UK sends more warplanes to Libya

15 July 2011 Last updated at 10:51 GMT There will now be 16 British Tornados deployed to Libya The UK is sending four more Tornado warplanes to support the Nato mission in Libya, in addition to 12 aircraft it has already deployed.

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said the aircraft were well equipped for surveillance and reconnaissance.

"It is important to have this capability available," he said.

Earlier this week, Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on members to provide more aircraft to protect Libyan civilians.

Nato said its warplanes had conducted more than 5,000 air missions since the action began in March.

Meanwhile in Turkey, Arab and Nato diplomats are meeting to consider the next phase of their campaign in Libya. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague are part of the group of 15 gathering in Istanbul.

It is the fourth meeting of the Libya Contact Group since March.

The conflict in Libya began with protests against Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime and has escalated into a bloody battle for territory between government and rebel forces in the west and east of the oil-rich country.

The uprising, inspired by events in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt and sparked by the arrest of a Libyan human rights campaigner, began in February. Many were killed as authorities tried to suppress the revolt.

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Press inquiry 'overdue' - Blair

14 July 2011 Last updated at 16:19 GMT News International backed Labour throughout Mr Blair's time in office Tony Blair has said a review of the way politicians interact with the media is overdue, claiming he was "uncomfortable" with the relationship while he was prime minister.

Mr Blair told the BBC there should be an "honest debate" about the issue with each side setting out their views.

But he declined to talk about his own relationship with News International.

As Labour leader he courted the Murdoch press but attacked the media in general shortly before leaving power.

Mr Blair welcomed the public inquiry into press standards, regulation and Westminster's dealings with the media to be launched in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World.

'Free and vigorous'

He insisted the media must remain "free, independent, vigorous and investigative" and be allowed to pursue stories in a "proper way".

But he said it was time for a "open and frank" rethink of their relationship with politicians in light of recent events and technological changes which had revolutionised news gathering and reporting and the way people consumed information.

"I think the sensible thing is get it all out and let's have a honest debate about it.

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I think most of us who have been at the top in public life over the last few decades have been uncomfortable with this relationship and the way it works”

End Quote Tony Blair "I have wanted this for a long time. I think most of us who have been at the top in public life over the last few decades have been uncomfortable with this relationship and the way it works."

While both sides had their own needs, Mr Blair said politicians still remained dependent on the media for speaking to the public and communicating policy.

"The sensible thing now is to have an investigation which we put everything out there and the politicians explain their problems when they are dealing with incredibly powerful media people."

In opposition and then as prime minister, Mr Blair was often accused by critics of getting too close to News International - the owner of The Sun and The Times which supported Labour through his decade in No 10.

'Feral beast'

In his autobiography, he said he grew to admire Rupert Murdoch - boss of parent firm News Corp - despite the media mogul's right-wing views, describing him as an "outsider" who had "balls".

Shortly before stepping down from office in 2007, Mr Blair took the press to task for what he said was their cut-throat competition and obsession with 24-hour news cycles and personality politics.

He compared the industry to a "feral beast", saying it "tore people and reputations to bits" and threatened politicians' "capacity to take the right decisions for the country".

But despite singling out specific titles for criticism, he did not highlight any Murdoch publications.

"I did not get much support at the time (for the speech)," he said. "But this is a major issue."

Mr Blair, who did not own a mobile phone while he was prime minister, has described the recent revelations about hacking as sickening.

His successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown, launched a scathing attack on News International on Wednesday, accusing it of "illegal activity on an industrial scale".

He also sought to distance himself from the company, claiming he did not have a "cosy or comfortable" relationship with its newspapers despite his own efforts to cultivate them.

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SNP concern at imminent RAF cuts

16 July 2011 Last updated at 23:05 GMT Closures could mean a cut in RAF personnel of up to 74%, the Scottish government claims The Ministry of Defence could be about to announce "massive and disproportionate" RAF cuts in Scotland, according to the Scottish government.

The SNP said it believed an announcement on plans to close a second Scottish military airbase was imminent.

Under a UK government review, RAF Kinloss is already to be axed with the cancellation of the Nimrod contract.

Concern remains over the fates of Lossiemouth and Leuchars.

Westminster SNP leader Angus Robertson said the joint closure of RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth would constitute a 74% cut in RAF personnel in Scotland.

The joint closure of RAF Kinloss and RAF Leuchars would constitute a 53% cut, he added.

"Our defence communities are braced for bad news, they have been treated appallingly by the UK government throughout this process, and they now deserve certainty over their future," he said.

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No other part of the country is facing such devastation and Prime Minister Cameron needs to understand this”

End Quote Ewan McGregor Actor "There is no strategic or defence reason why the Ministry of Defence should consider massive and disproportionate cuts to the RAF in Scotland, while concentrating basing, spending and manpower in the south of England.

"Given Scotland's geographic location and the increasing importance of the high north it makes no sense for Whitehall to make swinging cuts to capability, personnel and bases.

"How can a cut of up to 74% in Scotland be justified?"

Mr Robertson contrasted Scotland's situation with Nordic countries, claiming they had similar strategic priorities and yet maintained more airbases and more aircraft.

Actor Ewan McGregor and his brother Colin, who is a former Tornado pilot, have added their voices to the appeal to save RAF Lossiemouth.

'No sense'

Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge star Ewan, who is originally from Crieff, said: "It is simply unimaginable for RAF Lossiemouth to be closed as an airbase in addition to RAF Kinloss only a few miles away.

"No other part of the country is facing such devastation and Prime Minister Cameron needs to understand this.

"Anyone who has been to the north of Scotland understands how important this is.

"Having had the good fortune to fly in a Tornado with Colin I know how critical the retention of RAF Lossiemouth is for the whole region."

His brother, who has just returned from Afghanistan where he visited 617 Squadron, added: "RAF Lossiemouth is the most capable military airbase in northern Europe and it makes no sense to close it."

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Visas plan for Yemeni UK arrivals

14 July 2011 Last updated at 14:59 GMT Emerging counter-terrorism threats to the UK prompted the new rules, Theresa May said All Yemeni citizens travelling through the UK on long-haul flights will need a visa, even if they are in transit, it has been announced.

Home Secretary Theresa May said Yemen was of "real and pressing concern to the international community".

From Thursday, Yemeni citizens need a visa before travelling to the UK, even if they are in transit and planning to arrive and leave from the same airport.

On Monday, the UK terror threat level reduced from "severe" to "substantial".

Mrs May said that since the introduction of the Direct Airside Transit Visa (DATV) regime, a number of countries had been added to a list of those requiring clearance.

'Pressing concern'

"This has been done in response to emerging counter-terrorism threats to the UK," she said.

"Recent events have highlighted Yemen as being of real and pressing concern to the international community.

"We feel that imposing a DATV regime on those Yemeni citizens who are travelling through the UK is a sensible and proportionate response to the threat."

The Detroit bomber, who tried to blow up an aeroplane on Christmas Day 2009, was trained in Yemen, Mrs May said.

And bombs disguised as toner cartridges which were found on board planes at East Midlands airport and in Dubai last October were also sent from Yemen, she added.

Mrs May this week reduced the terror threat level for the UK.

The new alert level meant the risk of a terrorist attack was considered to be a "strong possibility" and "might well occur without further warning"," she said.

"The change in the threat level does not mean that the overall threat has gone away," added Mrs May.

"There is still a real and serious threat to the UK and I would ask the public to remain ever vigilant."

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Is a wedding a meeting?

14 July 2011 Last updated at 08:44 GMT In May 2010 David Cameron met Rupert Murdoch for what Downing Street calls a "general meeting".

That is on the list of prime ministerial meetings already routinely revealed by the government.

Mr Cameron has now promised there will be a new era of greater transparency for the relationship between politicians and the media.

Yet, as with many aspects of this complex, rapidly changing business, the eventual implications of this pledge are far from clear.

The prime minister told the House of Commons yesterday that he wanted ministers to record and publish "all meetings with newspaper and other media proprietors, senior editors and executives - regardless of the nature of the meeting".

This would be achieved by amending the ministerial code which governs the conduct of government ministers.

The information will then be published quarterly. The same will also apply to special advisers and permanent secretaries. And he added helpfully: "The Opposition might also want to adopt this practice to ensure a cross-party approach."

If fully pursued this would have a wide-ranging impact. It goes well beyond the current disclosure regime and in some respects beyond what happens under the Freedom of Information Act.

Working lunch

Under the ministerial code as it stands, ministers must reveal meetings with external organisations. Details are issued on a quarterly basis, although it looks to me as if the latest publicly available records cover December 2010, which doesn't seem fully in the spirit of transparency.

Some meetings are more publlic than others

This will tell you not only about the Cameron-Murdoch meeting in May 2010, but that other people he met formally last year included Bill Gates, Bob Geldof, Nick Ross and Brooke Kinsella.

Details of hospitality received by ministers' special advisers are also disclosed already. You can see that some of this appears to include being bought lunch by media organisations (including the BBC).

The method of disclosure in numerous separate files makes it a rather time-consuming and tedious business to compile a comprehensive overview across government over a long period, but the material is there.

David Cameron's pledge would go further than this by including all meetings (not just hospitality) for special advisers and - significantly - by also covering permanent secretaries, the top grade of the civil service.

Slumber party

However you could request this currently under the Freedom of Information Act. Where the new policy may go beyond FOI is through the phrase "regardless of the nature of the meeting", if that is interpreted rigorously.

This is because freedom of information applications may be turned down (as I know from experience) when they relate to meetings which are considered to be informal, private, social or party political, rather than formal meetings on government business of which some record is held.

So will we now be told about every wedding, "slumber party" and other social gatherings at which ministers and media executives mix?

Or does going to someone's wedding not count as a "meeting"?

Or what if the meeting is with a near-neighbour in, say, Chipping Norton and you pop round one day over Christmas for a bite of lunch - is that a "meeting"?

Uneasy question

In other words we don't yet know how much further transparency this will all bring to the tricky relationship between politicians and the media. That will depend very much on how many of the terms in the prime minister's statement are to be interpreted:

Will it be strictly "regardless of the nature of the meeting"?How long does a conversation have to be before it becomes a "meeting"?In this age of new media, who exactly is a "proprietor"? And, for many journalists, one important and possibly uneasy question will be: Who is a "senior editor"?

Working journalists who frequently meet ministers and special advisers - and even occasionally permanent secretaries - in all sorts of formal and informal contexts may be wondering about that now.

If implemented this will take the disclosure of politician-media relations well beyond that required for any other industry. But then the media does play a very special role.

And as yet there is no suggestion that the full content of the conversation will be automatically disclosed - now that really would take transparency to a very different level.

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Murdochs to face MPs over hacking

14 July 2011 Last updated at 19:59 GMT James and Rupert Murdoch initially declined an invitation to appear before MPs next Tuesday News Corporation's Rupert and James Murdoch have agreed to appear before MPs to answer questions on the phone-hacking scandal on Tuesday.

The Commons media committee had issued summonses after the men initially declined to appear next week.

News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks had agreed to attend.

Meanwhile, Neil Wallis, ex-News of the World executive editor, was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.

Mr Wallis, also a former member of the Editors' Code of Practice Committee, is the ninth person to have been arrested since the Metropolitan Police launched a fresh phone-hacking investigation in January.

The Murdoch-owned News of the World (NoW) was shut down last week amid the mounting scandal over the alleged hacking of phones belonging to crime victims, politicians and celebrities.

In the US, it is being reported that the FBI is investigating alleged hacking of the phones of 9/11 victims by the News of the World.

A growing group of senators and a senior Republican congressman have been calling for the authorities to investigate the allegations.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who wrote to the attorney general to urge an investigation, said the claims newspapers sought to "exploit information about... personal tragedies for profit" needed to be probed.

Continue reading the main story

I hope that in amongst the theatre that actually we do start to get some answers”

End Quote Martin Moore Director, Media Standards Trust 'Serious questions' On Tuesday, the UK's Commons culture, media and sport committee had invited the Murdochs and Mrs Brooks to give evidence at the House of Commons about the phone-hacking scandal.

In a statement, the MPs said that serious questions had arisen about the evidence Mrs Brooks and Andy Coulson, both of them former News of the World editors, gave at a previous hearing in 2003.

In his initial response to committee chairman John Whittingdale, Rupert Murdoch said that although he was not available on Tuesday, he was "fully prepared" to give evidence to the judge-led inquiry announced by the government.

James Murdoch offered to appear on an alternative date, the earliest of which was 10 August, while Mrs Brooks said she "welcomed the opportunity" to give evidence.

But after the committee issued summonses on Thursday morning for the men to appear, a few hours later News Corporation announced that the pair would attend the committee meeting.

Continue reading the main story Culture, practices and ethics of the pressTheir relationship with the policeFailure of current regulationContacts made and discussions between national newspapers and politiciansWhy previous warnings about press misconduct were not heededIssue of cross-media ownershipIn a letter to Mr Whittingdale confirming their attendance, James Murdoch wrote: "I hope that it is clear that we are committed to ensuring that the issues that have affected the News of the World are fully investigated and dealt with appropriately and robustly."

But he went on to warn the committee against encroaching on the public inquiry and police investigation of the phone-hacking allegations.

"We have been advised that, in the light of the fact that there are to be multiple reviews of the issues, this does carry the risk of prejudicing other judicial proceedings and in particular the ongoing police investigation and any potential subsequent prosecutions," he wrote.

"I would therefore respectfully ask you to take the utmost care in ensuring that the committee hearing does not run any risk of prejudicing that investigation and subsequent prosecutions."

The summonses were the first to be issued by a parliamentary select committee for almost 20 years, since the sons of the late newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell were ordered to appear in 1992.

Committee chairman John Whittingdale said: "It will be the first time that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch, and indeed, Rebekah Brooks will have answered questions about this.

John Whittingdale: "There will be a whole range of questions people will want asking"

"They will be appearing before a parliamentary committee so I would hope they would take it seriously and they will give us the answers that not just we want to hear but I think an awful lot of people will want to hear," he told Sky News.

Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust charity which campaigned for a public inquiry into phone-hacking, said the Murdochs' appearance before MPs would be "remarkable theatre".

"But I hope that in amongst the theatre that actually we do start to get some answers to the questions that most people will be asking," he said.

Menezes cousin

London mayor Boris Johnson is meeting Met Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, to discuss the hiring of Neil Wallis as a consultant for the force, for which the journalist was paid ?24,000.

Neil Wallis, a former executive editor of the News of the World, was arrested at 0630 BST on Thursday

It is understood that Home Secretary Theresa May has written to Sir Paul to get the "full picture" on the circumstances surrounding his appointment.

And the Home Affairs Select Committee has also written to ask him to give further evidence on the matter next Tuesday.

As part of the contract, Mr Wallis advised the Commissioner's Office, and the Directorate of Public Affairs and Specialist Operations, working closely with Assistant Commissioner John Yates.

Police are contacting about 30 suspected phone-hacking victims a week, the BBC understands, after investigations identified some 4,000 possible targets of the tactic.

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot dead by police in July 2005, says the details of the mobile phone of his cousin were found in documents seized by police.

In other developments:

On Wednesday, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, whose UK arm - News International - owns the Sun, the Times, the Sunday Times and the now closed News of the World, dropped a bid to take complete control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

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Troop pull-out 'may be dangerous'

17 July 2011 Last updated at 02:31 GMT The MoD is criticised for failing to warn ministers of a change in tactics in Helmand in 2006 Pulling British troops out prematurely from Afghanistan could "dangerously weaken" remaining forces, MPs said.

The Commons Defence Committee said David Cameron's plan to withdraw by the end of 2014 could undermine the international coalition's strategy.

And the MPs said they were still not yet convinced the troops now in Afghanistan had sufficient helicopters.

Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said while there was "still much to do", the pull-out target was achievable.

On a visit earlier this month to Afghanistan, the prime minister announced the withdrawal of 500 troops, cutting total force numbers to 9,000 by September 2012.

He said he wants British soldiers to end combat operations in the country by 2014.

This week, coalition troops expected to begin the formal process of transfer of power to Afghan control - due to be completed by the end of 2014.

But in their report, the MPs say there are still concerns about how ready the Afghan national army and police are to take over security and that withdrawal of British troops must depend on the situation on the ground.

They also said that the government's scope for any more troop reductions was "necessarily limited" in the short term, as a more significant withdrawal would have to involve a complete battle group - a "dangerous move".

"It is important that the government's clear determination to withdraw combat forces should not undermine the military strategy by causing the Afghan population to fear that the international coalition might abandon them or by allowing the Taliban and others to think that all they have to do is bide their time until International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) withdraws," the report said.

'Fighting for their lives'

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is criticised for failing to warn ministers of the dangers facing troops when they were first deployed to Helmand province in 2006 under Tony Blair's government - a time when British soldiers were still fighting in Iraq.

The MPs say that for three years British forces lacked the necessary numbers and equipment after senior commanders in the UK told the then defence secretary John (now Lord) Reid that those on the ground had what they needed.

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What happened here left our troops exposed and at risk in a way that was really unacceptable. ”

End Quote James Arbuthnot Defence committee chairman The MPs said it appeared "unlikely" commanders had sought ministerial authorisation for a change of tactics which saw British troops "fighting for their lives".

This tactical change should have gone to cabinet for endorsement, the MPs said.

"We are disturbed by the fact that the secretary of state was being told that commanders on the ground were content with the support they were being given in Helmand when clearly they were not.

"We regard it as unacceptable that hard pressed forces in such a difficult operation as Helmand should have been denied the necessary support to carry out the mission from the outset, and that this shortage had not been brought to the attention of ministers."

Committee chairman James Arbuthnot MP said: "What happened here left our troops exposed and at risk in a way that was really unacceptable.

"That has to be put right; there's got to be better communication between the military and politicians - the military have got to be absolutely careful not to suppress warnings from commanders on the ground."

'Mistakes made'

The MPs also said they are still not convinced that troops now in Afghanistan have enough helicopters after previous assurances from the government were later proved wrong.

David Cameron has said he wants British soldiers to end combat operations in the country by 2014.

Responding to the report, Dr Fox said it was clear that mistakes had been made in the lead-up to and during the deployment to Helmand in 2006.

He said troop levels had increased since 2009, as had the number of helicopters available to Isaf forces.

He added that Isaf was now ahead of targets to build and train the Afghan army and police.

"While there is much still to do, we are on track to achieve our target of ending UK combat operations in Afghanistan by 2015," he said.

"We will not abandon Afghanistan and as the prime minister has made clear the UK will work to further develop the ability of Afghans to look after their own affairs by leading the Afghan National Army Officer Academy amongst other things.

"My highest priority is ensuring that our service personnel are given all the support and equipment they need to do the job asked of them."

Robert Fox, from the Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College London, told the BBC that the greatest focus should be on the political mistakes rather than the actions of soliders.

"The responsibility in the end is political. What worries me about this report and it's not generated by it at all - it's doing its job - is that now there's a feeding frenzy: let's blame the soldiers, let's push off, it's all over, it's their fault, they got it wrong.

"This is too simplistic and it's very dangerous."

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