Obsolete

Coutts (35), a voracious consumer of web sites devoted to snuff movies and necrophilia, was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum tariff of 30 years. The Scottish-born part-time musician visited Web sites with names such as "necrobabes", "death by asphyxia" and "rape pleasure".

More than 800 pornographic images were found saved on Coutts' home computer over three quarters of which showed acts of violence against women. The court also heard that Coutts had accessed violent images the day before Ms. Longhurst was murdered in March 2003.

After strangling Ms. Longhurst with a pair of tights, Coutts took her body to a storage unit, for which he had a pin number for out-of-hour-access. The security log showed that he had visited the corpse at least 10 times in the month before he finally disposed it in a marsh.

After the discovery of Ms. Longhurst's body, employees at the Big Yellow Storage company in Brighton informed the police that Coutts had hired the lockup shortly after her disapperance. When they opened the lockup, police found Ms. Longhurst's possessions as well as a blood-stained rope and a condom containing Coutts' semen.

The consultation document admits that research into the subject is not advanced enough to confirm the link between such pornography and violent crime. "We recognise that accessing such material does not necessarily cause criminal activity," it says. "We consider the moral and public protection case against allowing this kind of material sufficiently strong."

The Foreign Office's top official warned Downing Street that the Iraq war was fuelling Muslim extremism in Britain a year before the 7 July bombings, The Observer can reveal.

Despite repeated denials by Number 10 that the war made Britain a target for terrorists, a letter from Michael Jay, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary, to the cabinet secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull - obtained by this newspaper - makes the connection clear.

The letter, dated 18 May 2004, says British foreign policy was a 'recurring theme' in the Muslim community, 'especially in the context of the Middle East peace process and Iraq'.

'Colleagues have flagged up some of the potential underlying causes of extremism that can affect the Muslim community, such as discrimination, disadvantage and exclusion,' the letter says. 'But another recurring theme is the issue of British foreign policy, especially in the context of the Middle East peace process and Iraq.

'Experience of both ministers and officials ... suggests that ... British foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating a feeling of anger and impotence among especially the younger generation of British Muslims.'

The letter continues: 'This seems to be a key driver behind recruitment by extremist organisations (e.g. recruitment drives by groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al Muhajiroon). The FCO has a relevant and crucial role to play in the wider context of engagement with British Muslims on policy issues, and more broadly, in convincing young Muslims that they have a legitimate and credible voice, including on foreign policy issues, through an active participation in the democratic process.'

The first enforced returns of failed asylum seekers to northern Iraq are expected possibly as early as this weekend despite objections from regional Kurdish authorities and the UN refugee agency.

The Home Office has confirmed that 38 men are being held at immigration detention centres around Britain and that officials are "looking at a number of dates" for their return.

They are likely to be flown on an RAF aircraft, via Cyprus, to the newly opened airport in Irbil, the regional capital. The Kurdish community believes the first flight will leave tomorrow. Many refugees say they could be killed, even in northern Iraq.

There are thought to be as many as 7,000 Iraqis in the UK who have been refused asylum and face deportation. The deportations will begin by the dispatch of single men to Iraqi Kurdistan, which has largely - though not entirely - been spared the onslaught of Islamist suicide bombings.

"We will only return to areas assessed as sufficiently stable and where we are satisfied individuals will not be at risk," a Home Office spokesman said yesterday. "Enforced returns will be taken on a case-by-case basis.

"It's important for the integrity of the asylum system that anyone found not to be in need of protection is required to leave the UK. Enforced returns will commence as soon as we have made relevant arrangements."

The decision to deport was taken in February 2004 but two new factors have stiffened the government's resolve: a reassessment of immigration priorities after the London tube bombings and the first flight this month into Irbil of those returning voluntarily.

Although only 18 people were on the plane arranged by the International Organisation for Migration, it opened up a route that avoids the dangers of overland journeys via Baghdad.

"It has made life a bit easier for those wanting to go back," said Marek Effendowicz of the organisation. "In the last year we have helped 300 Iraqis return from the UK."

But the Home Office decision has triggered protests by human rights bodies and refugee groups who warn it is not safe anywhere in Iraq. One Kurd told the Guardian he was no longer reporting to the Home Office because he feared he would be detained.

The London office of the UN high commissioner for refugees yesterday restated its opposition. "Iraq is still extremely unstable and dangerous," it warned. "No part of Iraq can be considered safe, although ... some areas are more stable than others. The UK government [should also] review its low recognition rate of Iraqi asylum seekers."

Even the regional government in Irbil has warned it does not want to be burdened with unwilling returnees.

"As long as young people feel they have no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress."

The list, which the Home Office says is "indicative rather than exhaustive", will cover any foreign-born national "writing, producing, publishing or distributing material, public speaking including preaching, running a website; or using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader to express views which foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs; seek to provoke others to terrorist acts; foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts; or foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK."

Although the list does not give the home secretary more powers to deport extremists than he currently enjoys, it specifies behaviours which will define the basis of "not conducive to the public good."

Mr Clarke said: "As I said when the consultation started, we recognise the sensitivities around the use of these powers and intend to use them in a measured and targeted way. These powers are not intended to stifle free speech or legitimate debate about religions or other issues. Britain is rightly proud of its openness and diversity and we must not allow those driven by extremism of any sort to destroy that tradition."

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

Mr Robertson, 75, said on Monday's edition of the 700 Club: "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.

"It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

A spokeswoman for the Christian Broadcasting Network told the BBC: "We are at a time of war and Pat had war on his mind when he made the comments."

"We have allowed rampant secularism and occult, et cetera, to be broadcast on television. We have permitted somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 million unborn babies to be slaughtered in our society. We have a Court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's eye and said, 'We're going to legislate you out of the schools, we're going to take your Commandments from off the courthouse steps in various states, we're not going to let little children read the Commandments of God, we're not going to let the Bible be read -- no prayer in our schools.' We have insulted God at the highest levels of our government. And, then we say 'why does this happen?' Well, why its happening is that God Almighty is lifting His protection from us."

A police source said: 'There is no way those three guys would have been on the train carriage with him [de Menezes] if they believed he was carrying a bomb. Nothing he did gave the surveillance team the impression that he was carrying a device.'

The Observer can also reveal that the de Menezes family was offered £15,000 after the shooting. The ex gratia payment, which does not affect legal action by the family or compensation, is a fraction of the $1 million (£560,000) reported to have been offered the family. Police yesterday denied they had made the offer, which the family has described as 'offensive'.

Members of the firearms unit are said to be furious that de Menezes was not properly identified when he left his flat, the first problem in the chain of events that led to the Brazilian's death.

For the firearms officers involved in the death to avoid any legal action, they will have to state that they believed their lives and those of the passengers were in immediate danger. Such a view is unlikely to be supported by members of the surveillance unit.

For reasons as yet unclear, members of the firearms team have yet to submit their own account of the events to the IPCC. The two members of the team believed to have fired the fatal shots are known to have gone on holiday immediately after the shooting.

The government yesterday entered the dispute to give Sir Ian its full backing. Asked if the prime minister had full confidence in the Met chief, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: "Yes."

John Prescott, the deputy prime minister - in charge of the government while Tony Blair is on holiday - and the home secretary, Charles Clarke, also both insisted Sir Ian, the most senior police officer in the UK, retains their full confidence.

To live and act like an Aryan - that is, with nobility of character - means upholding and living by this principle of Death Before Dishonour. Nothing else is more important - not personal happiness, not personal love, not personal comfort and wealth. This principle expresses the spirit, or ethos, of the Aryan warrior, and to be Aryan means to live like such a warrior, for however short a time.

The majority of Westerners condemn martyrdom operations on the basis of the Western perspective, using Western criteria, failing to understand the Muslim belief that this life of ours is only a means, a test, and thus failing to understand that many Muslims are willing to give up their own lives in order to do their Islamic duty, trusting as these Muslims do in the judgement of Allah.... Our life here on this planet we call Earth is only an opportunity - never to return - to gain entry into Jannah and that one of the best means to gain such entry is to strive, and if necessary die, in the Cause of Allah.

But a statement from the Met yesterday showed that despite the agreement to allow in independent investigators, the IPCC was kept away from Stockwell tube in south London, the scene of the shooting, for a further three days. This runs counter to usual practice, where the IPCC would expect to be at the scene within hours.

The documents reveal that a member of the surveillance team, who sat nearby, grabbed Mr de Menezes before he was shot: "I heard shouting which included the word 'police' and turned to face the male in the denim jacket.

"He immediately stood up and advanced towards me and the CO19 [firearms squad] officers ... I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side. I then pushed him back on to the seat where he had been previously sitting ... I then heard a gun shot very close to my left ear and was dragged away on to the floor of the carriage."

A new wave of expulsions of foreign-born "preachers of hate" who foment terrorism is likely to emerge within days, the home secretary indicated last night.

The disclosure came as Charles Clarke warned that it would "be absolutely foolish" to assume there would not be a third terrorist attack on London - but he made clear after meeting the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, after his return from holiday that there was no specific intelligence to suggest another attack is imminent.

Mr Clarke said last night that a much wider purge of those "working against the interests of this country" will be implemented when his wider powers to exclude or deport come into effect this weekend.

The new powers announced on July 20 will give Mr Clarke the right to throw out of Britain or exclude from entering the country any foreign nationals who represent "an indirect threat" because they "foment terrorism" or justify or glorify terrorism by preaching, running websites or publishing material either here or abroad. The two-week consultation period on the "list of unacceptable behaviours" that will trigger such action ends on Friday.

"We are continuing to look at people in this country whose presence here is not conducive to the public good," said Mr Clarke.

"We will be looking at further steps that can be taken to ensure that those who are working against the interests of this country are properly dealt with."

After he emerged from Scotland Yard, the home secretary was asked if there was still a risk of a third attack on London. He said: "We remain worried. The commissioner has been very clear throughout that it would be ridiculous for us to assume that a further act would not take place.

The message was backed up by Sir Ian. "The fact that there's been two attacks makes it more, rather than less, likely that there'll be further attacks. I mean, that's just the logic of all this, but we of course are working incredibly hard with the intelligence services to prevent it," he said.

More than half the jails in England and Wales are dangerously overcrowded and the conditions could be contributing to the number of prisoner suicides, a penal reform group warned last night.

The Prison Reform Trust, which campaigns on behalf of inmates and their families, said the prison system had 10,000 more inmates than it was designed to hold.

With inmates reaching a record 76,897 this week, 74 of the 142 jails are over the prison service's "certified normal accommodation", the charity said. It added that 15 prisons exceeded even their safe overcrowding limit in July.

The "operational capacity" of a jail is defined as the total number of prisoners it can accommodate, allowing for a safe level of overcrowding

In July last year, the then prisons' minister, Paul Goggins, was asked in parliament about overcrowding. He said: "All those prisons are within their operating capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold, taking into account control, security and proper operation of the planned regime."

But a year on, the charity said, 15 prisons across England and Wales were operating beyond their overcrowding limit, thereby jeopardising, the "control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime".

"This overcrowding poses a real and serious danger to prison and public safety," said Juliet Lyon, the director of the trust. The government had grown complacent about overcrowding and was "breaching its own final buffer".

"The summer holiday season usually gives prisons a respite while the courts take their break, instead the population is growing month on month. Even in the quietest months of the year, pressure is still building up within prisons."

The charity fears the situation could worsen in the next five years. The most recent Home Office projections forecast a jail population of up to 90,000 by 2010.

Since the beginning of June, it said, there had been 26 apparent self-inflicted deaths in custody. Of these, 24 occurred in overcrowded jails.

It has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with that term during the second world war. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied countries. The United States liberated them from occupation.

Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the US established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. US corporations moved into Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The US framed and imposed, with support from local accomplices, the constitution that would govern Cuba, just as it has drawn up, with help from local political groups, a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation. An occupation.

And it is an ugly occupation. On August 7 2003 the New York Times reported that General Sanchez in Baghdad was worried about the Iraqi reaction to occupation. Pro-US Iraqi leaders were giving him a message, as he put it: "When you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground, you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family." (That's very perceptive.)

We know that fighting during the US offensive in November 2004 destroyed three-quarters of the town of Falluja (population 360,000), killing hundreds of its inhabitants. The objective of the operation was to cleanse the town of the terrorist bands acting as part of a "Ba'athist conspiracy".

But we should recall that on June 16 2003, barely six weeks after President Bush had claimed victory in Iraq, two reporters for the Knight Ridder newspaper group wrote this about the Falluja area: "In dozens of interviews during the past five days, most residents across the area said there was no Ba'athist or Sunni conspiracy against US soldiers, there were only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops ... One woman said, after her husband was taken from their home because of empty wooden crates which they had bought for firewood, that the US is guilty of terrorism."

Soldiers who are set down in a country where they were told they would be welcomed as liberators and find they are surrounded by a hostile population become fearful and trigger-happy. On March 4 nervous, frightened GIs manning a roadblock fired on the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, just released by kidnappers, and an intelligence service officer, Nicola Calipari, whom they killed.

We have all read reports of US soldiers angry at being kept in Iraq. Such sentiments are becoming known to the US public, as are the feelings of many deserters who are refusing to return to Iraq after home leave. In May 2003 a Gallup poll reported that only 13% of the US public thought the war was going badly. According to a poll published by the New York Times and CBS News on June 17, 51% now think the US should not have invaded Iraq or become involved in the war. Some 59% disapprove of Bush's handling of the situation.

But more ominous, perhaps, than the occupation of Iraq is the occupation of the US. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over. I wake up thinking: the US is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water or the air, or what kind of world will be inherited by our children and grandchildren.

More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is terribly wrong. More and more every day the lies are being exposed. And then there is the largest lie, that everything the US does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a "war on terrorism", ignoring the fact that war is itself terrorism, that barging into homes and taking away people and subjecting them to torture is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less.

The Bush administration, unable to capture the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, invaded Afghanistan, killing thousands of people and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Yet it still does not know where the criminals are. Not knowing what weapons Saddam Hussein was hiding, it invaded and bombed Iraq in March 2003, disregarding the UN, killing thousands of civilians and soldiers and terrorising the population; and not knowing who was and was not a terrorist, the US government confined hundreds of people in Guantánamo under such conditions that 18 have tried to commit suicide.

The Amnesty International Report 2005 notes: "Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times ... When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity".

The "war on terrorism" is not only a war on innocent people in other countries; it is a war on the people of the US: on our liberties, on our standard of living. The country's wealth is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of the young are being stolen.

The Iraq war will undoubtedly claim many more victims, not only abroad but also on US territory. The Bush administration maintains that, unlike the Vietnam war, this conflict is not causing many casualties. True enough, fewer than 2,000 service men and women have lost their lives in the fighting. But when the war finally ends, the number of its indirect victims, through disease or mental disorders, will increase steadily. After the Vietnam war, veterans reported congenital malformations in their children, caused by Agent Orange.

Officially there were only a few hundred losses in the Gulf war of 1991, but the US Gulf War Veterans Association has reported 8,000 deaths in the past 10 years. Some 200,000 veterans, out of 600,000 who took part, have registered a range of complaints due to the weapons and munitions used in combat. We have yet to see the long-term effects of depleted uranium on those currently stationed in Iraq.

Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.

There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

The radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was today excluded from Britain, the Home Office said.

Mr Bakri's exclusion comes less than a week after he left London for Beirut and Tony Blair announced plans to deport extremist preachers and ban two Islamist groups linked to the cleric.

A Home Office spokesman today said that the home secretary, Charles Clarke - using his existing powers - had excluded Mr Bakri "on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good".

The Syrian-born cleric's indefinite leave to remain in the UK has also been revoked.

Mr Bakri has lived in Britain for almost 20 years, and his wife and seven children remain in London. The family home is in Edmonton, north London.

A Home Office spokesman said today's decision would not affect the family, and they would continue to receive any state benefits they were due. Mr Bakri's benefits will cease.

A former Israeli soldier was sentenced to eight years in prison by an Israeli military court today for shooting dead the British student Tom Hurndall in the Gaza Strip.

Taysir Hayb was convicted in June of the manslaughter of the 22-year-old Briton after shooting him in the head with a rifle from a watchtower in April 2003.

Witnesses said Mr Hurndall, from north London, was shot as he tried to usher Palestinian children out of the range of Israeli gunfire during demonstrations in the Gaza town of Rafah.

The conviction marked the first time an Israeli soldier had been found guilty of killing a foreign citizen during more than four years of Palestinian-Israeli violence.

Today the court handed Hayb, a former sergeant, an 11-and-a-half year sentence but said he would have to serve only eight years, with the rest of the term suspended.

Mr Hurndall, a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), died in a London hospital in January 2004 after lying in a coma for nine months.

His family fought a campaign to see Hayb prosecuted after the Israeli army initially denied Mr Hurndall had been shot by a soldier. It was only after pressure from the family and the British government that an official inquiry was launched.

In June, Hayb was also found guilty of obstruction of justice, incitement to false testimony, false testimony and improper conduct. The court heard how he fired at Mr Hurndall from an Israeli army watchtower, using a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight.

Hayb had faced up to 20 years in prison but the leading judge in the case, Nir Aviram, said today the panel had given him a lighter sentence after considering the tense combat situation in the area.

Human rights groups have expressed fears over the fate of 10 people facing deportation from the UK because they pose a threat to national security.

The Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada, who is subject to a control order, is among them, the BBC has learned.

Charles Clarke said things had changed since the London bombings. It was vital to act against threats to the UK.

Tories backed Mr Clarke but critics are concerned at deportations to countries with poor human rights records.

The home secretary insists he has the necessary reassurances from Jordan that deportees would not be "subject to torture or ill-treatment".

Shami Chakrabarti, of human rights group Liberty, said it would take "more than a piece of paper to convince me that Jordan and some of these other possible north African and Middle Eastern regimes are suddenly safe".

And Amnesty International's Mike Blakemore said the assurances the government was trying to obtain were not worth the "paper they were written on".

"We are taking the word of known torturers that they won't do this again," he said.

A statement from the solicitor for some of the individuals detained today said families had been told they were being taken to Woodhill high security prison near Milton Keynes but might now have been moved again.

It also confirmed one of the 10 was detained at a psychiatric hospital and that five in all were suffering serious psychiatric conditions.

Although the statement did not name him, the former Belmarsh detainee Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh is known to have been at Broadmoor high security hospital in Berkshire.

The British-based radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed was today detained in Lebanon by the Lebanese authorities.

"Sheikh Bakri was picked up by security forces as he was on his way to a local television station for an interview," a Lebanese security source told Reuters. It is believed Mr Bakri's links to militant groups are being investigated.

The Foreign Office confirmed that the cleric was being held, but said it was not at Britain's request.

Michael Howard today warned Britain's judges that "aggressive judicial activism" could put the country's safety from terrorists at risk, and undermine public faith in the justice system.

Echoing recent complaints from the prime minister about judicial opposition to anti-terror measures, the Conservative leader repeated his pledge to repeal Britain's Human Rights Act in order to give the government more power to deport extremist Islamist clerics.

Mr Howard - like Mr Blair a former lawyer - broke the usual August truce between the parties to launch his attack on the judiciary, and the government's approach to it, both in the Daily Telegraph and on the BBC.

Mr Howard cited the law lords' decision last year that the indefinite detention without trial of foreign terror suspects under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act contravened the Human Rights Act, and referred to the difficulties the latter act creates for deporting extremists to countries where they may face persecution or torture. He said explicitly that political intervention by judges "could put our security at risk".

He wrote in the Telegraph: "Parliament must be supreme. Aggressive judicial activism will not only undermine the public's confidence in the impartiality of our judiciary. It could also put our security at risk - and with it the freedoms the judges seek to defend. That would be a price we cannot be expected to pay."

Mr Howard was ridiculed by the Liberal Democrat peer and human rights champion Lord Lester.

He said: "The idea that the judges are indulging in what he calls aggressive judicial activism is complete nonsense and is most unfair to the senior judges.

"I find it completely astonishing that a modern Conservative party should wish to whittle away these safeguards for you and me and those listening to the Today programme, by creating weaker, less effective judicial remedies than we have at present."

The Liberal Democrats' president, Simon Hughes, also disagreed with Mr Howard, saying: "Until we have a written constitution and bill of rights, British judges are the people's best safeguard against misuse of power by ministers and failures to guarantee human rights by parliament.

"The worst signal we could send across the world at this moment is that terrorists can force us to give up any of the basic rights or freedoms which are the hallmarks of secure democracies."

The Human Rights Act (1998) introduced the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, of which the UK was one of the primary authors.

What this means in practice is that people who wish to bring cases where they believe their rights have been violated, they will now be able to do so through the British courts, rather than having to spend years pursuing the case at the European Court of Human Rights.

The Act makes it unlawful for any "public authority" to act in such a way that is "incompatible" with a right under the Convention.

A person can only bring a case against a public authority if they can be classed as the "victim" in a specific circumstance.

This means that pressure groups will not be able to bring general cases to further their cause, they will have to seek cases to support through the courts.

Rule of law

This means that the Rights are subject to a limited amount of interference by the state in certain legally defined circumstances that benefit society as a whole rather than just the individual.

For example, the Convention protects somebody from "arbitrary detention" - meaning that a person can be jailed or held against their will "in accordance with a procedure prescribed in law" - ie a jail sentence after a trial.

This is one of the most important cases which the house has had to decide in recent years.

"It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention."

"This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups to kill or destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation."

"Whether we should survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt we shall survive al-Qaida. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of the nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it.

"Terrorist crime, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community."

Both France and Saudi Arabia had advance warning that Britain was about to be attacked by al-Qaida, according to a classified report and claims by the Saudi ambassador to London. The warnings came at a time when the British intelligence services had concluded that there was no imminent attack planned.

In a classified report on the Pakistani community in France, presented to the French interior ministry in late June, the Renseignements Généraux, or DCRG, France's equivalent of the Special Branch, said Britain "remains threatened by plans decided at the highest level of al Qaida ... They will be put into action by operatives drawing on pro-jihad sympathies within the large Pakistani community in the UK."

Saudi Arabian authorities also informed the UK of a potential attack, it was confirmed this week. The Saudi ambassador in London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said in a statement: "There was certainly close liaison between the Saudi Arabian intelligence authorities and British intelligence some months ago, when information was passed to Britain about a heightened terrorist threat to London." However, the threats were not specific and, according to security sources, there was no detailed intelligence that could have disrupted the July 7 bombers.

The German foreign intelligence chief, August Henning, yesterday warned that further attacks should be expected elsewhere. "We fear developments in Iraq are radiating outwards," he told the Reuters news agency.

The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner - not NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.

Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.

Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.

I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo. It was supported by Nato; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies. It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement.

Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq.

None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will 'shock and awe' makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands.

For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes.

Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days.

We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?

It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.

Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support.

I intend to join those tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government.

The former home secretary David Blunkett yesterday warned judges in the strongest terms that the government would not tolerate any judicial attempt to overturn the new anti-terrorist measures outlined on Friday.

Mr Blunkett, citing the dictum of the retiring lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, that "upholding liberty is not a suicide pact", he insisted it was the elected parliament, and not the courts, who were answerable for the security of the country.

Mr Blunkett also confirmed he was "assisting the deputy prime minister", John Prescott, in taking decisions on terrorism while Tony Blair was on holiday, but denied he was in control of the Home Office in Charles Clarke's absence: "Hazel Blears substitutes for the home secretary. She is his deputy and she is doing extremely well. I obviously have the experience and the knowledge and I help out in terms of having to take, with John Prescott, the necessary decisions in the next couple of weeks," he said.

Mr Blunkett gave him (Mr Blair) strong backing, telling the judges they have a legitimate role in challenging ministers if they implement laws differently from parliament's intentions.

"If the judiciary say 'We think that parliament was wrong and therefore the democratic vote is wrong', I think that is a different matter ... We obviously have the right to go back to parliament and to say 'We, the sovereign body who are elected, are the only ones in the end who are answerable for the protection of security and stability in our country. We will make the decision'."

Tony Blair last night signalled a turning point in British postwar liberalism when he announced plans to deport extremist foreign Muslim clerics without appeal, close down mosques preaching hate, proscribe extremist Muslim groups and extend the use of control orders to British nationals advocating terrorism.

The prime minister also promised to wage a battle with the British and European courts, warning that he would amend the Human Rights Act if necessary to override likely judicial objections to the proposed deportation regime.

His startling package of measures sparked alarm among many Muslim groups and lawyers and led Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, to say Mr Blair was endangering the cross-party consensus developed since the July 7 bombings. The civil rights group Liberty said: "The fundamental values of a democracy cannot be changed because we are provoked by terrorists."

But the promise to end Britain's reputation as a sanctuary for extremism won broad backing from the police and the Conservatives.

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said people had already been selected for targeting with the new measures. He told BBC2's Newsnight he was "very pleased" with the proposals.

Deportations of extremist clerics will start after finalising memoranda of understandings with as many as 10 countries including Jordan, Algeria and Lebanon to try to ensure anyone deported there would not be subject to torture.

Mr Blair said foreign nationals would be deported if they were found to be actively engaged in extremist websites, bookshops, centres, networks and organisations of concern. A database will list individuals who pose a threat to British society. Anyone on it will be barred from the UK, with appeals happening abroad.

Mr Blair pleased some Labour Muslim MPs by announcing he was proscribing two Islamist organisations, Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Mujahiroun. Hizb ut-Tahrir said: "This exposes the fundamentalism of the government ... Our organisation has a record of 50 years of non-violent political activity ... We will resist the ban through what legal means are available."

Directors' pay at Britain's top companies climbed an average of 16.1% last year - four times faster than average earnings and eight times the rate of inflation.

The increase takes the average pay for a chief executive, including bonuses and gains from long-term incentive plans, to more than £2.5m.

The continuing rapid rise in directors' remuneration is revealed in the Guardian's annual executive pay survey.

The 16% increase for 2004-05 follows a 13% rise for the previous year and 23% the year before that. Average earnings are rising at 4.1% and the average annual salary is £22,060. An average chief executive is paid 113 times more than an average UK worker.

The survey has identified more than 230 directors who received more than £1m last year - up from around 190 the year before. The figure is reached by adding salaries, annual cash bonuses and gains from longer-term share options and performance plans.

The highest-paid executive last year was Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, the world's second biggest advertising agency. Pay plans came to fruition for Sir Martin in 2004, taking his rewards to more than £52m.

Among other top earners was Tony Ball, the former chief executive of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, who is ranked second as a result of agreeing not to set up in opposition to Sky for at least two years. The broadcaster paid him £10.7m.

Jean-Pierre Garnier of the drug group GlaxoSmithKline, James Nicol of the engineering group Tomkins and David Harding of the bookmaker William Hill occupy other top slots.

The Guardian survey also reveals that five female directors were paid more than £1m last year - compared with none the previous year - but two made it into the exclusive league only because they received substantial payoffs.

Sir Martin Sorrell's one-off rewards make the WPP board this year's most expensive in the FTSE 100. Excluding WPP, however, the directors of Tesco emerge as the best rewarded for the second consecutive year.

The total boardroom pay rose from £26m to more than £31m in the last year. That dwarfs the £18m paid to the directors of BP, the UK's biggest company with a stock market value of £131bn. The market values Tesco at £25bn.

At the other end of the scale, the worst-paid employees work in the catering and hospitality industries, at companies such as Compass, Mitchells & Butler and Whitbread. Tesco is also among the companies with the lowest-paid staff.

A new army special forces regiment was involved in the operation that led to the killing of an innocent man at Stockwell tube station in south London last week, the Guardian can reveal.

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment, set up in April to help combat international terrorism, was deployed in the surveillance operation which led to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, on July 22, according to Whitehall sources.

Yesterday Whitehall sources told the Guardian that soldiers of the Special Reconnaisance Regiment, modelled on an undercover unit that operated in Northern Ireland, was engaged in "low-level intelligence behind the scenes" when the Brazilian was shot. There was "no direct military involvement in the shooting", the sources said.

It is believed to be the first time the new regiment was engaged in an operation.

The regiment absorbed 14th Intelligence Company, known as "14 Int", a plainclothes unit set up to gather intelligence covertly on suspect terrorists in Northern Ireland. Its recruits are trained by the SAS.

Geoff Hoon, the then defence secretary, said the unit had been formed to meet a worldwide demand for "special reconnaissance capability".

Islamic radicals, like Hitler, cultivate support by nurturing grievances against others. Islamists, like Hitler, scapegoat Jews for their problems and want to destroy them. Islamists, like Hitler, decree that the punishment for homosexuality is death. Hitler divided the world into Aryans and subhuman non-Aryans, while Islamists divide the world into Muslims and sub-human infidels. Nazis aimed for their Thousand-Year Reich, while Islamists aim for their eternal Caliphate. The Nazi party used terror to achieve power, and from London to Amsterdam, Bali to New York, Egypt to Turkey, Islamists are trying to do the same.

The two fascisms, one racial and one religious, one beaten and the other resurgent, are evil in both their ideology and their methodology, in their supremacism, intolerance, belief in violence and threat to democracy.

The support of Islamic fascism spans BritainÂ’s Left. The wacko Socialist Workers Party joined forces with the Muslim Association of Britain, the democracy-despising, Shariah-law-wanting group, to form the Stop the War Coalition. The former Labour MP George Galloway created the Respect Party with the support of the MAB, and won a seat in Parliament by cultivating Muslim resentment.

Richard Ayliffe, 39, a chronic sufferer from Dudley in the West Midlands, says he has tried conventional treatments but the only thing to have brought him relief is magic mushrooms. Without them he says he would not be able to hold down a job.

"People are quite sympathetic at first but once you've let them down for the third time sympathy turns to exasperation," he says. "Magic mushrooms have enabled me to lead a normal life."

Like other members of ClusterBusters - an online forum where cluster headache sufferers swap notes and discuss alternative treatments - Ayliffe claims that taking magic mushrooms not only interrupts his cycle of headaches, but buys him longer remission periods between attacks. Some sufferers claim that since taking mushrooms they have been pain-free for up to two years.

And, because an attack can come at any time many members stockpiled mushrooms ahead of the government's ban this month.

Last week one member of the group, a 41-year-old father of two who asked to be identified only as Lee, admitted he had already taken one dose in contravention of the ban.

Under the Drugs Act 2005 possession of magic mushrooms is a class A offence punishable by a seven-year prison sentence. Previously, only psilocybin and other preparations of mushrooms, but not the fresh product itself, were controlled.

"The way I see it, either I break the law or forgo the most effective treatment I have found in nearly six years," says Lee.

Since he began taking mushrooms a year ago, he says the intensity of his headaches has shrunk by a third and the remissions between attacks have lengthened to 40 days.

"It's absolutely incredible," he says. "I can't tell you how much magic mushrooms have changed my life."

Five anti-war activists demonstrating against a new ban on unauthorised protests in the vicinity of parliament were arrested yesterday as the police moved to uphold the controversial new law.

The ban on spontaneous protests within half-a-mile of Westminster which have not been cleared by police came into force at midnight on Sunday.

No protest will be lawful unless prior police approval has been sought in writing and granted at least 24 hours before the start of the demonstration. One of those present at yesterday's demonstration was Lauren Booth, the sister of Cherie Blair.

"This is all about silencing critics of the war in Iraq and ID cards and denying people the right to free speech," she said. "If you heard on television that someone in another country was banned from gathering near a government building to stage a legitimate protest you would probably think thank goodness that kind of thing doesn't happen in this country," she said.

Police initially tried to act in a low-key way to prevent the largely symbolic protest. But, faced with the possibility that the new law would be shown to be unenforceable on its first day, they eventually moved in against a group of about 50 people wearing black gags to symbolise the "infringement" of their right to protest. The arrests occurred as Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North, was speaking to the gathering.

The police took photographs of many of the protesters and handed out leaflets warning they were involved in an unauthorised protest.

Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition and one of the protest organisers, said the new law meant police could now decide who was allowed to demonstrate, which was "totally unacceptable".

The Home Office says that the new laws simply put static protests on the same footing as processions, for which police also need to be notified.

A former London schoolboy accused of being a dedicated al-Qaida terrorist has given the first full account of the interrogation and alleged torture endured by so-called ghost detainees held at secret prisons around the world.

For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.

Mohammed, 26, who grew up in Notting Hill in west London, is alleged to be a key figure in terrorist plots intended to cause far greater loss of life than the suicide bombers of 7/7. One allegation, which he denies, is of planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a US city; another is that he and an accomplice planned to collapse a number of apartment blocks by renting ground-floor flats to seal, fill with gas from cooking appliances, and blow up with timed detonators.

In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.

He alleges that in Morocco he was shown photos of people he knew from a west London mosque, and was asked about information he was told was supplied by MI5. One interrogator, he says, was a woman who said she was Canadian.

Drawing on his notes, Mohammed's lawyer has compiled a 28-page diary of his torture. This has been declassified by the Pentagon, and extracts are published in the Guardian today.

Recruits to some groups connected to al-Qaida are thought to be instructed to make allegations of torture after capture, and most of Mohammed's claims cannot be independently verified. But his description of a prison near Rabat closely resembles the Temara torture centre identified in a report by the US-based Human Rights Watch last October.

Furthermore, this newspaper has obtained flight records showing executive jets operated by the CIA flew in and out of Morocco on July 22 2002 and January 22 2004, the dates he says he was taken to and from the country.

If true, his account adds weight to concerns that the US authorities are torturing by proxy. It also highlights the dilemma of British authorities when they seek information from detainees overseas who they know, or suspect, are tortured.

Horizon publishes the results of specially commissioned research, modelling two possible dirty bomb scenarios: attacks on either London or Washington DC. The main conclusion is that the health risks from a dirty bomb explosion are localised to people who are close to the incident or are in contact with the contamination. Although the modelled attack scenarios could have wide-ranging economic repercussions, the majority of the population of either capital city would have only a negligible increase in their risk of developing cancer.