Time for Heads to Roll?

This is surely not just negligence. It looks more as though operatives of the Tory governments of prime ministers Cameron and May are on a mission to sanitise Britain's colonial past: 

"Thousands of government papers detailing some of the most controversial episodes in 20th-century British history have vanished after civil servants removed them from the country's National Archives and then reported them as lost. Documents concerning the Falklands war, Northern Ireland's Troubles and the infamous Zinoviev letter - in which MI6 officers plotted to bring about the downfall of the first Labour government - are all said to have been misplaced. Other missing files concern the British colonial administration in Palestine... " (Government admits 'losing' thousands of papers from National Archives, Ian Cobain, theguardian.com, 26/12/17)

Nor is this new - see my 6/8/16 post Too Many Skeletons in the Cupboard.

Since we may well be witnessing a cliocidal campaign here, a commission of inquiry would seem to be in order.

First Bliar, Now Cameron

It seems that British prime ministers just cannot help themselves.

In 2011, a mere 9 years after Bliar invaded Iraq, former UK PM David Cameron (2010-16) got stuck into Libya. (Needless to say, as a Tory MP in 2003, he also voted in favour of the Bush/Bliar war on Iraq.)

Cameron's role in turning Libya into a base for the latter-day Wahhabis and takfiris of IS should receive the same scrutiny as Bliar's in the destruction and sectarianisation of Iraq, and both should be held to account for the devastating consequences of their actions. Hopefully, in Cameron's case, the following official report will help kick-start that process:  

"Former prime minister David Cameron's 2011 decision to intervene militarily in Libya was misguided and helped give rise to jihadist extremism in North Africa, a key British parliamentary committee says. The report slams Mr Cameron and his top advisers for expanding a civilian protection mission in Libya to include regime change and failing to adequately plan for the country's future after the overthrow of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. It says Britain's military action was based on 'erroneous assumptions' and 'an incomplete understanding' of the ramifications of removing Colonel Gaddafi, and Mr Cameron's team should have been aware the rebel groups Britain was backing contained 'significant' numbers of extremists. 'The UK's actions in Libya were part of an ill-conceived intervention, the results of which are still playing out today,' said committee chairman Crispin Blunt, a Conservative Party MP." (MPs blame Cameron for Libya crisis, rise of IS, Gregory Katz, AAP/Sydney Morning Herald, 16/9/16)

From Pig in a Poke to Pokin' a Pig

Placing your (not yet) parliamentary member into a dead pig's mouth while at university is one thing, but recycling Netanyahu's PORKIES is in a different league altogether.

Here's UK PM David Cameron doing just that earlier this year:

"Obviously we regret the loss of life wherever it takes place, but I do think there's an important difference - as Prime Minister Netanyahu put it: Israel uses its weapons to defend its people and Hamas uses its people to defend its weapons." (British PM offers defense of Israeli attacks in Gaza, timesofisrael.com, 29/4/15)

Eeeuw... and all the excuse I need to TROT out the latest quality tweets on this Tory twit:

I did not have sexual relations with that pig! - Ken Roche

Was there lipstick on the pig? - George Galloway

Lock up your sows... - George Galloway

Cameron: Why weren't you singing?
Corbyn: I felt safer with my mouth shut. - DOOGZ

Cameron: Where are the corgis?
Queen: I thought it best I hide them. - Taigs

According to YouGov 89% of Tory voters 'couldn't care less' that the PM had sex with a dead pig. Blimey... - George Galloway

Cameron: Mr President, can you hear me?
Obama: Yes, David, but there's some crackling on your end... - Buffalo Tendencies

SCANDAL: Jeremy Corbyn plunged into fresh outrage as it emerged the left-wing republican Labour leader REFUSED to fuck a dead pig. - The DM Reporter

And check out these 3 little pig hashtags: #piggate, #snoutrage, #hameron

Aren't they adorable?

Lest We Forget... Iraq

An excellent letter from yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald:

"David Cameron has demanded an independent investigation into whether war crimes were committed in Sri Lanka's civil war. Sure, straight after there's an independent investigation into whether war crimes were committed when the British government, with others, invaded Iraq despite not having any justification under international law or the authorisation of the UN Security Council.

"It is sheer arrogance and hypocrisy for Cameron to demand another country be open about war crimes it might have committed when the result of the Chilcot inquiry into the circumstances in which Tony Blair dragged Britain into the US-led invasion of Iraq is sitting on his desk, held up from being released because he doesn't want to upset Washington by revealing what Blair and George Bush said to each other." Gordon Drennan Burton (SA)

'Engaging': Julie Bishop Points the Way

When it comes to flying off to a Commonwealth Heads of Government bash in a butcher shop, aka Sri Lanka, the word on every sophisticated Western politician's tongue is 'engage'.

For example:

"British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote this week: 'the right thing to do is to engage. To visit the country. To shine the international spotlight on the lack of progress in the country'." (Bishop urges leader to attend talks, Ben Doherty, David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/11/13)

"Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has vowed to 'engage' rather than 'isolate' Sri Lanka over claims of human rights abuses, bucking a growing trend to boycott this week's Commonwealth Meeting in the country." (ibid)

Now Jules has had some experience 'engaging' in Sri Lanka. And thanks to News Ltd's Rowan Callick, we now have a pretty good idea of just what it is that a politician actually does when she 'engages'. And as it turns out, David Cameron seems to have gotten it all wrong. But then that's men for you, right?

Apparently, when you 'engage' in a place like Sri Lanka, or as Callick has it, "the Tamil badlands of Sri Lanka," the last thing you do is "shine the international spotlight on the lack of progress in the country." No way!

What you do - what Jules did at any rate - was to negotiate the rubble-strewn, khaki morass, with its odd, reddish splashes, in her stylish new Milan stilettos, adjust her new Kailis pearl necklace, brush the dust off her immaculate new Escada frock, sweep the joint with her trademark death-stare - so appropriate in a killing field, no? - wince at the decidedly un-Israeli ambiance of the place ("scarcely vibrant" as Callick put it), note with relief the absence of Tamil women being raped by Sri Lankan troops within the immediate ambit of her gimlet-gaze, then high-tail it back to her air-conditioned luxury hotel in Colombo as soon as decently possible:

"Earlier this year, with immigration spokesman Scott Morrison and customs and border protection spokesman Michael Keenan, she spurned all government and high commissioner offers of guides and escorts and placed her team in the hands of local Tamils; the Australians were picked up in an old minibus at Jaffna airport and checked in to a $17-a-night hotel with cold showers only. They stayed in Kilinochchi, a town at the heart of the failed Tamil rebellion, which had seen little development for decades. For two and a half days they were taken to meet people whose lives were scarcely vibrant, but who could provide no evidence, Bishop says, of continuing persecution from Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority." (Julie Bishop: All the right moves, Rowan Callick, The Australian, 28/9/13)

Now unlike Jules, Tone hasn't been there before, but he too will soon be 'engaging' with the best of them in Sri Lanka. In fact, as befits a PM not particularly known for his foreign affairs expertise, he's taken time off from pollie-peddling to practise 'engaging' with Sri Lanka right here in Australia, and I have to say I'm quite impressed with the result:

"Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr Abbott said the Sri Lankan government deserved praise for ending its civil war. 'I don't propose to lecture the Sri Lankans on human rights,' Mr Abbott said. 'I accept that by Australian standards, probably things could have been done a little differently and maybe a little better'." (Tony Abbott to stay quiet on Sri Lanka human rights, Dan Harrison, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/11/13)

"Probably things could have been done a little differently... maybe a little better..."

Yep, for a bloke, he's a natural, and I'm sure that, as with Jules, "no evidence of continuing persecution" is ever going to cross his path in Sri Lanka.

'Worse Than Amritsar'

In the Zionist lexicon, the word massacre can mean just about anything from a scratch on up - so long as we're talking about Israeli Jews. But when it comes to Palestinians, no matter how many are gunned down, shelled or bombed to smithereens by Israeli terrorists, the 'm' word simply does not apply. You may, for example, remember the Israeli government swearing blind that the massacre of Palestinians by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Jenin in April 2002 was nothing of the sort:

"Had the United Nations investigators who were standing by in Geneva, been allowed to enter Israel to carry out a proper investigation, perhaps the real truth would be a bit clearer. But, there was no independent investigation. Just as in Tiananmen Square, the power of the gun and the tank ensured there was no proper body count or accounting. Just as happened in Tiananmen Square, the uninformed and those with their own agenda, are now claiming there was no massacre. There was a massacre, a considerable number of human beings were indiscriminately and unnecessarily slaughtered. The truth was the other victim." (Correspondents Report - UN report on Jenin massacre flawed, Peter Cave, abc.net.au, 4/8/02)

So why raise the matter of Zionist semantics now?

You can blame serendipity in the form of an opinion piece in The Australian on the occasion of UK Prime Minister David Cameron's visit to the Indian city of Amritsar, and a reference to Amritsar in a near-forgotten set of diaries, both, as it happens, read within 24 hours of each other.

The first, originally published in The Times on the occasion of Cameron's recent visit to the city of Amritsar, part of a current 3-day trip to India, focused on an infamous massacre perpetrated in the city by British colonial troops in 1919. I reproduce it here in full:

"Indians have been waiting almost a century for the British to apologise for the massacre in Amritsar. All the signs are that they will have to be patient for some years yet. The Queen, visiting the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in 1997, spoke of regret and sadness; David Cameron has described it as shameful. But 'sorry' remains elusive because it would acknowledge the moral shortcomings of British efforts to keep its empire together by force.

"Nowhere was this force quite as naked as in Amritsar on an April afternoon in 1919. Revolt had been in the air for months and the British were on edge. When an Anglican woman missionary was attacked in an Amritsar lane, Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered Indians using that thoroughfare to crawl on all fours. News that there would be a meeting in the Jallianwala Park convinced him it could lead to insurrection. Dyer arrived with 90 soldiers, most of them Gurkhas, and positioned two armoured cars at the main entrance. About 15,000 people were gathered, tightly packed. He did not order them to disperse and waited barely 30 seconds before ordering the soldiers to fire. There was a howling as some bullets penetrated two people. The firing lasted 10 minutes. According to the British estimate, 379 died; Indians put the figure at close to a thousand. Dyer, asked in a subsequent inquiry why he had not arranged for the wounded to be treated in hospital, replied 'It was not my job'. Instead, the dead lay on the ground through the night, gnawed, reports said, by jackals. Dyer told another inquiry: 'I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing, but they would have come back again and laughed and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself.'

"The massacre sowed decades of resentment. Some 21 years later, an independence activist assassinated Lieutenant Governor Michael Dwyer, who had backed Dyer's order to shoot. The activist was hanged but hailed as a hero by the Nazis. 'Will the historians of the future have to record that it was not the Nazis but the British ruling class which destroyed the British Empire?' wrote the New Statesman in 1940." (Sorry seems to be the hardest word, Roger Boyes, 22/2/13)

So, I'm pretty sure you'd agree. If it's massacre you're talking about, Amritsar 1919 is as good an example as any, right?

The second reference to Amritsar and its massacre came in Baffy: The Diaries of Blanche Dugdale 1936-1947, edited by N.A. Rose, 1973. You may remember the gentile-Zionist ultra, Baffy, niece of Lord Balfour and one of the habitues of London's Zionist Office, featured in my 3 posts The Jeffries-Dugdale Exchange, 6-8/1/13) Here's the Amritsar reference in her diary entry for January 15, 1941 - London:

"Wet snow. Zionist Office. Heard about some progress in the Army negotiations, and most sickening and horrible reports sent by Moshe [Shertok], therefore reliable, about atrocities committed on the refugees who were torn away from Athlit camp and sent to Mauritius. I refused to read the evidence, but Lewis [Namier] said worse than 'Amritsar'." (p 181)

So there you go, according to Lewis Namier, a leading British Zionist official and influential historian, the push and shove entailed in the removal of illegal Jewish refugees in December 1940 from the British prison camp at Athlit, just south of Haifa, to the island of Mauritius, constituted a massacre 'worse than Amritsar'.

One of the key lessons to be learnt from a close study of the history of the Zionist settler-colonial project in Palestine (1917-?) is that you can believe almost nothing that a Zionist ideologue or propagandist says. Given the movement's propensity for bare-faced lies, endless spin and semantic quibbling - one always needs to penetrate the fog of propaganda and observe with clear eyes its actions on the ground.

Go See Dr Weizmann!

"'If by Zionist you mean that the Jews have the right to a homeland in Israel and the right to a country then I am a Zionist,' the Tory leader [David Cameron] said, adding that support for Israel is 'in the DNA' of members of his party." (Tory leader calls himself 'Zionist'; UK Jews campaign against boycott, Assaf Uni, Haaretz, 13/6/07)

Earlier this month, Little Britain's leader addressed the UK's United Jewish Appeal (UJA). Nothing out of the ordinary mind you, just the usual inauthentic channelling exercise you'd expect from a US puppet at a Zionist gig: first Netanyahu - "Iran is not just a threat to Israel. It is a threat to the world" - then Obama - "[N]othing is off the table."

What about the days of yore, I thought, when Britannia ruled not only the waves but also Palestine? Was there to be in Cameron's speech to the UJA no hint of the glory days when His Majesty's Government, not Obama or Netanyahu, called the shots?

Well, yes there was actually. It was when Cameron began lecturing the Palestinians that I first sensed a stir in his primordial Zionist DNA and caught, for the first time, a distant echo of a British, as opposed to an American or Israeli, voice. This is what he said:

"[L]et me tell President Abbas* something very clearly: there is no path to statehood except through talks with Israel. So if the Palestinian plan is simply posturing with the UN rather than negotiating with Israel, Britain will never support it. And let me say this to the Palestinians too. Britain will never support anyone who sponsors a football tournament named after a suicide bomber who killed 20 Israelis in a restaurant. We will not tolerate incitement to terrorism."

And then it hit me. That 'Go and talk to Israel' bit was all the proof I needed that here in 2012 David Cameron was channelling the Lord Balfour of 1921! (And how spooky are those numbers!) Allow me to explain:

It was in 1921 that a group of Palestinian leaders, in the form of a joint Muslim-Christian Palestinian delegation, set sail for London where, in the words of JMN Jeffries, who sympathetically chronicled their efforts, "[t]hey demanded the revocation of the Balfour Declaration, and supported this demand with reasoned statements and evidence presented to the Colonial Office." (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, p 458)

"The following month," continues Jeffries, "they went to Geneva for the meeting of the League [of Nations] Assembly, and here, as in London, their very presence and demeanour proved most awkward and annoying for the Government delegates. Balfour himself had gone to Geneva. During a five-weeks' stay the Arab delegates made many attempts to see him, but time and again were rebuffed with the insolent message, 'If it is anything to do with Palestine, Mr Balfour has already seen Dr Weizmann.'** The delegates preserved their tempers, which cannot have been easy, and continued to demand an interview, and to make known in the League corridors that they were determined upon one, till further refusal would have generated a scandal. So Balfour finally received them. But he sat wrapped in absence of mind and incomprehension and evasiveness, and all they could get from him concerning Palestine was a repeated, 'It is an experiment,' and the injunction to go and see Dr Weizmann. That interview was the only time the Arabs met their evil genius." (p 459)

Yet another indication, if needed, that the past is never truly past. Incredibly, no matter how diminished on the world stage, it seems that Britain, which incurred primary responsibility for the Palestine problem when it incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in its mandate for Palestine, still sees fit to dictate to the Palestinian people, almost 100 years after the event. If the Zionism of its ruling class is DNA deep, so too, it seems, is its capacity for colonial chutzpah.

[*There is no suggestion here that Abbas is in any way the equal of the worthies who made up the 1921 delegation. They would, of course, be turning in their graves at his recent statement to Israeli television that he has given up on his right to return and live in Safad, his 'Israeli' birthplace; **The British government's go-to Zionist supremo from 1917-1948.]

Dinner With Tony

Spot the difference between this...

"David Cameron's government faces fresh scrutiny for its cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch's media empire following a day of revelations at the Leveson inquiry. Critics have for decades accused the Murdochs of holding too much sway over British politics. Those fears have only been heightened in recent times by the close ties between British Prime Minister Cameron and controversial past and present Murdoch employees such as former spin doctor Andy Coulson and newspaper executive Rebekah Brooks." (Murdoch ties with govt revealed, Tom Wald, AAP, 25/4/12)

... and this:

"Dining in the heart of Greens MP Adam Bandt's seat, Tony Abbott might not have expected the support he got from Lygon Street customers last Sunday night. If Labor and the Greens are losing in Melbourne's Carlton, the government may be in for an electoral Armageddon. That strikes me as the only long-term political point to take out of an unpleasant little kerfuffle* in Melbourne last Sunday night, when I had dinner with the Opposition Leader. Dining with Abbott implies no particular partisanship on my part. In the course of several decades of journalism, I suspect I have had marginally more meals with Labor folks than with Liberals. Certainly Abbott is a good friend." (How the tables have turned: the night intolerance came to dinner with Tony, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 19/4/12)

Partisanship and Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor of Murdoch's Australian? No!

Who could possibly believe such a thing? It's like saying, Love & marriage/Go together like a horse & carriage.

[*Occasioned, reports our Greg, by the appearance and chanting in the restaurant of a group of same-sex marriage activists.]

Lifting the Rock on Little Britain

Lifting the rock on the scandal involving former British defence secretary Liam Fox reveals an array of bizarre creatures not used to the harsh light of day:

"It began with a story about corporate 'blackmail' and ended in the downfall of one of the most effective defence secretaries in a generation. The final blow to Liam Fox - after 8 days of increasingly uncomfortable headlines - came when The Times revealed the names of some of the wealthy financiers who funded the first-class lifestyle of Adam Werritty, 33, Fox's globe-trotting friend and self-styled adviser. Evidence that Werritty's luxury travel to foreign shores alongside the defence secretary was part-bankrolled by a corporate intelligence firm with an interest in Sri Lanka, an investor who lobbies for Israel and a venture capitalist supporting closer ties with Washington, raised further questions about how Fox operated and whom he allowed in his inner circle... Finally on Friday The Times revealed that G3 Good Governance Group, a corporate intelligence company, Tamares Real Estate, an investment company owned by Poju Zabludowicz, the chairman of BICOM - an organisation that lobbies the British government on behalf of Israel - and John Mouton, a venture capitalist, were among more than 6 different entities that each paid up to 35,000 pounds ($53,000) to a not-for-profit company set up by Werritty, which was used to fund his travel and entertainment." (The minister & the mystery man, Deborah Haynes, The Times/The Australian, 17/10/11)

Look at this one hopping around:

"Adam Werritty, the man at the centre of the Liam Fox cash-for-access scandal, has been involved in an audacious plot to topple Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was claimed last night. The self-styled adviser to Mr Fox, whose close personal friendship with the former defence secretary led to Mr Fox's downfall, has visited Iran on several occasions and met Iranian opposition groups in Washington and London over the past few years, The Independent on Sunday has learnt. Mr Werritty, 33, has been briefed by MI6 about his travels and is so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad - who thought he was Mr Fox's chief of staff - that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government, multiple sources have told The IoS." (Revealed: Fox's best man and his ties to Iran's opposition, Jane Merrick & James Hanning, The Independent, 16/10/11)

And this one, furiously trying to burrow out of sight:

"BICOM, the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre, is Britain's major pro-Israel lobby. Founded in 2001 as an equivalent to America's hugely influential AIPAC, it is bankrolled by its chairman Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish billionaire and former arms dealer. Over the past 3 years Zabludowicz has given over 2 million pounds in donations. This year [2009], they sent 30 representatives to the AIPAC conference in America, a sign of BICOM's growing ambition. Incredibly, almost no one we interviewed for the film [The Pro-Israel Lobby in Britain] had even heard of Zabludowicz, a key player at the heart of the pro-Israel lobby in Britain. Our questions continually met with blank expressions from senior politicians and people in the Jewish community. Zabludowicz fiecely guards his privacy and does so with great success... Zabludowicz's father, Shlomo Zabludowicz, made his money through Israeli arms manufacturers Soltam Systems, a company which continues to thrive and recently provided the IDF with artillery for its Gaza campaign. Poju Zabludowicz also ran Soltam, but has since moved his money from arms into property. He is now estimated to own around 40% of downtown Las Vegas. Far more significantly, we have discovered that he owns property in the illegal settlements in the West Bank. He has a stake in a shopping centre in Ma'ale Adumim, a settlement which is seen as strategically crucial in ensuring Jerusalem remains in Israeli hands... He hoped to create one lobby that oversaw media and politics in the style of AIPAC, but met with resistance from the parliamentary Friends of Israel groups, guarding their patch. He does, however, play a role at Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) as a significant donor. He has also established a relationship with David Cameron, the man almost certain to be Britain's next prime minister. In September 2005 when Cameron was planning his Conservative leadership election campaign he met Zabludowicz for a coffee. Zabludowicz was suitably impressed with what he heard, and Cameron received 15,000 pounds from Zabludowicz over the course of his election campaign. To ensure that the donations complied with election law, he made the donations through his British subsidiary Tamares Real Estate Investments. Despite the CFI and BICOM not formally merging there is a huge amount of co-ordination. Many of BICOM's key figures also play roles in the CFI: Trevor Pears, Michael Lewis and Poju Zabludowicz are driving forces behind both lobbies. David Cameron also accepted 20,000 pounds from Trevor Pears in his leadership election." (The Pro-Israel lobby in Britain, Peter Oborne & James Jones, opendemocracy.net, 13/11/09)

Stay tuned.

Ziocons Rule

Now that the United Kingdom has a new misleader in the Conservative Party's David Cameron, it pays to revisit journalist Peter Oborne's pioneering expose The Pro-Israel Lobby in Britain (13/11/09) at opendemocracy.net. To whet your appetite, here are just two extracts from his lengthy investigation into Britain's Zio-Conservatives:

Don't mention the war (crimes)...

"Every year, in a central London hotel, a very grand lunch is thrown by the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). It is often addressed by by the Conservative leader of the day. Many members of the shadow cabinet make it their business to be there along with a very large number of Tory peers and prospective candidates, while the Conservative MPs present amount to something close to a majority of the parliamentary party. It is a formidable turnout. This year's event took place in June, with the main speech by Tory leader David Cameron and shadow foreign secretary William Hague in attendance. The dominant event of the previous 12 months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza at the start of the year. So I examined Cameron's speech with curiosity to see how he would handle that recent catastrophe. I was shocked to see that Cameron made no reference to the invasion of Gaza, the massive destruction it caused, or the 1370 deaths that had resulted. Indeed, Cameron went out of his way to praise Israel because it 'strives to protect innocent life'. I found it impossible to reconcile the remarks made by the young Conservative leader with the numerous human rights abuses in Gaza. Afterwards I said as much to some Tory MPs. They looked at me as if I was distressingly naive, drawing my attention to the very large number of Tory donors in the audience. But it cannot be forgotten that so many people died in Gaza at the start of this year. To allow this terrible subject to pass by without comment suggested a failure of common humanity and decency on the part of the man most people regard as the next Prime Minister. To praise Israel at the same time for protecting human life showed not merely a fundamental failure of respect for the truth but also it gives the perception, rightly or wrongly, of support for the wretched events that took place in Gaza. That is not to condone or excuse the abhorrent actions of Hamas, but to overlook Israel's culpability is undoubtedly partisan. It is impossible to imagine any British political leader showing such equanimity and tolerance if British troops had committed even a fraction of the human rights abuses and war crimes of which Israel has been accused. So that weekend, in my weekly Daily Mail political column, I criticised Cameron's speech to the CFI, drawing attention to his failure to mention Gaza and his speaking of Israeli respect for the sanctity of human life. Soon I received a letter from Stuart Polak, the long standing CFI director: 'Peter, the snapshot of our lunch concentrating on the businessmen and David's alleged comments was really unhelpful'. The CFI political director, Robert Halfon, wrote saying that my letter was 'astonishing' and accusing me of making a 'moral equivalence between Israel and Iran..."

The best pro-Israel policy money can buy:

"The CFI is beyond doubt the best connected, and probably the best funded, of all Westminster lobbying groups. Eighty per cent of Conservative MPs are members. The leader of the Conservative Party is often expected to appear at their events, while the Shadow Foreign Secretary and his team are subjected to persistent pressure by the CFI. CFI's director Stuart Polak is a familiar face in Westminster and well known to everyone in the Tory establishment. Robert Halfon, the CFI's political director and Tory candidate for Harlow, is sometimes regarded as the brains of the operation. Both are well liked by Tory MPs. One Tory MP has told us that, before he stood in the 2005 election, he met Stuart Polak who put Israel's case to him strongly at a social event. Towards the end of the meal, Stuart Polak asked if his campaign needed more money. Sure enough, weeks later two cheques arrived in the post at the Conservative office in the constituency. Both came from businessmen closely connected to the CFI who the Tory MP says he had never met before and who had never, so far as he knew, ever stepped inside his constituency. Another parliamentary candidate fighting a marginal seat told us that he had gone to see Stuart Polak, where he was tested on his views on Israel. Within a fortnight a cheque from a businessman he had never met arrived in his constituency office. On studying donations to Conservative constituency offices before the 2005 election a pattern emerges. A group of donors all with strong connections to pro-Israel groups, (almost all are on the board of the CFI) made donations of between 2,000 and 5,000 pounds either personally or through their companies to the constituency offices of certain Conservative candidates."