Blair, Straw and torture

I was pleased to read the Independent's report that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police Service are launching an investigation into "allegations raised ...concerning the alleged rendition of named individuals to Libya and the alleged ill-treatment of them in Libya...".

I was delighted to read that "Former ministers in Tony Blair's government are expected to be questioned by police over their alleged role in human rights abuses".

I shall be transported with joy if the investigation leads to a successful prosecution of Jack Straw and/or Tony Blair. For information on their government's collusion with Uzbekistan and the torture conducted by the Uzbek dictator Karimov, read Craig Murray's "Murder in Samarkand" or watch his evidence to the Lords and Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights available on his website here.

"Time for Radicals" says Craig

"A financial system in which the face value flow of funds was vastly greater than the face value flow of goods traded is a bubble. The “bailout”, or payment of vast sums of ordinary people’s money to bankers to keep this crazed system going, could never make it sane.

Allowing bad banks to go to the wall was not just possible, it was essential. Instead the poor are in deep hock simply to maintain the lifestyles of awesome consumption led by the political and financial elites. That is the immediate cause of the services cuts and tax increases sweeping the Western world. The fact this is no solution at all to funny money explains why trillions were wiped off world stock markets last week. The explanation is simple; those trillions never existed in the first place."

So writes Craig Murray.

OK, all you dismal and realistic economists, explain to me now why you think Craig is wrong.

Responsibility to Protect

I see the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) as a useful development of international law and I recently defended British action in Libya as an example of it. I admit that it may not be but I still believe the doctrine is a good one. Craig Murray has written an excellent article for the Independent about Libya and the coalition government's approach to foreign policy. The question is whether the Liberal Democrats are making any difference to foreign policy. Any evidence that we are ?

For more information on RtoP, go here and for NGO support for RtoP here.

Craig Murray returns !

Great news ! Craig Murray, Britain's former ambassador in Uzbekistan and author of Murder in Samarkand, has rejoined the Liberal Democrats. Welcome back, Craig !

Stupid or corrupt ? You decide

Craig Murray posts in characteristic trenchancy about Tessa Jowell, arguing that if she didn't know what her husband David Mills was up to she was stupid but if she did, she was corrupt.

Comments from contemporaries on Camden Council suggests she may not be the sharpest tool in the box. For myself, I first took notice of her when she attempted to ban the Stop the War march from using Hyde Park to protest against the Iraq War, because the demonstrators would damage the grass ! Of course the hordes who swarmed to Hyde Park (like myself) for the Last Night of the Proms or (unlike myself) various corporate entertainment events would just float over the grass. The difference was that the latter would provide money (something she seems inordinately fond of) whereas the former were there to protest against the illegal war she and her colleagues voted for and which damaged slightly more than grass. Here are some of her other votes.

• Voted for introducing a smoking ban.
• Voted for introducing ID cards.
• Voted for introducing foundation hospitals.
• Voted for introducing student top-up fees.
• Voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
• Voted for the Iraq war.
• Voted against investigating the Iraq war.
• Voted for replacing Trident.