This morning Eric Illsley is waking up in a small cell, where he will languish for the next few months. Now, I like to think myself as a caring person, so I am really trying hard to feel sorry for him. Unfortunately, I am failing dismally.
Let’s look at some of the facts – he first entered parliament in 1987, but his political career was never that much to write home to granny about. Sure, he sat on the front bench for a short time, but he was soon consigned to the back benches when Labour came to power.
As for his voting record? Well, he grumbled a bit about Iraq, but at the end of the day went along with the Blair government. On identity cards, he voted in favour. He supported the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill when it came before the house. On asylum seekers, he voted for stricter controls and he voted against laws to stop climate change.
Yup, this sounds like a real good socialist here. I can see he will be sadly missed in the party. (Do you detect a hint of cynicism?).
Even when he comes out of nick he won’t fair too badly. I mean, let’s face it he’s been on quite a nice little number for the last 23 years. The pays pretty good and he clearly thought the expenses were decent. On discharge he’ll probably right a book or two about his experiences – Jeffrey Archer seemed to do quite well out of that little activity. Then there’ll be the occasional TV appearance.
No, I won’t shed too many tears for Mr Illsley – I think he’ll cope quite nicely, thank you very much.
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Friday, 11 February 2011
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Musings of a new granddad
Recently I became a grandfather and since the birth I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the kind of society young Zach will inherit as he grows up. A chance to also consider whether all those changes I dreamed of and campaigned for as a young man have happened.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s we were going to change the world. Our heroes were radicals with exotic names – Tariq Ali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mao Tse-Tung. We fought on the streets, on campuses and in the back rooms of dingy pubs, all in the belief that any day the old order would fail and we would herald a new age. An era with equality for all, an absence of poverty and above all, freedom from the threat of nuclear war.
Forty years on, it seems to me very little has changed. Our revolutionary leaders either conformed to the “system”, or have been discredited. Tariq Ali became one of the leading lights of mainstream Labour party politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit joined the Greens and sits in Strasbourg as a member of the European Parliament and Mao has been thoroughly discredited and found to be far more authoritarian than all our worst nightmares.
In the 60s and even in the 70s, we marched against a variety of wars, including the Six-Day war and Vietnam. Today we oppose conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forty years ago, we marched from Aldermaston to London in opposition to nuclear weapons. Nowadays, we stand silently as the government announces there will be a replacement for Trident.
As a young man and eager member of the Communist party, determined to change the world I stood horrified as the Berlin wall was raised, and watched the oppression in Czechoslovakia. There is no Communist party today – well there is, depending on whether you want to look at the Communist Party of Great Britain, the New Communist Party or the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The revolutionary road has been largely superseded by the democratic path but, just like in the 1960s there is little or no money in the coffers, so most of the hard left find it hard to stand candidates.
The Labour Party back in the 1960s was led by a one-time lefty, who swung to the right once he took over the leadership. Those on the left in those days had held much hope in the leadership of Harold Wilson, only to find him slipping away from the fundamental values outlined in Clause lV of the Constitution of the Party. In 2011, there is no Clause lV – well that’s not strictly true, but there is no longer any requirement for the party to seek control for the means of production and distribution. Blair and his New Labour project effectively put paid to that idea. The latest incarnation of leadership in the Labour Party is a product of the New Labour project and despite being nicknamed “Red Ed”, his pronouncements against strike action to oppose the cuts are reminiscent of the words of Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock.
In the 1960s, we rediscovered the notion of poverty and began to realize there is an ‘underclass’ in modern society – a sector who earn less than 60% of the national average income. Fourteen years ago, New Labour declared war on poverty – they failed – we still have an underclass and little, if anything has changed. The top elite still own the vast majority of the wealth in this country. A carer will still live on a substandard income whilst a banker can earn an annual income in excess of £8m
So am I cynical? Yes – and I think I have a right to be. My generation let our young people down. We sold out our values for the comfort of a modern three- or four-bedroomed semi in the ‘burbs. We satisfied our idealism with pay increases and a more comfortable life. When Maggie set about dismantling the unions we didn’t cry out in horror and when Blair finished the job we sniffed and said: “So what can I do about it?”
In short, my generation doesn’t have much to be proud of. A lot of failed ideals and trashed values. So my prayer for my young son is simple. Learn from us – don’t sell out, don’t give in and don’t trust those who tell you that sooner or later the system is about to change. It isn’t. The system will never change – you have to change it.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s we were going to change the world. Our heroes were radicals with exotic names – Tariq Ali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mao Tse-Tung. We fought on the streets, on campuses and in the back rooms of dingy pubs, all in the belief that any day the old order would fail and we would herald a new age. An era with equality for all, an absence of poverty and above all, freedom from the threat of nuclear war.
Forty years on, it seems to me very little has changed. Our revolutionary leaders either conformed to the “system”, or have been discredited. Tariq Ali became one of the leading lights of mainstream Labour party politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit joined the Greens and sits in Strasbourg as a member of the European Parliament and Mao has been thoroughly discredited and found to be far more authoritarian than all our worst nightmares.
In the 60s and even in the 70s, we marched against a variety of wars, including the Six-Day war and Vietnam. Today we oppose conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forty years ago, we marched from Aldermaston to London in opposition to nuclear weapons. Nowadays, we stand silently as the government announces there will be a replacement for Trident.
As a young man and eager member of the Communist party, determined to change the world I stood horrified as the Berlin wall was raised, and watched the oppression in Czechoslovakia. There is no Communist party today – well there is, depending on whether you want to look at the Communist Party of Great Britain, the New Communist Party or the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The revolutionary road has been largely superseded by the democratic path but, just like in the 1960s there is little or no money in the coffers, so most of the hard left find it hard to stand candidates.
The Labour Party back in the 1960s was led by a one-time lefty, who swung to the right once he took over the leadership. Those on the left in those days had held much hope in the leadership of Harold Wilson, only to find him slipping away from the fundamental values outlined in Clause lV of the Constitution of the Party. In 2011, there is no Clause lV – well that’s not strictly true, but there is no longer any requirement for the party to seek control for the means of production and distribution. Blair and his New Labour project effectively put paid to that idea. The latest incarnation of leadership in the Labour Party is a product of the New Labour project and despite being nicknamed “Red Ed”, his pronouncements against strike action to oppose the cuts are reminiscent of the words of Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock.
In the 1960s, we rediscovered the notion of poverty and began to realize there is an ‘underclass’ in modern society – a sector who earn less than 60% of the national average income. Fourteen years ago, New Labour declared war on poverty – they failed – we still have an underclass and little, if anything has changed. The top elite still own the vast majority of the wealth in this country. A carer will still live on a substandard income whilst a banker can earn an annual income in excess of £8m
So am I cynical? Yes – and I think I have a right to be. My generation let our young people down. We sold out our values for the comfort of a modern three- or four-bedroomed semi in the ‘burbs. We satisfied our idealism with pay increases and a more comfortable life. When Maggie set about dismantling the unions we didn’t cry out in horror and when Blair finished the job we sniffed and said: “So what can I do about it?”
In short, my generation doesn’t have much to be proud of. A lot of failed ideals and trashed values. So my prayer for my young son is simple. Learn from us – don’t sell out, don’t give in and don’t trust those who tell you that sooner or later the system is about to change. It isn’t. The system will never change – you have to change it.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Human Rights and where Labour went wrong
If you want to understand some of the reasons why Labour lost the last election then take a look at the headlines in today’s “Morning Star”. Now this is not a newspaper with a large circulation and frequently its editorials have been at odds with the broad general consensus. However, on this occasion the issue they raise habe been followed up in many of the broadsheets (I think we can safely dismiss the red-tops as only being useful to keep your chips warm).
Baha Musa was a 26-year old hotel receptionist living in Iraq ad who was arrested by soldiers from the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment. During their ‘interview, Mr Musa suffered a total of 93 injuries whilst being held at the UK operated detention centre in Basra.
Sadly this case was not unusual – a further nine complaints were received of abuse of prisoners by British forces at the Majar-al-Kabir base near al-Amarah and four soldiers from the 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were found guilty of abusing looters. In the case of Baha Musa, one soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating prisoners, but was acquitted of manslaughter – he was dismissed from the army.
Now we hear news that Adam Ingram, the former minister responsible for the armed forces between 2001 - 2007, misled parliament by denying British forces hooded detainees as an interrogation technique. In a written response to a question in the house, he said: “The UK believes that this is acceptable under Geneva Conventions but I should make absolutely clear that hooding was only used during the transit of prisoners. It was not used as an interrogation technique”.
Regrettably, breaches of the human rights of terrorists captured by UK forces are not uncommon. Take the case of Liam Holden, the last person in the UK who was sentenced to be hanged, who insisted that he made the confession only because he had been held down by members of the Parachute Regiment, whom he says placed a towel over his face before pouring water from a bucket over his nose and mouth, giving him the impression that he was drowning. Holden, a Roman Catholic, was 19 and employed as a chef when he was detained while at his parents home in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in October 1972 during a raid by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. Apparently acting on a tipoff from an informer, the soldiers accused Holden of being the sniper who, a month earlier, had shot dead Private Frank Bell of the regiment's 2nd Battalion. Bell had just turned 18 and had joined the regiment six weeks earlier. He was the 100th British soldier to die in Northern Ireland that year.
When Holden came to trial in April 1973 he told the jury he had been playing cards with his brother and two friends in a public place at the time Bell was shot. He said that after being arrested in his bed the soldiers had taken him to their base on Black Mountain, west of Belfast, where he was beaten, burned with a cigarette lighter, hooded and threatened with execution.
The Labour party has always tried to portray itself as the party of the underdog, the weak and the oppressed – yet repeatedly there have been cases reported where suspects held by UK authorities have suffered serious infringements of their basic human rights. This was, and always will be totally unacceptable and should have never happened. In the latter years of government, the leadership under Blair, and later Brown became complacent and complicit in barbaric acts against suspects.
More disturbingly, one of the current leadership candidates withheld information from parliament and the people because of fears that if he did so “it would have violated an intelligence-sharing agreement with the United States”. I am, of course, referring to the Binyam Mohamed case where David Miliband held back information about the interrogation procedure – Mr Mohamed later revealed that British spies interviewed him during the time he alleges he was having his chest and penis cut with a scalpel and stinging liquid poured into the wounds, and that they passed on detailed personal information about him to his torturers.
Hardly the kind of actions one would expect from a potential leader of the Labour party and certainly not the behaviour of someone now wishing to portray himself as all-listening and all-caring.
We can only hope the party membership sees through the spin and glitz and recognises him for what he is – another example of New Labour revisionism with no apparent passion for human rights or civil liberties. If we fail, we risk having a leader who not only ignores the lessons from the past, but perpetuates the errors in the future.
Baha Musa was a 26-year old hotel receptionist living in Iraq ad who was arrested by soldiers from the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment. During their ‘interview, Mr Musa suffered a total of 93 injuries whilst being held at the UK operated detention centre in Basra.
Sadly this case was not unusual – a further nine complaints were received of abuse of prisoners by British forces at the Majar-al-Kabir base near al-Amarah and four soldiers from the 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were found guilty of abusing looters. In the case of Baha Musa, one soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating prisoners, but was acquitted of manslaughter – he was dismissed from the army.
Now we hear news that Adam Ingram, the former minister responsible for the armed forces between 2001 - 2007, misled parliament by denying British forces hooded detainees as an interrogation technique. In a written response to a question in the house, he said: “The UK believes that this is acceptable under Geneva Conventions but I should make absolutely clear that hooding was only used during the transit of prisoners. It was not used as an interrogation technique”.
Regrettably, breaches of the human rights of terrorists captured by UK forces are not uncommon. Take the case of Liam Holden, the last person in the UK who was sentenced to be hanged, who insisted that he made the confession only because he had been held down by members of the Parachute Regiment, whom he says placed a towel over his face before pouring water from a bucket over his nose and mouth, giving him the impression that he was drowning. Holden, a Roman Catholic, was 19 and employed as a chef when he was detained while at his parents home in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in October 1972 during a raid by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. Apparently acting on a tipoff from an informer, the soldiers accused Holden of being the sniper who, a month earlier, had shot dead Private Frank Bell of the regiment's 2nd Battalion. Bell had just turned 18 and had joined the regiment six weeks earlier. He was the 100th British soldier to die in Northern Ireland that year.
When Holden came to trial in April 1973 he told the jury he had been playing cards with his brother and two friends in a public place at the time Bell was shot. He said that after being arrested in his bed the soldiers had taken him to their base on Black Mountain, west of Belfast, where he was beaten, burned with a cigarette lighter, hooded and threatened with execution.
The Labour party has always tried to portray itself as the party of the underdog, the weak and the oppressed – yet repeatedly there have been cases reported where suspects held by UK authorities have suffered serious infringements of their basic human rights. This was, and always will be totally unacceptable and should have never happened. In the latter years of government, the leadership under Blair, and later Brown became complacent and complicit in barbaric acts against suspects.
More disturbingly, one of the current leadership candidates withheld information from parliament and the people because of fears that if he did so “it would have violated an intelligence-sharing agreement with the United States”. I am, of course, referring to the Binyam Mohamed case where David Miliband held back information about the interrogation procedure – Mr Mohamed later revealed that British spies interviewed him during the time he alleges he was having his chest and penis cut with a scalpel and stinging liquid poured into the wounds, and that they passed on detailed personal information about him to his torturers.
Hardly the kind of actions one would expect from a potential leader of the Labour party and certainly not the behaviour of someone now wishing to portray himself as all-listening and all-caring.
We can only hope the party membership sees through the spin and glitz and recognises him for what he is – another example of New Labour revisionism with no apparent passion for human rights or civil liberties. If we fail, we risk having a leader who not only ignores the lessons from the past, but perpetuates the errors in the future.
at
02:15
0
comments
Labels:
Baha Musa,
Binyamin Mohamed,
civil liberties,
David Miliband,
human rights,
Iraq,
Labour
0
comments
Labels:
Baha Musa,
Binyamin Mohamed,
civil liberties,
David Miliband,
human rights,
Iraq,
Labour
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
