Justice At Last?

Just when ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair thought it was safe to stick his head above the parapet!

It is reported today that there are fresh calls for a formal inquest to be held into the death of Government scientist Dr David Kelly.

If you remember, Dr Kelly's body was found six years ago in woods near his Oxfordshire home after he was exposed as the source of a BBC report on the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

Instead of a coroner's inquest, Tony Blair asked Lord Hutton to conduct an inquiry.

The results of that inquiry concluded that Dr Kelly died from blood loss as a result of cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

A group of campaigning doctors have now produced a report arguing that the Hutton Inquiry's finding of suicide was flawed and have handed it to lawyers preparing a legal challenge.

According to the team of 13 medical specialists, a cut to the ulnar artery was "highly unlikely" to have caused enough bleeding to kill Dr Kelly.
Post mortem reports should be provided to enable their questions to be answered, the doctors added.

One of the authors of the report, retired consultant in orthopaedic and trauma surgery David Halpin, said previous examinations into Dr Kelly's death were "flawed".

Lord Hutton was charged with inquiring into the circumstances surrounding the death and not the cause itself and his inquiry did not have the same legal standards as a coroner's inquest, he said.

"Due process has been subverted," he said. "The group that I am part of is not prepared to let that go. There is evidence of a cover-up."

He said: "He (Dr Kelly) was a very prominent germ and chemical warfare expert. That is relevant because of his knowledge of the biology of death. He had spent ten years at Porton Down (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory) and he knew everything about killing things.
So to take what was said to be a blunt knife and what was alleged to be his wife's co-proxamol tablets to try to kill himself is extraordinary. I think it's highly likely he was assassinated."

The report by the group of doctors setting out their rejection of the theory that Dr Kelly died of a haemorrhage will also be sent to Sir John Chilcot's forthcoming inquiry into the Iraq conflict.

Hopefully the Chilcot Inquiry will find that this was an unlawful war, ultimately leading to the indictment of Tony Blair and George W Bush as war criminals.

Ah well! I can dream, can’t I?

Whitehall Farce

As everybody knows, tomorrow (Thursday) is Election Day.
This time around it won’t be so much an election to vote for your county councillor, more of a referendum on whether Gordon Brown should call a general election.

The government is in so much disarray, the outcome doesn’t need predicting.

The lower house has turned into the real, reality show. Forget next week’s forthcoming new series of ‘Big Brother’, it will be no contest.

So far this week we have had three government ministers falling on their swords. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister, (that ones a surprise, he is a close ally of Mr Brown), and Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister, are all leaving the Government. We are still waiting for the top scalp in this massacre, Alistair Darling. Surely he must resign!

The Prime Minister is now forced to have a Cabinet reshuffle, but wait, some ministers, including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, are reluctant to drop their post to take up another.

Four Labour MPs caught up in the expenses scandal, namely Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Ian Gibson and Margaret Moran were all barred from standing at the next election by the party’s disciplinary panel. Jim Devine has also been referred to the panel over allegations that he submitted receipts from a firm that may not have existed.

To top it all, there’s a rumour going around that senior Labour MPs were urging colleagues to sign a letter declaring that they had no confidence in Mr Brown.

All we need now is sex! Are we only days away from seeing a couple of back benchers copulating on a bench at the back?

Expenses scandal? Tony Blair must be sitting in his £4m mansion laughing up his Armani sleeve!

Unidentified Enemy

A soldier from the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion in the Royal Regiment of Scotland has been killed in southern Afghanistan, bringing the total number of UK troops killed on operations in Afghanistan since 2001 to 154.

This is a drop in the ocean compared with something like the Battle of the Somme, but it is still 154 deaths too many!

Why are they there? They are there to satisfy the paranoia of an American madman and his egocentric British sidekick, neither of whom are now in power.

According to Bush, the purpose of the invasion was to capture Osama bin Laden, destroy al Queda, and remove the Taliban regime which provided support and safe harbour to al Qaeda.
Bush’s policy was, that it would not distinguish between al Queda and nations that harboured them. Blair nodded in agreement.

Where does that leave Britain? Allegedly, there are al Queda cells working within this country, and who knows, given the track record of local authorities, Osama himself could well be living in a council house in Islington and drawing state benefits!

This is a war that can never be won, ask the Russians.

Mr Brown, bring our troops home, NOW!

Even The Blind Can See

Former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, may be blind, but he can see the Labour Government’s future.

He has told the Guardian newspaper, "Labour has lost its political antennae and needs to get them back. We have no underlying domestic social policy. There is a void at present."
"We have got to get back to old-fashioned politics that's in touch with people we seek to represent and avoid self-inflicted wounds."

So, Mr Brown has left us up the creek without a paddle? Well, no, actually. The poor guy is just the scapegoat.

Tony Blair has to take the blame for all of this. Wasn’t he the one who hoisted the New Labour flag up the mast, back in 1997? He was the one who turned his back on the day to day running of Great Britain. In the ten years of his premiership, what great social reforms did he bring to the country? What was his equivalent to Aneurin Bevan’s National Health Service?

On being elected, he had his eye on the main chance. He wasn’t concerned with being the PM of a tiny island stuck out in the Atlantic Ocean, he wanted to be seen as a world leader. To make himself look powerful, he wooed, no, make that sucked up to, George W Bush, and sent British troops on an unlawful invasion of a country that was no threat to the UK, or the world for that matter!

What he really wanted to be, and still does by all accounts, was the first President of the United States of Europe. In his pursuit of self interest, he let the UK and the Parliamentary Labour Party run itself into the ground, now poor old Gordon is picking up the tab!

Sorry Mr Brown, but you have passed the point of no return. Go to the country now!

As a footnote to this, 10,000 people have signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling for the Prime Minister to resign. That says it all!