Tony Blair

Tony Blair kept Cabinet in the dark over Iraq ‘deliberately’ as ministers evaluated case for war in 2003

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-kept-cabinet-in-the-dark-over-iraq-deliberately-as-ministers-evaluated-case-for-war-in-2003-8937814.html

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

Members of Tony Blair’s Cabinet were “deliberately” excluded from seeing key documents drawn up by officials examining the case for war against Iraq, a former head of the Civil Service has claimed.

Lord Butler, who led the Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction in the aftermath of the invasion, said there was no shortage of “very good” information available to help ministers evaluate the case for war in 2003.

But in remarks to a Foreign Office seminar, Lord Butler suggested that the former Prime Minister had intentionally kept the documents away from the majority of the Cabinet. “A lot of very good official papers were prepared,” he said. “None was ever circulated to the Cabinet, just as the Attorney General’s advice [on the legality of the war] was not circulated to the Cabinet.

“So, the Cabinet was not as well-informed as the three leading protagonists: the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary… I think that was deliberate, and it was a weakness of the machinery that underlay that particular decision.”
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[This was obvious at the time.]

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.

dizzy

Continue ReadingTony Blair kept Cabinet in the dark over Iraq ‘deliberately’ as ministers evaluated case for war in 2003

‘Truly shocking’ that the private-school educated and affluent middle class still run Britain, says Sir John Major

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10439303/Truly-shocking-that-the-private-school-educated-and-affluent-middle-class-still-run-Britain-says-Sir-John-Major.html

The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

The former Conservative Prime Minister said he was appalled that “every single sphere of British influence” in society is dominated by men and women who went to private school or who are from the “affluent middle class”

More than half of the Cabinet, including David Cameron, the Prime Minister, George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, are thought to have gone to private school [Isn’t that a fact? what’s this “though to have”? Isn’t it closer to all than half?] and are independently very wealthy.

In the speech to Tory party grassroots activists on Friday evening, Sir John – who went to a comprehensive in south London and left school with three O-Levels – said: “In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me from my background, I find that truly shocking.”

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Continue Reading‘Truly shocking’ that the private-school educated and affluent middle class still run Britain, says Sir John Major

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

New Asbo plans are assault on basic freedom, says former DPP Lord Macdonald

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10437127/New-Asbo-plans-are-assault-on-basic-freedom-says-former-DPP-Lord-Macdonald.html

Plans to replace Asbos with wide ranging new orders clamping down on anything likely to cause “annoyance” amount to “gross state interference” with basic freedoms, Lord Macdonald warns

Image of a preacherman

Christian preachers, buskers and peaceful protesters could effectively be driven off the streets under draconian new powers designed to clamp on anyone deemed “annoying”, according to a former Director of Public Prosecutions.

Lord Macdonald QC said Theresa May, the Home Secretary’s plans for a new civil injunctions to replace Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos) amount to “gross state interference” with people’s private lives and basic freedoms.

In a formal legal opinion being circulated to peers, he savages the proposals as opening the way for the outright “suppression” of anything deemed “potentially annoying” with only “vague” justification.

The proposed safeguards to prevent abuse of the new system are “shockingly” weak, he writes.

Under proposals currently before Parliament, Asbos are to be scrapped and replaced with wide-ranging new orders known as Ipnas (Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance).

They are designed to be easier to obtain, require a lower evidential threshod and yet cover a wider range of behaviour.

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Tony Blair’s Kazakhstan role has failed to improve human rights, activists say

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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/08/tony-blair-kazakhstan-human-rights-role

Situation has deteriorated since former prime minister began advising on good governance, according to Kazakh opposition leader

Tony Blair’s multimillion-pound deal to advise Kazakhstan’s leadership on good governance has produced no change for the better or advance of democratic rights in the authoritarian nation, freedom campaigners say.

At the end of Blair’s two-year contract, which lapsed at the end of October and may yet be renewed, activists said the country had actually experienced heavy reversals in civil liberties and freedom of the press during the time the former prime minister was advising the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

“Unfortunately, over the two years that Tony Blair’s been a consultant for Astana, we haven’t seen any changes for the better, or signals of movement towards democratisation,” said embattled opposition leader Amirzhan Kosanov, pointing instead to “a deterioration in the human rights and political freedoms situation, a further tightening of the screws”.

Oksana Makushina, a former deputy editor of one closed-down newspaper, said wryly: “If Mr Blair was advising Nazarbayev on something, it definitely wasn’t freedom of speech. Over the last two years the screws have only been tightened on the media.”

Blair’s office maintains his work is a force for good in a country moving in the right direction. Tony Blair Associates said his work “focuses on social and economic reform and is entirely in line with that of the international community”.

A spokesperson said: “Of course the country faces challenges but that is precisely why we should engage and support its efforts to reform. It remains strategically and globally important and it was right that David Cameron chose to visit there earlier this year.”

Blair’s team has also raised human rights, his spokesperson said, adding that speaking publicly last year Blair “was explicit that the status quo was not an option”. Yet his office rejects the notion of a crackdown in Kazakhstan. “We simply do not agree that the situation in this regard has deteriorated.”

Since Tony Blair Associates set up in the glitzy capital, Astana, in October 2011, Kazakhstan has launched a massive crackdown on civil liberties. It began after unrest in the energy-rich west of this sprawling country in December 2011, which left 15 civilians dead when police fired on protesters.

The government blamed the opposition, jailing alleged ringleader Vladimir Kozlov amid an international outcry, closing down his party and shutting dozens of independent media outlets.

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Continue ReadingTony Blair’s Kazakhstan role has failed to improve human rights, activists say