Tory State-Terror Quislings Warn: Vote Lib Dem and You'll All Die

[Paul Rigby]

As Tory desperation grows at the prospect of a hung parliament, up pop three of the British Terror Industry's finest America-First cavemen. I do like the idea that dear-old Dicky Dearlove (of Dodgy Dossier fame) has any credibility whatever:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/po...115295.ece

From The Times
May 4, 2010

Security chiefs condemn Lib Dem defence ‘gamble’

Roland Watson and Francis Elliott

Nick Clegg’s credibility on national security is called into question today by senior defence and intelligence figures.

Writing to The Times, they said that Liberal Democrat policies risked leaving Britain exposed to terrorism and diminished on the world stage.

Citing plans to scrap control orders and pursue inquiries into the conduct of the intelligence services, they said that Mr Clegg had so far escaped proper scrutiny.

They added that the party’s apparent confusion on the future of the nuclear deterrent and the mission in Afghanistan left it outside the traditional two-party consensus and risked giving succour to Britain’s enemies. The letter is signed by Peter Clarke, the former National Counter Terrorism Co-ordinator, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of the Secret Intelligence Service, and Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, former Chief of the Defence Staff.

The trio, seeking to raise eleventh-hour doubts about a key plank of the Liberal Democrat platform, said that Mr Clegg represented a gamble. “The Liberal Democrats need to show that they do not stand outside the cross- party consensus on national security affairs. We believe that they need to clarify their position as soon as possible. All political parties must send the right signals — to friend and foe alike.”

The Lib Dem high command dismissed the criticisms as scaremongering calculated to benefit the Tories.

The criticism came as the Liberal Democrats continued to hold steady in the polls. They dropped a point in two polls but remain either level pegging with or just behind Labour.

The leaders went into the final 48 hours of campaigning with David Cameron insisting that he was taking “nothing for granted”. At the same time he sought to give the impression of unstoppable momentum, undertaking a frantic around-the-clock tour to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. He will travel through the night, making campaign visits to shift workers.

Mr Clegg said that the Tory leader was guilty of “breathtaking arrogance” in “already measuring the curtains in No 10” before Britain had voted.

Gordon Brown made an impassioned plea for former Labour voters to return to the fold as Ed Balls called for Lib Dems to “bite their lip” and vote tactically to deny the Tories power.

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Lib Dem leader who helped to draw up the party’s defence and national security policies, responded to today’s letter, saying: “This is a last-minute election stunt to frighten the electorate into voting for the Tories.” He said that he was surprised by the signatories because Lord Guthrie had agreed a report on long-term security needs that Lord Ashdown wrote for the IPPR think-tank and which had formed the basis of the Lib Dem manifesto.

He said of Sir Richard: “He does have to understand that the world has moved on from when he supplied Tony Blair with his intelligence about Iraq and WMD.”

Lord Carlile of Berriew, the Liberal Democrat peer and the counter-terrorism watchdog, said he was disappointed that the signatories had raised as an election issue the orders used to hold foreign terror suspects. “I was rather hoping that counter-terrorism legislation would be the subject of consensus,” he said.

The peer is at odds with his party’s position to scrap control orders, under which terrorist suspects can be kept under effective house arrest without charge. He used his latest report to state that in a small number of cases they were needed.

He added: “I don’t recognise Peter Clarke’s expertise in defence and I don’t recognise Charles Guthries’s expertise in counter-terrorism.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol...61809.html

Clegg dismisses security chiefs' criticism

By Andrew Woodcock, PA

Nick Clegg this morning dismissed a group of senior defence and intelligence chiefs who questioned Liberal Democrat security policies as "a bunch of retired establishment figures" who were discredited by mistakes over Iraq.

In a letter to The Times, former Chief of Defence Staff Lord Guthrie, ex-MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove and former Metropolitan Police counter-terror commander and national counter-terrorism co-ordinator Peter Clarke warned that Lib Dem policies on nuclear weapons and Afghanistan put them outside the two-party consensus and represented "a gamble".

Citing plans to scrap control orders for terror suspects and pursue inquiries into allegations over the conduct of the intelligence services, the trio said: "The Liberal Democrats need to show that they do not stand outside the long-standing cross-party consensus on national security affairs.

"We believe that they need to clarify their position as soon as possible. All political parties must send the right signals to friend and foe alike."

Mr Clegg told GMTV: "I care passionately about the national security of this country, but I am not going to take lectures from a bunch of retired establishment figures about the security of this country.

"Some of them actually made the biggest mistakes in the run-up to the Iraq War.

"I am not going to apologise for calling, for example, for a proper inquiry into the allegations that somehow the British security services made us complicit in torture. That's a very serious allegation against our best British traditions. I want to promote those traditions."

The three security chiefs said they were "concerned" that the Lib Dem manifesto makes no mention of Nato and calls for a more distant relationship with the US. "An enhanced European defence and security posture, however welcome, cannot substitute for American power," they warned.

British troops in Afghanistan deserve a "clearer lead" than was offered by Lib Dem frontbenchers, who have adopted different positions on whether and when the UK contingent should be withdrawn, the three said.

Ruling out military action against Iran was "precipitate", while the Lib Dems make no mention of North Korea, the other state threatening to acquire nuclear weapons.

Lib Dem policy on the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent was in "potentially dangerous confusion", with several senior frontbenchers indicating they would like to take the "colossal gamble" of scrapping it altogether, said the former security chiefs.

And they said that Liberal Democrats appeared "shy" of putting forward new proposals to combat terrorism and ready to scrap control orders, while being "seemingly willing" to expose intelligence agents to relentless inquiry and investigation.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown said he had served in MI6 with Sir Richard, but told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I'm not about to take advice on these matters from the man who, after prime minister Tony Blair, is probably most responsible for the biggest foreign affairs blunder of our age."