Bülow at the 2005 Axis for Peace conference

Andreas von Bülow (born 17 July 1937 in Dresden) is a German SPD politician and writer. A former government minister, he has recently authored books about intelligence agencies, including In the Name of the State. CIA, BND and the criminal machinations of secret services. (German: Im Namen des Staates. CIA, BND und die kriminellen Machenschaften der Geheimdienste.) and The CIA and September 11 (Die CIA und der 11. September). He holds a doctorate degree in Jurisprudence.^[1]

Political career[link]

He served as secretary of state in the German Federal Ministry of Defence (1976-1980) and Minister for Research and Technology (1980-1982), both during the Chancellor Helmut Schmidt administration, and was regarded as a "rising star" of German politics at the time.^[1] He served for 25 years as an SPD member of the German parliament (1969-1994). In the late eighties and early nineties, he served on the parliamentary committee on intelligence services ("Parlamentarischer Kontrollausschuss").^[1] This committee supervises German intelligence agencies and has access to classified information. In the early nineties, Bülow also served as SPD ranking member of the Schalck-Golodkowski investigation committee, a task that first led him to inquire into white collar crime in connection with Eastern intelligence services, and later also into what he labels "criminal activities" of Western intelligence services.^[2] His first major publication dealing with this realm, In the Name of the State (German: Im Namen des Staates) is a heavily referenced and extensive study focusing mostly on the CIA. Since leaving the Bundestag, he has largely left the SPD's political loop.^[3]

9/11[link]

He has written a book called The CIA and September 11 (German: Die CIA und der 11. September), in which he implies US government complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"Planning the attacks was a master deed, in technical and organizational terms. To hijack four big airliners within a few minutes and fly them into targets within a single hour and doing so on complicated flight routes! That is unthinkable, without backing from the secret apparatuses of state and industry." Tagesspiegel, 13. Jan. 2002 [1]

He told The Daily Telegraph at his home in Bonn.

"If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind bars" and "They have hidden behind a veil of secrecy and destroyed the evidence - that they invented the story of 19 Muslims working within Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda - in order to hide the truth of their own covert operation" [2].

He has expressed his views on the September 11, 2001 attacks in various media, including Germany's Der Spiegel, Dutch television, together with Michael Meacher,^[4] and in Alex Jones's talk radio program.

Affiliations[link]

He is a member of:

• Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.
• Axis for Peace Conference.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bülow´s speech at the Axis for Peace-Conference

The Right Honourable Michael Meacher MP
Meacher at a rally outside the American Embassy, 9 December 2005.
Minister of State for the Environment
In office 2 May 1997 – 13 June 2003
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Elliot Morley
Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton Oldham West (1970–1997)
Incumbent
Assumed office 18 June 1970
Preceded by	Keith Bruce Campbell
Majority	9,352 (21.8%)
Personal details
Born	(1939-11-04) 4 November 1939 (age 72) Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	New College, Oxford London School of Economics
Website	www.michaelmeacher.info

Michael Hugh Meacher (born 4 November 1939) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Oldham West and Royton since 1997. Previously he had been the MP for Oldham West, first elected in 1970. On 22 February 2007 he declared that he would be standing for the Labour Leadership, challenging Gordon Brown and John McDonnell.^[1] On 14 May, however, after talks with John McDonnell, he announced he would stand aside in order to back McDonnell as the "candidate of the left".^[2]

Beginnings[link]

Born in Hemel Hempstead, the son of an accountant and stock-broker, he was educated at Berkhamsted School, New College, Oxford and the London School of Economics, where he gained a Diploma in Social Administration. He became a researcher and lecturer in social administration at Essex and York universities and wrote a book about elderly people's treatment in mental hospitals. He was the Labour Party candidate for Colchester at the 1966 UK General Election, and fought the 1968 Oldham West by-election after the resignation of Labour MP Leslie Hale but lost to Conservative candidate Bruce Campbell.^[3]

In Parliament[link]

Junior minister[link]

He was first elected to Parliament in 1970 for Oldham West, reversing his previous defeat, and served as a junior minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan (Under-Secretary for Industry, 1974–75, Under-Secretary for Health and Social Security, 1975–79). During opposition he was in the Shadow Cabinet for fourteen years and concurrently lectured at the LSE. He was seen as a figure on the left and an ally of Tony Benn and stood as the left's candidate against Roy Hattersley in the 1983 deputy leadership election.

Blair Ministry[link]

He was an elected member of the Shadow Cabinet from 1983 to 1997, but Tony Blair refused to appoint him to the Cabinet and instead made him Minister of State for the Environment, first at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997–2001), then at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2001–2003). Despite Blair's hostility, Meacher gained a reputation for being a politician who was on top of a complex brief^[4] and was one of the longest serving minsters in the same job in the Labour government, from 1997-2003. He was criticised for hypocrisy when he condemned second home owners; according to the BBC and Channel 4's The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, he and his wife owned more than one home themselves.^[5]

Political activities after 2003[link]

He was sacked in June 2003, to be replaced by Elliot Morley. Since then he has attacked the government on a number of issues, most notably that of genetically modified food and the 2003 Iraq war, though in the run-up to the invasion he had accepted reports by the intelligence services and government saying that Iraq had Chemical Weapons.^[6]

Meacher has claimed that a supposed absence of prevention by United States authorities of the hijackings on 11 September 2001 was suspicious and 'offered an extremely convenient pretext' for subsequent military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.^[7][8] This was seen as giving "credence to conspiracy theories" as claimed by the mainstream newspapers The Daily Mail and The Guardian.^[9][10] Michael Meacher has also written a foreword for David Ray Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor.^[11]

In May 2005 he introduced an early day motion on climate change to parliament, which calls upon the government to commit to yearly CO₂ emission reductions of 3%.^[12]

In June 2006, various articles appeared in the British media claiming Meacher would stand as a stalking horse against Tony Blair in order to initiate a leadership contest; others suggested, especially after Brown came out in support of the Trident missile programme and nuclear energy, that Meacher would challenge Brown from the left. He announced his candidacy for the Labour leadership on 22 February 2007.

On 23 September 2006, Michael Meacher became the sixth Labour MP to start a blog.^[13] Meacher has also written articles for ePolitix.com, which has included criticism of Blair and Brown for perceived right-wing policies, including privatization. He has called for a more conciliatory policy in the Middle East, attempts to tackle income inequality, and a greater commitment to reducing energy use.^[14]

Leadership bid[link]

On 22 February 2007, Meacher declared his intention to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party claiming he had the support of a large number of MPs. The decisions of both Michael Meacher and John McDonnell to run for the leadership have been controversial^{[citation needed]} with many annoyed that John McDonnell did not consult with other members of the Socialist Campaign Group^{[citation needed]}, and many others accusing Michael Meacher of trying to split the nominations and keep John McDonnell off the ballot paper, although neither candidate was thought by many to have any chance of winning the Labour leadership.^[15][16]

On 21 April 2007, The Guardian claimed that Meacher had the support of no more than 3 MPs and that his campaign was "virtually dead in the water".^[17]

On 27 April 2007, it was reported that Meacher had reached an agreement with John McDonnell that on the day Tony Blair announced his resignation, whichever of the two of them had the fewer nominations would step aside and allow the other to challenge Gordon Brown.

On 14 May 2007, Meacher agreed to stand aside to allow John McDonnell to be the sole leadership candidate of the left. Subsequent articles reported that Meacher had 21 declarations of support while McDonnell had 24. In the Labour Party's leadership nomination process, McDonnell received nominations from 29 MPs.

Outside Parliament[link]

He appeared briefly as himself in the 1985 BBC Television drama serial Edge of Darkness.

In 1988 he lost a libel action against the journalist Alan Watkins, who had written an article in November 1984 which included the remark "Mr Meacher likes to claim that he is the son of an agricultural labourer, though I understand that his father was an accountant who retired to work on the family farm because the life suited him better."

Meacher is a member of the Fabian Society.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Michael Meacher's weblog
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Column archive at The Guardian
• Column archive at The New Statesman

Articles

• Profile: Michael Meacher, BBC News, June 2003
• This war on terrorism is bogus - Michael Meacher MP, 6 September 2003
• The Big Ask More information about the Climate Change EDM

Videos

• Michael Meacher and Andreas Von Bülow express their serious doubts about 9/11
• Video: Meacher says US allowed 9/11 to happen