Our latest blogs on the state

Hang on to your vote!
So the latest opinion polls are again pointing to a “hung” Parliament after the upcoming general election, with no single party able to form a majority government. In that event, say constitutional experts, the queen and her advisors could play a key role in deciding who is asked to form a government.

Mafia and Italian state target minorities
A Kafkaesque decree handed down by a magistrate in the town of Pesaro on the east coast of Italy has sentenced two human rights defenders, Roberto Malini and Dario Picciau to prison or payment of a heavy fine.

An open and shut case
Of course MI5 doesn’t collude in torture, as wrongly suggested in the case of Binyam Mohamed. Nor do they suppress documents. And how do we know all this to be true? Because the head of the Security Service, Jonathan Hunt, and two cabinet ministers – foreign secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson – say so.

Obama waves big stick at Iran
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Tony Blair’s appearance before the exceptionally tame Iraq war inquiry was his pointed remarks about Iran being next in line for military action. And it seems it was more than the usual Blair “I’d do it again” bravado and that his connections to the White House are as strong as when he was prime minister.

Time for 'regime change' in Britain
Whatever Tony Blair says or doesn’t say at the Iraq inquiry will not alter the historical record. Blair and George W. Bush went to war on a pretext, pursuing regime change in Baghdad behind the smokescreen of weapons of mass destruction that existed in imagination only.

Not a crime to seek asylum
An early campaigner for women’s rights, philosopher John Stuart Mill argued 141 years ago that the treatment of women was the measure of any society’s civilisation. By that measure, today’s Britain is a sorry place, as campaigners against the brutal treatment of female asylum seekers, the most vulnerable women in the world, have documented.

Political crisis gathers momentum
The first thing to say about the divisions within New Labour over Gordon Brown’s leadership is that there are no principles involved on any side of the civil war that rumbles on at Westminster. All the plotters without exception are concerned about one thing above all other considerations – their political futures.

Ending the 'war on terror'
So now air passengers will be subjected to the equivalent of a strip search as the futile “war on terror” enters its second decade. The next step, surely, is to get travellers to leave all their clothes in a bag and fly in a bathrobe. This is how absurd the world has become, with no solution in sight.

What the 'defence of the realm' really means
Last night’s screening by ITV of Inside MI5: The Real Spooks, could easily be dismissed on the grounds that: “Well, the secret intelligence agencies are hardly likely to tell the truth about themselves.” But in taking this approach you could throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The spirit of the Stasi lives on in Britain
Last night Gordon Brown joined other world leaders in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. But while he and others waxed lyrical about the joys of freedom, his government was forcing a sinister Bill through parliament which reinforces state secrecy in Britain.

The EU, Blair and a sense of disgust
Amid all the speculation about Tony Blair seeking to become the first president of Europe, any questions about democracy are put to one side. No wonder the polls show a growing contempt for politicians.

We are all 'terrorists' now
As politicians of all shades flail about in the wake of the financial and economic crisis, the growth of the neo-fascist British National Party and Parliament’s loss of authority, secret units of police are carrying out their time-honoured function – to spy on anyone who does not fit into (their idea of) the status quo.

Parliament's crisis goes from bad to worse
The present Parliamentary system is fast digging its own grave if yesterday’s events are anything to go by and the danger is that without the creation of a democratic alternative, populist forces could try and replace it with something even worse and less representative.

Not worth dying for
So Gordon Brown says that British soldiers are on a “vital mission” in Afghanistan. That mission would appear to be about dying for no good reason, leading some relatives of dead soldiers to accuse the government of “having blood on its hands”. They are right.

Cyber war on the people
The use of the Internet, mobile phones and social networking sites to mobilise against repressive regimes and send videos, photos and information around the world has reached a high point in Iran. But what few realise is that the Iranian state’s ability to block, censor and filter websites and monitor mobiles comes courtesy of imported technology.

A way out of the political crisis
When political systems become corrupted and lose their legitimacy, history shows that ordinary people will try to establish new forms of government. And if there was ever a time to draw on this long struggle for democracy it is now.

Power, representation and the state
There is now a competition between the Tories and some members of the New Labour cabinet about how to “redistribute power” in a bid to defuse an historic political crisis that shows no sign of abating.

Vacuum at heart of the system
The expenses scandal continues to stoke up outrage and fury everywhere from deepest Tunbridge Wells right up to the north of Scotland, as the credibility of the political class continues to sink into the mire.

Unmasking the state
“We don’t want to stop you doing what you are doing. We’re just asking you to consider a proposal… almost a business proposal…At least you’re thinking logically. If you’re going back to school you’re going to have loans to pay off. […] wouldn’t it be nice to have tax-free money you’d be getting?” and “UK plc can afford more than 20 quid.”

Parliament, power and expenses
On the day when the average person will discover how much bailing out the banks is going to cost them personally, it’s good to know that the prime minister is proposing that a select group will get something like an extra £25,000 a year, tax free, just for turning up to “work”.

Masters and servants: the state at work
The notion that the police are, or should be, “public servants” is an admirable ideal. Unfortunately, it bears little relation to reality, as the policing of the G20 protests have proved.

Police raid is real conspiracy
The arrest of 114 environmental activists in Nottingham in the early hours of yesterday morning in a massive police raid on a school in the city, represents a sinister state crack-down on the right to protest and should be condemned outright by everyone who wants to defend human rights and civil liberties.

A law unto themselves
Once again the police have blood on their hands and a cover-up is already well under way. That’s the only conclusion you can draw from the video of the gratuitous police attack on bystander Ian Tomlinson during last week’s G20 protests in the City of London, soon after which he collapsed and died.

The state's dirty work
Important truths about the British state are reaching the light of day, thanks to campaigners and ordinary citizens. The Metropolitan Police and the secret forces of security agencies MI5 and MI6 are being more and more exposed, not only as guilty of brutality, but of cynical lying to cover-up & disguise their activities.

G20: the state flexes its muscles
“We are ready to challenge orthodoxy and we foster a spirit of critical enquiry and innovation to achieve our goals.” So reads part of the “Our values” section of the University of East London’s website. Click through to the home page, however, and we learn that the university, which is near the venue for the G20 summit, will be closed for 48 hours from tonight. And the authorities have simply cancelled the Alternative G20 summit scheduled to take place on the campus tomorrow, citing “security concerns” at “such a sensitive time”.

Beware police 'troublemakers'
Two reports published today provide evidence of the deepening assault on human rights in Britain. Read alongside well-leaked Metropolitan Police plans to deal with anti-G20 protesters in London on April 1, they lift the lid on the state’s preparation for the eventuality of major social unrest.

Demand the release of Hicham Yezza!
Hicham Yezza’s real “crime” was to help a student with his research into Al Qaeda and then to campaign against his arbitrary arrest and detention by the police, called in by his employers, Nottingham University. A nine-month jail sentence he is now serving for immigration “irregularities” is nothing less than the state’s revenge for failing to sustain the original ludicrous terrorism arrest.

Fighting the state for our rights
Two conferences over the weekend 200 miles apart highlighted the difference between a liberal defence of civil liberties which aims at building a classless coalition of the mainstream political centre and a more militant enforcement of human rights in a continuous struggle against the state.

Stripping away our rights
If the state strips away basic freedoms and civil liberties, what do you have left? And is this then a state worth preserving? These questions are worth asking on a day that two further assaults on our rights make it into the public realm (don’t even ask about the stuff we know nothing about) that are designed to intimidate ordinary citizens.

Warnings come thick and fast
First the financial crisis, followed by economic disintegration. Then the political and social crisis, which will probably lead to a military-style crackdown by the state. This is not my gloomy assessment but the view increasingly taken by right-wing commentators and aired in a recent report produced by the US Army War College’s Strategic Institute.

A state of terror
Gordon Brown is generously offering the “expertise” of the British security and intelligence services to fight al-Qaeda’s activities in Pakistan. But many are increasingly questioning the ability of the British capitalist state to protect anyone from attacks as well as its abuse of anti-terror powers to create an authoritarian regime.

Brown's boot boys in action
When anti-terror police are used to arrest the shadow immigration minister for the grave "crime" of leaking information to the media, the Tories' use of the term "Stalinesque" to describe events is absolutely justified.

In the state's firing line
Behind the turmoil of the economic and financial crisis, New Labour is stepping up its construction of a surveillance state that assumes that every citizen is an “enemy within”. The latest threat is contained within the innocuous sounding Data Communications Bill.

The 'Big Ear' hears everything... and nothing
While conspiracy theorists insist against all the evidence that the third tower at the World Trade Centre was deliberately destroyed by the American government, the real behaviour of the secret state is being exposed by a courageous group of US journalists and whistleblowers from within the military and intelligence agencies.

Something rotten in the state of the Met
The open war raging at the very top of the Metropolitan police is revealing deep schisms that go far beyond a personality clash between the top officers involved or the accusations flying thick and fast.

An inspector calls
As lovers of good detective stories know, the gradual accumulation of seemingly unconnected facts unerringly, but in always surprising ways, weaken the defences of the guilty, and end in a damning conclusion. And so it is proving for the British state.

The privatised hell of Britain plc
A secret document has revealed the shape of things to come as jobs and livelihoods are threatened by economic meltdown. Global corporations will be employed by the government to break strikes under the guise of carrying out public services and responding to national emergencies.

A racist state
What’s the connection between 42 days detention for alleged “terror suspects”, the mass targeting of black people for stop and search, a sharp rise in racist attacks and the planned introduction of identity cards? Answer: each represents an aspect of an institutionalised racist state under the direction of the New Labour government.

Dr Who and the economic crisis
An economic crisis like the one we are now in has a ruthless, market-driven logic all of its own. As it takes its toll of jobs, homes and living standards, the results of the collapse of credit-fuelled growth also exposes fundamental limitations of the capitalist state system and advance the case for revolutionary change.

Military move in on universities
Military involvement in the funding of research, teaching and training at British universities is on the rise. Pushing this agenda is the government, which has maintained Britain’s unenviable position as the second biggest arms exporter and devotes a third of state research and development funding to military projects.

42 reasons to rid ourselves of New Labour
As another ancient liberty is scrapped by New Labour in forcing through detention without charge for six weeks (relying on the votes of the ultra-reactionaries in Ian Paisley’s party), here are 42 reasons (I’m sure there are many more) why this wretched regime needs ousting:

A cornered, frightened government
New Labour came to power pledging to end the “boom and bust” policies of the Tories for ever. Now, as the economy slides into recession and prices soar, the Brown government is paralysed, desperate to divert attention away from the mounting crisis by any means. Scaremongering plans to lock up terror suspects for six weeks without charge fit the bill nicely.

A victim of New Labour's thought police
According to Hicham Yezza, the Home Office operates with a “Gestapo mentality”, especially when dealing with foreign nationals. Hicham, an active member of the academic community at the University of Nottingham, should know. He is in detention, facing rapid deportation to Algeria, an innocent victim of New Labour’s spurious “war on terror”.

New Labour's tame copper
Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is New Labour’s favourite copper. Ministers can always rely on him to back the government when others are reluctant to do so. In fact, when it comes to plans to extend pre-trial detention to 42 days, Blair is about the only supporter of substance that they can wheel out.

America's judicial murder machine
As the campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential ticket comes to a head, it would be well to note that they both support the death penalty just when the gruesome American prison system is gearing up for a slaughter of the mentally ill, people of colour and Hispanics from a poor or working class background, not to mention the downright innocent.

Goldsmith's allegiance to the state
As we approach the fifth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, it is indeed ironic that the man who now tells us that an oath of allegiance to the state by young people would enhance respect for authority and engender a stronger sense of citizenship, is the same person who in 2003 helped facilitate the illegal invasion.

Crime and punishment
Perhaps it could be a two-part question set for those taking a "citizenship test" to prove that they know about British values before getting a passport (or an ID card). How big is the prison population and what distinguishes the country's record in jailing people? Answer: the prison population in England and Wales has risen to a record high of 82,006 - 21 places short of capacity; nowhere in Western Europe jails more of its population than England and Wales, where about 147 people per 100,000 are in prison.

The judges hit back
The Appeal Court's decision to strike out the convictions of five young Muslim men is part of a continuing struggle between the government and the judiciary over the rule of law. Now into its sixth major piece of anti-terror legislation, New Labour has trampled over the long struggle for rights and has attempted to bypass ancient and contemporary legal rights as well as the independence of the judiciary.

A week of intolerance
Another bad week for civil liberties and human rights in Britain, courtesy of the New Labour government and their supporters around the country. A mixture of anti-working class, anti-Islamic and plain anti-democratic measures all add to the authoritarian and intolerant atmosphere that is the hallmark of this grim government.

The lives of others
The bugging of MP Sadiq Khan's conversations with a constituent in prison shows once more that Britain is a fully-fledged surveillance state and also that the New Labour government has created a monster it has no effective control over. The secret state within the state has its own agenda about how to protect "national interests" - and the government will always be at least one step behind.

Nuclear power - the case for decomissioning New Labour
The government's commitment to nuclear power has everything to do with servitude to the global energy companies and nothing to do with tackling climate change. New Labour has accepted a financial model which will leave the British people paying the price in every way.

Blair's new 'job' is fitting
New Labour and money - don't they just make a perfect fit! Former prime minister Tony Blair is taking a part-time advisory post with a US bank at a modest £500,000 a year while work and pensions secretary Peter Hain is about to own up to £100,000 in previously undeclared donations towards his deputy leadership campaign. Apparently most of these came from big business.