Author: Londonbear

Wednesday a report on a major study into the link between red meat consumption and the risk of bowel cancer is published, as reported by the BBC

The headline result is that those eating two 80g portions of red meat a day are one third more likely to develop bowel cancer than those eating less than one portion a week. A McDonald’s quarter pounder by definition contains 110g of beef. The nutritional information is not available on the US site to give the weight of the beef patty but clearly with only 50g to play with you are not going to have a very big portion before you go over the “high consumption” figure.

I have just given the “2 McDonalds” as an example but clearly anyone eating an 8oz steak each day falls into the same risk category. Low dietary fiber also increases the risk of bowel cancer.  

The Sunday Times has a good source of documents that are starting to blow apart the lies and misleading that led up to the Iraq War. They have been given the famous “Downing Street Minutes” and now the background paper used at the meeting which we should perhaps call “The Downing Street Briefing”.

I think I am now in a position to name the source.
Well sort of. May I suggest that their source be known from now on as:

                                Deep Thought

As well as having connotations of “Deep Throat” from the Watergate leaks, the name has a British connection. Deep Thought is the computer in “Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (radio and TV series, book and now a feature film) which provides the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everthing.

Just in case this got your hopes up, this is about South Africa (with a topical comment on Zimbabwe at the end). The outcome of this and some other cases of corruption allegations in the South African administration will test just how robust institutions of that emerging democracy are.

The major case surrounds allegations that the Deputy President Jacob Zuma was involved in attempting to get a bribe to allocate an arms procurement contract. Zuma has been seen as a favorite to take over from Thabo Mbeke when his terms of office run out. The case has come to a head now as an aide of Zuma’s has been found guilty. At the same time 21 mostly former MPs have been charged with misapporpriation of funds over travel expenses. Those involved excess claims for travel from Pretoria to Cape Town, the formal and administrative capitals.

Discussion of the Zuma affair by the Opposition in Parliament has been stopped by the Speaker and it looks like the main corruption police team, the Scorpions, is being undermined and political decisions are being made not to prosecute Zuma. It could have profound effects on South African politics and even break the strangehold that the ANC has.  

When Mbeke was Deputy to Nelson Mandela he expressed concerns over corruption in public life. This makes the calls from a number of South African newspapers for him to sack Zuma more telling. The BBC reports a Business Day editorial:

“If Mbeki does not remove Zuma on his return from Chile today his remaining years in office will be a nightmare,” it warns.

“He will lose all authority and his government will lose all legitimacy.”

It also accuses former President Nelson Mandela of committing “one of the worst calls of his long political life” in backing Mr Zuma. “In failing to press Zuma to do the honourable thing and resign,” it declares, “Mandela has hung his successor , President Thabo Mbeki, out to dry”.

The Zuma scandal news first broke when Mandela was still in office. One of the problems in South African politics is the lack of an altrnative to virtual single party rule by the ANC. Even the party that came out of the former apartheid reigme has abolished itself with its members joining the ANC.  Almost their only opposition are a very few right wing White Supremacists with a band of old fashioned Suzman liberals in Parliament itself. While there are many brave and hornorable people within the ANC, the lessons of neighbouring Zimbabwe and the Zuma affair show that  democracy will only really be secure in southern Africa when they move beyond “liberation politics”. As the Cape Times (again quoted by the BBC) puts it:

While we have a noble constitution, it will become just another piece of paper if its ideals are not consistently upheld.

     

There are signs of hope. In South Africa and Zambia the press are free to openly criticise their politicians. Zimbabwe may well be coming to a head. After stealing the recent elections, Mugabe is now trying to “politically cleanse” the cities by destroying the shanty towns that have sprung up in the major cities and which are the backbones of the MDC opposition. An estimated 200,000 plus have been made homeless in the past couple of weeks. Having to sleep rough in to cold of a southern African winter on top of the Mugabe imposed famine may just be the tipping point. There is already bloodshed in that beautiful broken land. Let’s all hope that the numbers will not be too great as they overthow a tyrant.    
 

This diary will be difficult going and will challenge your fundamental American and liberal sensibilities. The inevitable conclusion of what I am to describe will be the regulation and if necessary the suppression of churches in Africa and the banning of evangelical christian “missionaries” or ministers from travelling either to or from Africa to the US and Europe.

The unfortunate fact is that evangelical chrisitanity has been overlaid on traditional African belief systems and has produced a number of splinter churches which sanction the abuse and killing of children. Today in Britain three people were convicted of severe abuse of a girl who was lucky to survive, another died a five years ago. Both were beaten in the belief they were witches, based on the teachings of these churches.
This BBC report about the reactions of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) gives a very brief idea of the abuse suffered by the child in today’s case.

The child, who is now 10, described how she was put into a zip-up laundry bag and told she would be “thrown away” into a river.

The abuse she suffered began in 2003 when a boy told his mother that the girl had been using witchcraft.

The cruelty she was subjected to included being cut with a knife and being beaten with a belt and shoe.

The orphan, who was brought to Britain in 2002 by her 38-year-old aunt from Angola after her parents died, also had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to “beat the devil out of her” at a flat in Hackney, east London.

Child protection workers in the area of London this happened in know of at least four other cases locally where such abuses are suspected.

The situation is on two levels. One is the dellusional beliefs of the carers and the other are the splinter churches which prey on the minds and pocket books of those vulnerable to their preaching. What these pastors seem to promise is material attainment for the poorest and miracle cures for the sick and “possessed”. Other cases that have come to light in the UK are barren women being taken to Africa to “give birth” to miracle children who share no DNA markers with the supposed parents. In other congregations, members hand over large sums of money in the hope that they will receive the same riches the pastor has.

If these seem familiar to Americans with any knowledge of the Bakers of other televangelists, they share the same roots. I am willing to freely assert these have nothing to do with any religion, let alone that of the carpenter from Nazareth, but everything to do with power, control and greed. While it is probably impossible to protect adults against their own gullibility, the question become how far it is necessary to restrict their religious liberties in order to protect the children. There do seem to be cultural peculiarities that means most of those involved are black Africans. Any legal restrictions are bound to affect that group more heavily than others.

If this seems a racist proposal, tough. I take my lead from the motto of one institution the girl would have been at and the inscription over another. Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) is world famous and she would have been in their area. JM Barrie bequeathed the rights to Peter Pan to the hospital so every time you buy that Disney video, a small amount goes to them. Their motto is “The Child, First and Always”. Over the doors of the Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) where the trial took place is written “Protect the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer”. In these cases. those are the principles I work by.

Many will have vague memories of Col. Tim Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment. Memories will click into place when I remind you that he is the British commander who addressed his troups on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. So inspirational was his completely unscripted speech that Bush had a copy on his wall in the White House.

That speech may well have been his downfall. After leading his forces through a highly successful campaign his career was destroyed by lies, false allegations and what seems like jealosy. Collins has been promoting his new book in the UK and has given his side of the events that led him to resign at the lack of support he had from the authorities. He is now openly questioning the planning for post-war Iraq.
Collins is not a completely unflawed character. He is described in one review as an “unashamed egoist” and clearly has little regard for “desk waqrriors”. In my own opinion it is wrong to glorify soldiers and thier profession should go the way of sagger makers’ bottom knockers. What cannot be denied is that if you must them necessay for the time being, someone like Collins in overall charge would be no bad thing. Let me remind you of what he said in that speech that could be described as in the best traditions of the British Army.

    We go to liberate, not to conquer.
    We will not fly our flags in their country
    We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own.
    Show respect for them.

    There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly.
    Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send.
    As for the others, I expect you to rock their world.
    Wipe them out if that is what they choose.
    But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.

    Iraq is steeped in history.
    It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham.
    Tread lightly there.

    You will see things that no man could pay to see
    — and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis.
    You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing.

    Don’t treat them as refugees for they are in their own country.
    Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

    If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day.
    Allow them dignity in death.
    Bury them properly and mark their graves.

    It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive.
    But there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign.
    We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back.
    There will be no time for sorrow.

    The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction.
    There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam.
    He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done.
    As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.

    It is a big step to take another human life.
    It is not to be done lightly.
    I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts.
    I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.

    If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.
    The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.

    If you harm the regiment or its history by over-enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer.
    You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest — for your deeds will follow you down through history.
    We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.

    (On Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons.)

    It is not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
    We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself.
    If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack.

    As for ourselves, let’s bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there.

    Our business now is north.

Among Tim Collins’s claims are that he led his command to penetrate the furthest of any British group into Iraq. He was assigned command of one of the cities and within a week had restored power and water supples and  set up a representative town coucil. When they left at the end of their tour of duty, all the men he took into Iraq came out alive. So what went wrong?

As Collins tells it he discovered a US Army Reserve Officer (a “sad, confused” school-careers-guidance counsellor and part-time police patrolman”) had assembled a group of Iraqi children and was posing for his “happy Iraqis I liberated” photos while machine guns were trained on them. The US marises attached to Collins were equally shocked and the reservist was chastised. That apology for a human being then made war crimes complaints against Collins.

Collins admits to causing injury to a local Baathist party leader. He had learnt that he was organising a murder plot against the Iraqis who had been co-operating with the British and then planned to attack the soldiers. Collins went to the guy’s home and demanded the weapons he knew were stored. In the dark the guy apparently hit his hed (accidentally) and when he saw blood started screaming. To control things, Collins shot into the kitchen floor which persuaded the Iraqi to stop screaming and hand over the weapons. Clearly not strictly accroding to the rules but as Collins put it, he would rather have one cut head than a group of Iraqis murdered and his men attacked.

Allegations appeared in UK newspapers of even worse war crimes, including murder. He was also investigated by the army but was not told of the allegations. Some included incidents happening in Basra, where he was never based. All were disproved and Collins has sincce received “considerable” undisclosed libel damages from the two newspapers.

In all of this the Ministry of Defence seems to have acted perversely and there are clear suspicions that the “desk warriors” were out to get him. He was kept in the dark about the identity of the US reservist who made the initial allegations and only learned of the further allegations from newspapers. In all of it the MoD kept their distance, even to the extent that he heard that he had been cleared of all allegations from the press and the first he heard of the award of a medal for his achievements in Iraq was also from the papers.

Since leaving the Army Collins has been highly critical of the way the war was organised. In a BBC interview Thursday he said:

“Either it was a war to liberate the people of Iraq , in which case there’s gross incompetence, or it was simply a cynical war that was going to happen anyway to vent some form of anger on Saddam Hussein’s regime,

Bush, Blair and the whole stimking cesspit of conspirators will do well to remember Collins’ words; “You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest — for your deeds will follow you down through history”
 

Otherwise headed, This is The Brits Getting Their Own Back for All Those Diaries About Deadwood.

“Dr Who” is a BBC TV science fiction program aimed mostly at older children which has returned for a new series after a hiatus of many years. This time the series has abandoned its low budget special effects and gone very high tech with some amazing CGI scenes. “The Doctor” is (now) the last of the race of Time Lords who travels through time and space in his ship, the TARDIS (acronym for Time And Relative Dimension In Space) The new series is being executive produced and most of the episodes written by the writer of the orginial “Queer as Folks”

In this week’s episode 7 of a 13 week run they introduced a new character “Captain Jack”.

This is   how the actor playing him describes the episode:

“The pair (Dr Who and his female companion ‘Rose’) land the TARDIS in 1941, after chasing a mysterious spaceship, and meet dashing American serviceman Captain Jack Harkness – but he isn’t quite what he seems.

“Jack is actually a Time Agent – part of a kind of space CIA – and he’s trying to find two years of his memory that have disappeared,”.

“He’s a rogue Time Agent and he knows he’s done something in his past and he’s not sure what it is or whether it is good or bad because his memory has been erased.

“But he’s also an intergalactic conman and he starts off by trying to con The Doctor and Rose. He tries to sell them something in order to get money because that’s what he does.

“He has conned a lot of people in the past. His method is to sell people things that are not what he says they are – and then once he has got the money he runs.”

The character is apparently staying for the rest of the series and John Barrowman, the actor playing Captain Jack, indicated in an interview that as well as flirting with Rose, Jack also “flirts with” the Doctor. Barrowman seems to have a natural ability to do this. When he was interviewed on the BBC morning news program, he put on his native Scottish accent and reduced the female co-presenter to giggling schoolgirl mode.

You should recognise John Barrowman as he has done a lot of TV in the USA where he moved at the age of 5. He was most recently seen on television as Peter Williams in the Aaron Spelling series TITANS for NBC, and he also guest starred in Aaron Spelling’s STOP AT NOTHING. He also starred in Darren Star’s CENTRAL PARK WEST for CBS, as well as the PBS all-star special, HEY MR PRODUCER. He will soon be seen on the big screen in the independent feature, MEGALODON. He has also just sung the lead in the “Springtime for Hitler” sequence in the new film of “The Producers” for Mel Brookes.

The charming of the BBC presenter proves his acting ability even more since he has a long term gay partner with who the Daily Mail claim he wants to adopt a baby.

Tonight Kiev will see the last act of the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine that has seen it emerge from a post-Soviet autocracy to one of the latest democracies in Eastern Europe.  

It has been described in Ukraine as the most significant event in the country’s history since the fall of Hitler. 38 other countries will be sharing it with the people of Ukraine. Few Americans are aware of the real spark one year ago that lit the flame of freedom and led to the revolution. It has nothing to do with Bush’s promotion of “liberdy”. Yet without knowing about it, it will be impossible to understand how to achieve peace between nations and how the USA has fundamental cultural problems in using the technique.
So what ignited the revolution in Ukraine? Well believe it or not it was winning a song contest exactly a year ago. The Eurovison Song Contest is run by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), a consortium of mostly national broadcasters which now takes in the entire continent and beyond to Turkey, Lebanon and Israel. The contest is so popular that there are now “semi finals” before the main event. This year’s is the 50th annual contest.

Each country gets to enter a song, usually chosen within the country by popular vote. Usually this is a pop song but has in the past included some novelties like a song in Lapp in a traditional idiom. All the countries get to allocate points up to 12 for the most popular songs from other countries. Earlier on these were allocated by juries in the home broadcaster’s studios. For the past few years all countries have used cellphone text message voting.  

What started as a way of demonstrating the possibilities of live TV links involving different TV systems has evolved into a way of playing out national rivalries in a peaceful way.  

Last year the Ukranian entry burst onto the screens with an upbeat song with choreography reminiscent of  Zena Warrior Princess in a leather fantasy. The prize is the mixed blessing of hosting the next year’s contest. In Ukraine the win provoked an outpouring of nationalism and self-assurance. The knowledge that they could participate in and be accepted by Europe spurred on the final break with the Soviest past. This year their entry is the song that was the anthem of the Orange Revolution.  

WE WON’T STAND THIS – NO! REVOLUTION IS ON!
‘CAUSE LIES BE THE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
ALL TOGETHER WE’RE ONE! ALL TOGETHER WE’RE STRONG!
GOD BE MY WITNESS WE’VE WAITED TOO LONG!
Фальсифікаціям – ні! Махінаціям – ні!
Понятіям – ні! Ні брехні!
Віримо – Так! Можемо – так!
Знаю переможемо – Так! Так!

Разом нас багато нас не подолати!

WHAT YOU WANNA SAY TO YOUR DAUGHTERS AND SONS?
YOU KNOW THE BATTLE IS NOT OVER TILL THE BATTLE IS WON!
TRUTH BE THE WEAPON! WE AIN’T SCARED OF THE GUNS!
WE STAY UNDEFEATED, ‘CAUSE TOGETHER WE’RE ONE!
Ми – вже разом! Ми – назавжди!
Ми – України доньки і сини!
Зараз як ніколи годі чекати
Разом нас багато – нас не подолати!

Разом нас багато – нас не подолати!

   

While the EBU is not an organ of the European Union, the contest has helped to shape atitudes towards it. The wins by Estonia in 2001 and Latvia in 2002 before their Accession also gave an affirmation of recognition and acceptance that increased support for entry. Having to host the contest even showed the benefits of entry when their national broadcasters got huge support from the big players in the EBU to upgrade their studio and OB facilities.

So if playing out national rivalries in what is after all a piece of flimflam, what lessons can the Americans take from it? Well deepite the rather irreverand presentation in the UK, it is treated pretty seriously elsewhere. Obviously we are unlikely to see a US entry in this contest but a similar playing out of rivalries in a (fairly) peaceful manner also comes through sport. Unfortunately somewhere along the line the USA seems to have lost the “Corinthian spirit” that the important thing is not winning but taking part.

The odds on winning “Eurovision” are really quite low so there is an acceptance of loss. In sport, for the most widely played games like football have similar probablities of that a nation will not keep on winning major contests. Where the USA does compete internationally, especially in the Olympics, the focus is on the individual winners. The most popular team sports are almost all peculiar to the USA. Baseball has a following in a couple of countries like Japan and Ice Hockey is played in northern Europe and Canada but for he most part the “World” in American “World Series” is confined to the USA.

By contrast “english” games have been spread worldwide. Soccer is played virtually univerally. Cricket is mostly in the old Empire but there is a big following in Afghanistan and actually baseball was promoted by the Marylebone Cricket Club in the USA as a means of teaching cricket techniques! Rugby is mostly old white commonwealth based but there are strong teams from Italy and France. International competitions are therefore very much more a part of the sports scene outside the USA.

It used to be said that the English won their wars “on the playing fields of Eton”. Maybe these days peace is winnable in the international stadia by sublimating the conflicts of war into playing sport. Unfortunatly for the world the USA literally does not play cricket.  

Tony Blair’s finance minister and successor in waiting, Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown has a reputation based on his “prudent” handling of the economy. Now it looks like not only are the wheels starting to come off but an elephant has just sat on the hood.

The general indicators like the rate of unemployment, retail sales, house sales and banruptcies were starting to look worrying. Now the Office of National Statistics has made a technical ruling on how debt is recorded that threatens to derail a mainstay of their econmomic management.

UNEMPLOYMENT
The headline rate of unemployment is fairly static and comparatively low but that conceals a number of factors that make it look not so rosy. This from the BBC site as are the other links.

In the three months from January to March, the government’s preferred ILO measure of unemployment fell by 15,000 to 1.4 million. On a monthly basis, the number of people out of work and claiming benefit rose by 8,100 to 839,400 in April.

Meanwhile, average earnings growth in the three months to March rose by 4.6%, down 0.1% on the previous month. Jobs continued to be lost in manufacturing, which reached a record low of 3.23 million in the quarter to March, with 82,000 fewer people employed in manufacturing than in the same period a year ago, the figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.These figures to do not cover recent heavy job losses at MG Rover, IBM and Marconi.

So apparently OK but that fall of 15,000 claiming unemplyment benefit can be explained by:

….the number of economically-inactive people increased by 14,000 to 7.86 million – representing a fifth of the working age population. This measure includes people taking early retirement, looking after a relative or those who have given up trying to find a job.

This particularly affects women who might have been looking for work but have given up as they could not find one that paid enough to compensate for the cost of working, including child care. The Government has also announced a scheme to get people receiving “disablility benefit” back to work. There are people who get a higher rate of benefit as they have problems getting a job because of long term health problems. The numbers of these were artificially increases by the Conservatives to reduce their unemployment figures when they loosened the qualification for getting it. Now David Blunkett is in charge of the ministry and “getting tough”, we are likely to see the reverse happening.

RETAIL SALES

In the last 24 hours, major declines in sales or profits have been reported by three major UK retailers; Boots (principally pharmacies), Next (clothing) and Sainsbury’s (food and general retailing). Nationally the last three months reported showed an increase in value of just 0.2% over the same period last year.

HOUSE SALES

The volume of house sales in the first three months of 2005 was down 34.8% against the same period in 2004. Annual price growth continued to ease, with prices up 10.3% on the same period in 2004, compared with annual growth of 11.8% seen in the previous quarter.Recent surveys from mortgage lenders have hinted that the market is cooling.

BANKRUPTCIES

The number of people going bankrupt in England and Wales has hit another record high during the first three months of 2005, official figures show. The Department of Trade and Industry said the number of individual bankruptcies reached 10,091.The number of bankruptcies was 24.5% higher than a year ago and up 2.8% on the previous quarter.

HOW THIS AFFECTS THE BUDGET

While these indicators are not too worrying themselves, they indicate a slowdown in the economy to a near freexe. Consumer confidence is obviously at a significant low. The stagnation in the housing market will further affect retailing as much of the purchase of major appliances and furniture co-incides with house moves.

Most significantly, in his Budget just before the election, Brown presumed that the economy would grow at a much faster rate. Unlike the USA, estimates of income from taxes and expenditure are fixed before the start of the financial year. There are built in “contingencies” for things like the cost of the Iraq war or tsunami relief. The spending plans are governed by how much the government calculates it will get as tax income. Built into that is an expectation that the number of people employed and their wages will increase and that income from sales taxes will also rise. Those calculations are undermined by the actual results.

A QUICK PRIMER ON “PSBR”

One of the main measures of economic performance is what in the UK is called the “Public Sector Borrowing Requirement”(PSBR). This is not the same as the “budget deficit” in the US but more like mortgage borrowing.

Let me give a simple explanation. Let’s say you purchased a house for $100,000 and financed the entire cost on a mortgage. You have an asset worth $100k and a debt of $100k which balance out. So long as you can afford the mortgage repayments, everything is OK. The PSBR is like the line of credit you get to buy, if you can afford it, you could borrow more and get more assets. The PSBR measures the amount the government borrows long term each year to build “capital project”. This could be many things like roads,schools, hospitals and public housing. Obviously the nation continues build these whereas you would only buy one home.

Just like your bank manager looking at your income and seeing if you can afford the mortgage, the PSBR is a measure of whether the government is acting responsibly. There are limits in how this can rise. The money market would lose confidence and force a rise in interest rates, there are political decisions about its level and external pressures like the assessments of the World Bank and IMF.

The last Conservative government started to use an accounting device to keep expenditure “off the books”. Under a variety of names and detailed arrangements, they got private companies to borrow money and build say a hospital and to maintain it for a certain number of years. The governememt then leased back the hospital   until the end of the contract which could run for 25 years. Then they either buy it at low cost or walk away. Very similar to the sort of arrangements you get when you lease a car.

Although the total cost is more – to pay the profits of the company for one thing – it moves the “capital cost” out of the PSBR and just increases the government’s “current expenditure”. This enables the government to authorise significant and politically advantageous improvements in the infractructure while not affecting the PSBR. (There are considerable democratic downsides to this which I do not have time to explore here).

THE NEW FACTOR

Over the sourse of the years the government has had to make the conditions in the contracts more advantageous for the companies to attract the investment. In particular they have recieved more and more quarantees to pass on to the banks that the lending is safe. As the scope has widened to things like running the London Underground renewal, maintenance and repairs, there becomes a point where the government has to bail out the company in the event of it going bankrupt. Otherwise the country could grind to a halt. Labor has used various names as the schemes changed – “Public Private Partnership” has become “Private Finance Initiative”. Friday the Financial Times will report a significant change in the way these are to be considered in relation to the PSBR:

The Office for National Statistics has decided to include billions of pounds of capital expenditure undertaken under the private finance initiative in public sector net debt figures, a move that will reduce Gordon Brown’s room for manoeuvre against his fiscal rules.

The classification change will also mean that there is no longer an accounting advantage for public sector managers to procure big projects through the PFI. That could lead to fewer PFI deals in future, harming the prospects for companies that are heavily engaged in PFI contracts, such as Carillion, Skanska and Serco.

By the end of 2004, the government had signed PFI contracts worth £42.7bn and the reclassification will affect around 57 per cent of these deals. These are the contracts deemed to be “on-balance sheet” because little risk has been transferred to the private sector.

The size of the revision is likely to be smaller than the £24bn value of on-balance sheet PFI deals signed so far, as it will affect only the capital expenditure element of each PFI deal at the time a private company spends the money.

But it will raise the Treasury’s forecast for public sector net debt as a share of gross domestic product closer to the chancellor’s self-imposed limit of 40 per cent, making tax rises in this parliament more likely unless Mr Brown changes his fiscal rules.

The chancellor’s sustainable investment rule says that “net debt will be maintained below 40 per cent of GDP in each and every year of the current economic cycle”.

The upshot of all this is clear for the promises made by the Government at the election earlier this month will be seen as broken. Either the ambitious public spending programs on hospitals and schools will have to be reduced or taxes will have to rise. Blair promised that the basic and top rates of income tax would not rise. They got into huge problems when they made a similar promise at the 2001 election and then got a report on National Insurance (pensions and healthcare). In order to get more for those, the rate of the NI contributions from pay was raised. In other words, an income tax rise in all but name. The one area where promises were not made was in VAT (sales tax) or duty on petroleum, alcohol and cigarettes. So expect to see big rises in these indirect taxes at the next buget, possibly a few months before Blair resigns and Brown tries to get elected as Leader by the Labour Party.

 

The substance of this has already been discussed in two diaries by Apian on DailyKos, however the significance has been lost by too much detail. In March the BBC’s Panarama program gave a very detailed account of the lead-up to war. This was based on some documents that were not public before and were only released by Blair in the heat of the election.  

The documents revealled are, however, too significant to get lost in a scan of the full transcript. They also link up with others released in the public hearings of the enquiries about the war held in the UK. It is only when you extract the relevant ones from the forest of detail that you see the real picture. That’s what the Panorama program did.
I have reproduced more or less all of the timeline that the BBC published, no sense in duplicating their work, but I have also highlighted the particular parts that indicate the complicity of the US administration in the deceit. These are the salient points quoted in the BBC Panaorama program (video of the full version is available on Information Clearing House). I have deliberately not given a link to the transcript of the programme as they used both achieve recordings, new interviews and dramatic re-constructions. The difference is not clear from the transcript as quoted by Apian so it should not be used as a source without verifying it is not a reconstruction.

This is the BBC timeline:

8 March 2002

A top secret government paper looks at the policy of regime change but cautions that there is not yet any legal justification. The paper advises that the only certain means of removing Saddam is by a massive ground invasion.

“… against the background of our desire to re-integrate a law-abiding Iraq into the international community, we examine the two following policy options:
# a toughening of the existing containment policy, facilitated by 11 September; and
# regime change by military means: a new departure which would require the construction of a coalition and a legal justification.

A full opinion should be sought from the Law Officers if the above options are developed further. But in summary CONTAINMENT generally involves the implementation of existing UNSCRs [United Nations Security Council Resolutions] and has a firm legal foundation. Of itself, REGIME CHANGE has no basis in international law.

Despite sanctions, Iraq continues to develop WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction], although our intelligence is poor. Saddam has used WMD in the past and could do so again if his regime was threatened, though there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD.

All options have lead times. If an invasion is contemplated this autumn, then a decision will need to be taken in principle six months in advance…”

Defence and Overseas Secretariat (ODSEC), Iraq: Options Paper, marked “Secret UK Eyes Only”

14 March 2002

The dimensions of a new policy on Iraq become clearer – the Prime Minister will ‘not budge’ in his support for regime change, writes his senior foreign policy advisor:

“I had dinner with Condi [Condoleezza Rice, then US National Security Advisor] on Tuesday; and talks and lunch with her and an NSC [National Secutiry Council] team on Wednesday (to which Christopher Meyer also came).

We spent a long time at dinner on IRAQ. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.”

David Manning to the Prime Minister, marked “Secret – Strictly Personal”

18 March 2002

The British Ambassador in Washington outlines the new Iraq strategy – the government will need a “clever” plan to convince the public and parliament of the threat from Saddam. Regime change would be a “tough sell” in Britain.

“Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, came to Sunday lunch on 17 March. On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs [Security Council Resolutions] and the critical importance of the MEPP [Middle East Peace Process] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy.

If the UK were to join the US in any operation against Saddam, we would have to be able to take a critical mass of parliamentary and public opinion with us.”

Christopher Meyer to Sir David Manning, marked “Confidential and Personal”

What the (British news)papers said

The public campaign gets underway, with newspapers reporting the threat from Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and promising revelations in a government dossier, to be released shortly.

“Whitehall warns attack on Saddam would be illegal

Alastair Campbell, Downing Street’s communications chief, told American reporters last week that a dossier of allegations compiled by Whitehall and the intelligence services would be presented publicly before Blair’s visit to America on April 5. The dossier would prove, sources in London said, that Saddam is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.”

(Sunday Times, 24 March 2002)

“SADDAM’S WEAPONS STOCKPILE
MI6 has handed Tony Blair a report showing the full extent of Saddam Hussein’s devastating arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.
The Prime Minister is set to use the ‘dossier of death’ to convince Britain to join the US in attacking Iraq.”

(Daily Mirror, 12 March 2002)

22 March 2002

At the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) the Political Director, Peter Ricketts, expresses his relief at the postponement of the dossier’s publication. He advises the Foreign Secretary that the “truth” is that “the pace of Saddam’s WMD programme” had not “changed.”

“I am relieved that you decided to postpone publication of the unclassified document. My meeting yesterday showed that there is more work to do to ensure that the figures are accurate and consistent with those of the US. But even the best survey of Iraq’s WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW [chemical weapons/biological weapons] fronts: The programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.

The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11 September. This is not something we need to be defensive about, but attempts to claim otherwise publicly will increase scepticism about our case.”

Letter from Peter Ricketts to Jack Straw

25 March 2002

In a leaked letter to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary backs up the need for a legal justification for regime change.

“There is no doubt that a new UNSCR [UN Security Council Resolution] would transform the climate in the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party].

regime change per se is no justification for military action: it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal. Of course, we may want credibly to assert that regime change is an essential part of the strategy by which we have to achieve our ends – that of the elimination of Iraq’s WMD capacity: but the latter has to be the goal.”

Jack Straw to Tony Blair, marked “Secret & Personal”

6 April 2002

The Prime Minister meets President Bush at his ranch in Crawford. Tony Blair is guarded about how the threat should be dealt with. He says the matter is “open”. President Bush is more direct.

Tony Blair:
“You know it has always been our policy that Iraq would be a better place without Saddam… how we now proceed in this situation, how we make sure that this threat that is posed by weapons of mass destruction is dealt with, that is a matter that is open. And when the time comes for taking those decisions we will tell people about those decisions.”

President Bush:
“Maybe I should be a little less direct and be a little more nuanced and say we support regime change”

Joint press conference at Crawford, USA

view a full transcript of the press conference on the Downing Street website

16 July 2002

During the summer, the Prime Minister talks about the threat from Iraq, but says that no decisions have been made.

Mr Blair:
“… I think they pose an enormous threat to the world. How we deal with that, however, is an open question. That is why I say constantly to people there are no decisions which have been made in relation to Iraq at all.”

Question:
“Are we then preparing for possible military action in Iraq?”

Mr Blair:
“No, there are no decisions which have been taken about military action.”

Tony Blair at the House of Commons Liaison Committee

view minutes of the committee meeting at the House of Commons website

23 July 2002

The Prime Minister chaired a highly sensitive meeting. Panorama has been told that Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, was minuted as saying that “the facts and the intelligence” were being “fixed round the policy” by the Bush Administration. By fixed, he meant the Americans were trawling for evidence to reinforce their claim that Iraq was a threat.

The Foreign Secretary also attended the meeting, and, we understand, questioned whether the threat from Iraq was sufficient to justify invasion.

[These minutes have now been leaked in full to the Sunday Times and were the subject of much discussion]

August 2002

In August there are hints from the Bush administration that they are counting on British support for regime change

:

Bolton:”… let there be no mistake… our policy… insists on regime change in Baghdad and that policy will not be altered whether the inspectors go in or not… we are content that at the appropriate moment we will have the requisite degree of international support.”

[Question from John Humphries] “But if you don’t have it, and all the indications are that at the moment you won’t, then what?”

Bolton:”We will have it Mr Humphries.”

US Under Secretary of State, John Bolton on the BBC’s Today programme, 3 August 2002

“Our European allies are just not relevant to this. And the one of some importance, the United Kingdom, is, I believe, going to be with us.”

Richard Perle, US Defence Policy Board. ABC “This Week”, 18 August 2002

The Foreign Secretary flew to America to interrupt the holiday of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell. We understand Jack Straw complained: “You’ve outed us.” He said the British government had yet to prepare public opinion.

7 September 2002

On a visit to the Presidential retreat at Camp David, the Prime Minister pledges his support for the US policy.

Woodward: “… the President actually said to the Prime Minister’s aides ‘Your man has cojones’… a Spanish term for male courage… I asked the President about this: ‘Did the Prime Minister say ‘I will supply troops’? And the President said ‘yes’ and that he would be with the President in going to the UN to seek a new weapons inspection resolution.”

Bob Woodward interview with Jim Naughtie, 20 April 2004, describing events at Camp David

12 September 2002

Mr Blair was briefed about all the main sources providing intelligence from Iraq by the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Richard Dearlove. It was just days before the Prime Minister presented the dossier to Parliament.

Sir Richard told Mr Blair that there were two new sources. One of whom was claiming to know where chemical agent was being produced but he was untried and untested.

The second new source was linked to an Iraqi opposition group with an obvious interest in toppling Saddam.

Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) had only three other main sources – and Mr Blair was told their reports were not that worrying or hearsay.

24 September 2002

A key part of the “clever” plan was to alert the public and parliament to the threat from Iraq’s WMD. The Prime Minister tells Parliament that Iraq’s WMD programme is “active, detailed and growing”. Launching the government’s dossier on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, Tony Blair says “the intelligence picture… is extensive, detailed and authoritative.”

“His WMD programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The WMD programme is not shut down. It is up and running.

The intelligence picture they [the intelligence services] paint is one accumulated over the past four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative.

For the preparation of the dossier we had a real concern not to exaggerate the intelligence that we had received. For obvious reasons, it is difficult to reflect the credibility of the information, and we rate the credibility of what we have very highly. I say no more than that.”

Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament on the launch of the government’s dossier

View a transcipt of the statement on the House of Commons website

The Prime Minister states in the foreword of the dossier that it is “beyond doubt” that Saddam is producing chemical and biological weapons:

“What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.”

Download a copy of the dossier as a PDF file from the Foreign Office website

According to the Butler Report…

However, the Butler Review later paints a different picture of the accumulated intelligence on Iraq’s WMD, stating that

“… we were struck by the relative thinness of the intelligence base.”

The Butler Report, paragraph 304

And the Butler Review reveals for the first time what the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was saying about the limits of available intelligence.

“Intelligence remains limited and Saddam’s own unpredictability complicates judgements about Iraqi use of these weapons. Much of this paper is necessarily based on judgement and assessment.”

JIC, 9 September 2002, Butler Report, paragraph 295

“Intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programmes is sporadic and patchy. Iraq is also well practised in the art of deception, such as concealment and exaggeration. A complete picture of the various programmes is therefore difficult.”

JIC, 15 March 2002, Butler Report, paragraph 270

“We have little intelligence on Iraq’s CBW [Chemical and Biological Weapons] doctrine and know little about Iraq’s CBW work since late 1998”

JIC, 21 August 2002, Butler Report, paragraph 292

Download a copy of the Butler Report as a PDF file

8 November 2002

In early November, the UK and US secure the passage of a tough new UN Resolution on Iraq’s WMD. They subsequently argue that Resolution 1441 gives them the right to invade if they decided that Saddam’s co-operation with weapons inspectors is less than 100%.

Download a copy of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 as a PDF file

7 March 2003

The government tries for a second UN Resolution that includes a deadline for full Iraqi compliance.

The Attorney General’s initial advice, of 7 March, has never been released – but Panorama understands that it raises possibility of prosecution in an international court, without a second resolution. [This was released officially during the election campaign]

[We now know that Lord Goldsmith wrote to Blair with a full intial advice (.pdf). As a result of this advice Blair obviously indicates that he will use the WMD excuse to avoid the second UN resolution. This is the reason for Goldsmith’s correspondence detailed under 14 March]

10 March 2003

Arguing that the inspection process has not had enough time to disarm Iraq, the French President says at the moment he will veto a second Resolution.

“My position is that, regardless of the circumstances, France will vote ‘no’… because she considers this evening that there are no grounds for waging war in order to achieve the goal we have set ourselves, i.e. to disarm Iraq.”

“In that case it will be for the Security Council – and it alone – to decide the right thing to do. But in the case, of course, regrettably, the war would become inevitable. It isn’t today.”
Jacques Chirac, interviewed on French television station TF1

12 March 2003

The Sun newspaper steps up its campaign against the French President:

“Like a cheap tart who puts price before principle, money before honour, Jacques Chirac struts the streets of shame.

Once this war is over, there will be debts to be settled. We will never forgive the French, the Russians or Labour’s wimps. Like all who ply the trade of the harlot, they will catch something very nasty.”

14 March 2003

To ascertain whether Iraq is in “further material breach”, as required by UNSCR 1441, the Attorney General turns to the Prime Minister for confirmation of the interpretation of the evidence

.

“The Attorney General understands that it is unequivocally the Prime Minister’s view that Iraq has committed further material breaches as specified in paragraph 4 of resolution 1441, but as this is a judgement for the Prime Minister, the Attorney would be grateful for confirmation that this is the case”

Letter from the Attorney General to Number 10, quoted in the Butler Report, paragraph 383

15 March 2003

The Prime Minister’s office writes to confirm that he is correct in his understanding.

“It is indeed the Prime Minister’s unequivocal view that Iraq is in further material breach.”

Letter from Number 10 to the Attorney General, quoted in the Butler Report, paragraph 383

17 March 2003

The Attorney General’s legal justification is then presented to Parliament and the public. But the text is missing any caveat, including the risk of legal proceedings against Britain, which Panorama understands was contained in his earlier advice.

“Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. All of these resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows the use of force for the express purpose of restoring international peace and security.

Resolution 1441 would in terms have provided that a further decision of the Security Council to sanction force was required if that had been intended. Thus, all that resolution 1441 requires is reporting to and discussion by the Security Council of Iraq’s failures, but not an express further decision to authorise force.”

Attorney General’s advice on Iraq, presented to Parliament and the Cabinet{note:this is the abbreviated document, not the earlier full version with the caveats]

18 March 2003

The Prime Minister opens the crucial debate on Iraq in the House of Commons. During the debate, Mr Blair claims that, but for the French, Britain would have won a majority in the Security Council for war. He tells the Commons that

“Last Monday, we were getting very close with it. We very nearly had majority agreement.”

And he sets out the central justification for war: The need to uphold the will of the United Nations.

“… the United Kingdom must uphold the authority of the United Nations as set out in Resolution 1441 and many Resolutions preceding it, and therefore… should use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”

Tony Blair in the Commons

Read a transcript of Tony Blair’s opening statement in the debate on the House of Commons website

20 March 2003

The Prime Minister gives the order for British troops to invade Iraq arguing that

“Dictators like Saddam, terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, threaten the very existence of such a world. That is why I have asked our troops to go into action tonight.”

July 2003

The Secret Intelligence Service begins to review evidence from one of its five main sources on Iraq¿s WMD. The intelligence, from a “new source on trial” is withdrawn by 29 July. The Butler report later reveals that this source had provided

“Significant assurance to those drafting the Government’s dossier that active, current production of chemical and biological agent was taking place.”
The Butler Report, paragraph 405

Download a copy of the Butler Report as a PDF file

14 July 2004

Responding to the Butler Review, the Prime Minister is unequivocal, stating that

“No one lied. No one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services. Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end.”

Read a transcript of the statement from the House of Commons website

13 October 2004

The Prime Minister continues to deny any deception in relation to British policy on Iraq:

“I take full responsibility and, indeed, apologise for any information given in good faith that has subsequently turned out to be wrong… I do not accept in any way that there was any deception of anyone. That has been looked into by four separate independent inquiries, and in each case the allegation has been found to be wrong.

I cannot bring myself to say that I misrepresented the evidence because I do not accept that I did”

Prime Minister to the House of Commons

ABC’s World News Tonight is rebroadcast on the BBC’s news channel. I had earlier watched the CBS Evening News why  Sky News retransmit. Coverage of Galloway’s evidence at the Senate committee was buried halfway through the CBS program. The World News Tonight coverage was zip, nada, nothing, silent.
Instead of actual much actual news it was even fuller with filler pieces than it usually is. So what did we get? A long piece on the anniversary of Gay Marriages in Mass with and interview with a couple there and a second interview with a couple who go married in California and then had it declared invalid so they got their money refunded. This was then rather unconvincingly linked to an op-ed piece from George Stephanopolos on how this would be affected by votes on federal judge appointments  George felt might be voted on during Wednesday.

There was then a long piece on how the housing market in some godforesaken city was depressed by new building so people could not sell the houses they had already bought. Handy bit of background but hardly earth shattering when more time was given to it than all the actual news coverage.

Other non-news filling up the broadcast were the revelation that the US military had found an interactive training site on the web for insurgents to hone their targetting skills and a gee-whiz new way of treating depression involving sticking an outsized clockwork winding key next to someone’s head. Actually it was a pair of magnetic coils but that is exactly what the device looked like.

On their web site there is no coverage of Galloway’s appearance apart from a reprint of the Reuters report.

Now this may seem an extreme example but from what I could see, the gay marriages piece was probably a couple of feeds from local affiliates with a voice over, with Stephanopolos being dragged in to provide a veneer of topicality. The house price thing was their excuse for “investigative journalism” and much of the spadework had again probably been covered in a local news program selected from those sent in again by their affiliates. The health “news” was obviously mostly made up of research footage with ABC doing an interview with a couple of the trial subjects and maybe adding their graphics to demonstrate the theory. The “terrorist program” was again obviously lifted direct from a Pentagon news release or pre-prepared story.

I started to come to the conclusion that their news team consists of a couple of botoxed bimbos and a few now aging himbos being given a pretense of authority by an anchor who was too “tired and emotional” to be recruited by Turner when he set up CNN and has now survived so long he has gained the title “veteran”. The same description as the ancient cars that annually go from London to Brighton, the amazement is not at their performance but that they manage to get there at all.