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Britain's business leaders will warn David Cameron that the Government’s attitude to business must change, after they were told to stop complaining. Members of the Prime Minister’s business advisory group will say that the atmosphere surrounding business in the UK is becoming increasingly “toxic”. Mr. Cameron’s face-off with the chief executives of major companies, including Sainsbury’s, Centrica and the Prudential, comes at a time when relations between the private sector and the Government are under strain. Last week’s Queen’s Speech setting out the Coalition’s plans for the year was criticized by many in business, including Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King,...

When I heard this on the radio on the drive home the first thing I thought was, I’ll bet they’re democrats (socialist) and huge Obama supporters. Walter Kendall Myers, 72, aided by his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, used his Top Secret security clearance to pass on classified information to the Cuban government and at one point met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to court documents. The two were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said. They were also charged with wire fraud and...

Gordon Brown was dragged into the centre of the row over the early release of the Lockerbie bomber last night after it emerged that a key decision that could have paved the way for the terrorist to serve his sentence in Libya was approved by Downing Street. A source close to Jack Straw told The Times that the move to include Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement in 2007 was a government decision and was not made at the sole discretion of the Justice Secretary. “It wasn’t just Jack who decided this. It was a Government decision....

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal. Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards. The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release. The correspondence makes it plain that the key...

Mark of protest: Hundreds of shoes seen on the road along the Whitehall as police guard the entrance to Downing Street in London on Saturday. LONDON: Shoes were flung at Downing Street on Saturday by angry protesters calling for more active British intervention to bring an end to Israeli bombardment of Gaza. There were scuffles and angry exchanges as the police tried to control the crowd. An estimated 10,000 people, including a number of high-profile political figures and celebrities, marched through central London raising slogans against Israeli attacks and carrying placards saying “End the siege of Gaza” and “Freedom for...

Barack Obama is a "decidedly liberal" senator "who was finding his feet, and then got diverted by his presidential ambitions", according to a frank verdict delivered to Gordon Brown by the British ambassador to the United States. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, ambassador in Washington since last year, delivered his unvarnished assessment of the White House front runner in a seven-page letter to the Prime Minister, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, just before the Democratic nominee's visit to Downing Street just over two months ago. The candid letter, marked as containing "sensitive judgements" and requesting officials to "protect the contents carefully" gives...

Heading home from an overseas trip aimed at strengthening his foreign policy credentials, Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday he's not counting on an immediate political boost and thinks it's just as likely he'll experience a short-term dip in polls simply because he's been out of the country for nine days."The reason that I thought this trip was important was I am convinced that many of the issues that we face at home are not going to be solved as effectively unless we have strong partners abroad," Obama said, speaking outside 10 Downing Street after his private meeting with Prime Minister...

After reading an article about the Iraq war, I thought: What is taking so long? What is taking so long for the American media to quell all of the "manipulation" and actually report what is going on in the world? -snip I am a journalism student. It is refreshing to know that there are still journalists who care more about their readers than the agenda of sinister plotters bent on profiteering from an unjustified conflict while risking the young lives of U.S. soldiers. Seeking the truth, I recently came upon the Downing Street memos. These are the recorded minutes of...

Nightmare on Downing Street By George Jones (Filed: 06/05/2006) Tony Blair carried out his biggest and most brutal Cabinet reshuffle yesterday as he attempted to shore up his position after one of the worst ever local election performances in Labour's history. He signalled his determination to remain in Downing Street by promoting trusted and loyal ministers, sacking Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and demoting six ministers, including Jack Straw and the disgraced John Prescott. It was a defiant rebuff for supporters of Gordon Brown who stepped up their demands for Mr Blair to quit after Labour was relegated to third...

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Connie Julian, 917-449-9064, Janet Yip 212-941-8086 or commission@nion.us News Advisory: From: International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration WHEN: January 10, 2006 at 1:30 p.m. WHERE: The White House, Walk-in Gate, across from Lafayette Park WEBSITE: http://www.bushcommission.org An unprecedented series of indictments alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, in five separate areas, on moral, political, and legal grounds, will be delivered by a citizens' tribunal to President Bush at the front gate of the White House this Tuesday, January 10th. Named in the indictments are: President of...

It is truly amazing how fast this story disappeared. Like a weatherman's forecast and an economist's dire prediction, the Downing Street Memos seem to have completely disappeared. Has anyone seen a retraction from the bile spewers and chicken littles?

Since it was first published in the British press in May, the so-called Downing Street memo has generated debate about the Bush administration's intentions of going to war. Critics of the Iraq war have seized on the document--minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior government leadership--as proof that the Bush administration was hell-bent for war even as it publicly sought to bring Saddam Hussein to heel through diplomacy. War critics have focused on a section of the document in which a British spy agency chief, identified as C, discussed a recent...

LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday defended the war in Iraq, and brushed off a new question about a government memo that suggested Washington had been determined to justify the invasion. "I was glad that we took the action we did," Blair told the House of Commons when asked about the so-called Downing Street memo. His comments came a day after President Bush rejected suggestions that Washington set a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and urged patience. According to the leaked minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top government officials...

Gina and Bob Fesmire come across as the average couple next door, taking care of the home front in jeans and sweatpants, struggling to stay one step ahead of a hectic Silicon Valley life. But they didn't realize how crazy life could be until last month, when Gina Fesmire launched the site www. downingstreetmemo.com on a whim. The site, which has become a bona fide phenomenon, features secret British documents on the lead-up to the Iraq war, first leaked to the press in England. The site has drawn 700,000 visits since the site went up May 11 with the goal...

Let’s be calm. Before we join the lynching crowd, the onus to examine this British intelligence report falls on the shoulder of responsible citizens who are not after President George W. Bush’s neck, politically or otherwise. Invectives and verbal abuse against Bush’s decision to invade Iraq based on the alleged “fixing” of intelligence report mentioned in the document is nothing but lapsus linguae if these come from polluted sources in Congress, allied Liberals or cause-oriented groups, politically driven protesting beatniks, and the profit-crazed, wayward media whose excuse for being is to sensationalize news. These anti-Bush and anti-Iraq-war champions of the...

Several leading Democrats have spent the past few days furiously back tracking from an outrageous — and thoroughly under-reported — demonstration of blatant anti-Semitism that manifested itself last week at a congressional quasi-hearing... what the Washington Post's Dana Milbank appropriately described as a "mock impeachment inquiry." ...Democrats... declared the so-called Downing Street Memos to be the unassailable "smoking gun" proving that President Bush lied the nation into war. Among the hand-picked "witnesses" was Ray McGovern, the former CIA analyst who has embarked on a new career denouncing the administration and, apparently, buying into every conspiracy theory the loony Left has...

A quick glance at the DUmmieland forum would tell a visitor that something is amiss in the form of a definite lack of a certain recent obsession. Yes, GONE are the many many Downing Street Memo (DSM in crypto DUmmieSpeak) threads. So what happened? After all, wasn’t it just last week that Pied Piper Pitt breathlessly declared June 16 to be the day that would change history and that nothing would ever be the same again because of a non-official hearing conducted by John Conyers in a congressional broom closet. What has happened to cause the early, unlamented DEATH...

Democrats are now focusing on the Downing Street Memo — the prewar British document that seems to prove Bush administration dishonesty.... Yet history lessons won't win back the public's trust on national security. The Democratic Party has to confront its dovish base. Most Democrats today are increasingly skeptical of using military force — even against terrorists. No wonder the public thinks the party is weak on national security. Exactly 50 percent of Democrats do not believe dismantling al Qaeda should be a top foreign-policy goal. In fact, when recently asked to name the top two "most important foreign policy goals,"...

Repeatedly, those contending that President Bush lied us into the war in Iraq have had to face contrary evidence, stacks and stacks of it, and how have they handled this refutation of their fantasies? By ignoring it. But give them something all but irrelevant to the argument, some itsy, bitsy thing that they can misinterpret as demonstrating the rightness of their view, and notice how some of them behave. Why, they say, the final proof is here at last. I speak of the so-called Downing Street memo, the disclosed minutes of a meeting in 2002 between British Prime Minister Tony...

WASHINGTON - Congress should conduct an official inquiry to determine whether President Bush intentionally misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein, a senior House Democrat suggested Thursday. New York Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record) was among Democratic House members who participated in a forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq. "Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has...

Next Senate meeting: Thursday, June 16, 2005 9:30 a.m.: Resume consideration of H.R. 6, the Energy bill. Frist to force filibuster-ending vote Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said yesterday he will force another vote to end a filibuster of President Bush's pick to be ambassador to the United Nations at the end of this week....No votes on Fri so the showdown must be today.. [Barf alert] 02:30 PM EDT (C-span3) Forum Downing Street Minutes and Pre-War Intelligence U.S. House of Representatives, Conyers, J. (D-MI)

Blair planned to spend £30m rebuilding Downing St (You can blame it on George Bush) By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor (Filed: 29/05/2005) Downing Street is not safe from a terrorist attack, prone to "sewage smells" and an entirely unsuitable venue for the Prime Minister to receive world leaders, according to a secret Whitehall report drawn up after complaints from George Bush. The Sunday Telegraph has been shown details of a highly sensitive £30 million plan - codenamed "Project George" after the American President - for a full-scale redevelopment aimed at turning the engine room of government into a British version...