Health Protection Agency says upheaval caused by its abolition could pose ‘extreme risks’ during the London 2012 Olympic Games

This article titled “Health agency issues Olympics emergency warning” was written by James Meikle and Owen Gibson, for The Guardian on Thursday 5th May 2011 16.30 UTC The NHS’s main public health body says its planned abolition weeks before the 2012 Olympics could compromise emergency responses if there are serious incidents at the games. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) warns the upheaval generated by huge organisational changes across the health service could pose extreme risks when Britain hosts the world’s biggest sporting event next summer. There is “high potential” for funds aimed at protecting the public at the event to be cut, it says. In the past, the risk to public health at the Olympics has come from incidents as diverse as food poisoning and terrorism. The agency is responsible for disease control and monitoring as well as scientific and public health advice during emergencies. Its responsibilities are to be absorbed within the Department of Health. Other authorities which tackle such crises are also in turmoil, with staff leaving primary care trusts well before they are abolished in 2013, while local councils are being hit by spending cuts. Labour has demanded the shakeup should “at the very least” be put on hold until after the London Olympics. Diane Abbott, the shadow health minister, said: “David Cameron seems to be prioritising driving through his NHS reorganisation above public safety during the Olympics. “For this Tory-led government to push our public health services into a state of chaos and abolish the current agency right before London 2012, with people from all over the world arriving in London, and the eyes of the entire world on Britain, is nothing short of a disgrace.” The revelation of the HPA’s concern over the Tories’ NHS plans comes as public health professionals fear their voice is being ignored, even during the government’s two-month listening exercise. They have no members on the Future Forum group overseeing the exercise, headed by GP Steve Field. The timetable for the shakeup has already been hit by the break in the progress of legislation – meaning the first changes are now scheduled for July 2012, the month in which the games begin, instead of April. That shift has led the HPA to say the risk of “compromising” national emergency responses during the Olympics is now even higher than when it first raised the issue in its official response to the shakeup in March. It warned then that there might be “considerable risks to the national capability to launch multi-agency responses to incidents and emergencies”. The agency said the planned changes would create “considerable uncertainty” and “preparation for, and response to, incidents arising in association with the Olympic and Paralypmic Games will be compromised” unless an appropriate structure replaced the current one. In a statement to the Guardian, the agency said: “Deferring the changes to July 2012 would increase the risk. We have made the Department of Health aware of our views concerning the risks in delaying.” It said a small number of its 3,850 staff had already left, citing concerns about the independence of their work and advice if they were moved to the health department. The HPA’s March document states that the move could also undermine wider public and professional confidence. Abbott said: “It is time that this government listened to public health professionals. Alarm bells are now ringing within the Health Protection Agency, local authorities and also local primary care trusts, and increasingly there will also be concern amongst the public. “We have worked hard to bring the Olympic Games to Britain. It should be a time in which we showcase what Britain is about to the rest of the world. The priority should be public safety and ensuring that we are prepared to respond robustly to major incidents and emergencies.” Lindsey Davies, former national director of pandemic influenza preparedness at the Department of Health who is president of the Faculty of Public Health, said: “The entire public health community has grave concerns about the potential risks from the timing of the changes.” Although there have been few major health scares linked to past Olympics, there was a terror attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics and a bombing which killed two people in Atlanta in 1996. A stomach bug struck competitors at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year. The agency says the games will raise the risk of diseases spreading due to the influx of international visitors and from mass gatherings in restricted spaces during the games. Early identification will help reduce the risk of widespread exposure and minimise the impact on visitors as well as local communities. Other concerns include heatstroke among crowds. About 300,000 people a day are expected to be in the Olympic Park during the height of the games. The Department of Health said it was working to ensure “business continuity” was maintained during the transition. A team had been established to ensure the the ministry and the NHS is able “to respond to major emergencies continues to be robust and to ensure the requirements of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are met. Work is under way to test how the proposed new systems would function during the 2012 Games. This work will focus and strengthen safety at the 2012 Games”. It is understood Olympics organisers are aware of the concerns but have not been directly involved in discussions. Thousands of athletes begin arriving in Britain for training camps in the UK in June 2012. The Olympic village opens in mid-July and the games run from 27 July to 12 August 2012. The Paralympics run from the end of August into September. A total of 17,000 athletes and officials from about 200 countries will stay in the village on the Olympic Park, in east London. In total, more than 10,500 athletes will compete in 26 sports based in various venues around the capital and beyond. Sailing will be based in Weymouth and the Olympic football tournament will be played in various grounds around the country. According to the detailed transport plan released last month, the busiest day of the games – Saturday 4 August – will see 700,000 ticket holders moving around London to watch sessions at 11 venues. In all, 8.8m tickets are available for the Games, with 6.6m on sale to the general public. About 20,000 broadcast and print journalists will also descend on London.

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Some sort of review of the final episode of jamies dream school which aired tonight.

This article titled “TV review: Jamie’s Dream School” was written by Sam Wollaston, for The Guardian on Wednesday 13th April 2011 21.00 UTC Last week on Jamie’s Dream School, (Channel 4) Angelique said: “You’re a prick, mate” to Alastair Campbell. To be honest I was worried about Angelique at the start, so it’s nice to see her growing in confidence and getting the hang of things, as well as showing she’s a shrewd judge of character . . . Oh, you have got to be having a laugh – he’s only gone and banned her from the Downing Street trip. “I think calling a teacher a ‘fucking prick’ as you storm out of the class is not really an acceptable way to behave,” he says, sanctimoniously. Well, a couple of points there, Alastair. You’re not really a teacher – you’re a spin doctor. You’ve spent your life being rude to people, so maybe you should learn to take a bit too. Also, Angelique didn’t say “fucking prick”. You added the F-word, so go and wash your filthy mouth out. And one more thing: she did kind of have a point. But he’s not going to back down, because that would show weakness. It’s not all bad news, though, because Angelique’s going to get him. “Watch how I behave today in his lesson,” she says. “He thought last week was bad; he’s going to cry today.” Fight, fight, fight . . . Oh, the head intervenes, persuades Alastair to perform a spectacular U-turn and let Angelique go, but she does have to behave. So we don’t get to see her make Alastair Campbell cry. Boo! But then she is going to Downing street, so maybe she’ll make David Cameron cry. Or at least call him a prick. Yay! To be fair to Campbell (why are those words so hard?), he is one of Jamie’s better recruits. Not only are his classes good, but he also has a nice rapport with the kids, engages with them and clearly likes them too. Plus he realises that Jamie’s Dream School is much more dream than school and has little bearing on what does or can happen in a classroom. And that when it’s over it’ll be – to quote the great words of another member of the Dream School staffroom – back to life, back to reality. So off they all go to Downing Street and sit round the cabinet table. Oh, please let them run the country, just for one day – I like Henry’s idea of a skunk tax instead of the public sector cuts. He’s done the maths too – says it’ll bring in £1.6bn a year, and that’s just from him. In bounces the PM. “Hi, everyone, how you doing, hi Jourdelle, hi there,” he says. Not many people called Jourdelle at King Henry VI’s Dream School, his alma mater, I shouldn’t imagine. Jourdelle wants Cameron to guess how many GCSEs they’ve got between them. “I don’t know,” says Dave. “And I’m not going to guess, I don’t want to . . . er . . .” Oh, go on Dave, say something embarrassing, like “disrespect you”. But he saves himself just in time, gets Jourdelle to tell him. Damn. Harlem wants to ask something. “Harlem, take it away,” says Dave, relaxing into semi-youth-speak. Take it away, eurgh. But it’s just a bit cringey, rather than proper embarrassing. And they’re way too easy on him. Nothing about how can he possibly understand when he’s from where he is, or about whether he knows about skunk from back in the days with the Bullingham bredrin. Henry doesn’t even have a pop at Sam Cam (though to be fair to Henry, if she’d made an appearance he most probably would’ve done). The real disappointment is Angelique, who’s taking this good behaviour thing way too far. She doesn’t storm out, or make Dave cry, or even call him a prick. Angelique! What’s going on? You’ve let Jamie’s Dream School down, you’ve let your classmates down, you’ve definitely let yourself down, but most of all you’ve let the whole bloody country down. To be fair to Angelique (where’s all the magnanimity coming from today?) she does redeem herself outside No 10, showing that even if she’s not calling anyone a prick today, she can at least still recognise one. “Oh my God, it’s George Osborne,” she says. But then Henry goes and trumps her by getting the chancellor to unwittingly sign his legalise-skunk petition. Today – the last day – was Henry’s day; excellent work, well done.

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The referendum on AV offers little apart from a stick for the public to beat the coalition with, a chance to annoy Nick Clegg.

This article titled “AV referendum: The weapon of choice” was written by Vernon Bogdanor, for The Guardian on Monday 11th April 2011 21.00 UTC The referendum on the alternative vote is the referendum that no one wants. Before the election Nick Clegg called it “a baby step in the right direction“, the destination being proportional representation. The Conservatives agreed to the referendum only reluctantly as the price for coalition. The AV would probably make little difference in most general elections. A simulation by David Sanders at Essex University suggests that, in 2010, the only difference is that the Liberal Democrats would have won 32 extra seats, 22 at the expense of the Conservatives and 10 at the expense of Labour. By helping the Lib Dems – the second choice of many voters – AV makes hung parliaments more likely. But the effect would probably not be very great. AV would not have transformed the result in any of the 12 postwar elections that yielded large working majorities. But the parliaments of 1951 and 1992 might have been hung, and AV might have given Labour a working majority in the indecisive elections of 1950, 1964, and February and October 1974. AV, then, alters little; and it leaves most voters cold. Yet the issue excites the political class, whose wild and exaggerated claims for and against the system constitute a perfect example of what in the French Fourth Republic was called la politique politicienne, politics for the politicians but not for the people. AV will not, as its advocates suggest, do away with safe seats. It will make no difference in a constituency where an MP wins over 50% of the vote. Since so few seats will change hands, the system is unlikely to make MPs fight for every single vote; nor will it remedy the geographical imbalance of representation that is perhaps the greatest weakness of the first-past-the-post system. It will do nothing to ensure that Tories are better represented in Scotland and the north of England, or Labour better represented in the south. Under AV, an extremist party such as the BNP might gain more first-preference votes, so giving it more legitimacy. That is because a vote for a small party will no longer be a wasted vote. But since only a centrist party, such as the Lib Dems, is likely to secure transfers, the BNP would be unlikely to win any seats. But the no campaign’s claim that AV gives some voters two votes, also made by former foreign secretaries led by Douglas Hurd, is equally absurd. As Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire, said on last week’s Question Time, if I ask you to buy me a Mars but a Mars is not available and I suggest you buy a Twix instead, I will not receive two bars of chocolate. A transferred vote is not a multiple vote. It is paradoxical that politicians are getting so excited about a marginal change. But the paradox is easily explained. For the consequences of referendums can be very great. The two-to- one yes vote in the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Economic Community, as the EU was then known, marginalised Labour’s anti-European left, beginning the process that led to the SDP breakaway in 1981. The failure of the 1979 devolution referendums led directly to the fall of James Callaghan’s government, paving the way for 18 years of Tory rule. The consequences of the 2011 referendum could be equally great. Whatever the verdict, there will be great strains on the coalition. A no vote will increase Lib Dem grassroots disenchantment. Party members will ask themselves what they have gained by accepting Conservative policies on cuts and tuition fees. There will be pressure to leave the coalition, and the fixed-term parliaments bill means that David Cameron cannot threaten them with a general election. A yes vote will annoy Conservatives, who will claim that Cameron has given the Lib Dems extra seats, making a majority more difficult to achieve. But a yes vote will not end the debate. For many Lib Dems will say AV is but a step on the road to proportional representation, and will use their strengthened representation to press for it. When AV was debated in the Commons in 1931, one MP said the system reminded him of Oscar Wilde’s comment on Whistler, that he had no enemies but was thoroughly disliked by all his friends. A referendum ought to be a weapon by which the people can make decisions for themselves. The poll on AV, by contrast, is a weapon by which the coalition partners can offload on the public the onus of deciding on a system that neither of them wants.

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Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi condemns ‘crusader strategy’ at the London Conference amid speculation that his foreign minister has defected. Full text of Gaddafi’s letter to the European Parliament: Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya, leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.

This article titled “Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London” was written by Ian Black in Tripoli, for The Guardian on Tuesday 29th March 2011 20.18 UTC Muammar Gaddafi told the London conference discussing Libya’s future without him that there was no room for compromise with the Benghazi-based rebels, whom he described bluntly as al-Qaida terrorists supported by Nato and representing no one. Far from showing any sign of bending to demands from Barack Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders that he step down, Gaddafi issued a characteristically defiant challenge to what he called a “new crusader strategy or imperialist plan”. But three powerful explosions that shook Tripoli in mid-afternoon – apparently the first daylight attack in 10 days of UN-mandated air strikes – seemed to presage a possible escalation of the conflict. Libyan officials made no comment. In another dramatic development, there was speculation that Gaddafi’s foreign minister, Mousa Kousa, might have defected during a visit to Tunisia. The Libyan leader warned that the UN-imposed no-fly zone would turn north Africa into “a second Afghanistan” in an extraordinary letter sent to the European Parliament, the US Congress and “the Europeans” meeting in London. “Stop your barbaric and unjust offensive against Libya,” he wrote. “Leave Libya for the Libyans. You are carrying out an operation to exterminate a peaceful people and destroy a developing country. We are united behind the leadership of the revolution, facing the terrorism of al-Qaida on the one hand and on the other hand terrorism by Nato, which now directly supports al-Qaida.” The full text shows the Libyan leader to be baffled by the ingratitude of the world towards him after years of rapprochement and utterly dismissive of concerns about the use of violence against his own people. Gaddafi argued that there was no need for foreign intervention, that Libya’s “direct democracy” had no parallel and that its oil resources were the property of its people – a reference to the widespread perception among his supporters that the war is a conspiracy to divide the country and steal its natural resources. Libya has made every effort to help solve global problems, abandoned its weapons of mass destruction, helped the international effort to fight “extremist terrorism”, controlled illegal immigration to Europe and played a positive role in Africa. “There were no demonstrations in Libya or protests like in Tunisia and Egypt,” he claimed. “No one opened fire on demonstrators. No more than 150 people were killed and most of those were soldiers and policemen who were defending themselves.” He attacked a “deliberately fabricated image” of Libya to justify the “second crusader war”, accusing the coalition of committing “merciless massacres”. Kousa, intriguingly, chose the eve of the London conference to pay what was described as a private visit to neighbouring Tunisia, the country’s nearest outlet to the outside world as the no-fly zone has closed all Libyan airports. Tunisian sources said Kousa had left later for an unknown destination. Kousa’s status as veteran Gaddafi stalwart and former intelligence and security chief provoked immediate speculation that he may have followed diplomats who quit en masse in the first days of the uprising. If he has, it would be a grave blow to the regime – and vindication of claims in Washington and elsewhere that cracks are appearing in Gaddafi’s inner circle. Kousa’s deputy, Khaled Kaim, accused the allies of seeking to partition Libya. “The tactic of the coalition is to lead to a stalemate to cut the country in two, which means the civil war is a continuous war, the start of a new Somalia, a very dangerous situation,” he told Italy’s Rai Uno TV channel. “If we are led to a civil war, resolution 1973, which was meant to protect civilians, will on the contrary lead to the murder of civilians.” UN resolution 1973, passed earlier this month, authorised “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. State-run media are continuing to highlight the human toll of the allied attacks, including 12 the regime claims were killed in Sebha, on the edge of the Sahara, when Nato planes hit an ammunition dump. Airstrikes also hit what were described as “military and civilian targets” in the cities of Garyan and Mizda, 40 miles and 90 miles respectively from Tripoli. Foreign journalists who were taken to Mizda were forced to flee when residents fired over their heads. It was unclear whether the violent protest was against the international media or their official government minders.

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Police braced for high numbers of political demonstrators and protestors in London with 800 coaches and at least 10 trains chartered from around the UK

This article titled “Protest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000″ was written by Polly Curtis, Matthew Taylor and Vikram Dodd, for The Guardian on Saturday 26th March 2011 00.52 UTC More than a quarter of a million protesters against public sector cuts are expected to flood central London today in the biggest political demonstration for nearly a decade. Police sources, normally cautious about estimating numbers, said last night they were braced for up to 300,000 people to join the march – far higher than previous forecasts from TUC organisers. More than 800 coaches and at least 10 trains have been chartered to bring people to the capital from as far afield as Cornwall and Inverness. The Metropolitan police, under fire for their use of kettling in previous protests, said “a small but significant minority” plan to hijack the march to stage violent attacks. Organisers, however, insist it will be a peaceful family event. Union members are expected be joined by a broad coalition, from pensioners to doctors, families and first-time protesters to football supporters and anarchists. Ed Miliband said the government was dragging the country back to the “rotten” 1980s. Labour is calling today’s event the “march of the mainstream”. The opposition leader will address the rally – his biggest audience ever – in Hyde Park to set out Labour’s alternative to the cuts, accusing the government of fomenting the “politics of division” not seen since Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s. His remarks are reinforced by a Guardian/ICM poll that shows the public divided over the cuts. Of 1,014 people questioned this week, 35% believe the cuts go too far, 28% say they strike the right balance and 29% say they don’t go far enough; 8% don’t know. Two other polls put the balance more strongly against cuts. A YouGov survey for Unison found that 56% believe the cuts are too harsh and a ComRes poll for ITV showed that two-thirds think the government should reconsider its planned spending cuts programme. Just one in five disagree with that view. The TUC organisers of the event said they had organised a family-friendly demonstration with brass, jazz and Bollywood bands. But with unofficial feeder marches, sit-down protests and a takeover of Trafalgar Square planned, there was increasing nervousness that acts of peaceful civil disobedience could lead to stand-offs with police and outbursts of violence. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, which is providing 100 legal observers along the route to monitor the scenes, said she had been heartened by advance co-operation between the TUC and police, but added: “Events around in the world show the precious nature of peaceful dissent guaranteed by our Human Rights Act. This fundamental freedom was hard won and is still much envied elsewhere. It must not be jeopardised either by over-zealous policing or anyone looking for trouble.” Miliband said in a speech in Nottingham: “I thought the politics of the 1980s were rotten because they divided our country. I fear that this government is practising the politics of division.” He argued that the government’s policies divided rich against poor, public sector workers against private sector workers and north against south. “These aren’t the voices of people marginal to our country but the voices of the mainstream majority in our country and that’s why I’ll be addressing the rally tomorrow,” he said. He had been told not to join the march because of safety concerns. The Tories called on Miliband and the TUC leader, Brendan Barber, to take responsibility for any disruption on the march. Michael Fallon, deputy chairman of the Conservative party, said: “Under Ed Miliband, Labour are abandoning the centre ground, retreating into their comfort zone of left-wing protest and cosying up to the unions.” Barber will tell the rally that no part of the public realm is protected from the cuts, highlighting the proposals to radically change the NHS. “Today let us say [to David Cameron]: we will not let you destroy what has taken generations to build,” he will say. The bulk of the march will be made up of trade unionists, with virtually all of the TUC’s 55 affiliated unions represented. Also among the marchers will be a coachload of mothers and toddlers from Hampshire demonstrating against the closure of Sure Start centres in the county. Catherine Ovenden, 31, said the decision to cut the service would have a devastating impact on families. “So many people rely on these centres and we are going to lose a third of them,” she said . The demonstration is timed to mark the new financial year next week, when many of the cuts kick in. Research by the Fabian Society suggests that taken with the wider tax and benefit reforms announced since the election, this week’s budget would in fact force large number of working families into tax, instead of lifting them out as the coalition has claimed. Tens of thousands of the lowest-income families will lose around 6% of their net income in the next year because of the government’s tax and benefit changes with the bulk of the cuts kicking in next week, the analysis by the Fabian Society shows. From next week the childcare element of the tax credit system will be reduced from 80% to 70% of qualifying families’ nursery bills. A family with one child and one earner earning up to £23,000 will lose between 5.7% and 6.4% of their net income, compared with last year. This would cost such a family with an income of £6,000 £1,362 a year and a family on £23,000 £1,710 a year.

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Portugal‘s financial situation looks bleak – so can the eurozone muddle through yet again?

This article titled “Eurozone crisis: Why we’re all in this together, too” was written by Michael White, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 25th March 2011 12.19 UTC I see the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis is safely off the front pages, so things must be getting serious. EU leaders, who have got their Nato knickers in a quite separate twist over Libya this week, are gathering in Brussels today to sort it out. Tin helmets on. It’s not primarily Britain’s problem, because Britain is not part of the eurozone. We have retained our own currency and our own central bank and are therefore free to make, and correct, our own mistakes, as 17 of our EU partners are not. Who kept us out of the eurozone, asked the veteran Tory fixer Tristram Garel-Jones, into whom I bumped at Westminster this week. “Gordon got that bit right,” said the clever new Labour MP in the conservation. “John Major, that underestimated man,” TG-J replied before popping outside the building for a fag. Fair dos – it was Major’s UK exemption, negotiated at Maastrict in December 1991, which left the option open for euro enthusiasts (as he then was) like Gordon Brown to exercise, except that he didn’t. Ed Balls talked him out of it, and Tony Blair’s enthusiasm clinched the Treasury veto. Not that Major will get much credit from assorted Tory airheads now jumping up and down, warning David Cameron that he mustn’t contribute a penny to the looming Portuguese bailout – “£300 for every family in Britain” as today’s Daily Mail puts it, as though the Lisbon bailiffs were knocking at the door like tinkers. The bailout will be £3.96bn, according to the eurosceptic (Rupert told them to be) Times, £6bn according to the Mail, though the paper’s City pages seem much calmer than the news pages – as usual. It’s a detail. In a crisis, Britain has commitments via the IMF and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which Alistair Darling signed on the last weekend of the Labour government and George Osborne would probably have signed had he taken over by then. But, as the BBC’s Robert Peston gently points out, it’s very indirect and the chances of losing any money via guarantees are remote, more so than the damage which would affect confidence in the wider EU economy – including ours – if Portugal defaulted on its debts, with or without a prior restructuring. Never mind. You can read here (under European summit) how Tory MPs like my old chum Bill Cash got over-excited in the Commons, denouncing the ESM as legally doubtful and urging Cameron to dig his heels in against more British financial support at today’s summit. As Ian Traynor reports, this week’s collapse of Portugal’s minority government after the opposition refused to back another austerity package leaves the EU without a government in Lisbon to negotiate with. As with Ireland last winter, the eurozone’s German paymasters (the French tagging along) want the Portuguese to seek a formal bailout for their debts for fear of “contagion” in the financial markets which could spread to much larger Spain or Italy. The cost of servicing Ireland’s 10-year debt rose again this week, to 10.1%, and Portugal’s is pushing 8% – a level at which it cannot realistically hope to grow its way to solvency. It’s like a mortgage in which the accumulated interest keeps enlarging the householder’s debt. Notwithstanding chancellor Osborne’s justified boast that his austerity package has kept ours closer to debt-free Germany’s at 3.6%, one of the soporific credit agencies, Moodys, warned him yesterday that the UK could lose its triple-A status if his growth predictions don’t come good. Few think they can. This is all grim stuff. Just as Greek voters rioted against their government’s enforced austerity and Irish voters kicked their government out after they agreed to underwrite their country’s grotesque banking debts, so the Portuguese are angrily resisting their doom. More austerity will be hard to bear and, as elsewhere, may not do much good anyway if they overwhelm hopes of resumed growth. Forty-eight hours after the UK coalition’s second budget reconfirmed a similar-sounding Plan A, and on the day the Guardian launches its own review of the cuts now descending on Britain’s public and third sector services, I know what you are thinking. But at least we are managing our own affairs. Because the debtor nations inside the eurozone are not the only ones cutting up rough. The creditors, not just those sober North German Protestants, but their Dutch neighbours, plus the French – and even the Finns – are finding that their voters are ill-disposed towards their profligate southern allies, who borrowed money they could not repay. Hopes of a “grand bargain”, whereby the new stability mechanism, due to come into force in 2013, will have a lot more money to shore up the edifice (€440bn instead of €250bn) remain in doubt. The Germans and Dutch want to restrict its capacity to buy bonds to buying them from ailing governments which must agree fresh austerity in return. And Finland’s normally-staid government has been hit by a surge of populist anti-euro rhetoric which threatens trouble at next month’s elections, and forced Helsinki, another triple-A rated state in creditworthiness, to block its increased contributions to the new stability mechanism. Meanwhile, Italy – whose respected central bank governor has kept the show on the road (he should be the next man to head the European central bank except the Germans won’t have a southerner) despite Silvio Berlusconi’s antics – is moving to block unpopular French takeovers of important Italian firms like Bulgari the jewellers, and the food company Parmalat. It’s what the French do, of course, but it’s very un-European. It’s not a currency issue but it is a nationalist one, explicitly protectionist and reflected in the currency battles. Britain has been allowed to devalue sterling by close to a quarter – thereby boosting exports – without triggering the protectionist charge which is levelled against the Chinese, who have been doing the same thing for years. We should be grateful, but we’re not. None of this is good for them, or good for any of us in our cold north Atlantic corner of an increasingly Pacific-orientated world. It’s no good saying “I told you so,” that it’s hard to imagine a single currency without a single state, at least for tax and spending purposes. But lots of people did say that (me included), and the German answer seems to be to say: “Ok, let’s construct a fiscal as well as monetary union.” There is logic to that position, but it won’t easily hold politically. The broken-backed Portuguese government, now facing a two-month general election campaign without a credible option, this week embraced even tougher cuts in return for a lower interest rate on its EU debts over a longer period. Ireland’s new Fine Gael-Labour government rejected similar terms because part of Berlin’s price would have been abandonment of the republic’s core economic strategy, the 12.5% rate of corporation tax which attracts inward investment so well. Irish voters have told all parties it is a red line for them but, to Germans, it is fiscal piracy. Osborne is offering a similar rate for Northern Ireland in returns for grant cuts elsewhere, a differential rate that will annoy the rest of corporate Britain, where the post-budget rate is still 26%. Tricky, isn’t it? Will the eurozone make sensible compromises it can sell to angry voters, north and south, ones not bound by ties of language or national culture? Will it fall apart? It shouldn’t. Portugal’s is a small economy, its debt problems less acute than those of Greece or Ireland, though its politics have been weak. But we should all hope it muddles through and support the process where we can, despite our own acute domestic problems. “Beggar my neighbour” policies are always tempting but rarely smart, because my neighbour does it back. By the way, which member of the G7 saw the largest rise in per capita income in the 20 years after Margaret Thatcher’s fall in 1990? Why, Britain did, according to new figures, by 36.5 % – just ahead of the US and Canada (32%), Germany (29.3%) and France (23.1%). Where did it go? Not fairly shared, I realise. Unsustainable? In part, yes. The coalition’s budget says the answer is austerity and supply side measures to boost growth. Here’s hoping.

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Summary of the editorials and commentaries about the intervention in Libya in today’s and yesterday’s national newspapers. The Times : support Telegraph : conditional support The Independent : mission creep The Guardian : Arab League reaction reveals the tensions FT : Attacks are justified Daily Mail : Mission creep The Sun : Support – should go further Sunday Mirror : It’s War Independent on Sunday : Support Sunday Times : concern for a swift military victory Sunday Telegraph : praise Cameron The Observer : How far will they support the rebels?

This article titled “Where do newspapers stand on the no-fly zone?” was written by Roy Greenslade, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 21st March 2011 09.39 UTC Wall-to-wall coverage of the Libyan dramas today. But who’s for it and who’s agin it? It appears that every national newspaper is supporting the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya. Looking at today’s and yesterday’s issues, there are clear differences of emphasis. The Times, under the unequivocal headline, Regime Change, described Gaddafi as “a violent, mendacious megalomaniac… whose wily political calculations are matched by a ruthlessness that does not shrink from killing as many people as necessary to maintain his hold on power.” The coalition “has made a good start” in bringing about his downfall, but “the preferred means by which the regime should change is that it should do so at the hands of the Libyan rebels while Allied air force holds Gaddafi’s air and artillery forces at bay.” The Daily Telegraph, though full of praise for David Cameron’s “passionate diplomatic efforts”, noted: “If Libya is liberated from its homicidal dictator without much bloodshed, and a peaceful regime takes his place, then the prime minister will deserve – and receive – enormous international credit. That is, however, a big if.” The Independent, under the headline The West must be careful not to lose the propaganda war, warned of the dangers of “mission creep” and posed a pertinent question: “If this operation is to be strictly limited, is the Western coalition prepared to tolerate Gaddafi remaining in power?” The Guardian concentrated on the implications of the criticism of the assault by Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League: “Moussa’s reaction is a reminder of the political limits of a resolution designed to save civilian lives… The tension between the responsibility to protect civilians and helping rebels to oust a tyrant will only grow in the coming days.” Elsewhere, in the Telegraph, Times and Financial Times, Moussa was taken to task for what the Telegraph called his sadly predictable wavering. The FT argued in its editorial, A united front against Gaddafi, that the attacks were justified because of the fake ceasefire. “The international coalition turned to force, and was right to.” It added: “Protecting Libyan civilians from the depredations of their murderous leader is a cause that has united the world… Arab leaders should lend their full support, moral and material, to this effort.” The Daily Mail is clearly concerned about the level of involvement. Its leading article argued: “Almost by the hour the rhetoric is being ratcheted up and the campaign goals seem to be shifting. “Mr Cameron’s motives are undoubtedly born of compassion for Libya’s grievously oppressed people, and he has shown great verve and leadership in pulling together this alliance.” Then came the but. “But a nagging question remains unanswered: What exactly are we hoping to achieve with this mission?” The Sun, never in two minds about anything, is less troubled by the increasing commitment. Indeed, in calling for Gaddafi to be toppled, it implied that it might support action on the ground. “Much more needs to be done to protect Libyan civilians”, it said. “And it becomes clearer by the hour that the only action that will ensure their safety is the permanent removal from power of Gaddafi himself.” Some 24 hours earlier, the papers were already expressing concerns about where it would all end. The Sunday Mirror’s splash headline said IT’S WAR and its ITN newsreading columnist, Mark Austin, argued: “Make no mistake, we are at war again.” The page one headline and Austin’s remark struck me as the most truthful statements about the cruise missile attack on Libya’s air defences. Austin went on to say that Cameron’s “high risk move… could define his premiership”. That was also the belief of Cameron’s former speechwriter, Ian Birrell, in the Mail on Sunday. He wrote: “This is a huge test for Cameron: the moment every politician dreads when they take a decision that could cost the lives of British troops. It is also the moment that forces a prime minister to make the tough calls that can end up defining them.” The MoS editorial was supportive of Cameron. After a bad start, it argued, here was “good Middle Eastern diplomacy in the post-Bush world.” But there was a warning too: “Sending in the warplanes was the easy part… It has always been far simpler to order forces into action than it has been to be clear about precisely what we are trying to achieve… “If our real objective is regime change, which the UN and the Arab League cannot approve, then we are also entering very foggy territory.” The Independent on Sunday, after noting that it supports “the doctrine of liberal interventionism… to avert crimes against humanity”, thought the imposition of a no-fly zone “was much better than nothing.” It “may seem inadequate to the task of protecting the Libyan people, but… it may be that the best we can hope for is that the international community blunts the worst excesses of Gaddafi’s brutality.” The Sunday Times expressed its concern: “This newspaper has urged caution about a no-fly zone, not because we were any less anxious to see the back of Gadaffi or insensitive to the atrocities he has been committing against his own people. Rather, as top Nato generals have warned, you have to consider how the enemy will respond.” What would happen should Gaddafi press ahead with his ground forces? It concluded: “We have to hope that this time the prime minister’s diplomatic triumph is followed by a swift military victory and the emergence of a new, enlightened Libyan government.” This view was echoed by the Sunday Telegraph, which praised Cameron for his “remarkable courage” and diplomatic triumph, but questioned whether a post-Gaddafi Libya would result in a civil war. The Observer thought Cameron – along with Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama – deserve credit for truly deft diplomacy. But “multilateral diplomacy will now be as important as military judgment… Gaddafi will be prepared to play a long game, taxing the will of the international community by attrition. “The difficult question will then arise of how far the west and its Arab allies are willing to go in opposing him. In other words, how far will they support the rebels?”

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US Coalition forces accused of mission creep and disproportionate action in Operation Odyssey Dawn against Libya

This article titled “Russia, China and Arab League condemn Libya attacks” was written by Patrick Wintour and Ewen MacAskill, for The Guardian on Sunday 20th March 2011 21.37 UTC America, France and Britain – the leaders of the coalition’s air attacks on Libya – were struggling to maintain international support for their actions, as they faced stinging criticism about mission creep from the leader of the Arab League, as well as from China and Russia. Critics claimed that the coalition of the willing may have been acting disproportionately and had come perilously close to making Gaddafi’s departure an explicit goal of UN policy. Russia, which abstained on the UN vote last week, called for “an end to indiscriminate force”. Despite denials from coalition forces, Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman, said that the coalition had hit non-military targets. He suggested that 48 civilians had been killed. “We believe a mandate given by the UN security council resolution – a controversial move in itself – should not be used to achieve goals outside its provisions, which only see measures necessary to protect civilian population,” he said. The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, also startled western governments when he denounced the air attacks only a week after the league had called for creation of a no-fly zone. Moussa, who is a candidate for the Egyptian presidency, said: “What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians.” The Foreign Office later said Moussa claimed he had been misquoted, or had put his criticism more strongly in Arabic than in English. “We will continue to work with our Arab partners to enforce the resolution for the good of the Libyan people,” the FO said. The Arab League had, though, been called to an emergency session to discuss the scale of the attacks. The British defence secretary, Liam Fox, said the scale was in line with UN resolutions that had been “essential in terms of the Gaddafi regime’s ability to prosecute attacks on their own people”. He also said it was possible that Gaddafi himself could become a target of air attacks if the safety of civilians could be guaranteed. Ahead of a Commons debate and vote tomorrow, leading figures in David Cameron’s cabinet were under pressure to clarify whether the explicit purpose of the attacks was to render Gaddafi’s regime so powerless that it collapses. Speaking on the Politics Show, Fox said: “Mission accomplished would mean the Libyan people free to control their own destiny. This is very clear – the international community wants his regime to end and wants the Libyan people to control for themselves their own country.” He then added: “Regime change is not an objective, but it may come about as a result of what is happening amongst the people of Libya.” He said: “When the dynamic shifts and the equilibrium shifts, we will get a better idea just how much support the Gaddafi regime has and how much the people of Libya genuinely long to be able to control their own country. “If Colonel Gaddafi went, not every eye would be wet.” Fox said it was possible that allied forces might treat Gaddafi himself as a legitimate target for air strikes. “There is a difference between someone being a legitimate target and whether we go ahead and target him,” he said. “You would have to take into account what would happen to civilians in the area, what might happen in terms of collateral damage. We don’t simply with a gung-ho attitude start firing off missiles.” One UK defence source said: “If we are seeking to destroy a military resource and he [Gaddafi] is caught in the process, that will not be our doing.” Fox also made it clear that the allied attacks would extend in the coming days from Gaddafi’s air defence systems to his artillery. Britain has ruled out the use of ground forces, but some of the more hawkish cabinet members such as the chancellor, George Osborne, only said ground forces were “ruled out for the moment”. In the Commons debate Labour will call for an explicit guarantee that British ground troops will not be involved. But in a boost to the coalition, there were signs that some of the much-trailed practical Arab involvement in the air strikes had finally materialised – after Qatar last night sent four planes to work alongside the French in the second round of attacks designed to set up a no fly zone across Libya. Britain is hopeful of further input from the United Arab Emirates, following calls by Fox. Arab political support, and military participation is vital to reduce the credibility of Gaddafi’s claims that this is a western act of aggression against a Muslim country. In an effort to reassure Arab opinion, Fox stressed plans to hand some of the co-ordination of the operation to Nato would allow a wider group of participants. But the attacks were under UN auspices. In the US, the Obama administration was more restrained in its language. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, insisted the campaign was only a limited, humanitarian operation, not a war, and was not aimed at regime change, as both Cameron and Sarkozy have suggested. “The goals of this campaign are limited. It is not about seeing him [Gaddafi] go. It is about supporting the UN resolution.” Asked if the mission could be accomplished with Gaddafi still in power, Mullen replied: “This is one outcome.” The Pentagon has been reluctant to become engaged in a third war against a Muslim country in the space of a decade and pressed Barack Obama on the dangers of mission creep. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate armed services committee, said that Obama had given them assurances on that and the Pentagon was satisfied. Mullen and other US commanders said that although the US had taken the lead in the first phase, there would be hand-over to the French and British, and the US would take a back seat role, restricted to tasks to which it was uniquely qualified, such as jamming Gaddafi’s communications and providing refuelling of planes in the air. John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, echoed Mullen over the mission goals, saying it was not a war. “This operation is not specifically geared to get rid of Gaddafi,” he said. The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said he was troubled by Obama’s lack of enthusiasm, after the president went ahead with a trip to Latin America. “I’m very worried that we’re taking a back seat rather than a leadership role,” Graham said.

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Deutsche Bahn plans to run 200mph trains from London to Frankfurt, Cologne, Amsterdam and Rotterdam from 2013 for German Eurostar Deals. Safety concern about having an electric motor engine underneath every carriage as the trains travels through the Channel tunnel are to be swept aside in a rush for truly pan-european high speed rail travel, more than just Paris breaks.

This article titled “London to Frankfurt high-speed rail link back on track” was written by Dan Milmo, for The Guardian on Sunday 20th March 2011 17.45 UTC Plans to transport 1 million rail passengers a year between Frankfurt and London are back on track as an independent report prepares to back German rail operator Deutsche Bahn in a row over Channel tunnel safety. DB’s ambition to launch a Teutonic Eurostar has been threatened by French objections to the state-of-the-art rolling stock it plans to use in the tunnel. David Cameron and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, are believed to have raised their concerns about the row with the French government, amid fears that it will hinder the growth of pan-European high speed rail services. However, this week the European Railways Agency is expected to endorse new trains manufactured by Siemens, the German industrial group, which beat France’s Alstom to a coveted Eurostar rolling stock order. The order for inter-city express (ICE) trains, which will also be used by DB in its Frankfurt-to-London service, met with opposition on the other side of the tunnel. The French government supported Alstom’s argument that the Siemens trains are unsafe because their motors are distributed under each carriage. The row split the Anglo-French intergovernmental commission (IGC) on channel tunnel safety, which resulted in the ERA being asked for a second opinion. Sources close to the process said the ERA is likely to recommend that so-called “distributed power” trains can be used in the tunnel, clearing the way for the ICE carriages. It is also understood that the report will not raise objections to DB’s proposal to couple two separate trains – a proposal that raised safety concerns in some quarters. As a consequence, the IGC is expected to come under further pressure to allow the ICE trains to operate through the tunnel. DB plans to run 200mph trains from London to Frankfurt, Cologne, Amsterdam and Rotterdam from December 2013, expanding the rail market between Britain and the continent by 10% by carrying 1 million passengers a year.

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Operation Odyssey Dawn commences with more than 100 Tomahawk missiles launched as mission begins to end Gaddafi onslaught on Benghazi without risking troops on the ground.

This article titled “Operation Odyssey Dawn commences to end Gaddafi onslaught on Benghazi” was written by Mark Townsend, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 19th March 2011 23.29 UTC The first strikes came out of the late afternoon sky. At 4:45pm GMT it was confirmed that a French Rafale fighter jet had destroyed a Libyan military vehicle, possibly a tank, near Bengazi, the rebel city that pro-Gaddafi troops had attempted to storm. Then, after nightfall, the real offensive began. As more than 100 Tomahawk missiles rained down along the vast Libyan coastline, the Pentagon confirmed that American and British forces were targeting Colonel Gaddafi’s air defence systems in a concerted attempt to enforce the UN no-fly zone, ending his capacity to continue the offensive against the rebel forces. Within minutes the prime minister, David Cameron, declared that British air forces were in action above Libya, joining combat aircraft from several coalition countries. The sheer weight of firepower trained on Libya was designed to intimidate as well as incapacitate. The Tomahawk missiles were fired at supersonic speeds from a British Trafalgar-class submarine and two American warships in the Mediterranean. In total, more than 20 designated Libyan targets were struck. Batteries of Libyan surface-to-air missiles were destroyed. The military communication network, crucial to Gaddafi’s ability to maintain the momentum of his offensive, was severely disrupted. The Pentagon dubbed the offensive Operation Odyssey Dawn, confirming that the intention of the bombardment was to open up airspace for a second wave of strikes by ground-attack aircraft. The battle to save the Libyan revolution, authorised by the UN security council resolution on Thursday night, has begun. State of the art 21st-century weaponry is being pitted against tanks, guns and missiles from the cold war era. Knocking out Gaddafi’s command structure and jamming his military communication networks is likely to happen quickly. Libya’s air defence system is considered antiquated, comparable to the Soviet systems that international forces faced during the Gulf war of 1991, and the Balkans conflict. In fact, much of Gaddafi’s weapons stock is Soviet-era with his air force thought to include up to 80 operational aircraft based around the MiG-23, which was phased out of Russian service 17 years ago. Ground forces rely on Soviet-era weaponry including T-72 tanks that entered production 40 years ago In Tripoli there was panic and defiance. Thousands of Libyans were reported by state TV to have packed into Gaddafi’s heavily fortified compound in the capital to form a human shield against possible air strikes by allied forces. In Benghazi, the streets were eerily quiet as the first rounds of this epic confrontation played out. From a military point of view, the plans finalised earlier in the day in Paris, at a summit of international leaders, were being put into action with impressive speed. Ahead of the operation, a formidable array of firepower was positioned around Libya. In terms of airpower alone, hundreds of jet fighters were placed within easy reach of the North African state. The squadrons included F-16s, used on bombing missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the G4 Tornado ground attack aircraft which forged its reputation attacking Iraqi military sites and runways with smart bombs during the Gulf war. Most of the jet fighters are stationed in southern Italy. The vast US base at Gaeta is less than 600 miles from Benghazi. Six Danish F-16s landed at the base in Sigonella, Sicily, and will be ready for operations on Sunday. France has deployed around 100 warplanes, mainly Rafale and Mirage 2000 jets. Its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will head toward the Libyan coast . Six Canadian CF-18 fighter jets have arrived in Italy. By the time Cameron announced that Britain’s forces were involved, the offensive was fully under way. America’s Vice-admiral Bill Gortney described the strikes as the “first phase in a multi-phase operation”, revealing that the US was in charge of the offensive, but that command would switch to coalition forces in the coming days. Few could have foreseen the weight of firepower that would be directed at Libya, just two days after the UN resolution on a no-fly zone was agreed. The decision to use Tomahawks would have sent a fearsome message to Gaddaffi. During the first Gulf war the sight of cruise missiles sweeping across the Iraqi landscape in broad daylight became one of the enduring images of the 1991 conflict. A Pentagon spokesman said: “The targets were selected based on a collective assessment that these sites either pose a direct threat to the coalition pilots or through use by the regime pose a direct threat to the people of Libya.” He admitted that because the attacks began after nightfall it was difficult to ascertain how successful they had been or, as Gaddafi’s camp is likely to claim, if there have been significant civilian deaths. What is certain is that many of the targets are located on the coast, making their destruction pivotal to the enforcement of the no-fly zone. Analysts had warned that the sudden storming of Benghazi by pro-Gaddafi forces was a military ploy designed to negate the potency of international air strikes but also increase the risk of coalition air strikes inflicting civilian casualties. Moving his ground forces from the flat, exposed terrain of the desert to Libya’s second city and into its streets raised the risk of civilians being killed, they said. Experts warned that the consequences of collateral damage would create a propaganda coup for the Libyan leader, while potentially damaging the conviction of the coalition. Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, an independent thinktank, said: “It makes airpower considerably less effective. Given that some of Gaddafi’s most pernicious weapons – ground-based artillery and tanks – are now intermingled with the urban infrastructure and civilian targets like schools and hospitals, it does blunt one of the international coalition’s greatest strengths, which is advanced fast jets with precision targeted weaponry.” Another concern is to avoid hitting British special forces units, which are likely to be operating in the city to help “light up” targets and offer ground-level intelligence. Paul Smyth, a former wing commander with the RAF, Tornado navigator and founder of defence analysts R3I Consulting, said it was technically possible to hit targets in built up areas from a Tornado, although there were obvious challenges to hitting a tank behind a building while moving at 600mph. However, he said the expansion eastwards of pro-Gaddafi troops sent to crush the rebellion had presented international forces with a golden opportunity to deliver a blow against the Libyan leader. “Gaddafi’s forces have travelled a long distance and require long lines of supply and communication. Whether they have the means required to sustain combat is open to question,” he said. Smyth added that even if Gaddafi’s troops had succeeded in making substantial progress in recapturing Benghazi, the rebels’ determination to hold their positions would have been boosted by the arrival of international force. Among the munitions Britain is now likely to deploy against ground forces is the Brimstone “fire and forget” anti-tank missile with a range of up to 12 miles and the sophisticated Storm Shadow, an air-launched cruise missile that can eradicate static targets from up to 155 miles. It remains a possibility that airborne firepower will be supplemented with unmanned aerial surveillance drones like the advanced US Predator that can loiter above a battlefield before attacking positions with Hellfire missiles. How long the airborne attacks will continue is uncertain. Leaders of the countries involved are clearly hoping to avoid being embroiled in a long-running and resource intensive campaign. Joshi points out: “How long can we stay there? Can we keep Typhoons in southern Europe for the next 10 years? Can we keep a no-fly zone in place, like over Iraq, for 12 years? The political decisions are not in place for that.” But the military campaign in Libya has begun and there is no turning back now. The west is once again at war in the Middle East

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US announces Operation Odyssey Dawn is under way. More than 100 Tomahawk missiles fired on Libyan targets. British and French forces in action over Libya.

This article titled “Libya no-fly zone – live updates” was written by Richard Adams, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 19th March 2011 21.20 UTC

11.22pm: News is trickling in about the targets of tonight’s attacks. Mohammed Ali, a spokesman for the exiled opposition group the Libyan Salvation Front, said the Libyan air force headquarters at the Mateiga air base in eastern Tripoli and the Aviation Academy in Misrata had both been targeted.

11.15pm: Reuters interviews people in Benghazi and they respond with enthusiasm to today’s air and missile strikes against the Gaddafi regime: Iyad Ali, 37, unemployed: “We think this will end Gaddafi’s rule. Libyans will never forget France’s stand with them. If it weren’t for them, then Benghazi would have been overrun tonight.” Khalid al-Ghurfaly, 38, civil servant: “We salute, France, Britain, the United States and the Arab countries for standing with Libya. But we think Gaddafi will take out his anger on civilians. So the West has to hit him hard.” Faraj Omar, 55, engineer: “We’ve all seen the news but we’ll see what the results are later. To have any effect Gaddafi must be hit in Aziziyah, this is the head of the snake,” he said referring to Gaddafi’s heavily-fortified Tripoli compound.

11.05pm: Libyan state television is claiming that a French jet was shot down over Libya today. The French immediately denied it, and there’s no evidence to support the Libyan claim.

11pm: Libya’s air defences have been “severely disabled” in today’s attacks, Reuters quotes an unidentified US official as saying: Muammar Gaddafi’s air defenses have been “severely disabled” by a barrage of US-led missile strikes launched on Saturday, a US national security official said. “Qaddafi’s air defense systems have been severely disabled. It’s too soon to predict what he and his ground forces may do in response to today’s strikes,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

10.50pm: Qatar and the UAE will be sending forces to the no-fly zone. AFP is reporting that the United Arab Emirates will be contributing 24 fighter jets – Mirage 2000-9s and F-16s – while Qatar will contribute between four and six Mirage 2000-5s, according to a French official.

10.45pm: Al-Jazeera has announced that a British journalist was among the group of four arrested and detained by Libyan forces in Tripoli today. Al-Jazeera said Kamel Atalua was a cameraman for the network, and was arrested with cameraman Ammar al-Hamdan, who is Norwegian, and correspondents Lotfi al-Messaoudi and Ahmed Vall Ould Addin, who are Tunisian and Mauritanian nationals. The group had been reporting from Libya for several days.

10.36pm: Listening to Gaddafi’s address – conducted over the phone but broadcast on state television – it was only three minutes long but in every other respect it was vintage Gaddafi. There as a chilling warning of the danger to civilians throughout the Mediterranean, saying: “Targets in the Mediterranean are under threat” because of the “unjustified, mad aggression”.

10.30pm: There are reports that a Libyan journalist, who ran a website detailing the Gaddafi regime’s attacks and providing commentary on the uprising, was killed on Saturday in Benghazi. Mohammed al-Nabbous, who founded a livestream channel called Libya al-Hurra, or Free Libya, is said to have been hit by sniper fire as Gaddafi’s forces attacked the city.

10.25pm: Muammar Gaddafi has spoked by phone to Libyan television, saying he will arm civilians to defend Libya from what he called “crusader aggression” by Western forces that have launched air strikes against him: It is now necessary to open the stores and arm all the masses with all types of weapons to defend the independence, unity and honour of Libya. We call on the peoples and citizens of the Arab and Islamic nations, Latin America, Asia and Africa to stand by the heroic Libyan people to confront this aggression, which will only increase the Libyan people’s strength, firmness and unity,” he said. Gaddafi warned that the entire Mediterranean and north Africa region were now a battleground, calling tonight’s attacks “simply a colonial crusader aggression that may ignite another large-scale crusader war.”

10.12pm: The Guardian’s Chris McGreal is currently in the rebel capital Benghazi and sends this eye-witness account of the first wave of attacks – and the more muted response following a day of heavy fighting: The blasts that came as dusk fell were unusual – the sound was deeper, the explosions larger – and were taken in Benghazi as confirmation that the foreign air strikes to stop Muammar Gaddafi’s war on his own people had finally begun. But there was little of the celebration in the rebel stronghold that had greeted the imposition of the UN no-fly zone just two days before. The assault by plane and ship was met with relief that at last help had come and a hope among many that the scale of the western attack – with French, British and US missiles blasting Gaddafi’s tanks, air defences and much else – was an indication that despite the official denials, regime change is the goal. But all of that only went some way to offset a widespread anger and even bitterness that the air strikes were not in time to prevent what appeared to be Gaddafi’s last role of the dice – a bloody assault on the city that was the cradle of the revolution against his despotic 42 year rule.

10.06pm: The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief Ewen MacAskill reports that US secretary of defence Robert Gates has been forced to cancel his trip to Russia planned for tomorrow: Defence secretary Robert Gates had been due to fly to Russia today, arriving in St Petersburg on Sunday morning for two days and then on to Moscow. There was little of substance planned, other than a meeting with Russia’s president Medvedev. He was scheduled to spend Sunday visiting the Hermitage museum and art gallery. Gates is due to retire later this year and the trip was a sort of farewell visit by the ex-CIA director: Old Cold Warrior visits old battleground. But Gates, who was the least enthusiastic member of the Obama cabinet about military involvement in Libya, has had to stay at home, canceling his Russia trip to co-ordinate the campaign against Libya.

10pm: Air strikes by Western forces near Libya’s city of Misrata have attacked a military airport where Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists are based, two residents have told Reuters, denying reports on Libyan state TV that fuel depots were hit. The base is 7km (four miles) from the city, which is Libya’s third largest and is the last rebel holdout in the west of the country. “The international forces struck Gaddafi battalions in the air military college, but some of the (government) forces fled shortly before the attack,” resident Abdulbasset told Reuters by phone. Another resident said he had heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the airbase.

9.50pm: The New York Times has significant behind-the-scenes details from the Paris summit, with claims that France’s unilateral decision to strike Libya “angered some of the countries gathered at the summit meeting” – and suggestions that France blocked earlier Nato action. The implication is that Nicolas Sarkozy wanted the limelight while the Paris summit was under-way. The New York Times reports: That news [of French air strikes] came even before the Paris summit meeting adjourned, with President Nicolas Sarkozy announcing that French warplanes had begun reconnaissance missions around Benghazi, and the French military saying that a Rafale jet fighter had destroyed a government tank near there. Even though the leaders at the Paris summit meeting were united in supporting military action, there were signs of disagreement over how it would proceed. Two senior Western diplomats said the Paris meeting, which was organized by Mr Sarkozy, may actually have delayed allied operations to stop Colonel Gaddafi’s troops as they were approaching Benghazi. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the matter. The initial French air sorties, which were not coordinated with other countries, angered some of the countries gathered at the summit meeting, according to a senior Nato-country diplomat. Information about the movement of Gaddafi troops toward Benghazi had been clear on Friday, but France blocked any Nato agreement on airstrikes until the Paris meeting, the diplomat said, suggesting that overflights could have begun Friday night before Mr Gaddafi’s troops reached the city.

9.40pm: To recap, here’s details from the statement published earlier by the US Department of Defence: Operation Odyssey Dawn is commanded by US Navy Adm Samuel J Locklear aboard the command ship USS Mount Whitney. The Mount Whitney joins 24 other ships from Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom and France in launching the operation. Cruise missiles from US submarines and frigates began the attack on the anti-aircraft system. A senior defense official speaking on background said the attacks will “open up the environment so we could enforce the no-fly zone from east to west throughout Libya.” In addition to the cruise missiles, the United States will provide command and control and logistics. American airmen and sailors also will launch electronic attacks against the systems. The United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada already have announced that they are part of the coalition. Officials expect Arab countries will publicly announce their participation soon.

9.30pm: Libya’s state television is reporting that Muammar Gaddafi will shortly make an address to the people of Libya “on the Crusader’s aggression”. State television is even running the message on screen in English, to make sure the message gets across.

9.20pm: Here is the full text of the statement by President Obama, speaking in Brazil after the launch of Operation Odyssey Dawn: Today I authorised the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun. In this effort, the United States is acting with a broad coalition that is committed to enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which calls for the protection of the Libyan people. That coalition met in Paris today to send a unified message, and it brings together many of our European and Arab partners. This is not an outcome that the United States or any of our partners sought. Even yesterday, the international community offered Muammar Gaddafi the opportunity to pursue an immediate cease-fire, one that stopped the violence against civilians and the advances of Gaddafi’s forces. But despite the hollow words of his government, he has ignored that opportunity. His attacks on his own people have continued. His forces have been on the move. And the danger faced by the people of Libya has grown. I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it. I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice and it’s not a choice that I make lightly. But we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and his forces step up their assaults on cities like Benghazi and Misurata, where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government. So we must be clear: actions have consequences, and the writ of the international community must be enforced. That is the cause of this coalition. As a part of this effort, the United States will contribute our unique capabilities at the front end of the mission to protect Libyan civilians, and enable the enforcement of a no-fly zone that will be led by our international partners. And as I said yesterday, we will not – I repeat – we will not deploy any US troops on the ground. As commander-in-chief, I have great confidence in the men and women of our military who will carry out this mission. They carry with them the respect of a grateful nation. I’m also proud that we are acting as part of a coalition that includes close allies and partners who are prepared to meet their responsibility to protect the people of Libya and uphold the mandate of the international community. I’ve acted after consulting with my national security team, and Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress. And in the coming hours and days, my administration will keep the American people fully informed. But make no mistake: today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world.

9.15pm: Good evening and welcome to our continuing live coverage as coaliton forces launch military action against Libya. You can read our earlier live blog here. This is a summary of the events so far. • Western planes are leading air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s military as world leaders ordered the biggest intervention in the Arab world since allied forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The Pentagon announced that the action, codenamed Operation Odyssey Dawn, was under way. • British and US forces have fired more than 110 Tomahawk missiles at targets in Libya. The Pentagon said the aim of the operation was to take out the Libyan air defence systems in order that piloted aircraft could enforce the UN-mandated no-fly zone. • Al-Jazeera is reporting that Libya’s rebel military council has been co-ordinating with international forces to identify the locations of Gadaffi’s forces. Earlier in the day, the rebels lost their only aircraft when it was shot down over Benghazi, possibly by their own side. • In Tripoli, Libyans loyal to Gaddafi scorned the UN resolution and blamed al-Qaida for the rebellion in their country. Ian Black, our Middle East editor, who is in the Libyan capital, says in this report that “patriotic songs boomed out from giant loudspeakers mounted in the centre of Tripoli’s Green Square.” Read the Guardian’s previous live blog of today’s events here.

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No to Western military intervention • Libya declares ceasefire after UN resolution• Resolution backed no-fly zone and air strikes • Britain set to deploy Tornado and Typhoon jets • Gaddafi denounces vote as ‘flagrant colonisation’ • Unrest continues in Bahrain and Yemen

This article titled “Libya military action: live updates” was written by Adam Gabbatt and Mark Tran, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 18th March 2011 12.00 UTC

1.37pm: The New York Times is reporting that four of its journalists captured in Libya will be released. The journalists are Anthony Shadid, Beirut bureau chief for the NYT; two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lindsey Addario; and reporter Stephen Farrell, who holds dual British and Irish nationality. Gaddafi’s son Saif told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview recorded yesterday tthat Addario would be released. The NYT said that Libyan government officials told the US state department on Thursday evening that all four would be freed. It is not clear whether the vote at the UN security council in favour of a no-fly zone over Libya, supported by the US, would have any effect on the decision to release the journalists.

1.18pm: Ian Black in Tripoli has some instant analysis of the ceasefire declaration. The Libyan announcement of a unilateral ceasefire made by foreign minister Moussa Koussa leaves several important questions unanswered. Is it simply a ploy to divide the UN after the approval of the security council resolution? And how will a ceasefire be monitored and verified? Will the UN be allowed in? Fighting was reported from the port of Misrata shortly before his press conference in Tripoli. His offer of dialogue has already been rejected by the Benghazi-based rebels. The Gaddafi regime is pretty low on credibility so there will be plenty of scepticism about this statement. And Koussa pointedly refused to answer any questions after dropping his bombshell.

1.09pm: On a lighter note. Malta’s tourism authority is keen to correct what it says is incorrect information in parts of the British media. Please be aware that there are NO British military bases in Malta, emails the Malta Tourism Authority. Two news sources – Sky News and Metro, have erroneously stated that British Military bases in Malta could be a possible target for Libyan counter attacks, Please be aware that this is false and that Malta has no British military bases and is not a target.

12.54pm: Libya has declared “an immediate ceasefire”, but has criticised the UN resolution, saying the use of military power would “violate” the UN charter. Here’s a summary, including details of the statement from the Libyan government: • Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister, announced that the country had decided to call a ceasefire, announcing the the “stoppage of all military operations” at a press conference in Tripoli. Koussa said the country has studied the UN resolution, and as a security council member it would accept the resolution. He said Libya encourages the “opening of all dialogue channels” with the international community. • Despite this, Koussa criticised the ruling, saying it was “unreasonable” that it allowed the use of military power. He said the use of military power would violate the UN charter and violate the sovereignty of Libya. He added that the UN resolution would “increase the suffering of the Libyan people”, while the freezing of Libya’s assets would have a “very negative impact on normal Libyans”. • On Thursday night the security council voted in favour of a no-fly zone and air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. Resolution 1973 authorises “all necessary measures” short of a ground invasion to protect civilians in Libya. • Before the ceasefire was announced, the British prime minister, David Cameron, said RAF Tornados and Typhoons would be deployed in the operation. They will be moved to air bases “in the coming hours”, Cameron told the House of Commons in London. He said: “The attorney general has been consulted and the government is satisfied that there is a clear and unequivocal legal basis for the deployment of UK forces and military assets.”

12.46pm: Koussa steps up his offensive: Libya also finds it “unreasonable” that the resolution allows the use of military power. “There are signs that this might indeed take place,” he said. “This goes clearly against the UN charter, and it is a violation of the national sovereignty of Libya. “It is also a violation of article 42 of the charter.”

12.43pm: A change in tone from Koussa, as he criticises the UN resolution: “My country is very serious about continuing the development – economic, social of the Libyan nation,” Koussa says. “We express our sadness towards what the resolution has included, and of procedures against the Libyan nation, such as the no-fly zone”, Koussa says. He said the inclusion of commercial flights will “increase the suffering of Libyan people”, and says the international community should have exempted these flights from the resolution. “Also the total and inclusive freezing of all Libyan assets and investments will have a very negative impact on normal Libyans,” the foreign minister says.

12.40pm: Koussa continues to stress that Libya’s actions are done in accordance with the UN’s resolution. “We agree to the article on the protection of civilians,” he says. “Therefore, building on this, the Libyan state encourages the opening of all dialogue channels with everyone interested in the territory of Libya.”

12.38pm: “Libya has decided an immediate ceasefire and stoppage of all military operations,” the country’s foreign minister Mousa Koussa says.

12.36pm: Koussa says that Libya has studied the resolution. “MY country will try to deal with this resolution,” Koussa says. “Libya has now got knowledge of the resolution, and in accordance with article 25 of the UN charter and given that Libya is a member of the UN security council, Libya is committed to accept the UN security council resolution.”

12.34pm: The Libyan foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, is preparing to speak to journalists in Tripoli. We’ll follow it live.

12.18pm: More from Nick Watt in the House of Commons, where Mark Reckless, a Conservative backbencher, has “asked the awkward question of the day”. Reckless asked the prime minister whether the operation would be better if Ark Royal, equipped with Harrier aircraft, could take part. The aircraft carrier was decommissioned as part of the strategic defence and security review last year. Hilary Benn, the shadow leader of the commons, welcomed the decision to hold a debate on the military action on a substantive motion, followed by a vote on Monday. Benn pointed out that it is exactly eight years ago to the day since MPs voted to approve the Iraq war. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary at the time, set a precedent by giving MPs a vote on a substantive motion. Until then debates about British military action were technically adjournment debates. This meant the only vote MPs could hold was on whether to adjourn the house.

12.12pm – Yemen: While the prime minister has been speaking about the planned military action in Libya, there have been disturbing events in Yemen, where citizens in Sana’a have been shot dead. The Guardian’s Tom Finn is at a mosque in the city, and says he has counted 17 dead people being brought into the building wrapped in blankets. “The doctor says [there are] double that in the hospital,” Tom tweets. Al-Jazeera English is reporting that up to 30 people have been killed and 200 injured after security forces opened fire in Sana’a.

12.07pm: Our colleague, Ian Black, who is in Tripoli, says Muammar Gaddafi is far from cowed by last night’s vote at the UN, although there is a mood of nervousness in the city as well as defiance: Gaddafi was pretty defiant from the start, he gave an interview to Portuguese TV just as the vote was about to take place and it was clear at that stage it was going to produce a no-fly zone and he was very ominous. He was talking about how the world goes crazy, we’ll go crazy too… He was menacing about and to the people of Benghazi. He said there would be no mercy, no pity. If you were a rebel in Benghazi you could be forgiven for feeling quite anxious.

12.03pm: The Guardian’s chief political correspondent, Nick Watt, has been following the questions to Cameron in the Commons following the prime minister’s statement. Nick says there is “strong praise” for Cameron from both sides of the House, “though some Labour MPs are voicing doubts”. James Arbuthnot, the Tory chairman of the commons defence select committee, said the prime minister has shown a “breathtaking degree of courage and leadership”. Mike Gapes, the former Labour chairman of the commons foreign affairs select committee, congratulated Cameron, British diplomats at the UN and the French government. But Jeremy Corbyn, the veteran left winger, asked why action was being taken to protect human rights in Libya while no action was being taken in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Natascha Engel, a Labour MP, questioned whether the air strikes would compound a difficult situation. David Winnick, a veteran Labour MP, warned that Britain could be dragged into a third war in ten years. Nicolas Sarkozy has invited members of the Arab League to a meeting in Paris on Saturday. David Cameron will attend. Nick says that David Cameron has told MPs that the government will publish a summary of the legal advice by Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, which has given formal approval for British participation in Libya. “This will be published before a commons debate on Monday when MPs will vote on the military action,” Nick says. “In another departure with Tony Blair’s approach over the Iraq war in 2003, the prime minister announced that the international development secretary Andrew Mitchell is to chair a cross-Whitehall group to coordinate humanitarian efforts in Libya.”

12 noon: Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in Libya as the UN backs military action and the British government commits RAF jets to the operation. You can find our earlier coverage here. Here are the main points of the story so far: British and French military aircraft are preparing to protect the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi after the UN security council voted in favour of a no-fly zone and air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. Resolution 1973 authorises “all necessary measures” short of a ground invasion to protect civilians in Libya. The British prime minister, David Cameron, said RAF Tornados and Typhoons would be deployed in the operation. They will be moved to air bases “in the coming hours”, Cameron told the House of Commons in London. He said: “The attorney general has been consulted and the government is satisfied that there is a clear and unequivocal legal basis for the deployment of UK forces and military assets.” Gaddafi has warned that any foreign attack on Libya would endanger air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean area. In a defiant and menacing radio address on Thursday night, the Libyan leader sald. “No more fear, no more hesitation, the moment of truth has come. There will be no mercy. Our troops will be coming to Benghazi tonight.”

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David Mitchell exposes David Cameron‘s astonishing attack on ‘bureaucrats’ betraying a serious lack of understanding of the public sector.

This article titled “David Cameron has even less grasp of how government works than I’d thought” was written by David Mitchell, for The Observer on Sunday 13th March 2011 00.04 UTC What was the most amazing thing about last weekend’s 24 Hour Panel People (highlights of which will be shown all week on BBC3 in the run-up to Friday’s Comic Relief)? Was it David Walliams’s incredible achievement of performing live in panel shows for a solid 24 hours – a feat of comic endurance not equalled since someone at the BBFC had to classify the DVD release of the complete Chucklevision? Or the generosity with which a host of Britain’s best-loved comedians and Nicholas Parsons gave their time to make the event such a success? Or the speed with which the people at Dave subsequently put together a business plan for a 24-hour live rolling panel-show channel entirely fronted by Chinese children? Well, I was there and I can tell you it was none of those things. The most amazing aspect of it, as a contributor, was the number of people bustling around with clipboards and headsets. Wherever I stood, unless actually on camera, dozens of them would immediately try to push past, politely but hurriedly, as if I’d obstinately positioned myself on the route of an air traffic controllers’ fun run. “What can they possibly all be doing?” I thought irritably, forgetting temporarily that I lack the knowledge or power to self-televise. It’s an easy attitude to fall into, assuming that everyone else is perversely inconveniencing you, rather than having jobs or problems of their own – sitting in heavy traffic thinking: “Where are all these people going? Do they really need to? I’m late! They’re getting in the way.” In the case of this particular TV studio, I was the one who was getting in the way, and also having the gall to question the necessity and urgency of what I was getting in the way of: “Where are they going with the clipboards? Who are they talking to on the headsets? None of this makes any sense! All this process requires is people like me going in front of cameras and talking some shit.” That’s precisely what David Cameron thinks about government. He simply can’t understand what all the guys in headsets – the civil service – are up to. And he says it’s not just him they’re annoying – they’re pushing past or obstructing the whole private sector. In an extraordinary speech to the Conservatives’ spring conference last weekend, he called them the “enemies of enterprise”. To him, they’re the Klingons. He said he was “taking on… the bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible for small firms”. On the face of it, this is simple crowd-pleasing stuff. It’s easy to slag off the faceless bureaucrats, who supposedly waste our time and money with all their stupid rules. It’s convenient to forget that bureaucrats, or civil servants as they’re called when they’re not being victimised, don’t actually make rules, they just enforce them. Maybe, sometimes, they enforce them officiously. Maybe, sometimes, the processes they “concoct” for enforcing them are unnecessarily time-consuming. Maybe fewer of them could enforce the rules just as effectively. But they don’t make the rules, Parliament does. In seeking to blame the civil service for the rules as well as their enforcement, I think this speech is more sinister than Cameron’s usual second-rate demagogy and I’m surprised it didn’t attract greater attention. To me, these remarks are just as damaging as the prime minister’s disparagement of multiculturalism, which rightly drew criticism, and a truer reflection of his political standpoint. Here he’s breaking new ground for his evidence-averse Thatcherite ideological crusade. The whole premise of this government, of its NHS policy, of the “big society”, of the “free schools” initiative is that the public sector sucks. The private sector, according to the Tories, beats it for efficiency every time, can be just as compassionate and, at the top, “rewards enterprise”. Meanwhile the top of the public sector merely “pays people more than the prime minister”. But in this speech Cameron takes the argument further. By labelling civil servants as enemies of business, he’s trying to make them responsible, not just for the failings of the public sector, but also those of the private: “Every regulator, every official, every bureaucrat in government has got to understand that we cannot afford to keep loading costs on to business,” he says. “If I have to pull these people into my office to argue this out myself and get them off the backs of business then believe me, I will do it.” He’s always said that, when the state wastes money, it’s because of the bureaucrats. Now he’s also saying that, if private enterprise fails to grow, prosper or fill the gap that shrinking government creates, that’s not a flaw in George Osborne’s economic policy, that, too, is because of the bureaucrats. In short, whatever goes wrong is the bureaucrats’ fault. If he can get this to stick, it’s a masterstroke. It’s what Mao was doing when he declared war on sparrows or intellectuals. In difficult times, deft powermongers deliver up whipping boys for the disgruntled. By picking on civil servants, Cameron has made an excellent choice: they work for him, so it’s hard for them to complain; they enforce government policies so if policies fail, he can blame the enforcement; yet if they succeed, he can keep the credit. As a policy, however, it’s meaningless. He can’t act separately from bureaucrats, he has to act through them. Everything he does – every transparency initiative, every “big society” clarification document, every restructuring of the NHS or the welfare system, creates work for bureaucrats. He also said in the speech: “There’s only one strategy for growth we can have now and that is rolling up our sleeves and doing everything possible to make it easier for businesses to grow”, without acknowledging that it’s the bureaucrats’ sleeves he’s talking about, not his own or those of his party faithful. Cameron also doesn’t realise, or is wilfully ignoring, how important our large and basically effective bureaucracy is to our place in the front rank of free nations. Without the civil service, acts of Parliament are only words and elections just millions of little slips of paper, like they are in Afghanistan. Civil servants don’t merely oil the wheels, they’re the axles that join them. Without them David Cameron and his policies would be no more a government than Ian Hislop sitting in a field being sarcastic would be an episode of Have I Got News For You.

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The world impact of the biggest financial crisis since 1929 has only just got underway. Demand is falling. Talk of recovery is dangerously premature.

This article titled “The fallout from the crash of 2008 has only just begun” was written by Seumas Milne, for The Guardian on Wednesday 9th March 2011 21.45 UTC To listen to government ministers and boardroom barons, you’d think that the economic crisis that erupted in 2008 was as good as over. Recovery might be weak and choppy, they’d have us believe, but it’s nevertheless under way. Cuts might be painful, they insist, but they’re essential for a rebalanced economy – and anyway they’re all the fault of the previous government. As elsewhere, there is a determined attempt in Britain to restore the economic model so comprehensively discredited in the crash of 2008. But the evidence is piling up that the full impact of the crisis is only starting to make itself felt – and that both the economy and politics will be transformed before it has run its course. In Britain the loyalty to a failed past is most striking in the Tory-led government’s resolute refusal to bring to heel the banks that delivered the economic meltdown. Bankers’ greed might be the object of public revulsion and ritual political handwringing; and the banks’ survival might depend on the greatest public handouts and guarantees in history. But once again, their executives have awarded themselves hundreds of millions of pounds in pay and bonuses, while real wages are being forced down across the workforce. Even Stephen Hester, the chief executive of state-owned RBS, is pocketing £7.7m while failing to carry out the bank’s essential function of boosting lending to credit-squeezed businesses. And instead of directing the banks they own or underwrite to ditch bonuses and drive recovery, George Osborne and his Liberal Democrat lieutenants have in effect cut Labour’s bank levy, slashed corporation tax and signed a toothless agreement that will clearly achieve neither. Given that over half the Conservative party’s funding now comes from bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity moguls, perhaps that’s not so surprising. But, combined with a scale of brutal and counter-productive spending cuts only matched in Europe’s basket cases, the result for the British economy has already been disastrous. Put to one side the arbitrary convention that two successive quarters of economic shrinkage are needed to qualify for a recession. Britain has in fact already had a double dip, as the economy shrank by 0.6% in the last quarter of 2010 – and that’s before the effects of most cuts and tax increases have been felt. Greece and Portugal are the only other European Union countries whose economies declined in the same period. But it has taken the Bank of England governor Mervyn King of all people to nail the endlessly repeated falsehood that the deficit is the result of Labour profligacy – rather than the breakdown of an unregulated and unreformed financial system enthusiastically endorsed by the entire political class. King blamed the bankers for the cuts, and warned of the threat of further crises unless the financial behemoths were brought to book. And it was Richard Lambert, the outgoing head of the employers’ CBI, who took the government to task for absurdly relying on the ruthlessness of its cuts to deliver growth. David Cameron’s response has been to promise more deregulation and blame civil servants for “loading costs on to business”. That will be the theme of this month’s budget. It’s got all the makings of a 1980s revival, complete with the Thatcherite favourites of increased VAT, deep cuts in the poorest areas and mass privatisation. Ministers seem determined to reinstate a neoliberal order that is beyond repair, while the conditions that eventually allowed economic recovery in the 80s after the destruction of 20% of the country’s industrial base and the creation of 3 million unemployed under Margaret Thatcher – including a far more benign international economic environment – are simply not there. The latest slow-motion aftershock of the 2008 crash is being felt in the oil market. The Arab uprisings of recent months have targeted dictatorship and had multiple causes. But the trigger for the Tunisian revolution, which sparked the wider revolt, was economic: rising food prices and unemployment in the IMF poster-boy state, combined with declining workers’ remittances from recession-hit Europe. Now that the upheaval has spread to oil-rich Libya and is echoing across the Gulf kingdoms, oil prices have started to spike. If the Libyan stalemate continues, or the revolution reaches the main oil producing states, the impact of sharply higher prices on global recovery is likely to be dramatic – a boomerang effect of the original crisis, which would further squeeze growth and fuel inflation. Already European and British central bankers are preparing to make a renewed downturn more likely by threatening higher interest rates in response to rising energy and food prices. Add to that the continuing turmoil in the eurozone, and the damage of a new oil shock on a stagnant economy like Britain’s – already bled white by market dogma – could be far-reaching. The aftermath of the crash of 2008 demands a different kind of political economy. If Britain’s coalition government carries on imagining it can cut and deregulate its way out of emerging stagflation, it will fail and its unpopularity deepen. But Labour also has to break with policies that helped generate the crisis in the first place.   David Miliband, the party’s failed leadership contender, this week defended New Labour’s record, arguing that European social democrats need to move away from reliance on high public spending and state power if they are to regain support in an era of economic crisis. But it isn’t public intervention that is behind the failure to invest or lend – it’s the lack of it. And it wasn’t New Labour’s over-regulation of the City that made Britain especially vulnerable to the credit crash. It was the opposite. Right now, publicly owned banks and their cash mountains should be at the heart of an investment programme to propel recovery. But that would mean moving on from an economic model broken by its own excesses. Instead, they’re being fattened for privatisation. Mervyn King expressed surprise last week that the “degree of public anger has not been greater than it has” over the costs of the system’s failure. But as those costs are rammed home, both in Britain and across the world, it will become clearer that the fallout has only just begun.

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Oh dear, is that nice Mr Clegg in a spot of bother again? What’s left of the lib-dems will have their say.

This article titled “Nick Clegg under fire from his own party over NHS plans” was written by Patrick Wintour and Allegra Stratton, for The Guardian on Wednesday 9th March 2011 21.50 UTC The Liberal Democrat leadership has signalled a willingness to rethink its stance on some NHS changes – such as the extension of competition and the accountability of GP commissioning – if the party’s spring conference this weekend votes to rein in the shakeup. Norman Lamb, parliamentary adviser to Nick Clegg, said: “We listen to the concerns and take them back to government. This is the chance for the party to have its say. We are determined they will have their say.” Strong support has emerged for an amendment to a motion at this weekend’s conference, demanding that the NHS, rather than the private sector, should be the preferred provider in the health service. The amendment also calls for commissioning to remain a public function, “using the skills and expertise of existing NHS staff rather than subcontracting of commissioning to private companies”. It says commissioning should be made democratically accountable, and not conducted in private by GP commissioners, as proposed in the health bill. The amendment was tabled by Charles West, a health expert in the party, and the former MP Evan Harris, a doctor. It has the support of 133 conference representatives, as well as Graham Winyard, former deputy chief medical officer for England and medical director of the NHS. Winyard is the chair of Winchester Lib Dems. Lady Williams, the former leader of the Lib Dems in the Lords, is also supporting the amendment. An additional amendment has been tabled by the party’s policy committee vice-chair, Jeremy Hargreaves, calling for all local health bodies, including foundation trusts and GP commissioners, to be made accountable to local elected authorities. It calls for half of commissioning boards to include local councillors, a change that would deter some private sector firms. Party conference officials will decide tomorrow how to manage what is looking to be a controversial debate on Saturday. The Lib Dem health minister, Paul Burstow, is defending the reforms, saying they are designed to improve standards, increase choice and take clinical decisions closer to patients. He insists he will listen to the party’s concerns and take them back to his department. It is not yet clear whether a defeat for the party leadership at the weekend would result in Clegg asking Cameron to rethink or delay the reforms. Speaking at a pre-conference briefing, Lamb said: “As a party we are totally committed to the NHS. We want to ensure that we protect it. It does need to be reformed, the case for reforms is strong, but we will listen to the concerns and take them back into government. They [activists] now have the chance to influence – not dictate, but influence.” Ministers last week moved to address some concerns by making it clear that the government will not allow competition in the NHS based purely on price. It is understood that Clegg is concerned by the revolt, and even his allies admit there are few people in favour of the reforms as a whole. Burstow has been holding a series of telephone conferences with party members to explain the thinking behind the changes. David Cameron has conceded that the public does not yet understand the motives for the shakeup, which includes the abolition of primary care trusts and the handover of the commissioning of £80bn of services to GP consortiums. There have been hints emerging from the NHS commissioning board that the phasing in of GP commissioning could be delayed. There are concerns across the government that the reforms, due to start in April 2013, are being brought in at the same time as massive efficiency savings – £20bn over four years – are being sought.Some senior Liberal Democrats argue also added that the coalition tensions on the issue are manageable since the policy was not in the coalition agreement, so no coalition code of honour would be being broken by slowing the policies down.

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Splitting the Lib Dems after coming 6th in the Barnsley byelection. 6th

This article titled “The Libs are not the Dems” was written by Tim Horton, for The Guardian on Friday 4th March 2011 19.30 UTC It’s perhaps unsurprising that prominent Liberal Democrats have dismissed the party’s woeful byelection result in Barnsley, a fall from 2nd to 6th, as inevitable voter discontent towards a government bravely taking tough decisions. But deep down, they know this isn’t what’s going on. Entering coalition with the Tories has exposed the deep ideological splits within the Lib Dems. And driven by feelings of betrayal, millions of progressive voters will no longer countenance them as a repository for their support. It may yet be possible for the Lib Dems to ride out the storm and regroup again in opposition. But if the future lies in repeated bouts of coalition government, the time may well be nearing when the only tenable option is to split into their liberal and social democratic wings once more. It’s worth asking whether, by the next parliament, they expect to be one party or two. The Liberal-SDP merger made a great deal of sense in the polarisation of the 1980s. But then along came the popular Tony Blair of the 1990s. New Labour fitted smack between these two Lib Dem tribes – more confident in the power of the state than the Liberals, more at ease with market reforms than the SDP. This made the divisions between these two strains of liberal thought hugely significant. Tensions have also been exacerbated by David Cameron’s skilful pitch to liberal voters who do not care for social democracy. It’s not the Lib Dems’ fault this happened. But the understandable desire to sustain themselves as a single entity has led at times to a less-than-honest politics, which is now unravelling fast. A large amount of their 2010 election platform chose to advertise decidedly leftish values – no deep cuts, more equality, a strong welfare state – even though the Liberal camp at the top of the party always wanted to throw its hat in with the Tories. Why people are so angry with the Lib Dems is not because they have had to make policy compromises, but because they seem to have reneged on these key values. Political parties entering coalitions often have to compromise, but tend to be constrained in doing so by a core set of stated principles. Many voters don’t think that happened this time round. That’s also why the Tories have survived relatively unscathed. Yes, they have broken many pre-election promises, but they have broken promises in a way that voters understand is nevertheless entirely consistent with their underlying values. By contrast, fairly or unfairly, voters see the Lib Dems as having gone against their values. And as Gordon Brown found out over the abolition of the 10p tax rate, it can be hard to recover from that. Worse still for the Lib Dems, they chose to sell many of their pre-election positions in absolutist terms. Tuition fees, control orders, nuclear power: all of these, we were told, were morally wrong. This attracted many voters from Labour. But those same voters don’t take well to pragmatic compromise. A Lib Dem split would be painful, but transformative. A liberated Liberal party could develop a coherent agenda to genuinely challenge the Tories on the centre-right. Meanwhile, many social-liberals would like to work constructively with Ed Miliband’s Labour (rather than having to parrot attack lines they don’t agree with). And Labour tribalists must be challenged to work across party boundaries too. Some Lib Dem MPs seem to believe they can continue projecting a dual identity, arguing publicly against welfare cuts at the same time as supporting them in parliament. But the time is soon coming when many in the party will have to choose. Barnsley is famous for its coal mines. This week the Lib Dem canary emerged gasping for life.

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Noooooo, don’t accept it.Masses reject foreign intervention Western Intervention can only serve to try and derail the Region-wide revolution of the Arab people

This article titled “Libyan opposition leaders to get advice from UK military” was written by Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor, for The Guardian on Friday 4th March 2011 19.57 UTC Britain is to send a team of experts capable of giving military advice into eastern Libya to make contact with opposition leaders as the struggle for control of the country escalates. The move is a clear intervention on the ground to bolster the anti-Gaddafi uprising, learn more about its leadership and see what logistical support it needs. Whitehall sources said the diplomatic task force would not be providing arms to the rebels, as there is an international arms embargo. It came as Interpol issued a global alert against Muammar Gaddafi and 15 other Libyans, including his daughter and seven sons, in an effort to enforce sanctions. David Cameron has been determined to back the resistance partly because, following advice this week by experts and Libyans in the UK, he believes that it is neither simply tribal nor Islamist, but is built round democratic demands that could in the medium term mark a decline in anti-western mood in the Middle East. The foreign secretary, William Hague, has been in telephone contact with General Abdul Fattah Younis Obaidi, the former Libyan interior minister, now based in Benghazi, who is seen as a likely successor to Gaddafi. Obaidi was placed in charge of military defences in the city in a sign that he is at the helm of the opposition. British officials know the identity of all the members of the broad-based Benghazi committee currently focused on keeping essential services and defences going. As the situation regarding international involvement developed rapidly , Nato commanders were instructed to draw up plans for a wide range of military options, including a no-fly zone. Cameron had earlier faced criticism – including from the Pentagon – for raising the idea of a Nato no-fly zone. The UK government believes the national council in Benghazi is focused on keeping essential services running, but where it can is “now thinking about how they can take the struggle forward to other parts of the country. They are not yet calling themselves a government in waiting and we have not yet seen a coherent programme”, one source said. The UK diplomatic task force is to assess humanitarian need and keep the opposition leaders in the east of the country better informed about diplomatic activity. The national council is focused most on what it can do to help the isolated rebel towns close to Tripoli. British diplomats quit Libya last week as the fighting escalated. They remain unable to access the largely pro-Gaddafi west of Libya, from which all aid agencies, including the Red Cross, have been barred. Ambassadors representing the 28 Nato countries instructed military commanders to start planning for what an alliance spokesperson described as “all eventualities”. However, the spokesperson added that “operational steps” had not yet been taken and that the UN security council had not authorised the use of force. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary general, has made it clear that in his view a no-fly zone would require a specific UN resolution. The decision to draw up contingency plans was not officially announced, because of the sensitivity surrounding an issue on which the alliance is far from united.   The decision to task Nato commanders with contingency planning was taken despite serious reservations expressed by Robert Gates, shared by British military chiefs. “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down,” Gates said earlier this week. However, President Barak Obama subsequently said he was placing US military assets near Libya to ensure he had the “full capacity to act” if the situation deteriorated further. But the government has placed on alert air, sea, and ground forces that could quickly intervene in the conflict if ordered to do so. Typhoon jets would be deployed to RAF Akrotiri in one of the two sovereign base areas in Cyprus, while 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland – the Black Watch – is on 24 hours’ notice to help in evacuation and humanitarian operations, defence officials said. An RAF airborne radar and early warning aircraft is based in Malta where the MoD has also set up a forward joint task force headquarters. Officials declined to say what intelligence they had gathered on the quality and number of pro-Gaddafi aircraft and armour. Meanwhile, a ship understood to contain £100m worth of Libyan dinars has been seized and escorted into Harwich docks in Essex by the UK Border Agency Vigilant, the Home Office said. The vessel had returned to the UK after failing to dock in Tripoli last weekend. She was tracked by British authorities and intercepted off the coast. The chancellor, George Osborne, froze Gaddafi’s £900m of UK-based assets last Sunday.

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What’s happening on the 26th March?

This article titled “David Cameron is uniting Britain. Against him” was written by Dan Hancox, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 28th February 2011 17.42 UTC The era of identity politics has brought us many great things, and it would be foolish to disparage the self-definition and empowerment achieved by minorities of all kinds. But if it has a failing, it is that it has atomised us, and made us lose sight of what once was called “the commonweal”. I miss the times when musket-carrying rebels would stand against tyrannical kings, unfurl a scroll and declaim a list of grievances that would take 17 hours to read – because they covered everything. Muskets aside, this time may be upon us again. Despite failing to win a majority when up against a desperately unpopular prime minister, in only 10 months, the coalition government has achieved what seemed impossible, amid the isolated melancholia of a late capitalist downturn, and brought Britain close to a point of genuine national unity. Against them. As their arbitrary, scatter-gun assault on the commonweal continues, they will push more and more groups into solidarity against them – for it is the transgressive word “solidarity” that has been 2011′s rallying cry, from Wisconsin to Tahrir Square to Westminster Bridge. Already, David Cameron’s government has managed to make us believe that it hates trees, children playing, children reading, poor children, vulnerable children, poor students, the poor in general, women, higher education, culture, young people, old people, poor people having somewhere to live, rich people having to pay fair taxes, the free assembly of peaceful protesters, the north, the environment, charities, disabled people, people having jobs, civic engagement, public safety, libraries, the National Health Service, public transport and all public services. The challenge is to make it clear that, to coin a phrase, we’re all in this together. UK Uncut has done brilliantly to get its message on corporate tax avoiders into the Daily Mail on an almost weekly basis, but why shouldn’t it? Mail readers may hate paying taxes, but that’s all the more reason why they should be angered by Barclays’ reluctance to do so. With the TUC rising like lions after an extraordinarily long slumber, the mega-demo against the cuts on 26 March has to draw people from all walks of life, like the Daily Telegraph readers at the Iraq war protests Mehdi Hasan refers to in his great speech on the cuts. Both the word and the Twitter hashtag “solidarity” have been scrawled across the map of the world in 2011. Failing to find any updates from the Wisconsin trade union protests on the BBC, Sky or CNN 24-hour news channels on Sunday, I went on Twitter and discovered @brandzel‘s extraordinary live web stream. When I tuned in, he was wandering around the occupied state capitol building, interviewing people and commenting on this extraordinary political moment. “It’s funny,” he said to himself, and to thousands of people watching around the world, “‘solidarity’ used to be a hard-left, old-fashioned word to me, but it’s completely changed now, it’s something universal.” Armchair cynics who gripe that there’s no point in protesting if you don’t have a unifying plan or ideology completely miss the point – no one ideology would ever unite groups as diverse as those who will suffer from the Tory cuts. What are we for? Everything they’re not – everything they’re destroying. New Labour failed to “make the case” for social justice and the welfare state, its hand-wringing advocates complained, as poll ratings plummeted in the 2000s – it’s a tragic way of bringing out everyone’s latent socialist, but making that case is exactly what this aggressively pro-market, dangerously unthinking Tory government is doing. With his cuts and public sector sell-offs, Cameron unites us all. On 26 March, and in the summer beyond, we will see what we can do with that unity.

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Well it looks like the worst case scenario, that in which Gaddafi sabotages the oil fields, may have been avoided. There’s still a strong danger of civil war within Tripoli as hard core loyalists and mercenaries defend a last ditch position. Meanwhile what’s the news from Tangiers and other places?

This article titled “Libya rebels isolate Gaddafi, seizing cities and oilfields” was written by Martin Chulov in Benghazi, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 24th February 2011 17.29 UTC Opposition activists are increasing the pressure on Muammar Gaddafi’s ailing regime, shutting down oil exports and mobilising rebel groups in the west of the country as the revolution rapidly spreads. Gaddafi’s hold on power appears confined to parts of Tripoli and perhaps several regions in the centre of the country. Towns to the west of the capital have fallen and all of eastern Libya is firmly in opposition hands. In a rambling appeal for calm on state TV, Gaddafi blamed the revolt on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and said the protesters were fuelled by Nescafe spiked with hallucinogenic drugs. In Benghazi, the country’s second city, basic order is returning to the streets after days of fierce fighting that resulted in the military defecting en masse. Virtually all government buildings were looted and wrecked. There are long lines outside closed banks as people try to resume normal life. Cars have returned to city streets but almost all shops remain closed and the internet is blocked. • Watch dramatic Libya video with commentary by Martin Chulov • Follow live reaction to Gadaffi’s latest statement • David Cameron apologises for delay in evacuating Britons Benghazi is now being run by a makeshift organising committee of judges, lawyers and other professionals who have sent out young people to direct traffic and restore basic order. One high court lawyer, Amal Bagaigis, said: “We started just as lawyers looking for our rights and now we are revolutionaries, and we don’t know how to manage. We want to have our own face. For 42 years we lived with this kind of barbarianism. We now want to live by ourselves.” The town of Misrata, about halfway between Benghazi and Tripoli, is reported to have fallen after days of violence. A resident, Abdul Basit Imzivig, told the Guardian that regime forces had fled overnight and the city was in opposition hands. All southern oilfields are in rebel control. Moustafa Raba’a, a mechanical engineer with the Sirte oil company, said pressure had been put on field and refinery managers to stop work and protect all foreign nationals working with them. “The order was put out to send a message to Gaddafi to stop the slaying of our people in Benghazi. We made a decision to deny him the privilege of exporting oil and gas to Europe.” He said the blockade had prevented 80,000 barrels a day being exported from the Dregga field alone. In Gaddafi’s latest broadcast, he spoke to state television by telephone without appearing in person, and his tone seemed more conciliatory. But it was peppered with bizarre references – he compared his authority to the British Queen and said of the protesters: “Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe.” Opposition to Gaddafi appears to have reached a critical mass, with his influence confined to parts of the capital and steadily shrinking. Tripoli remains in lockdown and there are reports of snipers. Irish-trained surgeon Heitham Gheriani, who was one of the revolution’s organisers in Benghazi, said: “Now the people realise the power they have. They started this protest peacefully and then the youths joined them. And when Gaddafi started killing them they rose up. But we honestly didn’t think it would happen so quickly.” A Turkish ferry has docked in Benghazi to evacuate a small number of Turkish nationals, and a British warship remains off the coast waiting for permission to approach Libyan shores. A second ship, the HMS York, has been stationed in Malta to help with the rescue effort. Tens of thousands of Egyptians are continuing to pour towards their home border along with a convoy of other foreign workers. Elsewhere in Libya forces loyal to Gaddafi are reported to have launched a counter-attack on anti-government militias controlling Misrata, 125 miles (200km) east of Tripoli. Several people were killed in fighting near the city’s airport. Lawyers and judges have said they control the city in an internet statement. With help from “honest” military officers they had removed agents of the “oppressive regime” in Misrata, the statement said. Another western town, Zuara, is reported to have fallen to opposition forces as the tide of rebellion advanced closer to Tripoli. Violence reached the town of Az-Zawiyah, 30 miles west of Tripoli. Al-Arabiya television said Gaddafi would address residents of the town. In Oman, the British prime minister David Cameron delivered an unequivocal apology for the failings that left British citizens stranded in Libya. Two chartered planes have now left Tripoli, and a Hercules landed in the Libyan capital. British officials are confident that all UK citizens at the airport have been flown out, though they expect more to turn up. The prime minister said British officials would be “sweeping up” any remaining British citizens who arrive at the airport, while HMS Cumberland has docked in Benghazi to pick up passengers there. The Ministry of Defence is assessing how to rescue between 100 and 150 British citizens working for oil companies in the desert.

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If enough people understood the implications of David Cameron’s tax reforms in the UK we would soon be seeing his ‘Big Society’ Egyptian style. The Guardian published a revealing analysis in yesterday’s paper – reproduced in its entirety, below – by George Monbiot With the help of senior tax expert sources, Monbiot explains exactly how Cameron’s reforms will bring about a massive shift of wealth out of the UK economy and into the hands of a few wealthy big business owners and bankers, the people who largely helped to cause the crisis the government would claim necessitates such a “cure”. The Guardian’s report is published here with permission via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

This article titled “To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century” was written by George Monbiot, for The Guardian on Monday 7th February 2011 22.01 UTC ‘I would love to see tax reductions,” David Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, “but when you’re borrowing 11% of your GDP, it’s not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn’t.” Oh no? Then how come he’s planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory? If you’ve heard nothing of it, you’re in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone – and are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d’etat is taking place. Like the dismantling of the NHS and the sale of public forests, no one voted for this measure, as it wasn’t in the manifestos. While Cameron insists that he occupies the centre ground of British politics, that he shares our burdens and feels our pain, he has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century. The latest heist has been explained to me by the former tax inspector, now a Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks and current senior tax staff who can’t be named. Here’s how it works. At the moment tax law ensures that companies based here, with branches in other countries, don’t get taxed twice on the same money. They have to pay only the difference between our rate and that of the other country. If, for example, Dirty Oil plc pays 10% corporation tax on its profits in Oblivia, then shifts the money over here, it should pay a further 18% in the UK, to match our rate of 28%. But under the new proposals, companies will pay nothing at all in this country on money made by their foreign branches. Foreign means anywhere. If these proposals go ahead, the UK will be only the second country in the world to allow money that has passed through tax havens to remain untaxed when it gets here. The other is Switzerland. The exemption applies solely to “large and medium companies”: it is not available for smaller firms. The government says it expects “large financial services companies to make the greatest use of the exemption regime”. The main beneficiaries, in other words, will be the banks. But that’s not the end of it. While big business will be exempt from tax on its foreign branch earnings, it will, amazingly, still be able to claim the expense of funding its foreign branches against tax it pays in the UK. No other country does this. The new measures will, as we already know, accompany a rapid reduction in the official rate of corporation tax: from 28% to 24% by 2014. This, a Treasury minister has boasted, will be the lowest rate “of any major western economy”. By the time this government is done, we’ll be lucky if the banks and corporations pay anything at all. In the Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron said: “What I want is tax revenue from the banks into the exchequer, so we can help rebuild this economy.” He’s doing just the opposite. These measures will drain not only wealth but also jobs from the UK. The new legislation will create a powerful incentive to shift business out of this country and into nations with lower corporate tax rates. Any UK business that doesn’t outsource its staff or funnel its earnings through a tax haven will find itself with an extra competitive disadvantage. The new rules also threaten to degrade the tax base everywhere, as companies with headquarters in other countries will demand similar measures from their own governments. So how did this happen? You don’t have to look far to find out. Almost all the members of the seven committees the government set up “to provide strategic oversight of the development of corporate tax policy” are corporate executives. Among them are representatives of Vodafone, Tesco, BP, British American Tobacco and several of the major banks: HSBC, Santander, Standard Chartered, Citigroup, Schroders, RBS and Barclays. I used to think of such processes as regulatory capture: government agencies being taken over by the companies they were supposed to restrain. But I’ve just read Nicholas Shaxson’s Treasure Islands – perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year – and now I’m not so sure. Shaxson shows how the world’s tax havens have not, as the OECD claims, been eliminated, but legitimised; how the City of London is itself a giant tax haven, which passes much of its business through its subsidiary havens in British dependencies, overseas territories and former colonies; how its operations mesh with and are often indistinguishable from the laundering of the proceeds of crime; and how the Corporation of the City of London in effect dictates to the government, while remaining exempt from democratic control. If Hosni Mubarak has passed his alleged $70bn through British banks, the Egyptians won’t see a piastre of it. Reading Treasure Islands, I have realised that injustice of the kind described in this column is no perversion of the system; it is the system. Tony Blair came to power after assuring the City of his benign intentions. He then deregulated it and cut its taxes. Cameron didn’t have to assure it of anything: his party exists to turn its demands into public policy. Our ministers are not public servants. They work for the people who fund their parties, run the banks and own the newspapers, shielding them from their obligations to society, insulating them from democratic challenge. Our political system protects and enriches a fantastically wealthy elite, much of whose money is, as a result of their interesting tax and transfer arrangements, in effect stolen from poorer countries, and poorer citizens of their own countries. Ours is a semi-criminal money-laundering economy, legitimised by the pomp of the lord mayor’s show and multiple layers of defence in government. Politically irrelevant, economically invisible, the rest of us inhabit the margins of the system. Governments ensure that we are thrown enough scraps to keep us quiet, while the ultra-rich get on with the serious business of looting the global economy and crushing attempts to hold them to account. And this government? It has learned the lesson that Thatcher never grasped. If you want to turn this country into another Mexico, where the ruling elite wallows in unimaginable, state-facilitated wealth while the rest can go to hell, you don’t declare war on society, you don’t lambast single mothers or refuse to apologise for Bloody Sunday. You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us. • A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot’s website

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