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ConDem Conservative and Liberal-Democrat Conservative coalition government protects Tony Blair by refusing to release pre-Iraq war cabinet minutes
The corporate press promotes Tony Blair

Tony Blair’s Iraq meetings to remain secret after government veto

The government has vetoed an order by the independent freedom of information watchdog to release the minutes of cabinet meetings held immediately before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The decision was announced on Tuesday by Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, the only minister to have access to papers of a previous administration, in this case Tony Blair’s Labour government.

Grieve said he issued a certificate under the Freedom of Information Act vetoing disclosure after consulting former Labour ministers, his cabinet colleagues, and the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband.

He described the case as “exceptional” and one where, in his view, the public interest demanded the papers should be kept secret. He says he took into account “serious potential prejudice to the maintenance of effective cabinet government”.

The attorney said he also considered the fact that “the issue discussed was exceptionally serious, being a decision to commit British service personnel to an armed conflict situation”, that the issue “remains the focus of both domestic and international interest”, and that “Iraq remains very much a live political issue in its own right” with links to the “overall security situation in the Middle East and the perceived link between the terror threat to the UK and military action in Iraq”.

Grieve noted that most of those present at the cabinet meetings in March 2003 were still MPs or “otherwise active in public life”.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, had argued that the “exceptional gravity and controversy” of the matters discussed meant that minutes of the cabinet meetings on 13 and 17 March 2003, days before the invasion, should be disclosed.

One of the reasons Grieve gave for vetoing disclosure was that the Chilcot inquiry meant the invasion of Iraq was still a “live” issue. Yet the panel chaired by Sir John Chilcot is being prevented by Whitehall mandarins from disclosing key documents relating to the decision to invade Iraq.

The March 2003 cabinet minutes are believed to be among them. The continuing dispute between Chilcot and Whitehall officials over disclosure is a main reason why his report has been delayed.

In a separate move last week, the Foreign Office appealed against a judge’s ruling that extracts of a conversation between Blair and George Bush days before the invasion of Iraq must be disclosed. It argued that revealing Blair’s comments to Bush on the telephone on 12 March 2003 would present a “significant danger” to UK-US relations.

…

The Return Of The King – Tony Blair And The Magically Disappearing Blood

By David Cromwell

How many war crimes does a western leader have to commit before he is deemed persona non grata by the corporate media and the establishment? Apparently there is no limit, if we are to judge by the prevailing reaction to Tony Blair’s return to the political stage.

On July 11, it was announced that Blair would be ‘contributing ideas and experience’ to Labour leader Ed Miliband’s policy review. He will apparently provide advice on how to ‘maximise’ the economic and sporting legacies of the 2012 London Olympics.

The Guardian described the announcement mildly as a ‘controversial move’; not necessarily in the country at large, the paper claimed, but ‘perhaps especially within the Labour party’. One Guardian headline declared ‘Return of the king’.

The ‘left-wing’ John Harris did his bit in the Guardian to smooth Blair’s path:

‘He’s only 59, the picture of perma-tanned vitality and keen to “make a difference”. Could a fourth stint in No 10 even be on the cards? We shouldn’t rule it out.’

Harris declared ‘that for all his mistakes, transgressions and howling misjudgments, there remains something magnetic about his talents.’

When Blair appeared at a Labour fundraising dinner at Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, Harris noted that:

‘He was greeted by the obligatory crowd of protesters, still furious about his role in the Iraq war.’

That’s the curious thing about peace protesters; endlessly ‘furious’ about the country being dragged into an illegal war that led to the deaths of around one million people, created four million Iraqi refugees, devastated Iraq’s infrastructure, generated untold suffering and burned obscenely huge sums of public money in times of ‘austerity’. Perhaps we Brits should simply display that famed stiff upper lip and move on. Certainly that’s what Richard Beeston, foreign editor of The Times, suggested in 2009:

‘All this happened six years ago. Get over it.’ (‘The war went wrong. Not the build-up. Stop obsessing about the legality of invading Iraq. The campaign itself was the real disaster’, The Times, February 26, 2009.)

A recent Times editorial welcomed Blair’s return:

‘Labour is coming together, drawing on its best available talent and starting to get serious again. (Editorial, ‘A year in politics’, The Times, July 14, 2012)

The second coming of Blair was launched by a friendly chat on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. Marr, of course, is well-known as a totally impartial political analyst and a ‘congenial and knowlegable [sic] interviewer’ (to quote a cable from the US embassy in London to Hillary Clinton).

The PR onslaught continued when London’s Evening Standard published an interview with the former PM on the day he ‘guest-edited’ the paper. Would he like to be prime minister again one day? ‘Sure’, he replied. A supportive Financial Times interview with editor Lionel Barber proclaimed:

‘Five years after leaving power, Tony Blair wants back in. He is ready for a big new role. But what exactly is driving him? And can he persuade the world to listen?’

Unnamed ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ were quoted, no doubt passing on the Blair-approved message:

‘Friends say he is desperate to play a bigger role, not because he has any ambition to run for high office but because he wants to be part of the argument. “He would really like to be the centre of attention again,” says one long-time ally.’

A Guardian editorial did its bit to help:

‘he seems to have mellowed a touch since his book [‘A Journey’, published in 2011]; maybe he’s even learnt a little respect for international law.’ (‘Unthinkable? Tony Blair for PM again.’)

The paper continued:

‘Besides, this is no time to fret about the policy details – there is the showbiz to consider. In 2007 John Major likened Mr Blair’s long goodbye to Nellie Melba; the coming comeback must demonstrate he is more like Sinatra and Elvis. There can only be one true heir to Tony Blair, and that is Tony Blair II.’

Could the vanguard of British liberal journalism really be making an editorial call for the return of Blair? It shouldn’t be a total surprise. Recall that even in the wake of the supreme international crime of invading Iraq, the Guardian still called for its readership to re-elect Blair at the 2005 general election.

…

Post author:dizzy
Post published:1 August 2012
Post category:David Cameron Dubya Bush Nick Clegg politics Tony Blair
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NHS news review : ConDem scum withdraw claim that they are privatising the NHS

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Conservative election poster 2010

The UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDems’ – brutal attack on the National Health Service continues.

Update: Lansley does not withdraw the 49% cap on private patients. What’s going on? Did they do a Uee?

So far the New Statesman and the Financial Times have noticed that Lansley is to announce today the abolition of the cap on private work that hospitals can do. Hospitals can now exclusively treat private, paying patients.

Lansley opens the door to full-scale NHS privatisation

Update 2: Just to clarify, this piece was based on a Financial Times story, which the Department of Health has told us is incorrect. The FT has silently changed the headline, standfirst and content of its story. However, we have decided to leave this piece online, with the relevant correction.

Update: The Department of Health has been in touch to say that the cap is not being removed, rather that the planned 49% limit will be introduced from 1 October 2012.

The 49% cap on private work done by NHS trusts will be abolished.

When the government unveils a policy change on a Friday it’s a sure sign that it doesn’t want you to notice. Today, Andrew Lansley will announce that the 49% cap on private work done by NHS hospitals, which his bill introduced, will be abolished (so far, only the FT has noticed). In other words, the Health Secretary has just opened the door to the full-scale privatisation of the NHS, with hospitals able to raise 100% of their income from private healthcare.

Sue Slipman, the chief executive of the NHS Foundation Trust Network, describes the removal of the cap as “a really creative way of bringing more money into the health service”. What she doesn’t say is that foundation trusts, in pursuit of profit, will likely prioritise the treatment and care of private patients over NHS ones. Since the most profitable procedures are usually the simplest, those requiring more complex treatment will be pushed to the back of the queue. As Howard Catton, head policy at the Royal College of Nursing, has previously warned: “NHS patients may feel a subtle pressure to reach for the credit card.” Since all of the remaining 113 NHS trusts are required to become self-governing foundation trusts by April 2014, the removal of the cap will apply to all NHS services – hospitals, ambulances, mental health, community services and clinics.

…

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+lansley

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+cameron

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+clegg

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.
…

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up (2005)

Post author:dizzy
Post published:16 July 2012
Post category:NHS Nick Clegg politics private medicine The Plot Against the NHS
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NHS news review : ConDem scum privatise the NHS

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Conservative election poster 2010

The UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDems’ – brutal attack on the National Health Service continues.

So far the New Statesman and the Financial Times have noticed that Lansley is to announce today the abolition of the cap on private work that hospitals can do. Hospitals can now exclusively treat private, paying patients.

Lansley opens the door to full-scale NHS privatisation

The 49% cap on private work done by NHS trusts will be abolished.

When the government unveils a policy change on a Friday it’s a sure sign that it doesn’t want you to notice. Today, Andrew Lansley will announce that the 49% cap on private work done by NHS hospitals, which his bill introduced, will be abolished (so far, only the FT has noticed). In other words, the Health Secretary has just opened the door to the full-scale privatisation of the NHS, with hospitals able to raise 100% of their income from private healthcare.

Sue Slipman, the chief executive of the NHS Foundation Trust Network, describes the removal of the cap as “a really creative way of bringing more money into the health service”. What she doesn’t say is that foundation trusts, in pursuit of profit, will likely prioritise the treatment and care of private patients over NHS ones. Since the most profitable procedures are usually the simplest, those requiring more complex treatment will be pushed to the back of the queue. As Howard Catton, head policy at the Royal College of Nursing, has previously warned: “NHS patients may feel a subtle pressure to reach for the credit card.” Since all of the remaining 113 NHS trusts are required to become self-governing foundation trusts by April 2014, the removal of the cap will apply to all NHS services – hospitals, ambulances, mental health, community services and clinics.

…

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+lansley

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+cameron

http://www.google.com/search?q=nhs+%22not+privatisation%22+clegg

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.
…

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up (2005)

Post author:dizzy
Post published:13 July 2012
Post category:NHS Nick Clegg politics private medicine The Plot Against the NHS
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News review

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South London NHS Trust is declared ‘bankrupt’ and placed in ‘receivership’. A private company may take over.
Insanity returns to the Labour Party. Insane, deluded, divorced-from-reality, barking mad and woofing former Prime Minister and War Criminal Tony Blair to advise Miliband on Sports Policy. At least he’s got a fairly harmless nothing position but doesn’t Miliband and the wider Labour Party realise what damage Blair & Co have done, the extent to which he is hated by so many, that he’s a Tory who pursued Tory policies? He was so hated that he left the country for 5 years FFS.
London couple forced to treat their son privately.
NHS campaigner offered job as NHS-wrecker.
South London Healthcare NHS Trust put into administration
South London Healthcare NHS Trust is to be put into administration after it ran into financial trouble, the government has announced.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has appointed a trust special administrator to go into the trust.
…
As well as struggling financially, the trust also has some of the longest waiting times for operations and longer-than-average waits in A&E. However, it has low infection and death rates.
If a decision was made to break up the trust, it would not necessarily mean the closure of all services.
Another more successful NHS organisation or private provider could end up taking some on.
…

Tony Blair returns to politics as Labour sports adviser

Former prime minister Tony Blair has undertaken his first job in British politics since leaving office, as an adviser to the Labour party on its sports policy review.

The anti-war movement won’t let Tony Blair forget about Iraq

Pay £2,000 to remove painful lump on son’s hand, NHS hospital tells couple

Doctors agreed to carry out the operation but weeks later Ms Payne and her partner Steven Jones, a lorry driver, received a letter saying the NHS would not cover the costs of the surgery. The couple lost an appeal.

…

Going private? What happened when a private health company offered an NHS campaigner a job

This week, Alex Nunns, campaigner with Keep Our NHS Public, was headhunted for a job at private health firm Care UK. His proposal? A new coporate motto: ‘Providing less, for more’.

…

I believe a key talent for any disrespecting Media Relations Executive is the ability to turn a negative in to something offensive. For example, it must have been a stressful time in the Media Revelations office when that tax avoidance story broke a few months ago – the one saying that Care UK had reduced its tax bill by taking out loans through the Channel Islands stock exchange. All this talk of tax havens and tax avoidance isn’t good in the current climate. But as your Media Relationship Executive I would have used a little reverse psychology, instead of denying it as your spokesman did. After all, this could put you right up there with the big boys like Goldman Sachs, Vodafone and Jimmy Carr.

Similarly, you got some bad press when it was revealed that the wife of your former chairman John Nash gave £21,000 to Andrew Lansley’s office before the last election, when Lansley was shadow health secretary. But let’s view it from another angle – doesn’t this serve to highlight Care UK’s excellent political connections? And look how it turned out: Lansley is in power and he has passed the Health Act. He has opened the door wide to privatisation, and Care UK is already inside redecorating the place. We thought Lansley wasn’t going to manage it for a while, when all those thousands of patients and doctors started protesting and June Hautot shouted “codswallop” at him in the street. But he pulled through, sacrificed his future public career for private gain, and God bless him for that. Care UK now stands to make a fortune. This is something to boast about, for Bevan’s sake! And all for £21,000, less than it would cost to employ a Media Relations Executive for a year. (Please confirm.)

You should play to your strengths. Care UK is a true pioneer in this privatisation drive. You were the first private company to run a GP surgery in Dagenham back in 2006. And the first to face enforcement action from the Healthcare Commission because of slack hygiene procedures at the Sussex Orthopaedic Treatment Centre in 2008. And who’s to say you weren’t the first to forget to process 6,000 x-rays at your ‘urgent’ care centre in North-West London in 2012? As a Mediocre Relations Executive, I would advise not mentioning those last two.

…

Post author:dizzy
Post published:12 July 2012
Post category:NHS Tony Blair
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NHS news review

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Conservative election poster 2010

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat(Conservative) coalition government – the ConDems’ – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

ConDem scum plans to destroy the NHS are coming to fruition following the passing of the Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Act. Hospitals can now be deemed bankrupt and shut down or given to private companies.

Administrator to cut services after takeover of ailing South London Healthcare Trust

An NHS hospital trust which is losing more than £1m a week is set to be taken over by a Government appointed administrator with the power to sack staff and cut services as part of a radical restructuring programme.

In a controversial move, the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has written to the board of the South London Healthcare Trust warning them he intends to trigger an “unsustainable providers regime”.The move means the trust, which runs the Queen Mary Hospital in Sidcup, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich and the Princess Royal Hospital in Bromley will be taken over by a “special administrator” with wide ranging powers to cut costs.

It is the first time that the powers have ever been used and are likely to result in significant reductions in staff and services which the Department of Health admits will be “unsettling”.

…

Second health trust is put on financial danger list

An NHS trust told by inspectors that it has “some way to go” before it is delivering an acceptable level of care has been identified by the government as the next one that may be placed in a form of special measures.

As the BMA warned that financial crises in a series of trusts should serve as a “wake up call”, sources at the Department of Health said the Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust in north-east London could be placed in the regime designed to rescue failing trusts.

That follows the announcement on Monday by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, that South London Healthcare Trust, which runs three hospitals in south-east London, is on course to become the first trust to be placed in the “unsustainable providers regime”.

Ministers blamed the decision on a £150m deficit dating back to a £2.5bn deal, signed by the last government under the private finance initiative (PFI), to rebuild the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich and the Princess Royal University hospital in Orpington.

…

Another 30 health trusts to be attacked by ConDem scum

More than 30 NHS trusts could be forced to merge, devolve services into the community and make job cuts as part of a radical restructuring of hospital care across England.

Yesterday, the Department of Health said it considered 21 hospitals to be “clinically and financially unsustainable” and in need of reform.

However, the list did not include another five foundation hospitals – run independently – which are also considered to be failing financially. A further five foundation hospitals also have severe financial problems.

…

Blair defends PFI as NHS trusts face bankruptcy

…

Across the public sector, taxpayers are committed to paying £229bn for hospitals, schools, roads and other projects with a capital value of £56bn.

But [insane divorced-from-reality fantasist] former Prime Minister Tony Blair told Sky News the contribution PFI had made to rebuilding the country’s infrastructure was “immense”.

“PFI has been copied around the world,” he said. “I am sure, as with any system, you will get a situation when sometimes it doesn’t work or people will get into difficulty as they do in the non PFI situations, but if you look at PFI overall and what it delivered in terms of hospitals, schools and renovations to the infrastructure of the country it has been immense.”

…

NHS Reforms ‘Unnecessary And Unwanted’, Says British Medical Assocation

The government’s contentious NHS reforms are an “unnecessary and unwanted” upheaval, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.

BMA chairman of council Dr Hamish Meldrum warned ministers that the union would hold them to account “every step of the way” as the legislation rolls out across the country, the Press Association reported.

The Health and Social Care Act became law in March after a tortuous passage through Parliament.

Referring to the “monster” legislation, Dr Meldrum told the BMA’s annual conference in Bournemouth: “The NHS in England is going through its biggest – and most unnecessary and unwanted – upheaval for a generation, following the passing into law of the Health and Social Care Act.”

He added: “The BMA will be monitoring closely what is happening to the NHS, what is happening to services, what is happening in terms of privatisation, what is happening to commissioning and the big companies who want to take it over – and we will hold you to account every step of the way.

“We will never give up on our NHS.”

…

How the Orange Bookers took over the Lib Dems

…
What Britain now has is a blue-orange coalition, with the little-knownOrange 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.
…

Nick Clegg’s demand for the NHS to be broken up (2005)

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

Post author:dizzy
Post published:27 June 2012
Post category:David Cameron NHS Nick Clegg politics Tony Blair
Post comments:0 Comments