37 Labour MPs Walked Away with Syrian Blood on Their Hands

More than half the Labour members who voted to bomb Syria in 2015 are no longer Labour MPs

ONE post-election revelation may surprise members and supporters of the Labour Party.

Just seven days after the General Election defeat it can be revealed that 37 of the 66 Labour MPs (56%) who supported David Cameron’s demand to bomb Syria in a Commons Motion on 2nd December 2015 are NO LONGER Labour MPs.

They have quite literally walked away from responsibility with the death of thousands on their hands.

The 2015 debate and vote on whether to extend British bombing of Isis into Syria was high profile and controversial for many reasons.

Labour MPs were given a free vote and allowed to vote according to their views. Most – including the majority of the Shadow Cabinet – opposed the bombing, in line with Jeremy Corbyn.

David Cameron won the Syria airstrikes vote by majority of 174.

But 66 Labour MPs voted with the Conservatives in support of the strikes. When the votes were counted MPs voted 397 to 223 in favour of sending RAF Tornados into the skies over Syria.

Corbyn was forced by divisions in his party to give his MPs a free vote, and a majority of his MPs and nearly half the shadow cabinet opposed the airstrikes.

But his foreign affairs spokesman, Hilary Benn, prompted applause from the Government benches when he gave an impassioned speech in favour of the bombing.

The debate was one of the first tests of Corbyn’s leadership and the voting publically showed those MPs who were prepared to go against him.

The bombing of Syria by US and UK planes between 2014 and 2019 has led to over 14,000 deaths on the ground – including an estimated 3,800 innocent civilians.

Now, exactly four years since that controversial House of Commons vote, it can be revealed that more than half of those pro bombing Labour MPs have gone.

While 10 of them lost their seats in last week’s General Election, the other 27 left Labour for other opportunities either in business or as members of centrist neo-liberal parties.

The full list is:

1. Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
2. Alan Campbell (Tynemouth)
3. Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West & Hessle) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
4. Alison McGovern (Wirral South)
5. Angela Eagle (Wallasey)
6. Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) LEFT FOR TIG
7. Anna Turley (Redcar) LOST SEAT IN 2019
8. Ann Coffey (Stockport) LEFT FOR CHANGE UK
9. Ben Bradshaw (Exeter)
10. Bridget Phillipson (Houghton & Sunderland South)
11. Caroline Flint (Don Valley) LOST SEAT IN 2019
12. Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East)
13. Chris Bryant (Rhondda)
14. Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) LEFT FOR TIG
15. Chuka Umunna (Streatham) LEFT FOR TIG
16. Conor McGinn (St Helens North)
17. Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central)
18. Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) LOST SEAT IN 2019
19. Frank Field (Birkenhead) LEFT TO BE INDEPENDENT
20. Gareth Thomas (Harrow West)
21. Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
22. Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
23. George Howarth (Knowsley)
24. Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
25. Graham Jones (Hyndburn) LOST SEAT IN 2019
26. Harriet Harman (Camberwell & Peckham)
27. Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2018
28. Helen Jones (Warrington North) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
29. Hilary Benn (Leeds Central)
30. Holly Lynch (Halifax)
31. Ian Austin (Dudley North) LEFT TO TAKE UP JOB WITH THE TORIES
32. Jamie Reed (Copeland) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
33. Jenny Chapman (Darlington) LOST SEAT IN 2019
34. Jim Dowd (Lewisham West) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
35. Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar & Limehouse) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
36. Joan Ryan (Enfield North) LEFT FOR CHANGE UK
37. John Spellar (Warley)
38. John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
39. Keith Vaz (Leicester East) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
40. Kevan Jones (North Durham)
41. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
42. Liz Kendall (Leicester West)
43. Louise Ellman (Liverpool Riverside) LEFT TO BE INDEPENDENT
44. Luciana Berger (Liverpool Wavertree) LEFT FOR TIG
45. Lucy Powell (Manchester Central)
46. Margaret Beckett (Derby South)
47. Margaret Hodge (Barking)
48. Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood)
49. Mary Creagh (Wakefield) LOST SEAT IN 2019
50. Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
51. Neil Coyle (Bermondsey & Old Southwark)
52. Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East)
53. Peter Kyle (Hove)
54. Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) LOST SEAT IN 2019
55. Ruth Smeeth (Stoke on Trent North) LOST SEAT IN 2019
56. Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) RESIGNED FROM LABOUR IN 2017
57. Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden)
58. Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth)
59. Stella Creasy (Walthamstow)
60. Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) LOST SEAT IN 2019
61. Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
62. Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2019
63. Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) STOOD DOWN AS MP IN 2017
64. Vernon Coaker (Gedling) LOST SEAT IN 2019
65. Wayne David (Caerphilly)
66. Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)

Just Take a Pebble: a fanfare for a Trilogy of amazing musicians

THE death of Greg Lake has left me numb.

Kids from my generation all grew up with at least one Prog Rock band as a personal backdrop to adolescence… and for me the choice was simple: it was always Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Keyboard player Keith Emerson was a local lad from my home area of Worthing and at once drew me and many school friends to his experimental classical, jazz, rock band.

We loved them, and I still treasure one abiding memory of four of us sixth formers cramming into the back row of the Worthing Odeon to watch the movie of their live Pictures at an Exhibition – a glorious pastiche of Mussorgsky’s symphony.

So, Keith Emerson’s untimely death in March this year, hit hard, as part of my youth was lost forever.

Now his band mate Greg Lake has also gone, before his time, after a long and stubborn battle with cancer.

One of the founding fathers of progressive rock, he is known for songs including In the Court of the Crimson King and I Believe in Father Christmas.

But I will remember him and Keith Emerson for much more than that.

Lake’s manager Stewart Young said this morning: “Greg Lake will stay in my heart forever, as he has always been.”

Born in Bournemouth – just along the south coast from Worthing – Lake was given his first guitar at the age of 12 and took lessons from a local tutor.

He formed a close friendship with fellow student Robert Fripp, with whom he formed King Crimson in 1969.

Their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King featured such songs as 21st Century Schizoid Man.

It set a standard for progressive rock and received a glowing, well-publicised testimonial from The Who’s Pete Townshend.

But their success was short-lived. Within a year, founding member Mike Giles quit and Lake refused to work with the band.

He was then approached by Emerson, who had supported King Crimson on a North American tour and needed a singer for his new band.

Joined by Atomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer, ELP made their live debut at the Guildhall in Plymouth in 1970 before giving a career-making performance at the Isle of Wight Festival.

Unusually, the band combined heavy rock riffs with a jazz and classical influence. They scored hit albums with Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery – many of them produced by Lake.

The band went on to enjoy chart success in 1977 with their version of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.

They sold more than 48 million records, and Lake continued to be an influential and popular touring musician even after the band wound down in the late 1970s.

“The greatest music is made for love, not for money,” Lake said on his official website.

“The early ELP albums were pioneering because there is no standing still; time is always moving forward.”

Although this year has just 23 days left to run, it has been a tragedy for the shocking loss of so many wonderful musicians.

When a musician dies it’s always sad.

No matter what they were like in their personal lives, their music probably helped at least one person get through a hard time.

Music has saved my life more than once.

So I tip my hat to remember some of the horrid losses of some of my favourite musicians from 2016:

7 Dec 2016  Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer), 69

22 Nov 2016  Craig Gill (Inspiral Carpets), 44

13 Nov 2016  Leon Russell, 74

07 Nov 2016  Leonard Cohen, 82

21 Apr 2016  Prince, 57,

19 Apr 2016  Pete Zorn, 65

06 Apr 2016  Merle Haggard, 79

05 Apr 2016  Dave Swarbrick, 75

29 Mar 2016  Andy Newman (Thunderclap Newman), 73

10 Mar 2016  Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake and Palmer), 71

25 Feb 2016  John Chilton (The Feetwarmers), 83

18 Jan 2016  Glenn Frey (Eagles), 67

17 Jan 2016  Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople), 67

10 Jan 2016  David Bowie, 69

 

A hard rain’s a gonna fall

During the past three weeks I have republished five of my newspaper articles written while I was working as an investigative journalist in Scotland and North East England. The first looked at the likely governmental conspiracy over the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in 2001 another at the secrecy of the Bilderberg organisation, a third was a piece about the top secret Aurora aircraft, the fourth looked at big cats at large in the UK and the last was an investigation into the mysterious death of Scottish Nationalist leader Willie McRae.
Today I reload a piece I wrote in early 1995 about the extent of 40-year cover-up on exposure of British servicemen to A-bomb tests

THE extent of a 40-year cover-up of the radiation exposure suffered by 22,000 servicemen who witnessed Britain’s atom bomb tests in the 1950s has been revealed in a file of de-classified and secret Government documents.
They demonstrate a willingness to ignore or conceal the impact of 21 British nuclear tests between 1952 and 1958 on the part of then Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
When asked to consider the genetic effects of nuclear radiation, Mr Eden says, in a memo dated November 16, 1955: ”A pity, but we cannot help it.”
The documents were passed to The Herald just two days after an English nuclear test victim won his 25-year battle with defence chiefs for a pension following intervention by the High Court, two months after three Scottish victims won a legal breakthrough in the European courts.
Last Friday, the Rev Laurence Deverall, 60 — who was exposed to radiation in the 1956 Maralinga tests in South Australia — won his case for a disability war pension.
Mr Deverall developed cancer in his right leg as a result of the radiation exposure. His leg was amputated in 1970.
Mr Ken McGinley, chairman of the Johnstone-based British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association, said the case was the first major breakthrough on Government liability.
On January 27, Scots-born US advocate, Mr Ian Anderson, won the first stage regarding admissibility of evidence in a test case before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of two nuclear test veterans and the 27-year-old daughter of a third Glaswegian victim — all members of the veterans’ association.
Now the file of more than 40 secret and de-classified memorandums passed to The Herald could add weight to hundreds of compensation cases being fought by the veterans’ association on behalf of its 3500 members.

CONSPIRACY theories are easy to wrap around any secret Government activity, and easier for those adversely affected to accept.
But for a Government to conspire knowingly to cause physical harm to 22,000 of its own citizens in the name of science is a more difficult scenario to believe.
The extent of a 40-year cover-up of the radiation exposure suffered by 22,000 servicemen who witnessed Britain’s atom bomb tests between 1952 and 1958, is now being revealed.
A file of secret and declassified official documents has been passed to me just two days after an English nuclear test victim won a 25-year pension battle with defence chiefs, and two months since three Scottish victims won a legal breakthrough in the European courts.
Mr Ken McGinley, the chairman of Johnstone-based British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association is damning: ”There has been a cover-up on a massive scale — it is more to do with personal sensitivity than anything else, as many of the Government scientists involved in the tests are still alive, while many of our members who served their country loyally have died or are dying from incurable cancers and other life-threatening diseases.”
The documents speak for themselves:
”We think it likely that the Australians will ask us for filters which have been flown at Mosaic and Buffalo,” said British Government scientist Sir William Penney in a secret memo to Sir Frederick Brundrett at the MoD on December 22, 1955 — five months before the first of the code-named A-Bomb tests took place in the Monte Bello Islands and Maralinga Desert.
”While I am not very keen on giving them samples, I do not see how we can refuse,” continued Sir William. ”I am recommending that, if they ask us, we give them a little piece of the filters, but we wait a few days so that some of the short-lived isotopes have decayed a good deal.”
The extent of the cover-up becomes more apparent in a wired memo from Admiral Brooking at the British Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston to the Australian Government in May 1957.
”May we please have your authority to include the following sentence about Buffalo in the openly published report 1956/57 of the UKAEA: The Australian Safety Committee made a careful check of conditions before and after the firing of every round, and was satisfied that no hazard to the people or stock of Australia was caused by any of the explosions at Monte Bello or Maralinga.”
In 1993, the British Government finally agreed to pay the Australian Government #20m as the first instalment to clean up the radioactive pollution at Maralinga.
A letter from Sir William Penney to Sir Edwin Plowden, of October 1, 1955, refers to the planned tests at Monte Bello the following summer, and says health and safety precautions were fixed for a 25 kiloton blast for ”the first shot” and 80 kilotons at the second.
He adds: ”We do not know exactly what the yield is going to be because the assembly is very different from anything we have tried before.”
As it turned out, the ”first shot” on May 16, 1956, gave a yield of just 15 kilotons, but the second a massive 98 kilotons and, with the winds drifting the fall-out cloud, it was virtually uncontrolled.
Another top-secret memo to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, dated May 20 — seven months after the first atom bomb test at Monte Bello and five months before the second at Emu Field, South Australia — gives evidence of the official intention.
It says: ”The Army must discover the detailed effects of the various types of explosion on equipment, stores, and men with and without various types of protection.”
The complicity is pivotal in one memo dated November 16, 1955, from British Prime Minister Anthony Eden.
Asked to consider the genetic effects of nuclear radiation, Mr Eden says: ”A pity, but we cannot help it.”
Yet the risks to health from radiation exposure were known at the highest level.
In minutes from the Government’s Advisory Council in 1947 on Scientific Policy, Sir Ernest Rock Carling said that resulting injuries from exposure to radiation ”were frequently not traced to radiation since there might be a lag of months or years before the effects were manifest.
”Carelessness might also have serious genetic effects on the population, resulting in sterility or mutations.”
In 1951, the Government warned that: ”Casualties may not become apparent at once. There are at present only two forms of protection against radiation, viz distance and/or some form of shielding.”
The first British nuclear test at Monte Bello took place a year later. For that and 20 further tests, British service personnel stood part-naked or wearing flimsy cotton overalls on beaches and ship decks between five and 11 miles from each blast.