Lead story

Cameron’s crocodile tears

by Daphne Liddle

JUST one month ago Cameron’s pledge to the nation on the “immigrant” question was for better fencing and more police dogs to be deployed in Calais to prevent the thousands of desperate people there from access to the Euro-tunnel and to freight lorries queueing to use the Eurostar trains.

We predicted then it was only a matter of time before Cameron would have to climb down and acknowledge that there is a very real refugee crisis and that Britain will have to take in and accommodate a share of the refugees.

Last Tuesday Cameron, putting on his “compassionate” face, made another speech in the House of Commons, saying that Britain has a “moral responsibility” to those living in camps bordering Syria “while doing all it can to end the conflict there”.

And he admitted that they are refugees fleeing war, not migrants simply seeking a better standard of living.

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Cameron’s crocodile tears

Human rights groups raise alarm over TU Bill

THREE leading human rights groups in Britain last Monday issued a joint statement condemning the Government’s proposed Trade Union Bill as a serious threat to workers’ human rights.

Liberty, the British Institute for Human Rights (BIHR) and Amnesty International issued this statement:

“The Government’s plans to significantly restrict trade union rights — set out in the Trade Union Bill — represent a major attack on civil liberties in the UK.

“By placing more legal hurdles in the way of unions organising strike action, the Trade Union Bill will undermine ordinary people’s ability to organise together to protect their jobs, livelihoods and the quality of their working lives.

“It will introduce harsher restrictions on those who picket peacefully outside workplaces — even though pickets are already more regulated than any other kind of protest.

“Unions will be required to appoint picket supervisors who must wear armbands and carry letters of authorisation, the absence of which could expose their unions to legal action.

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Human rights groups raise alarm over TU Bill

Editorial

An old tune from the BBC

THIS WEEK the BBC unveiled plans to start beaming daily propaganda broadcasts to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and expand its “World Service” to Russia, India and the Middle East to provide better coverage to countries where there is a “democratic deficit in impartial news”.

The BBC faces further cuts and scrabbles around to defend itself from calls from within the Cameron government and the corporate media to privatise or break the Corporation. The people are told to accept cuts, make sacrifices and accept unemployment and poverty under the austerity regime. But the BBC will have no problem in getting the millions needed to join the Americans’ new psychological warfare offensive against any country that stands in the way of imperialism.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is one of our supposed “national treasures” whose aims are to educate, inform and entertain the public that funds it through the licence fee. Under the motto “Nation shall speak peace unto Nation” the Corporation claims to be a pillar of impartiality and a reliable source of independent news at home and abroad. That was never the case back in the 1920s when the BBC was founded and it is certainly not the case now.

The Jimmy Savile affair has shown how easy it was for a dishonest and manipulative man to use the BBC as a cover for his sinister activities. Unfortunately for the last 68 years, the corporation has been happy to allow its name to be used as cover by the British and US intelligence services which operate with the same characteristics as Savile but to far more deadly effect.

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An old tune from the BBC