Nuclear disarmament would be popular with voters‏

Letter sent to The Guardian on 26 June:

 

Your liberal-minded columnists seem to be falling over themselves to get into print that Labour could not win under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

 

The big election defeat of the Michael Foot-led Labour Party with its leftist manifesto  in the 1983 General Election seems to provide the main rational for this opinion.

 

Martin Kettle argues, for example, that centrist compromise of any socialist principles is necessary for Labour to ever win back power (“For labour the choice is a stark one: purity, or power,” 26 June).

 

A few days earlier, Polly Toynbee argued "Take Corbyn’s anti-Trident stand: I imagine, but I don’t know, that the potential leaders would not choose to spend tens of billions on these four submarines. But Labour is pledged to them, because any hint of unilateralism brands the party as unelectably reckless.I can argue against Trident, but Labour in opposition dare not…” (In Labour’s leadership race, Yvette Cooper is the one to beat,” 23 June).

 

Yet, current Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, told MPs in a Parliamentary debate on Trident  earlier this year "Government shares the vision of a world that is without nuclear weapons, (20 January) and just last month foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood said in a statement the "Government retains a commitment  to  a world  without  nuclear weapons  following the end of the month-long review conference of the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) in New York (foreign office press release 23 May).
The UK is both a signatory of, and depository state for, the 1968 NPT, which closed its most recent month-long quinquennial review conference last month at the UN in New York.

 

NPT article 6 requires each signatory state (including each nuclear weapons state) to undertake: “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament... “

Fred (later Lord) Mulley, as the Labour Government's disarmament minister, addressed the plenary meeting of the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC) in Geneva in early 1968, explaining why nations should sign up to the newly negotiated NPT, telling the ministerial delegations:

"As I have made clear in previous speeches, my government accepts the obligation to participate fully in negotiations required by [NPT] Article VI and it is our desire that these negotiations should begin as soon as possible and should produce speedy and successful results. There is no excuse now for allowing a long delay to follow the signing of this treaty." 

 

This is the reason why contemporary nuclear-armed UK governments cannot continue to postpone the moment to start the promised nuclear disarmament negotiations –including Trident- embedded in the treaty text.

 

I think a Government ensuring the UK fully abides by international law ( especially after the Iraq invasion debacle) and fulfils its treaty obligations would be popular  with voters.

 

Minister out of touch on nuclear disarmament obligations

On 18 June I e-mailed my local MP, Chris Grayling - who is also the  Cabinet Minister in charge of organizing Parliamentary business – pointing out  I just heard him say  in his role as Leader of the House  in weekly Parliamentary Business questions, that he is  in favour of replacing Trident, ands  and invited him as a constituent, to comment on my letter below, and the pro nuclear disarmament comments of his ministerial colleagues
 
Former Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox's somewhat hysterical view that we risk being left in a "heap of cinders" unless we maintain "strong nuclear deterrent" (Report, 17 June) is contradicted by the current Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who told MPs in a Parliamentary debate on Trident  earlier this year "Government shares the vision of a world that is without nuclear weapons, (20 January) and just last month foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood said in a statement the "Government retains a commitment  to  a world  without  nuclear weapons  following the end of the month-long review conference of the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) in New York (foreign Office Press release 23 May).

Dr Fox is out of touch, locked into an old fashioned world view, and needs to modernize his thinking.

Mr Grayling responded on 25 June saying:

“Thank you for your message. I don't see any contradiction. Obviously, we would all like a nuclear-free world but until that appears to be an achievable goal, we believe it is absolutely vital that we maintain a continuous independent nuclear deterrent as the ultimate guarantee of our national security.( my emphasis)

 To which I responded as follows:

“ You may be aware that the UK is both a signatory of, and depository state for,  the 1968 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which closed its most recent month-long quinquennial review conference last month at the UN in New York.

 

NPT article 6 requires each signatory state (including each nuclear weapons state) to undertake:

to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament... 

Fred (later Lord) Mulley, as the UK Government's disarmament minister, addressed the plenary meeting of the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENDC) in Geneva in early 1968, explaining why nations should sign up to the newly negotiated NPT, telling the ministerial delegations:

"As I have made clear in previous speeches, my government accepts the obligation to participate fully in the negotiations required by [NPT] Article VI and it is our desire that these negotiations should begin as soon as possible and should produce speedy and successful results. There is no excuse now for allowing a long delay to follow the signing of this treaty."  (emphasis added)
This is the reason why contemporary nuclear-armed UK  governments cannot continue to postpone the moment to start the promised nuclear disarmament negotiations embedded in the treaty text.

185 non-nuclear states parties to the NPT, including Iran, have stuck to their non-nuclear obligations. Each of the P5 nuclear-armed states have been in breach since 1970, when the NPT entered into force

That is why your assertion to me is wrong.

I would appreciate your considered response in light of this information, of which you appear to be unaware.”

I await his  next response with interest.

Decamping Parliament

This was sent as a letter to the editor:

Mark Leftly's ever astute column Parliamentary Business this week (Independent, 17 June) points out that MPs and peers need to be near the machinery of Government in Whitehall. That is true, but the important reason is really the reverse.

Rather, ministers and civil servants need to be close to Parliament, firstly because lots of meetings take place between ministers and MPs . If there was a geographical gap - such as posited relocation to Hull  (as Leftly mentions in passing) or some other place distant from London, this would be impossible without huge dislocation for ministers and accompanying civil servants or MPs travelling from a distant  base to meetings and back again, with significant additional public expenditure being incurred.

Secondly, the Speaker has quite rightly awarded many more urgent question requests from opposition and backbench MPs, which require ministers at short notice to appear in the House of Commons to answers interested MPs'  questions.

This would be impossible and impractical if Parliament and machinery of government were located in distant venues, and would negate the ability of Parliament to scrutinise ministers on matters of urgent public concern.

So, with Parliament probably having to decamp temporarily, I think the massive nearby QE11 Centre would be just fine for the debating Chambers and some MPs' offices, but I think relocation of the huge and magnificent Library, needed on a daily basis by MPs and Parliamentary officials,  and archive of Parliamentary records (important for historians) would prove a difficult, but not insurmountable, challenge.

Trumping nuclear stupidity

 

 

This letter was sent to The Times on 19 June:

 

Justin Webb picks out some of the more egregiously offensive things new US Presidential candidate Donald Trump uttered in launching his campaign in Iowa on 16 June ("Trump's outbursts can only help the moderates, "19 June)

 

I don't know if Trump meant to make other Republican candidates more moderate, as Webb suggests will be his impact, but on one issue - omitted by Webb - he is terrifyingly extreme.

 

 One of the criticisms Trump aimed at the Obama White House during his speech was for its handling of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.. proposing "
"Our enemies are getting stronger and stronger by the way, and we as a country are getting weaker ..Even our nuclear arsenal doesn't work. It came out recently they have equipment that is 30 years old. They don't know if it worked. … Boy, does that send signals to (Russian president Vladimir) Putin that they don't know what they're doing."

 

His solution to this perceived  problem  was, he asserted: ""When I'm president, we'll have the biggest, classiest, most expensive nuclear arsenal" -

However, a lavishly-funded modernization programme of the US strategic nuclear arsenal is already well under way, as the Pentagon and Department of Energy, jointly responsible for the US military nuclear programme,  is engaged in a multi-year, multi-billion dollar project to modernize the US’s nuclear arsenal, including the rebuilding of the Minuteman III system, which would launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the Trident II submarine-launched missile systems, as well as the refurbishment of nuclear warheads and construction of new and upgraded facilities, such as a major uranium processing facility at Oak Ridge.

 

US Presidential candidates often use broad-brush rhetoric in their campaigns, opting  for sound-bites and populist solutions to  purported problems with the incumbent  administration, rather than detailed analysis of policy priorities.

 

But playing political games with nuclear weapons is dangerous. Mr Trump has hopefully trumped himself into losing this race by his political stupidity.

 

When The Pope calls for nuclear disarmament politicians should listen

This week Pope Francis released a 180-page “Environmental Encyclical” addressing the urgent need for humankind to take serious action to avoid irreversible climate change.

CHAPTER THREE, on “THE HUMAN ROOTS OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS” begins thus:

101. It would hardly be helpful to describe symptoms without acknowledging the human origins of the ecological crisis. A certain way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us. Should we not pause and consider this? At this stage, I propose that we focus on the dominant technocratic paradigm and the place of human beings and of human action in the world.

It goes on to assert under the sub-heading: TECHNOLOGY: CREATIVITY AND POWER:

"We need but think of the nuclear bombs dropped in the middle of the twentieth century, or the array of technology which Nazism, Communism and other totalitarian regimes have employed to kill millions of people, to say nothing of the increasingly deadly arsenal of weapons available for modern warfare. In whose hands does all this power lie, or will it eventually end up? It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have it."

 

He is right. One of Pope Francis’ predecessors, Pope John XX111 also issued an important encyclical, over fifty years ago, on ‘Peace on Earth’: this is part of what it said, on the dangers of nuclear weapons:

PACEM IN TERRIS

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE JOHN XXIII
ON ESTABLISHING UNIVERSAL PEACE IN TRUTH,
JUSTICE, CHARITY, AND LIBERTY

APRIL 11, 1963

 

Causes of the Arms Race

109. On the other hand, We are deeply distressed to see the enormous stocks of armaments that have been, and continue to be, manufactured in the economically more developed countries. This policy is involving a vast outlay of intellectual and material resources, with the result that the people of these countries are saddled with a great burden, while other countries lack the help they need for their economic and social development .

110. There is a common belief that under modern conditions peace cannot be assured except on the basis of an equal balance of armaments and that this factor is the probable cause of this stockpiling of armaments. Thus, if one country increases its military strength, others are immediately roused by a competitive spirit to augment their own supply of armaments. And if one country is equipped with atomic weapons, others consider themselves justified in producing such weapons themselves, equal in destructive force.

111. Consequently people are living in the grip of constant fear. They are afraid that at any moment the impending storm may break upon them with horrific violence. And they have good reasons for their fear, for there is certainly no lack of such weapons. While it is difficult to believe that anyone would dare to assume responsibility for initiating the appalling slaughter and destruction that war would bring in its wake, there is no denying that the conflagration could be started by some chance and unforeseen circumstance. Moreover, even though the monstrous power of modern weapons does indeed act as a deterrent, there is reason to fear that the very testing of nuclear devices for war purposes can, if continued, lead to serious danger for various forms of life on earth.

Need for Disarmament

112. Hence justice, right reason, and the recognition of man's dignity cry out insistently for a cessation to the arms race. The stock-piles of armaments which have been built up in various countries must be reduced all round and simultaneously by the parties concerned. Nuclear weapons must be banned. A general agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament program, with an effective system of mutual control. In the words of Pope Pius XII: "The calamity of a world war, with the economic and social ruin and the moral excesses and dissolution that accompany it, must not on any account be permitted to engulf the human race for a third time." (59)

113. Everyone, however, must realize that, unless this process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men's very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms race, or to reduce armaments, or—and this is the main thing—ultimately to abolish them entirely. Everyone must sincerely co-operate in the effort to banish fear and the anxious expectation of war from men's minds. But this requires that the fundamental principles upon which peace is based in today's world be replaced by an altogether different one, namely, the realization that true and lasting peace among nations cannot consist in the possession of an equal supply of armaments but only in mutual trust. And We are confident that this can be achieved, for it is a thing which not only is dictated by common sense, but is in itself most desirable and most fruitful of good.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html

Today’s contemporary politicians should learn from these wise words.

 

THE HUMAN ROOTS OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

101. It would hardly be helpful to describe symptoms without acknowledging the human origins of the ecological crisis. A certain way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us. Should we not pause and consider this? At this stage, I propose that we focus on the dominant technocratic paradigm and the place of human beings and of human action in the world.

I. TECHNOLOGY: CREATIVITY AND POWER

CHAPTER THREE

THE HUMAN ROOTS OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

101. It would hardly be helpful to describe symptoms without acknowledging the human origins of the ecological crisis. A certain way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us. Should we not pause and consider this? At this stage, I propose that we focus on the dominant technocratic paradigm and the place of human beings and of human action in the world.

I. TECHNOLOGY: CREATIVITY AND POWER

 

 

 

Fox's fallacies

Former Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox's somewhat hysterical view that we risk being left in a "heap of cinders" unless we maintain "strong nuclear deterrent" (London Evening Standard, Report, 17 June) is contradicted by the current Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who told MPs in a Parliamentary debate on Trident  earlier this year "Government shares the vision of a world that is without nuclear weapons, (20 January) and just last month foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood said in a statement the "Government retains a commitment  to  a world  without  nuclear weapons  following the end of the month-long review conference of the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) in New York (Foreign Office Press release 23 May).

Dr Fox is out of touch, locked into an old fashioned world view, and needs to modernize his thinking.

Fracking fears from model US state‏

 

Letter submitted to the FT today:

 

I was intrigued to read in your weekend article ("Fracking industry looks to Pennsylvania for guidance," Financial Times, June 13/14,) that Cuadrilla, the gas drilling company promoting the exploitation of the Lancashire shale gas field has cited rural Pennsylvania in the US, home to America’s “fracking” revolution, as a model for Lancashire.

Now local Lancashire CC planning officers have given the green light to one of two pending applications to drill, from Cuadrilla (“Lancashire planners give go-ahead to Cuadrilla fracking plan, “ 16 June), the elected council members charged with endorsing planning permission should examine just what has happened in the model US state Cuadrilla cite.

An article in the Washington Post on 10 April this year (“Rise of deadly radon gas in Pennsylvania buildings linked to fracking industry,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/04/09/rise-of-deadly-radon-gas-in-pennsylvania-buildings-linked-to-fracking-industry/) it reported a new study in the journal Environmental Health Perspective that revealed Downloada “disturbing correlation” between unusually high levels of radon gas in mostly residences and fracking that has become the industry standard over the past decade.

The searchers  found that  in the same areas of the state of Pennsylvania as the fracking operations generally showed higher readings of radon, with about 42%  of the readings higher than what is considered safe by federal standards. Moreover, the researchers discovered that radon levels spiked overall in 2004, at about the same time fracking activity began to pick up.

Moreover, just last week, a federal investigation into links between fracking and drinking water contamination in Bradford and Susquehanna Counties in Pennsylvania found some private water wells had been damaged by methane and ethane migration caused by nearby fracking. (“Pennsylvania case studies mirror EPA’s national fracking report, “State IMPACT NPR, 11 June, http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2015/06/11/pennsylvania-case-studies-mirror-epas-national-fracking-report/)

I think the councillors need to make sure they are appraised of these studies before making their final fracking decision.

A tale of two Benns

A

In his first Parliamentary speech - at the beginning of June - as Labour’s new shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn’s made some important observations and arguments.

Adorned in the garb of a great social liberal, he powerfully argued: “The most important human right is the right to life, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the suspension of capital punishment in Britain, which was followed by its abolition four years later. I hope that, as we oppose the use of the death penalty in all circumstances...”( Hansard, 1 June 2015 : Column 334)

But oddly in the same speech he opined: “The ultimate responsibility of Government is to defend the nation, and we remain committed to a minimum credible independent nuclear capability delivered through continuous at-sea deterrence while supporting global, multilateral disarmament negotiations and further reductions in stockpiles and numbers of weapons. (Hansard, 1 June 2015: Column 331, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150601/debtext/150601-0001.htm#1506013000466)

Any use of nuclear weapons of mass destruction would result in the deaths of not individuals by judicial fiat, but tens of millions of innocent civilian men, women and children, by political direction. Yet Mr Benn argues in favour of this system to  ”defend the nation.”

His father, the great teacher and orator, long time MP and minister, the late Tony Benn, had diametrically opposite views on the nature of nuclear weapons to his curiously misguided  son.

Hilary Been was very sensitive to criticism, especially  calling his late dad’s socialist and humanitarian views to attention, when I e-mailed him  recently after his advocacy of Trident nuclear WMDs in Parliament.

Here are just a few (of hundreds) denunciations of nuclear WMDs by his dad.

“What’s the point of nuclear weapons? You can’t use them…multilateralism.. It’s an illusion.” (Total Politics 2009, (http://www.totalpolitics.com/print/1288/in-conversation-tony-benn.thtml)

"You see, I resigned from the front bench fifty years ago because I was a defence spokesman, the first Shadow job I had, because I couldn't contemplate circumstances where we would ever be able to use nuclear weapons."

(14 July 2008, Interviewed by Andrew Neil, http://tony-benn.blogspot.co.uk/ )

“…under the arrangements that Britain has with the US that allow us access to their nuclear technology in the Trident programme, America has long insisted that it should have access to all our intelligence material.” (In the name of security, Guardian, 22 June 2005, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jun/22/terrorism.uk)

In Tony Benn’s Letters to my Grandchildren, published in June 2010, he argued against developing Trident. He describes how our nuclear weapons are dependent on the US (because we use their technology), and thus   we don’t have an independent nuclear deterrent. He questions whether nuclear weapons work as a deterrent for war anyway, and cites the Falklands war and various other wars. He also mentions money spent on Trident, and the planetary disaster of a nuclear war.  He says that any person with good sense would not sanction the use of nuclear weapons, and he refers to some wartime officer or other to back him up. In response to this, a prime minister who supports nuclear weapons would have to reassure everyone that he or she would be prepared to use nuclear weapons. That is, the prime minister would be reassuring us that he or she is prepared to approve the killing of millions of people.

Hilary Benn -  and the Labour Party leadership nationally- should reconsider this betrayal of humanity he , and they, now advocate, in backing Trident nuclear WMDs and their renewal at a cost of £100 billion to British taxpayers..

How failed foreign policy created 10,000 new Bin Ladens

At Prime Minister’s question time yesterday Labour’s interim leader Harriet Harman accused David Cameron of “ranting and sneering and gloating.”

Minutes later he welcomed new Labour MP for Bradford West, Naz Shah, saying:  

“First, on behalf of the whole House, I welcome the hon. Lady to her place. She replaces someone who had, I think, the unique distinction of always speaking with immense power, but always being completely wrong. I am sure that she will take a different approach.”

(Hansard, 10 June 2015 : Column 1182http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150610/debtext/150610-0001.htm#15061057000008

That unamed person was Respect politician, George Galloway.

Cameron’s snide attempted put down of Galloway does not stand up to the evidnece. On the single most important issue of the past decade in which Parliament collectively got things terribly wrong-  by backing the  invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq - Galloway was 100% right in his opposition; and his perceptive analysis. This is what he said in an impassioned speech  to the House of Commons on 14 September 2001, a few days after the terrorist attacks,  using hijacked planes, on New York and Washington DC :

“I send my condolences to the great people of the United States of America, in particular to that great city, which I know and love, New York—so great they named it twice. I also send my condolences to New York's magnificent emergency services and its much maligned mayor, Rudi Giuliani, who has proved an admirable and excellent leader of that city's response. I am sure that New York will be back, as big and magnificent as ever.

I despise Osama bin Laden, the mediaeval obscurantist savage; the difference is that I have always despised him. I despised him when weapons, money, and political and diplomatic support were being stuffed down his throat faster than he could eat it. I said in this building on the eve of the victory of those whom the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) used to hail as holy warriors and freedom fighters that, although I might be the last man in this place prepared to say it, we were responsible for opening the gates to the barbarians and a long dark night would descend on Afghanistan. Never did I speak truer words.

I caution against use of the word "civilisation". There are many civilisations in our world. Viewed from some countries, western civilisation does not always look as benign as we see it. It would be much easier if this were truly a conflict between the forces of good and a helpfully turbaned and bearded Dr. Evil, and, if only we could ker-pow that mephistopholean genius in Action Man comic style, everything would be fine again—but it is not so. What we face is a hydra-headed phenomenon precisely because it arises from real conditions and has a real base of support.

Do not mistake the condemnation from Arab and Muslim Governments. It has arisen either from a dependent relationship with us and our friends or from the fear that if they do not say what is expected of them they will be attacked. Do not mistake that for the feeling of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people in Arab and Muslim countries that we are responsible for monumental double standards and that we consider the lives of our own people and of our friends to have a fundamentally different order of value from the lives of those people.

The House may not wish to hear this, but I must say that I have walked in the ashes of cities under aerial attack. Buildings under aerial attack, people being crushed in falling masonry and steel or incinerated by fire from aerial attack look, sound and smell exactly the same whether they are in Beirut, the west bank, Baghdad or Manhattan.

Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Galloway: There is no time.

14 Sept 2001 : Column 640

Arabs and Muslims believe, and they are right to believe, that we do not consider their blood as valuable as our own. Our policy over decades of our history makes that abundantly clear.

The question is: what is to be done? We are the friends of the Americans. It is no service to a friend to write a blank cheque, singing, in the manner of "White Christmas", that "we'll follow the old man wherever he wants to go, wherever he wants to go." That would not do a service to the world or to the United States of America.

In Korea, the Attlee Government played a decisive role in restraining the United States of America from using nuclear weapons against Korea and the People's Republic of China. We played a decisive role in removing from the theatre of operations General MacArthur, precisely because he was likely to move out of control.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) that the only test that matters is whether action will make matters better or worse. If a devastating attack is launched on a Muslim country, killing thousands, it will make 10,000 bin Ladens rise up in the stead of the one whose head has been cut off. I do not know what could be bombed in Afghanistan, the stone age country that we helped to create. There is nothing there. Hardly a building stands. The only thing to hit in Afghanistan is people, and every slain Afghan will be a new banner for new bin Ladens.

Millions of Afghans—5 million of them are starving today—will spill over the borders to become refugees and asylum seekers on ships that western countries will turn away at the point of guns, as the Australian navy did just a week or so ago.

I do not have time to develop all the points that I want to make, nor is this the time to raise certain subjects, although I associate myself with others who have spoken on them, at least in this regard: if 5,000 people have died in Manhattan, and even if 10,000 have died in Manhattan and Washington and Pittsburgh, that represents less than the two-monthly total of the number of children who have died in Iraq in every month of every one of 11 years. Those figures come from the United Nations, not from me or from my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). The UN itself has told us that. The Muslims do not believe that we care about that. They do not believe that we care about the children being slaughtered by General Sharon, the butcher of Beirut, today as we are speaking. They do not believe that we care about them. In some respects, they are right and until this House and this country show that we care—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has used his time allocation.

(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo010914/debtext/10914-10.htm#10914-10_spnew3)

David Cameron supported both vainglorious invasions.

Middle East WMD-free pact still possible

 

This was submitted as a letter to the editor at the New York Times on 4 June:

 

Re: “Lost opportunity on disarmament) Opinion, (June 4).

 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/opinion/lost-opportunity-on-nuclear-disarmament.html)

Your forceful opinion on the failure of the recent review conference of the 192-nation Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) rightly pointed to a breakdown between certain mid-east states, led by Egypt, and the United States, Canada and United Kingdom, over a potential peace conference on removal of weapons of mass destruction from the region.

 

The Times reported earlier  (May 23) that Under Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller accused Egypt and other Arab states of bringing "unrealistic and unworkable conditions" to the negotiations.

 

Before diplomatic despair sets in, may I draw attention to the Paris Summit of Mediterranean countries, held on July 23,  2008, under the co-presidency of the French Republic and  Egypt - and importantly in the presence of Israel -  which was represented by its then Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, the issue of peace within the region were explored in depth, and the final declaration stated the participants, including Israel,  were in favour of:

"regional security by acting in favour of nuclear, chemical and biological non-proliferation through adherence to and compliance with a combination of international and regional nonproliferation regimes and arms control and disarmament agreements.."

The final document went on to say:
"The parties shall pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological, and their delivery systems. Furthermore the parties will consider practical steps to ….promote conditions likely to develop good-neighbourly relations among themselves and support processes aimed at stability, security."
(http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/er/101847.pdf)

 

I think hope lies in resurrecting this agreement.

Select committees need to take on, not accomodate, the lobbyists‏

I agree strongly with The Independent's Whitehall Editor, Oliver Wright, that witness appearing before select committees don't need "select committee training" and they should just present themselves and tell the whole truth  ("Have select committees become an abuse of power?" 30 May). I would actually go further and propose select committees requesting witnesses to appear before them should stipulate they are not allowed to  have such dodgy training and to sign an affidavit they have not done so, which would go some way  to putting out of business the pernicious and nefarious activities of such people as Jon McLeod of Weber Shandwick Public Affairs, who revealed he  trains witness before select committee appearances, at the foot of his self-serving and egregiously misguided article alongside Wright's.

 McLeod  positively asserts that Lords (upperhouse) select committees have a more dignified tilt than  the more rumbustious Commons' committees. As someone who has worked with, and done research for,  politicians in both house of the Westminster Parliament and the European Parliament for over thirty years, my experience is peers give witnesses a lot easier time as they are often cheerleaders for special interests into which they are enquiring - something that affected the Lords Science & Technology committee  hearings on  nuclear R&D policy and the Economic Affairs committee inquiry  into the fracking,  very badly.

Also think the print media  in general covers select committee inquiries very poorly, preferring  reportage the theatre of oral evidence sparring session with witnesses to reading the many written submissions, which though published before the  committees report with their conclusions very rarely get reported at all. I would especially recommend the evidence published by the Public Administration select committee, which includes scrutiny of lobbyists, such as Shandwick Public Affairs.

The one point on which I agree with McLeod is the vacuous or nil press reporting of the Government responses to select committee reports. Both politicians and  press need to do better as the new Parliament starts its scrutiny work.