Showing posts with label UK government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK government. Show all posts
Saturday, April 05, 2014
Fracking On: Businesses & UK Government Dismiss Public Outcry
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Gove Attacks 'Preposterous' Number of Old Etonians in Cameron's Cabinet
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| Michael Gove, the education secretary, was educated at a fee-paying school in Scotland. |
The education secretary, Michael Gove, has attacked the "preposterous" number of Etonians in David Cameron's inner cabinet and, in the process, taken aim at the chances of Old Etonian Boris Johnson succeeding Cameron as party leader after the general election.
He described the concentration of Old Etonians as "ridiculous", adding that such a bastion of privilege does not exist in any other rich country.
Although Gove, in an interview with the Financial Times, stressed that the elite nature of Cameron's top team reflected the failings of past state education policies, the remarks fit perfectly with the Labour claim that the top of the Conservative party is an out-of-touch elite. » | Patrick Wintour | Friday, March 14, 2014
Friday, December 20, 2013
Britain's Ambitions in the Gulf Suffer Blow as UAE Rejects Typhoon Deal
David Cameron’s ambition to revive Britain’s ties with the Gulf, involving 230 ministerial visits to the region since 2010, was in disarray yesterday after the United Arab Emirates decided against a multi-billion pound deal to buy Typhoon fighters.
The blow came despite a sustained diplomatic effort, including two visits to the UAE by Mr Cameron, a State Visit from the Queen and an agreement to waive visas for any UAE citizens entering Britain from Jan 1.
In addition, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the president of the UAE, paid a State Visit to Britain in April.
“We put out the family silver for them and we still failed,” said Jonathan Eyal, the international director of the Royal United Services Institute.
Reviving Britain’s historic relationship with the Gulf has been a central priority for Mr Cameron. » | David Blair, Chief Foreign Correspondent | Friday, December 20, 2013
My comment:
Is this a case of BAE Systems getting its comeuppance for the sh***y way they have dealt with many of their employees over the years? They have ridden rough shod over many, I am sorry to say. – © Mark
Monday, November 11, 2013
'Truly Shocking' That the Private-school Educated and Affluent Middle Class Still Run Britain, Says Sir John Major
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| David Cameron with Sir John Major, the ex-Prime Minster |
The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.
The former Conservative Prime Minister said he was appalled that “every single sphere of British influence” in society is dominated by men and women who went to private school or who are from the “affluent middle class[.]”
More than half of the Cabinet, including David Cameron, the Prime Minister, George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, are thought to have gone to private school and are independently very wealthy.
In the speech to Tory party grassroots activists on Friday evening, Sir John - who went to a grammar school in south London and left with three O-Levels - said: “In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me from my background, I find that truly shocking.” Read on and comment » | Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent | Sunday, November 10, 2013
My comment:
This is the most sense I have heard from a Conservative in a very long time. Bravo, Sir John! – © Mark
This comment appears here too.
Tuesday, November 05, 2013
Free Press? Editor Laments 'Retrogressive' Government Action
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Barnaby Phillips Reports about UK Stand on Syria
Farage: UK Government Keenest of All on Syria Intervention, Decision Already Made
Monday, August 26, 2013
Miranda Detention: 'Blatant Attack on Press Freedom'
I woke up last Sunday in Berlin to an email from Glenn Greenwald with only one sentence: "I need to talk to you ASAP."
For the past three months, Glenn and I have been reporting on the NSA disclosures revealed to us by Edward Snowden.
I went online to the encrypted channel that Glenn and I use to communicate. He told me that he had just received a call telling him that his partner David Miranda was being detained at London's Heathrow airport under the Terrorism Act. David was traveling from Berlin where he had come to work with me. For the next six hours I was online with Glenn as he tried to find out what was happening to the person he loves most in the world. » | A Commentary by Laura Poitras | Monday, August 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Cardinal O'Brien, who is the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has also branded David Cameron's opposition to a "Robin Hood tax" on financial institutions as "shameful".
In a BBC Scotland interview, the Cardinal said: "My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.
"The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.
"And I am saying to the prime minister, look, don't just protect your very rich colleagues in the financial industry, consider the moral obligation to help the poor of our country."
The UK government has opposed the unilateral introduction of a tax on financial transactions, arguing jobs and investment would be lost overseas. But the Cardinal said he believes that position is immoral because, he maintains it overlooks the needs of the poorest in society and those of the less well-off.
He said: "When I say poor, I don't (only) mean the abject poverty we see sometimes in our streets.
"I mean people who would have considered themselves reasonably well-off.
"People who have saved for their pensions and now realise their pension funds are no more.
"People who are considering giving up their retirement homes that they have been saving for, poverty affecting young couples and so on and so on.
"It is these people who have had to suffer because of the financial disasters of recent years and it is immoral. It is not moral, just to ignore them and to say 'struggle along', while the rich can go sailing along in their own sweet way." » | David Miller | BBC Scotland | Sunday, April 29, 2012
Sunday, February 27, 2011
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: The British Government was brokering a secret deal worth up to £10 billion with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime before Libya descended into chaos, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.For the past 18 months a dedicated Foreign Office unit has been supporting lawyers fighting to win compensation for UK victims of IRA bombs built with Libyan-supplied explosives.
The team was in the advanced stages of discussing a “Victims’ Initiative” package with key members of Gaddafi’s regime.
The possible agreement would have included payouts for the 150 families of those killed and injured bringing the claim, as well as a huge “cultural and social” investment focusing on reconciliation projects, much of it in Northern Ireland.
Insiders said that since the Coalition came to power last May, Government efforts to secure a deal had been stepped up, with David Cameron and William Hague taking a personal interest in the talks.
Sources said the agreement would have seen Libya committing between £2 billion and £10 billion to the UK, as part of an effort to detoxify “Brand Libya”. >>> Rebecca Lefort | Saturday, Deptember 26, 2011
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
THE ADVOCATE: As fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosure of U.S. diplomatic cables rolls throughout the international community, the documents indicate that Alan Duncan, the gay international development minister from Britain, was among the many foreign officials Americans spied on.According to the Daily Mail the U.S. inquired about Duncan, a Tory, when he was his party’s prisons spokesman. He once shared a flat in London with William Hague, the foreign secretary who this year admitted sharing a hotel room with his younger male aide but denied any impropriety. >>> Julie Bolcer | Tuesday, November 29, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Cabinet ministers are at loggerheads about the future involvement of British troops in Afghanistan.
The potentially damaging split opened up as three members of the government, led by the Foreign Secretary William Hague, arrived in Kabul to meet political and military leaders.
Mr Hague, the Defence Secretary Liam Fox and the International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said they were there to look at ways to accelerate Afghan troop training.
But deep divisions immediately became apparent over future strategy. While Mr Mitchell said it was "crucial" to create a functioning Afghan state by providing good health care and education, Dr Fox insisted that Britain was not there to fix Afghanistan. Ahead of talks with President Hamid Karzai, he also risked angering locals by referring to Afghanistan as "13th century". >>> Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor | Saturday, May 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: Tony Blair lobbied Colonel Muammar Gaddafi on behalf of Shell in a letter written for him in draft form by the oil company, documents obtained by The Times reveal.
The correspondence, written while Mr Blair was Prime Minister, bears a striking resemblance to a briefing note by Royal Dutch Shell weeks earlier promoting a $500 million (£325 million) deal it was trying to clinch in Libya.
While it is common for government ministers to champion British interests abroad, Shell’s draft reveals an unusual assurance in its ability to dictate Mr Blair’s conversation with the Libyan leader. It also raises questions about the motives behind Britain’s improved relations with Libya and the subsequent release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Lockerbie victims have claimed that the Government paved the way for al-Megrahi’s release as part of a deal with Libya to give British companies access to Libya’s lucrative oil and gas industry.
In the draft, Shell tells Mr Blair to discuss positive progress on weapons of mass destruction as well as the investigation into the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984. >>> David Robertson, Business Correspondent | Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, November 22, 2008
THE TELEGRAPH: Muslims are to be offered Sharia-compliant pension funds by a new Government body.
The scheme to provide retirement funds for millions who do not already have a company pension is likely to include a special option that would not invest in companies deemed sinful under Islam.
Ministers are keen to get Muslims saving with the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, as many who have low-paid jobs or who have moved to Britain in recent decades are unlikely to have put away much for their old age.
The decision to provide a Sharia-compliant pension fund is another sign of the growing influence of Islamic law in British public life and in particular the country's finance industry.
The prospect of some aspects of Sharia law such as divorce proceedings and dispute resolution being enshrined in the English legal system – raised by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chief Justice this year – remains highly controversial because of fears that the system discriminates against women and that a two-tier approach would be divisive.
But more and more financial products are being tailored to cater for Britain's population of 2million Muslims.
The religion's holy book, the Qu'ran, forbids Muslims from making money from money, so they cannot use products that involve the charging of interest nor invest in traditional financial services firms.
Gambling, drinking and pornography are also seen as immoral under Islam, so Muslims cannot put their money into companies that promote these activities.
The Islamic finance market is estimated to be worth £500million already and is growing rapidly.
Families can already get Sharia-compliant baby bonds under the Government's Child Trust Fund scheme while the UK is likely to become the first Western country to issue Islamic bonds in order to raise money from the Middle East.
This year has also seen the launch of Britain's first Islamic insurance company and pre-paid MasterCard. There are a handful of wholly Islamic banks in the country and several more that offer alternatives to mortgages which do not involve the charging of interest. >>> By Martin Beckford, Social Affairs Correspondent | November 21, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: KUALA LUMPUR: Islamic banking is set to rise from its modest 2 percent share of bank assets as the government encourages growth and Muslims overcome their suspicion, sharia lender Gatehouse Bank said on Tuesday.
Islamic finance, which rejects interest-based lending and speculation in favour of profit and loss sharing between venture partners, has been in Britain since the 1970s, but only a small number of Muslims have embraced it.
In recent years, Britain has been viewed as the European leader in providing Islamic financial services, aiming to serve both domestic Muslim markets as well as tapping into the vast wealth of Gulf investors.
"The government is very keen on social inclusion and economic inclusion and it feels that still there are areas of the UK where there's not enough economic inclusion," Gatehouse Chairman Richard Thomas told reporters on the sidelines of an Islamic finance forum in Malaysia.
"So they feel that if they open up alternative finance such as Islamic finance then that will allow people to be included in the British economy in a way they weren't before."
He did not give estimates for the Islamic finance industry's growth.
Britain intends to issue its own sovereign sharia-compliant sukuk debt in a rolling programme worth around 2 billion pounds, although it has said legal barriers still remain and it will make a final decision later. >>> Reuters (Reporting by Liau Y-Sing) | Novemebr 18, 2008
THE GUARDIAN: Standardisation Moves to Help Sharia Finance-scholar
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Efforts to standardise the reading of the sharia will not stifle the Islamic finance sector, a leading sharia scholar said on Tuesday, dismissing concerns that the industry risks being smothered by too much regulation.
A lack of standardisation in Islamic finance contracts is one of the biggest complaints among bankers in the $1 trillion industry, but there are also worries that a growing effort to harmonise across the globe could create a one-size-fits all approach in structuring deals.
"In Islamic law we encourage debate, research, scholarship and it is an ongoing process which cannot be stopped by anybody," Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, a highly regarded scholar, told reporters on the sidelines of an Islamic finance forum.
"However, for the purpose of standardisation, it is important to have certain prudential rules and basic contracts especially repetitive ones to be accepted among a group."
Sharia scholars are experts in Islamic law and international finance. They are seen as the industry's gatekeepers as they sit on the Islamic boards of institutions and rule on whether or not proposed products are sharia compliant.
Islamic law is open to diverse interpretations, resulting in some financing structures that aren't accepted by all Islamic markets.
An Islamic finance structure called bai bithaman ajil that is popular in Malaysia, for example, is not accepted by Middle East markets as Islamic.
Under bai bithaman ajil, a bank purchases an asset for its customer and sells it to him at a profit, with the sum to be repaid in instalments.
Recent attempts to harmonise industry standards include a plan by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to launch standards next year for over-the-counter sharia-compliant derivative contracts. >>> Reuters, Tuesday November 18 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
Sunday, September 21, 2008
RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE: Five Islamic courts have taken advantage of a clause in British legislation to officially apply Sharia law to British citizens, but despite sensationalist reports last week, they have been doing so since August 2007.
Under the headline “Revealed: UK’s first official Sharia courts” the Sunday Times published an article sparking a storm of controversy similar to that for which the newspaper carried condemnation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, in February.
The article by Abul Taher read: “Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with Sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for Sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.”
In a joint statement the Ministry of Justice and Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said: “Sharia law is not part of the law of England and Wales and the Government has no intention of making any change that would conflict with British laws and values.”
The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal is one of many organizations running Islamic courts, and operate under a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996 which allows the rulings of the courts to be legally binding for people who have agreed to submit to its power. This is true for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
A Government spokesperson said the situation had been misrepresented in the press. “The arbitration law goes back to the 1850s. This is nothing new. Anyone can use it.”
Raried Chedei, a clerk with the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, also expressed surprise at the furore: “Nothing’s changed. I don’t understand why people think we are using the law any differently.” UK Government Says No Change on Sharia Law >>> By Toby Cohen | September 21, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
DAILY MAIL: A giant database of every phone call and email sent in Britain is being considered by the Government.
Internet service providers and telephone companies would be forced to hand over records to the Home Office, which would keep them on a computer system.
All forms of electronic communication face being monitored, including social networking sites and text messages.
The database would also include details of how long individuals spend on the internet.
The government would retain the data for 12 months and security services and police could seek court permission to access it in the fight against terrorism.
The plans are being considered for inclusion in the draft Communications Bill to be published in November's Queen speech.
Last night, however, opponents reacted with horror, branding them disproportionate and an 'Orwellian step too far', not least because the Government has an appalling record at keeping data. Big Brother Database to Track Phone Calls and e-Mails >>> By Daniel Bates | May 20, 2008
TIMESONLINE:
’Big Brother’ Database for Phones and e-Mails >>> By Richard Ford | May 20, 2008
SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Britisches Innenministerium plant Schnüffel-Datenbank: Jeder Anruf in Großbritannien wird aufgezeichnet, jede E-Mail gespeichert - so jedenfalls sehen es Pläne des Innenministeriums für eine Abhördatenbank vor. Die Initiatoren beschwören als Begründung den Kampf gegen die Kriminalität. Kritiker höhnen, der Datenschutz im Land sei schon jetzt ein Witz >>> | 20. Mai 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
THE GUARDIAN: Passengers travelling between EU countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years and used to "profile" suspects.
Brussels officials are already considering controversial anti-terror plans that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU. Under a controversial agreement reached last summer with the US department of homeland security, the EU already supplies the same information [19 pieces] to Washington for all passengers flying between Europe and the US.
But Britain wants the system extended to sea and rail travel, to be applied to domestic flights and those between EU countries. According to a questionnaire circulated to all EU capitals by the European commission, the UK is the only country of 27 EU member states that wants the system used for "more general public policy purposes" besides fighting terrorism and organised crime.
The so-called passenger name record system, proposed by the commission and supported by most EU governments, has been denounced by civil libertarians and data protection officials as draconian and probably ineffective.
The scheme would work through national agencies collecting and processing the passenger data and then sharing it with other EU states. Britain also wants to be able to exchange the information with third parties outside the EU.
Officials in Brussels and in European capitals admit the proposed system represents a massive intrusion into European civil liberties, but insist it is a necessary part of a battery of new electronic surveillance measures being mooted in the interests of European security. These include proposals unveiled in Brussels last week for fingerprinting and collecting biometric information of all non-EU nationals entering or leaving the union. Government wants personal details of every traveler: Phone numbers and credit card data to be collected under expanded EU plan >>> By Ian Traynor
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
Monday, July 16, 2007
BBC: The UK is to expel four Russian diplomats in response to Moscow's refusal to extradite the prime suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband also said co-operation with Russia on a range of issues was under review.
Prosecutors want Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB officer, to face trial in the UK. He denies involvement.
Moscow condemned the UK's position as "immoral" and said the expulsions would have "serious consequences". UK expels four Russian diplomats (more)
WATCH BBC VIDEO:
UK expels Russian diplomats
Mark Alexander
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