Seumas Milne's Blog, page 9
July 2, 2014
Blair embodies corruption and war. He must be sacked | Seumas Milne
Since Egypt's first democratically elected president was overthrown in a military coup a year ago, the country has been gripped by brutal and sustained repression. Well over 2,500 protesters the true figure is likely to be much higher have been killed on the streets in cold blood by the security forces. At least 20,000 have been jailed.
More than 1,000 political activists have been sentenced to death. Torture is rampant, basic freedoms suppressed. Three al-Jazeera journalists were last month imprisoned for "spreading false news". The Egyptian coup-maker, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, is now president courtesy of a 96% endorsement in a sham election after his predecessor Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood was banned.
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Tony Blair to advise Egypt president Sisi on economic reform
Tony Blair embodies corruption and war. He must be sacked
Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge "business opportunities" to those involved, the Guardian has learned.
The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt's elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on "economic reform" in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo a decision criticised by one former ally.
Continue reading...June 25, 2014
They say Miliband's a loser that's because they fear he could win | Seumas Milne
He's weak. He's a loser. The public think he's weird. It's impossible to imagine him as prime minister. Labour has a problem and its name is Ed. That's how the press campaign against the Labour leader has gone for most of this month, fed by Ed Miliband's sagging personal poll ratings and a New Labour whispering campaign.
You'd barely know from most of the coverage that Labour continues to lead the polls by several points, despite the much-vaunted economic recovery, or that his most unpopular policies with the media are highly popular with the public or that Margaret Thatcher's ratings lagged well behind Jim Callaghan's when she was elected prime minister. It's not that Miliband doesn't have a communication problem, or struggle to connect with the working class voters Labour needs, in particular, to win back. He clearly does although the idea that his brother, David, would have escaped similar ridicule as an out-of-touch geek if he had won the leadership can't be taken seriously, quite apart from his links to some of the most discredited parts of New Labour's record.
Continue reading...June 18, 2014
More US bombs and drones will only escalate Iraq's horror | Seumas Milne
Nothing has exposed the delusionary disaster of the war on terror like the past week's eruption of its mutant progeny across Iraq. David Cameron declared today that the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, rejected as too extreme and sectarian by al-Qaida itself, is now the most serious threat to Britain's security.
As Isis forces were reported to have seized Iraq's largest oil refinery at Baiji, Barack Obama was said to be considering demands from both Baghdad and Washington hawks for air attacks to halt the sweeping advance of the jihadist-led rebellion. Hundreds of US troops have already been dispatched to prepare the ground and defend the 5,500-strong American embassy.
Continue reading...June 11, 2014
Michael Gove's toxic assault on schools is based on naked discrimination | Seumas Milne
The harassment of minorities on the basis of forged documents has a grim history. So the official onslaught on mainly Muslim state schools in Birmingham, triggered by what has all the hallmarks of a fabricated letter outlining a supposed Islamist plot to take them over, should be cause for deep alarm.
Instead, the architect of the clampdown, education secretary Michael Gove, has been hailed by the bulk of the press for standing up to "extremism". Inspectors have now turned their attention to an alleged Islamic takeover of schools in Bradford, and a local MP has demanded action to halt the "Islamist infiltration" of east London politics.
Continue reading...June 4, 2014
Newark shows how Labour can take the sting out of Ukip | Seumas Milne
"This is a quintessentially English byelection," the Tory MP Ben Wallace declares, as a parade of Ukip eccentrics one dressed as John Bull and press-ganged parliamentarians troop past the market square at the heart of Newark in Nottinghamshire. "It's a carnival, it's like an episode of Blackadder". But, Wallace adds, for Nigel Farage's rightwing nationalists hoping to capitalise on the Euro election results by winning their first parliamentary seat the "promise of the breakthrough is more important than the breakthrough itself".
The Tories are certainly taking no chances, as an army of ministers, MPs and activists troop through the town, their multimillionaire Christie's director candidate wisely hidden from view. This should be a safe Conservative seat and, even if there's no Ukip breakthrough, the fact that Ukip has come from nowhere to challenge for a Tory middle England crown is a measure of the threat to David Cameron and the Westminster establishment.
Continue reading...May 21, 2014
Coups and terror are the fruit of Nato's war in Libya | Seumas Milne
Iraq may have been a blood-drenched disaster and Afghanistan a grinding military and political failure. But Libya was supposed to have been different. Nato's war to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 was hailed as the liberal intervention that worked.
The western powers might have had to twist the meaning of the UN resolution about protecting civilians, the city of Sirte might have been reduced to rubble, large-scale ethnic cleansing taken place and thousands of civilians killed. But it was all in a noble cause and achieved without Nato casualties.
Continue reading...May 14, 2014
The rise of Europe's far right will only be halted by a populism of the left | Seumas Milne
Nothing, it seems, can stop the rise of Ukip. However outrageous its luminaries' pronouncements or hypocritical its leaders' behaviour, it is still expected to top next week's European elections.
No matter that the rising star of Ukip's youth wing resigns in disgust at the party's racism, or that its ex-Tory banker leader is involved in one expenses scandal after another, or that on most issues from a flat tax to wholesale NHS privatisation the majority of Ukip's voters don't remotely share its ultra-Thatcherite politics.
Continue reading...May 7, 2014
Pfizer v AstraZeneca: big pharma needs a public stake, not a praying mantis | Seumas Milne
It's as if the crash of 2008 never happened. Like the Bourbon kings, Britain's rulers have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Faced with a predatory US takeover bid for one of the country's most important companies in one of its few successful manufacturing sectors, David Cameron's instinct has been to wave it through with a cheery smile.
Anyone who undermines the biggest corporate takeover in Britain's history, ministers declare, is "anti-business and anti-jobs". The British-Swedish AstraZeneca may account for almost a tenth of the country's woefully low investment in research and development; Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant trying to swallow it, may have a reputation for slashing research in the companies it takes over; and AstraZeneca's former boss may have described Pfizer as a "praying mantis" that "sucks the lifeblood out of their prey". But Britain is "open for business", as the chancellor likes to insist. Nothing must be done to obstruct the operation of the market.
Continue reading...April 30, 2014
It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war | Seumas Milne
The threat of war in Ukraine is growing. As the unelected government in Kiev declares itself unable to control the rebellion in the country's east, John Kerry brands Russia a rogue state. The US and the European Union step up sanctions against the Kremlin, accusing it of destabilising Ukraine. The White House is reported to be set on a new cold war policy with the aim of turning Russia into a "pariah state".
That might be more explicable if what is going on in eastern Ukraine now were not the mirror image of what took place in Kiev a couple of months ago. Then, it was armed protesters in Maidan Square seizing government buildings and demanding a change of government and constitution. US and European leaders championed the "masked militants" and denounced the elected government for its crackdown, just as they now back the unelected government's use of force against rebels occupying police stations and town halls in cities such as Slavyansk and Donetsk.
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