UK Politics

Lord Bingham, one of the Brittan's top judiciary figures has condemned the Iraq war, calling it a “serious violation of international law”:

Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general's defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.

Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith's advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: "It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had." Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".

Governments were bound by international law as much as by their domestic laws, he said. "The current ministerial code," he added "binding on British ministers, requires them as an overarching duty to 'comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations'."

Sadly though these people always wait until they are out of a position of power to speak up. It would have been nice if they spoke up 5 1/2 years ago. The world might be a much better place today.

One leader of a nation that devised a sinister plan to lie to their people and invade a nation that is:

Tony Blair said Thursday he would step down as prime minister on June 27, closing a decade of power in which he fostered peace in Northern Ireland and followed the United States to a war in Iraq that cost him much of his popularity.

In a somber farewell, Blair made way for Treasury chief Gordon Brown to take the top post. The British leader looked overcome with emotion, struggling to retain his trademark broad grin as loud cheers rang out.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, it was right, Blair said, to "stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally, and I did so out of belief."

"Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right," Blair told party workers and supporters at Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency in northern England. "I may have been wrong, but that's your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country."

It will be interesting to see what Blair's successor decides to do with Iraq. If he takes office then pulls all U.K. troops from Iraq then we will most likely have to increase the "surge". This will put a real damper on the GOP September deadline.

It looks like Bush is starting to get a real lonely feeling in the international community. Members of Tony Blair's own party are now starting to blast our incompetent President:

A senior Labour backbencher has attacked the Bush administration, describing it as "incompetent" and guilty of "appalling complacency."

Former minister of state Nick Raynsford's criticism comes during a period in which transatlantic relations are under strain across a range of issues from the Middle East to climate change.

In an interview with ePolitix.com Raynsford, who was in the government until last year's reshuffle, expressed his satisfaction that the Democrats won last week's

"It's absolutely right that the American people have expressed their concern over the situation in Iraq and about the Bush administration and I'm delighted that Democrats now have control of both houses," he said.

"I think that will result in a shift of attitude and there are many areas of American policy should be changed."

On the environment he expressed his anger at the Republicans for failing to sign up to measures on reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Perhaps we can now mend our broken ties around the globe. Of course that has to be done at the expense of our President, a cost I am sure many won't complain about.

Hi folks. This is my first post here. I'm from the UK so maybe some of this won't relate to you. This is something I posted on another blog site a couple of weeks ago.

"IN THE NEWS"

Former cabinet colleague and foreign secretary attacks Tony Blair's stance in Israel and the Middle East.  Considering Blairs continuing decline in popularity, could this be the final Straw ?     .... ooer...

So its the day after the shit hit the fan for Blair and his missfits.

Yesterday was the local elections in 176 of 388 regions and Labour lost 255 of the 1,768 seats it was defending while a resurgent opposition Conservative party under new leader David Cameron gained 250.

Talk is now afoot within the labour camp to oust Blair out of office during the summer. This has hit Blair hard and has caused a panic reshuffle of his cabinet as follows:

Charles Clark - Home Secretary.... SACKED for being so incompetant, is now replaced by John Reid

Jack Straw no longer Foriegn Secretary (thank god, he was useless and scared the life out of me when he was negotiating on our contries behalf) and is replaced by Margeret Beckett which is even more of a disaster, she was on Question Time last night and I have to say she is a dreadfull woman, she is going to do more harm than good in this position. Foriegn trade links will suffer because of this...this is the end of labour.

Jack Straw will become the leader of the House of Commons, which somewhat puts him out of the way.

John Prescott was spared the chop after his affairs and other mistake, he has however lost one of his departments, this is obviously the slap on the wrist from Blair.

Gordon Brown remains Chancellor and has said on national radio: "We have got to show in the next few days, not just the next few weeks, that we have sorted these problems out," Brown told BBC radio on Friday morning. "I will be talking to Tony Blair about these issues over the weekend." This sounds like someone who knows the end is near.

This is just patching up a wound and delaying the inevitable, Blair has to go. I dont think he should just step aside and let someone else like Brown become Prime Minister, Labour need to decide on a new leader then take it to the country and let us decide who should lead out country.

Tim

The UK will be hit by strike action by some 1.5 million people on March 26th. The action will take place by Council / Local Authority Staff. This is the biggest strike in the UK since 1926. The strike could have another twist is teachers also decide to join in with the planned action.

It is over Pension Plans and that there is a major shortfall in the governments funds to pay people their pensions. The government has been trying to get people to work until they are much older which in turn would postpone the pension payments.

Tony Blair has one the 2nd vote on the prgramme motion by 10 votes.

Even though he has won the vote his days are numbered as leader. He has indicated for a while that he will step down before the end of his term, the votes tonight will make this sooner rather than later.

1 in 5 members of the government have voted against, that means some serious questions have to be asked!

Tony Blair has won the vote for the second reading of the new Education Bill, 51 of his own MP's voted against it which is not good, therefore it was only with the help of the opposition that it was passed.

We now await the vote on the progrmme motion which everyone is saying will not pass, this will be a major shot in the shot for Blair.

At around 7pm (GMT) today there will be a vote on a new education bill in the House of Commons which could decide how much longer Tony Blair stays in power.

The bill itself is fairly important to the future of education over here but I won't go into details as it does not effect most of the readers on this blog.

However, it looks like many members of Blairs political party will vote against the bill but the opposition (Conservetives) will be voting for the bill so it will get passed through for the next stage. With one of Blairs bills being passed due to the opposition, this will cause major damage to Blairs authority and popularity. Many backbench MP's are already wanting him to step down.

I'll keep posting as the news breaks, so for those who want to know, keep checking back!

Its about time:

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will announce on Monday that it is withdrawing about 800 troops from Iraq, roughly 10 percent of its force, BBC television reported.

Secretary of Defence John Reid is due to make a statement to parliament at 3:30 p.m. British time. His ministry declined to comment on the BBC report or the nature of Reid's planned remarks.

London, like Washington, has long said it hopes to withdraw troops from Iraq as local security forces improve their capabilities.

British forces operate in the south, where the population is mainly Shi'ite and have therefore not had to fight a Sunni insurgency like that in U.S.-patrolled areas in the north.

But British commanders have nevertheless complained about a worsening security situation since the middle of last year because of Shi'ite sectarian militia employing deadlier roadside bombs and infiltrating local police forces.

Leaked documents from mid-2005 had discussed the possibility that most troops could be home by the middle of 2006, but no formal announcement of cuts was made and that timeline appears to have slipped.

The scale of Britain's military commitment in Iraq has been the focus of new attention in the past month after Reid announced an ambitious new three-year mission in southern Afghanistan, set to peak at 5,700 troops in mid 2006.

Some critics worry that operating two large-scale missions at once could put too much strain on forces.

 Source: Reuters

Tony Blair's failure to improve the procedures for investigating claims of ministerial misconduct is undermining his own government, the sleaze watchdog has warned.

Following the scandal surrounding culture secretary Tessa Jowell and the investigation into her conduct by cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell, the committee on standards in public life has called for a tightening up of the current system.

Committee chairman Sir Alistair Graham said that over the last year a key consideration for the watchdog had been the the lack of public trust in office holders.

Article HERE

At long last it looks like the book is closing on the troubles in N. Ireland 

The Provisional IRA (PIRA) has taken a strategic decision to follow a political path and does not present a terrorist threat, the latest report from the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) said.

"The IRA leadership has given instructions that the membership of the PIRA should not engage in public disorder," it said in a report on security normalisation.

Full article HERE

This story gets better and better:

SKY NEWS

An inquiry into Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell could be re-opened as she faces renewed questions over her husband's financial dealings. The news comes as David Mills and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wait to hear whether they face bribery and perjury charges. Today is the last day defending lawyers can present new evidence to prosecutors in Milan.

Conservatives have harshly criticised Ms Jowell for not declaring Mr Mills' shares in a pub chain in the register of MPs' interests.

Ms
Jowell denies he ever owned them and Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary standards watchdog, said she had done nothing wrong.

But forensic accountants working with Sky News have said Mr Mills was the "beneficial owner" of the company which bought the shares.

Raj Bairoliya, from accountancy firm LLP, said: "Essentially that means to me that the shares have been transferred in his name to him."

Tory MP Nigel Evans said: "It doesn't matter at the end of the day that his name wasn't on the share ownership.

"If it was on the company that owned the shares and he benefited from the profit then clearly they were declarable."

Opponents insist she still has a case to answer over whether she breached codes of conduct.

Mr Mills is accused of accepting a £350,000 bribe from the Italian premier - a claim denied by both men.

Theres an interesyting debate opened up here in the UK (see report from Yahoo News below).  It is over guidelines and proposed changes to the law regarding rape. The guidelines say that a man must get consent from a woman prior to having sex. This is due to the increase in cases where women have been blind drunk nad the very next day woke up and gone to the police to say she was raped. There have been many cases that have been thrown out of court due to it basically being the woman decided she did not like the guy she had sex with or it's a way of a married woman having an excuse for her husband... yes this does happen a lot.

Now, here's the thing, your at a club, you start chatting to a girl, you get a bit horny with em as they do in return, you have to get consent to have sex..WTF!. Should we all carry a contract in our pockets... i think not. The only view I have on this is: If a woman seems very drunk and possibly does not know what she is doing (i know, no need to comment on that) then just don't have sex with her. It's an interesting debate

What do you think?

UK's Culture Minister Tessa Jowell has split from her husband who is currently under investigation in Italy for fraud charges which also invloves the Italian Prime Minister.

It seems her husband David Mills who is a Tax Lawyer used his connections to the Prime Minister to gain business.

I have found an interesting report in the New Zealand Herald which gives a good overview of the story.

LONDON - British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has decided to separate from her husband David Mills after it emerged that the businessman had attempted to trade on his relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

However, the couple's announcement yesterday that they were to live apart failed to win Jowell even a temporary reprieve from the intense pressure created by her husband's business dealings.

Jowell will this week face calls to answer an urgent question in the House of Commons over her claims not to have known about a £344,000 ($906,000) payment to her husband, which is at the centre of an Italian corruption investigation.

The separation came after it was disclosed in a leaked letter that her husband told regulators in Dubai that he had the "sympathy" of Blair.

Mills said: "You will also know that I am married to a member of the Cabinet of this country ... but I have the support and sympathy of very many people in public life, from the Prime Minister down."

One close friend said of the minister: "She has been very emotional. Things like the Dubai letter clearly put Tessa in an embarrassing position."

In a statement from Mills' lawyer announcing the separation, the scale of his estranged wife's anger was vividly underlined. "He is as mortified as she has been angered by the embarrassment he has caused her," it said.

Allies denied that the statement was a cynical "career-saving move".

Instead, friends said, it was a mutual decision to split for a trial period. There was little disguising Jowell's fury, however, over what the statement termed the "dreadful strain".

However, it was reported that Mills and Jowell consulted close friend Alastair Campbell on how to present news of their separation. Campbell's involvement, if proved, will deepen Labour MPs' cynicism.

Conservative backbenchers are determined to press her to explain why, if she was ignorant of the cash used to help pay off a mortgage on her London home, she signed an application for a second loan.

Jowell went to ground with friends yesterday, while her husband is thought to have left the country for a crucial meeting with his lawyers ahead of an expected indictment on corruption charges in Italy this week.

Blair conspicuously avoided questions on the issue yesterday. Many Labour MPs remain extremely uneasy about the world of large payments moving through overseas companies which the affair has exposed.

Mills, a corporate lawyer, is accused of receiving a £344,000 bribe in 2000 from Berlusconi over evidence he gave in a court case against him.

An investigation by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, found Jowell should have declared the payment. Blair, however, accepted her explanation that she was told by her husband only four years later.

But fresh doubts were cast when it emerged that in 2002 she had signed papers for a second loan secured on the home in which she had to declare whether there were any other loans.

The thing is, Tessa Jowell has done this to protect her own career, I just wonder if this split has been pre-meditated in conjuction with the British Government to protect it from further sleeze.

Its going to be very interesting to see what happens this week when the Italian court decide whether David Mills gets called to court.