History > 2007 > UK > Politics > Prime Minister Tony Blair (II)

Martin Rowson

political cartoon

The Guardian        p. 39        6.4.2007

The legacy:

After 10 years

Blair has made Britain

a better place

Sunday April 29, 2007
The Observer
Leader

Tony Blair hopes that history will judge him kindly; he knows that this Thursday the British public will not. Labour is braced for a savaging in elections for local councils in England, the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly. Since most Britons are enjoying unprecedented prosperity their impatience to punish the government is strange.

Only two years ago Labour won a third successive general election. It was a comfortable victory, although turnout was poor. Britain, it seemed, liked having Mr Blair in charge, faute de mieux. That option will soon be gone. At the next election no party leader will call himself a Blairite. But they will promise to combine economic efficiency with a commitment to social justice. They will pledge empowerment to the individual and solidarity to the collective. They will embrace globalisation but warn of its challenges - how it requires reform of the state; how it makes obsolete the old dogmas of left and right.

If that feels like a summary of the politically obvious it is because Tony Blair made it so.

In 1979 Labour was banished from power for 18 years and came close to extinction. Tony Blair turned it into a natural party of government. He drove the Tories into the wilderness, forcing them to accept a new consensus. They now say they would not cut taxes at the expense of funding for schools and hospitals. That was not the view under Margaret Thatcher.

Before David Cameron the Tories attacked Labour with pessimistic whinges: dirty hospitals, marauding criminals and illegal aliens. It appealed to the party's core supporters. But it did not resonate with the country as a whole because it did not describe modern Britain, which is richer, more comfortable with diversity, more tolerant, more confident and in ruder health than it was in 1997. People no longer wait days for a doctor's appointment and months for an operation. Children get better results at school, more of them go to university and go on to find a job. There has never been a recession under New Labour.

But judging by opinion polls, these benefits are taken for granted or are insufficient to earn the government any credit. That is partly because riches have not flowed very evenly. At the top of the income scale grotesque sums are earned and splashed around. At the bottom there is still an underclass, unresponsive to state intervention. That inequality is more visible than the discreet but more widespread increase in average household wealth.

Another problem has been Mr Blair's mismanagement of expectations. Often we have been told how inadequate public services are, and how radically they need to change. But reforms have been gradual and, in the case of the health service, plain contradictory - dismantling and then reinstating the internal market. The effect of this timidity has been to stoke dissatisfaction while ramping up unrealistic hopes for improvement. Public sector workers, who are unquestionably better off under Labour, have had their morale undermined by a government message that portrays them as obstacles on the path to modernisation. The gap between the rhetoric of change and the reality has swallowed much of the government's reformist credibility.

That problem is often attributed to New Labour's love of 'spin' - launching policies with an eye only on the next day's headlines. But that criticism misjudges the challenge that Mr Blair faced in an era of media revolution. He is the first Prime Minister to have to deal with 24-hour rolling news with its insatiable appetite for novelty and fixation on personality. He is the first to govern in the internet age. Had Mr Blair not been a master of information control, he would only have lost power to someone who was.

Another criticism of Mr Blair, often joined to the accusation of spin, is that he lacks ideology. But that has also been a tremendous advantage. His disregard for sacred party positions is what made him a successful peace broker in Northern Ireland. Ulster was a problem that, less than a generation ago, looked intractable. Mr Blair's dogged diplomacy, charm offensive and lack of ideological baggage made the difference. At his best, he is capable of a sort of visionary pragmatism. It is a rare quality in a politician.

When Mr Blair has shown something akin to ideological zeal, in foreign policy, it has caused him political harm. To his credit, he was quick to understand the threat posed by al-Qaeda. He recognised in Islamist terrorism a movement of global proportions that recruited people, including British citizens, and taught them to crave death and make a fetish of war. He rallied the world against the odious Taliban.

But Mr Blair's room for pragmatic manoeuvre in foreign affairs was limited by his partnership with George Bush, the most ideologically driven US President in recent history. Still, the choice to join Mr Bush's war in Iraq was defensible on many grounds: the genuine belief, at the time, that Saddam was a threat; the moral case for unseating a brutal dictator, the long-term importance of unstinting loyalty to the transatlantic alliance. But Downing Street insisted that Mr Blair had to be outspoken in support of George Bush in public so as to better influence his actions in private. Having failed to get clear United Nations authority for the attack, he failed to audit America's plans for post-invasion nation building. As it happens, there were no such plans. So today Iraq is a democracy, but not a happy one. The political freedom Iraqis have can hardly be called a triumph when so many of them lose their lives to senseless violence.

Mr Blair says that much of the violence is fomented by terrorists who share the ideology of the men who attacked the US on 11 September and Britain on 7 July. He is right. But his insistence on seeing problems of the Middle East in purely Manichean terms - as a global struggle between Good and Evil, between Western Civilisation and apocalyptic terrorism does not lend itself to good policy-making. Stabilisation in Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel's war with Hizbollah and its occupation of Palestine - these are problems that require separate treatment. Weaving them into a continuous narrative of a 'war on terror' only legitimises the jihadi world view of Muslims in confrontation with everyone else.

Mr Blair can give the impression of believing that those who are against him over the war are somehow sympathetic to the terrorists. That has alienated voters. It is a blind spot that stops him also from understanding civil libertarian objections to security measures at home. People might despise suicide bombers, yet also think that no one should be subjected to 90 days detention without trial. People might reject identity cards, the accumulation of private data on government computers and the profusion of CCTV cameras on British streets not out of sympathy with criminals, but because those things erode their fundamental rights.

That does not mean Tony Blair's rule has been authoritarian. If anything he has been perpetually frustrated in his ambitions to wield power. His huge parliamentary majority has cosseted systematic back bench rebellion. His rivalry with the Chancellor poisoned relations in the cabinet. It also led to the unseemly manner of his departure - an ugly coup and a nudge into early retirement.

Such dysfunctionality is an electoral turn-off. Voters want to be governed by a party that speaks out to the nation with confidence, not inward to itself with bitterness. That alone cannot account for Labour's anticipated meltdown on Thursday. Perhaps 10 years is just too long. Perhaps it is simply time for a change.

But that means impatience for new faces, not necessarily a new direction. The two political constituencies that have been most hostile to everything Mr Blair does are the unreconstructed left and the misanthropic right, one nostalgic for class war, the other pining for a fictitious idyll of little England.

The overwhelming majority, meanwhile, want neither revolution nor reaction. They like gradual change. And Britain has been discreetly transformed: the minimum wage; free nursery care; tens of thousands more teachers, doctors and nurses - with higher wages; the working families' tax credit; the right to six months' maternity leave and two weeks' paternity leave; a statutory right to flexible working hours; the disability rights commission; the Freedom of Information Act; civil partnerships and the repeal of Section 28; restoring self-government for London; devolution for Scotland and Wales; the Human Rights Act; peace in Northern Ireland. Mr Blair's government has given millions of people unprecedented freedom to live as they choose and given them the wealth and security to do it.

Britain is better off after a decade with Tony Blair in charge. Wealth has been created, and wealth has been redistributed. That is what Labour governments have always hoped to do. It has happened without a brake on global competitiveness. That is what New Labour hoped to do: build a vibrant market economy with a generous welfare state; economic freedom and social protection. That is Blairism.

So on Thursday millions of voters will go to the polls intending to bury the Prime Minister. In time they will find many reasons to praise him.

    The legacy: After 10 years Blair has made Britain a better place, O, 29.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2068033,00.html

6.30pm update

Lib Dems and Tories round on Blair over anti-terror leaks

Wednesday April 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland


Pressure mounted on the government today over claims that ministers or their special advisers may have leaked sensitive counter-terrorism details, as the Liberal Democrats called on police to investigate whether the Official Secrets Act had been breached and the Tories called for a formal inquiry.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' home affairs spokesman, approached West Midlands police asking them to confirm whether the force would investigate leaks surrounding anti-terror raids in Birmingham earlier this year, after Tony Blair ruled out holding an investigation into the claims at prime minister's question time today.

This follows a separate move by the Conservatives, who formally requested an inquiry into claims that ministers or their special advisers may have leaked sensitive counter-terrorism details, after the Commons row between Mr Blair and David Cameron, the Tory leader.

Mr Blair was challenged over comments made by the Metropolitan police's deputy assistant commissioner, Peter Clarke, yesterday, in which he suggested - without naming names - that certain individuals, who were trying to "squeeze out some short-term presentational advantage" by leaking details, were putting lives at risk and were beneath contempt.

The police chief referred specifically to the recent investigations in Birmingham, when the press seemed to know about the arrests almost before they took place.

Mr Clegg called on West Midlands police to investigate the leaks and establish whether any criminal offences had occurred, in light of the severity of the claims.

He wrote: "Given the terms of the Official Secrets Act, which prohibits the release of information that 'impedes the prevention or detection of offences or the apprehension or prosecution of suspected offenders' by a crown servant, it is possible that the circumstances of these leaks have entailed a breach of the act."

Taking a different tack, the Conservatives seized on the fact that Mr Blair failed to give a categorical denial at PMQs that anyone within government had been involved.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, pointed out that the home secretary had previously given assurances to the Conservative party that neither civil servants nor political staff had commented on operational matters relating to counter-terrorism operations.

Earlier today, Mr Blair limited his comments by saying that "as far as I'm aware" no minister, special adviser or civil servant had leaked security information.

Speaking at the dispatch box, Mr Blair denounced the leaks but said that there were no plans for a public inquiry: "The only guarantee I can give is that as far as I'm aware they did not [come from a minister, civil servant or special adviser].

"But let me make it absolutely clear that I completely condemn any leaks of sensitive information, from whatever quarter. But I don't think it is right to leave an allegation suggesting there may be a minister who has done this unless you've got actual evidence that that is so."

Pressed by Mr Cameron about whether he was investigating the leaks within his own camp or was about to do so, Mr Blair said, over Tory jeers: "I am not going to confirm that.

"What I will say is that if there is any evidence at all that people have been engaged deliberately in leaking information of this sort, I can assure you I will take the strongest possible action in respect of whoever it may be."

Mr Cameron responded: "You say you are pretty certain it's not a minister or a special adviser. But if you haven't had a leak inquiry, how on earth can you know?"

The prime minister replied: "If you have evidence that someone has been involved in such a thing I will of course have it properly investigated.

"But what I'm not going to do is have a situation in which you simply make this allegation [and] leave it hanging there without any evidence to back it up whatever. If I was being unkind, I would call that a smear."

Soon afterwards, Mr Davis wrote to the cabinet secretary, Gus O'Donnell, calling for an inquiry to be set up.

He wrote: "In respective letters to myself and Dominic Grieve, Sir David Normington stated clearly that Home Office civil servants had not commented on operational matters and the home secretary gave unequivocal assurances that his political staff had not briefed the media. However, in the House of Commons today the prime minister refused to reiterate those assurances."

Tory party officials were keen to point out that Mr Blair had triggered 60 inquiries into leaks over the past three years alone when Labour's reputation had been under threat.

These included an investigation into a memo leaked to the Guardian that revealed that Jack Straw was watering down the provisions enshrined in the freedom of information bill.

Fears that government insiders could be responsible for leaking sensitive information emerged after a speech made by Mr Clarke to a Policy Exchange event in which he revealed that "misguided individuals" were betraying sensitive confidences.

"Perhaps they look to curry favour with certain journalists, or to squeeze out some short-term presentational advantage," he said.

"They reveal sources of life-saving intelligence. In the worst cases they put lives at risk. I wonder if they simply do not care."

Last August arrests were made in the West Midlands over an alleged plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim serviceman.

Mr Clarke said that West Midlands police were furious after details of the operation were leaked after the men were arrested.

"On the morning of the arrests, almost before the detainees had arrived at the police stations to which they were being taken for questioning, it was clear that key details of the investigation and the evidence had been leaked," he said.

"This damaged the interview strategy of the investigators, and undoubtedly raised community tensions," Mr Clarke said.

    Lib Dems and Tories round on Blair over anti-terror leaks, G, 25.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2065284,00.html

Blair blames spate of murders on black culture

· Political correctness not helping, says PM
· Community leaders react angrily to comments

Thursday April 12, 2007
Guardian
Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd

Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.

One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit.

Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness.

Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.

Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids".

Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: "When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?" Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders "taken out of circulation".

Last night, British African-Caribbean figures leading the fight against gang culture condemned Mr Blair's speech. The Rev Nims Obunge, chief executive of the Peace Alliance, one of the main organisations working against gang crime, denounced the prime minister.

Mr Obunge, who attended the Downing Street summit chaired by Mr Blair in February, said he had been cited by the prime minister: "He makes it look like I said it's the black community doing it. What I said is it's making the black community more vulnerable and they need more support and funding for the work they're doing. ... He has taken what I said out of context. We came for support and he has failed and has come back with more police powers to use against our black children."

Keith Jarrett, chair of the National Black Police Association, whose members work with vulnerable youngsters, said: "Social deprivation and delinquency go hand in hand and we need to tackle both. It is curious that the prime minister does not mention deprivation in his speech."

Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London's mayor, said: "For years we have said this is an issue the black community has to deal with. The PM is spectacularly ill-informed if he thinks otherwise.

"Every home secretary from [David] Blunkett onwards has been pressed on tackling the growing phenomenon of gun and gang crime in deprived black communities, and government has failed to respond to what has been a clear demand for additional resources to tackle youth alienation and disaffection".

The Home Office has already announced it is looking at the possibility of banning membership of gangs, tougher enforcement of the supposed mandatory five-year sentences for possession of illegal firearms, and lowering the age from 21 to 18 for this mandatory sentence.

Answering questions later Mr Blair said: "Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation.

"I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them."

Some people working with children knew at the age of five whether they were going to be in "real trouble" later, he said.

Mr Blair is known to believe the tendency for many black boys to be raised in families without a father leads to a lack of appropriate role models.

He said: "We need to stop thinking of this as a society that has gone wrong - it has not - but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need by specific measures to be brought back into the fold."

The Commission for Racial Equality broadly backed Mr Blair, saying people "shouldn't be afraid to talk about this issue for fear of sounding prejudiced".

Mr Blair spoke out as a second teenager was due to appear in court charged with the murder of 14-year-old Paul Erhahon, stabbed to death in east London on Friday. He was the seventh Londoner under 16 to be murdered since the end of January, and his 15-year-old friend, who was also stabbed, remains in hospital.

    Blair blames spate of murders on black culture, G, 12.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2054958,00.html

Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair's 10 years


Exclusive poll: public says PM has failed to improve country

Sunday April 8, 2007
The Observer
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor

A remarkable picture of the way Tony Blair has lost the faith of British voters over his 10 years in power is revealed today by a comprehensive study of public attitudes towards the Prime Minister.

As Blair prepares to leave office, the poll of more than 2,000 adults shows that people believe the country is a more dangerous, less happy, less pleasant place to live. There was a negative response to nearly all of more than 40 questions the public was asked about trust in politics, how they felt about their own lives and whether public services had got better.

Despite some independent evidence that services have improved and the economy has performed well compared with other industrialised nations, the poll shows how damning the public's verdict is on Blair and his government.
The poll, carried out for The Observer for a special supplement on his decade in power, will increase concerns among Labour's high command that the party is facing electoral defeat in the crucial national elections in Scotland and Wales and the local elections in England next month. It could also mean that Gordon Brown, if he wins the subsequent leadership election, will be handed an almost impossible political legacy to deal with.

The poll reveals that almost half of voters consider the outgoing Prime Minister as out of touch, untrustworthy and overly concerned with spin, while 57 per cent think he has stayed in office too long. And despite the billions of pounds poured into health care, more than half rate the government's performance on the NHS as poor or very poor in a sign that even Labour's traditional strengths are becoming dangerously eroded.

The harsh verdict appears to quash hopes that Blair could bow out with the 'crowds wanting more' - as a now infamous leaked Downing Street memo suggested only last autumn - and will renew some Labour MPs' fears that anger with him is contaminating the image of the whole party. It will reopen questions about whether he should be fronting the current election campaign.

Friction is already setting in between supporters of Blair and Brown over who should carry the blame for predicted heavy losses in the Scottish Parliament, Welsh assembly and English town halls on 3 May, with Brownite MPs warning that opposition parties are exploiting anti-Blair feeling on the stump.

'The big problem we have got on the doorstep in Scotland is the SNP and the Lib Dems, and the Tories going round hammering home the message "This is your last chance to give Tony Blair a kicking",' said one senior Brown ally.

The BPIX poll, giving the Tories an 11 per cent lead over Labour, was commissioned to test voters' overview of the Blair years and their impact on national life. It suggests voters remain unimpressed by years of public service reform and convinced, despite his controversial focus on antisocial behaviour, that Blair has been too soft on crime. Forty per cent considered him 'tired' and running out of ideas.

While just over a quarter rated the government's general performance under Blair as good or very good, 61 per cent disagreed that Britain was 'a more pleasant place to live' now than in 1997, 69 per cent thought it was more dangerous and 58 per cent disagreed that it was happier. On education, 45 per cent rated the government's performance as poor or very poor while 60 per cent thought the same on transport.

The poll holds little cheer for those hoping an alternative successor would do better than Brown in reviving New Labour. Asked who would best carry on Blair's work, the Chancellor came top with 35 per cent, with the young Environment Secretary David Miliband on 4 per cent and Charles Clarke with 1 per cent. Both potential rivals were less popular than the Tory leader David Cameron on 13 per cent, with even Labour voters preferring Cameron to Clarke.

Blair will campaign prominently this week in Wales and Scotland, signalling the party believes he is still an electoral trump card. 'At this election the key thing is to get your core vote out and the view is that the person who is able to get the core vote out in Scotland is him,' said one senior aide.

Loyalists also hit back. 'I have never heard anybody talk about the years before 1997 as the good old days,' said Alan Milburn, the former Labour party chairman. 'The story is no longer about leaking classrooms, falling standards, lengthening hospital waiting lists or a Britain unique in lacking a minimum wage. Prosperity is being spread, poverty being eroded and services have been improved. I have no doubt history will smile kindly on Tony Blair's 10 years.'

The poll suggests voters do think some communities benefited under Labour, with 51 per cent believing Britain is now a better place for ethnic minorities and 61 per cent that it is better for gays and lesbians. However, political scientists David Sanders and Paul Whiteley, analysing the poll for today's Observer, argue that for some this could actually be a negative, reflecting 'a belief that New Labour has "looked after them but not after people like me".' Women, who were critical to sealing Labour's last three victories, were more likely than men to think Blair untrustworthy and say they liked him less than they used to. The Iraq war is seen as Blair's nadir, with 58 per cent judging it his biggest failure: almost two-thirds thought he had just followed America. His biggest success was the Northern Ireland peace process, followed by Bank of England independence.

· The BPIX poll of 2,034 adults was taken from 16-19 March

    Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair's 10 years, O, 8.4.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2052546,00.html

4.30pm update

Blair renews criticism of Iran as sailors arrive home

Thursday April 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies


Fifteen British sailors and marines held captive by Iran for nearly a fortnight arrived home today, as Tony Blair attacked Tehran for what he called its continued support for terrorism.

The British Airways flight from Tehran touched down at Heathrow at 12:02pm. Soon afterwards, the 14 men and one woman, now dressed in uniform rather than the Iranian-provided suits in which they boarded the plane, crossed the landing strip to a pair of Sea King helicopters waiting to transfer them to their home base in Devon.

At exactly 2.30pm the helicopters landed at the Royal Marines base at Chivenor, near Barnstaple. The former captives disembarked before assembling next to the officers' mess, waving at relatives and colleagues watching from inside.

After a short pause, those waiting were allowed to run and greet the group with hugs and embraces. The released personnel and their families then shared a leisurely lunch, to be followed by a debriefing and medical check up.

Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup, who greeted the 15, said they seemed "very happy and in good shape". He added: "They did exactly what they should have done and we are extremely proud of them."

At the very moment the group's plane arrived in London, the prime minister's generally conciliatory tone towards Iran of recent days took a noticeably tougher turn, and he warned that "elements of the Iranian regime" were still arming insurgents inside Iraq.

Mr Blair contrasted the rejoicing at the sailors' return with the "sober and ugly reality" of events in Iraq.

He told reporters outside No 10, there was "grieving and mourning" for four UK soldiers killed overnight in a roadside explosion near Basra, southern Iraq.

They were killed at around 2am local time by a roadside bomb attack targeting their Warrior armoured vehicle patrol. A civilian Kuwaiti translator was also killed in the attack and a fifth British soldier was left seriously injured.

Mr Blair said it was too early to link this attack with Iran definitively, but added: "... the general picture, as I have said before, is that there are elements of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming and supporting terrorism in Iraq."

The latest deaths bring the British death toll in Iraq for the last few days to six, making it the bloodiest week for UK forces in Iraq for more than two years.

British and US officials believe that the Quds brigade, a secretive organisation directed by the Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and part of the Iranian revolutionary guard, is helping to provide insurgents in Iraq with the training and finance to create roadside bombs.

The UK personnel were themselves seized by revolutionary guards on March 23 in waters just outside the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iraq and Iran as they searched an Indian-registered vessel.

Iran said the crew's two rigid inflatable boats had strayed into Iranian waters. Britain insisted they had remained well inside Iraqi naval territory at all times.

The lingering standoff, which saw Britain go to the UN security council for support, ended suddenly yesterday when the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced he was freeing the captives as a "gift" to Britain.

With the immediate crisis over, Mr Blair lost no time today in sending the message that his willingness to talk about the captives did not mean Britain was softening its attitude towards Iran, which he has previously accused of arming and assisting insurgents inside Iraq.

"The international community has got to remain absolutely steadfast in enforcing its will, whether it is in respect of nuclear weapons or whether it is in respect of the support of any part of the Iranian regime for terrorism, particularly when directed against democratic governments," he said.

The tone was in marked contrast to comments Mr Blair made yesterday when the captives were still in Iran, in which he hailed their imminent release and stressed that Britain held no "ill will" towards the Iranian people.

Britain has expressed annoyance at the way the captives were repeatedly paraded on Iranian television to express their contrition at, they said, having entered Iranian waters.

Following Mr Ahmadinejad's announcement yesterday, the 15 Britons were shown greeting him warmly on the steps of the presidential palace.

A British official said last night that London would continue to study how to avoid a repetition of the crisis and had not ruled out negotiations over boundary disputes in the northern Gulf and the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

Downing Street was adamant the Britons' release was not linked to future talks. "We didn't get into negotiation. This is not a conditional release," said one insider.

However, speculation of a secret deal was raised by a US announcement yesterday that Iranian diplomats might be given access to five Iranians arrested by American soldiers in Iraq, after three months in detention.

    Blair renews criticism of Iran as sailors arrive home, G, 5.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2050596,00.html

PM's statement on Home Office

Tony Blair issued a written ministerial statement today on the division of the Home Office

Thursday March 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

I am today announcing Machinery of Government changes to the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. These changes build on the 'Security Crime and Justice' strand of the Government's policy review, which sets the broad direction for the Government's policy response to security, public protection and the criminal justice system issues over the next decade.

The Home Secretary will be developing our capabilities to tackle the threat posed by terrorism. The security and counter-terrorism changes will have immediate effect. Alongside this, a new Ministry of Justice will be established, with the National Offender Management Service and lead responsibility for criminal law and sentencing policy being transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs. This change will take effect from May 9.

I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses a paper by the Cabinet Office, which sets out these changes in further detail.
 

Security and Counter-Terrorism

All those working in the field of counter-terrorism, particularly the police, security and intelligence agencies, have worked unstintingly to protect the country from the threat that we face. Our counter-terrorism capabilities are among the best in the world. However, the continuing and growing threat from terrorism means that the Government must develop and improve its counter-terrorism and security capabilities, and its governance.

I am therefore strengthening the role of the Home Secretary and the capabilities of his Department in facing the terrorist threat. While critical areas of the counter-terrorism strategy are overseen by other Secretaries of State, notably the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Home Secretary has the lead responsibility for the strategy in relation to security threats in the UK, including their overseas dimension.

A new Ministerial Committee on Security and Terrorism will be established, subsuming the current Defence and Overseas Policy (International Terrorism) Committee and the counter-radicalisation aspects of the Domestic Affairs Committee's work. The Prime Minister will chair the Committee, with the Home Secretary normally acting as deputy chair, although other Ministers such as the Foreign Secretary, and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, will deputise as appropriate. It will be supported by a sub-committee focusing on counter-radicalisation, which will be chaired by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The Committee will meet regularly, and will be supported by a more frequent meeting focusing on the threat to the UK, which will be chaired by the Home Secretary.

In order to support the Home Secretary in his new role, an Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism will be established in the Home Office. This will report to the Home Secretary. The Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism will take on overall responsibility for the CONTEST strategy, reporting through the new Ministerial Committee. The Government will also establish a research, information and communications unit in support of the struggle for ideas and values. This will be based in the Home Office, reporting to the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

The changes set out here are aimed at producing a step change in our approach to managing the terrorist threat to the UK and winning the battle for hearts and minds. These changes do not alter the responsibilities of the Foreign or Defence Secretaries, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, or other ministers, or the strategic and operational reporting lines of any of our security and intelligence agencies. The Cabinet Office will retain its role supporting the Prime Minister on national security and counter-terrorism.

Criminal Justice System

A new Ministry of Justice will be established. The National Offender Management Service, including the Prison and Probation Services, will move from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs on May 9, to form the new Ministry. The Home Office will retain its other existing responsibilities, including for policing, anti-social behaviour, drugs, overall crime reduction, immigration, asylum and identity, in addition to its responsibilities for security and counter terrorism.

The Ministry of Justice will be responsible for policy on the overall criminal, civil, family and administrative justice system, including sentencing policy, as well as the courts, tribunals, legal aid and constitutional reform. It will help to bring together management of the criminal justice system, meaning that once a suspect has been charged their journey through the courts, and if necessary prison and probation, can be managed seamlessly.

The Ministry of Justice will take the leading role in delivering a fairer, more effective, speedy and efficient justice system, and also in reducing reoffending. In doing so it will, with the Home Office and the Attorney General's Office, respect the vital roles and independence of the judiciary and the Prosecuting authorities.

Public protection and crime reduction will continue to be the core focus of Government policy. The Government has made clear that prison will continue to be necessary to protect the public from the most serious offenders, although some non-dangerous offenders do not need to be in custody because their offending can better be addressed through non-custodial means. The Government has announced plans to build a further 8,000 prison places by 2012, having already increased capacity by 19,700 since 1997.

Criminal law and sentencing policy will move to the new Ministry of Justice. In order to maintain the Government's clear focus on public protection, the Home Secretary will continue to have a core role in decision making in this area, reflecting his responsibilities for crime reduction. The Secretary of State for Justice will work with the Home Secretary, the Attorney General and other ministers to ensure flexible and effective responses to different types of crime, from anti-social behaviour to serious and organised criminality, including through the expansion of summary powers. Government policy in this area will, in future, be decided by a new Cabinet Committee on Crime and the Criminal Justice System, chaired by the Prime Minister.

Responsibility for the Crown Prosecution Service and the other prosecuting authorities will remain with the Attorney General, who has a statutory duty to superintend them. The prosecuting authorities are an integral part of the criminal justice system and the Ministry of Justice will continue to work with the Attorney General's Office to deliver a world-class criminal justice system.

The existing trilateral arrangements have been a success in delivering improvements to the criminal justice system, and will continue under the new structure. To facilitate this, there will continue to be a shared National Criminal Justice Board and an Office for Criminal Justice Reform, based in the Ministry of Justice, which will work trilaterally between the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General's Office.

The relationship between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice remains vital, and strong working level agreements will be put in place, for example between the NOMS, the Police, and the Immigration and Nationality Department.

    PM's statement on Home Office, G, 29.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045575,00.html

6.15pm

Blair threatens force over Darfur

Tuesday March 27, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Julian Borger


Tony Blair is pushing the United Nations to declare a no-fly zone over Darfur, enforced if necessary by the bombing of Sudanese military airfields used for raids on the province, the Guardian has learned.

The controversial initiative comes as a classified new report by a UN panel of experts alleges Sudan has violated UN resolutions by moving arms into Darfur, conducting overflights and disguising its military planes as UN humanitarian aircraft.

Mr Blair has been pushing for much tougher international action against Sudan since President Omar Hassan al-Bashir reneged earlier this month on last November's agreement to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur to protect civilians.

Over 200,000 have been killed in the course of a counter-insurgency by government forces and allied Janjaweed militia, and more than 10 times that number forced to flee their homes. Humanitarian supplies to the millions of refugees in the area are tenuous and threatened by continuing violence on the Sudan-Chad border.

Talks are under way in the UN security council over a package of sanctions being pushed by Britain and the US, which includes a comprehensive arms embargo and the freezing assets of Sudanese leaders implicated in the Darfur ethnic cleansing.

Speaking in Berlin on Sunday, Mr Blair described the situation in Darfur as "intolerable" and said: "We need to consider a no-fly zone to prevent the use of Sudanese air power against refugees and displaced people."

According to Downing Street, he is pushing for a no-fly zone to be passed at the same time as the new sanctions package, in the form of a 'Chapter 7' security council resolution, allowing the use of force.

"The prime minister believes we can do them together," said a Downing Street source. "There could be an agreement in the security council that there could be a no-fly zone. If the Sudanese government broke that agreement there would have to be consequences."

The imposition of a no-fly zone, of the kind employed over Iraq before the invasion, has been widely dismissed by military experts as impractical over an area as large as Darfur, which is the size of France. But the Guardian has learned that US and British officials are considering a cheaper alternative: punitive air strikes against Sudanese air force bases if Khartoum violated the no-fly zone.

The example being considered is the Ivory Coast, where the French wiped out much of the Ivorian air force while its planes and helicopters were sitting on the tarmac, in November 2004. The air strikes were in reprisal for the deaths of nine French peacekeepers in an Ivorian raid on rebel-held areas in the north.

Mr Blair's push for tough action is likely to be given a considerable boost by a new, still classified, report in New York by the UN's panel of experts on Sudan. According to an official who has seen the report, the panel found evidence that the Sudanese government was continuing to ship arms into Darfur and conduct air force operations over the province in violation of UN security council resolution 1591, passed two years ago.

The investigators also spotted an Antonov-26 aircraft painted white and parked at a military airport. "The panel noted with concern that the plane had a UN logo painted on the top of its left wing," a UN internal document said. "It was parked on the military apron next to rows of bombs."

The panel spotted another white Antonov at a military airport on March 1. The panel is "investigating the role of both aircraft in aerial bombing" of Darfur, the document said.

Downing Street has stressed that Mr Blair would prefer to act in concert with other security council members, but Sudan's defenders at the UN, led by China, are likely to resist any resolution backed by force. Asked whether the UK and the US would attempt to rally a 'coalition of the willing' against Sudan in the event of a security council impasse, a Downing Street source said: "We'd have to judge that if we failed." The initiative for such tough action is being driven by Mr Blair himself, often in the face of scepticism in the foreign office and ministry of defence.

The MoD in particular distanced itself from the idea yesterday, and said there were no plans for British forces to get involved.

"There are absolutely no plans for any UK military action at all in Sudan or the Darfur region of Sudan," a senior British defence source said yesterday, adding: "There are no plans on the radar".

But British military officials did not exclude the possibility that the US had contingency plans to strike Sudanese airfields.

Mr Blair is said by his aides to believe the ethnic cleansing to be a defining moral issue.

"It's very important [President Bashir] doesn't believe he can renege on his agreements. We can't allow the status quo to be locked in after the ethnic cleansing there," a Downing Street source said.

"The prime minister believes in a values-driven foreign policy and believes you have to evenly apply those values to have any credibility. He sees Darfur as a test of the international community's commitment to its own values."

The prospect of a no-fly zone was welcomed by the independent International Crisis Group thinktank yesterday. "The government in Khartoum is using its air force to bomb its own civilians and to resupply its troops and allied militias killing its own people. That's a pretty good reason for a no-fly zone," Andrew Stroehlein, the ICG's media director, said.

    Blair threatens force over Darfur, G, 27.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,,2044116,00.html

5.45pm update

Blair warns Iran over captive sailors

Tuesday March 27, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Tran and agencies

In a sign of increasing British impatience, Tony Blair today warned of a "different phase" if diplomatic efforts fail to secure the release of the 15 British service personnel held by Iran.

With the impasse entering its fifth day, the prime minister described the group's capture as "unjustified and wrong", while the foreign secretary Margaret Beckett demanded their safe return in "very robust" terms.

This afternoon Mr Blair's spokesman was keen to emphasise that British diplomats were engaged in talking "discreetly" to the Iranians, and only if those talks failed would the government have to become "more explicit" about why it knows the group was in Iraqi waters.

For its part, Iran said the 15 detained British sailors and marines were healthy and were being treated in a humane fashion.

"They are in completely good health. Rest assured that they have been treated with humanitarian and moral behaviour," Muhammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, told the Associated Press.

Speaking on GMTV this morning, Mr Blair said: "I hope we manage to get them to realise they have to release them. If not, then this will move into a different phase."

Asked what he meant, Mr Blair said: "Well, we will just have to see, but what they should understand is that we cannot have a situation where our servicemen and women are seized when actually they are in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate, patrolling perfectly rightly and in accordance with that mandate, and then effectively captured and taken to Iran."

Mr Hosseini said Faye Turney, the only woman sailor among the group, enjoyed complete privacy. "Definitely all ethics have been observed," he said.

He did not say where the marines were being kept and reiterated that their case was under investigation.

"The case should follow procedures," Mr Hosseini said, warning that "media hyperbole will not help" to speed things up.

Mr Blair's warning to Iran came after the family of Ms Turney, 26, who has a three-year-old daughter, spoke of their distress.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Defence on behalf of her family said: "While we understand the media interest in the ongoing incident involving Faye, this remains a very distressing time for us and our family. We are grateful for the support shown to us by all personnel involved and appreciate it, but would request that our privacy is respected."

The seizure of the 15 marines and sailors last Friday occurred at a time of increased tension between the west and Iran over the latter's nuclear programme.

On Saturday, the UN security council tightened sanctions against Iran, banning Iranian arms exports and freezing the assets of an additional 28 people and organisations involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.

Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mehdi Mostafavi, said the captives were being interrogated but insisted they were not taken as pawns to be used in exchange for five Iranians held by US forces in Iraq on suspicion of helping Iraqi insurgents.

Releasing a statement through state television, he said: "Iran has enough evidence to prove that the British forces personnel were detained in Iranian waters. It should become clear whether their entry was intentional or unintentional. After that is clarified, the necessary decision will be made."

Asked on GMTV whether he thought the capture was the "direct result" of the seizure of five Iranians by US forces, Mr Blair replied: "It should have absolutely no bearing at all, because any Iranian forces who are inside Iraq are breaching the UN mandate and undermining the democratically elected government of Iraq, so they have got no cause to be there at all."

The eight sailors and seven marines from the frigate HMS Cornwall were carrying out a routine search of a vessel which they suspected of smuggling in what Britain insists were Iraqi waters. They were taken at gunpoint by in the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which divides Iran and Iraq.

    Blair warns Iran over captive sailors, G, 27.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2043913,00.html

No more Mr Tough Guy

March 27, 2007 6:30 PM
The Guardian
Nick Clegg

If politics is a contest of ideas, then today's announcement by Tony Blair of a new approach to the criminal justice system may just turn out to be a significant victory for liberalism.

It amounts to a recognition that Blair's tough talking decade-long experiment in populism has failed. It's just a shame it has taken so long.

After 3,000 new criminal offences, over 60 Home Office bills, and countless reviews, white papers and headline-grabbing gimmicks, the government may finally have come up with some ideas that could actually work.

By denouncing any liberal ideas on crime with the infantile allegation that "we're tough, you're soft" Blair had succeeded in closing down the debate on law and order. As a result, liberals have struggled to articulate an alternate message based on what works rather than what sounds good.

Today's announcements seem to bring an end to that tough-soft game, and accept our liberal alternative.

I welcome in particular the emphasis on mental health; the concept of hybrid prisons where intensive treatment can be offered is a very important departure. Liberal Democrats have been calling for such an expansion of secure mental health treatment for some time, instead of the endless expansion of prison places. Blair should have recognised long ago that we cannot build ourselves out of the prison overcrowding crisis.

The government is also mirroring our emphasis on cutting re offending, crucial given that Britain now has the highest levels of repeat crime in western Europe. Tackling the problems faced by prolific offenders - be they mental health problems, drug addiction, learning difficulties or otherwise - is the only way to actually cut their reoffending, and so cut crime rates.

This is no "soft" option - it's the smart option, because it works.

There remain, unfortunately, vestiges of the old Blairite reflexes in today's announcement. The notion you can achieve justice by bypassing, rather than strengthening, the courts is an old Blair favourite, which rears its head once more today in the expansion of "summary justice".

The government also makes reference to the expanded use of databases with no more than a rhetorical sop to concerns about privacy.

To secure the long-term legacy of this package, Prime Minister Brown would be well advised to jettison the remaining Blairite flourishes and concentrate instead on implementing the workable policies.

Our biggest concern, however, is that the government will not be able to deliver on the promises they put forward today. Good ideas have surfaced before, but when the tabloids said they were soft, or the money was needed for a new "tough" gimmick, the good ideas have been quietly shelved.

Now, with the financial squeeze on the Home Office, thanks to a budget freeze from Gordon Brown, it will require real force of will to reprioritise spending in the way outlined today. Where is the money for hybrid prisons when John Reid can barely scrape together the money for his promised 10,000 new prison places?

How will the government achieve such dramatic cuts in police paperwork? Our view has always been that technology like voice recognition software could make a real difference, and we hope they will follow our lead in recommending it.

As for non-custodial sentences, if the public is to trust these community punishments, they need to be visible and rigorous. We have proposed a new Community Sentence Enforcement Service, to supervise unpaid work in our communities.

There are practical problems to overcome in almost every part of the paper published today. But if the political will is there, they can be overcome.

All of us who want to cut crime must now hope that the commitment to the post-Blair agenda on crime - the liberal agenda on crime - is here to stay. British voters, fed on a diet of breathless Blairite rhetoric finally deserve an approach to crime which will work.

    No more Mr Tough Guy, G, 27.3.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nick_clegg/2007/03/if_politics_is_a_contest.html

Protester Disrupts Service With Blair and Queen

March 27, 2007
By SARAH LYALL
The New York Times

LONDON, March 27 — A protester ran to the front of Westminster Abbey during a service on Tuesday commemorating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, shouting, “You should be ashamed!” and “This is an insult to us!” at Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth, who were only a few yards away.

The protester, identified as 39-year-old Toyin Agbetu, was then seized by security guards, taken outside and arrested. He has not been charged but remains in police custody, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said.

Officials at Westminster Abbey said that neither the Queen nor Mr. Blair — both of whom were there with their own security guards — had been in danger.

The incident took place when the service, marking the enactment of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in March, 1807, was well underway. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had already described slavery as an offense to human dignity, warned that its legacy was “hideously persistent” and said that “we, who are the heirs of the slave-owning and slave-trading nations of the past, have to face the fact that our historic prosperity was built in large part on this atrocity.”

Prime Minister Blair, who was in the audience but did not speak, has already expressed “deep sorrow and regret” at Britain’s part in the slave trade. But he has resisted pressure to make an outright apology.

Outside the abbey, Mr. Agbetu, who campaigns for people of Afro-Caribbean origin in Britain, told reporters that both the queen and Mr. Blair should say they were sorry, the Press Association, the British news agency, reported.

Major General David Burden, the receiver general of Westminster Abbey, said that Mr. Agbetu had a ticket and had gone through normal security screening, including passing through a metal detector.

“I think our response was correct and measured,” he told the Press Association. “It was over fairly quickly. It wasn’t the place to manhandle someone.”

Speaking of protesters at the abbey, he added: “we allow them to speak for a little and then encourage them to leave.”

    Protester Disrupts Service With Blair and Queen, NYT, 27.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/world/europe/27cnd-london.html

1.45pm

Blair hails historic deal

Staff and agencies
Monday March 26, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

Tony Blair has described today's deal to restore Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration as the historic culmination of 10 years of work.

Mr Blair said the agreement between Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams was "a very important day for the people of Northern Ireland".

"In a sense, everything we have done over the last 10 years has been a preparation for this moment, because the people of Northern Ireland have spoken through the election," he added.

"They have said we want peace and power-sharing, and the political leadership has then come in behind that and said we will deliver what people want."

Mr Blair said today's deal would "mean ... people can come together, respecting each other's point of view and share power and make sure politics is only expressed through peaceful and democratic means".

"It will give the people of Northern Ireland the future they want and give heart to all of us who have wanted this process over the past few years," he said.

"Now, at last, we have a date certain for the devolution of power and a remarkable coming together of people who have, for very obvious reasons, been strongly opposed in the past."

Mr Blair - who helped bring about power-sharing early in his first term through the 1998 Good Friday agreement - is widely believed to be extremely keen to see a permanent deal reached before he leaves office this summer.

However, he refused to speculate as to what might happen, saying: "The important thing for the moment is to take what has happened now and to see it through, and that's what we will do."

    Blair hails historic deal, G, 26.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2043260,00.html

Blair warning to Iran as diplomatic efforts fail to trace captured patrol

· PM denounces 'unjustified and wrong' seizure
· Tehran claims Britons admitted incursion

Monday March 26, 2007
Guardian
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

Tony Blair yesterday denounced Iran for the "unjustified and wrong" seizure of 15 British sailors and marines, rejecting Tehran's claim they had entered Iranian waters, and warning that the situation had become very serious.

"I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us," the prime minister said at a European summit in Berlin. "They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which was unjustified and wrong."

Mr Blair's comments marked a hardening of British tone, after hopes that the capture of the British patrol on Friday would prove to be a misunderstanding had been dashed by statements from Iran over the weekend.

A senior military official, General Ali Reza Afshar, said on Saturday that the patrol had "confessed" to the incursion, and claimed the Britons had been taken to Tehran. Other sources hinted they might be put on trial.

Initially, British military officials and diplomats tried to defuse the situation by stressing the complicated nature of the boundaries between Iraq and Iran on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where the patrol had been conducting anti-smuggling operations. But Mr Blair's declaration left no room for ambiguity.

"This is a very serious situation and there is no doubt at all that these people were taken from a boat in Iraqi waters," he said. "It is simply not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters."

Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, continued the diplomatic pressure last night when she spoke to the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki.

In a phone conversation, she made "very clear" that no violation of Iranian waters had occurred. She repeated demands for information on the whereabouts of the 15 and for consular access to them.

Mr Mottaki is in New York where the UN imposed fresh sanctions on Iran.

In response to the sanctions, Iran last night announced that it was partially suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the latest sanctions would not halt the country's nuclear enrichment "even for a second".

A Foreign Office spokesman said Mrs Beckett's talks were confined to the issue of the seized military personnel.

Britain's ambassador to Tehran, Geoffrey Adams, yesterday met Iranian foreign ministry officials to find out where the 15 captives - 14 men and a woman - were being held.

British officials said that the meeting, the second in two days, was at Britain's request, but it was portrayed on the Iranian media as a summons and a dressing-down by Iran's foreign ministry.

Britain has not been able confirm reports that the group had been taken to Tehran. Foreign office minister David Triesman told Sky News yesterday: "We don't know where [they are], and I wish we did. We are asking to know whether they are being moved around inside Iran. We have been insisting that they should be released immediately; there is no reason to hold them."

Lord Triesman added: "These things are always very difficult. They are delicate discussions. My belief is that they will come to a good outcome, but you can never be certain."

British officials would not comment yesterday on a report in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, quoting an unnamed military source "close to" the elite al-Quds brigade of Iran's Revolutionary Guards as saying the seizure of the two-boat British patrol had been planned at a high level days in advance.

The aim, said the report, was to take captives to exchange for senior al-Quds officers arrested by US forces in Irbil, Iraq, earlier in the year.

Lord Triesman said Britain had been given assurances its sailors and marines the patrol were not being held hostage for political reasons, and another British official said: "For the time being, we are treating this as an isolated incident."

War of words

The EU yesterday attempted to reopen talks with Iran over its nuclear programme in the wake of new sanctions imposed by the UN security council, targeting Iranian arms sales and hard-line Revolutionary Guards leaders.

Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, said he would try to call Iranian lead negotiator Ari Larijani "to see if we can find a route that would allow us to go into negotiations".

Iran and the west looked as far apart as ever after a unanimous security council vote to impose tougher sanctions because of Iran's refusal to stop enriching uranium, and its seizure of a British naval patrol.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, denounced the vote as an attempt to coerce Iran into suspension of its peaceful nuclear programme". "I can assure you that pressure and intimidation will not change Iranian policy," he told the security council.

Iran insists its programme is peaceful but the west suspects it is for nuclear weapons.

    Blair warning to Iran as diplomatic efforts fail to trace captured patrol, G, 26.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2042794,00.html

Blair's secret weapon in Paisley talks: religion

· PM wooed DUP leader by swapping Christian texts
· Two men brought closer by 'religious love affair'

Wednesday March 14, 2007
Guardian
Nicholas Watt, Owen Bowcott and Patrick Wintour


Tony Blair has forged a special bond with the Rev Ian Paisley, the DUP leader who holds the future of the Northern Ireland peace process in his hands, by discussing their common interest in and commitment to Christianity.

Spearheading a government charm offensive to win round the one time Presbyterian firebrand, the two men have been swapping religious textbooks over the past year.

Mr Blair's aim has been to win the confidence of Mr Paisley, a strident critic of the government's concessions to Sinn Féin, who has become the dominant force in Northern Irish unionism in recent years.

Mr Paisley confirmed to the Guardian yesterday that his discussions in recent years with the prime minister had gone well beyond politics. Asked whether he shared an interest in religion with the prime minister, the DUP leader said: "We shared books that I thought would be good for him to read and I'm sure he read them. He always takes books away with him."

Downing Street refused to comment last night. However, Lord Bew, the professor of Irish politics at Queen's University Belfast who has good connections at the highest levels of government, believes the Blair/Paisley dialogue on religion has transformed their relations, even though they come from apparently contrasting denominations.

A fierce Protestant, Mr Paisley is the founder and moderator of the Free Presbyterian church, who has outraged Catholics by denouncing the Pope as the anti-Christ. Mr Blair is an Anglican who attends mass with his Catholic wife.

"Blair is brilliant at seducing Paisley," Lord Bew said. "This is the most amazing love affair, the last great Blairite romance.They are even exchanging books on religion. It is fantastic stuff. It is religious; it is romantic. It is brilliant. You have to hand it to him. Once again, when we thought the old maestro was fading, his capacity to seduce, politically speaking, is phenomenal."

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, joined the prime ministerial offensive by holding a special 80th birthday party for Mr Paisley at Hillsborough Castle last year. "It was a very pleasant, delightful occasion," Mr Hain said of the evening which was dry, out of respect for Mr Paisley's strict Free Presbyterianism.

The charm offensive appeared to be paying off yesterday. Mr Blair's new ally gave his most positive statement yet that a power-sharing deal might be achieved with Sinn Féin.

"I'm not confident until it's done," Mr Paisley said. "I think we have made a bit of progress. I think we are getting down to the real issues at last. The rest was shadow-boxing."

Mr Paisley added that his success in last week's assembly elections - the DUP won 36 of the 108 seats - had given him room to manoeuvre. "I can afford now to go a bit further because I am confident the people are with me."

The prime minister, whose former spokesman Alastair Campbell famously declared that "we don't do God", is deeply reluctant to talk about his Christianity in public. But it appears he decided to mix politics and religion with Mr Paisley some time after the 2005 general election when it became clear that the future of the peace process lay in the hands of the DUP.

Mr Paisley, who had spent 40 years as an outside - but hugely influential - force, became the pivotal figure in unionism after the 2005 general election when his party all but wiped out the once mighty Ulster Unionists. So called "Flymo" unionists locked to the DUP when the IRA took its time to decommission.

The government tried to persuade the IRA to disarm by granting a series of concessions to Sinn Féin which were criticised in yesterday's Guardian by Peter Mandelson. Lord Trimble, who stood down as UUP leader after losing his seat in the 2005 general election, today echoes the criticisms of the former Northern Ireland secretary.

"I remember we said to him many times that his focus was always seen to be on republican difficulties and doing things to help them," Lord Trimble tells the Guardian.

Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, today criticises Lord Trimble and the prime minister for failing to face down Mr Paisley when the DUP was boycotting the political talks.

    Blair's secret weapon in Paisley talks: religion, G, 14.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,2033282,00.html

Blair guilty of capitulating to Sinn Féin - Mandelson

Former minister says PM was irresponsible in way he dealt with republicans

Tuesday March 13, 2007
Guardian
Nicholas Watt, Patrick Wintour and Owen Bowcott

Peter Mandelson has accused the prime minister of "unreasonable and irresponsible" behaviour in the way he granted concessions to Sinn Féin during Downing Street's attempts to broker a peace deal in Northern Ireland. As Mr Blair tries once again to revive power sharing, he is criticised by one of his closest political allies of "conceding and capitulating" to republican demands, which alienated unionists.
In a Guardian interview for a series examining the prime minister's handling of the peace process, the former Northern Ireland secretary praised Mr Blair for his commitment to the process, dating back to when he became Labour leader in 1994. But he added: "In order to keep the process in motion [Tony] would be sort of dangling carrots and possibilities in front of the republicans which I thought could never be delivered, that it was unreasonable and irresponsible to intimate that you could when you knew that you couldn't."

Mr Mandelson's revelation that he disagreed with the prime minister - at one point he refused an order to write a secret letter to Sinn Féin - sheds new light on his second resignation from the cabinet in 2001. At the time of his departure Alastair Campbell, then the prime minister's official spokesman, openly questioned Mr Mandelson's judgment over Northern Ireland on the grounds that he became overly sympathetic to the unionists and too hostile to Sinn Féin.

Downing Street officials interviewed by the Guardian say that Mr Blair has wrestled with the dilemma highlighted by Mr Mandelson over the past decade: how to bring Sinn Féin in from the cold without destroying unionist support. Lord Butler , the former cabinet secretary, says: "There was a lot to be said for paying a price to keep the bicycle moving. The issue is whether Tony Blair paid too big a price."

Lord Butler and Mr Mandelson are among a series of senior officials and politicians - including all four surviving Northern Ireland secretaries to have served under Mr Blair - whose interviews appear in this week's three-day Guardian series on the peace process. Political leaders from across the spectrum, including the former Ulster Unionist leader Lord Trimble and Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, praise Mr Blair for his commitment to Northern Ireland.

Mr McGuinness hails the prime minister for ending the "Thatcher mentality" on the issue. His favourable views are not shared by Seamus Mallon, the SDLP's former deputy first minister, who tells the Guardian that Mr Blair treated the late Mo Mowlam "like shit", employing an approach in which the prime minister would "buy anybody [and] sell anybody".

The Guardian series sheds new light on the peace process by revealing:

· Downing Street believed that the IRA leadership ordered the United Kingdom's biggest bank robbery in 2004 from the Northern Bank after the political process hit the rocks;

· Peter Mandelson says ministers had to maintain a "fiction" that they were not talking to the IRA when they met Sinn Féin;

· John Reid, the home secretary, believes the IRA were targeting individuals for attack as recently as 2002;

· George Mitchell, the former US senator who chaired the Good Friday agreement talks in 1998, warns of continuing crises even if a power-sharing deal is reached by the end of this month;

· The prime minister used his Protestant Ulster roots - his maternal grandfather was a member of the Orange Order - to woo unionists but said nothing of his background to nationalists.

The revelations come as the prime minister tries to broker a power-sharing deal between Sinn Féin and the DUP after the two parties dominated last week's election to the Northern Ireland assembly.

Mr Mandelson reveals that Sinn Féin lay at the heart of his row with the prime minister just a month after he succeeded Mo Mowlam as Northern Ireland secretary in October 1999. The prime minister demanded that Mr Mandelson write a secret letter to Sinn Féin offering a form of amnesty to IRA fugitives, known as "on-the-runs", among other "sweeties".

"I was at a performance of the Royal Ballet visiting Belfast and I was taken out three times during the performance to talk to No 10 about this," Mr Mandelson said. "I said ... I am not prepared to do it because I have my own standing to think of and a secret side letter is not how I want to do business. They came back and said that the prime minister takes a different view, that you do need to make these offers to the republicans and he wants you to write this letter. I said if the prime minister wants to make these offers I am afraid he will have to write his own letter."

The letter was sent and the concessions were formally offered to Sinn Féin at the Weston Park talks in July 2001 six months after Mr Mandelson left office. "Weston Park was basically about conceding and capitulating in a whole number of different ways to republican demands - their shopping list. It was a disaster because it was too much for them ... That was a casualty of my departure, I would say." Mr Mandelson added: "When Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness entered the room you were expected to stand up. They were senior military, they were top brass. Apart from being leaders of Sinn Féin they were leaders of the military council."

The Sinn Féin MPs have always denied being IRA leaders.

John Reid, Mr Mandelson's successor in Northern Ireland, is more supportive of Downing Street's efforts, saying: "If Tony Blair's Labour government never did anything else but bring to an end the longest-running political dispute in European history and the longest running war probably in world history, on and off, it would be worth having the Labour government just for that."

    Blair guilty of capitulating to Sinn Féin - Mandelson, G, 13.3.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,2032430,00.html

Cash for honours: key document names Levy

Memo from Blair aide says peer tried to influence her evidence

Tuesday March 6, 2007
Guardian
Patrick Wintour

Detectives are investigating whether Lord Levy, Labour's chief fundraiser, urged one of Tony Blair's most senior aides to shape the evidence she gave to Scotland Yard, the Guardian has learned.

Police have been investigating whether Ruth Turner, the prime minister's director of external relations, was being asked by Lord Levy to modify information that might have been of interest to the inquiry. Officers have been trying to piece together details of a meeting they had last year. Ms Turner gave an account of it to her lawyers and this has been passed to police.

It is this legal document and the exchange between Ms Turner and Lord Levy that has been at the heart of the inquiry in recent months, and which prompted the focus to shift from whether there was an effort to sell peerages to whether there has been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

A spokesman for Lord Levy said he was unable to comment. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Ms Turner has also protested her innocence and her conduct has been defended by Downing Street.

During the inquiry both have been arrested and interviewed on suspicion of trying to pervert the course of justice, which is an imprisonable offence.

Their meeting is understood to have taken place in the summer, at the start of the police inquiry.

Sources have said the two had a difficult conversation. The police are attempting to establish whether this could be interpreted as Lord Levy having asked Ms Turner to adjust the evidence she was preparing to give the Metropolitan Police, whose inquiry has led to senior members of Downing Street staff - including the prime minister, Tony Blair - being questioned by detectives.

The Guardian does not know in what way evidence was to be adjusted, or indeed if he asked her to do so in any significant way.

The BBC said yesterday that Ms Turner sent an email to the chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, but other sources available to the Guardian suggest there was no such email. Lord Levy and Ms Turner are central to Labour's system of fundraising, with Ms Turner liaising with the Lords appointments commission and party donors.

At the request of the police the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was granted a blanket injunction on Friday evening by the courts stopping the BBC making any reference to its story, the alleged email, its sender, recipient or its contents. The contents of the injunction were not relayed to the rest of the media. The injunction was partially lifted yesterday to allow the BBC to claim the email concerned Lord Levy, and was sent to Mr Powell by Ms Turner.

The attorney general's office said: "The BBC and the attorney general today agreed to a variation of the injunction obtained on Friday concerning a particular document relating to the 'cash for honours' police investigation. In agreeing to this variation, the attorney general was not intending to indicate or confirm that any particular document was in fact sent or received."

Over the weekend Downing Street was accused of being responsible for the leak, something No 10 denied yesterday.

The Crown Prosecution Service issued its own robust statement that it was not involved in the leak.

The police have continued to deny responsibility for the various leaks that have marked the inquiry, a claim that is treated with extreme scepticism in parts of Downing Street.

The prime minister's official spokesman said: "Suggestions that we leaked or were trying to leak this information are just plain wrong - and that's not based on my personal hunch. It's because there are inaccuracies in reports which mean it can't have come from No 10."

Mr Blair's spokesman went on: "I can't get into what those [inaccuracies] are because our approach all the way through is we are against all leaks and speculation. Leaking in the past has been unhelpful, just as this leak has been unhelpful."

Ms Turner has been the subject of two interviews under caution, and is still on bail. One of her interviews led to a dawn raid of her house where she was forced to dress in front of a policewoman.

The mood in Downing Street remains that Ms Turner has done nothing wrong.

Cash for honours: key document names Levy, G, 6.3.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,2027366,00.html