You would expect Jack Straw as “Justice Minister” to support the rule of law. But not only has he personally just flagrantly breached the criminal law on treating in elections, he has supported the astonishing idea that troops serving in Afghanistan should be exempt from law while off duty in the UK. A soldier from [...]

Trevor Phillips, New Labour hack to perfection, is Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission – and his re-appointment has caused nearly half of the commissioners to leave. At a time when human rights in the UK have come under sustained attack, with the effective extinction of habeas corpus, extraordinarily intrusive “Anti-terrorism Acts”, and [...]

Anybody who doubts the deep, deep corruption of our parliament need only refer to the laughably light punishment given to Lord Taylor of Blackburn. He was caught red-handed offering to get legislation changed for money. He went into detail on his methodology. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/jack_straws_cor.html He then, with typical New Labour arrogance, brought upon himself official criticism [...]

An earnest BBC political correspondent has just assured the nation on BBC News that it was “Totally above board” for Hazel Blears to describe the same property as her second home to the Commons authorities to claim allowances, yet to the Inland Revenue as her main home to avoid Capital Gains Tax. Doubtless this line [...]

Having studied Jack Straw, from closer or further away, over a period of some years now, I have come to the conclusion that he is a simple careerist who believes in nothing other than personal advancement – and so is perhaps the perfect embodiment of New Labour. There are consistencies in his record – such [...]

There is no reason to celebrate his death because he got away with it, writes Marisol Grandon in The First Post So El Viejo is gone. I always imagined I’d jump up to celebrate this moment like the well-meaning Swedish hippies who make merry at General Franco’s death in Lukas Moodysson’s film Together. Try as [...]

From The Observer The government has been secretly awarding honours to senior figures in the US military and foreign businessmen with lucrative public sector contracts. The Observer has obtained a Foreign Office list detailing all non-British citizens who have been awarded honours since 2003 – the first time the complete three-year dossier has been released. [...]

Jack Straw has finally hit the road and been forced out of his job as Foreign Secretary. Straw has been removed from his post just eighteen months after Craig Murray began his high-profile campaign to expose the Foreign Secretary’s complicity in torture, and almost exactly a year after Craig’s audacious challenge in Blackburn. The move [...]

Jack Straw has been removed from his position as Foreign Secretary following large Labour losses in the local elections and a cabinet re-shuffle. He will be replaced by Margaret Beckett. See BBC online

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION select COMMITTEE (UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 689 – v) Wednesday 29 March 2006 Q452 Mr Prentice: Craig Murray says that because you have an interest in all these matters, you should not be the person who has the final say, it should be an [...]

From The Nether-World via Backing Blair For a direct listen go to The Telegraph

From The Lancashire Evening Telegraph 31st March 2006 JACK Straw will include no broken confidences or tittle-tattle in his memoirs if he ever gets round to publishing them. The Blackburn MP and Foreign Secretary came under fire from MPs on a Commons committee cross-examining him about his attempts to block two books by former diplomats. [...]

“Is that a rendition order in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?” By Alison Rowat in The Herald Condoleezza Rice is expected to pop the question when she arrives in Britain for her visit to Jack Straw’s constituency. The world’s most powerful woman and most eligible bachelorette might come out with [...]

“The most unwelcome visit to Liverpool since Oswald Mosley came here in the 1930s.” Liverpool Echo Blackburn: Muslims ‘withdraw Rice invitation’ An invitation to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to visit a mosque in Jack Straw’s home constituency has been withdrawn, it was claimed. Mosque leaders in Blackburn decided on the U-turn following pressure [...]

From The Independent Twenty-five years after he hung up his barrister’s wig, Jack Straw faces the unwelcome prospect of returning to court. Craig Murray, our former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, intends to call the Foreign Secretary to give evidence in any legal action over his forthcoming memoirs. This month, Straw’s staff wrote to Murray – who [...]

The lies are catching up with him… From The Observer The Foreign Secretary has been formally challenged by a parliamentary committee to explain why he twice gave them misleading answers during inquiries over the secret transport of terrorism suspects around Europe. The Labour chair of the powerful Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has written privately to [...]

By Catherine MacLEOD in The Herald CRITICS gave the government a rocky ride in parliament over its refusal to mount a judicial inquiry into claims that the US has used UK airports to fly terror suspects abroad for torture. In a written statement, Jack Straw, foreign secretary, disclosed that the UK had refused a US [...]

From The Observer British officials have admitted MI6 officers were present during the interrogation of 28 Pakistanis in Greece, despite apparent denials by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. They insist, however, that the officers took no active part in the men’s arrest, questioning or abuse that was later alleged. As the story of the interrogation of [...]

From Ringverse The British Foreign Office privately accepts that CIA rendition flights did pass through its territory, a diplomatic source told United Press International. The well-placed source said the Foreign Office “totally accepts” that the United States used British airfields to transfer prisoners abroad for interrogation, and is “extremely worried” about the political consequences. The [...]