Detecting The Difference

Mary Dejevsky writes:

It was seen as a classic example of British understatement: the Home Secretary’s admission to the BBC that she was “irritated” by the leak to the US media of the Manchester suicide bomber’s name. 

But it was rather the opposite. 

For a Home Secretary to comment at all disparagingly on the US treatment of privileged UK information was a real departure. 

Since then, it has been downhill all the way.

Amber Rudd had followed up her comment in the same Today programme interview by saying she would be asking for assurances from Washington that there would be no repetition. 

But then there was. 

Within 24 hours the New York Times had published police photographs from the Manchester arena, showing – or appearing to show – the backpack the bomber had worn and the method of detonation – information that had not been released. 

The response? 

Fury in official quarters; a police announcement that they were suspending cooperation with their US colleagues; a promise from the Prime Minister to tell President Donald Trump that shared intelligence “must be secure”, and a rush by the UK’s knee-jerk Trump-critics to blame “this President” for the leaks. 

Given that shared intelligence, and the implied discretion that goes with it, is almost all that remains of the so-called special relationship, the state of UK-US relations is starting to look very like an additional casualty from the Manchester atrocity. 

 Nor should either side be allowed to get away with blaming the media. 

For all the opprobrium traditionally heaped on UK journalists, they – we – are generally respectful of security embargoes and police requests, so long as we understand the reasons.

Delaying publication of the presumed bomber’s name makes sense, because it could alert associates. 

Withholding precise details of the method allows investigators time to trace suppliers and routes. 

There is a big difference between these operational requests and statements intended to put the media off the scent or disguise police mistakes (the 2005 shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes comes to mind). 

Not always, but often, journalists are quite good at detecting the difference.

There are many differences in the way the US and the British media work – until recently the degree of respect for authority was one. 

In the particular case of the Manchester bombing, however, it could also be argued that there was no security dimension – at least no national security dimension – to a US outlet publishing the name or the photos ahead of time.

 Of course, that neglects the global aspect of communications today. 

But the chief responsibility for any breach rests with the agencies that passed on material that – in the British view at least – was not theirs to pass on. 

This was not a case of assiduous reporters ferreting out sensitive information, but of one or more branches of US law enforcement or security deliberately deciding to pass it on.

Why they might have done this, especially after the UK’s objections to the first leak, raises further questions.

Could it have been mere bravado – a desire by a particular agency to show how “in the loop” or how “media-friendly” it was? 

Other theories have centred on Donald Trump.

Some have suggested, conspiratorially, that one or other agency might have wanted to discredit Trump in the middle of his first foreign trip, as part of their continuing animus against him.

That seems as unlikely, though, as the contrary idea, seized upon by his many UK detractors, that Trump himself was somehow responsible – after all, had he not just divulged classified information to the Russian foreign minister? 

This seems even less plausible than the conspiracy theory.

Not only is there scant chance that any leak of this kind would have been referred up to the White House, but it turns out that this apparently unprecedented release of “shared” information does indeed have a precedent.

The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Blair, disclosed that there had been similar breaches by US agencies in the wake of the 7/7 attacks in London.

The difference then – an interesting and perhaps significance difference – is that official UK fury was confined to diplomatic channels.

Which brings us back to the “special relationship” and the sharing of intelligence that constitutes such a large part of it.

As Theresa May left London for the Nato summit, where she intended to talk respect for shared secrets with Donald Trump, one of the most telling observations came from the BBC’s specialist security correspondent, Frank Gardner. UK security officials, he reported, were desperately trying to “ring fence” their cooperation with their US counterparts so that cooperation could continue unaffected by the row about leaked information from Manchester.

This says two things.

First, that the intelligence agencies see themselves as distinct from – and superior to? – the law enforcement agencies, such as the police and the FBI.

They do not want any blurring of the lines, even though the lines between the two are inevitably blurred where international terrorism is concerned, and should probably not exist at all.

Second, the UK’s concern to maintain intelligence cooperation, even as police cooperation is suspended, underlines the lopsided nature of the relationship.

MI5, MI6 and GCHQ may be held in great respect by their US counterparts – at least, that is what they insist - and each may over the years have delegated tasks in such a way as to exploit discrepancies in national laws, to mutual advantage. 

With the resources and reach of the US agencies now in quite a different league from ours, could the liabilities of this “special” relationship be starting to outweigh the benefits?

The UK might currently take out as much, or more, than it puts in, but there are downsides – including a sense of diminished responsibility.

In 2002-3, for instance, the UK followed the US to Iraq on the basis of intelligence on chemical weapons that France and Israel had interpreted more critically.

Citing a theoretical risk to relations with “third countries” has also allowed MI6 and others to refuse to testify in court on such subjects as extraordinary rendition and the death of Alexander Litvinenko. 

Now we have the leaks of information from Manchester.

However and why this happened, the cavalier way in which one or more US agencies disregarded the UK’s legitimate security interests shows that a reconsideration of intelligence-sharing is now overdue.

Sorted?

Amandla Thomas-Johnson and Simon Hooper write:

The British government operated an "open door" policy that allowed Libyan exiles and British-Libyan citizens to join the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi even though some had been subject to counter-terrorism control orders, Middle East Eye can reveal. 

Several former rebel fighters now back in the UK told MEE that they had been able to travel to Libya with "no questions asked" as authorities continued to investigate the background of a British-Libyan suicide bomber who killed 22 people in Monday's attack in Manchester. 

Salman Abedi, 22, the British-born son of exiled dissidents who returned to Libya as the revolution against Gaddafi gathered momentum, is also understood to have spent time in the North African country in 2011 and to have returned there on several subsequent occasions. 

British police have said they believe the bomber, who returned to Manchester just a few days before the attack, was part of a network and have arrested six people including Abedi's older brother since Monday. 

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said that Abedi was known to security services, while a local community worker told the BBC that several people had reported him to the police via an anti-terrorism hotline. 

On Wednesday, authorities in Tripoli said that Abedi's younger brother and father, who had resettled in Libya after the revolution, had also been arrested on suspicion of links to the Islamic State (IS) group, which claimed responsibility for Monday's attack.

Sources spoken to by MEE suggest that the government facilitated the travel of Libyan exiles and British-Libyan residents and citizens keen to fight against Gaddafi including some who it deemed to pose a potential security threat. 

'No questions asked' 

One British citizen with a Libyan background who was placed on a control order – effectively house arrest – because of fears that he would join militant groups in Iraq said he was "shocked" that he was able to travel to Libya in 2011 shortly after his control order was lifted. 

"I was allowed to go, no questions asked," said the source, who wished to remain anonymous. 

He said he had met several other British-Libyans in London who also had control orders lifted in 2011 as the war against Gaddafi intensified, with the UK, France and the US carrying out air strikes and deploying special forces soldiers in support of the rebels.

"They didn't have passports, they were looking for fakes or a way to smuggle themselves across," said the source. 

But within days of their control orders being lifted, British authorities returned their passports, he said.

"These were old school LIFG guys, they [the British authorities] knew what they were doing," he said, referring to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an anti-Gaddafi Islamist militant group formed in 1990 by Libyan veterans of the fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. 

The British government listed the LIFG as a proscribed terrorist organisation in 2005, describing it as seeking to establish a "hard-line Islamic state" and "part of the wider Islamist extremist movement inspired by al-Qaeda". 

Former members of the LIFG deny that the group had any links with al-Qaeda and say it was committed only to removing Gaddafi from power. 

Belal Younis, another British citizen who went to Libya, described how he was stopped under 'Schedule 7' counter-terrorism powers on his return to the UK after a visit to the country in early 2011.

Schedule 7 allows police and immigration officials to detain and question any person passing through border controls at ports and airports to determine whether they are involved in terrorism. 

He said he was subsequently asked by an intelligence officer from MI5, the UK's domestic security agency: "Are you willing to go into battle?"

"While I took time to find an answer he turned and told me the British government have no problem with people fighting against Gaddafi," he told MEE. 

Travel 'sorted' by MI5

As he was travelling back to Libya in May 2011 he was approached by two counter-terrorism police officers in the departure lounge who told him that if he was going to fight he would be committing a crime. 

But after providing them with the name and phone number of the MI5 officer he had spoken to previously, and following a quick phone call to him, he was waved through. 

As he waited to board the plane, he said the same MI5 officer called him to tell him that he had "sorted it out".

"The government didn't put any obstacles in the way of people going to Libya," he told MEE. 

"The vast majority of UK guys were in their late twenties. There were some 18 and 19. The majority who went from here were from Manchester." 

But he said he thought it was unlikely that Abedi, who would only have been 16 at the time, would have been recruited as a fighter. 

"The guys I was fighting with would never put a 16-year-old boy anywhere near the frontline." 

Younis said he did not think that the policy of allowing British-Libyans to fight againt Gaddafi had been a contributing factor in Monday's attack, pointing out that IS was not present in the country at the time - and said he had no regrets about his decision to fight. 

"What inspired me to go to Libya was the liberty of civilians. There's no way that that can morph into killing children," he said. 

Another British citizen with experience of fighting in both Libya and in Syria with rebel groups also told MEE that he had been able to travel to and from the UK without disruption.

"No questions were asked," he said. 

The majority of the fighters flew to Tunisia and then crossed the border into Libya, while others travelled via Malta, he said. 

"The whole Libyan diaspora were out there fighting alongside the rebel groups," he added.

One British-Libyan man from Manchester who also wished to remain anonymous told MEE that he had travelled frequently to Libya during the 2011 revolution to undertake humanitarian aid work.

"I never got prevented from going to Libya or stopped when I tried to come back," he said. 

The man said that he had come across Salman Abedi at their local mosque in the Didsbury neighbourhood but that he had "kept himself to himself" and was not an active member of the community. 

His family, who were originally from Tripoli, had returned to Libya, he said. 

"I guess if your family is away from you that sense of belonging dissipates. For us Libyans in Manchester - they're trying to imply we knew. He was just an individual and he's nothing to do with us." 

Another person who knew Abedi described him as a "hot head" with a reputation for involvement in petty crime. 

"Yesterday they're drug dealers, today they're Muslims," he said, adding that he believed Abedi had also been friends with Anil Khalil Raoufi, an IS recruiter from Didsbury who was killed in Syria in 2014.

'Elite SAS training' 

One of the British-Libyans spoken to by MEE described how he had carried out "PR work" for the rebels in the months before Gaddafi was overthrown and eventually killed in October 2011. 

He said he was employed to edit videos showing Libyan rebels being trained by former British SAS and Irish special forces mercenaries in Benghazi, the eastern city from where the uprising against Gaddafi was launched. 

"They weren't cheap videos with Arabic nasheeds [songs], they were slick, professional glossy films which we were showing Qataris and Emiratis to support troops who were getting elite SAS training." 

He was also tasked by rebel commanders with training young Libyans to use cameras so that they could sell packages to international media. 

On one assignment at a rebel base camp in a Misrata school, he came across a group of about eight young British-Libyans. 

After joking about their northern accents he found out that they had never been to Libya before. 

"They looked about 17 or 18, maybe one was 20 at most. They had proper Manchester accents," he said.

"They were there living and fighting and doing the whole nine yards." 

Many Libyan exiles in the UK with links to the LIFG were placed on control orders and subjected to surveillance and monitoring following the rapprochement between the British and Libyan governments sealed by the so-called "Deal in the Desert" between then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gaddafi in 2004. 

According to documents retrieved from the ransacked offices of the Libyan intelligence agency following Gaddafi's fall from power in 2011, British security services cracked down on Libyan dissidents in the UK as part of the deal, as well as assisting in the rendition of two senior LIFG leaders, Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, to Tripoli where they allege they were tortured. 

Belhaj later returned to Libya and was a leading figure in the uprising against Gaddafi, while another former Libyan exile subjected to a control order in the UK was later tasked with providing security for visiting dignitaries including British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, MEE understands.

'When the revolution started, things changed' 

Ziad Hashem, an LIFG member granted asylum in the UK, said in 2015 that he had been imprisoned for 18 months without charge and then restricted to his home for a further three years based on information he believed had been supplied by Libyan intelligence. 

But he said:

"When the revolution started, things changed in Britain. Their way of speaking to me and treating me was different. They offered to give me benefits, even indefinite leave to remain or citizenship." 

Control orders were introduced as part of counter-terrorism legislation drafted in the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings.

They allowed authorities to restrict the activities of people suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities by requiring them to remain at a registered address for up to 16 hours a day, subjecting them to electronic tagging, limiting their access to telephone and internet communications, and banning them from meeting or communicating with other people deemed to be of concern. 

At least 50 people were subjected to the measure with at least 12 Libyan exiles among them. Control orders were replaced with Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), which allow authorities to impose many of the same restrictions while limiting their term to two years, in 2011.

The Home Office told MEE it did not comment on individual cases. 

It said that TPIMs were a robust and effective means for dealing with terrorism suspects who could not be prosecuted or deported.

It said that arrangements involving the police, the Home Office and the Security Service (MI5) had been put in place in 2011 during the transition from control orders to TPIMs to ensure that national security was maintained.

Never Mind The Pidcocks

I promised Blessed Ronan Dodds that I would light a candle at his altar by using that headline. I have now done so.

I have never said that Laura Pidcock ought not to become the Member of Parliament for anywhere, ever, by any means.

But she ought not to become the Member of Parliament for North West Durham, in 2017, by decree of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party and by use of an all-women shortlist.

There is no serious doubt that, even were she to be elected, then the Constituency Labour Party, left-wing though it now is, would deselect her for the Marxist, radical feminist, and zealously anti-Catholic views that would have been moderated and modified by 10 years in one or more middle-ranking positions.

Furthermore, she walked out of the Teaching Assistants' Solidarity Rally when a speaker from this constituency rightly called for a vote against all Labour candidates at what were then the forthcoming elections to Durham County Council.

Had that strategy been properly adopted and applied, then Labour would have lost control of that council, and the need to punish that party would therefore no longer obtain.

As it is, however, it remains absolutely imperative, both to re-elect Grahame Morris at Easington, and to defeat all other Labour parliamentary candidates in County Durham.

Here in North West Durham, we have the privilege of being able to vote for Owen Temple, who is, with Alex Watson, one of the two members of Durham County Council to have done the most for the Teaching Assistants, and the only parliamentary candidate to have had an address in this constituency on the day that this General Election was called.

I write this as one who longs for Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister, who agrees with almost everything in the Labour manifesto, and who agrees with almost nothing in that of Owen's party, the Liberal Democrats.

But here we are.

And people quite close to Corbyn, people who stopped the TAs from fully pursuing the correct approach to the local elections, people who are also very close to Pidcock, are very largely to blame for the fact that here we are.

Rational Insights And Values

Kadira Pethiyagoda writes:

Tragic terror attacks like that in Manchester, inspiring fear and anger, often drive voters to back the incumbent. 

It is ironic then that one of the essential long-term solutions to the terror threat lies within the foreign policy agenda articulated by leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. 

In articulating his international vision at Chatham House, Corbyn went on the front foot, laying out a comprehensive vision for Britain’s place in an insecure world. 

Seeking to throw off the caricature-like branding of him as an ageing hippy, Corbyn’s approach evinced the rational thinking of a seasoned observer of global politics. 

Corbyn has been on the right side of history since he began his long political career, and his response to terrorism inspired by events in the Middle East is no different. 

Corbyn has been astute enough to realise the link between Western interventions in the Middle East and the terror threat emanating from the region. 

This is a link which is rarely discussed except in dismissive terms due to a form of right-wing political correctness. 

As such, his approach targets some of the root factors driving terror ideology and facilitating the conditions under which terror spreads.

It is also the most cost-effective method, important given the apparent lack of funds available for other policy areas like the NHS and the elderly. Corbyn opposed the ill-fated regime changes in Iraq and Libya. 

He questioned the justifications when it was unpopular to do so. He was right.

He warned of the repercussions. He was right. 

There is no longer any debate that both of these helped provide the space, motivation and chaos for extremist groups to thrive. 

Isis of course would not even exist if not for the Iraq War, and Al Qaeda would have fewer recruits. 

With regard to Libya, a 2016 report by the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee stated that the intervention was based on “erroneous assumptions”, not on accurate intelligence.

In holding these views, Corbyn is in tune with the ‘intervention fatigue’ and anti-regime change sentiment that has grown alongside the anti-establishment wave sweeping the West.

This has been harnessed by those from the far right like Le Pen and the alt right, libertarians like Rand Paul, and other maverick left-leaners like Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. 

Donald Trump himself used it as a club to beat opponents like Jeb Bush and Clinton.

Corbyn even went close to joining the dots between the refugee crisis and interventions in the Middle East, something successfully exploited by Nigel Farage. 

Even some of the staunchest supporters of expansive anti-terror laws domestically oppose continued interventionism overseas.

When addressing Chatham House, Corbyn clarified that questioning interventionism does not make him a “pacifist”, the vague but guffaw-triggering label studiously pinned on him by the mainstream media. 

Challenging the amnesia that pervades public debates over war, Corbyn provided a historical perspective including WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the post-Cold War promise. 

Stating that military action, as a last resort and under international law, is sometimes necessary, he aligned with what most members of the public would consider reasonable, and what most countries officially support. 

The Labour Leader seems to understand that a multipronged approach is necessary to combat extremism, from military actions, to policing, to mental health services. 

Corbyn has also drawn attention to the double standards which undermine the West’s image around the world. 

His speech noted the inconsistency of Tory intervention enthusiasts given the party’s unwillingness to impose sanctions on apartheid South Africa, a cause which Corbyn himself was arrested while fighting for. 

He has also identified situations of mass carnage, such as Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, where intervention could have been justified but which were ignored due to vested interests. 

Throughout his speech, Corbyn included anecdotes of his travel to some of the world’s worst conflict zones, a subtle message that he’s not a social justice warrior snowflake but a man whose view is informed by seeing the real effects of war. 

The Labour leader has promised an ethical foreign policy committing not only to consistently applying human rights (which already receive much attention), but also to addressing massive levels of inequality which should garner more focus. 

Targeted and working alongside other measures, this would enhance the West’s image and further weaken the drivers that enable terror groups to garner new recruits. 

Corbyn has offered a sober, carefully considered approach to international security, free of the jingoism and political correctness that dominates this important policy area. 

Attacks at home show clearly that the status quo, spending millions on increasing security at home while spending billions on wars that spread insecurity overseas, is not working.

Just like in economic policy, Corbyn’s non-interventionist approach may be lampooned by the mainstream media but is based on rational insights and values, and increasingly reflects the views of the population.

Dr Kadira Pethiyagoda is a visiting fellow with the Brookings Institution researching Asia-Middle East relations. He writes in a personal capacity.

Out In The Open

The redoubtable Bridget Yuill writes:

I am proud to say I am a Durham Teaching Assistant. I am writing about our continuing campaign and how we organised it. It is now 20 months on since it began. 

My theme, Behind Closed Doors or Out in The Open?, indicates the difference in approach between Durham Teaching Assistants and the local council that threatens our pay. 

We have made a point of fighting our dispute before the public gaze. 

This is about why we have been so successful and how we forced Durham County Council back around the table for further discussion.

It takes a lot of guts to speak out against injustice, and we did, when we were threatened with being disciplined.

Behind Closed doors takes you to the other end of the spectrum. Durham County Council makes decisions behind closed doors, in boardrooms. 

They spoke about their attack on the TAs publicly only when pressurised and even then they were evasive. In the end, however, the truth will out. 

Behind closed doors… Briefly, the story so far: 

Since November 2015, in response to ‘legal advice’, Durham County Council (which I will refer to as DCC) voted to cut the TAs’ pay by 23%, taking our salaries to well below the Labour Party’s pledge of a decent living wage of £10 per hour.

The council claimed to be responding to “legal advice” to the threat of an equalities pay claim. 

They claimed we were being paid for more hours than we worked and were paid for 52 weeks when we do not work during school holidays (we dispute this claim).

They said it was not a budget cutting exercise. But of course, as we know, school budgets are being cut in other areas. 

Moreover, DCC attacked a workforce that is 96% female, of 2700 TAs. Some of us stand to lose £4000 per year.

Behind closed doors… Rather than confront the issue, the Labour Council seemed determined to keep their decision from any kind of democratic scrutiny. 

At a DCC meeting on 9th December 2015, Owen Temple (Lib Dem Councillor) tabled a motion to withdraw the proposals to slash the pay of TAs. 

But Labour Councillors lined up speaker after speaker to run the clock down and prevent any further discussion. 

Behind closed doors… On 16 May 2016, 57 Labour Councillors voted, after very little discussion, to dismiss TAs on New Year’s Eve 2016 and rehire them New Years Day 2017 with the 23% pay cut. 

Behind closed doors… When we tried to make such savage cuts public, DCC threatened us. 

By email and by pulling individual TA’s into a room with their Headteachers, DCC tried to gag the TAs. 

They told us we could not speak to parents, that we couldn’t ask them to sign our petitions or ask them to write to their Councillors. 

We could not wear our Durham t-shirts on Council property as they were deemed inappropriate.

They warned us not to say anything on social media. They warned us not to bring the Council into disrepute. 

Early on in the dispute, even our union, Unison, agreed, issuing a bulletin telling members not to make comments on social media or the press. 

We ignored them! 

Behind closed doors… Both the council and Unison seem to prefer backroom deals to actual participation by the workers they employ or represent. 

Talks have been happening since December 2016 between the Unions and DCC, with one TA in attendance. 

But guess what? The council insisted that talks took place behind closed doors, under a signed confidentiality agreement, no less. 

Meanwhile, the majority of Durham Teaching Assistants, whilst being told progress is being made, hope to receive an offer sometime in June (but who knows?) and will then be balloted. 

Now in contrast: Out in the open… 

At a mass meeting, we elected a Committee, the County Durham Teaching Assistant Activist Committee. We immediately went about telling people of the shocking attack on our salaries. 

Out in the open… We have campaigned publicly, depending upon the activism of our workers and the fact that DCC’s position is morally indefensible. 

We have constantly organised ourselves – often against the advice of our union – and have made many allies throughout our struggle. 

The Durham TAs proudly marched at the Miners’ Gala July 2016. We were the largest group there. We followed our Durham TA flag and wore our Durham t-shirts. 

Out in the open… The Durham TAs travelled to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. We met John McDonnell, Angela Rayner and other MPs and union activists. 

Due to our Twitter pressure, we also met Dave Prentis there, which led to Unison fully backing our campaign, a crucial development. 

Out in the open… The Durham TAs spread the word by speaking at various events across the country. 

Most recently, at both the ATL National conference and the NUT National conference, we received standing ovations. 

Out in the open… A big focus has been social media – Facebook and Twitter. 

We have made contacts with various media figures, such as Ken Loach, Kevin Maguire from the Daily Mirror, and Aditya Chakrabortty from The Guardian. 

Chakrabortty’s article resulted in our JustGiving page raising £36,268. That article was spread across the country via Twitter and Facebook. 

We’ve had Twitterstorms and a Thunderclap which reached over 500,000 followers. I’m proud to say I am a member of the Durham TAs Twitterati – a small, select group who tweet every day.

Largely through our social media campaign, we became a national rather than simply a regional campaign. 

Out in the open… We held two lots of two-day strikes in November 2016 and noisy demos outside County Hall, where there were over 1000 people present. 

We picketed our schools, which gave us our first chance to speak to parents, who showed their full support and were shocked at the treatment meted out by DCC. 

Out in the open… The most recent march and rally was on 25th March 2017. 

This brought supporters and campaigners from across the country: from Camden, Barnet, Bolton and more. An estimated 1000 plus people attended this march. 

I was honoured to be given an opportunity to speak at this gathering. The greetings from the public as we marched was amazing and positive. 

Out in the open… We made an impact in the local elections in May. We named and shamed the 57 Cllrs who voted for our cuts.

Possibly because of this, 20 lost their seats. Councillors and MPs are now listening.

Out in the open… Durham TAs have changed forever. The actions of DCC have empowered us. Yes we are exhausted, but we will continue to fight. 

We are different people, more open, more active, less timid. We are known countrywide. We have built a solidarity that is going down in history.

Sadly, over the past year or more, the choice, even for a lifelong Labour voter like me, has been to either support the Durham Teaching Assistants or to support the Durham Labour Party. 

Do we want rule by secretive, bureaucratic and anti-democratic Councillors, or by real public democratic decision-making? 

Which is the better way?: Behind closed doors, or out in the open. 

The point is, we organised ourselves instead of waiting for the trade unions. 

We have solidarity; this was ensured by our ever increasing numbers of TAs on a closed Facebook wall. 

This is where we shared some of the conflicting information from Unison and the council, where we complained about lack of action. 

Here, we were made aware of the differing approaches to the dispute of Headteachers. 

Here, we organised our public events. No one else. 

However, I must admit that the assurance of full strike pay by Unison and ATL ensured the majority of Unison and ATL TAs came out on strike, which had a major impact. 

The strike action resulted in the suspension of our dismissal letters and DCC coming back around the table for discussions. 

How has this campaign changed me? At the age of 56, my interest in politics has been awakened. 

Prior to this campaign, I had always voted, but my energies had always been focused on my family and work. 

Boy, how that has changed. 

We are now travelling countrywide to speak out in support of other campaigns such as that against NHS cuts. 

We will not stop once our campaign is successful – and it will be. 

Having been awakened, we will not stop. 

My faith in Labour and the unions has been shaken, but my faith in humankind has increased. 

I must add my gratitude to the support of Durham Labour Left, the Durham Miners, and Durham TUC. 

Ben Sellers trained us up in social media, especially in Twitter. John Burgess of Barnet Unison has guided and supported us selflessly. Kathryn Wray and Dave Ayre have shown their support and been in attendance at every public demonstration. 

Yes, I have waited my entire adult life for this Labour manifesto. Yes, I do want Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister instead of Theresa May, and I question the credibility of anyone who will not say that while professing to oppose British intervention on the Islamist side in Syria. And no, I am not at all impressed at, by or with the manifesto that has been published by the Liberal Democrats. But we elect individual Members of Parliament in this country.

What I am about to say would never have been necessary if anyone had listened to me, instead of to people who had spent their political lives on the fringes, or in other parts of the country, or both, rather than as the Secretary of Derwentside District Labour Party, as a long-serving Lanchester Parish Councillor, as a governor for a cumulative 16 years of two schools in Lanchester (one of them serving almost the entire Derwentside area), as a subagent who had secured Labour an overall majority of the total vote on a four-way split in what was then still a traditionally Conservative ward, and now as a governor of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

I told them that it was not only reasonable, but morally and politically obligatory, to call for the election of no Labour candidate whatever to Durham County Council on 4th May.

And then, what? A Cabinet position for every non-Labour Group and for those of no Group, with the numbers made up based on their relative size. The same for Scrutiny Chairs, obviously never mirroring the portfolios of their respective partisans. And representation on each committee and subcommittee in proportion to their numbers on the authority as a whole.

If they had paid any attention and run with "Anyone But Labour", then Labour would have lost control of Durham County Council, as very nearly happened, and we would now be dealing with whatever had come after that, made up as it would have been of our stalwart friends and allies.

In which case, it would have been possible to advocate a Labour vote without complication at the forthcoming General Election. Instead, though, with the Labour Party in County Durham still unpunished, Grahame Morris is the only Labour parliamentary candidate who deserves a vote. Indeed, he more than richly deserves it.

There is no reason to begrudge the Conservatives their victories at Bishop Auckland and at Sedgefield. What would they make any worse? They are as welcome to those seats as they are to the ones that they are also going to take from the SNP, which deserves to lose to "the TOR-ies!" as surely as does the Labour Party in County Durham.

In City of Durham, and in North Durham, make a judgement based on your local knowledge. Here in North West Durham, consider that only Owen Temple had an address in this constituency three weeks ago, and that he is tied with Alex Watson as the County Councillor who has done the most for the Teaching Assistants.

The imposed Labour candidate, Laura Pidcock, walked out of the Teaching Assistants' Solidarity Rally because a speaker, from this constituency, had dared to propose exactly the right electoral approach.

Am I a Lib Dem? Not remotely. But Owen is head and shoulders above the other candidates here. Demographically, this should never have been a safe Labour seat. The shock of losing it would be good for the local Labour Party, and making this a seat that had to be fought, as it always should have been, would be good for the constituency.

Tripoli Truths

Libya, you say?

That he turned Libya into a cesspit of al-Qaeda and IS is what makes David Cameron, in a crowded field, the worst Prime Minister of my lifetime.

Salman Abedi's parents were precisely the Islamist dissidents for whom we waged that unmitigated disaster of a war. Indeed, they have moved back to Libya as a result of it.

Although Abedi, like Khalid Masood, was born in Britain, so closed borders would have done nothing to protect us from either of them.

Hardly any MPs voted against the war in Libya. But those who did so included Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Barry Gardiner.

Theresa May, by very stark contrast, has supported every war since she became an MP in 1997. Corbyn has opposed them all, and he has been correct on every count.

First as Home Secretary and now as Prime Minister, May has also cut the Police to the bone. Not for the first time, we see the result.

The presence of the Army on our streets after all these years of "The War On Terror" is an admission of the failure of that war.

In any case, how is that presence supposed to protect anyone from a bomb attack? It is not. It is naked electioneering by a Prime Minister who, like all of her recent predecessors, has been as bad to the Armed Forces as she has been to the Police.

The ostentatious deployment of the Army is the standing contradiction of the claim that the General Election campaign has been suspended.

The saying goes that the class war never ended, it was just that one side stopped fighting back. The General Election campaign is heading the same way. Do not allow that to happen.

Claiming Responsibility

"The so-called Islamic State has claimed responsibility." 

There is no meaningful distinction between that and the people to whom Donald Trump paid court on Sunday. 

Theresa May and Boris Johnson refuse to rule out intervening on its behalf in Syria, even while purporting to fight it in Iraq, a border that it has rendered meaningless.

But Jeremy Corbyn does rule that out, and he is a longstanding enemy of its Saudi mothership.

"The General Election campaign has been suspended," indeed.