Crass 868


In the week they took hundreds of pounds from people in severe poverty, MPs and Lords claim up to £3,750 each to return from their luxury holidays to spout off in honour of Margaret Thatcher. Meantime the media are busy classifying any potential protest or expression of opinion at the taxpayer funded funeral jamboree as “potential terrorism”.

Whether protest at the funeral is tasteful or not is a fair question. But there is no question it is perfectly lawful. There is virtually no understanding of the very notion of civil liberty in the mainstream media.


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868 thoughts on “Crass

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  • doug scorgie

    Richard Wanker
    10 Apr, 2013 – 11:57 pm

    “Craig, I’m an admirer of yours, but your encouragement of these unpleasant, untrue and fatuous comments about Margaret Thatcher don’t do you any good.”

    Please detail the untrue and fatuous comments you refer to.

  • Mary

    Just like the undead, nobody can keep this child of Thatcher’s down.

    Labour must search for answers and not merely aspire to be a repository for people’s anger

    The centre has not shifted to the left, says Tony Blair. Labour must resist the easy option of tying itself to those forces whose anti-Tory shouts are loudest.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/labour-must-search-answers-and-not-merely-aspire-be-repository-peoples-anger

    1.400 more of his ‘words’.

    A nice song for him.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFK82TGh7c
    Don’t drink the water – Justin Cross.

    I know of sin by the things momma prayed
    I know of heaven by the line at its gate
    I know of truth and America’s way
    Come drink the water if you want to be saved

    Don’t drink the water if it’s not from my stream
    It’s all still water if it’s not flowing free
    Don’t drink the water at the watering hole
    If you ain’t got money, it can’t save your soul

    (Chorus)
    All God’s people said amen

    It’s not a sin if it can’t make me cry
    He’s not the devil unless there’s fire in his eyes
    It ain’t the ghost if it don’t speak in tongue
    It’s not a victory ’till the battles been won

    Nobody prays unless they lose a son
    Don’t believe in God till a war’s to be won
    I know of truth by the lies I’ve been told
    The biggest one is that we’re not getting old

    I know of sin by the things momma prayed
    I know of heaven by the line at it’s gate
    Heard of a kingdom that’s not far away
    Come drink the water if you want to be saved

  • John Goss

    If anyone wants to know more about the Ian Taylor legal shutdown of here are some links posted by:

    Alasdair Martin. “I see some people are debating the National Collective issue. Here are some links from the article in question, all are from well known mainstream news organisations and all refer either to Ian Taylor or Vitol, the company of which he is CEO.

    Remember, I’m not alleging anything, just sharing some links to mainstream news websites.

    OIL CHIEF PAID $1MILLION TO WARLORD
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/jul/01/balkans.warcrimes2
    “The other senior politician being dragged into the action is the Tory, Alan Duncan, whom Moussavi intends to call as a witness. Duncan, former Tory vice-chairman and a supporter of Michael Portillo, was a paid consultant to Vitol in the early 1990s. He worked with Vitol’s president, Ian Taylor, at Shell and remains a close friend. ”

    SWISS FIRM PLEADS GUILTY IN UN OIL/FOOD CASE
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/11/20/un-food-vitol-idUKN2058211120071120
    “Vitol, which had $114 billion of revenue in 2006, will pay restitution of $13 million to Iraq and $4.5 million to cover the cost of prosecution, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in a statement.

    Vitol is one of the world’s largest independent physical oil trading companies. It admitted to paying $13 million in kickbacks to Iraqi officials under Saddam Hussein to win oil supply contracts, and the plea ended the New York investigation.”

    OIL TRADER VITOL IN TALKS OVER TAX-AVOIDANCE BILL
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/9771537/Oil-trader-Vitol-in-talks-over-tax-avoidance-bill.html
    ” The Geneva-based company, which has offices in London, is thought to have operated an ‘employee benefit trust’ (EBT) for more than a decade.

    Such schemes, which were used by more than 2,000 companies, allowed employees to avoid paying income tax and companies to avoid national insurance contributions. ”

    ACCESSING DAVID CAMERON VIA DONATIONS CONTROVERSY OF 2011
    “Ian Taylor and wife: Ian Taylor is the president and chief executive of the world’s largest oil trader Vitol. He has been involved in the oil business for more than 30 years. Mr Taylor has donated £555,100 to the party since June 2006.” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17512814

    see also the guardian for general details of the controversy – http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/30/david-cameron-conservative-donors

    GOVERNMENT ADMITS ALAN DUNCAN’S LINKS TO COMPANY IN ‘LIBYAN OIL CELL’ [see article for links to Taylor and Vitol]
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/libya-alan-duncan-links-oil-cell
    “It is said to have played a discreet but crucial role in the campaign in Libya by helping to enforce the sanctions regime to prevent Gaddafi importing and exporting oil while allowing oil to reach the rebels in the east. That oil came via one company, Vitol.

    Duncan, a former oil trader and multi-millionaire, has had a 30-year friendship with the managing director of Vitol, Ian Taylor, at one point operating as a consultant to the company and as a non-executive director to a subsidiary firm. Taylor has also been a Tory donor, declared on Duncan’s parliamentary register of interests.”

    PM COMES CLEAN OVER DINNER DATES: CAMERON FORCED TO DISCLOSE £25MILLION DONORS HE WINED AND DINED
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120793/David-Cameron-forced-disclose-23million-donors-wined-dined.html
    “Mr Taylor, 55, is the president and group chief executive of the Swiss multinational Vitol, the third biggest oil trading company in the world with revenues of £186billion last year. He personally donated £466,000 to the Tories under David Cameron.

    Mr Taylor is a close friend of Alan Duncan, who in opposition received tens of thousands of pounds from Mr Taylor via donations to the Tories.

    Mr Duncan had further links with Vitol by serving as a non-executive director of Arawak Energy, an off-shoot of Vitol, before he was a minister.

    Mr Taylor, from a Scottish family, went to the private King’s School, Macclesfield, and studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. After a stint at Shell, which he joined after graduating, he joined Vitol in 1985.

    Vitol is no stranger to controversy. Last year after it was revealed that the company was supplying oil to the rebels in Libya ‘largely without upfront payments’ in the hope of gaining oil deals later.

    In 2007, the firm pleaded guilty to paying money in violation of the UN’s oil for food programme into accounts it knew were controlled by the Iraqi Government’s State Oil Marketing Organisation during Saddam Hussein’s presidency. It paid US$13m to the Iraqi people by way of restitution and US$4.5m to the New York District Attorney in lieu of fines. The firm is also reported to have paid $1million to the notorious Serbian war criminal Arkan to act as a fixer on a business deal in the 1990s.”

    TORY MINISTER ALAN DUNCAN ACCUSED OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST AFTER OIL BOSS PAL COMPLETED A $1BILLION DEAL WITH LIBYAN REBELS
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-minister-alan-duncan-accused-151128
    “The International Development minister has privately boasted that the ‘Duncan plan’ helped to topple Gaddafi.

    But he faces criticism over his links to Vitol and Mr Taylor who has given at least £200,000 to the Conservatives, some of which was used to pay for Mr Duncan’s secretary in 2008. The top Tory has also served as a non-executive director of Arawak Energy, an off-shoot of Vitol before he was a minister.”

    EXCLUSIVE VITOL TRADES IRANIAN FUEL OIL, SKIRTING SANCTIONS
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/uk-iran-oil-sanctions-vitol-idUKBRE88P06920120926
    “Privately-held Vitol SA is led by its long-time CEO Ian Taylor, a Briton. Taylor was among leading donors to Britain’s ruling Conservative Party named in March by the Prime Minister’s office as having dined with David Cameron at his private apartment in Downing Street amid the fall-out from a “cash for access” party funding scandal. Britain is a vociferous critic of Tehran’s nuclear programme and a leading advocate of the EU sanctions.”

    VITOL FACES QUESTIONS ON TRADE WITH IRAN
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/9569231/Vitol-faces-questions-on-trade-with-Iran.html
    “The company, run by Ian Taylor, admitted it had allowed its Bahraini subsidiary to buy a cargo of fuel oil of Iranian origin in July – after the EU had imposed sanctions on Iranian oil trades. “”

  • Mary

    Nice piece from Ruth Michaelson. Short and to the point.

    The Hangover Takes Hold
    Thatcher’s Legacy and British Identity
    by RUTH MICHAELSON

    The news of Margaret Thatcher’s death earlier this week was hardly a shock; given her age as well as the ability of social media to conduct miniature dress rehearsals of the event almost once a year since the creation of Twitter. As journalists, economists and politicians queue up to eulogise the Iron Lady, no one doubts her impact, especially as her ideology is still very much alive and kicking in Britain today.

    Her death brought a certain catharsis for those on the Left, despite her frail physical and mental state meaning that she was unlikely to be making any public speeches or privatising anything from her bedside in London’s Ritz hotel. This outpouring of relief seemed strange at first, not withstanding that Britain’s current Conservative government is making sure that they pick up where Thatcher left off by ensuring that the poorest in society pick up the slack left by the richest. If anything, her death was a reminder that there is little to celebrate, given both the axe-wielding power of the Conservatives and the total lack of any coherent or believable opposition.

    The success, if you can truly call it that, of Thatcherite ideology was to reach beyond politics, especially given its ability to infect the Labour Party at its core, and to change the mentality of British citizens. As Russell Brand writes in the Guardian on the 10th April, “what is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins…If you behave like there’s no such thing as society, in the end there isn’t.”

    Thatcher re-defined what Britain stood for- self-serving and bullishly aggressive, both inside and out. We are still trying to decide if this is really us: are we people who marched in numbers against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (something that might never have happened without the US-UK relations forged by Thatcher) or are we the nation who grudgingly accepted the financial and moral consequences of the war as they cosied up to George W.Bush’s foreign policy?

    Are we a nation who rejects the current government’s besieging of public services, or are we the people who turn their heads to focus on the concocted issues of immigration in the hope that will somehow keep the UK afloat? Most importantly: are we a country that sees value in the existence of community or are we people who will allow the riots that happened across England in 2011 to become a sadly inevitable occurrence?

    Nothing showed the divisions in British identity better than the media gulf between the BBC’s coverage immediately following Thatcher’s death and the outpouring that happened via social media. Despite the BBC’s recent promises to increase its coverage from the North of England, the cameras bounced between interviews with elderly former constituents in Finchley, North London and the London studio, ensuring that criticism of the effects of Thatcher’s policy was extremely limited. Meanwhile, across Twitter and Facebook, residents from the towns and communities that Thatcherite policy decimated, posted pictures and videos of pubs full of revellers, singing songs to express the outpouring of relief. In effect, what the residents of the UK were doing on Monday evening was competing to grasp this moment as their own- seeing who could claim the moral high ground, and in the process questioning their own identities.

    As the hangovers took hold and plans for a funeral, whose cost to the UK taxpayer is still unknown (some estimates have put it as high as £8-10 million), are unveiled, it is clear that this moment presents an opportunity. Thatcher’s death provides a moment for the residents of the United Kingdom to indulge in their favourite pastime, that being nostalgia with just a hint of self-analysis, and to truly decide if we want to allow her to define us. The pushback against David Cameron’s repulsive “Big Society” idea provides some hope, but the fight goes beyond a need to protest. This is, in its purest sense, a battle for hearts and minds- a fight that decides whether Thatcher’s “no such thing as society” adage is the prism by which we can choose to see society. In the process perhaps there even a chance to finally answer the question that Thatcherite ideology has caused us to ask ourselves while plagued with doubt: is there such a thing as British identity?

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/11/thatchers-legacy-and-british-identity/

    Her Twitter page makes a good read too.

    Ruth Michaelson ‏@_Ms_R 1h
    Nothing like a good laugh RT@guardiannews Tony Blair warns Labour could be reduced to a protest party as cuts bite http://gu.com/p/3f3ky/tf

  • John Goss

    Should have read: “If anyone wants to know more about the Ian Taylor legal shutdown of the National Collective’s Media Watch . . .”

  • Indigo

    @Mary

    Didn’t know that the rest of the communique remained classified … isn’t it supposed to be thirty years before it is declassified? October 2013? Suppose not. They’ll find some pretext to keep it quiet a bit longer.

    Having said that I still don’t see what she hoped to gain from it.

    Politicians work in mysterious ways …

  • Indigo

    @Mary

    Re the Ruth Michaelson piece … she got one thing very wrong.

    She kept using the word ‘British’when she meant ‘English’ (and South at that!)

  • Mary

    A little more on Ian Taylor.
    http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/better-together-defend-500k-vitol-boss-donation-1-2887227

    The word VITOL brings a shudder. Because it reminds me of VIROL, a spoonful of which we were dosed daily after the war. It was some sort of malt extract + vitamins. Sticky brown stuff and horrible.

    Wonder what Thatcher’s war experience was like? She would have been 14 when it started. I hope Grocer Roberts did not operate any black market tricks! The very idea! Where we lived on the South Coast, the known rich were observed leaving the butcher’s and fishmonger’s with largish packages under their arms. The rest had to have the coupons cut out from the ration books.

  • Kempe

    “£10,000,000 for the funeral? Surely value for money in these straitened times! ”

    I’m sure the uniformed thugs – sorry, brave boys in blue of the Met will be grateful for the overtime. According to the ‘Eye subsidising parliament’s bars and restaurants costs the taxpayer £5.8 million every year so I suppose £10 million looks like a reasonable figure to them.

  • doug scorgie

    Mary
    11 Apr, 2013 – 5:37 am

    “The committee, which is meeting on a daily basis, is planning to make the liberation of the Falkland Islands a central part of the ceremonial funeral on Wednesday.”

    Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel:

    Samuel Johnson

  • Komodo

    From a mirror site, re. Vitol.
    I accept no responsibility for the truth or otherwise of this, obviously. But it seems to be verifiable, and a matter of public interest.

    Dirty Money: The Tory Millionaire Bankrolling Better Together
    .
    Posted by Michael Gray on April 7, 2013 in Broken Britain, Magazine
    .
    Today ‘Better Together’ disclosed £1.1 million of donations to its campaign. Almost half of that sum came from one man: Ian Taylor, a long-term Conservative Party donor and Chief Executive of oil-traders Vitol plc.
    .
    Today’s Sunday Herald described Taylor as “a Scots oil trader with a major stake in the Harris Tweed industry”. They also gave Taylor’s views – who is reportedly worth £155 million – print space to justify his funding decision.
    .
    This raises several concerns. Taylor, according to The Sunday Herald, is not registered to vote in Scotland. This breaks Electoral Commission guidelines for general elections, which Yes Scotland has promised to follow. Secondly, Ian Taylor has given £550,000 to the Conservative Party since 2006. This is a further case of Tory donors – and their political interests – bankrolling the ‘no’ campaign.

    These general complaints, however, are minor in comparison to more serious incidents – unmentioned in the media today – linked to Ian Taylor’s business background.

    While Chief Executive of Vitol plc, his company has been involved in shady-deals in Serbia, Iraq, Libya and Iran. Furthermore, Vitol avoided tax to the tune of millions of pounds through an offshore trading scheme. Douglas Alexander, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, described Vitol’s relationship with Westminster as “curious”, and said there were questions to answer.

    As Chief Executive of Vitol since 1995, Ian Taylor has serious questions to answer in all of these cases. Better Together have serious questions to answer as to what they knew about Ian Taylor before they accepted half-a-million pounds from him. Alistair Darling – who recently met with Taylor prior to the funding deal – must also confirm what his position is on the following cases.

    1) Vitol Admitted Paying $1 million to a Serbian Paramilitary Leader

    In 1996 Vitol paid $1 million to the Serbian paramilitary leader Arkan to settle a score over a secret oil deal to supply Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia with fuel. Ian Taylor’s director, Bob Finch, used Arkan as a ‘fixer’ after the oil deal in the former Yugoslavia collapsed. Arkan was assassinated in 2000.

    Arkan was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague for crimes against humanity. According to The Obverver – which names Ian Taylor in its investigation into Arkan – “his brutality was well documented” when the meeting with Vitol’s representative took place. Arkan’s paramilitaries – ‘the tigers’ – were notorious for massacring 250 patients and staff in a hospital.

    Ian Taylor was Chief Executive of Vitol when Bob Finch, as Vitol Director, went to Belgrade. Arkan was then indicted with 24 crimes against humanity.

    What did Ian Taylor know about his company’s dealing in Serbia and their payment to Arkan? What is the position of Better Together in relation to this?

    2) Vitol plc: Guilty of Bribing Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Regime For Oil Contracts

    While Ian Taylor was Chief Executive, Vitol paid $13 million in kickbacks to Iraqi officials under Saddam Hussein to win oil supply contracts. The company pled guilty in a U.S. court to grand larceny in November 2007 and paid $17.5 million in restitution as a result. This undercut the UN oil-for-food program – 1996-2003 – that sought to trade Iraqi energy resources for humanitarian supplies.

    Was Ian Taylor aware of his company’s actions at the time? To what extent did his company profit from these deals in Iraq and to what extent did he profit personally from the company’s success? Is Better Together content to accept Mr Taylor as a major funder in these circumstances?

    3) Ian Taylor’s Company Avoided Tax ‘for more than a decade’

    Vitol plc employed the controversial tax avoidance scheme known as ‘Employee Benefit Trusts’. (EBTs) Such schemes allowed employees to avoid paying income tax and companies to avoid national insurance contributions. Vitol used the scheme ‘for more than a decade’.

    Tax evasion and avoidance costs the UK Exchequer tens of billions of pounds a year. EBTs were banned in 2011. Vitol then entered negotiations with HMRC over claims that it still owed millions of pounds in unpaid taxes.

    What did Ian Taylor know about the company’s tax avoidance scheme? Even if it met legal requirements, does he consider tax avoidance to be morally just? Is Better Together aware of these claims against the company of its major donor?

    4) Ian Taylor has been accused of improper political donations to the Conservative Party.

    According to today’s Sunday Herald, Ian Taylor has donated £550,000 to the Conservative Party since 2006. He was one of the 70 millionaires who paid the £50,000 privilege to join David Cameron’s Leaders Group. Leaders Group membership led, in many cases, to a private dinner with the Prime Minister, which Taylor attended in Downing Street on November 2nd 2011. This was part of the “cash for access scandal”.

    Taylor’s political donations have also been criticised by Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander. In 2011 questions were raised concerning Taylor’s relationship with Alan Duncan, the International Development Minister. Taylor and Duncan had worked together at Shell. Duncan lobbied for an ‘oil cell’ within the Foreign Office to control fuel supplies within Libya. For this the government received substantial support through Vitol plc. Civil service official were concerned that the behaviour was “encroaching too far on commercial purposes”. According to The Daily Mail, Ian Taylor “profited from the war in Libya” and his company received a $1 billion contract to supply oil to the Libyan rebels. This was described at the time as a “huge conflict of interest”.

    Douglas Alexander, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary said, “Given Alan Duncan’s reported links with Vitol this curious briefing from within government actually raises more questions than it answers,”

    Did Ian Taylor gain influence within government for his £550,000? Why was Douglas Alexander concerned about Vitol’s relationship with the UK Government? Is Mr Alexander happy for Better Together to be receiving financial support from the same source?

    5) Iran and current business practices

    Vitol recently conceded, in September 2012, that it had broken sanctions on trading Iranian oil. According to Reuters, the company purchased 2 million barrels of fuel oil. This undercut Western efforts to isolate the Iranian regime, and brought further attention to Mr Taylor’s close relationship with the UK government.

    Is Vitol an ethical company and should Better Together accept support and funding from this source?

    Better Together have serious questions to answer

    This information raises serious questions – both for Ian Taylor and the ‘Better Together’ campaign.
    There cannot be a fair referendum if money is solicited from outwith Scotland or from rich Tory donors who do not vote in Scotland.
    There cannot be an open referendum if funding comes from unethical sources. Our politics is once again tarnish by ‘dirty money’ and vested corporate interests.
    This information also raises serious questions for the Scottish and UK media, who have not raised any of these question in relation to today’s donation announcement.
    There cannot be a fair or open referendum if the Scottish people are left in the dark. We need to have the facts. We need to know the truth.

    I hope this makes the case for funding alternative media in Scotland even clearer on our path to building a more equal, prosperous and peaceful Scotland.

    Michael Gray
    @GrayInGlasgow
    National Collective

  • Kempe

    “Wonder what Thatcher’s war experience was like?”

    An interesting question. She went to university in 1943 although from age 18 she could’ve volunteered for the ATS or the WLA, by that time 90% of single women aged 18 to 60 were involved in some sort of war work. It’s possible she was involved with some kind of civil defence work when not at lectures but I can find no mention of it. The war ended before she turned 20 when she’d have been conscripted.

  • Komodo

    “During her premiership Thatcher had the second-lowest average approval rating, at 40 percent, of any post-war Prime Minister. Polls consistently showed that she was less popular than her party.” (Wikipedia)

    Only the Patent Queen Victoria Funeral(tm) will do, then.

  • Rob Royston

    I like the bit where the Met is asking demonstrators for advance notice. I’m sure they will have squads of rioters standing by to create mischief, then the laws will be tightened that little bit further.
    She may be dead, but she can still be used to srew us down.

  • Komodo

    “…their “right to protest can be upheld”….

    …in some secluded corner away from the cameras, no doubt.

  • Komodo

    One of her best performances…and I don’t think she’s acting, either. Great lady.

  • IAN CAMERON

    re ROB ROYSTON at 12.55pm

    It has crossed my mind the way these things do whether in the vicinity (but only sort of) of the evening BRIXTON MAGGIE THATCHERS DEAD PARTY a day or 3 ago the shop front window of DR BARNARDO’S (second hand) STORE got busted – was it a party goer or an agent wanting to get bad media attention or some such. Its certainly been picked up by relatively pro Thatcher anti party media outlets. Anyway maybe more info will materialise.

  • Mary

    Just got in. Initially Komodo your Independent link at 1.17 made me laugh.

    Thatcher’s dad: mayor, preacher, groper
    Alderman Roberts of Grantham liked to squeeze more than his sausages, reports Keith Nuthall

    but reading on, I felt quite sick.

    Good find btw.

    The list of invitees includes Shillary, Jeremy Clarkson and de Klerk. Enough said. I don’t suppose Bush will appear. Too much of a security risk combined with Mr and Mrs T B.Liar

    Margaret Thatcher funeral guest list full of surprises
    – Michael Heseltine, man who toppled Thatcher from power, will attend funeral
    – Bill and Hilary Clinton, and George Bush Snr and George W Bush all invited
    – Sir Terry Wogan will also be a guest
    – Jeffrey Archer and wife Lady Archer will also go
    – Gorbachev unable to go because of health problems
    http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/margaret-thatcher-funeral-guest-list-full-of-surprises-8567999.html

    The very name Operation True Blue sticks in the craw. Designed to goad us I reckon.

  • Anon

    Likes are outnumbering dislikes by twenty to one on that Glenda Jackson speech linked above. 300,000 views already in less than a day! No reflection of the 20:1 ratio of approvals of Jackson to criticism in broadcast and print media of course.

    Definitely worth watching at http://youtu.be/XDtClJYJBj8 “Glenda Jackson launches tirade against Thatcher in tribute debate”

  • Richard II

    I have always believed that you leave people alone when it comes to a funeral. But Thatcher isn’t just anybody – her hands were soaked in blood, and, having said that there was no such thing as society, society is now paying for her disgusting funeral. Hence, I’m not bothered if someone blows the casket containing her worthless corpse sky-high – would be a fitting end to her life, given how those in power have deified this grotesque creature.

    Scum politician: “Look, there, up in the celestial heavens!”
    Other scum politician: “Dear Satan, it’s Maggie!”

    For anyone who missed the article in “The Nation” magazine, Google:

    “Why Would Anyone Celebrate the Death of Margaret Thatcher? Ask a Chilean”

    Not at all a comprehensive list of her crimes.

    Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr Crowley” would be a fitting song to play at Thatcher’s funeral.

    Background: Aleister Crowley “was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time, espousing a form of libertinism based upon the rule of ‘Do What Thou Wilt’. [He was] denounced as the wickedest man in the world”.

    RIP Margaret Crowley – let’s hope not!

  • Mary

    O/T A Palestinian photographer in the Aida refugee camp has been shot in the face with a rubber coated steel bullet by the IDF. What bastards.

    I have an English friend who works in the Lajee Centre in the Aida camp which is right up against the separation wall.

    PHOTOS: Israeli troops shoot Palestinian photographer in the face

    WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

    Israeli soldiers target a Palestinian photographer who was taking pictures of them invading Aida Refugee Camp, shooting him in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
    http://972mag.com/photos-palestinian-photographer-shot-in-the-face-by-israeli-troops/68897/

    Aida Camp Over 3,600 refugees lived in an area measuring 0.1 sq km
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aida_(camp) 2006

    There is constant harassment by the Israelis.
    http://www.palestinemonitor.org/details.php?id=xdm31pa3413yts5d197rx

  • Cryptonym

    One I think little-known nugget is that she was believed brought into the world by the Roberts’ family doctor, who was the father of Nicholas Parsons of Just a Minute fame and Sale of the Century infamy. The great Sale of the Century came later and would be the shameless looting and ransacking of the public sector and nationalised industry, all the equipment, investment, premises, intellectual property, research, and land bought and paid for by the public through subsidy and in many cases necessary nationalisation through private ownership’s ineptitude and serial failure and greed, unerringly running a string of companies with strong futures into the ground for the short-term fast buck. Privatisation then landed all in the lap of the grasping few, who from then on exploited to the max the golden gift-horse of accumulated post-war national endeavour, brains and hard graft, bilking everyone of their share and their equal right as owner-citizens. The nationalised industries and public sector were all of ours, we were all proud shareholders in mighty enterprises, and who lost all in this shocking, regressive transfer from the many to the few; in the annals of crime, these privatisations were the greatest grandest thefts known in this country … until 2008.

  • doug scorgie

    COMMENT_PressTV‏@COMMENT_PressTV5h

    On tonight’s LIVE show georgegalloway will be discussing the legacy and death of Margaret Thatcher. It’s a show not to be missed!

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