Educating Tom

Poor old Tom Harris has this week been branding anyone questioning the death of David Kelly a conspiracist and a nutter, the assumption being that the British State just doesn’t do that sort of thing, and to suggest so is outlandish. It must be nice to live in this, the best of all possible worlds. Tom – who voted against an investigation into the Iraq war is a prolific Tweeter (you can follow our tags with #statelies #kellydeath) so we’ve been having some debate on his favourite social media outlet the past week.

Part of his argument has been to cite his pal David Aaronovitch and his book Voodoo  Histories which takes the most ridiculous conpiracy theories and uses them to discredit anyone who challenges the status quo. The important narrative is: don’t question the official line your being sold. But is there any evidence that the British State (the police, security services, army, legal system and offices) have been involved in cover-ups, miscarriages of justice, sanctioned killings and covert operations?

To re-cap:

David Kelly, (1944 – 17 July 2003) was an employee of the (MoD), an expert in biological warfare and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. Kelly’s discussion with BBC Radio 4 Today programme journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government’s dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal. He was found dead days after appearing before the Parliamentary committee charged with investigating the scandal.

The Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death, ruled that he had died by suicide, and that Kelly had not in fact said some of the things attributed to him by Gilligan. Lord Hutton ruled that evidence related to his death will be kept secret for 70 years.

Now, Attorney General Dominic Grieve is reviewing the case of Dr David Kelly following claims the official finding that the government scientist died of bleeding from a severed artery was unsafe.

As a public service we’d like to educate Tom and other New Labour / right-wing apologists and give him a little history lesson. So here’s the Top 20 British State cover-ups, miscarriages of justice and covert operations. It’s a bit like telling your kid there’s no such thing as Santa Claus, but as an MP, Tom’s a big boy now, and really should know better.

Your examples are welcome till we build the Top 20…Help out poor Tom Harris and his chums who thinks the British State has never covered anything up we’ve given six examples to get the ball rolling:

No 1 in an interactive series Hilda Murrell was scheduled to present her paper An Ordinary Citizen’s View of Radioactive Waste Management at the Sizewell B Inquiry, the first public planning inquiry into a new British nuclear power plant. She was murdered before she could do this.

No 2 The Enemy Within. Thatcher branded striking workers defending their jobs as ‘the enemy within’. There was an enemy within. But it was not the National Union of Mineworkers that was out to subvert liberty. It was the secret services of the British state – operating inside the NUM itself.

No 3 Zircon Throughout the latter part of 1986 and the first weeks of 1987, the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell was working on a BBC television series to be called Secret Society. Campbell had been a thorn in the side of the intelligence establishment for years. His articles, usually in the New Statesman magazine, uncovered matters ranging from which office blocks in London were used by the agencies to allegations of dirty tricks in Northern Ireland. An earlier attempt to convict Campbell and one of his sources under the Official Secrets Act had failed; this was one of several cases which had prompted the Home Office to draw up a new secrets law.

No. 4 Bloody Sunday The Saville report published this summer stripped away key lies that the British establishment had told for 38 years about the murder of 14 civilians in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1972.

No. 5 Colin Wallace . Wallace had been constantly cast by the Ministry of Defence, the police and sections of the press in the role of a ‘Walter Mitty’ fantasist. In fact what he was saying about covert operations in Ireland led him to be smeared and imprisoned.

No. 6 Blair Peach was fatally assaulted by the SPG during an Anti-Nazi League protest in April 1979. After years of campaigning the truth emerged this year.

Post suggestions in comments below or email us at: bellasletters (at) yahoo.co.uk

In a move purely to annoy Voodoo Historians, Iraq apologists and fig-leaf politicians, we are offering a copy of Who Shot JFK? by Robin Ramsay as a prize for the best  suggestions that make our Top 20. This offer is brought o you in collaboration by fellow paranoid crackpot Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine.

Recent issues of Lobster are now on-line, free at: http://lobster-magazine.co.uk

#statelies #kellydeath

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  1. Darren @RebelKelts says:

    What about the memo from Central Policy Review Staff chief Sir Kenneth Berrill in 1975, that said:

    “on fairly reasonable assumptions about the profits to be made from North Sea oil, Scotland could ‘go it alone’ quite comfortably”.

    Yet every Con/Lib/Lab government since has tried to cover this up.

    1. bellacaledonia says:

      Tosh tosh Darren, no in the world of Tom these things never happened, you must be one of those kraaaazy konspiracists, or more likely, a Jock with a chip on his shoulder.
      No this definitely neve happened. The British State just doesnt do this kind of thing. Next?!

  2. “the cabinet decision is really a negative one…they know they can trust us not to be really impartial”

    He [Lord Reith – the first director-general of the BBC] made that statement in a note in his diary where during the general strike the government was deciding whether it should take over the BBC…to [make it] an arm of government and the government decided not to do that and Reith put [the above quote] in his diary….that was during the general strike and ever since then when there has been controversy the BBC have exhibited a similar kind of attitude which alternates between saying ‘we are editorially independent’ and having quiet discussions and gentlemen’s agreements with government.

    ————————————————–

    Learn more about it here…
    http://www.archive.org/details/MichaelGreenwellPodcastTwo

    1. bellacaledonia says:

      Nice Michael – nothing like a bit of self-censorship – especially one we pay for !

  3. David McCann says:

    Point Tom to the excellent BBC Alba documentary “Diomhair” (Secret), which reveals how official documents proving the viability of independence were kept hidden; how civil servants, MI5 and Special Branch were used by Westminster to obstruct and even sabotage the Scottish Nationalist movement and how successive governments used and abused their power to keep Scotland in the union and sabotage the causes of devolution and independence.
    ‘Diomhair’ also unearthed government files that showed how the police were diverted from catching criminals to spy on legal and peaceful demonstrations; how the will of two million Scots was defied by simply ignoring their demand for devolution; how Edinburgh Police encouraged young Nationalists to commit bomb outrages and supplied them with dummy explosives, and how evidence that an independent Scotland could be among the richest countries in Europe was stamped “Secret” and buried in the archives.
    No conspiracy there then Tom. Watch it on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saqQnj0LKlQ or better still get him a copy from producer Les Wilson, Caledonia TV, Bath St Glasgow.

  4. Jenn says:

    This is totally absurd… Really?

  5. David Park says:

    Great article here http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/images/stories/pdf/slr-033-SLRI35.pdf

    Reveals how The Times newspaper, in concert with the UK Government, conspired to discredit Charles Parnell.

    1. bellacaledonia says:

      Nice David – but a bit of casual smearing’s not really up there, is it?

      1. David Park says:

        Oh, it was much more than smearing – casual or otherwise. Read it again BC.

  6. Sandy says:

    What about Death on the Rock? SAS killed IRA people they could have arrested then botched the cover-up.

    Brit State class act.

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