British “New” “Labour” politicians in big business

From British daily The Morning Star:

Ministers’ revolving door into business is jammed

Thursday 18 June 2009

Solomon Hughes

Some tragic news in the Financial Times. So sad that it takes a hard-hearted reader not to laugh out loud. According to the pink paper, “Labour MPs hoping to land lucrative private-sector jobs after the next election are in for a disappointment.”

The Financial Times says that City headhunters think the MPs’ “lack the glitter” to attract the big jobs in the Square Mile.

Plenty of ex-ministers, even the worst kind, have already gone on to jobs in the City. But the glitter has gone – the glitter of being attached to the ruling party.

The City would rather recruit David Cameron‘s spin doctors’ tea boy than a Labour minister of state right now because it thinks Labour is on its way out of power.

The whole point of recruiting former ministers is to get hold of their contact books and their introductions.

Richard Caborn no doubt likes to tell himself that the fantastic skills he developed in his undistinguished reign as sports minister are the reason why nuclear and engineering firm Amec gave him a job.

But we all know that Amec hired Caborn to help it to win government contracts.

Amec took on former energy minister Brian Wilson

For neo-conservative fossils who still get hissy fits whenever people name the words “energy”, “oil”, and “Iraq” in one sentence: Wilson used to be Tony Blair‘s special envoy to Iraq.

for the same reason.

Every cloud has its silver lining. The miserable prospect of the coming of Cameron does at least mean we will see fewer Labour ministers joining City boards.

Maybe even James Purnell will have to join one of his own “workfare” schemes if the voters kick him out.

David Blunkett was able to get a nice cushy number with A4E, a company bidding for those workfare contracts from the government, but Purnell probably won’t get a ticket for this gravy train.

With a bit of luck, the “revenue protection officer” is moving towards his carriage.

There are two other reasons to be happy that the revolving door has got a bit of a jam in it.

First, the prospect of a cushy number in the City was one of the many factors nudging ministers towards ever more pro-corporate policies. It looks as if this temptation is gone.

Unfortunately, I think some of Labour’s ministerial donkeys would trudge in that political direction even without the corporate career carrot dangling in front of their noses.

Second, we will see fewer Labour ministers shaming themselves and their movement when they get on the boards, because the simple truth is that Labour’s ministers-turned-executives are easily as bad as some of the lowest people already found in those high places.

Here are three recent examples. Patricia Hewitt said that she was standing down at the next election so she could spend more time with her many directorships.

One of the former health minister’s many jobs is on the board of Boots.

Now it may be that Hewitt got the job because of her expertise in two-for-one deals and her advanced knowledge of loyalty cards, but I suspect Boots’s persistent attempts to get NHS services located in its chemists shops might be a stronger reason.

However, at least Boots did some good things. It was a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative, an organisation that’s trying to stop the worst kind of worker exploitation further down the supply chain.

Unusually, the ETI is a tri-partite group, with union representatives whose members work in developing world industries as well as campaigners and employers. So all in all, a good thing.

However, now Hewitt has joined the Boots board, the high-street chemist has decided to leave the ETI. Hewitt apparently cares less about the exploitation of Third World workers than the company director she replaced.

Sally Morgan, one-time minister for women and Tony Blair’s chief No 10 aide, also works for a high-street store. She has a job with Lloyds Pharmacy. Morgan is on its “advisory board,” so you won’t see her stocking the shelves with corn plasters.

Oddly, Baroness Morgan is also on the board of Carphone Warehouse. Since she joined, the firm has started saying: “Stuff the workers.”

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has been trying to organise at Carphone Warehouse. But with Morgan in the boardroom, the firm has started making mass redundancies and, according to delegates at the CWU conference, using the lay-offs to victimise trade union reps.

Or how about former defence ministers George Robertson and John Reid. They did a double act with a security firm called GSL. The company was owned by investment firm Englefield Capital, which employs Robertson.

Englefield then sold GSL to Group 4, which employs Reid.

Did the two former Labour ministers push this private prisons firm in a liberal direction?

Apparently not.

A recent inquest in Australia found GSL responsible for boiling a prisoner to death. Mr Ward, an Aborigine man arrested on a driving offence, was transported by GSL to court. He was left to die without water or care in incredible temperatures in the back of one of the firm’s vans. He was found to have third-degree burns.

This video from Australia says about itself:

Marc Newhouse from Deaths in Custody Watch Committee doing media interview

Marc being interviewed by media including ABC, SBS and the West Australian at the May 14 rally at GSL office 140 Abernethy Road in Belmont.

Purnell quits politics: here.

USA: Where Are They Now?: Ex-Bush Loyalists Cash In: here.

Latvian workers fight cutbacks

This 2012 satirical animation about austerity, by Mark Fiore in the USA, is called Great Latvia Success Story!

From British daily The Morning Star:

Latvian workers fight against cuts

Thursday 18 June 2009

Thousands of angry workers have staged a protest in central Riga against the centre-right government’s recent decision to slash their wages, pensions and other benefits.

Demonstrators included public-sector staff such as teachers and doctors, who are seeing their salaries cut by 20 per cent and pensions by 10 per cent as the government reduces expenditure to satisfy international lenders.

That comes on top of a 15 per cent wage reduction that the government approved earlier in the year.

The protest was the first since Latvian MPs gave the green light to some $1 billion (£620m) in spending cuts, which the US-dominated International Monetary Fund and the European Union set as a condition for a bail-out loan.

European economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia announced today that Riga can expect a decision from Brussels on releasing a further 1.2 billion euros (£1bn) in loans before the end of the month.

Mr Almunia said that the loan would be discussed at an EU summit today, reiterating that the commission supported the Latvian government‘s intention to maintain its currency peg to the euro.

For years, Latvia was touted by neoliberal pundits as a “Baltic Tiger,” an example of a former socialist country that had successfully completed the transition to a capitalist economy.

But the market meltdown has hit the country particularly hard and output is expected to fall by up to 20 per cent this year.

Latvia’s health minister resigned on Wednesday in protest at swingeing health service cuts, which entail hospital closures.

A government spokeswoman insisted that this would not undermine Riga’s governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis of the conservative-populist New Era party.

Maybe a Brave “New Era” for corporate fat cats; but an era for workers that goes back to bad old days of poverty.

NATO’s Baltic members endure testing times in Afghanistan: here.

Combat 18 nazi vandalism to Irish graves

This video from England says about itself:

MacIntyre Undercover – Chelsea Headhunters [a football hooligan gang in London]

Chelsea Headhunters were infiltrated by investigative reporter Donal MacIntyre for this documentary screened on the BBC on November 9, 1999, in which MacIntyre posed as a wannabe-member of the Chelsea Headhunters. He even had a Chelsea tattoo applied to himself for authenticity. He confirmed the racist elements to the Headhunters and their links to Combat 18, including one top-ranking member who had been imprisoned on one occasion for possession of material related to the Ku Klux Klan. In 2000, Jason Marriner, a member of the Chelsea Headhunters was sentenced to six years in prison for his part in organising a fight with supporters of a rival team, based on evidence captured by Donal MacIntyre and his team. This programme led to arrests and several convictions.

From the British Broadcasting Corporation:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 16:09 UK

Combat 18 slogans daubed on plot

A republican plot in Miltown cemetery in west Belfast has been desecrated with Combat 18 slogans, according to Sinn Féin MLA Paul Maskey.

“Overnight, racist and sectarian slogans, along with Combat 18 graffiti, were daubed on the republican plot in the cemetery,” said Mr Maskey.

“A considerable amount of damage has been done to the graves.”

A PSNI spokeswoman said officers were not aware of the attack, but added they would follow up any reports made.

See also here.

Romania’s ambassador has held talks with senior ministers at Stormont over a series of racist attacks that have forced more than 100 Roma people to flee their homes: here.

Attacks on Romanians in Belfast: here. And here.

Anti-fascist and human rights campaigners are to stage a demonstration in London tomorrow to condemn the sickening race attacks in Belfast which have forced over 100 Romanian immigrants to flee their homes: here.

One hundred Romanian Gypsies who have been subjected to a campaign of racist abuse and intimidation in Northern Ireland are quitting the six counties to return home: here.

Homophobia and racism on rise in Northern Ireland, survey shows: here.

British Labour Party in Northern Ireland? See here.

Related articles

• Alarm at Greek police ‘collusion’ with far-right (bbc.co.uk)
• Abortion: 45% want a liberalisation of the law in Northern Ireland – Belfast Telegraph (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
• Activists march through Belfast for abortion rights (morningstaronline.co.uk)

Tony Blair torture scandal revelations

This video is called Water-boarding is immoral: George Bush orders Tony Blair’s goons to “interrogate”.

From British daily The Guardian:

Tony Blair knew of secret policy on terror interrogations

Letter reveals former PM was aware of guidance to UK agents

* Ian Cobain
*Thursday 18 June 2009

Tony Blair was aware of the ­existence of a secret interrogation policy which ­effectively led to British citizens, and others, being ­tortured during ­counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal.

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered ­guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers ­questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not “be seen to condone” torture and that they must not “engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners”.

But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated.

“Given that they are not within our ­custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this,” the policy said.

The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world’s leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain’s obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture. Despite this, the secret policy went on to underpin British intelligence’s ­relationships with a number of foreign intelligence agencies which had become the UK’s allies in the “war against terror”.

The policy was set out in written instructions sent to MI5 and MI6 officers in January 2002, which told them they might consider complaining to US officials about the mistreatment of detainees “if circumstances allow”.

Blair indicated his awareness of the existence of the policy in the middle of 2004, a few weeks after publication of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

It was around this time, David ­Miliband, the foreign secretary, told MPs on ­Tuesday, that the policy was changed, becoming more “comprehensive and formal”.

In a letter to the intelligence and ­security committee (ISC), the group of MPs and peers that provides political ­oversight of the UK’s security and ­intelligence ­services, on May 24 2004, Blair said that rather than considering making a ­complaint, “UK intelligence personnel interviewing or witnessing the interviews of detainees are instructed to report if they believe detainees are being treated in an inhumane or degrading way”.

The Guardian has learned from a ­reliable source that MI5 officers are now instructed that if a detainee tells them that he or she is being tortured they should never return to question that person.

It remains unclear what Blair knew of the policy’s consequences. The Guardian has repeatedly asked him what role he played in approving the policy, whether he was aware that it had led to people being tortured, and whether he made any attempt to change it.

…

When the Guardian pointed out to Blair that it had not suggested he had authorised the use of torture, but had asked whether he had played any role in the approval of a policy that led to people being tortured, his spokesman replied: “Tony Blair does not condone torture, has never authorised it nor colluded in it at any time.” But there is growing evidence of MI5’s ­collusion in the torture of British ­terrorism suspects in Pakistan, where officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence ­directorate (ISI), an agency whose routine use of ­torture has been widely documented, were asked by MI5 to detain British ­citizens and put questions to them prior to an ­interrogation by MI5 officers.

Two high court judges say they have seen “powerful evidence” of the torture of Binyam Mohamed, the British ­resident who returned from Guantánamo Bay in February, before he was questioned by an MI5 officer in May 2002.

In a separate case, a court has heard that MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up a list of questions to be put to another man, Rangzieb Ahmed, who was detained by the ISI in August 2006, despite having reason to believe that he was in danger of being tortured.

By the time Ahmed was deported to the UK after a lengthy period of unlawful detention three of his ­fingernails were missing.

Several other men have come forward to say they were questioned by British intelligence officers after suffering brutal torture at the hands of Pakistani agents, and there have been similar allegations of British collusion in the torture of ­British citizens in Egypt, Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.

While a small number of the victims were subsequently tried and convicted in the UK, most were released without charge.

International concern about ­Britain’s involvement in torture has been ­mounting for some time. In February Martin Scheinin, a UN special rapporteur on human rights, reported that British intelligence ­personnel had “interviewed detainees who were held incommunicado by the Pakistani ISI in so-called safe houses, where they were being tortured”.

Scheinin added that this “can be ­reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture.”

In March, after the Guardian disclosed the existence of the interrogation policy, and reported on the growing number of allegations of British collusion in torture, Gordon Brown announced that the policy was to be rewritten by the ISC.

In what was seen at Westminster as an acknowledgement that the secret policy had been open to abuse, Brown also pledged that the rewritten policy would be made public and that a former appeal court judge would monitor the ­intelligence agencies’ compliance with it, and report to the prime minister each year.

On Tuesday Miliband said the existing policy, as amended in 2004, would not be published.

But the discovery that Blair was aware of the secret interrogation policy appears certain to fuel the growing demand for an independent inquiry into aspects of the UK’s role in torture and rendition.

So far, those who have called for such an inquiry include the Conservative and Liberal ­Democrat leaders David ­Cameron and Nick Clegg; Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions; Lord ­Carlile of Berriew, the government’s ­independent reviewer of counter-­terrorism ­legislation; Lord Howe, who was foreign secretary between 1983 and 1989 in the Thatcher government; and Lord Guthrie, a former chief of defence staff.

Politicians and legal experts queued up today to warn ex-prime minister Tony Blair that his knowledge and tolerance of torture during the Iraq war made him unfit to continue as Middle East peace envoy.

Jamil Rahman, the British man suing the Home Office over claims MI5 colluded in his alleged torture, has revealed that he had been accused of masterminding the July 7 London bombings while in captivity.

Two UN Special Rapporteurs have been asked to investigate the case of an Italian victim of “extraordinary rendition” who is being held in a Moroccan prison.

Related articles

• Tony Blair ‘Knew All About CIA Secret Kidnap Programme’
• Tony Blair in CIA torture flights scandal

British expenses scandal continues

From British daily The Guardian:

MP expenses claim details censored as they go online

The Commons authorities today published 1m expenses claims and receipts covering the past four years but have censored some of the most damaging information.

The online publication excludes all rejected claims and all addresses, disguising the extent to which politicians used the “flipping” tactic to redesignate their second homes so they maximised their income.

Freedom of information campaigners have criticised the blacking-out of key details in MPs’ expenses claim forms which were released today: here.

PM [Gordon Brown] forced to sack junior Treasury minister in face of evidence she ‘flipped’ homes for month to avoid tax: here.

Scotland Yard could begin full criminal investigations into a handful of MPs over their expenses within weeks: here.

More than 30 MPs claimed the maximum £400 allowance for food every month last year, with many billing the taxpayer for meals when the Commons was not sitting: here.

Economic crisis, education cuts

Australia: Youth jobless rate soars in working class suburbs: here.

USA: California: The state government is responding to the economic crisis by attacking whatever remains of the social safety net upon which millions of people depend: here.

This is a video of Californian students protesting Schwarzenegger’s education cuts.

California residents speak on the economic crisis: here.

The impact of emergency budget cuts being implemented by Democratic Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm will fall heavily on the most vulnerable layers of the population: here.

Germany: Thousands demonstrate against run-down of the education system: here. And here.

UK unemployment rose to 2.261 million in the three months to April, the highest since November 1996, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday: here.

The Lindsey oil refinery dispute has escalated with workers from power stations and oil and gas terminals across Britain walking out in solidarity: here.

French firm Total fires staff at Lindsey refinery after they walk out on strike: here.

Humanity will achieve the dubious distinction this year of having more than 1 billion members of its species living in hunger for the first time in history: here.

Washington and Iran, from Mossadeq to Mousavi

This is a video about prime minister Mossadeq of Iran, deposed by CIA coup d’etat.

By Bill Van Auken in the USA:

Obama: US “meddling” in Iran should not be seen

18 June 2009

Amid rhetoric about his commitment to the “universal values” of democratic processes and free speech, US President Barack Obama made one unintentionally revealing statement on Iran Tuesday. “It’s not productive, given the history of the US-Iranian relationship, to be seen as meddling,” he said.

The statement was meant as an explanation of the Obama administration’s failure to join the Iranian opposition led by the defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in explicitly denouncing last Friday’s presidential election as a “fraud” and as a defense against criticism from the Republican right in the US.

Before Obama made the statement, his Republican opponent in the 2008 election, Arizona Senator John McCain

McCain and his cronies have a history both of economical links to the Teheran regime (as war on Iran propagandist Dick Cheney had as well), and of singing “Bomb bomb Iran“.

condemned the administration’s reticence, declaring that Obama “should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights.”

Obama’s choice of words, however, spoke volumes. The US should not “be seen as meddling”; as for the meddling itself, that is clearly another matter.

The president’s reference to “the history of the US-Iranian relationship” refers to the 1953 CIA-backed coup that overthrew the country’s nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, who two years earlier had begun to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, until then controlled by Britain.

The coup ushered in the 26-year, US-backed rule of the Shah and SAVAK, his brutal secret police, which ended only with the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

Nearly one year after the coup, in August 1954, the New York Times published an editorial succinctly explaining the motives behind the CIA action: “Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism,” the paper editorialized. “It is perhaps too much to hope that Iran’s experience will prevent the rest of Mossadeqs in other countries, but that experience may at least strengthen the hands of more reasonable and far-seeing leaders.”

“More reasonable and far-seeing” pro Washington dictators, like the Shah; Suharto in Indonesia; Mobutu in Congo; Pinochet in Chile; etc. etc.

The obvious question is: what fundamentally has changed in “the US-Iranian relationship” since those days? Washington—under Obama as under Bush—is continuing two colonial-style wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, i.e., on Iran’s western and eastern borders,

The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan might be interpreted as a pincer movement against Iran. However, they were also tacit collaboration between at least some elements of the Bush and Teheran regimes. As Bush’s wars removed two enemies of Teheran: Saddam Hussein, whom they hated for secularism; and the Afghan Taliban, whom they hated for being Sunni and more extremely “fundamentalist” than themselves.

that have claimed the lives of over one million people. The aim of these wars is the same as the objective of the coup of 1953—control of “rich resources” and the pipeline routes for extracting them from the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

Letters on the elections in Iran: here.

The Iranian working class and the revolt: here.

How Iran’s Internet works: here.

With an uncompromising speech at Friday’s prayers, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has set the stage for a potentially bloody confrontation with opposition leaders demanding a re-run of last week’s presidential election: here.