General politics discussion thread

[David]

The Scottish Justice Secretary today defended his decision not to attend the US Senate's hearing on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, saying he was "accountable to Scotland" and had "no information to provide" on any BP oil deal.

 

Kenny MacAskill was invited to appear before the Senate hearing, along with former UK justice secretary Jack Straw and BP chief executive Tony Hayward.

 

Members of the US Senate foreign relations committee want to investigate the suspicions of some that oil giant BP may have had a hand in the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi last August.

 

But this morning, Mr MacAskill insisted that the Scottish Government was "neither party nor privy" to any discussions that may have taken place with BP.

 

He denied claims that he was "running scared" from an inquiry, and said the Scottish Government was co-operating fully with the US "as best we can".

 

Mr MacAskill said: "The US Senate's invitation is primarily predicated on an investigation into what may or may not have happened with regard to a BP oil deal.

 

"The Scottish Government was neither party nor privy to what was going on there, so we've made it quite clear that we have no information that we can provide regarding that.

 

"If there is any information on points, we are happy to clarify matters but we really can't be of any assistance on that."

 

He said it was "proper form" for him to give evidence to Holyrood and to Westminster - but not to the US Senate.

 

He said: "I'm the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. I am accountable to the Scottish Parliament and I'm elected by the Scottish people. That's why when I was asked to appear before a Scottish Parliamentary committee on Al-Megrahi, I did so, and that's proper form.

 

"With regards to the United States Senate, that is regarding BP, and I can't assist in that.

 

"If they do have points of clarification, we will be more than happy to provide that, but as I say, we were neither party not privy to it and we have no knowledge of what did or did not happen.

 

"I'm not running scared from anything. What we are doing is co-operating fully with the United States Senate as best we can."

 

Mr MacAskill continued: "We have made it quite clear that the letter from the First Minister clarifying our position will be read into the records so it will be there for the Senate, but we don't know anything about a BP deal. We were not party to any of those discussions, so there's nothing I can usefully add."

 

Earlier today, Labour's Holyrood justice spokesman Richard Baker urged Mr MacAskill to appear before the Senate committee when it meets on Thursday.

 

Mr Baker told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland: "It speaks volumes about the lack of confidence he has now in his own decision that he is running a mile from any scrutiny of it."

 

Mr Baker argued it was "perfectly legitimate" for American politicians to ask Mr MacAskill to come to Washington and answer questions, saying the senators "represent so many of the families who lost loved ones" in the atrocity.

 

The Labour MSP said: "The US senators want to know why Megrahi was released. Only one person can tell them that - that's Kenny MacAskill."

 

He also called on Mr MacAskill to meet American families who lost loved ones when Pan Am flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie.

 

Mr Baker said: "I think it's time for him to go to meet them personally and not only to explain his decision, but now offer an apology for making such a bad decision, which clearly was very wrong."

Source: Daily Record

 

Whilst I wasn't a supporter of the release of al-Megrahi, i've got to wonder what makes the US think they can call us to task over something that is none of their fucking business.

 

He was imprisoned on Scottish soil, and dealt with accordingly by the Scottish authorities.

 

I'd be interested to see if any US Senators would be making a trip to Scotland to answer questions if the roles were reversed.

 

MacAskill is quite right to say he has nothing to answer for.

[David]

Shit is heating up in Korea;

 

North Korea says it will use its "nuclear deterrent" in response to joint US-South Korean military exercises this weekend.

 

Pyongyang was ready to launch a "retaliatory sacred war" at any time, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

 

Washington and Seoul say the war games are to deter North Korean aggression.

 

Tensions between the two Koreas have been high since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

 

An international investigation said the ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, a claim strongly denied by Pyongyang.

 

The BBC's John Sudworth, in Seoul, says this is not the first time that North Korea has issued such a warning.

 

Although it is likely to be dismissed as the usual diplomatic brinkmanship, the rising tension will cause concern among governments in the region, he adds.

 

The North's powerful National Defence Commission said the war games were "nothing but outright provocations aimed to stifle the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [North Korea] by force of arms," the KCNA reported.

 

"The army and people of the DPRK will start a retaliatory sacred war of their own style based on nuclear deterrent any time necessary in order to counter the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces deliberately pushing the situation to the brink of a war," it added.

 

In response, the White House said it was not interested in a "war of words" with North Korea.

 

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the US wanted "more constructive action and fewer provocative words" from Pyongyang.

 

The North had already promised a physical response to the military exercises during an Asian regional security forum in Vietnam on Friday.

 

North Korea's delegation spokesman at the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) regional forum said the exercises were an example of 19th century "gunboat diplomacy".

 

"It is a threat to the Korean peninsula and the region of Asia as a whole," he said.

The BBC analyst highlights a good point about China's input in his commentary;

 

These remarks will cause a certain amount of consternation. While few people believe that it is a real threat in the immediate sense, it does add to the sense of rising tension.

 

China has been urging the US and South Korea to tread very carefully. It does not want to see tensions to rise further, and there have been clear signals from Beijing that it does not think that this sort of war game being held off the coast of the Korean peninsula at this moment is a good idea.

 

China's real worry is that North Korea is already very isolated, it is being squeezed diplomatically and economically, and if it is squeezed too hard, it might live up to some of these words.

[d-d-d-dAz]

I know no one cares, but the folkloric way in which people are viewing James Purnell these days is a bit ridiculous. He was always seen as a more ambitious, slimier, snippier, even more trenchantly Blairite minister than the ambitious, slimy, snippy and Blairite David Miliband.

 

Now he's gone people are claiming that he could have really been the one to save the Labour party from electoral Siberia, yet he was the minister who everyone despised when he proposed charging 26.8% interest on crisis loans to pensioners and the unemployed. Christ.

[d-d-d-dAz]

Why is it when you stick a bunch of well educated, experienced politicians in a room with morons do the politicians end up looking like the morons...?

[Oldy]

Why is it when you stick a bunch of well educated, experienced politicians in a room with morons do the politicians end up looking like the morons...?

You were watching/listening to the 5 Live Labour thing too I take it? I couldn't believe it when, on the 7th or 8th attempt, Derbyshire asked Ed Balls if he'd answer the damn question on how he would go about cutting the deficit and he ended up just saying, "No." Brilliant, Ed.

[d-d-d-dAz]

The problem he's got, and I sympathise, is that he's got to pander to quasi-politicised minds of people, who in all actuality are sourcing their knowledge from the media. The deficit gets lauded as something that unequivocally needs reducing through public expenditure cuts and suddenly the question is 'How would you cut?' rather than 'should you cut?'. There exists a very real, Keynesian, economic argument that says the worst thing you can do at a time of recession is to start wielding the axe. That you need to increase the relative marginal propensity to consume of the population which comes about through growth and jobs. Mass unemployment and civil unrest actually compounds the problems of recession, and can exacerbate them.

 

The problem the Labour candidates have is that people now think that the only answer is cutting, so when you say 'Well, actually outside of shedding waste what we really need to resort to is fiscal stimulus' everyone gets up in arms and uses everyones new buzz phrase; 'DEFICIT DENIER'

 

Of course, were the candidates (who are all economically gifted) to resort to complicated, macroeconomic explanations they'd get lampooned as snobbish; as seen by the Brown, and later Balls, derision that came about from 'post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory'.

 

My views on the subject are clear, a lot of the governments national schemes and social provisions were too tightly bound by the decisions of central government. For example, Building Schools for the Future was a noble programme, yet the National Union of Teachers, before the election, criticised it for handing over millions of pounds to consultants. So, in those instances, where waste can be shed yes we should seek to make those savings; we need to hand certain levels of autonomy over to the people 'on the shopfloor', who know what they need, and what they can do without. Beyond that, it serves no great economic purpose to go deeper and faster, other than to displace much more labour than the private sector could ever hope to pick up. Our economy is currently following the economic model of the US in the late 90's, where by we've falling off the back of the 'Balance of Payments' stages;

 

i.e., you start as a developing economy with a trade deficit and a current account deficit. You take on FDI (foreign direct investment) and loans from developed nations, and you create low skilled jobs to increase your exports relative to imports, which is possible because of the wide scope for return on capital investment and the low labour costs.

 

As time moves on, you move into a visible trade surplus as your exports increase relative to your imports, but you maintain a current account deficit as you start to pay back your loans and meet the terms of investment.

 

Thirdly, you move into both a visible trade surplus and a current account surplus as you pay off your debts, but your low-skilled labour market remains strong and your exports remain attractive.

 

This third stage, invariably, leads to a strengthening of currency which weakens your exports. You therefore use your excess capital to increase imports, which moves you into the state of a post-industrialised economy, whereby you run a visible trade deficit but maintain a strong current account. Low-skilled labour moves to the next developing nation and the cycle continues ad nauseum.

 

However, as with the volatility of the housing market in the US in the late 90's, the banking crisis dropped us off the edge of this into a relatively economic unknown. With the only discernible solution being that we need to, rather than arbitrarily swinging an axe through the public sector, focus again on the manufacturing sector of our economy. We need to embark on the most radical labour market reforms of a generation to ensure that capital investors once again see the UK as a place to invest, we need to revisit restrictive regulations on labour and we quite simply need to redress the balance between exports and imports. It's basic Say's law economics that the process of producing a product or commodity and putting it on the market, itself, creates demand. Which, in turn, brings wealth, pays taxes, cuts the benefits bill and reduces the deficit in a sustainable and humane way.

[bobbins]

I don't know much about economics but that makes a lot of sense. If someone derides the Labour government again for "not putting money away for a rainy day" I think I'll go mad. As if global economics is a little old lady. America and Britain have almost always ran a trade deficit because of the advantages that situation brings. Trying to wipe out the deficit completely in five years is madness.

[David]

I know it's a little late in the day, but did anyone happen to see Question Time a few weeks ago?

 

It was the episode that featured Andy Burnham, Francis Maude & George Galloway, and is well worth a watch.

 

I have to say, i'm certainly no fan of Labour, but if I had to choose a new leader to back, it would likely be Burnham.

 

This episode is also worth watching simply to see George Galloway.

[bobbins]

I know it's a little late in the day, but did anyone happen to see Question Time a few weeks ago?

 

It was the episode that featured Andy Burnham, Francis Maude & George Galloway, and is well worth a watch.

 

I have to say, i'm certainly no fan of Labour, but if I had to choose a new leader to back, it would likely be Burnham.

 

This episode is also worth watching simply to see George Galloway.

Yeah, Burnham and Galloway were both impressive.

[David]

A few notes of interest perhaps;

 

Support for Liberal Democrats has plunged to just 12 per cent - half the level the party secured in the General Election - according to a poll released today.

 

The YouGov survey for the Sunday Times also recorded a steep nosedive in the popularity of the party's leader Nick Clegg since he became Deputy Prime Minister by taking the Lib Dems into coalition Government with the Conservatives.

 

Mr Clegg's personal satisfaction rating was eight points, compared to the spectacular 72 points he achieved in the wake of the first televised leaders' debate during the election campaign.

 

Today's poll suggested that Tories have not suffered in the same way from going into coalition.

 

David Cameron's party were up five points since the General Election on 42 per cent, with Labour gaining ground on them - up eight points since the Election on 38 per cent.

 

The Lib Dems rating was half the 24 per cent the party won in the election and the lowest since October 2007, when Sir Menzies Campbell was forced out as leader.

 

The poll came after Mr Clegg admitted in a TV documentary that he changed his mind about the need for spending cuts before the election without making his shift public, and after questions were raised over whether he misled Mr Cameron about the offers Labour had made him on electoral reform.

 

Signs of unrest have also emerged within his party over the coalition's position on issues like immigration, schools and university tuition fees.

 

*YouGov questioned 1,885 voters online on July 29 and 30.

 

 

David Cameron's comments about Pakistan's alleged links with terrorism threatened to cause a full-scale diplomatic row last night after the country's intelligence officials boycotted a counter-terrorism summit in the UK and demonstrators burned an effigy of the Prime Minister on the streets of Karachi.

 

Three days before President Asif Ali Zardari is due to arrive in London, members of his intelligence services cancelled a planned conference with British counterparts over the stinging criticism delivered by Mr Cameron in India last week.

 

Pakistan's information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said yesterday that there was "resentment" in his country over the comments made during a visit to its traditional rival. But, amid warnings that the intervention could cause unrest among young British Pakistanis, he said he hoped the crisis could be resolved when the leaders meet this week at the PM's country retreat, Chequers.

 

Mr Cameron provoked fury when he said Pakistan should not be able "to look both ways" on terror, after a speech in Bangalore last Wednesday. He also said Pakistan must not "promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world".

 

Former foreign secretary David Miliband joins criticism today, accusing Mr Cameron of "chasing headlines". In an exclusive article for The Independent on Sunday, he likens Mr Cameron to "a cuttlefish squirting out ink" during his visits to Turkey and India last week. "Pakistan is the region's tinderbox," Mr Miliband writes. "We have 10,000 young men and women at risk in Afghanistan. Only a political settlement can bring an end to the war.

 

"For that we need Pakistan; and they need our economic and military support. David Cameron is right that terrorist groups have launched attacks from Pakistan. But that is only part of the picture. Pakistan has also been the victim of terror. But the Prime Minister, in attacking Pakistan for 'looking both ways', did not tell this side of the story."

 

Mr Cameron's comments were particularly damaging as they came soon after leaked US documents suggested Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) had been helping the Afghan insurgency. Pakistan officially referred to the remarks as "surprising, to say the least" and pointed to the "innumerable sacrifices" it had suffered at the hands of terrorists.

 

Mr Cameron's spokeswoman said he was referring to Pakistan as a country, not its government, but the PM did not row back in media appearances. But the row was reignited yesterday when the ISI director general, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, cancelled his UK visit, due to begin tomorrow, and confirmed that the decision had been made in direct response to Mr Cameron's comments. Sources in Islamabad said Pakistan had been outraged at the suggestion that it was playing a "double game" in Afghanistan.

 

In a sign of mounting public resentment, activists from the radical group Shabab-e-Milli burned a dummy of Mr Cameron outside the Karachi Press Club, and called for Pakistan to cut diplomatic ties with the UK. The protesters held up a banner reading "David Camroon

[SpursRiot2012]

Yeah, but as far as I can tell he's not wrong. Granted, I'm not privy to daily intelligence briefings or anything but from everything I've read Pakistan needs to do much more to combat terrorism then they are currently doing, especially considering I read some members of their intelligence services might be actively helping certain organisations.

[David]

Regardless, i'm sure there are better ways to go about things?

[SpursRiot2012]

Yeah, sure, I was just making the point that he's not plucking shit out of thin air There must obviously be some merit to what he's saying, is all I'm pointing out. Plus, you would assume if he made an issue of it at a diplomatic level he's just going to get denials and posturing, so maybe he figured he'd make it a bit more public. I don't know, of couse. That's just my thinking.

[David]

Whatever, he's boosted sales of effigies in Pakistan by a fair bit this month.

[SpursRiot2012]

Oh well. Some people take shit personally. My view is, they should relax a bit.