The Rochester By-Election further destroys the intellectual case for the BBC’s decision that only male party leaders who support Trident can debate on TV before the UK general election.
The Greens got five times as many votes as the Lib Dems in Rochester, and are ahead of them in several recent national opinion polls. I do not posit the support of Trident as the criterion for inclusion, in any sense as a joke. Support of Trident stands as a good marker for adhesion to the neo-con establishment consensus. The establishment is simply not prepared for more radical views to be put before the public as a serious choice. UKIP is the chosen right wing vehicle into which disillusion with politicians should be channelled.
The BBC justification for including UKIP is that they have shown a “substantial increase in electoral support”, and the BBC argue that the Greens have not done so. There are two major problems with this argument.
The first is that UKIP’s “massive increase in electoral support” has been massively boosted by a huge amount of publicity given to UKIP for the last two years, especially by the BBC. The BBC is citing the effect of its own propaganda as justification for continuing that propaganda. If the Greens had been given as much publicity as UKIP, the electoral climate would be very different.
The second is that this appears to be a one way argument. If UKIP’s massive increase in electoral support can get them included, surely the Lib Dems total collapse in electoral support should get them excluded? The injustice of including the Lib Dems and not the Greens, when the Greens are beating them not just in opinion polls but in real polls, cannot simply be brushed aside.
We then have the SNP. There is a very real possibility that the SNP will have more MPs than the Lib Dems after the next election. Indeed, one recent opinion poll put them ahead of the Lib Dems in polling across the entire UK, even though all those SNP voters were just in Scotland. For the BBC to push so hard the line that we are “Better Together”, and then exclude the party supported by the plurality of Scots from UK debate, is an irony only the BBC cannot see. That some viewers of a UK debate would have no opportunity to vote SNP, would not remove their very real interest in understanding and questioning the views of what will be a major component of the parliament which governs them.
The Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SNP have female leaders and are anti-Trident, a symbol of their broad radicalism. All are, to use that crude measure, to the left of the parties which will be included. To be in, you have to be led by an identikit posh male and support Trident. That is the BBC test.
Rehmat 22 Nov, 2014 – 12:23 pm : “For some odd reasons, Israel First billionaire Rupert Murdoch supports the Scottish National Party (SNP). In 2012, Murdoch called Alex Salmond “clearly the most brilliant politician in UK“.”
So remind me. Which of his newspapers and TV channels backed the SNP.
Youknowmyname at 10:18
Quite right. Poroshenko did make those genocidal comments. And the Nazis and fascists in Ukraine have been promised further arms and training from the US to continue this slaughter of civilians. Kiev is not having it all its own way and many are heartily fed up with having no heat now winter approaches. It’s economy is in ruins. I realise this is only marginally on topic but as UKIP, with its “massive support” of BBC coverag, has a racist leader, Nigel Farage, and this is only a thinly-veiled hate party it needs to be borne in mind. The opposite of massive BBC coverage is no coverage at all. So when the US, Canada and Ukraine voted at the United Nations against a Russian resolution opposing Fascism it got the same coverage what the mass slaughter (genocide) of E. Ukrainians has been getting for the last six months – a blind eye annd a deaf ear.
http://rt.com/news/207899-un-anti-nazism-resolution/
This NuLabour type thinks she has a divine right to ‘rule’.
22 November 2014
Jowell plans to run for London mayor
Dame Tessa Jowell says she plans to run for London mayor
She told the BBC she is “certainly planning to run” to become Labour’s candidate to replace Boris Johnson.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30159049
How she voted.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10326/tessa_jowell/dulwich_and_west_norwood#register
How Tessa Jowell voted on Foreign Policy and Defence
Voted moderately for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas
Voted very strongly for the Iraq war
Voted strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war
Voted very strongly for replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapons system
Voted moderately for more EU integration
Voted moderately against a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU
Voted moderately for strengthening the Military Covenant
Doing nicely at the trough in £thousands. Note how Price Waterhouse Cooper are embedded in the HoC. There are similar entries for other MPs.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10326/tessa_jowell/dulwich_and_west_norwood#register
O/T. A scandal waiting to break. There is a secret agreement between participating countries into the investigation of MH17. It enables Ukraine, if found culpable, to have that evidence wiped from what is released to the public (me and you). The participating countries are Holland, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the suspected (in fact the most suspected according to recent reports) of two parties responsibe for downing the passenger plane and killing nearly 300 people. Malaysia, whose plane it was, is not involved because it is not compliant to the treachery of the west.
http://www.malaysia-today.net/mh17-a-scandal-in-the-making/
Fool. The 101 service is outsourced to Cable and Wireless Worldwide. In Broken Britain, everything is outsourced. A good example is the foul up on the M25 when repairs broke up recently with a massive pothole damaging dozens of vehicles and causing 17 mile tailbacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_101
The NHS 111 service was also out of action today.
I see Vodaphone own C&WW as from 2013. Nice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_%26_Wireless_Worldwide
In the post-Soviet era, the case for retaining Trident rests less on its being a deterrence to any specific threat and more on its importance to Britain’s international influence, standing and even responsibility as a permanent member of the UN se3urity council. Even that is not to say that countries with atomic weapons could not threaten the UK in future, by building submarines to carry them.
Of course, I don’t know whether that is the test that the BBC uses. 🙂
You might be interested in this, John:
http://rt.com/news/207899-un-anti-nazism-resolution/
I’d love to be able to give a BBC-based URL for this, but alas, I can’t find one…
3 against… see if you can guess! At least the UK abstained.
The idea that the BBC is pro-UKIP and acting as a propaganda platform for them is ludicrous. The two most important issues for UKIP are the EU and mass-immigration, both of which the BBC supports. If you are going to assign support for a political party to the BBC then it is Labour, through and through.
Thanks Peacewisher. It’s very similar to the one I posted at 12.30 pm.
But this is scandalous. Only a week ago Australian Security Magazine was posting this. It has an Inshare button for LinkedIn. I could not share it. Anyway it containe the big lie that:
“Australia continues to encourage the international community to remain focused on finding, prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of this cowardly attack.
We owe this to the innocent victims of the MH17 tragedy and their families.”
According to my previous link Malaysia is not involved in the secret treaty which enables exoneration for the culpable Kiev government by non-disclosure.
http://www.malaysia-today.net/mh17-a-scandal-in-the-making/
Anybody expecting the truth is unlikely to be satisfied by the JIT (Joint INvestigation Team) report when delivered. It is another Lockerbie, another Hutton, another Gus O’Donnell – a whitewash. Must keep pressing for the truth.
Sorry, forgot the first link.
http://www.australiansecuritymagazine.com.au/2014/11/mh17-joint-investigation-team-extended-nine-months/
@Anon: Rubbish! The BBC is biased in favour of the government of the day.
So when, the morning after Labour’s 1997 victory, “the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with Champagne bottles”, that was just a very early and entirely normal expression of support for the government of the day, was it, Peaceswisher?
“Would Wales be a place to be Trident subs?”
It would be a very good place – if you wanted to fire up the Wales independence movement.
See how it works:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/21/catalan-president-face-several-charges-after-unofficial-independence-referendum
The Spanish attorney general has charged Catalan president Artur Mas with disobedience, perverting the course of justice, misuse of public funds and abuse of power in relation to the unofficial referendum on independence held on 9 November.
The unofficial poll was called after the referendum scheduled for the same day was ruled illegal by Spain’s constitutional court. The court then also outlawed the unofficial vote but it went ahead anyway. Poll booths were staffed by volunteers and no civil servants were directly involved, a strategy Mas hoped would circumvent the ban.
With deceit and deception reaching a pinnacle the zenith of war is reaching above the horizon. That legacy, that construct cannot fall back into it’s own mendacity else collapse into the forsaken souls of false-flag.
Ministry refuses to disclose secret deal MH17 [Translate]
http://www.elsevier.nl/Politiek/achtergrond/2014/11/Ministerie-weigert-geheime-overeenkomst-MH17-openbaar-te-maken-1647600W/?masterpageid=158493
NATO’s virulent hostility to Russian President Putin was on full display at the G20 meeting in Australia: NATO-linked presidents and prime ministers, especially Merkel, Obama, Cameron, Abbott, and Harper’s political threats and overt personal insults paralleled Kiev’s growing starvation blockade of the besieged rebels and population centers in the south-east. Both the G20’s economic threats against Russia and the diplomatic isolation of Putin and Kiev’s economic blockade are preludes to NATO’s Final Solution – the physical annihilation of all vestiges of Donbas resistance, popular democracy and cultural-economic ties with Russia.
Israel’s solution or ‘Islamic State’ has been compromised. Iran is gaining nuclear strength while Syria proves an impossible regime to obliterate. Western posture on Palestine is recognising statehood. As of 30 October 2014, 135 (69.9%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine.
We are left void of diplomacy and US brute force shifts predominate. Tactical Nuclear War is inevitable. Ukraine is the catalyst:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/all-out-war-in-ukraine-natos-final-offensive/5415354
Today’s Daily Mail online headline is about the fun one can have spotting “funny and rude” town and village names in the UK…
What a fuckin pathetic useless rag.
Are they serious?
http://www.france24.com/en/20141122-germany-drop-probe-us-spying-merkel-report/
Germany is dropping a probe into alleged US eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone conversations
BERLIN (AFP) –
Germany is dropping a probe into the alleged tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone by US spies, due to a lack of evidence, magazine Focus said Saturday.
Six months after the investigation began, the experts have failed to find any solid proof to back the case, and have therefore recommended that it be dropped, the magazine reported, quoting sources close to the German justice ministry.
“The result (of the probe) is almost zilch. A lot of hot air, but nothing done,” one source was quoted as saying.
“Germany is dropping a probe into alleged US eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone conversations”
As first reported by the NSA?
Getting caught with your hand in the cookie-jar is a ‘zilch’?
Jives; Maybe they just heard her recipes for Kugel Noodles.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/29/nsa-merkel-leaders-surveillance-documents-snowden
“For some odd reasons, Israel First billionaire Rupert Murdoch supports the Scottish National Party (SNP). In 2012, Murdoch called Alex Salmond “clearly the most brilliant politician in UK“.2
___________________________
Rehmat
Two days prior to the Scottish referendum Rupert Murdoch, whilst visiting his mothers Scottish birthplace, was asked if he’d support Scottish independence, by the BBC.
Mr Murdoch’s reply was less than defining when he’s sort of mumbled at the reporter, “We’ll see.”
“The idea that the BBC is pro-UKIP and acting as a propaganda platform for them is ludicrous. The two most important issues for UKIP are the EU and mass-immigration, both of which the BBC supports. If you are going to assign support for a political party to the BBC then it is Labour, through and through.”
___________________________________
Anon
Yes I can’t fault you on UKIP’s agenda, I think the BBC has given Farage and UKIP coverage, (in the same way you’d give someone enough rope to hang themselves)in order to blacken their name, especially through their immigration policy.
Of course Farage and UKIP need no help from the BBC to blacken their name, as some of their members have openly slated immigrants on social media.
As for the BBC, well the last two years during the Scottish referendum has shown them, for what they really are, a state broadcaster.
Ishmael
21 Nov, 2014 – 1:38 pm
“I don’t think there is even a green party candidate in my area…”
……………………………………………….
Ishmael my constituency is a Tory safe seat with a majority of 11’408.
The Green candidate only got 590 votes.
Thanks Mary. It seemed odd that all three services were down and out (sourced).
Geoffrey
21 Nov, 2014 – 2:50 pm
“…It is therefore very unlikely that they [UKIP] would support a weapon over which the USA controls the on\off switch.”
……………………………………………………………..
From UKIP 2010 manifesto:
Defence:
“Continue Trident in the short term, then replace it with four British-built submarines using American-made missiles to preserve an independent nuclear deterrent.”
The four submarines we have now were British built FFS!
And the missiles we have now are American made!
@Fool : “Thanks Mary. It seemed odd that all three services were down and out (sourced).”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30159433
Improved comment by Kempe 22 Nov, 2014 – 3:53 pm
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/11/the-trident-test/#comment-492903
@John Goss
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Mark Golding, I don’t think the NATO final solution will start until winter is over. I could be wrong of course. The good people of the US could put an end to this by persuading the security firms and militarised police force that the country is bankrupt and those responsible are the ones who created the disparity. Unfortunately the majority is sheep. When all the sheep wake up it might be too late. They might wake up in the abattoir.