The Strange Case of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the McCanns
. . . Which leads me on to the question of why they received such exceptional treatment from British authorities, directed straight from No. 10, to the extent that Blair and Brown eventually gave them a PR representative? I used at one stage to be Resident Clerk in the FCO, a now abolished post effectively of night duty officer. I can tell you from horrible personal experience that the FCO deals with gut-wrenching cases of lost or dead children abroad frequently. I spent one of the most terrible three hours of my life, through to a cold dawn, on the phone with a hysterical bereaved mother desperate to explore any avenue that might give a possibility that the boy who had just drowned in Brazil was misidentified as her son. On average, I am afraid such tragedies get substantially less than 1% of the public resources that were devoted to the McCanns.
I am going to come straight out with this. British diplomatic staff were under direct instruction to support the McCanns far beyond the usual and to put pressure on the Portuguese authorities over the case. I have direct information that more than one of those diplomatic staff found the McCanns less than convincing and their stories inconsistent. Embassy staff were perturbed to be ordered that British authorities were to be present at every contact between the McCanns and Portuguese police.
This again is absolutely not the norm. On a daily basis more British citizens have contact with foreign authorities than the total staff of the FCO. It would be simply impossible to give that level of support to everybody. Plus, against jingoistic presumption, a great many Brits who have contact with foreign police are actually criminals.
The British Ambassador in Portugal, John Buck, had been my direct boss in the FCO. he was Deputy Head of Southern European Department when I was Head of Cyprus Section. He and his staff were concerned by contradictions in the McCann’s story. The Embassy warned, in writing, that being perceived as too close to the McCanns might not prove wise. They demanded the instruction from London be reconfirmed. It was.
I know of people’s misgivings because I was told directly. But material was also leaked (Joana Morais) to a Belgian newspaper confirming what I have said. It was published by the Express, but like so much other material which is not supportive of the McCanns, it got taken down. Fortunately that last link preserved it. It also shows that the FCO continues to refuse Freedom of Information requests for the material on the interesting grounds that it might damage relations with Portugal. Full article
Hillary Clinton's Appalling Enthusiasm for War
By Bruce Fein
04/02/20216
Hillary Clinton exhibits an appalling enthusiasm for United States wars not in self-defense, i.e., legalized murders on an industrial scale that create enemies while destroying our liberties and prosperity at home.
To William Tecumseh Sherman, war was "hell." To Abraham Lincoln, war was a "scourge." But to Hillary Clinton, war is a coveted instrument of foreign policy in which the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
If she is elected President, the United States will be fighting gratuitous wars every hour of every day of her presidency. That should give pause. Alexis de Tocqueville admonished in Democracy in America, "All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it." James Madison, the Albert Einstein of political philosophy, warned: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Despite such hallowed wisdom, Ms. Clinton has supported every war initiated by the United States not in self-defense for more than twenty three years since she first occupied the White House as First Lady: Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, ISIS, Al- Qaeda, Yemen, Somalia, and international terrorism generally.
In 2008, she promised if elected president to "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel--even if the United States was unthreatened and Congress had not authorized war: "I want the Iranians to know, if I am the president, we will attack Iran... And I want them to understand that... we would be able to totally obliterate them [to retaliate for an attack on Israel]."
In 2011, then Secretary of State Clinton championed a "humanitarian" war against Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi after he had abandoned WMD, Libya had been removed as a state sponsor of terrorism, he had handsomely compensated the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, and he posed no threat to the United States. She has fiercely defended the war as "smart power at its best."
That myopia could be analogized to Japanese Emperor Hirohito applauding World War II as a success by highlighting Pearl Harbor while leaving Hiroshima and Nagasaki unmentioned.
As unfolded in Afghanistan after we ousted the Soviet Union by supporting the fanatical mujahideen, Gaddafi's ouster regressed Libya towards state-of-nature lawlessness. Militias spawned along tribal and ethnic lines. An ISIS satellite emerged in Sirte. Gaddafi's conventional weapons fell into the hands of terrorists. No central government took root. Our Ambassador was assassinated in Benghazi in a terrorist assault. Refugees by the millions fled from Libya across the Mediterranean to destabilize the European Union.
Ms. Clinton's "humanitarian" war precedent invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Crimea professedly to protect Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity from persecution.
As a United States Senator, Ms. Clinton voted to authorize President Bush's gratuitous war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who was a virtual cost-free Chinese wall against Iranian regional hegemony. She irresponsibly neglected to read the 90-page classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that wrongly concluded Saddam possessed WMD. She supports continuing United States military engagement in Iraq on behalf of a Shiite government which is beholden to Iran, repressive towards Sunnis and Kurds, and a catalyst for ISIS.
Ms. Clinton supports a reprise in Syria of her "smart" humanitarian war in Libya to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad through bombings and assistance to splintered Syrian rebels schooled in extremism, bigotry, repression, and violence.
She supports continued military engagement in Afghanistan as far as the eye can see and beyond to prop up a corrupt, tribal, unpopular government.
She supports the President's playing prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to kill any American citizen whom intelligence gurus decree is an imminent threat based on secret evidence unshared outside the executive branch.
She supports presidential authority to invade the sovereignty of any foreign nation by using predator drones to kill persons suspected of complicity in international terrorism espied within its borders.
She supports confrontation with China over the South China Sea to assist erstwhile enemy Vietnam.
She supports unilateral presidential wars unauthorized by Congress in violation of the War Powers Resolution and Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution.
Since Libya under Gaddafi is her standard for initiating humanitarian wars, a President Clinton could be expected to attack North Korea to overthrow President Kim Jong-un before her inaugural address concluded.
If you want a Goddess of War in the White House who will destroy our liberties, freedom and solvency, vote for Hillary Clinton. Huffpo
Search for Madeleine - Letter in full from McCanns calling for petitionH/T Maren
STV
3 November 2010 10:28 GMT
This is the full text of the letter urging people to support the McCanns' petition.
Dear Friends and Supporters,
As I write, it is exactly three and a half years since our daughter Madeleine was so cruelly taken from us.
Three and a half years without her seeing her brother, her sister, her Mummy, her Daddy or her best friends.
We are still searching for her. Our small team continues to review all available information, even though we STILL don't have access to ALL of the information that the UK and Portugese [sic] authorities have. Our team has interviewed hundreds of witnesses, received over 1,000 calls, dealt with over 15,000 emails and maintained a computerised database of all information they have received. Despite the difficulties resulting from lack of official assistance, they "follow up" all new leads to try and get fresh information into the investigation.
It is incredible to think that for the last two years and three months NO police force has proactively been doing anything to help us find Madeleine. Crucially, there has been NO formal review of the material held by the police authorities - which is routine practice in most countries, and especially when a key piece of the "jigsaw" may have been overlooked.
We have tried in vain to get the authorities to play their part but our requests have seemingly fallen on deaf ears. It is simply not acceptable that they have, to all intents and purposes, given up on Madeleine. We need the authorities to do more.
However we know we are not alone. We have the tremendous support of family, friends and of course you the public. A lot of this support comes in the form of people saying to us, "if there's anything we can do, just let us know" or "I'd like to help but I don't know how". To these people, and indeed yourself, my plea is simple.
We need your support to continue to lobby the British and Portugese [sic] governments to undertake a joint or independent review of Madeleine's case.
How can you do this?
Simply visit: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/madeleinemccann--case--review/@ and sign the petition to call on the UK and Portugese [sic] authorities to conduct an independent and transparent review of all information in relation to the disappearance of Madeleine. And in turn, please spread the word and encourage as many others to do the same. Together we can, and will pull all of the loose ends of Madeleine's case together and find her.
Thank you
Another way you can show your support is by continuing to help us fund the search for Madeleine.
To carry on searching for Madeleine and to ensure that the process has continued in a meaningful and proactive way, we have been able to utilise the generous donations paid in to Madeleine's Fund by the general public, libel damages paid to ourselves and our friends and money raised through a variety of fundraising efforts.
The fund has allowed:
- Our investigation team of ex-police officers to operate and conduct enquiries in the UK, Portugal and further afield.
- A Portugese [sic] assistant/translator
- A 24 hour telephone line with translators to receive information from the public
- Media liaison in Portugal and the UK to ensure that we convey the simple factual messages: there is absolutely no evidence that Madeleine has been physically harmed; we must keep looking for her and those who took her.
- Awareness campaigns in Portugal, Spain and further afield.
- Website hosting and development and social network site campaigns to raise awareness through the internet
- A part-time campaign coordinator
As I write this letter, if Madeleine's Fund remains as it is, with the current rate of expenditure, it will run out in Spring 2011. This would essentially mean that any kind of proactive search for Madeleine would cease. So again we need your help. If you can, please consider donating to Madeleine's fund at www.findmadeleine.com
- £1 pays for the multi-lingual call centre availability for 1 hour
- £2 per month pays for 12 travel packs that are distributed to holidaymakers going all over the world
- £10 pays for 1000 posters that are translated and distributed across the world
- £25 pays for the access to a 24 hour multi-lingual telephone service for 1 day
- £50 pays for the running costs of investigation office (and staff) for 2 hours
- £400 pays for 10,000 multi-lingual prayer cards for Madeleine, with photograph and contact details
Someone knows what has happened to Madeleine. We simply need to reach that person. We need to obtain that key piece of information, that "missing piece of the jigsaw". One call may be all we need to find Madeleine and who took her.
Our little girl is now seven years old: innocent, vulnerable and waiting to be found. Please, please sign the petition and help us to find her.
Gerry McCann
STV
Glenda Jackson's speech about Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP June 30, 2014
An excellent speech by Glenda Jackson in Parliament during what George Galloway called a “state-organised eulogy”. Glenda was one of the only people to depart from the official outpouring of praise for Margaret Thatcher. April 2013
You can also read the Hansard transcript of Glenda Jackson’s speech.
Nick Clegg have proved more difficult to capture because "they have similar types of looks".Odd, and totally at odds with my own view of Rowson's caricature of red-faced posh boy, master of misjudgement, the ever floundering David Cameron. In fact it was only quite recently that I had this to say on Twitter: For the best lampooning of David Cameron, follow @MartinRowson.
"They haven't got very lived in faces yet. You need to have someone with distinctive features," he says.
Political cartoons: Britain's revolutionaries
By Kayte Rath
They appear daily in our newspapers and have lampooned prime ministers for generations, but have political cartoons helped Britain avoid some of the political tumult of its European neighbours?
For nearly 400 years, Britain has avoided violent struggles and political revolution.
In 1789, while France was busy overthrowing its royal rulers and unceremoniously chopping off the heads of its aristocrats, Britain shunned their revolutionary zeal, preferring a more sedate pace of change.
And where France led, others followed. In the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries virtually every other state in Europe has experienced at least one forcible overthrow of government.
Historians may have their theories as to why, but so does former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Baker, and it's a rather novel one: Political cartoons.
The peer, who served under Margaret Thatcher as home secretary and chaired the party in her final days as prime minister, has long had an interest in collecting and writing about cartoons and is vice-chairman of the Cartoon Museum in London.
For him, this unique British contribution to the world of art - which Lord Baker credits Britain with "inventing" - has helped stem the frustrations of the British people since it first started nearly 300 years ago.
"I believe that if you can laugh at your rulers, you don't cut off their heads," he says. "Laughter is an escape for those kinds of pent up feelings. It helps make society calmer."
'Defecating, urinating, fornicating'Next up, the shorter of three clips featuring our intrepid satirist. A clip which, for reasons obvious, I can only describe as pennies from heaven, and from which I quote.
And because of Britain's lack of censorship laws in the 18th century - the "golden age" of political caricatures according to Lord Baker - this "graphic satire" was able to flourish.
"In Europe, all the other countries had censorship.
"If you criticised the king or queen of France you were sent to the Bastille - in fact if you criticised Louis XIV you got torn about by four horses, which did rather discourage people.
"But there wasn't any censorship here: we laughed at our kings and queens and we laughed at our prime ministers."
Not only has the culture of cartooning helped Britain remain a stable country, it was also the beginning of public engagement in politics, making a connection between prime ministers and the people for the first time.
"Before cameras, radio and TV, it was the only way in which people got to see their politicians," Lord Baker says.
"They would get stuck up in shop windows for everyone to see. It was the first time people actually saw royalty, judges, MPs, aristocracy and the celebrities of the day.
"The cartoons were bought by the middle class as they were the only ones who could afford them, but it was the beginning of real public interest from people in their politicians."
With different attitudes to physical appearances and bodily functions, the early cartoons could be extremely rude.
"In the 18th century they didn't have the same physical hang-ups that we do now - you had people farting, defecating, urinating, vomiting, fornicating - everything. No one escaped.
"George III was shown manuring his own field."
Robert Walpole, generally regarded as the first man to hold the post of prime minister from the 1720s to 1742, was represented by his exposed rear end.
"The first cartoon of Walpole was of his big bare bottom straddling the Treasury.
"You couldn't see his face, but everyone knew who it was because they knew you had to kiss Walpole's bottom if you were to get anywhere. He ran the state by patronage, handing out positions and everybody knew it."
Other politicians have had their own distinctive caricatures, with cartoonists picking one easily identifiable "tab" to let the audience know who is being made fun of.
These can often capture a politician's character better than official portraits do, Lord Baker says.
"Caricatures can say in a flash what it takes 20 column inches or three minutes of TV to say.
"The cartoon has an immediate impact. They are snapshots of a given moment and can characterise people forever."
William Pitt the Younger was shown as a drunkard, Disraeli had "curly Jewish locks", Churchill was easily identified by his fat cigar and for Margaret Thatcher it was her handbag.
More recently, Lord Baker says, John Major was depicted with "naff Marks and Spencer's underpants", after once allegedly being spotted with his pants tucked over his shirt - after this "the pants became everything".
Tony Blair was all about "the teeth and the ears" and Gordon Brown was shown as "being grossly fat".
In the current crop of leaders, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have proved more difficult to capture because "they have similar types of looks".
"They haven't got very lived in faces yet. You need to have someone with distinctive features," he says.
However, this has not been a problem for the Labour's fresh-faced, younger leader Ed Miliband: "He was Wallace and Gromit straight away."
'Cheshire cat' More
"The interesting thing about Gin Lane is that in fact it was a piece of journalism. It was inspired by a story about a woman who'd murdered her own daughter in order to sell her clothes to buy gin. . . ."
. . . . It's been pastiched and stolen by subsequent artists and cartoonists over and over again, including me."
"The interesting thing about Gin Lane is that in fact it was a piece of journalism. It was inspired by a story about a woman who'd murdered her own daughter in order to sell her clothes to buy gin. . . ."
