Criminals See NHS As ‘easy target’

The NHS has launched an investigation into thefts, amid reports criminals see the service as an “easy target”. So far the police have yet to question this man-

The British Medical Association has called for continued investment in the National Health Service and has warned against the dangers of a ‘slash and burn’ cull of staff and services in a bid to save money.

The Association has this week launched its UK General Election manifesto – Standing up for Doctors, Standing up for Health – calling on all political parties to acknowledge the value of the NHS, which, it stresses, “provides better value for money than any comparable healthcare system in the world”, and to commit to the long-term sustainability of the service.

The NHS is currently facing one the toughest challenges since its inception, having to weather a period of economic downturn and tighter budget constraints at a time when demand on its services is increasing.

But Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council at the BMA, argues that “even during a time of financial stringency, continued investment in the NHS is vital”, and he warns that “a slash and burn response to the need for savings would be dangerous and short-sighted, risking long-term damage to the infrastructure of the health service”.

In another attack on the use of private providers to fill gaps in the service, the manifesto claims efficiency savings could be delivered if the NHS in “were restored as a publicly provided service”, and it says that instead of being directed at frontline services the axe must fall on “expensive market-based policies, such as the overuse of private management consultants, the Private Finance Initiative and Independent Sector Treatment Centres”.

“When the drivers are profits, it has to be asked whether patients’ interests are really being served, and value for money being achieved,” Meldrum said, and argued that “creating a market means high transactional costs and bureaucracy, with money that could be spent on patient care going to private companies and shareholders”.

Keep Our NHS Public

Arms & Bribes

In 2006, Tony Blair’s government shut down inquiries into the sale of Tornado warplanes to the Saudi royal family, a deal which had lasted 20 years and grossed £43bn in revenue for BAE.

Allegations emerged that £1bn and a personal Airbus jet had been transferred to Prince Bandar, son of the Saudi crown prince. Another £1bn had been moved to Swiss accounts linked to prominent Saudis.

BAE are finally about to get prosecuted, if the UK government doesn’t step in and protect the crooks again (that being all of them), however our Stateside cousins might want to ask the Pentagon about this deal-

A U.S. unit of BAE Systems Plc (BAES.L) has won a Pentagon contract worth up to $313.3 million for gunner restraints, vehicular safety belt kits and accessories for the Army and Marine Corps, the Defense Department said Wednesday.

Being as-

BAE had its fingers on $8 billion of the Pentagon’s cash mountain last year; the British arms dealer ranks sixth among US defence contractors, the only significant foreign firm, the only one trusted enough to get juicy, sensitive projects.

It is not entirely bluster, when BAE threatens the British Government that unless it is treated better it might move its headquarters to the US.

But a conviction for bribery could ruin everything for BAE because the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is on the warpath against cheating, bribing foreigners.

Yet the Pentagon see fit to continue doing business with BAE, a firm who (along with Barclays bank) once fiddled an aid agreement with Tanzania to take debt relief and education funding to instead buy a totally pointless military radar system, aided and abetted by…Tony Blair. I suppose for BAE it might be hard to know who to bribe right now, New Labour as they can spike the prosecution, the Tories as they can once in power, or the Pentagon so they can move to the US with its military spending that outstrips, er all of planet Earth combined. Or maybe all three to be safe and when/if Tony swindles becoming EU president expect a lot of reasons why NATO needs to have wars and thus new equipment, oh except that part is already going on.

Baha Mousa & The Rotten Barrel

Baha Mousa was tortured to death by British troops. There is little need to wonder about whether our forces were given the green light to torture,they were-

[June 2007] The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is facing accusations that he told the Army its soldiers were not bound by the Human Rights Act when arresting, detaining and interrogating Iraqi prisoners.

Such were the concerns of legal advisers on the ground over the Attorney General’s views that the MoD arranged for the senior legal adviser at the Foreign Office, Gavin Hood, to visit Permanent Joint Headquarters to settle any worries. Crucially, the emails make clear Lord Goldsmith’s legal opinion was not shared by Colonel Mercer, who contacted his superiors in London to ask for guidance after he had witnessed the hooding of 40 Iraqis at a British PoW camp in March. The men were all forced to kneel in the sun and had their hands cuffed behind their backs. Worried this could leave the soldiers vulnerable to prosecutions, he told the MoD that in his view soldiers should behave in accordance with the “higher standard” of the Human Rights Act.

But the response from the military’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Qatar was that Lord Goldsmith had told the MoD the human rights law did not apply and soldiers should simply observe the Geneva Conventions.

When Colonel Mercer said he disagreed with the Government’s most senior law officer he was told that “perhaps you should put yourself up as the next Attorney General”. Colonel Mercer also asked for a British judge to be flown out to oversee the procedures for the detention of Iraqi prisoners, but this also was blocked at a high level.

Furthermore Ben Griffin is still gagged from speaking publicly on UK forces role in torture and their knowledge of US torture.

Whitewash Manufacturers Say Recession Is Over

An independent inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war has opened in London, with its chairman promising to call Tony Blair, the UK prime minister at the time of the 2003 invasion, as a witness. Sir John Chilcot, a former civil servant, said he would “not shy away” from criticising decisions taken about the war and insisted the probe would not be a whitewash.

Chilcot stressed that the inquiry will be heard in public wherever possible, adding that it could be televised and streamed live on the internet. But some evidence will be taken in private for national security reasons and to ensure “complete candour”, he said, adding that although witnesses could not be compelled to give evidence, he did not expect anyone to decline.

Just as L/Cpl Joe Glenton delivers a letter to Gordo-

A serving soldier who is refusing to return to Afghanistan has delivered a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to “bring our soldiers home”. L/Cpl Joe Glenton, of the Royal Logistic Corps, delivered his letter to 10 Downing Street on Thursday. He said: “I know that the Afghan people are very resilient. I can’t see us getting much further.” The soldier, who lives in York, faces a preliminary court martial on Monday for refusing to go back to Afghanistan. In his letter he claims the war in Afghanistan is being fought in the interests of US foreign policy.

Fellow soldiers who have come to this blog from a link posted @ ARmy Rumour SErvice are less than enthused. May I suggest they read ‘Raising My Voice’ by Malalai Joya (review coming soon!) and reflect upon the misuse of soldier’s professionalism and comradeship by ruling classes with a taste for imperialism. To aid you in your revery-

John Singer Sargent at War

You forge of your self a dull weapon

Information for Members of the British Armed Forces

‘the law does not require you to intervene’

A businessman who was held and mistreated in the United Arab Emirates following the London bombings believes he has evidence that British consular officials asked permission from the UK’s own security services to visit him while he was detained. Heavily redacted documents seen by the Guardian appear to indicate that the request to visit Alam Ghafoor was made to an unidentified British intelligence officer and not to officials in the UAE.

Ghafoor is one of several British men who allege there has been British complicity in their detention and torture while abroad. The businessman, who is 38 and from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, was detained and tortured while on a business trip to Dubai following the London bombings in July 2005.

Ghafoor and his business partner, Mohammed Rafiq Siddique, flew to the UAE on 4 July. They were dragged out of a restaurant as they dined on 21 July. The two British Muslims say they were threatened with torture, deprived of sleep, subjected to stress positions and told they would be killed and fed to dogs.

Ghafoor has obtained copies of correspondence from consular officials to the Foreign Office in London while he was in custody that show those officials were asking someone other than the UAE authorities for permission to see him. Who that person is, and who they represented, is unclear, as their name was censored before the copies were handed over. Some of the reports were so heavily redacted by the time Ghafoor received them that the only words not blanked are his name.

MI5 and MI6 officers who question terrorism suspects they know are being tortured, are acting in line with a secret government interrogation policy, drawn up after the 9/11 attacks. The policy states: “we cannot be party to such ill treatment nor can we be seen to condone it” and that “it is important that you do not engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners.” It also advises intelligence officers that if detainees “are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene” to prevent torture.

Student Bursaries Frozen

The good news is though people who want to study betrayal won’t need to attend university to learn about it, all you need to know is manifested in New Labour’s every move-

Bursaries for England’s poorest students will no longer have to cover the gap between grants and fees. The Office for Fair Access (Offa) has decided the minimum bursary universities must offer if they charge fees should be 10% of the fee level. Currently it has to make up the difference between the £3,290 annual fee and the maximum grant of £2,906. For next year grants are frozen but fees go up. The bursary will be £55 short of the £384 difference. Offa’s move follows revised guidance from the Higher Education Minister, David Lammy.

NUS vice-president Aaron Porter said: “Today’s announcement is nothing short of shameful. “In 2004, we were told that universities would only be allowed to charge top up fees if they guaranteed that poorer students would not be out of pocket. The government has now gone back on its word.”

Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “I cannot understand why a government that is looking so hard at social mobility has taken the decision to charge the poorest students more money to attend university.”

Prime Minster Mandelson

According to the Cabinet Office, Lord Mandelson sits on 35 of the 44 Cabinet committees and sub-committees which oversee government business. He sits on more committees than either the prime minister, the chancellor or the foreign secretary. These include areas such as health, immigration, climate change, trade, Africa, Olympics planning and food.

He’s not elected and “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, as long as they pay their taxes”. The UK’s reputation globally is that of a tax haven, a situation engineered and promoted by… New Labour, so no wonder rich Lords can be so ‘relaxed’.

Restraint

Certainly The Guardian has shortcomings but it is only fair to give credit where credit is due. Allegra Stratton managed to interview James Purnell while he tried to sound deep, thoughtful, caring and ensure a continuing high profile career (d’you think he’s signed to Portillo’s agents?), without ever once breaking down and repeatedly punching him very hard in his lying smug face. So well done Allegra!

PS. Amount Purnell thinks people can live on while being harassed to find jobs that do not exist- £64.30 (over 25 mind, young un’s get by on 50 quid)

Amount he claimed in just one expenses receipt… for fridge magnets- £250, overall expenses claim average of £1,506 a month (in addition to Ministerial salary of £64,766, and as a Cabinet Minister with entitlements he did get £144,520).

Why Even Fucking Bother, Gordon?

And Chilcot, for fuck’s sake. Why not just have it chaired by Whitey McWhitewash. In a concrete box. At the bottom of the ocean. At least it will waste less of our money on further obscuring New Labour’s war crimes that way. Of course I know why you’re bothering, it is to rewrite history, sort of the British equivalent of the GW Bush Presidential library but with less literary merit (Chilcot will find a way to make that possible!). Oh fuck off Gordon, are you actually on the Elect Cameron committee? Go on, you are aren’t you? Can’t wait to see a NL cheerleader gold plate this steaming pile of shite. 

Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has been accused of staging a cover-up after he ruled that an inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the US-led invasion of Iraq would be held in private. He also said it would would take a year to complete – taking it beyond the date the prime minister must hold a general election.

The investigation will be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, 70, a former permanent under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office. Chilcot has been chairman of Britain’s Police Federation since 2001 and sat on the Butler inquiry, which reported into the intelligence which the UK government had about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Brown, who cited national security issue for not holding the investigation in public, said: “The primary objective of the committee will be to identify lessons learned.

“The committee will not set out to apportion blame or consider issues of civil or criminal liability.

“It [the inquiry] will consider the period from summer 2001 before military operations began in March 2003 and our subsequent involvement in Iraq right until the end of July this year.”

New Labour Is To Blame

But dramatic as they were, the BNP results should be analysed carefully.

They actually got fewer votes in the North-West and Yorkshire and the Humber this time than they did in 2004.

The reason the party now has two MEPs is because of the collapse of the Labour vote rather than any huge surge in support for the BNP.

It’s the same for the Tories in Wales. Their share of the vote increased by less than 2% – but Labour’s dropped by 12%.

Well done Labour stay at homes, couldn’t have voted Green (or Plaid)? Any left party? Maybe just Lib Dems for a giggle? You do get PR yeah? Something, can it really be news Blairite noeliberals have infiltrated the party and made it tory lite? Iraq was ok with you, but expenses were the final straw?!?!? Their handling of the financial crisis, because until then they had been socialists?!?!?! Jeebus! Ok you’ve been had, now get angry, retake the party, support John McDonnell, do something instead of sulking at home! You know what the real story is:- Turnout was only about a third of the electorate, so the verdict on our non-choice of different styles of neoliberalism is by majority opinion- no thanks, now imagine the possibilities!

Al-Libi Was Rendered Through Diego Garcia

Al-Libi was rendered through Diego Garcia (stolen by the UK from its inhabitants a crime yet to be accounted for, every time we let them slide, they will do something worse next time), the UK helped it, denied it and has now admitted it. Al-Libi was the prisoner whose torture provided the false connections of Saddam to Al Qaeda. 

Two terror suspects who were flown by the CIA to the British territory of Diego Garcia and later allegedly tortured have been named and evidence about their treatment has been revealed for the first time. Mohammed Madni and Shaykh al-Libi are identified in evidence prepared for the Commons foreign affairs committee by Clive Stafford Smith, director of the human rights group Reprieve.

 They are the two men, said Stafford Smith, referred to, but not identified, by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, when last year, after repeated denials by ministers, he admitted that two people had been rendered through the island in the Indian Ocean in 2002. Miliband said he did not know who the men were.

Madni was later freed and returned to Pakistan where Reprieve’s lawyers met him. “He has been effectively crippled by his torture,” said Stafford Smith.

Al-Libi died in a Libyan jail just as Reprieve lawyers were hoping to gain access to him

Clive Stafford Smith- “Reprieve has been exploring tentative contacts with al Libi, and his death may have been a result of the pressure to allow him to speak openly about his torture.”

Al Libi’s tortured narrative was crucial to the war lies, such is the function of torture–

In case anyone has forgotten, when Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the head of the Khaldan military training camp in Afghanistan, was captured at the end of 2001 and sent to Egypt to be tortured, he made a false confession that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two al-Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Al-Libi later recanted his confession, but not until Secretary of State Colin Powell — to his eternal shame — had used the story in February 2003 in an attempt to persuade the UN to support the invasion of Iraq.

So there’s New Labour helping run the rendition network for a prisoner that was key in creating the lies to facilitate the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deaths of over 1 million people and creating 5 million refugees. And, they ain’t coming clean anytime soon-

Mike Gapes, the committee’s Labour chairman, said he had received advice that the cases due to be raised fell “wholly within the house sub judice resolution”. The resolution states that “cases in which proceedings are active in UK courts shall not be referred to in any motion, debate or question”.

Mohammed’s treatment before he was flown to Guantánamo is the subject of a police investigation into “possible criminal wrongdoing” by the CIA and an MI5 officer.Stafford Smith said the advice was wrong and that the Mohammed case had been frequently raised in the Commons and the Lords. “It is time for the UK government to come clean about its role in Madni’s detention and to reveal who else has been held on and rendered through Diego Garcia, what happened to them there, and where they are now,” he said.

Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said last night: “These astonishing allegations fly in the face of the assurances given by the foreign secretary to parliament. The use of British territory for illegal state abduction and detention is unacceptable”. Research by his party found that the government had systematically destroyed flight logs for the Diego Garcia US airbase, Davey added.

And of course dead men tell no tales, while it is possible al-Libi died without ‘help’, I think the probabilities point to a hit to protect the guilty in the US & UK governments. Expenses are the least of these scumbag’s crimes. Those who think Blair truly in good faith believed he was doing the right thing have only two options- he is therefore insane or he is lying. So stop perpetuating his bullshit mythical version. This was planned, carefully engineered with malice aforethought. Grubby little lies no different to those told by Nazis hung at Nuremberg. They drafted their falsehoods in the screams of their disappeared victims.

In March, a different reader asked BBC reporter Reeta Chakrabarti why she had claimed that Blair had “passionately believed” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. After all, an alternative thesis – based on a ton of compelling evidence – is that Blair was lying. Chakrabarti responded:

“I said Mr Blair passionately believed Iraq had wmd because he has consistently said so.” (Forwarded to Media Lens, March 2, 2009)

Hard to believe, but senior BBC journalists and editors consistently present this argument: leading politicians must be sincere because, well, they say so! What possible reasons could they have for saying one thing and believing another?

Funny Games

Update: See Craig Murray for his thoughts on this & why Jack Straw was not mentioned in the Guardian story.

…Jack Straw is the Minister who approved the use of torture material. Straw is as thick as thieves with Guardian Deputy Editor Michael White, Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger and Guardian Media Group Chairman, also New Labour City Minister, Lord Myners.

—

The leaving the room farce (highlighted) looks to be a way our spooks squared their involvement with torture to pretend they had no role. Probably a legal memo was drawn up to cover it much as in the Bush regime. Such is the infinitesimal thread on which New Labour hang their innocence, it is no innocence at all, it demonstrates definite knowledge of torture and the planning of strategies to create deniability.

Guardian:- The home secretary Jacqui Smith faces legal action over allegations that MI5 agents colluded in the torture of a British former civil servant by Bangladeshi intelligence officers. Lawyers for the British man, Jamil Rahman, are to file a damages claim alleging that Smith was complicit in assault, unlawful arrest, false imprisonment and breaches of human rights legislation over his alleged ill-treatment while detained in Bangladesh.

 The claims bring to three the number of countries in which British intelligence agents have been accused of colluding in the torture of UK nationals. Rahman says that he was the victim of repeated beatings over a period of more than two years at the hands of Bangladeshi intelligence officers, and he claims that a pair of MI5 officers were blatantly involved in his ordeal.

 The two men would leave the room where he was being interrogated whenever he refused to answer their questions, he says, and he would be severely beaten. They would then return to the room to resume the interrogation.

 On occasion, he adds, his wife would be held in a nearby cell, and his torturers would threaten to rape her if he did not cooperate. Rahman’s lawyers say that there is a wealth of evidence to support his allegations, including eyewitness testimony and medical evidence. Rahman was also able to provide his lawyers with the number of a mobile telephone that he says was used by one of the MI5 officers and a number for MI5 in London.

 Rahman remains deeply traumatised, and is receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. His lawyer, Imran Khan, wrote to Smith last week putting her on notice of the intention to start proceedings. Smith and MI5 declined to comment; the Home Office said it would respond to Khan in due course.

More

David Cameron’s Pro-Apartheid Jolly

This is no surprise to those who know Tories for what they really are, but younger peeps might think they hold some difference to the New Labour shower.

David Cameron accepted an all-expenses paid trip to apartheid South Africa while Nelson Mandela was still in prison, an updated biography of the Tory leader reveals today.

The trip by Mr Cameron in 1989, when he was a rising star of the Conservative Research Department, was a chance for him to “see for himself” and was funded by a firm that lobbied against the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime. (ht2 Craig Murray who is also worth reading on the Quilliam foundation)

UK Admits To Using ‘Intelligence’ From Torture

Via D-Notice, Craig Murray has found the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) buried under much Orwellian civil servantese, have admitted to it-

Tucked away at Page 15 of its annual Human Rights report, the FCO has finally made a public admission of its use of intelligence from torture.

FCO say-

“The use of intelligence possibly derived through torture
presents a very real dilemma, given our unreserved
condemnation of torture and our efforts to eradicate it.
Where there is intelligence that bears on threats to life, we
cannot reject it out of hand.”

Craig-

It is a piece of mind-blowing hypocrisy. You cannot, in the same paragraph, argue our unreserved condemnation of torture, and that it save lives so we use intelligence from it. I would add that it is also an outright lie. Not a single one of the many pieces of torture intelligence I saw in Uzbekistan had the slightest bearing on saving lives in the UK. In fact the “intelligence” was, on the whole and in detail, highly misleading. Yet the FCO made a very definite policy decision to continue to receive it- because it came from the CIA.

The FCO has in fact under New Labour never rejected any intelligence on the grounds that it came from torture.

The whole post is absolutely essential reading particularly at a time when the govt. is launching a face saving ‘investigation’ which could be cleared up a lot sooner if they just admitted their guilt. It’s like Jack the Ripper asking the Met to look into all these mysterious murders of women…if Jack the Ripper ran the country.

John McDonnell on the Attack on Welfare

Via HarpyMarx–

Out of the suffering of the 1930s, Britain built a civilising society, based in large part on the important lesson that unemployment is rarely the fault of individual malingering but the structural consequence of governments allowing the free market to rule our lives. Labour leaders such as Clem Attlee learnt this when he worked among the poor and unemployed in the East End. Many Labour MPs in his government knew it from bitter personal experience. Popular revulsion swept away the outdated Poor Law that had stigmatised the unemployed with its brutal means-testing and demeaning forced labour. Benefits became rights and entitlements, not charity. The democratically accountable state became responsible for providing the entitlements of the unemployed, replacing the distribution of alms by charitable bodies.

Tragically today, as thousands again find that through no fault of their own they can lose their job and very quickly find everything they thought secure placed at risk, the government has forgotten the lessons of the 30s. As people look to it for assistance in a dismal economic climate, it seems perverse that the government’s answer is a welfare reform bill with a bloody-minded focus on New Labour’s twin obsessions of penalising the unemployed and privatising public services.

With 2 million unemployed and vacancies drying up, already 10 people are chasing every vacancy. Jobcentre staff have been commended for rising to the challenge of helping people through this difficult period. In fact in the government’s recent green paper, Jobcentre Plus was described as “one of the best back to work agencies in the world”.

This new bill would undermine this positive work. The “work for benefits” scheme contained in the legislation would force long-term unemployed people (disproportionately with disabilities, ethnic minorities and, increasingly, lone parents) to work for their benefits. This workfare scheme would oblige claimants to work for £1.73 an hour.

The government initially said the prime aim of the scheme was to offer work experience to assist people getting back into employment. Yet work experience schemes already exist on a voluntary basis, and a Works and Pensions Department study found evidence that workfare schemes do not increase the likelihood of finding work. Last week James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, conceded that a central objective of workfare is to discourage fraudulent claims, yet benefit fraud is officially at its lowest level to date, with the investigation system successfully reducing fraud by 66% since 2001.

The bill also renews New Labour’s obsessional targeting of lone parents. As soon as a lone parent’s child reaches the age of three they will become a jobseeker and lose benefits unless they take part in work-related activities. This is despite the government acknowledging the widespread lack of both job opportunities and adequate childcare.

Privatisation dogma is also at the heart of the bill. Private companies and voluntary sector organisations are to be handed contracts for providing services to the unemployed, with jobcentres not allowed to bid. To date, 33 out of 34 contracts have gone to private sector companies, and so the reality is that the new contracts will be awarded to large private corporations.

These companies were attracted by the prospect of profit calculated according to the number of people they placed in work. Large-scale unemployment threatens their profit margin and so they are frantically renegotiating the terms of the deal, insisting on at least double as much money up front. Despite this, and despite leaked reports showing the public sector outperforming its private competitors two to one in getting people into work, the government charges on bullishly with its privatisation plans.

The welfare reform bill is just another example of a government that has lost its way, a government increasingly cut off from the real world of unemployment and deepening insecurity.