Blair set to quit as MP for £10 million bonanza

BENEDICT BROGAN & KIRSTY WALKER

Thursday May 03, 2007

Tony Blair will walk away from British politics this summer and pocket £10 million in his first year out of office.

The sale of his memoirs, lucrative directorships and the vast sums available on the American lecture circuit will turn the Prime Minister into a multi-millionaire overnight.

He will leave behind him a bankrupt Labour Party - and an uphill battle for Gordon Brown to restore its tarnished fortunes.

Mr Blair, who as polls close is facing sweeping losses in the local and devolved elections, intends to bring his political career to a close by leaving the Commons at the end of July, weeks after he stands down as Premier.

His departure halfway through a Parliament would make him the first former PM since the war to abandon the Commons and trigger a by-election.

This could turn into an early test of Gordon Brown's popularity as Prime Minister, and would also open Mr Blair to charges that he is treating the voters in his Sedgefield constituency with contempt by quitting before his full term expires.

Sources claim that Mr Blair and his wife Cherie are eager to cash in on his decade as a world statesman, and do not want to have to make their earnings public.

A scheme planned in close consultation with his wife would see Mr Blair escape the vigilance of Parliamentary watchdogs by resigning as an MP.

This would relieve him of the obligation to record details of his earnings in the Register of Members' Interests.

Mr Blair has been criticised in the past for failing to record details of his free holidays and other perks in the Register.

Experts predict that Mr Blair will easily make more money than Bill Clinton or John Major on the back of book deals - his memoirs could fetch £8 million - speaking tours, property investments and fees from high-profile companies that he has ruthlessly courted.

Mrs Blair is also expected to pocket around £2.5 million a year from speeches.

As a former Prime Minister, Mr Blair will get an immediate pension worth £117,500 a year. The Blairs will also enjoy a £90,000 a year taxpayer-funded 'public service' allowance to help them cope with life after Number 10.

The tax-free allowance can be claimed every year until Mr Blair dies.

He is also entitled to free telephone calls, stationery, an official car and driver and Special Branch protection worth around £1.5 million a year.

Sources say Mr Blair will stand down as an MP just before the House rises for the summer recess, with July 23 earmarked as the preferred date.

On Thursday Downing Street fuelled speculation about Mr Blair's future by refusing to deny that he will quit as an MP before the General Election, expected in 2009.

His spokesman said Mr Blair had not yet made a decision about his political future after he leaves office, probably on July 2.

"He has made no decision whatsoever to stand down as an MP and very firmly remains MP for Sedgefield and proud of it," he said.

It is believed that the announcement about his resignation as an MP was being held back as a surprise following the widespread speculation about his drawn-out departure.

Mrs Blair is reported to have told friends: "Now is the time for us to go and make some money. There is no way he is ever going to serve under Gordon Brown, even as a backbencher."

As details of Mr Blair's escape plan seeped out, there was surprise among some Labour MPs that he was 'deserting' the party.

There was even speculation that some of his die-hard allies, including Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers and John Reid, are planning to leave the Commons at the same time.

A Labour source said: "They have no future under Gordon Brown, so they reckon they could quit together and trigger a byelection 'Super-Thursday' to annoy him."

Mr Blair will tell his party at his Sedgefield constituency next Thursday that he is resigning as Labour leader, triggering a process to confirm Mr Brown as plan his successor. The outcome is due to be announced on June 30.

Rumours that Mr Blair might quit as an MP have been denied until now, but Labour officials are now openly preparing for a by-election.

Would-be MPs are already jockeying for a plum seat that Mr Blair has held for 24 years. He was re-elected in 2005 with a majority of more than 18,000.

The Prime Minister is widely expected to embark on a lucrative lecture tour of the US when he leaves Downing Street.

Wes Neff, the boss of a prominent New York speakers' agency, said: "Tony Blair has a future bigger than Bill Clinton as a speaker. The big names at the moment are Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Colin Powell but all these have been in the market place for three or four years.

"He'll be the first world leader to come on the market in all that time. People will be interested to hear what he has to say. If he keeps his ideas interesting and has thoughtful opinions he can do this for decades."

UK Daily Mail

Coalition chair, Kadima MKs discuss move to replace Olmert with Livni

Last update - 16:07 01/05/2007

By Shahar Ilan, Yuval Azoulay and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents

State comptroller's report: Olmert corrupt

Comptroller suggests probe against PM

State comptroller presents report on Olmert's time as industry, trade and labor minister, accuses PM of working to advance friend's interests. Prime Minister's Office says in response, 'Olmert has lost all faith in the comptroller'

Aviram Zino

Latest Update:

04.25.07, 21:55 / Israel News

"The conflict of interests which Olmert was caught up in should be viewed very severely," said State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' harsh report on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's conduct during his time as industry, trade and labor minister. Lindenstrauss presented the report on Olmert's actions to the Knesset and prime minister on Wednesday. Ongoing Investigation State Comptroller investigating Olmert involvement in grants to associates / Miri Chason In latest in series of investigations, Lindenstrauss investigating if PM gave grants to Likud party member during tenure as Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Full Story The comptroller also presented the report to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, as a criminal act is suspected. Mazuz will now determine whether there is cause to order a criminal investigation against Olmert. The case in question refers to a project that attorney Uri Messer wished to receive funds for from the ministry which Olmert headed. Messer is a former partner and close friend of Olmert. Olmert is suspected of interfering with the process to promote his friend's interests. The report details how Olmert acted to change conditions set by the professional bodies in the investment office in order to grant Messer benefits. Part of the report read, "This is a factory that received from the investment office the status of an authorized factory in 1992 and as a result, funds from the state. Five years later, in 1997, the authorization was retracted since the factory was not built and its plans, as were authorized, were not carried out… "Then, in 2001, the factory filed another request for authorization status, a request which was not even heard until 2003, when the project's manager hired attorney Uri Messer, who also represents Olmert on personal matters and headed the group backing Olmert's 1998 campaign for Jerusalem mayor. He was also his partner at a law firm." "Despite their past partnership, and despite their personal ties and present attorney-client relationship, Mr Olmert did not keep himself from participating, actively and intensively, in making decisions, after being told by his professional crew that there were many reservations regarding this factory," the report said. Lindenstrass stated that in the situation that was created, Olmert should have completely withdrawn himself from dealing with the request. The comptroller also accused the aides of acting inappropriately, saying that in reality, they were Olmert's "long arm." "They did not operate from an independent source of authority, but only acted in the name of the minister," he said. Olmert's response The Prime Minister's Office said in response to the report, "Olmert has lost all faith in the comptroller, therefore we had no expectations from him on this matter and were not surprised. "The conduct of the comptroller in this matter, as it has been in other critical reports, has once again unfortunately broken all records of unprofessional behavior and bias. "This conduct is leading to the downfall of the important and illustrious establishment he heads and this is the belief of many in the public service, his predecessors and high ranking officials in his own office, both former and current," said Olmert's office. "It would seem that the comptroller has turned himself into an object of the ratings committee, and it is ratings and media deadlines alone that guide his actions. Whenever he fears that the public agenda is not giving him the attention he believes he deserves, he tries to fabricate drama in an attempt to seize headlines. "This happened on the eve of the prime minister's testimony before the Winograd Committee when the comptroller urgently issued a draft of one of his reports, it happened when the comptroller believed that the Winograd report would be released in late March and hurried along to issue his own report on the conduct of the Home Front without seeking the responses of those he passed judgment on; failing to carry out the most basic of professional requirements. "And so today, on the eve of the release of the Winograd Committee's findings, he issues this current report without having taken into account any of the various responses submitted to him on the matter, as per his request, on Memorial Day, three days ago." Olmert's office also said that "with this sad knowledge" the prime minister's attorneys have already approached the attorney general prior to release of the comptroller's report and provided him with a detailed response to the accusations. The response, said Olmert's office, includes documented proof that counters the charges made by the comptroller as well as proof that certain facts were maliciously twisted to fit with the comptroller's thesis. 'A Shameful report' Later Wednesday, Olmert's attorneys sent a scathing letter to Mazuz, calling the report "shameful." "We are frustrated that the prime minister, as a politician, is always considered a member of the 'evil' group and often times its leader. We're frustrated that the state comptroller, as the former president of a district court, is always considered a member of the 'good' group, and in his own mind its leader," wrote Olmert's attorneys of Lindenstrauss. The attorneys, Eli Zohar and Roi Bleher, claimed that Lindenstrauss marked Olmert as a target and refused to consider any of the prime minister's explanations. Zahar and Bleher said that the manner in which Olmert promoted Messer's project was exactly the same as the way he treated any number of similar projects. "If this wasn't the prime minister of Israel, who every day fulfills one of the most complex roles in the world, and a state comptroller, who in his desire to go down in history as the man who cleaned Israel's stables is abusing much of the public resources available to him for his own personal gain – it might have been possible to laugh at Lindenstrauss' behavior. But given their status, it's only a sad affair. Very sad," they wrote. The attorneys asked Mazuz to review the matter and rule as quickly as possible. Amnon Meranda and Ronny Sofer contributed to this report First Published: 04.25.07, 17:41

Blair's 10-year leadership to end 'within weeks' (May 9th)

Related
Police poised to charge Blair's top adviser
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Publisher: Jon Land

Published: 22/04/2007 - 09:06:06 AM

Blair's 10-year reign to end 'within weeks' (Pic: PA)

Relevant News
Police hand over 'thick' file in cash-for-honours affair Blair: 'My legacy as PM will stand the test of time'

Tony Blair's decade at 10 Downing Street marks him out as one of those rare politicians who put their stamp on an era.

But no sooner has that milestone been passed than the Blair era will come to an end, with the Prime Minister's resignation expected within weeks, or even days.

There is almost universal agreement that Mr Blair's successor will be Chancellor Gordon Brown. But the apparent inevitability of this long-awaited transition masks a considerable degree of uncertainty about the era to come.

Will a Brown premiership mark a radical break from the Blair administration? Or will the man who insists he was as much a progenitor as the PM of the New Labour project preside over a period of continuity?

Will Mr Brown embark on a purge of Mr Blair's ministers and policies?

And, perhaps most importantly, how long will the Brown era last?

Conservatives have been busy over the last few years predicting that Brown will swing Labour to the left, ushering in a period of business-unfriendly, bureaucratic centralisation.

But Mr Brown himself has been equally busy sending out signals that he will not be a creature of the left, voicing his support for nuclear power and the renewal of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent as well as loudly trumpeting his patriotism with calls for a Britishness day and pride in the flag.

No-one doubts that Mr Brown is planning to hit the ground running with 100 days of eye-catching policy announcements to match the declaration of independence for the Bank of England he made within days of becoming Chancellor.

Only a few in the Chancellor's inner circle know what those announcements will involve. Speculation revolves around the creation of a written constitution, a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, NHS independence, scrapping ID cards or a Whitehall shake-up including the abolition of the Department of Trade and Industry.

He is expected to reward key allies with top Cabinet posts, with Alistair Darling tipped to succeed him at the Treasury, promotions for Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Ed Miliband and a senior position for his campaign manager Jack Straw.

But it remains to be seen whether he clears out ministers too closely linked with the Blairite past. David Miliband, who has ruled out a challenge for the top job, will almost certainly survive as a signal that Mr Brown wants to lead a "Cabinet of all the talents", but there are doubts over the future of close Blair allies like John Reid or Tessa Jowell.

Mr Brown will also have to decide whether to appoint the victor of the deputy leadership race to be his Deputy Prime Minister.

Although the deputy's contest is seen as a chance for Labour's grassroots and the unions to influence the shape of a Brown premiership, there is no requirement for the winner to become DPM, or indeed for the post to be filled at all.

Left-wing candidate Jon Cruddas has said he does not want the DPM job, and there are others who Mr Brown would probably prefer not to see standing in for him during his holidays. Mr Prescott's old job could even go to Mr Straw if he is not sent to the Treasury or Foreign Office.

Whatever the personnel of his Cabinet, Mr Brown faces an enormously more difficult economic and political climate than Mr Blair did when he arrived at Downing Street on a wave of euphoria in 1997.

He will take office against the backdrop of possible charges in the cash-for-honours inquiry, rising inflation threatening to force up interest rates and no end in sight to the violence in Iraq.

Rather than representing a clean break after years of Tory rule, as Mr Blair did, Mr Brown faces the far more daunting challenge of winning back voters disillusioned by a decade of Labour.

And in place of the deeply unpopular John Major, he will face Tory leader David Cameron buoyed by months of comfortable opinion poll leads - with surveys suggesting the gap in the Conservatives' favour may even widen when Mr Brown takes over.

After one of the longest waits for power ever seen, Mr Brown knows he has his work cut out if he is not to enjoy one of the shortest periods in power in British political history.

Despite some speculation over a snap election in 2008, he will almost certainly wait until 2009 or 2010 to give himself time to turn the polls round and maximise his chances of winning a fourth election victory for Labour.

The actual process by which Mr Brown - or, just conceivably, someone else - becomes Prime Minister has been set out by Labour's ruling National Executive Committee.

Mr Blair's announcement of his resignation - accompanied by that of his deputy John Prescott - will not mean the immediate arrival of removal vans in Downing Street.

The NEC will meet within 72 hours to finalise a timetable for seven-week contests for the leadership and deputy leadership, and would-be candidates will then have a week to file nomination papers bearing the signatures of 12.5% of Labour MPs - 45 names, including their own.

Mr Brown will have no difficulty in clearing the nomination hurdle, but his two declared rivals - left-wing MPs John McDonnell and Michael Meacher - will struggle to do so.

Even if they get onto the ballot paper, neither man will present any threat to the Chancellor's elevation. Indeed, he would probably welcome their candidacy as a chance to demonstrate his mainstream credentials.

The prospects of a challenge from the "Blairite" centre seem to have receded in recent weeks, with Mr Miliband saying he will vote for Brown and problems at the Home Office making a leadership bid by Mr Reid less credible. Long-shot Blairite candidates Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn have not ruled out running in order to ensure the Chancellor is not anointed unopposed.

If the leadership is contested, the winner will have to secure more than 50% of Labour's electoral college, which is divided three ways between 380 MPs and MEPs, 200,000 party members and 3.2 million trade union affiliates.

Even without a rival, the NEC's rules require Mr Brown to attend hustings alongside the deputy leadership candidates before finally taking the crown he has waited a decade for.

But he will not have to face an "affirmative vote" in the absence of a challenger, as some Labour figures demanded.

The new leader - and deputy leader - will be announced at a weekend meeting of representatives of each section of the electoral college, probably in late June or early July.

Candidates so far declared for the deputy leadership are Hilary Benn, Hazel Blears, Jon Cruddas, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson.

Copyright Press Association 2007.

'Open battle' being waged for Iraq: PM

20th April 2007, 15:38 WST

Iraq's prime minister says an "open battle" is being waged for control of his nation, as a suicide bomber slipped past security barriers to kill 12 people in a surge of violence that has dealt a heavy blow to hopes for a US-led military operation to pacify the capital.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's assessment on Thursday came a day after more than 230 people died in the worst wave of mass killings since US President George W Bush announced his plan in January to increase American troop levels in Iraq by 30,000.

Meanwhile, the US announced three more troop deaths - two soldiers killed on Wednesday by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, and another killed the same day in a small arms fire attack in a southwestern area of the capital.

At least 46 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide on Thursday.

Maliki said militants had "proven their spite by targeting humanity."

"It is an open battle and it will not be the last in the war we are fighting for the sake of the nation, dignity, honour and the people," he said at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the founding his Islamic Dawa Party.

"This is Iraq. They sabotage and we build and continue the reconstruction."

Three of the five brigades ordered into Iraq by Bush to stem Baghdad violence have arrived, bringing the US forces in the country to 146,000. Officials want the rest in place by June, for a total of 160,000, and US commanders urged patience, saying the nine-week operation was still just beginning. But already it showed holes.

One week ago, a suicide bomber penetrated several layers of security to hit inside parliament, in the heart of US-guarded Green Zone. An Iraqi lawmaker was killed and the country shaken.

The same day, a truck bomber collapsed a more than 50-year-old bridge, killing 11 people and sending cars careening into the Tigris River below.

At the Pentagon, a top general predicted the pattern was likely to continue.

"We saw an initial drop in their (militants') activity" after the start of the Baghdad security operation, said Major General Michael Barbero, an operations official for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"And now lately, we've seen an increase - the bridge, this ... It's action on our part and now we're seeing the reaction on their part. And it will be like that until we can defeat these forces."

Thursday's bombing hit when security would have been tightest, hours before US Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived on an unannounced visit. Gates said he was "sympathetic" to challenges the Iraqis face, but that "the clock is ticking."

The suicide bomber blew himself up next to a fuel tanker within half a kilometre of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's home, in the mostly Shi'ite Karradah district where one of Wednesday's bombs exploded as well. Talabani, a Kurd, was not believed to have been the target.

The attack killed at least 12 people, including two Iraqi soldiers, wounded 34 people and set fire to the tanker, police said.

Britain's defence ministry also said two British soldiers died and three others were wounded by an explosion in southeastern Iraq. The attack occurred in Maysan province, a day after British troops transferred control of the area to Iraqi forces.

At least 3,314 members of the US military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. The British military has reported 144 deaths.
AP

Former French PM accuses “Jewish Lobby”: "The Jewish lobby is capable of mounting disgraceful operations”

Updated: 06/Mar/2007 23:12

By Joseph Byron

PARIS (EJP)--- Former French Prime Minister Raymon Barre has sparked an uproar within the Jewish community after accusing “the Jewish lobby” of making “a scapegoat” of Maurice Papon, a French senior official who signed deportation orders for hundreds of Jews in the Bordeaux region during WWII. In an interview last week with France Culture, a state-run radio station, Barre also said that “opposing the deportation of Jews had not been a matter of “major national interest.” CRIF, the umbrella of French Jewish secular organizations, said it was “scandalized” by the comments, adding that Barre "had joined the extreme-right". Historian and film director Claude Lanzmann accused Barre of being "an anti-Semite". Such statements from a person who was Prime Minister are among the things which may anguish the Jewish community. Joël Mergui, president of the Paris Consistoire. A senior official under the wartime Vichy government, Papon was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 1998 for his role in organising the deportation of hundreds to Nazi extermination camps. During his six-month trial, the longest in French history, Papon came to symbolize France’s collaboration with the Nazis. He was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity, after the court rejected his plea that he was a civil servant following instructions from above. He was released in 2002 on medical grounds and died last month aged 96. Moral judgement The radio interview initially focused on Papon’s guilt. Asked if he understands that it is possible for someone to be guilty of not disobeying, Barre said: “When you have essential responsibilities in a department, a region or even more at the national level, you don’t resign. You only resign when it is truly a question of major national interest.” “Mr Papon became a scapegoat. I am not passing moral judgment on the attitude that one should have had with regard to the deportation of the Jews or not. But I consider that this country is fundamentally hypocritical in seeking out a few scapegoats.” “Don’t forget that all the French personnel who went to manage the part of Germany occupied by France [after the end of WWII] consisted in large part of highly professional civil servants who needed maybe to be eliminated on a national level but were able to continue to serve the country at the international level”. Barre added: “I want to say that on this issue I consider that the Jewish lobby – and not only with regard to me – is capable of mounting disgraceful operations and I want to say this publicly.” Not the first time Raymon Barre, who was Prime Minister under former President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, already shocked the Jewish community at the time when reacting to a Palestinian terrorist bomb attack against a Paris synagogue in October 1980, he declared on the television: “This appalling attack was intended to hit Jews on their way to the synagogue, it has hit innocent French people who happened to be in the Rue Copernic”. He implicitely stated that Jews are not French. During the interview with France Culture, Barre said he doesn’t not regret his words. “Don’t forget that in the same statement I said that the Jewish community cannot be separated from the French community. When you quote, you must quote in full. And the campaign undertaken by the Jewish lobby with the strongest links on the left came from the fact that we were in an electoral climate and this didn’t impress me and they can continue to repeat it.” “Those who wanted to get their own back on Jews could have blown up the synagogue and Jews. But not at all, they launched a blind bomb attack and there were three French people, not Jews, that’s a fact, not Jews. And that doesn’t mean that Jews are not French,” Barre said.

Surreal Berlusconi trial begins as it means to go on

Sketch

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Court proceedings against former Italian prime minister and David Mills kick off with mixture of high drama and teeth-grinding tedium

John Hooper in Milan
Tuesday March 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers, Pietro Longo (left) and Nicola Ghedini (right) arriving in court for the start of the trial. Photograph: Emmevi/EPA

The long-awaited trial of David Mills and Silvio Berlusconi began today in dramatic fashion with a defendant locked in a cage of the sort the Italian judiciary usually reserves for Mafia dons.

The unshaven figure in jeans and anorak did not look like Italy's richest man. Nor did he look like the estranged husband of the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell.

But he did look mighty astonished as three judges, a clerk, a prosecutor, three defending counsel and their juniors, a lawyer representing the Italian state, and the entire press room of the Milan courthouse filed in to hear him get eight months. For reasons that were never entirely clear, Salvatore Sangiorgio had to be sentenced and led away in handcuffs before the court could get on with trying Britain's most talked about offshore corporate lawyer and his erstwhile client.

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Both men deny the prosecution's case that Mr Mills took a $600,000 (£310,000) bribe from Mr Berlusconi for withholding compromising evidence.

The unfortunate Mr Sangiorgio's manacled exit was not the only surreal episode at the opening of a trial, which, as things stand, seems entirely pointless. Because of a law introduced when Mr Berlusconi was the Italian prime minister, unless the proceedings can be wrapped up by next February, they will become subject to a statute of limitations and be "timed out".

Since trials in Italy progress at the rate of one, or - very exceptionally - two, hearings a week, and since defendants are allowed three trials, a conclusion of all three by next February is as likely as black mozzarella. Mr Berlusconi's lawyers, though, were taking no chances.

Nicola Ghedini, a tall, thin, sallow man who might have been dreamt up by Dickens, argued that the trial could not go ahead until Mr Berlusconi's company, Fininvest, was represented as a supposedly injured party to seek damages from its own owner.

After his petition had been contested, it was the turn of the other member of Mr Berlusconi's team. Piero Longo is an expert on procedure.

If you want every last technicality explored, then the aptly named Mr Longo is your man. He even speaks laboriously - unusual for any Italian, let alone a lawyer.

It was after he had said "and, if you will allow me to open another parenthesis ..." that the presiding judge, Nicoletta Gandus heaved a deep sigh. Mr Longo continued.

"It was the belated entry in respect of the document already cited: that is to say the eight integration of September 24, 2004 that ..." But he got no further.

"It is not necessary to repeat things that have already been said," the judge commented sharply. Mr Longo blinked and adjusted the spectacles at the end of his nose. Then he returned to the task in hand.

Behind the bench was a colourful, quasi-representational mural with lots of blue, a round thing and what seemed like birds. What did it all mean? Pie in the sky? Or perhaps cloud cuckoo land?

Cruelty and xenophobia stir and shame the lucky country

The social regression and flag-waving promoted by Australia's neocon prime minister may come unstuck in Guantánamo

John Pilger
Friday January 19, 2007
The Guardian

The Australian writer Donald Horne meant the title of his celebrated book, The Lucky Country, as irony. "Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck," he lamented in 1964, describing much of the Australian elite as unfailingly unoriginal, race-obsessed and in thrall to imperial power and its wars. From Britain's opium adventures to America's current travesty in Iraq, Australians have been sent to fight faraway people with whom they have no quarrel and who offer no threat of invasion. Growing up, I was assured this was a "sacred tradition".

But then another Australia was "discovered". The only war dead whom Australians had never mourned were found right under their noses: those of a remarkable indigenous people who had owned and cared for this ancient land for thousands of years, then fought and died in its defence when the British invaded. In a land littered with cenotaphs, not one honoured them. For many whites, the awakening was rude; for others it was thrilling. In the 70s, thanks largely to the brief, brave and subverted Labor government of Gough Whitlam, the universities opened their studies to these heresies and their gates to a society Mark Twain once identified as "almost entirely populated by the lower orders". A secret history revealed that, long before the rest of the western world, Australian working people had fought for and won a minimum wage, an eight-hour working day, pensions, child benefits and the vote for women. And now there was an astonishing ethnic diversity, and it had happened as if by default: there simply were not enough Britons and "blue-eyed Balts" who wanted to come.

Australia is not often news, cricket and bushfires aside. That is a pity, because the regression of this social democracy into a state of fabricated fear and xenophobia is an object lesson for all societies claiming to be free. In power for more than a decade, the Liberal prime minister, John Howard, comes from the outer reaches of Australia's "neocons". In 1988 he announced that a future government led by him would pursue a "One Australia Policy", a forerunner to Pauline Hanson's infamous One Nation party, whose targets were black Australians and migrants. Howard's targets have been similar. One of his first acts as prime minister was to cut $A400m from the Aboriginal affairs budget. "Political correctness," he said, "has gone too far." Today, black Australians still have one of the lowest life expectancies in the world, and their health is the worst in the world. An entirely preventable disease, trachoma - beaten in many poor countries - still blinds many because of appalling living conditions. The impoverishment of black communities, which I have seen change little over the years, was described in 2006 by Save the Children as "some of the worst we have seen in our work all around the world". Instead of a political respect in the form of a national lands rights law, a war of legal attrition has been waged against the Aborigines; and the epidemics and black suicides continue.

Howard rejoices in his promotion of "Australian values" - a very Australian sycophancy to the sugared "values" of foreign power. The darling of a group of white supremacists who buzz around the Murdoch-dominated press and radio talk-back hosts, the prime minister has used acolytes to attack the "black armband view of history", as if the mass killing and resistance of indigenous Australians did not happen. The fine historian Henry Reynolds, author of The Other Side of the Frontier, has been thoroughly smeared, along with other revisionists. In 2005 Andrew Jaspan, a Briton newly appointed editor of the Melbourne Age, was subjected to a vicious neocon campaign that accused him of "reducing" the Age to "another Guardian".

Flag-waving and an unctuous hand-on-heart jingoism, about which sceptical Australians once felt a healthy ambivalence, are now standard features at sporting and other public events. These serve to prepare Australians for renewed militarism and war, as ordained by the Bush administration, and to cover attacks on Australia's Muslim community. Speak out and you may break a 2005 law of sedition meant to intimidate with the threat of imprisonment for up to seven years. Once described in the media as Bush's "deputy sheriff", Howard did not demur when Bush, on hearing this, promoted him to "sheriff for south-east Asia". Like a mini-Blair, he has sent troops and federal police to the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and East Timor. In newly independent East Timor, where Australian governments colluded with Indonesia's 23-year bloody occupation, "regime change" was effectively executed last year with the resignation of the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, who had the temerity to oppose Canberra's one-sided exploitation of his country's oil and gas resources.

However, it is one man, David Hicks, a spectacular loser in the new Australia, who now threatens Howard's "lucky" facade. Hicks was found among the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and sold as bounty to the Americans by CIA-backed warlords. He has spent more than five years in Guantánamo Bay, including eight months in a cell with no sunlight. He has been tortured, and never charged with any crime. Howard and his attorney-general, Philip Ruddock, have refused even to request Hicks's repatriation, as is his constitutional right, because there are no Australian laws under which Hicks can be charged. Their cruelty is breathtaking. A tenacious campaign by his father, Terry, has ignited a kind of public shame that is growing. This has happened before in Australia, such as the march of a million people across Sydney Harbour Bridge demanding justice for black Australians, and the courageous direct action by young people who forced the closure of notorious outback detention camps for illegal refugees, with their isolation cells, capsicum spray and beatings. Asylum seekers caught in their leaking boats by the ever-vigilant Australian Defence Force are now incarcerated behind electric fences on tiny Christmas Island more than 1,000 miles from the lucky country.

Howard faces no real opposition from the compliant Labor party. The trade unions, facing a rollback of Australia's proud record of workers' rights and up to 43% youth unemployment, have stirred, and filled the streets. But perhaps something wider and deeper is coming from a nation whose most enduring and melancholy self-image is that of disobedient larrikins. During the recent Ashes series, Ian Chappell, one of Australia's most admired cricket captains, walked out of the commentary box when Howard walked in. After seeing for himself conditions in a refugee prison, Chappell said: "These are human beings and you can't just treat them like that ... in cricketing parlance it was like cheating. They were being cheated out of a fair go."

www.johnpilger.com

John Pilger has been a war correspondent, film-maker and author, and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of Journalist of the Year. He has also been named International Reporter of the Year, and won the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. For his broadcasting, he has won France's Reporter Sans Frontieres, and television academy awards in the United States and Britain. He holds the prestigous Sophie Award for "thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights".

Palestinian PM accuses Rice of bringing 'perilous vision' to Mideast

Last update - 20:48 15/01/2007

By Aluf Benn and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and the Associated Press

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Monday accused U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of bringing a "perilous vision" to the region, shortly after she announced plans to join an Israeli-Palestinian summit in the coming weeks.

Rice, who is in the Middle East in hopes of restarting peace efforts, is trying to "sedate" the Palestinians with promises of easing Israeli restrictions while really serving Israel's interests, said Haniyeh.

"She is bringing a perilous vision that everyone should be wary of," Haniyeh said. "It seems obvious the Bush administration will not exert any pressures on Israel to offer any substantial concessions to the Palestinian people."

Rice is seeking to bolster the moderate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in his standoff against Hamas. Those efforts include more than $80 million in assistance to Abbas' Presidential Guard.

Haniyeh called the aid to Abbas "dangerous" and said it would only worsen recent infighting between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that while he was in favor of a three-way summit, bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians must also continue.

U.S. officials said after Olmert's three-hour meeting with Rice on Monday that the two had agreed to hold a three-way summit with Abbas in the near future.

Olmert said that the summit would "consider relations between us and the Palestinians," but added that "there is no doubt that we must - at the same time - also continue the bilateral meetings between us and them."

Senior Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas was ready to attend the summit "in principle," but details about where and when the summit would be held were not worked out.

Erekat said Rice is reflecting a serious and genuine interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. "What she said is that President Bush, in the remaining two years of his office, has no more important priority than to leave office with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He wants to see his vision realized," he said.

A senior U.S. official in Rice's delegation said the "trilateral meeting" would be aimed at "having a conversation about the political horizon leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said no date or place had been set for the summit.

The U.S. official said the meeting would likely take place in the next three or four weeks somewhere in the Middle East.

Speaking to his Kadima faction after meeting with Rice, Olmert said that the internationally brokered road map continues to be the basis for the peace process, and that there was "no substitute for bilateral negotiations" with the Palestinians.

He said that if a Palestinian unity government made up of Hamas and Fatah agreed to accept the three key international demands for recognition of Israel, the renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous accords, then negotiations could be possible.

No details of the talks between Olmert and Rice were formally released, but the prime minister had been expected to tell the secretary of state that Israel would take "unprecedented steps" vis-a-vis the Palestinians, if the Hamas-led PA government met the criteria spelled out by the Quartet.

The meeting between Olmert and Rice was also called to discuss ways to boost Abbas' standing, as a means to further the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.

The prime minister was to stress that his is a "peace government" but without the Palestinians meeting the three international preconditions it is impossible to more forward.

Olmert was also expected to warn that the establishment of a Palestinian government of national unity, which does not adopt the preconditions set by the Quartet, will bring an end to Israel's efforts to support Abbas.

On Sunday, Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the violence between Fatah and Hamas, which led to the deaths of 20 people last week, was considered by the Palestinians as crossing a "red line." He added that this could result in greater flexibility on the part of the factions in agreeing on a government of national unity.

Political sources in Jerusalem said on Sunday that "the Palestinians are now talking about the division of ministerial portfolios in the new government, without committing themselves to accept the Quartet preconditions."

Meanwhile, in an interview on Channel 10 on Sunday, Rice said the road map must be implemented and there is no reason to skip over any of its stages. Her comment was in part referring to an earlier rejection by Abbas of the idea that the second stage of the road map - calling for a Palestinian state based on temporary borders - was a realistic possibility at this stage.

She also said that in her talks with Abbas on Sunday, he had reiterated his wish and willingness to carry out Palestinian obligations laid out in the road map.

Following their meeting in Ramallah on Sunday, Abbas announced that he would not agree to a Palestinian state within temporary borders, as is proposed in the second stage of the road map. "We do not consider this possibility a realistic one that we can build on," the Palestinian leader said.

Other Palestinian officials also voiced their opposition to such an arrangement, saying that it would stymie progress toward a final settlement.

Rice said that the U.S. intends to deepen its involvement in the peace process, aiming to restart it on the basis of the road map.

There have been reports in recent days that a summit of the leaderships of both Fatah and Hamas is being organized in Damascus, with the specific aim of finalizing an agreement for a national unity government. Abbas denied that any such meeting is scheduled to take place.

According to the reports, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed Akef, was instrumental in convincing Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, and Abbas to meet in order to iron out their differences.

Haniyeh does further damage to a forlorn Abbas, scoring major funding from Iran for the Palestinian people, while USrael starves them

Beyond imagination

Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

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While Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is still counting on the US and the EU -- and probably Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well -- to "strengthen" his position against the Hamas-led government, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been scoring success after success in his extended tour of a number of Arab and Muslim states in the region.

On Tuesday, Haniyeh wrapped up a three-day visit to Tehran during which he held high-profile meetings with top Iranian officials, including Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The meetings were more than just courteous encounters between heads of an emerging regional superpower and the leader of a beleaguered government that the US and Israel have been hell-bent on scuttling for its refusal to bow to Zionist- colonialist diktat.

In fact, Iran decided to give Haniyeh more than he had ever dreamt of. In the words of one Palestinian observer, the Iranians treated Haniyeh like a second prodigal son (the first being Hizbullah). On Monday, the Palestinian prime minister, who had earlier referred to Iran as "our strategic depth", termed his visit "historical and very, very successful". "We reached our goals on this visit. We found all the love possible to give to the Palestinian people," Haniyeh said during a brief press conference at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran.

Haniyeh's words, while not completely void of rhetorical indulgence, are more or less accurate. The Iranian government, taking advantage of skyrocketing oil prices, pledged to give the Palestinians a generous package of financial assistance, urgently needed given the eight-month-old harsh blockade imposed on the Palestinian people by the US, the EU, as well as a number of Arab regimes.

According to Haniyeh, the Iranian donation will include a direct cash payment to the Palestinian government of approximately $100 million. In addition, Iran will pay the unpaid salaries of employees of three ministries (Labour, Welfare and Culture) as well as six-month stipends to the estimated 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails. Iran also agreed to pay for the next six months a stipend of $100 a month to 100,000 Palestinian civil servants and the same for 3,000 Palestinian fishermen.

Furthermore, Iran also agreed to build a cultural centre and rebuild some 1,000 demolished houses at a cost of $10,000 per house. Finally, the Islamic republic agreed to purchase 300 new cars for the Palestinian government and purchase Palestinian olive oil at a special higher premium.

According to Haniyeh, Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, whom he met Sunday, personally approved the financial aid.

In short, Haniyeh's visit to Iran appears successful "beyond even the wildest dreams" of Hamas, as one of Haniyeh's political advisors put it during a telephone interview with Al-Ahram Weekly Tuesday. The unexpected generosity of Shia Iran towards a Sunni Islamist movement should be viewed as a rebuff and direct challenge to American hegemony in the region.

The United States, along with Israel and some Arab regimes such as Jordan, has been trying to strangle the Hamas- led government, employing some of the most draconian and sinister measures yet seen, such as bullying Palestinian and Arab banks to refuse to service the government, including transferring Arab and Muslim aid money from abroad into the impoverished and cash-strapped occupied territories.

This harsh and cruel blockade was aimed at achieving two mains goals: First to induce an implosion inside Palestinian society aimed at triggering a popular revolution against Hamas. This goal has not been reached as most Palestinians continue to blame the US and Israel, not Hamas, for their plight. Indeed, Hamas's popularity has not suffered significantly, evidenced in PA reluctance to hold early general elections in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as a means of overcoming the crisis.

The second goal was to discourage Islamist or even Islamic experiments elsewhere in the Muslim world by giving the impression that Islamists in power only bring poverty and hardship to the masses.

However, unlike Fatah's leader Abbas, who some Palestinians accuse of adopting a "feed me today, and kill me tomorrow," political modus operandi, Hamas has been successfully manoeuvring itself out of the treacherous minefield of the harsh blockade, adopting another adage: "I will suffer today so that I may live tomorrow."

Haniyeh's success in Tehran is added to earlier achievements during his visit to Qatar last week when Emir Hamad Ibn Khalifa Al-Thani pledged to pay the salaries of more than 40,000 Palestinian teachers and if necessary cover payments for workers in the public health sector.

According to Hamas officials, Haniyeh's next destination will be Riyadh where he will undoubtedly press his Saudi hosts to at least match Iranian generosity and "adopt" a number of Palestinian ministries for six months or one year. If the Saudis respond positively, this will be the final nail in the coffin of the American-led, Israeli- enforced blockade.

Indeed, it would be politically and ideologically expedient for the Saudi government, which views itself as the ultimate custodian and guardian of Sunni Islam, to give Haniyeh all the assistance and aid he seeks since rebuffing him would push Hamas (and probably the bulk of Palestinians as well) further towards the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis.

At a loss with regard to their quagmire in Iraq, and given their conspicuous inability to get Israel to abandon its colonialist schemes, the United States seems unable to present any viable and practical plan that would convince the masses, whether in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt for that matter, to give the "peace process" one last chance.

It is even likely that powerless and frustrated allies like Abbas will sooner rather than later understand the foolishness of counting on the present American administration. One Fatah official close to Abbas this week lamented that Americans "have pushed us to this dismal situation".

"They keep saying they want to strengthen the moderates and strengthen Abbas while at the same time they can't even get Ehud Olmert to remove a single roadblock in the West Bank. So why would our people believe Abbas when he tells them to trust America? At least the Iranians are helping us, while the Americans and Israelis are starving us."

Caption: Holding up a banner that reads in Arabic, "Who is the killer" referring to the assassination of three young siblings Monday in Gaza

C a p t i o n 2: Holding up a banner that reads in Arabic, "Who is the killer" referring to the assassination of three young siblings Monday in Gaza

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online

Palestinian PM Haniyeh refused entry into Gaza

4 Dec 2006 14:09:35 GMT

GAZA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of the Islamist group Hamas, was prevented from returning to Gaza on Thursday after a two-week trip abroad, a spokeswoman for European monitors at the border said.

"It is closed. The operation has stopped for a while until the situation with Haniyeh is clarified," said the spokeswoman for the European Border Assistance Mission, which monitors the Rafah crossing on the frontier with Egypt.

Israeli security sources said Defence Minister Amir Peretz had instructed the crossing to be closed.

"He is suspected of planning to bring in millions of dollars donated by Iran," one of the security sources said.

Haniyeh has spent the past two weeks in countries in the region, including Qatar, Iran and Sudan, trying to raise money for his government. He has received assurances of up to $350 million in funding for next year.

Blocking Haniyeh's return could incite further anger among Hamas supporters in Gaza, amid a general decline in security and an increase in tensions with the rival Fatah movement.

Israel, the United States and the European Union regard Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, as a terrorist group and have imposed sanctions against it in an attempt to force the collapse of its government.

The spokeswoman said she had no further information about what would happen with Haniyeh as he was now stuck on the Eygptian side of the border.

Haniyeh was expected to appear at a mass rally in Gaza on Friday to mark the 19th anniversary of Hamas's founding by his mentor Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Hundreds of Hamas supporters had gathered at the Rafah crossing to await Haniyeh's return, waving green Hamas flags.

Iraqi President Rejects International Talks; U.S. copter goes down in Iraq; 4 killed

9 US troops were killed Sunday.
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U.S. copter goes down in Iraq; 4 killed
By QAIS Al-BASHIR, Associated Press Writer
8 minutes ago

A U.S. helicopter went down in a lake west of the Iraqi capital, killing four Marines in the volatile Anbar province, where an Air Force fighter jet crashed last week, the military said Monday.

The military said the helicopter, which carried 16 people, was not believed to have been shot down Sunday, but made an "emergency landing near the shore of Lake Qadisiyah in which the pilots maintained control of the aircraft the entire time."

Twelve passengers survived the latest accident. A U.S. fighter jet crashed last week in a field in Anbar, killing the Air Force pilot on board.

At least 10 American service members died over the weekend, including five in Anbar. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq is suffering a civil war that is even deadlier than the sectarian battle that decimated Lebanon in 1975-1990.

U.S. forces recently acknowledged that their stepped-up effort to stop a wave of Sunni-Shiite violence in Baghdad had failed. That was clear on Nov. 23, when a bombing and mortar attack killed 215 people in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, the deadliest single attack during the Iraq war.

On Saturday, a triple car bombing struck a food market in a predominantly Shiite district of Baghdad, killing 68 people, police said.

Drive-by shootings and a suicide car bomber killed at least seven Iraqis and wounded five on Monday. American forces also said they killed two militants and destroyed a vehicle packed with explosives.

"We condemn in the strongest language the recent car bombings, attacks and retribution killings by extremists against peaceful Iraqis in Baghdad," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the top American military commander in Iraq, said Monday in a joint statement.

"The true enemies of all Iraqis are the murderers who carry out these senseless and cowardly attacks, regardless of sect, tribe or ethnicity. They are terrified of progress in this country and are determined to sow sectarian discord for their own selfish agenda," they added.

"We implore all Iraqis not to become pawns of those who seek to destroy you and your country. Do not allow yourself to be drawn down the road of senseless brutality by striking back."

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's top Shiite politicians, was scheduled to meet with Bush on Monday in Washington to discuss issues expected to include the failure of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to reduce sectarian violence in cities such as Baghdad.

Over the weekend, al-Hakim and other Iraqi politicians rejected Annan's proposal for an international conference on Iraq, saying it would be unrealistic to debate the country's future outside the country.

In Monday's worst attack, suspected militants killed three government agricultural engineers and their driver in a drive-by shooting as they headed to work Monday morning in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad. A similar attack killed a man and woman driving in a town in the same area. The deaths were reported by police who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their safety.

In Baghdad, a news editor at an Iraqi radio station that provides news and educational programming was shot and killed as he traveled to work, said Karim al-Youssif, an assistant manager at the private, independent station that was founded in 2004.

Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaim, a member of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, was married with two young daughters, al-Youssif said, calling his colleague "another victim of the campaign against journalists in this country."

Al-Dulaim's slaying raised to at least 93 the number of journalists who have been killed in Iraq since the Iraq war began, according the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Forty-five other media employees — including drivers, interpreters and guards — also have been killed, all of them Iraqi except for one Lebanese.

In the northwestern city of Mosul, a suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. military convoy and wounded five nearby Iraqi civilians, said Dr. Bahaldin al-Barki, who works at the hospital where they were taken. No U.S. casualties were reported.

In northern Baghdad, American forces killed two insurgents and detained six during a raid on buildings where insurgents with ties to al-Qaida in Iraq were making car bombs, the U.S. command said. A weapons cache including artillery rounds and AK-47s also was found.

On Saturday and Sunday, eight U.S. soldiers and a Marine died, and two soldiers were wounded, in Baghdad or north of the capital. The deaths raised to at least 2,898 the number of U.S. military personnel killed in the war that started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

On Sunday, two Iraqi boys, ages 10 and 15, were wounded in an attack on coalition forces during which insurgents fired a rifle grenade in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. The coalition forces, who suffered no casualties, detained two Iraqis believed to have been involved in the attack.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. aired Monday, Annan said the level of violence in Iraq was much worse than that of other recent civil wars. He also agreed that the average Iraqi's life is worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein's regime.

"Given the level of violence, the level of killing and bitterness, and the way that forces are arranged against each other, a few years ago when we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war. This is much worse," Annan said, according to a transcript of the interview.

Canada dodges a bullet

Dion is the new Liberal Party leader and likely next PM. If Ignatieff had won, Canada would be faced with only 2 neocon choices for the country's leadership.

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Sunday, December 03, 2006

Stéphane Dion

The Liberal Party of Canada held its leadership convention and elected Stéphane Dion as its new leader (and presumably, the next Prime Minister of Canada; the last Liberal leader who didn’t immediately become Prime Minister or didn’t become Prime Minister as a result of a subsequent election was in the 1880’s!). This wasn’t a huge surprise as there were indications that Dion would slip in between the two front runners, the evil Michael Ignatieff (Harvard professor and supporter of torture, the Iraq war, and George Bush), and the hopeless bungler Bob Rae (former failure as socialist premier of Ontario who left the socialists in favor of the Liberals because the socialists took too sane – i.e., pro-Palestinian – a position on the Middle East). It has been fairly clear that Ignatieff was sent by the Americans to break up Canada, something that was confirmed when Ignatieff, out of the blue, introduced Quebec nationalism into the campaign (immediately picked up by the Conservatives, who have much the same agenda). Dion, on the other hand, is the principle intellectual opponent of Quebec separatism in Canadian politics, having demolished the separatist position by turning their own arguments against them (if Quebec can separate from Canada, why can’t federalist parts of Quebec separate from Quebec?).

The best candidate would have been Gerard Kennedy, who will make a fine Prime Minister one day, but was never given a chance by the mainstream media (the media barons are terrified of the guy, as he expressly fights the influence of stupid American ideas in Canadian politics; btw, why do all the stupidest ideas in the world come out of the United States?). He and Dion concocted an Axis of Anti-Evil, in which the one more likely to win would get the support of the other. The problem with the two front runners was that they had no second or subsequent ballot support; anyone who didn’t really like them, really hated them. Kennedy’s supporters were very loyal, and almost all went over to Dion.

While Dion wouldn’t be my first choice (he was a so-so environment minister, though his dog is named Kyoto!), he’s a good man (not to mention extremely smart and the kind of policy wonk that it is good to see in politics), and you don’t have to hold your nose to vote for him just to remove the Conservatives. The Toronto Liberal establishment really wanted either Ignatieff or Rae, and the party was bailed out by the grass-roots Liberals from across the country (the recent massive Toronto establishment mistakes were their support for losers John Turner and Paul Martin). Dion represents a return to the Trudeau-Chrétien line of moderate-left positions, with a clear emphasis on the environment, just what Canadians appear to want.

The mainstream press has been consistent in counting out the Liberals, despite the fact that the Liberals are now leading in the polls, and despite the facts that:

1. the party has not had a leader for months; and
2. it has not put up any real opposition to Conservative policies.

With every dead Canadian soldier in Afghanistan the Conservatives are losing about a quarter percentage point in relative support to the Liberals, meaning we are drawing ever closer to another Liberal government. Dion ran on a campaign supporting just social policy and environmental sanity, the two biggest problems, besides Afghanistan, for the Conservatives. To appease the knuckle-draggers, the Conservatives are also going to reopen the same-sex marriage debate, another losing issue for them (former mayor of London, Ontario, and famous homophobe and Christian fruitcake, Dianne Haskett, just returned from working for Elizabeth Dole in Washington to lose in a London area by-election to both the winning Liberal candidate, and, in a new development, to the revitalized – i. e., de-conservatived - Green Party candidate; apparently even the people in the most conservative area of Ontario don’t want to be regarded as hillbillies!). Just in the past couple weeks, Conservative leader Harper has managed to piss off all European leaders, the leaders of China, and the Canadian business establishment.
His obeisance to the Americans is also becoming noticeable (this cartoon might as well have been about Canadian politics, with Bush being the standing figure). All Dion has to do is keep his foot out of his mouth, and the natural order of Canadian politics will be restored.

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