"The Strange Death of David Kelly" by Norman Baker

Book review

You'd be hard pressed to find a single person in Britain unable to associate ten years of Blair and New Labour with the words "spin", "deceit" and Alistair Campbell.

But whatever your views on Iraq, their lowest point was undoubtedly the absolute mess of "dodgy dossiers", lies and apocalyptic 45-minute claims. That included the Government bullying the BBC for shedding light over the doctoring of intelligence documents and, most shockingly, the death of weapons inspector David Kelly, the BBC source as whistleblower of Britain's faltering justification into the Iraq war. His body was found in the Oxfordshire woods in July 2003. For Blair, it all went downhill from there. And yet no serious analysis of the fact ever took place.

Norman Baker, MP for Lewes in Sussex, tries to redress the balance. His book The Strange Death of David Kelly has been nominated for the Channel 4 Political Book Award 2008. For one thing, it is infinitely more analytical than the hurried statutory inquiry set up by Tony Blair hours after Dr Kelly's demise.

In fact, as you read, you learn that -quirk no.1- a statutory inquiry (such as the one led by Lord Hutton) has no tribunal powers. Less, in fact, than an ordinary coroner's inquest. For instance, they have no authority over witnesses, no warrant to call for new evidence as well as no power to sanction perjury. You won't hear that from the newspapers. And yet, it's only one of the mysteries that surround the case.

Lord Hutton's official verdict was suicide, coupled with ample bollocking of those at the BBC who dared question the accuracy of the Government claims behind the invasion of Iraq. Thought it was common knowledge that intelligence material had been disgracefully 'sexed up', it didn’t matter. The BBC was forced to apologise and its director general to resign.

Meanwhile, Dr David Kelly was alleged to have taken 29 Coproxamol tablets and slashed a small artery in his wrist. But -quirk no.2- only less than the content of one Coproxamol tablet was found inside Dr Kelly's body. Lord Hutton didn’t deem it worthy of a more thorough investigation.

More, a group of respected vascular experts queried Lord Hutton's conclusion protesting that the chances of dying of haemorrhage from severing the artery Dr Kelly was alleged to have slashed are close to nil.

And - quirk no.4 - in spite his alleged lethal haemorrhage, hardly any blood was found on David Kelly's clothes or sprayed around. Put simply, there isn’t enough space here to sum up the huge list of inconsistencies published in the Hutton whitewash. And yet, it's just unbelievable. There's the last person to have seen Dr Kelly who claims he wasn’t wearing a coat (it was July, remember). Yet one was found on his corpse.

There's the unexplained fact of the police support operation, codenamed Mason, starting nine hours before Dr Kelly was reported missing. Unorthodoxly, the police focused on searching Dr Kelly's house as soon as they turned up, requesting that Mrs Kelly wait outside. Besides, there's Dr Kelly's past involvement with highly secret Ministry of Defence-sanctioned projects. If he could speak to the BBC about the Government lies in their case for war, what else might he spill?

There's his cryptic words to a colleague just before the Iraq war: "if Iraq is invaded I'll be found dead in the woods". There are Dr Kelly's work-related emails sent on the day he disappeared which suggest a perfectly stable and forward-looking state of mind. There's the plane tickets he booked. Last but not least, the disturbing number of incidents that surrounded Norman Baker's sources as he was collecting his evidence.

As it's very easy to shrug off the fragmented evidence and list of contradictions as conspiracy theory, Norman Baker centres his research on meticulous investigation and forensic research rather than plain hearsay. The book is more a dissection of all possible options rather than pre-conceived theory.

So I guess the best endorsement to the book comes from the stick Norman Baker took from the usual suspects. In The Guardian, Richard Norton-Taylor talks about "plenty of evidence supporting the conclusion that he was driven to suicide" but he doesn’t say what the evidence is.

But, best of all, there's The Times' David Aaronovitch. Now, seriously, there's a better chance of Blair disagreeing with himself than that of Mr Aaronovitch disagreeing with Blair. In 10 years, the independent-minded columnist has not written one - read 1- article even remotely critical of any action taken by Messiah Tony.

Instead of debating the facts, in classic Pravda-style, Aaronovitch proceeds with his character assassination of Norman Baker and his current role in the Liberal Democrats. Then there's this one: "Since the fearless Mr Baker believes it is impossible to die in the way Dr Kelly is supposed to have done, then it should be able to meet the simple challenge of himself taking 29 Coproxamol tablets and then slitting his own left ulnar artery". Not impossible, if all the tablets you swallow amount to less than one.

But one can excuse Aaronovitch for being obviously too busy with his own independent thinking to check all the facts. And actually read the book.

"It was impossible for Dr Kelly to have died like that"

Hagley Road interviews Norman Baker MP, author of "The Strange Death of David Kelly"

According to the stereotype, MPs are a collection of spineless, boring and samey individuals. After the squalid 10-year-long display offered by most Labour Party MPs under Messiah Tony, it's now quite difficult to argue against that. Whether it was the Iraq war, tuition fees or foundation hospitals, one of the few certainties of life became that the House of the Unrepresentatives would vote against people's wishes. Yet, it must be said that not all MPs are the same and laudable exceptions do exist. And when they do, they come in the guise of one Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, Sussex, since 1997, a man with an enviable record of tireless investigations into the privileges and expenses of Westminster. One who would probably be called "a pain in the arse" by fellow parliamentarians reluctant to scrutiny and transparency. Most recently, Norman Baker embarked upon an almost solitary battle to shed light on one of the most disgraceful moments of recent British history, the death of weapons inspector David Kelly. You can read this blog's review of Norman Baker's book The Strange Death of David Kelly here. The topic was too interesting to pass over the chance of asking Mr Baker some questions and the Lewis MP kindly decided to spare a pleasant fifteen minutes.

As I was researching for this I found out you used to work as a teacher.

I did! Mainly in Eastbourne, but sometimes in Brighton too. I used to teach groups of Swedes. Any advice? Well, teaching Swedish girls…it was a good job, I did it in between other things when I was waiting for my politics to take off.

What triggered your interest in the Dr Kelly controversy to the point of writing a book?

I think it was obviously a sensational death. Newspapers and tabloids were on about it all the time and it grabbed my attention like everyone else's. So I waited for Lord Hutton's inquiry to be completed. Rather naïvely of me, because when the report came out it became apparent it had completely failed to investigate his death, as it spent most of its time analysing the row between the BBC and the government. Then what happened was that letters from medical experts started appearing in the press saying it was impossible for Dr Kelly to have died like that. In July 2006 I published an article on The Mail on Sunday. I had the largest response to anything I've done since becoming an MP. Literally, hundreds of letters of support. In fact, all bar two were supportive. Some people sent me statements or pieces of evidence that Lord Hutton hadn’t used. So I thought that writing a book would be the most sensible way to go about it.

Was relevant evidence actually being sent to you?

Some stuff they sent seemed to be. Yes.

Last year The Independent called you "the most hated man in Westminster". Surely you can wear that as a badge of honour…

Well, it was interesting because, in spite of the title, the article was actually positive. On the other hand you had the Daily Mail headlining "Britain's greatest MP". But neither are true. It's not a question of black or white. In a sense how you describe me is not relevant to things I campaign on. I don’t do it to improve my public image.

How sympathetic - or hostile- was the climate at Westminster throughout the time you spent gathering evidence for your book?

People were instinctively uncomfortable about it. Maybe sceptical, but what I showed them for many years was objective statements. As Matthew Parris said I'm usually right in what I'm doing and people recognise that. I was right on the Millennium Dome, I was right on Mandelson, I was right on Campbell and then climate change. Earlier on people disagreed but I was then vindicated by the way events turned out.

You mentioned quite a few disturbing episodes that occurred while you were writing. For instance, when the hard drive on your PC was completely erased. Did you ever feel you were treading on murky territory? Did you fear for your own safety?

Well, what I tried to do in the book was to make sure I didn’t overegg the pudding. If you overegg the pudding, that's easiest way to be rubbished. I haven’t written anything to exactly say that there was a direct connection. I just described what happened. But, you know, it may be entirely innocuous and coincidental and I have no evidence to the contrary. That's what I wrote in the book. Did I fear for my safety? Well, you do what you think is right. You can cross the road and get runover and you can't live like that. The best defence in any such situation is to keep a high profile in the papers, therefore if anything happens then at least it's in the public view.

So you don’t have any protection as an MP? A police escort or something?

A Ford Escort, more like.

It's quite puzzling that Dr Kelly's wife, Janice, has kept such a low profile since the start of the whole controversy. Why do you think that is…and did you try to contact her?

I don’t want to hurt anybody's sensitivity therefore I don’t think it's appropriate to go into what I did or I didn’t in relation with Janice Kelly. As I wrote in my book, there are members of the family who were unhappy with the verdict and you may be aware of that. As with Mrs Kelly and her actions, it's all in the book.

Similarly, Ruth Absalom, the last person who allegedly spoke to David Kelly before his disappearance, gave a fairly muddled statement to the Hutton inquiry. Did you manage to track her down?

Yes and no. I found out where she's living but she's got Alzheimers or similar debilitating illness which means she was unable to contribute. I suppose in retrospect it may have started at that point already. I spoke to relatives, but no, they couldn’t shed any light.

Britain seems to have remarkable ability to sweep most relevant questions under the carpet - perhaps I dare say in a way other countries haven’t. The endless post 7/7 spirit-of-the-blitz rhetoric was a typical example of weapons of mass distraction. In the light of Lord Hutton's whitewash, what's your view?

I would say this. Any society which functions properly as a democratic society needs certain safeguards. To begin with, in this country there is too much centralised power. Also, you need a system of freedom of information. Thirdly, a system of accountability for the government of the day so that if they cover something up it should be found out. We haven’t got that. A lot of info in my book came from the US. Though faulty they have congress hearing and you can get to bottom of some issues. I mean, Nixon was subject to impeachment and we that simply wouldn’t happen here. It was quite clear that many people thought Blair lied but nothing happened.

I mean, I find it incredible that a war can be unleashed on what soon turn out to be a pack of lies and no political consequences take place. I mean, look at what happened to Aznar in Spain in 2004…would that take place in Britain? I don’t think so…

I think… sometimes if you wanna tell a lie just tell a big one.

I thought your book was incredibly analytical in the way cases were put forward. Only, in the last chapter, you seem to give some credit to the Iraqi element theory, yet quite without a great deal of evidence. Did you find out more than you were allowed to publish?

Yes [chuckles]. There were two constraining facts. There's the issue of libel and my publishers advised me to drop a few things from my book. Secondly, in the last chapter I refer to one particular source, and a great deal of what he told me had to be removed in order to protect his identity and safety.

Amongst the many reviews of your book I've looked at, The Times' David Aaronovitch was dishearteningly dismissive. Personally I don’t even think he read your book. For one, he glossed over the fact that under one tablet of Copraxamol was found inside Kelly's body, whereas the official version spoke of 29 tablets. Now, I know in ten years he's never written a critical word, not a single one, about the Blair government, but whatever happened to investigative journalism?

Investigative journalism is alive and kicking. Well, ok, not alive and kicking, perhaps more on a life support machine in fact. There's a book, 'Flat Earth News', written by one of my constituents, Nick Davies, analysing the weaknesses of the press. There are indeed plenty of good journalists out there, Anthony Barnett from The Observer, for example, and one or two papers who have the time or money to do it. The Sunday Times does it, the Mail on Sunday does it…they have got time and money. But the worst journalists are those who betray their profession by simply acting as promoters for those in power. What [Aaronovitch] wrote was a pre-emptive strike. At the time of his article, the book hadn’t even been published.

But perhaps he got hold of sample copies, you know…made available to the press prior to publishing dates?

No, no, there was no such thing! He just read one or two extracts from the Daily Mail and that was it!

Has the LibDems' policy on Iraq changed in any way since the election of Nick Clegg as leader?

No, it hasn’t. We want to get out. We’re doing no good in Iraq and we need to extract ourselves as soon as possible. That's what the public as large has said to me. The picture coming out from those days is one of a totally discredited government who behaved disgracefully and with no control from within the [Labour] party. Then we had a Tory party who at the time was totally out of touch and unable to form any coherent policy. So the only people against the war were us. In fact, every single Liberal Democrat MP voted against the war in the Commons.

In the book you also hint at the possibility that Tony Blair was left with no choice with regard to Iraq. He appeared disconcertingly eager to please the Bush administration. Apart from losing political capital what else could he have been scared of?

He put himself into a corner where he thought he could be very clever. He thought he could do what Bush wanted by agreeing to the war in 2002, so long before the war actually started. Secondly, he was still of the opinion he could get the UN Security Council to authorise it. That way he could get cover and still please Bush. But things went down a different route, so Blair ended up tied to Bush's wagon and unable to separate himself. He played his cards rather badly and things went different from what he wanted. Again, one section of the book had to be edited out but the question you can still read is basically: "If the US had info which, if released, would have caused Blair to resign, in what way would he have behaved differently from how he did."

Some people are pointing out that they were right all along as the number of casualties in Iraq is now decreasing. But what pisses me off is that if you show a bit of realism you're deemed a Cassandra who's going against the grain. This from the people who declared victory 5 years ago and are still bogged down.

I mean, fatalities are decreasing only because they were at such a horrendously high figure but they are still a high figure. The whole Iraq escapade has been a total disaster for UK policies across the world, for the UK's image in the world, as we are now seen as an adjunct to the US. Secondly, it's damaged Iraq, it's in such a mess, and it may as well splinter into two. Saddam was a ghastly grotesque maniac but he held the country together. Now it's falling apart, especially into the two Sunni and Shia entities. It's also damaging US interests because if you want to pour petrol on the flame then that's exactly what's been happening. Radical Islamism has been escalating to a point we didn’t have before.

"Without access to the evidence we can only work on likelihoods"

The Strange Death of Dr Kelly. Interview with Rowena Thursby

Some of the credit for not ever letting the Dr Kelly issue drop goes to a lady by the name of Rowena Thursby. In the wake of the unquestioned suicide verdict and the one-sided nature of the Lord Hutton report, Mrs Thursby had the resolve to piece together the many voices of dissent. She posted articles on her blog and won the backing of a number of health professionals and medical experts who were increasingly sceptical of the investigative process as well as the official verdict.

Mrs Thursby kindly accepted to help me explore the issue and answered a few questions.
"I had never been particularly interested in politics", she told me, "but for me 9/11 was the catalyst for extensive reading, as I attempted to comprehend the political processes behind it. It became clear that the PNAC neoconservative think tank had been set on controlling the massive resources in the Caspian Sea basin long before 9/11 -- and capturing control of Iraq was central to their geopolitical plan".

Her analysis on the months leading to the Iraq invasion would only be questioned by all but a handful of people. No doubt two would be Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell:

"During 2002 it became increasingly clear that the American government was intent on invading Iraq and looking for a pretext. Searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq provided one. So when Dr David Kelly insisted upon accuracy when talking about WMDs, he eventually found himself in a perilous situation. There can't have been many intelligent people around who did not wonder, when he was found dead in the woods two days after being hauled in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee, if he had been 'dealt with'. Joseph Wilson, mindful of his own safety, was one of them".

Joseph Wilson's, the US former ambassador to Niger, is an interesting case in point. Like Kelly, he became one of the whistleblowers of the lies behind the Iraq invasion. In an article for the New York Times, he stated that the George W. Bush administration had distorted intelligence to "exaggerate the Iraqi threat". A week later, the US Government unleashed its revenge. Wilson's wife's covert CIA identity as "Valerie Plame" was outed in a Washington Post column, putting her safety at risk and obviously setting an abrupt end to her career. No wonder Joseph Wilson wrote, "I too wondered about Kelly's death…I was horrified that I could actually harbour suspicions… that a democratic government might actually do bodily harm to an opponent".

Mrs Thursby, did you ever feel hampered as you began your work to find out more?

"When I was in the thick of it - around the time of the Hutton Report -3,000 e-mails related to the Kelly investigation vanished from my Outlook Express inbox".

But shouldn’t journalists ask the questions that yourself and Norman Baker dared to?
"I lament the fact that there is hardly any investigative journalism nowadays. Few journalists appear to be willing to sink their teeth into a story and stay with it. I suspect many journalists are selected for their tendency to stick to the straight and narrow. Those with more maverick inclinations find they do not have the resources to investigate at a meaningful level".

Do you believe Norman Baker's book can help reopen the case or at least re-focus public opinion? I have the feeling the "it's-the-usual-loonie-conspiracy-theorists" has been already unleashed with a vengeance...
"To make any real difference it needs a whistleblower to come forward with convincing evidence - sufficient to convince not only the Coroner but also Mrs Kelly, who believes it was suicide".

How can her position be explained? Did you speak to her?
"I spoke to Mrs Kelly about the possibility of bringing a judicial review on the Coroner's decision not to re-open the inquest in 2004. She was dead against it because she firmly believes her husband committed suicide. I find her certainty puzzling".

Norman Baker's book ends with a theory. Iraqi hitmen may have been involved in Dr Kelly's 'wet disposal'. Some people dismiss it as conspiracy theory yet it's also true that conspiracy theories arise when a case is shrouded in secrecy.
"Without access to the evidence, we can only work on likelihoods. While it is possible Iraqi hitmen were responsible, I doubt they would have been able to act beneath the radar of British/American intelligence. George Galloway was of the view that the Iraqis barely sneezed without US permission. To set up a suicide scene would require knowledge of the pills, the jacket and the knife -- and the opportunity to take them from the Kelly household such that no one would know they were missing; it seems unlikely that Iraqis would be able to accomplish that without assistance".

New calls for Dr Kelly inquest

The only people satisfied with the Hutton Report were Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell.

Six years after the alleged suicide of Dr David Kelly, a group of doctors is preparing to legally challenge the findings of the Hutton Inquiry, which was set up by the government to clear the government of any wrongdoing.

According to today's Independent, the doctors' report rejects the theory that Dr Kelly died as a result of cutting his own wrist. The case came under renewed publicity at the end of 2007 when LibDem MP Norman Baker wrote the book The Strange Death of David Kelly, which pointed out a staggering number of contradictions and unanswered questions. "It was impossible for Dr Kelly to have died like that", Baker told us at Hagley Road to Ladywood.

More on the Hutton Report here.

Questions over Robin Cook's death

Another David Kelly? Some people online are asking questions.

While googling around the other day, one link led to another until a blog in particular caught my attention. Though I'm a firm believer that shit happens and that, if one wants, practically everything can be dressed up and interpreted as conspiracy (sometimes to mental extremes), I'm also aware that there are several grey areas in the way our governments act. This blog paid some attention to the strange death of Dr David Kelly and the murky world behind the Iraq war and I couldn't help but think that aspects of Robin Cook's death don't appear to fully add up.

I know it's hardly topical but you may want to have a look.

According to this entry ("Lingering questions about Robin Cook's death") available on a blog called 'Shaphan', there was some ambiguity regarding Cook's official cause of death (head injuries or heart disease?). Also, it may mean nothing, but as the Scottish mountain of Ben Stack (where Cook died while on a walking holiday) is extremely isolated, for a walker (or walkers - again, there seem to be contrasting versions) to be at hand and phone for help was quite a singular coincidence. More, in spite of earlier reports suggesting the opposite, it is was later established that both Cook and his wife were indeed carrying a mobile phone themselves (it was 2005, after all).

Finally, "Robin Cook chose an extremely remote place to die, far away from London, and the story was over before the press could send anyone to cover it". I didn't know, for instance, that Ben Stack is property of the Duke of Westminster, someone who devoted most of his life to the British Army and has always been regarded as a top MoD insider.

Similarly to the David Kelly affair, in spite of the high profile nature of the deceased, the police declared the case closed straightaway "as this would appear to be a medical matter".

In case you're scratching your head about all this, Robin Cook, as many know, was possibly the fiercest critic of the Iraq invasion amongst Labour's senior politicians. As he'd been Foreign Minister throughout Tony Blair's first term in office (1997-2001), he obviously had first-hand knowledge of intelligence related to Iraq, WMDs and threats (real or imaginary) from abroad. This is why he was particularly aware that Blair was hitting a bum note with the botched intelligence that lead to the infamous 45-minute claim. In protest against the invasion of Iraq, Robin Cook resigned from the cabinet in 2003. Four weeks before his death, he'd caused a minor stir when he relied on his previous knowledge as Foreign Minister to write in The Guardian:

"Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians".

The Kettle Tactic

Mark Reed: "The official version is that every thing that is done is done to keep us safe. Not to control."

The smiley face, the blood stain, the badge. It was everywhere. “Who watches the Watchmen?”

And even though the film came out, and the comic has been legend since the summer of “Meat is Murder”, it has never been more pertinent.

Even now, eight years after September 11th – possibly the defining incident of our generation – our media, the obselete print network, and an antiquated government that has introduced over 1,000 new laws since 1997, has been obsessed. Obsessed with terrorists, an invisible enemy, and obsessed with ensuring that all of us are monitored and treated as if we are all guilty to be proven innocent.

I understand. So it may never happen again. By any means necessary. Or, as Nixon put it - “It's not illegal if the President does it”.

We live in an age where the average Londoner has a new security camera trained on him about 300 times a day. Security cameras in your trains, our buses, our workplaces, our streets. There is no way we live our lives in privacy anymore.

Not that I've ever seen the benefit in any great way in security cameras. Cameras just watch. I've never seen a hit squad of coppers intervene because they saw a fight on CCTV. Cameras watch silently our lives and our deaths, impassive glass eyes.

Because if The Establishment – a phrase coined by noted historian A J P Taylor, by the way – can watch us, it's for our own good. We don't know what's best for us, and we're too stupid to know any better.

History is written by the victors, and the official version is that every thing that is done is done to keep us safe. Not to control. Our emails are kept for a year, no matter what they are. (with 2 million emails sent a second in the world, that's a shitload of spam and love notes).

But if we want to watch The Establishment, every image we take could be of use to terrorists. And therefore, it is illegal. All a policeman has to do is say that we could be taking photographs of policemen so we could murder them, and then it is illegal to take pictures of policemen.

It's illegal to photograph a policemen with removed ID flashes, breaking the law, hitting a woman with a baton several times.

It's illegal to video a policeman hiding behind a riot shield, smashing a man to the floor just for walking near him. It's illegal to record these things. Lock up these terrorists!

But it's legal for a policeman to remove his ID, and assault the general public. It's legal because none of the officers around him stopped him: they saw a crime being perpetrated, and they did nothing. And the police, the Government, all forget the central tenement of everything they do. It is with our consent.

But We do not consent.

We do not consent to 'The Kettle Tactic' of illegal imprisonment of thousands of people in confined spaces without sanitation and food.

We do not consent to being bullied and assualted by anonymous liars who only tell the most spartan of facts when they realise that they were being filmed and cannot sustain a barefaced lie.

We do not consent to anti-terror legislation being perverted to allow councils to look in your bins and aim CCTV at your rubbish to see if you put a plastic bottle in the wrong box.

What do we want?

We don't want inquests. We want prosecutions. We want the lens of scrutiny to be held up to the executors of our laws and for them also to be subject to the same rule as the rest of us. We want justice.

And when we say justice, we mean: equality, fairness. Those who uphold the law to be answerable to the laws.

We want the men who hide behind uniforms who strike men and women with batons and imprison thousands in 'The Kettle' prosecuted. We want the people who were guilty of gross incompetence at Hillsborough to be held to account. We are sick and tired of 'inquests'. Sick and tired of whitewashes, and investigations made by internal parties, fuelled by people with one eye on their careers and appeasing distant powers that be.

We don't want an inquest to be held behind closed doors. We want inquests about corporate malfeasance and malpractice, about police abuse, about David Kelly and the G20 deaths and assualts to be held by open, independent investigators.

All of us know the phrase 'Judge, jury, and Executioner'. We all know that at the moment the inquests that happen do so where people and civil servants are accountable to themselves, not others, and cannot be judged impartially by their peers.



It is time the Government established a Public Investigation Office: a Department that exists solely to hold the Civil Servants, the Police, the Military to account within the full force of the law. For if they want us to obey their laws, they have to obey the laws themselves.

David Kelly warned of “many dark actors playing games": these dark actors have many faces, and one of which is the inevitable corruption that arises when one is only accountable to oneself – there is no restraint when you have no accountability.

We consent to the civil servants of this country being held accountable to the laws that govern the rest of us. No one is above the law.

We want the police to do their job: "If anyone wants to come to London to engage in crime or disorder, they will be met with a swift and efficient policing response" said Commander Simon O'Brien of The Metropolitan Police.

And we don't want the Police to be liars. After all, Perjury - the deliberate act of deception and lying - is still a crime. And no one should ever be above the law.

See also: Police delete London tourists' photos.

New Labour moments (part 2)

Here's another roll of honour of New Labour's finest achievements during twelve years in office:

- The Hinduja scandal. In January 2001, it was revealed Mandelson had phoned a Home Office minister on behalf of an Indian millionaire seeking British citizenship while sponsoring the ailing Millennium Dome. Mandelson was forced to resign from his post as "Secretary of State for Ireland" as he himself had dubbed it. Seven years later, he was rewarded with a life peerage.

- House of Lords. In its 1997 manifesto ('Britain deserves better'), Labour promised to remove the hereditary peerage from the House of Lords, a unique aberration amongst Western democracies. So what did they do? Did they turn it into an elected chamber? A regional one, perhaps? No. Tony Blair thought the perfect idea would be to mix hereditary peers (92 of them), bishops and hundreds of personally handpicked ones (see below).

- Cash for Honours scandal. A number of wealthy businessmen making secret loans to New Labour prior to the 2005 elections magically got nominated for peerages (see above). A criminal investigation led to the arrest of Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy, later released on bail. "Trust damaged", said the public administration committee's report.

- "Good day to bury bad news". The tragic attack on September 11, 2001 gave Labour a chance to practice "spin at its worst". A Labour aide's memo said: ""It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?".

- "Ending boom and bust". "Through rigorous discipline we will not return to boom and bust". This succession of epic proclaims accompanied an unsustainable debt-financed growth, followed -in fact- by the worst crisis in 60 years. "I only meant no more Tory boom & bust", was Brown's justification, obviously thinking that Britain's population consists of 60 million cretins.

- The David Kelly affair. A "Best of" of Labour's culture of secrecy, political bullying and lack of transparency, this was obviously going to become Tony Blair's lowest moment in government. Anybody out there still thinking Dr Kelly committed suicide?

- The FBU strike. At the end of 2002, firefighters began the longest industrial dispute since the miners' strike in 1984. As they asked for their first wage revision since 1977, Tony Blair said that their demands could cause "terrible damage to the economy". He never said that about 'non-doms', City bonuses, or an economy built on fake credit.

- Civil liberties. From one Terror Act to the other, detention without trial under Labour rose rapidly from four days under the Tories to fourty-two days under the Counter Terrorism Bill 2008. Continuous lies over rendition flights were another fine moment.

-2/3 of all EU debt. Blair and Brown would routinely boast about Britain's "golden age" and "consumer boom" but, under Labour, personal debt was allowed to spiral out of control. In 2006 it was revealed that 2/3 of all EU credit card debt was British. I guess you know what happened after.

- A party of strong values. From Mandelson's now ultra-famous "intensely relaxed about the filthy rich", to John Hutton's ode to City bonuses "we need more millionaires" to Caroline Flint's "if you want a council house find a job" and James Purnell's "there should be no free-riding", this is how Labour has become a "party of strong values".

- The Lisbon treaty referendum. Whichever your views on Europe, the 2005 Labour manifesto promised a referendum on the new EU constitution. "This is a Government promise", said Tony Blair. Oh yeah.

- Poverty. Despite promises and proclaims, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the poorest fifth of the population has experienced no growth in real earnings. Nearly twice as many people have relatively low incomes as 25 years ago. Income inequality has risen since Labour took power and is now higher than at any time in the last thirty years.

[READ PART ONE HERE]

Decade reviewed (5): UK politics

From predictable and apathetic to volatile and polarised- how British politics changed in the last ten years.

Much has been written about the Nineties as the 'consensus decade', the 'end of history' and no major divide within Western politics, at least in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Indeed the Noughties began with one opinion column after another celebrating Middle England, New Labour's 'third way' and the alleged end of class division. More, many questioned whether the Tories' would ever stand a chance of winning again.

The decade started with New Labour displaying their democratic credentials by kicking Ken Livingstone out of the party in the run-up to London's first ever mayoral elections. But Livingstone stuck to his guns, stood as an independent, and secured Tony Blair's first significant humiliation of his career.

The lowest turnout in history at the 2001 general elections was evidence of galloping apathy and disillusion. With barely over half the country bothering to cast a ballot, Tony Blair celebrated his second landslide in a row and, when William Hague stepped down as Tory leader, not many seemed to care. in the leadership race that followed, Michael Portillo missed his chance of a lifetime and lost to lesser-known Iain Duncan Smith.

In the meantime, with the far right showing its ugly rear in the Oldham and Bradford race riots of summer 2001, the country's community relations took the first tangible battering of the decade.

The 9/11 attacks were the undisputed watershed. Affecting everything, from the way we look at national security, through the way we travel, to the notion of multiculturalism, it truly messed up the following few years. Still blown away by the attack, very few questioned Tony Blair's unadulterated support for George W Bush's foreign policy and the ensuing Afghanistan war enjoyed widespread support in both the US and Britain.

Things however, took a different turn in the run-up to the Iraq war. From Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech to the heated debate with France and Germany over the second UN resolution, many will remember the countdown on Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspector amongst claims that Saddam Hussein was '45 minutes' away from doing us over with WMDs.

Amongst the most memorable moments, the 1-million strong anti-war march on 15 February 2003, the biggest demonstration ever in British history. People from all sections of society, regardless of political allegiances, defied the freezing weather to voice their scepticism. Most remarkably, the issue stirred some serious passion amongst people who'd never before expressed an interest in politics.

And yet it was obvious that Tony Blair had obviously made his mind up. A month later, a nail-biting parliamentary vote saw the anti-war MPs narrowly defeated in spite of 112 Labour backbenchers rebelling. Robin Cook's resignation speech was the first ever to receive a standing ovation in the history of the House.

Starting a few days later, the Iraq war marked the beginning of Tony Blair's undoing. The government's handling of the (very) strange death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly and the emerging truth that were no WMDs in Iraq tarnished Blair's reputation forever.

The firefighters' 2-year-long pay dispute (2002-04) came to an end with the adoption of the New Fire and Rescue Services Act, resulting in all ties severed between the Fire Brigade Union and the Labour Party.

In 2004, "Teflon Tony" survived another backbench revolt as he led his party through a spectacular u-turn on tuition fees. A push, a shove and a last-minute whip in the jaffas (i.e. minister Nick Brown defecting back into the government), pushed the price of a single year at one of the country's Universities up to £3,000 (plus booze).

In the meantime, Thatcher's ugliest legacy, the uber homophobic Section 28, was finally scrapped. Like with the repeal in Scotland a few years before, the Conservatives voted compact in favour of upholding discrimination but were resoundingly beaten.

In June the anti-Europe UKIP came third in the European elections. Former TV presenter Robert Kilroy Silk helped raise UKIP's profile but fell out with the leadership within months and branded the party "a joke".

In September, the pro-fox hunting Countryside Alliance clashed with the police on Parliament Square. Some protesters stormed into the House of Commons but failed to stop the government from passing (after years of wrangling) a watered-down Hunting Act.

In the meantime, the Tories elected yet another new leader. With Iain Duncan Smith oozing the charisma of a turnip, the Conservatives showed political acumen by handpicking draculesque Michael Howard, a cabinet member under both Thatcher and Major, a man with "something of the night about him", as their 'new' and 'fresh' leader.

And yet the 2005 general elections turned into another Tory failure. The biggest success came instead from the Liberal Democrats. Thanks to the leadership of Charles Kennedy and their opposition to both the Iraq gamble and tuition fees, they won their biggest share of MPs since 1929. Not enough, however, to stop New Labour from winning a record third election. Tony Blair celebrated by promising to serve a "full term".

The London bombings in July, the biggest terrorist attack in UK history, threatened to be another nail in the coffin for community relations, also reminding the country that, far from increasing security, the Iraq war actually brought terrorism home.

In August, former Foreign Sectretary and Iraq war critic Robin Cook died. The year ended with the Tories appointing -amazingly- their fourth leader of the decade, this time at least opting for a younger option: 39-year-old David Cameron. Also, the first same-sex civil partnership in the UK was celebrated in Belfast: one of New Labour's proudest achievements.

Less than two months later, LibDem leader Charles Kennedy confessed to having an alcohol problem and resigned -its party hasn't fully recovered yet. Also, anti-war MP George Galloway squandered his political capital by appearing on the 2006 edition of Celebrity Big Brother, while a swirl of speculations mounted over Gordon Brown's alleged "coup" to oust Tony Blair and the disgraceful cash-for-honours scandal which resulted in the arrest of Labour's chief fundraiser Lord Levy.

In the meantime, outrage over the Iraq war didn't relent. 2007 turned into the bloodiest year since the invasion and not many shed a tear when Tony Blair, fresh from signing the Trident renewal agreement, finally resigned in June after years of speculation.

Following the initial honeymoon period, new PM Gordon Brown hit a bum note when he dithered over an early election in October 2007. Nick Clegg became the third LibDem leader in two years and the bail out of Northern Rock heralded the worst economic crisis since WWII.

In May 2008 Boris Johnson replaced Ken Livingstone after eight years as London Mayor, confirming suspicions that the pendulum may be swinging towards the Conservatives for the first time in fifteen years.

Nosediving in the opinion polls, Labour found little consolation in the fact that a devastating MPs' expenses scandal hit all political parties. Moats, duck houses, fridge magnets and porn videos were all found amongst the list of stuff subsidised by the oblivious taxpayer. A series of high profile resignations hit the Brown government in June 2009, adding to the biting recession and relentless rise in unemployment.

The 2009 European vote signalled more bad news for Brown. Much was written about the far-right BNP securing two MEPs for the first time in history, a combination of incredibly low turnout and the vicious anti-immigration line adopted by a number of red tops.

Fears of a far-right revival increased in summer, when race riots took place in both Luton and Birmingham during demonstrations organised by a new group called the English Defence League.

In October, a heated debate surrounded the invitation of BNP leader Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time. However, his botched attempts at introducing fascist policies to a wider audience ended up into a major media own goal. In the meantime, the postal strike in Autumn drew comparisons with the 1984 miners' dispute.

The picture at the end of the decade is that of a much more polarised and volatile British politics. On one side, the economy is looking much worse than ten years ago, with unemployment over twice as bad, rampant family debt, businesses going bust and a rising wealth gap. Though the public remains widely suspicious of free market policies and the Conservatives, 13 years in power have obviously taken the sheen off New Labour.

Sceptical though they may be, most Conservative voters seem set to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt, while millions of traditional Labour supporters appear put off by a party that, through their tenure in power, outToried the Tories on too many occasions. The lack of a major option for the progressive vote may ultimately pave the way for the Tories' return to power.

It's interesting that the economic crisis appeared initially to be the perfect scenario for an overhaul of the brand of 'turbocapitalism' that ruled for three decades. However, with leftist parties widely failing to make hay of it, right-wing populism looks like the most likely beneficiary.

The forthcoming general elections will reveal whether the immigration debate that monopolised the second half of the decade will result in significant gains for the far-right and if Labour's haemorrhaging votes will benefit either the LibDems or the Green Party (the latter on course to secure their first MP in history).

Above all, 2010 will soon reveal whether Britain will be under Conservative rule again for the first time since the days of John Major.

Internal bleeding

What excuse now for the police?

"He had a heart attack and the only contact he had with the police was when officers went to his rescue as he collapsed to the floor". Remember that?

Imagine if that New York fund manager had not come forward with his video evidence. That hasty, sweeping initial statement from the police would have remained unquestioned, a bit a-la David Kelly.

For his "incontrovertible" evidence forced the authorities to order a second post-mortem examination. It is now clear that Tomlinson did not suffer a heart attack. He died of "an internal bleeding in the adbdomen", a potential consequence of the police baton charging him and shoving him to the ground.

According to the Independent: "Tomlinson pathologist's decisions questioned", with the added info that "Dr Patel, who is on a Home Office register of accredited forensic pathologists, has had his handling of suspicious deaths questioned twice."

Even the Daily Mail joins the ranks: "G20 officer could face a charge of killing as post-mortem shows protester did NOT suffer a heart attack". Dacre's paper runs a special feature: "Day by day how the police version was contradicted" - though wouldn't it be great if the Mail also had another one about how their own version too keeps changing by the minute?

***UPDATE 19/4/09

"Channel 4 News has learned that the IPCC asked to be present during the first post mortem examination carried out on Ian Tomlinson but the coroner refused"

This week

↑ UP

Peter Tatchell in The Times on Friday: "When Gordon Brown condemns the Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe I can't take him seriously. He's all talk, no action. I had Mugabe under citizen's arrest in London in 1999, but the Government allowed him to return to Zimbabwe to continue his murder and mayhem. If Mugabe had been put on trial in 1999, Zimbabwe would have been spared the past nine years of torture, rape, kidnapping, murder, rigged elections, hunger and now disease. Tens of thousands of lives might have been saved".

Matthew Norman, in The Independent on Thursday wrote the quote of the week. Referring to James Purnell and David Freud, the millionaire architect of the White Paper on welfare reform, he wrote: "to watch a minister with a plumply padded pension and a free widescreen telly and, of all creatures, an investment banker threaten those on £69 per week is to observe the unspeakable in pursuit of the unemployable".

A back-to-form Nick Cohen in The Observer on the subject of New Labour, "tough choices" and tax dodgers. A truly outstanding article.

Believe it or not, The Express. We salute the fact that, for once, they wrote an editorial which has relevance to people's ordinary daily life instead of talking about the Queen, Brussels bureaucrats and left-wing Stalinists. "GREED OF ENERGY GIANTS IS A GROSS ABUSE OF POWER", they wrote on Friday, adding that "Thousands of elderly people are likely to die this winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes properly".

Similarly, it's not everyday that you find an enlightened column in the Sun. On Saturday, following the controversy surrounding the Sky documentary about assisted suicide, Lorraine Kelly explained why terminally ill people should be allowed to die with dignity.

↓ DOWN

When you read people like Carol Malone in the News of the World you realise the effect James Purnell's crackdown is already having. Today Malone features another one of her patronising lectures about "workshy single mothers" and the myth that the benefit system is a free for all. I'd love to see Carol Malone being forced to flip burgers or mop the floor at McDonald's on the minimum wage for years on end and then hear what she thinks about "work ethic".

The UK press. Always ready to jump on scroungers and evil mothers, they virtually passed by the story of two solicitors, Doncaster-based Beresfords Solicitors, who took millions of pounds from compensation money to sick miners. Yes, there was the odd report but, (with the Mirror a partial exception) you didn't read of any OUTRAGE shouted at a couple of greedy 'professionals' who literally ripped off ill, vulnerable workers.

Ken Livingstone. Asked to comment over the de Menezes fiasco, the former London mayor offered a fine display of backslapping. "Cressida Dick (the commander in charge) has commissioner potential", he said. Lord help us.