The Attorney Generals Advice

there are times when you cannot actually keep quiet about the awfulness of the Blair/Brown regime now running this country. I refer to an article in the Independent today 29 May where the Attorney General is under pressure to reveal the advice on treatment of prisoners (in Iraq) because it was felt that 'it was not necessary to follow the higher standards of the protection of the Human Rights Act.May I ever so humbly point out to the informed readers of the Echo that if the Attorney General did give advice to that effect then it becomes immediately obvious why at least one soldier in the British army was given an honourable discharge for his stand on the treatment of prisoners and why the conviction of Fl. Lt. Kendall-Smith must be squashed because he refused to accept orders. If the orders were, as is indicated in the national press are correct then Bush, Blair and Brown are guilty of war crimes, because they gave the orders. The senior officers are also guilty because it is no defence to say that you were following orders. Even the Queen, our Head of State is also guilty because as any soldier will tell you they sign up to serve Queen and Country. The war against Iraq was an illegal, planned war of aggression, and the occupation breeches the Geneva convention because we do not seem to be very good at protecting the inhabitants, after all, we did train the militia who are now the death squads.

Freedom of Information

a day which will forever live in the memory as the day when members of parliament finally decided to confirm that we do not live in a true democracy. That day was Friday when MP decided to vote themselves exemption from the Freedom of Information Act.Our own MP, Ben Bradshaw, has stated in the past that he does not want to be another Terry. Now we know why. If I had asked him personally about the War in Iraq or the Exeter Unitary bid then I and he would have been bound by parliamentary privilege not to disclose any correspondence, effectively silenced. However, thanks to the good old Echo I have been able to ask questions which he has declined to answer, probably because he would have been embarrassed by the response he would have had to give. So come on Ben give us an answer through the Echo, was Exeter on the original list, when will you support the demand for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, if its not safe for Harry then what have we being doing for the last four years, and share with us your thoughts on an incinerator in Exeter burning waste from various parts of Devon. Come on give us some answers or are you as frit as I think you are. Freedom of Information, Bah Humbug.

Exeter Unitary bid

so Roy Slack has lost his seat and the labour group are looking for a new leader of their party on Exeter City Council, and apparently the councillors think that this is nothing at all to do with the Exeter bid to be a Unitary Authority, Echo Saturday 5th May. Now we are told that very few people have apparently been raising this as an issue on the doorstep during the recent City Council elections.I thought that there was some sort of purdah on this issue so none of the councillors could raise it anyway as an issue or was it only the County Council which could not get involved. You can't have it both ways.Well I think that if Exeter City Council think that then they are wrong. There must be a referendum on this important issue. Take one of the stakeholders who may receive financial backing from ECC and they are asked to submit their opinion on the bid. Now surely any sane, rational person would say that there is a conflict of interest, if they say no to the bid would they not be in danger of losing their funding, politicians after all can be like spoilt children when they don't get their own way. They have elephantine memories, albeit very selective.So, if you think that there must be a referendum then be at the City Gates Hotel, Cellar bar on Tuesday 8th May at 7.00 for the inaugral meeting of the Exeter Unitary Bid Resistance Movement.