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ITV reports

Blunkett to publish memoirs
10.46AM, Mon Apr 3 2006

Former Cabinet minister David Blunkett is to publish his memoirs in October.

[...]

Bloomsbury Publishing promised The Blunkett Tapes will be a "rigorously honest self-portrait as well as an astonishingly cogent and intimate insight into New Labour's years in power, the personalities, the triumphs and the debates".

The memoirs were originally recorded on to tape as "journals" by Mr Blunkett but have now been transcribed and will also be published in Braille.

Mr Blunkett said: "I have chosen to work with Bloomsbury because they understood the nature of the book I wanted to write and will harness all their publishing expertise to the project."

Presumably the inevitable leaks from this book will be used to manipulate the Gordon Brown / Tony Blair power struggle before and during the Labour Party Conference in the Autumn.

Why are former Cabinet Ministers allowed to reveal confidential discussions from whilst they were in office, but nobody else is ?

We doubt if Boris Johnson, or any other media publisher in the UK or any blogger will actually publish the alleged "Bush / Blair / Al Jazeera Memo". Before anybody starts emailing all and sundry with copies of any alleged Memo, please check that it is not a hoax infected with a computer virus etc.!

Some questions for the media and for bloggers who are claiming that they would be willing to publish thiis secret document, if it magically fell into their hands, despite the risk of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act 1989 etc.:

1. How easy are you making it for some anonymous insider whistleblower source to actually send you any such leaked Memos ?

2. Do you publish your Email Address ?

3. Do you publish , for example, a PGP Public Encryption key like ours ?

4. Do you publish a Telephone or Mobile Phone Number ?

5. Do you publish a Fax number ?

6. Do you publish your Postal Address ?

7. How will you be able to tell if the person on the other end of a phone, email, fax etc., willing to meet you in a Pub, to discuss publication of the Memo, is genuine, and is not a fraudster or an agent provocateur ?

8. How exactly are you planning to authenticate any such memo which "just happens" to be sent to you ?

9. How will you protect your whistleblower source from discovery and prosecution ?

10. Why would any insider whistleblower who did have access to such information actually give you an exclusive story, rather than calling an open press conference, if they plan to take a principlied stand in public ?

11. Will you remember to inspect the alleged memo for meta data if it is in, say, Microsoft Word .doc format e.g. Author name etc. ?

12. Will you check such a Word document in case an old version of Word has been used, which betrays a GUID with an embedded MAC or IP address in it ?

13. WIll you remember to copy any poorly censored portions from an Adobe .pdf into a text editor to reveal the underlying hidden text ?

BlairWatch has a useful summary of the story and a list of people who have signed up to the plan. There is even a Campaign Button:

We will not be publishing any fake memos or even any "genuine" ones released as part of some NuLabour spin and disinformation campaign.attempt to "manage" this news story.

How do NuLabour Ministers get brainwashed into making NuSpeak declarations, which even to supporters of ID cards must sound hollow and false ?

Spy Blog notes that:

"The NuLabour Home Secretary Charles Clarke seems to expect us to believe his statement during the Second Reading debate that

"I argue that the ID card system is in fact a bulwark against the surveillance or Big Brother society, and not a further contribution to it."

Is it terrorists, serious organised criminal, illegal immigrants, benefit fraudsters or "identity thieves" (the presumed statutory targets of the Identity Cards Bill) who are setting up multi-billion pound technological mass surveillance infrastructures to spy on everyone in the UK, or is it the NuLabour Government which is planning to do so ?"

Written answers, Monday, 23 May 2005, Home Department, People Trafficking

"Sandra Gidley (Romsey, LDem)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on Government action to counter people trafficking.

Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office)

The Government have a comprehensive strategy for tackling trafficking in human beings which includes prevention, legislation, law enforcement, international co-operation and the support of victims. Human trafficking will be a priority during our EU presidency and is on the agenda for the G8 summit. The Government provide £20 million per year to Reflex, the multi-agency task force which co-ordinates the enforcement response to organised immigration crime, including people"

How can NuLabour pretend to be leading the EU and the G8 on "human trafficing" (the sex and slave labour trade), when the UK Government has not signed or ratified the Council of Europe Convention on action against trafficking in human beings ?