Bad Men

The Upper Miliband has found yet another good use for taxpayers' money: namely paying a lawyer to repeat once again the Upper Miliband's discredited case against disclosing the contents of a CIA document relating to the enhanced interrogation of Binyam Mohamed. Mohamed was imprisoned in Pakistan and then renditionised to Morocco, Afghanistan and the Guantánomaly, where he claims he was tortured. The high court judges ruled that "the relationship of the United Kingdom government to the United States authorities in connection with Binyam Mohamed was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing", and that the document which the Upper Miliband wishes to keep secret "gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". Of course, this is not why the Upper Miliband wishes to keep the document secret. The Upper Miliband is not prey to such base and ignoble motives, for the Upper Miliband is a New New Labour minister, and a fag-end New New Labour minister at that. The Upper Miliband wishes to keep the document secret because its disclosure could result in our oldest and greatest ally refusing to share information with us - a charge to which our oldest and greatest ally made a full and spontaneous confession some months ago. The Upper Miliband's legal hireling, who has the Dickensian name of Jonathan Sumption, said that Britain and the US had a "highly productive intelligence relationship" which it would obviously be a great pity to lay waste over an insignificant matter of kidnapping and torture with razor blades. Sumption even claimed that there were disagreements about certain "interrogation techniques", although he does not seem to have made clear whether the Blair government tried as hard to stop the CIA's water sports and sharp practice in the Guantánomaly as it obviously tried to stop the Pentagon's fun and games in Iraq. Since the high court judges had gone so far as to express scepticism over some Holy Writ spouted by the American government, Sumption also criticised their lack of respect for this greatest taboo of the British Foreign and Colonial Office: "I would go so far as to say their views were irresponsible", he said. He also asserted that, since Mohamed has been released, the legal proceedings are no longer the business of anyone except the Upper Miliband and his chums. After all, once a crime has been committed and is over and done with, why should anyone be so irresponsible as to wonder how it happened or who was to blame? In this case, it appears, the matter has "essentially been taken over to serve a wider, and in some respects, political agenda", which is a jolly rotten thing to do.