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In their first report of this nature - European Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2007 - Europol reports that across the EU there were 498 terrorist attacks in 2006. These include:

    424 'ethno-nationalist and separatist' (mostly in France and Spain) 

    55 'left-wing and anarchist' (mainly Greece , Italy, Spain and Germany)

    1 failed Islamist terrorist attack (in Germany, plus two more attempts allegedly foiled in Denmark and the UK)
    1 right-wing terrorist attack (in Poland)

May 23, 2007 

As the British Government launches its new White Paper today and argues that our future is nuclear, anyone interested in the debate should check out the updated NuclearSpin site.

NuclearSpin was originally launched in response to the British Government’s 12-week consultation on energy in 2006.

Earlier this year, the High Court ruled that the Government’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations were “unlawful” and the way it consulted with the public over the decision was “misleading, seriously flawed, manifestly inadequate and procedurally unfair”. Now the British Government is trying again with a new consultation exercise. 

As like last time though, it seems the British government has already made up its mind. Months before the first consultation Blair convened a secret meeting at Chequers where informed sources have said that nuclear was given the green light.

The Observer newspaper is reporting that Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, will also support a new generation of nuclear plants in the UK.  What makes this decision politically sensitive, is that Gordon Brown has close family connections to the nuclear industry. His younger brother Andrew Brown works for EDF Energy, the UK subsidiary of EDF, which is one of the leading companies pushing for a nuclear rebuild programme in the UK.

The Labour Government is also speeding up the planning process, making it easier for nuclear power plants to be built. Planning Minister, Yvette Cooper has already had to fight off criticism of "nuclear cronyism" due to her father's links to the nuclear industry too.

By Nicholas Jones, 10 May 2007

Whether you like him or loathe him, Tony Blair is a consummate communicator and for the Labour Party’s spin doctors he was always a joy to work with. Once the line was agreed, the Prime Minister rarely if ever deviated from the message which he had been asked to deliver. And again, while his speaking style might not suit all tastes, he is eloquent, he can be passionate, switching easily from anger to charm, and he can deftly bridge an awkward moment with a self-deprecating joke.

On becoming an MP in 1983, Blair’s all-too-evident political ambition marked him out at Westminster and not surprisingly his potential appeal to the electorate of middle England, first noticed by Peter Mandelson, was then ruthlessly exploited by Alastair Campbell. But no politician can live by spin alone. Political survival requires solid foundations and sustainable policies and the loss of respect and trust which tends to afflict most political leaders, started to accelerate in Blair’s case from 2001 after he signed up unquestioningly to American foreign policy in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

10 May 2007 

Well now Spiked is hitting back. It’s editor Brendan O’Neil, has accused SpinWatch, amongst others, of belonging to a ‘network of McCarthyites’ that spreads rumours about the one time leader of the LM brigade Frank Furedi “being the all-powerful leader of a sinister cult that has infiltrated the TV industry, the science industry and the media in order to do the bidding of Big Business against environmentalists”.

According to a recent interview in Spiked, Furedi claimed that the stories being spun about him “have all the hallmarks of a classical conspiracy theory”.

Having written about LM and Furedi on and off for a number of years, as well as hundreds of other environmental, health and political stories, I am afraid I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.

 By Nicholas Jones, 4 May 2007

The annual Unesco World Press Freedom Day debate at Portcullis House, Westminster, was a chance to explain why media freedom is under threat in the United Kingdom.

You might well ask: "How could a former BBC correspondent of thirty years standing, living in a country like the UK which is so rich in media output, possibly fear that there is any threat to the freedom of our journalists to investigate and report?" I make that case because while we are output rich, we are becoming increasingly content poor. Our news gathering, in its scope and depth, is nothing like as strong as it once was. And, I fear the trends we see here in the UK could be replicated around the world.

Just look at what has been happening: An ever greater concentration of media ownership; even greater cuts in editorial staff; media proprietors moving big time from newspapers to websites; journalists tied to their computer screens and telephones, with nothing like the freedom that I had in my career, to go out to gather information, to think about the news and report it. Instead those who have jobs are becoming the slaves of multi-task newsrooms, having to churn out endless versions of the same news stories, for audio, websites and print. The dearth of true local reporting is a terrible portent of what is to come.

Nicholas Jones, 2 May 2007 

While grave mistakes were undoubtedly made and many questions remain unanswered, the security service MI5 deserves to be commended on the manner in which it published a detailed account of one of the largest anti-terrorist surveillance operations in its history. On the completion of the Old Bailey trial at which five men were jailed for life, MI5 immediately released a dossier of data on its website. All sections of the news media -- and the rest of the world -- had simultaneous access to the same information.

One of the UK's most secretive organisations -- which over the years has leaked like a sieve to selected journalists -- was demonstrating that it is possible to ensure equal access and a level playing field for the media. Whatever the shortcomings in its account as to how the July 7 London bombers slipped through the net, MI5 reminded the government, on the day before Tony Blair celebrated a decade in power, that there are alternative communication strategies to the squalid and politically corrupt spin routines which have so besmirched the Labour administration.

There's some classic sleight of hand in Brendan O'Neill's recent complaint about all the 'anti-LM conspiracy-mongering' linking Martin Durkin to the LM network. 

O'Neill writes, 'a few people who contributed articles to LM appeared as talking heads on Against Nature. That's all. Not as exciting as the crazed and wide-eyed web conspiracy theories make it sound, I know. Sorry.' (Apocalypse my arse)

But what O'Neill fails to mention is that Durkin's deputy for Against Nature was Eve Kaye, who was not only a key figure in RCP/LM - like her sister (Pandora Kaye) - but the wife of James Heartfield, a key RCP ideologue and the co-author of its manifesto. Something that might just explain why, 'Line by line, point by point, Against Nature followed the agenda laid down by LM.' (George Monbiot, The Revolution has been televised)  

 Jonathan Matthews and Andy Rowell, March 8, 2007

Oh yeah? Don't believe a word of it. You may have thought the long debate over whether humans are warming the Earth was finally over, especially given the recent warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But today Channel 4 will screen “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, a documentary which claims accepted theories about global warming are 'lies'.

The programme's director is Martin Durkin, who first came to fame in 1997 with a series for Channel 4 called Against Nature , which targeted environmentalists. Against Nature presented them as not just 'the new enemy of science' but as comparable to the Nazis and responsible for the deprivation and death of millions in the Third World.

Channel Four had to broadcast a prime-time apology after Against Nature drew the wrath of the Independent Television Commission which ruled that the editing of the interviews with environmentalists 'had indeed distorted or misrepresented their known views. It was also found that the production company had misled them... as to the format, subject matter and purpose of these programs.' 

The report argues that when companies like Climate Care and the Carbon Neutral Company sell the public carbon offsets, carbon savings expected to be made in the future are counted as savings made in the present. This is known as ‘future value accounting’ and is the same technique used by Enron to inflate its profits with such disastrous consequences.

Long-time Furediite Thomas Deichmann, writing in Spiked, challenges Greenpeace's charitable status in Germany, arguing that they act 'politically'. This erstwhile revolutionary also accuses them of illegality and uses his Spiked piece to reckon up every instance of trespass on farmland or 'guerilla' labelling of products in supermarkets that Greenpeace has carried out during its environmental campaigns in Germany. (Just how 'charitable' is Greenpeace?)

Deichmann's previous writings for the LM network suggest he's considerably less particular about certain other crimes - like torture, rape and murder. Deichmann even put in an appearance as the final defence witness at the trial in the Hague of Dusko Tadic, who went on to be convicted of crimes against humanity, including 'killings, beatings and forced transfers' of civilians, as well as a particularly horrific sexual mutilation.