A Tony Of All Trades...

...A Master of None.

By Cernig

Tony Blair is continuing to do what he does best - market himself as being all things to all people while actually being all about Tony.

Not content with trying to bring peace to the Middle East - as well as advising an insurance company on the risks of climate change, a bank on crisis management and Rwanda on good governance - Tony Blair is to add another job to his portfolio: teaching God and politics at one of America's most prestigious universities.

Yale, the Ivy League alma mater of his good friend George Bush, confirmed yesterday that the former prime minister is to join the schools of management and divinity at the campus in New Haven, Connecticut, in the autumn. He will teach a course on faith and globalisation, looking at religion in the modern world.

Rejoice, Harvard, for your old rival has just been sold a doubtless very expensive pup.

I wonder which U.S. presidential candidate he'll end up adding to his portfolio of backers?

Barack Blair Obama

By Cernig

I've been waxing vocal about Hillary's dirty tricks campaign this past couple of days, with the thesis that it actually hurts her more than it hurts Obama with voters who are pig-sick of such nonsense. So I really should note that the Obama campaign's recent grade-A nonsense about Hillary's mandate system for universal insurance meaning "they'll be coming after your wages". Criticisms of this attack on the grounds that it is simply regurgitating Republican talking points seem fair to me.

I've news for the Obama campaign - news that explains why every other Western nation has true universal healthcare and a universal mandate to contribute to that service via taxes or some other contribution format that amounts to the same thing. A truly universal healthcare system starts from the ethical premise that "from each according to their means, to each according to their needs". It's a basic plank of liberal thinking and I would say a basic plank of civilisation, a demand that those who wish membership in society put into it what they are able as well as get from it from they need to remain a functioning contributor. If you don't want to contribute to the general social wellbeing to the limits of your ability as determined by that society, don't bother calling 911 or sending the military to do your ideological grunt-work. You have another option which is perfectly acceptable - opt out. Build a compound somewhere in the backwoods and don't come running to the rest of us if things don't work out in your libertarian utopia. If not, then of course they'll be coming after your wages! Just pick the method you prefer - and remember that a tax may well mean you end up paying less for more than you already do by the insurance premiums that you already pay.

This kind of fancy footwork on such basic issues from the Obama campaign is why I've described him as the American Tony Blair - an astute political machinator carefully re-framing as "bi-partisan" whatever stance he thinks will win him most votes, whether or not it agrees with what should be the core beliefs of his policymaking. He's trying to be all things to as many of the people as possible all of the time. It's a successful strategy for a politician who wants to win a national election but it gives no confidence that once in office he will have any ethical touchstones whatsoever. As we Brits discovered too late with Blair, he just wanted power.

But if the Clinton campaign want to attack Obama, they have to do so on specifics - as in the case with their defense of his attack on her healthcare plan. The Clinton's already have a reputation for dirty campaigning and to avoid being dragged down by that repuation Clinton will have to be cleaner than the rest - some thing she has failed to do so far.

I'll help with another case in point.

Yesterday diarist Helenann at Daily Kos responded to general smears about Obama's alleged lack of legislative experience by listing the 570 bills Obama had sponsored or co-sponsored, of which 15 had become law.

Fair enough as far as it goes but she didn't give any details on what kinds of policy prescriptions were contained in those bills. So I picked one I thought might be informative - a bill signed into law to amend the Patriot Act - and looked. I found that S. 2167 was a bill to "amend the USA PATRIOT ACT to extend the sunset of certain provisions of that Act and the lone wolf provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to July 1, 2006." It was sponsored by Sen. John Sununu [R-NH] and had 31 co-sponsors including Obama. The summary of the bill says:

Amends the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001 to extend from December 31, 2005, to February 3, 2006, provisions of that Act and the "lone wolf" provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. (The lone wolf provision redefined "agent of a foreign power" to permit issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) orders targeting terrorists without a showing that they are members of a terrorist group or agents of such a group or of any other foreign power.)

Now, if I'm reading that "Lone Wolf" provision correctly it says that the administration doesn't have to prove someone is a terrorist, it just says they are and everyone agrees to believe them. Which makes a mockery of probable cause when asking for FISA warrants since warrants to tap terrorists' phones are always going to be granted but the administration doesn't have to prove the person named is a terrorist if he might be a "lone wolf".

One wonders why Obama and a whole slew of Dem Senators including Dodd fell over themselves to co-sponsor a bill to extend such a provision for even a measly three months, given their later stance on the importance of FISA warrants and the rule of law. Clinton was also a co-sponsor of the bill but she could argue that her position is internally consistent over time and legislation - even if it isn't all that liberal. Obama's clearly is not.

BAE, Bandar, Blair - And Bulls**t

By Cernig

The UK government's excuses for halting corruption investigations into an arm deal with Saudi Arabia just took an overly-dramatic turn.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.

The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties.

Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats. He said one possible view was that it was "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government.

The government's lawyer said the threat to national security was a clear one:

Philip Sales QC, appearing on behalf of the director of the SFO, Robert Wardle, said that since Saudi Arabia was not subject to British law, nothing could be done.

He said it was legitimate for Wardle to take into account the fact the state "did not have the resources to meet the threat in the ordinary way".

..."What you are saying is that the law is powerless to protect our own sovereignty - the law cannot be deployed as a weapon to protect the sovereignty of this country," said Lord Justice Moses.

Yesterday, Moses asked why the Saudis had not been told, "You can't talk to us like that", and said the threats would have been a criminal offence in British law.

Today, Moses asked Sales if he thought nothing could be done to resist such threats from powerful foreign states.

Sales said: "Correct - we cannot compel Saudi Arabia to adopt a different stance." He said it was "a fact of life" and said the director could not "magic this situation away".

"The director has made it clear how important he thought the security implications were," Sales said. "He accepted what he was advised as to the imminence of the threat. It cannot be said that he acted irrationally."

Hang on. We're expected to believe that such serious threats caused the government to order bribe investigations dropped - - but that the government then pressed ahead anyway with a 40 billion pound sale of advanced Eurofighter Typhoon fighters to the nation that had just threatened Britain's security. What an amazing admission.

Either these "secret papers" are utter BS or Blair himself was amazingly, criminally, incompetent in continuing the sale. I'm personally betting the former - possibly both. Especially considering the many cash for honours scandals that surround Blair's time in office and his obvious avarice nowadays.

And before my American friends write this off as a purely British scandal - recall that much of the bribe money Prince Bandar is alleged to have received from the UK over the years was funnelled through the now-defunct Riggs Bank in Washington. Let's also not lose sight of the certainty that Bush would certainly have been told about the Saudi threats to Britain but went ahead anyway with his own massive arms sale to a nation that had so threatened an ally and fellow NATO member. This one is going to be the scandal that keeps giving.

President Blair?

By Cernig

I have spent a long time regretting my one and only vote for Tory Blur, in his first election victory. I started to regret it the moment I saw that his first action on election was to run to Margaret Thatcher's side for advice - not the signature move of anyone who honestly believed the kind of thing Blair had been saying. Nowadays the man's lust for power and money and willingness to say or do anything to attain it gives me the dry heaves.

Today the Guardian reports:

Tony Blair has been holding discussions with some of his oldest allies on how he could mount a campaign later this year to become full-time president of the EU council, the prestigious new job characterised as "president of Europe". Blair, currently the Middle East envoy for the US, Russia, EU and the UN, has told friends he has made no final decision, but is increasingly willing to put himself forward for the job if it comes with real powers to intervene in defence and trade affairs.

I've a word of advice for my European friends.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo.

Blair's New Career

By Cernig

$500,000 for saying bugger all is Tony Blair at his truest - as we Brits came to know and loathe him. Want to bet Dubya's taking notes?

(This has been today's Blog Like Insta-Atrios moment)

A Jerusalem Palace For Tony

By Cernig

I wonder who will foot the bill for this?

TONY BLAIR is expected to inspect a prospective new home - known locally as a palace - when he travels to Jerusalem tomorrow on his first trip to the Middle East as a peace envoy.

He is said to be keen to take over the one-time residence of the British High Commissioner for Palestine, with its ballroom and spectacular view of the golden dome of Al-Aqsa mosque.

The house, built of Jerusalem stone in 1931, was once the pride of British diplomacy and occupies a commanding position in West Jerusalem on the inauspiciously named Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas is said to have negotiated his betrayal of Jesus. It has acres of lush gardens filled with delphiniums, roses and trees. After the British mandate ended in 1948, it was taken over by the United Nations.

A palace... despite the fact that Two-faced Tony has exactly zero power except as a messenger-boy for Bush and Rice. What a self-aggrandizing twerp he turned out to be.

Tony Blair - Monkey With a Tin Cup

By Cernig

If a week is a long time in politics, it seems 48 hours is an even longer time after you leave politics. Two days ago Tony was full of big noises about what he was going to do in the Middle East. Now the truth comes out - Blair is to be no more than a sock-puppet, mouthing the words given to him by Bush and with absolutely no power to negotiate any settlement of the Israeli/Palestian question. He's to be the monkey, not the organgrinder.

the State Department said that Mr Blair will be confined to improving the institutions of the Palestinian Authority.

One former US adviser predicted swift "frustration" for Mr Blair and likened his role to carrying a "tin cup" around the world, raising funds for the Palestinians.

Mr Blair has been named an envoy of the "Quartet" - a group charged with bringing about peace in the Middle East - comprising America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union.

On the day of his appointment, he told Parliament his "absolute priority" would be to "give effect" to a "two-state solution, which means a state of Israel that is secure and confident of its security and a Palestinian state that is viable, not merely in terms of its territory, but in terms of its institutions".

Then he told the Northern Echo newspaper that his "huge challenge" was to "prepare the ground for a negotiated settlement".

The Bush administration quickly contradicted Mr Blair's sweeping definition of his role. Tom Casey, the State Department's deputy spokesman, made it clear that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will be handled by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State.

"We'd like to be able to have an envoy to focus very specifically on helping with some of these institution-building tasks for the Palestinian Authority," said Mr Casey.

"But my understanding is there's certainly no envisioning that this individual would be a negotiator on behalf of the Quartet between the Israelis and Palestinians."

So much for Blair's brave new McJob. One analyst put it into perspective for the telegraph.

"If he lacks the capacity to be tough with the Israelis on the whole host of issues relating to movement - checkpoints, crossing points and all the rest - then his role is essentially Operation Tin Cup. He will carry a tin cup around the world and raise money and not much else."

This, to quote the immortal movie George of the Jungle, is where we all throw back our heads and laugh. Ready?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

UK's Brown About To Spurn Pro-Iraq Stance

By Cernig

He's been in the job less than 24 hours, but already UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to give America's pro-Iraq-occupation neocons apoplexy.

All the pre-changeover statements from the Brown camp have been carefully understated, but The Guardian, in looking at his proposed cabinet changes, gives the game away.

It is expected that David Miliband, 41, the moderniser urged by some Labour MPs to challenge for the leadership, will be thrust into the Foreign Office - at three years older than the UK's youngest ever foreign secretary. If confirmed, it will be a bold move as he privately regards the intervention in Iraq as a great error.

...Mrs Beckett fought hard to keep her job as foreign secretary, but, in a difficult conversation, Mr Brown said he needed fresh faces. It is thought he may bring into government Mark Malloch Brown, the former deputy secretary general at the UN, who has been a fierce critic of the Iraq war.

Milband is definitely anti-occupation, although his appointment will be seen as a bone thrown to the younger generation of Blairite suits in the Labour Party. But its the name of Malloch Brown that will have the National Review's op-ed writers reaching for their medication!

Recall that the WSJ recently accused Malloch Brown of being a puppet for George Soros' attempt to discredit and destroy Paul Wolfowitz. (No, really. And other neocon cheerleader factories followed. As if Wolfowitz needed any help in destroying himself.) Malloch Brown has also been scathing on the Bush/Blair quagmire in Iraq and has tied it to credibility problems in Palestine, which is Blair's newest area of irresponsibility.

Yet his qualifications are undeniable except to the conspiratorially-challenged. Jeffrey Sachs, no limp liberal, described Malloch Brown in the 2005 Time Top 100 Leaders list as having overflowing "charm, toughness, sophistication, experience, vision."

Nice one Gordo! Giving Malloch Brown a top Foreign Office ministerial post to hold the inexperienced Miliband's hand would serve Tony right for hanging around like a bad poodle-fart behind the sofa for so long, instead of handing over the reins of power two years ago, and at the same time hopefully remove half of the world's most destabilizing voices by giving every neocon pundit an aneurism. Britain's new PM may have no charisma, but he knows how to knifefight.

Update Malloch Brown did indeed get a Foreign Office post.

Malloch-Brown, now a lord, had fierce spats at the U.N. with then U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who accused the Briton of discrediting the world body with his criticisms of the White House.

As deputy to U.N. chief Kofi Annan, Malloch-Brown derided President Bush for what he called ``megaphone diplomacy'' on Darfur by trying to persuade Sudan's government to accept a U.N. peacekeeping in Darfur, but refusing to defend the organization to Americans.

Malloch-Brown's appointment to a junior role as minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations could be an attempt by Brown to distance Britain from the Bush administration, said analyst Alex Bingham at the Foreign Policy Center think tank.

It may be a junior ministerial post, under the actual Foreign Secretary, but Asia, Africa and the UN covers most of the powderkeg issues (North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation, Islamists in the Horn of Africa etc.). That's pretty clearly a hand-holding brief for Malloch Brown and a definite snub to Blair and Bush's neocons.

Of Blair And Brown

By Cernig

I suppose I should say something, as the resident Brit, about the change in British leadership from Blair to Brown. It's a massive subject that can't honestly be tackled in a little blog post or even in the praiseful op-eds appearing in American media outlets. To get a real flavor, start with the Guardian's coverage of the stories. Their reporting on Brown's move next door to No.10 starts here and their stories about Blair's era, his legacy and what happens next starts here.

But what I can give in a short blog post are some personal thoughts on the whole Blair era and the Brown era to come.

Blair was always an ambivalent figure for me, mostly because I knew too many of his fellow-travellers too well. I first met up with the Scottish wannabe-powerful who would one day become Blair's chosen cronies in Scotland while involved in student politics in the early eighties. McConnell, Connarty, Ritchie - the whole crowd- were part of a dynasty of "new labour" leaders of the student Labour party during my time at Stirling University.

The New Labour slick-willies could easily be told apart from the standard "old labour" folks - they dressed in suits and what Americans would call "preppy" style even when hanging around the student pub while the "old labour" folks would wear a two-week old T-Shirt to meet the Principal. They supported the administration against the cleaners and janitors in a pay dispute, then spoke sneeringly to local media of how it wouldn't solve anything when the students took the union's side and occupied the administration's offices in protest. (The cleaners got their pay rise after two weeks, when the professors were unable to get their own pay-checks processed in those occupied offices.) They clearly didn't, and never would, inhale. And they would change their polices in a heartbeat if they thought it would get them further along their chosen career track in politics.

Yet New Labour was organised and clean-cut and acceptable to the media in a way that Tony Benn, Roy Hattersley and the rest of the old guard simply weren't. It was Blair's careerists or more years of Thatcher's ideological children. So I, like droves of other voters, swallowed our unease and voted for Blair's promises. The Blair era began with a landslide and celebrations in Scottish streets that the hated Tories had finally been ousted. Many of us felt a frisson of returned unease when Tony's first act on winning was to visit Thatcher herself for a chat, but that was soon gone in the feelgood moment of victory over the Tories at last.

Blair had promised that he would listen to any idea, no matter the political source, as long as it was a good one. For years, he delivered. Employment rose, the deficit fell and was soon in the black, social programs got a kickstart but no-one was getting such an easy ride that it was easier just to stay on welfare. The health service began a slow pullback from the budget massacre it had suffered under the Tories (one it still hasn't completely recovered from). Racism and class bigotry dropped, Scotland and Wales got their devolved parliaments (headed by Blair stalwarts, of course), the UK's international standing was no longer of that "damn handbag woman". The killers in Northern Ireland stopped butchering innocents on the pretext of disagreeing how to bend the knee to their mutual God.

Even when the world was shocked by 9/11, Blair kept the nation focused. The terrorists would beat us if we changed our way of life for them, he said. He was right. We all supported intervention in Afghanistan, going after the terrorists and the rogue regime that had sheltered them. Even the hundreds of Muslims I knew in business were all for that. Still no sign of the surveillance state and trampling on civil liberties that were to come. the nation was still giving Blair its support. What could be done in Northern Ireland could surely be done elsewhere and Blair was someone who might just manage to do it.

Then came Iraq. Despite screams from many that the intelligence was being sexed up, the media got behind the invasion in a monolith and Blair got behind George Bush and stayed there. In time, leaks proved the screamers to be right and that intelligence had indeed been "fixed around the policy" of invasion but we were all told it was old news now and we had to "stay the course".

Iraq was the undoing of Blair. As I recall events, it wasn't until Iraq began to go South - in the quagmire that was unplanned and incompetently created by Bush's chosen handlers - that Blair showed the nation he was still (always) part of that old clique of "power for powers sake at any cost" that I had observed in my student days. It was only when Iraq dissolved into a fiasco that Blair trotted out surveillance of everyone as an aim, began his push for identity cards, began trampling on British concepts of freedom, liberty and justice for all. I submit that, no matter what he said, those measures were purely symptomatic of his desire to hold onto his power. It wasn't until those unpopular measures and his own lapdog status as Bush's crony in the quagmire became so negative that the Party bosses saw the labour party in danger of being vast into the wilderness for decades yet again that the pressure on him became too much for Blair to ignore. He would not have stepped down voluntarily, he was pushed. Now he's got himself a McJob carrying Bush's water again. Feh.

And so we now have Brown. He's my local MP back home and undeniably a bright bugger. More true to his working-class Labour ideals than Blair's suits ever were too, by all accounts I've had from local insiders. Most of Blair's successes were actually Brown's work - all the economic and poverty-reduction work, all the social safety-net rebuilding, the 13 years of a budget surplus. He's a taciturn Fifer who doesn't suffer fools gladly (watch out, Dubya) and has all the charisma in public forums of a lump of Kircaldy coal. But he's a workhorse and a thinker, he should do well - especially on domestic challenges.

Still, I've niggling worries about Gordon too. He and I differ on the path for Scotland - I think independence is the fair end-point of centuries of political process that began with a bribe-job and continued with wholesale ignoring of the terms of the deal. He doesn't. I worry that he might be just a better disguised version of Blair's power-hungry clones, when push comes to shove - after all, he's been quiet as a mouse on Bush's debacle so far. He says he will change things, though, and one of the things I hope he will change is to push for more effective hearts and minds policies in Afghanistan, where the paradigm of military counter-insurgency badly needs such a change of emphasis (forget Iraq, it's lost).

I guess we'll see soon enough.

Top US General - No Evidence Iran Arming Taliban

By Cernig

Here's another hole in the neocon narrative for war with Iran - and yet more evidence that the professional military will not stand idly by while Cheney's cronies drag them into another disasterous war.

U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill is in command of NATO forces in Afghanistan. In an interview with the AP today, he refused to say that there is evidence Iran's leadership is behind Iranian weapons found there. On the contrary, he pointed to the hard evidence of Iran's aid to the Afghan government. By doing so he is not only contradicting both Tony Blair and the Bush administration's official line, he is also supporting British Intelligence's assessment that iranian arms smuggling into both iraq and Afghanistan is explainable by black-market private enterprise.

There is ``ample evidence'' Iran is helping Karzai's administration, particularly with road construction and electricity in western Afghanistan, he told the AP.

But he added that he wouldn't doubt Iran may also help the Taliban and other political opponents of Karzai.

``So what does that add up to? It makes me think of a major American corporation that will give political campaign money to three or four different candidates for president of the United States,'' he said. ``Somebody is going to come out on top. This corporation wants to be aligned with whoever comes out on top.''

McNeill, a 60-year-old, four-star general from North Carolina who has fought in most American conflicts since Vietnam, said he had no hard evidence the Iranian government has helped the Taliban. He said munitions, particularly mortar rounds found on Afghan battlefields, ``clearly were made in Iran,'' but said that does not prove the Iranian government is formally involved.

``If I had the information, I would have no reservation about saying it,'' he said.

I recognise that it is quite possible that Iran is "playing the field" with it support - but it is important to realise that this is speculation rather than hard evidence and if there's one thing we are sure of about the Cheney warmongers, it is that they have a credibility gap when it comes to accepting speculations as a causus belli.

McNeill also noted that the Taliban are showing increased sophistication in their attacks and speculated that this was because they were receiving information on successful tactics from Iraq.

McNeill said NATO forces under his command pursued a successful offensive this spring against insurgents, but he acknowledged Taliban militants are showing signs of improved training.

For instance, they have advanced on U.S. Special Forces in recent months after staging ambushes in tight terrain between high ground and a river, a complex military maneuver that McNeill termed ``surprising.''

``We have now seen them shoot and maneuver a couple times in ways we haven't seen before. Where that's coming from I'm not exactly certain,'' he said. ``But they have used some versions of fire and maneuver that makes one think of an advanced Western military.''

There also has been speculation Taliban fighters are adopting tactics used by insurgents in Iraq, and McNeill said he wouldn't rule out that they are coordinating their efforts. But he stressed he didn't have any information to state conclusively that is happening.

Maybe they just got smarter and started downloading PDFs on Western small unit special operations tactics from the internet. Maybe the Pakistani military started passing on the training aid it received from the US military under Bush's "support-a-dictator" programs.

Meanwhile, Bill Kristol told Face The Nation yesterday that Joe Lieberman's latest bit of insanity helped give the Bush administration political cover for a push to attack Iran. Political cover, maybe - but it's clear kristol and the other Worm-tongues haven't yet convinced the US military to go along with their plans.

Nor have the managed to convince key regional allies. Kuwait today stated that it would not agree to any US proposal that it be used to base forces for an attack on Iran. "The United States has not made a request and we will not agree to (such a request)," Defence and Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Hamad al-Sabah told reporters.

Bandar-Gate USA - The Riggs Bank Connection

By Cernig

Newsweek: Hundreds of pages of confidential U.S. bank records may be the missing link in illuminating new allegations that a major British arms contractor funneled up to $2 billion in questionable payments to Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

By now you are probably aware that a massive scandal is underway in the UK concerning an alleged $2 billion dollars in bribes consultancy fees paid by UK defense giant BAe to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Bush's best friend in the Kingdom. The scandal has only been fuelled by Tony Blair closing down an official enquiry into the affair on grounds of "national security". I wrote last Friday about one possible bit of fallout from the scandal here in the US - the proposed purchase of US defense company Armor Holdings by BAe.

The latest issue of Newsweek points up another way in which the scandal in the UK could impact on the American political scene.

Before the U.K. closed the inquiry, British investigators contacted the U.S. Justice Department seeking access to records related to the Saudi bank accounts. Many of these records were first obtained by NEWSWEEK in 2004. At the time, the magazine reported that federal regulators had been alerted to millions of dollars in "suspicious" activities in Saudi accounts at the now-defunct Riggs Bank.

...The Riggs Bank records show the use of those funds raised concerns among bank officials and U.S. regulators. In November 2003, Riggs filed a "suspicious activity report" with the Treasury Department disclosing that over a four-month period, $17.4 million from the Saudi Defense account had been disbursed to a single individual in Saudi Arabia. When Riggs officials asked the Saudis who the person was and why he was receiving the funds, they were told the individual "coordinates home improvement/construction projects for Prince Bandar in Saudi Arabia," and the payments were for a "new Saudi palace," one document shows.

In another instance, Bandar wired $400,000 from a Riggs account to a luxury-car dealer overseas. "It was impossible to distinguish between government funds and what would normally be considered personal purposes," said David Caruso, who served as Riggs's compliance officer at the time. Caruso also confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the Saudi Defense account was regularly replenished with $30 million each quarter from an account in London. But the bank never knew the source of the funds. The bank was so concerned about the withdrawals that it cut off all business with the Saudis. In May 2005, the U.S. Treasury fined Riggs $25 million for failing to monitor "extensive and frequent suspicious" activity in Saudi and other accounts. (Asked about the Riggs records, Bandar's lawyer said the palace in question was "Prince Bandar's official residence" in Saudi Arabia and that audits by the Saudi Finance Ministry found "no irregularities" in the Saudi accounts while Bandar was ambassador.)

I reckon the chance of any Saudi official audit showing criminally corrupt irregularities in a Saudi prince's affairs is about as likely as turkeys voting for Thanksgiving, myself.

But, of course, 2003 wasn't the first time irregular goings-on involving Prince Bandar and Riggs Bank had been noticed. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were funded by money that had its origins in the Riggs account of Princess Haifa bint Faisal, the daughter of the late King Faisal and wife of Prince Bandar, according to one MSNBC report from 2002. Back then, there was considerable anger at Buish administration reluctance to allow Congress access to classified data on the matter.

Questions over the money trail have enflamed a fierce, behind-the-scenes struggle between two congressional committees looking into 9-11 and the Bush administration. Senate Intelligence Committee co-chairman Robert Graham of Florida, a Democrat, and Richard Shelby of Alabama, a Republican, believe that the FBI failed to fully investigate 9-11. The lawmakers suspect that the administration does not want to look too closely at Saudi connections to the hijackers. The White House clearly fears jeopardizing U.S.-Saudi relations. In addition to Saudi oil, the United States needs Saudi bases to stage a possible invasion of Iraq. Administration officials reluctantly confirmed to NEWSWEEK that money had moved from Princess Haifa's account to al-Bayoumi, but they stressed that they do not know the purpose of the payments or whether any Saudi officials were even aware of them. "The facts are unclear, and there's no need to rush to judgment," said one administration official. In meetings with intelligence committee leaders, Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft and others have adamantly rejected attempts to declassify the information, citing national-security concerns.

In February 2005, Riggs Bank voluntarily paid a $16 million fine for violations of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (an affair during which it was revealed that the bank had extensive ties to the CIA), after previously being fined $25 million for involvement in money-laundering. At the same time, (incidentally, a period when George's uncle Jonathan Bush was a senior executive at Riggs), long-running Justice Department investigation into affairs at the bank was suddenly ended. Riggs Bank was aquired by PNC Bank and the Riggs name disappeared.

So now there's a new $2 billion question. Was the sudden ending of investigations a move to cover up embarassing mistakes in the lead up to 9/11, to bail out Uncle Jonathan...or done to protect Prince Bandar from the BAe bribery corruption scandal - something that the Bush administration must have had knowledge about all along?

Bandar-Gate Comes To The US

By Cernig

Josh Marshall writes of the ongoing BAe bribery scandal :" I haven't had time to dial in on this story, but I think it's big." He's right, it is, and he really should take the time to get up to speed.

I've been reading and following this story for months but haven't posted on it because it seemed to be a purely internal UK/Saudi matter - even now, the tale only rates page A15 in the Washington Post - but I've a strong feeling that's about to change. This may well be the next big "culture of corruption" scandal here in the U.S.

The story, at heart, is a simple one. In 1985, the Saudis did an arms deal worth billions with the BAe and the Thatcher UK government acted as facillitator and middleman for the deal. As a sweetener to make sure the deal went ahead, BAe bribed various Saudi bigwigs - and the UK government looked the other way in full knowledge of what happened. The arrangement continued for decades and extended to other deals including one under the Blair government for even more billions worth of fighter aircraft. Then, when the Serious Fraud Squad began an investigation of the bribes, Blair's government squashed that investigation.

Laura Rozen tries to explain what's been getting the Brits worked up about this:

no one - not Tony Blair, who shut down the UK Serious Fraud Office investigation, not Bandar, not BAE -- is really denying it. Such is the cost of doing business with Saudi Arabia...Blair just openly said, we're shutting this investigation down because official exposure of the truth will hurt British national security interests.

Not quite - because we Brits are pissed that Blair first denied it, then shut the investigation down while admitting it. But she has the gist. No-one is denying the payments, they just say that they were all legal commissions paid to consultants. This despite the evidence that money was laundered and redirected through cut-outs who were supposedly other "consultants" so that it ended up in the pockets of prominent and powerful Mid-East figures.

But the new -and relevant to US politics - can of worms is the revelation by the Guardian's investigative reporting team, who have been working this story for four years, that the Bush administration's best friend in Saudi, Prince Bandar Abbas, was deeply involved in the bribery - to the tune of $2 billion dollars. Much of the money was channelled from a UK government account at the Bank of England to the now-failed Riggs Bank in Washington (remember? allegations of channeling funds to Al Qaeda and a federal investigation?) and thus to "Bandar Bush", as Dubya calls him.

For the moment, the US connection is limited to growing concern about BAe's purchase of Armor Holdings, the company that makes Hummers for US troops in Iraq as well as the current US-issue personal body armor. The London Times explains where that is going:

BAE Systems’ proposed $4.5 billion (£2.26 billion) acquisition of Armor Holdings in the United States has been thrown into doubt by the latest allegations of corruption against the defence giant.

Diplomatic sources in the US have revealed that the deal could be in danger as officials threaten a closer examination. “There are protectionist elements on Capitol Hill and elsewhere who are looking for an excuse to block BAE,” the source said. “This may have just provided them with one.”

...The furore...may give BAE’s rivals a chance to block the company’s ambitions in the US. BAE has done 15 deals in the US since 1999 and the country now accounts for 42 per cent of its sales.

Both Congress and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) are now expected to take a fresh interest in the corruption allegations. The DoJ has not launched its own investigation into whether BAE breached the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practice Act but British officials in Washington fear “that may change” after these latest allegations.

Staff members from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives’ Foreign Relations Committee have been briefed about the Armor acquisition by BAE and the US State Department. Congressional aides are questioning whether BAE has operated within corruption laws and whether the Armor deal should go ahead.

Until yesterday, there was a general expectation that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an interagency panel based in the US Treasury that examines such takeovers, would not raise any significant national security objections to the acquisition of Armor. But CFIUS could now decide to order a formal 45-day investigation, delaying or even scuppering the takeover plan. A spokeswoman for the panel refused to comment.

And that is where the can will be opened - with congressional investigations.

Such investigations are absolutely certain to spill over into questions about consecutive US administrations' knowledge of the British deals, into Riggs bank's involvement and the Bush administration's complicity in that scandal and finally into examinations of whether US deals with the Saudis - e.g. by Halliburton and Exxon and involving the same cast of Saudi characters - have also involved bribes in violation of the law and with full knowledge of the US government. My guess is that there's a lot of worms in that particular can.

Neo-Blimpism

As an addendum to my Memorial Day post on the insiduous nature of assertions of any "divine mandate", and the dangers of Imperial hubris such always brings, it's worth reading Glenn Greenwald today as he debunks Tony Blair's neo-colonial blimpism. I'm entirely in agreement with Glenn's finding that Blair, Bush and the neo-war crowd are guilty of Blimpism - the crime of thinking they know better than the Poor Bloody Natives, who they will save from their own uncivilized selves.

Glenn writes that he wants to "leave aside for the moment the inflammatory question of whether it is valid to compare our invasion and four-year-and-counting occupation of Iraq and previous policies of British colonialism."

But let's not. Let us instead confront it head on. Glenn quotes extensively from a 1926 rant by British colonial administrator Lord Frederick Lugard. Here's the bit that seemed most resonant to me:

If there is unrest, and a desire for independence, as in India and Egypt, it is because we have taught the value of liberty and freedom, which for centuries these peoples had not known. Their very discontent is measure of their progress.

We hold these countries because it is the genius of our race to colonise, to trade, and to govern. The task in which England is engaged in the tropics--alike in Africa and in the East--has become Part Of her tradition, and she has ever given of her best in the cause of liberty and civilisation.

There will always be those who cry aloud that the task is being badly done, that it does not need doing, that we can get more profit by leaving others to do it, that it brings evil to subject races and breeds profiteers at home. These were not the principles which prompted our forefathers, and secured for us the place we hold in the world to-day in trust for those who shall come after us.

Yet for all its talk of divine mandates and Empires on which the sun would never set, that era of British colonialism is gone the way of Rome and Ozymandias.

Tell me how this substantially differs from the pronouncements of the neocons or other war-hawks from the extreme Right of American politics.

Totalitarian Tony The Thatcherite

By Cernig

Tony Blair used to pretend that he and his Blairites were the new and rational face of the British Left. It got them into power, which was the one thing they always wanted. When Blair took office his first action was to visit Thatcher and many of us experienced what was to become commonplace - that "we've been conned" feeling. Fairly quickly, the Blairites abandoned their pretense and revealed themselves as totalitarian big-government rightwingers in the old Thatcherite mold. The war in Iraq and a poodle-like following of the warmongering Republican across the pond in so many things, the new ID card, the surveillance society, new nuclear weapons, complicity in illegal renditions. Today, even the Conservative Party is to the Left of the hardcore Blairites in their dying spasms.

Here comes the latest political atrocity, right out of the Thatcherite "stop and search" playbook.

NEW anti-terrorism laws are to be pushed through before Tony Blair leaves office giving “wartime” powers to the police to stop and question people. John Reid, the home secretary, who is also quitting next month, intends to extend Northern Ireland’s draconian police powers to interrogate individuals about who they are, where they have been and where they are going.

Under the new laws, police will not need to suspect that a crime has taken place and can use the power to gain information about “matters relevant” to terror investigations. If suspects fail to stop or refuse to answer questions, they could be charged with a criminal offence and fined up to £5,000. Police already have the power to stop and search people but they have no right to ask for their identity and movements.

No general police power to stop and question has ever been introduced in mainland Britain except during wartime. Civil liberties campaigners last night branded the proposed measures “one of the most significant moves on civil liberties since the second world war”.

Ironically, the stop and question power is soon to be repealed in Northern Ireland as part of the peace agreement. Home Office officials admitted, however, that the final wording of the new power to stop and question in the rest of the UK might have to include a requirement for reasonable suspicion.

As we Brits all know, "reasonable suspicion" in Thatcher-speak doesn't have to be reasonable suspicion of anything. There was no requirement under the old "reasonable suspicion" laws, introduced by Thatcher to be used against smelly hippy "travellers" and striking miners, that the police say what they were suspicious of, only that there be "suspicion" of commission of a crime - any crime. That was enough in the UK already for a 24 hour detention. Now Blair wants to extend that so that it's just general suspicion, without even a requirement that a crime have been committed or that the intent exists to commit one. If ever there was a police power ripe for abuse, this is it.

And as usual, the rationale for this is the, by now old and convenient, excuse that "the terrorists hate our freedoms". Blair, in an op-ed for the London Times, writes:

Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism.

Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment. This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before. It needs to be confronted with every means at our disposal. Tougher laws in themselves help, but just as crucial is the signal they send out: that Britain is an inhospitable place to practise this extremism.

For "their right to civil liberties" read OUR right, because the law has no way to tell in advance whether the subject is guilty or innocent. That's the whole point of "innocent until proven guilty" and Blair is planning an end-run on that basic principle. If Blair gets his way, then he will have managed to roll back the efforts of the greatest generation, for it will be "Papiere, Bitte" at every turn. As Tim Worstall, a non-Thatcherite conservative, points out after reading the BBC's explanation of the proposed new powers:

There you are, amiably wandering down the street, and if a policeman so wishes, he can not only stop and search you, he can insist that you divulge where you have been and where you are going. If you have more than £1,000 in cash on you it can be confiscated, you having to prove where you got it from and what you were going to do with it: for the assumption is that such cash amounts are the proceeds or enablers of crime and so the burden of proof reverses. Finally, if you keep silent John Reid wants this to be taken as proof of your guilt.

A free, happy and liberal land now, isn't it?

Thankfully, my guess is that this legislation won't be passed. There isn't enough time left in Blair's reign to push it through and most civil liberties groups, Labour politicians and the general public seem to be opposed to it. As a hole card for freedom, the House of Lords can be expected to do all it can to block any such draconian measures too.

Then there's the next leader, Gordon Brown, who - it has been "officially leaked" - would like a written British constitution to set out "the respective roles of Parliament, the judiciary and the Government, as well as setting out basic rights, responsibilities and opportunities for all citizens [and] resolve potential conflicts between the Human Rights Act and Britain's ability to introduce its own anti-terrorist, asylum and immigration laws." In December, Brown told listeners at a lecture:

"In each generation, we have found it necessary to renew the settlement between individual, community and state and I cannot see how the long-term credibility of our institutions or our policies can be secured unless our constitutional, social and economic reforms are explicitly founded on these British ideas of liberty."

Brown may have ridden the coat-tails of the Tony Thatcherites into power, but he's a far different kind of political animal. For that, at least, we should probably be thankful.

Instahoglets May 32rd 2007

By Cernig

A periodic punchpost spectacular of blogroll goodies and "news less travelled."

Do you get the impression that even Bush officials don't know what the Plan B will be when the surge fails to deliver any ponies? Kevin Drum points out that one bunch are anonymously telling folks that it will involve the UN and thinks that's unlikely. Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman finds another bunch saying it will involve nationalist Iraqi politicians - which may be inevitable but will hardly be what BushCo would prefer.

The Dems are about to buy into ownership of the quagmire in Iraq. Think Progress explains why they shouldn't make such a massive mistake.

And Jim Henley reminds us that "lilly-pad" is just a euphemism for "permanent base" - the Bush plan to stay in Iraq forever has never changed.

(AP) -- U.S. intelligence agencies warned senior members of the Bush administration in early 2003 that invading Iraq could create instability that would give Iran and al-Qaida new opportunities to expand their influence, according to an upcoming Senate report. But they carried on regardless.

Creature at State of The day notices a tacit admission from Bush today - "Al Qaeda is perfectly willing to follow us home while we are fighting them over there. By golly, they can fight us over there and follow us home at the same time." So what's that about staying in Iraq again, George? And can we please try to remember that 2005 happened after 2003?

Pakistan has denied the alleged presence of CIA officials in the country to hunt down Al-Qaida terrorists. Can't have them catching bush's get-out-of-jail-free card.

Or is it that we are fighting them over there so that other fundie crazies can napalm us over here?

While the public were watching American Idol, the head of Boeing's military manufacturing division warned against any "peace dividend" and the Iraqi government said it would buy at least $1.5 billion in US weaponry this year. Always follow the money.

If you're following the ongoing AttorneyGate saga then you've probably already figured out that TPMmuckraker is the 'paper' of the record. Here's their low-down on Monica Goodling's testimony. For a "storm in a teacup" non-scandal (as our rightwing friends insist) there's a whole lot of taking the 5th going on, isn't there? Oh look, there goes another one!

"At best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty." If that sounds like a general description of the Bush administration to you, then join the McClatchy Club.

Blogging good news! Ron from Middle Earth Journal will now also be posting new and original material at Gun Toting Liberal. I'm a big fan of both Ron and GTL so I'll be looking forward to reading.

Tony Blair has an op-ed in today's London Times and Bush ain't gonna like it. How to stop the lights going out in a dangerous world - The right energy policies will secure our future.

And if all that isn't enough of a news, politics and blogging fix, there's always memeorandum, the best blog aggregator around.

Blair For World Bank?

By Cernig

Now that Paul Wolfowitz has finally quit his World Bank sinecure, the White House is keen to appoint a successor quickly.

Amanda at Think Progress has a list of names that are coming up - and at the head of that list is one Tony Blair, the Stan to Dubya's Ollie.

It would be an astute move politically. Europe would get a European as Wold Bank head, which would go a long way to mollifying those across the pond who were so angered by Wolfowitz' adoption of the U.S. hard right's agenda at the Bank. At the same time, Bush could be assured of having a yes-man on many issues even if Blair might restore the Wold Bank's former direction on climate change and Third World aid.

As an economic thinker Blair would make a great poodle for Bush's administration. It's no secret that Gordon Brown has always done his financial thinking for him and without Brown to hold his hand Blair couldn't balance his own checkbook. According to UPI, Blair's agent told the UK's press that Tony was ready to consider quitting Parliament if "a big international" job came up.

Other rumored candidates include Bill Frist, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Update The UK's Guardian reports that British betting giant Ladbrokes has Blair as a 25/1 outsider for the World bank job. Even John Bolton (16/1) shows better. But the favorites are Ashraf Ghani, chairman of Kabul University and former World bank economist (4/5) and Nigeria's foreign minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (5/2). Before taking up her current position, Okonjo-Iweala was was vice-president and corporate secretary of the World Bank.

The Americans who shows best under ladbrokes' current odds are ex Condi aide Robert Zoellick (7/2) and current deputy treasury secretary Robert Kimmitt (5/1).

Rumsfield is the 100-1 rank outsider.

Bono's Pissed

By Cernig

Only Britain and Japan are living up to their promises on global poverty made at the Gleneagles Summit two years ago.

It's not just the credibility of the G8 that's at stake," Bono said in an interview with the Guardian to coincide with the release of a report from his Data organisation detailing the slow progress since the Gleneagles summit of 2005. "It's the credibility of the largest non-violent protest in 30 years. Nobody wants to go back to what we saw in Genoa, but I do sense a real sense of jeopardy."

Attempts by Tony Blair to inject a fresh sense of urgency into the G8 have been frustrated by other rich nations. At a meeting in Berlin of senior G8 officials - known as sherpas - to prepare the ground for next month's G8 meeting, Britain's representatives received short shrift when they raised the issue of aid budgets. "We only made those promises because we felt sorry for Tony Blair after the terrorist attacks on 7/7," the Russian sherpa said, referring to the terrorist attack on the day before the Gleneagles agreement was signed.

...The ambitious target signed up to in 2005 was to double global aid by 2010, with half of that £25bn increase earmarked for sub-Saharan Africa...The figures released by Data yesterday showed that G8 assistance to sub-Saharan Africa has increased by $2.3bn since 2004, but to be on track for the 2010 target it should have increased by $5.4bn. To compound the problems, Data reported that only small increases in aid are in the pipeline for this year and next.

...Bono said yesterday that the G8 could not let the campaigners down. "Telling lies to Bob and me is one thing. Putting their signature on a G8 communique and lying to their citizenry is another matter. Breaking promises to the most vulnerable people on earth is real infamy."

What Bono said.

Let's see a Dem presidential candidate make this an issue, please?

Two Guilty Of Al Jazeeera Bombing Memo Leak

By Cernig

David Keogh and Leo O'Connor have been found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act and will be sentenced tomorrow. The two had leaked a British government memo in the hope that the document would find its way into the public domain and expose the US president as a "madman".

Although the British press are saying absolutely nothing now about the content of the memo, since they are all under threat of prosecution should they do so, the prosecution claimed during the trial that "the unauthorised disclosure of information in this case is likely to prejudice the capability of the armed forces either to carry out their tasks or lead to the loss of life or the possibility of loss of life or injury."

When the memo was originally leaked, the UK's Daily Mirror ran an article alleging that it contained a record of Tony Blair convincing George Bush not to bomb the Al Jazeera headquarters in allied Qatar. At the time, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reported:

Bush administration officials initially dismissed the memo’s allegations about Bush’s threat against Al-Jazeera as “outlandish.” U.S. officials later suggested that if Bush did talk with Blair about bombing Al-Jazeera, the president was only joking. Asked directly today about Bush's purported threat to bomb Al-Jazeera, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said: "Any such notion that we would engage in that kind of activity is just absurd." McLellan did not respond to follow-up questions as to whether Bush actually said what the memo says he did.
But a senior official at 10 Downing Street, Blair’s official residence, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, recently seemed to give credence to the Al-Jazeera threat. The official told NEWSWEEK London Bureau chief Stryker McGuire: "I don't think Tony Blair thought it was a joke."

British courts are not in the habit of jailing people under the Act for leaking jokes or leaks that are "absurd".

The Bush administration should have some explaining to do, now. But I don't really expect the US press to ask the questions in the first place.

Blair To Resign Tomorrow

By Cernig

News is just breaking in the UK that Tony Blair is expected to announce his resignation tomorrow, setting a date in July to hand over over power to his successor - most likely the slightly more lefty Gordon Brown.

AP reports, via The Guardian, that he will make the announcement to his cabinet first before travelling to his own Sedgefield constituency to make a public announcement.

Blair's official spokesman said the prime minister would set out his intentions to Cabinet colleagues on Thursday morning. He is then expected to travel to his Sedgefield constituency in northern England to make a public announcement.

Speculation about Blair's resignation date intensified after he celebrated a decade in power on May 1.

In British parliamentary tradition, the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons serves as prime minister. Blair's announcement that he is stepping down as Labour leader will trigger a leadership contest that would see him replaced as party leader, and prime minister, within about seven weeks.

Treasury chief Gordon Brown, Blair's longtime friend and rival, is the favorite to succeed him, although two backbench Labour lawmakers also have announced their intention to run.

Blair's announcement has been awaited since Sept. 30, 2004, when he said in a television interview that he would serve only one more term - his third - as prime minister.

The announcement, made when he was facing a surgical procedure to correct a heart problem, was one he came to regret, as opponents, party rivals and the media pressed him to set a date for his departure.

The Daily Mail has more details about the specifics of the handover:

Mr Blair's expected announcement tomorrow will not trigger his immediate departure as Prime Minister, but will kick off a process expected to result in the handover of the reins of power to Mr Brown around the start of July.

...Labour's ruling National Executive Committee has laid down a seven-week process to elect successors to Mr Blair and his deputy John Prescott, who has said he will step down at the same time.

This will culminate in a special party conference, probably on the weekend of June 30, at which a new leader and deputy leader will be named.

Mr Blair will then be driven to the Palace, probably on Monday July 2, to resign as Prime Minister and hand over the Seals of Office to the Queen. He will be followed by the new leader - almost certainly Mr Brown - who will be invited by Her Majesty to form a new Government.

The majority guess is that Blairwill continue to serve the rest of his elected term as an MP.

His legacy, now, will be of a leader who came in like a lion and went out like a rather sleazy lamb - tainted by the "cash for peerages" scandal among others and with his party battered in the polls by his support for the Iraq war which most of the rank-and-file opposed.

European Left Isn't Dead Yet

By Cernig

As American rightwingers cackle over the supposed demise of a socialist France (that has been run by conservatives since the mid -80's) and newly minted President Sarkozy gets into "egalite" trouble for relaxing on a billionaire's massive yacht, Johnathan Freedland at the Guardian writes that the Left isn't dead in Europe yet.

Start with the home front. Last week's most significant defeat came in Scotland, where Labour had dominated for 50 years. Yet it was not the right who won. It's true the Scottish Nationalists promised a cut in corporation tax, but in almost every other area the SNP attacked Labour from the left - from opposition to the Iraq war and the renewal of Trident to promises to wipe out student debt. And remember, the SNP fought not the government in London but Scottish Labour, which was already to Blair's left. In other words, Scots were choosing between two shades of centre-left and they chose the redder of the two.

In Wales, there was a similar story. Rhodri Morgan's administration was also of deeper red than Blair's in London. And while it lost three seats in the assembly, Plaid Cymru, which sits to Labour's left, gained the same number. Thursday was certainly a bad night for Labour, but that's not quite the same as a pendulum swing to the right.

It's harder, admittedly, to draw that conclusion about France. (Tony Blair's YouTube message of beaming congratulations to Sarkozy is confirmation that the prime minister is leaving office utterly unrepentant, as heedless of Labour party members' feelings now as when he holidayed with Silvio Berlusconi or locked shoulders with George Bush.) Sarko looks every inch the hardman of the right. Yet even he, for all his rage against the 35-hour week, does not buy into the full Blair package. "I want Europe to protect us from globalisation, not let in globalisation as a Trojan horse," Sarkozy declared during the campaign. Rather than let the chill winds of market forces and free trade blow, Sarkozy proposes new barriers to imports from outside the European Union, all in the name of protecting jobs. Not quite one of les Anglo-Saxons, then.

Freedland connects the dots with American progressives like Edwards, Obama and Senator Jim Webb who are concerned with the increasing fact of "two Americas" and resurgent robber barons. Also to Zbigniew Brzezinski who in his latest book talks about:

"global political awakening", a stirring across much of the developing world, among those who are "conscious of social injustice to an unprecedented degree and resentful of its deprivations and lack of personal dignity".

and concludes with another factor - the failure of aggresive capitalism and conservativism in economic and foreign policy terms.

Last weekend a clutch of political scholars gathered in Oxford for a New York Review of Books conference on "The new face of American capitalism". Several suggested that, thanks to a weakening dollar and a narrowing in the performance gap between the US and Europe, the US model was beginning to lose its shine. The debacle in Iraq had also badly damaged American prestige.

...As one speaker, Simon Head, put it: "The UK has staked much on being the best European emulator of the American model. But if that model is looking jaded, where does that leave us?"

...Is it possible that the...era of neoliberal certainty is coming to a close, that there are stirrings abroad that call for something else? Might there not be a demand for action, as there was when the last intolerable gap in wealth opened up nearly a century ago - a demand, in short, for a battle against inequality?

Scottish voters and Americans at the midterms alike are reacting to the same signs, the same injustices. The Left is not dead - not even in Europe.