Research, Information and Communications Unit

The Research, Information and Communications Unit is part of the HO's Office for Security and Counter Terrorism.

I'm still looking the text of the list of 'banned' words issued to ministers, as mentioned by The Sun and others.

MINISTERS have been BANNED from using words like Islamist and fundamentalist - in case they offend Muslims.

An eight-page Whitehall guide lists words they should not use when talking about terrorism in public and gives politically correct alternatives.

They are told not to refer to Muslim extremism as it links Islam to violence. Instead, they are urged to talk about terrorism or violent extremism.

Fundamentalist and Jihadi are also banned because they make an "explicit link" between Muslims and terror.

All to be expected.

Also picked up by The All-Seeing Eye.

Scarlett's Dodgy Munition Weapons Lie

Iraq inquiry: Sir John Scarlett says he was not put under pressure by Number 10 over 'dodgy dossier' And if you believe that...

Sir John also conceded it would have been better if his report had been more specific about the 45-minute claim to make clear it referred to munitions not weapons.

But he said there was no 'conscious intention to manipulate the language or to obfuscate or to create a misunderstanding'.

...which is an obvious and disgraceful lie. Using the word 'weapons' when they meant 'munitions' is a blatant attempt to mislead.

Scarlett also said he had seen a draft of Blair's foreword

and knew what it said but had never considered it his role to alter Mr Blair's wording.

'My memory at the time was that this was something which was the Prime Minister's and was going out under his submission so it was different from the attention that I had paid to the wording of the dossier,' he told the panel.

He admitted that it might have been better if the political argument had not been put at the start of the report, which gave rise to the claim that Saddam could launch WMDs against British bases within 45 minutes.

Weasel words - the claim about the 45 minutes was either true or not; it had nothing to do with the political argument.

Considering that we were about to embark on an unjustified and disastrous war, Scarlett should have shown more integrity and courage, but that would have been too much to expect from the current political classes.

Just in case your memory needs refreshing on Blair's own words to the House of Commons on this matter, this is what he said:

I am aware, of course, that people will have to take elements of this on the good faith of our intelligence services, but this is what they are telling me, the British Prime Minister, and my senior colleagues. The intelligence picture that they paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability...

The Government dossier confirms that Iraq is self-sufficient in biological weapons and that the Iraqi military is ready to deploy those, and chemical weapons, at some 45 minutes' notice.

A heap of festering lies.

Britain Shafted For French Farmers

Stitch-up? Now France excludes Britain from special talks on EU farm spending.

The French government has summoned a meeting of what it called the "G22" - senior ministers from 22 European states - in an attempt to influence a rethink of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

However, it has not invited Britain or other so-called "reform nations" - the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Malta - all of which have argued for a full overhaul of EU farm subsidies.

Watching our incompetent ministers and officials being outwitted by our EU 'colleagues' in France and elsewhere is an ambarrassing reminder of why we should pull out of the whole damn show. Blair and Brown surrendered a big chunk of our rebate a couple of years back in exchange for 'promises' made by those colleagues to review the Common Agricultural Policy. In believing EU lies they showed themselves to be inept and spineless.

The French are not our colleagues or our allies. Neither are the Germans. The EU is a Franco-German stitch-up. The French in particular are keen to destroy London as Europe's financial capital, while all the Eurocrats are keen to see Britain reduced and dismantled. And they want our money as well.

We have our politicians to thank for this shameful situation.

The New Labour Jugend

Demos have released a new publication, Service Nation, which has (of course) found favour with the commissars of New Labour (Ministers back 'national service' from age seven).

citizenship is not just about individual rights and legal status, but about participating in communities with a view to securing the common good: we are citizens not only of a polity but of a community.

Thus civic service encapsulates the idea that there should be an expectation that citizens contribute to their communities by ‘giving something back’ at one – or several – points in their lives. It differs from volunteering, which is more commonly perceived as an add-on to citizenship: something that is morally desirable but not an integral or implied expectation in return for the benefits that citizenship confers.

So there you have it: compulsory civic service, courtesy of the state. Nothing to do with differing or more traditional views; nothing to do with individual responsibility, freedom or choice; just pure statism at its most nauseatingly self-righteous and authoritarian.

New Labour's 'citizenship' agenda is nothing more than state propaganda and indoctrination, an attempt to create a passive, compliant and uncritical populace. What that citizenry will be serving, though, is not their own country, but the state and its apparatchiks.

(The Demos publication is available on our Scribd site).

Booed In Normandy, Shunned In Brum

Our great leader doesn't have the common touch, especially when it comes to the miltary.

Having been booed by veterans in Normandy earlier in the year, he has now been shunned by wounded soldiers at home:

Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.

More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.

The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.

Brown: deluded, dangerous and in denial.