Recently in Media Spin Category

Gordon Brown has ramped up the pre-election "phoney war", with the peculiar propaganda slogan:

"A Future Fair For All"

This is apparently part of "Operation Fightback", a military / police style propaganda allusion, which, according to The Times, seems to have been stolen from the equally odious British National Party !

In an Orwellian attempt at re-writing history, Labour politicians are simply pretending that they have not been in power for 13 years, and are somehow not to blame for any of the mess which they have dragged the United Kingdom in to.

A more believable slogan promise from Labour would be:

"A Future Fail For All"

The anonymous media briefings and spin (e.g. in The Times) have started up again, that somehow, after the Irish referendum vote on the Lisbon Treaty, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, is somehow set to be appointed as the unelected President of the European Council when the Treaty is ratified.

How likely that Tony Blair will give up his lucrative money making speaking tours and his supposedly high profile international diplomatic role as a Middle East peace envoy ? He benefits financially and prestige wise, with his Office of Tony Blair in the 18th Century John Adams house, number 9 Grosvenor Square, London

This is paid for , to the tune of more than half a million pounds a year for the office rent alone, by the Quartet on the MIddle East i.e. the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the United Nations and the European Union, for some vague, unattainable Peace Envoy role in the Middle East. It is also a prestigious office, near the US Embassy etc. useful for his lucrative speaking tours, investment bank directorships and for his Sports Foundation and Faith Foundation.

None of these activities are compatible with a "President of Europe" role - but desperate, grasping politicians may choose to overlook this.

The European Union faces many big problems in the future, but Tony Blair is part of those problems, not an answer to them.

What can you do to Stop Tony Blair ?

1) Lobby your elected politicians

Write to your Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament, via the
http://www.writetothem.com/, expressing your opposition to the idea of a political comeback for Tony Blair as the unelected President of the European Council.

2) Display some web buttons on your blog etc..

Feel free to use these smaller logos on your own blog pages etc.

250 x 85

150 x 51

100 x 34

3) Stop Blair petition

We are not alone in opposing the very idea of Tony Blair being inflicted on UK and European citizens, in a position of power and influence, again, without any democratic mandate whatsoever.

There is a European Union wide petition website, currently with over 34,000 signatures, opposed to such an insulting nomination

Stop Blair! - http://www.stopblair.eu/

which links to the online petition at

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopblair/sign.html

The Times has the worrying report that:

From The Times
October 2, 2009

'President' Blair waits on voters of Ireland

Philip Webster, David Charter, Roger Boyes and Charles Bremner

Tony Blair is in line to be proclaimed Europe's first president within weeks if the Irish vote "yes" in today's referendum.

Senior British sources have told The Times that President Sarkozy has decided that Mr Blair is the best candidate and that Angela Merkel has softened her opposition.

"Senior British sources" - who exactly ?

The former Prime Minister could be ushered into the European Union's top post at a summit on October 29.

Ms Merkel, the German Chancellor, was opposed to Mr Blair because she believed that the post should go to a country that had adopted the euro but British sources said that she may now be "biddable" if Germany and France get plum posts in the new European Commission.

German sources insisted that it was far from clear that Ms Merkel had changed her mind and there were suggestions in Paris that Mr Sarkozy was happy to be seen to be backing Mr Blair because he knew that Ms Merkel would scupper the appointment.

"German sources" - who exactly ?

Mr Blair, whose claims are being advanced by ministers in London, will not enter the race unless he is certain of winning. He is wary of giving up his many other commitments, spanning business, the Middle East, climate change and his Faith Foundation.

[...]

Which "ministers in London" exactly ?

Tony Blair and his Labour party cronies cannot be trusted to defend our human rights and liberties - they literally practice Orwellian doublethink and newspeak , and are utterly ignorant of high technology and incompetent with basic economics.

He must not be allowed to become the unelected "President of Europe", something which which is felt strongly both by supporters and opponents of the European Union !.

There is a petition, with over 34,000 signatures opposing the idea of Tony Blair becoming the unelected "President of the European Union".

See

http://www.stopblair.eu/

which leads to

Petition

We, European citizens of all origins and of all political persuasions, wish to express our total opposition to the nomination of Tony Blair to the Presidency of the European Council

Any UK or EU politicians or bureaucrats who propose or support the insulting idea of "President" Blair, especially those who do not sincerely believe in it, but are just trying to score political points of their rivals, should also be punished by the electorate.

The mainstream media are full of 10 year retrospectives and endless interviews with Labour politicians, now that Tony Blair has at last actually announced that he will step down as Prime Minister on 27th June 2007.

Note how there is no mention of the various NuLabour sleaze scandals, "cash for honours" ,criminal investigation or the destruction of our civil liberties and freedoms etc. in any of the TV soundbite roundups of Blair's 10 years in power.

Will we have to suffer this saturation coverage all over again on the 27th of June as well ?

Tomorrow, no doubt, they will be full of Gordon Brown's media spin, as he officially starts his "coronation" procession to power at Number 10 Downing Street.

What bad news will the NuLabour spin doctors and apparatchiki on say the home Office or the new Ministry of Justice or the Treasury have smuggled out during today's "good day to bury bad news" ?

The Daily Mirror reveals that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has admitted to having an extra-marital affiar with his secretary.

This scoop would normally have been the headline story in the rest of the media, but for Home Secretary Charles Clarkes attacks on the media on Monday, followed by yesterdays admission of utter incompetence by the Home Office in not considering for deportation, at least 1023 foreign criminals who hhd been sent to prison over the last 7 years.

Apparently over 160 cases were ones where there was an reccomendation from the Court which sentenced these offenders that they should be deported when they had serveed their sentence.

How is it that the bureaucracies of th ePrison and Probation and Immihration services, all of which report to the Home Secreatry, cannot coordinate something so simple, where the people to deported are not hiding somewhere "underground" as illegal immigrants, but are actually physically locked up in prison ?

Apparently 288 of the total were not delat with properly since August last year, when Charles Clarke had been warned by the National Audit Office of the problem back in July.

It therefore appears as if the problem has got even worse, directly under the mis-management of Charles Clarke

Charles Clarke is refusing to resign, so far, but how why should he be allowed to continue as Home Secreatry ?

Surely he has no special skills or experience which would make sorting out the problem immediately any swifter ?

Charles Clarke now seems to be claiming that he did offer to resign before last Christmas, according to this Press Association report

Ironically, even doubly disgraced ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett has, apparently, called for "heads to roll" , although, not, of course that of Charles Clarke, at least in public.

It was Blunkett who also presided over the same incompetent and shambolic Immigration and Nationality Directorate scandals, which lead to the resignation of Home Office Immigration Minsiter Beverkly Hughes is, of course partly to blame.

WIll this latest demonstration of sheer bureaucratic incompetence be blamed on the "computer system" and lead to a demand for "more resources" and even more legislation ?

Who is the likely replacement for Charles Clarke as Home Secretary, ?

Will he or she actully concentrate on getting the Home Office to fulfill its plain vanilla basic statutory duties competently, instead of trying to social engnieer society with a flurry of ill thought out and ever more complicated legislation and unworkable high tech "magic" technological fixes, which they are incompetent to implement ?

Will the other NuLabour Cabinet Minsters like Tessa "9 mortgaes" Jowell and Lord "Honours for City Academies" Adonis and Margaret "Let's hype up the BNP" Hodge, be thankful that the limited attention span of the press and broadcast media have now seemingly forgotten about, their recent scandals ?

Where is the Tony Blair / Lord Levy "Loans for Peerages" scandal being reported now ?

More good analysis and comments at Blairwatch

The death of John Profumo, aged 91, the former Minister for War in the Conservative Government of Harold Macmillan, is a reminder of just how dishonourable contemporary politicians have become.

The Profumo resignation scandal in 1963 was a massive media circus, of the kind which we are nowadays all too familar.

What is different with todays politicians, is what they have done after having been forced to resign.

None of them have spent 40 years doing charity work to atone for their betrayal of public trust.

Neither Tories like Archer, Aitken, Hamilton, Mellor, Norris, nor the LibDems like , Thorpe, Kennedy and Oaten, nor NuLabour's Robinson, Byers, Hughes and especially the recidivists such as Mandelson and Blunkett, deserve a fraction of the respect which is due to the way in which John Profumo CBE conducted his post political career.

The BBC

Within days of his political departure, Mr Profumo turned up at the refuge centre Toynbee Hall and asked to help with the washing up.

He stayed for nearly 40 years, using his political skills to raise huge funds, and expanding the charity's activities to include social programmes and youth training.

His wife also gave her time to helping others, working until her death in 1998 for the leprosy charity Lepra.

John Profumo was awarded the CBE in 1975.

The Buncefield fuel depot explosion seems to have flummoxed the Labour Party website spin machine.

The old website (see the Google cached versions) was hosted by

Northgate Information Solutions, Boundary Way, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7HU.

See how close their building is to the Buncefield oil depot on this map.

Northgate Information Solutions do a lot of web work for the Government.

They used to employ Sir Stephen Lander as a non-executive director, between the time that he was the Director General of the Security Service MI5 and his appointment as the Chairman of the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

For this company to be hosting the Labour Party website seems like a conflict of interest.

Statement regarding damage to Headquarters at Hemel Hempstead

The temporary website is hosted by Pipex:

http://www.labour.org.uk [212.67.198.214]
has a message:

www.labour.org.uk

Welcome to the Labour Party website. The normal site is temporarily unavailable following an explosion at Buncefield oil depot in Hemel Hempstead on Sunday 11 December.

Part of the offices of our hosting company were extensively damaged, resulting in the loss of our site.

We will be back online as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, if you have any questions, please call us on 08705 900200 or email us at info@new.labour.org.uk

new.labour.org.uk address does not seem to resolve via DNS anymore, although presumably the spam servers at mail.labour.org.uk are still working.

However, if you try

http://[212.67.198.214

You get what appears to be a small online gallery of some old photos of an NUJ union picket line outside the offices of the The Rochdale Observer, circa 2002:

"Rochdale
Paul Herrmann
20:05:02 "

Presumably this is Paul Herrmann's profile

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.

Tony Blair is quoted in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph about sex slave human trafficking.

Astonishingly he seems to be planning to increase even more the powers of the Police, including the new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), even before it has swung into action, but he is still failing to sign or ratify the Council for Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking of Human Beings

He told the Sunday Telegraph: “I don’t think you can deal with crime in the way we used to deal with it. Some of these gangs are vicious. We’ve just established the Serious Organised Crime Agency … [but] I am convinced [its] powers are not sufficient. You need to find ways of making their life difficult.

Spy Blog and BlairWatch seem to be the only other people in the British political blogosphere who are interested in this.

The Sharpener has a fair review of the heavily trailed "A Very Social Secretary", about some of the David Blunkett scandals, with which the new digital TV channel More4 was launched on Monday night.

There are several events involving Blunkett since his appointment as Home Secretary in 2001, which did not make it into this fictional dramatic account: