New Labour who said they don't negotiate direct with Terrorists are not telling the full truth, in fact you could call it bare faced lying. We could also ask Mo Mowlem and Johnny 'Mad Dog' Addair about this 'new' policy new labour have invented, which would of course be an obstacle to the Bigley Families inspired and humane Global diplomatic endeavours.

New Labour Do Talk With Terrorists!

In actual fact, Mo Mowlem has been into Long Kesh to visit Loyalist terrorist prisoners. A spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said on Sept 24 2004, that the UK government never negotiated with the IRA. I'm not sure if Mo Mowlem visited Republican terrorists, I'd say she likely did, but she certainly visited Loyalist ones and this was reported on. She congratulated the 'terrorists' on 'their restraint' in not advocating a return to 'random killings' of working class nationalists or republicans. She also sought the terrorist's advice on what the British and Irish governments should do in furtherance of their policies. She met the (as defined by the British Government) TERRORISTS of the UDA/UFF and the LVF. The IRA were also TERRORISTS, by all our definitions at the time. Let's admit we talk to terrorists and not play word games right now.

I'm glad Mo Mowlem met the UVF, UFF and LVF. English people HAVE to talk to Loyalists, even ones who've killed people, but why is Blair lying?

People of Liverpool

No matter what the outcome, as usual we have seen the people of Liverpool respond to an injustice in the only way we know how.

We tell the World about it.

Even as we plead for Ken we recognise that the biggest hostage to the terror in Iraq has been the Iraqi people. If our Media had the guts to broadcast the entire truth of Iraq, we would have pulled out months ago. If our news reports spent 10 minutes showing the torn body of a screaming, dying Iraqi child every night, the horror of the war would soon be seen for the chaotic shambles it has become.

There issue, our issue, everyone's issue.

The Bigley Family have bypassed the entire British Government, they have made this issue THERE issue and OUR issue and now EVERYONES issue. They have made more waves than Parliament and the entire Foreign Office. In effect, one working class family has used its own resources and that of the community to do what the British Government would or could not do. It's not only that we didn't NEED our politicians, many of them are an absolute DANGER in this delicate diplomatic procedure which has been established between Kens family and, through intermediates, Kens captors and people around them.

Aljazzerra

Aljazzerra (link here) have helped Kens Family so much that they deserve a special mention. Kirkby Times told you, the reader, in our anti war section that this 'new kid on the block' in the Arab Media was regarded as important in the Arab World as our BBC is to us. They have had reporters killed by American bombs and guns, and have been banned from Iraq by Allawi and had there office there closed down. They still had the kindness and decency to go above and beyond the call of duty, even though they are struggling in dangerous conditions to report on dozens of deaths a day in Iraq and Palestine, Syria, the Lebanon, Jordan and other Arab Countries. The Bigley family and all of us will surely thank Aljazzerra no matter what the outcome. The Arab media is vital and there kindness to the Bigley Family must stand out as perhaps the most useful act of kindness which has in turn given then a precious lifeline. Kirkby Times has paid homage to the Aljazzerra Journalist killed in Iraq in the vicious attack on the Palestine Hotel by American tanks. We hosted the tribute by fellow Aljazzerra staff to there dear colleague and friend Tariq Ayoub. In that tribute/obituary Aljazzerra said that "Eventually everyone will forget him", but Kirkby Times, the No 1 Working Class Website in Liverpool, remembers Tariq Ayoub. If you type Tariq Ayoub into google search engine, you'll find Kirkby Times in the top 10. Tariq is included in the Kirkby Times tribute to the Journalists who told the Truth and died in Iraq trying to do so.

Tariq Ayoub

Tariq Ayoub (RIP), 8 April 2003, Aljazeera TV channel correspondent; killed in a US air strike at Aljazeera office in Baghdad. This tribute is from his colleagues.

"The blood of Tariq was fair game, as was the blood of other journalists working for Al-Jazeera and the Abu Dhabi network; both were bombed at the same time-followed by an attack on journalists in the Palestine Hotel, an attack that occurred probably because of its name. The message we take from Tariq's killing makes CENTCOM spokesman Vincent Brooks' statement seem quite ironic: "We bomb locations with precision, and we pay attention to locations where journalists are present." In reality, Tariq's killing demonstrates that the U.S. military preferred that Tariq and journalists like him ride on the back of an American tank, follow the troops around, eat and drink with them, and write in line with U.S. military desires. His death is a message directed to the remaining journalists and reporters who are still in the field, who are giving alternate perspectives on what is propagated by Bush, Rumsfeld, and others from the U.S. administration. Ayoub left a wife and a one-year-old daughter. In an interview with the station on the day of his death, his wife Dima said: "Eventually everyone will forget him, but we will never forget him. He is with God now." RIP.

Liverpool will not forget Tariq Ayoub, or the kindness of Aljazzerra. We don't forget.

We knew Blair would sooner sacrifice Ken Bigley, I'm sure the Bigley Family soon worked that out, and most clever Liverpool people would also work it out.

Since when has anyone from the British Government ever gave a damn for us?

God Bless Ireland.

Liverpool is the Capital of Resistance for the British Government. We are more a capital of Ireland which opposed the illegal Iraq war, and are nearer to Ireland than our own capital, London. Kens mother is Irish and Ken himself can carry an Irish passport. Ireland is in effect calling shots also now. The Irish diplomacy channels are working overtime and maybe we trust them more than our own. The Irish are not only good talkers/listeners, they have a lot of people they can talk to with there own unique diplomatic status as regards Arab Street.

Tony Blair cannot walk here in Liverpool without an armed guard and hundreds of police. Iraqis and Muslims are not our enemy here in Liverpool. Blair is our enemy and the Iraqis who hate Blair can rest assured, we too hate him also. Kirkby Times is testament to the betrayal of working class people by the British government; it covers just 3 years of relentless class warfare on the poorest and most vulnerable and a constant series of betrayals by the British Government of its own people. Kirkby Times, like Aljazzerra, got banned for speaking out. Liverpool people are always speaking out. We always get in trouble for it. But it will never stop us.

Ken himself told us in his recent broadcast

"Please, especially all the people of Liverpool, we all know how important, how special Liverpool is to everybody, people who speak the truth. I'm not afraid to speak the truth, I never have been, that's probably why all the Liverpudlians have suffered over the years.

I'm begging you, please, please talk to MPs, talk to the Government, talk to anyone. Please, please look at Iraq and help. Me, yes, I want to live, yes I want to live, but please look and help Iraq, help Iraqi women and children."

Councillors must speak out.

Kirkby Times would call for all of Knowsley Councils councillors to now come out and help end this disgusting War. The children of Iraq have paid dearly for your silence, and now a son of Liverpool may pay for your sins if you continue blindly following Blair. Speak out for Humanities sake. If you have ONE ounce of principle left I implore you to do the right thing. Look around at the children in Kirkby and think of there counterparts in Iraq. The English cannot be held party to having innocent blood on our hands.

Negotiation.

Thousands in this City have cried at the images of the Iraqi children killed by US and UK bombs and now the tears spill for another innocent, one of our own people who was kidnapped in Iraq. Liverpools heart has been cruelly broken so many times that you feel like giving up hope. But as I write this Ken is alive, and this issue has blown up and become bigger than ANY of the kidnappings. Hope is still very much there. The Arab Press and media is debating this, even the Iraq resistance groups will be giving thought to the matter, the Iraqis are avid readers and the internet means these people are gauging instant reactions, and learning what WE are doing. Every radical Islamic website forum in the World is debating it, and they avidly read OUR websites and then talk about what English people say and therefore what the people of Liverpool say. It's a brutal form of politics, but Liverpool working class people recognise it for what it is, its negotiation, and when they say something, we try to say something back. We will talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime to free Ken. Aljazzerra have in part very much made this possible. Aljazeera have a LOT of respect with Iraqi Resistance fighters because the Western Media ignores there efforts and tries to distort the war. We in ourselves have little to offer except to carry on opposing the war and hounding our politicians. We already opposed the War here in Liverpool, but we also still have our honour, but that's were the Arabs and Iraqis might just see reason.

Most of us wouldn't give England away for any price, no-one has that right, but we have to agree to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, because we had no business being there anyway. We should be sending aid to these countries, not bombs and bullets. We should be sending a convoy of food and medicines to Falluja, not guided missiles and shells.

As Ken said "These people aren't asking for the World"

There asking for two women to be released from jail.

They would let Ken go if we pulled the Troops out. And Blair's choice is simple; it's just a matter of how many lives he can sacrifice before he is pushed out, like Thatcher, by his own Party. We will never forgive Blair if he continues this war, and neither will the Iraqis.

Terry Waite

Thanks also to Terry Waite who has been magnificent these past couple of days, taking media pressure from the family onto his own shoulders. A man who faced death himself in a 5 yr captivity, a man who knows what Ken is feeling. He is a true English gentleman and diplomat. His presence in our Great City brings more hope. Terry Waite was the former special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was held captive by terrorists in Beirut from 1987 to 1991.

Hope is very much still alive.

Click here for one reason why we should NEVER have went to Iraq.