The Londoner

David Cameron signs up to more joint military operations with Europe Under a deal reached in Brussels yesterday, leaders of all 27 EU countries promised to “strengthen” Europe’s ability to deploy troops “rapidly and effectively” in any future crisis. They committed to “systematically considering cooperation” across Europe whenever EU member states begin drawing up their national defence plans. Downing Street sources said the Prime Minister was “entirely happy” with the new arrangements. Britain already has a formal treaty with France for sharing defence capabilities, such aircraft carrier capacity. Government sources said the new agreement would pave the way for Britain to extend this collaboration beyond France to other countries. However, the Prime Minister immediately faced a backlash from his own Conservative MPs, who warned it was the first step to creating a European army. Th

HOME Secretary Theresa May was yesterday accused of “rank hypocrisy” after she said Scots independence would leave the country open to mass immigration. The Tory bungler’s claims came just months after she faced calls for her resignation when she admitted letting thousands of people into Britain without going through immigration or customs. But brass-necked May arrived at the Scottish Conservatives conference in Troon yesterday to warn an independent Scotland could face an immigration crisis because we could not protect our borders. She told the 300 delegates at the party’s spring meeting: “It completely defeats the SNP argument that Scotland would fare better with more control over its affairs when they seek to hand over so many serious areas of government elsewhere. Read the full story here. 

The Government is coming under increasing pressure to reveal if the UK is providing intelligence to help the US carry out drone strikes in Pakistan. Lawyers for the son of a man killed in such an attack have written to the foreign secretary William Hague wanting to know what the UK's policy is. Pakistan has called the strikes, which the US does not publicly acknowledge, a violation of its sovereignty. The Foreign Office says it will study the letter closely before responding. The law firm Leigh Day & Co is acting on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed earlier this year in a drone strike on a jirga - or council of elders - in north-west Pakistan . Richard Stein, head of human rights at the firm, said he wanted to know whether any information was being passed by agents of the UK Government to US Government forces to assist in the attacks. He said: "This legal action simply looks to ask a number of questions of our government regarding UK involvemen

By Sikander Hayat English press ’s hatred against the Muslims who are living in United Kingdom must be investigated in great detail.  The press spew venom at Muslims anytime it wants. You have to be blind to not see the openly biased coverage of any events involving Muslims . By providing circumstantial evidence and conducting a media trial for weeks on end is not justice but a try to imprint on the minds of general British public that “these guys” are cheats and in the process sow the seeds of mistrust among different communities of Britain. They did the same against the Jews just before the Second World War . Same is true for Muslims now. Let us see if the consequences of this hate mongering are different this time around because the history does repeat itself, sometimes. This situation must be investigated by the  Leveson Inquiry in great detail.  According to Wikipedia " The  Leveson Inquiry  is an ongoing  public inquiry  into the  culture , practices and  ethi

By Sikander Hayat  I am voting against Alternative Vote (AV) system because I believe that British National Party will be the biggest beneficiary of this system. With current anti immigration climate and very bad economy, BNP will become a party of choice for at least 10% of the population.  With that kind of vote in the bad, this party and its followers can do a lot of damage. 

In a year and half,  Mr Johnson  will be in the final days of his battle with Ken Livingstone to win re-election as Mayor of London. It would be catastrophic for Mr Johnson, and for the  Tory  cause in London, if he could be painted by Mr Livingstone as a mere  Cameron  stooge, meekly obeying the heartless diktats of Downing Street on housing benefit and on many other things too. The chances are that in the spring of 2012, when the pain of the spending cuts will still be more apparent than the gain, the Conservatives will be deeply unpopular. The Cameron-Osborne strategy is designed to ensure victory at a general election in 2015 , by which time several years of belt-tightening will have given way to the wonderful prospect of tax cuts. Mr Johnson is naturally not going to sit idly by and let himself become an unlamented victim of this masterplan. He knows he can only win in 2012 by showing that he is a more redoubtable champion for London than Mr Livingstone would be.

By Sikander Hayat British Pakistanis are searching for their identity. They are not accepted in their land of birth and nobody consider them a Pakistani in the land of their forefathers. In fact, they have nothing in common with their ancestors in Pakistan but at the same time they are rejected by the British mainstream . There is an extreme form of trust deficit between the old and new communities of Great Britain. First generation Pakistanis were a very afraid people . They were always careful not to hurt the feelings of the locals. They suffered abuse but did not say anything and kept on suffering in silence. Now that the second, third and in some cases even fourth generation of British Pakistanis is growing up in this country, things are different. They consider themselves equal to the average white British person and do not respond very kindly or understandingly to any abuse, discrimination or racism. After all they were born & bred in UK and they have no other land whi

BY SIKANDER HAYAT Finally, British media outlets have shown their true colours and are hunting Gordon Brown in a pack. They are trying to tear him down to pieces on what he said in Rochdale. Come one people, it is one thing to enforce the will of Rupert Murdoch, but entirely another to savagely attack someone who has served your country through a very difficult time. Shame on you salves of Murdoch.

By Sikander Hayat There is a debate in United Kingdom on allowing assisted suicide. This was sparked recently when in 2 different cases people took lives of their close relatives on the premise of helping them out of their misery. In my view assisted suicide debate is a precursor to a time when old people will be expected of to terminate themselves at a certain age. Religious arguments aside, there is a strong moral case for not letting people give up hope. In today’s life, which is full of pressures, where living sometimes for some people does feel like a burden, giving people a superficially easy way out will strip humans of their humanity. I believe that that anything like this must not be entered into law. In serious cases, where a case is very strong for such action must be looked at individually and no one should be allowed to take actions just because they have come to a conclusion which in their minds is best for them or their dear ones. R elated Posts: 1. Banning “Isl

By Sikander Hayat UK government has banned the outfit run by Anjum Chaudhry . The name of this outfit was “Islam for UK” and was connected with Al-Muhajiru n which is an umbrella organisation for these so called defenders of Muslim faith . These guys were planning to hold a march in Wootton Bassett (this is where bodies of fallen British soldiers are brought to pay respect), against the British army for their participation in Iraq & Afghanistan wars . Now personally I don’t think that Iraq ware was a just war but still a soldier who dies fighting for his country must not be disrespected be it British or Iraqi . What Anjum Chaudhry was trying to do was despicable because he has no sympathy for Muslims anywhere but he is a cheap & vulgar popularity seeker who wants to defame Islam, make life miserable for British Muslims and jeopardise community relations just for his own evil plans. If he was doing all this in a Muslim majority country , by now he would have been hanged

British Airways has started a legal action to stop the Unite union from holding strike at the Christmas time.

By Sikander Hayat Tony Blair’s admission that he would have invaded Iraq even if there were no weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has admitted what everyone knew from the first day that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the whole thing was fabricated by Bush & Blair to get their hands on Iraq’s oil. Millions of people came to the streets to oppose this war and stop the war from happening but little did they know that war plans were already in place and Hanz Blix was wasting his time in Iraq. Kelly’s death is still an enigma and Hutton report a big cover up. Iraq war was the most unlawful war in the post WW2 era and people like Colin Powel lied in front of the general assembly to get a resolution in favour of this illegal war but still failed to fool the world. The war mongers Bush & Blair still went ahead and killed at least 500,000 people in the killing fields of Iraq. What Blair & Bush have started will be hard to finish and the mistrust between these two

Just over two-thirds of the increase is likely to be related directly or indirectly to migration to the UK. If the projected increase materialises, the population will have grown at its fastest rate in a century. But one think tank said the projections were based on trends over the past few years that may not continue. National population projections are produced every two years to provide an estimate of future population which is used for government planning for pensions and the welfare state. The latest figures show that if current trends continue: * The population will grow by more than 10m by 2029, less than half the time it took to rise from 50m to 60m between 1948 and 2005 * The population of pensionable age will rise by 32% over the next 25 years to 15.6m, with the number aged over 85 more than doubling to 3.3m * In 2033, there will be 2.8 people of working age for every person of state pensionable age - a fall from 3.2 in 2008 * By 2033, the population of Englan

David Cameron today dug in over Europe and set himself at odds with Boris Johnson by refusing to say whether the Conservative Party would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if it comes into force before the general election. The Tory leader will try to face down his party this week in Manchester by claiming that the Conservatives should have “one policy at a time”: to promise to hold a referendum while the treaty is still being debated elsewhere in Europe. At the same time he will move to reassure the Eurosceptic wing of the party by promising to take back control from Brussels powers over social and employment legislation, which is likely to cause a huge row with other European leaders. But Mr Cameron suffered an immediate setback after Mr Johnson, the Mayor of London, suggested that voters “deserve a say” on the Lisbon document, even if it has been ratified and “particularly if the upshot of the Lisbon Treaty is going to produce President Blair”. Mr Cameron has come under pressur

IN A country already rich in tribes, two more factions have arrived on Afghanistan’s diplomatic and political scene: the first- and second-rounders. Last month’s presidential election is looking ever more of a debacle. The incumbent, Hamid Karzai, has 55% of the votes on a preliminary count. But the level of fraud was such that this is seen as a joke. Everybody agrees, having read their counter-insurgency manuals, on the importance of a legitimate government. And some argue only a second-round run-off between Mr Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, can restore a semblance of legitimacy. First-rounders, however, fear another vote might actually make things far worse. Second-rounders hope the Election Complaints Commission, an independent watchdog, will be able to whittle down Mr Karzai’s share to below 50%, forcing a run off. It has announced an investigation of 2,516 polling stations, roughly 10% of the total. First-rounders, however, point out that people are utterly dis

By SIKANDER HAYAT Two soldiers have been killed and four seriously injured in an attack on the British army base in Antrim in NI. Investigations are ongoing and government has called it a barbaric attack. Governement knows that it needs to solve the puzzle soon and find out the culprits otherwise it might give the wrong message to the other dissident groups.

It's a fascinating document. Row after row of names, addresses, telephone numbers, emails. Column upon column of personal, professional and biographical detail - career, education, family, hobbies. Here are 12,801 of our fellow citizens, their lives laid bare in this remarkable respect: we now know that they are, were once, or have at some time expressed an interest in becoming members of the organisation that calls itself "the foremost patriotic political party in Great Britain". When I say "we", of course, I mean anyone with an internet connection and some time to spare. Nearly 13,000 individual records - 11,211 of them in England and Wales, the remainder in Scotland or abroad, from Alicante to California - is a lot of information. But it comes in a spreadsheet, which means it's searchable and (sort of) analysable. And what emerges from a few hours spent with the membership list of the British National party that was posted on the net this week is a pictur

The Government is using the threat of a wholesale nationalisation of banks in an attempt to force institutions to lend billions to small companies struggling to survive as Britain slips into recession. Downing Street yesterday made plain its fury over high street banks which refuse to use the massive injection of taxpayers' money they have received to come to the rescue of businesses hit by the credit crisis. Lenders have also faced criticism over interest rates charged to homeowners and for stepping up repossessions. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown dismissed suggestions that he should take advantage of his reviving popularity by calling a June general election, insisting he was fully focused on steering Britain out of the downturn, starting with Monday's pre-Budget report. It will spell out plans for tax cuts and assistance for the country's 4.7 million small firms. The aid will be funded by increases in government borrowing, which is on course to exceed £100bn next year. Alistair

says James Forsyth. But the GOP can learn from the Cameroons A week into the Obama honeymoon it is debatable who has the bigger headache, the Democrats, who have been celebrating every day like it’s election day, or the Republicans, who have to work out how to rebuild their party. How and how quickly the GOP rebuilds at both the state and federal level will have a profound impact on British politics as the Tories have, to an underappreciated extent, taken to leaning on the Republicans for policy ideas in recent years. The headline election numbers were bad enough for the Republicans — Obama 365 electoral college votes, McCain 173 — but the details were even worse. The Republicans saw their vote share drop 12 points among Hispanics — the fastest-growing ethnic group in the US, lost the suburbs to the Democrats, and were beaten among first-time voters 68 to 31 per cent when in 2004 they only trailed by seven points among this group. They failed in Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia, st