Government 'Sold Its Soul' Over Libya Deals
Gordon Brown’s government is the crappiest in living memory. It’s worse even than Tony Blair’s government; and that is saying something! The damn lot that make up Gordon’s government should hang their heads in shame. Clearly, to these unprincipled people, the bottom line means everything. Justice counts for nothing; profits count for everything. In behaving as they have done, they have brought the good name and reputation of the United Kingdom into disrepute, they have damaged our special relationship with the United States, and they have given capitalism a bad name.

This government’s deeds are enough to make any normal Brit feel ashamed of his nationality.

Were this to be the USA, we Brits would be out on the streets in our droves, as was witnessed by the mass demonstrations in DC at the weekend, demonstrating against Obama and his agenda. But, being British, we just let it all go over our heads. It’s all like water off a duck’s back. The Britons’ weakness is our extreme tolerance. We keep on tolerating the intolerable! – © Mark

THE TELEGRAPH: Police officers have accused the Government of being willing "to sell its soul for trade deals" following the disclosure that Jack Straw agreed that the killer of Pc Yvonne Fletcher would not be brought to justice in Britain.

In a letter to Gordon Brown, Paul McKeever, the chairman of the Police Federation, said he was ''shocked, appalled and disgusted'' that the UK agreed the murderer would go on trial in Libya.

The Foreign Office has conceded that any trial for the shooting - which took place outside the Libyan embassy in London 25 years ago - will take place in Tripoli.

The agreement was reportedly struck three years ago, when trade deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds were being negotiated.

Mr McKeever wrote: ''Together with the 140,000 police officers throughout England and Wales that the Police Federation represents, I was shocked, appalled and disgusted" at the news of the agreement.

''This is an absolute disgrace. Pc Fletcher was gunned down in cold blood 25 years ago by a cowardly and callous killer who managed to flee to Libya.

''Now we discover your government rolled over three years ago, abandoning any attempt to bring Yvonne's killer to face the UK courts and justice. >>> | Monday, September 14, 2009

BP Lobbied Jack Straw Before He Changed Mind Over Lockerbie Bomber
TIMES ONLIONE: Jack Straw was personally lobbied by BP over Britain’s prisoner transfer agreement with Libya just before he abandoned efforts to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from the deal.

The Times has learnt that the Justice Secretary took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen, a former M16 agent, who was by then working for BP as a consultant, on October 15 and November 9, 2007.

Having signed a $900 million oil exploration deal with Libya earlier that year, BP feared that its commercial interests could be damaged if Britain delayed the prisoner transfer agreement (PTA) through which the Gaddafi regime hoped to secure the return home of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

For six months, talks with Libya were deadlocked as Britain — under pressure from the devolved Scottish government — vainly sought to ensure that the deal would not cover al-Megrahi.

On December 19, 2007, Mr Straw wrote to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, to say that he had been unable to secure an exclusion for al-Megrahi from the deal. “The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom I have agreed that in this instance the PTA should be in the standard form and not mention any individual,” he wrote.

Britain has faced criticism from the Obama Administration for signing the transfer agreement despite a decade-old promise to the US that anyone convicted of the Lockerbie bombing would serve out the sentence in Britain.

The fresh disclosures last night may yet throw doubt over Gordon Brown’s assertion on Wednesday that there had been “no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi”.

An aide to the Justice Secretary confirmed last night that Sir Mark, who had dealt often with Mr Straw when he was Foreign Secretary, “wanted to know what was happening with the PTA and get Jack’s perspective”. He added: “BP wanted to make its case because they were concerned that not making progress might have an effect on their deal with Libya.” >>> Tom Baldwin and Philip Webster | Friday, September 04, 2009

Revealed: Lockerbie Link to Oil Exploration Deal
THE SUNDAY TIMES: The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: “This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”

Two letters dated five months apart show that Straw initially intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, under which British and Libyan prisoners could serve out their sentences in their home country.

In a letter dated July 26, 2007, Straw said he favoured an option to leave out Megrahi by stipulating that any prisoners convicted before a specified date would not be considered for transfer.

Downing Street had also said Megrahi would not be included under the agreement.

Straw then switched his position as Libya used its deal with BP as a bargaining chip to insist the Lockerbie bomber was included.

The exploration deal for oil and gas, potentially worth up to £15 billion, was announced in May 2007. Six months later the agreement was still waiting to be ratified.

On December 19, 2007, Straw wrote to MacAskill announcing that the UK government was abandoning its attempt to exclude Megrahi from the prisoner transfer agreement, citing the national interest. >>> Jason Allardyce | Sunday, August 30, 2009

Church Accuses Government of Favouring Muslims
THE TELEGRAPH: Church leaders have accused the Government of giving preferential treatment to the Muslim community because of "political correctness".

Parishes are being starved of state funds to help the poor as a result of money being diverted to other faiths, senior clergy told the General Synod, which is meeting in York.

A report endorsed by Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, claimed that the Government had become "unbalanced" in its approach to faith groups.

It argued that the determination of ministers to tackle Islamic extremism in the wake of the London bombings on July 7, 2005, had led to a preoccupation with Muslim communities at the expense of Christian groups.

Subsequently, the report said, churches are facing a challenge to maintain their presence in poor parts of the country. >>> Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent | Saturday, July 11, 2009

Dhimmitude Alert! More Sh** from the British Government!
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS: POLICE will be ordered not to charge Muslim extremists in many hate crime cases – to stop them becoming more militant.

Guidelines will tell forces to press for conviction only in cases of clear-cut criminal acts.

Officers will be advised not to proceed when evidence of lawbreaking is “borderline”.

Examples of crimes to which a blind eye may be turned include incitement to religious hatred or viewing extremist material on the internet.

Last night critics warned that the move could mean Islamic radicals being give the freedom to encourage violence.

Some saw the move as a politically correct attempt to appease extremists who hate Britain.

It could even mean officers tolerating many activities of Muslim preachers of hate like the hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza.

Tory MP David Davies said: “This sounds like abject surrender. Everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law.

“It doesn’t matter whether someone is suspected of incitement to hatred or shoplifting – they should all face the same risk of prosecution.

“There should be no special favours or treatment for any section of the community.” Take It Easy on Muslim Extremists, Police Told >>>

Hat tip: Always On Watch >>>

This Stupid, Irresponsible Government! Pupils Aged 11 to Learn about Gay Sex
TIMESONLINE: Compulsory sex and relationships lessons for 11-year-old children are to include classroom discussions on gay unions and civil partnerships. Secondary pupils will learn about contraception and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), while primary school children will learn about their bodies and friendships, a review of sex education has concluded.

The review was ordered in October after ministers announced that sex and relationships education (SRE) lessons should be made compulsory to help primary and secondary pupils to “navigate the complexities of modern life” and to ensure that children learnt their sex education from the classroom, not the playground.

The changes to personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) classes mark the culmination of decades of campaigning by sexual health organisations, who believe that the patchy nature of sex education in schools is helping to fuel a record level of teenage pregnancy and STIs in England. >>> Alexandra Frean, Education Editor | Tuesday, April 28, 2009

THE GUARDIAN: Faith Schools Free to Preach against Homosexuality

Government plans include sex education for all pupils / Catholic schools welcome clause on teaching 'values'

Sex education is to be made compulsory in all state schools in England but faith schools will also be free to preach against sex outside marriage and homosexuality, under government proposals.

The plans to make personal, social and health education (PSHE) compulsory from the age of five, published yesterday, include a clause allowing schools to apply their "values" to the lessons and another allowing parents to opt their children out on religious grounds.

It means that all state secondaries in England - including faith schools - will for the first time have to teach a core curriculum about sex and contraception in the context of teenagers' relationships, but teachers in religious schools will also be free to tell them that sex outside marriage, homosexuality or using contraception are wrong. Sexual health campaigners warned that such an approach could confuse teenagers, but Catholic schools welcomed the move. >>> Polly Curtis, The Guardian’s education editor | Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Latest Idiotic Governmental Move: Cash for Mosques and Direct Access to Government Ministers! This Government Is Just Disgusting!
TIMESONLINE: Mosques and local Muslim community groups are to be given money and direct access to government ministers under a radical plan to isolate Britain’s largest Islamic organisation, which the Government accuses of endorsing violent extremism.

The move follows criticism of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which claims to represent half of the country’s Muslims, by Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary. Ms Blears attacked the group for refusing to sack its deputy leader, Daud Abdullah, after he endorsed a pro-Hamas declaration that appeared to call for violence against Jews and Israel and condone attacks on British troops.

The Government is planning to deny the organisation’s representatives ministerial briefings across all departments in a move designed to undermine its standing among British Muslims.

Sadiq Khan, the Minister for Community Cohesion, told The Times: “The days of lazy politicians just speaking to one or two powerful community groups or leaders are gone. You need to speak to individuals and local community groups, even though there will still be a role for umbrella groups to play.”

It is understood that even some of the MCB’s supporters within Government, including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, have now turned their backs on the organisation, which has had a difficult relationship with Labour ever since it refused to attend Holocaust Memorial Day in 2006.

A Government source told The Times: “The Government is already talking about different ways to engage with the Muslim community instead of just through large organisations. It will deal with regions or trusted individuals. Why do you need to deal with national umbrella bodies?” Government Moves to Isolate Muslim Council of Britain with Cash for Mosques >>> Richard Kerbaj | Monday, March 30, 2009

New Sharia Row Over Chancellor’s Plans for ‘Islamic Bonds’
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY: A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East.

Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful".

The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world.

It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.

The Government sees sharia-compliant bonds as a way of tapping Middle-East money and building bridges with the Muslim community.

But critics say the scheme would waste money and could undermine Britain's financial and legal systems.

Senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: "I am concerned about the signal this would send – it could be the thin end of the wedge.

"British Common Law must be supreme and should apply to everyone." New sharia row over Chancellor's plans for 'Islamic bonds' >>> By Simon Walters

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Whitehall to Whitewash Islamic Extremism and the Jihad
Banner of Jihad courtesy of Google Images
THE GUARDIAN: Phrasebook designed to avoid blaming Muslims for extremism

A new counter-terrorism phrasebook has been drawn up within Whitehall to advise civil servants on how to talk to Muslim communities about the nature of the terror threat without implying they are specifically to blame.

Reflecting the government's decision to abandon the "aggressive rhetoric" of the so-called war on terror, the guide tells civil servants not to use terms such as Islamist extremism or jihadi-fundamentalist but instead to refer to violent extremism and criminal murderers or thugs to avoid any implication that there is an explicit link between Islam and terrorism.

It warns those engaged in counter-terrorist work that talk of a struggle for values or a battle of ideas is often heard as a "confrontation/clash between civilisations/cultures". Instead it suggests that talking about the idea of shared values works much more effectively. Whitehall draws up new rules on language of terror >>> By Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Government Opens New Front on Terror
…while the Home Office works with the internet industry, experimenting with anti-paedophilia strategies to identify terrorist recruiters, it also plans to start pulling down extremist material from the web. "The internet is not a no-go area for government," Smith warned.

THE FIRST POST: Jacqui Smith understands the online terror threat, but does she know how to fix it asks ASH SMYTH

At the launch of a body which aims to stem the radicalisation of young people who might later turn to terrorism, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in London last week that "stopping people becoming, or supporting, terrorists... is the major long-term challenge of the State".

And if you peeled away the shrouds of management jargon - 'dialogue', 'shared values', 'community cohesion' - and saw past her careful avoidance of any overt references to Islam, it was eventually possible to discern that the Home Secretary was saying it was time to tackle the increasing use of the internet in the radicalisation of young Muslims.

She gave her speech, which came in the same week as headlines concerning Younis Tsouli, the Shepherd's Bush 'cyber-jihadist' who disseminated Islamist materials under the pseudonym of Terrorist 007, to delegates and journalists attending the inaugural conference of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR).

An immediate retort came from the BBC's Frank Gardner: surely a policy decision now to tackle terrorist recruitment was 15 years too late. True; but better late than never, given the stakes.

The Home Secretary is not wrong about the overwhelming importance of the internet. An estimated 5,000 terrorist websites currently help to spread propaganda, radicalise, recruit, fund-raise, train and give operational orders.

Islamist recruitment appears to be on the rise, and the web is vital to this: al-Qaeda has "regrouped" largely through internet use, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, told the ICSR conference.

So the government wants to prevent young Muslims from becoming radicalised in the first place. But how to achieve it?
Anti-radicalisation efforts must involve - publicly and intellectually – countering the extreme interpretations of Islam that legitimise mass murder. But they must also be about keeping disenchanted and impressionable 19-year-olds away from pathologically-enticing martyrdom videos. Government opens new front on terror >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Al-Yamamah Continues to Be a Source of Embarrassment and Headaches for the British Government
THE TELEGRAPH: Britain could be heading for another diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia over the long-running controversy surrounding the 1980s Al-Yamamah arms deal.

There are heightened concerns in Whitehall after America's Department of Justice wrote to the British Government this month formally asking for legal assistance in its recently launched probe into BAE Systems, the UK defence company that supplied fighter jets to Saudi Arabia under the £40bn Al-Yamamah deal. Fresh Al-Yamamah crisis looms (more) By Katherine Griffiths, City Correspondent

THE GUARDIAN:
Diplomatic clash looms with US over BAE arms sale investigation By David Leigh

Mark Alexander

*Carne Ross’ Blog on the Possible Corruption Between BAE and the Saudi Government
THE GUARDIAN: The story of possible corruption between BAE and the Saudi government, and how the British government ignored it, is shocking. But we should not regard this episode as an aberration. Instead, it should force us to question the way foreign policy is thought about and practised in government today.

For decades British policy towards Saudi Arabia has been dominated by al-Yamamah, the massive BAE deal to provide aircraft and supplies. When I worked on the Middle East at the Foreign Office in the mid-90s, it was widely assumed that, along with uninterrupted oil supplies, this was what Britain's Saudi policy was "about". Any other concern, whether of human rights or the export of radical Wahhabi Islam, was by and large secondary.

This assumption was never questioned by officials or ministers. It was just the way things were. To think otherwise, that British policy - "our" policy as we called it (though it was never democratically debated, of course) - should be about human rights or Saudi Arabia's contribution to global security, would have been dismissed as naive or fanciful. We were just being realistic. To the blog - We could pay a grave price for our addiction to arms deals: Working at the Foreign Office I saw how exports took precedence over human rights. With the Saudis, this could backfire

* Carne Ross, a former diplomat, runs Independent Diplomat, a non-profit advisory group. He is the author of Independent Diplomat: Dispatches From an Unaccountable Elite Independentdiplomat.org

Mark Alexander

More Allegations of Corruption: BAE in the Spotlight Once Again

Photo of Prince Bandar courtesy of Google Images

THE GUARDIAN: The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today.

A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channelled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.

It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.

It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002. BAE accused of secretly paying £1bn to Saudi prince (more) By David Leigh and Rob Evans

THE GUARDIAN: BAE Files: Prince Bandar

Bribing for Britain

BAE’s position

BAE’s Corporate Responsibility Report

Read the documents

Campaign against the arms trade

Cast of characters

Who are David Leigh and Rob Evans

Secrets of Al-Yamamah

Prince Bandar: Biography

Prince Sultan: Biography

FINANCIAL TIMES: BAE 'secretly paid' Saudi prince: Bandar received £100m a year, reports say

TIMESONLINE: BAE shares fall amid new bribery allegations

THE TELEGRAPH: Blair: No new BAE probe despite bribe claims

BBC: Saudi prince 'received arms cash'

WATCH BBC VIDEO: Blair on BAE investigation

SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG: Riesiger Korruptionsskandal bringt Regierung Blair in Bedrängnis

LE MONDE: Un prince saoudien aurait perçu un milliard de livres de pots-de-vin de BAE Systems

TIMESONLINE: Blair under pressure over al-Yamamah 'bribes'

Mark Alexander