Craig Murray: I will accuse Jack Straw on Torture

From Craig’s blog ::

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has agreed to hear my evidence on torture on Tuesday 28 April at 1.45pm. Many thanks to everyone who helped lobby for this.

I am delighted, as I have been trying for over four years to lay the truth about British torture policy before Parliament. I will testify that as British Ambassador I was told there is a very definite policy to accept intelligence from torture abroad, and that the policy was instituted and approved by Jack Straw when Foreign Secretary. I will tell them that as Ambassador I protested formally three times in writing to Jack Straw, and that the Foreign Office told me in reply to my protests that this was perfectly legal.

I will prove my evidence with documentation….

Read more…

Hat-tip Jennie (email), who wonders whether the MSM will run with this significant story? We’ll see. If the blogosphere makes a big deal, then I would imagine The Guardian will pick it up.

Craig Murray must be allowed to address the JCHR

Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, is need of your assistance ::

On Tuesday 10 March the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights will discuss whether or not to hear my evidence on the UK government’s policy of using intelligence from torture. They discussed whether to hear my evidence on 3 March but failed to reach a conclusion.

The government is lobbying hard for my exclusion. I need everybody to send an email to jchr@parliament.uk to urge that I should be allowed to give evidence. Just a one-liner would be fine. If you are able to add some comment on the import of my evidence, or indicate that you have heard me speak or read my work, that may help. Please copy your email to craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk.

Please also pass on this plea to anyone you can and urge them to act. Help from other bloggers in posting this appeal would be much appreciated.

The evidence I am trying to give the parliamentary committee is this:

I wish to offer myself as a witness before the Joint Commission on Human Rights on the subject of the UK government’s policy on intelligence cooperation with torture abroad.

I appeared as a witness in person before both the European Parliament and European Council’s enquiries into extraordinary rendition. My evidence was described by the European Council’s Rapporteur, Senator Dick Marty, as “Compelling and valuable”.

Murray goes on to outline the key points he wishes to make to the JCHR.

Craig Murray has a history of fighting for universal human rights. As a result of his outspoken criticisms of Islam Karimov’s brutal regime in Uzbekistan, Murray was withdrawn as an ambassador. Since leaving this post, Murray has continued to campaign for the rights of those suffering at the hands of “friendly” governments, and to question the UK government’s complicity in torture.

Now is the time for you to do your part.

Please send an email and let’s get Craig’s voice heard.

A British Constitution?

Sunny has posted an extract of Chris Huhne’s speech at the CoML. One paragraph caught my eye (in what is an excellent speech) ::

And let me make one final point, which is that if we want to achieve that consensus that I very much want to see, we have certainly to build a popular campaign a that is absolutely crucial but the end of that copopular campaign to my mind should be an entrenchment of our civil liberties in a way that cannot be challenged in the fewer to you in the way that it has been challenged in the last ten years in particular. I am thinking here of a written constitution. … That is the sort of entrenchment of civil liberties which we’ll never have in this country unless we too have a written constitution to guarantee that judges can oversee laws and can make sure that they do not contravene fundamental civil liberties.

I’d also like to see a British constitution.

But the American constitution was reached after a bloody war of independence. It was forged in the fires of suffering and struggle. It was drafted by the lionised fathers of a nascent republic. It is protected by its own pillar of government – The Supreme Court of the United States.

Yes the U.S. constitution has been amended at times, but recent history tells us that a British constitution would be treated by our self-important political classes as a nebulous hindrance that can be ignored, or worse, reshaped for every new “political reality” that will be constructed to terrify us into obedience.

We don’t need a document. We need a new way of running this country. For once, let’s be as radical as our forefathers and shake this shit up.

Time to raise our voices?

(via. email)

Jack Straw vetoes minutes from cabinet meeting on Iraq

From The Guardian ::

Jack Straw today said he would take the unprecedented step of vetoing the release of cabinet minutes relating to the decision to invade Iraq.

The justice secretary made his announcement in response to a decision from the information tribunal, which last month ordered the publication of the minutes of two cabinet meetings, held on 13 and 17 March 2003.

[…]

He added that the public interest in disclosure of the minutes could not “supplant the public interest in maintaining the integrity of our system of government”.

“It is a necessary decision to protect the public interest in effective cabinet government,” he said.

Straw’s decision was supported by the Tories…

Supported by the Tories? Which, at the end of the day, is all you need to know.

As Charlie Brooker observes… “So: *we* can scarcely take a shit without 100 CCTV cameras recording our arsehole’s every splutter, while *they*…”

Quite.

Recommended reading: Coroners and Justice Bill – destroying data protection

Lee has penned a piece of essential reading over at LC regarding the newly announced Coroners and Justice Bill, which promises to have devastating consequences for our civil liberties and make a joke of the Data Protection Act.

It’s time for a change, people. These guys just can’t be trusted any longer. Power corrupts.

If you read one last thing in 2008…

…make it Willem Buiter’s Boxing Day post on the FT’s maverecon blog. Probably the most damning piece ever written about this – or any other – government. Spectacular.

It’s foolish to “pick” a single section for your inspection, when indeed you should really read the text in its entirety, however I’m nothing if not foolish ::

The fact that we grant the state (and the government in charge of the instruments of the state) a normative raison d’être and acknowledge the universality of its presence in every historical organised human society, does not mean we should respect, let alone trust the state. The state is a necessary evil. It is necessary for the reasons outlined by Hobbes, Locke and many other worldly philosophers. It is evil because I know of no example of a state that has not abused its power over its citizens. Nor do I know of a society where the state does not try to extend its control over the lives of the citizens to domains that are none of its business and that are not material to the performance of the key tasks of the state. Every action, legislative initiative, executive order, legal ruling or administrative decision must therefore be scrutinised with the eyes of a hawk and with a deep and abiding mistrust of both the motivations and the likely consequences of any state action or initiative. The simple rule of thumb as regards both new and existing laws, rules and regulations should be: when in doubt, throw it out.

[…]

I have become convinced that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance against the encroachment by the powers of the state on the private domain. The better-intentioned a government professes to be, and the better-intentioned it truly is when it first gains office, the more it is to be distrusted.

[…]

I have watched this process at work in the UK since I returned here in 1994. It was breath-taking and depressing to observe the transformation of New Labour after 1997, from the party of open government, human rights and civil liberties into an increasingly paranoid group of power-hogging and repressive political control freaks, who have done more damage to fundamental human rights in the past 11 years than any other (sequence of) government(s) in any comparable-length stretch of time since the Glorious Revolution. Fortunately, despite their worst intentions, they have not been very competent – a more competent government could have done much more damage to our freedom and civil liberties.

Continue reading…

via Tim Worstall, c/o Mike Power

Do the sheep have teeth?

I’ve just read Justin’s piece on the bailiffs story. I feel I need to revisit the issue as I don’t think I was pissed-off anything like enough the first time.

Also, check out the reader comments. Get a measure of just how fucked up these proposals are, and how people who’ve done bugger-all wrong, can find themselves caught up in the system and on the wrong end of an ass kicking a dose of reasonable force.

Justin writes ::

You could call this another front in New Labour’s war on the poor but the thing is, they way things are going right now, the number of people who could end up on the receiving end of this is growing by the day. It’ll probably take a nice, respectable white middle-class stockbroker, who’s down on his luck and has photogenic children, to be killed or seriously injured before people realise that this isn’t just about keeping the underclass nervous.

It’s teaching all of us to never, ever, be poor. To never, ever, have a run of bad luck. Keep your head down and keep kissing the boss’ arse. Bite your tongue over your pay and conditions. Come in a bit earlier and stay a bit later. Don’t forget you’re the smallest of cog in this economy – a little fear should keep you lubricated and in good working order a little while yet.

Indeed. Are we going to continue to take this shit? I know, we’ve swallowed this god-awful system of governance for centuries. What other choice is there?

I’ll tell you what, you just sit there and flick-trough your latest copy of Heat. Read that front-page tabloid story about Amy fucking Winehouse’s recent trip into rehab. Send a text to create yet another convey-belt star live on TV. Have you seen Britney recently? She’s really got her shit back together, no?

What the hell is wrong with you? Are you bat-shit crazy or just thick as shit?

You’re being played. They’re taking the piss out of you.

Your Prime Minister has spent a decade telling you how gaaawwwd-damn awesome he is, yet as soon as the credit-fuelled good times ended, your emperor was left with no clothes. Some of us predicted this. Brown said he’d overseen an “end to boom and bust”, but those of us who own a history book and a calculator knew that it would all come crashing down.

And now who pays?

The politicians who encouraged you to borrow and spend beyond your means? Don’t be daft. Labour and the Tories are both just bigger cogs in the same system – the democratic window-dressing, if you like. Brown doesn’t get to go for drinky-poos with the financial elite because they love his books, you know?

So what about the bankers who “managed” the system? Will they be strung up and be flogged? Fuck no! Your taxes are “re-capitalising” the banks and the champagne still flows and private shindigs continue.

You see when those at the top of the hierarchy fuck-up, you have the pleasure of bailing them out. Yet when you and I fuck-up, they send the heavies around to give you a slap and make off with your wife’s favourite necklace. And in this scenario, you’re the criminal.

Justin is right. We have zero stake in this system – we are the smallest cogs.

They feed us a constant stream of mind-numbing celebrity guff to keep us disinterested as they ram us up the collective arse. And they’re wise enough to understand that we like the occasional terror story or bogeyman to keep us all needy and placated.

We’re the batteries that power the establishment. We just need to be kept stupid and distracted. You’ve seen The Matrix, right?

Call me a bitter bedroom nihilist if you like. I’ve had faith in politics in the past. I once believed that, while the realities of office may blunt our politicians effectiveness, they have our best interests at heart really.

Do they fuck. Is giving private debt collectors the power to kick down your door and restrain your screaming family, in your best interested?

I don’t want to resort to a burn-the-palace-down Libertarian politics, but what choice do I have? We thought we had voted in progressive and liberal politics a decade ago, yet all we got were a bunch of authoritarian warmongering halfwits, who couldn’t organise a cutlery draw.

So I’ve come to a conclusion: The house is against you. It wants you to lose. So it’s time to stop playing the game.

New powers for debt collectors to enter your home

The blogosphere has been raging at news that the government is “proposing wide-ranging new powers for bailiffs to break into homes and to use “reasonable force” against householders who try to protect their valuables.”

Basically it would mean that if you attempted to stop bailiffs from entering your private property, they could pin you down while they make off with your telly.

Personally I’m not sure where forceful restraining ends and actual assault begins. And I’d be surprised if the government has given it much thought. Thinking something through isn’t really this government’s style.

Chances are if you try and prevent the bailiffs, you’ll get a bit of a slap and it’ll be your word against theirs.

I’m certainly not comfortable with empowering non-official agencies with the right to physically restrain me on my own property – regardless of my inability to pay the bills.

I’ll leave you with Sim-O’s frightening scenario ::

You come home from work/holiday/the shops and find your door kicked in. You enter the house to find it’s been ransacked. You enter the living room. The telly, the DVD player. Gone. The draws of the side board are shut, but you know that someone has been going through them. You go upstairs just dreading to what you’re going to find. In one room after another, chests of drawers have been rifled. Someone has gone through all your most intimate items. Your business filing. Wage slips. The jewellery gone as well.

How do you think that’s going to feel? Thinking that someone has broken into your house and stolen your belongings, that’s bad enough, but when in reality the ‘thieves’ have had the law on their side and are allowed to ransack your home, when even the police can’t just walk in, is an abomination.
Now you have all the upset, distress and associated hassle of having to get it all back because it turns out it wasn’t you that owed the bank/loan company/district court money. It was the people that lived where you do previously. Or you just happen to have the same name as some one who owes money. Or it could just be a completely random reason why you have appeared on the bailiffs records.
How does that feel? I bet you’d be feeling a bit shit and angry about it all. Good job you’ve got a strong character and are able to deal with the stress by someones’ typo. How fortunate that you happen to have enough savings to get you by while you claim back everything from the bailiffs. Just remind me, how much do lawyers cost? Because I bet it won’t be a quick and easy process.
It’d be hard but you’d survive the experience. What about the old lady next door? Would she? What’s she going to do when the bailiff sticks his boot through the door?
Or how about the ‘highly excitable’? Ending up being pinned to the ground with a broken arm? Or worse.

Scary Mary.

Jacqui Smith to prevent councils abusing surveillance powers

It’s not often that one gets chance to praise the government on matters pertaining to civil liberties, so I won’t pass up this chance.

According to a PR Release report in the Indi, Jacqui Smith is to crackdown on councils who are using surveillance powers to catch people leaving their bins out or allowing their dogs to cack on the pavement.

It would have been nice if Whitehall had nipped this sort of practice in the bud, rather than allowing council numpties to stick cameras in our wheelie bins, sift through our telephone records, and order covert agents to follow us around while we walk our pooch, but I suppose it’s better late than never.

This is what makes me so sceptical of giving authorities greater powers. Rather like turfing out awkward hecklers using anti-terrorism powers, people tend to abuse power when they’re given it.

All that said, [holds nose] well-done Jacqui.