The Co-operative Party Is Launching 'The Feeling's Mutual Campaign,

Today the Co-operative Party is launching 'The Feeling's Mutual', a campaign to build a better economy which puts the needs of ordinary people first.

Mutual financial organisations like building societies, the Co-op Bank and credit unions have weathered the economic crisis better than high street banks. Because they are owned and controlled by their customers, they have taken fewer risks and put the interests of ordinary people first.

So we think that those banks that failed us, like Northern Rock, should become mutuals.

It's time to remind people why mutuals matter.

Thatcher and the Conservative governments of the 80s and 90s wreaked great damage on mutuals and their savers and borrowers by encouraging short-term greed and the de-mutualisation of many building societies - often long-standing local institutions. By joining our campaign, you can help reverse the damage the Conservatives and their fat cat friends did to our building societies.

Want a safe place for your money?

Want an economy that puts people before profit?

Think the Government should re-mutualise the failed banks?

The feeling's mutual.


If you support our campaign, there are plenty of ways to find out more, show your support and spread the word. Please visit our website www.thefeelingsmutual.org.uk and keep checking back for updates.

There you can also check out our campaign video with Treasury Select Committee Chair John McFall MP, Labour Co-operative MP Mark Lazarowicz, and candidates Stella Creasy, Stephen Twigg, Rachel Reeves and Andrew Pakes talking about why they support this campaign.

We have also produced campaigning materials for local Co-operative Party branches and candidates to use to get support in your local communities. Get in touch if you want supplies - we're sending them out this week.

http://www.thefeelingsmutual.org.uk

Brown Formally Supports Tony Blair As Candidate For 'President Of Europe'

Post will be created as early as January once the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified. The endorsement of Tony Blair was announced by Baroness Kinnock

Tony Blair won the formal backing of Gordon Brown yesterday as Britain's candidate to become the first "President of Europe".

Downing Street endorsed Baroness (Glenys) Kinnock, the Europe minister, who said in Strasbourg: "The UK Government is supporting Tony Blair's candidature for President of the [European] Council." Asked if the prospect had been discussed with Mr Blair, she said: "It is the Government's position. I am sure they would not do that without asking him." Mr Brown's spokesman said: "What the Prime Minister supports is Tony Blair's candidature for the President of the European Council if Tony Blair decides that that is what he would like to do and as and when such a position exists."

The post would be created, possibly as early as next January, if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. The biggest remaining hurdle is a second referendum in Ireland in October, but opinion polls suggest people will vote Yes this time.

Allies of Mr Blair said he was not campaigning actively for the job but would be interested if it involved being a figurehead representing the European Union on the world stage. "He doesn't want to spend his time chairing meetings of EU leaders," one said.

The scope of the new post has not been defined. Brussels insiders warned that Mr Blair could miss out unless he shows he is hungry for it. "He has to really want it and work for it to be successful," one said. Even his critics admit Mr Blair is the most heavyweight of the candidates in the frame. But he faces opposition in some quarters. Some countries do not want Britain to land the post because it is not inside the eurozone and nor is it party to the "open borders" Schengen agreement. Although memories of Mr Blair's role in the Iraq war have faded, it still rankles for some European politicians.

Other potential candidates include Felipe Gonzalez, the veteran former Spanish prime minister. He is said to be favoured by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who initially championed Mr Blair. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is thought to be lukewarm about the idea of "President Blair".

William Hague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, said the former prime minister should be let "nowhere near the job". He said: "The creation of a new EU President could be enormously damaging for Europe. Any holder is likely to try to centralise power for themselves in Brussels and dominate national foreign policies. In the hands of an operator as ambitious as Tony Blair, that is a near certainty."

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: "There is no campaign. As we have said time and again on this, there is nothing to be a candidate for since the job doesn't actually exist."

Denis MacShane, Labour's former Europe minister, said: "Blair cannot avoid having his name being dragged into any list of names for top jobs. Does he really, really want it? Does he know himself?"

One EU official said: "The difficulty is that no one has come up with a proper job description. People say the exact nature of the job will be shaped by whoever is appointed, and whoever is appointed must be a former president or prime minister of a member state."

Award-winning Human Rights Campaigner Found Killed In Chechnya

I would like to send out my sincere condolences to the family of Natalia Estemirova who was found shot dead after being abducted outside her home. The Russian human rights activist was found dead today.

Russia's human rights record tonight came under severe criticism after one of the country's most famous human rights campaigners was abducted from her home in Chechnya and brutally murdered.

Natalia Estemirova was seized by four unknown men this morning as she left for work. Neighbours at her house in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, heard her shout: "I'm being kidnapped."

Her body was found near Gazi-Yurt village, in neighbouring Ingushetia. She had been shot twice in the head and chest, police said, adding that her corpse had been dumped on the main road.

Human rights activists expressed outrage at her murder, reminiscent of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist, writer, and bitter Kremlin critic shot dead outside her Moscow apartment in 2006.

Estemirova, 50, was a close friend of Politkovskaya's. The two had collaborated on numerous investigations into human rights abuses in Chechnya. Both were scathing opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Kremlin president.

"Natasha was at the forefront of some of the most intense human rights investigations in Chechnya," said Allison Gill, director of Human Rights Watch in Russia. "She was targeted because of her work. I have no doubt her killing was to silence her. One of the most amazing things about Natasha is that she never stopped doing what she was doing. She never checked herself. She was highly public in her calls for accountability.

"I think the human rights situation is in crisis in Russia," she added. "We have a deathly silence from the authorities whenever activists, lawyers or journalists are murdered. Not a single person is brought to justice."

Estemirova was the Chechnya-based head of Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights group.

Operating out of a small office in Grozny, she doggedly pursued stories of human rights abuses in the face of official intimidation and hostility.

She recently collaborated on two damning reports into punitive house burnings and extra-judicial killings in Chechnya, allegedly carried out by Kadyrov's forces. The reports documented how on 2 July his troops allegedly shot 20-year-old Madina Yunusova and her husband near Grozny.

Chechen officials claimed her husband had been involved in a plot to kill Kadyrov. Yunosova died three days later in hospital under mysterious circumstances.

"Natasha was always involved in the most sensitive cases. She knew what she was doing. She knew the risks," Shamil Tangiyev, a former Memorial colleague said. "She was extremely brave. It was in her nature to be an activist."

Estemirova made no attempt to hide her work. Her office near the newly renamed Putin avenue was well known.

The timing of her murder follows Barack Obama's first visit to Moscow last week as US president. Obama met with Russian human rights activists and set out the US's commitment to "universal values".

The Kremlin responded with hardline pronouncements, with the president, Dmitry Medvedev, visiting the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia on Monday. The trip appeared to be a direct rebuff to Obama who had said that both Georgia and Ukraine should be free to choose their own leaders.

Estemirova, who leaves a 15-year-old daughter, was probably the best-known human rights activist in Russia's provinces.

Earlier this year she attended the trial in Moscow of four people – two of them Chechens – accused of involvement in Politkovskaya's murder.

Speaking to the Guardian in February, Estemirova called the Politkovskaya trial a "farce".

Kadyrov, a close ally of Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has denied accusations he was involved in Politkovskaya's killing, remarking: "I don't kill women."

Recently the Kremlin has given Kadyrov unprecedented powers for counter-terrorist operations in Ingushetia, amid a worsening Islamist insurgency across the entire North Caucasus.

Estemirova was also a close colleague of Stanislav Markelov, the human rights lawyer murdered in Moscow in January. A masked assassin shot Markelov in the back of the head, not far from the Kremlin, along with Anastasia Baburova, a journalist with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

Tonight human rights activists urged the west to place human rights at the centre of any dialogue with Russia. Gill said: "We can't talk about trade or energy without mentioning the rule of law."