Day 3504: Hard Labour Betray You Again – They have Nothing Left But Their SPIN

Thursday:


Today's Grauniad features a Call to Arms by the ORIGINAL "Phony Tony", Mr Wedgie Benn.

"It is time…" he says "…to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government's budget intentions."

What the fluff does THAT mean? Strikes? Roadblocks? Burning lorries at major interchanges? A network of underground bunkers? Seizing control of the television channels? Strongly worded letters?

I realise, with "the A-Team" back in action, it's like the EIGHTIES never went away, so it's REALLY no surprise that Hard Labour, like the A-Team, are shooting off all over the place without ever hitting a target.

The former Viscount Stansgate continues:

"They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s…"

That would be the Coalition's plans for savage cuts, just to distinguish them from Hard Labour's "more savage than Thatcher" cuts.

"…which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services."

Okay, couple of points first: "NHS" That would be the NHS with its spending ring-fenced, guaranteed an increase year on year at least as much as Hard Labour would have given. How is THAT going to be "devastated"?

(Oh, "the reorganisation" – please, DO explain how channelling finding to the front line and cutting out middle management is INEVITABLY bad?)

"Education" That would be the education system that has been specifically protected from the worst of the cuts, and where the Coalition will be INCREASING funds to the schools for the worst off kids under the Lib Dem's PUPIL PREMIUM policy. How is THAT going to be "devastated"?

(Oh, "the free schools" – please DO explain how City McAcademies are GOOD under Hard Labour and BAD under the Coalition; go on, tell us how CHOICE is good under Hard Labour but people volunteering to set up more schools for MORE choice is BAD under the Coalition.)

"Pensions". Those would be the pensions where the Coalition has just RESTORED the link to earnings, something Hard Labour NEVER DID in thirteen years, where in fact the Coalition has gone further with a triple lock protection that will see state pensions rise by whichever is MOST of earnings, prices or 2.5%. How are THOSE going to be "devastated"?

(Oh, the "raising of the retirement age" – please DO explain how you were going to PAY for people to go on living longer and longer with fewer and fewer people of working age to support you all in your evermore extended retirement.)

There ARE going to be cuts, and they ARE going to be TOUGH, but these HORROR stories are really OVERPLAYING the Hard Labour hand.

How painful does it have to be?

It's often said, if you ask someone to cut 10% of their spending, they will grimace and grumble and find a way to do it, but if you ask them to cut a QUARTER of their spending then they will think it's IMPOSSIBLE.

But you've got to remember that the Coalition's proposals are not for 25% cuts THIS YEAR. We are proposing 25% cuts "in real terms" over the five years of the Parliament.

"In real terms" here means "if inflation were zero" or "you're allowed to spend a bit MORE for inflation before you work out your cut".

Look, just suppose we are looking at a Labour budget and they were going to spend £100 this year. Let's assume that inflation is the Government's target of 2%. Each year we will try to spend 4% less.

This year: we spend £96 when Labour would have spent £100.

Next year: we spend £92 when Labour would have spent £102 (that's £100 plus 2% inflation).

The year after: we spend £88 when Labour would have spend £104.

The year after that: we spend £85 when Labour would have spent £106.

In the fifth year: we spend £81 when Labour would have spent £108.

£81 is 25% less than £108. We've actually got to the Coalition's target by cutting JUST 4% each year.

Does that sound a bit more manageable now?

I don't want to oversell this. Cutting 4% in Year 1, I think we could all see that as doable. I'm sure we can all think that there are things that the Government does that it doesn't need to do. But once you've taken out those things, the so-called "low hanging fruits", it's going to get harder to keep on tightening the belt year on year.

Pay freezes will help. Recruitment freezes will help. There's no denying that those things are going to be painful, though: they mean people doing more for the same money, while prices go up (not least because we're putting up VAT!), so they get relatively poorer. And they mean young people not having as many opportunities to enter the workplace. These things are HARD.

But Hard Labour isn't interested in doing things that are HARD; they want to take the EASY route of FRIGHTENING people, and LYING to people to say that it's not necessary, that we don't need to cut spending, that the magic pixies would keep on giving us gold from the end of the rainbow (China).

Oh look:

"The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers' profligacy."

Oh yes, I thought we'd come to this: it's ALL the BANKERS fault. That's Hard Labour's only excuse. You can't blame US; it's ALL the BANKERS fault!

PHOOEY!

Who BORROWED all that money from bankers, eh? Hard Labour, that's who! Mr Frown was spending WAY more than the country could afford for YEARS before the credit crunch. And it was all ON TICK. All those extra jobs in the public sector – paid for with other people's money; all those arts grants and community schemes – paid for on the never-never; all those promised school rebuilding programs – paid for with money that never even existed. Typical Hard Labour, expecting someone else to come along afterwards and pick up the tab for them.

And what about the rest of us? That housing bubble didn't come out of nowhere. It was inflated by people borrowing money against assets that weren't worth it.

Oh yes, the bankers were COMPLICIT – complicit up to their eyebrows, some of them – but it takes TWO to TANGO. People borrowed, and Hard Labour encouraged them to borrow, money to fund a nice life. But it wasn't ever REAL. Sooner or later the money would run out.

We were ALL profligate. Whether it was personally or whether it was because Mr Frown was buying an army of pen-pushers in our name, we all, as a country, spent far too much.

No more boom and bust was a LIE. It was the lie that Hard Labour told to keep us all running those credit cards.

Saying that the recession was "all the bankers fault" is Hard Labour's NEW lie to excuse their own GUILT.

"The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners."

I don't know about you, but I don't know that I LIKE my gay daddies being classed as a "most vulnerable" by this hereditary politician. I don't know that I like seeing people bundled up in a SHOPPING LIST of "categories", either, as though we just OUGHT to owe allegiance to the Great Nanny of Hard Labour just because of some quirk or characteristic or other. I've never really liked Hard Labour's habit of putting people on LISTS… it's SINISTER… it's just a short step from that to their habit of ROUNDING PEOPLE UP. And then come the "detention orders". No, I don't like this AT ALL.

Explain to me HOW the Coalition cuts TARGET minorities, signle parents, gay daddies, and AGAIN with the pensioners? We don't even know what the cuts ARE yet, so either you can see the future (so you should have seen this coming) or you are MAKING THINGS UP.

The people who will see the cuts first aren't the people on your list; they are the people who've signed your letter who MAKE A LIVING OFF of the people on your list, those "community spokespeople" and "local organisers" who make little empires out of Government grants. Maybe we'd take you more SERIOUSLY if you were suggesting that we could save a few NURSES jobs by cutting back on some of them.

Or are you just trying to FRIGHTEN as many people as possible?

"Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden."

Oh you ARE just trying to frighten people. "Expected" by whom, may I ask?

"The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest."

Yes, that was "proved" by the FIB-ian society, wasn't it, and has quickly become an old favourite in the Hard Labour song book. Of course it's total nonsense, because it assumes that every single penny of Government spending reaches the "frontline", that everything they spend OUR cash on has a "cash value" to each and every one of us. And we are worse off by cuts according to how much we would have to spend to make up the difference. So it assumes that if the Coalition cut the armed forces by 10% it assumes we would have to pony up the equivalent cost to provide mercenaries to fill the shortfall. It assumes that if the Coalition cuts a layer of middle management, we would shell out to employ the bureaucrats ourselves. I suspect we might just make do with fewer bureaucrats. (Sorry Lady Mark!)

"Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors."

And ALSO expect more people to be in employment; you can't just take the job losses and ignore the potential gains. Well you can, but it's DEEPLY DISHONEST.

We reject this malicious vandalism…

Again, resorting to name calling. You don't have an ARGUMENT so you just ascribe ill-will rather than address an alternative point of view. No one is allowed to think thoughts the Wedgie does not allow.

…and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative…

Which would be WHAT, exactly?

…with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries.

Because RIOTS and STRIKES are SO helping put the Greek economy back on a sound footing.

This government of millionaires…

More name-calling; what's WRONG with being a millionaire?

…says "we're all in it together"

We are.

…and "there is no alternative".

No, that was the REAL Eighties; come back from the Time Warp.

But, for the wealthy, corporation tax is being cut, the bank levy is a pittance, and top salaries and bonuses have already been restored to pre-crash levels.

Corporation Tax is a tax on the profits of companies, not on "the rich"; I know it's NICE to conflate the two, but not ALL businesses are super-massive corporations. Most, in fact, are not.

Cutting Corporation Tax is to encourage home-grown businesses to grow and foreign businesses to invest here, so that there will be more JOBS for those working people you claim to speak for. And the Bank Levy is set to be more than the banks save in lower Corporation Tax.

As for the bonus culture, do you see anyone in the Coalition DISAGREEING with you? Aren't we actually doing MORE than Hard Labour to tackle excessive bonuses and force the banks to do actual banking and lend to businesses in need?

An alternative budget would place the banks under democratic control…

Like British Leyland that Wedgie nationalised so successfully in the Seventies?

…and raise revenue by increasing tax for the rich…

which the Coalition did already, see Capital Gains Tax

…plugging tax loopholes

with you there

…withdrawing troops from Afghanistan

er, that doesn't raise any revenue

…abolishing the nuclear "deterrent" by cancelling the Trident replacement.

, um, likewise. Though you'll notice that the Liberal Democrats want Trident to be IN the defence review. Unlike Hard Labour.

An alternative strategy could use these resources to:

No, you've missed the WHOLE POINT. You can't just say you will DIVERT the overspending from things you don't like to things you do like.

I will say this very slowly and clearly.

YOU. WILL. STILL. BE. OVERSPENDING.

Basically, the rest of his no-longer-lordship's manifesto is to OPPOSE for the sake of OPPOSITION because Conservatories are just BAD and the Liberals DON'T COUNT and are SELL OUTS anyway.

It is WORDS without POLICIES. It is POLITICS without MEANING.

How many times have you heard phrases like: the Lib Dems "sold their principles for power", the Coalition is "gerrymandering" or "partisan"; policies are "ideological"?

Which principles are we supposed to have sold out? Is it not the Labour Party's aim to get into power again? Does that mean that you've sold your principles too or that you do not have any?

If we're "partisan" for saying that a system that disproportionately favours the Labour Party must be made fairer, how does that make you NOT "partisan" for opposing that? In fact, how is it POSSIBLE for one Party to be partisan and the other not and still disagree?

And what's WRONG a bit of ideology? We just had a General Election where people supposed chose the ideology that represented them – yes, the outcome we got was a bit of a MIX of ideologies: Liberal, Conservative, whatever-it-is-that-Labour-are-supposed-to-stand-for-now-they've-dumped-Socialism. That's DEMOCRACY.

In a proper argument, these words and phrases ought to MEAN something, but Hard Labour are just using them all as synonyms for "bad".


Hard Labour have NOTHING to say. They are using LANGUAGE rather than POLICY to oppose the Coalition. They want to FRIGHTEN rather than PERSUADE anyone of an alternative. In the absence of something to say, they are just using the only thing that is left to them. SPIN.


That is the REAL irony here: Hard Labour are the ones, by their actions, who are saying "there is no alternative".

.

Day 3144: I'm SOOOO glad that Britain's Top Spook can stand up under questioning

Monday:


After the Secretaries of State for Home and Away, Mr Johnson and Johnson and Mr Millipede, assumed what can only be described as the "Ms Mandy Rice-Davies position", it fell to the Head of MI6 and former Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir John "Captain" Scarlet, to DENY EVERYTHING.

Agent Scarlet: We always stick to our principles.

Sinister BBC Questioner: Meaning we don't torture?

Agent Scarlet: We do not torture!

Sinister BBC Questioner: and we're not complicit in torture?

Agent Scarlet: Um, er, um, well, er, no, no we're not, as it we're, um complicit, um no. Sorry.

He's hardly likely to win a round of "Call My Bluff" let alone defend the Secrets of the Nation from a determined interrogator from Pakistan, Morocco or, um, Americaland, is he?

Seriously, is there ANYONE who DOESN'T at least vaguely SUSPECT that we are up to our fluffy NECKS in complicity with the torture of British and former Gitmo resident Mr Binyam Mohammed?

Oh it could all be an enormous COINCIDENCE, couldn't it? By an incredible MISCHANCE, British MI5 agents JUST HAPPENED to be in the cell in Pakistan asking him questions BETWEEN some rather unpleasant bouts of what they no doubt innocently assumed to be physical exercise.

And then by a truly ASTOUNDING stroke of misfortune, one of the same agents was merely passing by in Morocco during what can only have been some dreadful misunderstanding with the electrical contractors. Three times.

Other establishment stooges respected senior figures spinning the party lie line included Environment Secretary Mr Benny Hill on the Andy Marrmite (aka Sophie Rayworth) Show and Mr Dr Kim Philby Howells, Labour chairman of the no-intelligence and no-security committee on the The Today Programme.

"We are resolutely opposed to it, and that remains the case," said Mr Benny firmly, before completely undermining that with his Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card (not applicable in Pakistan, Morrocco, etc): "Other countries, they're responsible for what they do, but the position of the British government is absolutely clear."

Translation: it's not OUR fault.

And Mr Dr Kim was even less SUBTLE:

"We can't give a guarantee, and no government on earth can give a guarantee that somebody who's picked up and held in another country hasn't had their... human rights abused in some way."

No, you can't guarantee that no one will be tortured. More is the pity. But if you had an OUNCE of HONOUR what you COULD guarantee is that you would NAME and SHAME any Government up to and including our own, that uses even by extension torture; you could guarantee to refuse sharing of intelligence with such regimes, because exchanging OUR intelligence for the PROBABLY-WORSE-THAN-USELESS products of forcing someone to say what they think you want to hear is just pouring resources down the very-unsanitary TOILET.

You could even, my goodness, INTERVENE to try and put a STOP to it! If you know someone is in a cell with the man in the rubber apron, send in the ambassador; if you realise that the unscheduled aeroplane en route from Talibaptistland to Talibanland via a British airstrip is probably extraordinarily rendering someone, stop it taking off again.

Freedom, prosperity, human rights, not being EXPLODED, not being TORTURED. These are the things that we are SUPPOSED to have on offer, instead of the certainties of a theocratic tyranny.

Can we PLEASE try and remember that.


Remember: Captain Scarlet's feeble excuses are indestructible; yours are not. Do not try to imitate him.


.

Day 2381: Diary of a Nobody aka Lord Blairimort versus the Truth

Monday:


"Mr Alistair Campbell, are you are lying liar who tells lies?"

That was the question that seemed to have slipped Mr Humpy's mind when he was interviewing Lord Blairimort's one-time Spin-Assassin[*] Mr Alistair Henchman on the The Today Programme.

[*] no, not a "doctor"; doctors make people BETTER.

This interview was part of Mr Henchman's ADVERTISING JUNKET aimed at selling more copies of his new book: "The Secret Diary of Tom Riddle aka Lord Blairimort".

Like the magical diary in Harry Potter, Mr Henchman's book MYSTERIOUSLY absorbs all the bad news stories and regurgitates a cleverly PARTIAL version of the truth. That is PARTIAL in the sense of one-sided as well as PARTIAL in the sense of NOT "the whole truth and nothing but the truth".

This is a process that we DO NOT call "sexing up" unless we want the full farce sorry force of a judicial inquiry to come crashing down on us like a tidal wave of whitewash.


And this is PROBABLY why Mr Humpy just sat there and took it while Mr Henchman claimed loudly that the Hutton Inquiry had ENTIRELY CLEARED the government, Lord Blairimort and most importantly Mr Henchman himself of ever, ever, ever uttering an untruth.

This is of course TRUE…

Well, at least it is JUST AS TRUE as the statement: "the Joint Intelligence Committee told us, entirely of their own volition, without ANY threats or electrodes or anything, that there are absolutely definitely certainly weapons of mass destruction in Iraq capable of devastating British territory (okay, bases in Malta) within forty-five minutes."

Lord Hutton, of course, found the BBC to be the ones at fault through the expedient of limiting the terms of his inquiry to precisely thirty seconds out of an early morning interview with Andrew Gilligan in which he made an (unrepeated) off-the-cuff remark that it turned out the BBC were unable to prove AT THE TIME.

i.e. that the Prime Monster's personal hatchetman press spokesperson had intervened to make the evidence in the government's dossier a bit less equivocal and thus the case for flattening a Middle Eastern country a bit more urgent.

The facts that had emerged during the course of his noble lordship's inquiry – as seen on telly by almost everyone – that (a) there were actually NO weapons of mass destruction in Iraq making the dossier factually WRONG; (b) the original dossier from the Joint Intelligence Committee had used phrases like "may have" or "might be" where the final version said "does" and "is"; and (c) Mr Henchman was the one to make the "presentational" changes from "may have" or "might be" to "does" and "is" were all judged to be COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT because the BBC could not have proved it AT THE TIME.

Funnily enough, the public came to the conclusion that Lord Hutton was saying "the BBC are guilty even though they were right and the government are innocent even though the facts show that they are in fact guilty."

Lord Hutton will be appearing in KAFKA or possibly PANTOMIME this year.


Actually, an often OVERLOOKED detail is that there was ANOTHER dossier, the "February Dossier", the one that Mr Henchman originally published and claimed was the work of intelligence officers. But then he had to admit that this was only "true" in the sense that actually the dossier was a ten-year-old graduate thesis that had been downloaded off the internet.

However, Mr Henchman will tell you that you cannot hold this against him because it does not count as a lie since he admitted that it was a lie and therefore it isn’t one.

What Mr Henchman WILL tell you, and Lord Blairimort too and even someone like Mr John Rentoul as recently as a month ago so PERVASIVE has this INSIDIOUS MEME become, is that there have been FOUR inquiries that ALL cleared Lord Blairimort and the government of ANY wrong-doing over the illegal invasion of Iraq.

This too is TRUE…

Well, it is "true" in the same way that it is true that Lord Hutton cleared the government of ever, ever, ever lying and in the same way that it is true that the joint intelligence committee said that there absolutely were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with no help from Mr Henchmen ever.

The "four inquiries" actually refer to inquiries conducted by:

1. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
2. The House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee
3. Lord Hutton, into the events surrounding the death of Doctor David Kelly
4. Lord Butler, into the intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction

First there were the two inquiries by House of Commons committees.

Remember that these were NOT independent committees: both were controlled by the Labour majority on the committee, and both were not only chaired by Labour MPs, but by Labour MPs who had demonstrated their loyalty to Lord Blairimort. Mr Donald Anderson, in particular, often appeared on radio and television defending the government's foreign policy decisions. Ms Anne Taylor is a former government Chief Whip.


1. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
(7 Labour MPs, 3 Conservative MPs, 1 Liberal Democrat MP; Labour Chair)

"The Decision to go to War in Iraq"

Particularly pertinent are point 15:

"We conclude that without access to the intelligence or to those who handled it,
we cannot know if it was in any respect faulty or misinterpreted"

and point 29:

"We conclude that continued refusal by Ministers to allow this committee access
to intelligence papers and personnel, on this inquiry and more generally, is
hampering it in the work which Parliament has asked it to carry out."

So it is important to remember that their final conclusion (point 33)

"Consistent with the conclusions reached elsewhere in this Report, we conclude
that Ministers did not mislead Parliament."

should be qualified by the fact that they themselves say THEY CANNOT ACTUALLY KNOW THAT, and that Ministers have prevented them from doing their job.


In addition, the committee concluded that Lord Blairimort DID, albeit inadvertently, misrepresent to, if not mislead, parliament over the second dossier (the February dossier that became known as the "dodgy" dossier). Point 22:

"We further conclude that by referring to the document on the floor of the House
as “further intelligence” the Prime Minister—who had not been informed of its
provenance, doubts about which only came to light several days later—
misrepresented its status and thus inadvertently made a bad situation worse."

And the government was roundly condemned by the committee for producing the February dossier in the first place. Point 23:

"We conclude that it is wholly unacceptable for the Government to plagiarise
work without attribution and to amend it without either highlighting the
amendments or gaining the assent of the original author. We further conclude
that it was fundamentally wrong to allow such a document to be presented to
Parliament and made widely available without ministerial oversight."

2. The House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee
(5 Labour MPs, 2 Conservative MPs, 1 Liberal Democrat MP, 1 Lord; Labour Chair)

"Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction – Intelligence and Assessments"

They begin by emphasising that they are not considering the correctness of the decision to invade (point A):

" This Report does not judge whether the decision to invade Iraq was correct. It
is the purpose of this Report to examine whether the available intelligence,
which informed the decision to invade Iraq, was adequate and properly assessed
and whether it was accurately reflected in Government publications. "

The conclusions of the report seem rather bizarre, with the benefit of hindsight of course, and can be summarised as "assuming what we thought we knew was right then the government dossiers were right".

For example, from point D:

" Based on the intelligence and the JIC Assessments that we have seen, we accept
that there was convincing intelligence that Iraq had active chemical, biological
and nuclear programmes and the capability to produce chemical and biological
weapons. Iraq was also continuing to develop ballistic missiles. All these
activities were prohibited under UNSCRs. "

Convincing the intelligence might have been, but the committee fails to address its accuracy. It was subsequently shown to be totally wrong.

Points F and G address the "45 minute claim"

" That the Iraqis could use chemical or biological battlefield weapons rapidly
had already been established in previous conflicts and the reference to the
20–45 minutes in the JIC Assessment added nothing fundamentally new to the UK’s
assessment of the Iraqi battlefield capability. Additionally, the JIC Assessment
did not precisely reflect the intelligence provided by the SIS."

And

" The JIC did not know precisely which munitions could be deployed from where to
where and the context of the intelligence was not included in the JIC
Assessment. This omission was then reflected in the 24 September dossier, which
we discuss later in the Report."

Which is a polite way of saying that the "45 minute claim" was overstated and not accurate.


The report goes on to list a number of important omissions and deletions that altered the presentation of the intelligence and, in their opinion, undermined the accuracy

Point J:

" Whilst the 9 September 2002 JIC Assessment was a balanced assessment of
scenarios, it did not highlight in the key judgements the uncertainties and gaps in the UK’s knowledge about the Iraqi biological and chemical weapons."

Point N:

" The use of the phrase “continued to produce chemical and biological weapons” in the foreword and the absence of detail on amounts of agents produced in the executive summary and main text could give the impression that Saddam was actively producing both chemical and biological weapons and significant amounts of agents. However, the JIC did not know what had been produced and in what quantities…"

Point O:

" Saddam was not considered a current or imminent threat to mainland UK, nor did the dossier say so. The first draft of the Prime Minister’s foreword contained the following sentence:

“The case I make is not that Saddam could launch a nuclear attack on London or another part of the UK (He could not).”

This shows that the Government recognised that the nature of the threat that Saddam posed was not directly to mainland UK. It was unfortunate that this point was removed from the published version of the foreword and not highlighted elsewhere."

Point P:

" The dossier was for public consumption and not for experienced readers of intelligence material. The 45 minutes claim, included four times, was always likely to attract attention because it was arresting detail that the public had not seen before. As the 45 minutes claim was new to its readers, the context of the intelligence and any assessment needed to be explained. The fact that it was assessed to refer to battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack, should have been highlighted in the dossier. The omission of the context and assessment allowed speculation as to its exact meaning. This was unhelpful to an understanding of this issue."

Point S:

" We regard the initial failure by the MoD to disclose that some staff had put their concerns in writing to their line managers as unhelpful and potentially misleading. This is not excused by the genuine belief within the DIS that the concerns had been expressed as part of the normal lively debate that often surrounds draft JIC Assessments within the DIS. We are disturbed that after the first evidence session, which did not cover all the concerns raised by the DIS staff, the Defence Secretary decided against giving instructions for a letter to be written to us outlining the concerns."

Nevertheless, they felt able to conclude that (point L):

"…We are content that the JIC has not been subjected to political pressures, and that its independence and impartiality has not been compromised in any way. The dossier was not “sexed up” by Alastair Campbell or anyone else."

3. The Hutton Inquiry

As described above, Lord Hutton chose to interpret his terms of reference "into the circumstances of Dr David Kelly's death" to mean "why were the BBC to blame?" This meant he ignored any events that may or may not have occurred in Dr Kelly's place of work, namely a government office, or the actions of any of those people for whom Dr Kelly might have worked, namely Lord Blairimort and his government, and instead focussed on a man who… had met him.

4. The Butler Report
Lord Butler was asked to inquire into "the intelligence" that related to the decision to invade. He was specifically ruled out of looking into the role of any politician, and in particular the role of the Prime Monster in deciding that, hell, we might as well explode them anyway.

The Liberal Democrats refused to endorse the inquiry because of its ludicrously restricted terms of reference. They refused to endorse the inquiry IN ADVANCE because they examined the ludicrously restricted terms of reference and found that no meaningful conclusions could be reached by an inquiry so bound by the government.

At the time, Sir Mr the Merciless said:

"Don't you understand ... that following the public response to the Hutton report that an inquiry that excludes politicians from scrutiny is unlikely to command public confidence..."

The Conservatories joined the inquiry, signing up to the government’s ludicrously restricted terms of reference without thinking. Later they changed their minds and pulled out, complaining that the ludicrously restricted terms of reference– gasp! – looked like fixing the result.

In the end, Mr Something of the Night would famously bury himself by telling Lord Blairimort:

"The intelligence was wrong but we'd have voted for the war anyway!"

The Butler Inquiry actually reported that the intelligence had been "unreliable", which is hardly a resounding "not guilty", and Lord B himself subsequently went on record to express his mild surprise that no one had asked him if his report meant that the Prime Monster should resign. The answer would have been "yes".

The general public eventually concluded that Lord Butler had found the government guilty but had accidentally let them off the hook by expressing this in "mandarin" rather than "tabloid".


So, the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee Report cannot have cleared Lord Blairimort, because it did not address itself to the issue of whether Lord Blairimort was right or wrong to lead us to war against Iraq, nor whether he was truthful in what he told Parliament or the public.

The Hutton Report cannot have cleared Lord Blairimort, because it did not address itself to the issue of whether Lord Blairimort was right or wrong to lead us to war against Iraq, nor whether he was truthful in what he told Parliament or the public.

The Butler Report cannot have cleared Lord Blairimort, because it did not address itself to the issue of whether Lord Blairimort was right or wrong to lead us to war against Iraq, nor whether he was truthful in what he told Parliament or the public.

Only the Foreign Affairs Committee actually addressed the pertinent questions, ironically the committee that held its inquiry soonest after the war and had least access to witnesses or information. Subsequent events have cast considerable doubt over whether the FASC would have reached the same conclusions had they had access to all the information, not only the report of the Iraq Survey Group that Iraq probably had NO WMDs at the time of the invasion but also testimony of witnesses to the Hutton Inquiry.

So, remember that next time someone says that Lord Blairimort was “cleared four times”. THAT is how far you can get with the "TRUTH" from Lord Blairimort and his apologists.

The revelation in Mr Henchman's diaries that the Labour ministers like the Minister for Magical Accidents and nice Dr John Reid (whichever job he happened to be in at the time) had their doubts about invading Iraq just goes to show how FEEBLE Lord Blairimort's Cabinet were.

OBVIOUSLY, Lord Blairimort himself never had a moment of doubt. This is because Lord Blairimort is a MONOMANIAC!


Anyway, the general opinion of Mr Henchman's diary is that it is NOT VERY GOOD!

Not interesting enough to be a Wedgy Benn and not RUDE enough to be an Alan Clarke… mainly because all of the JUICY bits have been edited out. There are still SOME funny moments, though, as this list of so-called HIGHLIGHTS shows. Sort of.

Day 2352: Lost in Translation

Sunday:


Mr Frown seems eager to usher in a whole NEW ERA of the Cult of Spin, er, not being dead at all, actually…

The day was going SO WELL for my beloved SARAH TEATHER with lots of lovely news coverage and lots of opportunities for her to pop up on telly and talk about the latest people to say that the Labour’s obsession with testing, testing, testing was doing for education, education, education what their Middle East policy has done for peace, peace, peace.

The General Teaching Council have put out a statement saying that we do too many tests on school children, and because it is a whole new test every year, then we cannot compare one year with the next or the last. Lovely Sarah has been saying this since last year, and the General Teaching Council are saying she is RIGHT!

Well, the government wasn’t happy with THAT. So it was time to deploy their own miniaturised storm-trooper: the Minister for the Representation of Bullying Cardinals, Mr Ruth Kelly, with a mission to derail.

Irritatingly, it worked too.

A few SEEMINGLY ill-chosen words on the BBC’s the Politics Show about Councils providing essential translation services so that people can UNDERSTAND the help that’s available to them, and suddenly there’s a whole DIFFERENT agenda leading the news. Out with fluffy, liberal ideas about not testing kiddies to destruction, in with hard-edged right-wing suspicion of people who are different, “…coming over here and not taking our language, harroom, harrumph”.

Honestly, at the very least someone should have reminded the Minister that the services provided by local councils are FOR THE LOCAL COUNCIL TO DECIDE.