bliar

For those of you that missed it this morning, here is Tony Blair's 30 minute Iraq interview on Radio4.

No time right now, but it Fisks itself...

Make sure you have a big stick ready, to beat yourself over the head whilst you listen, it helps!

So, we're going to withdraw our troops and the US is increasing their troop levels. The obvious question is,if we are allies, why are we leaving and not reinforcing the US surge?

If anyone can find an 'official' answer we'd love to hear it. Unofficially though, is it because the UK military is horrified at the US tactics towards civilians which they believe has increased the insurgency?

Or is it because the Palace doesn't want photos of Prince Harry blasting away at Iraqi civilians all over the papers?

Or are we leaving in the hope of preventing a wipe out in the May elections and spoiling Gordon's ascension? Or all three?

The World At One on Radio 4 leads with the latest missive from Tony Blair giving the finger to the public who had the temerity to sign the anti-ID cards e-petition. There are one or two discrepencies between his email and the ID cards legislation as passed and understood, which the LDs and Tories are jumping on with both feet.

Naturally I signed it up and looking through my Junk folder I find Mr. Blair's email (quite why my spam filter flags e-petition responses as Junk I don't know, but it's pleasing).

Here's Tony's latest:

Now, this is a new development - the Police aren't down as having the ability to do non-specific trawls of biometric information in the hope of finding a match and this opens up the prospect of having the boys in blue knock on your door because your fingerprints happen to be at the scene of a crime ten years or more previously (given the length of time before any substantial amount of the population will be fingerprinted. Fingerprints at the crime scene != criminal, of course, any more than DNA.

Idiot of a Home Office minister on now saying that fishing expeditions are 'nonsense', as the IPS staff will do it (oh great bloody safeguard). Surely no one want obstacles in the way of the police investigating crime (yes, we do, things like due process, intelligence led policing, proper detective work and not doing random dragnets of the population aren't trivial). She's trying to pretend it was in the original bill and the recent cost report (must check that).

It was Joan Ryan, of course. Hazel Blears lite, with all the arrogance and petulance of the real thing, but half the IQ.

Two weeks ago, on 6 February, Tony assured us over the long threatened strike against Iran:

Today we learn

This from Comment is Free, you couldn't make it up!

er, I thought you guys had decided how to tackle the failure of your government to deal with the transport crisis this country has faced for the last decade, and that it was to use Big Brother to tax the poor off the roads.

Whoa, hold on a minute, "once criticised for being a control freak" - where did the past tense come from Tony?  Much of the criticism of the petition system has been fairly oblique, and much what I have seen of it has come from your own side!
Also, since when has the Downing St site been your own website...?

So us, the great unwashed are now of some relevance more than once every 5 years?  And the fact petitioning the government is now easier is a huge leap forward in the development of representative democracy in this country?  Unfortunately you have already pissed on that bonfire by telling us you are not going to take any notice of it.

Focus Tony, this is about road pricing... don't get to carried away...  just take another pill and wipe those flecks of spittle from your mouth.

Ah, that's better, the Tony we know and love.  Once we understand that you know what's best for us, we will come round.  As for welcoming debate, kinda depends what is being debated doesn't it Tone.  I love the fact your decisions are always the right ones.

Of course, you're right, it's pretty simple to add your name to a list with a click of a mouse, but I don't recall you taking any notice of up to 2 million people taking to the streets back in 2003 in protest against your failed adventure in Iraq.  I think you will agree, that took rather more effort on behalf of the participants.

I know, you're right, and we're wrong, and once you explain that to us, we will come round...

Ah, I spoke to soon!  What you meant was you are going to tell us you are right, we're wrong, and you are going to go ahead anyway. 

Sorry Tony, this late in the game, I find it more than hard to believe you have [or ever had had] the slightest interest in the health of our democracy.  And as for sustainable solutions to the long term challenges we face, hasn't anybody told you, that hasn't got anything to do with you any more?

Counting the initiatives spewed out by Tony Blair and assorted hangers on is like trying to count the shells ejected from an Uzi in the grip of a crack-addled hoodlum.  Pointless and you really want to be somewhere else.  Over the last few days we've had

• John Reid's two new prisons, which apparently are going to be funded by thin air (I suspect this was an attempt to paint Gordon Brown as soft on crime for refusing to fork out)
• Tony wants to reduce waiting lists by making doctors more imaginative.  I like my doctors grounded in empirical reality, not working out how to make Tony look good.  I almost dread looking at NHS Blog Doctor to see his take.  Mind you, actually listening to medical professionals would be a start.  You can be as imaginative as you like but Tony will still be taking advice from private healthcare firms, Chai Patel and IT consultancies.
• Tony's solution to teenage gun crime is to lock more children up.  Imaginative stuff there.
• Tony's delighted to inform us that the Iraqis now 'take the lead' in security operations in Basra.  The Yorkshire Ranter begs to differ.  In any case, all this means is that some militia or other, probably pro-Iranian, has been given a bit more power.  Convenient timing.

All this is making absolutely no difference - Tony's pledge to resign if he was found to be 'damaging the party' looks like yet another porky pie.

I'll leave the last word tonight to Richard Wilson, a man with a lot more experience than me, and whose words should give pause for thought to anyone who thinks it's not time to throw the remains of Tony Blair to the dogs:

28,000 people signed the petition calling for the Government to abandon plans for a National ID Scheme, one of the largest responses since the e-petition service was set up. The petition is now closed but the Prime Minister has decided to e-mail the people who signed up to tell them why he is going to ahead with the scheme anyway. The e-mail is too long to post here in full so I've just put in a few excerpts. I've saved the whole message as a pdf file which you can download from here. Needless to say the Prime Minister fails to acknowledge the abuse of civil liberties and privacy his scheme entails and the numerous experts and officials who have said that the scheme is impractical and too costly.

It will increase fraud. Hackers have already found a way to crack the security codes and clone biometric passports. Doing the same to ID cards shouldn't present a problem to them.

I thought fingerprinting was something that happened to suspected criminals when they are arrested, not everyone. My new Italian passport will last ten years and I can go anywhere with it. It has no biometric data or computer chips in it, and what's more it only cost 30 quid. Even without the new biometric data, my British passport cost more than double that some years ago.

The difference is, of course, that store cards are voluntary, no shop has forced one on me. Also with the ID card and National Identity Register scheme more information can be added later, like medical details, despite an earlier promise not to include such information.

Er... no, not really. Terrorists and criminal gangs will carry on regardless, possibly with cloned ID cards.

The EU-funded FIDIS (Future of Identity in the Information Society) has warned that implementation of the current generation of biometric travel ID will dramatically decrease security and privacy, and increase the risk of identity theft. Sounds like a gift to terrorists to me. This little exchange between David Davies and Joan Ryan last year is revealing; David Davies pointed out that Microsoft’s National Technology Office says that ID cards could “trigger massive identity fraud”, and one of the FBI’s leading identity fraud consultants said that the ID card could be replicated perfectly by criminals within six months. Joan Ryan's response is priceless.

Iris recognition has been dropped from British biometric plans because it has been found to be useless. Other countries will probably follow suit.

I'm not even slightly reassured. What exactly are these "strict safeguards"?

It is also the law-abiding majority who are losing valuable civil liberties. How much support there is for compulsory ID cards rather depends on how you ask the question doesn't it? I haven't even gone into the costs of this scheme, but needless to say I don't believe Blair's claim that it will cost less than £30. Sending an e-mail to the tens of thousands of people who signed a petition because they wanted this scheme scrapped, and telling them why their demands will be ignored isn't really a successful exercise in democracy. A referendum on the issue would give a far more revealing picture of national sentiment on the issue but we all know why Blair won't want to do that.

Blair's e-mail did also mention that James Hall, the official in charge of delivering the ID card scheme, will be answering questions on the Downing Street website on 5th March. So in another exercise in futility, we can put some questions to him. I wouldn't know where to start.

via Stop the War Coalition

The European Parliament will vote today on the report which slams some member states for collusion with the CIA in rendition flights. Last year MEPs set up a temporary committee to investigate the complicity of some European countries and found that 14 of them had at best turned a blind eye, and at worst colluded with CIA activities. Britain was singled out for its lack of co-operation with the committee as well as being one of the countries accused of colluding in the rendition flights. Italy and Germany are also heavily criticised.

It was only late in January this year that Margaret Beckett admitted that the Government knew about the secret prisons to which the CIA  transported suspected terrorists. Ten countries are said to have allowed flights in and over their territory and Britain is near the top of the list beaten only by Germany in the number of stopovers allowed.

• Germany 336
• Britain 170
• Ireland 147
• Portugal 91
• Spain 68
• Greece 64
• Cyprus 57
• Italy 46
• Romania 21
• Poland 11

In order to secure the vote of the British Labour group in the European Parliament, the criticisms of Geoff (Buff) Hoon, who was particularly evasive, had to be dropped.

Hoon's evasiveness however, is a matter of record. If the report is approved, it will be uncomfortable for Tony Blair who, as we know,  doesn't like talking about this issue.

*UPDATE*

The European Parliament has approved the report.

News is just coming out that Tony Blair has been interviewed for a second time by police in relation to the cash for peerages scandal. He was interviewed as a witness and not under caution last Friday but managed to keep it a secret until now because of a news blackout. More details should emerge soon.

As Blair's power evaporates we're going to get some treats as the old gang try to save their skins and switch over to the Brownies. The fall out over the honours inquiry is also getting people jittery.

In short, we can expect lots of leaks. Today Lord Goldsmith's team are explaining the dropping of the BAE bribery investigation, claiming a big boy did it and ran away.

It is hard to reconcile the two versions of the story. In the official version the Head of the SFO alone decided to drop the case after being advised that there wasn't enough evidence for a prosecution.

In the latest version, Lord Goldsmith thought that there was enough evidence to charge against the former head of BAE Sir Dick Evans. In a move that compromised his integrity and independence, he told the SFO to offer a plea bargain to BAE in return for dropping 'politically embarrasing' further investigations.

Last night Lord Goldsmith was sticking to the official version, one that contradicts charters signed with the OECD. He's given a darkly comic interview to the Financial Times where he's on the ropes and gasping for air:

Read the whole thing, it is very interesting.

Harriet Harman is breaking ranks by saying what is on a lot of people's minds:

Lord Lester the Lib Dem peer sticks a rather elegant boot in to Goldsmith and the Brownies are plotting away in the gloom.

It is looking like the bunch of swindlers and chancers at the core of New Labour may implode very publicly.

Remember just before and after Saddam Hussein was lynched how both Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett droned on about Britain's opposition to the death Penalty? The lynching was tricky for them as they helped bring it about so all they could do was reiterate some tired old rhetoric about it being a sovereign Iraqi decision and justice being done, Saddam held to account etc. It's worth looking at a recent statement (16 January 2007) by Margaret Beckett just so we are left in no doubt about Britain's position:

Fast forward to today and surprise surprise this appears in the Independent: Britain blocks Italy's bid to ban death penalty

So not just once but twice since Blair has been in power has he stopped efforts to abolish capital punishment world wide, the first time being before 'The War on Terror', the Iraq war and the London bombings which prompted his "rules of the game are changing" speech in 2005. Even if Blair is about to stand down, isn't it about time he was questioned a bit more thoroughly on the issue so we know exactly where he stands?

Clare Short and the Tories have joined forces to take the government to task over its involvement in the corrupt BAE deal with Tanzania to sell the country an over priced military radar system in 2001. The debate will take place in the House of Commons this evening.

This deal was personally backed by Tony Blair who over-ruled the objections of Gordon Brown, Clare Short and the World Bank. BAE is said to have bribed a middleman with a secret payment of $12 million put into a Swiss bank account. In the capital Dar es Salaam there are protests with demonstrators demanding the arrests of those involved with the deal. The SFO, still mightily miffed from having their investigation into the Al Yamamah corruption unceremoniously squashed, are in Tanzania investigating.

I guess we can take it for granted that Tony won't be at the debate but it might be worth following, if only to see the spectacle of the Tories (now firmly against corruption) working with Clare Short.

Many folk were surprised to see Lord Puttnam touring the TV studios in order to criticise the Met for having the temerity to investigate Blair. As a prime luvvie, one suspects there is some 'motivation' here, but the guy already has his peerage, so what could possibly embolden him to make a rare media circuit?

Ah. Perhaps this: Puttnam lined up to succeed Grade as chairman of the BBC.

Mystery solved.

It's been known right from the start of the cash for peerages scandal that there would be an MPs inquiry into this sordid affair and that it has been put on hold while the police complete their investigation. While most of the attention has been on the developments in that investigation, it looks as if the Commons Public Administration Committee inquiry might also be quite interesting when it begins.

The committee is also prepared to call Jonathan Powell, Ruth Turner and John McTernan as well as Gulam Noon, Chai Patel, Barry Townsley, and Sir David Gerrard. The committee's inquiry will go ahead even if the police inquiry does not lead to charges being made. This is important because Tony Blair's friend Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, feels that he can be impartial enough to have a say on whether or not charges are made and has refused to relinquish his right to intervene in the inquiry.

Lord Goldsmith's impartiality has been exposed as a sham on previous occasions, notably in his revised decision to declare the invasion of Iraq legal and in his decision to support Blair in closing the SFO investigation into the corruption surrounding BAE and the Al Yamamah deal. In other words he could potentially scupper chances of the case going to court. The MPs inquiry might not be able to make charges but it will be public and as it's a cross-party committee it can't be interfered with in the same way.

It will be interesting to know when the Commons Public Administration Committee can begin its inquiry, although like the police investigation it will probably reach its conclusions once Blair has stepped down.