I found a very polite and articulate
15-year-old Tory canvasser ringing my doorbell last night to tell me
about the virtues of my new Tory parliamentary candidate, Zac Goldsmith...

MORE SNOW

the Foreign Office and the Association of Chief Police
Officers have today strongly defended any suggestion of a cover-up over
the report into the CIA kidnap operation and flights passing through
the UK. All this as we discover a CIA linked aircraft landed in Britain
just last weekend.

The Foreign Office was quick to get onto us last night at the
suggestion that the government might have interfered with police inquiries into
whether the UK did or did not turn a blind eye to the US programme to
kidnap and torture Al Qaeda suspects around the world.

Last night I put it to the Lib Dem's Vince Cable that, since the police
didn't ask either the secret services or the airports about this, their
inquiry was either useless or they'd been leant on by the government.
He agreed, live on air.

Today both the police and Foreign Office have denied that there's been
any improper pressure brought to bear. The police are now saying it
wasn't an investigation - merely a 'review'.

So a police review is somehow better than a police investigation? Still
no interviews from either the Association of Chief Police Officers or
the government on this - behaviour that hardly instils confidence in
their vehement denials.

snowmails

More Snow terror

Terror raid: Unanswered questions
====================================

Our man Simon Israel continues to turn exclusive insights into the
strange goings on in east London which resulted in a major police raid and
claims of chemical weapons and highly dangerous individuals.

Four days on, and as yet nothing has been said to substantiate the
'very specific intelligence' which prompted the raid. Mindful of the
possible community consequences, the police have been briefing that they had
no choice but to act upon that intelligence: public safety, they say,
was and is their top priority.

More: http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-storypage.jsp?id=776110

London Bomb attacks report
=========================

The report into the 7 /7 attack last year says the police turned off
the entire mobile phone network by mistake and that if such an attack
occurred again today matters would be much the same. There is however a
major new security digital network being setup which should be up and
running by 2007.

The inquiry makes a series of criticisms of 'unacceptable' failings in
the adequacy of the response, but also notes individual heroism that
day.

More: http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-storypage.jsp?id=776111

SNOW TERROR

Nightclub plot described
=======================

It has been a difficult trial to follow. The defendants are seven young
British men of Pakistani-origin, and the allegations are myriad but one
centre piece has been a plot to use ammonium nitrate to blow up a London
nightclub, the Ministry of Sound.

Other alleged potential bombing targets were the Bluewater shopping
centre and trains. The court has heard that an elaborate surveillance
operation tracked the alleged terror cell for months, bugging cars and
houses resulting in thousands of hours of audio tapes, and also CCTV
footage.

Today for the first time, pictures of the defendants have been released
and the jury also today heard a surveillance tape purporting to be that
of the plotters talking about potential targets, and the consequences
of blowing the club up.

"We won’t be blamed for killing innocent people, those slags dancing
around", one of the men on the tape is heard saying. "Blow the whole
thing up" and another chimes in: "That’s what I am saying."

The details are chilling, the prosecution is alleging that the people
on trial are part of a significant British terror cell. We have the full
story tonight at seven.

snowmails

SNOW RENDITION

Mr Blair and Rendition
==================

I raised the matter of 'extraordinary rendition' with the PM, in his
morning press conference. He didn't seem much interested in finding out
about it, has no worries about our allies, the Americans. So maybe it's
all a storm in a tea-cup - and maybe it's not...


snowmails

SNOW LIKES FUDGE

I love the guy. Gave me hope watching his program when there was none for many long years but if I had a piece of fudge for every time the geezer used the word "fudge" I'd have a nice little bag of fudge by now.

Fudging at the UN
==================

I can confess that I lobbied hard to go to this epic United Nations
summit in New York with 170 leaders at the biggest gathering the world has
ever seen. But my editor knows better than me, he can smell a bad story
a mile off.

Any great idealistic hopes we may have had that in some way this great
organisation was going to be rebooted for the better of humankind is
out of the window. The odour of stale cooking wafts from Second Avenue,
New York, and the flavour is fudge, yip, that distinctive smell of UN
fudge.

Jonathan Rugman is there braving the cooking pots and the cant, or to
be more precise, the can't, including an uninspiring speech from the
President of the lone super power.

Jon Snow snowmails

Here's more than a whiff:

Galloway: "you know Hitchens you are a court jester at the court of the bourbon bushes"

Hitchens counters: "I suppose Mr Galloway we have to congratulate you for being absolutely consistent in your 100% support for unmentionable thugs and criminals"

It was the grapple in the Big Apple.

For almost two hours, Gorgeous George and the intellectual scruff his friends call Hitch hurled abuse at one another, British political theatre of the kind Americans rarely see.The two men continued to slug it out. Hitchens had this assault on Galloway's links with the Saddam regime:

"How can a man who is a business partner with this regime show their face in a city like this? The man's search for a tyrannical fatherland never ends. The Soviet Union's let him down. Albania's gone. The Red Army's out of Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia. The hunt persists!"

And Galloway on blisteringly good form accusing Hitchens of betraying the British left by supporting the Iraq war.

Galloway: "What you have witnessed. is something unique in natural history. The first ever metamorphosis from a butterfly back into a slug. You did write like an angel, but now you work for the devil and damn you and all your works."

from channel 4 snowmails

watch channel 4 news report here

ITS SNOW USE, I TOLD YOU...

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Blears takes message to Moslems
===============================

All this as the government sends Home officer minister Hazel Blears to
the northwest on a reassurance mission for Moslem communities. So did
she reassure them over the touchy subject of perceptions that the US and
UK are killing thousands of Moslems around the world? Apparently not.
Apparently she would not discuss it. So how do you reassure people who
are angry without addressing their anger?

I hope to get an explanation from Hazel Blears this evening - no word
as yet. Her opposition counterpart has already said today he can pretty
much understand why people want to blow themselves up. Shades of Cherie
Blair saying she understands the despair of Palestinian suicide
bombers...

Snowmails

Upstaged in England

Though there are strict rules about impartiality in the news in Britain, the anchors of Channel 4 and the BBC have taken the e-mail-the-audience idea to a much more entertaining place, making their U.S. counterparts look like mush-mouthed goody two-shoes.

Paul Carr, who is editor of the snarky e-newsletter The Friday Thing, is an unabashed fan of Channel 4's anchor Jon Snow (they call them "newsreaders" or "presenters" in England -- arguably a more apt term). Carr gushed in a recent article in the U.K. Guardian, calling Snow the best newsreader in Britain, and saying his Snowmail dispatches were "brilliant insight into the mind of the great man....(and) his thinly disguised mistrust of American government officials." Carr believes the Net has revolutionized the relationship with anchors and their audience, making them almost "favorite news uncles" instead of the detached figures of the past.

Snow agreed on that point, telling me via e-mail that he could be much more candid about events on Snowmail than on the air. However, the anchor also told me that he could devote only about five or six minutes to the task each day, as it's done in a rush -- a stream of consciousness, either written or dictated. While there is editorial oversight on his dispatches, Snow admits some naughty bits have slipped through. "I've so far committed one serious contempt of court (undiscovered) and a couple of libels (equally so)," he wrote. "I named someone the judge said could not be named, and no one spotted it. Fortunately no repercussions but it was a warning. I won't elaborate..."

As for Snow's American counterparts, he says "none of them are as candid or open as ours...We let it all hang out!" Indeed

John Snow Channel 4 snowmail:

Africa back on the agenda
=========================

In Gleneagles $50 billion for Africa debt relief for 18 of the 60
states that need it.

High criticism from many NGOs who say there's nothing on trade -some
of them are directing their anger both at the G8 leaders, but also the
Make Poverty History Campaign.

That's because leading MPC campaigners - like Geldof and Bono (who is
on the show tonight) - are stressing that the deal, whilst
disappointing, is a much needed start.

Almost total failure to come up with anything meaningful on climate
change. The text actually lifts key phrases from George Bush's own
environment paper of 2002.

The result is being denounced by environmentalists both 'radical' and
'moderate' - as a disappointing failure.

==================


The whole fucking thing organised to convince Mr. Bush to say that climate change is a result of human action. Didn't work. You can just imagine Tony Blair-

"Say it George. Just say it. It'll be O.K. trust me. Just say it. Say it George. Then we will be the world leaders to go down in history as having said it. Say it. George....George...."

Debt cancellation wont work without trade agreements. Debt cancellation. No trade agrements. Half the worlds population watched a pop concert for this?

THIS IS THE WEEK WHEN POVERTY CAN BE BEATEN

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

If Live8 didn't work should half the worlds population do it like this instead?

John Snow's snowmail:

If today is a warning of anything, it is that our capacity to get
inside the minds of those who perpetrate these things is still woefully
limited. And our understanding of what gives rise to such hatred is still
less than embryonic.

SNOW MORE POVERTY

Will the US follow Brown's plan for Africa?
=======================================
Gordon Brown launches the detail of his 'Marshall' plan to aid Africa
and immediately flushes out the reality of Bush resistance to any of it.
But - just consider, might American arguments be RIGHT? Maybe, maybe
not: but given their own appalling record on doing much about either aid
or trade in the African continents despite their Aids work, they could
be said not to be doing the best for their own case.... ...Lucy Manning
investigates.

snowmails

SHUT THE FUCK UP BITCH

Krishnans snowmail

Hi there,

When is a million not a million?
==================================

Tonight we reveal how the police and Home Office are planning to deal
with what could be a million protesters heading to Edinburgh for the G8
protest. Anti-terror laws, public safety - everything is being reviewed
now there is the prospect of peaceful and more hardcore protesters all
arriving together.

Did I say a million? Ah, I meant to say a "figurative" million - or
that's what Live 8 organiser Midge Ure now says they meant when Bob Geldof
issued his call to march. I think there's a bit of back-pedalling going
on after howls of outrage from various Edinburgh big-wigs at the
thought of a million protesters converging on the city. We'll be talking to
Midge at seven.

Don't mean to carp on about Live 8 but there are a couple of other
aspects we'll be looking at tonight too. First of all: what can they
achieve? Will the G8 really be impressed enough to take radical and concrete
action? I've just been talking to former International Development
Secretary Clare Short who is pretty scathing about "vacuous" people having
fun and achieving nothing. Scathing too about Tony Blair and what's
really motivating his apparent support for Live 8. I can't help wondering
whether the PM fancies getting out his guitar. Never mind the Spice
Girls. What about an Ugly Rumours reunion?!

We'll also be looking at why the line up at the concert in London is
what Greg Dyke might have described as so "hideously white". Fine if you
like Dido and Coldplay. But what if you're a bit more black in your
musical tastes? The best the organisers could come up with was Mariah
Carey. Is Live 8 really doing anything to appeal to black Britons? Or is it
all a bit middle class and white?


Shut up Clare Short. The revolution is on. You cannot stop it. We know what to do. We know how to do it.

So DO IT. DO IT.

Project REVOLUTION SCOTLAND is ON.

And next year, poverty will be history.

wait a minute, oh dear...

err... SNOWBALL WARMING!

Businesses get together
======================

BP, BAA, HSBC - all big business names, have released a letter to try
to persuade Mr Blair into taking specific steps on global warming. Why?
and what are THEY doing to help? We've also seen a leaked draft of
climate change proposals for the G8 summit. We'll be examining it for what
it tells us about the government's expectations of what they might get
George Bush and the rest to agree to. Katie Razzall at 7.00.

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SNOW ADVICE

from Channel 4 snowmails

The Attorney General speaks
============================

Lord Goldsmith has finally broken his silence over the legality of the war on Iraq for the first time since Channel 4 News forced its publication in the last week of the General election campaign. We have of course been seeking to speak to the Attorney General about his legal advice - day after day after day we have been requesting an interview with him. But day after day after day comes the response, no thanks.

Today though he has spoken - in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. And there's one thing he said there that caught my eye. Until today it's always been the Attorney General's position that what was set out in his Parliamentary answer on 17th may 2003 was a summary of his legal advice - indeed, the position was that the answer was the only summary of his legal advice. But hang on - today he tells the Telegraph it wasn't a summary at all. Just to be clear about this, here's the quotes:

On November 6th 3003 (Hansard) he says of that written answer: "This was a summary of the legal position… rather than a detailed consideration of the legal issues"

And today he tells the Daily Telegraph: "I never said it was a summary. But it was a correct statement of my conclusion".

The issue about whether this was or was not a summary of the legal advice goes to the very heart of Lord Goldmith's role in issuing an advice with which practically the entire UK legal establishment disagreed.

It goes to the heart of whether he changed his mind radically in the space of ten days for no apparent legal reason; and it goes to the heart of whether Downing Street leant on him to change his advice.

(Doubtless Lord Goldsmith will want to listen to the Telegraph's tape of his interview, as he did with his session for Lord Butler's inquiry when the confidential transcript appeared to show that his final legal advice had been put together by Mr Blair's political advisor Sally Morgan and his then sentencing minister, Lord Falconer. That was then rejected when the tape of his Butler interview was said to have been checked and found to have been transcribed in error. Incidentally we have requested Lord Butler's tape under the Freedom of Information Act.)

Britain's leading academic expert on UK governance, Professor Peter Hennesey, damned Lord Goldsmith for what he castigated as his weakness and failure of integrity. In the Telegraph interview Lord Goldsmith has clearly been stung by the criticism and clearly wants people to take his words at face value. As the quotes above show, we are in the position tonight of having him question the Parliamentary record of his own view on his legal advice.

Naturally we have asked him to talk to us and clarify matters.

He has declined.

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SNOW SENATE

Hi there, a bit late today as it's so busy...

Strong denials from Respect MP Galloway
=======================================
Well George Galloway has done what was predicted. He's subjected a US
senate committee to a spectacle they may never experienced in their
political lives. Out on the front foot attacking on every quarter. Here's a
flavour:

"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald
Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell
him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."

No great light but much heat. It's the best kind of theatre and is a
real televisual spectacle, but there is no clear sense as to whether the
committee will now retract the allegations they made against Mr
Galloway, which he denied vigorously and in person this afternoon. Jonathan
Rugman at seven.

snowmails

MORE TORY WANKERS

This from Jon Snows snowmails

The Tories are naturally insisting that Michael Howard has not given up
hope of victory. Today he released a timetable for action - it includes
a promise to put "matron" in charge of hospital wards by June 6th.

----------------------- -------------

and who the FUCK put a whole tier of managment into the NHS who knew FUCK ALL about nursing? These wankers make me fucking sick. I don't like the Conservatives very much.

FUCKING IMMIGRANTS 1

For those who don't know I am a big fan of Jon Snow's snowmails:

Immigration, immigration, immigration
========================================

If 1997 was "education, education education" for Labour, the Tories have ensured that this one is "immigration, immigration, immigration".

Michael Howard is telling his constituents by letter tonight that asylum seekers have cost Kent County Council £258,914,943. He doesn't mention that the county has so far been re-imbursed by central government to the tune of some £240 million and that the rest is pending verification of the accounts, but let it pass.The big news tonight is that the CBI director, top dog in the British boss fraternity, has damned Tory plans to cap immigration. On Channel Four News tonight, Sir Digby Jones says in effect that British business is NOT thinking what Mr Howard's thinking on immigration.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Immigration is a big issue in the elections coming up over here. On this news program Digby Jones from the CBI (who I always hated) stated that a one percent rise in immigration brought a one-and a-half percent boost to the economy. Roughly translated as FUCK YOU Tory wankers.

THERES SNOW LAW

Jon Snow:

Guantanamo Four back in UK
============================

The violation of the rule of law in respect of four British citizens is
almost at an end. They have landed in Britain after their long flight
from what the Law Lords have officially described as a 'legal black
hole'.

They have been held in contravention of all international norms on Cuba
at the Guantanamo Bay naval base for three years. They say they have
been abused and tortured. They have certainly been held in, at times,
uncertain and isolated conditions.

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THERES SNOW MONEY!

This from John Snow at channel 4:

Money walks
================
From Iraq, a story of missing millions: we look into allegations that
$300 million sent to purchase weapons for the fledgling Iraqi Army has
disappeared. Accusations of corruption and embezzlement fly between
ministers and rivals.

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