August 19, 2008
Massive State Propaganda at the Olympics
I am an unabashed sports fan. I love watching the Olympics and get irrationally patriotic about it. Many of my friends find these traits irritating. But I have been really enjoying the last few days of British success.
Victoria Pendleton's win in the sprint cycling was a great moment, but was completely marred by a classic propaganda moment by the monolithic state broadcaster. No, I don't mean Chinese TV, I mean the BBC pumping New Labour as usual.
Victoria flashed across the line, and within two seconds the BBC cut to a shot of Tony Blair standing and applauding, holding him on screen for some time. It completely spoiled the moment for me - a sporting triumph marked by a war criminal. To complete the puff, the commentator praised Tony Blair's "generous support for the British team".
Bollocks - it was another example of a politician trying to gain kudos from national sporting achievement. And to describe Blair as "generous" is risible. Whenever you see Blair pop up anywhere, the first question to be asked is, who is paying for him? The great freeloader never pays for his own holidays, as has been frequently documented. On a previous visit to China, he received a US $500,000 payoff.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/08/china.tonyblair
Bkair has been to Chima at least four times since then - visits which would seem to have but a tenuous connection with his official role as chief facilitator of illegal Israeli settlement in Palestine. Blair has been making himself useful to the Chinese, and obnoxious to human rights and environmental campaigners, by arguing that politics should be kept out of the Olympics.
http://tonyblairoffice.org/2008/08/olympics-should-be-about-sport.html
So who is funding Blair's Olympics?
The Mail is asking the same question, and got this response:
Earlier today Mr Blair's spokesman insisted the couple were on a 'family holiday' but refused to comment on whether they had paid for it from their own pockets. He would also not be drawn on whether the Blairs were in China as someone's guest. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1046294/Pictured-Tony-Blair-reveals-slimline-new-look-visit-Olympics.html
I think that we can take that as an admission that the revolting Blair is being paid off again. The question is, for what?
Posted by craig on 3:51 PM 19/08/08 under UK Policy | Comments (0)
August 18, 2008
New Labour Regrets End of Military Dictatorship in Pakistan
General Musharraf was a smooth-talking dictator, but no more than that. He instituted military rule in an illegal coup and continued to govern in the interests of himself and a narrow elite, continually rolling back surviving vestiges of the rule of law in Pakistan. Under his rule Pakistan stagnated and the economic gap to neighbouring India grew so large as to be insurmountable for at least a generation. Dictatorship does not fight extremism, it promotes extremism in desperate and repressed opponents with no legitimate outlet for opposition.
It says volumes for where our far right New Labour government now stands on world affairs that they regret the political demise of this odious dictator. Here is David Miliband, the neo-con muppet who is New Labour's hope for political revival:
"The Musharraf years yielded significant dividends… It is important to highlight President Musharraf's commitment to tackle terrorism, to promote dialogue with India, especially over Kashmir, and to root out corruption," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/18/pakistan
Yeah, right. Come to think of it, why don't we have military dictators all over the developing world? Plainly Miliband holds that these dusky foreigners need the smack of firm government. Why Miliband believes that rooting out corruption is a good thing, while his own government pro-actively harbours and protects it in the BAE scandal, is beyond me.
Miliband is no more than a foolish, shallow little disgrace. Despite New Labour's best efforts, this is still in many ways a lovely country. It is both astonishing and appalling that it should be represented by someone as insubstantive as Miliband.
Posted by craig on 9:12 PM 18/08/08 under UK Policy | Comments (2)
Another Dull Attack
I have been very busy the last few days giving interviews about Georgia - largely because there seem to be few others who are against missile systems and NATO policy, without being Putin apologists.
Anyway, there is a rather lame but surprisingly extended attack on me in the Sunday Times over my comments on the Fringe. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4547834.ece
This is a particularly poor piece of journalism as the newspaper failed to contact me for comment. There are also a number of extraordinary omissions or distortions. To clarify:-
- I have never accused the Fringe of failing to promote Nadira's show. They got the Fringe office to comment on something I haven't said. I did point out they had listed it in the wrong category. If the Sunday Times had asked them to comment on that, I imagine they would have agreed they had done so. Promotion in general has been very good.
- Nadira's show has had super reviews. It has had in Edinburgh in total (that I can find) two five star, four four star and two three star reviews. The Sunday Times has chosen to quote only from the two three star reviews.
- My complaint was very plainly that one publication had reviewed the Show without actually seeing it. That is obvious from the blog entry below. It is completely out of order for the Sunday Times to omit what my complaint actually was.
- I am very happy with audiences. An average of fifty is brilliant for the Fringe at 1.30pm.
- I stand by my more general comments that there is an excess of bad comedy and loutishness at the Fringe nowadays. I am not against comedy. I love good comedy.
Here are some of those reviews. Unlike the Sunday Times I am giving you a representative sample of one 5, one 4 and one 3 star review.
http://www.broadwaybaby.com/fringe/reviews/thebritishambassadorsbellydancer
http://edinburgh.threeweeks.co.uk/review/4638
http://living.scotsman.com/music/Musical-review-The-British-Ambassador39s.4356893.jp
I suppose that I should be beyond being upset by a foolish piece of journalism like this. But the lack of professionalism of the Sunday Times, and their obvious malice, is very annoying.
The Murdoch press remain great cheerleaders for Alisher Usmanov. Stuart MacDonald appears to be trying to outdo his Dirty Digger stablemate Mark Franchetti in the worst journalistic standards stakes. But I think Franchetti is still ahead.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/10/mark_franchetti.html
Posted by craig on 12:17 PM 18/08/08 under The Book | Comments (1)
August 10, 2008
There Are No Good Guys, But We Must Be Most Wary of Russia
Russia has no right at all to invade Georgian territory - which South Ossetia is. Russia's actions are illegal. The US and UK, who launched an equally illegal and much more devastating invasion of Iraq, are ill-placed to be outraged. Georgia was acting lawfully but unwisely in attacking rebels in South Ossetia. But Putin is lying when he says Georgia was engaged in genocide, and Georgia's attack was itself less devastating than Russian attacks on Chechnya - a precisely parallel situation. So Russia is also being hideously hypocritical.
But we cannot just say that all the major powers involved are behaving terribly. That is true but not enough. Lenin's Tomb has an excellent analysis.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-cold-war-escalates.html
But it is marred by the tendency of the left to think anyone opposed to Bush must be a good thing, and so give Putin the benefit of the doubt. Putin has plenty of blood on his hands also, and not only in Chechnya.
The truth is that life for ordinary people in the ex Soviet countries which have had "Orange Revolutions" like Ukraine and Georgia, is much, much better than in those which have not, like Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. That is so evident as to be undeniable to anyone who has actually been there.
Yet resurgent Russian nationalism is a major threat to Europe, and so Georgia must be supported as Russia tries to increase its hegemony over the former Soviet Union.
Russia's attempt to leverage its Russian minorities into political power has been most obvious in Georgia and remains a major threat in the Ukraine. Given its own opposition to separatism for the many ethnic areas within Russia, this is not a question of principle. I posted on this last week.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/08/china_and_the_u.html
Most commentators have quite correctly picked up on the fact that this is in large part about control of oil and gas pipelines. Those who have seen me lecture know that I have been talking about Russian pressure on Georgia for the last four years. My professional eye on the diplomatic dances around the invasion shows me that, as I predicted, energy dependency has made Germany a Russian client state within the European Union.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/05/uzbekistan_and.html
Those in Poland and Scandinavia who have been campaigning against the Nordstream gas pipeline project are absolutely right. European dependence on Russian hydrocarbons is not only an environmental abomination but also a major security risk. A Russian pipeline through Poland would be designated a major strategic national security interest for Russia - and for Germany. I can see easily see it becoming a cause for future conflict.
An immediate ceasefire is required now and a de facto Russian annexation of South Ossetia must not be permitted, unless we eventually want a war for East Ukraine. Sadly, the West will learn the wrong long-term lesson. The answer is not to strengthen NATO. NATO is part of the cause of the problem, not the solution. By encircling and humiliating Russia, not least with new missile systems, NATO has creaated the climate in Russia so favourable to Putin.
The new NATO is the main symptom of the West's chronic inability to create a new post cold war security structure. By clinging to and expanding NATO, we merely made the return of the Cold War inevitable - much to the benefit of the arms industry and military establishment. If our leaders had any imagination, they would realise that the answer is to wind down NATO and create new structures into which Russia should be drawn.
It is already a decade late for such thinking. With Bush and Brown at the helm and the military and arms industry in grater control than ever of policy in both the US and UK, it is currently impossible.
Posted by craig on 7:36 PM 10/08/08 under UK Policy | Comments (13)
Grumpy Thoughts from Edinburgh
I have been having a great time here with Nadira in Edinburgh. Audiences for the show have been extremely appreciative, though being on at 1.30pm they have not been huge, averaging around 50.
A couple of things have rather spoilt my mood today. I gave an interview to Radio Scotland for a morning talk show called Shereen. It is at the end of this feed (the link only works for one week). http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00cy4m1
As the last word an alleged journalist named Penny Taylor accuses me of exploiting Nadira, which is pretty nasty. I am not sure in what sense she meant - I am subsidising rather than benefiting from Nadira's show. If she meant in our relationship, well Nadira is 26 now and well capable of making up her own mind. But what is especially annoying is that Ms Taylor has neither seen the show nor read my book.
If you listen to the whole programme (which I don't recommend) you will hear that Ms Taylor was also giving strong views on the Georgian crisis despite being blissfully ignorant that South Ossetia is actually part of Georgia. I don't mean she felt it should not be part of Georgia - I mean she really didn't know that it is. Most of us are reticent to speak on subjects of which we know not the most basic facts. But evidently not Ms Taylor.
Giving forth opinions on a show you haven't seen is foolish. Writing a review of a show you haven't seen is thoroughly reprehensible. That appears to be the most likely explanation for what Greer Ogston has done in The List. http://www.list.co.uk/article/10991-the-british-ambassadors-belly-dancer/
Ogston writes:
Nadira Aleiva (who was mistress to the controversial former ambassador in Uzbekistan, Craig Murray) tells her story through the medium of song and dance.
Now it would be difficult to sit through seventy minutes of The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer and fail to notice that it is not a musical. Nobody sings, at all. But the Fringe Festival office made a major cock-up and listed the show under "Musicals and Opera" in the Fringe programme. So if you hadn't actually seen the show, but were cobbling together a review from the material about it you can find on the web, you might feel you could safely say the story was told through song and dance.
You would of course then end up looking very stupid. Take no notice of The List.. It publishes fake reviews.
This is where I come out as a grumpy old man. The abundance of silly review sheets, giving five star ratings to appalling amateurish shows by their friends in the incestuous world of fringe theatre, is a minor annoyance. Much more annoying is the almost complete absence on the Fringe of any endeavour of serious artistic intent.
This is my home town. As a young man I saw Steven Berkoff play Hamlet in a college gym, and Brian Blessed play a (surprisingly subtle) Macbeth in a church hall. Real actors of merit and experience crafted challenging performances for their art and for self-development. You always got the earnest student productions, and they are still around and welcome, but you are lucky to find a good one. But with over 2,000 fringe shows, we are deluged by purveyors of highly derivative stand-up comedy of mostly mediocre quality. At night the Fringe venues are positively anti-intellectual, as drunks roam around and belch laughter to "Observation comedy" about when your relationship is established enough to let your partner see the skidmarks in your pants. Bill Clinton famously described the Hay on Wye festival as "The Woodstock of the Mind". Edinburgh is becoming its Ibiza.
Posted by craig on 6:29 PM 10/08/08 under The Book | Comments (3)
August 6, 2008
I Feel Much Safer Now
Hurray! Osama Bin Laden's driver has been convicted by a totally impartial jury of, umm, US military officers. Next week we have the trial of the woman who cooked his soup, while I understand the CIA are pursuing a very reliable lead on the whereabouts of his local dry cleaner.
Posted by craig on 7:22 PM 06/08/08 under War in Iraq | Comments (3)
Max Mosley Joins Those Thwarting My Book
In general I do not believe in visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, but I must admit that I would be much more comfortable if Oswald Mosley's son wasn't doing quite so well as to be the multi-millionaire head of world motor racing, with his own string of prostitutes. Particularly as he actively supported his father's fascist campaigns once he was old enough to know better.
I was slightly surprised to find that Oswald Mosley was still campaigning in London in the 1960s. What a tolerant people we are. Certainly if either of my grandfathers had seen him, they would have beaten the hell out of him.
If Max Mosley had finished his days as a retired solicitor in Hendon, I would not have begrudged him mild prosperity just because of his dad. But titular head of Formula 1? What are they thinking of? Couldn't they track down any Hitler relatives for the post?
Infuriatingly, Max Mosley's legal win over the News of The World (a case in which life sentences for everybody involved would have been fully justified - including the judge) has added to my difficulties in publishing The Catholic Orangemen of Togo. We already face FCO censorship, separate libel threats from Tim Spicer and Peter Penfold, and a friendly fire attack from Clare Short who doesn't want me to publish her over-enthusiastic and well-oiled dinner party denunication of the British Empire (she denies it happened).
Now I have received the comments from my publisher's lawyers, who suggests at several points that changes are needed due to the Max Mosley case.
The BBC just broadcast an interview with a Chinese dissident who said his greatest desire was for freedom of speech. Me too.
Posted by craig on 9:27 AM 06/08/08 under The Book | Comments (4)
China and the Uighurs
If it wasn't for the border crossings, an eight hour drive from the Eastern border of Uzbekistan would take you into China. There you would be among the Uighurs, a people culturally and linguistically extremely close to the Uzbeks. Like the Tibetans, the Uighurs are culturally, religiously and ethnically oppressed by the highly racist Chnese state. But the Uighurs are Muslims and they do not get the press coverage of the Tibetans, even though their oppression has been still more systematic and brutal. Over a million Uighurs have been displaced by the Chinese state in the last three years alone. Thousands are murdered - either executed or disappeared - every year.
The Uighurs are one of a swathe of Muslim peoples across Central Asia, who fell into the thrall of foreign Empires between the middles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are at least eighteen of these identifiable and mostly Turkic ethnicities, running from the Chechens in the West to the Uighurs in the East. About half the groups who fell under Russian, then Soviet, rule are now in "independent" republics named after Turkic ethnicities. But their political, cultural and religous freedom is still generally repressed as a consequence of continued domination by Soviet apparatchik elites who cling to power through ruthlessness. Meanwhile both Russia and China keep down the Turkic ethnicities within their borders through fierce and relentless brutality.
The War on Terror has enabled Russia, China, Karimov and other Central Asian leaders to characterise any manifestation of a desire for freedom in the region as Islamic terrorism and extremism. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, combining China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan*, is a dictators' club. Despite having several theoretical fields of activity, the main practical focus is entirely on security and, in the words of their declaration, combating "terrorism, separatism and extremism". That is code for repressing any moves to freedom in Central Asia. Co-operation extends to false flag operations and fake intelligence. The Uzbek government response to the Andijan massacre was an example of this, with the Russian government providing "Evidence" to back the Uzbek government's story that the massacred demonstrators were terrorists organised by Chechens and funded by the USA (sic).
One good thing about the Olympics going to Beijing is that the western media has run a few articles on the plight of the Uighurs, of whose existence I suspect few western reporters knew a couple of weeks ago. It is entirely predictable that the Chinese governemmt is responding by organising "terrorist incidents" to try to blacken the Uighurs as part of Al Qaida. Do not be taken in by this rubbish.
*The Tajiks are not Turkic but Persian
Posted by craig on 12:46 AM 06/08/08 under Other | Comments (6)
August 5, 2008
MPs Call Government Gagging Rules Oppressive and Draconian
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David Milliband, Labour's so-called new start, is furiously defending the FCO's new near-fascist regulations for its employees, rules so illiberal that even the House of Commons Public Affairs Committee has today called them "Draconian" and "Oppressive".
Read this next bit carefully. Under New Labour's New Rules, FCO employess may not, for as long as they live publish, broadcast or comment upon, in book, article or interview anything they have learnt or may have learnt in the course of their employment.
Read it again - astonishing isn't it. The ever-excellent Brian Barder has been blogging about it for some time, including this:
http://www.barder.com/ephems/708
The idea, of course, is that only the ministers' version of truth will enter history. You can be confident that Jack Straw's memoirs will not tell you that he instructed Richard Dearlove that we would use intelligence from torture, or that we colluded with torture and extraordinary rendition in Uzbekistan and elsewhere. You needed my memoirs for that. If Jack Straw had his way, I would not have been able to publish my book telling you the truth; in fact the new regulations were born directly out of Straw's fury at Murder in Samarkand.
We now have a government so despised that it strives to protect itself further and further from scrutiny. The entire mess can be traced back to the decision to abandon international law and go for illegal war, torture and assassination. It is impossible to adopt such rotten tactics while maintaining liberalism at home. What New Labour have given us is a fundamental shift towards authoritarianism, which occasionally manifests itself in a dramatic symptom like this one. The body politic of this country is rotting from within.
Posted by craig on 1:56 PM 05/08/08 under UK Policy | Comments (0)
August 4, 2008
Who Will Protect Us From Scotland Yard?
"The reaction from here [Scotland Yard] is, rightly or wrongly, that any re-investigation will be unlikely to reach any different conclusion." - Sky News, 4 August, 12.18pm. Scotland Yard have been briefing journalists furiously for the last forty eight hours that Barry George is guilty and the jury got it wrong. Two teams of detectives, they told the Sky reporter, had investigated the case and reached the same conclusion. Disgracefully Sky News are challenging poor George - who has a mental age of 10 - to take a lie detector test.
I was horrified by the original conviction and the case has been on my mind from time to time for the last eight years. I have no idea who killed Jill Dando or why, but plainly it was very professional. It was carried out with a custom modified and silenced gun, leaving no evidence of the killer on site. George, who needed help with his shoelaces and became confused and lost if on the streets on his own, plainly was simply not up to it. In the police laboratory a single micro-fleck of gunpowder residue, invisible to the naked eye, reached his coat.
There was something medieval about the conviction - a crime has been committed, so let us convict the local mentally disabled person. Lessons must be learnt urgently about the need to protect the mentally weak from the Police and from the prejudice of juries. The case is almost exactly the same as the horrible miscarriage of justice that destroyed the life of Stefan Kiszko and his family. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7052109.stm That again was a case of simply harrowing the local mentally disabled member of the community.
We have learnt nothing in the last thirty years. And judging by their arrogant and disgraceful attitude today, Scotland Yard have no intention of learning anything.
Posted by craig on 12:23 PM 04/08/08 under UK Policy | Comments (2)
August 1, 2008
Jack Straw, Mrs Straw and the Prevention of Justice in the BAE Bribes Scandal
As frequently detailed on this site, Jack Straw's relationship with British Aerospace has been a consistent thread in his political career and in government he has been especially helpful to them, over the sale of Hawk jets to Indonesia, the stopping of the Saudi bribes investigation, corruption allegations in Tanzania, and doubtless in other ways I do not yet know fully about. Not to menoion the billions in arms sales they have made from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which he helped to promote. It probably was not entirely unhelpful either that Jack Straw's wife, Alice Perkins, held Treasury and Cabinet Office jobs which involved policy on defence spending. Among the benefits to Jack Straw which are declared in public are substantial payments for his election expenses by a BAE director.
The huge bribes which the sleazebags in BAE gave to disgusting Saudi crooks were channelled through middlemen including Wafic Said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/29/topstories3.politics
As the Guardian politely puts it: "Wafic Said is one of Britain's wealthiest men. But how he accumulated his estimated £1bn fortune is somewhat opaque."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae17
In other words, he is a crook.
http://intl-news.blogspot.com/2006/11/uks-bae-systems-caught-bribing-saudi.html
But in this brave new world where Universities exist not to advance the sum of human knowledge, but to oil the wheels of commerce, being a succesful crook opens the door to governing boards and gilded statues amidst the groves of academe. Witness the (vomit warning) Oxford University Wafic Said Business School.
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/news/archives/Main/Wafic+Said+creates+25+million+fund+for+Said+Business+School.htm
And who is this on the Said School's Business Advisory Forum - oh look - it's Alice Perkins, aka Mrs Jack Straw!!
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/corporate/baf/
Some may think it is a bit strange for the wife of the Minister for Justice (sic) and Lord Chancellor to sit on the board of the foundation of a suspect in a major crime who has just been let off by the government on grounds of "National Security". But in these brave days of New Labour, it doesn't matter at all.
Jack Straw's wife was a senior civil servant and I am sure she was entirely competent. But there are many thousand retired public employees around of equivalent rank, and they don't get nominated to positions by dodgy Arab arms dealers, or for that matter to the board of that rip-off mis-managed monopoly, the British Airports Authority.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/aug/20/businesscomment.theairlineindustry?commentpage=1
Incidentally, there are some lovely people on the board of Said's business school. There is the former chairman of Centrica, owners of British Gas who just put the price of fuel up 35%. And there is the former chairman of the Charities Commission. See my post on the Smith Institute immediately below.
Posted by craig on 1:26 PM 01/08/08 under UK Policy | Comments (2)
July 31, 2008
The Smith Institute: New Labour's Corrupt Tax Dodge
The corruption of our institutions under New Labour is evidenced by the fact that the Charities Commission have yet again given only a warning to New Labour's most blatant tax dodge, the Smith Institute. Everybody active in Scottish politics recognises full well that the Smith Institute - named after ex-Labour leader John Smith - is part and parcel of New Labour. It is run by Brown's close friends and often meets in Gordon Brown's home. Its board are all New Labour - the supposedly "Neutral" members are John Milligan, New Labour's biggest Scottish donor, http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/12/john_milligan_a.html, and Jack Straw fan Paul Myners. Under Myners' watch the Guardian has finally broken with the terms of C P Scott's trust. which stipulates that it must pursue the causes of liberalism. With its support for the New Labour's "War on Terror" and its pathetic equivocation on the War in Iraq, the Guardian has been a cheerleader for the biggest move away from Liberalism since 1821. Are there any lawyers out there up for a legal challenge in terms of the Scott Trust acting ultra vires? There can be no argument that support for New Labour is compatible with liberal values.
The Smith Institute would be perfectly fine, were it not for the fact that it has charitable status as an independent research organisation and thus dodges hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in tax. There is a good report here from Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=20601102&sid=a40bVP9nqITA&refer=uk
But the article fails to hit the real point. This is the most transparent bit of crookery imaginable. Plainly the Charities Commission in Scotland is fully aware that this is part of New Labour. And yet for years the Smith Institute has been given chance after chance after chance to meet the regulations, without ever having its charitable status removed. No other fake charity would be treated so leniently. Is the Charities Commission yet another quango that has been stitched up by New Labour?
Posted by craig on 3:38 PM 31/07/08 under Dundee Uni | Comments (2)
New Labour and Reality
With great reluctance, I took some Sturgeron anti-vomiting tablets and turned to David Miliband's much-vaunted article.
I really am stunned. If this is the best hope for New Labour, they have lost all touch with reality. Nobody will recognise the parliamentary answer style list of the government's great achievements as having any relationship to actual life, on the day that British Gas announced a 35% price rise. The careful soundbites bear no relationship to the way normal people talk about anything. The general vacuity and failure to outline a single policy proposal make Barack Obama look like a man obsessed with practical detail. The continuing failure to admit the Iraq War was wrong (Miliband only parrots the New Labour mantra that we should have prepared better for the results) is an abomination of shiftiness.
I wonder what Keir Hardie would make of this brash, empty, embodiment of undeserving ambition? I wonder if Miliband has ever spoken to a working man other than to give him curt instructions on installing the Aga? If anyone thinks this empty vessel will save New Labour from the worst political defeat for a century, I am chuckling to see them try.
Posted by craig on 1:52 AM 31/07/08 under Other | Comments (2)
July 30, 2008
Law Lords Back Corruption
Here are statements from Corner House and the Campaign Against the Arms Trade on today's deeply shocking judgement by the Law Lords:
The Law Lords have this morning upheld an appeal by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the High Court's ruling that he acted unlawfully in terminating a corruption investigation into BAE Systems' arms deals with Saudi Arabia.
The appeal followed a High Court judgment in April that the SFO, acting on government advice, had dropped the investigation following lobbying by BAE and a threat from Saudi Arabia to withdraw diplomatic and intelligence co-operation if the investigation were not dropped. This judgment was in response to a judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House.
Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House said:
"Now we know where we are. Under UK law, a supposedly independent prosecutor can do nothing to resist a threat made by someone abroad if the UK government claims that the threat endangers national security. The unscrupulous who have friends in high places overseas willing to make such threats now have a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card – and there is nothing the public can do to hold the government to account if it abuses its national security powers. Parliament needs urgently to plug this gaping hole in the law and in the constitutional checks and balances dealing with national security. With the law as it is, a government can simply invoke 'national security' to drive a coach and horses through international anti-bribery legislation, as the UK government has done, to stop corruption investigations.”
Symon Hill of CAAT said:
"BAE and the government will be quickly disappointed if they think that this ruling will bring an end to public criticism. Throughout this case we have been overwhelmed with support from people in all walks of life. There has been a sharp rise in opposition to BAE's influence in the corridors of power. Fewer people are now taken in by exaggerated claims about British jobs dependent on the arms trade. The government has been judged in the court of public opinion. The public know that Britain will be a better place when BAE is no longer calling the shots.”
CAAT and The Corner House will issue a more detailed statement following an analysis of the Lords' judgments.
Posted by craig on 4:49 PM 30/07/08 under UK Policy | Comments (5)
