Tag Archives: rendition

Stephen Tall

So. Farewell then, David Miliband

By Stephen Tall | Wed 27th March 2013 - 10:45 am

So.david miliband
Farewell then
David Miliband.

You did not
Win the
Labour leadership.

Though you got more votes
Than Brother Ed

The trade unions
Did not
like you.

They liked
him instead.

That was
your tragedy.
And it will be
His.

EJ Thribb

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 36 Comments
Stephen Tall

Guardian: Labour’s involvement in illegal abduction and torture of British citizens

By Stephen Tall | Thu 15th July 2010 - 10:00 am

Today’s Guardian reports the involvement of senior Labour figures, including Tony Blair and Jack Straw, in the illegal abduction and torture of British citizens by the secret services:

The true extent of the Labour government’s involvement in the illegal abduction and torture of its own citizens after the al-Qaida attacks of September 2001 has been spelled out in stark detail with the disclosure during high court proceedings of a mass of highly classified documents.

Previously secret papers that have been disclosed include a number implicating Tony Blair’s office in many of the events that are to be the subject of the

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Inquiry into allegations of complicity with torture

By Mark Pack | Fri 21st May 2010 - 9:20 am

British spies accused of secretly colluding with the CIA and foreign governments in a plot that sees people tortured in foreign countries. Not only does it sound like the storyline of many a political thriller, take that story and place it in almost any post-war decade and you’d expect it to be a Conservative government doing the colluding and Labour MPs decrying the international conspiracy, with a campaigning left-wing journalist thrown in for good measure publishing scoops and demanding an independent judicial inquiry.

Except, of course, in the topsy turvey political days that we live it was a Labour government that …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Makes you proud to be British, part 94

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th March 2009 - 1:55 pm

Perhaps it’s a good thing the Daily Mail thinks I’m a foreigner, because if I was British I’d have to be rather ashamed of my country today:

Baby’s DNA was held on database … Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said it was “ludicrous” to have stored the DNA profile. He said: “It is illegal, immoral and ineffective to keep the DNA of a baby on a national police database as if they had committed some felony.” (BBC)

and

Britain has been accused of taking part in US “renditions” of terror suspects in a United Nations report. UN Special Rapporteur

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

More claims that Britian colluded with torture

By Mark Pack | Sun 1st March 2009 - 10:50 am

The Independent on Sunday reports:

Britain faces fresh accusations that it colluded in the rendering and alleged torture of a second UK resident now being held at Guantanamo Bay. The new claims bring further pressure on ministers to come clean about the scale of the Government’s complicity in the rendition and torture of dozens of terror suspects captured by the Americans after 9/11.

His case comes after that of Binyam Mohamed, 30, released from the US naval base in Cuba last week, and whose claims of UK involvement in his torture are being investigated by the Attorney General. Now allegations made by Shaker Aamer, the final British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, raise concerns that both MI5 and MI6 were widely involved in the US rendition and torture programme operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11.

Perhaps the most damning part of the article is the list of quotes from official sources, tracing how the official line has changed over rendition (that’s kidnapping to you and me) and torture:

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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: is presumed consent the right way to boost organ donations?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 17th November 2008 - 2:20 pm

The figures are stark. Here’s The Guardian:

An estimated 8,000 people in the UK need an organ transplant but only 3,000 operations are carried out each year. About 1,000 people in the UK die every year while waiting for a transplant.

The question is more difficult: should we move away from the current organ donor opt-in system towards a system of ‘presumed consent’, which would mean that unless people opted out of the register or family members objected, hospitals would be allowed to use their organs for transplants.

Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris, chair of All-Party Kidney Group and member of …

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Posted in Voice polls | Also tagged | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

The Labour councillor who sticks up for Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition

By Stephen Tall | Sat 12th July 2008 - 7:14 pm

Never let it be said that leading Labour Hackney councillor and ultra party loyalist Luke Akehurst is unafraid to stick up for even the most unpopular of causes. Leaving aside his support for the current government, Cllr Akehurst has declared on his blog:

I am in favour of extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay

Although, to be fair, we should point out that Luke does at least clarify that even he believes the US can sometimes go a little far, noting parenthetically –

(but not torture in Abu Graib)

It’s good to know even Cllr Akehurst can’t ignore all abuses of …

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Posted in Local government | Also tagged | 6 Comments

News from the daily sheets

By George Crozier | Sat 8th March 2008 - 10:28 am

George Crozier, from the Political Intelligence and Communication Section wrote last night in a comment that a little difficulty was being had updating the party website from Liverpool, and gave the following information about the weekend:

The two emergency motions which will be debated between 16.25 and 16.55 on Saturday (tomorrow) are on Extraordinary Rendition and Sustainable Banking.The emergency motion that will be debated at 9am on Sunday morning is on Gaza. It is proposed by Hackney Lib Dems and it condemns both terrorist acts aimed at Israeli civilian targets and disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defence Forces.

Ed …

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Posted in Conference | 1 Comment
Geoffrey Payne

Opinion: What Brown should be saying to Bush

By Geoffrey Payne | Wed 1st August 2007 - 11:49 am

Recently Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell commented on three things that Gordon Brown should be saying to George Bush;

“There are three things which should be on Gordon Brown’s agenda when he meets President Bush: renegotiation of the one-sided extradition treaty; the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre; and a negotiated withdrawal of British forces from Iraq.

“These should be the objective of a candid friend. The excessively subordinated relationship between the President and Mr Blair should be put to bed.”

I agree wholeheartedly with all three. The problem is – as Lib Dems will well remember from Harrogate, when Ming offered Brown “5 tests” – that if you list things out loud then what is not included becomes just as important.

Four obvious omissions are:

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Posted in Op-eds | 4 Comments
Laurence Boyce

Opinion: Taking Liberties

By Laurence Boyce | Fri 22nd June 2007 - 9:18 pm

Try as hard as I might, I can never manage to get myself worked up over the whole civil liberties agenda. So, following Sir Ming’s recommendation, I took myself off to a viewing of Taking Liberties at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse.

Naturally I approached the cinema with great caution, checking that no-one was on my tail, and paid cash to ensure that I could not be traced in any way. What I settled down to watch turned out to comprise two quite distinct narratives rolled into one – an indictment of our disastrous misadventures in the Middle East, mixed into a bubbling cauldron of pure libertarian paranoia.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | 87 Comments
The Voice

Vigil for British Residents in Guantanamo Bay

By The Voice | Tue 9th January 2007 - 2:11 pm

gitmo.jpgLast night, Ed Davey used a Parliamentary debate to highlight the case of a constituent of his who is being detained in Guantanamo Bay. Ed believes that as a result of his detention, his constituent may be losing his sanity. You can read the full debate here. As mentioned in the debate, Sarah Teather also has a constituent in Guantanamo.

This event may be of interest to Lib Dems:

:: VIGIL FOR British Residents in Guantanamo Bay ::
On the eve of the 5th Anniversary of the Opening of Guantánamo Bay

Wednesday 10th January, 6pm
Richmond …

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The Voice

Prime Minister’s Questions ruined by Andrew Lloyd-Webber

By The Voice | Thu 26th October 2006 - 11:07 am

Musicals

Britain’s Parliament was thrown in to chaos yesterday when three opposition MPs, taking the opportunity of being caught on television, launched in to an impromptu application to join the next series of hit BBC 1 series  How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Conservative spokespersons Alan Duncan, George Osbourne and Oliver Letwin brought Prime Ministers Questions to a halt with an acapella rendition of “Hello, Dolly!” (pictured), before Sir Patrick Cormack produced a snare drum and led the trio in a performance of “The very model of a modern major general” from the Pirates of Penzance.

Rumours

…

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Posted in News and PMQs | Also tagged | 6 Comments
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