Elish Angiolini grew up in Govan in Glasgow and studied Law at the University of Strathclyde, graduating in 1982. Immediately after graduation she joined the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and, following her traineeship, spent 8 years as a Depute Procurator Fiscal in Airdrie, prosecuting in Airdrie Sheriff Court.

In 1992 she moved to Crown Office to work as part of the Lord Advocate’s Secretariat, when she developed her now long-standing interest in improving the support offered to vulnerable victims and witnesses, and in particular children. She also provided contributions to and comment on the development of Westminster policies and legislation affecting the criminal justice system in Scotland.

She was appointed Senior Depute Procurator Fiscal at Glasgow, taking on operational responsibility for the running of Sheriff and Jury trials, before being appointed Assistant Procurator Fiscal at Glasgow in 1995.

In 1997 she was appointed Head of Policy in the Crown Office, with responsibility for the development of policy across all functions of the Department. In particular, she helped the department prepare for devolution and was involved in the preparation of the Scotland Act 1998. At the same time, she was responsible for the department’s preparations for the introduction of the European Convention on Human Rights.

She was appointed as Regional Procurator Fiscal for Grampian and the Highlands and Islands in July 2000 based in Aberdeen, the first woman to hold such a post.

She was installed as Solicitor General for Scotland on 5 December 2001 – again the first woman, the first Procurator Fiscal and the first solicitor to hold the post. She was installed as Lord Advocate on 12 October 2006. She remains Lord Advocate following the change in administration at the last election, the first to do so in a modern era – and is now continuing to take forward the most wide-ranging programme of modernisation in the department’s history.

Since her appointment she has taken on particular responsibility for the approach to cases involving our most vulnerable victims – the national roll out of Victim Information and Advice service followed her piloting of that initiative when she was the Area Procurator Fiscal of Aberdeen, but she has also ensured that prosecutors have provided skilled and enthusiastic support to youth courts, the domestic violence court in Glasgow, and the Drugs courts.

She has personally chaired the Departments’ Strategy Group on Diversity and helped victims from minority communities achieve greater confidence in the prosecution service. Her leadership in the area of domestic violence was recognised last year by the charity Zero Tolerance when she was given their inaugural “Women in the public Eye” award – one of several awards and distinctions she has received during her time in office.

The recent review of the investigation and prosecution of rape and sexual crimes which she instigated was a major undertaking which will result in profound changes to prosecution practices.

While she respects the strengths of the criminal justice system and the independence of its component parts she is unapologetically a moderniser, determined to ensure that the prosecution service in Scotland grows in strength to deal robustly with the challenges of crime in the 21st century.

It is a service which has increased its efficiency and effectiveness, recently transforming the way in which High Court cases are prepared and which has become more open, accessible and visible in our communities. That process will continue with energy and focus.

She is married with two children.

• Strathclyde University – Alumnus of the Year 2002
• National Children’s Homes – Women of Influence 2003
• Glasgow Caledonian University – Honorary Doctor of Laws 2005
• Zero Tolerance – Elsie Inglis Awards ‘Woman in the Public Eye Award’ 2006
• Strathclyde University – Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws – May 2007
• Aberdeen University – Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws – July 2007

Popularity: 7% [?]

Gordon Brown has been ordered to release information before the general election about his controversial decision to sell Britain’s gold reserves.

By Holly Watt and Robert Winnett

The decision to sell the gold – taken by Mr Brown when he was Chancellor – is regarded as one of the Treasury’s worst financial mistakes and has cost taxpayers almost £7 billion.

Mr Brown and the Treasury have repeatedly refused to disclose information about the gold sale amid allegations that warnings were ignored.

Following a series of freedom of information requests from The Daily Telegraph over the past four years, the Information Commissioner has ordered the Treasury to release some details. The Treasury must publish the information demanded within 35 calendar days – by the end of April.

The sale is expected to be become a major election issue, casting light on Mr Brown’s decisions while at the Treasury.

Last night, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, demanded that the information was published immediately. “Gordon Brown’s decision to sell off our gold reserves at the bottom of the market cost the British taxpayer billions of pounds,” he said. “It was one of the worst economic judgements ever made by a chancellor.

“The British public have a right to know what happened and why so much of their money was lost. The documents should be published immediately.”

Between 1999 and 2002, Mr Brown ordered the sale of almost 400 tons of the gold reserves when the price was at a 20-year low. Since then, the price has more than quadrupled, meaning the decision cost taxpayers an estimated £7 billion, according to Mike Warburton of the accountants Grant Thornton.

It is understood that Mr Brown pushed ahead with the sale despite serious misgivings at the Bank of England. It is not thought that senior Bank experts were even consulted about the decision, which was driven through by a small group of senior Treasury aides close to Mr Brown.

The Treasury has been officially censured by the Information Commissioner over its attempts to block the release of information about the gold sales.

The Information Commissioner’s decision itself is set to become the subject of criticism. The commissioner has taken four years to rule on the release of the documents, despite intense political and public interest in the sales. Officials have missed a series of their own deadlines to order the information’s release, which will now prevent a proper parliamentary analysis of the disclosures.

It can also be disclosed that the commissioner has held a series of private meetings with the Treasury and has agreed for much of the paperwork to remain hidden from the public. The Treasury was allowed to review the decision notice when it was in draft form – and may have been permitted to make numerous changes.

In the official notice, the Information Commissioner makes it clear that only a “limited” release of information has been ordered.

Ed Balls, who is now the Schools Secretary, Ed Miliband, now the Climate Change Secretary, and Baroness Vadera, another former minister, were all close aides to the chancellor during the relevant period.

If the information is not released by the end of April, the Treasury will be in “contempt of court” and will face legal action. A spokesman said last night that the Treasury was not preparing to appeal against the ruling.

How auctions cost taxpayer £7bn

• The price of gold has quadrupled since Gordon Brown sold more than half of Britain’s reserves.
• The Treasury pre-announced its plans to sell 395 tons of the 715 tons held by the Bank of England, which caused prices to fall.
• The bullion was sold in 17 auctions between 1999 and 2002, with dealers paying between $256 and $296 an ounce. Since then, the price has increased rapidly. Yesterday, it stood at $1,100 an ounce.
• The taxpayer lost an estimated £7 billion, twice the amount lost when Britain left the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.
• The proceeds from the sales were invested in dollars, euros and yen. In recent years, most other countries have begun buying gold again in large quantities.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Notice at 17 seconds into this clip how Brown elbows a man out of the way to get at Mervyn King across the room. He then proceeds to give King the “Real Grip of a Master Mason”.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Originally published here: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=12246

By Mike James in Germany – 28 February 2010

In the early months of 2003, just prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq, and working in conjunction with a London-based freelance journalist who had thoroughly double-checked exposures published by the Scottish ‘Sunday Herald’ newspaper, I publicised details of a child-sex ring linked to senior ministers within the Blair government.

I initially published my findings, stemming from discreet leaks from a secret list provided by the American FBI to the ‘Sunday Times’ newspaper, and concomitantly discovered that Tony Blair had issued a gagging order to suppress all further discussion of a scandal that would most certainly have brought a swift end to his administration and made Britain’s collusion in the destruction of Iraq impossible.

The articles I wrote concerning the “Operation Ore” cover-up and the 100-year blackout order imposed upon the report concerning the Dunblane massacre of children used and abused by senior Scottish Labour government ministers can still be found here:

Alleged Pedophiles at Helm of Britain’s War Machine, Massive Cover-Up
www.propagandamatrix.com/alleged_pedophiles.html [Ref. 1]

Blair’s Protection of Elite Paedophile Ring Spells the End For His Career
www.propagandamatrix.com/blair_protection.html [Ref. 2]

Blackout in Britain: Alleged Pedophiles Helm Blair’s War Room
www.counterpunch.org/james01292003.html

Blackout in Britain: Alleged Paedophiles at Helm of Britain’s War Machine
http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8257

Tony Blair Caught Protecting Elite Paedophile Ring
http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8258

Cremation of Care: The New World Order and the Dunblane Shootings
www.cremationofcare.com/the_nwo_dunblane.htm

Dunblane Secret Documents Contain Letters by Tory and Labour Ministers
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=600

These stories, which also implicated the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith, former NATO Boss Lord Robertson, and the Svengali of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s rise to power, the flamboyant homosexual Peter Mandelson (now Lord Mandelson), were widely publicised on the Internet, excited debate within numerous online forums, and inspired Robert Kilroy-Silk’s former Veritas Party to undertake a detailed examination of the extent to which senior and junior ministers close to Gordon Brown were given free licence to engage in paedophiliac activities under the protection of the British intelligence services.

The Sunday Herald’s incendiary story (“Child Porn Arrests Too Slow”, 19 January 2003), written by its Home Affair’s correspondent Neil Mackay, disappeared rapidly from the Internet within weeks of my exposure. Mackay’s editor, at first cooperative, subsequently refused to answer any further enquiries put to him by myself and the freelance journalist Bob Kearley.

Each and every letter I sent to the British Home Office, Scotland Yard and the Sunday Times solicited not one single reply.

Lord Robertson, a self-confessed Freemasonic member of Edinburgh’s sinister “Speculative Society” lodge, who enjoyed a peculiarly close personal relationship with Thomas Hamilton, the mass murderer of abused children in Dunblane, failed to sue the Sunday Herald for libel and promptly disappeared from public life. Police records revealed that Robertson had helped expedite the process by which the Manchurian Candidate, Hamilton, already a convicted child molester with known affiliations to the British elite, was able to obtain gun licenses.

Roberston worked in collusion with Michael Forsyth (Secretary of State for Scotland), a fellow “Speculative Freemason” and Robert Bell, an associate of Malcolm Rifkind (British Foreign Secretary). Robertson, at the behest of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, had a vested interest in ‘wasting’ children who were beginning to talk.

On 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton, a former Boy Scout leader walked into Dunblane Primary School armed with two 9 mm pistols and two .357 Magnum revolvers. He killed sixteen small children and a teacher. The subsequent police investigation revealed that Hamilton had loaded the magazines for his Browning with an alternating combination of fully metal-jacketed and hollow point ammunition. This horrific event led to the banning of handguns in the UK. [How convenient.]

The Judge who conducted the inquiry into the atrocity, during which two teachers claimed to have seen another mysterious man “guiding” Hamilton onto the premises, was Lord Cullen. Cullen, also a member of the Freemasonic Speculative Society and an associate of Labour “Scottish Mafia” figures such as Lord Robertson, Tony Blair, John Reid and Gordon Brown, was accused by leading journalists and emergency service personnel of having achieved a cover-up.

According to journalist Marcello Mega, in The News of the World, 28 December 2003:

1. A top Scottish Freemason, Former Grand Master Lord Burton, has said that Lord Cullen’s inquiry into the Dunblane massacre was a cover-up.

Lord Burton says Cullen’s inquiry suppressed crucial information to protect high-profile legal figures.

2. These high-profile legal figures may belong to a secretive ‘Super-Mason’ group called The Speculative Society.

Lord Burton said: “I have learned of an apparent connection between prominent members of the legal establishment involved in the inquiry, and the secretive Speculative Society. The society was formed in Edinburgh University through Masonic connections so I accept that there might be a link by that route.” Reportedly, members of the Speculative Society have included Lord Cullen and a number of other judges, sheriffs and advocates.

3. Some of these high-profile people had links to the Queen Victoria School ‘where gunman Thomas Hamilton was allowed to roam free before the 1996 atrocity’.

4. Reportedly the police are investigating claims that pupils at Queen Victoria School were regularly taken away and sexually abused.

5. Former housemaster Glenn Harrison told the News of the World how he even found Hamilton, 43, creeping around the dormitories at night. He said Hamilton had close links to a top policeman. Glenn was never called to give evidence at the Cullen Inquiry.

6. Lord Burton said: “I tried repeatedly to raise concerns about the inquiry during my time in the Lords, and I was bullied and threatened by powerful peers loyal to the Conservative Government of the day, who warned me of dire consequences if I continued to embarrass them.” ( According to this source Cached – ‘Malcolm Rifkind’s friend and his then Chairman of his constituency party at Edinburgh Pentlands, Robert Bell, according to the front page lead of the Edinburgh Evening News on 23 March 1996, sold guns and ammunition to Thomas Hamilton only a few weeks before the Dunblane massacre, and it was reported he said he would sell him guns again.’)

8. Glenn Harrison had kept dozens of files from pupils alleging bullying and abuse while he was at the Queen Victoria School and wrote to parents warning of the dangers in 1991. It led to him being ousted from the school and just days before he left, police raided his home and confiscated the files.

9. Glenn states that Hamilton had been a friend of Ben Philip, the senior housemaster at QVS. Mr Philip died in December 1993, aged 46, when he fell from a ladder while hanging decorations.

http://scot-land.blogspot.com/2007/12/lord-cullen-dunblane-lockerbie.html

For William Burns’ further elucidation of the cover-up, please see Ref. 3.

Alan Milburn, a close ally of Tony Blair, also resigned dramatically from the senior benches of the Labour Party government shortly after Scotland Yard’s anti-paedophile investigation was suppressed by the Blair administration, citing the need to “spend more time with my family”.

For some reason, the abduction of Scottish children for the purpose of rape and murder, always closely linked to senior Labour Party political figures, continues unabated.

Pressure on Police to Release Paedophile Dossier
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article708514.ece

Although Labour Supremo Peter Mandelson’s alleged role in the kidnapping of young girls and boys for the “pleasuring” of the European Union’s elite commissioners in Brussels was the subject of intense speculation long before the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, I can now bring to a close all speculation as to the name of Tony Blair’s most “highly placed and senior politician” who fell not only under the scrutiny of Scotland Yard for crimes against children, but was also identified by the FBI as an active member of the paedophile ring run by Thomas Hamilton.

That name was first revealed to me by Norman Lamont at a private party in Clapham in 1986, during which time I worked as a scriptwriter for the British television media. Lamont later became Chancellor of the Exchequer under John Major’s Conservative administration. Following investigations in 2003 on both my and Bob Kearley’s part, that name cropped up time and time again, and I passed the details to Internet journalist Paul Joseph Watson.

Gordon Brown, the current British Prime Minister, is a practising paedophile whose activities are known not only to the British, American and Israeli intelligence services, but also by Rupert Murdoch and his senior editor at the Sunday Times.

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Michael James, an English patriot, is a blacklisted and surveilled former freelance journalist resident in Zionist-occupied Germany since 1992 with additional long-haul stays in East Africa, Poland and Switzerland. He advocates a Leaderless Resistance to destroy the Soviet European Union and is actively working towards a free and independent England.

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http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/columnist.asp?ID=25
http://gnosticliberationfront.com/mike_james_page_a_list_of_al.htm
http://rense.com/Datapages/mikejamesdat.htm

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Ref. 1

Alleged Pedophiles at Helm of Britain’s War Machine, Massive Cover-Up

Mike James

A child-sex scandal that threatened to destroy Tony Blair’s government last week has been mysteriously squashed and wiped off the front pages of British newspapers.

Operation Ore, the United Kingdom’s most thorough and comprehensive police investigation of crimes against children, seems to have uncovered more than is politically acceptable at the highest reaches of the British elite.

In the 19th of January edition of The Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay sensationally reported that senior members of Tony Blair’s government were being investigated for paedophilia and the “enjoyment” of child-sex pornography:

“The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician’s name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.

There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a ‘rolling’ Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur.”

The allegations are the most serious yet levelled at an administration that prides itself on the inclusion in its ranks of a high quota of controversial and flamboyant homosexual men, and whose First Lady, Cherie Blair, has come under the spotlight for her indulgence in pagan rituals that resemble Freemasonic rites. Unconfirmed information also suggests that the term “former Labour Cabinet minister” is misleading and that the investigation has identified a surprisingly large number of alleged paedophiles at the highest level of British government, including one very senior cabinet minister (known to Propaganda Matrix.com).

The Blair government has responded by imposing a comprehensive blackout on the story, effectively removing it from the domain of public discussion. Attempts on the part of this journalist to establish why the British media has not followed up on the revelations have met with a wall of silence. Editors and journalists of The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Mirror, The Sun, the BBC, Independent Television News and even The Sunday Herald have refused to discuss the matter.

Speaking from London, freelance journalist Bob Kearley told me: “Whether or not a D-Notice has been issued is not clear. But based on some of the feedback I’ve been getting it’s apparent that editors and media owners have voluntarily agreed not to cover the story at this time. Operation Ore is still being reported, but not in regard to government ministers, and it’s taking up very few column inches on the third or fourth page. Don’t forget that the intelligence services are involved here, and Blair is anxious to ensure that the scandal does not rock the boat at a time when the country is about to go to war.”

“You can imagine the effect this would have on the morale of troops who are about to commit in Iraq. In fact morale is reportedly quite low anyway, with service personnel throwing their vaccines into the sea en route to the battlefront and knowing how unpopular the war is with the British people. And a lot of squaddies I’ve met think there’s something weird going on between Bush and Blair. If you’re then told that the executive responsible for the conduct of the war is staffed by child-molesters … well, then Saddam suddenly looks like the sort of bloke with whom you can share a few tins [beer].”

[In an E mail to Paul Joseph Watson, Mike James identified his sources as "people I knew in London who used to work for the Treasury department throughout the 1980s, one being a private secretary at a senior level....my sources will definitely refuse to support my claims - both are doing extremely well financially and career-wise."]

References:

www.sundayherald.com/30813
www.sundayherald.com/29876
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/cherie/story/0,12713,857416,00.html

Ref. 2

Blair’s Protection of Elite Paedophile Rings Spells the End For His Career

Mike James

NATO boss and Blair government insider Lord Robertson has threatened to sue Scotland’s leading independent newspaper over internet allegations that he not only used his influence as a Freemason to procure a gun licence for child killer Thomas Hamilton, but was also a member of a clandestine paedophile ring reportedly set up by Hamilton for the British elite.

On 13 March 1996, Hamilton, armed with four hand-guns, opened fire on a junior school class, killing 16 children and one teacher before turning the gun on himself, shattering forever the idyllic 13th century Scottish town of Dunblane.

The controversy is certain to topple the Blair government, which has already issued a D-Notice to gag the press from revealing the names of known paedophiles within the British executive, including at least two senior ministers; and the case highlights the government’s antipathy toward the Sunday Herald and its brand of independent journalism that has, among other things, exposed the role played by the domestic security agency, MI5, in helping the IRA to carry out terrorist atrocities.

As reported by this journalist last month at Propaganda Matrix and Counter Punch, and by the Sunday Herald’s Home Affairs Editor, Neil Mackay, the British intelligence services are actively engaged in preventing any further child sex revelations that could incite further hostility to an already unpopular Prime Minister and destroy the morale of troops set to invade Iraq. An intelligence officer told Mackay that “a ‘rolling’ Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur.”

Some commentators, mindful that one of Tony Blair’s closest confidante’s is a practising paedophile, are even suggesting that this particular scandal, and not Blair’s repeated lies and fabricated reports in regard to Iraq, may well prove the downfall of a government mired in sleaze and corruption. The Sunday Times is reported to have obtained an FBI list of Labour MPs who have used credit cards to pay for internet child pornography, and Blair has responded by imposing a massive news blackout, failing however to stop the arrest of one of his most important aides, Phillip Lyon.

The latest allegations came to light following a campaign to lift the secrecy on the Dunblane massacre. Large sections of the police report were banned from the public domain under a 100-year secrecy order. Lord Cullen, an establishment insider, also omitted and censored references to the documents in his final report. Parents and teachers were advised to concentrate their efforts on a campaign to outlaw handguns instead of focusing on how the mentally unstable Freemason, already known by the police to be a paedophile, had obtained a firearms licence for six handguns. Hamilton allegedly enjoyed good relations with both local Labour luminary George Robertson and Michael Forsyth, the then Scottish Secretary of State and MP for Stirling. Forsyth congratulated and encouraged Hamilton for running a boy’s club. Hamilton was also found to have exchanged letters with the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth.

The rumours and allegations concerning Lord Robertson’s ties to Hamilton, and the possibility that the American intelligence services may be blackmailing Tony Blair into continued support for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, have been given fire by internet investigator and intelligence expert Michael Keaney:

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“An additional, and potentially explosive, aspect of US leverage over Blair is the FBI’s investigation of users of child porn websites which has already claimed a number of high profile scalps. [....] The biggest two fish that come to mind are indeed high profile: firstly there is George Robertson, who today has announced that he will step down as NATO Secretary General after four years and two months in the job. Were he to be fingered the fall out would be spectacular but short-lived — he’s been a long time out of the cabinet and is sufficiently distant from Tony to be regarded as not requiring the presentational finesse of a “rolling” Cabinet committee, whatever that might be. However, our second candidate is most certainly very closely identified with the prime minister, and retains a high profile [and] continues to operate at a very high level indeed, whether in Europe, Japan, or even the Middle East.”

“Peter Mandelson began political life as a member of the Communist Party, soon “seeing the light” and instead getting involved with the CIA/MI6-financed Socialist International youth wing and the Labour Party, through which he rose in parallel with his experience working at London Weekend Television with other A-list regulars like John Birt and Michael Maclay, now public mouthpiece of Hakluyt, the private sector spook outfit run by a bunch of “ex” MI6 types including the widow of ex-Labour leader John Smith. This sort of background and connections makes Mandelson very useful in the sort of corridors-and-alleyways diplomacy and networking that is the real substance of international relations and intelligence gathering. [....] If Mandelson is indeed the suspect, then the damage this could cause may fatally wound Blair.”

“An interesting development that may, or may not, be related to this, is the publication of an article in last Sunday’s Observer by David Aaronovitch. He and Mandelson are longtime friends, having been together in the Communist Party and at London Weekend TV. Aaronovitch was, until recently, a leading political commentator for the Independent, on whose “international advisory board” (the standard vanity collection of august persons put together for the ego of newspaper proprietors like Tony O’Reilly and Conrad Black) sits Peter Mandelson.”

“Since switching to the Guardian Media Group at the beginning of this year or thereabouts, Aaronovitch authored an article on child abuse in which he pleads for common sense to prevail, rather than the lynch mob: ‘Strangely I trust the police to act sensibly (because, like the analysts, they’ve seen it all): it’s the rest of us I worry about.’”

“That much depends upon the behaviour of the US Justice Department, which ultimately has responsibility for the investigation, must be a worry for Blair. One need only imagine how this must colour the views of John Ashcroft regarding the moral fibre of British cabinet ministers and the laxity of the prime minister who chose them in the first place. How easy would it be for the suspect to be named in a story that miraculously surfaced outside of the UK (thereby circumventing the D Notice and leading potentially to a re-run of the Spycatcher fiasco of 1987)?

“Whoever is on the suspects’ list, we can see that already this ‘rolling’ cabinet committee is busy leaking stories that serve at least to delay the shock of the inevitable, eventual revelation, buying valuable time if nothing else. Thus you can depend on the Guardian to save the day for Tony, and here’s some helpful tip-offs courtesy of MI6 that help to distract from what’s really going on, whilst bolstering the reputation for integrity and financial propriety that has marked Blair’s dealings with businesspeople like Bernie Ecclestone, Richard Desmond, Lakshmi Mittal, etc.”

“I have come to the considered conclusion,” says a correspondent of Keaney, William Palfreman, “that the events surrounding the Dunblane massacre, and the subsequent submissions to the Cullen enquiry that have been put under to 100 years of secrecy, far out weigh in political significance issues such as our opposition to the EU [and] what it entails. It is inconceivable that T Blair, Jack Straw [and] Gordon Brown can survive in office as this matter becomes known. It totally undermines the Labour government, and could easily be a case of the Queen feeling she has to use reserve powers to call an emergency general election, such would be the loss of confidence.”

“This scandal is far more important that anything that has happened here in living memory, in fact I can think of no parallel for it. It certainly pisses all over anything that happened to Kennedy or was done by Nixon. I am surprised, given the gravity of this matter, that [an] attempt has yet to be made on his life, for surely we are dealing with desperate people here. It also explains a few strange things, such as just why T Blair & co. were so keen to ban all handguns, and why such obviously talentless nobodies like George Robertson have risen from being backbench nobodies a couple of years ago to Defence Secretary, and now Secretary-General of Nato.”

“[....] Now where in this is there a national security risk so great, that documents part of the public enquiry are now state secrets to be held for 100 years? Funny kind of public enquiry. Why, when Thomas Hamilton’s application for a gun licence was turned down, due to him being regarded as a man of unsound character [and] him being the object of several paedophilia investigations, did his MP, our friend George Robertson (now Lord Robertson, Secretary-General of NATO), write him a glowing character reference, and personally see to it that his application was successful, when he knew the grounds for the original refusal were because he was suspected of procuring boys for sexual services?”

“Or take a certain boat seized on Loch Ness [Loch Lomond] by the Strathclyde Police. It is a very rare thing for assets to be seized in the UK, as [there] are no asset-forfeiture laws. When it does happen, there is normally a trial at least, with things only being seized if they are proven to be bought with money proven to be consequence of a proven crime. Even then, they are sold by public auction. How come, then, was this very valuable boat sold for the tiny sum of £5000, without an auction, to none other than our friend Thomas Hamilton, a man of no financial means whatsoever, nor a sailor, nor lived anywhere near any open water. Why did not the boats owners complain about having their property stolen from them in this manner? I can only conclude because it was being used for some very serious criminal activity, and those on board were merely glad to escape prosecution. Also, it seems rather odd in such circumstances that not only were the owners happy to avoid prosecution enough to lose a valuable boat, but that the Strathclyde Police were not willing to prosecute. And yet, after these improbable events, it wound up in none other than our friend Hamilton’s hands. Could he have been a blackmailer as well as a paedophile?”

“But the main thing is what might explain sections of the public enquiry are now under the hundred year rule. There are only three levels of secrecy in the UK for state secrets, the 30 year rule, the 80 year rule and the 100 year rule. Normal secrets, like Cabinet discussions, government papers, espionage, all that, are under the 30 year rule. Only a very small number of things ever reached the 80 year rule, particularly events in the Sudan with Kitchener in 1902, where it seems that an act of genocide was committed, and some things that happened 1914-18, as well as things like potential peace negotiations in 1941, and just about everything to do with the IRA (after all, people are still alive after 30 years) come under the 80 year rule. Of them, the darkest of state secrets, when the events of ’02 were getting a bit close to their limit for comfort, a further class of secrets was created to last a hundred years, and tiny number of things were put in it – e.g. Kitchener in ’02, some World War I things.”

But none of these things can be said to apply to Dunblane. That was a case of a common criminal [and] sexual pervert committing some fairly ordinary murders, of a kind that happen from time to time. Even if a backbench Labour MP was implicated, or may have been involved in a large paedophile ring in Scotland, that is not a matter of vital national importance. You have a prosecution, there is a bit of a scandal, everyone is disgusted and one MP goes to prison. Big deal: such things happen. You certainly would not make such information a state secret just to save one unnamed backbench nobody’s miserable neck. Governments simply don’t go to such extreme lengths to save nobodies – power broking just doesn’t work like that. There must be issues of profound national importance working here, and I put it to you that anything that involves certain events in Scotland is more likely to be someone of cabinet level than anything else.

If the physiologically flawed [although Thomas Hamilton was these were the words of Tony Blair when speaking of Gordon Brown] Thomas Hamilton was the centre of a paedophile ring in Scotland that procured boys to people of the amongst the highest rank, and Tony Blair [and] Jack Straw covered this up by the Official Secrets Act (They would do the covering, as both the Prime Minister’s [and] Home Secretary’s permission is needed to put some something under the 100 year rule.) it is hard to see how they or their close colleges could possibly remain in office, even if they were never inclined to such flawed behaviour themselves. The government would fall.”

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That prospect seems to be energising a government now considered to be fighting for its political life, even to the extent of killing the review process by which some of the banned sections of the Cullen Report would be made public, arguing that freedom of information would somehow harm other abused children in Dunblane.

In a recent interview with the Guardian newspaper, Michael Matheson, the Scottish National Party’s shadow deputy justice minister, said: “There are more documents covered by the 100-year rule than this police report. Some of them have nothing whatsoever to do with children. We need to look at why such a lengthy ban has been imposed on them. I have been contacted by a number of families affected by the tragedy who are anxious to ensure this information becomes public. And so far we have no guarantee that it will. We only have a review.”

“It is important we make available, if it is at all possible, any information that is available about people in the public eye,” said the Scottish first minister, Jack McConnell.

When Tony Blair took office following a landslide victory in 1997, few commentators would have suggested that this man would be willing to drag his country into a war of unjustified aggression against a people that have done no harm to the British public. Nor would anyone have surmised that a Labour government would hitch its political fortunes to a shabby cabal of fanatical neoconservative Zionists working to make real their much-touted biblical Armageddon. And no one could have predicted that Blair’s nominally “Christian” administration would transform itself into a licentious club of flamboyant homosexual cruisers and out-of-control paedophiles.

But it is now becoming shockingly clear that the slavish adherence of Tony Blair and Jack Straw to the Bush line on Iraq may have less to do with principled arguments, and much more to do with the fear of CIA and FBI revelations that would make them two of the most hated politicians in modern British political history.

There is only one way out for Tony Blair – resign.

---

References:

Robertson considers action over web allegation
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=290762003

Alleged Pedophiles at Helm of Britain’s War Machine
www.propagandamatrix.com/alleged_pedophiles.html

Call to lift veil of secrecy over Dunblane
www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,895056,00.html

MP aide facing porn charge
www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002400885,00.html

Child porn arrests ‘too slow’
www.sundayherald.com/30813

Don’t look now
www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,877634,00.html

---

Ref. 3

“Perceptions” note: email below is from a long-time contributor. However, subject matter – a mass killing of school-children by a pedophile reputed to have had friends in power – might offend some.

Subject: VOMIT Burns / Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:01:55 EST / From: VOMITUK@aol.com

Victims Of Masonic Ill Treatment 10 January 2004

Foreword:

The unlawful sectioning of George Farquhar by the Royal Edinburgh Hospital on the basis that he accused Cullen on his Website of a Masonic cover-up of paedophiles in Scotland’s high society calls for the removal of Dr Chrichton from the medical register and the removal from the bench of Sheriff Lothian.

The same abuse of power and of the corruption of the psychiatric process by Carstairs State Hospital to silence Mr Arnold McCardle calls for similar penalties against the psychiatrists and judges involved in the McCardle case. Carstairs also has another paedophile friendly “doctor” who is being investigated for using the title “doctor”.

William Burns
18 Shore Road
South Queensferry
EH30 9SG
Tel: 0131 331 1855

6 January 2004
Bryan McConachie
Public Petitions Team Support
Room 5.16
Public Petitions Committee
Parliamentary Headquarters
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP

Dear Mr McConachie

THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT – SUBMISSION OF PUBLIC PETITIONS PE652 & PE685

In support of evidence submitted with the Public Petitions Committee in relation to the above petitions PE652 and PE685, please find enclosed a copy of an article of serious significance by Marcello Mega that appeared in the News of the World on Sunday, 28 December 2003. It further bolsters my earlier submitted News of the World article by Marcello Mega of 9 November 2003, along with an article that appeared in the Herald on Wednesday, 13 November 2003.

I apologise if I appear overly pushy with this supplication, but I am sure the entire PPC will appreciate the enormity of it, especially in the light of Lord Burton’s revelations in the News of the World.

The “News of the World Investigates” article by Marcello Mega, published on 28 December 2003, is typed out verbatim below.

The inquiry into the Dunblane massacre was a massive cover-up, a top Scots Freemason has sensationally claimed. Former Grand Master Lord Burton says that Lord Cullen’s official probe suppressed crucial information to protect high-profile legal figures.

He says they may belong to a secretive “Super-Mason” group called The Speculative Society. Some had links to the Queen Victoria School where gunman Thomas Hamilton was allowed to roam free before the 1996 atrocity. [ DUNBLANE SCHOOL KILLINGS ]

And Lord Burton revealed that he was bullied and threatened by other peers when he tried to raise his concerns in the House of Lords. Last night the 79 year-old aristocrat said: “There’s no escaping the fact that there’s something sinister about the whole affair.” He was prompted into action after reading in the News of the World last month that police are investigating claims that pupils at QVS were regularly taken away and sexually abused.

The Cullen Inquiry failed to investigate why suspected paedophile Hamilton was allowed to wander around the school whenever he liked, running camps and using the shooting range.

Former housemaster Glenn Harrison told us how he even found Hamilton, 43, creeping around the dormitories at night. He said Hamilton, who murdered 16 pupils and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School in 1996, had close links to a top cop. Glenn said he was aghast that he was never called to give evidence at the Cullen Inquiry.

He said: “I was one of the people who was making a fuss about Hamilton long before he killed those children, but no one wanted to listen.” Now Lord Burton has contacted him at his new home in the Shetland Islands, saying he believes Glenn wasn’t called to give evidence to avoid the embarrassment of top legal names being dragged into it.

The QVS is for schoolchildren of the military services and has long-standing links to high office; its current patron is the Duke of Edinburgh. Whoever holds the position of secretary of State for Scotland becomes president and Scotland’s second-most senior judge, the Lord Justice-Clerk, becomes a commissioner.

Lord Burton said: “I was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland at the time and I’m aware that most of the conspiracy theories around Dunblane revolve around allegations of a Masonic conspiracy. I do have some difficulty with that, but I have learned of an apparent connection between prominent members of the legal establishment involved in the inquiry, and the secretive Speculative Society. The society was formed in Edinburgh University through Masonic connections so I accept that there might be a link by that route. But Hamilton was never a Mason. His grandfather was.”

[Petitioner's interjection: Thomas Hamilton enrolled as a member of Lodge Garrowhill (Lanarkshire Middle Ward) No. 1413, Garrowhill Drive, Garrowhill, Glasgow, in 1977, the same year he was granted a firearms certificate. Without any shadow of a doubt, his files connecting him to Freemasonry would be destroyed after the atrocities on 13 March 1996.]

Current members of the Speculative Society include Lord Cullen and a number of other judges, sheriffs and advocates. Lord Burton has been trying for years to get to the bottom of the conspiracy theories, using his influence in the House of Lords until the reforms meant he was no longer entitled to sit in Westminster. Last night he said: “I tried repeatedly to raise concerns about the inquiry during my time in the Lords, and I was bullied and threatened by powerful peers loyal to the Conservative government of the day, who warned me of dire consequences if I continued to embarrass them.”

[Petitioner's interjection - Bear in mind, Malcolm Rifkind was the Foreign Secretary at the time - and they do not come much higher in government than that - and Malcolm Rifkind's friend and his then Chairman of his constituency party at Edinburgh Pentlands, Robert Bell, according to the front page lead of the Edinburgh Evening News on 23 March 1996, sold guns and ammunition to Thomas Hamilton only a few weeks before the Dunblane massacre, and it was reported he said he would sell him guns again. I sent this information to Lord Cullen in a letter dated 27 February 2003, a copy with which the Public Petitions Committee were all provided as additional evidence to PE652.]

But the determined peer pressed on and on and in 1999, asked a question in the Lords which revealed that documents from the inquiry had been locked up for 100 years.

Among them was a police report revealing that Hamilton had been accused of sexually abusing boys and had been considered by some officers unfit to hold a firearms licence.

Lord Burton added: “We still need to know why that was necessary. Who was the secrecy protecting?”

Although the official reason is to protect the families of possible abuse victims, it’s unusual for documents to be locked up unless for matters of national security.

In July, Dunblane ambulance worker Sandra Uttley told the News of the World how she and friend Doreen Hagger had drawn up a 50-point, 5,000-word dossier calling for secrecy surrounding the tragedy to be lifted. They claimed that dozens of questions have gone unanswered and crucial lines of enquiry were ignored. Former ambulance worker Sandra said: “There may be other individuals who should face prosecution.”

Glenn Harrison had kept dozens of files from pupils alleging bullying and abuse while he was at the QVS and wrote to parents warning of the dangers in 1991. It led to him being ousted from the school and just days before he left, police raided his home and confiscated the files. When Glenn read Sandra’s story, he went back to the police – and this time they agreed to investigate.

Last night he said he in turn had been glad to receive the call from Lord Burton … He added: “I’ve been making noises for years and I sometimes despair and think it’s time to just accept we’ll never get to the truth. “But I think we owe it to all the people who were so affected by the killings to continue to demand questions that were never asked.”

Glenn told us that Hamilton had been a friend of Ben Philip, the senior housemaster at QVS. Mr Philip died in December 1993, aged 46, when he fell from a ladder while hanging decorations. Glenn said: “They were friends so Hamilton was a regular visitor to the school and I was introduced to him. “Ben Philip was a decent guy who was very trusting. I think he thought he and Hamilton shared interests in things like the outdoors, and he couldn’t see that Hamilton had another motive for wanting to be around the school.

“Hamilton ran camps in the school grounds and he used the shooting range freely. He came and went as he pleased, almost as if he owned the place, and no one has ever tried to explain why he had such freedom. I am still haunted by the memory of pick up my newspaper on March 14 1996 and reading about what had occurred at Dunblane Primary School the day before. I just knew the killer had to be Thomas Hamilton. He should have been stopped.”

Demands have already been made to the Scottish Executive to investigate the influence of the Speculative Society. It was formed in 1764 as an off-shoot of the Masons and has counted Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Hugh McDiarmid among its most celebrated members.

The Spec, as it is known, is described by its members as a debating club. They meet in candlelit vaults below Edinburgh University’s Old College in the winter. Prospective members are normally approached while still studying at the university. Its membership – which was secret until a year ago – reads like a Who’s Who of the rich and powerful in Scotland.

Campaigners were determined to reveal the membership amid concerns, many expressed by senior lawyers who are not members, of the disproportionate influence the Spec is said to wield. One legal figure who has long been suspicious of the Spec said: “Members laugh off the suspicions and say it’s just a debating club. But, given that the members are picked as undergrads and almost without exception go on to reach the pinnacle of their careers, you have to think either that those making the selection are very astute at spotting potential, or that membership gives you a big leg up in life. I know which option I favour.”

I will be much obliged if you could respond at your earliest convenience. Please also keep me abreast of any progress with PE652, which was heard over two months ago, and of any proposed date for the hearing of PE685.

Yours sincerely

WILLIAM BURNS

Publisher: VOMIT UK Group Fax/Phone 020 7727 5300
file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/dunbla33.txt

Lord Robertson, who was intimately involved with events leading to the massacre and subsequently disappeared from public life

Popularity: 26% [?]

London, England (CNN) — In the shadow of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and surrounded in all directions by monuments to the British establishment, protesters called Friday for Tony Blair to face war crimes charges as the former prime minister gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry.

“Blair lied, thousands died!” and “Tony Blair! War criminal!” chanted the few hundred who had gathered under gray and damp early morning skies, separated from the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre by chain-link fencing and dozens of police officers.

Some protesters donned rubber Blair masks and posed behind bars, their hands covered in theatrical blood representing those killed during the war in Iraq. Many said they wanted to see Blair put on trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

“We’re calling for Tony Blair to be arrested for war crimes because of the illegal war on Iraq,” said Susan Clarkson, dressed in a judge’s wig and a red robe and claiming to represent a group called Judges for Justice.

At a nearby stall a woman selling “JAIL TONY” t-shirts was also doing a brisk trade in plastic handcuffs. “We’ll see if we can get them on Tony later,” she said.

Many protesters were disappointed that Blair, who had apparently entered the conference centre through a back entrance, hadn’t faced the crowd. Andrew Murray, the leader of the Stop the War Coalition which had organised the protest, accused the former prime minister of “sneaking in two hours early” for his 9.30 a.m. appointment with John Chilcot and his fellow inquisitors.

But student Suad Mikar said the protesters intended to let Blair know they were there. “I’m sure he can hear us,” said the 20-year-old. “That’s what matters, we don’t need him to see us. He knows everyone’s opinion about it.”

Politicians, musicians and campaigners were among those who read from a list of victims of the Iraq war, including coalition troops and Iraqi civilians, many who remained nameless.

“Wife of man killed, age unknown,” the list read. “Child of Razzaq al Qassam. Child of Razzaq al Qassam. Wife of Razzaq al Qassam…”

Estimates over the number of people who have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion have been difficult to quantify and a source of argument.

The Iraqi Human Rights Ministry said in October 2009 that 85,694 people had been killed since 2004. The independent Iraq Body Count project reported in August 2009 that it estimated as many as 102,071 civilian deaths since the beginning of the invasion.

Left-wing lawmaker George Galloway said that Blair’s actions in Iraq were “more terrible than the crimes of Macbeth” and called on the former prime minister to “commit harakiri in front of the world” on the steps of the conference center.

Musician Brian Eno said Blair deserved to be remembered for “his weakness and his arrogance.”

Tim Summers said Britain was a “rogue state ” and called on Blair “to present himself at The Hague on war crimes charges.”

Sabah Jawad, an Iraqi man now living in the UK and a member of Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation, said he disagreed with Blair’s claim that life in Iraq was better now than under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“Any politician who finds himself in a similar situation will think again about the possibility of ending up here as Blair has.”
–Paul Seed

“The Iraqi people have been seeking justice for the atrocities that were committed against them since 2003,” he said. “They are still paying a very high price for this illegal and immoral act and those responsible should face criminal charges.”

Paul Seed, a retired statistician, said he had opposed UK involvement in the so-called “War on Terror” since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and said Blair’s appearance at the inquiry was the end of a “long and very painful process of being lied to.”

But he said he hoped the inquiry would influence the thinking of future politicians.

“Any politician who finds himself in a similar situation will think again about the possibility of ending up here as Blair has,” said Seed.

“He is not likely to go to prison, he is not going to lose financially but he is certainly going to be acutely embarrassed and his legacy is going to be severely damaged. For any politician that is a severe price to pay.”

Historian Richard Gott said Blair remained “hugely controversial and hugely disliked” in Britain, adding: “I think eventually he’ll have to retire and live abroad because I think he’ll be hounded for years to come.”

But he said the inquiry had been a “very illuminating account of what goes on in government.”

“The unspoken assumption of the inquiry is that what happened was an absolute disaster,” he said. “I think that on the whole it’s been a very, very positive inquiry and will eventually produce an extremely damning report.”

But protesters at the site of a small anti-war vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament were keeping their distance from the main protest.

One of them, Brian Haw, who has camped at the site since 2001, refused to speak to CNN. But Babs Tucker dismissed the Iraq inquiry as a “media circus.”

“They are having an inquiry in a cupboard behind the supreme court,” said Tucker, who joined the protest four years ago and has camped there ever since. “It is an affront to everything that is decent. The whole thing is a joke.”

Popularity: 5% [?]

A Man was put on probation for a year yesterday after admitting possessing four sexual photographs of children. Stephen Watt had the pictures at his home at Culter. Watt, 50, of 39 St Ronan’s Drive, admitted possessing the indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children, between May 11, 2004, and June 3, 2004. Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard the photographs had come on to his computer screen as pop- ups when he was on a legitimate adult pornography website. Sheriff Graeme Buchanan also put Watt on the sex offenders’ register for a year.

Sentence deferred

A MAN who admitted touching a woman’s bottom in a nightclub in Aberdeen has had his sentence deferred for good behaviour. John Singer, 21, approached the woman from behind and groped both her buttocks, Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard yesterday. Singer, of 23F Pittodrie Street, Aberdeen, admitted the assault, which happened in Exodus in Schoolhill on September 7. His sentence was deferred to July 25. Sheriff Graeme Buchanan ordered a social inquiry report and told Singer he will be put on the sex offenders’ register for a period.

Popularity: 5% [?]

MSPs have approved the appointment of Elish Angiolini as Scotland’s first female lord advocate.

Ms Angiolini was nominated as Scotland’s new senior law officer by First Minister Jack McConnell after Colin Boyd’s sudden resignation.

Her nomination was broadly welcomed by MSPs at Holyrood but the Scottish Conservatives raised concerns about judicial independence.

Ms Angiolini is lord advocate-designate pending formal royal appointment.

She was solicitor general for five years prior to her new appointment and was put in temporary charge following Mr Boyd’s decision to go on Wednesday.

Scottish National Party Holyrood group leader Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the appointment but questioned the post’s dual role.

Tory Leader Annabel Goldie also voiced “real concerns” about the chief legal adviser to the Scottish Cabinet being the country’s leading prosecutor.

She said: “There is a real and visible conflict of interest.”

Ms Goldie proposed a commission to examine the “proper separation of powers, responsibilities and duties” in relation to the post.

The Scottish Tory leader also questioned whether Ms Angiolini had the “breadth of legal experience” for the job and said she opposed John Beckett QC as the new solicitor general, because he was a Labour member.

Earlier, Ms Angiolini described her nomination as “a great responsibility”.

“I am extremely honoured to have been nominated by the first minister for this historic appointment,” she said.

“It is both a huge honour and privilege but also a very great responsibility.

‘Huge honour’

“There is still a great deal to be done in the justice system to ensure that, as Nelson Mandela said, prosecutors defend the rights of the weakest and the worst among us.”

She said her appointment as the first female solicitor general had been “a huge leap of faith”.

“It has been a privilege over the past five years to serve along with Colin Boyd as lord advocate,” she said.

“He is a man of great integrity and has been a quiet revolutionary in setting about the way in which the prosecution has gone about its business.

“It has transformed over the past five years but that transformation is something which is a work in progress.”

Announcing his intention at a press conference in Edinburgh, Mr McConnell praised Ms Angiolini’s performance as solicitor general.

“Five years on, I have no doubt whatever that the appointment of Elish Angiolini as solicitor general is one of the best decisions I have made as first minister of Scotland,” he said.

“Our prosecution services today are admired, not ridiculed.

“Victims and witnesses see justice implemented in the system, not delays or chaos.”

He cited other changes implemented by Ms Angiolini, including improvements in the way rape cases are prosecuted.

“In Scotland’s lord advocate I want to have a moderniser, someone who will help with and understand the implementation of our government’s policy,” he said.

“But also someone who will be honest and consistent in their legal advice to cabinet and to ministers.

“I want someone who will make independent decisions on prosecution with the integrity that the holder of this office has always had.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, has announced that he is stepping down after six years in the post.

Mr Boyd was at the pinnacle of the Scottish legal establishment, leading the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

During his time in charge he has overseen legislation enacted in a newly devolved Scotland and some of the most high profile cases of recent years.

His first major challenge came shortly after his appointment in 2000.

The bombing of a United States-bound Pan Am flight in 1988 with the deaths of 270 people has been regarded as the worst crime in Scottish legal history.

After much diplomatic wrangling, Libyans Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah were put on trial in unique legal proceedings at a special high security courtroom in the Netherlands.

Three judges heard the evidence without a jury in 2001 and found Megrahi guilty, sentencing him to life imprisonment. Fhimah was acquitted.

Prison sentence

Five judges then heard an appeal in 2002 from Megrahi and decided that the guilty verdict should stand but the legal wrangling continues.

Megrahi’s legal team is challenging his 27-year minimum prison sentence and the Crown Office is arguing for a longer sentence.

In February 2006, Lord Boyd was drawn into the fingerprint case involving former police officer Shirley McKie.

She was wrongly accused of leaving her thumb print at a murder scene in January 1997.

Lord Boyd has been criticised for his decision not to prosecute Scottish Criminal Records Office officials.

Tam Dalyell, the former MP, asked Lord Boyd to review his position while former MSP Mike Russell maintained that he could not continue as lord advocate.

In 2002, Lord Boyd admitted that his office had “failed” the family of Surjit Singh Chhokar while prosecuting two men accused of murdering the 32-year-old waiter.

His remarks came after two independent reports identified failings in the way the case was handled by the police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

While in office, Mr Boyd oversaw reforms of the high court system, recommended by Lord Bonomy.

However, he has expressed disappointment at being unable to see through proposals on the independence of the judiciary, affected by the illness of the Lord President, Lord Hamilton.

He has overseen the introduction of youth courts and the implementation of modern technology, with changes in working practices in local courts.

The way rape victims were treated in Scottish courts was re-examined by the lord advocate when a teenage rape victim committed suicide after being forced to give harrowing evidence to a jury.

The Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) Act 2002 was introduced after an inquiry into Lindsay Armstrong’s death concluded that she had killed herself after enduring a brutal cross-examination in court.

Popularity: 3% [?]

‘Cronyism’ controversy reignited as leaked list of new peers includes Labour’s millionaire friends

By Marie Woolf, Political Editor

Sunday, 23 October 2005

Tony Blair is to reward a clutch of millionaire Labour Party donors – including the head of the Priory celebrity rehabilitation clinic – with peerages, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.

In a move that will trigger a fresh row over “cash for honours”, Mr Blair is to elevate to the Lords four businessmen who between them have given almost half a million pounds to the party.

A leaked list of forthcoming honours shows that Dr Chai Patel, a high- profile Labour donor who runs the Priory clinics, is among those who has been personally recommended for a peerage by Mr Blair.

The Prime Minister is also set to elevate to the peerage Sir Gulam Noon, who has made millions from ready-made curries and given more than £220,000 to Labour since 2001.

Mr Blair also plans to add to the next list of working peers businessmen who have been financially supportive of his flagship projects, including city academies.

The list includes Sir David Garrard, a millionaire property developer knighted in January 2003 for charity work, who gave £200,000 to Labour the following May. Sir David has been a leading sponsor of the Government’s “academy schools” programme, contributing £2.4m to the flagship city academy in Bexley, south-east London.

The peerages are vetted by an independent committee of peers and there is no suggestion of impropriety. But the decision of the Prime Minister to award more peerages to prominent Labour donors is expected to reignite a fresh “cronyism” row and cause deep unease among Labour MPs. Last night, Tam Dalyell, a Labour party member for 50 years who, until his retirement as an MP earlier this year, was Father of the House of Commons, said: “This leaves Harold Wilson’s notorious honours list in 1976 smelling like roses.”

Another figure who has been recommended for a peerage is Barry Townsley, a millionaire stockbroker, who gave £6,000 to the Labour Party in May this year. Mr Townsley is reported to have given £10,000 to Frank Dobson’s failed campaign to become Labour candidate for Mayor of London, as well as an estimated £5,000 to the Labour Party between 1998 and 2000-01.

The City figure has also been a generous supporter of the Government’s Academy scheme, and is reported to have sponsored Stockley Academy in Hillingdon. He is believed to have invested around £1m in the Government’s flagship educational scheme. City academies were set up by Mr Blair in an attempt to tackle underachievement in deprived urban areas but have been beset by controversy.

This is not the first time Mr Blair has faced criticism over awarding donors or Labour supporters honours.

The Prime Minister was heavily criticised last year when he appointed Dr Paul Drayson, a Labour donor who founded the vaccine company PowderJect, one of 23 new Labour peers.

The leaked list, obtained by The Independent on Sunday, marked “Restricted – Appointments”, shows that Mr Blair has personally proposed the millionaire donors as peers.

Sir David Garrard was a co-founder of the Minerva Corporation, the property company that controlled the failed department store group Allders.

Dr Patel, one of the architects of the Government’s policies on the elderly and an adviser on the Department of Health’s older people’s taskforce, is believed to have given more than £5,000 to Labour.

Sir Gulam, estimated to be worth £50m, founded Noon products in 1989, and expanded it into the Noon group. Knighted in 2002, he recently made an outspoken defence of Mr Blair’s immigration policies. The multi-millionaire Muslim businessman, who employs more than 300 settled refugees at his food company’s manufacturing base, said that immigrants who did not respect British values should “get out of the country”.

Those who refused to embrace British traditions should “go back to whatever you regard as your home country and leave us in peace”. His remarks were regarded within Whitehall as “helpful” to Downing Street.

The new list of peers does not include Rachel Whetstone, former chief aide to Michael Howard, the outgoing Tory leader, or Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate. Reports that they were likely to obtain peerages were incorrect.

Mr Blair faced criticism last year for putting Labour “cronies” in the Lords.

Last year Mr Blair’s personal pollster, Philip Gould, and the former Labour Party general secretary Margaret McDonagh were given peerages. Another prominent Labour donor given a peerage by Mr Blair is Lord Sainsbury, who is the science minister. The papers show that Downing Street believes the new peers will make a “valuable contribution to the work of the House of Lords”.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Article originally at www.thetruthseeker.co.uk (here). The original article was deleted but is on archive.org (here).

News Brief – October 18, 2005

Scroll down to ‘Comment’ for details on Gordon Brown’s past, indiscretion is too light a term for this. And whatever you call it, like Blair’s time as an informant, it provides the ‘Powers that be’ a handle whereby they can control him with threats of exposure. Ed.

Ex-MI5 officer David Shayler appeared at a public meeting in Bristol last week to promote his latest book.

His address was covered in the local newspaper, the Bristol Evening Post, but thus far none of the national media have reported it.

This maybe because of what Shayler actually had to say. For a start he believes Dr David Kelly was an MI6 agent who was murdered and that Tony Blair worked for MI5 before he became Labour leader.

Unfortunately, Shayler’s exact words were not reported, making it difficult to assess the claim. Luckily, I found a recording of his words…

Shayler was speaking to 9/11 sceptics in Bristol. They showed a video, then he spoke and took questions. The topic moved from 9/11 to the July 7th bombings in London. Shayler suspects the British security services might have had a hand in 7/7. An audience member asked about MI5′s possible complicity in 7/7, and, if so, whether Tony Blair’s government was involved or were kept in the dark. This was Shayler’s response [my transcription]:

Yeah, I mean, I don’t know how involved Blair is – it’s a difficult question to answer. I mean, certainly I know, as I say, the intelligence services do things behind the backs of government, the cabinet and parliament – it’s very easy in this country to do that, as there’s no oversight of the services. And, in some ways, they don’t want the government to know, so, when they are sent out to deny these things, as Robin Cook was, they can do it looking honest, basically.

But I think the only way we can explain Blair’s behaviour is that he is blackmailable by the intelligence services. I know that the intelligence services have files on most of the Labour government because I saw some of the files while I was there. In fact … [inaudible audience interjections, laughter] …Well, one of the things I want to tell you is that – I actually, I didn’t see this myself, I must admit – but somebody who was reviewing Blair’s file, this was when Blair was unknown really, in 1992, not particularly well known, told me that Blair was an MI5 agent. In the 1980s he’d reported on members of CND and the so-called Trotskyists in the Labour Party.

Now, I’ve tried to get to the bottom of this, it’s very difficult. But it would in some way explain why he does what he does, basically, because he’s actually a stooge, he’s one of them, basically.

Shayler may be wrong about many things, but he’s right that the Blair-as-MI5-agent report has much explanatory value. But whether Blair needed to be blackmailed to act for MI5 is another matter – Blair’s naivity, vanity and ambition, coupled with the state of the Labour Party in the 80s – may have been sufficient motivation for him to inform on “left-wing extremists” to his MI5 contacts. (But then that act of informing might itself become a blackmailable vulnerability, so perhaps Shayler’s right after all.)

I dread to think what might be in Gordon Brown’s file.

Comment

We received the above from an individual who will remain anonymous. Nonetheless, it is plausible and explains why Blair went to war in Iraq, despite massive public opposition. Quite simply, he was ordered to go to war by those who effectively controlled his political fortunes. Had he not done so his past as a former informant might have been revealed, putting an end to his career in politics once and for all.

As to what secrets they might have on Blair’s likely successor Gordon Brown? We are reliably informed that photos exist of Blair’s deputy with a male prostitute – which obviously also makes him eminently blackmailable and a prime figure for manipulation and thus a suitable replacement for Blair.

Still, Brown may not be the only sexual deviant in the ranks of Blair’s cabinet. For in March 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq, new revelations linking the Dunblane killings with senior British politicians involved in paedophile rings, looked set to threaten Tony Blair’s continued premiership.

However, the Iraq invasion distracted people long enough for secrecy orders to be placed on documents pertaining to the scandal. So that the documents, said to name George Robertson, the current head of NATO, wont see the light of day for another 100 years, long after the offenders are dead. Ed.

Popularity: 3% [?]