Non-return trip to Manichea

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Tour diary: Blair in Middle East: "the prime minister's appetite for Manichean rhetoric is growing.

In his view, the world is divided between the forces of democracy and modernisation and the forces of reaction and extremism. It's a black and white, good versus evil vision that inspires equal amounts of wonder and ridicule."

Times raises spectre of a Watergate for Blair

It's speculative, but it sadly has the ring of truth.

No 10 investigated for perversion of justice - Britain - Times Online: "“It has been noted that when the Watergate scandal forced President Nixon to resign, it was the cover-up, not the burglary, that brought him down. What these people should remember is that they are not dealing with a parliamentary inquiry; this is a criminal investigation and anyone failing to co-operate is participating in a criminal offence.”"

Blair questioned in honours probe

BBC NEWS | News Front Page: "Prime Minister Tony Blair has been interviewed by police investigating allegations of cash for honours."

Good. Hope that they are staying serious - because on the face of it he looks as though he has a case to answer.

Nick Robinson gives the spin that because he wasn't under caution, it is unlikely he will ever be charged.

Nick Robinson BBC blog

"That is a key point - because if the police had any suspicion that Tony Blair might in the end have charges brought against him, they would be under a legal obligation to caution him (i.e. to read out the traditional caution that anything that he said might be used in evidence against him)."

I hope this doesn't mean the cops are going to be soft on him.

Full marks still to Angus McNeil MP for getting this out in the open, so far as it is already anyway.

Blair legacy: destruction of Labour

The legacy: the complete destruction of the Labour Party!

Blair supports plan to weaken unions' grip on party, MPs told | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics: "Downing Street insisted last night that no recommendations have yet been made by the Phillips inquiry. But according to some critical sources inside the Labour party, Sir Hayden is openly touting these plans with Downing Street backing."

Arab Strap, ABC, Glasgow, Monday 4 December 2006

Published in the Morning Star
(Friday 08 December 2006)

That's how it ends

LIVE: Arab Strap

ABC, Glasgow

SO, the Arab Strap farewell tour ends here at the Glasgow ABC. There are quite a few plump guys with beards in for the last-ever gig and you get the feeling that Arab Strap - aka Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton - know their audience.

The recorded intro is a radio report describing how the band once shocked the citizens of their hometown Falkirk. It features a local burgher, who claims: "There's two ways to get on in showbiz. One is to be outrageous, the other is to have talent and, obviously, they have nothing of the latter."

Then they're off - beat, beat, beat, beat. If people were expecting post-folk, as Arab Strap are often labelled, they are to be disappointed, at least not until close to the encores.

With drums, bass and second guitar, this "last Arab Strap band" whip up a hefty rock show. Well, it would be, if it wasn't for the fact that Moffat is singing his Scots vernacular poems of shiftless ordinariness in a deep, almost tuneless voice somewhere between Leonard Cohen and Irvine Welsh.

It's low key - literally - even though he looks like a pop Pavarotti, plump, bearded and wiping sweat from his body with a cloth wrapped around his wrist.

They scoot pretty much through the recent Ten Years of Tears retrospective/retirement album.

Among the "old songs," Moffat introduces Gilded, which stated some variously fulfilled ambitions: "We did make the cover of the NME, though we've never had any hits, as such, and I've never snorted coke off a supermodel's tits - much though I'd like to."

There Is No Ending, the closing song from the final album The Last Romance, is the cue for thanks to their record label, Chemikal Underground, to cheers. As the gig reaches its peak, balloons fall from above and the punters pop them.

Then, The First Big Weekend returns from 1996 like Groundhog Day, at the end of the Arab Strap adventure. "Went out for the weekend and it lasted forever..."

Their first encores are an acoustic minigig. In the second encore, it's finally just the two of them again, Moffat and Middleton.

Moffat dedicates Packs of Three to his mother. The audience sings along to the better-known bawdy bits. Nice boys, eh?

And there they go, the bearded laddies. Talented, but outrageous no longer. Laconic, not demonic. Ironic, certainly. Iconic? Maybe - in a downbeat, low-key, indie kind of a way.

MALCOLM BURNS

Links

Arab Strap site:
www.arabstrap.co.uk

Chemikal Underground
www.chemikal.co.uk

Subscribe to the Morning Star online

www.morningstaronline.co.uk

For peace and socialism - the only socialist daily paper in the English language

A consultant writes: anti-PFI letter in Herald

from The Herald letters page, Friday 8 Dec, a letter by a hospital consultant on why PFI is rubbish, and is destroying the NHS:

FOR students of the NHS in Scotland the renascent arguments over PFI are disappointingly familiar. The decision to finance Edinburgh Royal and the Lanarkshire hospitals by a PFI was taken before the Scottish Parliament was reconvened, by the Scottish Health Ministry in Westminster. Sam Galbraith, an old Labour Minister and surprisingly a former NHS doctor, drove this decision through against widespread contrary opinion. A contemporary series of articles in the British Medical Journal comprehensively destroyed any argument for PFI and predicted widespread financial harm to other NHS services as PFI costs rose disproportionately. The present situation was clearly foreseen, but ignored by the Labour government first in London and later in Holyrood. It must be clear where the blame lies.

The present Scottish Executive are "encouraged" to continue with PFI by the Labour government in London, despite the process in England being widely discredited and leading to the present financial catastrophe facing the NHS in England, leading eventually to full privatisation. It may be that the only way to resist the advance of PFI and privatisation in the NHSiS is to decouple the Scottish Executive from the malign influences of the UK Labour Party and government.

It is unfortunate that the people of Lanarkshire are suffering the consequences of PFI, but not all of the present concerns over A&E provision in the county are consequences of that process. Fifteen years ago it was apparent that Law and Hairmyres Hospitals had to be replaced. A sensible and financially affordable option of a new large Lanarkshire hospital was proposed on a site at or near Strathclyde Park, close to major roads and at the "sick centre" of Lanarkshire. This hospital would have been able to support all acute clinical services, a large and modern A&E department and could have been a major centre of excellence. But the politicians, public and press local to the old hospitals could not be persuaded to give up "their" hospitals and the health board gave in to such local pressure, and under orders from Galbraith and the Treasury chose two PFI hospitals on the the wrong sites with unsustainable clinical services.

Within three years of opening, Hairmyres Hospital has lost several major surgical specialities to Wishaw, and one Lanarkshire hospital may be closed. No excuses of the effect of the European Working Time Directive, changes in junior doctors' hours and training, lack of staff, etc, can be sustained as all of these processess were known and their effects predicted from the mid-nineties. The public and politicians, and their appointed health board, are all culpable in the decisions which have led to the present situation. Medical advice was ignored and no analyses of future developments were made or considered. No real thought was given to anything beyond very short-term electoral gratification.

As Professor Allyson Pollock and colleagues have illustrated, the people and politicians of Lanarkshire will have to live and possibly die with the consequences of their decisions for the next 30 years, after which who knows? The NHS will not own either of the two Lanarkshire hospitals after paying £41m annually. PFI is not a mortgage. The argument from politicians that the NHS will be free to give up these then out-of-date hospitals and go elsewhere is incredible. Which of us would pay a mortgage and not expect to own our house at the end of the term?

What can be learned from this debacle? Local politicians cannot be trusted with the hard decisions about the facilities for the provision of health care. The public must try not to be seduced by hysterical stories of "death in the ambulance", but must try to understand the whole picture of emergency and elective health care.

I know many do but their voices are often drowned out. Professor David Kerr has recently expressed disappointment that when the crunch comes public and politicians will not listen to reasoned argument from professionals whom they trust with their lives, but whom they do not trust when those professionals plan the bigger picture. Many of the public and press are blinded by scare stories about A&E, and can be mobilised by these but seem unwilling to consider future healthcare provision in total.

If we in Scotland cannot face up to the realities of the provision of health-care in the 21st century we are destined to see the privatisation and breakdown of the NHS as we have known it, and all of us will be the poorer.

Gavin R Tait, FRCSG, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock

Read it and weep

The Iraq Study group report, very well worth a read.
Fucking depressing though.

"I'm with stupid"

Bush and Blair to respond to ISG report | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

I keep having to pinch myself to believe that this stuff is real. The leaders of the world. The leader of my party.

Arab Strap, ABC, 4 December

Went to see Arab Strap on Monday with Liam and Neil. I'd promised the Morning Star a review, this is what I sent in.

REVIEW:

Arab Strap, ABC, Glasgow
Monday, December 4, 2006
By Malcolm Burns


So, the Arab Strap farewell tour ends here at the Glasgow ABC. There's quite a few plump guys with beards in for the last ever gig. You get the feeling Arab Strap - aka Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton - know their audience.

The recorded intro is a radio report describing how the band once shocked the citizens of their hometown, Falkirk. It features a local burgher who claims: "There's two ways to get on in showbiz, one is to be outrageous, the other is to have talent, and obviously they have nothing of the latter."

Then they're off: beat beat beat beat - rock. If you were expecting post-folk, as they are often labelled, you didn't get it (almost till the encores). With drums, bass and second guitar, this "last Arab Strap band" whip up a hefty rock show. Well, it would be, if it wasn't for the fact that Moffat is singing his Scots vernacular poems of shiftless ordinariness in a deep, almost tuneless voice, somewhere between Leonard Cohen and Irvine Welsh. It's low key - literally - even though he looks like a pop Pavarotti, plump, bearded and wiping sweat with a cloth wrapped around his wrist.

They scoot pretty much through the recent Ten Years of Tears retrospective/retirement album.

Among the "old songs", Moffat introduces Gilded, which stated some variously fulfilled ambitions: "We did make the cover of the NME, though we've never had any hits, as such, and I've never snorted coke off a supermodel's tits - much though I'd like to."

There Is No Ending, closing song from the final album The Last Romance, is a cue for thanks to their record label, Chemikal Underground - to cheers. As the gig reaches its peak, balloons fall from above and the punters pop them.

And then The First Big Weekend returns from 1996 like Groundhog Day at the end of the Arab Strap adventure. "Went out for the weekend and it lasted forever..."

Their first encores are an acoustic mini gig. In the second encore, it's finally just the two of them again, Aidan and Malcolm.

Moffat dedicates Packs of Three to his mother. The audience sings along to the better known bawdy bits. Nice boys, eh?

And there they go, the bearded laddies. Talented, but not, any longer, outrageous. Laconic, not demonic. Ironic, certainly. Iconic? Maybe... in a downbeat, low key, indie kind of a way.


ends
408 words


web links:

Arab Strap site:
www.arabstrap.co.uk

Chemikal Underground
www.chemikal.co.uk

Article by Aidan Moffat in Sunday Herald
www.sundayherald.com
"I suppose you have to get it out of your system when you're young but it doesn't take long to realise that good manners and kindness are the way forward."
"We never did become the kind of rock stars we'd read about, but I would genuinely rather mean a lot to a little that a little to a lot, and at least we have the sense to split up while we still sound good."

Whose interest is served?

In bed with Russophobes | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: "In the absence of genuine evidence of Russian state involvement in the killings of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya, we should be wary about jumping on a bandwagon orchestrated by the people who bought death and destruction to the streets of Baghdad, and whose aim is to neuter any counterweight to the most powerful empire ever seen."

"The cost of privatisation will haunt us for years to come"

Excellent piece by Kelvin Hopkins MP in grauniad

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The cost of privatisation will haunt us for years to come: "Beyond the Iraq war, nothing has dismayed Labour supporters more than the government's relentless determination to privatise public services. This is a policy - driven by dogma and the siren voices of the global corporations - for which there is, in reality, no logic. The government's obsession with the private finance initiative - a Tory concept - is irrational and should be abandoned."

It's civil war - sort of official

White House on defensive as US media breaks taboo to declare conflict 'civil war' | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: "The New York Times and Los Angeles Times have been using the phrase for a while without fanfare, but on Monday NBC News used one of its best-known presenters, Matt Lauer, to declare the network's semantic defiance of the White House. 'After careful consideration, NBC News has decided a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq, with armed, militarised factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterised as civil war,' Lauer, the host of the Today show, said.

Bill Keller, the New York Times' executive editor, said: 'It's hard to argue that this war does not fit the generally accepted definition of civil war.'"

Sheridan may be Big Brother's red star

Scotsman.com News - Big Brother TV show - Sheridan may be Big Brother's red star: "TOMMY Sheridan could star in the next series of Celebrity Big Brother.

The Solidarity leader is said to have held talks with Channel 4 to appear in the next series of the show, which starts in January, for a fee of £30,000."

ho ho ho

Housing bubble, toil and trouble

BBC NEWS | Business | Why is it so expensive to buy a house?: "Thanks to successive government policies, hardly any new council houses have been built for the last 20 years.

Some people who might once have rented have been more or less forced to buy instead.

Tony Key, Professor of real estate economics at the Cass Business school in London, said this under supply of housing has led to a huge distortion in the UK property market.

'Somewhere around the mid 1980s we stopped building council houses and we didn't fill in the gap.

'There's been a group of people who might logically be renters who have been forced into being owner occupiers,' said Professor Key."

Blair is mad

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Blair is wildly exaggerating the threat posed by terrorism: "After 1990 many hoped that an age of stable peace might dawn. Rich nations might disarm and combine to help the poor, advancing the cause of global responsibility. Instead two of history's most internationalist states, America and Britain, have returned to the trough of conflict, chasing a chimera of 'world terrorism', and at ludicrous expense. They have brought death and destruction to a part of the globe that posed no strategic threat. Now one of them, Tony Blair, stands in a patch of desert to claim that 'world security in the 21st century' depends on which warlord controls it. Was anything so demented?"

I commented as follows in response to another commenter's question:

That Blair's grip on reality is loose, if not lost, is demonstrated day after day, week after week. Simon Jenkins' article has that nailed.

gulfbridge asks a very pertinent question:

"Why is this lunatic still Prime Minister of Great Britain? Why hasn’t his party applied pressure for the handover to Brown to happen now rather than later?"

The fact is that Blair is actually being forced out of office - exactly by his party.

Has this happened as quickly as it could have happened? No, perhaps not. I, as a Labour party member, certainly wish it had happened sooner. But happening it certainly is.

I am hopeful that the new dispensation will be less crazy than the current one. I'm not a Brown fan either, but I can't see him - or anyone else for that matter - driving on with the peculiar Blair insanity. "

Blair admits Iraq 'a disaster'

horses mouth

Al Jazeera English - Europe

'It has' been 'pretty much of a disaster'

bloody hell

Intervention in Iraq 'pretty much of a disaster' admits Blair, as minister calls it his 'big mistake' | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics: "Tony Blair conceded last night that western intervention in Iraq had been a disaster. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV station, the prime minister agreed with the veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost when he suggested that intervention had 'so far been pretty much of a disaster'."

Filling their boots

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The Farepak scandal lays bare a gross inequality:

"If ever there was a moment for Labour ministers to open the debate on gross inequality, Farepak is it. Instead, silence from them all - again."

Polly Toynbee in the Grauniad, worth a read.

Pomo promo

You'll like this... Communications From Elsewhere »

and if you do, you'll maybe even prefer/remember this:

Papers by Alan Sokal on the "Social Text Affair"

Or, to quote myself, "the end of history is foucault to me" (Malky, 1981)

Gender and class - mind the gap

Pay gap between the sexes narrowest ever | Business news | Guardian Unlimited Money: "The pay gap between men and women has narrowed to the smallest on record, official data showed yesterday, as the rise in women's wages again outstripped that of men. But while the pay gap between the sexes is narrowing, women's hourly rate of pay is still 12.6% below that of men, down from 13% in 2005.

Average weekly pay for men was £487 in April, up by 3.5% on a year earlier, while pay for women was up 4.2% to £387. Across the board, average salaries have risen by 3% this year to £23,600, but the gap between rich and poor is continuing to grow, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) annual survey showed."

Denied

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | A cloistered metropolitan elite is in denial about Britain: "it's worth repeating some statistics: not just the fact that 12 million Britons live on or below the poverty line, defined in the case of a two-adult household at £180 per week, but some rather less-quoted numbers. In August unemployment hit a six-year peak of 1.68 million, spurred on by a big fall in the number of manufacturing jobs, now at an all-time low. Contrary to the idea that buying in and trading up are within everyone's reach, one in three of us still live in rented accommodation; according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a third of all working households containing people under 40 'cannot afford to buy even at the low end of local housing markets'."

och well...

normblog: Failure in Iraq: "whatever should now happen in Iraq, the war that I've supported has failed according to one benchmark of which I'm in a position to be completely certain.

That is, had I been able to foresee, in January and February 2003, that the war would have the results it has actually had in the numbers of Iraqis killed and the numbers now daily dying, with the country (more than three years down the line) on the very threshold of civil war if not already across that threshold, I would not have felt able to support the war and I would not have supported it. Measured, in other words, against the hopes of what it might lead to and the likelihoods as I assessed them, the war has failed. Had I foreseen a failure of this magnitude, I would have withheld my support. Even then, I would not have been able to bring myself to oppose the war. As I have said two or three times before, nothing on earth could have induced me to march or otherwise campaign for a course of action that would have saved the Baathist regime. But I would have stood aside."

A case to hold leaders accountable

Lest we forget: an arresting case to hold leaders accountable: "The PM and the president will go down as two of the worst leaders in modern history, and the greatest threats to world peace since Slobodan Milosevic. It is likely that a new and dangerous round of nuclear proliferation will be one of the unintended consequences of Iraq ."

Iain Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald calls for Bush and Blair to be held to account. I agree.

If I disagree with anything here it is that they are far greater threats than Milosevic ever was, and indeed it would be easy enough to make a case that they have been more dangerous than all of their putative enemeies, Al Qaeda, Saddam, Iran, Syria, North Korea added together.

Grim reality

I'm not sure if the headline below is exactly correct, some months or years of blood yet to flow I fear, arising out of the Iraq adventure, and Jenkins' article puts more faith in the American political system today than clearly it warranted in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and so far this year... But the factual meat of the piece is shocking. What has been done is shocking. And I agree with at least one conclusion here: that Blair is mad.

America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Guardian

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq: "The Baker report on an exit strategy from Iraq, leaked this week in the US, is as sensible as it is sensational. It rejects "staying the course" as no longer plausible and purports to seek alternatives to just "cutting and running". Stripped of political sweetening, it concludes that there is none. America must leave Iraq without preconditions and hope that its neighbours, hated Syria and Iran, can clear up the mess...

...

The UNHCR estimates 365,000 internal refuges in Iraq this year alone. More are seeking asylum abroad than from any other nation.
A third of Iraq's professional class is reported to have fled to Jordan, a flight of skills worse than under Saddam. UN monitors now report 2,000 people a day are crossing the Syrian border. Over a hundred lecturers at Baghdad university alone have been murdered, mostly for teaching women. There are few places in Iraq where women can go about unattended or unveiled. Gunmen arrived earlier this month at a Baghdad television station and massacred a dozen of the staff, an incident barely thought worth reporting. The national museum is walled up. Electricity supply is down to four hours a day. No police uniform can be trusted. The arrival anywhere of an army unit can be prelude to a mass killing and makes a mockery of the American policy of 'security transfer'. All intelligence out of Iraq suggests this is no longer a functioning state.

...

Three years ago America went to war on a lie, a wing and a prayer. That war has clearly failed and consensus is disintegrating.

...

Downing Street is intellectually numb, like a forgotten outpost of a crumbling Roman empire. It can see the barbarians at the gates yet it dare not respond as it knows it should because no new instructions have arrived from Rome.

...

Blair's last comment on Iraq was that any withdrawal would be "craven surrender" and would endanger British security. This is mad."

Ruth Kelly will be mortified!

It's not just a legacy for Blair...

And worth repeating from Ian Bell's piece is this

"Things might have been otherwise. The single interesting claim in David Blunkett's recently-serialised, entirely self-pitying memoirs is that Blair was ready to sack Gordon Brown in 2003 if the chancellor failed to support the war. Brown, says the former home secretary, decided to back down for the sake of his job.
Consider, if the claim is true, what might have been. What if Brown had kept his courage and chosen to resign? How many among a cowed cabinet might have seized the moment and followed? Could Blair have survived to legitimise the Bush invasion plan? If not, could the plan have then proceeded? I doubt it. "

Blair’s foreign policy blown apart

As usual, this great writer puts it exactly right:

Ian Bell in The Herald, Saturday 14 October, 2006

"General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, spent a good deal of time yesterday trying to find a reverse gear for the tank he had just parked on Tony Blair's lawn.
Had the general said that British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq "sometime soon"? Had he said that our presence "exacerbates the security problems"? Had he called pre-war planning for the aftermath of occupation "poor", the hopes for Iraqi democracy "naive", suggested that we should "aim for a lower ambition", and accepted that Iraqi consent for our activities, if any, "has largely turned to intolerance"?
Yes, he had. Requesting a better grasp of context, and qualifying his remarks furiously, the general was soon re-learning an old military lesson: once launched, a barrage stays launched. Direct hits on Blair's foreign policy had been scored.
Yesterday morning, nevertheless, Dannatt wanted the world to know that withdrawal "soon" would involve familiar platitudes. It meant a pull-out after the job was done, not before Iraq's elected government could attend to its own security, and certainly not if there was a risk of handing a victory to the insurgency.
Still, the general, having enjoyed the top job only since August, was unable to gainsay his own words in the Daily Mail. We had not been "welcomed by being invited into a country", namely Iraq. As Dannatt put it: "Let's face it, the military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in."
Nor had things gone well since: "The hope that we might be able to get out of Iraq in 12, 18, 24 months after the initial start … has proved fallacious. Now hostile elements have got a hold it has made our life much more difficult in Baghdad and Basra."
Anyone can quibble over language, but it is safe to say that these are not the words Downing Street and the White House would have chosen. The Pentagon's plans for a "draw-down" of forces in Iraq are on hold, for an unspecified period. George Bush has spoken of an occupation lasting for perhaps another decade. Blair, addressing the Labour Party conference, refused to set a date for withdrawal. Such is the real context of the general's remarks.
It has other aspects. One is that Britain's most senior army officer believes he has inherited a cock-up. Secondly – and this has been the military chatter recently – Dannatt and his brother officers believe the army can "do Afghanistan", a mission he holds to be legitimate, but not when 7200 troops are stuck in Iraq. Thirdly, Blair is now so politically infirm, so bereft of authority, the chief of the general staff believes he can rebel publicly and defy all constitutional practice.
The Bush White House will not be pleased. Britain's involvement in Iraq has been a necessary if not sufficient condition for America's actions. Our troops are useful, not essential, but the symbolism they provide performs the opposite function. Now the pre-eminent voice among our military decides to break ranks, as several of his juniors have already done. With Blair unable to enforce his will – did Dannatt clear his remarks with Downing Street? – Britain begins to seem unreliable.
In one sense, nevertheless, Bush and the general are privy to the same knowledge. The Pentagon manages its dissent differently, but for more than a year, as Dannatt well knows, the message has been the same: where is the exit strategy? The practice in the US is for retired generals to speak as proxies for those still serving. They convey the frontline grumbling and the fears. With Bush predicting a conflict that will endure long beyond the end of his presidency, the complaints are growing louder.
At this point it is customary, at least for this writer, to challenge all those who championed the war. Who was right, we could ask, and who wrong? Will all those who refused to see this coming now explain themselves? Fat chance. That, though, is almost beside the point. One consensus holds between Blair, Bush and the generals. It depends on a single argument with which any of us who opposed the war must deal: what now?
It would be satisfying, no doubt, to hear president and prime minister own up to error and malign intent, but not helpful. They caused the hellish problem, but how is the problem to be solved? If withdrawal means leaving Iraq to death squads, al Qaeda, to civil war, chaos, Balkanisation and the ministrations of Iran and Syria, do we not compound the crime? Blair takes refuge in a version of that question almost weekly.
Menzies Campbell, the Liberal leader, has called for a United Nations protectorate. Nice idea. But who will provide the troops? Not Britain and the US, obviously. Not the European nations who opposed the Iraq adventure in the first place, and whose commitment in Lebanon and Afghanistan has been half-hearted. Not, given a tangle of regional rivalries, the Arab world. There is no UN force ready to save the day.
The answer to Blair's question is brutal, but unavoidable. We should get out now and accept what follows. The longer we stay, the worse things become. Iraq, like the former Yugoslavia, is inherently unstable and will not be held together by force. The Kurds seem more than capable of defending themselves. Shia and Sunni will not be reconciled, meanwhile, thanks to the people for whom – the triumph of the Bush-Blair war – they share a common hatred.
According to the UN, torture in Iraq is now more widespread than in the worst days of Saddam: what hope does that yield? According to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, 655,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion: Bush says the figure is "not credible".
Cluster studies in the field of medical statistics are less reliable than cluster bombs, perhaps. They might sound too close to guesswork. How can a study of 12,801 people, even when selected randomly from across the country, produce a figure of 655,000?
One answer: the researchers requested death certificates. In 92% of cases, these were provided. Given that sort of documentation, it is the scepticism towards the extrapolation that is "not credible". Let's agree, nevertheless, to settle for half the Johns Hopkins figure, or even half again: that's almost 164,000 souls whose futures our leaders failed to secure. So fighting on remains an imperative?
Things might have been otherwise. The single interesting claim in David Blunkett's recently-serialised, entirely self-pitying memoirs is that Blair was ready to sack Gordon Brown in 2003 if the chancellor failed to support the war. Brown, says the former home secretary, decided to back down for the sake of his job.
Consider, if the claim is true, what might have been. What if Brown had kept his courage and chosen to resign? How many among a cowed cabinet might have seized the moment and followed? Could Blair have survived to legitimise the Bush invasion plan? If not, could the plan have then proceeded? I doubt it.
Groucho Marx used to call military intelligence a contradiction in terms, but let's not be harsh on General Dannatt. He has let slip one truth. Here's another: 655,000 Iraqis, and counting."

'I agree with every word that Dannatt said. But he has got to be sacked'

Matthew Parris has an interesting take on the General's strike... his question is whether Blair would sack his new military chief. I think Blair ought to go. It is necessary to release the blockage so our government can start to move away from the insane foreign policy it has pursued under Blair's command.

I agree with every word that Dannatt said. But he has got to be sacked - Comment - Times Online: "The general knows HM Government’s policy in Iraq: the Prime Minister has made it very clear. It is to stay for as long as it takes to establish and guarantee a democracy there. There is absolutely no way this can be reconciled with an imperative to withdraw “some time soon”.

I happen to think the aims of government policy in Iraq are unachiev- able to the point of folly. Clearly the general does too. In which case he has a duty, and then a choice. His duty is privately to warn the Cabinet that he thinks its aims cannot be delivered by the deployment of the troops over which he has command. No doubt this private warning has been given, and ignored.

In which case a chief of general staff has a choice. He can resign; or he can soldier on, determined to do the best he can even though he suspects the attempt is doomed."

Blair gives backing to Army chief

BBC NEWS | UK | Blair gives backing to Army chief: "'I've read his transcript of his interview on the radio this morning, and I agree with every word of it.'"

Blair is mad.

To say that the general's view - the commander of the army - is the same as the governemnt's - or really, now, only just the prime minister's - is impossible. You can't spin or finesse this. Most people agree with the general. Blair isn't one of them.

He's also weak. He should really sack the general.

I've heard some commentators - and most are completely fazed by this intervention, understandably - suggest that the government want the army to say things like this so they can get to a point where they can move out of Iraq and concentrate on "winning" in Afghanistan (no clearer outcome there btw...). Hmmm.

I think the prime minister's inability to sack the general right away is indicative of his paralysed position.

Army chief defends Iraq comments

This is bizarre and phenomenal. He must know what he is saying and why he is saying it.

BBC NEWS | UK | Army chief defends Iraq comments: "In a Daily Mail interview, Sir Richard, who took on his role in August, said UK troops should 'get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems'.

He also said: 'I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them.'

And he said planning for what happened after the initial successful war military offensive was 'poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning'."

Totally at odds with government policy.

'655,000 Iraqis killed since invasion'

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | '655,000 Iraqis killed since invasion': "The mortality rate before the war was 5.5 per 1,000, but since the invasion, it has risen to 13.3 per 1,000 per year, they say. Between June 2005 and June 2006, the mortality rate hit a high of 19.8 per 1,000.

Thus they calculate that 654,965 Iraqis have died as a consequence of the invasion. It is an estimate and the mid-point, and most likely of a range of numbers that could also be correct in the context of their statistical analysis. But even the lowest number in the range - 392,979 - is higher that anyone else has suggested. Of the deaths, 31% were ascribed to the US-led forces. Most deaths were from gunshot wounds (56%), with a further 13% from car bomb injuries and 14% the result of other explosions."

My god. What have they done? Even if these are overestimates, the scale of the Iraq disaster is equivalent to genocide.

Which means this:

"Gordon Brown offered unequivocal public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the final five days, only after deciding that Tony Blair would sack him if he did not, David Blunkett has claimed."
Blunkett: PM was ready to sack Brown over Iraq

means that Gordon Brown made a very bloody miscalculation when Robin Cook was doing the right thing and Clare Short was being shafted.

I wonder what his moral compass tells him now about that?

Tolerating a conundrum - well, not, actually

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Sorry, but we can't just pick and choose what to tolerate: "Now we are having to defend things we disapprove of, such as the glorification of terrorism or, indeed, calls for censorship. The conundrum that one of the things liberals have to tolerate is intolerance hasn't needed to be at the forefront of debates on free expression before. It is now, and it should be."

The rest of this aricle is pretty much what i think. And I'm not a "liberal". However a conundrum - and that is what this quote accurately describes - is not a principle, or even a policy. It is exactly a conundrum: a paradox, a riddle, even a fanciful question.

In reality, being tolerant means refusing to tolerate intolerance. When my kids refuse to share their toys, their intolerance is not tolerated.

Juche = rubbish

North Korea's nuclear policy is not irrational at all: "The background to North Korea's test is that, since the end of the cold war, the nuclear states have tried to impose a double standard, hanging on to nuclear weapons for themselves and their friends while denying them to others. Like alcoholics condemning teenage drinking, the nuclear powers have made the spread of nuclear weapons the terror of our age, distracting attention from their own behaviour. Western leaders refuse to accept that our own actions encourage others to follow suit."

Er... this I agree with largely.

North Korea's foreign policy is rational, at least in that one can see why they have done what they are doing. But...

But... the DPRK makes everything pretty hard for socialists to defend. When I learned about the Juche idea - the supposed ideology of Kim Il Sung - I found it hard not to laugh. In fact, I laughed. It's patent rubbish. Self reliance is no ideology. But some of the romantic rubbish - like how a Juche football team can win, if I remember right it's about attacking them down the wings - was truly pathetic.

(Well, who knows, if we regard Juche as being a meaningless PR construct like "the third way" then i guess it might be something Tony could use try and put some ideological foundation into New Labour.)

What kind of socialist country has a dynasty in charge? Bush to Bush, Clinton to Clinton, I can understand. Kim to Kim to Kim III? That is a monarchy.

And my own view is they should demilitarise, rather than push on with nukes. They can't use them. If they did it would be a genocidal crime. And what is the point of running a military economy forever. I don't think you can build socialism in that way - even if that's what they are trying to do - which i doubt.

A liability

If he's so damn good, why are we so far behind in the polls? Blair's own myth, that he won all these elections for us, isn't true. John Smith would have won in 1997. In fact maybe bigger than Blair. I would have won in 1997. Anyone would, against the hated Tories.

Blair has been less of an asset than the myth holds. And he has increasingly been a liability, as my boy James said after the big speech yesterday.

Polly Toynbee puts it like this:

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Charm and eloquence. But a missed chance: "Yet they know why he must go, for his winning days are over. Many wished he had said goodbye right here, right now, sudden and decisive. These delegates have seen their Labour stronghold councils fall, long-time Labour cities lost, Wales and Scotland in peril, local parties near defunct for lack of members - all poisoned by Iraq and that wider mistrust it came to symbolise."

It's not just Iraq, but the war on terror which symbolises the lack of reality. The conference applauded a lot of rubbish yesterday, as noted by Simon Hoggart:

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Backbench | Simon Hoggart's sketch:
"The speech was well-delivered, and well-received, but it was classic Blair. He could have delivered chunks at any time in the past 12 years. The gist was, as it generally is: 'I'm right, you're wrong, and the voters know it.' On education, reforming the NHS, identity cards and even Iraq he read them a crisp and businesslike lecture. There were the usual verb-free sentences - 79 in all - which in the past implied commitments without making promises. Now they evoke achievements that may or may not have occurred: 'The end of waiting in the NHS. Historic. Transforming secondary schools ... Historic.'
And there were those clunking sentences that make you ask what on earth he could possibly mean, though you haven't time to work it out because the speech has swept on. 'The USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled.' Eh? 'Ten years ago, if we talked pensions, we meant pensioners.' What was that about? 'The danger is failing to understand that New Labour in 2007 won't be New Labour in 1997.' Sorry, run that past me again. 'Ten years on, our advantage is time, our disadvantage, time.' Lost me there, old cock."

The point at which Blair lost touch with reality is not easy to determine since so much of New Labour is newspeak double dutch, but the attempts to justify the war and suggest that the world is safe as a result of this ill advised foreign policy have shown him to be genuinely delusional. Not a good thing for a prime minister.

The response to this stuff is negative and very damaging amongst ordinary people - ie voters - and the very Labour conference delegates who cheered the rubbish described above yesterday couldn't endorse his latest war on terror soundbites with even faint applause.

Not a winner.

Short on common sense

Independent Online Edition > Commentators

Hmmm... nae luck eh?

SDP threat by Blunkett?

Perhaps I'm suffering claustrophobia - I haven't been out much today... but this looks a bit like...

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | No 10: May departure date is speculation: "'It is now in Gordon Brown's - and the Labour party's - best interests for those seeking the prime minister's immediate departure to back off,' Mr Blunkett said.

'This is not only to avoid our opponents exploiting the impression of disintegration and division, but also to avoid the split of our party, which would have lasting consequences."

Another letter calling on Blair to resign, eh?

Ah - no, it's the one I sent last year!

Malky: September 2005: "letter to Tony Blair"

"Fuck off Tony!" it seems they are all saying now. Well, I don't like to say i told you so - but maybe I do. I didn't support him for leader in 1994, never voted for him, think all the Blairism and third way stuff with mandelson et al was basically anti socialist (actually even cold war anti communist - the main similarity with thatcher and not a good one), but also not really that brilliantly thought out or executed.

In my view a cabbage would have won in 1997, it wasn't Blair's triumph, pretty much the whole thing is and always was emperor's clothes. A waste of time and energy which could have been spent doing more useful things in government.

But Afghanistan, Iraq, now Lebanon, next Iran, the bloody, stupid, "war on terror" - that was really stupid. Even in their own terms, bloody stupid. If for no other reason, these are probably millions why he should not be the leader of the Labour Party. What a shite legacy.

Oh well, looks like it's all over now:

"BBC News site - Last Updated: Wednesday, 6 September 2006, 14:46 GMT 15:46 UK
Blair faces wave of resignations
Pressure grows on Tony Blair as seven government members quit over his refusal to name an exit date."

Bye bye tony. However long it takes, it's over.

I would support John McDonnell http://www.john4leader.org.uk/ and I hope he does well, whenever the actual leadership election is.

Obviously Gordon Brown will be the next leader. None of the Anyone But Gordon candidates have the stuffing (ie the votes) to win. Brown has been Tony's right hand man in New Labour, so I don't support him. But - and this only my speculation - after all he fronted up the cash when Tony decided to go mad - I really don't think we'd be in the Iraq mess Blair has created if Brown had been in charge. I just think he's too smart to have gone there. Whether he has the skill and will to extricate the world from this bloody mess, I do doubt.

Anyway, being rid of Blair will be a relief. The point at which Thatcher realised just how much everyone hated her was a queer moment. I think this is similar, if only in that regard.

Why we can’t continue to fight everyone’s wars by Ian Bell

I agree with all of this:

Why we can’t continue to fight everyone’s wars
Ian Bell
The Herald
September 05 2006

Not so long ago, one of our attentive correspondents accused me of making things up. If only I could, at least where Britain's multiplying military tragedies are concerned. I had written that British forces were preparing for their biggest combat operation since the Second World War. The distinction between an operation and a full-blown campaign was overlooked somewhat in the desire to allege fabrication, but I can bite my tongue with the best of them. The claim was not mine, after all.
On August 9, Lieutenant-General David Richards, the British officer commanding Nato forces in Afghanistan, told the BBC World Service of "persistent low-level dirty fighting" in that country. He said that his troops needed more helicopters and more equipment.
He added: "This sort of thing hasn't really happened so consistently, I don't think, since the Korean War or the Second World War." The general went on to report that British soldiers were enduring "days and days of intense fighting, being woken up by yet another attack, and they haven't slept for 24 hours". If any of this was due to my inventiveness alone, the world would be a better place.
The point is, however, that the British public has only just begun to realise that our involvement in Afghanistan is deep, dangerous and likely to get worse before it gets better. The deaths of 14 men on a Nimrod MR2, 12 of them from Kinloss, will seize headlines, and rightly so. The loss of 37 young Britons, seven of them killed in action in the month of August alone, together with "hundreds" of Afghans – as usual, no-one is making a serious effort to count – will nag at our limited attention spans. But if we do not ask questions now, we never will.
Why are we in Afghanistan, precisely? The Ministry of Defence has already issued a stout rebuttal to several claims – one attributed last week to a "senior civil servant" – to the effect that the risks have been "insufficiently communicated". The brass can, meanwhile, only hint that a force of 5800 service people, 4200 in Helmand province, is undermanned and under-equipped to take on the Taliban. The idea that John Reid, then Defence Secretary, was somewhat cavalier in his description of the job, meanwhile, sends the MoD into a huff.
But the deaths go on. As I write, another Briton is reported killed, with a second seriously injured, in Kabul. Why? In mourning the Nimrod deaths, David Cameron of the Tories said that there is an urgent need to prevent Afghanistan once again becoming "a failed narco-state and global exporter of terrorism". The initial, official description of the British task involved training Afghan security forces, providing and protecting reconstruction aid, and suppressing the drugs trade.
Reportedly, nevertheless, there has been a 59% increase in opium cultivation since our troops were put in harm's way. Of the forces available, only 700 to 800 are designated for combat against an enemy that saw off the Red Army with – let's not begin to touch on ironies – American-supplied Stinger missiles. The Nimrod MR2 has been in service since the 1980s and is not, to put it no higher, state of the art. Before we begin to debate the need to support Hamid Karzai's elected government, we should ask whether the need can be met, and whether it is Britain's duty to return to an imperial killing ground.
The British Army will never accept that it cannot cope: such is the ethos. The military also insists that casualties among "insurgents" far exceed British losses, thus far, in this war of attrition. But it is also accepted that an Iraq effect is being witnessed in the Afghan hills. Foreign fighters – Chechen, Syrian, Egyptian, Pakistani, Yemeni, Saudi and even British – are being identified. Is anyone surprised? Osama bin Laden earned his tin badge, after all, in an earlier Afghani fight against the infidels.
Prior to the deployment of troops in Helmand, largely to reduce the pressure on America's overstretched forces, the usual leaks suggested that the generals harboured deep forebodings. They were warning the politicians, so it was said, that Afghanistan could become very messy indeed. Now those same, unattributable voices can be heard expressing surprise and dismay. It is worse than even they imagined it might be.
The Taliban has not only put up a fight, but seems to have welcomed the challenge in its lust for martyrdom, paradise and self-determination. Its fighters know that the west cares little about Afghan deaths, but they understand how a savage blow to a community such as Kinloss sends its ripples of grief and bewilderment through a small country. After Iraq, after Lebanon, Afghanistan is of a piece with one Prime Minister's recklessness.
I try to avoid sounding like an armchair field marshal, believe it or not. For all that, I understand two simple things. First is that headline casualty figures do not begin to describe the effects of constant warfare. An entire generation of British service people, particularly in the army, is being scarred to its soul by unremitting combat for the sake of causes "insufficiently communicated". The squaddies do not fully understand their mission, but they understand deceit, a lack of adequate equipment and political madness.
I grasp a second truism: do not start a war that you cannot win. Islamists of whatever stripe, in Iraq, Afghanistan or Lebanon, have identified a fundamental weakness in western militarism. Britons are back in the great game as part of a "Nato-led international operation to bring stability" to the many Afghans who despise the lunacy of the Taliban.
But as Israel has just learned, you cannot overwhelm a guerrilla movement unless you elect to overwhelm an entire country, an entire population. How many "boots on the ground" might that require, do we think?
Put it no higher: more boots than Britain can summon, not least when another pair of young men have just been killed in Basra thanks to a roadside bomb and a lack of armoured plating. None of this is intended to undermine morale. The realities of life and death for no obvious purpose in foreign fields will do that job, whatever I write or think. All we possess, in our mostly-safe European home, is the right to question a huge cost in blood and treasure for no identified reason.
Set a few failed states to rights? I could give you a list. Afghanistan would feature no higher than the middle of the table. Trust our leaders? I could offer chapter and verse. Quoting one's own copy is a deplorable habit, but I wrote several things before the Iraq war was launched. One said that no weapons of mass destruction existed. Another said that civil war would follow an incursion with a grisly inevitability. If only it had been me, rather than our Prime Minister, who resorted to making things up.
We cannot fight everyone's wars. As things stand, Britain's armed forces, for all their nuclear pomp, cannot fight one police action, far less two, in places in which we are not welcome. Afghanistan is bad, and about to become very much worse. For the sake of suffering Kinloss, we need to begin to pay attention.

"He's not the Messiah he's just a very naughty boy."

Posted by "Alice" on the Scotsman discussion forum under this report of TS's new party...

Scotsman.com News - Sheridan takes a new left turn and aims for Holyrood: "He's not the Messiah he's just a very naughty boy."

Ho ho ho
rofl

The dakota is on the runway

BBC NEWS | Technology | Norwich pioneers free city wi-fi

Forrest would have been excited.
:'-(
but :-) too.

Ditch Blair now

says neal Lawson of Compass in the Guardian.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Labour will lose the next election if it isn't brave enough to ditch Blair now: "In the world-view of the Blairites this is still a conservative country that we have to accommodate to."

This world view is - always was, Compassites! - flawed, and increasingly just wrong. Optimism of the intellect, optimism of the will!!!

2 more reasons to oppose US capitalism

Two separate pieces in the good old Grauniad caught my eye this morning, by Duncan Campbell and Naomi Klein respectively.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US accused of bid to oust Chávez with secret funds: "The US government has been accused of trying to undermine the Chávez government in Venezuela by funding anonymous groups via its main international aid agency.
Millions of dollars have been provided in a 'pro-democracy programme' that Chávez supporters claim is a covert attempt to bankroll an opposition to defeat the government.
The money is being provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Office of Transition Initiatives. The row follows the recent announcement that the US had made $80m (£42m) available for groups seeking to bring about change in Cuba, whose leader, Fidel Castro, is a close ally of Mr Chávez."

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Disaster capitalism: how to make money out of misery: "I call it the Disaster Capitalism Complex. Whatever you might need in a serious crunch, these contractors can provide it: generators, watertanks, cots, port-a-potties, mobile homes, communications systems, helicopters, medicine, men with guns.
This state-within-a-state has been built almost exclusively with money from public contracts, including the training of its staff (overwhelmingly former civil servants, politicians and soldiers). Yet it is all privately owned; taxpayers have absolutely no control over it or claim to it. So far, that reality hasn't sunk in because while these companies are getting their bills paid by government contracts, the Disaster Capitalism Complex provides its services to the public free of charge.
But here's the catch: the US government is going broke, in no small part thanks to this kind of loony spending. The national debt is $8 trillion; the federal budget deficit is at least $260bn. That means that sooner rather than later the contracts are going to dry up. Insiders call it the 'homeland security bubble'.
When it bursts, firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and Blackwater will lose their primary revenue stream. They will still have all their hi-tech gear giving them the ability to respond to disasters, while the government will have let that precious skill wither away - but now they will rent back the tax-funded infrastructure at whatever price they choose.
Here's a snapshot of what could be in store in the not-too-distant future: helicopter rides off rooftops in flooded cities at $5,000 a pop ($7,000 for families, pets included), bottled water and 'meals ready to eat' at $50 a head (steep, but that's supply and demand), and a cot in a shelter with a portable shower (show us your biometric ID, developed on a lucrative homeland security contract, and we'll track you down later with the bill).
The model, of course, is the US healthcare system, in which the wealthy can access best-in-class treatment in spa-like environments while 46 million Americans lack health insurance."

Their Morals and Ours

In his 1936 pamphlet Their Morals and Ours, Trotsky attempted to steer a course between Stalinist and bourgeois moralities. Answering rhetorically the question of whether "lies and worse" are compatible with a “healthy socialist movement” (raised ironically enough by some "small and politically completely insignificant grouping"), the great man states that to:

1936: Their Morals and Ours: "...“lie and worse” are an inseparable part of the class struggle even in its most elementary form. It remains to be added that the very conception of truth and lie was born of social contradictions."

It has been fun to watch the trots (on all sides of the Sheridan trial) cling not only to bourgeois conceptions of sexual 'morality' (the 'fragrant wife', 'thou shalt not swing') but even to the whole bourgeois conception of 'truth' - as so eloquently and forcefully debunked by the sainted Trotsky himself in this seminal work which is surely taught to every cadre of the 57 varieties at an early stage of their development.

Indeed Colin Fox candidly and probably unwisely, even naively, revealed as much in evidence when - under oath to tell 'the truth' - he claimed he would lie (possibly even under oath) in certain circumstances (see Scotsman.com News - Scottish Socialist Party - I would have backed swing club 'lie' says SSP leader for Scotsman court report).

Sheridan wins - you heard it here first

Well, well, well... Dr S Low up several notches... and I wouldn't usually blog myself, but hey ho, here we go - from 16 July:

Malky: Why 'Tommy drops his briefs': "Not sure what his reason for 'sacking' his lawyers is. But unlike everyone else - except Steven Low - I think he may stand a chance of winning. The wtnesses so far have been pretty dodgy to my mind. Anvar Khan promoting here book, and her and everyone else all in with the Screws up to their necks in cash. Not very credible."

Here's the BBC story...

BBC NEWS | Scotland | MSP Sheridan wins defamation case: "MSP Sheridan wins defamation case
Tommy Sheridan
The jury decided by a majority verdict in favour of Mr Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan has won his defamation case against the News of the World.

A jury of six men and five women took three hours to dismiss the tabloid's claims the Socialist MSP was a serial adulterer and swinger who used drugs.

Mr Sheridan had claimed News of the World stories about his sex life were untrue and represented himself in court after sacking his legal team.

The Sunday tabloid had claimed the reports were 'substantially true' and must pay Mr Sheridan £200,000 damages.

Mr Sheridan won his case on a majority verdict seven to four."

All out of step except our Tony

BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair returns to face UK critics: "In a speech before leaving he warned of an 'arc of extremism' and said the West had not been 'bold enough.. in fighting for the values we believe in'.

But his words were branded 'foolish' and 'naive' by ex-Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

And deputy UN Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown urged Mr Blair to take a back seat in Mid-East peace talks."

The shameful behaviour of New Labour

Bob Thomson's letter in today's Herald
Gaun yersel Bob!

The shameful behaviour of New Labour

Your Letters August 02 2006

I will have been a member of the Labour Party for 43 years next month. Over the past few years I have considered resigning, as half the membership, more than 200,000, has done. But I took the view that it is our party, not Blair's or New Labour's, and would stay in to campaign to win the party back to its democratic socialist roots.
Nonetheless, I have never been so ashamed of this New Labour government as now. Its lack of condemnation of the Israeli government's illegal attack on Lebanon and, even worse, its complicity in the transport of weapons of mass destruction from the US to Israel is appalling. To think that a bomb transported through Prestwick could have killed all those women and children at Qana is deeply distressing and disreputable.
The deafening silence from most Labour MPs, MSPs and MEPs, including the First Minister and other Ministers, is shameful. The similar silence from LibDem Scottish Ministers is unsurprising; they, too, are as much chancers and hypocrites as New Labour.

I had the misfortune first to meet Blair in 1991. I didn't think much of him then, and my view has steadily gone downhill since. In my and many others' opinion, he shouldn't be in the Labour Party, far less leading it. He has involved us in more wars and conflicts than Churchill, malignantly interfered with the Scottish Parliament referendum, introduced tuition and top-up fees, is privatising health and education in England, corrupted the honours system and has saddled future generations with the costs of the private finance initiative.

Blair is Prime Minister by virtue of his leadership of the Labour Party. Despite party rules on nominations, he has not had to stand for election since 1994. Even banana republics go through the motions of elections.

Labour's share of the vote is in steep decline. At last year's General Election we received four million votes fewer than in 1997 and our lowest share of the vote since 1929. Next year's Scottish and Welsh elections don't look good. If Labour is to regain its radicalism and connect with the electorate, then its elective representatives, constituent trade unions, other affiliates and remaining individual members must act now to ensure there is a leadership contest at this year's party conference in September.

Bob Thomson, past Chairman/Treasurer, Scottish Labour Party, 741 Shields Road, Glasgow.

David Rovics, St Andrews in the Square, Glasgow, Thursday 27 July 2006

Published in the Morning Star
(Saturday 29 July 2006)

A thorn in Bush's side

LIVE: David Rovics

St Andrews in the Square, Glasgow
Thursday July 27, 2006

WHO would credit George Bush as a co-writer of their song? Radical folksinger David Rovics tells us that his opening number Operation Iraqi Liberation was inspired - is that the right word? - by the name initially given to the Iraq war by the president's men.

"Tell me, what does that spell? Oil." You couldn't make it up, could you?

More likely to be found singing on US anti-war platforms in the company of Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon or Pete Seeger, or even behind an anti-globalisation barricade in Genoa, Rovics slams Bush and his neocon puppeteers in front of an appreciative crowd at Glasgow's weekly Star Folk Club.

He is a young US Dick Gaughan. His open-tuned guitar is similarly percussive and his slightly nasal voice rings with conviction over a radical agenda of burning issues from past and present.

St Patrick's Battalion commemorates Irish Americans who fought with the Mexicans for self determination in the 1840s.

Song for Hugo Chavez brings the struggle bang up to date.

Rovics's progressive global aspirations show in his song New Orleans - written in Beirut, recorded in Ramallah - about the avoidable flood which hit the poorest most.

It's not all gloom and doom. Rovics's acerbic banter raises some laughs and he writes and sings a mean love song too.

Nice to have it reaffirmed that some US citizens are standing up against the warmongers who run their country.

MALCOLM BURNS

Link: www.davidrovics.com

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Sincere condoleezzas for world war 3

Yo! Hug 'em close! It may be the last thing you do!

BBC NEWS | Nick Robinson's Newslog |: "Off with Blair to the US

* Nick
* 28 Jul 06, 08:28 AM

HEATHROW: This is - one of the prime minister's Cabinet colleagues told me - the most significant Blair/Bush summit ever. Not just, he said, because of the gravity of the situation in the Middle East; not just because of the widespread anger felt at Britain's position; not just because Tony Blair's own political position is precarious; but because of the by now infamous greeting from President to Prime Minister - 'Yo Blair'. That open microphone at the G8 summit captured what, as I mentioned yesterday, even in Whitehall they call the 'poodle problem'.

Those close to Tony Blair call his approach to the US the 'hug them close' strategy. Others less enamoured of it dub it 'the bite your tongue' approach and they're tiring of biting their own tongues.

Stephen Wall, once the PM's adviser on Europe, is one of those who can now speak out. His condemnation of his former boss's approach is echoed by many in Labour who are normally loyal to the prime minister.

Do not expect the Blair approach to change at the White House today. Not because Tony Blair fears a split with the US but because, as he delights in putting it, 'it's worse than you think, I actually believe it'.

The PM believes that calls for an immediate ceasefire treat Hizbollah - a terrorist organisation which rocketted Israeli civilians and captured her soldiers - as the moral equivalent of the democratic state it targetted and wants to destroy. It is, he argues, easy to be a commentator - easy, in other words, to label Israeli actions disproportionate. Harder, he insists, is to do what's necessary - that is, to develop a plan which both sides can sign up to and which will produce a sustainable ceasefire.

His advisers believe that their opposite numbers in the White House now understand that the American public's instinctive support for Israel is not shared in Europe. They hope their man can sell to the Americans a plan that they can sell to the Israelis which will then put Hizbollah on the spot and make clear that only their actions stand in the way of that immediate ceasefire. At its heart is the idea Tony Blair pushed at the G8 summit for an international stabilisation force. The hope is that this will be backed at a ministerial meeting of the United Nations next Tuesday.

The PM knows he's under huge pressure to prove that his approach delivers results. His Cabinet colleague told me this is the ultimate test of Tony Blair's entire approach to America."

Movie day

Went to see a couple of films yesterday since I had time. Forty shades of blue and Heading south. Kind of gloomy fare, but both excellent in various ways... old actors doing really quite unsympathetic character pieces, Rip Torn in Blue and Catherine Deneuve in South.

Here's the summaries from the gft site


Forty Shades of Blue (15)

Set against the backdrop of the Memphis music scene, the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, is an understated character study. Director Ira Sachs uses the narrative framework of romantic triangle to depict the painful emotional awakening of his heroine, a pretty Russian immigrant on the arm of a successful Memphis songwriter. Although veteran Rip Torn gets top billing in Forty Shades of Blue, the film belongs to expressive newcomer Dina Korzun as Laura, whose stoic façade gradually crumples as she discovers a surprising bond with her older lover's bitterly estranged adult son. Smartly observed and emotionally truthful, Forty Shades of Blue is a quietly effective drama about a woman numbly going through the motions of living.


Heading South (15)

Laurent Cantet’s (Human Resources, Time Out) third feature - an investigation of sexual tourism - is arguably his most achieved, and certainly his most challenging. The setting is sun drenched ‘70s Haiti, foreigners idle away their vacations in the palm-fringed paradise of the beach hotels. Brenda, Ellen and Sue, three North American women, converge on the island looking for flirtation, relaxation and respite from their colourless jobs and marriages. They find what they are looking for in Legba an enigmatic local adonis whose beauty and passion has them enthralled. It is this passion that will lead them away from the gilded cage of tourism and will open their eyes to the poverty stricken and dangerous world of Haiti at the end of "Baby Doc" Duvalier's notoriously violent regime.

The corrupt have usually led more sheltered lives than the good

Fron a piece by Marina Hyde in gruaniad:

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | We can kid ourselves of many things, but not that rich men are given to doing truly selfless good deeds: "It is entirely fitting that the police complaint which precipitated this stage of the saga should have been filed by a Highland crofter MP, for only someone who has lived such a sheltered life could have been remotely surprised by the concept."


I replied to a reply - see below - I wondered what Angus macneil's background was after seeing the comment above, then dicovered someone had apparently taken offence at marina's aside...

----

Arbiter
July 18, 2006 05:14 PM

'... a Highland crofter MP, for only someone who has lived such a sheltered life could have been remotely surprised by the concept'.
Truly offensive, Ms. Hyde.

Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us


malkyx
July 18, 2006 06:49 PM

Hi Marina. I doubt if you meant to be offensive, as arbiter found. I think your work is usually excellent. But you might have checked Mr Macneil's cv (see below) before dismissing him in the terms you did. Bilingual, university studying civil engineering, working in journalism, teaching and now an MP. I do not think he has led a sheltered life, and do not think he is actually a crofter - though there's certainly nothing wrong with being a crofter and doubtless many of his people are.

I'm Scottish, though not a Nationalist, indeed I am a member of the Labour Party - however I would congratulate Angus MacNeil for having the balls and integrity to raise the issue - would that more Labour MPS had.

I observe that the corrupt usually have led lives a good deal more sheltered than the good. I count Mr Blair as one who has led a sheltered, nay, privileged life, and I believe he has lied and importuned in many a shameless and disgraceeful way. Much like your rich men who do no good, really.

:-)

Cheers!
malky
x

Angus MacNeil MP
Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles)

Angus is a native Gaelic speaker from Barra. He was in School in Barra and the Nicholson Institute in Stornoway. He studied Civil Engineering at Strathclyde University and then worked as a reporter at the BBC in Inverness for 2 years before becoming a Primary Teacher. Angus worked for 2 years in Salen in Mull where he started the Gaelic Unit before moving to Fort William when he got married. In the 2001 general election Angus was the SNP candidate for Inverness East Nairn and Lochaber. Last year Angus returned to Barra to teach and until his election worked in Eoligarry School at the north end of the island. He was elected as MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles) on 5 May 2005.

(from snp website - http://www.snp.org/people/parliamentarians/macneil_angus)

Why 'Tommy drops his briefs'

Like everyone else i've been following Tommy's defamation trial with some disbelief. However it's maybe a different disbelief that others. Most people I have spoken to seem to think he did it - whatever it is - or else that there's enough on the NotW side of the case to stand up, if not the whole story, then substantial truth, which i unbderstand is the criterion. Now he's "dropped his briefs". Why?

I've found the Scotsperson has the clearest coverage - here's a link to the current story.

Scotsman.com News - Scottish Socialist Party - Sheridan sacks courtroom counsel: "THE TRIAL involving former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan took another dramatic turn today when the Glasgow MSP sacked his legal team.

On the ninth day of his defamation trial, Sheridan advised Lord Turnbull and the jury at the Court of Session in Edinburgh that he would represent himself for the remainder of the case. The trial was then adjourned until Tuesday.

Mr Sheridan has brought a £200,000 defamation action against the News of the World and has claimed the newspaper's allegations from 2004 and 2005 about his private life are false. The paper insists it was true that he had cheated on his wife, visited a swingers' club and indulged in group sex."

Not sure what his reason for 'sacking' his lawyers is. But unlike everyone else - except Steven Low - I think he may stand a chance of winning. The wtnesses so far have been pretty dodgy to my mind. Anvar Khan promoting here book, and her and everyone else all in with the Screws up to their necks in cash. Not very credible.

I think Tommy's lawyers have done a good job so far of showing that.

However the next batch of witnesses will be SSP ones, and the key piece of evidence is the famouos minute of their executive meeting when he is meant to have fessed up. I think Tommy wants to tackle his internal enemies himself in court. I am sure he imagines he will have a better chance against them than even the slickest QC. They'll all regretfully announce that he confessed. He'll challenge them that they're lying. Who is telling the truth I don't know. But his line is bound to be that these people all have a vendetta against him. Plus, as Steven points out, some of the SSP are still on Tommy's side, so there are conflicting "truth"s about the minute and what actually went on.

Hmmm.

Also - it seems to me - Tommy wants his grandstand day(s) in court. I doubt if he could really resist that. This may be a less effective calculation for him.

So. Still to be convinced that he won't win. The witnesses so far haven't proved anything yet.

BTW You'll find the Daily records amusing headline (oh and their report) here:
The Daily Record - NEWS - TOMMY DROPS HIS BRIEFS

A trip everyone should make

On Friday I went for a trip down the Clyde on the Waverley with Jaine and her friends - it was a really beautiful night, pefect weather for this kind of outing. Only problem was it was pretty mobbed and hard to get a drink, but that didn't matter.

Waverley Excursions - Waverley

John McDonnell MP: Another World Is Possible

John McDonnell MP: Another World Is Possible

John's campaign blog

John McDonnell makes a stand - excellent

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Leftwinger to challenge Brown for Labour leadership

Leftwinger to challenge Brown for Labour leadership

Hélène Mulholland
Friday July 14, 2006
Guardian Unlimited


A leftwing MP today declared his intention to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership when Tony Blair stands down.

John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlingon and chair of the parliamentary Socialist Campaign Group, formally announced his intention to stand against the chancellor to allow the party to "openly debate the issues facing our party and the future direction of the country".

Mr McDonnell is the first MP to openly declare his intention to stand against Mr Brown following speculation that the chancellor would be unopposed in his bid for the leadership.

Article continues
Mr McDonnell, who describes himself as an undeniable "socialist", insisted he was not putting himself forward as "a so-called stalking horse".

"This is a serious challenge for the leadership of the party when a vacancy occurs," he said today.

"I am standing to ensure that thousands of Labour party members and supporters have the chance to participate in deciding not only who should be the next leader of our party but more importantly what policies the party should be pursuing," he said.

Asked why he was waiting until Mr Blair resigned rather than trying to hasten his departure, Mr McDonnell quipped: "We do not do assassinations in the Labour party - we also do not do coronations either, by the way."

Conceding that few outside Labour circles would recognise his name, Mr McDonnell said he planned to spend the next nine months campaigning around the country to discuss the issues and build up support for his candidacy.

"There are many that feel the party has lost its way," he said.

"Many of the policies being pursued in government have broken up the broad coalition of support Labour has relied upon throughout its history to bring it to power," he said.

"New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace.

"Spin and allegations of sleaze are causing decent people to lose trust in our party.

"This is reflected in lost votes, lost elections, lost members and a Labour prime minister having to rely upon Conservative votes in parliament to force through legislation.

"There are growing calls from across the party for change. We need to rebuild a progressive consensus, inspiring and giving people hope that another world is possible. We need those who have turned away from Labour to come back home.

"For the first time in decades people no longer feel they have a political voice. This campaign is a challenge to the present political consensus."

A smooth transition from Blair to Brown would see Labour turfed out of government at the next general election, Mr McDonnell said.

"I cannot see any difference between Gordon Brown's policies and his future programme and what there is at the moment.

"If you do not change the policies you will have a smooth transition... to Cameron."

Minister Yvette Cooper was the first within the party ranks to criticise Mr McDonnell's decision. Ms Cooper, a minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, said the party did not need a contest.

"I don't believe this is what the Labour party wants," she said.

"We need leadership which will unite the party, not divide it. We need to look forward to the challenges of the future, not back to the politics of the past.

"This shows why it's so important to have a stable and orderly transition and not lose focus from the real task of delivering a better deal for the people of this country."

Mr McDonnell plans to start the debate on the policies he plans to put forward at next week's Labour representation committee meeting.

These include stopping the contracting out of public services to private companies, pulling out of Iraq, withdrawing from Trident, and ruling out nuclear power altogether.

He insisted he could bring together a "broad coalition" of support which had seen other Labour leaders come to power in the past.

"It brought Atlee to power, and it's what brought us to power in 1997," he said.

Mr McDonnell rejected claims that by standing he was set to scupper the chances of a more recognised leftwing challenger.

"It is perfectly open for others to put in their name and open the debate. What we aim to do is maximise our support."

The 51-year-old MP rejected claims that his early pronouncement would destabilise the party at a time when it is mired in the loans for peerages allegations.

"We have been waiting to declare for the last few weeks," he said.

"But every time we convene a press conference something else happens."

Meanwhile, another prominent Labour leftwing MP added his voice to those believing that Mr Brown should be challenged for the leadership.

Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West, said Mr Brown was no longer convincing and that he was no longer the answer.

Interviewed by the Parliamentary House Magazine, Mr Flynn said Robin Cook's death had left a vacuum.

"The left of the Labour party has no major figure to lead it. I am afraid that I no longer believe that it could be Gordon Brown," he said.

Mr Flynn said the left and right of British politics were being deserted as all parties sought to occupy the "mushy centre" of politics, the area of no conviction".

"The problem is, and the recent two byelections proved this, that it means that those who are on the left no longer love the Labour party and do not believe Gordon Brown is the answer, especially when we see him hugging the virility symbol of Trident," he said.

"He is no longer convincing," Mr Flynn added.

I like this

Always have, don't really know why...

YouTube - (Beat Club) Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett - Astronomy Domine live

And my super favourite - Lucifer Sam, black cats something i cant explain. Ding di Ding - dang dang dang dang.. Ding di di Ding - Dang Dang Dang Dang

The space stuff i like, the gnomes and things i find a bit annoying, but hey ho, there you go.

I guess old Syd died a long time ago now.

Jackie Sparrow and I were very fond of the first couple of Pink Floyd LPs. I spent a fair amount of time in the 70s listening to their later ones, but ah, it's not the same. Although 'Several species of small furry animal gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict' on one of the records, and the album cover that looked like a fanny, we enjoyed them. But the guitar sound was too mellifluous.

I like the Syd telecaster.

Tales of giants and pygmies come to mind

STUC General Secretary Bill Speirs Retires - The STUC

"Bill Speirs has retired from the post of STUC General Secretary it was announced today. Bill Speirs has had a distinguished career serving as an officer of the STUC for nearly 30 years.

Elected as General Secretary in 1998, Bill has had a period of ill health and has decided that now is the time to move on and do other things."

Where's malky?

Elizabeth found a picture of me on Sandi Thom's site. A pic taken by the world famous punk artiste from the stage on her homecoming gig at tut's.
Hmmm. Gallery

My unpublished review i left
here.

Bunting knocks it out the park

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Labour isn't listening to the people the party was created to represent

As the comment under the comment says, out the park. Six! Now, what is to be done?

Bha Niall an seo

Satellite delivers ancient tales to Lewis beach - [Sunday Herald]: "Dr Neil Finlayson, a web consultant and academic attached to the University of the Highlands and Islands, said the commercial applications were boundless. “ This doesn’t just disseminate the stories to a wider audience, it roots them in the place they happened,” he said."

Punk and flowers - Sandi Thom Review

REVIEW:

Sandi Thom, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow
Monday May 15, 2006
By Malcolm Burns

Sandi sings her single. "I wish I was a punk rocker, with flowers in my hair". She sings it a capella, the crowd clap in time and her two boy backing band give it some oomph when they come in. But she isn't. Punk, that is. Or even a hair-flowered hippy.

Everyone here must know the hype: girl with guitar puts on web concerts from her basement, attracts 70 then 70,000 virtual fans, then pulls down a lucrative contract from Mr Sony. And all that in just a few weeks.

Though the basement-to-riches on the web story is nicely spun out by Sandi herself through the whole show, the girl is no ingenue. She has a stage presence which is self-aware and at all times in perfect control, groomed at the Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts. More than once she gushes to the audience that this is her first ever headline sell out show. She takes a picture of us, the audience, including her mum, "that's going on my website." It is clear she likes playing live more than playing virtual, and also that she's been performing since she was little.

Back in the basement with my bullshit detector, I find there are cards missing from Sandi's deck. It's hard to be a singer songwriter without dabbling in twee, and we had some of that in songs like Sunset Borderline ("about memories") and What If I'm Right, when she doubts if her lover will be the perfect man who will "always tape the football and let me watch my soap." Hardly front line feminism: there's plenty personal but little political, and nothing punky in her show. She also sounds somewhat more Tooting (physical location of her famous virtual basement) than Banff, where she grew up. She gives good harmonica on couple of numbers. A version of Stevie Wonder's hit Living for the City adds some welcome flavour to the set.

Towards the end of the show Sandi announces that she's been looking for an old friend who now lives in Glasgow. Why was I not surprised when he shouted "I'm here"? Because it fitted the overnight success story so well.

Beneath the hype and what we might call narrative marketing, there does lie some talent: a few good songs, and a beautiful voice. But she doesn't represent a new kind of music, or - far less - a challenge to the way the business does business.

Ho ho ho... but: aaargh!!! this is reality

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Comment | Simon Hoggart's sketch

"It was wonderful: demented, mad, crazed. Did he hear what he was saying? Blazing neologisms flew past like those plasma things airmen imagine are flying saucers."

Hattersley says...

It's all about the epitaph
Roy Hattersley
Monday May 8, 2006

...Because of the damage that it will do to the Labour party, I still regret the bloodletting that lies ahead. But Blair has made it inevitable.

There was a time when the prime minister believed in something. His vision of the good society was one which I did not share. But I accepted that he wanted more than power alone. Now he believes in nothing except hanging on, in the hope of regaining some of his lost reputation. Not even the present Labour party will tolerate that for long.

this earth being scorched now

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | 'This feels like the beginning of the end': "What he installed yesterday was a Final Days administration."

Labour MPs at last seem to be ready to ditch Tony Blair

Polly Toynbee says: "Party activists meet ridicule on the doorstep. The government's fiascos are letting down good local work. So - Labour MPs at last seem to be ready to ditch Tony Blair."

Please, god, make it true.

Voting Labour...

is like wiping your arse - not a pleasant experience but it's far worse if you don't.

ho ho ho

Jeremy Hardy apparently - quoted by Tom Robinson here
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_robinson/2006/05/post_64.html

hell fucking mend.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Down but not quite out: "The odds always shorten when no blood has been shed lately."

This scandal grew organically out of New Labour's love of wealth

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | This scandal grew organically out of New Labour's love of wealth: "No one who followed Blair in the 1990s can be surprised that he chased the favours of plutocrats. The stories are legion of Blair's personal admiration, even awe, for men who have made serious money. Nearly 10 years have passed since I was first told that Blair tended to go 'dewy-eyed' and starstruck when in the company of wealth. Ideologically, too, the fit was natural: Blairism holds that market mechanisms contain a solution for almost every problem. When he demands that a public service reform itself, it usually means he wants it to behave more like a private company."

So says Jonathan Freedland. Personally I thought Blair was a conservative in 1994 when he became the leader of the Labour Party. I wonder if these 'legion' stories are documented anywhere.

Oh well, not long to go now, perhaps.

The legacy, the legacy...

I love Marina Hyde, I do

For Blair to be brought down by a disastrous war is at least epic. But by his tennis partner? It hardly places one in the big league:

Read the whole thing yourself on the guardian site - this is the first bit...

"Given the prime minister's fabled obsession with his legacy, it is difficult to imagine headlines that could depress him more than the current ones drawn from newspaper briefings by 'sources close to Lord Levy'. Having had his bank holiday breakfast ruined by the many variations on 'I won't be Blair's fall guy, says Levy', one pictures Blair sinking back against the pillows and wondering how far the relentless commuting of his expectations will have to go.

Of course, his capacity for self-delusion is almost unmatched, so there is a chance that he still fancies people will remember him for one of his many - if occasionally contradictory - NHS reforms or the hundreds of hours spent not actually banning foxhunting. However, the realists in his circle must by now be aware that - at least in the immediate aftermath - the PM will to a large extent be defined by whichever final straw forces his departure.

To be brought down by an overweening rival is rather Shakespearean. To be brought down by a disastrous war at least has some kind of epic quality to it. To be brought down by one's tennis partner ... well, you have to say it hardly places one in the big league. Even if the serve-volleyer in question did discover Alvin Stardust."

and here's a killer - I haven't found a trace of this blog yet, but doubtless it exists somewhere in cyberspace...

"Upsettingly, there are those cynics who continue to question what precisely these men did fork out for, and last weekend they were joined by Dr Nick Bowes, Labour's former head of high value fundraising. In a remarkably candid weblog - since removed from the internet - Dr Bowes broached the subject that has hung largely unspoken as the row refuses to go away. "Most of them are genuinely nice people," he wrote of the donor-loaners, "although I question their personal politics. What I mean by this is that they are basically Tories, saw which way the wind was blowing and did what they needed to get the peerage they've always wished for.""