2003

So – the smoking gun is here. It would appear that Jonathan Powell, the No.10 chief of staff, sent an email asking for a statement that Saddam Hussein would only use gas if his regime was under threat to be taken out of the dossier because “it backs up the argument that there is no…

In the Intelligence and Security Committee’s otherwise weak and scared report tho other day, there was a minor gem of truth. In the past on this blog, I made the point that the Hutton Inquiry had demonstrated that Jack Straw’s excuse to the Foreign Affairs Committee was dishonest. Straw, you might dimly recall, made the…

It strikes me, with reference to the ID issue, that this proposal keeps coming back for reasons of bureaucratic ecology. The Home Office’s business is control, and any new function or technology or policy that adds to the size and expense of the control business will be loved there – organisations seek first of all…

Liverpool – Car bomb in city centre Stereotypes are stereotypes, but this is going too far!

So – it’s almost here. David Blunkett is apparently pressing to get a Bill creating national identity cards in the Queen’s Speech. And – after all the babble about “entitlement cards” that wouldn’t be called ID cards so as to be more cuddly, voluntary schemes and the like – he wants them to be compulsory,…

Which oil-rich Middle Eastern country supported Osama bin Laden? Which oil-rich Middle Eastern country is run by an alliance of Wahhabi fundamentalists and corrupt princelings? Which oil-rich Middle Eastern country recently locked up a number of British citizens for no reason at all, subjected them to beatings and sleep deprivation, forced them to make video…

The Guardian reports on recent successes by Britain’s favourite mob of semiliterate fascists, the British National Party. Apparently, one BNP councillor had to be “taught what it meant to abstain” at a council meeting last week. Amusing, but there is no place for blatant smuggery when a wannabe politician like the BNP’s John West can…

Times Online Interesting report..

BB link So the habit of shooting Iraqi policemen is spreading! “There has been one death here over the past week – there was a demonstration at the stadium where the Italians are overseeing te payment of stipends (regular money) to the ex-Iraqi Army. The system was bollocks, people complained, stones were thrown, the Iraqi…

Preparation for massive terrorist attack has been a major theme of life since September, 2001, and one that governments have been tackling in various ways. The US, of course, has already built a gigantic new bureaucracy for this task (the department of homeland security, and its military twin the US Northern Command). In the UK,…