Johann Hari on George Osborne's Big Lie

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"As a proportion of GDP, Britain’s national debt has been higher than it is now for 200 of the past 250 years. Read that sentence again. Check it on any graph by any historian. Since 1750, there have only been two brief 30-year periods when our debt has been lower than it is now. If we are “bust” today, as George Osborne has claimed, then we have almost always been bust. We were bust when we pioneered the Industrial Revolution. We were bust when we ruled a quarter of the world. We were bust when we beat the Nazis. We were bust when we built the NHS. Or is it George Osborne’s economics that are bust?"

Read the full article here.

 

Privacy and The Census - Wendy Grossman in ORGZine

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Have you completed your 2011 Census form yet? Or have you binned it? There has been a lot of grumbling about this year's census, mostly around the security of personal data, so Wendy Grossman's article 'Standing up for the census' in the current ORGZine (Open Rights Group's online magazine) makes an interesting read.

"I have – both here and elsewhere – written a great deal about privacy and the dangers of thoughtlessly surrendering information but I'm inclined to defend the census. And here's why: it's transparent. Of all the data-gathering exercises to which our lives are subject it's the only one that is. When you fill out the form you know exactly what information you are divulging, when, and to whom. Although the form threatens you with legal sanctions for not replying, it's not enforced."

And if you care about your online privacy and digital rights, why not join Open Rights Group and help support their work. 

A Lockerbie reality-check

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With David Cameron rushing to make as much political capital as possible out of the recently published Cabinet Secretary's review of papers relating to the release of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi (see below), Michael Meacher gives us a timely reminder of why Al-Megrahi should never have been in jail in the first place.  For more background on the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing, check out William C Chasey's book Pan Am 103: Lockerbie Cover-up.

Click here to download:
20110207-megrahi-review-report.pdf (1.02 MB)
(download)

Michael Meacher article via Pete Grubb

A secularist manifesto | Evan Harris | guardian.co.uk

Secularism is not atheism (lack of belief in God) and nor is it humanism (a nonreligious belief system). It is a political movement seeking specific policy end-points. Many secularists are religious and many religious people – recognising the value of keeping government and religion separate – are secular.
read the full article at guardian.co.uk

 

Wikileaks exposes the real war in Afghanistan

Wikileaks have made available the Afghan War Diary, a collection of over 75000 secret US military reports that cover the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

Most notably, the large number of civilian deaths - usually covered up or mis-described as 'insurgent' deaths is revealed: "This archive shows the vast range of small tragedies that are almost never reported by the press but which account for the overwhelming majority of deaths and injuries."