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| 7/7 video footage for inquests 'could be used in terrorist propaganda' New video footage of the tube trains ripped apart in the 7/7 bombings is likely to be released at the inquests for those killed, a hearing was told today.But the Metropolitan police raised concerns that the previously unseen footage could be used by jihadists in terrorist propaganda.The material is intended to be shown next week at the start of the inquests into the deaths of the 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 attacks on London. It includes CCTV of the four suicide bombers travelling to the capital, photographs and video of the wrecked tube carriages and number 30 bus after the devices were detonated, and extracts from calls to London Underground's control centre.Counsel to the inquests, Hugo Keith QC, told the pre-inquest hearing that the material had been carefully edited so as not to show the victims or any particularly distressing scenes. But Max Hill QC, representing the Metropolitan police, voiced fears that the footage could be used on extremist websites for "cynical purposes".He said: "There is a sad but true fact of life which is that material, often distressing, showing the moments of immediate impact of events such as those of July 7 is abused by others entirely beyond these proceedings for – for want of a better phrase – propaganda for their own purposes."The coroner, Lady Justice Hallett, provisionally ruled that the footage would be published on the website of the 7/7 inquests and made available to the media. But she agreed to consider any further police objectionsonce it has seen all the material.The inquests at the royal courts of justice in London will begin next Monday with a two-day opening statement from Keith. Hallett, who is sitting without a jury, will then hear details of the bombers' journey to London. After this, evidence will be called relating to the scenes of the four attacks, first Aldgate, followed by Edgware Road, King's Cross and Tavistock Square.The inquests, which are expected to last up to five months, will then cover the backgrounds of the bombers and issues such as forensics and the command of the emergency services. They will finish by looking at the question of whether security agencies could have been prevented the attacks.7 July London attacksUK security and terrorismguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Ears provide new way of identifying people in airports The shape of a person's ears could provide a new way of identifying people in airports following new research. telegraph.co.uk |
The death of Jimmy Mubenga: Restraint and the state | Editorial Deportations are an unavoidable aspect of any immigration policy, but they must be carried out by guards who are properly trainedDeath in custody is always shocking, and rightly so. The death of Jimmy Mubenga on Tuesday, as he begged for help from fellow passengers on flight BA77, should sound alarm bells throughout the Home Office. A postmortem has so far failed to confirm the cause of death. But eyewitnesses report that the 46-year-old Angolan citizen was being forcibly restrained as the plane prepared to depart for Luanda. Deportations are an unavoidable aspect of any immigration policy. But they must be carried out by guards who are properly trained to minimise both the stress and the distress. It is about patience, compassion and calm, not the pre-emptive use of overwhelming force.It would be wrong to prejudge the current police inquiry. But the prisons ombudsman – who has been asked by the Home Office to report on Mr Mubenga's death – has investigated nine deaths in immigration removal centres since 2004 and, although no deportee has died since 1993, when Joy Gardner was suffocated after being gagged with 13ft of sticky tape, two years ago concerned organisations compiled a dossier of nearly 300 separate claims of abuse by failed asylum seekers. An inquiry commissioned by the Home Office that reported earlier this year could investigate only a small fraction of the allegations, and found no systemic abuse. But it was strongly critical of the lack of proper process, which meant that more than half the allegations examined had simply been ignored by the Border Agency. Meanwhile, the year before, the prisons inspector had also reported that there were too few effective safeguards, wide variations in standards, and worrying gaps and weaknesses in complaints and monitoring.Against this backdrop, the Home Office's initial response that Mr Mubenga had "died after being taken unwell" is at the very least inadequate. If eyewitness accounts given to the Guardian are correct – and they corroborate one another – it is inaccurate too. Occasionally, it is necessary to uphold the law by force. The accompanying safeguard has to be that any death while in the care of the state is swiftly followed by an adequate and transparent investigation. A report from the prisons ombudsman is not enough.In the past 20 years, understanding of the dangers of restraint has greatly improved, but there is no system to ensure that every organisation empowered to use force in the name of the state applies the lessons of earlier tragedies. There is too much evidence that some private security firms do not properly understand the risks of restraint techniques. More fundamentally, it also seems there is neither the oversight nor the accountability that are the preconditions of the safe and proper exercise of state power.Jimmy MubengaImmigration and asylumCrimeAngolaPoliceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Brand and Perry tie the knot in India Comedian Russell Brand has married singer Katy Perry in an Indian ceremony. bbc.co.uk |
Armando Iannucci: 'Now is not the time for a crap opposition' Armando Iannucci, creator of The Thick of It, is Britain's greatest political satirist in recent years. So, when is he going to sink his teeth into the coalition?One grisly night in April, Armando Iannucci found himself in Spin Alley. "That was the night I realised my true worth as a human being," he says. Spin Alley is the term Iannucci coined during the election campaign to describe a backstage area where journalists would gather after each leaders' debate. Political spokespeople would desperately try to convince them that their guy had won."It was like a cattle auction or a slave market. There were different pens the fresh meat would get shoved into. The Huw Edwards pen. The Kay Burley pen. The Five Live pen. So I was shoved into one of these pens and put in front of a live camera. Two seconds before I was going to speak, I was yanked back out and replaced by Alastair Campbell. He was obviously a bigger catch than me."As he replaced me, he muttered: 'If it isn't the bloke who's been making a living out of me for the past 10 years.' I felt like a trainee tap dancer. I had found my market value."Campbell's jibe, though, was a typical New Labour half-truth. Armando Iannucci, 46, perhaps Britain's greatest recent political satirist, the man responsible for some of the most well-observed, biting comedy of our time (The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge, In the Loop) and for catalysing some of our greatest comedy talents, has only been making a living out of Campbell for five years. The Thick of It, the satirical sitcom he created as a Yes Minister for a new millennium, starring Peter Capaldi as foul-mouthed Campbell simulacrum Malcolm Tucker, hit our screens in May 2005.That said, Iannucci hasn't finished making a living out of Tony Blair's PR bruiser, even though Campbell's beloved New Labour is dead, buried and Ed Miliband affects to dance on its grave. Faber next month publishes a Thick of It spinoff book entitled The Missing DoSAC Files, written by Iannucci and the show's other writers Jesse Armstrong, Ian Martin, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche. DoSAC stands for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. Now the coalition is cutting government savagely the acronym is proving alarmingly prescient.The book's conceit is that secret DoSAC files have been found at Euston station. Among embarrassing personnel files and risible policy drafts is Malcolm Tucker's invaluable guide to dealing with journalists, which contains more truth than Campbell could ever manage."The bottom line in a live TV interview is always," counsels Tucker, "do not look like Michael Fucking Howard." It was Howard, you'll remember, who – by failing to answer a question that Jeremy Paxman asked 12 times – made himself into a case study of how not to deal with the media.Tucker's swearing here is as exotic as it ever was on telly, particularly when his Campbellian scheming goes, as Tucker puts it, manboobs up. Iannucci, though engaging and thoughtful, is an ultimately disappointing interviewee because, unlike his creation, he doesn't give good cuss. "I don't actually swear that much or when I do I don't do it very exotically," he says regretfully.This is the man who broke off from a postgraduate thesis on Milton's religious poetry to enter the world of comedy and who now lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, a speech therapist whom he met while studying English at Oxford, and their three children.He is more cerebral than his creation, perhaps temperamentally more effete. Last year, he even collaborated on an operetta like – as Tucker would have put it – a mimsy, bleating public schoolboy who lives with cats and an Aga. As a result of such temperamental failings, Iannucci needed help with The Thick of It to ensure that when Tucker gets angry he gets, in his words, apo-fucking-pleptically angry. He took on Martin as swearing consultant and Roche, whose unreliable biography in the book says he "studied swearing under David Mamet at NYFU".Is this book the last of The Thick of It? Or will Iannucci create a new sitcom, The Thin of It, to satirise the axe-wielding new government? Iannucci says he is considering his options. "We haven't started writing the new series. I want to see what the underlying atmosphere is." But he already has some ideas for what the new series will be like. He envisages Peter Mannion, whom we met as the shadow DoSAC secretary, replacing previous incumbent Nicola Murray (the marvellous Rebecca Front). "But there's a twist. Mannion becomes minister but there will be someone from the other party in the coalition in his office, so a lot of the comedy will come from that tension between duplicated ministers."He has another idea for the series. "We have to cast someone who is utterly thrilled to be in power, amazed to find themselves in government, but who has death in their eyes when it comes to enforcing the cuts." This sounds as though he's – please God, make it so – poised to make Nick Clegg the butt of his next satirical series.But will Iannucci really dare to be as ruthlessly satirical about the coalition as he was about New Labour? After all, Iannucci voted Liberal Democrat in May. Just before the election, he argued: "They represent the best chance in a lifetime to make lasting and fair changes to how the UK is governed." Does he still feel that way now that Clegg is Cameron's ankle bracelet? "I waver on this. My Lib Dem support goes back to 2003 when Charles Kennedy led them to oppose the war in Iraq. That was a hard and impressive thing for him to do at the time."Iannucci does admit to queasiness about the Lib Dems consorting with the Tories. "So much is happening that has not been voted for or scrutinised properly by the opposition. We're facing the most radical overhaul of the NHS and it wasn't even mentioned in the manifesto, nor was the notion of fixed terms that could only be overturned by a 55% parliamentary majority. What we've lacked since the election now is a proper opposition to forensically examine what the Tories are doing."I really do think the opposition for the last 30 years has been quite crap and now is not a time for a crap opposition. Ed Miliband and his team should be absolutely ruthless in unearthing the flaws in government logic."The cuts aren't about economics any longer – they're about ideology. And the ideology is that a big state is bad and state interference is bad." So the US Tea Party agenda has been smuggled into British politics? "Absolutely, and nobody so far is fighting against it. Take quangos. The ones they're keeping are the ones that benefit business, while cutting the arty-farty ones that cost very little and arguably earn money."Among the quangos to be cut is the UK Film Council. "I do have an interest in it because it partly financed my last film. But I do think it's silly to abolish it. Who's going to decide whether to fund the next rom-com? A civil servant? Theresa May? In a few years, they'll probably quietly establish something called the National Film Funding Committee and it won't be very different from what they abolished."The Iannucci film that the Film Council bankrolled was In the Loop, a Bafta-winning, Oscar-nominated triumph. Iraq not only changed Iannucci's voting preferences; it gave him the film's storyline."It was about two countries [the UK and the US] and how they end up agreeing to a war that everybody else thinks makes no sense whatsoever." Alastair Campbell called it "boring", which most likely indicates how much it hit its target.Iannucci says he has no interest in a sequel. "In the Loop was a one-off. I want to do something completely different – a slapstick comedy in the tradition of early Woody Allen."That film, which he has co-written with Will Smith and Roger Drew, will be called Out of the Window. The project, not yet filmed, has overcome hilarious misrepresentation. "This is how the internet works," says Iannucci. "The BBC put out a story on its website saying that I was writing a film with Will and Roger. Absolutely true. It added that Will was also working on a biopic about Charles Dickens. Again true." Smith and Drew, incidentally, are two of Iannucci's longtime writing collaborators. "Then the story came out on some website in the States that I was directing a biopic with Will Smith, the American movie star rather than the British comedy writer, as Dickens."So what is Out of the Window really about? "It's the story of a guy who works in a glass-fronted office building and one day he scratches his armpit. Somebody films it, puts it on YouTube with a soundtrack of monkey noises. It ruins his life. So this guy spends the rest of the film trying to track down the bastard who made him known the world over as Scratchy Monkey."But that's not the only film he's working on. "I've been editing the Alan Partridge picture too." Iannucci will tell me little about this long-sought after film, in which Steve Coogan reprises the role of the egotistical monster of a Norwich DJ that he and Iannucci created on Radio 4 nearly 20 years ago and brought to BBC2 a few years later. He scotches the rumours that the drama takes Partridge to the US, where he becomes as intolerably successful as those real life Alan Partridges, Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan."Taking Alan to the US wouldn't have been a good idea. Alan's thing is that he's delusional in imagining his future is brighter than it ever will be. He keeps expecting that, because Keith Chegwin and Tony Blackburn have been brought back to national consciousness with reality TV, that he is destined to return too. But he hasn't had that call."Iannucci is also working on an HBO comedy series about the office of the US vice-president. He yearns to have the HBO imprimatur on his work. "For me HBO means The Larry Sanders Show, which was such a profound influence on The Thick of It, and Curb Your Enthusiasm." He says he's awaiting approval to make a pilot. "I've been interested in vice-presidents ever since I thought about Dick Cheney. In the runup to war in Iraq, Blair and his team thought they could man-mark the Americans and so control them. Blair would mark Bush, Straw would mark Colin Powell. Geoff Hoon was going to mark Rumsfeld. It was a crazy idea, but they also forgot about the vice-president Dick Cheney, who happened to be the guy who was driving the whole war thing alone."So the office of vice-president is really interesting. It can be an office where the incumbent is scheming against the president or, as in Cheney's case, doing the president's job."In my series the vice-president was a powerful senator, but who now has nothing like that power." Why that drama rather than tackling the Obama presidency? "In my view Obama is tragic not comic. I do comedy."Is all this recent creative work Iannucci leveraging his British small-screen success into opportunities to explore more ambitious material on bigger canvases? "If only," giggles Iannucci. "The truth is that everything I have done for the last eight years has been displacement activity for the half-written comic novel I should be finishing. I keep getting calls from my publishers asking politely if there's anything for them to see yet. I can't finish it."That is, surely, a little pathetic: after all, even his nemesis, Alastair Campbell has found time to finish his novel. It probably isn't very good, but at least Campbell's achieved closure in a way Iannucci has not.It's time for photos. I ask Iannucci to sign my copy of The DoSAC Files. I look to see what he's written. "Hell-fuck-o! Armando Iannucci." I'm slightly disappointed. It's a good try, but he still could do with some creative swearing help. Ideally from a graduate of NYFU.The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files by Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Jesse Armstrong, Tony Roche and Ian Martin, published by Faber on 4 November, is available for £9.99 (RRP £12.99) with free UK p&p from the Guardian Bookshop. To order, call 0330 333 6846 or visit guardianbookshop.co.ukThe comedy cuts Iannucci tweetsI think the cuts were fair. It's about time bedbound homeless people were taken down a peg or two.• Prince Andrew to be "halved" by 2015.• BBC to be cut back to be just BB and merged with the Boys' Brigade.• Department of Work and Pensions to be scrapped and replaced by increased funding to Dignitas.• Do you get the impression these cuts are being worked out on the back of a pack of Nicorettes?Armando IannucciAlastair CampbellTony BlairLiberal-Conservative coalitionLabourLiberal DemocratsNick CleggTelevisionStuart Jeffriesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |