For the "Action this day" pad

This site is - to my mind - a bit what in the old days would have been called Agitprop. Doesn't stop them talking sense though.

Blair: the head, the tail, the whole damn thing

As you can see, it's a beautiful day, the beaches are open, and the folks here are having a wonderful time (and I'm sure you can guess which movie I watched last night)...

New Statesman - The men in grey suits must do their duty: Blair has to be persuaded to stand down. The announcement should take place this spring, with a leadership contest in the summer. (via)

I disagree. For the good of the Labour Party, for the good of the country, and for the good of the whole bloody world, Tony Blair must not leave Downing St voluntarily... and if he does, he must be forced to resign in shame. (And before anybody makes any smart-arse remarks about intervention, I would remind them that this measure is far from pre-emptive.)

Why? Because someone has to be called to account or the next batch of power-mad bastards - here or abroad - will think they can get away with exactly the same thing.

I'll move onto the guts after a few stabs at the heel:

Blair is a pretty straight sort of a guy

BBC - Capita boss quits over Blair loan
BSSC - Crapita Protection Racket
BlairWatch - Was Rod Aldridge Going to Resign Anyway?
Independent - Contractor who lent Labour £1m quits over sleaze fears
Guardian - Capita chairman quits after criticism of loan to Labour

There's a lot to say here this morning, so let me be brief about this particular issue; if the PM approves a scheme that sees a winner of major government contracts *approached* for a loan because it neatly sidesteps a law controlling donations (that they themselves championed; bully for them) then that is corruption. There's no denying it.

Now we lunge for the guts, and we begin with bankruptcy...

The Blair-led coalition currently passing itself off as the face of the Labour Party is bankrupt in every sense of the word. Their finances, their morals, their authority... they have squandered it all and abandoned everything but the facade that keeps them in power.

And we continue to let them get away with it... to the point where soon they'll be able to write their own laws without democratic oversight.

Your right to protest

If you got so mad about this (or anything else for that matter) that you decided to congregate at Downing St this afternoon to protest, there are already laws introduced by this government that allow the police to round you up and shut you up.

Take a look at Belarus and witness your future; it only took riot police 15 minutes to round up 200 protestors who - like may international observers - thought the election was more than a little fishy. But protestors first enabled the authorities by losing their will and dwindling in number. The media helped by ignoring or denouncing the initially 20,000-strong protest... police bullying, the weather and a lack of will did the rest. Then, finally, Lukashenko was confident that he could sort the whole thing out with a dustpan and brush.

Here I wish to make a quick point about precedent and accountability... Lukashenko knew that he would get away with this if he didn't shoot anybody. Here's why.

Now you need to take a moment and look at the worldwide numbers during the most recent protests over foreign policy and consider that we here in Britain only boast one man willing to stick to his guns (so to speak).