MI5 director general Ken McCallum delivers a speech at Counter Terrorism Operations Centre in west London, October 8, 2024
A VIOLENT machete-armed misogynist and neonazi state agent was protected by MI5, which lied to three courts on his behalf, according to a BBC report today.
The Security Service told judges that it would not confirm or deny the identity of its agents, although it admitted to a BBC reporter that the man, identified only as Agent X, was in fact working for it.
MI5 has now been forced to apologise to the three courts that heard cases relating to X’s treatment of his then partner.
Spy chiefs also lied at a court hearing in a bid to block reporting of Agent X’s crimes.
They said they could not confirm his status, even though a BBC reporter had a recording of a senior MI5 official claiming legal authority to tell her that X was the service’s agent.
It has now issued an “unreserved apology” to the BBC and all three courts, describing what happened as a “serious error.”
British chancellor Rachel Reeves has backed ‘catastrophic’ plans to build a third runway at Heathrow | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer appear happy to pursue growth at any cost – including the destruction of the planet
Last weekend the temperature at the North Pole was 20℃ above average, taking it above ice’s melting point in what was described as “a very extreme winter warming event” by Mika Rantanen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Four days later, things got worse still. The Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that last month was the warmest January ever recorded at 1.75℃ hotter than pre-industrial times. This is especially worrying since scientists expected temperatures to fall this year as La Nina took over from the previous year’s El Nino. We now face the worrying possibility that the impact of cooling La Ninas might be declining.
Amid these developments, British chancellor Rachel Reeves has backed plans to build a third runway at Heathrow, which climate campaigners warn would be “catastrophic”, and reports have emerged that she is also poised to support the opening of the giant Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea, which energy secretary Ed Miliband has described as “climate vandalism”.
Reeves’ drive for economic growth at the expense of the planet is a far cry from the strong green agenda that the Labour Party seemed to favour ahead of last year’s general election.
Labour’s apparent change of heart unfortunately coincides with Donald Trump taking office in the US. The climate science community is now braced for the impact of Trump’s newly appointed Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, running a coach and horses through the US foreign aid programme.
Trump’s administration has also already started removing or downgrading mentions of climate change from federal government web pages – a sign that we are in a worse position than a decade ago after the 2015 Paris climate summit, when there were indications that the dangers of climate breakdown were at last being appreciated at higher political levels.
Now, one of the world’s leading climate specialists, professor James Hansen of Columbia University, says that the international target agreed upon at the Paris summit of limiting global temperature rises to 2℃ is “dead”. The pace of global heating had been “significantly underestimated”, he explained.
The fossil carbon states and corporations with their coal, oil and gas markets, meanwhile, are more certain about their prospects and happy to promote their wares with enthusiasm. There were 2,500 oil, gas and coal lobbyists at the 2023 Dubai COP28 climate summit, four times as many as attended the previous year in Egypt.
If forced onto the defensive, fossil fuel giants have several options. One is to move the focus away from mitigation to adaptation, another is to boost the potential of carbon capture and storage, and yet another is geoengineering.
Then, if all else fails they can fall back on direct air capture; removing carbon from the air once it is dispersed in the atmosphere, rather than as it is emitted. In other words, we should accept the likelihood of an “overshoot” of carbon emissions and hope that future technologies can save the day!
None of these scenarios has any current relevance as none can be developed in anything remotely like the time available given the speed of climate breakdown. There has to be urgent political change at the highest level to engage in emergency decarbonisation.
At a lower level, there is some good news at least. The cost of producing electricity from renewable sources is continuing to fall and the whole process of embracing renewables could accelerate if just one or two countries demonstrated just how quickly change can come.
The UK is in a hugely favoured position to do so, having huge scope to expand land-based wind and solar power as well as offshore wind. That should be one of the British government’s two absolute priorities, the other being a rapid programme of home and workplace insulation.
Further moves would be an immediate tightening up of house building regulations requiring much higher levels of insulation together with grants and loans for home environmental improvements. Transition to electrical vehicles should be accelerated along with much expansion of public transport.
Changes in agriculture must be brought in to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, with methane emission control frequently being overlooked. Air and marine transport must also be subject to far greater emissions control. Any plans to expand existing airports must be abandoned as nonsensical, and subsidies for oil and gas production should be transferred to renewables.
All this, and much more, would cost money, and a lot of it, but there is plenty of that around, readily available from many sources including rigorous control of tax evasion and avoidance, together with new wealth taxes. If climate breakdown is recognised for what it is, the greatest threat to UK security, then the entire ‘defence’ budget should be rethought in this light. More than this, any government that recognises the challenge facing every one of us would see the need to borrow to help fund the response.
So, what of Labour so far? Regrettably, there is little to applaud despite the efforts of a rather isolated few on the front benches and a handful of backbenchers such as Clive Lewis. The party’s brave words of a year ago are difficult to find and Labour is now about growth at almost any cost – destruction of the planet included. The lobby brigade is winning.
Even carbon capture and nuclear power are now hailed by the Labour government as part of the answer even though the first is unproven and the second will take decades to bring in while we only have years, not decades, to make the change.
Perhaps Labour will come to its senses as climate disasters accelerate but it is now a party that has lost any sense of mission. It has forgotten its history, how a Labour government of the late 1940s took on seemingly impossible tasks and succeeded in many respects against the odds. Can the party change now? Perhaps, but don’t hold your breath.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Four UN Special Rapporteurs have written jointly to the UK government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act. They state that those persecuted:
appear to have no credible connection to “terrorist” or “hostile” activity
The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross (Ganyukova), John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray (yes, me), Richard Barnard and Richard Medhurst. The UN letter is signed by:
Ben Saul Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
Irene Khan Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
Gina Romero Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
Ana Brian Nougrères Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy
Under this UN special procedure, the letter is sent to the government in question which has sixty days to respond. This letter was sent by the UN to Starmer’s government on 4 December. No reply having been received, it has now been published.
It is worth noting that even with the UN letter on its desk and ignored, Starmer’s government in fact stepped up the use of the Terrorism Act against pro-Palestinian journalists and activists in this period. The cases of Asa Winstanley, Sarah Wilkinson and Tony Greenstein, among others, happened after the letter was drafted.
I should be clear that I was, working with Justice for All International (for which we had a crowdfunder last year in relation to the Assange case at the UN), heavily involved in assisting with preparation of this initiative, and made three visits to the UN in Geneva on the subject together with Sharof Azizov, and on one occasion Richard Medhurst. Your subscriptions and donations to this blog are the only funding I have to make such activity possible, so thank you.
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There is no sign the UN has given the Starmer government pause; human rights are extremely low on their agenda. Support for Israel and the crushing of pro-Palestinian sentiment, or of any criticism of western foreign policy, is extremely high on their agenda.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
The Prime Minister is facing a growing internal backlash from Labour MPs after Treasury sources indicated Rachel Reeves is likely to give her backing for the proposed Rosebank development (Image: PA/Henry Nicholls)
WESTMINSTER politicians are reportedly at “breaking point” with Keir Starmer over the potential of approving a new oil and gas field in the North Sea.
The Prime Minister is facing a growing internal backlash from Labour MPs after Treasury sources indicated Rachel Reeves is likely to give her backing for the proposed Rosebank development.
MPs have reportedly called for Starmer to reiterate his own commitments to no further oil and gas licences.
Last week a judge ruled the Rosebank development, which was given the green light by the previous Tory administration, as unlawful following a legal challenge brought by Greenpeace and Uplift.
Previously the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, described the licence issued to Rosebank as “climate vandalism”.
Reeves is reportedly supportive of a new application for environmental consent for the North Sea development, despite Labour’s manifesto promising not to issue any new exploration licences.
MPs who are concerned about the climate emergency are reported to be likely to make their appeals directly to Keir Starmer about the importance of being seen to stand by the party’s manifesto commitment of no new oil and gas licences.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a visit to Premier Modular in Driffield, Humberside, January 30, 2025
SOLOMON HUGHES examines how Labour has gone from blaming Tory deregulation for our economic woes to betting the nation’s future on more of it
WHEN Keir Starmer finally got his prime ministerial phone call with President Trump on Sunday, according to Number 10 the two “discussed trade and the economy, with the Prime Minister setting out how we are deregulating to boost growth.”
Which is odd, because the word “deregulation” isn’t in the Labour manifesto. In fact, before the election Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds argued deregulation was a Tory sin that didn’t bring growth.
Starmer was telling Trump the truth — Labour are pressing regulators to let business do what it wants in the desperate hope they will get some “growth” to drag up their low polling. But why does Keir tell Trump the truth before British voters?
Perhaps aware that they had stumbled into openly admitting they are a “deregulation” government, despite previous promises, Starmer finally decided to lay this out by writing in The Times, making a Tory argument in the Tory press.
In his Times article Starmer admitted: “This may seem like an unusual goal for Labour politicians. But deregulation is now essential for realising Labour ambitions in this era.”
He referred admiringly to Thatcher’s deregulation and launched into purple prose about the need to hack at “thickets of red tape” to “clear out the regulatory weeds and allow a new era of British growth to bloom” and “curb regulator overreach.”
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
