t will come as no surprise to regular readers of Tribune that I do not like the Daily Mail. I was brought up on the view that it had been the paper of Sir Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. Michael Foot, my old mentor, has always called it “the Forgers’ Gazette” because of its involvement in the Zinoviev letter scandal.
True, it isn’t actually fascist nowadays, but it remains a thoroughly nasty newspaper, run largely on the basis of hate. It is produced according to a rigid formula which is transparently intended to work its readers into a fury about something or someone– illegal immigrants, incompetent social workers, criminal teenagers, striking tube train drivers and the like.
Each morning, page after page is adorned with headlines designed to turn suburban housewives and their carpet-slippered husbands into choleric Victor Meldrews. Goodness knows why this sells, but it does. Meanwhile, I wonder if any medical school has done research into the relative incidence of hypertension among Mail and Guardian readers.
So, in the light of all that, it comes as a nasty shock to find that I am in agreement with one of the Daily Mail’s increasingly frequent and much-trumpeted “campaigns” – indeed, in wholehearted and enthusiastic support of it.
I refer to last week’s campaign to block the extradition to the United States of a mildly autistic young British hacker who got inside the Pentagon’s computer system in search of “little green men”.
Gary McKinnon, the young man in question, has become the latest victim of a grossly unjust and unfair extradition treaty between Britain and the US which came into force in 2004.
Negotiated between the George W Bush and Tony Blair regimes, it enables America to secure the extradition of anyone it chooses simply by telling a British judge that it wants him. No evidence need be produced to support the application, just the fact that US prosecutors plan to put him on trial.
This represents a massive retreat from the rules which prevailed before 2004. Then it was necessary to present evidence that established at least a prima facie case against the accused person.
And – perhaps the nastiest aspect of the treaty – British prosecutors still have to meet the old, more demanding conditions if they seek the extradition of a suspect to this country from America.
Historically, one can understand the sensitivities for a US administration – any US administration – over something such as extradition. With a substantial Irish vote, American judges had always been slow to grant applications for the extradition of IRA terrorists. Time after time, IRA outrages were categorised as “political” rather than criminal – and therefore immune from the law of extradition.
But it says something about the sheer arrogance of the Bush administration, in its post-September 11 “war on terror”, that it was prepared to come to Britain with such a grotesquely lop-sided proposal for changing the existing law of extradition in their favour. And it says even more about the cravenness of Blair’s “51st state” administration that this country was prepared to agree to it.
The 2004 treaty must now be renegotiated – and urgently. But no matter how urgent the renegotiation, it won’t be fast enough to help Gary McKinnon.
Because the British courts must administer the law as it stands, they have ruled that he must be extradited, and the then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, refused to intervene. So his handing over to US marshals is now imminent.
Only one thing can save him. If new Home Secretary Alan Johnson decides that McKinnon should be charged and tried in this country, the US application falls. And there is no reason why that shouldn’t be the case: McKinnon’s offence was committed in this country, even if his target was in Washington.
Let us hope that Johnson has more compassion in his psyche than Jack Straw, the present “Justice” Secretary. It was Straw who was Home Secretary while the new treaty was being negotiated, and he was Foreign Secretary (with a continuing diplomatic finger in the pie) when it came into force. So his fingerprints can be found, along with others, on the finished document.
Alas, Straw’s compassion quotient can be measured with alarming accuracy by his disgraceful decision in the case of Ronnie Biggs, the train robber who was on the run for many years. The 79-year-old Biggs, who is semi-paralysed and speechless from two strokes, returned to this country from Brazil of his own free will. The Parole Board has recommended that he be released to the care of his family. Straw has vetoed their recommendation.
God only knows why the self-proclaimed Christian Straw reached this decision. He has suggested that it is because Biggs has expressed no remorse for his 1964 crime, even though Biggs can barely ask to go to the toilet, let alone express remorse.
However, the most disgusting feature of the whole business was Straw’s letter to Biggs, conveying the decision. “While the medical evidence indicates that your ability to commit further acts of violence has reduced to a very low level”, he wrote, “I am concerned that you might incite and be involved in such acts of violence.”
In case you missed it, Jack Straw is a Labour minister.
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of Tribune that I do not like the Daily Mail. I was brought up on the view that it had been the paper of Sir Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. Michael Foot, my old mentor, has always called it “the Forgers’ Gazette” because of its involvement in the Zinoviev letter scandal.
True, it isn’t actually fascist nowadays, but it remains a thoroughly nasty newspaper, run largely on the basis of hate. It is produced according to a rigid formula which is transparently intended to work its readers into a fury about something or someone– illegal immigrants, incompetent social workers, criminal teenagers, striking tube train drivers and the like.
Each morning, page after page is adorned with headlines designed to turn suburban housewives and their carpet-slippered husbands into choleric Victor Meldrews. Goodness knows why this sells, but it does. Meanwhile, I wonder if any medical school has done research into the relative incidence of hypertension among Mail and Guardian readers.
So, in the light of all that, it comes as a nasty shock to find that I am in agreement with one of the Daily Mail’s increasingly frequent and much-trumpeted “campaigns” – indeed, in wholehearted and enthusiastic support of it.
I refer to last week’s campaign to block the extradition to the United States of a mildly autistic young British hacker who got inside the Pentagon’s computer system in search of “little green men”.
Gary McKinnon, the young man in question, has become the latest victim of a grossly unjust and unfair extradition treaty between Britain and the US which came into force in 2004.
Negotiated between the George W Bush and Tony Blair regimes, it enables America to secure the extradition of anyone it chooses simply by telling a British judge that it wants him. No evidence need be produced to support the application, just the fact that US prosecutors plan to put him on trial.
This represents a massive retreat from the rules which prevailed before 2004. Then it was necessary to present evidence that established at least a prima facie case against the accused person.
And – perhaps the nastiest aspect of the treaty – British prosecutors still have to meet the old, more demanding conditions if they seek the extradition of a suspect to this country from America.
Historically, one can understand the sensitivities for a US administration – any US administration – over something such as extradition. With a substantial Irish vote, American judges had always been slow to grant applications for the extradition of IRA terrorists. Time after time, IRA outrages were categorised as “political” rather than criminal – and therefore immune from the law of extradition.
But it says something about the sheer arrogance of the Bush administration, in its post-September 11 “war on terror”, that it was prepared to come to Britain with such a grotesquely lop-sided proposal for changing the existing law of extradition in their favour. And it says even more about the cravenness of Blair’s “51st state” administration that this country was prepared to agree to it.
The 2004 treaty must now be renegotiated – and urgently. But no matter how urgent the renegotiation, it won’t be fast enough to help Gary McKinnon.
Because the British courts must administer the law as it stands, they have ruled that he must be extradited, and the then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, refused to intervene. So his handing over to US marshals is now imminent.
Only one thing can save him. If new Home Secretary Alan Johnson decides that McKinnon should be charged and tried in this country, the US application falls. And there is no reason why that shouldn’t be the case: McKinnon’s offence was committed in this country, even if his target was in Washington.
Let us hope that Johnson has more compassion in his psyche than Jack Straw, the present “Justice” Secretary. It was Straw who was Home Secretary while the new treaty was being negotiated, and he was Foreign Secretary (with a continuing diplomatic finger in the pie) when it came into force. So his fingerprints can be found, along with others, on the finished document.
Alas, Straw’s compassion quotient can be measured with alarming accuracy by his disgraceful decision in the case of Ronnie Biggs, the train robber who was on the run for many years. The 79-year-old Biggs, who is semi-paralysed and speechless from two strokes, returned to this country from Brazil of his own free will. The Parole Board has recommended that he be released to the care of his family. Straw has vetoed their recommendation.
God only knows why the self-proclaimed Christian Straw reached this decision. He has suggested that it is because Biggs has expressed no remorse for his 1964 crime, even though Biggs can barely ask to go to the toilet, let alone express remorse.
However, the most disgusting feature of the whole business was Straw’s letter to Biggs, conveying the decision. “While the medical evidence indicates that your ability to commit further acts of violence has reduced to a very low level”, he wrote, “I am concerned that you might incite and be involved in such acts of violence.”
In case you missed it, Jack Straw is a Labour minister.
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