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North Cave Car Boot? They want CHANGE!
Another fine day we’ve had! We zoomed off like the Trumpton Fire Brigade to North Cave car boot sale - where we found lots of Green-minded people. Women in particular seem to understand the dire situation the old parties have got us into and the desperate need for change. People want local decision making, they are sick of being conned by politicians who don’t practise what they preach, they know the Iraq war was about oil, they know we are all being exploited by government backing big business, and they want it to stop.
They can also see that with only one of the lame old parties standing in this election the Greens have a chance to make their ideas clear and to get plenty of votes, so lots of people said they would vote for us because THEY WANT CHANGE.
2 comments:
Iraq wasn't a war - it was an illegal occupation, contravening international statutes.
Hence the war crimes trial for Bush, Blair and Brown.
Technically, shouldn't David Davis be there too?
Please see my version of the case for the prosecution:
"A monstrous war crime" (March 2007):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/28/iraq.freedomofinformation
Our collective failure has been to take our political leaders at their word. This week the BBC reported that the government's own scientists advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq civilian mortality was accurate and reliable, following a freedom of information request by the reporter Owen Bennett-Jones. This paper was published in the Lancet last October. It estimated that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the American and British led invasion in March 2003.
Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report".
Scientists at the UK's Department for International Development thought differently. They concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested". Indeed, the Johns Hopkins approach would likely lead to an "underestimation of mortality".
The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research was "robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended "caution in publicly criticising the study".
When these recommendations went to the prime minister's advisers, they were horrified. One person briefing Tony Blair wrote: "Are we really sure that the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies?" A Foreign and Commonwealth Office official was forced to conclude that the government "should not be rubbishing the Lancet".
The prime minister's adviser finally gave in. He wrote: "The survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones".
How would the government respond? Would it welcome the Johns Hopkins study as an important contribution to understanding the military threat to Iraqi civilians? Would it ask for urgent independent verification? Would it invite the Iraqi government to upgrade civilian security?
Of course, our government did none of these things. Tony Blair was advised to say: "The overriding message is that there are no accurate or reliable figures of deaths in Iraq".
His official spokesman went further and rejected the Johns Hopkins report entirely. It was a shameful and cowardly dissembling by a Labour - yes, by a Labour - prime minister.
Indeed, it was even contrary to the US's own Iraq Study Group report, which concluded last year that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq".
This Labour government, which includes Gordon Brown as much as it does Tony Blair, is party to a war crime of monstrous proportions. Yet our political consensus prevents any judicial or civil society response. Britain is paralysed by its own indifference.
At a time when we are celebrating our enlightened abolition of slavery 200 years ago, we are continuing to commit one of the worst international abuses of human rights of the past half-century. It is inexplicable how we allowed this to happen. It is inexplicable why we are not demanding this government's mass resignation.
Two hundred years from now, the Iraq war will be mourned as the moment when Britain violated its delicate democratic constitution and joined the ranks of nations that use extreme pre-emptive killing as a tactic of foreign policy. Some anniversary that will be.
Richard.Horton@lancet.com
As I am sure you are aware, our heroic crusader for capital punishment FormerMPDavidDavisForFreedomForDavidDavis
will be at the following 2 events:
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Time:
10:00am - 4:00pm
Location:
Tithe Farm, North Ferriby, HU14 3JJ
City/Town:
North Ferriby, United Kingdom
and
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Time:
10:00am - 4:00pm
Location:
Tithe Farm, North Ferriby, HU14 3JJ
City/Town:
North Ferriby, United Kingdom
Excitingly, the first one has 9 confirmed guests at Facebook, and the second 6, and are billed as "rallies"
Haltemprice and Howden must be abuzz with the honeysuckle air of liberation
!
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