The Neo-Cons hit new lows in their 'Stop Obama' campaign

"Obama's strongest card is that he represents young America, the future in other words, against John McCain who speaks for the past. So the Republicans are now attacking the notion that he is, in reality, even an American."

writes The Exile, in his brilliant post about the anti-Obama smear campaign being waged by neo-con Republicans.

A good example of what The Exile describes can be found in today's Daily Telegraph.
Uber neo-con columnist and fanatical supporter of the Iraq war, Janet Daley (above), a writer who has attacked Obama repeatedly in the last few months, claims that the Democratic candidate won't lose because he is black, but "for not being American enough".

"His problem is not so much that he is an African-American in the modern political sense of being a black American. It is that he is an African-American in the literal sense of being half African and only half American."

Well, I read the Daily Telegraph almost every day, and for the life of me, I can't remember a more disgusting article that has appeared in its pages than Janet Daley's. Rather than openly playing the 'race card' she is playing the 'Obama is only half American card'.

It's cynical and totally disgusting. Let's hope that come the first week in November, John McCain, the '100% American' candidate that Daley and her fellow neocons want so desperately to get into the White House is heavily defeated.

UPDATE: There's a great response to Daley's vile piece in the Daily Telegraph comments section from 'Lisa'

How exactly is Obama someone who didn't "grow up American"? He was born and raised in America, but for 4 short years abroad in his early childhood. How does that make one "not American"? John McCain was born in the Panama Canal zone. Many other Americans have spent several years of their childhood abroad, mainly among military families stationed overseas. This is not an unheard of situation. So how can you fool yourself that this is not about race at its core? The "not American" smear is a flimsy cover for some nasty prejudices.

The First London Olympics

Today sees the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and the official 'hand-over' to London, host of the next Games in 2012. To mark the occasion, here's my article from the Daily Express on the first time that the British capital hosted the Olympic Games, exactly 100 years ago.


It will, we are told, be the ‘greatest show on earth’. The 29th Olympics in Beijing, will feature 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries competing in 308 sporting events. The Games have cost an estimated £20bn and are supported by an array of household name corporate sponsors.

It was somewhat different one hundred years ago, when the Olympic Games were held for the very first time in London. The 1908 Olympics had none of the hype surrounding their modern counterpart and only 22 nations took part. All of the contestants were amateurs, reflecting the Corinthian ideals of the Olympic movement. Most astonishingly, when one considers the spiralling cost for the next Olympiad our capital will host in 2012, running costs budget were a mere £15,000.

London was not the original choice to host the 1908 Olympics. The event was to have been held in Naples in Italy, but the eruption of Mount Vesuvius two years previously, which claimed more than 100 victims meant that a new venue urgently had to be found.

London only had 20 months to prepare. The fact that it did so, and owes much to one man: the remarkable Lord Desborough.

Desborough was a passionate supporter of the Olympic ideal who had won a silver medal in the fencing competition at the “interim” Olympics in Athens Games two years earlier. (The original idea was that the Greeks would host such an interim event every four years between Olympics). A superb sportsman, he also rowed across the English Channel, swam the Niagra rapids twice, climbed the Matterhorn three times and was three times amateur punting champion on the Thames. One day, the superfit aristocrat was infuriated to find his obituary printed in The Times, which had confused him with a similarly-named Lord. "Look here," he cried, "you've published my obituary this morning!" "I'm so sorry, your lordship," the editor replied. "Where did you say you were calling from?

Desborough had promised that London would stage the 1908 Olympics at Athens in 1906. But where would the Games be held?

To answer that question, Desborough formed an association with the Hungarian entrepreneur Imre Kiralfy who was in charge of the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. Kallafy built a state-of-the art sports stadium at the site of the exhibition in London‘s Shepherd Bush : the White City. The White City stadium was completed in just 10 months, at a cost of just £60,000. It was an arena whose grandeur reflected the enormous confidence of the British Empire at the height of its power. “The stadium was as broad as the Circus Maximus of ancient Rome”, relates Rebecca Jenkins, author of ‘The First London Olympics’. Its swimming pool was 100m in length, more than double the standard size. The world’s first modern seated stadium, it was constructed to seat 68,000, but could hold over 130,000 with terracing.

The glorious new venue was officially opened by King Edward VII on April 27th 1908, a much earlier start than the Games‘ modern equivalent because in 1908 they stretched out over six months. The Olympics had been revived by the Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1896, but prior to 1908 they had not captured the public’s imagination. The future of the modern Olympic movement therefore depended on London putting on a good show.

But despite the wonders of the White City stadium, it seemed like the notorious British summer weather would spoil the occasion. Cold and wet conditions meant that spectators were staying away in their thousands. Something needed to be done to revive public interest. The organisers encouraged the King, and several celebrities of the day to attend. But the real breakthrough came when Maud Allen, an exotic dancer in the tradition of Mata Hari, promised to make an appearance. “The first days had drawn disappointing crowds, but when Maud Allan, ‘the Scarlet Princess’, appeared, the 90,000 crowd cheered as if the stadium had been erected specially for her,” says Russell James, author of ‘The Maud Allen Affair’.

The rivalry between Britain and the U.S. was intense. “The London Olympics formed a stage for a clash of empires. In the White City stadium the Edwardian English sporting gentlemen met the vigour of the "scientifically trained" Americans,” says Jenkins.

In the tug-of-war quarter final, the defeated American team launched an official complaint after the British team, made up of Liverpool policemen, had kept on their service boots.

In the mens’ 400m final, there was more acrimony after American John Carpenter ran diagonally across the track to prevent Wyndham Halswelle of Scotland from overtaking him. British judges disqualified Carpenter and ordered the race to be re-run the following day but the American team was so incensed by the decision that the other two American finalists refused to take part, allowing Halswelle to complete the only walkover in Olympic history.

The Games saw several memorable performances. American John Taylor, a member of the winning medley relay team, became the first African-American athlete to win an Olympic gold. Tragically Taylor died of typhoid fever shortly after his return home. Joshua Milner from Ireland won a gold medal in a rifle shooting event at the age of 61, making him the oldest Olympic champion ever at the time, while 53-year-old Sybil ‘Queenie’ Newall, from Britain, became the oldest ever female gold medallist when she won the archery contest.

But the greatest story of all concerned a little Italian chef and sweet-maker, a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like called Dorando Pietri.

Pietri’s running career had started by accident, when as a 17-year-old, he ran an errand for an employer, delivering a letter in person instead of posting it, and covering the 30 miles in about four hours. He had come agonisingly close to winning the marathon in Athens two years earlier when he had to retire due to stomach ache when holding a five-minute lead. In 1908 it seemed that his moment had finally come as a remarkable late burst saw him lead the field into the stadium. But exhausted by his exertions on a hot summer‘s day, Pietri collapsed on the track. Helped to his feet by officials he got up and started running again- only to collapse and recover a further four times.

Pietri crossed the line first, 32 seconds ahead of American Johnny Haynes, but was disqualified for receiving help. The British love of a gallant loser however, gave Pietri greater glory than if he had won. On the suggestion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes who had reported on the event, Queen Alexandra presented Pietri with a special gold cup. Pietri became an international celebrity. He was invited to running events all over the world- and the songwriter Irving Berlin even dedicated a song called ‘Dorando’ to him.

It was not until October 31st that the 1908 London Olympics finally drew to a close. Most people agreed that the Games had been the most successful yet and they had also established standard rules and measurements which remain to this day. The marathon had been planned for 26 miles, but Princess Mary had the start moved to beneath the windows of the Royal nursery at Windsor Castle so her children could watch, while the finish was adjusted so that it was in front of the Royal Box. This added 385 yards to the race, which remains the same distance today.

The 1908 Olympics was also a financial success, with a profit of more than £6,000 recorded. The hosts excelled on the sporting field, too. Britain’s final tally of 56 Gold, 50 silver and 39 bronze medals was almost as many as the other 21 nations combined.

In just four years time, London will stage its third Olympics. The 2012 Games are predicted to cost £9bn and the country will have had five years more to prepare for them than Lord Desborough and his fellow organisers had a century ago.

But whether they- or the glitzy multi-billion pound, corporate-sponsored Beijing Olympics will prove as successful, or as memorable is another matter. One thing is certain: Britain won't win as many medals.

Logic (and Memory Sticks) go out the window

Here's my article on the lost government data fiasco from The First Post.

“This is a massive failure of duty. It is not the first time that the government has been shown to be completely incapable of protecting the integrity of highly sensitive data," was Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve's response to the news that a computer memory stick containing highly confidential data of 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales has gone missing.

But in his attack Grieve fails to mention one very important point.

It wasn't the government which lost the data, but a private company, PA Consulting, a sub-contractor to the Home Office.

It's not the first time that a private contractor has lost confidential government data. Back in December it was revealed that the details of 3m candidates for the driving theory test had gone missing in the US, after Pearson Driving Assessments, a contractor to the Driving Standards Agency, had lost a hard drive from what they described as a 'secure facility' in Iowa.

The question we ought to be asking is: why are core government tasks - including the handling of highly sensitive data - being outsourced to private contractors, very often contractors based in other countries?

The process of hiving off government tasks began with the then Conservative government’s 1991 White Paper 'Competing for Quality', which called for the activities of government departments and agencies to be 'opened up' for tender. By 1995, more than £2bn of activities had been 'market-tested'. Supporters of sub-contracting claimed that it would increase efficiency. But after this latest fiasco is there anyone still willing to argue that the increased involvement of the private sector in the business of government has led to greater efficiency?

It is logical to assume that the more outside agencies that handle government data, the greater the likelihood of it getting lost. But logic, it seems, goes out of the window where Britain's political elite and their blind attachment to neo-liberal dogma is concerned.

Another Privatisation Cock-Up

Here we go again.

Data including the names, addresses and dates of birth of around 33,000 offenders in England and Wales with six or more recordable convictions in the past 12 months on the Police National Computer have been lost by the private company PA Consulting, contractors for the Home Office. Also lost were the names and dates of birth of 10,000 prolific and other priority offenders, and the names, dates of birth and, in some cases, the expected prison release dates of all 84,000 prisoners held in England and Wales.

Sounds familiar?

Back in December it was announced that US firm Pearson Driving Assessments, a contractor to the Driving Standards Agency, had lost the details of three million candidates for the driving theory test. Pearson reported that a hard drive was missing from a “secure facility” in Iowa.

And of course earlier this summer we had the news that thousands of British schoolchildren would have to wait until the autumn for key test results after the US-owned company brought in to administer the tests 'ETS Europe' failed to deliver on time.

Shadow Chancellor Dominic Grieve says, a propos of the latest loss of data by a private company: "What is more scandalous is that it is not the first time that the government has been shown to be completely incapable of protecting the integrity of highly sensitive data, rendering them unfit to be charged with protecting our safety."

Of course, Grieve doesn't mention that it's a private company, not the government, which has lost the data. He doesn't because he and his party are fanatical supporters of privatisation- and the process of sub-contracting government tasks to private, often foreign owned companies. In fact, it was the Conservatives who started this process when they were last in power. The biggest charge that can be made against the present government is that they have continued with such a disastrous policy. Back in the 60s and 70s, before the days of privatisation and sub-contracting government work to private companies, such loss of data never occured.

Once again, the British people are losing out due to adherence to neo-liberal dogma.

PS Any pro-privatisation fanatics out there who would like to argue that sub-contracting the work of government departments to private companies has improved efficiency?
After all, that's what you were telling us throughout the 1980s....

Don't Forget What Happened in Yugoslavia

"The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, this year published her memoir The Hunt: Me and War Criminals. Largely ignored in Britain, the book reveals unpalatable truths about the west's intervention in Kosovo, which has echoes in the Caucasus.

Readers will recall that the justification for the Nato bombing was that the Serbs were committing "genocide" in the secessionist province of Kosovo against ethnic Albanians. David Scheffer, US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, announced that as many as "225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59" may have been murdered. Tony Blair invoked the Holocaust and "the spirit of the Second World War". The west's heroic allies were the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), whose murderous record was set aside.....

With the Nato bombing over, international teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume the "holocaust". The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines". A year later, Del Ponte's tribunal announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide in Kosovo. The "holocaust" was a lie. The Nato attack had been fraudulent."

You can read the whole of John Pilger (pictured above)'s brilliant New Statesman article on the criminal and fraudulent US-sponsored aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia here. Sadly too many progressives swallowed the anti-Yugoslavia lies and propaganda in 1999, which only paved the way for the equally unlawful aggression against Iraq four years later. The Road to Baghdad began in Belgrade, as I've said on several occasions, but it won't end there until progressives wake up to the fact that the grounds for war against Yugoslavia in 1999 were as fraudulent as those used to justify the attack on Iraq in 2003.

Re-nationalise BAA, don't break it up

The Competition Commission has called for BAA, the Spanish company that owns several of Britain's leading airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, to be broken up. But the answer to Britain's airport woes is not allowing yet more profit-hungry plcs to own and operate our airports, but simply to re-nationalise BAA. Here is my First Post article from last summer on why renationalisation makes sense.

Across the political spectrum there is widespread agreement that Britain's airports, with their long queues, lack of seats and tacky, shopping mall atmosphere, are a national disgrace. But the solution is not to break up BAA's monopoly and introduce 'more competition' as some have suggested. The answer is to simply take BAA back into public ownership.

Sir Terence Conran, who designed Terminal One at Heathrow and the North Terminal in the 1960s, has contrasted the brief he received from the owners of the airports back then - the British state - with the instructions Lord (Richard) Rogers, the architect of Terminal 5, got from BAA.

Conran was told to put in as many seats as possible, with the priority being to make passengers 'relax and feel at ease'. At Terminal One there were only three shops.
The privatised BAA told Rogers to put in as few seats as possible: there will be only 700 seats for a terminal handling an average of 80,000 passengers a day when it opens in March 2008. BAA wants people to pay to sit down at the terminal's expensive cafes and restaurants - not sit down for free, eating their own sandwiches.

The approach perfectly illustrates the difference in ethos between a publicly-owned company, for whom profit is not the be all and end all, and a privatised one.
We can't blame BAA for treating every square foot at Heathrow as a profit centre: it's a private company which wants to maximise returns for its shareholders. But we can blame the politicians foolish enough to sell off BAA in the first place. Allowing other profit-hungry plcs to compete to run our airports would only mean more of the same.

If we really want Heathrow and our other airports to be comfortable and reasonably easy to negotiate, we need to change the whole philosophy under which they operate. And that means returning them to their most appropriate owners: the British public.

Wally of the Week: Dave Cameron

Well, lots of contenders for this week's award but in the end it goes to the man, who if opinion polls are correct, will be the next British Prime Minister.
Peter Hitchens, writing in the Mail on Sunday, explains why:

I like Georgia. I like Georgians and their superb hospitality. I have several times travelled to that beautiful country. But I wouldn’t lift a finger to save it from the Russians.

What cause would we be serving? Democracy? Ha ha.

This Olympically corrupt statelet is not a law-governed democracy. President Mikheil Saakashvili’s nauseatingly named Rose Revolution was a putsch achieved by an orchestrated mob, followed by an election so shamelessly one-sided that our supposed hero got 96 per cent of the vote. The only excuse for this was that previous elections had been rigged, too, which of course they had……..

Do we really want young men from the Midlands of England and the Lowlands of Scotland fighting and dying for years to come to save this dubious creature from his own unhinged, wilful conflict with the Kremlin?

You might think not, but David Cameron is all for it. In an amazing demonstration of unfitness for office, the Tory leader last week wrote one of the daftest articles I have ever seen.

He wants Georgia to be allowed into Nato, so committing this country to come to Georgia’s defence if it is attacked. He wants to do the same for Ukraine.

Will someone send this man an atlas and a history book? When will our political class stop trying to grow hairs on their teenage chests by starting wars and deploying forces we no longer have?

Why should we get entangled in this? What business is it of ours if Russia wants friends and allies on its borders, rather than a weird Nato alliance, kept on life-support long after it triumphantly achieved its purpose. What is Nato for now? Does anybody know? If they know, will they say?

Britain has no interests in following American adventures in the Caucasus, let alone taking sides over the dangerous future of Ukraine.

You can read what Peter calls "one of the daftest articles I have ever seen", here.

And the excellent blogger Mick Hall writes, a propos of Dave the Bear-Baiter:

"When David Cameron claims Margaret Thatcher is his role model, he is not being entirely truthful, his real hero is Tony Blair. For like his mentor, Cameron could have just as easily joined the LP and vice versa. Neither man has a political conviction beyond gaining power and once it is attained never placing themselves even a millimeter out of step with what they regard as the supreme power on this earth, the President of the USA."

What's clear from this week's events is that Dave, as I pointed out in my Guardian article of October 2005, is in hock to the neocons. The neocons were terrified that Ken Clarke, a man who had scoffed at the WMD 'Iraqi threat' nonsense, would become Tory leader three years ago, so threw their lot in behind the MP for Witney as the ideal 'Stop Clarke' candidate. Prime Minister Dave would be Tony Blair Mark Two, so if you want a real change from Nu Labour (and who doesn't?) don't be fooled that voting Tory will mean a change in Britain's disastrous foreign policy.