Showing posts with label ian tomlinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ian tomlinson. Show all posts

Sunday, 29 July 2012

The G4Shambles, Gladio and AL-CIA-DA

July 2012

London is heading for a state of martial law. Some are saying we are already there. Craig Murray was the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan until October 2004, when he blew the whistle on British complicity in torture. He has experience of totalitarian regimes, and he wrote in a blog headed 'Martial Law Britain', on 12 July, "Those coming from Central Asia, Bahrain, Qatar or Saudi Arabia to the Olympics, interested to see what life in a democracy feels like, will find it seems exactly like life at home in their dictatorship"

Since I wrote my June newsletter the issue of G4S went viral in the UK's mainstream media. But they're still hiding a lot about the utter shambles within G4S in their training programme, as revealed first by whistleblower Sarah Hubble, who has set up a blog, then by undercover investigative journalist Lee Hazledean.

The mainstream media story is mainly about the shortfall in numbers recruited by G4S, following the announcement by the British government of the deployment of 3500 extra troops to make up that shortfall, and it goes up a further 1200 as I write this. The head of G4S, Nick Buckles, stated that he had known nothing of the issue until 6 July, and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, claimed that she had not known about it until 11 July. That's interesting, because I knew about the omnishambles, and listeners to Tony Gosling's 'Friday Drivetime' programme on BCfm Radio knew about that on 22 June.

It now appears that the Home Secretary admitted the shortfall in G4S recruitment in a letter the day after that broadcast, but no-one is quite admitting the omnishambles that was reported in Friday Drivetime. Will these people now be prosecuted for criminal negligence? Or will they be prosecuted for deception or something much worse?

Lee Hazeldean eventually revealed himself as film director Ben Fellows in a radio discussion with Lou Collins and Infowars reporter Patrick Henningsen on Liberty Tactics. Not only did he tell us more of the detail of the shambles, but he also explained why he had revealed his true identity at that stage, having told Tony Gosling that he hoped to continue working undercover until the beginning of the Olympics. Tony Gosling had asked him whether he had contacted journalist Andy Davies of Channel 4 News, and Lee Hazeldean had replied that Andy Davies didn't want to know. It was that statement that led to him eventually pulling out of the operation.

The part of the conversation relating to Andy Davies and Channel 4 News ran as follows (starting at 43:55):

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

Lou: Lee, I just want to … I know Tony Gosling asked you "Have you gone to the mainstream with regards to this?"

Ben: Er, yeah, I did, I mean, erm, at first, you know. One of the reasons I kind of did this was cause - I had a contact with Channel 4 which was Andy Davies, the home affairs correspondent, and so I thought, you know, he'll run with this - he'll take it. I emailed him on the 13th of June. He rang me back and basically he said: Look, you know, there seems to be some sort of like media blackout, there's … Channel 4 are not going to be interested and are not going to do anything that would damage the Olympics. That was basically what he said to me, and I went, "Oh! OK". Well, what's been interesting is that, you know, Tony Gosling - it's really thanks to him that this story ever got out because he ran with it on his radio show and we broke the story that way, and ... but yesterday I got a phone call from Andy Davies who, erm, really was - you know - he had a go at me and pretended that I'd never met him, that I never spoke to him, that he'd never said those things, and I said to him, "But Andy, I can prove it". [laughter] You know, and erm, and basically he accused me of being a liar, and he said he wanted me to retract what I had said about him speaking to me, and I wouldn't do it and I just said to him: Look, you know, you can't rewrite history like that, I'm sorry. He just sent me an email late last night pretending he hadn't even read my email. He even said, "Oh, I've just got your email". You know, I said, "That's not going to work. [laughter] You know, I can prove my side of things; can you prove your side of things?", and he wanted me to say that I was lying, and he wanted to say - obviously G4S had put pressure on him cause I'd named him in the interview, erm, and now he's putting pressure on me.

Lou: So he's putting pressure, hang on, he's putting pressure on you to say you were lying about him or lying about what you've been exposing?

Ben: No, no, lying about him.

Lou: Right. OK

Ben: He didn't care about me exposing G4S; it was because he was involved. And I'd spoken to him, and so he wanted me to basically say to everybody, "Actually, you know, I was lying, I've never said those things to Andy Davies. I never went to him, bla bla bla bla bla", and that's not true [laughter]. I mean it's simply not true. And erm, and I told him this: I wouldn't do it, and I was recording this conversation as you can tell, he was acting all kind of supersilious and arrogant and bogus, cause, like I was sort of recording something, erm, and so, you know, it was really disturbing to me. And he basically offered me a [???]. He comes with "Look, your story on G4S might have merrit". It might have merrit, mate? It's gone global [laughter]

Lou: Yeah, yeah.

Ben: You know, and so, erm, and he said, "Look, if you retract your statement I will sit down with you and talk to you about your story, and I went, "No, I'm not going to do that, you know, and really we had, you know, what, you know, I mean I was full of adrenalin; I wasn't expecting it. It came out of the blue. It was a late at night, you know. He called me at home. You know, if I hadn't spoken to him, how could he have my number? But he called be at home. You know what I mean? It's ridiculous, you know. what's going on.

Lou: Yep. Totally ridiculous.

Ben: And so he's going to expose me now, basically - that's what I think is going to happen - to G4. He knows who I am, and so erm he can tell G4S "Look, this is the person, this is what they're doing. But now it's gone from being a story about security to a story about a journalist, you know, trying to bully and control another journalist into lying, and this is the mainstream media we're talking about. We're not talking about some, you know, I don't know, bullies from down the road; we're talking about people who work for Channel 4 ITN News doing this. You know, I mean this is outrageous. Luckily, I recorded the conversation last night, er, because [???] didn't sound good, so I'll record this, and I'm glad I did this now because I wouldn't, you know, some things he said, and how he said them. I wouldn't be able to prove to anybody; they wouldn't believe me, you know, it's crazy.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

Lou Collins then said that she had phoned the BBC News Press Office with the story and was told that the message would be passed on and they would get someone to call her back. But it wasn't the BBC who phoned back; it was G4S telling her that she should not go on air and she should not be discussing the interview with Tony Gosling.

More evidence of pressure to gag the press on negative stories on the Olympics is revealed in a discussion between Lou Collins, Ben Fellows, and Brian Gerrish, put out on the UKColumn website on 5 July.

As far as I am aware, this gives us a unique insight into the mechanics of censureship in the British press, of which the whole of the truth movement is very aware, and of which George Orwell was aware in 1949 when he wrote in his censured preface to 'Animal Farm': "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. ... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness."

It now appears that that censureship is not as voluntary as it appears. I queried in my June newsletter whether there could have been a D-notice on Olympics security; now it appears that the news blackout was brought about by intimidation on the part of G4S. Perhaps we could call it a 'G-notice'. It's not top-down censureship as in an open dictatorship; it's bottom-up censureship brought about by pressure of vested interests on individuals.

I think it would be wrong to single out Andy Davies for criticism over this; after all, Ben Fellows would have regarded Andy Davies as the one who was most likely to take his story. There can hardly be a single political journalist in the mainstream media who doesn't feel for Andy Davies; any one of them could have been in a similar position. Whether one should submit to intimidation is a not the point, and I don't have enough detail to know what the pressures were anyway; the point is that people do submit to intimidation. "In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves", wrote George Orwell in that same preface. Surely now is a good moment for political journalists to make a stand against intimidation; they have a professional interest in being seen to be telling the truth rather than as political propagandists. When it comes to a security shambles of Olympic proportions lives are at stake. They should interview Ben Fellows and give him full credit for what he has done. This issue will not go away.

Instead, Ben Fellows and others are staging their own event to bring this issue to the attention of the public. The event 'The Perfect G4Shambles' will take place in London on 25 July, when Ben Fellows will talk on 'Exposing the G4S debacle ... from the INSIDE!', Tony Gosling will talk on 'Exposing the mainstream media coverup', and Ian R Crane will talk on 'London 2012 ... Set up to FAIL!'. Their newsletter says that they will "produce the evidence which will effectively prove that the G4S debacle is a contrived event to facilitate the militarisation of London".

But despite their shortcomings, the mainstream media are coming out with some of the information on the corporate takeover of the Olympic Games. 'Britain flooded with "brand police" to protect sponsors' ran a headline in The Independent on 16 July . "Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will begin touring the country today enforcing sponsors' multimillion-pound marketing deals, in a highly organised mission that contrasts with the scramble to find enough staff to secure Olympic sites. … Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000. … Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including 'gold', 'silver' and 'bronze', 'summer', 'sponsors' and 'London'", they write. I added a comment: "Next they'll be imprisoning Max Keiser for wanting to go back to the gold standard". This is a corporate takeover, in which corporations can censure the press, bring about new legislation, deploy police officers to enforce it, and even enjoy tax breaks, so that the public doesn't get any financial benefit out of their enterprise. I've just signed a petition demanding that Olympic corporate sponsors pay their fair share of tax and another one on the same site to ban secret lobbying.

It seems the police are no longer there to protect the public, but that their role is, as Tony Farrell was told, merely "footsoldiers of the government". The verdict, just announced, of 'Not Guilty' in the trial of PC Simon Harwood, whose vicious attack on bystander Ian Tomlinson during the G20 demonstrations was seen by millions, was described by a spokesman for his family as 'a joke'. I'm sure the family will have widespread sympathy among the public, and that there will be increasing concern over the role of the courts.

On 18 July the verdict was announce on the case of the 'zombies' arrested during the royal wedding, which I reported on in my April/May newsletter. The verdict was that the police acted lawfully. The campaigners are warning: "... this result could be interpreted as giving the police carte blanche to perform more pre-emptive arrests of 'known activists' over the Olympics".

Our London colleague Mark Windows recently reported how a police officer attempted to entrap him by planting a knife in a tube carriage. Truth campaigners need now to be very careful. Most truth campaigners I know say they will stay well clear of London, but it can be a bit difficult for those who live there.

It seems, that the BBC is planning some further disinformation on 'conspiracy theories'. Infowars London correspondent Paul Watson was invited to take part in a 'Conspiracy Theories' documentary from 9/11 to the Olympics and, in April, I received an invitation to take part in a new BBC documentary on 7/7 to express my "beliefs". "Should I?", I asked my colleagues in 9/11 Keep Talking. We all agreed to ignore it.

I mentioned in my April/May newsletter a new book on Operation Gladio called 'Gladio: NATO's Dagger At The Heart Of Europe' by Richard Cottrell. I made contact with Richard Cottrell, a former journalist and MEP for Bristol, and on 16 July he provided the following analysis for this newsletter:

"The morning's crop of stories on the Great Olympics Cock-up are - taken at face value - another example of legendary British incompetence in handling large scale events. There's an element of that, of course, but it seems to me that what we are really seeing is a good lacing of deliberate and intentional incompetence.

"In short, lax security, inadequate numbers of trained personnel, last minute discovery of the almost complete collapse of efforts by a private security to firm to man the Olympics, are less the product of organic chaos than designer made preparations for some kind of false flag incident.

"That Theresa May is not fit for any kind of important political duty is quite obvious: but of course that makes this hapless minister for synthetic chaos the perfect individual in the right place at the right time.

"If something does go wrong, then the government has a made-to-order alibi: we did all we could, we brought in the army, we brought in the artillery, we even scraped the bottom of the Thames with one of our few remaining warcraft. We trusted a private security firm to deliver on time, which they did not, but since they failed to get things in order right up to the last moment, we had to either cancel the Olympics and disappoint millions, or press ahead in the confidence that extra trained personnel from the police and armed forces would suffice.

"Yes it sounds pretty thin but in the unfortunate circumstances of some kind of attack (which need not by the way be devastating, rather more a great headline generator) the strongest defence will lie with 'attacking our way of life, pleasures and freedoms' and so forth. 'No-one even in perfect circumstances could guarantee the bomber would not get through.'

"It seems to me that this could be the real script behind the warm up act which is now plastered all over the media."

I would be happy if they were to just cancel the Olympics. The Olympic ideal is dead. Like all good ideas it has been taken over by vested interests and turned into something it was never intended to be. The company G4S itself now becomes a primary security risk, because if anyone is intending to explode bombs during the Olympics they will already have infiltrated G4S, and may well have their explosives in place already. The Olympic contract with G4S should be cancelled with immediate effect, whatever the cost. Nick Kollerstrom, author of 'Terror on the Tube' writes, "If you have a ticket for the Olympics, get rid of it! Just stay away".

If there is a terror incident linked to the Olympics, it is likely that the authorities will very quickly put into the minds of the public the idea that it "bears all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda", or, as Tony Blair put it after the London bombings of 7 July 2005, "We know these people act in the name of Islam". Shortly after I had written the previous sentence I heard on the news of a bus of Israeli tourists who had been blown up in Bulgaria. According to one witness it was caused by a suicide bomber in the bus, and according to another witness the blast was in the luggage compartment under the bus. Yet two hours later Israel blamed Iran. Doesn't this sound just like 7/7?

The constant repetition of the mantra means that most people will come to believe it, whatever contrary evidence is subsequently found. Yet if there is an incident at the Olympics, the probability of such statements being true has to be extremely low for anyone who has studied previous terror events, as South Yorkshire Police's Principal Intelligence Analist Tony Farrell did before he was sacked, as I have reported in previous newsletters. The idea that our own authorities could be a party to mass murder is still implausible to most people, yet there is overwhelming evidence to support just that.

The case of Operation Gladio is well documented and should be much more widely known. US film producer Allan Francovich produced a three-part documentary, 'NATO's Secret Armies', in which he interviewed key Gladio players such as Propaganda Due head, Licio Gelli, Italian neofascist and terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Venetian judge Felice Casson, Italian Gladio commander General Gerardo Serravale, Belgian Senator Roger Lallemand, Belgian gendarme Martial Lekue and former CIA director William Colby. This was broadcast in the UK on BBC 2 in June 1992. The episodes were: 1: Gladio: The Ring Masters (1992-06-10); 2: Gladio: The Puppeteers (1992-06-10); 3: Gladio: The Footsoldiers (1992-06-24). (Five years later, Allan Francovich died whilst going through US customs in Texas.

The first academic study of Operation Gladio was produced by swiss historian Daniele Ganser in his book 'NATO's Secret Armies'. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe'. That was published on 22 December 2004, and so would have been selling during the six months prior to 7/7. The world should have been alerted; many academics, politicians and journalists must have been aware of this, yet no-one was publicly raising the question of whether 7/7 could have been a part of Operation Gladio, or some such activity by NATO forces. The book has since appeared in nine further languages.

Now, as I reported in my April/May newsletter, former British television journalist and Member of the European Parliament Richard Cottrell has just authored a book 'GLADIO NATO's Dagger at the heart of Europe: The Pentagon-Nazi-Mafia terror axis', published by Progressive Press in May 2012. So next time there's another terror event, will questions be raised on Gladio? Well, one has just happened in Bulgaria, and no, nothing at all is being said on Gladio.

It seems to me that to counter the mantra of 'The Muslims done it', we need our own mantra. I think we need to get the name 'Gladio' out there far and wide. It's not the explanations that matter now, because there are plenty of explanations already on the web, but it's the number of times the word 'Gladio' gets repeated that matters, even if initially few people know what it is. The mission should be to get it out there in blogs and comments to blogs on news sites. If they state that the incident bears all the hallmarks of Al Qaida, then perhaps we should respell the name as 'Al CIA da'. After all, Al Qaida always has been a US database of CIA operatives and their co-fighters. What has changed? Key truth campaigners may find their computers are down; this has to be a grass roots activity.

I think that truth campaigners generally would agree with MI5's assessment that the risk is 'substantial'. If nothing happens we may well be called 'paranoid', but so what? - we're all paranoid now. On 12 July Sky News reported: "An employee for security firm G4S has told Sky News he believes there is a 50-50 chance someone could carry a bomb into one of the Olympic venues."

On 17 June we held a meeting of the 9/11 Keep Talking group that Nick Kollerstrom and I run in London, to discuss the possibility of a false-flag attack during the Olympics. Noel Glynn talked about his own analysis, which he had previously distributed quite widely by email. His analysis was based on an article called 'How to Stop a False Flag Terror Attack' by David Chase Taylor, who lists six signs that a false flag terror event is likely to happen. These are explained unde the headings:

  • News & Propaganda,
  • Whitepapers & Documents,
  • Internal Memos,
  • Plots & Patsies,
  • Private Security Firms,
  • Drills, War Games & Military Exercises


Noel Glynn reached the conclusion that five out of six of those signs have been met. "My conclusion from all of the above is that there are plenty of warning signs that a false flag attack may be planned for the Olympics at the very moment when the eyes of the world are concentrated on London. This is enough to cause serious worry but not enough to feel certain that is what is happening. Alternatively an attack could be called off due to the fact that this possibility is getting too much publicity", he writes. He also draws attention to signs to look for after such an attack:

  • A terror script,
  • Conflicting reports,
  • Suspect identified within 24 hours,
  • Cui bono - who benefits,


Let's consider when and where such an event could happen, should it happen. Nick Kollerstrom's concern is the amount of radioactive waste under the Olympic Stadium, and what the effects of that would be should an explosion rock the foundations. That might suggest an incident in the Olympic stadium itself at any time during the games, such as the scenario described in the BBC television series 'Spooks Code 9', in which there is a nuclear attack at the opening ceremony. Just as I was leaving, someone pointed out that the final day of the Paralympics was the 11th of September. That's food for thought.

My own analysis was based on the scenario analysis by the Rockefeller Foundation, on which I reported in my June newsletter, and which investigative journalist Adrian Salbuchi thought might have been intended as a warning to the Establishment insiders of a planned false flag attack. In one scenario they talked of a bombing that kills 13000 people at the London Olympics. If Adrian Salbuchi is right on that, then they would have to specify in their coded warning three things: what, where and when. The 'what' and the 'where' are clear, but the 'when' is vague; it would have to be more specific than the period of the Olympics, since an absence of the Establishment insiders for the whole of the Olympics would be conspicuous. So we have to look for a day. I wrote in my June newsletter: "I wonder if, when translated, they could mean: 'the 2012 Olympic bombing, which killed 13 August, 1000'. The thirteenth of August is the day the crowds will disperse from the Olympics". The stage could already be set, for instance at Heathrow Airport's new Olympic terminal. We seem to be being prepared for an event.

'400 soldiers patrol Heathrow amid terror fears' reports the Daily Mail, saying that 450 troops with armoured cars had moved in because of the ending of the Muslim festival of Eid.

Then Sky News reported: 'US Security Agents "At Heathrow For Olympics"'. I left a comment on the Daily Mail report of this: "Foreign troops in security operations in a British airport is itself a potential breach of national security. British national security should be handled by British people working for the British public. This is really, really dangerous".

On the other hand, I now realise that the area of the Olympic Stadium is Hackney and Lee Valley, London E10. 'Hacken Lee' is the name of a Chinese singer who 'hosted' the Olympic Games in Beijing, as Wikipedia puts it. An advertisement which appeared on Chinese television for the Euro 2012 Football Championship features an athlete with 'Hacken Lee 10' on his T-shirt. This is an aggressive advert which depicts the destruction of London. Now look at a video of the British contribution to the closing ceremony at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The Rockefeller Foundation's scenario in which 13000 people die is called 'Hack Attack'. Could it make sense for there to be an attack on 13 August in Hackney and Lee Valley, post code E10?

At our Keep Talking meeting, one person, Kevin O'Connor thought that the hyping up of a terrorist threat might just be bluff, and that any attack might come after the Olympic Games (http://kevinclarion.wordpress.com). I did hold a view that they might be able to instill the required level of fear in that way, for a military clampdown, but having now seen the scepticism of the public in what they are being told by politicians following the latest G4S debacle, I now have some doubts on that. There was some discussion on how big such an event might be. I suspect, like Richard Cottrell that a small event could cause an enormous amount of havoc, especially if it disrupted the transport system. After all, it didn't take an Olympic Games to cause the havoc of the August riots last year. What did cause them?

Just as I try to bring my newsletter to a close I hear of a further example of Establishment censorship in the UK. The BBC were due to broadcast a two-part documentary drama based on the riots on July 16 and 18 when they received a court order stating: "It is ordered that the BBC programme 'The Riots: In their Own Words' due for broadcast on BBC 2 tonight is not broadcast by any media by any means until further order". Another part of the ruling states: "Further the clip currently available for viewing on the BBC website be removed forthwith". The BBC told The Guardian that for legal reasons it could not disclose details of the court. The film had been based on research by The Guardian and the London School of Economics, and some of their data is published on The Guardian's website. Perhaps the suspicions of many truth campaigners may be substantiated.

Whatever does or doesn't happen at the Olympics, the event is likely to provide a hugh distraction. I see that The Sunday Times of 22 July gives extensive coverage to a preemptive claim by Israel that Iran may carry out a repeat of the Munich massacre of 1972, but I could find no mention in the paper edition of the recent scandal in Germany concerning the far-right involvement in the Munich massacre, with the knowledge of the German security service. I can already envisage writing in a future newsletter something like: "As the world was distracted by the great Olympic sideshow, Syria / Iran was invaded by NATO/Israeli troops".

Richard Cottrell made a very interesting point to me on what might happen after the Olympics: "Why has Blair selected precisely this window of opportunity to declare he'd like another go at PM", he asks, "Does he mean PM or something a trifle more enduring? Shall we say, non-elective as a clue. Have the hour and the man met at last?". Indeed, whatever happens or doesn't happen during the Olympics, we could eventually end up with a Fascist dictatorship - or a corporate state, to use the current PC form - in the UK; Tony Blair could never be freely elected ever again. In his memoirs, Tony Blair described the Freedom of Information Act as one of his greatest mistakes while in office. Indeed it was. If you want to be a tyrant you don't do that sort of thing. The Information Commissioner recently claimed that secret documents were being destroyed, and that Whitehall officials were using private email addresses to evade scrutiny. But some information does get out.

Secret documents were being destroyed in Germany, too. Richard Cottrell contributed a commentary in the 'End the Lie' website on the recent resignation of the German spy chief, Heinz Fromm, following the destruction by government agents of files on a far-right terrorist cell behind murderous attacks on immigrants. . Richard's analysis, headed 'German Gladio redux: Neo-Nazi murder scandal engulfs Merkel's government' describes this as "a strange case that once again points to security agencies stirring synthetic violence for political ends". This follows the revelation concerning the involvement of neo-Nazis in the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972, which I reported on in my June newsletter. When will people start resigning over the destruction of secret documents in the UK?

Tyrants love false-flag attacks, in which they create a disturbance then blame it on their opponents. An understanding of Operation Gladio is key to understanding what is going on in British politics today, both at home and abroad. Suddenly, things begin to make sense. The situation in Syria makes sense, and remember that the CIA was behind the overthrow of the Mossadeq government in Iran, and the rise to power of Saddam Hussain in Iraq. Are those nice people in positions of power in the UK capable of such attrocities as torture and murder? Well look at the case of four elderly Kenyans, one now deceased, who have been trying to claim justice following the Kenyan uprising of the 1950s. The defence is the usual hypocritical mantra of 'That's history'. A new video, which shows how things can be seen very differently if you have the right glasses on, has been produced by some of our Keep Talking people. It's called 'Kollerstrom and Farrell are dead'. It has now appeared in lots of places on the web, such as the website of the Kent Freedom Movement.

The immediate objective is to save lives, but a good general will always look ahead to the following battle. Hillary Clinton says that they are losing the information war; we must win it. Remember to keep talking, and don't forget the words 'Gladio' and 'Al CIAda'.

Ian Fantom

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

Brian Haw did what he thought was right when most people fear the light

July 2011


The revolution has begun. What started as a relatively minor issue of a newspaper hacking into the phones of celebrities has suddenly rocked the nation with a scandal of phone hacking on an industrial scale, including the hacking of phones of victims of crime, and relatives of victims of the London 7/7 bombings, with evidence of criminal payments to officers of the London Metropolitan police for information. Journalist Michael Crick stated on the BBC television programme Newsnight:

“It was a day in which we have seen significant tweaks in the way in which power is distributed in this country,when politicians asserted themselves over the media, with MPs not just crying halt to the practices of tabloid journalists, but also crying halt to the expansion of the Murdoch empire; a day when backbenchers took the initiative rather than the ministers, and also incidentally the day when Ed Milliband finally stamped his mark as Labour Party leader.”

He was referring in particular to an emergency debate in the House of Commons introduced by campaigner Chris Bryant, who began:

“At 8.50 am tomorrow, it will be six years since the London bombings, which saw 52 people murdered and 700 injured. Today we hear that the police are investigating whether the mobile phones of several of those who lost family members in those attacks were hacked by the News of the World”.

Later in the speech, talking about the failure to adequately investigate the affair, he stated: “It pains me to say this as well, but the honest truth is that a lot of lies have been told to a lot of people. When police officers tell lies or at least half-truths to Ministers of the Crown so that Parliament ends up being misled, I think it amounts to a major constitutional issue for us to face. … Did the reason that nothing happened have anything to do with the closeness between the Metropolitan police and the News of the World?”

Further into the speech he turned his attention to the relationship between the Murdoch empire and politicians: “We politicians have colluded for far too long with the media”, he said, “we rely on them, we seek their favour, and we live and we die politically because of what they write and what they show, and sometimes that means we lack the courage or the spine to stand up when wrong has occurred. … Sometimes, we may even have fallen for the threats that have been made when we have spoken out. I know of several Members who have led this debate who have received threats”.

At last, people are talking, and once that happens we can expect further revelations, whistleblowers and arrests. If the phones of families of the victims were hacked into, presumably from some list of phone numbers supplied by the police to the newspaper, then what about the phones of the victims themselves, and what about the four alleged bombers? Does someone somewhere have information on their location around the time of the bombings that would have been useful to the inquest or to further investigations? Were the alleged bombers at the bomb sites, or were they in Canary Wharf? Perhaps someone will now speak out!

I was saddend to hear of the death of Brian Haw, ten years and sixteen days after he had started his peace vigil in Parliament Square, opposite Parliament.

His initial cause was not a popular one: opposing the sanctions against Iraq. But the issue escalated. Three months into his vigil came 9/11 and the subsequent attack on Afghanistan, and nearly two years into his vigil came the invasion of Iraq, bringing further death and destruction. He managed to attract public attention to the inhumanity of those military adventures and focus opposition to them.

I drew some comfort from the fact that I first heard the news of his death on the one o'clock news of BBC Radio 4. That was, I suppose, a recognition that he had become a national institution. The following morning I scanned the front pages at my local newspaper shop, but only The Independent had a front-page splash on him. That was a half-page photo with the caption 'Peace at last'. There was also a full page of reporting on page 5, including a tribute by Mark Wallinger, artist of the Tate Modern 'State Britain' exhibition in 2007, in which Brian Haw's protest display had been recreated.

There was also nearly a whole page of obituary, and a leading article on him, all of which was sympathetic. The leading article called for the placing of a memorial stone at the place where he had his camp for nearly ten years.

In my June 2010 newsletter I called for a permanent monument to be placed there, suggesting that it be called 'The Westminster Haw Memorial'

So I wrote to The Independent in support of a memorial, and my letter appeared on 21 June under the heading 'Ugly memorial'

There have been other calls for a memorial, too.

London Assembly Member Jenny Jones has called on Westminster Council to put up a blue plaque, of the type that one sees on various buildings in London in memory of famous people.

One supporter, holding such a blue plaque, was interviewed by BBC Television.

The following day a group of MPs led by left Jeremy Corbyn called for a permanent memorial to Brian Haw to be placed in the precincts of Parliament. The MPs tabled an early day motion praising the “political inspiration” provided by Mr Haw, who died at the weekend.

Among those putting their name to the motion urging a memorial to Mr Haw’s 10-year Westminster peace vigil were Green MP Caroline Lucas and Labour MPs John McDonnell, Paul Flynn, Kelvin Hopkins, John Cryer and Dennis Skinner.

I think it would be good for as many people as possible to express support for this idea in blogs, newsletters, articles, and in comments sections to relevant web pages.

>And now the Evening Standard has reported that Lord Tyler to give Parliament Square back to the people and transform it into a new Speakers Corner.

Brian Haw, of course, did have his critics. In particular, conspiracy denier Nick Cohen attacked him for saying that 9/11 was an inside job.

"He also ought to know that al-Qaeda was responsible for the slaughter on 9/11 - it's hardly a secret. But in a video for the 'alternative' news site rinf.com, Haw announces that '9/11 was an inside job, yes it was', organised by the American government and Hollywood, apparently"

That was the sort of arrogance that we all have to put up with in the truth movement from elements of the mainstream media. But I thought that a subsequent implied link with 'Holocaust denial' was despicable.

Earlier in 2007 I had been aware that people in the 9/11 truth movement were wondering why Brian Haw had not come out on the issue, so I handed him an English translation of my article which had appeared in MONATO, under the title


‘Why did the three towers of the WTC really collapse?’
[PDF file]

An hour or two later he told me that he'd read it, and that it was a good article. Shortly after that I heard that he had spoken out on 9/11. He compared the 3000 deaths with that of the number of children being killed on a daily basis as a result of world politics:





For me, what Brian Haw succeeded in highlighting most effectively was the police brutality right in the centre of what most English people would regard as the world's greatest democracy. In 2008 I had taken part in a protest march against the SOCPA law, which banned unuathorised protests within a kilometre of Parliament. At the end of the march some people were lying down in the roadway in Whitehall. I didn't agree with that, and was leaving the demonstration when I came across Brian Haw, with blood on his face and holding a broken camera. He was trying to make a complaint to the police for assault.





Brian hadn't actually been taking part in the protest, but had come from his camp just to take photos. His request to make a complaint was refused, and he was told he would have to go to the local police station to make it, he told me. When everything had quietened down I continued on my way home. Later I heard that the police had bundled him into a van and assaulted him. There were stories of screams coming from the van.

I see that as early as 2003 there had been an Early Day Motion in Parliament, stating:

"That this House expresses its deep concern that there have been a number of physical assaults on Mr Brian Haw, the peace campaigner demonstrating in Parliament Square; and calls upon the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to review the policing arrangements for the Square to ensure the safety and security of Mr Haw"

The fact that no police officer has served time for such an assault tells me that we have a militia which is above the law at the heart of our police force.

Ian Tomlinson, too, was an innocent by-stander. He was caught up in the G20 demonstration in London on 1 April 2009, when he was assaulted by a police officer and subsequently died.

An inquest verdict was returned in May 2011 of "unlawful killing"

The jury spokesperson stated:

"Mr Tomlinson was on his way home from work on 1 April 2009, during the G20 demonstrations. He was fatally injured at around 19.20 in Royal Exchange 2 Buildings, the passage, near to the junction with Cornhill, London EC3. This was as a result of a baton strike from behind and a push in the back by a police officer which caused Mr Tomlinson to fall heavily. Both the baton strike and the push were excessive and unreasonable. As a result, Mr Tomlinson suffered internal bleeding which led to his collapse within a few minutes and his subsequent death. At the time of the strike and the push, Mr Tomlinson was walking away from the police line. He was complying with police instructions to leave Royal Exchange Buildings, the passage. He posed no threat."

The jury rejected the post mortem conclusions of the first pathologist to examine Ian Tomlinson's body. Dr Freddy Patel had been under investigation by the General Medical Council since 2005, and faced 26 charges of misconduct

He was found guilty of serious misconduct in March 2011 and suspended for three months
.
This raises a question of what selection criteria the Home Office uses to choose it's own forensic pathologists.

Following this verdict, the police officer concerned, PC Simon Harwood, was charged with manslaughter and is to face trial on 17 October

The Crown Prosecution Service, which had previously refrained from bringing about a prosecution, claimed that there was new evidence by which they could now do so. PC Harwood was working with the Metropolitan Police's Territorial Support Group, which, I understand, is the same group that beat up Brian Haw. PC Harwood had worked for the London Metropolitan Police before, but left a decade ago amid controversy over an alleged off-duty road rage incident. He then got a job with Surrey Police, where he was accused of using excessive force, before returning to the Metropolitan police. His identity was concealed during the G20 protest; his face was partially covered and his number was not displayed.

G20 riots: Policeman who struck Ian Tomlinson faced two previous aggression inquiries

But what about the bite that Ian Tomlinson received from a police dog just before that incident? Is no-one going to be prosecuted for that?

At least there was a post mortem examination for Ian Tomlinson, even if the initial one was eventually overturned and was followed by three more. That's more than can be said of the 52 victims of the 7/7 London bombings. I've just been reading the proofs a forthcoming edition of Nick Kollerstrom's excellent book 'Terror on the Tube'. I had not realised the amazing fact almost casually announced at the inquest that there had been no post-mortem examinations of the bodies. How is it possible for an inquest in what is widely believed to be a case of murder to be held without a post mortem having been carried out on the body? How is it possible for the coroner not even to be questioning this? Well, it's 52 times worse than that. Furthermore, the bodies, we are told, were withheld by the authorities. Those bodies would undoubtedly had carried traces of the explosives used, which would have enabled identification of the explosives. Then we were give a fairy tale about the explosives being hydrogen peroxide and black pepper. This clearly looks like concealment of evidence and possible fabrication. Is this why they needed to bring in someone special, like Lady Justice Hallett? I think there should be some sort of judicial review of the inquest, and that the Crown Prosecution Service should be looking into this concealment of evidence with a view to prosecuting whoever is responsible.

At least the 52 victims had an inquest of sorts, which is more than can be said of the alleged terrorists. Where are their bodies? Were any post mortem examinations carried out on them? Why were the legal processes circumvented? Where is the Crown Prosecution Service here?

The Crown Prosecution Service is responsible to Parliament through the Attorney General. On 9 June the Attorney General announced in the House of Commons that he had decided not to hold an inquest into the death of former government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly.

Dr Kelly had been at the centre of controversy after it had been revealed that he had been the source of a BBC story that the claims concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had been “sexed up”. He was then interrogated in a televised hearing of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee on 15 July 2003, and the following day he was interviewed by the Intelligence and Security Committee in a private hearing. On 17 July he went for a walk near his home in south Oxfordshire, and was not seen again until his body was discovered the following morning. The Oxfordshire coroner opened an inquest, as he was obliged to do under English law, but Dr Kelly’s death certificate was signed without awaiting the outcome of the inquest. A government inquiry was also set up, and the functions of the inquest were transferred to the inquiry under a law brought in in 1988. Accordingly, the inquest was adjourned on 14 August.

The Hutton inquiry concluded in January 2004 that Dr Kelly took his own life. The coroner subsequently closed the inquest. However, questions were soon being asked, both about the evidence concerning Dr Kelly’s death, and about the judicial processes, in which a proper inquest had been avoided.

In 2006 a British MP, Dr Norman Baker, took a year out from the Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet whilst he researched Dr Kelly’s death, eventually publishing a book, ‘The Strange Death of David Kelly’. He came to the conclusion that he thought that Dr Kelly had been murdered.

In July 2009 a team of 13 doctors announced that they were planning to mount a legal challenge to the findings of the Hutton inquiry. They had produced a detailed medical dossier, which they planned to send to the forthcoming inquiry by Sir John Chilcot into the Iraq War.

A week later, a US Air Force linguist, Mai Pederson, who served with Dr Kelly’s weapons inspection team called on the then Attorney General to carry out a “formal, independent and complete review” into the “suspicious circumstances” of Dr Kelly’s death, revealing that he had been unable to use his right hand for tasks requiring strength, and that he had a disorder which made it difficult for him to swallow pills, both of which threw into doubt the manner of death described by Hutton:

Now David Kelly’s former Iraq aide joins call for inquiry into his 'suicide'.

Shortly after that, a former coroner called for a proper inquest, and this was backed up by MPs from all parties:


A MEDICAL lawyer last night called on the Government to hold an inquest into the death of controversial biowarfare weapons inspector David Kelly because he believes there is insufficient ­evidence that he committed suicide.


In January 2010 it was revealed by The Mail on Sunday that following the Hutton inquiry, Lord Hutton had secretly ordered that all medical reports, including the post-mortem findings and photographs of Dr Kelly’s body, remain classified information for 70 years.

In August 2010 a letter appeared in The Times from eight medical experts, calling for a proper inquest. They stated that the inquiry by Lord Hutton was unsatisfactory with regard to the causation of death, that a detailed investigation of all the medical circumstances was now required, and that they supported the call for a proper inquest into the cause of Dr Kelly’s death.

Following this call, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke on October 22 ordered the release of some of the medical records which Lord Hutton had ordered to be withheld for seventy years.

Then on 25 October 2010 a pharmacologist, Dr Andrew Watt, wrote to the new Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, requesting him to apply to the High Court for an order that a Coroner-led inquest be conducted, quoting the same Coroner’s Act of 1988 that had been used to replace the original inquest by an inquiry

He quoted four grounds for the request: “1. Rejection of evidence 2. Irregularity of proceedings 3. Insufficiency of inquiry and 4. Discovery of new facts or evidence”. The first of the twenty points on ‘insufficiency of inquiry’ was that no evidence had been taken on oath.

Dominic Grieve when in opposition as the shadow justice minister, had told the Mail on Sunday that the investigation into the death of government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly should be reopened because the public had “not been reassured” by the official verdict that he killed himself.

In a letter passed to The Mail on Sunday, he praised the group of doctors who were campaigning for a coroner’s inquest, and questioned the judgment of Lord Hutton, who had chaired the inquiry into the death.

On March 26, 2011, three doctors wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister calling for a proper inquest, headed ‘Subversion of due process and insufficiency of inquiry in the investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly’. They wrote that the laws of the UK, and indeed of Europe, require that the death of any British citizen dying in the manner in which Dr David Kelly is said to have died is investigated at an inquest, at which the Coroner possesses statutory powers. These include the power to hear evidence under oath, the power to subpoena witnesses, the power to have witnesses aggressively cross-examined, and the power to call a jury. Lord Hutton, he stated, possessed none of these powers, but the public was led to believe that Lord Hutton was better equipped to investigate Dr Kelly’s death than was the Coroner. Furthermore, he said, Lord Hutton had heard medical evidence for just one half of one day out of the twenty four days of evidence. No coroner in the land, they stated, would have reached a suicide verdict on the evidence which Lord Hutton had heard.

The statement by Attorney General Dominic Grieve in the House of Commons on 9 June 2011 therefore came as a surprise to many who had been expecting a formal inquest to be announced, though there had been some controversy when, in an answer to a parliamentary question, the Prime Minister had stated that he saw no need for an inquest

This led to allegations of political interference in what should have been a judicial matter. However, Dominic Grieve stated that he had acted in a non-political role as guardian of the public interest, and that he had received no representations of any kind from the Prime Minister or any other ministerial colleague on this decision. He concluded that the evidence that Dr Kelly took his own life was overwhelmingly strong, and that nothing that he had seen would support his making an application to the High Court for an inquest. “There is no possibility that, at an inquest, a verdict other than suicide would be returned”, he stated.

However, the Press Association put out a statement saying that the group of doctors led by Dr Stephen Frost had accused the government of being “complicit in a determined and concerted cover-up”, and that they would now seek a judicial review of Mr Grieve's decision. They denounced the Hutton report as a "whitewash" which "failed adequately to address the cause of death itself and the manner of death". Dr Frost stated that this was “clearly a political decision when it should have been a decision based solely on the law".

He stated that the decision had “no basis in law", and called for Mr Grieve to resign.

This was reported by the Daily Mail, whose website article was headed:

“'A continuing cover-up': Fury as Attorney General refuses full inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly”.

Former assistant coroner Michael Powers was interviewed on Channel 4 television, where he made out the legal case for a proper inquest, irrespective any suspicion of murder.

The previous day the Crown Prosecution Service itself had been under scrutiny when the evening television programme Newsnight revealed evidence that the Crown Prosecution Service, the body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases investigated by the police in England and Wales, did not disclose information in a court of law which it should have disclosed according to its own rules. The television presenter, Jeremy Paxman, known for his persistent interrogation of evasive politicians, announced: “It’s a very serious accusation. Tonight Newsnight returns to the extraordinary story of the undercover cop Mark Kennedy. We have evidence that the Crown Prosecution Service didn’t disclose material which might have saved people from convictions. It’s a demonstration either of serious incompetence or of something tantamount to a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice”:





On January 10, a trial had collapsed of six environmental protesters accused of conspiring to shut down the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire in 2009, when one of those arrested, though not charged, turned out to be a police undercover agent.

I reported on the scathing remarks by their defence lawyer in my January newsletter


It turned out that PC Mark Kennedy was present also at the G20 demonstration in London when bystander Ian Tomlinson died, Mark Kennedy was also identified in a left-wing demonstration in Germany a few days after the collapse of the British trial and and Spiegel-TV Magazin later produced a documentary on Mark Kennedy’s participation in demonstrations in Germany as a British undercover agent.

Journalist Richard Watson explained: “When the trial collapsed this January it was the police who were accused of withholding evidence and the CPS did nothing to disabuse anyone of that impression, writing to the defence and to the court that the new evidence had come to light just two days earlier. But emails held on CPS computers will show this was highly misleading. On the 17th of June 2009 there was a crucial email exchange. A very senior CPS lawyer based in the Special Crime Division in London, called Nick Paul, sent an email to another CPS lawyer based in Nottingham, called Ian Cunningham, who was reviewing the police evidence against the climate campaigners. Mr Paul wrote about the existance of ‘the participating informant’, a reference to the undercover policeman. Of even greater significance is Mr Cunningham’s reply. He wrote about ‘sensitive disclosure issues’ that ‘reinforced the difficulties’ of the case, clear evidence that senior CPS lawyers knew about the sensitivities of the undercover policeman two years before the case was to collapse”.

This was followed by a discussion with a former director of public prosecutions, a former Labour Solicitor General and one of the six defendants in the case that collapsed in January. They were all agreed on the seriousness of the issue, and that there should be an independent inquiry, though the environmental campaigner pointed out that inquiries held so far behind closed doors had not been looking at the bigger questions, such as in whose interest all of this had happened. It's all very well to have public inquiries, but will they lead anywhere? It sounds to me as if they need some prosecutions. But how do you prosecute the Crown Prosecution Service?

If the Crown Prosecution Service is above the law, and the Attorney General is under pressure to abandon inquests, and politicians can avoid inquests by setting up public (i.e. political) inquiries, and coroners can be specially selected to ignore concealment of bodies and the lack of post mortem examinations, then we have a pretty macabre situation. It means that whoever is running this country, and possibly other countries in the West as well, has a licence to kill.

Keep talking. The more people who keep talking the better. Brian Haw aimed to bring a focus to the carnage being brought about abroad by people in Westminster. In fact he achieved more than that; he also brought a focus to the thuggish brutality at the heart of the very institutions that are enabling these military adventures. Now that he is gone, in order to maintain that focus, we need a Westminster Haw Memorial. Brian Haw was a thorn in the side of a corrupt Establishment. Perhaps we should call the coming revolution the ‘Hawthorn Revolution’. Its symbol should be a twig of hawthorn.





1949 - 2011


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." ~ Marianne Williamson


Keep talking.

Friday, 21 May 2010

The untimely death of Ian Tomlinson and the rise of the Police State

Newsletter originally sent April 2009

The various threads suggesting a move to a more authoritarian state have been coming together spectacularly in Britain over the past few weeks. The financial meltdown, anticipated for some time in certain quarters ofthe 9/11 Truth Movement, is now developing into a merger of state and corporate power. Was it caused by the bankers being incompetent, as we are being constantly told, or was it a massive fraud by bankers and politicians in collusion? More on that below.

Then there are the typical signs of an emerging fascist state, with evidence of gratuitous police violence hitting the national headlines practically every day. It seems that in the Metropolitan Police’s Territorial Support Group we have a militia in the heart of London. Channel 4 News managed to put together a number of videos taken from different locations during the recent G20 demonstration in London. They tracked the movements of the police officer who had previously been caught on camera assaulting, from behind, bystander Ian Tomlinson, who died shortly afterwards. The Independent Police Complaints Commission,who are reviewing police behaviour during that demonstration, attempted to get a court injunction to prevent Channel 4 News from broadcasting that footage. Why? The footage also shows that Ian Tomlinson’s head appears to have struck the pavement when he was brought to the ground. That surely must raise questions on the two post mortem examinations which concluded that he had died of a heart attack and an abdominal haemhorrage respectively.

At the same time, the truth on what didn’t happen on the 11th of September 2001 seems to be permeating through. One mystery has been why the left has been so quiet. George Galloway MP has a regular Talksport radio show on his website, and on Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18, he held a phone-in on 9/11. Opening the show, he said that he stil lholds Islamic extremists responsible, but a recent chance meeting with Tom Kiley in New York has planted seeds of doubt in his mind.

"Soon into the second show George Galloway admits "it's hard to see scientifically why both of the Towers fell down in the way that they did and it'spractically impossible for me to see how Building 7 could have fallen inthe way it did"

These particular broadcasts turned out to be amongst his most popular. The full broadcasts are on his website:

Part 1: 33 minutes

Part 2: 38 minutes

Author Naomi Wolf, author of ‘The End of America’, published in April 2007, has now published a DVD, which updates the book by bringing it into the Obama era. Details are on her website







In short, the ten steps are:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy,
2. Create a gulag,
3. Develop a thug caste,
4. Set up an internal surveillance system,
5. Harass citizens' groups,
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release,
7. Target key individuals,
8. Control the press,
9. Dissent equals treason,
10. Suspend the rule of law.




At the time I tried to bring to the attention of the British Esperanto Congress Step 5 (Harass citizens' groups), because I think that any membership association needs to be aware of this. What happens in the US is likely to follow in the UK. Membership associations, I think, should be seen much more as a litmus test for society as a whole. People don’t seem to make the connection, but I think we all need to be much more vigilant on the small things. The continued shift to a fascist state is further considered in an new Alex Jones video, ‘The Obama Deception’.






“The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests ofthe American people.“

The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery. “We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Order's plans. It's not about Left or Right: it's about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves on a Global Plantation.“ Covered in this film: who Obama works for, what lies he has told,and his real agenda.

If you want to know the facts and cut through all the hype, this is the film for you.” Just what a shift to a fascist state means is described by trends forecaster Gerald Celante, head of The Trends Research Institute.


Russia Today sent out an interview with him on April 19, headed “America lives in a fascist state”. Fascism, according to Mussolini, is the merger of corporate and government powers. That, according to Gerald Celante, has come to the US in broad daylight. “It’s a two-headed one-party system”, he said.


I wonder who rules Britain. So how has the economic meltdown come about?

“The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One”, says a leading US expert in fraud prevention, Bill Black. That’s the topic of an interview in the Bill Moyers Journal


and the title of a book he authored in 2005 entitled

The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry

In this amazing video interview on the current financial meltdown, Bill Black explains how the current financial meltdown was brought about by fraud, enabled by deregulation by the Bush administration. An important part of this was brought about with fraudulent “liars’ loans”. The toxic loans were deliberately created so that swindlers could exploit them. The system became a gigantic ponzi scheme. The FBI warned about thisbefore 9/11, but FBI agents were transferred to work on 9/11, and so their warning went unheeded. The Government was working with the industry to destroy regulation. He says that they don’t want to changethe bankers because if they did they’d put honest people in. It was themost elitist of institutions in America that were engaging in orfacilitating fraud, he said. The tragedy of this crisis, he said, isthat it didn’t need to happen. And neither did 9/11.