Wrong committee

On Comment is Free, Tory shadow security minister Pauline Neville-Jones says that the Intelligence and Security Committee review of 7/7 intelligence exposes why the committee itself is not up to the job. She says:

The truth is that the Intelligence and Security Committee is not up to the role it needs to play. At the moment, the prime minister can have the last word on what it publishes and the committee does not have a staff able to carry out its own investigations.The perception and the reality of independence in such matters is crucial – the ISC should be reformed and a Conservative government will ensure this happens.

Sadly, another reason to vote Conservative.

Wrong man

The BBC report on the Intelligence and Security Committee's second report on the July 7th bombings has a case of mistaken identity:

The committee's chairman, Kim Howells MP, said: "Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Those judgements were made at the time and, having gone in detail through all of the details, we cannot find any reason to criticise the actions that were taken at the time."

Having seen the ISC press conference on the t.v. I'm sure it was Tory MP Michael Mates who said this, not Howells, who has quite a strong welsh accent.

Still, the BBC webpage has a column by its home affairs correspondent Daniel Casciani about the failure to identify Mohammad Sidique Khan:

For MI5, knowing what someone is up to is more important than exactly who they are.

On CiF this morning...

I've got a piece picking up on my New Statesman story published yesterday. It asks whether the threat of public transport chaos will be the third Heathrow runway's Achilles heel or whether the government's new infrastructure planning commission will gloss over such concerns in deference to stated government policy.

I'm not sure if it's as good a way to challenge government greenwash as that demonstrated by Plane Stupid protester Leila Deen this morning.

Also on CIF, Richard Norton-Taylor has a good piece pointing out - as I have done - how useless the Intelligence and Security Committee is as its annual report for 2007-8 is finally published by Number 10 after Gordon Brown has censored it.

Clueless

I have a piece on Comment is Free today on the toothless, clawless and clueless Intelligence and Security Committee and Gordon Brown's half-hearted reforms.