Tony Blair
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Update on the terror ‘Debate’ – the BBC version By William Bowles
The fundamental idea namely that the state can imprison people for what they might do (or think) has conveniently vanished. Convenient because tackling the issue of preventive detention – because that’s what the law is all about – is entirely missing from the debate. Continue reading
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A very constitutional coup d’état? By William Bowles
20 July 2004 The Labour government in a ruthless bid to hold on to power has achieved what many would have thought impossible, namely to hijack Tory policy almost in its entirety with its latest ploy of adopting a ‘law and order’ agenda as part of its programme of creating a police state. Continue reading
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Remnants of Empire By William Bowles
The media’s response to the Butler ‘report’ has been tediously predictable, with most of the press pundits seeming to emit a collective sigh of relief as if, more even than the government, they can’t wait to see the back of Iraq and get on with what they know best – hobnobbing with their pals in… Continue reading
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Separate but Synonymous: The Media and the State By William Bowles
There could be no clearer admission of the incestuous relationship between the media and the state than the subtext within this apparently ‘objective’ reportage on the impending release of the Butler report on the government‘s justification for the invasion of Iraq. Continue reading
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Betwixt and Between By William Bowles
Much play has been made of Blair’s abrupt turnaround over the referendum on the new constitution for the European Union, with talk about it being a diversion from Iraq and/or the realisation that with the collapse of the Iraq adventure, Blair needs to re-insinuate the UK back into the ‘heart of Europe’. But what are… Continue reading
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“I simply say to you” By William Bowles
20 April 2004 “All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it…. Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the Continue reading
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“Why the little yellow bastards!”: Imperialism, nationalism and racism By William Bowles
It should be pretty clear to most right thinking people that there is a direct link between the imperialist project and the rise of racism and as the excerpts above illustrate, it is neither an accident nor is it a new phenomenon. And whilst Blair’s ‘theatrical’ approach may not be as explicit as those of… Continue reading
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Emergency of State By William Bowles
There’s something truly scary about Tony Blair and the crew he has assembled around him. This guy is on a ‘mission’ and it is yet another example of serendipity at work insofar as the needs of the moment always throw up someone with the right mentality for the dirty job of building an empire. Enter… Continue reading
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Blair: Out-Gunned and then brought up Short By William Bowles
On Thursday 26 February, ‘lose cannon’ Ms Clare Short, former member of the Labour Cabinet went one step further and accused the Blair government of bugging Kofi Annan’s telephone conversations as well. Blair, understandably pissed off about Ms Short’s revelations attempted to make out that not only were Ms Short’s allegations untrue but in a… Continue reading
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Wriggling, Squirming and Sliding into Sleaze By William Bowles
As predicted, Blair has done his best to reset the agenda re the ‘dictionary’ definition of WMD but then what other choice does he have? Blair’s capos Reid, Straw, Hain, Hoon et al have been working overtime trying to do damage control but it’s the performance of Margaret Beckett’s that took the cake this week,… Continue reading
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Damn! What a Week (and it’s only Wednesday) By William Bowles
Hard to know where to begin what with Blair desperately seeking solutions. Kay, Jones, Powell and co, all spilling the beans (not, I add of the ricin kind) and jumping ship in what now looks remarkably like a total rout for the imperium. Blair protests in Parliament that Saddam’s ‘plans’ are pretty much the same… Continue reading
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It’s the spies wot gets the blame By William Bowles
“I saw evidence that was categoric on Saddam possessing chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Now I saw the evidence, so did the Prime Minister, so did other cabinet ministers. That informed our decision to go topple him. I think we were right in doing so, but let’s wait and see what the jury… Continue reading
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Nothing to fear but fear itself By William Bowles
9/11, Pearl Harbour, ‘Red Scares’, Tonkin Gulf, the Miners Strike, ‘terrorism’, ‘subversion’, ‘Them’, ‘It’, ‘aliens’, ‘paedophiles’, epidemics, it’s a long list, indeed an endless list of fears, some real but most are inventions. All exploit what we fear most – the unknown, that in the final analysis resolves into what the future holds, the ultimate… Continue reading
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Blair builds the corporate state William Bowles
Blair is playing the leadership ‘take me or leave me’ shtick borrowed, lock, stock and barrel from Thatcher. In a pitch aimed directly at Labour Party members who are extremely unhappy with the direction that the government is going, Blair harked back to previous Labour governments, that, much as the Democracts in the US did,… Continue reading
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9/11: “That’s some bad pilot” By William Bowles
Winning the war against Communism, contrary to all our expectations (the ‘peace dividend’ etc) were not to be realised. Instead, the way was open for the West to conquer those parts of the world and its resources that had been denied to it. But in order to rationalise its reinvigorated imperialist objectives a new ‘enemy’… Continue reading
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Iraq: The Big Lie Gets Even Bigger By William Bowles
With the willing complicity of the mass media, including the craven BBC, the real story, occasionally alluded to but never pursued, is that the decision to invade Iraq was made at least a year ago if not immediately after 9/11. And the government’s ‘attack’ on the BBC following the Kelly ‘revelation’ was an attempt to… Continue reading
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Iraq: Flawed, selective, distorted and mistaken? Selling the big lie By William Bowles
About the only thing the media won’t entertain is the idea that invading Iraq was always the basis of Blair’s policy and that all the squirming and changes of justification flow from this basic premise. How else does one describe the way the media worms its way through the mire and deliberately avoids the lies… Continue reading
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Virus of violence unleashed on the world By William Bowles
Everyday I scan the news heads from the various sources I receive (I can never keep up with it all obviously) and it’s clear that the US has unleashed a virus of violence on the planet. Just a short selection from the last few days paints the picture: Continue reading
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The Death of Dr David Kelly: Dark actors – dark forces? By William Bowles
Given Dr Kelly’s central role in the September document, he surely must have known well before its release in September 2002, that it contained false information to boost the case for war. So why wait until May of this year before voicing his concerns? Continue reading
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The Death of Dr David Kelly: Opening a can of worms By William Bowles
It is being suggested that he went through some kind of ‘sea change’ last year during his frequent visits to Iraq as part of the Unmovic inspection team and that he was convinced that Iraq had indeed, destroyed its CBW weapons. According to an unnamed analyst quoted by the Independent, he became disillusioned with the… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 