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Post by Moses on Feb 1, 2005 23:04:04 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on Feb 2, 2005 3:33:25 GMT -5
Cecil Rhodes’ “Confession of Faith” of 1877Rhodes originally wrote this on June 2, 1877, in Oxford. Later, that year in Kimberley, he made some additions and changes. What follows is that amended statement. The spelling and grammar errors were in the original.....To myself thinking over the same question the wish came to render myself useful to my country. I then asked myself how could I and after reviewing the various methods I have felt that at the present day we are actually limiting our children and perhaps bringing into the world half the human beings we might owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit that if we had retained America there would at this moment be millions more of English living. I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives. I contend that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars, at this moment had we not lost America I believe we could have stopped the Russian-Turkish war by merely refusing money and supplies. Having these ideas what scheme could we think of to forward this object. I look into history and I read the story of the Jesuits I see what they were able to do in a bad cause and I might say under bad leaders. At the present day I become a member of the Masonic order I see the wealth and power they possess the influence they hold and I think over their ceremonies and I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end. The idea gleaming and dancing before ones eyes like a will-of-the-wisp at last frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is probable, it is possible. I once heard it argued by a fellow in my own college, I am sorry to own it by an Englishman, that it was good thing for us that we have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but even from an American’s point of view just picture what they have lost, look at their government, are not the frauds that yearly come before the public view a disgrace to any country and especially their’s which is the finest in the world. Would they have occurred had they remained under English rule great as they have become how infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and elevating influences of English rule, think of those countless 000’s of Englishmen that during the last 100 years would have crossed the Atlantic and settled and populated the United States. Would they have not made without any prejudice a finer country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants? .... Put your mind into another train of thought. Fancy Australia discovered and colonised under the French flag, what would it mean merely several millions of English unborn that at present exist we learn from the past and to form our future. We learn from having lost to cling to what we possess. We know the size of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.To forward such a scheme what a splendid help a secret society would be a society not openly acknowledged but who would work in secret for such an object.I contend that there are at the present moment numbers of the ablest men in the world who would devote their whole lives to it. I often think what a loss to the English nation in some respects the abolition of the Rotten Borough System has been. .... Do men like the great Pitt, and Burke and Sheridan not now to exist. I contend they do. There are men now living with I know no other term the [Greek term] of Aristotle but there are not ways for enabling them to serve their Country. They live and die unused unemployed. What has the main cause of the success of the Romish Church? The fact that every enthusiast, call it if you like every madman finds employment in it. Let us form the same kind of society a Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society which should have members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should watch the English youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every thousand would have the mind and feelings for such an object, he should be tried in every way, he should be tested whether he is endurant, possessed of eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such, then elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his County. He should then be supported if without means by the Society and sent to that part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed. Take another case, let us fancy a man who finds himself his own master with ample means of attaining his majority whether he puts the question directly to himself or not, still like the old story of virtue and vice in the Memorabilia a fight goes on in him as to what he should do. Take if he plunges into dissipation there is nothing too reckless he does not attempt but after a time his life palls on him, he mentally says this is not good enough, he changes his life, he reforms, he travels, he thinks now I have found the chief good in life, the novelty wears off, and he tires, to change again, he goes into the far interior after the wild game he thinks at last I’ve found that in life of which I cannot tire, again he is disappointed. He returns he thinks is there nothing I can do in life? Here I am with means, with a good house, with everything that is to be envied and yet I am not happy I am tired of life he possesses within him a portion of the [Greek term] of Aristotle but he knows it not, to such a man the Society should go, should test, and should finally show him the greatness of the scheme and list him as a member. Take one more case of the younger son with high thoughts, high aspirations, endowed by nature with all the faculties to make a great man, and with the sole wish in life to serve his Country but he lacks two things the means and the opportunity, ever troubled by a sort of inward deity urging him on to high and noble deeds, he is compelled to pass his time in some occupation which furnishes him with mere existence, he lives unhappily and dies miserably. Such men as these the Society should search out and use for the furtherance of their object. ( In every Colonial legislature the Society should attempt to have its members prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance of our Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press for the press rules the mind of the people. The Society should always be searching for members who might by their position in the world by their energies or character forward the object but the ballot and test for admittance should be severe) Once make it common and it fails. Take a man of great wealth who is bereft of his children perhaps having his mind soured by some bitter disappointment who shuts himself up separate from his neighbours and makes up his mind to a miserable existence. To such men as these the society should go gradually disclose the greatness of their scheme and entreat him to throw in his life and property with them for this object. I think that there are thousands now existing who would eagerly grasp at the opportunity. Such are the heads of my scheme.For fear that death might cut me off before the time for attempting its development I leave all my worldly goods in trust to S. G. Shippard and the Secretary for the Colonies at the time of my death to try to form such a Society with such an object.
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Post by Moses on Feb 2, 2005 3:36:58 GMT -5
On September 19, 1877, Rhodes drafted his first will; at that time, he had an estate of only about £10,000. (Although he changed his will quite a number of times in years following, the objective remained the same. After his death, the directors of the Rhodes Trust set up the Rhodes Scholarships as the best way to achieve his objectives.) The first clause of the 1877 will bequeathed his wealth as follows:
To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity.
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Post by Moses on Mar 10, 2005 15:46:42 GMT -5
Blair refuses to tone down bill [/size] Published: 10 March 2005 LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday rejected further concessions over his battered anti-terrorism bill and dared his opponents to vote it down just weeks before expected national elections. Confident about the "verdict of the country", a combative Blair told a restive parliament that he rejected Conservative demands for the bill to expire on November 30 unless it is redrafted and reintroduced. "We can review it but it should not be subject to a sunset clause," Blair told the House of Commons during a heated weekly question-and-answer session. "We have made concessions we think are reasonable." Home Secretary Charles Clarke had hours earlier announced fresh concessions after the bill suffered many setbacks in both houses of parliament, where rebels from the ruling Labour party sided with the opposition in several rounds of voting. Clarke told the BBC his government was ready to offer amendments allowing a judge to review every measure used to keep watch on terror suspects, restrict their access to communications or limit their movements. He said that the bill, once adopted, should be reviewed annually by parliament, but not be subject to a "sunset clause". The Conservative party clung to its demand for the clause that would force a November 30 expiry.
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Post by Moses on Mar 30, 2005 8:24:02 GMT -5
Teachers Unite to Fight City Academy SchemeNCLB, British style. Unions accuse Blair of privatisation by stealth. Britain's two largest teachers organisations joined forces yesterday to condemn Tony Blair's city academy programme, intended to transform failing schools. The unions condemned it as the private sector's "Trojan horse" within the state education system, saying to would lead to "chaos and confusion". Members of the largest classroom union, the National Union of Teachers, voted unanimously to halt all planned academies through a nationally coordinated campaign involving staff, parents and students. At the same time, the president of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers told its conference in Brighton in his opening address that the initiative amounted to privatisation by stealth. Peter McLoughlin said the government's decision to press ahead with the £5bn scheme in the face of mounting opposition was based on "slavish adherence to ideology". NUT members at their annual conference in Gateshead unanimously backed a motion criticising the programme as a fundamental threat to fair state education. City academies cream off the brightest children from neighbouring schools, cost twice as much as an average comprehensive and are vulnerable to the influence of religious fundamentalists, the motion said. Speakers from schools earmarked for academy status told the union's executive committee to campaign against the creation of 200 academies across England by 2010, complaining that their union had been slow to respond at national level. Academies, designed to turn around failing inner city comprehensives, are semi-independent schools set up with private sector sponsorship but generously funded with tax payers' cash. Seventeen have been set up so far but the government wants more to be opened as soon as possible. Proposing the NUT motion, Alan Bradley, from Westminster where two academies are planned, said: "Academies are the Trojan horse aimed at the citadel and the heart of comprehensive education." The motion said academies were vulnerable to the influence of their sponsors, including "religious fundamentalists". Mr Bradley said: "It is whole sorry carnival - public school headteachers, evangelical car dealers and behind them multinational corporations. It's throwing out rational thought and bringing in creationism. What next? A GCSE in spell casting?" The first standing ovation for a delegate at this NUT conference was given to Islington teacher Ken Muller, who used the Freedom of Information Act to release paperwork which revealed that the former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead overruled his own inspectors when he failed Islington Green school in north London in 1997. He accused Mr Woodhead of "educational vandalism" and said he should be "named and shamed" along with the then education secretary, David Blunkett, and Mr Blair, who rejected the school for his own children. His amendment to the main motion urging the education secretary, Ruth Kelly, to overturn the decision and calling for the abolition of the education watchdog, Ofsted, was backed unanimously. Last week the Association of Teachers and Lecturers also voted to halt the academy programme. The NUT general secretary, Steve Sinnott, said yesterday that Mr Blair and his ministers would be "very foolish" if they ignored the depth of opposition to academies. "The whole of the teaching profession - 500,000 teachers - is opposed to the programme." ....
— Rebecca Smithers and Matthew Taylor The Guardian2005-03-29 education.guardian.co.uk/newschools/story/0,14729,1447336,00.html
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Post by Moses on Apr 1, 2005 17:43:05 GMT -5
The good news about terrorismPaul Robinson
04/02/05 "The Spectator" - - ‘We are facing the gravest threat that this nation has ever faced.’ Elizabeth I, speaking of the Spanish Armada? Winston Churchill, in the aftermath of Dunkirk? No. Home Office minister Baroness Scotland on Newsnight, justifying the new Prevention of Terrorism Act by reference to the threat from al-Qa’eda. ‘Hang on,’ I said to myself on hearing the Baroness, ‘that can’t be right.’ My mum can remember lying in bed hearing bombs drop, and she once saw a V1 go over and heard the engine cut out as she watched. As an army officer a decade ago I used to have to check under my car for IRA bombs every time I went out. Army officers don’t have to do that any more. The gravest threat ever? Surely not. But as an academic, I am loath to scoff without investigating the facts. Since my speciality is international security, I attend many conferences with and about the military-industrial establishment. With a few exceptions, I hear the same view with monotonous regularity — the world is more dangerous than ever before, the threat from Islamist terrorism is unlike anything we have ever known, our way of life and our very existence are menaced. Challenge this accepted wisdom and everybody looks at you as if you are an idiot. What is it they know that I don’t? <br> Not a lot, as it turns out. Vested interests are involved. Ever since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact eliminated the need for 90 per cent of our armed forces, the defence establishment has been working overtime to justify its continued existence. Similarly, ever since the disintegration of the USSR ended the threats from Soviet subversion and KGB espionage and put most of MI5 out of a job, the security service has brilliantly re-invented itself as an anti-terrorist agency. Over the past 15 years military planners, the intelligence and security services and security experts in academia have pulled off a brilliant confidence trick, convincing the public that, despite the visible signs of peace breaking out, the world is actually growing ever more dangerous. Their basic thesis is that during the Cold War there was a degree of stability which kept a lid on conflicts, and provided some certainty in the sphere of international relations. After 1991 these Good Old Days came to an end. Now we face not one stolid and predictable enemy, but numerous insane and suicidal ones. We can only wish to be as safe as my mother wondering where that V1 was going to land. If we haven’t evacuated our children, it is because there is no safe place on the planet to send them. <br> Alas for the experts, but luckily for us, the facts do not back this up. Far from being more dangerous, the world is safer now than ever before; and far from being an ever-growing problem, terrorism has been in sharp decline for over a decade. This is not a matter of opinion. It is provable. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) and Canada’s Project Ploughshares both annually track the number of armed conflicts taking place worldwide. Sipri counts only those which result in 1,000 deaths or more in a given year, so its figures are slightly lower. Even so, it agrees with Project Ploughshares that the amount of fighting on the planet is declining. According to Sipri, there were only 19 conflicts in 2003, down from 33 in 1991. With its broader definition, Project Ploughshares reports a decline to 36 in 2003 from a peak of 44 in 1995. <br> More good news follows, I’m afraid. Battle-related deaths rose slightly from 15,000 in 2002 to 20,000 in 2003 because of the Iraq war, but even these figures are substantially down from the annual tolls of 40,000 to 100,000 during the Cold War. Global military expenditure also fell by 11 per cent in real terms between 1992 and 2000, and the Congressional Research Service in Washington notes that international arms sales fell from £22.8 billion in 2000 to £14.3 billion in 2003. In short, there are fewer wars, fewer arms sales and fewer people dying, each year, than at any time since the second world war. <br> So much for the idea that the world is becoming more unstable. What of the second thesis — that global terrorism poses a new and unprecedented threat to our security? Again, the concept turns out to be unsound. I recommend that the fearful visit the excellent website of the Rand Corporation’s MIPT (Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism) database and try out its ‘Incident Analysis Wizard’ (www.tkb.org/ChartModule.jsp). However you fiddle MIPT’s figures, the chart always ends up looking roughly the same — a big peak in terrorism in the late 1970s and early ’80s, followed by a steady reduction ever since. During the 1980s, the number of international terrorist incidents worldwide averaged about 360 a year. By the year 2000, it was down to just 100. In Western Europe, the number has declined from about 200 in the mid-1980s to under 30 in 2004. Even more strikingly, in North America the number of attacks has fallen from over 40 a year in the mid-1970s to under five every year for the past ten years, with the sole exception of 2001. <br> Doubters can also turn to the US State Department’s yearly analyses of international terrorism. These display exactly the same picture. It is sometimes argued that terrorist attacks nowadays cause more deaths than in the past, but even that does not add up — except in the case of 2001. The statistics for worldwide fatalities from terrorism show the same decline as the number of attacks. For every Bali or Madrid bombing now, there was a Beirut, an Air India or a Lockerbie in the past. We seem to have very short memories. Remember the FLQ, the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction, the Baader-Meinhof group, and all the rest of them? All defunct. Even Eta haven’t killed anybody for a couple of years. Bluntly, terrorism is a declining problem, despite our best efforts to provoke it. The reason for all this is simple. The Cold War was not the mythologised happy time of stable co-existence at all. At one point during the Cuban Missile Crisis, only one political officer stood between a Soviet submarine commander and his desire to launch a nuclear torpedo. The Cold War was a period of dangerous instability, with endless proxy wars, coups, insurgencies, revolutions, counter-revolutions, and state-sponsored terrorism. When communism fell, most of these activities came to an end. True, some new wars erupted as the old order crumbled away, and some new terror groups came to the fore, but nothing on the scale of the past. At this point in the argument, people often interrupt me and say, ‘Yes, but what if...?!’ What if rogue states develop weapons of mass destruction, and what if they give them to terrorists, and what if the terrorists find some means to disseminate them, and what if the moon were made of green cheese? And this, it seems, is what the whole of British defence and security policy now comes down to. We didn’t invade Iraq because we knew it had weapons of mass destruction and links with terrorists, but because we didn’t know that it didn’t, and ‘what if...?’ And we are clamping control orders on those now released from Belmarsh not because we know that they are terrorists (if we had enough evidence to know, we’d be able to arrest them properly) but because we don’t know that they aren’t and, again, ‘what if...?’ But what if we are wrong? We imagine that it can’t hurt to assume the worst, and that only inaction has a cost. But that is not true. Our leaders were wrong about Iraq and the cost so far is tens of thousands dead (including 80 British soldiers), and an entire city the size of Cardiff (Fallujah) depopulated and in ruins. Every mistake we make ruins lives. In October 1955 General Douglas MacArthur told the cadets of West Point: ‘The next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets.’ The cadets must have wondered which planet MacArthur himself was from, but his fears were no more far-fetched than the current government-fed paranoia that millions of us are about to be murdered in our beds by Islamofascist superbiotoxins kept at 45 minutes’ readiness in a bedsit in Tipton and activated by psychotic double-amputees. In fact, considering the news last autumn of possible alien communications reaching us from somewhere between the constellations of Pisces and Aries, there appears to be more scientific evidence for bug-eyed space monsters than for the famous Iraqi WMD. ‘If’ the Little Green Men attack with their weapons of alien mass destruction, the carnage would be terrible. Why are we not doing something? What if MacArthur was right? What if indeed.
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Post by Moses on Apr 20, 2005 22:30:30 GMT -5
Don't panicby urban fox, times online correspondentHistory proves a welcome respite to a modern life of paranoia fuelled by scare-mongering politiciansAn hour at the Imperial War Museum sends you blinking out into the sunshine full of patriotic love of all things British, whether you go for the Trench Experience or the Blitz Experience or, as we did at the weekend, for the Children’s War, the story of the evacuation of children from London during the Second World War. It was a strangely moving montage of little leather suitcases and packing lists (boys: one pair of pants; one vest; one pyjamas), pinched urban faces and the recorded baa-ing and moo-ing from the countryside as it must have been 60 years ago. However, it was the mock-up of a suburban wartime house that really did us in. The contrast between the nostalgic domesticity inside and the Enemy outside, circling, implacable, waiting for the kill. The house had stained-glass patterns on the door. It had a sweetly old-fashioned sitting room, with a sewing machine and a half-pinned dress on a dummy and knitting strewn all over the floor. It had an innocent-looking children’s bedroom, with old-fashioned toys and bits of gingham and crochet. And it had a home bomb shelter you could keep in the dining room, which you could use as a table in the daytime if you took the mesh plates off, but which you could also reassemble at night into a claustrophobic little cage and sleep in. Four must have been a tight fit, and there would be no sitting up without careful planning. But I expect the alternative - getting squashed flat when a bomb hit your house - was worse. We came out with lumps in our throats and echoes of Winston Churchill’s voice intoning, “Let people say this was their finest hour,” in our ears (remembered, naturally enough, from the previous weekend’s outing to the RAF Museum in Hendon, where those very words are played over and over again near various cigar-chomping dummies with intelligently lit-up eyes). It was only outside, where among the litter floating around the park were some of the election pamphlets that people are so eager to discard, that I realised what was wrong with this pink-eyed enthusiasm for Churchill’s England. It was too much like the neoconservative visions of today’s reality that are being peddled by both major parties as they hunt for votes: a dark picture of cuddly traditional-style Britishness in danger from the unseen enemies. Going to the exhibition had been like voluntarily subjecting ourselves to a whole hour of party political broadcasts. It’s not entirely Michael Howard or Tony Blair’s fault things have got this way, I suppose. They might both be heading election campaigns warning the confused man in the street that some new Enemy or other will be coming to get him if he doesn’t back their separate - but virtually indistinguishable - tough-on-immigration, tough-on-terrorism, tough-on-crime, tough-on-gypsies, tough-on-turkey-twizzlers policies. But it was George Bush who actually started the “I am Winston Churchill” game. Ever since the new President let it be known back in 2000 that he had put a bust of the British statesman in the White House Oval Office, Churchill has been an icon of the neocons and their new world order. It was a sneaky kind of cultural imperialism, misappropriating a British twentieth-century figure and giving him an American accent and a bad attitude. Especially since what I’ve always taken to be the point of Winston Churchill, but the neocons never seem to remember, is his maxim “jaw-jaw is better than war-war”. Get too sucked into the paranoia of the neocon vision, and there’s a danger you could turn into one of those panickers you read about in the US press, sealing windows with duct tape, keeping terrorist-proof parachutes in your handbag, and voting for whichever politician scares you silliest. Even though the enemies summoned up by our current leaders are shadows compared with the bombs smashing London during the Blitz, anyone who takes politics too seriously these days is a definite candidate for buying a bomb shelter instead of a table. No wonder London exhibitions and cinemas are still full, even though spring is finally here. Sensible people must be crowding indoors to escape the terrors that politicians are trying to arouse in their breasts. If that’s your game, don’t go to the War Museum; the feelings it arouses are too close to election politics for comfort. Play safe. Stick to checking out Queen Maud of Norway’s wardrobe at the V&A. And have a nice day.
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Post by Moses on May 7, 2005 20:13:55 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on May 11, 2005 21:52:36 GMT -5
Interesting distinction: Murdoch backed Blair, but not the Labour Party: (significant, in Parliamentary system): Somewhere else to go Glenda Jackson Thursday May 12, 2005 The Guardian On the eve of the 1997 general election, the Sun splashed with its historic editorial: "We Back Blair!" Praise was lavished on the leader, while his party rated scarcely a mention. For many, the distinction between and endorsement of Tony Blair the individual, rather than the Labour party collectively, passed unnoticed. But for the prime minister it was to define how he was to govern over the years that followed. Bernard Ingham once famously described John Biffen as "a semi-detached member of the cabinet". In Tony Blair we have the nation's first semi-detached prime minister. His strategy has differed. At times the attitude towards his party has been one of barely concealed embarrassment. At others it has come in the form of direct confrontation. But throughout, his message to the electorate has been clear: "I may be leader of the Labour party, but I'm not a part of it." Last Thursday, that strategy fell apart. Some people are still trying to redefine the election result as a triumph. Get real. It's bad enough that we saw our majority slashed by almost 100 seats, lost scores of dedicated MPs and saw our share of the popular vote plummet to a pitiful 35%. But what's unforgivable is the way we let that shambolic, extremist, reactionary political entity called the Conservative party come back from the brink. May 5 will go down in history as the day when the myth of the great Blairite coalition was finally exposed. Tony was able to secure the support of 2 million fewer voters than Neil Kinnock did in 1992, the election that supposedly represents the crucible upon which New Labour was formed. But it is not simply the disconnect with the electorate that is so potentially disastrous for the long-term prospects of the Labour government. It is the disconnect with what is left of the base of the party. Much was written at the start of the election about how Tory successes in the national media campaign, or "air war", would be offset by Labour's superior organisation "on the ground". This turned out to be nothing more than a fantasy. Streets that once would have been thick with Labour activists were instead thick with the chickens of Iraq, foundation hospitals and tuition fees coming home to roost. That is not to say thousands of dedicated workers did not go out and fight for the party. I have never seen a greater effort put into an election than that put in by my own constituency party members. But up and down the country, particularly in the key seats, Labour workers were swept away by the sheer weight of numbers mobilised by the Tories. In Croydon, where Labour had 70 workers for the entire constituency, the Conservatives had 70 workers in a single ward. Tony Blair and his coterie have long been dismissing as "scaremongering" warnings about the impact of his style of leadership on the grassroots of the party. "They may complain," New Labour has argued, "but they have nowhere else to go." Well they had somewhere else to go last Thursday, and they went there in their millions. The days when the Labour party could ignore the discontent of its core supporters, safe in the knowledge that Tony Blair's big tent would disgorge streams of willing recruits to take their place, are over. The question now facing the Labour party is: "How can we start to rebuild our relationship with those supporters, and how quickly can that process begin?" Of course, it may well be that Tony Blair and those around him will be able to reach out to the disaffected. David Blunkett's savage attack on "the self indulgent" voters who expressed disquiet over trivial issues like the death of 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians may well herald the dawn of a new progressive centre-left consensus - but I have my doubts. Similarly, the appointment of a minister like Andrew Adonis, whose policy of tuition fees was like a poll tax with a mortar board in the university towns of Britain, may signal a commitment to a more inclusive process of policy development. I'm not convinced. The fact is that the process of renewing the party has to begin, and it has to begin today. Not in four years, not in two years, but now. Those who are calling for a "moment of calm reflection" should reflect on just how calm we will all be feeling in 12 months' time if the collapse in our national support is repeated at the local elections or in a Euro referendum. That process cannot be started, never mind completed, by Tony Blair. Renewal cannot be accomplished by someone whose authority and popularity are so visibly eroding. We must move forward, not back. The prime minister has spent his premiership distancing himself from his party. Now the time has come for him to leave it for good.
· Glenda Jackson is Labour MP for Hampstead & Highgate and a former transport minister jacksong@parliament.uk
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Post by Moses on May 26, 2005 22:15:30 GMT -5
news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=641731By Kim Sengupta 27 May 2005 The United States wants Britain's proposed identity cards to have the same microchip and technology as the ones used on American documents.[/b] The aim of getting the same microchip is to ensure compatability in screening terrorist suspects. But it will also mean that information contained in the British cards can be accessed across the Atlantic. Michael Chertoff, the newly appointed US Secretary for Homeland Security, has already had talks with the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, and the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, to discuss the matter. Mr Chertoff said yesterday that it was vital to seek compatibility, holding up the example of the "video war" of 25 years ago, when VHS and Betamax were in fierce competition to win the status of industry standard for video recording systems. "I certainly hope we have the same chip... It would be very bad if we all invested huge amounts of money in biometric systems and they didn't work with each other.Hopefully, we are not going to do VHS and Betamax with our chips. I was one of the ones who bought Betamax, and that's now in the garbage," he said. Mr Chertoff also proposed that British citizens wishing to visit the US should consider entering a "Trusted Traveller" scheme. Under this, they would forward their details to the US embassy to be vetted. If successful, they would receive a document allowing "fast- tracking" through the US immigration system.A pilot scheme will start within a few months between the US and the Netherlands, allowing Dutch visitors to use a Trusted Traveller card to enter the US without being subjected to further questioning or screening.Britain is one of 27 countries whose citizens do not need visas to enter the US if they intend to stay less than 90 days. The American government has said it wants 27 to issue new passports by 26 October this year containing a computer chip and a digital photograph.Mr Chertoff said compatability and the checking system was intended purely to track down "terrorists and criminals" and the main aim was to provide a "fair and reasonable system". US diplomatic sources stated later that Washington did not wish to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries."When we screen based on names, we're screening on the most primitive and least technological basis of identification - it's the most susceptible to misspelling, or people changing their identity, or fraud," he said. The scheme will also, say diplomats, ease confusion over who exactly constitutes a suspect. The most high-profile case was that of Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, who was barred from entering the US because his activities "could be potentially linked to terrorism". The British government is insistent that Mr Islam had no such links. However, this is the latest controversy to surround Britain's proposed combined identity card and passport due to be introduced in three years' time. Rising costs have pushed the cost up to £93 each after the overall estimated 10-year cost of the project grew from £3.1bn to £ 5.8 bn.There have also been problems over the effectiveness of the biometric technology which is supposed to safeguard the security of the cards. There were also verification problems with 30 per cent of those whose fingerprint was taken during an enrolment trial of 10,000 volunteers.
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Post by Moses on Jun 1, 2005 5:13:39 GMT -5
U.K.'s Blair Presses Chirac to Back Deregulation Plan for EU May 31 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair pressed French President Jacques Chirac on the need for deregulation across the European Union after French voters rejected a treaty adding powers to the region's government, Blair's spokesman said. With custody of the 25-nation bloc's rotating presidency beginning in July, Blair wants Chirac's backing for a package of economic changes including fewer rules restricting work hours and deregulation in the services industry. Blair's agenda may bring into the open a disagreement about how the EU should handle competition from India and China. Britain wants to drop rules that business groups including the Confederation of British Industry say put Europe at a disadvantage, while France and Germany are suspicious of changes that may hurt protections for workers' pay, pensions and job security. ``There is no point in hiding the fact that there are different points of view,'' Tom Kelly, a spokesman for Blair, said in London today. ``What is important is that we bring the debate out into the open and that we intensify it. The reality of globalization is not going to go away.'' Leaders will debate the matters at a summit in Brussels set for June 16 and 17. Blair spoke by telephone with Chirac yesterday after results of a French referendum showed 55 percent of voters objected to the EU constitutional treaty. The accord would endow the EU with a permanent president and foreign minister for the first time and smooth a decision-making process designed in the 1950s when the region had six members. Opponents to the treaty in France said it did too much to open the door to unrestrained British-style capitalism, and Chirac said he would respect the will of French voters. `Difficult' Talks `` It's going to be very difficult to get a better treaty, particularly because of the reaction to Anglo-Saxon capitalism,'' said Kenneth Clarke, who served as U.K. finance minister from 1993 to 1997 under the Conservative Party. ``It may be another generation before Britain has a chance for such an influence on the region.'' Britain is concerned that growth in the dozen nations that share the euro has trailed that in the U.K. for 12 of the past 13 years. The U.K. economy will expand 2.8 percent in 2005, the EU forecasts. The euro economy will grow 1.6 percent in 2005, according to the median forecast of 61 economists surveyed by the European Central Bank in April. The biggest friction points are on labor market rules and an EU proposal to deregulate services, which fuel two-thirds of the region's economy. On labor markets, Britain wants employees to have the right[sic] to work more than 48 hours a week while France wants to preserve its 35 hour workweek. Services Directive The services directive, shelved in March, was once touted as a way to bring the EU's growth pace up to U.S. levels and create as many as 600,000 jobs. Chirac warned in March that the pact would allow in a flood of migrant workers and depress wages. Chirac, who in March criticized ``ultra-liberal Anglo-Saxon'' business practices, may be reluctant to back Blair's plan after the French referendum result, said Stephen Wall, who advised Blair on EU policy for four years until July 2004. ``Chirac is like a wounded animal,'' Wall said. ``He's going to fight for French interests, and that's going to make it more difficult to deal with him. We've got a very difficult negotiation ahead. The climate will become meaner.'' Britain's opposition Conservative Party, which opposed the constitution and deeper political links with the rest of Europe, is pressing Blair's Labour Party to raise economic changes on the region's agenda. `Clear Choice' ``The British government has got a clear choice before it,'' said Liam Fox, foreign affairs spokesman for the Conservatives. ``It can either accept that the whole Constitution is finished or use this as an opportunity to take Europe in a new direction, a direction people want to create jobs and growth.'' Blair already was planning meetings with French and German leaders before the Group of Eight summit in Scotland in July. China and India will be on the agenda when finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations will meet in London next month. The finance ministers of the U.K., U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada make up the G-7, and it becomes the G-8 when the heads of those countries plus the leader of Russia gather. The challenges ``are getting stronger, and those challenges are not going to go away,'' said Kelly, the spokesman for Blair. ` `The prime minister believes economic reform is the way to address those challenges.'' Dutch voters go to the polls tomorrow to consider whether to adopt the EU constitution. Kelly said EU leaders needed ``time to reflect'' on the French decision before their summit next month. Polls show Dutch voters may also reject the treaty. A survey by the Amsterdam-based Dutch Center for Political Participation showed 53.2 percent of voters in the Netherlands are against the constitution and 46.8 percent in favor. The ``no'' proportion fell from 55.4 percent a week ago. The latest survey of 16,850 people was conducted during the week ended May 29. The margin of error wasn't provided.
To contact the reporter on this story: Reed Landberg in London at landberg@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: May 31, 2005 09:34 EDT Print
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Post by Moses on Jun 15, 2005 2:28:59 GMT -5
Children Studied for CriminalityThe government has defended plans to monitor children as young as three for potential criminal behaviour. Children's minister Beverley Hughes said it was important to identify problems as early as possible. However, she added: "There is a balance to be struck between intervening early and labelling children prematurely." It is expected that professionals could look for signs such as difficulties respecting boundaries or responding to adults, and offer appropriate help. 'Very sensitive' "I don't think you can tell whether a three-year-old is likely to become a criminal," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "What you can begin to identify is children who are having difficulties at an early age and on the basis of that concern, make sure that parents and the child have the assistance to avoid those problems becoming any deeper." The Home Office leaked document said children who were not "under control" by the age of three were four times more likely to be convicted of a violent offence. It suggested parenting classes and, in the worst cases, putting children who were not "under control" into intensive foster care instead of care homes, the Sunday Times reported. Mrs Hughes said the monitoring would be done "very sensitively". "But I think the professionals working with children understand that very, very well," she added. 'Big Brother' The Professional Association of Teachers, which incorporates the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses, said teachers already identify and help children with learning and social problems, but they were professional childcarers, not criminal psychologists. General secretary Jean Gemmell said: "We would be alarmed if nursery staff were to be asked to take on some sort of Big Brother-style role on behalf of an all-controlling state. "Trying to identify potential criminals before they've even started school seems impractical. "We would not want to see children labelled as troublemakers before they've done anything wrong," she added.
— BBC BBC 2005-06-13 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4087294.stm
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Post by karpomrx on Jun 15, 2005 21:35:13 GMT -5
One of the school districts in this enlightened area gives one out of every seven students ridilen,(sp?), I am sure it makes them better scholars.
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Post by Moses on Jun 15, 2005 22:14:01 GMT -5
This is truly frightening -- this "Labour Party" State take-over of child-rearing, and as with everything w/ Blair and his neocon Administration, it parallels exactly the agenda being pursued by Bush, here. Bush has initiated the same thing, and as quietly, since the legislation was greeted w/ outrage.
So instead, a friendly congressman attached a letter of understanding to the HHS legislation, the understanding being that taxpayer dollars appropriated to HHS would be used to apply Bush's "Freedom Commission" recommendations that children receive "mental health screening" in the public schools.
The outrage was focused on the forced drugging of children, but the danger is broader than that, because the money is being used in Kentucky & other states (e.g. Illinois) to force behavioral modification on those the bureaucrats deem as being problems. In Ky these "problem" children are identified by a "team" consisting of teachers, parents, and social workers, just based on their opinion. So if you don't conform, you and your family are behaviorially modified. Since the particular form of behavior modification they have chosen has a 99.1% failure rate, it is also a way to force children they don't like or families they don't like, out of the public schools. (This stage is provided for in the HHS plan-- that is-- the team meets and decides on an "alternative placement". )
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Post by Moses on Jun 24, 2005 9:47:46 GMT -5
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