New Labour’s Complicity in Torture – Truly Evil
I have now obtained under the Freedom of Information Act a heavily censored copy of one of my telegrams from Tashkent protesting at the use by the UK government of intelligence obtained under torture.
Every British person should read this telegram and hang their head in the deepest of shame. This is the pitch blackness of New Labour’s embrace of authoritarianism. Read it, and remember I was both smeared and sacked for this attempt to apply simply the most basic of humane standards.
Sounds scary enough. What is this document?
It’s a ‘telegram’ (ie a senior electronic FCO communication) from Craig as HM Ambassador in Tashkent to the FCO dated 22 January 2003. Some passages have been redacted – Craig tells us what they contained, as he remembers.
It concludes in the usual form of FCO telegrams, with the Ambassador’s name, a spaceline and then the distribution list. Here it was sent only to William Ehrman, as FCO Director General for Defence and Intelligence
MURRAY
YYYY
Single Copies
DG DEFINT 1
Craig makes a silly if not dishonest noise about this limited distribution:
The final codes are significant. it means that this was considered so hot that only a single copy was made in the FCO – very unusual indeed – and given to the Director General Defence and Intelligence.
Drivel.
They are not significant in the slightest.
Why? Because Craig himself addressed this telegram only to William Ehrman, not to the FCO as a whole! So by sending it only to William the Communications Centre were doing precisely what Craig asked them to do!
Plus he gave the piece only a ROUTINE level of urgency, ie the lowest available for a telegram.
The core (and good) question Craig raised in this telegram was this:
I am worried about the legal position. I am not sure that a wilful blindness to how material is obtained would be found a valid defence in law to the accusation of having received material obtained under torture. My understanding is that receiving such material would be both a crime in UK domestic law and contrary to international law. Is this true? I would like a direct answer on this.
And in due course he received a full answer from Sir Michael Wood, the FCO Legal Adviser. Which was that Craig’s understanding was wrong. A point of view subsequently upheld by the House of Lords in a landmark judgement Craig’s own book praises!
Come on Craig. Be a man. More, be an honest Lib Dem. Accept that you were wrong.
In short, nothing new here folks. Move along.
But in moving along take care not to vote for New Labour tomorrow. They were and are indeed a disgrace, even if Craig’s wild swirling fists often miss the right target and instead punch himself on the hooter.
It all reminds me of those timeless lines from Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit:
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you’re talking rot.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Absolute drivel.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Pure mashed potatoes.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Very good, sir—I mean, very good, Jeeves, that will be all,’ I said.
And I drank a modicum of tea, with a good deal of hauteur.
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