I note that there is still nothing more than a very brief post, and a reply to it by me, on http://blairitesforlindsay.blogspot.com, while Voice of Reason's http://brianmad.blogspot.com still cannot be accessed at all. Surely, these people do not maintain Blogger accounts purely in order to contribute to blogs by or about me?
Furthermore, nothing has appeared either on David Lindsay Watch or on True Socialists Against David Lindsay since 5th September, while nothing has appeared on http://davidarselindsay.blogspot.com since 6th May.
Thursday, 28 September 2006
It seems to me that he lived his life...
I am collecting versions of Candle In The Wind beginning "Goodbye, Tony Blair". The best will be published here and on http://davidaslindsay.livejournal.com. My email address, for the shy among you, is davidaslindsay@hotmail.com.
A lot done, a lot to do?
Apparently, The Dear Leader has another thirty things that he wants to do before leaving office. Can anyone suggest what they might be and why, or indeed what they should be and why?
The Fabian Society
Members of the Fabian Society, please vote for me for the National Executive Committee. Very many thanks.
Bill Clinton
What was the Labour Party Conference cheering when it cheered Bill Clinton? Seriously, what?
Trivial Pursuits?
Newsnight, the late-night light entertainment froth that thinks of itself as practically part of the Constitution, surpassed itself last night. No, not another fawning interview with George Michael or Pete Docherty filling up a third or more of the programme. Rather, a piece on how trivial the Labour Party Conference was (pots? kettles?), illustrated by clips of Douglas Alexander talking about bus services and Alan Johnson talking about the coursework component of GCSEs. How very boringly ordinary, as any undergraduate Marxist knows. The Beeb expects better from its old Communist or Trotskyist comrades, the neocons. What could it even call this stupefying outbreak of concern for practical improvements? Old Labour? Or just Labour?
Dreaming Spires
Now it's not often that I say this, but I almost feel sorry for David Miliband. Time and again, he has said that he wants Gordon Brown to succeed Tony Blair, even though what he really means is that he still wants to have a career in a year's time. But the BBC keeps on asking him the question, presumably in the hope of wearing him down to changing his mind. A Prime Minister, you see, can have either an Oxford (not Oxbridge, Oxford) degree, or no degree at all. That is The Rule. BBC-type people know and keep The Rules, and they expect someone like Miliband to know them as surely as they expect someone like Brown not to.
Richard Dawkins is at it again
Richard Dawkins is at it again, this time claiming, among other things, that the New Testament miracle stories have parallels right across the Ancient World, just because he wants this to be the case and cannot be bothered to check whether or not it actually is (it isn't). When are the Philosophy, Theology, Classics and History Departments at Oxford going to demand that he be sacked or they will all resign en bloc?
Tuesday, 26 September 2006
What People Are Saying
The following, all about me, are from elsewhere on the blogosphere:
"The prophet, apostle and high priest of paleo-Labour" (True Socialists Against David Lindsay -- http://socialists-against-lindsay.blogspot.com), defined by David Lindsay Watch (http://davidlindsaywatch.blogspot.com) as "Old Labour means to High Tory ends"
"Statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative" (David Lindsay Watch)
"A reactionary Catholic and a Little Briton masquerading as a Socialist" (True Socialists Against David Lindsay)
"A loyal son of a voluntarily subject people" (ditto)
"The old Socialist means to the Buchananite ends" (David Lindsay Watch on several American neocon blogs)
"Incipiently fascistic" (http://frsimon.livejournal.com)
"Criminally ignorant" (lillabularo on http://frsimon.livejournal.com)
"The leadership contest in full fray,
Who could keep the Tories at bay?
Was he from Manchester?
Or maybe from Lanchester?
But none other than David Lindsay!
http://david-lindsay-for-prime-minister.blogspot.com/"
(James, who shares a blog (http://innerwestcentral.blogspot.com) with an old friend of mine but whom I have never met, on http://letsbesensible.blogspot.com, also maintained by another old friend of mine; but I only discovered them both over the weekend, whereas James posted this on 7th September)
"It is second nature to the British People to understand all of this [various of my views as posted here]. And now, at long last, there is a politician who understands it with them: David Lindsay" (the terribly flattering, if embarrassing, http://david-lindsay-for-prime-minister.blogspot.com)
"David Lindsay's genius lies in his articulation of what we all know implicitly, instinctively and intuitively in the real world, but our arrogant and insular political-media class is too cut off to understand" (ditto)
"Of course, you do [agree with various of my views as posted here]! We all do! At the very least, you will once you have read him: you will realise what you have always known deep down. This is also the case with his superlative four-post essay Left And Right Must Unite And Fight. Yet who else in public life is saying any of these things? It is no wonder that few people still vote and almost nobody still belongs to a political party.
Why is David Lindsay not an MP already? He must become one as soon as possible. And he must become Prime Minister as soon as practicable thereafter" (ditto)
And the following are from emails forwarded to me by naughty people:
"I only really disagree with him about hanging" (Labour MP and serving Minister -- I am against hanging)
"A ghastly throwback to the sort of people who only stayed in the Labour Party because they were too Eurosceptical to join the SDP and their roots in local government and the unions were too deep" (leading liberal-"left" journalist)
"His office would be nothing but a telephone exchange between Clarence House and the Vatican. Labour does not need its own Norman St John Stevas" (high-ranking Labour Party official)
"If he was already an MP, we'd be putting him forward for Deputy Leader" (high-ranking trade union official)
"Candidates like him could cost us every seat in the North, and every farming, churchgoing seat in the South. Imagine you're a churchgoing farmer in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland [sic] or Northumbria [sic]. Are you a Lindsayite, or a Cameroon? It's a no-brainer" (high-ranking Conservative Party official)
"L'Angleterre, voici votre de Gaulle" (reportedly uttered by a Gaullist MEP)
"The prophet, apostle and high priest of paleo-Labour" (True Socialists Against David Lindsay -- http://socialists-against-lindsay.blogspot.com), defined by David Lindsay Watch (http://davidlindsaywatch.blogspot.com) as "Old Labour means to High Tory ends"
"Statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative" (David Lindsay Watch)
"A reactionary Catholic and a Little Briton masquerading as a Socialist" (True Socialists Against David Lindsay)
"A loyal son of a voluntarily subject people" (ditto)
"The old Socialist means to the Buchananite ends" (David Lindsay Watch on several American neocon blogs)
"Incipiently fascistic" (http://frsimon.livejournal.com)
"Criminally ignorant" (lillabularo on http://frsimon.livejournal.com)
"The leadership contest in full fray,
Who could keep the Tories at bay?
Was he from Manchester?
Or maybe from Lanchester?
But none other than David Lindsay!
http://david-lindsay-for-prime-minister.blogspot.com/"
(James, who shares a blog (http://innerwestcentral.blogspot.com) with an old friend of mine but whom I have never met, on http://letsbesensible.blogspot.com, also maintained by another old friend of mine; but I only discovered them both over the weekend, whereas James posted this on 7th September)
"It is second nature to the British People to understand all of this [various of my views as posted here]. And now, at long last, there is a politician who understands it with them: David Lindsay" (the terribly flattering, if embarrassing, http://david-lindsay-for-prime-minister.blogspot.com)
"David Lindsay's genius lies in his articulation of what we all know implicitly, instinctively and intuitively in the real world, but our arrogant and insular political-media class is too cut off to understand" (ditto)
"Of course, you do [agree with various of my views as posted here]! We all do! At the very least, you will once you have read him: you will realise what you have always known deep down. This is also the case with his superlative four-post essay Left And Right Must Unite And Fight. Yet who else in public life is saying any of these things? It is no wonder that few people still vote and almost nobody still belongs to a political party.
Why is David Lindsay not an MP already? He must become one as soon as possible. And he must become Prime Minister as soon as practicable thereafter" (ditto)
And the following are from emails forwarded to me by naughty people:
"I only really disagree with him about hanging" (Labour MP and serving Minister -- I am against hanging)
"A ghastly throwback to the sort of people who only stayed in the Labour Party because they were too Eurosceptical to join the SDP and their roots in local government and the unions were too deep" (leading liberal-"left" journalist)
"His office would be nothing but a telephone exchange between Clarence House and the Vatican. Labour does not need its own Norman St John Stevas" (high-ranking Labour Party official)
"If he was already an MP, we'd be putting him forward for Deputy Leader" (high-ranking trade union official)
"Candidates like him could cost us every seat in the North, and every farming, churchgoing seat in the South. Imagine you're a churchgoing farmer in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland [sic] or Northumbria [sic]. Are you a Lindsayite, or a Cameroon? It's a no-brainer" (high-ranking Conservative Party official)
"L'Angleterre, voici votre de Gaulle" (reportedly uttered by a Gaullist MEP)
Keep them coming!
This is what they want to escape to, so let's help them to build it at home
It used to be beyond me why Bulgaria and Romania wanted to become members of the EU. But then I thought why their people, like numerous Poles and others, might wish to take advantage of that membership by fleeing to Western Europe. Fleeing from what? From the backwash of a long-gone system, several of whose senior figures now sit in the new Politburo and its new rubber-stamp "Parliament"? Hardly! They are fleeing from the red-in-tooth-and-claw neoliberalism that those same people earned their present positions by imposing in the 1990s, and to which that Politburo, headed by a "former" Maoist and including a number of other old fellow-travellers such as Peter Mandelson, is fiercely committed for the whole EU, having merely changed Marxism's ending so that the bourgeoisie wins.
The achievements in education, health care and public transport of the old Soviet Bloc (as noted by, among others, Peter Hitchens in The Abolition of Britain), or of Cuba today, must not blind us to the manifold wickednesses in other areas. But the reverse also holds. The neocon-run, neocon-backed EU's well-advanced attempts to do to Western Europe what has been done to Eastern Europe must be opposed root and branch by the movement that simultaneously defended the best conservative values both against the Soviet Union and its "British" supporters, and against the "British" supporters of (among other things, including an act of high treason against the present Queen) a Boer Republic set up as an explicit act of anti-British revenge in a former Dominion of the Crown by people who had been interred during the Second World War because of their pro-Nazi activities.
That movement needs to be rebuilt, and then built up in the countries from which people are trying to escape, so that they do not feel any such need. If saying this and acting upon it make me a "the prophet, apostle and high priest of paleo-Labour", with its "Old Labour means to High Tory ends", then I am proud to be such a "statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative". And so are plenty of other people. The majority, indeed and as ever, of the British People.
The achievements in education, health care and public transport of the old Soviet Bloc (as noted by, among others, Peter Hitchens in The Abolition of Britain), or of Cuba today, must not blind us to the manifold wickednesses in other areas. But the reverse also holds. The neocon-run, neocon-backed EU's well-advanced attempts to do to Western Europe what has been done to Eastern Europe must be opposed root and branch by the movement that simultaneously defended the best conservative values both against the Soviet Union and its "British" supporters, and against the "British" supporters of (among other things, including an act of high treason against the present Queen) a Boer Republic set up as an explicit act of anti-British revenge in a former Dominion of the Crown by people who had been interred during the Second World War because of their pro-Nazi activities.
That movement needs to be rebuilt, and then built up in the countries from which people are trying to escape, so that they do not feel any such need. If saying this and acting upon it make me a "the prophet, apostle and high priest of paleo-Labour", with its "Old Labour means to High Tory ends", then I am proud to be such a "statist, syndicalist, nationalist and theoconservative". And so are plenty of other people. The majority, indeed and as ever, of the British People.
Wish Him Luck As We Wave Him Goodbye?
I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or to cry when I saw those paid Labour Party employees at the front of the hall waving their ridiculous placards saying "Greatest PM Ever" and such like. Or indeed, when anyone applauded Blair at all, but no one attempted a citizen's arrest of this war criminal and peerage salesman (tune in to a Dispatches special at 8pm tonight on Channel Four).
The only things of note in his hour-long speech were his insistence that his foreign policy had had nothing to do with increasing the terrorist threat (they even applauded THAT! Have they been lobotomised, or have the no brains to lobotomise?) and his repeated call for identity cards with which to persecute trade unionists, environmentalists and peace activists while doing absolutely no good to anyone.
For the second year running, he did not even apologise to a Labour Party audience for losing Labour one hundred seats, and half the members that it had 10 years ago; nor to anyone for calling our democracy gravely into question by almost certainly bringing about a turnout below fifty per cent next time. Speaking of which, he brushed aside the very strong probability of a hung Parliament as if it did not exist.
Good riddance!
The only things of note in his hour-long speech were his insistence that his foreign policy had had nothing to do with increasing the terrorist threat (they even applauded THAT! Have they been lobotomised, or have the no brains to lobotomise?) and his repeated call for identity cards with which to persecute trade unionists, environmentalists and peace activists while doing absolutely no good to anyone.
For the second year running, he did not even apologise to a Labour Party audience for losing Labour one hundred seats, and half the members that it had 10 years ago; nor to anyone for calling our democracy gravely into question by almost certainly bringing about a turnout below fifty per cent next time. Speaking of which, he brushed aside the very strong probability of a hung Parliament as if it did not exist.
Good riddance!
Monday, 25 September 2006
By Way Of Illustration
Old Durham hands, in particular, might like to visit http://letsbesensible.blogspot.com by way of illustration of my point that neoconservatism began on, and has never really abandoned, the sectarian Left, and http://innerwestcentral.blogspot.com by way of illustration of my point that the neocons, in their Trotskyist entryist way, are trying to take over the Liberal Democrats as well as the other two parties. Even so, I was genuinely surprised at these two. And that doesn't happen very often.
Friday, 22 September 2006
That Papal Lecture in full
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474: a remarkable study of the relationship between faith and reason, and between Christianity and Hellenism. Read it!
Monday, 18 September 2006
Back the Pope
Back the Pope. He was right the first time. Muhammad introduced the principle, rather than merely the recurrent but aberrant practice, of conversion by force of arms.
Not that any such force is necessary in Europe today, or will be necessary in America tomorrow. There are already sixty thousand Muslims classified as White British. If that number grows by fifty per cent every ten years, there will be over a million by 2100. If it grows by a much more realistic one hundred per cent every ten years, then there will be nearly 23 million. Meanwhile, the "mainstream" birth rate has now been well below replacement level for two generations, and shows every sign of remaining so. There are comparable patterns right across Europe.
America is being Islamised next. Disaffected black youth discovers a sense of identity by reference to the Islamic kingdoms of West Africa. Deep-thinking young black women understandably decide that being princesses of such kingdoms is preferable to being hip-hop "bitches" or "ho-es". Many are re-living Malcolm X’s journey from the Nation of Islam (which has influenced hip-hop profoundly) to mainstream Islam (which has itself influenced much of black music, notably jazz). And black popular music has enormous crossover appeal.
But why turn to Islam, with its harems, its shrouded women, its amputations, and all? For structured daily prayer, the setting aside of one day in seven, fasting, charitable almsgiving, and pilgrimage. For a global community of faith, continuous with Antiquity, as the primary focus of allegiance and the primary locus of identity. And for a coherent critique both of capitalism and of Marxism, with the necessary underlying affirmation of the coherence between faith and reason, and with a consequently integrated approach to art and science. Yet are these things unknown in Western civilisation? Back the Pope.
Not that any such force is necessary in Europe today, or will be necessary in America tomorrow. There are already sixty thousand Muslims classified as White British. If that number grows by fifty per cent every ten years, there will be over a million by 2100. If it grows by a much more realistic one hundred per cent every ten years, then there will be nearly 23 million. Meanwhile, the "mainstream" birth rate has now been well below replacement level for two generations, and shows every sign of remaining so. There are comparable patterns right across Europe.
America is being Islamised next. Disaffected black youth discovers a sense of identity by reference to the Islamic kingdoms of West Africa. Deep-thinking young black women understandably decide that being princesses of such kingdoms is preferable to being hip-hop "bitches" or "ho-es". Many are re-living Malcolm X’s journey from the Nation of Islam (which has influenced hip-hop profoundly) to mainstream Islam (which has itself influenced much of black music, notably jazz). And black popular music has enormous crossover appeal.
But why turn to Islam, with its harems, its shrouded women, its amputations, and all? For structured daily prayer, the setting aside of one day in seven, fasting, charitable almsgiving, and pilgrimage. For a global community of faith, continuous with Antiquity, as the primary focus of allegiance and the primary locus of identity. And for a coherent critique both of capitalism and of Marxism, with the necessary underlying affirmation of the coherence between faith and reason, and with a consequently integrated approach to art and science. Yet are these things unknown in Western civilisation? Back the Pope.
Spooks
A warm welcome back to Spooks, the BBC's (presumably) licence-funded dose of ridiculous MI5 propaganda. This week, we see that organisation, which (with the Police top brass) has done more than any other to seek to engineer the abolition of civil liberties and democratic accountability in this country, valiantly foiling a coup attempt by, among other people, the right-wing Press, which, to give it its due, has in fact done a great deal to defend those liberties and that accountability by forcing the Tories, who had wanted to sign them away, to oppose attempts to do so.
Speaking of the Tories, David Cameron, while a Leadership candidate, told Woman's Hour that Spooks was the best thing on television. He subsequently took more than two thirds of over a quarter of a million votes cast. Yet there were, and are, only 250 active Conservative Associations, with half of those admitting publicly to having fewer than one hundred members each. But no one ever mentions this. Funny, that.
It's real, you know...
Speaking of the Tories, David Cameron, while a Leadership candidate, told Woman's Hour that Spooks was the best thing on television. He subsequently took more than two thirds of over a quarter of a million votes cast. Yet there were, and are, only 250 active Conservative Associations, with half of those admitting publicly to having fewer than one hundred members each. But no one ever mentions this. Funny, that.
It's real, you know...
Qualified and Unqualified
Does Harriet Harman even regard herself, never mind expect anyone else to regard her, as qualified for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party in any way except that she happens to be the involuntary bearer of an unearned second X chromosome? Yet she and her old associate Patricia Hewitt are even said to be planning a constitutional change whereby there would always be two Deputy Leaders, one of each sex. What in the world would a second Deputy Leader actually do?
Meanwhile, we are told that the late Tony Blair, of unhappy memory, has told Alan Johnson that he cannot be a future Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom because he is "untested and "a lightweight" compared to ... David Miliband! If Johnson is "untested", then Blair cannot know that he is "a lightweight"; but we cannot expect Blair to understand this, since he is really the central character in an Ealing comedy of how, by a series of accidents, a thick toff with no interest in politics manages to become Prime Minister.
Now, there might be all sorts of reasons not to want Alan Johnson as Prime Minister. But the facts remain that Johnson's father walked out when he was six, that his mother died when he was 12, that his own daughter died, and, most significantly, that he has had proper jobs as a postman and as a postmen's trade union rep, both a lot more testing than being "Head of the Downing Street Policy Unit", whatever (if anything) that might actually entail. It strikes me as one of those non-jobs for people who are far too grand to have to work for a living because, say, their fathers are among the most important academics in the world, they themselves went to Oxford and Harvard purely on the back of that fact (and despite very limited intellects of their own), and a safe seat has yet to be arranged for them in such a way as to bypass the local party.
Meanwhile, we are told that the late Tony Blair, of unhappy memory, has told Alan Johnson that he cannot be a future Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom because he is "untested and "a lightweight" compared to ... David Miliband! If Johnson is "untested", then Blair cannot know that he is "a lightweight"; but we cannot expect Blair to understand this, since he is really the central character in an Ealing comedy of how, by a series of accidents, a thick toff with no interest in politics manages to become Prime Minister.
Now, there might be all sorts of reasons not to want Alan Johnson as Prime Minister. But the facts remain that Johnson's father walked out when he was six, that his mother died when he was 12, that his own daughter died, and, most significantly, that he has had proper jobs as a postman and as a postmen's trade union rep, both a lot more testing than being "Head of the Downing Street Policy Unit", whatever (if anything) that might actually entail. It strikes me as one of those non-jobs for people who are far too grand to have to work for a living because, say, their fathers are among the most important academics in the world, they themselves went to Oxford and Harvard purely on the back of that fact (and despite very limited intellects of their own), and a safe seat has yet to be arranged for them in such a way as to bypass the local party.
Yes, Brown is British, actually
There might also be all sorts of reasons not to want Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, although there is nothing that can now be done to stop this from happening. But give a few moments of thought to the London media's insistence that his interest in Britishness must be insincere because he is Scottish.
Making the most of the coming hung Parliament
Clare Short does not need to campaign for a hung Parliament, since it is going to happen anyway, and she probably just wants to claim some credit when it does. But when it does, will there be the "change in the electoral system" that she wants? I sincerely hope not: the prospect of permanently dividing England into equal numbers of safe Labour, safe Tory and safe Liberal seats does not exactly appeal.
Instead, in the course of each Parliament, each political party at national level should submit a shortlist of two potential Leaders to a binding ballot of the whole electorate. At constituency level, each party should submit a shortlist of two potential parliamentary candidates to a binding ballot of the whole constituency electorate.
And each branch of each party (including branches of affiliated organisations in Labour's case) should suggest up to three policies, with the three receiving the highest numbers of votes from each branch going forward. The ten highest scorers nationwide would then go out to a ballot of the whole electorate, with each voter entitled to vote for up to two, and with the top five to be included in the subsequent General Election Manifesto, with all the pressure that particularly popular policies would thus put on the other parties.
Furthermore, each MP who takes his or her seat should be given a tax-free allowance of a fixed sum of money, publicly transferable to the registered political party of that MP's choice, conditional upon matching funding by resolution of a membership organisation (the name of which would then appear in brackets on the ballot paper after the party designation next to that MP's name), with party spending limited to twice the number of MPs multiplied by the amount of that allowance.
Instead, in the course of each Parliament, each political party at national level should submit a shortlist of two potential Leaders to a binding ballot of the whole electorate. At constituency level, each party should submit a shortlist of two potential parliamentary candidates to a binding ballot of the whole constituency electorate.
And each branch of each party (including branches of affiliated organisations in Labour's case) should suggest up to three policies, with the three receiving the highest numbers of votes from each branch going forward. The ten highest scorers nationwide would then go out to a ballot of the whole electorate, with each voter entitled to vote for up to two, and with the top five to be included in the subsequent General Election Manifesto, with all the pressure that particularly popular policies would thus put on the other parties.
Furthermore, each MP who takes his or her seat should be given a tax-free allowance of a fixed sum of money, publicly transferable to the registered political party of that MP's choice, conditional upon matching funding by resolution of a membership organisation (the name of which would then appear in brackets on the ballot paper after the party designation next to that MP's name), with party spending limited to twice the number of MPs multiplied by the amount of that allowance.
The 1960s
I have been asked with which specific changes in the 1960s I disagree. So let me say, first, that I support the abolition of capital punishment, though not for any reason to do with miscarriages of justice, since that was not why it was abolished in the first place. And secondly, that I support the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts between consenting adults in private, a reform predating by several years the rise of the gay movement (the roots of which are in the abuse of teenage boys), which can claim no credit for it.
Tuesday, 12 September 2006
Blair: Why Care?
It really is high time that everyone got over Tony Blair. When he took over as Labour Leader, he inherited an opinion poll rating which had not varied since September 1992, when only the most hardened political obsessive had ever heard of him.
That rating simply translated itself into the 1997 General Election result, exactly as it would have done anyway, even if Blair had never been born. Swings as large as any in 1997 were recorded in the preceding European Elections, when the Labour Party was led by Margaret Beckett. So there is not, nor has there ever been, a single MP who owed his or her seat to Tony Blair. On the contrary, 2005 was the first time that Blair ever influenced a General Election result. Specifically, he single-handedly lost Labour one hundred seats.
As for “the dominance of New Labour ideas”, what “New Labour ideas”? There were only ever two. First, that Blair should be Prime Minister. And secondly, that the trappings of office should therefore be enjoyed by his jaw-droppingly undistinguished courtiers: Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, Michael Levy, Carole Caplin, Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn.
Future historians will mention this nonentity only in passing. They will have to, in order to explain the gap between the shorter, but much more significant, premierships of John Major and Gordon Brown. For good or ill, Major did things, such as privatising the railways, and tentatively beginning British support for American neoconservative foreign policy (whatever his allies still in the Commons might say now). And, for good or ill, Brown will do things, probably in much the same sorry vein. The mere desire to be Prime Minister cannot account for Brown’s sense of grievance: he wants not just to be, but to do.
By contrast, what has Blair actually been for?
That rating simply translated itself into the 1997 General Election result, exactly as it would have done anyway, even if Blair had never been born. Swings as large as any in 1997 were recorded in the preceding European Elections, when the Labour Party was led by Margaret Beckett. So there is not, nor has there ever been, a single MP who owed his or her seat to Tony Blair. On the contrary, 2005 was the first time that Blair ever influenced a General Election result. Specifically, he single-handedly lost Labour one hundred seats.
As for “the dominance of New Labour ideas”, what “New Labour ideas”? There were only ever two. First, that Blair should be Prime Minister. And secondly, that the trappings of office should therefore be enjoyed by his jaw-droppingly undistinguished courtiers: Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, Michael Levy, Carole Caplin, Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn.
Future historians will mention this nonentity only in passing. They will have to, in order to explain the gap between the shorter, but much more significant, premierships of John Major and Gordon Brown. For good or ill, Major did things, such as privatising the railways, and tentatively beginning British support for American neoconservative foreign policy (whatever his allies still in the Commons might say now). And, for good or ill, Brown will do things, probably in much the same sorry vein. The mere desire to be Prime Minister cannot account for Brown’s sense of grievance: he wants not just to be, but to do.
By contrast, what has Blair actually been for?
The neocons want to abolish the RAF
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=482 is an article by Colonel Tim Collins, a signatory to The Henry Jackson Society, calling for the abolition of the RAF. No wonder even David Cameron, albeit in a bit of would-be Straussian deception of the common herd, now claims not to be a neoconservative. In addition to wanting a single European defence capability (yes, that means you Michael Gove, Ed Vaizey, Andrew Roberts, and the rest) under overall American command, the neocons, who run the two main parties and are the rising generation in the third, also want to abolish the RAF. The case for new political parties is unanswerable.
Monday, 11 September 2006
Without Prejudice
Please pass this on far and wide, although it might be worth copying your emails doing so to info@liberty-human-rights.org.uk. This is from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/europe/28plot.html: anyone seeking to access that from a computer in Britain will be confronted with the statement that, "Publication of this article on nytimes.com has been delayed temporarily on the advice of legal counsel. It is also being omitted from the British circulation of The International Herald Tribune. This arises from British laws that prohibit publication of information that could be deemed prejudicial to defendants charged with a crime." But this was a front page article in The New York Times on 28th August, and it is a lot less prejudical than the utterances of John Reid or of his personal militia previously known as the Police. So here it is:
In Tapes, Receipts and a Diary, Details of the British Terror Case
Martyrdom Motive and 'Bomb Factory' Cited
This article was reported and written by Don Van Natta Jr., Elaine Sciolino and Stephen Grey.
Reporting for this article was contributed by William J. Broad from New York, Carlotta Gall from Pakistan, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti from Washington
LONDON, Aug. 27 - On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the United States and its "accomplices," Britain and the Jews.
"As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed," said one of the men on a "martyrdom" videotape, whose contents were described by a senior British official and a person briefed about the case. The young man added that he hoped God would be "pleased with us and accepts our deed."
As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden video and audio equipment. Not long after the tape was recorded that day. Scotland Yard decided to shut down what they suspected was a terrorist cell. That action set off a chain of events that raised the terror threat levels in Britain and the United States, barred passengers from taking liquids on airplanes and plunged air traffic into chaos around the world.
The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details include fresh evidence from Britain's most wideranging terror investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes, several suspects' statements of their motives.
But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10 were driven less by information I about a specific, imminent attack than fear that other, unknown terrorists might strike.
The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that investigators called the "bomb factory," where the police watched as the suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.
In searches during raids, the police discovered what they said were the necessary components to make a highly volatile liquid explosive known as HMTD, jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven martyrdom videos made by six suspects and the last will and testament of a would-be bomber, senior British officials said.
One of the suspects said on his martyrdom video that the "war against Muslims" in Iraq and Afghanistan had motivated him to act.
Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an unemployed man in his 20's who was living in a modest apartment on government benefits, kept the key to the alleged "bomb factory" and helped others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.
Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.
Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." On the day of the arrests, some officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as "getting really quite close to the execution stage." But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be members.
While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating that one the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said. Some of their suspected bomb-making equipment was found five days after the arrests in a suitcase buried under leaves in the woods near High Wycombe, a town 30 miles northwest of London.
Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes is speculative and exaggerated.
In his first public statement after the alerts, Peter Clarke, chief of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police were still investigating the basics: "the number, destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked."
A total of 25 people have been arrested in connection with the suspected plot. Twelve of them have been charged. Eight people were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and preparing acts of terrorism.
Three people were charged with failing to disclose information that could help prevent a terrorist act, and a 17-year-old male suspect was charged with possession of articles that could be used to prepare a terrorist act.
Eight people still in custody have not been charged. Five have been released. All the suspects arrested are British citizens ranging in age from 17 to 35.
Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.
A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, "in theory is dangerous," but whether the suspects "had the brains to pull it off remains to be seen."
While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.
"In retrospect," said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, "there may have been too much hyperventilating going on."
Some of the suspects came to the attention of Scotland Yard more than a year ago, shortly after four suicide bombers attacked three subway trains and a double-decker bus in London on July 7, 2005, a coordinated attack that killed 56 people and wounded more than 700. The investigation was dubbed "Operation Overt."
The Police Are Tipped Off
The police were apparently tipped off by informers. One former British counterterrorism official, who was working for the government at the time, said several people living in Waltham stow, a working-class neighborhood in East London, alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small group of angry young Muslim men.
Walthamstow is best known for its faded greyhound track and the borough of Waltham Forest, where more than 17,000 Pakistani immigrants live in the largest Pakistani enclave in London.
Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain's domestic security services, began an around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in Walthamstow -- bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry, according to senior British officials.
The initial focus of the investigation was not about possible terrorism aboard planes, but an effort to see whether there were any links between the dozen men and the July 7 subway bombers, or terrorist cells in Pakistan, the officials said.
The authorities quickly learned the identity of the man believed to have been the leader of the cell, the unemployed man in his mid-20's, who traveled at least twice within the past year to Pakistan, where his activities are still being investigated.
Last June, a 22-year-old Walthamstow resident, who is among the suspects arrested Aug. 10, paid $260,000 cash for a second-floor apartment in a house on Forest Road, according to official property records. The authorities noticed that six men were regularly visiting the second-floor apartment that came to be known as the "bomb factory," according to a British official and the person briefed about the case.
Two of the men, who were likely the bomb-makers, were conducting a series of experiments with chemicals, said the person briefed on the case.
MI5 agents secretly installed video and audio recording equipment inside the apartment, two senior British officials said. In a secret search conducted before the Aug. 10 raids, agents had discovered that the inside of batteries had been scooped out, and that it appeared several suspects were doing chemical experiments with a sports drink named Lucozade and syringes, the person with knowledge of the case said. Investigators have said they believe that the suspects intended to bring explosive chemicals aboard planes inside sports drink bottles.
In that apartment, according to a British official, one of the leaders and a man in his late 20's met at least twice to discuss the suspected plot, as MI5 agents secretly watched and listened. On Aug. 9, just hours before the police raids occurred in 50 locations from East London to Birmingham, the two men met again to discuss the suspected plot and record a martyrdom video.
As one of the men read from a script before a video-camera, he recited a quotation from the Koran and ticked off his reasons for the "action that I am going to undertake," according to the person briefed on the case. The man said he was seeking revenge for the foreign policy of the United States, and "their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews." The man said he wanted to show that the enemies of Islam would never win this "war."
Beseeching other Muslims to join jihad, he justified the killing of innocent civilians in America and other Western countries because they supported the war against Muslims through their tax dollars. They were too busy enjoying their Western lifestyles to protest the policies, he added. Though British officials usually release little information about continuing investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects were charged.
A Trove of Evidence
"There have been 69 searches," Mr. Clarke, the chief antiterrorist police official from Scotland Yard, said Monday. "These have been in houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces."
Investigators also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones and 8,000 items like memory sticks, CD's and DVD's. "The scale is immense." Mr. Clarke said.
"Inquiries will span the globe." He said those searches revealed a trove of evidence, and officials and others last week provided additional details.
Four of the law firms that are defending suspects declined to comment.
When police officers knocked down the door to the second-floor apartment on Forest Road, they found a plastic bin filled with liquid, batteries, nearly a dozen empty drink bottles, rubber gloves, digital scales and a disposable camera that was leaking liquid, the person with knowledge of the case said.
The camera might have been a prototype for a device to smuggle chemicals on the plane.
In the pocket of one of the suspects, the police found the computer memory stick that showed he had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to the United States, a British official said. The man is said to have had a diary that included a list that the police interpreted as a step-by-step plan for an attack. The items included batteries and Lucozade bottles. It also included a reminder to select a date.
In the homes of a number of the suspects, the police found jihadist literature and DVD's about "genocide" in Iraq and Palestine, according to British officials. In one house searched by the police in Walthamstow, the authorities found a copy of a book called "Defense of the Muslim Lands." A "last will and testament" for one of the accused was said to have been found at his brother's home. Dated Sept. 24, 2005, the will concludes, "What should I worry when I die a Muslim, in the manner in which I am to die, I go to my death for the sake of my maker." God, he added, can if he wants "bless limbs torn away!!!"
Looking for Global Ties
In addition, the British authorities are scouring the evidence for clues to whether there is a global dimension to the suspected plot, particularly the extent to which it was planned, financed or supported in Pakistan, and whether there is a connection to remnants of Al Qaeda. They are still trying to determine who provided the cash for the apartment and the computer equipment and telephones, officials said.
Several of the suspects had traveled to Pakistan within weeks of the arrests, according to an American counterterrorism official.
At a minimum, investigators say at least one of the suspects' inspiration was drawn from Al Qaeda. One of the suspects' "kill-as-they-kill" martyrdom video was taken from a November 2002 fatwa by Osama bin Laden.
British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before Scotland Yard was ready.
The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani investigators have described as a "key figure" in the plot.
In 2000, Mr. Rauf's father founded Crescent Relief London, a charity that sent money to victims of last October's earthquake in Pakistan. Several suspects met through their involvement in the charity, a friend of one of them said. Last week, Britain froze the charity's bank accounts and opened an investigation into possible "terrorist abuse of charitable funds." Leaders of the charity have denied the allegations.
Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated investigators here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the people involved in the suspected plot.
But within hours of Mr. Rauf's arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the plot, officials said.
"The plotters received a very short message to 'Go now,' " said Franco Frattini, the European Union's security commissioner, who was briefed by the British home secretary, John Reid, in London. "I was convinced by British authorities that this message exists." A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators here had to change their strategy quickly.
"The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer," said a senior British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality rules. "It ended much sooner than we had hoped." From then on, the British government was driven by worst-case scenarios based on a minimum-risk strategy.
British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf's arrest could push the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the possibility they would not be able to arrest them all. But investigators also could not rule out that there could be an unknown second cell that would try to carry out a similar plan, officials said.
Mr. Clarke, as the country's top antiterrorism police official in London with authority over police decisions, ordered the arrests.
But it was left to Mr. Reid, who has been home secretary since May and is a former defense secretary, to decide at emergency meetings of police, national security and transoprt leaders. What else needed to be done? Mr. Reid and Mr. Clarke declined repeated requests for interviews.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was on vacation in Barbados, where he was said to have monitored events in London; Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did not attend the meeting.
While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain's terror alert level to "critical," as the police continued their raids of suspects' homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson's remark that the attack would have been "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," Mr. Reid said that attacks were "highly likely" and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an "unprecedented scale." Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as unfortunate.
As more information was analyzed and the British government decided that the attack was not imminent, Mr. Reid sought to calm the country by backing off from his dire predictions, while defending the decision to raise the alert level to its highest level as a precaution.
In lowering the threat level from critical to severe on Aug. 14, Mr. Reid acknowledged: "Threat level assessments are intelligence-led. It is not a process where scientific precision is possible. They involve judgments."
In Tapes, Receipts and a Diary, Details of the British Terror Case
Martyrdom Motive and 'Bomb Factory' Cited
This article was reported and written by Don Van Natta Jr., Elaine Sciolino and Stephen Grey.
Reporting for this article was contributed by William J. Broad from New York, Carlotta Gall from Pakistan, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti from Washington
LONDON, Aug. 27 - On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the United States and its "accomplices," Britain and the Jews.
"As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed," said one of the men on a "martyrdom" videotape, whose contents were described by a senior British official and a person briefed about the case. The young man added that he hoped God would be "pleased with us and accepts our deed."
As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden video and audio equipment. Not long after the tape was recorded that day. Scotland Yard decided to shut down what they suspected was a terrorist cell. That action set off a chain of events that raised the terror threat levels in Britain and the United States, barred passengers from taking liquids on airplanes and plunged air traffic into chaos around the world.
The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details include fresh evidence from Britain's most wideranging terror investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes, several suspects' statements of their motives.
But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10 were driven less by information I about a specific, imminent attack than fear that other, unknown terrorists might strike.
The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that investigators called the "bomb factory," where the police watched as the suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.
In searches during raids, the police discovered what they said were the necessary components to make a highly volatile liquid explosive known as HMTD, jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven martyrdom videos made by six suspects and the last will and testament of a would-be bomber, senior British officials said.
One of the suspects said on his martyrdom video that the "war against Muslims" in Iraq and Afghanistan had motivated him to act.
Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an unemployed man in his 20's who was living in a modest apartment on government benefits, kept the key to the alleged "bomb factory" and helped others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.
Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.
Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." On the day of the arrests, some officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as "getting really quite close to the execution stage." But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be members.
While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating that one the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said. Some of their suspected bomb-making equipment was found five days after the arrests in a suitcase buried under leaves in the woods near High Wycombe, a town 30 miles northwest of London.
Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes is speculative and exaggerated.
In his first public statement after the alerts, Peter Clarke, chief of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police were still investigating the basics: "the number, destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked."
A total of 25 people have been arrested in connection with the suspected plot. Twelve of them have been charged. Eight people were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and preparing acts of terrorism.
Three people were charged with failing to disclose information that could help prevent a terrorist act, and a 17-year-old male suspect was charged with possession of articles that could be used to prepare a terrorist act.
Eight people still in custody have not been charged. Five have been released. All the suspects arrested are British citizens ranging in age from 17 to 35.
Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.
A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, "in theory is dangerous," but whether the suspects "had the brains to pull it off remains to be seen."
While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.
"In retrospect," said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, "there may have been too much hyperventilating going on."
Some of the suspects came to the attention of Scotland Yard more than a year ago, shortly after four suicide bombers attacked three subway trains and a double-decker bus in London on July 7, 2005, a coordinated attack that killed 56 people and wounded more than 700. The investigation was dubbed "Operation Overt."
The Police Are Tipped Off
The police were apparently tipped off by informers. One former British counterterrorism official, who was working for the government at the time, said several people living in Waltham stow, a working-class neighborhood in East London, alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small group of angry young Muslim men.
Walthamstow is best known for its faded greyhound track and the borough of Waltham Forest, where more than 17,000 Pakistani immigrants live in the largest Pakistani enclave in London.
Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain's domestic security services, began an around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in Walthamstow -- bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry, according to senior British officials.
The initial focus of the investigation was not about possible terrorism aboard planes, but an effort to see whether there were any links between the dozen men and the July 7 subway bombers, or terrorist cells in Pakistan, the officials said.
The authorities quickly learned the identity of the man believed to have been the leader of the cell, the unemployed man in his mid-20's, who traveled at least twice within the past year to Pakistan, where his activities are still being investigated.
Last June, a 22-year-old Walthamstow resident, who is among the suspects arrested Aug. 10, paid $260,000 cash for a second-floor apartment in a house on Forest Road, according to official property records. The authorities noticed that six men were regularly visiting the second-floor apartment that came to be known as the "bomb factory," according to a British official and the person briefed about the case.
Two of the men, who were likely the bomb-makers, were conducting a series of experiments with chemicals, said the person briefed on the case.
MI5 agents secretly installed video and audio recording equipment inside the apartment, two senior British officials said. In a secret search conducted before the Aug. 10 raids, agents had discovered that the inside of batteries had been scooped out, and that it appeared several suspects were doing chemical experiments with a sports drink named Lucozade and syringes, the person with knowledge of the case said. Investigators have said they believe that the suspects intended to bring explosive chemicals aboard planes inside sports drink bottles.
In that apartment, according to a British official, one of the leaders and a man in his late 20's met at least twice to discuss the suspected plot, as MI5 agents secretly watched and listened. On Aug. 9, just hours before the police raids occurred in 50 locations from East London to Birmingham, the two men met again to discuss the suspected plot and record a martyrdom video.
As one of the men read from a script before a video-camera, he recited a quotation from the Koran and ticked off his reasons for the "action that I am going to undertake," according to the person briefed on the case. The man said he was seeking revenge for the foreign policy of the United States, and "their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews." The man said he wanted to show that the enemies of Islam would never win this "war."
Beseeching other Muslims to join jihad, he justified the killing of innocent civilians in America and other Western countries because they supported the war against Muslims through their tax dollars. They were too busy enjoying their Western lifestyles to protest the policies, he added. Though British officials usually release little information about continuing investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects were charged.
A Trove of Evidence
"There have been 69 searches," Mr. Clarke, the chief antiterrorist police official from Scotland Yard, said Monday. "These have been in houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces."
Investigators also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones and 8,000 items like memory sticks, CD's and DVD's. "The scale is immense." Mr. Clarke said.
"Inquiries will span the globe." He said those searches revealed a trove of evidence, and officials and others last week provided additional details.
Four of the law firms that are defending suspects declined to comment.
When police officers knocked down the door to the second-floor apartment on Forest Road, they found a plastic bin filled with liquid, batteries, nearly a dozen empty drink bottles, rubber gloves, digital scales and a disposable camera that was leaking liquid, the person with knowledge of the case said.
The camera might have been a prototype for a device to smuggle chemicals on the plane.
In the pocket of one of the suspects, the police found the computer memory stick that showed he had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to the United States, a British official said. The man is said to have had a diary that included a list that the police interpreted as a step-by-step plan for an attack. The items included batteries and Lucozade bottles. It also included a reminder to select a date.
In the homes of a number of the suspects, the police found jihadist literature and DVD's about "genocide" in Iraq and Palestine, according to British officials. In one house searched by the police in Walthamstow, the authorities found a copy of a book called "Defense of the Muslim Lands." A "last will and testament" for one of the accused was said to have been found at his brother's home. Dated Sept. 24, 2005, the will concludes, "What should I worry when I die a Muslim, in the manner in which I am to die, I go to my death for the sake of my maker." God, he added, can if he wants "bless limbs torn away!!!"
Looking for Global Ties
In addition, the British authorities are scouring the evidence for clues to whether there is a global dimension to the suspected plot, particularly the extent to which it was planned, financed or supported in Pakistan, and whether there is a connection to remnants of Al Qaeda. They are still trying to determine who provided the cash for the apartment and the computer equipment and telephones, officials said.
Several of the suspects had traveled to Pakistan within weeks of the arrests, according to an American counterterrorism official.
At a minimum, investigators say at least one of the suspects' inspiration was drawn from Al Qaeda. One of the suspects' "kill-as-they-kill" martyrdom video was taken from a November 2002 fatwa by Osama bin Laden.
British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before Scotland Yard was ready.
The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani investigators have described as a "key figure" in the plot.
In 2000, Mr. Rauf's father founded Crescent Relief London, a charity that sent money to victims of last October's earthquake in Pakistan. Several suspects met through their involvement in the charity, a friend of one of them said. Last week, Britain froze the charity's bank accounts and opened an investigation into possible "terrorist abuse of charitable funds." Leaders of the charity have denied the allegations.
Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated investigators here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the people involved in the suspected plot.
But within hours of Mr. Rauf's arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the plot, officials said.
"The plotters received a very short message to 'Go now,' " said Franco Frattini, the European Union's security commissioner, who was briefed by the British home secretary, John Reid, in London. "I was convinced by British authorities that this message exists." A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators here had to change their strategy quickly.
"The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer," said a senior British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality rules. "It ended much sooner than we had hoped." From then on, the British government was driven by worst-case scenarios based on a minimum-risk strategy.
British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf's arrest could push the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the possibility they would not be able to arrest them all. But investigators also could not rule out that there could be an unknown second cell that would try to carry out a similar plan, officials said.
Mr. Clarke, as the country's top antiterrorism police official in London with authority over police decisions, ordered the arrests.
But it was left to Mr. Reid, who has been home secretary since May and is a former defense secretary, to decide at emergency meetings of police, national security and transoprt leaders. What else needed to be done? Mr. Reid and Mr. Clarke declined repeated requests for interviews.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was on vacation in Barbados, where he was said to have monitored events in London; Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did not attend the meeting.
While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain's terror alert level to "critical," as the police continued their raids of suspects' homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson's remark that the attack would have been "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," Mr. Reid said that attacks were "highly likely" and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an "unprecedented scale." Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as unfortunate.
As more information was analyzed and the British government decided that the attack was not imminent, Mr. Reid sought to calm the country by backing off from his dire predictions, while defending the decision to raise the alert level to its highest level as a precaution.
In lowering the threat level from critical to severe on Aug. 14, Mr. Reid acknowledged: "Threat level assessments are intelligence-led. It is not a process where scientific precision is possible. They involve judgments."
The Crazies
If the world is a conspiracy, then it is a remarkably unsuccessful conspiracy. So no, of course the attacks of 11th September 2001 were not an inside job, any more than Diana was murdered. Rather, those attacks chanced to save Bush's political life, and chanced to give his puppet-masters (whom his father, as a former Director of the CIA, had dubbed "The Crazies" and literally refused to have in the room) their chance of a lifetime to invade countries that they had long been eyeing up for that nefarious purpose, but which in fact had had nothing to do with those attacks.
Bush, meanwhile, committed one of his very few creditable acts and withdrew American troops from the country whence most of the attackers had hailed: Saudi Arabia. There has since been no further attack on the United States, not even after the invasion of Iraq. Bush did was what he is paid to do, and safeguarded the security of America and her people. Likewise, there has been no further attack on Spain since Spanish forces were withdrawn from Iraq. So much for a global jihad to restore the Caliphate. It seems oddly unconcerned with al-Andalus.
For those who believe in (not the same people as those who propagate the ideas of) such a jihad, or a "global terror network", or an "Axis of Evil", or al-Qaeda as anything more than a brand name adopted on websites and the like to express assent to an ideology, or Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, or an Iraqi connection to the New York and Washington bombings, are in fact on the same level as those who believe those bombings to have been an inside job, or that Diana was murdered, or that the Clintons were involved in a murder plot, or that the moon landings were faked. All alike, they are, as George Bush the Elder might put it, The Crazies.
Bush, meanwhile, committed one of his very few creditable acts and withdrew American troops from the country whence most of the attackers had hailed: Saudi Arabia. There has since been no further attack on the United States, not even after the invasion of Iraq. Bush did was what he is paid to do, and safeguarded the security of America and her people. Likewise, there has been no further attack on Spain since Spanish forces were withdrawn from Iraq. So much for a global jihad to restore the Caliphate. It seems oddly unconcerned with al-Andalus.
For those who believe in (not the same people as those who propagate the ideas of) such a jihad, or a "global terror network", or an "Axis of Evil", or al-Qaeda as anything more than a brand name adopted on websites and the like to express assent to an ideology, or Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, or an Iraqi connection to the New York and Washington bombings, are in fact on the same level as those who believe those bombings to have been an inside job, or that Diana was murdered, or that the Clintons were involved in a murder plot, or that the moon landings were faked. All alike, they are, as George Bush the Elder might put it, The Crazies.
National Service
Conscription would compromise the effectiveness of our all-professional armed forces, and it might promote a bellicose foreign policy in order to give all those young conscripts something to do, and thus justify the expense of keeping them.
However, some form of uniformed, disciplined, barracked service between 18 and 21, doing good works at home and abroad, would be no bad thing at all. While people might be doing anything from the very academic to the very practical, they should all be inside the system until the age of 18. They could then go into this.
After that, for example, universities might admit at 21, which would have all sorts of beneficial effects, just as it did in the days of National Service.
However, some form of uniformed, disciplined, barracked service between 18 and 21, doing good works at home and abroad, would be no bad thing at all. While people might be doing anything from the very academic to the very practical, they should all be inside the system until the age of 18. They could then go into this.
After that, for example, universities might admit at 21, which would have all sorts of beneficial effects, just as it did in the days of National Service.
Scenes from Village Life: Part I
National and international readers, please omit?
Thanks to http://davidlindsaywatch.blogspot.com, we now know that the following are the views of The Right Honourable Hilary Armstrong MP (hilary@hilaryarmstrong.com) and of her researcher and preferred successor, Neil Fleming (FlemingN@parliament.uk):
1. That I have had the Derwentside District Council webforum closed down, and that for the reasons stated on that blog;
2. That I am "practically a member of Labour high command" on DDC, and that the Derwentside Independents are a "non-Opposition" of which I am also "practically a member";
3. That "Labour high command" (including me, apparently) are "statists and syndicalists for their own nationalist and theoconservative reasons", and that "non-Opposition" (including me, apparently) are "nationalists and theoconservatives for their own statist and syndicalist reasons";
4. That Hilary and Fleming are not statists, syndicalists, nationalists or theoconservatives, but rather are "neoconservatives, and proud of it";
5. That I have "more clout than a dozen or more elected Labour Councillors put together" [which ones, exactly, and why?];
6. That Hilary and Fleming believe in "A totally free and unrestricted global market in goods, services, capital and labour";
7. That "All state activity beyond the diplomatic and security spheres to be transferred to private enterprise operating to strict free market principles, with consequent investment in security instead, and reductions in personal and corporate taxation";
8. That "All states recognised as Category 1 (free) by Freedom House to be invited to join Category 1A (subject to annual American and Israeli approval), sharing a free market as defined in 1 and 2 above, the US dollar as at least one form of legal tender, English as at least one official language, common security under American-led command, a common disregard for any resolution of any international body unless ratified by the American and Israeli governments, and a common vote against any resolution not approved in advance by those two governments";
9. That "Category 1A to issue an ultimatum of one year to all Category 4 states, two years to all Category 3 states, three years to all Category 2 states, and four years to all Category 1 states, to seek and gain admission to Category 1A or face regime change to that end, including by means of nuclear weapons strikes";
10. That "The full incorporation into the State of Israel of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and all territory south of the Litani river, with English to replace Arabic as Israel's second official language, and with all non-Jewish populations to be resettled in their allocated state of Jordan";
11. That "The full range of internal security policies, including capital punishment, appropriate to the current state of war against anyone, at home or abroad, who does not assent to all of [6-10] above;
12. That to be anti-capitalist is to be anti-Semitic;
13. That to be anti-Marxist while claiming to be a Socialist is, "among other things", anti-Semitic;
14. That to be anti-liberal is to be anti-Semitic;
15. That to be anti-neoconservative is to be anti-Semitic in at least five ways: directly, by being anti-capitalist, by being anti-liberal, by being anti-Israel and by being anti-American;
16. That to be anti-Israel is obviously to be anti-Semitic and to be anti-American is no less obviously so;
17. That to oppose the triumph of the bourgeoisie (including the triumph of the West and of America within the West) is be anti-Semitic;
18. That to oppose the Revolution (which defines the West now triumphant) is to be anti-Semitic;
19. That "One of us would have to resign from the Government, or the other from the first one’s employ, if we did not believe each of these six propositions in turn [6-11 above], "denouncing David Lindsay by name for his opposition to them" ";
20. That the analysis set out in 12-19 above is "self-evident";
21. That Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism are "self-evidently" anti-Semitic;
22. That I am "self-evidently" a "dangerous" anti-Semite; and
23. That my views as expressed on this blog are anti-Israel and anti-American.
Thanks to http://davidlindsaywatch.blogspot.com, we now know that the following are the views of The Right Honourable Hilary Armstrong MP (hilary@hilaryarmstrong.com) and of her researcher and preferred successor, Neil Fleming (FlemingN@parliament.uk):
1. That I have had the Derwentside District Council webforum closed down, and that for the reasons stated on that blog;
2. That I am "practically a member of Labour high command" on DDC, and that the Derwentside Independents are a "non-Opposition" of which I am also "practically a member";
3. That "Labour high command" (including me, apparently) are "statists and syndicalists for their own nationalist and theoconservative reasons", and that "non-Opposition" (including me, apparently) are "nationalists and theoconservatives for their own statist and syndicalist reasons";
4. That Hilary and Fleming are not statists, syndicalists, nationalists or theoconservatives, but rather are "neoconservatives, and proud of it";
5. That I have "more clout than a dozen or more elected Labour Councillors put together" [which ones, exactly, and why?];
6. That Hilary and Fleming believe in "A totally free and unrestricted global market in goods, services, capital and labour";
7. That "All state activity beyond the diplomatic and security spheres to be transferred to private enterprise operating to strict free market principles, with consequent investment in security instead, and reductions in personal and corporate taxation";
8. That "All states recognised as Category 1 (free) by Freedom House to be invited to join Category 1A (subject to annual American and Israeli approval), sharing a free market as defined in 1 and 2 above, the US dollar as at least one form of legal tender, English as at least one official language, common security under American-led command, a common disregard for any resolution of any international body unless ratified by the American and Israeli governments, and a common vote against any resolution not approved in advance by those two governments";
9. That "Category 1A to issue an ultimatum of one year to all Category 4 states, two years to all Category 3 states, three years to all Category 2 states, and four years to all Category 1 states, to seek and gain admission to Category 1A or face regime change to that end, including by means of nuclear weapons strikes";
10. That "The full incorporation into the State of Israel of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and all territory south of the Litani river, with English to replace Arabic as Israel's second official language, and with all non-Jewish populations to be resettled in their allocated state of Jordan";
11. That "The full range of internal security policies, including capital punishment, appropriate to the current state of war against anyone, at home or abroad, who does not assent to all of [6-10] above;
12. That to be anti-capitalist is to be anti-Semitic;
13. That to be anti-Marxist while claiming to be a Socialist is, "among other things", anti-Semitic;
14. That to be anti-liberal is to be anti-Semitic;
15. That to be anti-neoconservative is to be anti-Semitic in at least five ways: directly, by being anti-capitalist, by being anti-liberal, by being anti-Israel and by being anti-American;
16. That to be anti-Israel is obviously to be anti-Semitic and to be anti-American is no less obviously so;
17. That to oppose the triumph of the bourgeoisie (including the triumph of the West and of America within the West) is be anti-Semitic;
18. That to oppose the Revolution (which defines the West now triumphant) is to be anti-Semitic;
19. That "One of us would have to resign from the Government, or the other from the first one’s employ, if we did not believe each of these six propositions in turn [6-11 above], "denouncing David Lindsay by name for his opposition to them" ";
20. That the analysis set out in 12-19 above is "self-evident";
21. That Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism are "self-evidently" anti-Semitic;
22. That I am "self-evidently" a "dangerous" anti-Semite; and
23. That my views as expressed on this blog are anti-Israel and anti-American.
Scenes from Village Life: Part II
National and international readers, please omit?
Thanks to http://socialists-against-lindsay.blogspot.com, we now know that the following are the views of The Right Honourable Hilary Armstrong MP (hilary@hilaryarmstrong.com) and of her researcher and preferred successor, Neil Fleming (FlemingN@parliament.uk):
1. That I have had the Derwentside District Council webforum closed down, and that for the reasons stated on that blog;
2. That I am "practically a member of Labour high command" on DDC, and that the Derwentside Independents are a "non-Opposition" of which I am also "practically a member";
3. That "Labour high command" (including me, apparently) are "statists and syndicalists for their own nationalist and theoconservative reasons", and that "non-Opposition" (including me, apparently) are "nationalists and theoconservatives for their own statist and syndicalist reasons";
4. That Hilary and Fleming are not statists, syndicalists, nationalists or theoconservatives, but rather are subscribers to the Euston Manifesto (http://www.eustonmanifesto.org/) and the Henry Jackson Society (http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org.uk/), and proud of it;
5. That I have "more clout than a dozen or more elected Labour Councillors put together" [which ones, exactly, and why?];
6. That my views as set out on this blog mark me out as "a reactionary Catholic and a Little Briton masquerading as a Socialist";
7. That I am "much, much more dangerous than [George] Galloway";
8. That there is a "right-wing Labour machine" which maintains a "one-party fiefdom of County Durham";
9. That "A woman’s right to choose abortion (up to and including partial birth abortion) is a non-negotiable Socialist principle, as is everyone’s right to choose when and how to die," such that "No one who disputes either of these is in any sense on the Left";
10. That "The right of same-sex couples to marry is a non-negotiable Socialist principle," such that "No one who disputes it is in any sense on the Left";
11. That "The right of transsexuals to new birth certificates giving their true gender is a non-negotiable Socialist principle," such that "No one who disputes it is in any sense on the Left";
12. That "The right to engage in post-pubescent consensual sex is a non-negotiable Socialist principle," such that "No one who disputes it is in any sense on the Left";
13. That "No one who holds Lindsay views on any of these matters [Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, the Inquisition, condoms and AIDS in Africa, and the life and legacy of Alfred C Kinsey] is in any sense on the Left";
14. That a politician of the Left cannot subscribe to Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism, and that "There is nothing further needing to be said about this";
15. That a politician of the Left cannot refer to "John Paul the Great", and that "There is nothing further needing to be said about this";
16. That my views mark me out as "anti-Europe and anti-American";
17. That Britain and the other Commonwealth countries that retain the monarchy are lacking in "self-respect";
18. That the Catholic Unionist traditions in Scotland and Ireland are "dangerous", so that they must be kept "voiceless"';
19. Of Saint Helena and other territories whose people choose to remain British to this day, proudly having such a background precludes one from being a politician of the Left, and "That says it all"; and
20. That "The less said, the better" about Mail and Telegraph readers.
Thanks to http://socialists-against-lindsay.blogspot.com, we now know that the following are the views of The Right Honourable Hilary Armstrong MP (hilary@hilaryarmstrong.com) and of her researcher and preferred successor, Neil Fleming (FlemingN@parliament.uk):
1. That I have had the Derwentside District Council webforum closed down, and that for the reasons stated on that blog;
2. That I am "practically a member of Labour high command" on DDC, and that the Derwentside Independents are a "non-Opposition" of which I am also "practically a member";
3. That "Labour high command" (including me, apparently) are "statists and syndicalists for their own nationalist and theoconservative reasons", and that "non-Opposition" (including me, apparently) are "nationalists and theoconservatives for their own statist and syndicalist reasons";
4. That Hilary and Fleming are not statists, syndicalists, nationalists or theoconservatives, but rather are subscribers to the Euston Manifesto (http://www.eustonmanifesto.org/) and the Henry Jackson Society (http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org.uk/), and proud of it;
5. That I have "more clout than a dozen or more elected Labour Councillors put together" [which ones, exactly, and why?];
6. That my views as set out on this blog mark me out as "a reactionary Catholic and a Little Briton masquerading as a Socialist";
7. That I am "much, much more dangerous than [George] Galloway";
8. That there is a "right-wing Labour machine" which maintains a "one-party fiefdom of County Durham";
9. That "A woman’s right to choose abortion (up to and including partial birth abortion) is a non-negotiable Socialist principle, as is everyone’s right to choose when and how to die," such that "No one who disputes either of these is in any sense on the Left";
10. That "The right of same-sex couples to marry is a non-negotiable Socialist principle," such that "No one who disputes it is in any sense on the Left";
11. That "The right of transsexuals to new birth certificates giving their true gender is a non-negotiable Socialist principle," such that "No one who disputes it is in any sense on the Left";
12. That "The right to engage in post-pubescent consensual sex is a non-negotiable Socialist principle," such that "No one who disputes it is in any sense on the Left";
13. That "No one who holds Lindsay views on any of these matters [Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, the Inquisition, condoms and AIDS in Africa, and the life and legacy of Alfred C Kinsey] is in any sense on the Left";
14. That a politician of the Left cannot subscribe to Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism, and that "There is nothing further needing to be said about this";
15. That a politician of the Left cannot refer to "John Paul the Great", and that "There is nothing further needing to be said about this";
16. That my views mark me out as "anti-Europe and anti-American";
17. That Britain and the other Commonwealth countries that retain the monarchy are lacking in "self-respect";
18. That the Catholic Unionist traditions in Scotland and Ireland are "dangerous", so that they must be kept "voiceless"';
19. Of Saint Helena and other territories whose people choose to remain British to this day, proudly having such a background precludes one from being a politician of the Left, and "That says it all"; and
20. That "The less said, the better" about Mail and Telegraph readers.
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