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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Responses

David Heathfield. I agree. It was the point I was trying to make with Tony Benn. He tried to interpret it as "Parliament is irrelevant". In fact I was saying that the media has taken over the role of opposition in Parliament and they put greater emphasis on their opinion than on speeches or comments in the House.

Paul. I don't know if there is a web site on Government contracts. I suspect not but all contracts have to be made public although the discussions leading up to them would be confidential for commercial reasons - not least giving advantage to some companies.

You might find the following site useful and if you type in "government contracts" there are a number of other information sites.

http://www.supplyinggovernment.gov.uk/

The various Dan's! Failed states are NOT just about terrorism. It is also about human rights, the rule of law and democracy. The nation state is still seen by many as more important - hence China's reluctance to see intervention in the Sudan (Darfur) or to see regime change in North Korea. Without the stability that is brought by the rule of law etc there is inevitable a much greater risk of war and internal conflict.

The Horn of Africa is difficult. The danger of ever smaller independent states risks the Balkanisation of that area but it might be the only solution.

I can express my opposition to the death penalty without kidding myself that I live in a perfect world. It might have escaped your attention but the Middle East is not the perfect world!

"Failed states are NOT just about terrorism. It is also about human rights, the rule of law and democracy."

So will you support international recognition of the independence of Somaliland, which was declared 15 years ago? Somaliland has a relatively good record on democracy, the rule of law, human rights and combatting terrorism. Furthermore, it's ability to defend itself from the Islamists sweeping Somalia is essential to preventing the Talibanisation of the Horn of Africa.

"The danger of ever smaller independent states risks the Balkanisation of that area but it might be the only solution."

Balkanisation is completely different - that was the result of Serbian ultra-nationalism attempting to assert itself over other member states of Yugoslavia. Surely we must celebrate the fact that this form of neo-fascism has been defeated, rather than bemoan the demise of the Milosevic regime.

East Africa is also completely unlike Yugoslavia in the cause of conflict and the combatants. For one thing, Somalia is not affected by secessionism but the fracturing of power by warlords that makes the country impossible to govern.