Archive for the 'Politics' Category
I decided to take a quick break from my usual habit of watching inane reality TV programmes and tuned into the press conference that George Bush gave yesterday after the thumping that the Republican party received at the hands of the Democrats. Dubya as eloquent as ever came out with the following corker about the sacking resignation of Donald Rumsfeld.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Last week you told us that Secretary Rumsfeld will be staying on. Why is the timing right now for this, and how much does it have to do with the election results?
Dubya: Right. No, you and Hunt and Keil came in the Oval Office, and Hunt asked me the question one week before the campaign, and basically it was, are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the Vice President? And my answer was, they’re going to stay on. And the reason why is I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer.
In other words, Dubya admitted that he lied to get out of answering a tricky question. So I guess it’s official, politicians tell lies. Unfortunately, none of the assembled hacks there came out with the obvious follow up question:
If you are willing to tell a bare faced lie in order to get through an interview, why should we (or anyone else for that matter) believe anything you say to us now?
I guess that would have just been too rude.
And almost as important, there were some midterm elections there too. The Democrats gained twenty seven seats in The House of Congress giving them overall control plus five seats in the Senate (with two independants, they have overall control there as well) and six governorships. Hurrah, probably! And the best news is that Donald Rumsfield, the person most responsible for the fiasco in Iraq, has resigned.
So will anything change? Well, I think Donald Rumsfeld summed it up best.
“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Since quite a lot of people seem to be discussing the wearing of veils, I thought I might as well chip in with my opinion.
On the one hand we are being told that freedom of speech and expression is really important in this country and that muslims are somehow stifling that. And then on the other hand, telling Muslim women that they can’t wear what they want. Isn’t that stifling their right to freedom of speech and expression? It just seems like very confused thinking to me?
Should Jack Straw or any politician actually have any right to tell us what not to wear? Isn’t that Trinny and Susannah’s job?
But If they are intent on banning hijabs and niqabs, could we also have a political debate about banning builders’ butt crack jeans and forcing mingers like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton et al to wear pants?
It’s what it says on the tin. Tony Blair sings “Should I stay or should I go?”
And the award for best headline ever relating to the possible end of the world goes to The Sun, who chose to honour the impending nuclear holocaust by referencing the musical, The Sound of Music. And no North Korea headline would be complete without the Kim-Jong Il doll made popular by the film comedy Team America.
And the award for second best headline for impending nuclear annihilation also goes to The Sun with “Bad Korea Move”. Its the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).
I just read about all the fuss that’s been caused by the recent interview of Bill Clinton by Fox News over at Manchizzle so I thought I would post a transcript of the interview.
WALLACE: Mr. President, welcome to Fox News Sunday.
CLINTON: Thanks.
WALLACE: In a recent issue of The New Yorker you say, quote,
I’m 60 years old and I damn near died, and I’m worried about how many lives I can save before I do die.
Is that what drives you in your effort to help in these developing countries?
CLINTON: Yes, I really — but I don’t mean — that sounds sort of morbid when you say it like that. I mean, I actually…
WALLACE: That’s how you said it.
CLINTON: Yes, but the way I said it, the tone in which I said it was actually almost whimsical and humorous. That is, this is what I love to do. It is what I think I should do.
That is, I have had a wonderful life. I got to be president. I got to live the life of my dreams. I dodged a bullet with that heart problem. And I really think I should — I think I owe it to my fellow countrymen and people throughout the world to spend time saving lives, solving problems, helping people see the future.
But as it happens, I love it. I mean, I feel it’s a great gift. So, it’s a rewarding way to spend my life.
WALLACE: Someone asked you — and I don’t want to, again, be too morbid, but this is what you said. He asked you if you could wind up doing more good as a former president than as a president, and you said, Only if I live a long time.
CLINTON: Yes, that’s true.
WALLACE: How do you rate, compare the powers of being in office as president and what you can do out of office as a former president?
CLINTON: Well, when you are president, you can operate on a much broader scope. So, for example, you can simultaneously be trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo and, you know, make peace in the Middle East, pass a budget that gives millions of kids a chance to have afterschool programs and has a huge increase in college aid at home. In other words, you’ve got a lot of different moving parts, and you can move them all at once.
But you’re also more at the mercy of events. That is, President Bush did not run for president to deal with 9/11, but once it happened it wasn’t as if he had an option.
Once I looked at the economic — I’ll give you a much more mundane example. Once I looked at the economic data, the new data after I won the election, I realized that I would have to work much harder to reduce the deficit, and therefore I would have less money in my first year to invest in things I wanted to invest in.
WALLACE: So what is it that you can do as a former president?
CLINTON: So what you can do as a former president is — you don’t have the wide range of power, so you have to concentrate on fewer things. But you are less at the mercy of unfolding events.
So if I say, look, we’re going to work on the economic empowerment of poor people, on fighting AIDS and other diseases, on trying to bridge the religious and political differences between people, and on trying to, you know, avoid the worst calamities of climate change and help to revitalize the economy in the process, I can actually do that.
I mean, because tomorrow when I get up, if there’s a bad headline in the paper, it’s President Bush’s responsibility, not mine. That’s the joy of being a former president. And it is true that if you live long enough and you really have great discipline in the way you do this, like this CGI, you might be able to affect as many lives, or more, for the good as you did as president.
WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I’ve got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaida out of business when you were president?
There’s a new book out, I suspect you’ve already read, called
The Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops. Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.
CLINTON: OK, let’s just go through that.
WALLACE: Let me — let me — may I just finish the question, sir?
And after the attack, the book says that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them around, because he expected an attack, and there was no response.
I understand that hindsight is always 20/20…
CLINTON: No, let’s talk about it.
WALLACE: … but the question is, why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?
CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.
I’m being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative run in their little Pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.
And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much — same people.
They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk down, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.
OK, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaida was a growing concern in October of ‘93.
WALLACE: I understand, and I…
CLINTON: No, wait. No, wait. Don’t tell me this — you asked me why didn’t I do more to bin Laden. There was not a living soul. All the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day.
You brought this up, so you’ll get an answer, but you can’t…
WALLACE: I’m perfectly happy to.
CLINTON: All right, secondly…
WALLACE: Bin Laden says…
CLINTON: Bin Laden may have said…
WALLACE: … bin Laden says that it showed the weakness of the United States.
CLINTON: But it would’ve shown the weakness if we’d left right away, but he wasn’t involved in that. That’s just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohammed Adid, a Muslim warlord, murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission. We had no mission, none, to establish a certain kind of Somali government or to keep anybody out.
He was not a religious fanatic…
WALLACE: But, Mr. President…
CLINTON: … there was no Al Qaida…
WALLACE: … with respect, if I may, instead of going through ‘93 and…
CLINTON: No, no. You asked it. You brought it up. You brought it up.
WALLACE: May I ask a general question and then you can answer?
CLINTON: Yes.
WALLACE: The 9/11 Commission, which you’ve talk about — and this is what they did say, not what ABC pretended they said…
CLINTON: Yes, what did they say?
WALLACE: … they said about you and President Bush, and I quote, The U.S. government took the threat seriously, but not in the sense of mustering anything like the kind of effort that would be gathered to confront an enemy of the first, second or even third rank.
CLINTON: First of all, that’s not true with us and bin Laden.
WALLACE: Well, I’m telling you that’s what the 9/11 Commission says.
CLINTON: All right. Let’s look at what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?
WALLACE: Yes, I do.
CLINTON: You do, don’t you?
WALLACE: I think he has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes, he has a vigorous…
CLINTON: He has a variety of opinion and loyalties now, but let’s look at the facts: He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H. W. Bush; he was loyal to him. He worked for me, and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him.
They downgraded him and the terrorist operation.
Now, look what he said, read his book and read his factual assertions — not opinions — assertions. He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden.
WALLACE: But…
CLINTON: No, wait a minute.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: … cruise missiles.
CLINTON: No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.
The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things.
The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.
Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden.
But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11.
The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would’ve had to send a few hundred Special Forces in in helicopters and refuel at night.
Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9/11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is, anybody who wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.
WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?
CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.
WALLACE: Right.
CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.
So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.
So you did Fox’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. What I want to know is…
WALLACE: Well, wait a minute, sir.
CLINTON: No, wait. No, no…
WALLACE: I want to ask a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?
CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of.
I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?
I want to know how many you asked, Why did you fire Dick Clarke?
I want to know how many people you asked…
WALLACE: We asked — we asked…
CLINTON: I don’t…
WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday, sir?
CLINTON: I don’t believe you asked them that.
WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…
CLINTON: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.
WALLACE: About the USS Cole?
CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris.
WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.
CLINTON: Did you ever ask that?
You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch’s supporting my work on climate change.
And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7-billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.
WALLACE: But, President Clinton, if you look at the questions here, you’ll see half the questions are about that. I didn’t think this was going to set you off on such a tear.
CLINTON: You launched it — it set me off on a tear because you didn’t formulate it in an honest way and because you people ask me questions you don’t ask the other side.
WALLACE: That’s not true. Sir, that is not true.
CLINTON: And Richard Clarke made it clear in his testimony…
WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative?
CLINTON: No, I want to finish this now.
WALLACE: All right. Well, after you.
CLINTON: All I’m saying is, you falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaida existed then. And…
WALLACE: But did they know in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998…
CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.
WALLACE: … when he bombed the two embassies?
CLINTON: And who talked about…
WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?
CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.
Now, I’ve never criticized President Bush, and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.
And you ask me about terror and Al Qaida with that sort of dismissive thing? When all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.
And you’ve got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.
The entire military was against sending Special Forces in to Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we could do it otherwise, because we could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaida was responsible while I was president.
And so, I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time. They had three times as much time to deal with it, and nobody ever asks them about it. I think that’s strange.
WALLACE: Can I ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative?
CLINTON: You can.
WALLACE: I always intended to, sir.
CLINTON: No, you intended, though, to move your bones by doing this first, which is perfectly fine. But I don’t mind people asking me — I actually talked to the 9/11 Commission for four hours, Chris, and I told them the mistakes I thought I made. And I urged them to make those mistakes public, because I thought none of us had been perfect.
But instead of anybody talking about those things, I always get these clever little political yields (ph), where they ask me one-sided questions. And the other guys notice that. And it always comes from one source. And so…
WALLACE: And…
CLINTON: And so…
WALLACE: I just want to ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative, but what’s the source? I mean, you seem upset, and I…
CLINTON: I am upset because…
WALLACE: And all I can say is, I’m asking you this in good faith because it’s on people’s minds, sir. And I wasn’t…
CLINTON: Well, there’s a reason it’s on people’s minds. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There’s a reason it’s on people’s minds: Because there’s been a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression.
This country only has one person who’s worked on this terror. From the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents from 9/11, only one: Richard Clarke.
And all I can say to anybody is, you want to know what we did wrong or right, or anybody else did? Read his book.
The people on my political right who say I didn’t do enough spent the whole time I was president saying, Why is he so obsessed with bin Laden? That was wag the dog when he tried to kill him.
My Republican secretary of defense — and I think I’m the only president since World War II to have a secretary of defense of the opposite party — Richard Clarke and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden and came closer, apparently, than anybody has since.
WALLACE: All right.
CLINTON: And you guys try to create the opposite impression, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s findings and you know it’s not true. It’s just not true.
And all this business about Somalia — the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day. The same exact crowd.
WALLACE: One of the…
CLINTON: And so, if you’re going to do this, for God’s sake, follow the same standards for everybody…
WALLACE: I think we do, sir.
CLINTON: … and be flat — and fair.
WALLACE: I think we do.
WALLACE: One of the main parts of the Global Initiative this year is religion and reconciliation. President Bush says that the fight against Islamic extremism is the central conflict of this century. And his answer is promoting democracy and reform.
Do you think he has that right?
CLINTON: Sure. To advance — to advocate democracy and reform in the Muslim world? Absolutely.
I think the question is, what’s the best way to do it? I think also the question is, how do you educate people about democracy?
Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power. And there’s more than one way to advance democracy.
But do I think, on balance, that in the end, after several bouts with instability — look how long it took us to build a mature democracy. Do I think, on balance, it would be better if we had more freedom and democracy? Sure I do. And do I think specifically the president has a right to do it? Sure I do.
But I don’t think that’s all we can do in the Muslim world. I think they have to see us as trying to get a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. I think they have to see us as willing to talk to people who see the world differently than we do.
WALLACE: Last year at this conference, you got $2.5 billion in commitments, pledges. How’d you do this year?
CLINTON: Well, this year we had — we had $7.3 billion, as of this morning.
WALLACE: Excuse me?
CLINTON: $7.3 billion, as of this morning. But $3 billion of that is — now, this is over multi years. These are up to 10-year commitments.
But $3 billion of that came from Richard Branson’s commitment to give all of his transportation profits for a decade to clean energy investments. But still, that’s — the rest is over $4 billion.
And we will have another 100 commitments come in, maybe more, and we’ll probably raise another, I would say, at least another billion dollars, probably, before it’s over. We’ve got a lot of commitments still in process.
WALLACE: When you look at the $3 billion from Branson, plus the billions that Bill Gates is giving in his own program, and now Warren Buffet, what do you make of this new age of philanthropy?
CLINTON: I think that, for one thing, really rich people have always given money away. I mean, you know, they’ve endowed libraries and things like that.
The unique thing about this age is, first of all, you have a lot of people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who are interested in issues at home and around the world that grow out of the nature of the 21st century and its inequalities — the income inequalities, the health-care inequalities, the education inequalities.
And you get a guy like Gates, who built Microsoft, who actually believes that he can help overcome a lot of the health disparities in the world. And that’s the first thing.
The second thing that ought to be credited is that there are a lot of people with average incomes who are joining them because of the Internet. Like in the tsunami, for example, we had $1.2 billion given by Americans; 30 percent of our households gave money, over half of them over the Internet.
And then the third thing is you’ve got all these — in poor countries, you’ve got all these nongovernmental groups that you can — that a guy like Gates can partner with, along with the governments.
So all these things together mean that people with real money want to give it away in ways that help people that before would’ve been seen only as the object of government grants or loans.
WALLACE: Let’s talk some politics. In that same New Yorker article, you say that you are tired of Karl Rove’s B.S., although I’m cleaning up what you said.
CLINTON: But I do like the — but I also say I’m not tired of Karl Rove. I don’t blame Karl Rove. If you’ve got a deal that works, you just keep on doing it.
WALLACE: So what is the B.S.?
CLINTON: Well, every even-numbered year, right before an election, they come up with some security issue.
In 2002, our party supported them in undertaking weapons inspections in Iraq and was 100 percent for what happened in Afghanistan, and they didn’t have any way to make us look like we didn’t care about terror.
And so, they decided they would be for the homeland security bill that they had opposed. And they put a poison pill in it that we wouldn’t pass, like taking the job rights away from 170,000 people, and then say that we were weak on terror if we weren’t for it. They just ran that out.
This year, I think they wanted to make the questions of prisoner treatment and intercepted communications the same sort of issues, until John Warner and John McCain and Lindsey Graham got in there. And, as it turned out, there were some Republicans that believed in the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions and had some of their own ideas about how best to fight terror.
The Democrats — as long as the American people believe that we take this seriously and we have our own approaches — and we may have differences over Iraq — I think we’ll do fine in this election.
But even if they agree with us about the Iraq war, we could be hurt by Karl Rove’s new foray if we just don’t make it clear that we, too, care about the security of the country. But we want to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations, which they haven’t for four years. We want to intensify our efforts in Afghanistan against bin Laden. We want to make America more energy-independent.
And then they can all, if they differ on Iraq, they can say whatever they want on Iraq.
But Rove is good. And I honor him. I mean, I will say that. I’ve always been amused about how good he is, in a way.
But on the other hand, this is perfectly predictable: We’re going to win a lot of seats if the American people aren’t afraid. If they’re afraid and we get divided again, then we may only win a few seats.
WALLACE: And the White House, the Republicans want to make the American people afraid?
CLINTON: Of course they do. Of course they do. They want us to be — they want another homeland security deal. And they want to make it about — not about Iraq but about some other security issue, where, if we disagree with them, we are, by definition, imperiling the security of the country.
And it’s a big load of hooey. We’ve got nine Iraq war veterans running for the House seats. We’ve got President Reagan’s secretary of the navy as the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Virginia. A three-star admiral, who was on my National Security Council staff, who also fought terror, by the way, is running for the seat of Kurt Weldon in Pennsylvania.
We’ve got a huge military presence here in this campaign. And we just can’t let them have some rhetorical device that puts us in a box we don’t belong in.
That’s their job. Their job is to beat us. I like that about Rove. But our job is not to let them get away with it. And if they don’t, then we’ll do fine.
WALLACE: Mr. President, thank you for one of the more unusual interviews.
CLINTON: Thanks.
Bill Clinton is gay according to Ann Coulter!
… That level of rampant promiscuity … does show some level of latent homosexuality
So wanting to have sex with women means you’re gay? That makes sense!
Here’s the original interview.
And here’s Clinton’s response (via the Letterman show).
At yesterday’s G8 summit spoke candidly about the Middle East. Unfortunately, this seems to have been because they didn’t realise that a microphone had been accidently left on (Transcript below). Bloopertastic! There’s also an interesting article about it on the Independent website.
Bush Yo, Blair. How are you doing?
Blair I’m just…
Bush You’re leaving?
Blair No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy …[inaudible]
Bush Yeah, I told that to the man.
Blair Are you planning to say that here or not?
Bush If you want me to.
Blair Well, it’s just that if the discussion arises …
Bush I just want some movement.
Blair Yeah.
Bush Yesterday we didn’t see much movement.
Blair No, no, it may be that it’s not, it may be that it’s impossible.
Bush I am prepared to say it.
Blair But it’s just I think what we need to be an opposition…
Bush Who is introducing the trade?
Blair Angela [Merkel, the German chancellor].
Bush Tell her to call ‘em.
Blair Yes.
Bush Tell her to put him on, them on the spot. Thanks for [inaudible] it’s awfully thoughtful of you.
Blair It’s a pleasure.
Bush I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair Oh, absolutely, in fact [inaudible].
Bush What about Kofi? [inaudible] His attitude to ceasefire and everything else … happens.
Blair Yeah, no I think the [inaudible] is really difficult. We can’t stop this unless you get this international business agreed.
Bush Yeah.
Blair I don’t know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral.
Bush I think Condi is going to go pretty soon.
Blair But that’s, that’s, that’s all that matters. But if you … you see it will take some time to get that together.
Bush Yeah, yeah.
Blair But at least it gives people …
Bush It’s a process, I agree. I told her your offer to …
Blair Well … it’s only if I mean … you know. If she’s got a … or if she needs the ground prepared as it were … Because obviously if she goes out, she’s got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
Bush You see, the … thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hizbullah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.
Blair Syria.
Bush Why?
Blair Because I think this is all part of the same thing.
Bush Yeah.
Blair What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way …
Bush Yeah, yeah, he is sweet.
Blair He is honey. And that’s what the whole thing is about. It’s the same with Iraq.
Bush I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Blair Yeah.
Bush We are not blaming the Lebanese government.
Blair Is this…? (at this point Blair realises microphone is still on and asks for the sound to be cut.)
John Prescott is in trouble yet again. This time the fuss is about alleged wrong doings in relation to a Super casino that was supposed to be set up at the Millennium Dome and taking backhanders from an American billionare!
Here’s a transcript of Two Shags being grilled about this and other scandals by John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today programme. Listen to it here.
John Humphrys: John Prescott has said he is not going to resign as deputy prime minister (DPM). He’s been under enormous pressure over the past few months ever since it was reported that he’d been having an affair with one of his secretaries. Soon after that he was photographed playing croquet at his official residence, Dorneywood, when it was said he should’ve been in London working. He was forced to give up Dorneywood and he’s lost responsibility for the huge department he was running. Then questions were raised about what exactly he does as DPM to earn his salary. But it all died down for a while and it seemed Mr Prescott was out of the woods, until last week. Then it was reported that he and some of his officials had been entertained for a weekend at the American ranch of a billionaire businessman, Philip Anschutz. Mr Anschutz owns the Millennium Dome, and he wants to turn it into Britain’s first super-casino. This morning it’s been reported that Mr Prescott used his influence to help Mr Anschutz. Like every other news programme we’ve been trying to interview Mr Prescott since his problems began, but he’s always said no. Last night he said yes, and I spoke to him an hour ago. I asked him why did he spend that weekend with Mr Anschutz at his ranch in the United States?
John Prescott: Well, when the Dome was sold, John, in 2002, sold by Charles Faulkner on behalf of the government, I actually took over the responsibility. He came to see me in that time, in 2002, and said to me at the first meeting look we’re very concerned about hostile press over the Dome, he can be true about that can’t he. And also he said that I’m very concerned that the government supporting the Dome, you’re the new minister involved in it, and I gave him the assurance we were and he told me about what was going to happen to the Dome but he also asked me could he meet me regularly to update, and I said yes. So he said he’d come here about every six months so I did see him, presumably with others as well to have an update on that matter. But since he wanted to discuss those issues as well, I made it very clear that I separated any planning decisions on this, and it was stated in Hansard, I think in August 2002, that it would be Chris Leslie, my minister, who dealt with this, and Lord Rooker would deal with all the planning matters. So, we had those regular meetings of discussions. Now the last one was in July 2005. He knew I was in America and he said would you like to come and see a cattle ranch, which I was very much interested in, and also I said I wanted to talk to farmers, which I did, about the Doha and the negotiations, sugar beet industries, agriculture subsidies. So I used the Saturday and Sunday in between a ten-day meeting in America, to actually visit the ranch. The only time I met Mr Anschutz was at the dinner for two hours, where no discussion took place about the Dome or planning, or those matters, ’cause they had took place in our regular meetings, when we were discussing the Dome, and so that is why I took that opportunity, probably not only to look at a working cattle ranch but to visit one, I’m curious about it, I saw the cowboy films over my young years, didn’t you, I was interested to have a look at it.
John Humphrys: Why did you say that you had made a donation to charity out of your own money when in fact the donation to charity was made out of government money?
John Prescott: I never said that, John. Not at any time did I say that. In fact, I didn’t know there was a payment made by charity money. I mean this is one of the difficulties of it. I asked my permanent secretary, look, if I’m going to do this, is it ok? Am I OK by the rules on this matter? She came back and said yes, that it was so. I didn’t know until later that the payment of it, and I always thought that it was public payment was done by the arrangement of a payment to charity because they didn’t want to receive a payment. Now I just assumed that that was a normal thing that went on I now discover that it’s not, but myself and other civil servants were involved in the recommendation of going there. Once we found that the charity was not seen as a payment for it then clearly you would enter the issue of hospitality, which led me to have to reassess it.
John Humphrys: Why should the British taxpayer…
John Prescott: But be clear John, I didn’t pay, er, I didn’t pay any money towards that charity payment, I wasn’t aware it was a charity payment. I just assumed that the whole thing like hotels that are provided for me when I’m travelling through America, that was just the way it had been done.
John Humphrys: Why should the British taxpayer pick up the bill for you and indeed your officials going to stay with a very rich man to indulge your interest in cattle and cowboys?
John Prescott: Well, I would say it’s a…as to whether the charity money should be used, that’s a legitimate point made and I would, I never got into the details of it, I just assumed all those matters of payment for accommodation wherever you were [unintelligible] was cleared and arranged by the Department and that’s what happened, and you’re quite right to raise that question but in fact it wasn’t one that was put to me.
John Humphrys: But I mean you’d gone there to have a good time
John Prescott: I’d gone there [unintelligible] of a weekend – good time, to look at how a cattle ranch works to see how the farmers on sugar beet were run, and had those talks, and as you know John, I’ve been actively involved in international politics, on Doha, on climate change and this instance I was making a speech in LA on the challenges to America and Europe as to how we could deal with these challenges globally, how could you deal with agriculture subsidies. As you know, in America there’s real problems on sugarbeet and also European agriculture subsidies. So here was a chance not to just sit in a hotel by the pool and do nothing but learn a little bit more about some international kind of problems and talk to them about it in the context of, in this case, the ranch and on a farm.
John Humphrys: You’d said there was no [need] to register it in the Register of Members’ Interests, then when Mr Mawer, the commissioner, said he would look into it, you decided that you should register it?
John Prescott: This is the trouble with all the interpretations, I had decided to register when I realised this new information about the registrations under the ministerial rules and I’d done that before I met the commissioner and the only reason I was at the commissioner was because Mr Swire had written to the commissioner and I had to re-write right away, because he hadn’t written saying “is there something wrong here?”, he released the letter, and it was important that I put my response out, so I sent it to Sir Philip and then I said to Sir Philip can I see you? He didn’t ask to see me, I said can I see you, and discuss this matter. He is looking at it from my role as a member of parliament, he has no responsibilities for the ministerial rules and so I told him when I met him yesterday that I’d already taken that action.
John Humphrys: The fact is that you had a total of seven meetings with Mr Anschutz.
John Prescott: Well, if you work it out from 2002 it work out about every six months, yes, that’s what he asked to do.
[John Humphrys attempts to interrupt]
John Prescott: By the way John, can I just tell you this. Here’s a guy who comes along, buys the Dome, right, when everybody said it was a liability, now converting it into a very successful asset, was giving ten thousand new homes, 24,000 jobs, 400,000 commercial and retail space, £5bn of private investment coming into the project, turning a poisonous bit of land into one of the best re-creates for regeneration that we’ve seen developing East London to its greater advantage. Now, if a man has to see me, I tell you what John, if he comes offering that deal I’ll see him every three months
John Humphrys: It will be a very very successful asset if the dome gets the casino licence.
John Prescott: No, no, no, no…
John Humphrys: Let me just finish the question if I may, and the charge against you is that you have used your influence to help the Dome to get that licence.
John Prescott: Well, first of all, the Dome, the license, casinos were not involved in the application and the sake of the Dome. Nothing to do with the dome.
John Humphrys: No, I didn’t say that.
John Prescott: No, no, but I’m just trying to make some facts clear, right, secondly in those circumstances, I had no influence over the planning decisions in these matters, though ironically enough the planning decision didn’t have to come to my department because the local government made it. Now, there were issues that were brought up, for example from time to time controversially, publicly – how many casinos were there going to be? Here’s a man coming seeing a hell of a row going on, on your programme as well John, about gambling and whether we wanted casinos or not, and in all those matters the government decided in a gambling bill to say it’s going to be an independent commission makes the recommendations about casinos. It then goes to the Secretary of State, in this case Tessa Jowell. She then makes recommendations to parliament, and all these procedures were agreed by Mr Swire and the opposition as well, and that will be decided by parliament. I would never be having a decision on the casino in this case, neither would…and it would be done by parliament after an independent commission recommendation.
John Humphrys: The point is that documents have been obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Guardian and Newsnight that show that your office knew that the granting of a casino licence at the Dome was a central feature, I’m quoting…
[John Prescott tries to interrupt]
John Humphrys: No, let me just finish the quote if I may, and key plank of the company’s business strategy and they also show that your officials pressed ministers in the department for culture, which is responsible for the gambling policy obviously to meet senior executives at Mr Anschutz’s company, AG.
John Prescott: Well, I’ve no doubt my officials might’ve been talking about that and it was being dealt with at the early stages by Lord Rooker, then other ministers had responsibilities, because I’d separated myself from that, particularly as I was meeting regularly Mr Anschutz right, and I think that was quite proper to do.
John Humphrys: But your officials weren’t separated from it, and you’re the head of that department.
John Prescott: Well listen, let me make the answer, and that’s what I think the minutes are, these minutes reflect the getting-together of officials from my department and I think from the culture department as well, right? I haven’t seen the minutes, I’ve just read what they’re saying in the papers, but I did hear Newsnight last night but it didn’t say that I was involved in those discussions.
John Humphrys: Your officials…
John Prescott: Yes, fine, well let’s make that clear because it’s assuming as if I was involved, I was not.
John Humphrys: It’s your department!
John Prescott: I know, well, I’m not involved because it’s quite normal under all Governments that you can separate the Secretary of State from these decisions ’cause he’s inevitably involved in all sorts of discussions with people, and that’s normal under Tory governments and Labour governments.
John Humphrys: But it’s normal for the head of department, which is you, the boss, which is you, to know what your officials are doing, and to give it your approval?
John Prescott: I need to know my officials are talking about the enforcement and development of the contract for all these jobs and houses so they have a responsibility but it’s mainly the main department is the culture department and they would naturally want to have a look what’s going on.
John Humphrys: Right -
John Prescott: and I’ve no doubt those discussions go on, but John, thousands of civil servants in all sorts of discussions. What they do is work to a remit and the remit in this case is to have a look at the contract, how is it being implemented, and then to work with the department that has that responsibility.
John Humphrys: You are the, if I may, you are the deputy prime minister, you have enormous influence and one of the rival bidders for that licence, Southend-on-Sea, say that your office pressured them to stand down in favour of Anschutz.
John Prescott: Well, [unintelligible] my office and me, first of all, I wasn’t involved in any way and categorically I can say that in no way did I express an opinion, as I hear it’s been reported in the paper that I was supporting some link for the Thames. Absolute rubbish, not involved, very clear about it. If you say to me…
John Humphrys: Right, well let me…
John Prescott: Wait a minute, if you say to me some officials have been talking through the process of a very controversial piece of legislation in the house, where there was much argument about what gambling, how many casinos, if you remember the Tories only wanted there to be one casino, I think others wanted more, but at the end of the day that debate was settled in parliament. I was not involved in that process at all.
John Humphrys: So when…
John Prescott: Except as a parliamentarian.
John Humphrys: So when Anna Waite, the former leader of Southend-on-Sea Council, says it is was made clear to me that pressure was coming from on high that there should be only one bid in the Thames Gateway area, and it should be the Dome, the suggestion was that the ODPM was using its influence to push the Dome bid, the whole thing stank from beginning to end. When she says that, she’s not being truthful?
John Prescott: Well, stink and stank like on your programme is coming from Tories, and there’s a very active Tory policy involved here quite frankly with the media and they’ve got it up there they want to carry out this campaign, particularly against me, but let me say again on your programme, I was never involved in any such action, people had better bring the evidence. But if you say to me were there some civil servants down the line exercising some judgement about this in view of the circumstances, I wasn’t involved in it, didn’t even know about it until I read in the press, and totally reject any idea that I expressed any pressure whatsoever. Look, I know there’s a media storm against me, they don’t like me and to be quite honest I don’t like them. But in reality, you have to deal with the facts, not that the papers deal in that too much, but here, in what you’re saying to me, officials might have been involved, I don’t know for sure. I was not involved, ’cause the suggestion at the end of the day was my meeting with Mr Anschutz was somehow giving him preference for a bid. It was not, I did not get involved and there’s no evidence to that effect at all and I deliberately separated, in 2002, made a statement at parliament to separate the planning decision away from me.
John Humphrys: If there is a media storm against you, as you suggest, it’s for a number of reasons apart from this. It began with the revelation of your affair with your secretary. There are now reports, and they’re circulating on the internet, as you know, that you have had other affairs – is that true?
John Prescott: John, you’re doing exactly what you read in the paper, you did it once to me before on the Minerva building…
John Humphrys: I’m asking you a question.
John Prescott: Well, and I’m trying to answer it my best way in the context of what you do John. You remember that I had an argument with you, tried to get on the air to deny it, you suggest I’d made a planning decision in regard to a man who’d made a contribution to the Labour party, wouldn’t let me come on the programme…
John Humphrys: Not true, but let’s not go down that road.
John Prescott: I know, but an absolute lie anyway, it’s never ever been corrected on your programme. That’s the first point. Coming back to the point about these allegations…
John Humphrys: I asked you whether you’d had any other affairs apart from that with…the one we know about.
John Prescott: I told you what the answer is, I’ve given a statement about that – I made a mistake, I’ve owned up to it [unintelligible] that is life and I’ve made a statement and I’ve certainly paid the price for it.
John Humphrys: Have you had other affairs?
John Prescott: Hang on I watched Newsnight last night and the pressures you know, most people don’t, I think it’s called the internet or blogs or something – I don’t know, I’ve only just got used to letters John, I haven’t got into all this new technology, but I would say the guy on television last night who does that says ‘I have no evidence for these allegations I’ve made’.
John Humphrys: So they’re not true, are they?
John Prescott: There’s no truth in much of the stories that are made in the paper, but John …
John Humphrys: So you have not had other affairs? It’s a very straightforward question …
John Prescott: I told you, listen, you’re talking about a lot of people here who have in fact denied these stories. Names have been mentioned, some of them are in the process of perhaps suing about it – I’m not going to get involved in that – I’ve made my statement about making a mistake and I’ve told that I’m leaving it at that. But I notice the guy that’s making these allegations says there’s no evidence for it, so why are you justified to keep on trying to push this? It hurts so many people -
John Humphrys: Because I wanted to give you, would still like to give you, the opportunity to clear it up once and for all to say: ‘I made that mistake with that particular lady I have had no other affairs’.
John Prescott: I’ve made my mistake and I’ve made my denials. It doesn’t make any difference of course to what the press say. But I will keep on saying I’ll get on with my job. That’s it to do with it, people must judge me on what I do on the job. I know that’s controversial, I’ve been a lot of controversial errors, that’s what I’m doing John that’s what people expect me to do, and I’ll get on with doing my job and I’m not leaving it. I’m getting on with it.
John Humphrys: There are going to be people who will be dismayed by that, including some of your own backbench MPs. Does it worry you that you do not have the support on your backbenches that you might like?
John Prescott: I’m going to ask you for the evidence. You’re asking me for a lot of evidence. Who are the people on the backbench?
John Humphrys: Well, as you’ll know, we had an awful lots of quotes from an awful lot of people, most of them, as you rightly say, most of them have been off-the-record, mostly people have not been prepared…
John Prescott: Well how do I know they’re true John? You just always repeat these allegations, and you make it sound on your programme as if it’s true. I know Kate Hoey’s said something, well that’s up for Kate Hoey…
John Humphrys: Well Steven Pounder is a “residual loyalist, there’s quite a bit of affection, but everybody now recognizes”, Let me finish…
John Prescott: Wait a minute, Steven Powell wrote me an apology about what was said.
John Humphrys: He said: “Everybody now recognizes that the sell-by date is rapidly approaching.”
John Prescott: When did he make that point?
John Humphrys: Well he made that point months and weeks ago, several weeks ago.
John Prescott: To which he wrote and apologized.
John Humphrys: Well, does that mean that he doesn’t mean it any longer? What about Derek Wyatt, Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey: “I don’t think it’s tenable that he should maintain Dorneywood” at the time of that particular incident? I mean…
John Prescott: Dorneywood is gone.
John Humphrys: Dorneywood is gone, indeed, and lots of these things have gone.
John Prescott: Let me just say to you, ’cause you’re going to now, I hope you’re not going to edit this programme now you’ve extended over time.
John Humphrys: Nope, it’s not going to be edited.
John Prescott: What I say to these colleagues, I bear in mind the points they’re taking, I’m very sorry for what has happened, I do believe in a way it’s not been good my party or government, of course I’m conscious of that, all my life has been that. I have never had another job, I’ve never had a penny off anywhere else, all I’ve done is this job. Now very few MPs can say that. But when I get involved as I have been in these incidents I am extremely sorry about it, there’s no doubt about it because I do feel, in that sense that I’ve not added to the government in a sense, in a way it’s a very negative position I’ve been in. But, I’ll get on with the job, I listen to what my colleagues say to me, of course I do, and I meet them all the time, I meet the constituencies I go out. But much of the way out today I’ll be Hull helping Wilberforce, that was another part of the discussions with them, with Mr Anschutz. He’s doing a Wilberforce film which is being celebrated of 200 years of Wilberforce. Today I’ll be opening the Wilberforce centre in Hull with the president of Ghana. I mean, these are the things I’m involved in, in a job, John, and I get on with it.
John Humphrys: But isn’t it a problem this, that you are the DPM, that job requires a certain amount of dignity in its holder. The view is that you have lost that dignity, that in the views of many people, you have become a bit of a figure of fun. You know that as well as I do. Is it tenable that you should hold on under these circumstances?
John Prescott: Well, I mean, others have to make judgments about that, I’ll try to do my job. I can’t avoid that. They will make it clear to me in one way or another right, and I have to take all these things into account. But you became a bit of a figure of fun from not long ago when you made that speech and somebody leaked it John, you know the fierce storm that…
John Humphrys: I’m not the DPM.
John Prescott: No, well, no, but you act very much like it, I’m bound to say, but you are paid by the taxpayer, are you not?
John Humphrys: Well, I’m paid by the licence-payer, that is absolutely true.
John Prescott: You’re paid by the taxpayer, like me and therefore there’s always felt to be a certain obligation when you’re paid by the public sector. They will make a judgment about that John, I’ll do the job to the best of my ability, and that’s what I will do. Others can make judgement about it. But I know when I go round in the street I do think all this stuff by the press, the public are getting very wise to the kind of formula that’s going on at the moment. Somebody gets put in the paper like the Mail, you repeat it on your programme, as you did on that planning application, and people begin to worry, they talk and they ask you about it and then they begin to make a judgement. Of course, at the end of the day it’s always in the hands of the public because we’re elected officials. In my case I’m elected by the party also, so there are other people who have judgements and there’s also a process in the party if a party wants to get rid of officials that it’s selected, we have a constitution, a democratic one, that allows that. They are the mechanisms by which if they feel people are not carrying out the job properly, they can act. It’s pure democracy John, and I recognise it.
John Humphrys: Isn’t your situation a little different in that you can’t resign, you’re in an invidious position because if you did resign, your future is so closely, let me make this point if I may, your future is so closely tied in with that of Tony Blair, if you resigned there would have to be an election, then people would say, well since he’s gone we might as well get Tony Blair to go as well, have a double election, you’re tied in so tightly with Tony Blair that you can’t go.
John Prescott: The trouble with you John, is you read too many papers. You want to start talking to people who know what happens. If I resign it doesn’t mean there has to be an election. Read our constitution.
John Humphrys: You resign as deputy leader of the party, there’d have to be an election, wouldn’t there?
John Prescott: No there doesn’t. You just know John, you make all these allegations you read in the press before you come on the programme. If you want me to read out the constitution, I’ll do it. If I resign now, there doesn’t have to be an election, no, so you’re quite wrong.
John Humphrys: So it is possible that you could resign then, is it?
John Prescott: Well, I could resign, if I wanted to say I hadn’t got it, it’s always within my hands. I can also…
John Humphrys: But you’re not, you’re going to stay?
John Prescott: I’m staying as long as I believe I’m getting on with the job.
John Humphrys: How long do you think that’ll be?
John Prescott: You’ve moved off from something you didn’t know to more questions, and this programme…
John Humphrys: That’s what I’m paid to do, to ask you questions. How long are you going to stay in the job?
John Prescott: You’re 20 minutes in this interview, that’s more than you give anyone else and in fact to that extent I’m saying I’m getting on with the job, make no doubt about it. Take no notice the headlines in these papers, I always recognise it is the responsibilities of others that can make a decision about whether I’m worthy of support and a job in government, but while I’m doing it I’ll get on with the job, because what we’ve been doing for the unemployed for housing, for development, for regenerations [Thuds can be heard], and back to the Dome, turning a lousy bit of polluted land into 10,000 jobs, 24,000 houses, jobs and retail, it’s becoming the jewel of London and I tell you what, if it was done by an American Anschutz, I say thank you very much, you’ve helped us turn unemployment into jobs, homeless into houses, that’s what I was elected to do and by God, that’s the job I’ll get on with.
John Humphrys: John Prescott, many thanks.
