The Shammy judges were especially impressed by a spirited campaign to rehabilitate Tony Blair. The winner will receive the coveted Jeremy Paxman Hoodwink Prize.

Western states have developed a new means of waging war on civilians without explicitly have to declare that this is what is actually taking place.

We should recall that more than a decade ago, Tony Blair was warned by his intelligence services that interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq would spread terrorism.

It is the responsibility of all of us to scrutinise what our governments do in our name; if we cannot learn that from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, then it is hopeless.

From Afghanistan to Yemen, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism.

"I will close Guantanamo prison no later than one year from now," said Barack Obama on 22 January 2009. So how did Adnan Latif die there in 2012?

The US claims its goal is to undermine tyranny and spread democracy in the Middle East while its closest ally is the most repressive regime in the region.

Karzai and Obama are working on an agreement legalizing permanent military bases in Afghanistan: but as long as we have foreign military bases in our country, we have no independence.

Each week Obama goes through a "kill list" of Muslims he intends to eliminate, with no judicial process and no more identification than the word of a dodgy spy on the ground.

Ex-soldier Joe Glenton says portraying all soldiers fighting in Afghanistan as 'heroes' is used by politicians and generals to justify wars which are opposed by the majority of the British public.