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luke
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 Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:53 pm Post subject: Ten year’s of New Labour’s Arms Exports |
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| Quote: | Ten year’s of New Labour’s Arms Exports
By Mark Curtis
Reviewing British arms exports for the ten-year period under New Labour, the figures speak for themselves:
- The UK has exported £45 billion worth of arms around the world since 1997.
- Over £110m of military equipment has gone to Israel, throughout a period of offensive operations in the occupied territories and war with Lebanon
- Iraq has again become a large British arms market; over £130m have been exported since the invasion in 2003.
- Half a billion pounds worth of military and ‘other’ equipment has gone to China, which is under an EU arms embargo. Arms have also gone to Hong Kong, controlled by China.
- Indonesia has used UK equipment for repressive purposes on at least a dozen occasions in the Labour years.
- The UK continues to arm many of the world’s poorest countries. South Africa, for example, has received over £400m worth of UK military equipment in the Labour years. Nearly £150m of arms have gone to Nigeria under Labour, including armoured vehicles, rifles, shotguns and small arms ammunition.
Britain’s arms exports industry has been thriving under Labour, not because of the economic benefits to the country – the evidence is overwhelming that arms exports cost the taxpayer more than they generate, given the level of taxpayer subsidies. The major reason is that arms exports are a key part of UK foreign policy, especially in enhancing relationships with repressive regimes and elites, and because a small number of big corporations wiled major influence over government policy; in fact help set it.
The following review is based on an analysis I recently undertook for the NGO Saferworld.
Exporting arms to human rights abusers
The government has consistently armed states violating human rights. In the three years from 2004 to 2006, for example, arms exports were approved to 19 of the 20 countries identified by the Foreign Office in its annual human rights report as ‘countries of concern’. The government has consistently rejected calls by some groups to effect a blanket ban on exports to human rights abusers and claims to consider on a case by case basis whether certain exports ‘might’ be used for internal repression. Key human rights abusers receiving British arms include:
• Colombia: Thousands of people have been killed in Colombia’s civil war, mostly by right-wing paramilitary forces that are known to have strong support from government security forces. Yet last year (2006) alone, the UK government exported armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, military communications equipment and heavy machine guns. Previous exports have included components for combat aircraft, small arms ammunition, explosives, and technology for the use in combat helicopters, combat aircraft and combat helicopters
• Nepal: No UK military exports appear to have gone to Nepal since February 2005 when Nepalese King took direct power and imposed a state of emergency. But the UK provided around £11m in military exports until this date as Nepal pursued a brutal counter-insurgency war in which 12,000 people have been killed since 1996, most of them by Nepalese government forces. UK exports included: demolition devices and components for assault rifles (early 2005), the ‘gifting’ of two aircraft (in 2004) that could be used to assist in offensive operations (paid for from the Global Conflict Prevention pool which is supposed to help prevent violent conflict), 35 Land Rovers (2002) as well as combat shotguns and small arms ammunition (2003)
• Russia: Following its military intervention in Chechnya in September 1999, Russia has committed wide-ranging human rights violations in the province, amidst thousands of deaths and hundreds of ‘disappearances’ believed to be at the hands of Russian forces. Britain has provided over £137 million in arms exports to Russia since 1999, with the levels peaking in the years 2000-02. The equipment sold has been wide-ranging, including shotguns, technology for the use of combat helicopters, components for combat aircraft, air rifles, military cargo vehicles, military utility vehicles.
• Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war has involved thousands of deaths on both sides. The Labour government has exported military equipment worth over £35 million. Last year (2006) alone, the UK exported armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, components for combat helicopters, technology for the use of combat helicopters, components for combat aircraft, military aircraft communications equipment and semi-automatics pistols. Previous deliveries include two military transport aircraft (delivered in 2000), sub-machine guns, and components for heavy machine-guns and for armoured fighting vehicles.
Given the consistency with which this supposed case-by-case consideration is flouted, the logical deduction is that it is deliberate British policy to keep arming states abusing human rights and providing them with the equipment to maintain internal order and control dissent. Indeed, this is fully consistent with Britain’s wider policy of support to these states, and with planners’ concerns revealed in the declassified government documents that I have reviewed in my books Web of Deceit and Unpeople, a subject to which I return below.
Using British weapons for repression
The worst case of the use of British weapons for repression in the Labour years is probably Indonesia, to whom Britain has exported more than £400m worth of military equipment since 1997. The most serious hardware was delivered in the early years, following agreements made under the Conservative government, and included Hawk jets, armoured personnel carriers and tanks. Since then, the arms have continued to flow – more than £100m worth have been delivered in the past five years. Export licences have been granted for armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, components for tanks, technology for the production of combat aircraft, and components for combat aircraft and for combat helicopters.
Indonesia’s human rights abuses and military aggression, notably in West Papua and Aceh provinces against popular separatist movements, have been well-documented. There at least a dozen known occasions when British-supplied equipment has been used by Indonesian forces:
• May 1997: Tactica water cannon (supplied in the 1960s) were used against street protestors to break up an election march.
• 1998: Scorpion tanks exported from Britain were used in Jakarta in May and November 1998 in incidents killing 18 protestors. Throughout 1998, UK-supplied Scorpion tanks, armoured vehicles and water cannon were regularly photographed on the streets of Indonesia putting down peaceful protests against the rule of then President Suharto and his successor Habibie.
• February 1999: Tactica water cannon were used against demonstrating workers in Surabaya, east Java
• July 1999: UK-supplied Hawks flew sorties to intimidate the population in East Timor
• July and December 2000: Saladin armoured cars (exported by the UK in the 1960s) were used by the military in Ambon in clashes between Christians and Muslims
• 2000: Hawk jets flew sorties over towns in West Papua, intended to intimidate the population
• May 2003: In Indonesia’s military offensive in Aceh, Hawk aircraft, Scorpion tanks, Saracen armoured vehicles and military Land Rovers were used. Eyewitnesses said Hawks were used in bombing raids against villages. Land Rovers were used by special forces, the Kopassus, which have been widely accused of human rights abuses.
• Election day, 5 April 2004: The army used Stormer armoured vehicles (some of which were supplied in 1998) to patrol the streets.
• August and October 2005: Tactica armoured personnel carriers armed with water cannon were deployed during large demonstrations in West Papua in August and October 2005
The fundamental purpose and role of the Indonesian military is to maintain the country’s ‘territorial integrity’, meaning to brutally counter any separatist tendencies. This goal is supported in Whitehall and there is no doubt that ministers know exactly how weapons exported from Britain will be used.
Arming both sides in conflicts
The UK government’s public criteria for approving arms exports claim that licences will not be issued if they ‘might be used for international aggression’ or if they ‘would provoke or prolong armed conflicts or aggravate existing tensions’. This supposed policy is again routinely flouted.
India/Pakistan
It was revealed in June 2002 that the UK had issued dozens of arms export licences to India and Pakistan throughout the period of acute tension between the two countries, and at a time when Tony Blair and other leaders were urging both sides to pull back from the brink of military confrontation over the disputed territory of Kashmir. In 2002, Britain exported £15m in military equipment to Pakistan and £118m to India (including the delivery of two fighter/ground attack Harrier aircraft to India following a 1997 deal). British ministers continued to lobby to sell India 66 Hawk fighter jets and accompanying services, in a deal worth £1.1 billion, eventually concluded in 2004. Ministers claimed the deal did not contradict the government’s criteria as the Hawks were trainer aircraft. Yet they can be refitted as combat aircraft (including to carry tactical nuclear weapons) and, as the Head of the Indian Airforce Training Command, has said, the Hawk may be used as combat aircraft ‘should an operational scenario present itself’.
The UK has sold over £850m worth of arms to India and over £150m to Pakistan under the Labour government. The volume of arms exports to both sides significantly increased in the two years following tensions in 2002. Moreover, the UK has been providing similar military equipment to both sides that could aid combat operations. Since 2002, Britain has sold both India and Pakistan: components for combat aircraft, components for military combat helicopters, components for frigates and components for military communications equipment. Britain has also sold components for air-to-air missiles to Pakistan (in 2003) and air-to-air missiles launching equipment to India (in 2006). Many of these are under open licences.
China/Taiwan
Despite continuing tensions between the two countries, and an ever-present risk of hostilities breaking out – and an EU arms embargo against China – Britain has continued to deliver military-related equipment to both China and Taiwan, to the tune of nearly £500m each. As with India and Pakistan, both countries have received similar equipment from Britain that could aid offensive operations: last year (2006) both were granted exports of components for combat aircraft, military communications equipment and components for military transport aircraft. Taiwan was also provided with components for submarines and technology for the use of combat helicopters.
Zimbabwe/Central Africa
Britain sold military equipment to both sides in the war over the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the one hand, equipment went to Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, while, on the other, it went to Uganda and Rwanda. Uganda and Angola – on opposing sides – were both invited to the annual arms exhibition in September 2001. Following Zimbabwe’s military intervention in the DRC war in August 1998, Britain announced it would not supply equipment that could be used for ‘aggressive ends’ but continued to grant export licences for Hawk aircraft, despite the fact that Zimbabwe had used them in the intervention. Export licences for components for Hawk and other aircraft continued to be granted in late 1998 and early 1999; the Foreign Affairs Committee noted that these ‘may well have been used to supply spares for military equipment used for intervention in the DRC, including aircraft spares’. In February 2000, further licences for Hawk spares were granted – a decision taken by Tony Blair against the advice of Foreign Secretary Robin Cook; only in May 2000 did the government finally announce an arms embargo on Zimbabwe, following government-sponsored violence in the country.
Arming Israel
The export of military equipment to Israel contravenes numerous of the government’s public arms exports criteria: the equipment can be used for repression, can exacerbate regional tensions and can, as the EU code states, enable Israel ‘to assert by force a territorial claim’. During Israel’s illegal occupation of the occupied territories, persistent human rights abuses there together with ongoing regional tensions – culminating in war with Lebanon in 2006 - Britain has sold more than £110m of military equipment to Israel under Labour.
Britain has staunchly defended and supported Israel and arms exports have been a feature of this. Arms exports to Israel doubled in 2001, as Israel stepped up offensive military operations in the occupied territories. In 2002, exports to Israel were reportedly being considered on a case by case basis, but the volume reached its highest point in 2005. Last year, Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said that British policy since 2002 had been not to export weapons, equipment or components that could be ‘deployed aggressively’ in the occupied territories, but added that ‘almost any piece of equipment… could be used aggressively’. Yet since 2002 the UK has exported:
• components for combat aircraft and for combat helicopters, which have been used against civilians in the occupied territories. This includes the export of ‘head-up displays’ to the US for the F-16 fighter aircraft destined for Israel. This decision went ahead despite the Israeli government’s admission around the same time that Centurion tanks previously supplied by the UK had been used against Palestinians in breach of Israel’s own assurance to the UK government.
• A range of other equipment critical for offensive operations, such as components for tanks, components for military utility helicopters, armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, technology for the use of combat aircraft, components for airborne surveillance equipment and military communications equipment.
• Military Land Rovers exported from Britain have also been reported as being in use in Gaza.
Embargo? What embargo? The case of China
As noted above, China has received nearly half billion pounds worth of British military-related and dual-use equipment under the Labour government, even though it is the subject of an EU arms embargo. By 2005, China was the UK’s fourth largest export market for military equipment. Britain has become the EU’s biggest military exporter to China – accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all the EU’s military exports from 1997-2005.
The UK’s interpretation of the EU embargo restricts exports to what it claims are ‘non-lethal’ items. Yet the UK has exported components for tanks, components for combat aircraft, technology for the production of combat aircraft and for the production of military utility helicopters, military communications equipment – all of which equipment, while by itself technically non-lethal, can be critical for decidedly lethal arms. As four parliamentary committees commented in July last year, ‘we consider that allowing the export of components will enable the Chinese government to build up an offensive capability’.
Furthermore, Britain has exported arms worth over £30m to Hong Kong, which since the handover in 1997 has been controlled by China. In 2006, Britain exported to Hong Kong armoured all-wheel drive vehicles, anti-riot shields, components for machine guns, weapon sights, military navigation equipment and military communications equipment. Previous exports include CS hand grenades, stun grenades, demolition charges, machine guns, anti-riot guns and crowd control ammunition – all granted in 2003, for example, and all of which run the risk of being used for domestic repression.
Exporting cluster bombs
Largely unnoticed by the media, the British government is a major producer, user, exporter and stockpiler of cluster bombs, and has sold them to armed forces around the world. These are among the deadliest of modern weapons, taking a huge toll on civilians, and are packed into shells or bombs which scatter them over large areas. The UK is one of the nine exporters of cluster bombs in the world and the sole producer/exporter of the BL-755 and RBL-755 varieties. These bombs are in service with a number of militaries, including Iran, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1998, Ethiopia dropped RBL-755 bombs in Gash-Barka province of western Eritrea, though it is not clear how Ethiopia procured them.
In November last year, at a five-year review conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, Britain stood shoulder to shoulder with countries such as China, Russia and the United States in opposing a proposal to start negotiations on cluster munitions. But then in February this year, the UK changed tack and signed up to a declaration urging countries to conclude by 2008 a legally binding instrument to ban cluster bombs. A government statement indicates that the government is phasing out the BL and RBL-755 cluster bombs by 2010.
Iraq – a new arms market
As under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, Iraq has recently become a large British arms market again, with over £130m exported since 2003. Equipment has included assault rifles, machine guns, semi-automatic pistols (21,000 of them in 2004), small arms ammunition and armoured personnel carriers. There have also been reports that some equipment has ended up in the hands of militia forces. Many of the recommendations from the Scott report enquiry into arms to Iraq – for example on monitoring the end use of equipment exported and increasing transparency over the process – have still not been implemented by the Labour government.
Ongoing secrecy and lack of transparency
Incredibly, and basically unreported in the mainstream media, no one knows where the overwhelming majority of British arms exports go. Official figures show that in 2004, for example, arms worth over £5.2 billion were exported; but the volume identified by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as going to specific countries was only £1,391 – a quarter of the total. The rest is a figure based on ‘estimates of additional aerospace equipment and services’ from data in surveys undertaken by the Society of British Aerospace Companies. These exports are of ‘dual-use’ aerospace items such as training, consultancy and project support related to exports and are not monitored by the HMRC. The government itself has admitted in a freedom of information act disclosure that it does not know the destination of these exports and that the figures ‘cannot be broken down at the country level’. This means that the actual arms exports to countries abusing human rights, for example, may well be much higher than given by the government, and in this report. This issue surely falls into a category of ‘total scandal’ – perhaps numbering in the hundreds – symptomatic of how the country is ruled.
Exporting arms to countries without armies!
Scrutiny of the recipients of British military exports reveals some surprising destinations, notably the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and the Channel Islands. My research found that Britain has approved 199 export licences to these destinations from 2002 until September 2006. More worrying is the kind of equipment being ‘exported’:
• British Virgin islands: equipment for the use of military communications equipment (2006), military communications equipment (2003), semi-automatic pistols, small arms ammunition, components for submachine guns (2002)
• Cayman Islands: small arms ammunition, NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) filters and respirators (2006), anti-riot shields, components for submachine guns, submachine guns (2002)
• Channel Islands: shotguns, gun mountings (2006), semi-automatic pistols, small arms ammunition, submachine guns, military vehicle components, crowd control ammunition, teargas/irritant ammunition, CS hand grenades, demolition charges (2003), assault rifles, stun grenades (2002)
Assuming these ‘recipients’ have no use for teargas/irritant ammunition, for example, where this equipment is ending up, is anybody’s guess.
Continuing corruption
Tony Blair’s recent intervention to stop a Serious Fraud Office enquiry into corruption in British arms exports to Saudi Arabia is the tip of an iceberg. To name just some of the other more recent cases:
• BAE Systems secretly paid more than £1 million to Chile’s general Pinochet between 1997 and 2004, according to the Guardian.
• The Serious Fraud Office is currently investigating ‘substantial payments’ made by BAE Systems to a senior South African defence ministry official who had influence over a £1.5 billion multi-national contract won by the company to supply Hawk aircraft.
• BAE Systems secretly paid a $12 million commission into a Swiss bank account in the notorious deal that led Tanzania, one of the world’s poorest countries, to by a radar system (see further below).
Equipping Saudi Arabia
Britain’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia enables key contacts to be cemented with the world’s major oil producer as well as enabling Saudi royals to cream off millions for their personal bank accounts. They are not the normal bilateral deals between states but amount to a massive requipping of the Saudi military. The December 2005 deal known as Al-Yamamah 3 is worth an initial £8 billion to BAE systems for the supply of 72 Eurofighter aircraft, but follow-on contracts for training and spare parts could be worth an eventual £40 billion. The Al-Yamamah deals are likely to alter the strategic military balance in the Middle East, affecting procurement decisions of states rivaling Saudi Arabia, such as Israel and Iran. Exports are also clearly intended to help enable the Saudis to maintain internal control: Britain exports a range of equipment such as tear gas/riot control agents, semi-automatic pistols, submachine guns, armoured all-wheel drive vehicles and assault rifles. The exports are also, of course, mired in secrecy. No export licences are required under the Al-Yamamah deals, which means that the details of the equipment being exported, and the amount, is not known.
Undermining sustainable development
Britain continues to arm numerous of the world’s poorest countries, helping elites divert scarce resources to maintaining domestic control and reinforcing the power of the military in society. It was reported in 2005, for example, that British arms exports to Africa had risen to record levels over the past four years, surpassing the £1 billion mark. Small arms especially have flowed to states such as Angola, Malawi, Namibia and Eritrea while in 2003, for example, the UK sold arms to ten countries involved in conflicts in Africa, totaling £200m. Britain has sold South Africa over £400 million worth of arms under Labour, the biggest single deal being the $6 billion agreement in 1999 to supply arms to South Africa from a number of countries including the UK selling 24 Hawk fighter/trainer jets and 4 naval helicopters. Britain has also sold nearly £150m of arms to another key ally, Nigeria, under Labour, including armoured vehicles, rifles, shotguns and small arms ammunition.
Against this litany of terrible policies, the government policies such as the ban on the export of torture equipment and land mines, for example, are minor and barely worthy of mention. The government has received a lot of praise, also, for championing an international arms trade treaty (ATT), which was established in 2006. The reason is clear: it will involve no further restrictions on the UK’s arms exports, very clearly spelled out by Ministers. Foreign Minister Kim Howells has repeatedly stated that the ATT should not impinge on the ‘legitimate arms trade’ while Defence Minister Derek Twigg has said that it ‘could benefit the defence industry’ .
The advantages of arms exports
In its recent Defence Industrial Strategy white paper, the government argues that it promotes arms exports for five reasons. The first three are economic:
1. ‘Defence exports bring commercial benefit to UK companies and around 20% of UK defence employment is in export work’.
2. ‘Longer production runs also spread fixed overhead costs. The benefit thus accruing to industry may be shared by us in the form of lower prices on future purchases from the same supplier’
3. ‘Defence exports help to maintain key sovereign capabilities in both production capacity and systems engineering skills, which we might otherwise have had to intervene to maintain’.
Arms exports certainly bring profits to specific UK companies but there is by now overwhelming evidence that they do not bring major benefits the economy as a whole. For one thing, Government figures show that the number of people employed from arms exports has decreased from 100,000 when Labour took office to 65,000 in 2004/05 - a miniscule percentage of employment in the UK. A group of academic and Ministry of Defence economists concluded in a 2001 study by York University that the economic costs of a 50 per cent reduction in military exports would be ‘relatively small and one off…as a consequence the balance of arguments about defence exports should depend mainly on non-economic considerations’. The loss of jobs in arms exports would be offset by the creation of more jobs in the civilian sector. Indeed, the government appeared to endorse this conclusion in its Defence Industrial Strategy.
The government’s second and third arguments do not follow from accepting the conclusions in the York University report. While arms exports may currently spread fixed overhead costs and maintain industrial capabilities, this is because there are arms exports; but the point is that shifting to civilian production would provide much greater benefits to the UK economy. The argument in point 2 that arms exports reduce the costs of production is wrong in that it is premised on domestic sales preceding exports and on all customers being satisfied with the same finished product. The reality is more complicated in a world arms market that is very competitive and where exports are frequently sold near the marginal costs of production. Arms exports cost the taxpayer money – various studies show that government subsidies to arms exports (mainly export credits) are at least £453m and possibly up to £936m a year, meaning every job in the sector is subsidized to the tune of at least £7,000 a year.
4. ‘Defence exports support defence diplomacy and in some countries may act as a key enabling activity for a bilateral relationship’.
This is true as long as we decipher the language, and is very worrying. In reality, arms exports regularly prop up repressive regimes by currying favour with political elites and shoring up the military who are often the real power-brokers in a country. Or they help initiate or cement relationships with future power-brokers – an insurance policy if the military takes over. Britain’s arms exports can cement relations with, and directly support, states when they are engaged in conflict since recipient governments are aware that decisions in the exporting country are more controversial and higher risk – Israeli elites currently will be more than aware of how politically difficult it has been for Britain to continue to provide arms, for example. Arms exports can undermine democratic forces within countries by increasing the domestic power of the state and reinforcing undemocratic and repressive tendencies – Britain’s arms exports to countries such as Indonesia, Turkey and Egypt are all cases in point.
British arms exports can also help allies win wars and this is also often their intention – there can be doubt that British elites know exactly what they are doing by arming Indonesia, for example: they are giving them the weaponry to brutally suppress any dissent. Giving states arms to counter or destroy internal opposition is a constant feature of arms exports policy revealed in the declassified government planning files I reviewed in my books Unpeople and Web of deceit – for example, in arming the Gulf states to counter more liberal forces, arming Baghdad to destroy the Kurds in the 1960s, arming the Nigerian federal government to defeat the Biafran secessionists, providing arms to the US to defeat the Vietnamese etc etc. All these foreign policy factors in arms exports are far more important than commercial considerations and involve absolutely fundamental aspects of the UK’s foreign policy.
5. ‘Defence exports contribute to building local operational capability and therefore enhance interoperability with our own forces, especially during peacekeeping missions’.
This is a minor point and is surely not regarded as serious in elite circles. There is already considerable interoperability of military equipment within NATO, for example, whether Britain exports this equipment or not. Indeed, an argument could be made that interoperability would be enhanced if the UK withdrew from some arms exports and give the field totally to US equipment.
Another key reason for arms exports not mentioned by the government is an unwillingness to upset the US government by rejecting certain deals. The government’s 2002 guidelines on incorporation policy (ie, for components that will be incorporated into weapons systems in the recipient country for onward export), which allowed the export of spare parts for F-16s destined for Israel, was partly a sop to the US. In announcing these guidelines, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: ‘the government carefully takes into account the importance of maintaining a strong and dynamic defence relationship with the US. This relationship is fundamental to the UK’s national security as well as to our ability to play a strong and effective role in the world’. In addition, British arms companies now secure a large slice of their orders from the US Defence Department, while the US is among the largest markets for UK arms exports. The new militarization under the supposed ‘war on terror’ is a massive boost for British arms companies.
Left off the government’s list of reasons for providing arms exports is the influence and power wielded by Britain’s big arms companies, and the government’s closeness to, and support for them. The government provides a variety of direct help to the companies: a team of 600 civil servants dedicated to selling UK arms around the world; the provision of taxpayer-backed export credits and ministerial and royal family personal interventions to win key deals. There is also a large ‘revolving door’ of officials moving between the big arms companies, the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence, for example:
• between 1999 and 2004, 614 officers in the armed forces received approval to take up employment in arms companies
• at least 19 senior MoD officials have taken employment with arms companies since 1997.
• 38 out of 79 individuals seconded to the MoD between April 1997 and January 2003 came from arms companies (22 from BAE Systems)
Tony Blair has personally been the highest lobbyist for the arms corporations, intervening in several deals – the Tanzania radar and the Hawk spares to Zimbabwe, for example – to override other government departments, and undertaking personal visits to India and Saudi Arabia to promote large deals. Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote in his 2003 autobiography that ‘I never once knew number 10 come up with any decision that would be incommoding to British Aerospace’. The problem lies mainly in government for allowing the arms industry to become so influential.
For notes and sources, see the Saferworld report at: http://www.saferworld.org.uk/publications.php?id=264
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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| And the tories said that Labour didn't know how to run the country eh! |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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| faceless wrote: | | And the tories said that Labour didn't know how to run the country eh! |
They weren't talking of New Labour = Anti-Labour |
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GingerTruck
Joined: 19 May 2007
Location: tipton west midlands uk
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| Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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 ten years of sadness the sooner he goes the better |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 8:27 am Post subject: |
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| GingerTruck wrote: | | ten years of sadness the sooner he goes the better |
The sooner THEY go .. Different barrels of a shotgun
[plagarism acknowledged] |
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