Yes, odd that. Reminiscent of the BBC omitting to mention that the play starred David Tennant and was based on your memoirs.

Your piece does show up via the Guardian site’s own search facility. It is probably the most genuinely challenging subversive article that will appear in the MSM this election so the Guardian should be given some credit for publishing it at all.

Well done for getting that published this article in a new online publication will be of interest http://newsnetscotland.com/

On a related theme, on ‘NewsNow’, a news portal that aggregates thousands of news stories nationally and internationally from hundreds of news agencies every 10 minutes, they had, a few hours ago, a story “Lesbian Paedophile seduced and sexually assaulted teenagers” that was their number one most read nationally.

Even though this story is about a woman on the Isle of Wight, our main news paper, the IW County Press, which is typically the kind of local rag that would print “Man spits on pavement”, has managed to avoid any mention of it on their site. The story is a few days old, and this weeks print of the weekly paper, is due tomorrow as it is printed this evening.

The Island is the stomping ground of the Hampshire Police force, which boasts the most ‘gay friendly’ force in the UK, and it is in some unholy alliance with our local rag: two tits good, two balls bad.

If you want to see the future of a British police state, come visit the Isle of Wight.

Craig,

You’re linked at the last white dot, in the top central column here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree

Sorry to bang on about it but what is your beef with the Guardian?

“I get so angry about the Guardian” it’s the best we have, which isn’t saying much.

Have you seen the Daily Mail recently?

Regards Paul

Jimmy. How about those with one ball, or three tits? What about nematodes, with whom we share around 75% of our DNA and who are hermaphrodites? And what about the policemen of Penzance, whose lot was not a happy one?

The Isle of Wight clearly is host to a giant nematode plot spawned by lesbian earthworms and Gordon Brown.

Thank the Lord for the Guardian, the Isle of Wight and the daily male.

The Guardian site has a nice feature that is you know the section and date, you can get all the articles, with a URL like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/all

“How about those with one ball, or three tits?”

You’re welcome to visit any time Suhayl.

Ah, thank you, Jimmy, most generous of you.

But seriously, Craig’s article is superb. The headline will have been composed by a sub-editor; they always get it wrong. Never mind about the hyperbolic headline – the article’s the thing. Spread it round, link to it, reference it; a gleam of truth amongst the persiflage!

Roger, that’s an amazing and extremely informative site you’ve got! Thanks.

Craig,

Saw your article on the front page of CiF, as Dreolin says, the last white dot in the centre colummn.

Cracking article.

Best wishes,

Chris

Craig.

Many blogs have a blog roll, a list of sites that the author recommends. Craig consider adding a blog roll and including the Guardian Comment is Free site as its first or only entry.

I have put Murder in Samarkand on special order at Dymocks in Sydney, but their computer system cannot find any publisher listed for the Catholic Orange Men of Togo. Could you please tell me the contact details for the publisher?

Craig.

Just finished reading your Guardian article, it is as usual for your comments absolutely excellent.

It looks as if British “democracy” is quickly following the path that the US political system has trodden into extreme corruption and the ownership of all electable parties by a kleptocratic elite.

In my view preferential voting as used here in Australia is the best system. The only modification I would suggest is that the option of leaving a seat unfilled (“a plague on all your parties option”) should be on the ballot and if no candidate after distribution of preferences has more than 50% of the number who voted the office should be left unfilled for the parliamentary term.

I also think compulsory voting as in Australia is necessary to prevent further skewing of the political system towards the extreme right as in the US.

I’m not sure about this voting lark anymore, or “democracy” for that matter. This may be an unfashionable attitude, but I can’t help it.

In principle I like the concept of democracy, but when it comes to putting it into practice that things get difficult for me.

The UK version of democracy, is rapidly evolving, or degenerating, into the US system, with a heavy, heavy, emphasis on the “representative” aspect.

If, as in the US, around 50% of the electorate are so turned off by the choices available that they don’t bother to vote at all, that means that the electoral process/ritual only applies to around half the electorate.

This means that one can actually win an election and form a government with electoral support from around half of the half that vote, or a quarter of the electorate. In the UK one can form a government with massive majority with as little as 40% of the votes caste, which on the face of it seems extraordianary. It’s almost like an institutionalised dictatorship, or minority rule. How exactly is that democracy?

In reality things are far worse. Parties increasingly concentrate their energies and resources on the marginal seats which swing one way or another, compared to the seats that rarely, if ever change under normal circumstances.

If I remember correctly, about a quarter of seats are classified as marginals, sorry if I’m wrong about this, it’s a long time since I lived in the UK permanently. What this means, in practice, is that a quarter of half of half the electorate, or about 12% of the electorate decide the outcome of the election, and one doesn’t even need a majority of this reduced electorate under the UK system. How democratic is that?

Is “democracy” really a fantasy or utopia, that never really existed, doesn’t exist, and probably never will exist in practice?

And that’s just a quick look at the voting system. Can democracy exist in a society where there are vast differences between the life conditions of the citizenry? Doesn’t democracy, a democractic society, require a high degree of social and economic equality for democracy to function properly. Surely democracy, equality and social justice are linked and support one another?

Isn’t democracy if implimented properly a direct threat to the class structure and uneven spread of wealth in society? At least that was major criticism of the democratic folly from the ruling elite for centuries.

If we define democracy very narrowly indeed we can say that the UK is a democracy with basic democratic rights for all, but is that enough?

Craig,

The link to your article on the Comment is Free page is even bigger this morning, with your photo added.

But people are repeating what they’ve seen here – that there was no link – when it was there all along last night. Maybe you should amend/annotate your post as soon as you get a minute. Otherwise I wouldn’t blame the CIF people for getting a bit miffed!

The link’s been moved now. They seem to be shifting them around. You have one of the hightest number of comments.

And now its relegated to a sub page again where no one is likely to find it.

Aren’t “The Guardian” proving your point rather nicely, Craig, by burying your article?

A free media is a central pillar of democracy, and one of our more “liberal” and influential newspapers suppressing your opinion in this way during an election campaign just shows the current lamentable state of our democracy.

“I’m not sure about this voting lark anymore”

I’m pretty sure I’m not taken seriously on my advocacy of sortition, but I really must start to get stroppy and ask you all to give it serious thought. You need to work past your initial reaction (it’s awfully silly and cynical) and realise that in fact it solves many of the problems this blog agonises over. Of course it raises some new problems, but we could talk about those – perhaps they may be more tractable than the set we have at the moment.

We have around 600 people in London running the country. They are self-selected. The fact that people voted for them does not mean that they were selected by the people – our ‘democracy’ only permits us to weight the alternatives we are offered and those alternatives are few to the point of singularity.

The result is a government which is neither moral nor competent, and whose legitimacy is as specious as the divine right of kings. The 600 souls who represent us are less competent and less moral than the population at large, because there is a malign bias in their selection. A truly random selection of 600 people would be (on average) smarter and cleaner. The present system is not random – it systematically fixes the bar so low that only the dull or unprincipled can become MPs.

Work as an MP should be akin to jury service: the service is brief, you and yours will have no exemption from the consequences of your decisions, you must remain a member of the world you you make judgements about. But as we have it now, politicians are a discrete sept: they regulate a world to which they do not belong. They have, as poker players say, no skin in the game.

The Bush drums sound out again through the jungle of disinformation:

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

http://tinyurl.com/disinformation-busted

Work as an M.P. should be akin to jury service.

Yes our politicians see it like that. They have to open their minds to many unpleasant aspects of life, and their opinions can be overruled by the sitting judge. The expenses barely cover the bus fare and the sandwich. No0one gives you any thanks. So when Mr Dream-Lovely Friends of this or Friends of that lobby group comes and offers you a deal which is worth more than your day job, and a swift promotion through the ranks of idiots who work alongside you, you grab the script from them and before you know it, buoyed on by the smokescreen of false jeering and booing, you have condemned a million people to death row.

It is exactly the same as jury service except that you have the relish of making decisions for the weapons of varies degrees of destruction of the British Armed Forces on the battlefield, instead of for the Ministry of Justice.

As one M.P. once said to me in the back of the limo, ‘I didn’t want to be made just Minister for Cowpats.’ I’m afraid that ambition, vanity and greed are legally played upon by the lobbying system. It is outrageous that the lobbyists are permitted within a thousand miles of politicians. There should be a covenant for politicians like the Hippocratic oath, or a rule of confidentiality about court proceedings, to control the conduct of our politicians and it should be applied with as robustness as either of those two.

Vronsky, what yu wrote is so important and fundamental to the future of this country, that I would say that the future of the UK is at stake if there is no change.

Nobody in the world can possibly respect the state of the UK parliament. The mother of parliaments is a whore. Don’t tell Craig.

Writerman,

It’s fine to be doubtful about how well democracy has been implemented but that isn’t the same thing as saying democracy itself is bad. But if that IS what you are saying then surely you should at least propose something better.

There are surely problems with living in a “democracy” (with or without scare quotes) of fifty million people in that any one person’s vote is necessarily watered down but being only one in fifty million is certainly not the same as being disenfranchised. Being “disenfranchised” does not mean the same thing as “no one else agrees with me”. It’s surely up to you to look at which candidate or party most closely agrees with you and vote for them. If there are none then find people who agree with you and try to run yourselves. Does that sound difficult? Of course it does. Of course it is almost impossible but running the country is almost impossible for almost anyone in almost any country. How could it possibly be otherwise?

I’m sorry but I don’t understand how anyone can logically argue that they won’t vote because they are sick of trends in Britain to not vote, which is what you seem to be saying here:

“The UK version of democracy, is rapidly evolving, or degenerating, into the US system, with a heavy, heavy, emphasis on the “representative” aspect.

If, as in the US, around 50% of the electorate are so turned off by the choices available that they don’t bother to vote at all, that means that the electoral process/ritual only applies to around half the electorate.”

From my understanding, that means anyone who cares about preventing the degrading of democracy would be more inclined to encourage people to vote not to sit at home and sulk about the fact that too few people do.

Okay, this is the first time I have had a chance to look at the Comment is Free front page and I don’t see Craig Murray’s name up there at all.

I do see a certain “Charles Crawford”, however.

Churchill said something to the effect that democracy is the worst system except for all the others. True then true now.

Maybe I am getting old but it is my impression that the political systems in the US, UK and Australia are becoming more corrupt and authoritarian with the US far in the lead.

Writerman, we have to go back to democracy’s first principles, which are two-fold. 1) We the people need a mechanism by which we can remove a government and replace it with another of our majority choice, without violence, and 2) We need a system of government which addresses the basic civilised needs of the populace, and which provides rational processes whereby we can solve the problems we face. Taken together, these principles are the bedrock of what we choose to call democracy. For a deeper consideration, I recommend the book POPPER by Bryan Magee, specifically chapters 6 and 7. Few other philosophers have crystallised the ideas and ideals of the open society like Karl Popper.

Luckily Google News searches CiF, and your article is now the top one for an “Uzbekistan” search. So in that way CiF wins over an ordinary blog.

http://news.google.co.uk/news/search?q=Uzbekistan

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand how anyone can logically argue that they won’t vote”

I think you need to to explain this failure of understanding at greater length. If you are offered several choices and consider all of them iniquitous, surely it is necessary and rational to decline to choose? Remember Sophie’s Choice? She destroyed herself, because she chose between wickednesses at the invitation of the wicked.

If you don’t like the available choices, you have to do something. My suggestion is above. I have no great hope of seeing sortition implemented, so SAOR ALBA. Free Scotland. The first requirement in the treatment of burns is to remove the patient from the fire.

“I think you need to to explain this failure of understanding at greater length.”

I did explain it at greater length. If you cut up the particular point I am making and even the very sentence of mine that you are quoting then you aren’t likely to see what I don’t understand.

Basically, Writerman says this: “in the US, around 50% of the electorate are so turned off by the choices available that they don’t bother to vote at all, that means that the electoral process/ritual only applies to around half the electorate.

This means that one can actually win an election and form a government with electoral support from around half of the half that vote, or a quarter of the electorate. In the UK one can form a government with massive majority with as little as 40% of the votes caste, which on the face of it seems extraordianary. It’s almost like an institutionalised dictatorship, or minority rule. How exactly is that democracy?”

Which, as I understand, is bemoaning the LACK OF PARTICIPATION in the electoral system. And, at the same time Writerman seems to be saying that the voting in such a system is a waste of time.

Vronsky, your argument that voting might be like choosing one of your children to die or allow all of your children to die is a separate issue to the one I am responding to.

It only takes a small number of voters to win an election, but there is no point winning. In America you have two parties with no differences, here we have three with no differences.

All voting will achieve is swapping one bunch of Zionist bastards for another.

Vronsky

For example, I disagree with the concept of majority as opposed to divine rule, it would be logical not to participate in what I considered to be a flawed system, but I have an absolute duty then to remove myself from it, into a system that accords with my principles, such as Shariah Law.

But suppose I have reason to fear that racism will prejudice my existence under Shariah Law because its custodians had not fully understood their religious duty to ignore race, well, I’d be a fool to agree to that deal as well.

Within the UK system I think that ALL citizens should make it clear to prospective candidates. If you voted for illegal war, you do not receive my legal vote. We had the whole issue of illegality/legality of war explained to us in full over the Falklands War and the former Yugoslavia. Everyone knows that to carpet bomb Afghanistan because of a small group of individuals was and is totally illegal under the Geneva Convention. The illegality of the Iraq invasion is irrefutable.

Until international law is restored, the legislature of this country, i.e. the M.P.s are in contravention of their sworn duties. Anyone who voted for illegal war is ineligible for standing as a candidate in a UK election, because they are sworn to abide by national and international law in their jobs.

If however, the limitations placed on M.P.s by the state have changed and they are now empowered to sign their, and therefore our, names to break international law, I have an absolute duty to leave this country, even if I only go to France, because French M.P.s refused to break international law about Iraq. France may curtail some of my civil liberties about Islamic clothes and speech. But are the live of two million Muslims to be sold for such small priveleges I have here in the UK?

Abstinence from voting because of a principle HAS to be accompanied by self-exile on principle. Nobody cab abandon their civic responsibilities altogether. You can’t say that you are doing something on principle and then break that principle as you choose, unless you as unprincipled as the politicians you disagree with. Alternatively, if one didn’t like exile, one could stand and fight. Pick off one or two M.P.s on their electioneering rounds. They’d soon get the message that if you make war on other, innocent people, you are inviting like for like.

If I said that in US-slave Saudi Arabia, I’d pretty soon get the chop or a heavy prison sentence, despite the fact that Shariah Law commands me to make Hijra / self-exile and permits me to strike back, not at innocent civilians, but at the people who illegally attacked us i.e. M.P.s in the UK parliament.

Anno said,

‘There should be a covenant for politicians like the Hippocratic oath’ and I totally agree with you Anno – well said!

We trust our doctors and judges because they have sworn to protect us. Too many politicians have their own agenda – I exposed the tacky link between Cons and their Israeli friends on WebCameron and it WAS TAKEN DOWN soon afterwards.

A vote for the Conservative Party is a vote for the Zionists of Israel, war, and more death and destruction in Iran and Gaza.

Note Netanyahu now has ‘a rain check’ on the nuclear Security Council meeting convened for April 13th – Why? – Because Turkey and others want answers as to why they have not declared a 300 nuke arsenal with plans to deploy nukes in subs and scramjet missiles while refusing to even vote on joining the NPT.

I strongly believe a vote for the Conservative Party condemns our kids and their kids to perpetual wars, more disinformation and more deception in a futile quest for power and money.

I’ll say it then,

The US slaves are ruling Saudi Arabia, they are the sons of British slaves.

Slaves who rebelled against the ottoman Khilafah, slaves who killed their Muslim brothers and slaves who helped found the state of Israel.

They are the enemies of Allah and the enemies of the Prophet pbh of Allah. They are the enemies of their citizens. And they will be removed.

They will not be removed with British style elections. Because as this thread has proven, those so called elections don’t work in the UK so have no dream of working in the Muslim world.

Even though I don’t believe the house of Saud will be removed by elections, I believe the British and their American masters are planning to remove them and replace them with something worse. The house of saud have outlived their usefulness so the Zionist of America and their Israeli masters are debating whether to chop what is now Saudi arabia in to two or three pieces.

Arsalan

One can only do what one can. Trying just to avoid what is forbidden is a big enough challenge. The Saudi Royalty have been sold the concept of the Divine Right of Kings, as tired as the very old, worn-out BOAC aeroplane that took me to Madinah in Hajj. As you know the US and UK have forced a massive re-education programme on Saudi Arabia, involving their recruiting thousands of non-Muslim English Teachers and other subjects, in order to subvert the Muslims in the Middle East. Gordon Brown is particularly smug about this subterfuge.

If the leaders of Saudi Arabia think that their acceptance of this cultural sabotage has gone unnoticed in the Muslim world, they are deceiving themselves. The Saudi rulers are more likely to be deposed by their own people than the US. The Muslim populations of the Middle East have been been sold a new , clapped out, Western, concept, political analysis. Like a secondhand photocopier, it has a certain amount of use left. They are hoping that the re=educated Muslims will be calling for full-scale democracy, when TV political analysis idea wears out.

The Saudi Rulers instructed the Muslims to engage in cross-religion debate, as well as political evaluation. Can they pull the wool over the eyes of their population to enter into the unchartered territory of questioning the absolute truth of Islam in the Holy Land? No. Never. Not possible. But unfortunately the fact that they have even tried this stratagem, fed to them by their US UK iS masters, shows that their authority is completely finished.

Have you ever thought of voting for the Green Party, Arsalan?

As far as I know they aren’t “Zionist” and they could probably do with a bit of support.

BTW Arsalan, a little bird tells me that King Faisal was actually Jewish. Do you think that’s true? How about the Shia Muslims or the Ishmailis? I’m sure some overarching malign force must have corrupted them. There is no other possible explanation for the mutual hostility between the Sunni and Shia than say, the Jews.

“We trust our doctors and judges because they have sworn to protect us.”

Not too sure about the doctors, Mark.

Large numbers of them (40% or more in these islands?) are receiving some sort of perks from Big Pharma. And they will prescribe the latest “wonder” drug from Pfizer or AstraZeneca, or whoever, and bugger the side effects. I’ve spent the last 10+ years fighting them. Who wants constant pain and the possibility of muscle degeneration when you’re on a perfectly good tablet already? Crestor has even caused deaths, and there are groups saying it should be withdrawn. Vioxx (sold in Europe as Ceoxx) was withdrawn when it was discovered that it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Doctors are not all as scrupulous as they used to be, I’m afraid, and are even accepting the results of studies which have been funded by the pharmaceutical companies themselves. It’s become a dodgy area. Billions for the companies, and big risks for the consumer.

“Okay, this is the first time I have had a chance to look at the Comment is Free front page and I don’t see Craig Murray’s name up there at all.”–angry

Yes, well, if you’ve read this thread, you’ll have seen that it’s been moved. Articles dated 9 April are taking top place now. However it’s still linked, on Comment is Free, bottom of central column at the link entitled, “More election coverage from Cif at the polls”, but then you have to go to Page 2. No doubt it’ll move to Page 3 shortly …

Angry Soba may your mother rot in hell.

I see what you wrote as an attempt to divide us, not an attempt to find answers.

The strife that lies between Sunni and Shia are caused by you bastards.

Before the invasion every family in Iraq was a mixed family.

Now there is.

“BTW Arsalan, a little bird tells me that King Faisal was actually Jewish.”

Well your mother is entitled to her views, isn’t she?

I believe you bastards will cause strife between everyone, that is what you bastards are best at.

And I don’t say the strife is caused by Jews, I say it is caused by you. You and bastards like you.

And not just between us, you and bastards like you cause it all over the world between everyone.

It is called divide and rule.

“We trust our doctors and judges because they have sworn to protect us.”

I don’t trust doctors at all.

For obvious reasons.

Or should that be I don’t trust a doctor?

I made mine promise she wouldn’t cook Pakistani food before I agreed to marry her, but straight after I did she started crying at the table in front of my mum, when my mum asked her why she said “I can’t cook this”, to which my mum replied, “Cook what you want, if he doesn’t eat it let him starve”.

Oh bloody hell, I need to collect her, her shift finishes at five.

“Angry Soba may your mother rot in hell.”

If there is a Heaven, which there isn’t, she’ll be there. She’s a very sweet Irish lady who will charm anyone.

But let’s leave each other’s mothers out of it, eh? It might tarnish your image as a chivalrous morally resolute champion of justice.

Roger’s website http://disruptive.org.uk/ is indeed very good.

His interests are almost identical to mine, and I have already read many of the websites he links.

Then I thought – I know this bloke…

So I trawled through his website trying to find a photo

It was many years ago. He ain’t half put on a lot of weight. In fact he looks completely different, so I finally came to the conclusion that it is probably another UNIX professional I knew.

It must be the UNIX that does it….

Motivating people to find out the truth about stuff and being disruptive.

Tony

Tony, you are a computer expert? UNIX. Is that what you mean. You mean, Roger W not the ‘Mexican Whistler’ or the man who is always leaving Durham?

Suhayl,

Yes I knew Roger Whittacker the whistler long before, and no I am not a computer expert, and never was really.

I did however work with some complete fucking genius’s before I retired.

I was never in the same league.

Our Son is far better than I could ever hope to be, but he ain’t really into music.

Our daughter meanwhile is probably going to be a Steward at Latitude Festival with her gang of mates if she and they act quick.

They have each got to find £200 in advance…but they get it back.. and get free entry

A ticket costs £150

They do have to work Three 8 hour shifts though

Latitude is a Really Nice Festival

Tony

We saw the film Once last night

I thought it was awesome

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/

She said

He can’t sing though – can he?

I said – are you taking the piss?

Meanwhile I think they just said on the radio Malcolm had kicked the bucket

And I thought – what the Bloke in The Clockwork Orange?

Nah – He’s still going strong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_McDowell

Tony

I don’t really approve of representative democracy. For me there’s way too much emphasis on the representatives, and too little emphasis on democracy. But I can see that one can argue that democracy in a highly complex, modern, industrial, urban, society, is virtually imposssible without centralisation and democracy being channeled through representatives. And I suppose this realization, this form of democracy, so controlled, is what I don’t like, and find a kind of paradox.

Churchill’s idea that democracy is the worst system… apart from all the others, is whitty, but presupposes that democracy is what we actually have, opposed to the other systems, which are worse.

I think there’s far too much of an obsession with voting and elections in our democracy, and not enough about the distribution of real power and influence the rest of the time. Bourgeois democracy is fine, up to a point, but I don’t think one should confuse it with real democracy, where real power resides within the people.

Personally if I was going to believe in a utopia, I wouldn’t choose democracy, I’d prefer anarchy as my ideal.

Angry Pangry

All of the teaching resources for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, for which I have CELTA certificate, introduce anti-Islamic concepts. Because students are concentrating very hard on the construction of the English, the student has to fully digest the underlining anti-Islamic concepts.

I have been qualified since 2005, but it is impossible to practise Islam while using this subversive material.

Like you, they never stop trying.

anno

wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy

So have I!!!

I haven’t found it of much use for anything though?

Have you been able to use yours?

Arsalan

I have only got a few choices for working abroad. 1/ TEFL in a secular country where students cannot have their minds poisoned by the teaching material. Not tried it yet. 2/ Installing small air-conditioning units in hot countries. 3/ Installing photovoltaic panels in hot countries or taxi-driving anywhere by Tom-Tom. If I get lost trying to follow Chinese script road signs, hopefully the British Ambassador will be able to track me by satellite using the chip in my passport. I’m getting very prepared to exit in order to avoid living under Tory rule again. But where to go to avoid their next missile attacks? Iraq?

Re Guardian Article:

You have simply moved down to page 2 as newer articles have come on stream.

Excellent piece. Well crafted.

“All of the teaching resources for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, for which I have CELTA certificate, introduce anti-Islamic concepts. Because students are concentrating very hard on the construction of the English, the student has to fully digest the underlining anti-Islamic concepts.”

What on Earth are you talking about? I’ve taken the CELTA myself and I never once saw anything remotely anti-Islamic in the teaching resources.

Would you mind pointing to at least one example of “subversive materials”?

Yes, brilliant article, and I agree it should be given more prominence, BUT it is clear that there are quite a few articles each day and the average quality is high. From the comments it seems to me that the article was quite prominent, but for a very short period only, and this would be the case with any article submitted to cif.

My suggestion is for those of us who support Craig’s views and who have the inclination to put finger to keyboard, to do so as constructively as possible. Research the situation in your own seat – who is the returning officer, how was he/she appointed, and how many people will be unnecessarily offered postal voting, eroding the principal of the secret ballot. Good quality, SHORT articles (not raging polemic) which refer to Craig’s article might get it read by those who only log on to cif every so often and missed it as it whizzed off the list under the intense competition of Jonathon Ross’s latest bout of career angst ….

I do think that ignoring politics because there is a lot of corruption is a cop-out for the lazy. We are still extremely lucky in this country (as Craig points out, he did not write the headline of the article and would not agree with it). There are a lot of people out there with integrity, but clearly they are losing the battle, and will fare better if more of us ask more difficult questions. While stumbling around cif, I came across this which I will be using, and encouraging others to use:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2010/apr/06/civil-liberties-ask-candidates

Dreoilin, I’ve already stated (how many times do I have to state this? My first post dealt specifically with the lack of need for many of the drugs that get pushed at us; most solutions to health problems lie outwith pharamcology – didn’t you read it?) that I don’t disagree with your attacks on Big Pharma.

But in your initial post, you specifically attacked ‘doctors’, not Big Pharma. The danger of this is that it aligns with a powerful ideological right-wing agenda aimed, in the UK, at dismantling the NHS. Many people who consider themselves left-wing, etc. don’t seem to realise this.

“96% of dentists use Colgate” is also a statistic, but no-one believes it. We should be wary of bandying about figures as weapons in a polemical debate which has far deeper agendas than simply an attack on Big Pharma.

“But in your initial post, you specifically attacked ‘doctors’, not Big Pharma”.–Suhayl

Correct. I’m attacking both. Including doctors who are in the job for money and prestige and not for our benefit. I know those too.

“The danger of this is that it aligns with a powerful ideological right-wing agenda aimed, in the UK, at dismantling the NHS.”

I don’t know why you think I should concern myself with the NHS.

“Many people who consider themselves left-wing, etc. don’t seem to realise this.”

Not my problem either.

“96% of dentists use Colgate” is also a statistic, but no-one believes it.”

If you’ve looked at the study mentioned by Tim Kendall and found it wanting, either in methodology or summation, say so. Otherwise talking about toothpaste is nothing but what you call a ‘polemical slogan’. I’m no part of anyone’s agenda and I won’t tailor what I say to suit someone else’s either – left or right.

Okay, Dreoilin, thanks, I think you’ve made some excellent points which I think it would be good for people to take on board.

There are more articles in a day than can hit the home page. Perhaps Craig should cut down on the conspiracy theories.