Its bye - bye now Mr Tony Blair.

by predator - "its you or Leo" Tue Mar 01, 2005 22:30

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, Baron Anelay of St Johns, Lord Thomas of Gresford the Bishop of Worcester
Lord Harris of Haringey (yuecky title eh?)
Lord Newton of Braintree (clever chap)
Lord Goodhart
Lord Craig of Radley
Lord Plant of Highfield (greenfingers)
Lord Waddington
Lord Giddens
Lord Ackner
Lord Young of Norwood Green (not so young)
Lord Mayhew of Twysden
Baron Falkner of Margravine (baron comes under viscount as David Shayler would tell you)
Baron Hayman
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
Lord Brennan
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Lord Phillips of Sudbury (where's sudbury?)
Baron Goudie (it's the goodies!! yee hah!!)
Dame Montrose (nothing to do with RTE)
Lord Donaldson of Lymington
Lord Dubs (does kicking ska parties)
Lord Kalms ( valium head)
Lord Clinton-Davis
Lord Garden (another greenfingers)
L Truscott
Earl Onslow (something to with bucket)
Lord Haskins
Viscount Brookeborough (you read your DS?)
Baron Kennedy of The Shaws
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
Lord Ahmed (probably Al Qaeda)
Lord Neill of Bladen
Lord Desai (othello to his mates)
Lord Dholakia (othello eile to his mates)
Lord Kingsland (
Baron Scotland of Asthal

I kid you not- this is the sort of 3rd way bollox which comes from Blair's Big Brother gov. every day.
BASTA!
Reclaim the Streets!

by telegraph - (tory heartland press) Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:10

The Government legislates in haste; the country repents at leisure. As this newspaper predicted, the Prevention of Terrorism Bill has proved a fiasco long before it even reaches the statute book. It is worth recalling how the Government got us into this hole. The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act was rushed through Parliament after September 11, 2001 by David Blunkett. Last December, its provisions for detention of foreigners without trial were struck down by the Lords. Now a new Home Secretary has rushed in where judges fear to tread. Charles Clarke wants his new Bill, which covers British citizens as well as aliens, to become law in time to replace the old one, due to expire on March 14. To meet that arbitrary deadline, the Commons was allowed a mere six hours to consider 120 amendments on Monday, which would normally require at least three days of debate. Moreover, Mr Clarke failed to ensure that his concessions were laid before the House in good time, thereby contributing to his own discomfiture. With 62 Labour rebels, the government majority of only 16 would have vanished had the Opposition mustered its full strength.

If the Bill is to survive the Lords’ more rigorous scrutiny, further concessions will be inevitable. Mr Clarke has already agreed that the most severe “control orders”, such as house arrest, could only be imposed with, in effect, a judicial warrant. However, no judge would have to agree to lesser control orders, which amount to “restriction” rather than “deprivation” of liberty and do not require a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights. This distinction is plainly unsatisfactory: there is no good reason why all control orders should not require a warrant. If control orders are to be subject to judicial review, why should courts not be allowed to consider substantial as well as procedural issues? It remains unclear why Mr Clarke thinks house arrest (rather than, say, bail) is necessary, when other common law countries do without this alien practice. As it stands, this is still a badly flawed Bill, even if it now preserves the basic principle of habeas corpus.

So rushed, indeed, has this legislation been that it is bound to have unforeseen consequences. What, though, is the hurry? Let us grant that ministerial anxiety about a terrorist attack during the election campaign may be genuine, perhaps even justified. Yet it is a novel constitutional principle that the imminence of a Parliament’s dissolution should oblige it to pass a botched law. Better, on balance, to preserve the status quo until after the election. Terrorist suspects can already be kept under thorough surveillance. The admissibility of such evidence in court is a vexed one, but there are already ample weapons in the legal arsenal of the state to deal with the enemies of civilisation.

The preservation of our liberties cannot be compromised. But there is another principle at stake here. Emergency legislation, by definition, is taken on trust because it arises from a crisis, not from the Government’s political timetable. Suspicion is rife that this Bill is intended, not so much to make the nation safer, as to make the opposition parties look soft on terror. The very thought is unworthy of this or any other prime minister. If the emergency is dire enough to justify such a cavalier attitude to our liberties, let Tony Blair spell it out. Unless and until he does, he cannot expect this terrorism Bill to be taken on trust.


Previous story: Turn your page and your number is up
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© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.

by Polly Toynbee Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:12 polly.toynbee at guardian dot co dot uk

New Labour gives you no chance to vote for a vision

A cabal of 1980s warriors prevents the party from talking about its values

What is the government up to? Why invite a backbench rebellion pointlessly? There is no political or security mileage in this rushed-through anti-terrorist bill. No one will vote Labour because it is tougher than the Tories on terrorists.

Since it was never going to pass in its original form, what was the political point in inciting a mighty civil-rights outrage - genuine from Labour and the Lib Dems but bogus as hell from most Tories? Only gross political incompetence could allow Michael Howard - the man who overrode judges to increase the Bulger killers' sentences, the man who pledged to tear up the Human Rights Act - to pose as the nation's human-rights saviour. The House of Lords is a Tory stronghold posturing as above the fray, yet it has been allowed yet again to seize the moral high-ground.

If, God forbid, some Madrid-type bomb horror happens during the election campaign, the government will be in no better position to say "We told you so". (Though the Lib Dems might whisper "We told you so" about the war fomenting terror.)

Politically, No 10 seems to have mislaid its sure touch. Frissons of panic are not calmed by everyone telling everyone else what the pollsters say - a Labour loss is still almost inconceivable. There are 65 days to go - a long stretch. Labour's first bounce will come from the chancellor's budget in a fortnight. Even if his pockets are empty, he always conjures something for everyone out of nothing. Extra tax receipts flowing in have already stymied IFS, CBI and Tory dark warnings of black holes and tax rises to come. Prudence will be in fine fettle.

What's missing? Something feels seriously amiss when talking to Labour MPs and ministers in the last couple of days. "It's values. Fight on our values," said one minister whose words are echoed down the green benches. They know what those values are: it's the public versus the private realm, opportunity not privilege, politics that puts family before business and gives children a chance. But No 10 can never say any of that without marbles in its mouth, forever avoiding the "definition" of deep values. So they praise the private, appease business and fail to champion the underdog for fear of catching its fleas.

One of the best inside analyses of this era so far has come from Peter Hyman, Tony Blair's speech writer and strategist for 10 years. His book 1 Out of 10: From Downing Street Vision to Classroom Reality has drawn most attention for his jump from the Downing Street heights to working in the depths of a tough inner-London comprehensive.

But his critique of where "the project" is marooned now is rapier-sharp. It is the more poignant because he is himself New Labour Man to the core. He is not disaffected, rejected or resigned-in-disgust. But he sees exactly where it is all losing its edge, failing to renew itself.

As wordsmith and phrase-maker, he wrangled over key New Labour terminology. The problem with "modernisation", he writes, "as many of us kept telling Tony, was that it lacked values. Tony's response was that we were modernising 'for all the people' whilst our opponents favoured the few". But "the many not the few" mantra is double-edged: how easy to stand up for the 80% doing quite well, but how much harder to stand up for the "few" left behind. See today's shocking Unicef report showing that the UK is still nearly the worst on child poverty.

Hyman's portrait is of an older generation badly scarred by the wilderness years, stuck in the 80s. By 2001, competence proven, it was time to move on: they couldn't and didn't. When that famous "forces of conservatism" speech was penned for the PM at the party conference, it was the only time Blair defined himself on the left. But when the right hit back, Blair hurried to say he meant the conservatism of the Old Labour as well. Never again was there an attempt at defining Labour against its natural enemy: it was triangulation for ever.

So "public service reform", "empowerment", "personalised services" and toxic Tory language about the old "monolithic" state leave the political stadium empty. Test any slogan: if any party could use it, then it's vacuous, zero-valued and voter-void.

But at least vacuity does no harm, unlike the tyranny of the political demand for daily novelty for the media grid. Lose momentum and parties fear they fall, so something eye-catching must feed the monster almost every day: it may be merely synthetic or it may be seriously damaging. It often takes the form of stirring up conflict with those the government depends on to deliver on the ground. Impatience at the top demands results now: but teaching a lost teenager to read is snail slow.

So a new education secretary calls for "zero tolerance" of bad behaviour - a meaningless announcement: she does not run schools, the government is making them independent, and most councils are opposition-run and not listening. The government cannot command good school dinners, clean school toilets or silence in the corridors. But it can announce them morning, noon and night, almost as powerlessly as Howard's daily announcings on matrons or criminals writing books. It infuriates public-sector staff: since one in four employees is a "hardworking" (that other vogue word) public servant, how many voters do these politicians want to alienate with these self-serving rants? Voters see through the posturing all too well. Less is more: the government should be more dignified and eschew quick-fix nostrums.

Another great truth from the classroom floor is that the money, though a lot more, is still nothing like enough. The NHS says the same - and it's true - 5.4% of GDP for education is less than schools got in the 1970s, and far less than they deserve to give them what every private school takes for granted: fine buildings, swimming pools, orchestras, sports halls, playing fields and the best after-school activities. Above all, illiteracy is a crippling disability: the many who never learn to read need one-to-one teaching until they can.

So a great audit of everything should be promised: what is needed next for the better society? How shall we pay for it? But first, people need the chance to vote for a vision of a great society. Where is it? It's not called "public service reform" or "empowerment". The irony is that Labour will win as most of the people are on its side anyway: they want public goods more than they want tax cuts.

But no one will cheer on any street on May 6 unless they find the nerve to fight for something worthwhile. It's there, inside most Labour members, MPs and ministers. But not, it seems, in the cabal of old battle-scarred 80s' warriors that meets at 8am every day inside No 10 to re-fight its best battles of yesteryear, the Polish cavalry to a man. They are just lucky the Tories haven't yet got horses, let alone tanks.

© Copyright The Guardian 2005

by The London Independent Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:15

02 March 2005 :-

Peers bitterly criticised the Government's proposals for house arrest yesterday as a string of former judges and law lords declared that planned anti-terror laws undermined Britain's historic legal rights.

Peers lined up to attack the Prevention of Terrorism Bill as they started four days of debate on it, warning that it was "unconstitutional" and attacked fundamental protection for citizens by allowing ministers to hold or tag people without trial.

But the Conservatives last night said they were prepared to drop opposition to the Bill in return for a "sunset clause" forcing ministers to draw up fresh proposals in the autumn.

David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said the party would table amendments to the Bill to make it expire in eight months' time, and set up two reviews of the measures before it came back to Parliament.

He insisted that the party would continue to seek to improve the existing Bill during its passage through the Lords over the next few days. But a spokesman made it clear that the party would not oppose the legislation if the sunset clauses were accepted.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said: "I am pleased the Conservative Party has come round to accepting the principle of control orders. I have always said I wanted to build wide consensus across Parliament and political parties to deal with the threat of terrorism to the UK."

Civil rights campaigners believe the deal could be a way of defusing pre-election tension over the issue. A spokesman for Liberty said: "Of course we want this terrifying Bill to be defeated once and for all. However, Parliament should not have a gun to its head and be forced into a rushed pre-election sham of a debate about such grave issues."

The Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Rev Peter Selby, condemned the legislation as representing a "victory for terrorists", declaring that it threatened the "spirit" of British life.

The Liberal Democrat Lord Goodhart said: "It is entirely wrong that the Home Secretary, or indeed the courts, should have power to restrict liberty in ways that are not specifically authorised by Parliament.The Government needs to sit down with the opposition parties and work out what it can legitimately do in the 10 days before the anti-terrorism Act runs out of time. What it cannot do is force this Bill on us. That would be an affront to the constitution."

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, insisted that the Bill contained safeguards to protect the public. He said: "This Bill needs to be seen in the context of the scale of the continuing and serious threat to the security of the United Kingdom from terrorism.

"A primary issue raised by this Bill is whether in the light of the threat that this country faces it is appropriate and necessary to introduce a process which goes beyond the powers of the normal criminal prosecution process to protect the nation against terrorism.

"It is the Government's view that there is such a requirement to introduce such a process and to impose restrictions on individuals where absolutely necessary. But it is also the Government's view to ensure that such powers are subject to stringent safeguards."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, said: "That in itself assumes that this House will pass those amendments unaltered. It was a shocking way to treat the elected chamber by a Home Secretary who has legislated in such haste that we face the very real danger of getting the proposals in this Bill wrong."

Lord Merlyn-Rees, a former Labour home secretary and Northern Ireland secretary, told the House that although Lady Anelay "rehearses the dangers of allowing a Home Secretary to lock people up without due course of trial ... it's been going on for 20 years. I locked people up without trial. The paper was brought to me and I signed it and I made my own investigations. It happened under the Conservative administration beforehand. Why the outcry now?"

The retired law lord Lord Lloyd of Berwick said ministers "have produced this illiberal Bill and told us that, unless it is passed by March 14, the heavens will fall. I do not believe it."

Lord Lloyd, whose review of the law formed the basis of the Terrorism Act 2000, dismissed the proposed judicial involvement in control orders as "a charade" and "a sham". He said: "It is essentially a political decision, which would expose judges to a political backlash of just the kind from which it is our duty to protect them. I am deeply opposed to this Bill."

Lord Harris of Haringey, Labour former chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said the Bill was necessary and was "an honest attempt to try to balance the realities of the situation we have before us". He added: "In terms of discussions I have had, and information I have received, I am convinced that a number of serious terrorist attacks on this country have been averted over the past few years, as a result of the work of the Metropolitan Police security service and others."

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, the Labour peer and human rights barrister, said: "Sugar-coating the unpalatable by suggesting all will be well if a judge makes the order, is to forget that it will not feel significantly different if a judge or the Home Secretary issues a house arrest order if you still do not know the allegation or evidence on which it is based.

"What we are going to see in this new process which is being cobbled together is a debasement of the High Court whereby it will be turned into a secret commission hearing cases in camera. It would turn the judiciary into a fig leaf for unacceptable practices."

The Lords have their say

"Security is no justification for the breach of the fundamental principles which underpin our democratic system. No deprivation of liberty by ministerial say so, no midnight secret knock on the door, no gulags whether in Siberia or in Guantanamo."

Lord Thomas, Liberal Democrat, former High Court judge.

"When you are dealing with the orders that are to be made to keep a person in his own house, when you are basically destroying his liberty albeit for a short time, then the burden of proof should be the ordinary criminal standard - beyond reasonable doubt."

Lord Ackner, former law lord.

"In March of 2004... they said that to extend executive detention to British subjects would be a grave step; such draconian powers, their words not mine, would do much damage to community relations and could not be justified in the circumstances. Yet here we are less than a year later being asked to give the Government just such draconian powers."

Lord Lloyd, former law lord.

"Throughout modern history, our sea defences against unfair executive power have been serially attacked by the threat of erosion. The executive, like the sea, will always come back. Provisions that commit such wide incursions into liberty as these do need to be examined by other minds as well [as the police and security services]."

Lord Mayhew, Conservative, former attorney general.

"The Home Office practice now is to bring forward new legislation which is absolutely abhorrent and totally disgraceful in its abuse of civil liberties and then, when there is uproar, replace it with something only slightly less abhorrent and tell us a major concession has been made. The concession being made should provide this House with no comfort."

Baroness Kennedy, Labour, human rights barrister.

***********************************
also worth a read -

"his reckless contempt for Parliament"
Did we ever find out why it was necessary for David Blunkett to send tanks to Heathrow?
Philip Hensher
02 March 2005
What on earth is going on in Parliament?
The debate on the committee stage and the third reading of the anti-terrorism Bill in the House of Commons suddenly turned into a discussion of amendments which haven't been formulated, on promises to make alterations where the House won't have a voice, and on letters informally sent between the leaders of the parties disclosing the Government's intentions. When asked how widespread the effect of this Bill would be, the Home Secretary said it would apply to "very few people"; someone pointed out that 700 people had been arrested on terrorism charges since 11 September, 2001, mostly without charge.


© Copyright The Independent.

by nemesis - RTS! Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:31

a liar you always were.
liar! liar! pants on fire.
5/5/05 the people will decide-
do they want man in number 10 who lives in a flat above number 11?

you were never the people's prime minister.

Take the hint and go now. Or we will photograph you crying and disraught as you begin the interminable nervous collapse some day when you finally leave that street. And your offspring will be hounded in their politically related privelage and business affairs all the days of your life.
and some papers will even write "GOTCHA!".
and the families of those faithful muslims who hold more stock in what the Good Friday agreement meant, "to crucify the Christ" will thank their God.

and then you'll meet your maker.

by - Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:43

i think you know my name-
I was around when pontius pilate washed his hand
and agreed to Friday.
Call me Tony.
Be scared.
Be very scared.
Yep, Be terrified.

I'll give you "elevens" and "peace".

under house arrest.

by crying wolf one too many times. Sun Mar 06, 2005 20:57

The Brit tabloid press aledges the Tories are in the lead. The Brit broadsheet press aledges the SAS have en masse threatened to leave this regime.
The Guardian reports that Mr Blair admits "he is a problem" and well would you believe it, there are 200 terrorists (of the Osama type) in Engurland right now at this very moment, just waiting to justify house arrests and another New Labour regime, and blaa blaa blaa.
It was the Sir Blair head of the poliss who said that.

quid custodies ipse custodiens?
(forgive the mis-spelling)
(pull my ear why not?)

by viii Wed Mar 09, 2005 09:03

Clarke interview in The Guardian (pro new Labour)
"people coming back from Guantanamo to France were immediately put in the slammer"
[yes and analysed from brain to tip of toe with the most super duper technology you can imagine mr clarke]
read it all at link-
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,1433383,00.html


George Jones Political editor in The Telegraph (pro Conservative)

Tony Blair faces the humiliation today of bowing to Tory and Liberal Democrat demands to water down the Government's anti-terror proposals or risk losing the entire Prevention of Terrorism Bill only weeks before an expected general election.

The Government suffered another heavy defeat in the House of Lords last night when peers voted overwhelmingly in favour of a "sunset clause" limiting the life of proposed powers to impose control orders on terrorist suspects.

It was the second night running that peers had savaged the Terrorism Bill on civil liberties grounds, paving the way for the most serious trial of strength between the Government and the Lords since Mr Blair came to power.

The legislation has to be on the statute book by the end of this week because the present powers to hold foreign terrorist suspects without trial will expire on Sunday.

Downing Street last night backed away from reports that 10 suspects held in Belmarsh Prison or under strict bail conditions would be released on to the streets on Friday if the stand-off was not resolved.

The Home Office has a fall-back provision to enable the existing powers – which the Law Lords ruled in December were a breach of human rights – to be renewed for nine months.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said the first concern was national security. "That is what will guide the Government's actions," he said.

The Tories had protested against what they claimed were attempts to "strong-arm" opponents into backing the Bill. David Davis, the Tory home affairs spokesman, said suggestions that suspects would be set free amounted to "playing politics with terror".

Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, said the fate of the terrorism laws was now in Mr Blair's hands. "He could have his Bill with a time limit which would make sure that Parliament had the opportunity properly to discuss it or he could continue with the existing legislation," he said.

"We have made both those offers to him. So if there is no legislation on the statute book at the end of this week that will be Mr Blair's decision, not ours."

Ministers held emergency talks last night to agree concessions which could be put to MPs when the Bill returns to the Commons later today.

Last week the Government reluctantly agreed that the more serious orders for house arrest should be decided by a judge. It then came within 14 votes of being defeated by MPs over demands for judges to authorise other orders, including electronic tagging, curfews and telephone and the internet restrictions.

The Lords later amended the Bill to require judges rather than the Home Secretary to authorise all control orders.

Peers also backed – against Government wishes – other safeguards, including requiring a judge to be convinced on the balance of probabilities, rather than the suspicions of the security services, that a detainee was involved in terrorist activities.

And they insisted that those under house arrest did not lose the right to state benefits, food and health care.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is expected to concede an extension of judicial involvement to all control orders. Sources said he would propose the automatic involvement of a judge shortly after an order had been made.

The concession may not be enough to satisfy the Opposition, let alone the 60 Labour MPs who voted against the Government last week. A leading Labour rebel said the Government needed to accept all the additional safeguards imposed by the Lords or risk further rebellion today.

The "sunset clause", which would lead to the powers lapsing automatically in November, is the most difficult for the Government to accept because it has been proposed by the Conservatives.

Mr Blair reaffirmed his opposition to a time limit on control orders but last night the odds were stacked against him, with a growing view at Westminster that the legislation was mortally wounded.

The nervousness in the Government was reflected by instructions for Labour MPs to return from overseas trips or their constituencies.

The Lords cast its stance as defending civil liberties and protesting at the way the Government was steamrollering through Parliament laws taking away centuries-old legal protections for citizens.

Peers voted by 297 to 110, a majority of 187, to approve the "sunset clause".

It was the biggest defeat for the Government on a whipped vote since most of the hereditary peers were expelled in 1999.

The clause attracted such widespread support that the Government would have lost even if not a single Conservative had voted.

Lord Irvine of Lairg, the former Lord Chancellor, who was Mr Blair's legal mentor, again rebelled by backing the "sunset clause".

Lord Kingsland, the shadow Lord Chancellor, said: "Parliament has spent the last 700 years protecting our liberties; it seems outrageous that we should be asked to allow an open-ended right to remove the most fundamental of them from our statute book."

© Copyright of Telegraph

by council of 9 Thu Mar 10, 2005 20:23

he House of Lords have voted for three amendments.

including the Tory sunset clause which would require the Bill to return to Parliament after 12 months.

Voting was 250 to 100 - a majority of 150.

Peers also backed the Liberal Democrat ammendment giving the courts more powers in making both the house arrest control orders and the less severe orders, voting 214 in favour and 125 against - a majority 89.

Under this move the court makes the orders based on evidence placed before it by the Secretary of State. The court decides on the type of conditions of the order to be imposed on the suspect.

Peers then backed a third amendment (Tory) to create a committee of the Privy Council to review the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Voting was 225 to 126, majority 99. The committee will have to report back to the Home Secretary in four to eight months' time.

by the other mr brown Wed Mar 16, 2005 13:28

Blair recently tried to put "terror" centre stage.
And accordingly the markets slumped with the news that London faced "an imminent al q attack". Thank you for that Mr Blair, I love the way you keep my friends and loved ones in London feeling secure.

Then the RC church weighed in yesterday with the very celtic aristocratic sounding Cardinal von Murphy van O Connor (perhaps he's one of the merrovinginvanjan bloodlines - good thing he hasn't had any babies) statement that Abortion ought be restricted which he also tied into the obligation to adress world poverty "having babies is one thing - looking after them is the next" and refugees "ever noticed how they have babies?".

Well that suits the Tory's Mr Howard, but got up Mr Blair's nose, as his wife before defending devout young muslims right to wear veils, lobbied for the highest abortion pregnancy cut off point in Europe.

"don't mix politics with religion says Mr Blair."
reflecting on the Pius Xii excommunication of italian partisans. quite right - "give caesar what is his & give God what is his as well."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1438508,00.html
and cartoon-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1438793,00.html

Mr Kennedy "the ginger liberal" is staying very quite.
You're a Good lad. (he's after the women's vote)

Dr Paisley is staying very quite as well.
You're a good dissenter, but very quiet.
you're also a bigot with a constituency full of racists.

Mr Brown the pasha of primrose weddings is now
seeking to put the economy "centre stage".

let's see how he does.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4345289.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4346849.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4350111.stm