Mandelson: Blair Will Campaign In Election

Tony Blair is to end his self-imposed exile from politics to campaign for another term in office for Gordon Brown, it emerged last night.

The rivalry between Mr Blair and his former Chancellor since Labour came to power in 1997 has been well documented. But Lord Mandelson, a key adviser to both men, said yesterday that the former Prime Minister would be hitting the campaign trail to help earn his party a fourth term.

The timing of the announcement will surprise many as it comes just before Mr Blair's appearance at the Iraq inquiry on Friday, reminding voters of his role in committing Britain to an unpopular war. He has also made headlines this week for accepting a six-figure deal to deliver speeches for a firm accused of profiteering from the credit crunch. Lansdowne Partners, a hedge fund accused of making millions by "short-selling" shares during the financial crisis, has signed up Mr Blair to deliver four speeches on world politics.

His reappearance will also annoy many in the party, who believe Mr Blair will be more of a liability than an asset going into an election that will see Labour struggling to stop the Tories from gaining an overall majority.

However, others in the party believe that Mr Blair still has appeal for the middle classes in marginal seats, a constituency that will be critical in deciding the outcome of the election. David Cameron, the Tory leader, has attempted to style his party as having taken on the progressive mantle of Mr Blair.

Lord Mandelson said he would be joined by other figures from the early days of New Labour. "We want all the party's leadership – past and present – to be contributing to our electoral success," Lord Mandelson told the Daily Mirror. "They know what is at stake for the country." He added: "Everyone will get stuck in. Everyone will campaign: Tony Blair, John Prescott, David Blunkett. We need the support of these well-known faces."

Parents Need Policies Not Platitudes From David Cameron

I am looking forward what the fightback has to offer us it is for this reason why I am voting for a Labour Government as this Government is doing a lot to help the many & not the privileged few, I would urge all comrades to join We're Backing Brown, LabourWin, Believe in Labour, At the 2010 General Election, I'm voting Labour.

Dawn Primarolo MP, Labour’s Children and Families Minister said:

"Parents need policies not platitudes from David Cameron. Families in Britain don't just want warm words, they deserve to know exactly what David Cameron would do to support them.

"David Cameron has refused to protect funding for schools or Sure Start over the next three years. Instead he would cut £200m each year from Sure Start - a fifth of its budget - and take support away for families on modest and middle incomes. By contrast, Labour are determined to help all families and have already opened over 3,000 Sure Start Children Centres across the country.

"David Cameron still can't explain how he would pay for a marriage tax allowance and even though research today shows tax credits play a vital role in cutting child poverty, David Cameron is set on cutting back this essential support."

Brown &Cameron Compete To Slash Spending

I am looking forward what the fightback has to offer us it is for this reason why I am voting for a Labour Government as this Government is doing a lot to help the many & not the privileged few, I would urge all comrades to join We're Backing Brown, LabourWin, Believe in Labour, At the 2010 General Election, I'm voting Labour on Facebook.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron haggled over spending cuts while cynically backing ever-increased spending on the disastrous war in Afghanistan.

For good measure, Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable joined in the cuts menage a trois, although taking a different line on Trident nuclear weapons.

The Conservative leader demanded even bigger public spending cuts this year.

Mr Cameron challenged Mr Brown's assertion that the biggest cuts must be delayed till after the "recovery" and then imposed over four years from 2011.

Addressing a press conference at 10 Downing Street, Mr Brown admitted that the extra cost of the Afghan war was running at £3.5 billion this year.

And he boasted that "we have raised the defence budget in real terms every year in the life of this government."

Mr Brown scolded the Tories for not spending enough on the armed forces, declaring: "You must remember that the defence budget was cut savagely under the previous Tory government."

At his press conference a few hundred yards away, Mr Cameron complained that Britain was borrowing money "at a rate of around £6,000 every second."

He parroted: "We cannot go on like this."

Mr Brown retorted a few minutes later: "Any party which is suggesting that we make huge cuts in our spending today is putting the recovery at risk."

Just across the Thames, Mr Cable told a City-friendly audience that big savings could be made through cutting Trident replacement and axing the Eurofighter and ID cards.

He demanded huge public spending cuts which would be £10bn larger than the government's plans.

And he urged "a tougher public-sector incomes policy, limiting any pay increase to a maximum £8 a week."

Labour 'To Help Brightest Youths'

Labour is promising to help up to 130,000 of the "brightest" young people from poorer families with getting to college and university.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said they would get a "structured package of support" from 2012, to help break the "glass ceiling of social mobility".

He also pledged to set up a Social Mobility Commission, to report later.

Labour says it wants to encourage top professions and universities to attract more people from deprived backgrounds.

Its proposals follow a report by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn's report saying areas like medicine and law were dominated by people from affluent families.

Labour's plans for social mobility - which would depend on it winning the general election - were part of Gordon Brown's attempts to "portray Labour as the party of aspiration".

'Denied the chance'

Meanwhile, as the two main parties battle to win the middle-class vote ahead of the election expected in May, the Conservatives are calling for teaching to become a "brazenly elitist" profession, restricted to the best graduates.

In his response to Mr Milburn's report, Mr Brown said: "My mission is to ensure that all of Britain's people, from every background, are given the opportunity to develop their talents and learn the skills which will transform their lives. And this social mobility must be rooted in our core value of fairness.

“ Gordon Brown has exhumed the idea of 'New' Labour - a label he once avoided at all costs - and unveiled his plans for a new class war ”
Nick Robinson

"In many ways society is already fairer. Six hundred thousand children have been lifted out of poverty, record numbers of our young people are going to university, one in three people of working age is a member of a profession, and the gender pay gap has narrowed.

"But we can't be a truly aspirational society if some people are still denied the chance to get on, and although we have raised the glass ceiling we have yet to break it.

"That is why our priority will be to remove all the barriers that are holding people back."

In his report, Mr Milburn said careers such as law and medicine were dominated by people from affluent backgrounds.

The "vast majority" of his 88 recommendations are being accepted by the government and the former minister will help to establish a commission to track progress.

A new forum will tell the top professions to come up with plans to widen their pool of recruits.

And a national internship service will give experience of these careers to more students and graduates.

The Conservatives have questioned why Labour has not done more to improve social mobility after 12 years in power.

BNPMember With Firearms Found Guilty

A draw of weapons found at the home of BNP member Terrance Gavan.

A BNP member who spent a decade building up a cache of weapons in a bedroom hideaway was jailed for 11 years today.

Bus driver Terrance Gavan manufactured highly dangerous firearms and explosives at the home where he lived with his mother in Batley, West Yorkshire.

Police discovered 54 improvised bombs including nail bombs and a booby-trapped cigarette packet, as well as 12 firearms.

The former soldier told detectives that he had "a fascination with things that go bang", the Old Bailey heard.

But Gavan also had a "strong hostility" towards immigrants, the court heard, and planned to target an address he had seen on a television programme that he believed was linked to the 7 July bomb attacks in London.

He told police he was a BNP member and letters to him from the party, as well as a copy of its magazine Hope and Glory, were found at his home.

The court heard that handwritten notebooks were found. One note said: "The patriot must always be ready to defend his country against enemies and their governments."

Gavan pleaded guilty to 22 counts including collecting information useful for terrorism and possessing explosives and firearms.

Tory Future

New Labour's hostility to working people and its willing role as bag carrier for the City causes many people to wonder if the Tories could be worse.

Put aside the image of the smooth-talking, grinning, well-fed faces and look at the evidence where the Tories have power, especially where a contrast with Labour is readily available.

Boris Johnson's defeat of Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral election was a disaster for working-class Londoners, but the Johnson administration also provides a clear warning of what lies in store this year if David Cameron gets the key to 10 Downing Street.

Johnson has pushed up bus and Tube fares, including for passes, by the biggest amount since Transport for London was established.

More than a third of Londoners - mainly the poorest - have no access to private transport, so they are wholly dependent on buses and Tube trains.

But, in the gospel according to Johnson, they have to pay up to compensate for the mayor's politically motivated refusal to extend the congestion zone westwards or to impose a £25 carbon tax on so-called Chelsea tractors, as Livingstone planned to do.

This is not only a graphic illustration of where the Tories stand on social justice but it also knocks into a top hat all their protestations about being concerned about the environment.

Both social justice and the environment are best served by an expanding, publicly provided, cheap, reliable and safe transport network.

The Tories have no interest in providing either. We have all been warned.

The Years Of 'Plenty' Are Over...

According to the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has announced that the politics of plenty are over. I assume by this he means plenty of war, plenty of cuts and plenty of sell-offs because he could not possibly be saying that up to now we have never had it so good. Or could he?

Yesterday Clegg set out to show what a serious bunch the third party can be by dropping a swath of its own policies as unrealistic. It's an interesting way to try to give people confidence in your manifesto by tearing half of it up shouting: "This is all rubbish! We were never going to do any of it."

In a press release entitled "Four steps to a fairer Britain," the Lib Dems criticised the Labour and Conservative parties for pretending the recession wasn't happening and not being prepared to take the necessary tough decisions to dig us out of this hole.

Describing the two largest parties as engaging in "make-believe economics" and failing to face up to the fact that we're living in difficult economic times is quite a staggering thing to say.

I really don't know where Clegg has been for the last year and a half, but the idea that the other parties' economic policies proffer an Aladdin's cave of giveaway policies seems a bit far-fetched.

The Labour Chancellor has, for instance, just promised the toughest spending cuts in 20 years. The Tories criticise them for not going far enough. Now Clegg wades in saying they are both sugar-coating their policies? That's actually quite frightening.

A number of commentators have described the coming general election as a turning point for a generation. That's over-hyping it.

The difference between the parties' spending plans are marginal at best. Particularly since the failed coup attempt against the Prime Minister last week, the new Labour Cabinet has shifted towards a more full-scale cuts approach that differs from the Conservative version only in that neither have been fully spelled out to the electorate.

One Lib Dem said the difference between the three main parties was that his party would "cut with a heavy heart."

Presumably that means if you're laid off you are meant to feel sorry for them. Perhaps redundant workers could send the Liberals a condolence card to commiserate with what they must have gone through sending out all those notices.

After describing voters as grown-ups, Clegg then announced that he would introduce caps on public-sector pay, scrap the government baby bonds scheme, ditch the commitment to free childcare and their "citizen's pension" and that he would no longer advocate free personal care for the old and disabled. Added to this the Lib Dems would keep tuition fees, at least until the good times roll again.

Clegg described this bonfire of the policies by saying: "We have stripped away everything that is not essential because the country cannot afford it."

There was me thinking that policies like free child and personal care existed because parents and the disabled couldn't afford them. Maybe they aren't part of "the country."

The abolition of tuition fees was seen as a defining policy for the Lib Dems and for the leader to describe this as "not essential" speaks volumes about the shift at the heart of mainstream politics.

Far from demonstrating how different the Lib Dems are from the other parties, this announcement demonstrates the tight consensus that exists at the top of all three parliamentary parties, which are determined to deny the voters any viable choice.

Clegg may think that you treat people like adults by reducing their living standards, but he could have taken a very different approach - one that stems the growing tide of unemployment rather than adds to it.

He disparagingly described long-held political commitments as a "shopping list of pledges" to voters, adding that he wasn't going to "buy their favour with cheap trinkets."

One moment it's a point of honour and principle to abolish tuition fees, the next the right to an education regardless of your wealth is a "cheap trinket." Fascinating stuff.

One less high-profile announcement was that the Lib Dems would create "a new national infrastructure bank to bring in private money to build the transport links, energy grid and public buildings we need for a sustainable, low-carbon economy in every part of Britain."

This commitment to deepen the privatisation agenda shared by the Conservatives and new Labour is another expression of how barren the state of progressive political ideas is today.

In the past many people who have leaned to the left of politics have voted Lib Dem. The party's stance on ID cards, tuition fees or opposing the Iraq invasion - until it started - gave it some appeal to those who could no longer stomach voting Labour. But even this option has gone now.

Ditching policies designed to help the poorest in society while giving big business the wink that there will be plenty of profits to be made out of a Lib Dem-influenced government is an indication that their leader's priorities are far from progressive, a fact that many on the left of the party are all too aware of.

If Clegg really wanted to be treated like a grown-up he should have taken the risk of presenting his party as a genuine political alternative, not another shade of the same failed approach.

He even dropped the idea of proportional representation at the very time that it is gaining a hearing, watering it down to a commitment to "abolish safe seats" - presumably those of his colleagues, judging by his current uninspired performance.

This approach, based on the idea that the country is moving to the right, is unlikely to win much support among Tory voters who already have a right-wing party to vote for and seems almost designed to put off those to the left who lent them their vote in previous elections.

Disaffected Labour voters and those who support smaller left-wing parties have been given a clear warning that the Lib Dems are not for them. They would do well to heed it.

Police quiz David Cameron's Pal David Ross Over 'Escort Girl Attack'

A millionaire pal of David Cameron was yesterday quizzed over a hooker's assault claims.

Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, 44, was questioned by police for two hours over allegations made by Lithuanian escort girl Sniezana Kobeniak, who told officers she was invited to his home but then attacked in a row about cash.

Scotland Yard said: "We can confirm a 44-year-old man voluntarily attended a Central London police station and was interviewed under caution in relation to an allegation of assault on December 18."

Police answering a 999 call found Kobeniak, 30, with cuts and bruises outside Ross's home in Belgravia, Central London. Hours earlier Ross and girlfriend Emma Pilkington, 23, had partied with Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha. The phone tycoon has loaned the Tory leader a helicopter and given £140,000 to the party.

Emma and her former public schoolboy lover, who have denied wrongdoing to friends, were both at the house during the alleged incident.

Ross was yesterday allowed to leave the police station by a rear exit.

Half Of Tory Donations Come From City fatcats

How can anyone trust the Tory Leader David Cameron stands accused of being in the pocket of bankers as a Mirror investigation reveals his dependence on their cash.

City fatcats and their firms gave the Tories £5.9million in just the first nine months of last year - amid a financial crisis which has seen millions of workers pay the price of bankers' recklessness.

That is almost half of the £13.5million raised by Mr Cameron - and at 44% the highest proportion since the former Eton pupil became Conservative leader.

One of the biggest donors is "the godfather" of UK hedge funds Stanley Fink.

Hedge funds are investment firms blamed for fuelling the credit crunch and Mr Fink, 52, built the Man Group into the world's biggest such enterprise.

With a private fortune estimated at £118million he quit the firm last year to become Tory co-treasurer and has given the party more than £1million of his own cash.

Mr Fink has pledged to "blow Labour out of the water" by raising £40million for the election battle.

Australian ex-army officer Michael Hintze, who controls £4.5billion through the CQS hedge fund, has donated almost £1million of his estimated £250million fortune to the Tories. The party revealed he had loaned them £2.5million when the cash-for-honours scandal broke but he was never accused of any wrongdoing.

David Rowland came back from tax exile in Guernsey to help bankroll Mr Cameron's campaign.

The financier gave £1.25million last year with his "passionate concern for liberty".

City deal-maker and Christian Ken Costa runs investment bank Lazard's international arm. A church warden, he chairs the organisation that runs Alpha courses to introduce people to the faith. Mr Costa has given £163,355 to the Tories since Mr Cameron took charge, including almost £50,000 last year.

Another multi-millionaire Christian is Michael Farmer, who made his fortune by founding RK Capital Management, an Anglo-US metal-trading hedge fund. He has given the Conservatives more than £2million, including £654,000 last year.

With donations like these the Tories are set to outgun Labour's election spending by three to one. And the figures - which do not include millions from secretive backer Lord Ashcroft - make a mockery of the Tory leader's claim that he would cut reliance on wealthy donors.

In fact, donations linked to bankers and financiers made up just a quarter of the money the Tories received in 2008, when they gave £4.2million of the £16.4million pouring in to party coffers.

In the two years before that, bankers gave £5.5million, or 30%, of the £18.7million raised in 2007 and £6.2million, or 35%, of the £17.7million pulled in during 2006 - Mr Cameron's first full year in charge.

Labour MP Andy Slaughter will fight the new Hammersmith seat in West London, where his Tory opponent has been bankrolled by Caroline Nash, the wife of City fatcat John Nash.

Mr Slaughter pointed out: "These donations from a host of fatcats show just how cosily the Tories are nestled in the back pockets of rich bankers. These people simply don't give something for nothing.

"People will be rightly suspicious when they see the people trying to buy influence.

"It's no wonder Cameron is so committed to scrapping the 50p tax rate for the super-rich - and cutting inheritance tax for the richest 3,000 families - when his party's cash flow is so dependent on keeping rich bankers happy." The Tory leader kickstarted his election campaign with a £500,000 billboard blitz this week - four months before the election, almost certain to be on May 6.

Ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett, who is spearheading a Labour fundraising drive, yesterday admitted his cash-strapped party cannot compete financially with the fatcat-backed Tories.

A meeting of the National Policy Forum to thrash out the manifesto had to be scrapped on cost grounds and Mr Blunkett admitted to The Times: "We are trying to be careful so we do not end up bankrupt after the election if this all goes pear-shaped."

Labour has a campaign budget of around £8million. The Tories, meanwhile, are expected to raise £25million.

A legal limit on parties' election spending has been set at about £18million but local parliamentary candidates can spend up to £40,000.

The Mirror recently revealed how Tory cash has been channelled into key marginal seats from central funds in an operation overseen by Lord Ashcroft. Last night the Tories claimed to be receiving donations "from an increasingly wide base". A spokesman said: Our base of donors is widening all the time - unlike Labour who are really almost exclusively reliant on trade union cash."

FINK

Quit Man Group to be Tories' co-treasurer. Has given £1m of own cash.

HINTZE

Controls £4.5bn hedge fund. Given almost £1m, worth an estimated £250m.

ROWLAND

Back from tax exile and donated £1.25m to the Tories last year.

Howard In BNP Warning To Mainstream Parties

Former Conservative leader Michael Howard has accused all the mainstream parties of failing to do enough to challenge the British National Party.

Mr Howard said it was important for politicians to confront the BNP in the run-up to the general election.

But this was not being done to the extent necessary, he told the BBC.

Mr Howard said there was no room for complacency because there were a number of constituencies where the BNP could be a "potent threat" at the polls.

'Potent threat'

Mr Howard told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "I think I am still the only party leader who went to Burnley and devoted an entire speech to confronting the BNP and saying that we've really got to take them on and we've got to take their arguments on.

"I don't think we can afford to be complacent. There are one or two constituencies where they are said to be a potent threat.

"I think you have to take them on, you have to confront them and you have to expose the appalling evil of their arguments."

BNP leader Nick Griffin announced last month he would stand for Westminster in the east London constituency of Barking at the next general election.

'Honest' party

Mr Griffin said that his party was not racist, but won votes because it "spoke openly about the problem of immigration".

He told a news conference: "It's all phoney with the other parties.

"Sometimes we can be a little blunt, a little politically incorrect, but we're always honest and people know that now."

The BNP won its first two seats in the European Parliament in June - Mr Griffin in the North West and Andrew Brons in Yorkshire and the Humber where it got 10% of the vote.

Jack Straw: The Tories Are Trying To Buy The Elections

Never before in the history of our elections has a party spent so much to help so few

I've now been offering this prize for weeks – at open-air meetings in my Blackburn constituency, at Labour Party dinners around the country. And still it's unclaimed.

It can't be the prize – two tickets to Burnley Reserves – which are clearly the height of generosity. So it must be the question: "Name one Conservative councillor who in the last 12 years has complained publicly that too much central government money has been invested in their area" – ie, that the new schools, health centres, sports facilities, those extra police officers and teachers, should never have been provided.

Related articles

• Tories trying to buy power, says Straw
• Leading article: Safe seats blight our democracy
• Search the news archive for more stories

But that is precisely what David Cameron and George Osborne are saying, when they claim now that there's been too much public spending, for it's on these key services that much of the money has been spent – though they both, and all the other Conservative MPs, have been as silent as their local representatives have been shameless in claiming credit for the achievements which have flowed from this investment, like a doubling in good GCSE results in many areas, and a sustained drop in crime.

Just as Conservative wards would have suffered had Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne been in charge, so it's been as well for the country, and its families, that these two were not at the helm when the world recession took hold just over a year ago.

There were dire predictions about what this global meltdown would mean for the British people in repossessions, bankruptcies and job losses. Mr Osborne's advice was to do nothing, to let the recession take its course. But Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling took action to save savers and boost the economy. A tax deferral scheme was set up to help businesses stay afloat and keep people in jobs – and 200,000 agreements with businesses have been made so far.

I've seen the direct benefits in my own constituency. There's been far better advice and assistance for those struggling to avoid repossession. In consequence repossessions and mortgage arrears are running at around half the rates at which they peaked in the early Nineties.

Proportionately half as many businesses have gone under as in the last recession. The rate of job losses has been four times less than if we had repeated the experience of the early 1990s. The dire expectations have been confounded, but this didn't happen by accident. It happened because of the choices we made.

Now, as we start 2010, we face another big choice. Mr Darling has made clear that our first task for the new year must be to secure the recovery. We need to get the economy growing in order to get the deficit down. Mr Osborne, by contrast, threatens to choke off the recovery with cuts at the worst possible time. He and Mr Cameron promise an "age of austerity" – one in which ordinary families and the public services on which they depend would suffer.

But this week we discovered that there is one glaring omission from Mr Cameron's "age of austerity". There is one group for whom 2010 will not be a year of belt-tightening, but of big spending on an unprecedented scale. I am not just talking about the wealthy few who would benefit from George Osborne's £10bn-worth of unfunded and unfair tax cuts. I am talking about the Tory party itself.

At the same time that Mr Cameron tells the British people we face "austerity", he has ordered his party to fight the most expensive election campaign in British political history. It is an American-style campaign, costing millions, with wealthy suitors each paying £50,000 to join David Cameron's dining club, and British high streets covered with billboards bankrolled ultimately from Belize. Mr Cameron says the Conservatives have changed, but what we are seeing is an attempt by his party to buy the next general election.

And why? It is because Mr Cameron will say, do and spend almost anything to stop the general election campaign being about policy beyond a slogan on a billboard. For he knows that the substance of his policies will not stand up to scrutiny; that his policies stand principally to benefit the privileged few – and that the mainstream majority would end up paying the bill.

That is why, when Labour supports the aspirations of families from low and middle incomes, he wrongly accuses us of "class war"; and why, when Labour exposes the fact that the Tories want to spend billions on tax breaks for the three thousand wealthiest estates in our country, he criticises us for creating "dividing lines".

These ridiculous claims are a deliberate Conservative smokescreen to conceal the unfairness of their policies. From record-breaking, expensive advertising campaigns to the phoney rhetoric about class war, it's clear that Mr Cameron's strategy is to do everything he can to deflect attention from scrutiny of what a Conservative government would do. Ultimately, regardless of whether it's free flights from foreign companies or billboards bought ultimately from Belize, it doesn't matter how much money Mr Cameron throws at this campaign. The closer we get to the election, the more the Tory policies will come under scrutiny.

And as they do so, we are confident that the choice facing the British people about the future of this country will become clear. The truth is that the Conservatives made the wrong choices on the economy: on Northern Rock and on help for businesses and families. Now they threaten to choke off the recovery. And all of this is at the same time as they pledge a tax giveaway to the three thousand wealthiest estates.

Never before in the history of British elections has a political party spent so much – to help so few.

Meanwhile, I'm upping the prize on offer to one almost beyond price – two tickets to Blackburn Rovers first team. Any takers?

Akmal Shaikh Execution Draws Scathing Criticism From Amnesty

It is for this very reason why I call on the Chinese & Pakistani communities to continue with their good relations in this country and call on the Governments of both the UK & China to redouble their efforts to being about the justice to the Akmal Shaikh family in the UK by finding the criminals and let them face the death penalty. If You Have any information please contact the police and the Home office. See article below:

Amnesty International has joined a chorus of criticism of China over the execution by lethal injection of Akmal Shaikh, a British convicted drug smuggler said by friends and family to have been mentally ill.

Amnesty said Shaikh's execution again highlighted the "the injustice and inhumanity of the death penalty, particularly as it is implemented in China". Amnesty estimates China executes at least three times as many people as every other country put together.

Sam Zarifi, Amnesty's Asia programme director, said: "Much information about the death penalty is considered a state secret but Mr Shaikh's treatment seems consistent with what we know from other cases: a short, almost perfunctory trial where not all the evidence was presented and investigated, and the death penalty applied to a non-violent crime.

"Under international human rights law, as well Chinese law, a defendant's mental health can and should be taken into account, and it doesn't seem that in this case the Chinese authorities did so.

"It's simply not enough for the Chinese authorities to say 'we did the right thing, trust us'. Now there can be no re-assessment of evidence, no reprieve after a man's life has been taken.

"The UK, the EU and the rest of the world should continue to press the Chinese government to increase the transparency surrounding the death penalty in China and to improve the due process offered all defendants, particularly those facing charges punishable by death."

Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the human rights group Reprieve, which supported Shaikh's family through the case, said: "Sad to say I have watched six people die in execution chambers, and it is as ghastly as it is pointless. Is the world somehow a better place today because China refused to show compassion for an obviously ill man? Of course not. China's refusal to even allow a proper medical evaluation is simply disgusting."

Sally Rowen, the legal director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "The death of Akmal Shaikh is a sad indictment of today's world and particularly of China's legal system. Akmal was a gentle man who suffered from a tormenting illness; he slipped through the cracks of society and was betrayed and deliberately killed by one of the most powerful nations on earth. We at Reprieve are sickened by what we have seen during our work on this case."

Through Reprieve, Akmal's family issued a statement: "The family express their grief at the Chinese decision to refuse mercy; thank all those who tried hard to bring about a different result – including Reprieve, the FCO, those who attended the vigil, and the organisers of the Facebook group who garnered more than 5,000 members in a few short days; and ask the media and public to respect their privacy as they come to terms with what has happened to someone they loved."

Philip Alston, a UN special rapporteur, told Radio 4's Today programme that the refusal to allow doctors to assess Shaikh's mental health was "clearly in violation not only of Chinese law but also international law".

"International law points very strongly in the direction of only carrying out the death penalty for crimes which have led to deaths," he said.

He said China "has made noises and made some efforts in terms of specific measures" to improve judicial processes around the death penalty, such as requiring them all to be ratified by the supreme court. But he rejected the view that China deserved credit for tackling the drugs trade.

"It's not the people who are profiting, its the idiots who are picked on and gullible enough to engage in this sort of behaviour [who are punished]. It is time for the international community to mount a much more concerted effort to put an end to these sorts of executions, and not only to react when one individual cases arises which is particularly troubling to us."

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, backed the efforts of Gordon Brown and other ministers to secure a reprieve. "I deplore and deeply regret the fact that the Chinese authorities have executed Akmal Shaikh and did not heed the pleas for clemency made in his case by the British government, by the opposition parties, by his family and by others.

"There were serious concerns about Mr Shaikh's mental health. It is appalling that these concerns were not independently assessed during the more than two years Mr Shaikh was in custody and taken properly into account in the judicial process.

"We supported the government in the efforts they have made and I join with them in sending my sympathy to Mr Shaikh's family and friends."

Tory Funding Unfair They Are The Party That Caters For The Toffy Noise

THE Conservative Party is trying to “buy” the result of the general election by pouring huge sums of money into the fight, it was claimed last night.

Labour MP Nick Ainger has represented Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South since 1992 but is facing a tough battle to keep his seat as the Tories invest large sums of money in his main opponent’s campaign.

Mr Ainger said the law should be changed to place a limit on the amount of cash that can be poured into a constituency. Under current arrangements, there is no limit on campaign spending until a general election is called.

And under the existing laws governing political donations, it is impossible to establish how much money is channelled into a particular seat.

Mr Ainger, who will be defending a majority of just 1,910 over the Conservatives at next year’s general election, said: “I am very concerned that we are heading in the direction of the United States, where the candidate with most money can effectively buy an election. In my seat there has been a huge increase in the amount of campaigning by the Conservatives in the last couple of years. The local Tories have received £40,000 from a businessman who runs a hedge fund and, we understand, £25,000 from Lord Ashcroft [the party’s wealthy deputy chairman].

“There has been a lot of telephone contact with voters and a lot of literature sent out, including a recent glossy publication sent to every household in the constituency which encouraged people to respond by freepost. That is very expensive, and we just can’t match it.

“I really think there should be strict limits placed on how much campaigning should be permissible at any time, not just in the several weeks running up to an election.”

Mr Ainger said it was clear that “Ashcroft money” was being directed by the Conservatives to other marginal seats in Wales.

“A friend of mine, Peter Bradley, who lost his seat, The Wrekin, at the last election in 2005 has told me he has no doubt that it was Ashcroft money spent by the Conservatives which was crucial in the result. It’s too late to change the law before the next election, but this is something that should be changed before we go further down the American route,” he said.

A recent poll in The Daily Telegraph showed the Conservatives had a higher proportional lead in marginal seats over Labour than in Britain as a whole. This was attributed to the “Ashcroft factor” of pouring money into crucial marginals.

A spokesman for the Electoral Commission confirmed that if a donor gave money to a political party’s headquarters, the party could pass it on to local units. Yesterday, the Welsh Conservative Party denied a specific “Ashcroft unit” had been established in Wales to channel funds to marginal seats. Such a unit does, however, exist in Conservative Central Office in London, where it is controlled directly by Lord Ashcroft himself.

A Welsh Conservative Party spokesman said: “Instead of trying to make cheap political points, Labour should be more honest about their ‘non dom’ donors and peers that reportedly include Lord Paul, the man who bankrolled Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign and who was recently elevated to the Privy Council.”

Please Join A Day Of Action To Help Defeat The BNP

On Saturday 5th December, Barking Labour Party and Margaret Hodge MP held a day of action as part of our campaign to expel the BNP from the borough.

We had a really good turnout and Margaret Hodge MP is particularly grateful to those people who came from across London to show their solidarity and lend a hand.

Her team and herself have spent the last 2 years reconnecting with voters on the doorstep every Saturday and through our work locally, and the decrease in the BNP vote at the European elections this year we've shown that we are having an impact. But there is still much hard work to do.

So we are starting the New Year as we mean to go on with a second day of action on Saturday 9th January.

And we need even more volunteers on the ground next time if we are to meet our target of an 80% contact rate between now and the General Election.

We are asking for just a few hours of your time and will be providing a buffet lunch to keep you all going.

Please book Saturday 9th January in your diaries now – and pass the message on to any family, friends and colleagues who might be interested in joining us.

If you think you may be able to join us or if you would like to be added to our campaign mailing list then please call our campaign hotline on 07576 323 109 or send an email to liz.bradshaw.07@googlemail.com.

Thank you for your support.

BNP Document Proves The Far Right Is At Home With Climate Change Denial

If you were still in any doubt that climate change scepticism is largely fuelled by rightwing ideology, along come the British National party to drive the point home. The far right extremists yesterday published a "sensational 40-page briefing paper in which the case for calling into question 'man-made global warming' is presented in detail".

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader and MEP for north-west England, is currently in Copenhagen as a representative of the European parliament's environmental committee. He has chosen to use the occasion to release a document, entitled "Debunking global warming" (pdf), which can be best described as copy-and-paste denial. All the sceptic crowd pleasers are referenced and quoted within: Monckton, Plimer, Morano, Lindzen, Booker, Klaus, et al. Space is even found to quote Goebbels:

"As the information in this paper demonstrates, the claim that the world is warming on account of greenhouse gases is based upon limited, prejudicial and manipulated information. Much of the evidence has been extracted from a tiny part of the Earth's climatic cycle. This is equivalent of the prime minister having based his spending plans on the most productive day of the economic cycle, when tax receipts were highest. But as Dr Goebbels once observed, if you repeat something often enough, even the most sceptical will believe it."

As has become the norm in recent months with sceptics (interestingly, the document proudly refers to them as "deniers"), Ian Plimer is quoted chapter and verse, particularly in a section labelled, "Professor Plimer's Killer Statistics":

"The hypothesis that human activity creates global warming contradicts what we know of solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology, according to Professor Plimer… In a lecture delivered at a conference in London in early Dec 2009, Professor Plimer stated that in five of the past six major ice ages, atmospheric CO2 was up to 1,000 times higher that today. In two of these ice ages, ice was present at ground level at the equator. The corollary of this, therefore, is that CO2 does not drive global warming."

There is also evidence within the document that Lord Monckton (who has called young climate activists "Hitler Youth") was approached by the BNP and assisted them in drafting the document by writing a précis of his sceptical views, as well as where similar views can be found online. To see Monckton's response go to p35 of the pdf. This is noteworthy because Monckton signed up only last week to become the climate change spokesperson for the UK Independence party. Why would he choose to partake in dialogue with the BNP?

Elsewhere, there are some delightfully ironic pronouncements made throughout the document, but none more so than this:

"The BNP, like all interested bodies, must weigh the evidence carefully and reach an opinion. In so doing, it must also identify, within the debate, vested interests and influences, both covert and overt."

And, as you might expect, the document regularly veers into cranksville:

"Global warming is the new secular religion, many of whose proponents doubted Christianity and whose political philosophy was destabilised with the collapse of communism in 1989."

But it's the comments left beneath the document on the BNP's website that perhaps speak the loudest…

"Truebrit" says: "This BNP paper is a miracle of common sense and sound reasoning. I applaud the clearly stated and concise wording of this document which absolutely debunks the whole fraudulent hoax of man made global warming."

"Pete K" says: "They are going to spend hundreds of millions on African roads which will allow the Africans a speedier journey to the UK to pick up their passports, benefits, housing, healthcare and become Labour voters for life."

"EnglishLady" says: "Just the sort of thing we come to expect from the BNP – facts, truth, evidence, common sense, reasoning – and above all ...............NO LIES OR COVER UPS !!!"

And "MrDoodles" says: "Fantastic work guys! Bit of a weighty document, but at least it shows we're serious about the science!"

Eighty Members Of Parliament Challenging The Results Of Repayment

As much I believe in the civil liberty & human rights movement I strongly believe if any human being whether it be a Member of Parliament(MP) that they have a right to challenge the process if they are not happy with the outcome of the inquiry into the MPs expenses.

The powers to be needs to to provide the evidence that is requested by the MPs to clear up any misunderstanding and not one individual deciding on how much you should pay back without providing hard evidence.

Eighty MPs are challenging the results of the review process set up to ensure the repayment of expense claims allowed in the past but now deemed questionable, it was revealed today.

The figure, which is higher than expected, illustrates the extent to which the Commons auditor, Sir Thomas Legg, has infuriated MPs by effectively imposing retrospective rules that have led to some members being asked to repay tens of thousands of pounds.

Sir Paul Kennedy, a former appeal court judge, will consider the appeals and report early next year, although he will only consider submissions made in writing and he will not be able to overturn the broad principles established by Legg.

Legg, a former civil servant who was appointed to audit claims in the wake of the expenses scandal, angered many MPs because his review went much further than expected. It has reportedly resulted in around 250 MPs being asked to repay money, partly because Legg imposed retrospective rules declaring that some claims that had been allowed at the time were now unacceptable.

On Tuesday Legg submitted a 168-page report to the Commons members' estimate committee recommending how much individual MPs should repay. Many MPs have already complied with Legg's demands, but today – after the deadline passed for MPs wanting to appeal – the Commons authorities revealed that 80 MPs are challenging Legg's findings.

One senior MP said that Legg had antagonised MPs because some of his "final demand" letters asked for repayments without giving full reasons.

"I'm staggered that Legg has asked people to give money without providing comprehensive reasons. A lot of people are really pissed off that their reputation is being tarnished and that they are being put through some extraordinary financial discomfort on the basis of one sentence," the MP said.

The Legg review has cost between £1m and £1.25m. It is thought that the amount being repaid by MPs will cover most of this cost, but there is unlikely to be a net saving to the taxpayer.

Among those who have declared publicly that they are appealing are:

Bernard Jenkin, a Tory asked to repay £63,250

Jeremy Browne, a Liberal Democrat asked to repay almost £18,000 in mortgage interest

Frank Field, the Labour former minister ordered to repay around £7,000 in gardening and household bills

Frank Cook, a Labour MP asked to repay £600 for a fridge

Patrick Hall, a Labour MP asked to repay £260 in mortgage interest payments, and

Roger Gale, a Tory Mp who said that he also was appealing against a demand from Legg relating to £2,100 claimed for mobile phone calls and £400 claimed for rent.

Gale claimed that Legg had wrongly accused him of claiming for 13 months' rent for last year. "I told him the situation and he is still knowingly releasing false information," Gale said.

"I do not view this as an issue about money. It is about my financial probity. I am not prepared to have my reputation traduced ... on the back of factual errors. Am I angry? Yes, I am."

Legg said decided to impose retrospective caps of £2,000 a year for cleaning and £1,000 on gardening. He also said that claims involving MPs paying rent to a close relative were "tainted" and that MPs who bought goods unnecessarily would be asked to repay money.

The rule about relatives explains why Jenkin, the MP for Essex North, has been asked to repay so much. He used his expenses to rent a property owned by his sister-in-law.

Jenkin said today this arrangement was within the rules until 2006 and explicitly authorised by Commons officials. "I am lodging an appeal. There is no question being raised by Sir Thomas about my integrity and honesty. I will pay back whatever is finally decided," he said.

Tackling Racism In The Eduction System

I have been campaigning on the issue of black education for many years. For more than two decades I have talked with black parents about the problems they have with the education system, their children’s underachievement and how these problems can be overcome. The complexity of black underachievement has become apparent.

So the publication of a report suggesting that teachers are underestimating black Caribbean pupils in their SATs tests did not come as much of a surprise. Dr Steve Strand of Warwick University looked at statistics from 15,000 Key Stage 3 results (those that come from 14 year olds’ SATs results) broken down by ethnicity. He found that Pakistani, Bangladeshi, black Caribbean and black African children aged 14 score on average three points below their white British counterparts. In National Curriculum terms, this is about equivalent to these pupils being a whole school year behind their white British counterparts. When other factors are taken into account this statistic improves — social class, family type, eligibility for free school meals and special educational needs are all important causes of educational under-achievement. However for black children, these factors do not greatly change the picture — they were still 2.5 points below.

Looking to explain, the study discovered that black Caribbean children were the only pupils to be under-represented in being put forward for the higher tiers in their SATs tests. Even when accounting for other factors, the study found that for every three white British students entered into higher tiers, only two black Caribbean students were. Despite showing the same academic ability as their white British counterparts, black Caribbean pupils were more likely to be denied the opportunity to take on a more difficult SATs test that would garner higher marks. It suggests that something about black Caribbean students, that had nothing to do with their academic ability, was stopping them from being put forward for the higher tiers. It suggests that what many have been arguing for years may well be true: that the negative perception of black children — especially boys — has a direct affect on their educational performance.

There have been many reasons given for the underachievement of black pupils, but for me it seems that there is a process of labelling and demotivation taking place. Teachers may be more likely to expect bad behaviour from black boys and less likely to expect high academic results from them. Black pupils may be more likely to disengage from their education — either because they sense they are not expected to do well or because of some cultural factors that mean they are pressurised not to do well by their peers.

Reactions to the report have been unsurprisingly mixed. Some activists have called for the introduction of black schools to cater specifically to black pupils’ needs. Whilst I can see that addressing a specific problem with a specifically designed school seems like a good idea, I think that the debate around black schools is a diversion. Some 99 per cent of black children are going to be educated in the mainstream state sector, so the most urgent question is reforming mainstream education to ensure that working class children and black children can achieve. Taking black children out of mainstream education would run the risk of legitimising the notion that they are somehow educationally ‘subnormal’.

I advocate a focused approach on black children within the current education system. In a recent poll only 50 per cent of teaching students said they felt ready to teach black children in a multi-cultural setting. In 2006 whilst 22 per cent of pupils in London were black, only seven per cent of teachers were. We need better teacher training so that all teachers are equipped to deal with a multi-racial and multi-cultural pupil population. And we need to increase the number of black and ethnic minority teachers and a drive towards encouraging black and ethnic minority parents to become governors. With a two-pronged approach the progress that has already been made at GCSE level can continue. This means rejecting the notion that black pupils are innately worse academically and the notion that all schools and all teachers are racist, and it means rejecting the notion that social class is the only factor affecting educational outcomes.

OFT Told To Help Customers Reclaim Unauthorised Overdraft Charges

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has been urged to continue fighting to help people reclaim unauthorised overdraft charges.

Consumer website MoneySavingExpert.com said it had taken legal advice that suggested customers could challenge the fairness of the charges under the Consumer Credit Act.

The website said that, under the Act, it was up to the banks to prove that the charges were fair, rather than for consumers to prove they were the opposite - shifting the burden of proof on to the banks.

But the law only applies to new charges from April 6 2007 and any charges before this date are included only if borrowing was still outstanding 12 months later.

MoneySavingExpert outlined other legal routes which could possibly be used to people challenge the fairness of the charges, but it called on the OFT to take up the fight for consumers.

The website's founder Martin Lewis said: "We believe there are substantial legal avenues available for it to challenge fairness - the OFT cannot give up."

Customers who incur an unauthorised overdraft or breach their agreed limit can be charged as much as £35.

This could include processing a bounced transaction, when the actual cost to the banks is as little as £2.50.

But in a recent test case the Supreme Court ruled that unauthorised overdraft charges were not subject to regulation by the OFT under unfair contract rules, dashing the hopes of millions who had tried to claim refunds.

The watchdog is currently considering the details of the judgement before it makes a decision on whether to continue its investigation into the charges.

Nick Griffin Calls World Leaders Mass Murderers At The Copenhagen Climate Conference

How sully can the BNP get when they have two representatives in the European Parliament when the leader of the BNP makes stupid statements like World Leaders Mass Murderers when the BNP refuses to acknowledges that Jews were persecuted in the second world war by their almighty brain washing leader Hitler.

Nick Griffin has accused world leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference of the “biggest hoax in history” that will kill more people than the great famines under Stalin and Mao.

The leader of the British National Party and MEP is at the international summit as a representative of the European Parliament.

But he said global warming was a “hoax” designed to impose tax increases on the citizens of the world through putting up the price of energy.

He said world leaders and advocates of action on climate change such as Al Gore are “mass murderers” by supporting biofuels.

He said land for growing food is being taken to grow fuels for crops and it will cause starvation greater than the famines caused by Russian dictator Stalin during the 1930s and Chairman Mao in the 1950s.

"It is a crime against humanity which in future will be seen as an enormous man-made famine. Under Stalin 20 million people died, under Chairman Mao 30 million died. This will be the third and the greatest famine of the modern era and I regard that as a crime.”

However Mr Griffin’s own party would not give more money to the third world.

“Britain is bankrupt. We cannot afford to go giving money to the third world,” he said.

Mr Griffin has no official role at the conference but will be speaking to delegates in an attempt to “stop the juggernaut”.

“My message is stop and think before imposing the most outrageous tax increase on people ever proposed by a group of nations on the basis of an unproven theory that is contradicted by an increasing number of scientists,” he added.

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said Mr Griffin will bring nothing helpful to the talks.

“Mr Griffin’s conversion to cause of the developing world is surprising as it is cynical,” he said. “In reality the environmental and development groups he has been disparaging have been in the forefront of concerns about biofuels. Griffin’s claims that climate change is a hoax is one of many curious things going on between his ears.”

Why A March Election Would Be The Wrong Move

There's been much speculation circulating over the past few days that the Tories - and Labour - are preparing for an early election on March 25th. This could be a media ploy by the Tories to try and motivate complacent activists, or it may just be newspapers filling column inches as Christmas approaches.

But it is now being discussed as a serious proposition around Westminster and amongst lobby journalists. David Cameron today called it a "likely date" for an election, and Ray Collins, Labour's General Secretary, is reported to have told Number 10 that the party machine is ready to go.

I think an ballot on any day other than May 6th would be the wrong move for two main reasons. First - and most importantly - with council elections already mandated for May 6th, the cost of holding two elections within 6 weeks of each other would be excessive - and would be deemed to be excessive by the public.

The second, related, reason is that an election on any other date would dramatically reduce voter turnout for the local council elections - and after the decimation of Labour's council position last June, that would be very unhelpful to Labour Groups who are battling to maximise support.

So unless the May 6th council elections were also brought forward, which would be difficult to do at this late stage, it would be seen as a crude and unnecessary move which wouldn't play well with either grassroots activists or the wider electorate.