independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in torture.

    ‘Megrahi was my friend. He did not kill my daughter’: Lockerbie father says British government is not telling the truth about the bombing

    The father of one of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing has asked mourners to pray for the “innocent family” of the only person convicted of the worst mass murder in British history, as the nation marked its 25th anniversary.

    In his address to a memorial service at Westminster Abbey yesterday evening attended by relatives of the victims, Dr Jim Swire also accused the British government of failing to tell “all the truth they know about this terrible tragedy”.

    Before the service, the UK, US and Libyan governments in a joint statement promised to work together to “reveal the full facts of the case”, saying that they wanted “all those responsible for this most brutal act of terrorism brought to justice, and to understand why it was committed”. [BS: positive identification]

    Employment tribunal claims fell by more than half after introduction of fees

    Theresa May strips citizenship from 20 Britons fighting in Syria

    Abandoned: Theresa May turns back on American-held terror suspect

    Labour should “do god” BS …

  • Commentary on and analysis of recent political events

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    Two main political news stories from yesterday dominate today’s news: the Gibson report and the completion of the trial of the murderers of soldier Lee Rigby. There was also a ceiling collapse at the packed Apollo theatre in the Soho area of London. 

    Firstly, the Gibson report into UK involvement in torture and rendition was published. The report was paused while police investigations into torture and rendition were in progress so that the report should be considered incomplete and unfinished.

    Unfortunately for previous and current governments and particularly Jack Straw evidence of renditions by the UK and UK complicity with torture come to light while the report was being conducted. While Blair’s government repeatedly denied being involved in torture and rendition the wording was always very carefully crafted and it was obvious that the Fascist bstards were at it.

    A further unfortunate consequence for Blair’s former cabinet and government is that cabinet ministers are jointly responsible according to UK law. The current UK Conservative-Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government is keen deal with this problem. It is likely that they would ideally like to postpone it indefinitely so that by the time it’s addressed Blair and his associated Fascist scum will be dead of old age. Accordingly they have broken commitments to appoint a judge-led inquiry and instead have referred it to the intelligence and security committee of selected MPs and peers, a body renowned for ignoring official crimes.

    Secondly, the trial of the brutal murderers of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, East London finished yesterday. Soldier Lee Rigby was first run over by a car before a meat cleaver was used to hack at his neck. Early news reports were wrong claiming that he had been decapitated.

    An emergency meeting of Cobra was held because of the political nature of the murder. The murderers asked bystanders to film them explaining their purpose. It was both a brutal murder and a political protest. It was not terrorism because ordinary people were not the target.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/19/woolwich-attack-first-uk-murder-transmitted-live-internet

    Michael Adebolajo speaks to a witness videoing him on a smartphone after killing Lee Rigby in Woolwich

    Adebolajo actively sought out a witness with a camera phone to deliver what he saw as a 21st-century press conference. It was supposed to be his martyrdom video. But there were no satellite trucks or television crews, only a handful of bystanders armed with a smartphone.

    “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers,” said Adebolajo into the lens of a BlackBerry, his bloodied hands still holding the meat cleaver and butcher’s knife used to slaughter his victim. “By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone.”

    The murderers were driven by Western invasions of Muslim countries claiming that they were soldiers attacking another soldier. I disagree with a psychiatrist’s decision that one of the defendants was not insane. The barbarity of the act shows that he was insane.

    I am willing to discuss these issues in the comments.

    Philip Hammond ignores the truth about drone atrocities

    Lord Janner’s home searched in child abuse probe

    theneedleblog: Lord Janner: Home Searched.

    theneedleblog: Threatening Letter To Teresa Cooper From ‘Eric’