British democracy has lost its meaning. The political and economic system has come to serve the interests of a tiny elite, vastly wealthier than the run of the population, operating through corporate control. The state itself exists to serve the interests of these corporations, guided by a political class largely devoid of ideological belief and preoccupied with building their own careers and securing their own finances.
A bloated state sector is abused and mikled by a new class of massively overpaid public secotr managers in every area of public provision – university, school and hospital administration, all executive branches of local government, housing associations and other arms length bodies. All provide high six figure salaries to those at the top of a bloated bureaucratic establishment. The “left”, insofar as it exists, represents only these state sector vested interests.
These people decide where the cuts fall, and they will not fall where they should – on them. They will fall largely on the services ordinary people need.
Meanwhile we are not all in this together. The Vodafone saga only lifts the lid for the merest peek at the way the corporate sector avoids paying its share, hiding behind Luxembourg or Cayman tax loopholes and conflicts between international jurisdictions – with which our well provided politicians are very happy. The often excellent Sunny Hundal provides a calm analysis of the Vodafone case here:
Let me tell you something else about Vodafone. Vodafone took over Ghana Telecom three years ago. They paid an astonishingly low price for it – 1.2 billion dollars, which is less than the value of just the real estate GT owned. The value of the business was much higher than that, and there was a substantively higher opening bid from France Telecom.
The extraordinary thing was the enormous pressure which the British government put on Ghana to sell this valuable asset to Vodafone so cheaply. High Commissioner Nick Westcott and Deputy High Commissioner Menna Rawlings were both actively involved, with FCO minister Lord Malloch Brown pressurising President Kuffour directly, with all the weight of DFID’s substantial annual subvention to Ghana behind him.
What is the point of DFID giving taxpayer money to Ghana if we are costing the country money through participating in the commercial rape of its national assets?
And why exactly was it a major British interest that Vodafone – whose Board meets in Germany and which pays its meagre taxes in Luxembourg – should get Ghana Telecom, as opposed to France Telecom or another company? Was privatisation at this time the best thing for Ghana at all?
This Vodafone episode offers another little glimpse into the way that corporations like Vodafone twist politicians like Mark Malloch Brown around their little fingers. It mioght be interesting to look at his consultancies and commercial interests now he is out of office.
BAE is of course the example of this par excellence. Massive corruption and paying of bribes in Saudi Arabia, Tanzania end elsewhere, but prosecution was halted by Tony Blair “In the National Interest”. BAE of course was funnelling money straight into New Labour bagmen’s pockets, as well as offering positions to senior civil servants through the revolving door. Doubtless they are now doing the same for the Tories – perhaps even some Lib Dems.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/jack_straws_cor.html
It is therefore unsurprising the BAE were able to write themselves contracts for aircraft carriers which were impossible to cancel and that their New Labour acolytes were prepared to sign such contracts. It is, nonetheless, disgusting. Just as it is disgusting that there is no attempt whatever by the coaliton to query or remedy the situation. There is no contract in the UK which cannot be cancelled by primary legislation.
Meanwhile, bankers’ bonus season is upon us again and these facilitators of trade and manufacture are again set to award themselves tens of billions of pounds to swell the already huge bank accounts of a select few, whose lifestyle and continued employment is being subsidised by every single person in the UK with 8% of their income. This was because the system which rewards those bankers so vastly is fundamentally unsound and largely unnecessary. Money unlinked to trade or manufacture cannot create infinite value; that should have been known since the South Sea Bubble.
Yet even this most extreme example of government being used to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else, has not been enough to stir any substantial response from a stupoured, x-factored population, dreaming only of easy routes to personal riches, which they have a chance in a million of achieving.
Conventional politics appears to have become irretrievably part pf the malaise rather than offering any hope for a cure. But political activity outwith the mainstream is stifled by a bought media.
I see no hope.
Good letter to Clegg and his mates.
Letter to British Liberal Democrats: protecting war criminals “just about lowest thing anyone could do”
Stuart Littlewood
11 November 2010
Stuart Littlewood challenges Britain’s Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in the Conservative-led governing coalition, to confirm or deny Foreign Secretary William Hague’s claim that they had agreed to amend UK law so that Israeli war crimes suspects can visit Britain without fear of prosecution under universal jurisdiction.
http://www.redress.cc/global/slittlewood20101111
Ignore shit like the printer bomb. Distraction maybe?
COURTENEY BARNES ?” May I refer you to my comment to you at November 8, 2010 5:07. I think it merits a response from you.
Frankly, as I mentioned I found your earlier comments referred to be out of character for you, and I wondered why. Then I recalled you were working in the T&C and almost certainly will have met * several people * who do business in the relatively small T&C community and know of me. For example, as a lawyer yourself, do you perhaps know my old friend Ian Phillipson – who was the Sandals lawyer, and partner to a former Prime Minister of Jamaica??
You shouldn’t have heard anything negative about me from any source whatsoever. But if you have, you do me a favour by telling me — Is there anything you should be telling me?? I would appreciate a response.
@Roderick
The issue of Lobster which reports on your travails isn’t available online. Can you give us a link to their text, if it’s accessible anywhere else?
Vronsky, stout planks are in!
Btw, I’d really strongly urge everyone who’s at all interested in the whole area of the generation of perpetual war, the systemic use of torture, etc. to read this piece by journalist, Lila Rajiva. It was a chapter which was meant to be in her book, ‘The Language of Empire’ (2005), but which she reportedly was advised by her publisher to remove. It critiques the depths of criminality that defined (defines) the USA-‘Coalition’ invasion and destruction of Iraq, the privatisation of war and so on.
This is the journalist I wrote about earlier who reports that she is being intimidated, allegedly by individuals linked to the CIA et al into leaving off her blog and maybe even leaving the USA. She also describes massive and systematic spam-attacks – a small example of which is at 9:17pm on 10.10.10 on Craig Murray’s blog, on this thread – see a few posts earlier.
The chapter is entitled, The Torture Trompe L’Oeil II: Private Armies’ and so it seems central to the raison d’etre of Craig Murray’s own blog.
http://mindbodypolitic.com/deleted-chapter-on-pro-israeli-media-control-in-loe/
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html
Couple of pieces on torture by Darius Rejali. Deals with the ‘ticking bomb’ fallacy. Perhaps not something to read going to bed.
Vronsky re your request ?” here is an accurate transcript of the Article in Lobster 56, Page 16 (incidentally don’t use the indymedia article for reference, but click on my name below for an updated one.)
—————-
The persecution of Roderick Russell
http://www.indymedia.org/pt/2008/04/905423.shtml
That Web address above is the location of a very significant
story. Roderick Russell, a former senior executive of
Grosvenor International, the private property company owned
by the Duke of Westminster, recounts there a decade-long
campaign of harassment of him and his children by Grosvenor
or agents working for it. (I presume the latter.)
When Russell left Grosvenor he found himself unable to get
further employment. He believes that he was given the black
spot by Grosvenor. Over ten years later, apparently trying to
get him to shut-up about being blackballed by Grosvenor, a
campaign of harassment began: a car rammed into his house,
computers wrecked, threatening phone-calls to his children,
surveillance, phone taps etc., much of it witnessed by third
parties. He has gone the formal route ?” police, MP ?” without
effect. He thinks the secret state, the police and members of
the Labour government are protecting Grosvenor. The documents
he presents at the address above show that the police
and pols are certainly dragging their feet. Are they afraid of
Grosvenor? Spook involvement is implied but not demonstrated,
in my opinion. See for yourself. Big stuff.
Grosvenor did not reply to my e-mails requesting an on the-
record statement about Russell’s allegations.
fwiw, Courtney’s jest didnt read as derogatory here, just as irreverent craic. I chuckled at the gust of humour.
Crab – Presumably Courtenay can speak for himself.
Interesting link Suhayl – much appreciated – I repeat do not follow a spam-bot link as it will identify your address and much more.
For anyone interested in the US parallel government money trails read Russ Baker here:
http://www.whowhatwhy.com/the-game-that-goes-on-and-on-2.html
in three parts – a real eye opener. I have started to connect the dots from this forensic analysis to UK power brokers, corruption and BCCI Uk affairs. Give me a little time and I’ll start naming names.
Interesting link Suhayl – much appreciated – I repeat do not follow a spam-bot link as it will identify your address and much more.
For anyone interested in the US parallel government money trails read Russ Baker here:
http://www.whowhatwhy.com/the-game-that-goes-on-and-on-2.html
in three parts – a real eye opener. I have started to connect the dots from this forensic analysis to UK power brokers, corruption and BCCI UK affairs.
Give me a little time and I’ll start naming names.
Roderick,
I note from your correspondence that you were freelance and in Cuba on business. I hope you don’t mind me asking but did you gain some knowledge/contacts etc while working for Grosvenor that you might have used to your advantage in securing a contract in Cuba with respect to the hotel industry? Nothing sinister, as before, I am just trying to understand exactly why you and your family have been targeted and abused.
MARK – I left Grosvenor in 1986 and was immediately blacklisted so that I was rendered unemployable in North America from then until this day. The Grosvenor guttersnipes are well aware of this fact. I might add that I was a much sought after executive prior to joining Grosvenor. After leaving I was able to secure some freelance work though gradually it disappeared and became more difficult to secure anything (just as happened to Lehane, author of Unperson, A Life Destroyed; the blacklisting has an immediate effect, but for a time with more and more difficulty one can still occasionally get freelance work). In 2002 I joined Sandals for a couple of years and did an excellent job. I left as schooling was difficult for a family in Montego Bay.
The projects I did in Cuba bore no relationship whatsoever to my work with these two companies; they don’t fit with either company’s business model. Both companies had a relationship with intelligence services that I regard as unhealthy, though I didn’t know this when I joined them; and wouldn’t have joined if I had.
While with Sandals I uncovered several large frauds that had been going on for years before I joined.(saving hotel shareholders considerable dollars) and made a few enemies in doing so (including another Chartered Accountant who had let this happen) ?” I wondered if Courtenay had heard some gossip from one of these enemies, or simply if MI6 et al had just persuaded others to join in their smear campaign ?” perhaps contacting Sandals.
Time Courtenay responded. Since when was a lawyer short on words?
thank you
This is where the power resides. The possession of the single O level by the present incumbent of the dukedom has not diminished the holding of massive wealth of this family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Grosvenor,_6th_Duke_of_Westminster
I understood that the present Duke was a creature of the SIS. He is on the Board of the Royal United Services Institute along with these other members of the GICS (gangsters in charge) class.
Governance
President: HRH The Duke of Kent,
Chairman: Rt Hon the Lord Hutton
Vice-Presidents:
Vice Adm Sir Jeremy Blackham KCB BA,
Lt Gen the Hon Sir Thomas Boyd-Carpenter KBE,
Sir Paul Lever KCMG,
Sir David Omand GCB,
Adm of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald GCB, HG the Duke of Westminster KG OBE TD TL,
John Weston CBE,
Elected:
Commodore Simon Ancona RN,
Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP,
Jane Attwood,
Richard Melville Ballerand FRUSI,
Tim Banfield,
Sir Roger Bone KCMG,
Lt Gen Sir Robert Fry KCB CBE,
Nik Gowing,
Robert Keen,
Vice Adm Rory McLean CB OBE,
Cornelia Meyer,
Dr Greg Mills,
Geoff North,
Richard Norton-Taylor,
Stephen Phipson CBE,
Sir Kieran Prendergast KCVO CMG,
Lt Gen Jonathon Riley CB DSO PhD MA Late RWF,
Prof Geoffrey Till FKC,
Ian Willis
Ex-officios: Mr Jonathan Evans, Lt Gen Andrew Figgures CBE, Lt Gen Andrew Graham CBE, Rear Adm Ronald H Henderson, Jr (American Defense Attache), Brig Gen Franz-Josef Nolte (German Defence Attache), Rear Adm Charles-Edouard de Coriolis (French Naval and Defence Attache), Prof Mark Welland FRS FREng.
The staff list is here
http://www.rusi.org/about/staff/
Note the presence of ex BBC Margaret Gilmore and Gowing (ex BBC) and Norton-Taylor (Guardian) on the Board.
Makes you think?
Have you noticed the amount of fearmongering being broadcast overnight and today by the BBC in particular on what is actually an Autumnal storm? Make the populace feeble and afraid?
I meant to include this link. Did you know that the Met Office is an offshoot of the Ministry of Defence?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/board/index.html
Suhayl, your dumb Jew-hating friend must be given credit for writing the most laughable footnote in the history of footnotes, which I’ve reproduced below.
“The existence of the DEA report is convincingly documented in “Urban myth, my ass! More proof of conspiracies ?” spies, legislators and KSU,” Johns Sugg, Creative Loafing, March 27, 2002.”
Craig Murray @July 8th 2010:
“I find myself obliged to ban Larry from St Louis from commenting on this blog.”
This is a devastating acknowledgement of Israels two faced demands. When negotiating peace they belittled that Fatah and Hamas were at each others throat and not united.
This against a background of non stop and deliberate support for division of the two factions.
Now that they are in talks to provide a united palestinian side in the peace negotiations stalled, they are shamefully, and for all to see, sabotaging what they asked for, by haphazardly reacting to what is happening in Damascus.
Israels aim and demand to the US to destroy and attack Syria during the illegal attack on Iraq, has now resulted in Syria becoming the peacemaker between Hamas and Fatah.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/11/201011107372064681.html
Working in Indigenous affairs I come across disappointing number of people who have been X-Factored into suburban oblivian.
It’d be good if you could explain a bit more about X-Factoring, it’s bewildering.
Re my comment @ 2:46 AM. correction of typo. Date typed as 2002, s/b 1992
The Iranian Nuclear Program needs Uranium Enrichment Facilities
The West has tried hard to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear energy. It has taken fifteen years to build the 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor at Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast. The project has survived material delays, sanctions, technical problems and an Israeli attempt to sabotage the firmware with an irresponsible coded attack that might have cause immense environmental damage by reprogramming the logic that controls the core temperature of the reactor, safety and shut-down devices that prevent an over-temperature or ‘meltdown’ of the nuclear core.
The plant is now operational although it will take a couple of months to reach full capacity. Iran has become the first Middle Eastern country to possess civilian nuclear power. Considering the pressure from America on Russia to stall the project, this has been a remarkable achievement, although a price has been paid in that a Russian agreement to UN sanctions had to be made to secure the support of the Obama administration towards Russia to complete the contract.
A working Bushehr drives a legitimate need to enrich uranium needed to supply the plant after the post-build agreement between Russia and Tehran expires. Tehran is also worried based by past experience that delay tactics may also be used by the West to prevent fuel delivery promised in the agreement. The life of Bushehr is expected to be forty years and the agreement states that Russia will supply enriched uranium for the next ten years.
The Iran nuclear plan estimates that a further fifteen nuclear power plants are required to meet domestic electricity needs of 20,000 megawatts. This is the central feature of Iran’s claim that under the NPT agreement it seeks only peaceful nuclear power and has no intention of produced a nuclear bomb capability as Israel suggests; a simple calculation proves that a ‘second strike’ capability would be useless against a nuclear attack by Israel which would involve a large number, possibly a hundred or more nuclear war-heads.
I strongly believe now is the time to open front-door relations with Iran by the British government. This must be considered now in light of the UAE concluding a $24 billion agreement with South Korea to build four nuclear reactors, with the first to become operational by 2017. Saudi Arabia can therefore be expected to actively pursue its own civilian nuclear programme together with its own indigenous uranium enrichment.
Saudi Arabia or others may indeed decide to use the by-product of peaceful nuclear fission, plutonium, to develop a nuclear bomb, much in the same fashion as Israel, and then to hide the fact under a pretense of nuclear ambiguity, which laughs in the face of any NPT agreement and brings our world even closer to a nuclear holocaust.
Copyright Mark Golding
All rights reserved
Really special story that Suhayl:
http://mindbodypolitic.com/
Thanks, crab, MJ, ingo. Somebody, that’s a superbly revealing listing. I see that Richard Norton-Taylor is on it. How interesting. Perhaps one might wish to add his name to another list, one occupied by the likes of Frank Gardner, Dominic Lawson and Con Coughlin.
Another job for the stout plank! Metaphorically, of course.
@ Roerick,
8 Nov? Remind me.
Don’t think I know the individual.
Kind regards.
CB
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9:05pm: Do not attempt to obfuscate around here, spambot boy. I can see quite clearly exactly what you’re up to right now on this thread. You are exposed! You have no clothes! You are an emperor penguin!
Link to a good MS article by Solomon Hughes on the Vodaphone tax dodge and the part played in by ex chairman Christopher Gent also late of Lehman Bros, friend of George Osborne, funder of Tory party, associated with right wing think tank Reform and on and on.
It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1289507206.html
Correction
Gent was CEO of Vodaphone not Chairman. Now Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Gent