Dashing off to London now to do an interview with George Galloway for his crowd sourced documentary “The Killing of Tony Blair”. Sounds less like a film, more like a good idea.
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Mean Mister Mustard; “Are you primarily commercial in your beatitudes?”
Your reply to Technicolour applies equally to Craig on his Ukraine position.
[Banned from contributing]
[craigmurray.org.uk – be patient and leave it to the staff Habbakuk.]
I watched this last evening. Interesting and informative. Contains information that you will not hear on BBC or Sky or read in the UK lamestream press.
After Crimea
March 23, 2014 14:58
How has the world changed with the advent of the most recent Ukraine crisis? How realistic is Russia’s isolation by the West? And are we experiencing a new geopolitical paradigm shift? CrossTalking with Martin McCauley, Mark Sleboda and Christoph Hoerstel.
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/most-recent-ukraine-crisis-689/
Martin McCauley University of London
http://www.limehousegroup.net/martin_mccauley.php
Mark Sleboda
http://thelimuneye.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/spotted-mark-sleboda.html
Christoph Hoerstel
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_H%C3%B6rstel (In German)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lavelle – the presenter
“In other news:
“The Rt Hon Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty and Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead are delighted to announce that their son, the Hon Stephen Kinnock, Husband of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Denmark, has been appointed Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Aberavon.”
Who says socialism doesn’t pay?”
(A Non)
LOL. You think Steve’s a socialist? You think anyone in the Labour Party at present, with very few and obvious exceptions, is a socialist? Even “The Rt Hon Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty”…the title says it all, really, doesn’t it?
Now let’s take a look at
Tory nepotism and undue influenceselection procedures, shall we?“I think when Blair dies I shall manage to refrain from unseemly displays of grief.” (Craig)
Quiet and dignified is the way to go, I think. I hope the local store does not run out of fireworks on that sad day, and that the weather doesn’t spoil the street party.
Would we all agree that since the verdict of the Hutton inquiry, BBC news has increasingly become a government propaganda mouthpiece? I was reminded about this when Rebekah Brookes said in court that she had been approached by Tony Blair about a “Hutton-style” inquiry. I think she probably put this into her defence deliberately, and good for her.
I remember being in shock after Hutton’s results were announced, and expected there to be a massive backlash. However, it was a whimper… as of course it would be because the BBC would otherwise be being seen as crying wolf and the rest of the media were the BBC’s adversaries and would be pleased to see them “lose”. The real loser, though, was British democracy.
Not only will I next consider voting UKIP (for the “democracy” reason), but I’ll also consider whether the license fee is any longer value for money. I’m sure many others are thinking the same way. If there really are going to be another six years of Tory rule the only way the BBC will think it can survive is by saying what the government wants. However, that may have the opposite effect…
“Habbabkuk says : Conservatives care for health and the NHS. NHS in good shape….etc, etc… ”
Congratulations on coming out, buggerlugs. Tory spokesman it is. A career in standup beckons.
I wonder if you are a major shareholder in a private “provider”? Like so many Friends of Osborne?
Absolutely terrible.
What have the G7 lot meeting in the Hague got to say? Or is all about Crimea now?
Egypt court sentences 529 Morsi supporters to death
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26712124
There was a coup in Eqypt.
‘What the West are trying to achieve is what the CIA and Mossad have now achieved in Egypt; replacing the head of the Mubarak regime while keeping all its power structures in place.’
The estimable Jonathan Cook writes –
More Guardian ‘brainwashing’ on Putin
24 March 2014
I spend a lot of time on this blog criticising the propaganda role of liberal media, including my former newspaper the Guardian. Media critics like Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman have called it “brainwashing under freedom”. Because of a long filtering process before they reach positions of influence, journalists working for the corporate media in free societies replicate many of the failings of journalists working for media in repressive and closed societies. There are differences. The propaganda in free societies is more subtle and insidious; the journalists are more likely to believe what they write; and a degree of pluralism is allowed, even while plausible and important voices are ignored or ridiculed. But propaganda it still is.
I highlight this long and prominent article in the Guardian on Putin’s handling of Crimea and Ukraine because it is a master-class in brainwashing under freedom. The paper’s Moscow correspondent, Shaun Walker, is presumably well-acquainted with Russian society. He has full access to Russian media propaganda, so he knows full well Russia’s side of the argument. And he has acres of space in which to set out all the various viewpoints. And yet, he never manages to give a proper hearing to Russia’s side of the argument.
/..
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-03-24/more-guardian-brainwashing-on-putin/
Baalalopaluba/
“Congratulations on coming out, buggerlugs. Tory spokesman it is. A career in standup beckons.
I wonder if you are a major shareholder in a private “provider”? Like so many Friends of Osborne?”
_________________
Not a shareholder, Komodo. How about you? You wouldn’t be the first socialist to say one thing and do another.
Anyway, very sorry to note that you’re not welcoming the good things I drew attention to, and in particular the making available on the national health of a vaccine against meningitis B.
********************
La vita è bella, life is good!
BullzePuzzled
“LOL. You think Steve’s a socialist? You think anyone in the Labour Party at present, with very few and obvious exceptions, is a socialist? Even “The Rt Hon Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty”…the title says it all, really, doesn’t it?”
______________________-
Need to read posts more carefully, Babar. Refer to mine at 17h19 and Anon’s at 18h32 (both yesterday) and the scales will fall from your eyes. LOL
News (to someone, anyway):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10716541/Tony-Blair-handed-3m-slice-of-Barack-Obamas-aid-for-Africans.html
“It is thought to be the third grant obtained by Mr Blair’s charity from USAID. The body was, until last February, overseen by Hillary Clinton, who, along with her husband Bill, the former US president, is a close friend of Mr Blair and his wife, Cherie. ”
This is exactly the way I thought Blair was operating. The ‘charitable’ foundations conceal a mechanism by which Blair can transfer aid, or ‘aid’ to the movers and shakers in vulnerable countries, while retaining an advisory fee for Blair International plc.
Note also that a lot of this money will be paying some very well-heeled people their going rates for having endless meetings…
Again –
“USAID had a year earlier given £500,000 to AGI to fund his governance programme in Sierra Leone.”
‘Governance’ being a weasel word, meaning ‘ensuring compliance with Western demands’, I think.
Egypt court sentences 529 Morsi supporters to death
And the west sends aid to the regime:
“Ahead of Morsi trial, John Kerry flies to Cairo to pledge cooperation with military-backed government, while Britain announces resumption of arms sales”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/10424025/US-and-Britain-lend-backing-to-Egypt-interim-regime.html
Bang on the money:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c1fc1f6a-afc3-11e3-9cd1-00144feab7de.html
“It’s easy to cure Blair Disease: bar ex-leaders from doing paid work for private interests. This free measure would instantly deflate populism, keep experience inside government and attract a better class of person to the job.”
Might even reduce A&E congestion – see next post –
“Would we all agree that since the verdict of the Hutton inquiry, BBC news has increasingly become a government propaganda mouthpiece?”
Well, yes, even more increasingly so.
It started out under Lord Reith with the intention of becoming the govt propaganda mouthpiece of last resort, kinda lost its way a bit in the 60s/70s/80s when oiks started airing their views, was purged in 1987 by Thatcher and finally had its nuts cut off by the Hutton inquiry
is the way I’d put it.
Safe in our hands….
http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/p/mps-with-or-had-financial-links-to.html
EG: . George Freeman: MP for Mid Norfolk. His own business: http://www.4d-biomedical.com/ which is a specialist adviser on Healthcare markets, Technology development, Business strategy & Venture financing, working with NHS trusts. Speaking in Parliament on 11 November 2010 during the Policy For Growth debate he said, “The third is the national health service. I know from my own experience that we are sitting on billions of pounds-worth of patient data. Let us think about how we can unlock the value of those data around the world.” See Hansard at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101111/debtext/101111-0003.htm
THAT’s not the PR message, is it?
“Anyway, very sorry to note that you’re not welcoming the good things I drew attention to, and in particular the making available on the national health of a vaccine against meningitis B.”
I’d be concerned if it were not made available on the NHS, as it has epidemic potential. As it is, the original decision was not to provide it- it cost too much -, and a u-turn was involved. Still, better late than never.
Meanwhile, another triumph for the Tories!
http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/business/business-news/exclusive-novartis-country-president-uk-explains-why-the-company-intends-to-pull-out-of-horsham-with-the-loss-of-371-local-jobs-1-5666413
Novartis are the manufacturers of the vaccine….
Did Freeman declare his interest Ba’al? Probably not just like Mark Simmonds MP (now a FCO minister) who did not declare his interest as a highly paid adviser to Circle Health of Hinchingbroke Hospital infamy. Eventually after representations were made to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, he muttered a few words of apology in the ‘Hice’ from his position in the ranks of the troughers.
~~
Ref Kinnock YUK
Friends of the Friends
The emasculation of the Labour Party is generally attributed
to Blair and Brown in the 1990s; but it began much earlier,
with the 1988/9 policy review which started the process of
accommodating the City and the Americans. Leading that
review was party leader Neil Kinnock, now Lord Kinnock.
Adrian Gatton, via Tony Frewin, pointed me at a collection of
conversations with former US diplomats.39
This is in an interview with Carl Dillery, Political/Military Officer,
at the U.S. embassy in London, 1973-1976.
‘DILLERY: Take an important case. Thatcher’s current
head of loyal opposition, Neil Kinnock, was a junior MP
when I was there. Our Labor Party reporting officer, Jack
Binns, was a real friend of his. He was a great party guy
and would come to all of our parties and talk to all of us.
He and Jack were on a first name basis. So Jack became
the political counselor when Kinnock got to be the leader
of the Labor (sic) Party. Literally, Binns could call up and
have access to him at any time.’
Let me unpack this for those unfamiliar with Labour Party
history. Neil Kinnock became an MP in 1970 and while in his
first parliament became friends with the American diplomat
whose job it was to keep an eye on/befriend/penetrate the
Labour Party. He went to the parties at the American
embassy, chatted to the staff there and became a US
embassy source – perhaps the source – on the Labour Party.
All this while he was presenting himself to the Party
membership as a left-winger.40 Not that this shmoozing with
the Americans did him much good when he became leader of
the party: he was still ridiculed and humiliated on his first trip
to Washington in that role.41
Links and refs http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster67/lob67-view-from-the-bridge.pdf
Glenys was famous for keeping the taxi meter running while she popped into the EU building to sign on for the day in the style of those crooked Lords who did the same for their daily bunce.
“Not a shareholder, Komodo. How about you? You wouldn’t be the first socialist to say one thing and do another.”
Who?
You wouldn’t be the first Tory to lie through its teeth, either. I’m not a shareholder in anything.
Did Freeman declare his interest Ba’al?
Doesn’t look like it, Mary.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24817/george_freeman/mid_norfolk
And http://www.4d-biomedical.com/
seems to be unavailable. However, he’s now on this campaign –
http://www.patients4data.co.uk/campaign
4d…4data? Coincidence, of course. As is his interest in monetising patient data under the guise of making it available to patients – and everybody else.
DubbleTheNubble
“A Non implied that nepotism was a feature of socialism. Clear enough to me,..”
____________________________
Perhaps you should have been arsed to read his post, BubZAevel. This is what Anon actually wrote:
“True socialists are as pure as the driven snow, but alas they don’t actually exist.
So we are left with a bunch of socialists who spend their lives espousing socialist ideals, but as soon as they become grotesque hypocrites – as they invariably do – then they are conveniently brushed aside as non-socialists by the new generation of socialists and their acolytes who carry on with the whole charade.”
Nothing to do with nepotism, as you claim.
Sharpen up, get arsed!
Booblebu re the meningitis B vaccine
“I’d be concerned if it were not made available on the NHS,…”
_________________
Hilarious answer!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Still, better late than never.”
_________________
A very ungracious comment there, Booblaboo. First country in the world to offer this vaccination on the state health system. NHS leads the way again. In safe hands!
Habby was asked whether he was a shareholder in any of those companies involved in plundering the NHS and he answered, no.
It seems to me though that as someone of self-described independent wealth (he’s actually a former top-level EU civil servant, now scraping by on a gold-plated pension) he’ll have his ill gotten gains invested somewhere.
It’s unlikely that those managing his investments will have failed to notice the scrumptious opportunities in picking over the carcass that will be the NHS when the neocons are finished with it nor will they be unaware of the agribusiness potential in west Ukraine, and indeed in energy and weapons. Such investments will be par for the course in any portfolio.
Since habby has over recent days been very keen to accuse everyone who doesn’t support neoconism of being a socialist, it’s only fair that he declare his interest in the above very profitable opportunities, which it’s not unreasonable to conclude may well colour his view.
So socialists don’t exist but Kinnock is a socialist? Strangled by your own, and A Non’s sophistry, buggerlugs. Or maybe your inability to read posts.
Still not seeing your no doubt equally hilarious comments – with sources for your opinions – on the intimate involvement of the private health industry with those in charge of the NHS. F’r instance Philip Hammond? Jeremy Hunt? Donations to the Tories in general (yes, and Nu Libor as well)?
So important that the ongoing privatisation of NHS functions at immense cost to the taxpayer (see PFI for details) is unaccompanied by any faint whiff of corruption, don’t you think?
Interesting UNCTAD graphic outlining EU dependence on Russian energy imports:
http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/100-reliant-on-russian-gas.html
But yes, jolly good idea to bring things in Ukraine to a head just as summer is icomen in.
Well done those forward thinking, freedom loving protestors in Kiev for thinking of that.
And taking a leaf from Thatcher’s playbook.
It is preposterous [craigmurray.org.uk – insult removed] to say that the NHS is in safe hands. Seems to be information challenged!
For instance –
Nurses who form the backbone of the NHS, with the GPs.
Poll of 10,000 by the Royal College of Nursing. 62% had thought of leaving
the NHS in the last year 2013. .. unable to give patients the care they
would want to because they were too busy, while 83% believed
their workload had increased in the last 12 months.
Pay freeze – between 2010 and 2012, followed by a 1% cap on
increases from this year until 2016. Inflation rate > c. 3% +
What is Hunt doing? Chucking money at hospitals for IT!
and instituting a ‘revalidation scheme’ – every 3 years.
Hospital staff are now under 360 degree surveillance as are
all 100,000+ doctors.
BBC News
‘Worrying shortage of senior NHS nurses’.
The NHS has lost nearly 4,000 senior nursing posts since 2010, putting patient care at risk, warns the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The void includes ward sisters, community matrons and specialist nurses and has been brought about by cost saving reorganisation, it says.
According to the most recent data, in November 2013, the NHS was still short of 1,199 full time equivalent (FTE) registered nurses compared with April 2010. The RCN says that hidden within wider nursing workforce cuts are a significant loss and devaluation of skills and experience in the NHS, with 3,994 FTE nursing staff working in senior positions. These band seven and eight nurses – matrons, ward sisters and advanced nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists – have been disproportionately targeted for workforce cuts and found their roles increasingly devalued, it says.
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN said: “As more patients require complex care from specialist nurses, letting so many years of skills and experience vanish from the NHS is an utterly reckless policy. These cuts are a short-term attempt by trusts to find efficiency savings, yet they will lead to a very serious and very long-term crisis in our health service.”
The public inquiry report into Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, written by Robert Francis QC, highlighted the importance of having the right staffing numbers and skill mix on wards.
YCNMIU!
Blair’s Faith Foundation (motto – ‘only Believe, and all these things shall be added unto you’)….and one of its funders. The TBFF has a branch in Ukraine;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/9859780/Revealed-Tony-Blair-and-the-oligarch-bankrolling-his-charity.html
Pinchuk, who has a branch in London, is not expected to be inconvenienced by sanctions. He’s our bastard.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10655081/The-Ukrainian-oligarchs-living-it-large-in-London.html
But Firtash is of interest to the FBI, not least because he has valuable information on Putin. Expect an extradition row….
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-oligarch-dmytro-firtash-pays-125m-bail-after-politically-motivated-arrest-1441518
Habba
I agree the menangitis vaccine is a must to keep healthy but.as we are on a socialist bent I assume you would consider our present sedantary socialist lifestyle should be infused with more health conscious motives to promote a well being consistant with the terminology “we are what we eat”.
Although responsibility does and should remain with the individual. Choice is paramount.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/20/nhs-hospitals-annual-loss-first-time-eight-years
Meningitis B jab costs £130 a pop. From a private ‘provider’ that is.
We could always cut back on GP practices….? Sure.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/23/family-doctor-service-brink-extinction
So all your caring compassionate conservative betters can really do is close some of those feckless scrounger hospitals, even if some of us still have scruples. Hard working families don’t get sick, do they?
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/11/hospital-closures-law-rebel-coalition-mps
Three cheers for private enterprise! And thanks for the brown envelope….