Blair already making political advantage. his moist eyed insincerity

[bennywhale]

and act of visible shock and sadness has been seen too much in this country.

"It is particular barbaric on a day when people are meeting to try and solve the world's problems"

Jesus this man's got no shame.

[Sannum]

1. he learned from the master of no-shame.

[julianer]

6. oh no

he IS the master of no shame.

Remember the 'queen of all our hearts' puke fest the man unleashed?

It's political capital he'll want from this - biometric ID cards etc.

[rooboy]

2. Worst acting performance from his long and distinguished career. n/t

[BrainRants]

3. It's particulary barbaric on a day when people are fighting a war

following a barbaric attack on a soveriegn nation.

[still_one]

4. I do not like what blair did by aligning with bush and PNAC doctrine

but I disagree, I think blair knows he screwed up big time, and has helped create a disaster by going along with bush

of course actions will speak louder than words, and we will see in the course of time

[Benbow]

5. I wasn't impressed either (I am a Brit too)

[Twist_U_Up]

7. this was pre planned

http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/033004_Stasi_London.h...

[RogueTrooper]

8. Jesus people

can we stow the partisan rancour? for at least today.

[T_i_B]

10. Agreed.

Just let the guy get on with his job!

[non sociopath skin]

12. I am no fan of Blair - quite the opposite - but ...

.. the guy wasn't acting. He was traumatised. It happened on his watch and he knows that. Apart from that, he doesn't know what will happen next.

For once, it was a human reaction.

The Skin

[SweetLeftFoot]

31. Red Ken

going all Churchillian was amazing.

[bennywhale]

11. The politicians will be thinking and acting cynically NOW, that is why i'm

going to keep a very close eye on what they say and do NOW. That way they won't be allowed to manipulate the deaths of these people.

[non sociopath skin]

13. Clarke and Davis for the Tories speaking in cliches in the HOC.

No surprise there.

The Skin

[Vladimir]

14. Saying what? n/t

[non sociopath skin]

15. The usual "we will work together against this threat to our freedom"

Nobody giving nothing away.

The Skin

[Vladimir]

16. Thanks n/t

[Vladimir]

9. No, he certainly doesn't

although I don't think it was a concious act... its just how you'd expect Blair to speak in this situation. Very solemn, very self-righteous. That's gonna be a lot of bloody help now.

[Briar]

17. He'll use this to force through ID cards

since no opponent will have the guts to fight them for a while now. So much for the survival of our democratic values.

[bennywhale]

18. I don't think that will happen. I think Blair will be jumped on if he

uses this for political gain. He won't be allowed to exploit this tradegy. He has already said this morning that "they won't change our way of life" Well i'm going to hold him to that cos ID cards will.

[Briar]

19. That was the case before today

and it didn't dissuade him. Bliar doesn't back off bad policies, he pursues them regardless.

[Mass_Liberal]

20. jesus christ!

does it seem so unrealistic that he could actually be shocked and saddened that his nation's capital city has been hit by multiple terrorist attacks at once? Why can't you just look at things in a reasonable light. Most people you don't like aren't demons, they just have a different point of view than you. Ergo, the fact that Blair supported the war in Iraq was bad, I disagreed with it. The DSM, far worse. But that doesn't mean that he's sitting in the background gleefully thinking of how he can exploit the deaths' of his people.

[bennywhale]

21. I never suggested he'd be "gleefully" thinking about how to exploit the

situation but he'll certainly be thinking about how to exploit it. Thats what men like him do, and in particular the New Labour machine. I am British living here and have studied Blair and New Labour since the death of John Smith, you are being naive if you think this tradegy will not be exploited in some way. It will.

[Oggy]

22. Which is why

We must fight ID cards.

John Smith RIP

[bennywhale]

23. Well said. We musn't be scared into accepting the police state otherwise

we have lost and we are no longer free

[Pallas180]

24. If you don't mind my saying

when Blair first threw in with the one we in America call "dimson"
my first impression had been that some financial offer had been made, either for England or for Blair personally, such as a cushy job
with Carlyle,after his term, as your former PM took.

I'm amazed and a bit amused that you see and say the same things about Blair that we say about dimson.

Of course Americans find the British accent so impressive, and I'm sorry to say, when we knew what a liar dimson was and would not accept his bull about the reasons for going to war in Iraq i.e. "they hate our freedom and our values",which only a total moron, and we have a lot of them, would believe - Tony came over and bolstered dimson's credibility in a press conference with dimson. (we all knew it was oil, oil, oil and revenge to show off for his pappy) .

Now, your Tony can string 20 or more words together and sound intelligent and sincere to us. I must say he saved dimson's chestnuts, because dimson can't put five words together without sounding like the village idiot he is. And we used to think highly of Tony Blair.

You'll notice whenever dimson is in big trouble over here, Tony is called to appear at the White House to appear and speak in an American press conference.

As things began to fall apart, we thought Tony was "toast" as we say.
But he's still there. And so is dimson still here. In our case, we know why. Our electronic voting machines were rigged. You don't by any chance have machines made by the same manufacturers as ours, do you?

[SweetLeftFoot]

32. Sigh

I'm no fan of Blair but American (f'n Yank) insistence on only seeing the man through the Iraq/Bush prims is vastly annoying.

No offence tiger, but if you don't even know how Brits vote (they use paper ballots) I don't think you are in a position to be slagging him.

Blair's social and economic policies would be called communist in the US - even by Democrats.

[Vladimir]

35. I welcome Americans slagging Blair off

and if they do it through the prism of Iraq, can we really blame them for treating war crimes, occupation, and the murder of god knows how many Iraqis more seriously than the few crumbs Blair has thrown to the left in Britain down the years? His policies would be called communist in the US, but so would those of many centre-right European governments. Politicians have to be considered in their local context, and Blair is a reactionary by any historical British standards.

[SweetLeftFoot]

41. Blair

I agree with you in some respects, but I do think the fixation on Bush and Iraq does not present the full picture - certainly a large part - but by no means full. And not even knowing how people vote but feeling well informed enough to spout off shits me no end.

[Nihil]

36. Lots of reasons to slag Blair off (regardless of your background)

> No offence tiger, but if you don't even know how Brits vote (they use
> paper ballots) I don't think you are in a position to be slagging him.

No offence tiger but neither do you so I think that the Americans are
quite justified in slagging Blair off.

(FYI, British voters *have* used electronic touch screen voting and
SMS voting in recent years.)

[bennywhale]

37. Sorry sir but you are completely mistaken. There has never been

touch screen voting here in Britain. Never, not ever, you are wrong i'm afraid.

[Pallas180]

38. Electronic Voting Machines comment: said tongue in cheek -sarcasm -

a bit of yankee black humor -

Otherwise I stand by everything I have said in post #24

and my views are from this side of the ocean of course - I know little of the political ways of the UK - only of the most visible
member of your govt.

And I hope you don't mind if I correct some - the right wing in
America doesn't yell "commie" as an insult anymore.

They yell "pinko bleeding heart Liberal"

Liberals, liberal democrats who are 90% who post on DU have become the new dirty word replacing commie.

P.s. I'm most definitely not a "sir" but I'll accept the nickname
Tiger

[Nihil]

48. Bet?

You'd lose. I've voted on one. (Local election in Spring 2003)

Manufactured by De La Rue (who own Sequoia Voting Systems - the second
largest US voting machine company).

FWIW, the following have been used in the UK:
Touch-screen in parts of Hampshire (and elsewhere)
Text messaging in Liverpool & Sheffield
Digital TV also in Liverpool & Sheffield
Touch-tone phone in Swindon
Postal vote *only* in Gateshead, North Tyneside, Stevenage & Chorley.
(Mobile voting kiosks somewhere but didn't catch where.)


I would like to point out that I don't agree with the poster upstream
about the result being anything to do with electronic voting but you
should be aware that these things *have* been piloted in the UK.

Cheers,

Nihil

[Pallas180]

61. The programmer who wrote the program for Sequoia to change the vote has

gone whistleblower and passed a lie detector test.
He claims he was hired by Congressman (of Florida, where else?) Tom
Feeney Republican (what else) to write this backdoor program which would allow the republican's to switch the vote from losing, for republicans, to winning. This is the touch screen method of voting machine.

The programmer's name is Clint Curtis, he has testified before Congress and aren't you wondering why it isn't front page news on the
Washington Post or New York Times?

Read all about it:

http://www.seminolechronicle.com/vnews/display.v/ART/20...

[Nihil]

62. Thanks for that

Has anything happened on the Curtis case since April 2005?
(i.e., the most recent I could see on a cursory google of his name)

[Pallas180]

63. Nihil, some others who had inside info on the * brothers

have been found dead, always in (how would you English say?)
the "loo".

Curtis may still be walking around because he stopped investigating and went public - he has been on a few radio talk shows that have the
guts to have him on....the same as the woman that Bolton chased around the halls, who was the head of a US govt aid service...her name is Melanie or Melody something. When she wouldn't accede to his
wishes to phony up some report, he told all of her colleagues, falsely, that she was being investigated by the FBI and was about to be indicted among other things.

This is the neocon that * has nominated as Ambassador to the UN.

Corruption, greed, thieves, liars, traitors and nuts - thy name is the current DC administration.

[SweetLeftFoot]

42. Not in Westminster elections they haven't

[Nihil]

49. That's better!

I agree that (to the best of my knowledge) electronic voting has not
been used in a *national* election yet.

I just didn't like your condescending tone to the previous poster ...

> No offence tiger, but if you don't even know how Brits vote

... so thought I'd take the opportunity to inform readers that, yes,
touchscreen voting *has* been piloted in this country. I strongly
suspect that this will come in with the ID card drive as the voting
machines required a card to be presented to allow the vote to be
registered. Ideal opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

Sorry for the rathole!

Nihil

[SweetLeftFoot]

51. Nae chance

Not after the American experience - even postal voting is looking dodgy now.

[Pallas180]

25. "doesn't mean he's gleefully thinking of how to exploit deaths"

no, certainly not.

he'd have to be an American republican in the WH to do that.

On Edit: You have to give Mr. Blair credit. When there was an attack in his country, he ran toward the attack and spoke to his people.

Unlike here, where our fearless leader sat dumbfounded and then ran away and hid.

[D-Notice]

26. Email spying 'could have stopped killers'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,152...

Millions of personal email and mobile phone records could be stored and shared with police and intelligence officials across Europe to help thwart terrorist attacks.

The Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, will propose new measures at an emergency meeting of European Union interior ministers which will discuss the implications of Thursday's London bombings.

He raised the stakes dramatically by claiming they could 'quite possibly' have helped prevent such attacks, by identifying in advance suspicious patterns of behaviour by potential terrorists.

[Vladimir]

27. AAAARGH

FUCK OFF YOU AUTHORITARIAN BASTARDS!!!!!!!!

[Pallas180]

28. Excuse me. I thought you already had that called "Echelon" - it is

an all seeing ear and eye based in England that reads every fax,
email, listens to all words on phones for "key" words which are programmed into it.

It was based in England spying on every word written and spoken because it's illegal in the US, or it was before the Patriot Act.

Are you not aware of it?

[mr blur]

29. I've always believed that

everyone's messages - phone fax or whatever - are monitored when they leave or enter a country. My country, yours... Come on, these people don't care about the law(s). To think otherwise would be naive.

[Pallas180]

30. Hi Mr. Blur - of course I'm in America..Woodward was just on C Span

here openly talking about how people here are afraid and every phone
call, and email is being watched.

"Echelon" has been in service for some time. And as I said , this govt. whether CIA or NSA placed it in England to spy on US citizens..some time ago, at least four years that we know of, they were caught listening/reading American's stuff (before the Patriot Act) and there was a hullabaloo. They said it was an error and they were only listening to foreign traffic. (That's you and every other country).

Now they have the Patriot Law and they legally listen and read all American's stuff.

You might try googling "Echelon" and you'll find out more about it.

There are certain words that anybody with any sense would never use.
There are many young young people on here, and they don't always have sense. DU and Skinner have been visited by the FBI awhile ago, whether it was politically motivated or not I dont know. But I'm sure if they want our names and computer tags they have the means and right to get it from Skinner.

Reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Russia. He talks about spreading freedom around the world while he's destroying freedom and rights at home. NOw Rumsfeld has announced they will bring part of the Army home to guard the "homeland". That sounds pretty ominous. When was America ever called the homeland? Sounds like Deutschland uber alles.

I said - police state - and that is what we have become. I could go on --- but I'll stop the rant.

[SweetLeftFoot]

33. Hmmmm

Having been in the occupied north of Ireland recently, where the massive camera and microphone towers watch Nationalist areas 24 hours a day, with some of the most sensitive equipment there, one wonders just how some Brits can rail against occupation and authoritarianism when that state has been actively involved in it for the last 700 years towards it nearest neighbour ...

[Vladimir]

34. Yeah, fair enough

but just because our government are utter bastards, that doesn't mean we should accept every new bit of bastardism lying down. Two wrongs don't make a right, and some of us have been furious about the British involvement in NI for quite a while now...

[SweetLeftFoot]

43. True, true

Far be it from me to tar all you Pommy bastards with the same brush!

[fedsron2us]

39. Another bonanza for the IT industry

Whenever this government gets into trouble it just reaches for its cheque book and hands over billions of the tax payers money to Microsoft, Oracle. IBM, Fujitsu, Accenture, EDS, IBM etc. Its faith in technology to solve all problems is both rather touching and pathetic. The number of emails, mobile phone calls etc that would have to be stored would run into billions not the millions this article suggests. It will also require an enormous amount of disk space or a huge number of magnetic tapes to store the information. Of course, then you have got the little problem of trawling through the data and analysing it. Finally, no professional terrorist cell is going to use such an obvious mechanism as email for communicating with each other. It is far more likely to leave coded communications in chat rooms or on innocuous message boards than to be logging onto 'alquaeda.com'. If terrorists want to be really secure they will rely on the old fashioned techniques such as 'dead letter' drops. The recent bomb attacks suggest that the vital human intelligence side of any security operation has been neglected under Blair. Presumably, the operatives have been too busy concocting evidence for their master's next war.

[Taxloss]

40. You forgot Crapita ...

King of useless firms in receipt of unlimited public funds ...

[Pallas180]

44. Pardone - explanation please of

"crapita" firm (unknown to US) and meaning of "pommy" ?

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. 'Capita' (true name, but the nickname is inevitable)

is a firm that specialises in IT projects. It has picked up many from the UK government, and has, in nearly all cases, made a complete dog's breakfast of them. Somehow, it continues to get more contracts - probably because the competition is so bad too.

The one thing they surprised me on was the London congestion charge (the charge for cars during the day in central London, all automated via cameras that read numberplates as they enter the area) - when I heard they had got the contract, I foresaw a complete nightmare. But it seems to have turned out reasonably (not running perfectly, I know, but not as much of a cockup as most government IT projects). Then again, I don't actually live in London, so maybe the day-to-day reality is worse than I know.

'Pommy' - nickname for the British (or maybe specifically the English), mainly used by Australians (and New Zealanders?). Possible origins:

Probably arises from the practise of eating pomegranates as a source of Vitamin C, to guard against scurvy on long sea voyages. English immigrants to Australia arrived on sailing ships. Likewise, the English were called Limeys because they ate limes. Another version derives from the fact that many immigrants to Oz were British convicts who had been transported there. They supposedly arrived with POHM (Prisoner of Her Majesty) printed on their clothes. Although plausible this sounds like something invented after the event.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html

[Pallas180]

52. Thanks Muriel. I really appreciate the history and education!

things we on this side of the pond would never know. Pommy! how interesting. An insult right?

Just out of curiosity, has anybody researched if any on the board of
directors of this Capita are connected to any on Carlisle ? they all
seem to be intertwined.

[Taxloss]

50. Capita is a large consulting and IT firm.

It's notorious for sponging hundreds of millions from the taxpayer to build computer systems and other system that don't work. They're crap, so it's nice to refer to them as Crapita.

"Pommies" is Australian slang for Britons - like Americans used to called us "limeys". It's far from offensive, more like affectionate.

[Pallas180]

45. Strange coincidence:London Bomb 'Exercises'Took Place Same Time As Attack

"London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack"


http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/090705bom...

"This is precisely what happened on the morning of 9/11/2001. The CIA was conducting drills of flying hijacked planes into the WTC and Pentagon at 8:30 in the morning."

[Briar]

46. Check out Martin Kettle

in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1526492,...

for a truly disgusting display of lapdoggery.

Bliar's lickspittles are all out there making sure their Great Leader gets all the political advantage going out of this atrocity. The bombs are making him "the World's Leading Statesman" according to Kettle, and we should forget about the war crimes.

[cheeseit]

53. Kettle makes me want to puke

Honestly, Blair the "world's leading statesman".

And I thought his nasty anti-French rant after the referendum "non" was far out...

[Anarcho-Socialist]

54. Hey cheesit! Welcome to DU!

[cheeseit]

55. Cheers! Your sig pic is hilarious

[Anarcho-Socialist]

56. Thank you...

How did you find DU? Have you been lurking here for a while?

[cheeseit]

57. Yeah I've been lurking for a while, getting a feel for the place--

--and getting educated on a whole lot of stuff I was totally ignorant of before. I know a few people who read DU and put me onto it, but I've actually been a bit of an American politics junkie since living with a couple of disgruntled yanks during the 2000 "election" debacle. Of course sometimes following US politics feels like rubber-necking at a car crash, but then again with Blair in charge I guess we're being towed by the car that's crashing (even though I actually voted for Blair--at election time I just become powerless to resist the compulsion to vote for anyone who can keep the Tories out of office... )

[Anarcho-Socialist]

58. Yes, I voted for a Labour candidate too

I agonised over it for a long-time on who to vote for. I considered voting Green (but they didn't stand in my constituency), so I had a look at the Lib-Dems but I wasn't sure about them - so I ended-up voting Labour as the best bet to keep the Tories away.

I think Gordon Brown will be an improvement, although we'll have to wait-and-see how big an improvement he'll be.

Nice to 'see' you on DU. We have our share of nutters here (although the U.K. Forum is pretty sane and the posters are cool here). GD can be like a car-wreck, but you've probably noticed that already.

[Briar]

59. Nasty Francophobia

is a permitted prejudice nowadays. All the MSM indulge in it, led by the BBC (Paxman hates the French, obviously). It must be envy. The French will surrender neither their democracy nor their social contract to US-style free market rapine and pillage - while we have sold out entirely.

[cheeseit]

60. sadly true

And as soon as the French do anything they object to the allegedly "liberal" press indulge themselves in it as much as any right-wing rag, letting us know that attachment to anything other than free-market fundamentalism is oh-so backward and unelightened. People like Kettle seem to be stuck in the 19th century, and think it's the duty of the English-speaking world to lead Johnny foreigner towards the light. That type of worldview can be called many things, but progressive aint one of 'em.