Just back from Accra and just about to set off for Berlin. I am very rude about the partiality of the Guardian’s focus on occasions, but they deserve congratulations for getting it spot-on with this article explaining Cameron and Hague’s sudden activism on Somalia.
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Accountability, not on your Nelly;
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To circumvent any kind of intrusion into his murky world, Gove has been communicating with his advisors, about the business of government: through made up, and personal email account.
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Reports last September suggested that Mr Gove had been using a private email account named “Mrs Blurt” rather than his departmental account to discuss government business with advisers.
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Mr Gove has been resisting the release of the information on the grounds that ministers’ personal email accounts are not covered by the Act.
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Education Secretary Michael Gove does not wish to Blurt his departmental Business soon as they get there, suddenly they all become aristocrats, and behave like a one too.
Mark Golding
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You seem to be good man, no question about it. It is therefore I am disappointed by your appeal to Putin. It is of course our duty to avert tragedy particularly when it claims lives of innocent people. But yet again, why appeal to Putin? Is your vision of good (or better) for the West is what is happening in Russia under Putin? Would you prefer for the West to deal with Iraq and Afghanistan (and possibly with Syria) the same way Putin dealt with Chechnya? I see no point in averting evil by encouraging another evil to step in. Or do you think that Putin cares for lives of others (oppressed by the US)? I doubt it, he does not even cares for lives of Russians.
Uzbek in the UK,
This is what you have written;
The facts is that US current foreign policy is pretty much the same as Roman and British imperial policies which is typically divide and rule. The only slight but nonetheless important difference is that US wherever it is possible bring slight positive change at least in term of government legitimacy. One can solely blame US for death of Iraqies and overlook the fact that Iraq for instance was artificial state borders of which have been drawn decades before US invasion and thousand miles from Baghdad.
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How do you square up this kind of hotchpotch in your mind?
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On one hand, you find the approval of the empire, as “legitimization” of any government ie slaves hood is the only way to be. Whilst also automatically extending the imperial legitimacy to Isreal, the illegitimate theocratic apartheid. However, you then making the quantum leap onto Iraq as an “artificial” state, in effect discount the millions dead, millions more made into refugees, and even more millions made into salves/second class citizens/outsourced labour in their own lands!!!
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What are you on man?
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You have contradicted your oh so “Freedom” zest, whilst genuflecting to the Empire. You seem to be blissfully unaware: there can be no positive in any empire, it is an unnatural, artificial, uncompetitive, construct that relies on the base concept of application of force, and even more force.
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Nonetheless, you then start carping on about Putin, and Chechenya, reiterating the standard “Media” fair as your own thoughts.
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How do you adduce any of this crap that you then publish on this board?
Rat leaving a sinking ship?
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BREAKING NEWS:David Cameron’s adviser Steve Hilton is leaving Downing Street for a year to take an academic position in the United States
One that will interest you here Ingo.
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Letter to Eastern Daily Press on Archant executive pay, declined by the editor
Posted by IanS on March 2, 2012, 1:25 pm
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Below is a letter that I recently sent to the Eastern Daily Press, which the Editor has declined to publish. Archant owns the Eastern Daily Press, as well as numerous other local and regional newspapers.
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After a five minute phone conversation with the Editor it seems his argument is that Archant is a private company (unlike the publicly owned banks) and therefore it’s pay deals for executives are not a public issue. He also mentioned the pay details are published on Archant’s website and once a year in the newspaper.
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Dear Sir/Madam
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As your recent editorial (‘Corporate message still confuses’, February 24) highlights, the majority of the general public feel “increasingly disgruntled and excluded” by the top pay of “bankers and other captains of industry.”
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But before we criticise others, shouldn’t we be looking closer to home first? What about Norfolk’s beloved EDP, for example?
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According to the annual Directors’ Remuneration report, in 2010 the Chief Executive of Archant (the company that owns the EDP) received £445,000 in salary, bonus and other benefits. In contrast the average salary of a journalist in the UK is £24,500 according to the careers website Prospects.
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Add in the fact last year Archant were reported to be laying off thirteen editorial staff in Norfolk, and this huge pay gap begins to look very unfair indeed.
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Kind regards
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Ian Sinclair
Choice! What choice? No choice.
From the NHS Support Federation.
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http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=5f72f778439e38b1d18a28495&id=9a230d2cad
Isreal, the illegitimate theocratic apartheid.
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OooooOoooh! You sound so Fed Up!
By the way, for those who think atheists offer no condolence or solace should know that Andrew Breitbart is dead. That means he will never darken the world’s doorstep again!
Passerby
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For me legitimacy of the state is NOT approval by empire or any other external body BUT approval of the state (apparatus of the state) by its own citizens. For instance current Karimov’s regime is NOT legitimate despite the fact of its being represented at as high as UN. And for instance if after Karimov regime changes through democratic election it would become legitimate DESPITE approval or disapproval of US, Russia, China or any other state.
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Another point, that I do not even argue with you about legitimacy of state of Israel for me it is too NOT legitimate. But I also argue that Israelies (people of Israel) have right for self determination despite their state being illegitimate.
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And my argument about Iraq’s artificial borders was based on more than solid empirical grounds. Similarities can be drawn with many more current states in Africa (some of which experienced and are experiencing brutal civil wars WITHOUT active US involvement) and many more states in Asia.
Passerby,
It’s just Uzbek’s grammar which is failing him. Other than that, there is a point in some arguments he says here. He is just messing up things in some lines. I am sure he does not mean it. I support him with regards to his argument about Mr Karimov. Gaddafi turns over in his grave in light of Karimov’s crimes against his own people. Had the uzbeks risen against the regime in Uzbekistan Karimov would have used uranium to eliminate them.
Re. Jenny Tonge (some way up the page):
First Google “Jenny Tonge” to see the hasbara crew in action.
Second, go here to see why:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2012-02-27a.255.0&s=speaker%3A10599#g255.1
Third, remember that the view she expressed, that Israel could not last in its present state, was expressed in very similar terms by….Ehud Olmert.
@Mark Golding
“Yes, very much so. For Putin, Chechnya has become a trap he cannot escape. Yet he recognizes his own failures and rails in frustration at his inability to stop the violence.”
Boy I have read some stupid things here but this must take the biscuit. Just because someone opposes your enemies it doesn’t automatioally make him a good guy – please employ your critical faculties and do some reserch into what Putin really is.
Mark
I also predict that Putin will drop Assad when he feels that he can get the best price for himself in return – you’ll then have a choice to make between the sheller of the Palestinians and the sheller of the Chechens which is waht happens when you play such silly games and which I await with a certain schadenfreude.
Former British Prime Minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was RSA’s pick to close out their annual security conference in San Francisco, and he took the opportunity to bash WikiLeaks as “disgraceful.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/03/tony_blair_rsa/
Well…apparently Cameron DID ride Mata Bekah’s police horse…
Which reminds me of the old joke=Which animal has a c**t halfway up its back?
Apologies fot the vulgarity in the previous post…
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Clearly the pertinent issue is whether said police horse was privatised or not.
Anon the one and only:
Boy I have read some stupid things here but this must take the biscuit.
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You must be new here. 😉
re: mark’s Putin comment.
1/ mark says a lot of things that are basically sound
2/ mark’s comment re: Putin is not one of them.
Where, for me, mark’s line falls down is that, while it may be hoped that Russia (and/or China) might help to balance US power and forestall such things as an invasion of Syria/Iran, (I hope so), to see that positive outcome as anything other than a strategic decision, guided by self-interest is most probably mistaken. The idea that Russian foreign policy is motivated by some sentiment within Putin’s breast for the people of Syria/Iran, etc, is laughable on its face, and is gainsaid by the evidence of past abuses, which passerby rightly cites. Though Putin’s crimes may not be on the scale of Washington’s, that’s more for a lack of opportunity than motive.
Thanks Nuid. More fools paying the hollow man Bliar for some more of his empty words. This is the outfit who put on this ‘information security conference’.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_Security
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I see they have a setup in Israel.
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Now a subsidiary of EMC Corporation, a $20 billion operation. {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMC_Corporation}
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Just imagine what these outfits get up to and what information they have on us.
Welcome back Komodo. Whereb have you been? You have been missed.
Mr Cameron joked that he did not think he would be “getting back into the saddle any time soon.”
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Cameron is a corrupt, nasty piece of work. I am constantly amazed that this Blair clone has not yet been chased out of Downing Street by an angry mob.
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The amount of slack the press give him should make anyone suspicious. Look at all the ‘scandals’ that have been glibly swept aside, usually with a weak ‘joke’. Of particular note is Cameron’s long, personal and corrupt relationship with the Murdoch mafia. He would have been drummed out of office long ago if there were a functioning press in this country.
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About 20% of the staff Cameron first selected when he was ‘made’ PM have had to resign because of corruption, including the staff seconded to the British Government by News International.
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Liam Fox, a closet homosexual, was paid (no doubt in cash and male prostitutes) by agents of a foreign country to get British forces involved and killed in a war of aggression on behalf of Israel WHILE HE WAS THE UK DEFENCE SECRETARY. He is still walking the streets a free man where he should in fact be doing a 20-year stretch.
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And what is this traitor doing now? Appearing on the BBC to explain why he wants the 50p tax rate scrapped. This is how the media treats national security traitors in the UK.
Well said Mike Hunt. Cameron is yet another neo liberal manifestation. Privatisation is not creeping, it is galloping.
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Apart from education and health, he now has plans to privatise the police starting with Surrey and the West Midlands, two of the largest forces. {http://tinyurl.com/7zg8eap} This is very concerning for all of us as other forces will follow.
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One of the companies being touted is G4S, 625 employees worldwide, already running prisons and prisoner transport in the UK.
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They also operate in Israel involved in the oppression of the Palestinians.
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http://www.whoprofits.org/company/g4s-israel-hashmira
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I see that Lord Condon is a member of the main Board. ALL ex Met Commissioners end up with nice little numbers like this.
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Lord Condon, Senior Independent Director
Lord Condon was appointed to the board in May 2004. He became deputy chairman of the board in September 2006 and is chairman of the Remuneration Committee, a member of the Audit and Nomination Committees and the senior independent director.
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Paul joined the Metropolitan Police in 1967 and, after holding various senior appointments in the police force, including a period as Chief Constable of Kent, he served as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police between 1993 and 2000.
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He was created a life peer in 2001 and is an advisor to international sports governing bodies and a member of the Advisory Board of Vidient Systems Inc.
Cameron was explaining why Assad should be seen as a war criminal like Gadaffi and should also expect to face justice.
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I presume he means Assad should be sodomised with a knife and then shot in the head on TV.
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Maybe that’s something that can be organised in the Hague or at the UN. It’s important that justice is seen to be done.
I expect you noticed my typo about G4S. 625,000 employees worldwide not 625.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G4S
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Even involved in Cameron’s cruel workfare scheme I see.
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G4S provides guarding services at various airports including Heathrow Airport, Oslo Airport, Brussels Airport, Schiphol Airport and OR Tambo Airport as well as at various facilities belonging to the US, UK, Canada and European Governments. It also operates custody facilities (including prisons) and electronic security systems. In addition, it provides cash management and logistics services for the main British and European Banks.[30] G4S owns the Wackenhut Corporation, a leading provider of security services in North America. They are also involved in risk management activities, consultancy and support in areas where infrastructure is limited, including services for governments, international peace and security agencies and multi-national corporations. Services also include land-mine clearance, ordnance management and training services. G4S also provides revenue protection services for railway companies across the UK. The company is a contractor in the UK Government’s ‘Welfare to Work’ scheme.
DownWithThisSortOfThing,
These days self defense is an act of terrorism (Hitler (yawn) thought of the French Resistance as terrorists too), therefore by extension those engaged in defense of their country are clearly misguided “terrorists, and extremists”. Cameron is playing the Nuremberg card, ie upon vanquishing the Syrians he intends to put anyone who stood up and fought against the grand designs of the Western alliance/belligerents will be facing the full wroth of the victors, by getting put before a Kangaroo court, to be humiliated and then sent to be shot at dawn.
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This is the pattern that has been prevalent for some time now, if you recollect Jack Straw in the early days of the Iraq war used to flash his little blue UN book of war crimes and human rights left, right, center. He was sending a message to the Iraqi generals not to resist the invasion and instead join the marauders and take the money bags and a passport to US, where they could set up a holiday inn and coin it!
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“Assad will face punishment” is an attempt in directly threatening Assad, and his underlings, in the way of racking up the psychological pressure/warfare on Syrian leadership. However, given the dire consequences of the capitulation so manifest in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the long war on all things mid east, these threats are no longer cutting much mustard and Cameron is effectively pissing in the wind, although he may appear sort of the “commander in chief”. Alas him and T. Blair aka Emily are far from though battle hardened characters to be taken too seriously in this role, as we have seen with Bliar who has emerged to be the most hated Emily the world has ever known.
Komod,
You recalcitrant old lizard, you have been missed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/02/tonge-says-clegg-acted-hastily
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I emailed the reader’s editor:
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“You know very well that Halfon is Policy Director for the Friends of Israel and that such a fact is pertinent to the Guardian’s readers.”
Thanks for that letter from IanS, Mary, I’m not surprised at all at their tope level secrecy, It needs sending on, will send it on to a few thinking minds in Norfolk.
Then, after some crashing and braking of branches in the undergrowth, the presence of our favourite dragon announced itself with an incredible pong, long before he came into full view. Welcome back, Komodo there’s a lot of rotten political meat to be torn apart here.
Yes Komodo – I’ve missed you too. Been hatching anything good in your absence?
I’m fed up with people here complaining about privatisation. Let’s try to be objective, and recognise that privatisation gets a bad rap – it just needs deployed with a little more discrimination. Which industries are the most sensible targets for privatisation? Candidate Number One: the Royal Family. We need a leaner, fitter Royal Family. There should be no duplication of roles. Pay Willie off, for example – if someone has to fly a helicopter I’m sure the Queen could do it with a little cross-training, and if those Argie bastards aren’t intimidated by an elderly lady in a gunship then they’ve never driven on a motorway. Competition matters too, the free market makes everything better as we know. So why only one Royal Family? It must be thrown open to the Hidden Hand. If we stipulate that the royal concubine must be a complete wanker, is Prince Philip really the best available? He’s impressive, I know – but better than Jeremy Clarkson?
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The Crown should be put out to tender every five years. Are you Britain’s best benefits claimant? Could you aspire to something higher, the absolute acme of tax-subsidised indolence? Can you make a speech on TV every Christmas in an accent so impenetrably posh that it crashes the translation software of passing alien spacecraft? Are you willing to have it revealed that (touchingly) you are just an ordinary person but your gazillions of unearned income are, nevertheless, totally justified? Tick all those boxes, and Simon Cowell wants to hear from you – you’ve got the Rex Factor.