So, there we have British elections today: an unfair electoral system, censorship of candidates’ electoral addresses, little real political choice for voters, widespread postal ballot-rigging and elections administered by partisan council officials in a corrupt political climate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/08/craig-murray-general-election
I am back on comment is free. Please comment there as well as here. I would only note though that tte headline is not mine: I would not say the situation here is as bad as Uzbekistan.
I saw your name in my Guardian World RSS feed. Congratulations!
Eeeeewwww!!!
I just read something on the Guardian!
Do I need a tetanus jab… will I go blind… or MAAADDDD !!!???
Probably best kept for a separate blog entry but I’d be interested to hear your reasons for “I am increasingly sceptical of the EU”.
The connection I can see, though, is that, in my view, the biggest problem with the EU is the lack of democracy due to the weakness of the parliament relative to the more indirect forms of control.
Craig, as you know Canada shares much the same parliamentary system of government as Britain, and as a result shares many of the same problems that you have written about. Prominent journalist ANDREW COYNE writing in Canada’s “MacLean’s Magazine” under the headline “CANADIAN DEMOCRACY is BROKEN’ said this ” The impotence of ordinary MPs, the irrelevance of Parliament, the near dictatorial powers of the Prime Minister: if we were writing about a Third World country with a system like ours, we would be careful to refer to the “largely ceremonial” Parliament and “sham” elections. Sound familiar to you !!
But Craig, you also refer to that “cozy establishment clique that governs us” which is even more of a threat to democracy than a broken parliamentary system. Why does the government of the day tolerate the interference of this establishment clique? How do they do it? Let me suggest an answer.
Look at the huge press Brouhaha over some relatively minor parliamentary expense account fiddles. If the level of corruption in parliament is such that many MPs will openly fiddle their expense accounts for relatively small amounts, imagine what else some of them are up to in secret for the influence they have to peddle, imagine the deposits into their offshore bank accounts, imagine what could happen to a government if these types of scandals were all leaked at once. MI5 / MI6 must know all the politician’s secrets. All it would require is influencing the appointment of a small handful of people at the top of MI5 and MI6 to control the government with threats of blackmail.
Like a dog that has learned to flinch at the mere hint of its master’s lash, no Prime Minister would want to cross swords with the intelligence services and risk seeing more scandalous secrets about some of his MPs leaked to the press.
Would the system be so dishonest? My own story (just click on my signature below) proves that this link between the high establishment and MI5 / MI6 is already happening. In my research paper I describe just such an issue (with considerable proof) where the establishment has used this connection with MI5 / MI6 to override rule of law, and neuter our government and parliament in the process.
“It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”
Anyone remember who that quote was attributed to?
http://hotterthanapileofcurry.wordpress.com
Stalin I believe.
Hey, you got published in the Guardian! Maybe it’s not so bad after all. I still prefer the Times though, that’s just me.
The old joke ‘Vote early and vote often’
probably contained some grains of truth.
One specific point – postal votes are mixed with secret votes because mass postal voting was tacked onto the old-style postal voting for only the infirm, the military and those unavoidably working away from home. Back in those days, the number of postal votes was so low that if you knew that the five postal voters in the ward (and we have the same rules for local elections as we do for general elections) cast four votes of Labour and one for the Conservatives, you could probably work out which one it was that voted Tory and that would be the complete end of the secret ballot.
“for only the infirm, the military and those unavoidably working away from home”
I heard on one of the UK channels only yesterday (?) that some enormous percentage (was it 90%?) of the military abroad don’t vote. Sorry I can’t quote the programme, but the commentators/presenters were saying that you’d think, with the military being sent abroad to fight or even die, they’d want to have their say.
Roderick Russell is absolutely right. Our ‘democracy’ is run by an elite, who control the intelligence services. I believe the role of the intelligence services is three fold: firstly, the expected work of such an agency, secondly procuring money through fraud and maintaining the secrecy of these operations and thirdly making sure the poltical system offers no challenges to the elite.
I think the MPs scandal was engineered, the timing was just perfect,to bring in a new crop of MPs whose loyality is more to the elite rather than the people. It’s important for the elite to maintain the sham of democracy otherwise there might be a sudden revolution in bleak economic times.
On likelihood of vote fraud especially in key marginals where Labour vote has record of holding up suspiciously well-check out:
http://aangirfanblogspot.com/2010/04/expect-vote-fraud-in-coming-uk-election.html
“My own story (just click on my signature below) proves that this link between the high establishment and MI5 / MI6 is already happening.”
Roderick, what’s your best piece of evidence that MI5 / MI6 have anything to do with you? And again, it’s not enough to say, “just look at my website.”
Look at your mother Larry, you’ll find the answer there.
He wrote his stuff on his website, so he doesn’t have to repeat hiself every time idiots like you ask him to.
If you wan’t his answers check his website, if you don’t go kill yourself.
On the real statistical probability that you might be voting for a psychopath come the General Election read this:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm
If you’re ADD like the shill in Missouri above you might find episode 90 of the Corbett report on this topic more digestible:
http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/episode090_our_leaders_are_psychopaths.mp3
Great links Apostate, thank you.
You ask – How do I know that MI5/MI6 and CSIS are involved? Take a look at Chapter 7 of the wiki (click on my signature) entitled “Role of MI5, MI6, CSIS in zerzetsen” and you will see that there are multiple items of evidence that point to the intelligence services and I should mention that each item has at least one independent source of corroboration to back it up (not necessarily described in the Wiki).
Besides if you look at Chapter 4, you will see wholesale evidence of a cover up conspiracy by government which would suggest the involvement of intelligence services. I would also recommend Chapter 2 where you will see items of precedent that prove that our intelligence services have been involved persecuting other innocent citizens on behalf of the establishment (and you can check these other incidents back to their sources, such as The Sunday Times, to see for yourself). And then there are the smears (a hallmark of MI6; and I can name others whom they slandered) ?” see Chapter 3.
All these items – listed on Chapter 7 -present a pattern which (several times over) demonstrates clear involvement by the intelligence services. Look at the pattern for yourselves. Let’s take item number 14 on the list in Chapter 7. You know the one about telephone tapping which continues in several jurisdictions still today. How do I know its happening? Well, on several occasions I have said something on the telephone that resulted in the other party being almost immediately intimidated or threatened (my daughter’s incident in Aberdeen just being one example), or incidents like my complaint to CHRC (that I detailed a few days ago on this blog.) ?” These prove my phone was being tapped. Then there are the very large number of incidents where people have called my lines only to have it answered by piercing shrieks (like a fax), or a comment this line is not in service, or they are asked to leave a message on a voicemail that has my voice on it, but it’s a false voicemail (in an MI5 / CSIS interception centre) as I never receive the message. Hundreds of items of proof of telephone tapping and interference which I am not going to reiterate here – MI5 / CSIS are well aware of it all since I have been complaining to them and the telephone companies for years (with corroborative evidence supplied).
ANGRYSOBA asked some interesting questions a few days ago on this topic, and gave me the opportunity to put my detailed answers on his blog as comments underneath his April 3, 2010 article. May I refer you there?
There should be nothing surprising that powerful elements can exercise unlawful influence over top people in MI6; it’s happened before ?” Philby, Burgess, and Blunt
Roderick Russell
Why did you repeat yourself for the bitch?
He asked you for your proof so you should have left it on your page and told the bitch to fetch!
The bitch isn’t going to even read it, the bitch just wanted to bitch, because that is what bitches do.
Thanks, Roderick Russell – and Apostate too – really good links.
“I would only note though that the headline is not mine: I would not say the situation here is as bad as Uzbekistan.”
Then the headline has badly misrepresented you. Some of your fellow Lib Dems have jumped to the conclusion that if you think Britain is just like Afghanistan, you must be a complete nutter. See the comments to:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/liblink-craig-murray-british-democracy-no-better-than-uzbekistans-18794.html
But perhaps that was the aim of The Guardian – they know fine well that most people don’t know that sub-eds write the headers. People – Lib Dem activist readers – ought to know, though, if they’re in politics.