Watching the Prime Minister on Sunday AM this morning was depressing. If you think you’re up to it, you can watch the interview here on the BBC site. To think he was just eight years ago the fresh-faced everyman who would change the face of politics – a pretty straight sort of guy – is nothing short of tragic.

This morning, he stumbled over even the most simple questions about his innermost beliefs – clearly not struggling to express himself because of enthusiasm, but struggling to remember the prepared answer the focus groups told him he needed to spout. When faced with the tough questioning over Iraq, he largely ignored the questions posed in order to give his own egotistical speech. He looked disinterested, bored, and above all, exhausted. This is not the ‘Great Leader’ elected in 1997 – this man could hardly be further than that. He’s not even effectively manipulating the media any more – when questioned about stepping down, he replied (I’m paraphrasing) that he knew what he was going to do, but he wasn’t going to tell us lowly mortals. Eight years ago, he wouldn’t have dreamed of making that so obvious – he’d have given a crowd-pleasing non-answer, not taunted the interviewer.

The questions about the BBC’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina were met with the worst of all answers – He could have easily stuck to the ‘private conversation’ line, he could have given a flattering answer about the Beeb not covering things as he saw it, but the Beeb being impartial and him perhaps being more personally involved, or he could have simply chosen not to answer at all, saying that it was not his place to comment on the Beeb’s editorial decisions. Instead, he chose the worst bits of all of those options, saying that it was a private conversation but then divulging details of it anyway, and openly criticising the BBC all at the same time. That’s not the Blairite way.

Of course, there could be greater forces at work here, with the PM intentionally being painted as weak and over the hill in political terms, so that Gordon Brown’s confident conference speech will make him look like the natural successor. That’s one suggestion I can’t even entertain. Mr Blair couldn’t play down the statesman in himself intentionally even if he wanted to. He thinks he’s bigger than his party, and certainly his place in history is more important to him than the future electability of his party.

So what’s going on? Blair’s lost his touch, he’s drained, and ultimately, his eight years at the top have left him completely soulless, more a creation of spin-doctors than a real human being. He climbed the ladder for what he saw as the good of the country, attempting to be the great saviour. But he lost himself along the way, and allowed the advisers with which he surrounded himself destroy his very person. How very Shakespearean; how very tragic.

It seems natural to return to a subject I’ve often posted about for my 700th post, and this article allows me to do just that:

The number of legal abortions carried out on women living in England and Wales last year was the highest ever, up more than 3,800 on 2003.

I think I’ve made my abortion views fairly clear over past posts – abortion isn’t something I particularly like, but nor is it something I feel should be criminalised, as this penalises only the most desperate.

What’s shocked me in this case, though, is not the figures themselves, but the Department of Health’s response:

The DoH said: “It is disappointing that the overall level of abortions has increased this year.”

What possible authority does the DoH think it has to pontificate about the decisions desperate people take, and to call them ‘disappointing’? The health service should be about providing unconditional help to the needy, not judging them. Their comments naturally imply that abortions are a ‘bad thing’, without recognising that they are often medically necessary, and that it is really the parents’ decision as to what is a ‘bad thing’ for them.

The DoH would never dream of saying that it’s ‘disappointing’ that suicide levels have increased, or that it’s ‘disappointing’ that poor diets mean diabetes is on the increase. Why is it any different for a parent who feels so desperate that they have to go through the appalling procedure of abortion, often meaning (in the case of later abortions within the legal period) that they have to go through a full birthing process, producing a stillborn foetus. Until the righteous right realise that getting an abortion is rarely as easy as having a tooth removed, then they can’t even begin to understand the mental anguish it confers upon the parent.

Could their be any greater example of the ‘nanny state’ than saying that the result of one of the hardest decisions a person has had to take in their whole life is ‘disappointing’? I think not: It is truly abhorrent that figures relating to the most vulnerable are being given a populist spin to appease Mail readers and secure political gains.

First, he quit his TV show before the BBC pushed him. Then he quit UKIP before the leadership pushed him (leading me to say “Surely this idiot has finally lost every scintilla of credibility he ever had”). Now, he’s quit his own party, set up only six months ago, before the membership pushed him. Oh, and now he’s being encouraged to quit as an MEP. It’s probably for the best. We couldn’t have him breaking with form. And to think, I called him a ‘delusional fool’ when he said he’d change the face of British politics. Could I have been more wrong? 😉

When he joined UKIP, Kilroy said:

[People are] fed up with being lied to … fed up with being patronised by the metropolitan elite

At the launch of his party, Kilroy said:

People are fed up with the old parties and lies and deception.

Today, he said:

[T]he electors are content with the old parties and … it would be virtually impossible for a new party to make a significant impact

It’s good to have a fun story in a month that’s been so difficult. And Kilroy is certainly nothing more than a figure of fun.

The question now is: Where does Kilroy go next? Will he quit politics altogether? Perhaps he’ll become the new face of Orange.

Mr Blair claims to be ‘desperately sorry’ for the police killing – murder, if you will – of a completely innocent man. I don’t question that – I’m sure it was very difficult news for him to hear. However, this isn’t the only claim Mr Blair made:

I understand entirely the feelings of the young man’s family.

How can Mr Blair, with his family comfortably tucked away in the Downing Street green zone, possibly even being to appreciate, let alone understand, the pain of a parent whose child has been brutally murdered under the accepted government policy of a foreign nation? I certainly can’t even being to imagine how I’d feel, and I certainly can’t claim to understand it. How can Mr Blair?

Who does ‘Tony’ think he’s kidding when he says that he feels Londoners need to stay strong, be brave, and continue with their every day lives, whilst he’s stood surrounded by more layers of security than any other individual in the country? It’s very easy for him to get back to normal when his transport arrangements include bullet-proof government cars, rather than crowded tube trains. He tries to evoke ‘Blitz spirit’, whilst simulateously removing himself from any personal risk. He tries to convince us that ‘we’re all in this together’, and doesn’t realise how disingenuous it makes him sound.

How far Mr Blair has come from that moment in 1997 when the fresh-faced Prime Minister spoke in real unity with the citizens he leads when giving his reaction to the death of Diana. He has now seemingly forgotten what it is to be a ‘normal’ person. No longer Mr Blair the “pretty straight sort of guy”, now Mr Blair the devious statesman. How the mighty have fallen are falling.

The Observer reports today that

A private company is being accused of charging NHS patients exorbitant rates to use the phone and watch TV.

This is a private company which has paid to help improve NHS services. As with any private company, the most important thing for them is that they make money, and they’ve spent millions of pound installing the Patientline service with the government’s backing. Now that they are trying to recoup those costs, and make a profit, it is the private company that is being critcised.

This seems deeply illogical to me – the NHS is so misfunded that private companies are having to be brought in provide the services which patients view as necessary. Patients are then asked to pay for these services, because the government won’t. And yet it is the private company which gets criticised.

Michael Summers, chairman of the Patients Association: says: ‘It’s critical that people who are unable to visit a sick, elderly or very young patient should be able to get through to them at a reasonable price. These charges are too high and callers should be told very clearly how much they’re paying for the service.’

Surely in a National Health Service, it is the job of the government to provide ‘critical’ services. Their failure to do so should reflect badly on them, not the private companies they invite to step into the breach. And I’m quite surprised that The Observer of all newspapers has chosen not to point this out.

Following each of the terrorist attacks of the last few years, including that of two weeks ago in London, George Bush, Tony Blair, and their associated administrations and political parties have roundly criticised the terrible jihad – deliberately mistranslated as ‘Holy war’ – which radicalised Muslim groups have declared against Western society. They conveniently seem to forget that it is not the radical groups which declared the war, but George Bush, when he declared a War on Terror.

According to my dictionary, war is

the waging of armed conflict against an enemy

Conflict. That involves retaliation. It’s a two-way thing. So how can our leaders declare a war, effectively beginning a two-sided conflict, and then condemn any attacks which come their way? They’ve said they are attacking their enemy, the enemy is providing a great deal less retaliation that the force which the coalition is putting forward. Can one imagine Churchill standing up and spouting about how it’s terrible that fifty British citizens should die in the war, when we’ve killed tens of thousands of innocent people in their home countries? Tony Blair and George Bush have announced that this is a war. They have to expect colateral damage on both sides, since that is a product of war. If they weren’t comfortable with that idea – and remain uncomfortable with it – then why declare war in the first place?

This post has been sat in ‘draft’ status for a few days now… Today, I notice that John Pilger has made a not-dissimilar point in his excellent article in this week’s New Statesman:

In 2001, in revenge for the killing of 3,000 people in the twin towers, more than 20,000 Muslims died in the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan. This was revealed by Jonathan Steele in the Guardian but never became news, to my knowledge. The attack on Iraq was the Rubicon, making the reprisal against Madrid and the bombing of London entirely predictable: this last “in response to the massacres carried out by Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan”, claimed the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda in Europe. Whether or not the claim was genuine, the reason was. Bush and Blair wanted a “war on terror” and they got it. Omitted from public discussion is that their state terror makes al-Qaeda’s appear minuscule by comparison. More than 100,000 Iraqi men, woman and children have been killed not by suicide bombers, but by the Anglo-American “coalition”, says a peer-reviewed study published in the Lancet, and largely ignored.

In fact, go and read that article – it makes the points rather more eloquently than me, even if I don’t agree with everything he says. Plus, it’ll save me finishing off this post. Go read.

The Guardian reports today that

The government is to draw up a list of extremists from all over the world, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, announced as he revealed new anti-terrorism measures today.

My question is simple: How exactly does Mr Clarke propose to define an ‘extremist’?

At first glance, the problem seems relatively easy, a simple case of including anyone who encourages others to kill themselves and others. But that ideology is more closely tied to religions around the world that you might expect – not just Islam, which this legislation is clearly unfairly aimed at, but also Christianity, the stated religion of choice for the majority of British citizens. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a Christian minister preaching about David and Goliath, effectively a story about a small unlikely minority overpowering and killing their perceived enemies of a much greater force. The minister went on to say that those that helped to fight this kind of injustice were truly treasured by her god. In the minds of the perverted minority, this could be taken as a sign that they, too, should fight to kill their perceived religious enemies, and go and blow up the nearest Mosque. In the minds of the potential bombers at least, the minister would have appeared to encourage them to take this course of action, and it is undeniable that this message can be taken from the sermon and from the Bible if that is what one is looking for. So does this minister count as an extremist?

Let’s refer back to the Guardian article:

The database would list individuals who had demonstrated “unacceptable behaviour”, which would include inflammatory preaching or running websites and writing articles intended to foment or provoke terrorism.

Ah. We’ve hit a bit of a brick wall. The database includes people who have demonstrated “unacceptable behaviour”. That’s helpful. But with the given examples including “inflammatory preaching”, I can’t see any reason why our middle-of-the-road Christian minister couldn’t be on the extremist database. Except, of course, for this small clause:

He said the “unacceptable behaviour” would not be permitted by anyone with leave to enter or remain in this country, including students, asylum seekers and refugees.

So as long as our minister is British-born, it isn’t an issue. If, however, early in life – perhaps too early to remember – she had fled with her parents from persecution in Zimbabwe, she could possibly end up on this database.

But ending up on this databas – the purpose of which is sinisterly unexplained – is likely to be the least of our minister’s worries, when she considers what else is in this upcoming legislation:

He said the legislation would create three new criminal offences – acts preparatory to terrorism; indirect incitement to terrorism, which would cover those who glorified and condoned terror acts; and giving and receiving terrorist training.

This minister, in preaching what many millions have preached before her, has undoubtedly given ‘indirect incitement to terrorism’. She didn’t mean to put the idea into the perverted minds of her audience, but she’s managed to do it. That’ll be a lengthy jail sentence for her, then.

Now I’m quite likely to be accused of being silly here. People will doubtless point out that this is not what the legislation is intended for. But – and here’s something this government doesn’t seem to understand – that doesn’t matter. Laws are not restricted to what they were meant to be used for. Judges and the police have a nasty habit of sticking to the very letter of the law. That’s why laws have to be carefully constructed, debated, and re-written almost to destruction, and not rammed through Parliament to ensure as little opposition as possible.

If this government continues to make laws which are this full of gaping holes, sooner or later it’s going to turn round and bite them back. For instance, when Tony Blair encourages us to do everything possible to defeat these terrorists, is he not indirectly inciting me to go and commit a terrorist attack on foreign soil, against those I perceive to have been behind the terrorist attack here? These laws also leave the door open for a future, even less moral government to legitimately lock up their opposition – after all, speaking against the government must surely be indirect incitement to terrorism – and generally rule with an iron fist.

The government may well feel we’re under a great terrorist threat, but much of their legislation designed to combat it puts us in ever greater danger of a future much more bleak than the very occasional terror attack. In short, they need to get a grip.

Following yesterday’s publication of the Chatham House report, which was swiftly followed by mildly ridiculous denials by Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, and John Reid, an argument is understandably being fought between the media and the government. The government is losing.

Shortly before the London bombings, an intelligence report claimed that

Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK

So Mr Blair’s denials of this show that he is not accepting what his intelligence sources are telling him. He’d prefer to spin his own version, which doesn’t get him in quite such hot political water.

Now in the face of overwhelming logic, Mr Blair has apparently seen fit to shift his argument slightly.

Of course these terrorists will use Iraq as an excuse as they will Afghanistan. But 9/11 happened before both to those and before then the excuse was US policy.

“They will always have their reasons for acting. We have to be really careful to giving into the perverted and twisted logic to which they argue.”

He said compromising on certain aspects of foreign policy would not make the terrorists go away but would enable them to argue that the UK “was on the run, let’s step it up”.

So he appears to no longer be arguing against the obvious point that attacking Iraq has provided terrorists with another ‘excuse’ for attacking us, and thus provided yet another reason, increasing the risk to the country. The third paragraph of the above quotation also shows very clearly that he’s now admitting that British foreign policy affects the actions of terrorists, something that he’s previously strenuously denied. So that’s quite a significant shift, however subtly he’s tried to make it.

In a slightly pointless exercise, the Guardian has conducted a poll which concluded that two-thirds of Britons believe that there is a link between the invasion of Iraq and the London bombings, and over half believe that Mr Blair bears some responsibility for the bombings. The value of these particular results is not really very clear, but tucked away at the bottom is a much more significant statistic: Support for ID cards has fallen, relative to polls taken both immediately after the bombings, and – crucially – before them. So, even in the face of a terrorist attack on British soil, ID card support is falling. This is particularly significant, because one of the central arguments earlier in Mr Blair’s ID cards campaign was that after any hypothetical terrorist attack, people would be angry that he had not done any more to protect them, and would not be worrying about civil liberties arguments. This has today clearly been proven to be a flawed argument.

All things considered, it would seem that the Chatham House report has played badly for the Prime Minister. But, more frustratingly, it never needed to, if only he’d accepted in the first place that foreign policy affects the terrorism risk. If handled correctly, this admission would have been much less politically damaging than this Chatham House report appears to have been, as the report has essentially made him look pretty stupid, and their handling of the attack as a whole hasn’t really helped their Terrorism policies. But then, it’s very easy to say these things with hindsight, and I’m sure that when trying to deal with a terrorist attack of this nature, life is rather more difficult. Unless, of course, you’ve got a well thought out plan. But this government isn’t really very good at planning for unexpected events, is it? Look at Iraq!

Oh, and just to make you feel extra safe, the leaked report also concluded that

At present, there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK.

Our lives, their hands.

Chatham House has published a report (PDF) whose conclusion is, in a nutshell…

There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism… The UK is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the United States.

Jack Straw and Tony Blair, who have published precisely zero reports into this, are absolutely convinced that Chatham House is wrong:

“I’m astonished that Chatham House is now saying that we should not have stood shoulder to shoulder with our long-standing allies in the United States,” Mr Straw told reporters before chairing an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

“The time for excuses for terrorism is over,” he said. “The terrorists have struck across the world, in countries allied with the United States, backing the war in Iraq and in countries which had nothing whatever to do with the war in Iraq.”

Of course, he’s very helpfully misrepresnted the contents of the report, which does not say that the UK should not have supported the USA, and also does not say that if we had not done so, there would be no terrorist attacks. The report merely suggests that antagonising terror cells increases the chance of a terror attack occuring. Which, logic says, it does.

Whilst terror cells are quite happy to attack many places in the Western world in order to make their voices heard, they are doubtlessly going to expend greater efforts attacking the countries which most greatly represent the ideology which they wish to attack. And if this country is attacking Muslims around the world, logic follows that we’re going to be somewhere near the top of the list. If we weren’t attacking them, we’d probably be a little lower down.

It’s also interesting to see today that Charles Clarke has decided that his ‘crucial’ new terror laws, which he claims are necessary to secure the country and help prevent further attacks like those in London, are now to be introduced only in December, because our hard-working MPs need a summer holiday, and really can’t be expected to stay back for an extra couple of weeks. If Charles Clarke continues to say that these laws are so ‘crucial’ after the summer, then I hope someone will point out to him that his own government have delayed their introduction twice – once by calling an early General Eleciton, and once by refusing a summer recall – and so they really can’t be that important.

As serious a story as this is, I think there’s room for a little humour. The Times provides this for us, with possibly the most ridiculous heading for a newspaper graphic so far this year: ‘Tentacles of Terror‘. Whoever said The Times was becoming more tabloidesque?

In all seriousness, Mr Blair and his government must begin to accept that their foreign policy has an impact at home as well as abroad. Until they do this, the country will be in much greater danger than is truly necessary.

A little over a week ago, I argued that the symbolism of the G8 was far more important that anything it would achieve. Now that the summit is over, the final communiqué has been issued, and the leaders are on their way home, have my opinions changed?

In my last piece, I pretty much wrote off anything the G8 would achieve in terms of African poverty, since I thought that

They are far to focused on Western cultures and ways of approaching problems to provide genuine solutions.

Whilst I still believe that, I think that real steps forward in the aid that is given to these countries have been made. There have been big pledges for increased monetary aid, not least in terms of $1.5bn per year to help to combat malaria – an easily preventable and treatable disease that kills a shameful number of people each year in sub-Saharan African. But aid will still remain below the UN target levels – instead of wanting to exceed the expectations placed upon us by the world in terms of helping other nations, we’re not even shamed enough by the current lack to come up to scratch and give what’s expected of us. Every step in the right direction helps, but every step not taken results in the deaths of thousands, and I just hope that in future that our government will support African governments in the ways that they themselves decide they need help to make their own countries better places.

On climate change, the communiqué is generally full of lots of non-committal bumph, generally about waiting for technology to provide the solution to all our problems instead of taking pro-active measures to reduce carbon emissions with the technology we currently have available. This is, of course, a valid strategy, and if the technology does indeed rescue us then it will provide the most effective solution. But it seems foolish to stake the future of the planet on such a gamble, and I think that it would be more wise to look at cutting greenhouse gases here and now, if only as a backup which may appear to represent a foolish overspend in future if the technology does come along to solve the problem.

In my opinion, not much has really changed policy wise at the G8 summit, especially when you consider that this was a summit of countries with the financial power that these have. But last time I suggested that

Achievements aren’t everything. The symbolism is just as important… we should celebrate the fact that at least these eight leading nations are co-operating and even holding meetings in an age of cynicism, distrust, and warfare.

Of course, I wrote that before yesterday’s terrible attacks on London, and it would be lovely if I could now say that the symbolism of these countries standing firm together against the attackers only heightened the point. But, for me, it didn’t. I have to say that I personally was disturbed to see eight of the most powerful men on Earth standing united against ‘terrorism’. Terrorism is subjective: One man’s terrorism is another man’s war. To see, therefore, eight men resolutely determined to fight an abstract subjective concept filled me with fear, far more that it did confidence and peace.

Clearly, if the G8 nations were on the verge of all-out war, the world would be worse-off, and of course we should celebrate co-operation between these nations – and, indeed, between all nations. But we should not support this open declaration of ‘War on Terror’. Warring against a concept is not just illogical, it’s also dangerous, particular with such a subjective concept. One would have hoped that the meeting of the eight greatest minds of a generation would have reached that conclusion, and the fact that it actually reached the opposite conclusion is cause for concern indeed. Of course all of the nations should condemn the callous attacks on London, resulting in the deaths of scores of people, but it is difficult to do so convincingly on the ground of ‘fighting terror’ when many of the countries around the table are active engaging in terror in Iraq, killing many times more Iraqi civilians. Why should the lives of citizens of the G8 nations be worth more than the lives of other human beings? Are we not all the same?

Following the G8 summit, I’ve been left feeling more uncertain about the value of the G8, and a little more concerned about its power and potential for destruction. We can only hope that the leaders choose to use their undeniable powers wisely… not something with which they have a good track record.