Young lives thrown away

Private Paul Lowe of the Black Watch was just 18. He didn't believe British troops should be in Iraq, but he had to go. His regiment is one rich in proud tradition but it has been marked down by Tony Blair's Government for the scrap-heap some time in the new year. But notwithstanding this death sentence, it was convenient to send the Black Watch into the Iraq danger zone near Baghdad so that poodle Tony could earn a pat on the head from his master, President George W. Bush.

It wasn't long after the regiment reached the area that three of its men were killed by a suicide car bomber. Private Lowe was one of them. The others were Sergeant Stuart Gray (31) and Private Scott McArdle (22). Scott was due to become a first-time father in January.

Paul Lowe's family were incensed. His tearful younger brother Craig, also serving in the Black Watch, said afterwards: "We think Bush is an a...hole for starting a war over nothing." And: "that's what Paul thought."

Meanwhile the uncle of Scott McArdle accused Bush and Blair of sending the men into a death trap. He said: "The boys were prepared to defend their country but not to go and fight other countries' wars."

Many of the German leaders at Nuremberg were sentenced to hanging, some on grounds that they waged "an aggressive war." We have a feeling that if such a fate were one day to befall Tony Blair there would be a great many people in this country who would be uncorking the bottles in grand celebration. Yet the probability is that Tone, when he finally steps down from the premiership that he has disgraced, will be making millions from the sale of his memoirs, speeches on the American lecture circuit and sundry lucrative deals lined up by shady business spivs for him and his abominable wife. Such is justice in the world we presently inhabit.

Another sell-out

As predicted as likely two months ago, the surrender of the Rover motor company to a Chinese takeover has just been confirmed. A 70 per cent share in the sole remaining British-owned volume car manufacturer is being sold to the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation for £1 billion.

This is a national humiliation which appears to have raised barely a murmur of concern at the level of government, where belief in the global economy seems to be so total that the question of who owns the dwindling number of factories in Britain is academic.

Rover, it will be recalled, was previously sold to the German BMW company but was bought back again for a nominal £10 by a group of four Midlands businessmen after that sell-out failed to improve its fortunes. This year its losses are expected to run to £100 million - a disaster not unconnected with the fact that it has a paltry three per cent share of UK car sales.

Just what is wrong with the British motor industry? The explanation is not simple, but is compounded of many factors. We in this magazine have consistently maintained that government in Britain should operate a policy of protection of its key manufacturing sectors, including motors, as well as ruling that they should be British-owned. This, we are the first to recognise, will not do away with the problems. It will merely be a start towards solving them. Poor performance by comparison with our competitors, in particular the Germans and French who run high-wage production plants, must be tackled by numerous initiatives aimed at raising standards. But the first requirement is a public and political will to bring about such regeneration. We see not the slightest sign of this at Westminster, wherever we look among the mainstream parties: all seem resigned to the idea that the de-industrialisation of the United Kingdom is something perhaps inevitable on account of worldwide economic trends, and that survival - if there is to be any at all - should be left to 'market forces'.

Plainly, this attitude has only led to yet further decline. It should be a matter of interest that the Shanghai company that is buying up Rover is owned by the Chinese Government. Not much sign of market forces at work there!

The casino project: The 'J' factor

National outrage greeted the announcement a few weeks ago of a government plan to attract various big-time 'American' and other overseas gambling companies to set up a network of casinos up and down Britain by way of a new Gaming Bill, which had its second reading last month. In an earlier draft of the plan a number of around 40 was mooted.

Furious opposition was soon encountered, and a great deal of it came from parliamentary backbenchers in Tony Blair's own party. No surprise. The project was an appalling one. It would turn many British cities and towns into replicas of Las Vegas. It would encourage a huge growth in gambling addiction - to be added to those addictions with which we are already plagued. It would attract a new gangster element into the country, if the American experience is anything to go by. It would bring in more prostitution to the affected areas. With the Bill's proposals to remove restrictions on players and the amounts of money they could bring into the casinos, new opportunities for money-laundering rackets would be provided.

Some investigative journalism unearthed suspicious contacts between New Labour and some of the Czars of the gaming industry. It was reported that Blair's Middle Eastern envoy Lord Levy had met with Lloyd Nathan, the European head of MGM Mirage, one of the biggest companies stateside. The top man in MGM Mirage is Steve Wynn, who despite his name belongs to the same tribe as Mr. Nathan.

It has transpired that Tony Blair's chief 'fixer' in the moves to bring the mainly US-based gambling giants into this country is one Gideon Hoffman, who coincidentally (or perhaps not) is also ethnically related to Mr. Nathan and Lord Levy.

Further research into the 'American' gambling industry, easily managed 'online', reveals a list of hundreds of names which look as if they come from the roll call of a synagogue. In fact, Las Vegas was mainly put on the map by Jewish gambling magnates, with major roles played by gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, though Italian 'firms' did have some input as well.

The latest is that, as a result of huge nationwide protest, the large casinos our Government is planning to licence over here has been reduced in number to eight - for the time being. But this is a space that must most certainly be carefully scrutinised by Blair-watchers. The story so far reveals again how, in whatever area we look, our Prime Minister seems to get himself tied up to an extraordinary degree with the members of a certain ethnic community. What a pity that for focus on this people have to rely on small-circulation 'samizdat' journals like Spearhead instead of being to read about it all in the national press!

Mr. Bush's special people

In October, President Bush signed an extraordinary document which, in effect, made official what everyone has for a long time known to be fact. This was what is known as the 'Global Anti-Semitism Bill.' It sets up a new office in Washington, manned by Jews and financed by the American taxpayer, which will specialise in spying on so-called 'anti-Semites' all over the world, including the USA itself. By 'anti-Semites', of course, is meant just about everyone whom the Jews label as such, quite regardless of whether they give any reason for people to suppose that they intend to do Jews any harm. They include, of course, all those who question whether Jewish power in countries like the United States and Britain is beneficial to the host peoples, or whether Jewish influence has played an undue part in propelling our countries into the Iraq war and subsequent occupation.

One of the projects undertaken by this office will be the spreading of pro-Jewish propaganda in schools around the world. Apparently, these people are not satisfied that there is enough of this already!

One of the consequences of this Bill, and the policy it signifies, is that in future the United States will assess its relations with all other countries in accordance with their treatment of their Jewish citizens.

The Bill was passed into law by the House of Representatives on the 18th October. It had already been passed by the Senate.

Are you shocked at this latest development? If you are, be careful. They'll be watching you!

Sticky fingers in the former USSR

While we are on the subject of the above, it is worth mentioning that Tony's transatlantic friend and boss has been taking time from his meddling all over the Middle East to focus attention on two former Soviet republics, the Ukraine and Belarus. What goes on there, apparently, is considered a legitimate concern of Mr. Bush.

The President does not approve of Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who recently won a referendum extending his 10-year rule. According to a report in The Times of the 22nd October, Bush proclaimed:-

'At a time when freedom is advancing all over the world. Aleksandr Lukashenko and his Government are turning Belarus into a régime of oppression in the heart of Europe. There is no place in a Europe whole and free for a régime of this kind.'

Leaving aside the President's vagueness over geography, this would seem to any rational person an outrageous interference in the affairs of a country which poses no threat whatever to the United States. But Bushy won't leave it there. Not only is he giving backing to the main opposition to Lukashenko in Belarus, but he is also poking his fingers into an internal conflict in the Ukraine, where the incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is being challenged for the presidency by a rival, Viktor Yuschenko. Mr. Bush wants Yuschenko to unseat Yanukovych for numerous reasons, but mainly because the former's policies are more friendly towards the New World Order. He is seen as a pro-western free-marketeer and wants the country to join NATO, whereas Yanukovich is against this and has leanings towards closer ties with Russia.