Category Archives: Politics

Postings related to elections and general political stuff

Politics

So Just What Did Happen At Stockwell?

1 Comment

Listening to PM tonight, they played part of a press conference given by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot on Stockwell Underground station last Friday. Oddly enough, it is not on the BBC News web site, however a report of the press conference is here.

The generally accepted description of what happened is described on this BBC news page, key points being that Police said he was wearing a padded jacket, and that he vaulted over the barriers. However what is concerning about the information in the news conference is that the station CCTV video apparently disagrees with these points, instead showing Menezes in a denim jacket using his travelcard to go through the barriers like any other underground user.

This is following on from news yesterday that although security sources say he had an out of date visa, both his family, and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw disagree and say that he was in the UK legally, and also that he was shot eight times, rather than the originally reported five.

All of this seems to muddy the water, and also adds to concern in that we have several ‘facts’ given by the security services, that subsequently seem to be totally incorrect. He had been tracked from flats that the Police were watching, and had not raised suspicion until getting onto the train. Could it be as simple as Menezes simply spotted that a train going his direction was in the platform and ran for the train? That he had the misfortune to live in the same tower block as the terrorists and not want to miss his train? Who knows, but I suspect it may take many months, even years before we find out.

Update: The BBC now have a report of the press conference here. The IO Error blog has also collected more details here.

Politics

Shoot to Kill

Leave a comment

Yesterday afternoon the Police admitted that the man they shot on Friday was totally unconnected with any terrorists. In fact he was a Brazillian electrician, who had been living quite legally in London for the past three years.

It is worth considering at this point, that many are justifying the shooting by saying that he shouldn’t have run. Consider how an upbringing in Brazil may have affected him. In the case of the shooting, these were plain clothes officers, not visibly police officers, so in all the shouting and confusion a man whose English was not that great is being shouted at by armed men, who aren’t in a uniform. Having been brought up in Brazil, the instinct was to run. Someone who met Jean Charles de Menezes has blogged on precisely this subject.

Also bear in mind that even when they had him pinned down, eye witnesses have said that he was shot five times. This was no long range shooting, but five times at his head at close range. There is an article on the BBC News site that explains the dilema that faces armed Police officers in the situation, but the question is whether the current situation justifies what happened.

To my mind the shooting is a dangerous precedent, especially as whilst expressing regret the commisioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair has said that the shoot to kill policy stays, and that more innocent people may be shot. However, we have to consider what we as a nation regard as important, and what we are willing to give up in the fight against terrorism. The simple question is, do we think it is acceptable for a plain clothes policeman to shoot an unarmed man, pinned to the floor, five times in the head at close range, whether he thought he was a suicide bomber or not. The IO Error blog discusses the same question:

It’s definitely a bad idea to run from the police, but if a bunch of men with guns confront me, not wearing police uniforms or giving any indication that they are indeed police, I am not going to stick around if I can avoid it. They could have easily been robbers or even terrorists.

The article also highlights that the British were warning the USA against adopting just such a policy in Iraq as recently as May, because of the effect that shooting innocent civilians was having. The British military highlight situations such as Bloody Sunday, the fallout from which continues to be felt more than thirty years later.

Both the British and US policies have repeatedly put the countries forward almost as world policemen. In Afghanistan when the Taliban government refused to turn over Bin Laden to the USA, we supported the Northern Aliance, allowing them to defeat the Taliban, and now have a military presence in the country. Two years later in a move still controversial, the USA aided by the British invaded Iraq. Certainly in the case of Iraq there were questions over the UN mandate for the invasion, however in both cases the British and the USA were acting almost as world policemen, whether with world backing or not.

If, as we have done we are portraying oursleves as the guardians moral values around the world, then it is consumate on us to ensure our values are upheld in our actions at all times. However this leads to concern with policies such as the long term detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and the current issues of the number of innocent civillians killed as collateral damage in Iraq. Both of those, amongst many other actions have led to accusations from many in the Islamic world that the US and British are just as much terrorist as the terrorists groups they claim to be fighting, due to in their eyes, our apparent disregard for innocent life and double standards in the human rights we claim to uphold.

As such it is important that, as in the case of the British soilders being tried for war crimes, we regard the Stockwell shooting in the same way. If we are putting ourselves forward as examples to the rest of the world of how people should live, we have to show that we are above the terrorist who would kill innocent civillians to support their cause, and in cases like Stockwell investigate the incident and deal with it accordingly rather than taking the attitude that these things happen and steadily giving up all of the civil rights and freedoms that we are advocating for everybody else.

Ultimately, if we do that, if we do allow ourselves to degenerate to the level where we are happy for our police to shoot an innocent, pinned man, five times in the head, the terrorists will have won.

Politics

“London Is Like An American Cop Show”

1 Comment

With the fast moving nature of the current situation in London we watched Newsnight, which opened by comparing the days events in London with “an American Cop show”.

I have to say that during the day, with news coming in of the shooting of a suspect on Stockwell station and houses raided on the Harrow Road and another in Stockwell, following on from the attempted bombings yesterday, and the chase through University College Hospital, I was starting to reflect on how much like a 24 plot this is becoming.

As with many, I think there is also an increasing amazement at the change. Listening to PM on the way home one listener e-mailed in to say that he was more concerned about having police that would shoot a restrained suspect than having bombers on the loose. This perhaps is now the source of most discussion, especially over whether the Police have changed their standard policies over warnings, and where to aim. There is also discussion over whether those people involved yesterday where special forces rather than Police at all.

Having said that, perhaps the biggest breakthrough is the fact that none of the bombs went off on Thursday which leaves a lot of evidence, plus live terrorists to catch. I suspect we are in for many more days of fast moving investigations before this is over, even without this mornings news of bombs in Egypt.

As to how it will affect us, Beth and myself had an interesting conversation yesterday. Whilst you’re more likely to get injured on the roads in London than hit by a bomb, whereas Beth was keen to go up to London for the day at some point during the holidays she has decided it would be better not to go. Basically with all the chaos and disruption at the moment it seems that avoiding going into London unless we have to is the best policy.

By coincidence the BBC are also starting a new series looking at how Al-Qaeda has been changed since September 11th starts on Monday on BBC2.

Church, Politics

The Co-Op Bank Takes A Stand

Leave a comment

Browsing through the news feeds today I came across a news item I had missed reporting that the Co-Op Bank had decided to bar my favourite group of Christian fundamentalists, Christian Voice. The bank gave the reason as follows:

“Following a review of the activities of Christian Voice, we wish to give you notice that we require you to close your account with the Co-operative Bank plc. It has come to our attention that Christian Voice is engaged in discriminatory pronouncements, based on the grounds of sexual orientation. This public stance is incompatible with the position of the Co-operative Bank, which publicly supports diversity, in all its forms, for our staff, customers and other stakeholders.”

You can read the full Christian Voice press release on their site. Of course, you can also read about their campaign against gays in the Police, and their ‘satire’ site called true vision both part of the reason given for the decision by the Co-Op.

Christian Voice is now calling on the bank to ask all other Christian, Muslim and Jewish organisations to withdraw for the same reason, and calling on Christians to boycott the bank. They describe the action as being by “politically correct bully boys”, which does strike me as somewhat hypocritical following what they did to the Maggies centres earlier in the year!

It is important to realise at this point that however Stephen Green tries to spin it, the Co-Op are very clear over why they took the action, it is not for religious reasons, but purely on grounds of diversity:

“They are targeting one group of society in a hateful manner. The bank believes in respect for all sectors of society and its approach to Christian Voice is based purely on the issue of diversity and not on the grounds of religion.”

The bank is being very clear not to make a statement about the religious belief, but on the way that Christian Voice act on that belief. Indeed as Christian Voice themselves say, many religious groups bank with them based on their ethical stance. Their objection is on the basis of the active targeting of gays that the organisation carries out. (The Thinking Anglicans site explores this further.) This is in some ways a classic example of the conflict between ethics and religion with which the Church continues to wrestle, a conflict that is present within the gospels in resolving the inclusivity of Jesus against the exclusivity practiced by the Jewish authorities in his time.

Anyway, going back to the decision, it is worth noting that whilst Christian Voice are correct in stating that homophobia is not explicitly stated within the banks ethical policy, the last line reads:

On occasion, we will make decisions on specific business, involving ethical issues not included in our Ethical Policy.

It also states elsewhere that controversial decisions such as this, where the case is not clear cut, will be passed to a special committee for discussion before the decision is made.

In my opinion, whatever you think of Christian Voice, the bank is entirely within it’s rights to do business with whom it wants. The ethical policy of the bank is created from customer feedback and voted on by the customers on a regular basis, and certainly the majority of opinion I have heard on this decision so far has backed the stance taken by the bank. Whilst there may be some who will close their accounts over it, I suspect many people will either see it as a good move, or not be bothered at all.

Politics

Galloway against the US Senate

Leave a comment

Perhaps one of the more entertaining items on TV last night, was coverage of George Galloway’s appearance before the US Senate investigation into corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme.

Galloway senate

Whilst Galloway is well known in the UK, being one of the more memorable characters in British politics, he is pretty well unknown in the USA. He was previously a Labour MP in Glasgow, but following on from his two visits to Iraq during the period between the two Gulf War’s, where he attempted to highlight that sanctions only affected the Iraqi people, he vocally opposed the attack on Iraq and was thrown out of the party. He then set up his own party, and stood at the recent election in Bethnal Green, and beat the sitting Labour MP.

Although I don’t share his far-left politics, I do tend to find that he livens up British politics, and in some ways I was quite glad that he got back into parliament. It is fair to say he is vocally anti-war, and very forceful in his opinion. If the senate were expecting a quiet, intimidated, apologetic Galloway, they were sadly mistaken. What they got was Galloway attacking them “with both barrels”, in what the BBC has described as an “Explosive Showdown“. The US press were fascinated, some channels covering the whole appearance live. In fact the reaction of the US press has also been highlighted by the BBC.

To be honest, I doubt much progress was made in terms of the investigation, but the appearance certainly produced some good quotes:

“Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars? The answer to that is nobody and if you had anybody who paid me a penny you would have produced them here today.”

“I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns.”

“Senator [Coleman], in everything I said about Iraq I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies.”

The interesting end to the session was when Senator Coleman said to the press that he didn’t think Mr Galloway had been a “credible witness”, and that if it was found he had lied under oath, there would be “consequences”. It is interesting to note that the last time someone tried to prove that Galloway had recieved money from Iraq, they lost in court… Round two of Galloway against the Senate, if it happens, might be interesting!