On Being a Dissenting Voice in 2018 863


UPDATE

The site is just back up at 16.42 on 21 March having managed to slip like the Tardis into another dimension and thus dodge the massive DOS attack we are under. over 50,000 separate IP addresses simultaneously throwing up millions of hits. The attack has not actually stopped and does seem to have a human intelligence changing terms and directing it, which could make for an interesting afternoon. Once our excellent techs get a minute from fighting it, we will post the cloudfare graphs as evidence.

I just thought I might give you a little taste of what it means to your personal life to express dissent from the government line in the UK in 2018. Let me start with this combined effort from the UK’s most popular website, Guido Fawkes, which fanatically supports the government, and the Blairite crew at “The Guardian”.

The red ink is original.

Now it is true that, when I was sacked as Ambassador by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for blowing the whistle on extraordinary rendition and the Blair government’s misuse of intelligence from torture, I went into a terrible depression and voluntarily spent ten days or so in St Thomas Hospital (not a mental illness facility) for treatment. I have never tried to keep this secret, indeed it is a major part of my memoir “Murder in Samarkand”. It is also true, as I have always acknowledged, that I have had other less serious depressive episodes treated at home and been diagnosed as bipolar since I was 20.

That we stigmatise anybody who has ever had a mental illness, write them off and view their views, on anything, as invalid, is an attitude I had hoped we had moved past last century. Indeed, if this hatchet job was done on anybody writing within the Overton window, then the Guardian would be dedicating editorials to condemning it. We have in fact moved to the old Soviet position, where disagreement with the official line equals mental illness. I quite confess this sort of thing does in fact hurt me – if you cut me, do I not bleed?

The use of the term “conspiracy theorist” has been used to denigrate my views, ever since Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary lied to Parliament denying that the UK ever obtained intelligence from torture and denying the existence of the extraordinary rendition programme, which I was supposed to have fantasised. Anyone interested in this history can watch this series of videos of my evidence to a Parliamentary Committee on the subject. It explains why I start nowadays from a position of being so hated by the British state and its acolytes, and also of course enables you to judge for yourself whether I should be ignored as insane.

Ever since then, the state and corporate media have described me as a “conspiracy theorist”. Even though there is now acceptance that extraordinary rendition did happen and presumably they, somewhere inside, know I was telling the truth. I find people are taken aback to discover, for example, that I broadly accept that there was no US government involvement in 9/11 (other than minimising the Saudi role) and 9/11 discussion is banned on this blog – [warning it still is].

I cannot in fact conceive of a more outlandish conspiracy theory than that the Russian government secretly manufactured and stockpiled novichoks, hidden from the OPCW, and secretly trained assassins, only to blow the whole operation on a retired spy they let out of jail ages ago. Yet nobody calls Boris Johnson a “conspiracy theorist” for positing that.

But the abuse is not confined to what people publish about me. I receive some extremely unpleasant emails of which this is an example:

I do hope Mr Temis can get money back on his anger management sessions. But there has been rather a lot of this, including some by old fashioned mail. which I find myself prodding suspiciously before opening :-).

There is of course an open effort to extend the term “anti-semitic” to embrace any criticism of Israel. It is also particularly used by Blairites to attack anybody taking any position seen as supportive of Jeremy Corbyn. I am not in the least anti-semitic. Jewish people have made a disproportionate, indeed magnificent, contribution to the world in the fields of science, music, literature, commerce and others. That does not alter the fact that Israel is a rogue state when it comes to chemical weapons, the subject currently under discussion. It refuses to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its chemical weapons stocks, and refuses to join the OPCW.

Plainly someone attacked the Skripals. In stating that it is not the case that Russia was the only state who could have done it, I have included Israel amongst other possibilities. Israel might wish to frame Russia for the deed, as Russian actions in Syria have severely conflicted with Israeli ambitions in Syria and Lebanon. But I have never said it was, or was most likely to be, Israel – it could be the CIA framing Russia, it could be a non-state actor entirely (which I am inclined to think most likely – this could come from those close to a victim of Skripal’s treachery, though I still think the Orbis intelligence connection has been overlooked).

Some of the most vitriolic abuse has come from state and corporate media journalists. Falsely categorising me as an insane racist allows them to ignore any challenge to the establishment line on Salisbury and absolves them, in their own minds, from any dereliction of duty in not questioning it.

In a chilling example of the way they move to crush dissent, here a prominent Blairite corporate media journalist, James Bloodworth, attempts to ensure that consideration of other possibilities than the government line is not carried even in the private domain. He harasses and bullies an individual attempting to force him to accept Mr Bloodworth’s version of what I had said, rather than what I had actually said. When Mr Law (who as a lecturer in philosophy presumably has an attachment to intellectual honesty) refuses, Bloodworth sanctions him by pulling out of his literary festival.


It is very difficult to understand what is happening in the UK today, but when the BBC on its flagship news programme holds a discussion of the Salisbury attack under a huge photo-shopped picture of the leader of the opposition in a Russian hat standing outside the Kremlin, it is plain a fundamental shift has happened in society. The Salisbury attack has perhaps taught us something massively more important than any of the stuff about chemical weapons, and that is that Britain is further along the road to becoming an authoritarian state than we had realised.


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863 thoughts on “On Being a Dissenting Voice in 2018

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  • TFS

    You only need to visit order-order.com to view the topics and comments on Jeremy Corbyn in relation to the Salisbury attack to understand it’s vileness as a blog.

  • Elaine

    So sad that you are receiving this kind of treatment. We stand behind your well researched questioning and very much hope it will continue.

  • James

    It’s called “soft totalitarianism”. It’s been going on for at least the last 20 years.

    We don’t have gulags or concentration camps, but life for critics becomes difficult, jobs may be lost, they may become “too dangerous to know”.

    You are very brave to fight it. Most just keep their heads down.

  • Martin Hawes

    Craig, voices like yours are one of the few things that now stands between humanity and utter chaos. I write this without a shred of hyperbole. I see the role you are now playing as similar to that played by Arnie Gundersen in the wake of the Fukushima disaster: one of the few voices of reason, level-headedness, sound analysis and above all, honesty, in the face of a tsunami of fear-mongering and propaganda. All strength to you. One can only hope that this latest outrage will move us closer to awakening to the monstrous way that our so-called leaders and the lapdog media are exploiting and betraying us.

  • Je

    I stopped visiting Guido Fawkes ages ago… his comments there are appalling. The Guardian article he links to is fair and advertises your blog though Craig.

  • Kerch'ee Kerch'ee Coup

    Craig,
    The lesson you draw from all this is highly significant. It is as if the velvet gloves and democratic trimmings have been cast off, leaving us in our ‘ right little, tight little island’. So many of the original blogging voices seem to have fallen by the wayside, leaving your site as a focus for doubters of the party -line. Just hope we are not being kettled or corralled.

    • Dr. Ip

      ‘right little, tight little island’

      I think you mean: Landing Strip One (Orwell – 1984)

  • Derek J. Smith

    I don’t think you can separate the Guardian from anti-Corbynism. I became political in late Summer 2016 as one of the 700,000 (“For God’s sake man, go”). I then helped fight Blairists and Graudianites online for three months. Then I needed a bath. But the Corbynites GRAVELY HURT the Guardian’s circulation. Now they’re back – and for a year they’ve been butter-wouldn’t-melt. But sometimes – like the baby chimp who loses the banana because it can’t keep its excitement from showing – they just have to have a penny’s worth – as above. Leopards, in other words, do not change their posts.

    • Canexpat

      “…the Corbynites GRAVELY HURT the Guardian’s circulation.” Am I right to assume you meant Anti-Corynites?

      I am still astonished that so many good rational and educated people still believe the Grauniad is somehow anti-establishment despite the overwhelming evidence of its gatekeeper status.

      Craig, I am in awe of your strength in the face of this mass hysteria. Many people deeply appreciate your stance in speaking the truth.

      • Deepgreenpuddock

        you have to be selective with the guardian yes but much more open than alternatives.i notice article are less contentious nowadays, owen jones is sometimes refreshes part otherwise overlooked.eg tories and russian money.

    • Gladio_322

      Careful Derek, your ‘banana’ and ‘chimp’ comment might be seen by some uber touchy feely types as bordering on racism….welcome to 1984

    • Morton Subotnick

      The Guardian is a sneery, virtue-signalling, identity-politicking, liberal rag. Full stop.

      From the Miners’ Strike in the 1980s to the Scottish Independence vote, the election of Jeremy Corbyn to leader of the Labour Party, the EU Referendum and now Donald Trump, their coverage has been consistently risible and reactionary.

      • Shatnersrug

        The guardian encouraged Jenkins and his gang of 4 idiots to form their own centrist horror show, in the classic style of the Labour right splitting labour for a generation. A classic example would be the fake Labour grandee Poly Toynbee who stood on an SDP ticket in a Labour safe seat in Lambeth and split the vote Leading to a Tory win. That a the true legacy of the Fabian Labour right. All the way back to the OG Blairite Ramsay McDonald. The right of the Labour Party have been an establishment pressure valve on the left who push Labour into the wilderness should the left become too powerful.

        The big difference between the old Labour right of the SDP and new is that no one on the modern Labour right is particularly liked by their constituencies, and will have a huge difficulty running as independents or as centrists – Blair’s legacy is too great.

        Given that this covert establishment soft power is no longer effective and the general shift rightward of all Western government’s and given the power of uncontrolled capital the world over, I think the attacks on JC and the left will become increasingly severe. I do not believe an other election will be called in the forseable future. There is absolutely no media pressure on May’s joke government to change the order.

  • Ruben S'than

    As much as I’m aware of how the media “manufactures consent”, I’m left continually shocked and quite depressed by the way the media, in particular the liberal media (I expect no less from right-wing rags), handles itself. How they lied about Corbyn in the GE and before, and now this, is quite shocking. Journalists like James Bloodworth, jeez-louise, it’s as if they believe their own lies and blatant projections. Corbyn wants to take stock before pointing fingers and act through international bodies in response – he has sympathies for Russia and is maybe a stooge! Craig Murray posits Israel has a very slight possibility of being involved, he must be an anti-Semite (because lefties have a proclivity for this)!

  • Alice Luxmoore

    I’ve only just discovered your blog, which is fascinating, well written and balanced but the cost to you is appalling. I only rarely Tweet but am still upset by the one occasion when someone reacted rudely (and nothing like the levels of insult you seem to get) to a completely inoffensive comment I had made. I hope you have the strength to carry on – I want to read more of you and people like you. Your insights into the minutiae of how semantics are used and how to interpret them are particularly brilliant.

  • TFS

    Ron Temis. He’s a one, ain’t he. I’m sure Inspector Knacker should feel his collar. If I’m not mistaken he is insinuating violence.

    James Bloodbath. Well, it would seem the festival next week is going to be better without him.

    Keep the list going, and publish more of this expose of the finer points of human behavior.

  • DiggerUK

    Basher Boris has still to reveal why there has been a cover up of the UK’s illegal actions in not reporting the Russians secretly “stockpiled” and illegally held nerve agents to the OPCW. Contrary to the international agreements they and Russia have signed up to.
    He has to report why the U.K., despite knowing about this for ten years kept their silence. This has led to the OPCW believing they did their job in giving Russia the all clear that Russian stocks were destroyed, along with any ability to produce such illegal wepons…_

    • DiggerUK

      p.s., “I am not now, nor have I ever been, a supporter, sympathiser or cheerleader for Craig Murray and his blog…_

  • mog

    Two from Huxley:

    The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society.

    The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

  • fred

    It might help if you were to state your opinions on the probable cause of the nerve agent poisoning.

    The false flag to discredit Putin has been knocked on the head with the results of the elections and the Isr@el done it for revenge over Syria to my mind never held any water to start with.

    You are good at casting aspersions but saying it could have been Isr@el is not the same as saying you think it probably was Isr@el, do you?

    If you won’t state your honest opinions on the probable facts of the case you will be accused of promoting conspiracy theories.

    • Yossarian

      But there are no facts, that’s the point.

      It’s why Treeza and BoJo are obviously full of shit with their supposed certainty and equally why nobody – including Craig – can reasonably suggest who is responsible. We don’t even know if the Skripals were genuinely victims of a nerve agent, never mind who did it.

      • fred

        We can still have opinions on the probabilities, especially someone who has worked for the Foreign Office. What do you think the chances the Skripals weren’t victims of a nerve agent are?

        • J

          Yes, of course you can. For example, I can have an opinion on what the lottery numbers will be next Saturday. How much weight you’re willing to give to that opinion is up to you.

        • Yossarian

          I have no idea. For a start, we’re told they were attacked with ‘Novichoks’, an agent – according to the theory, as that’s all anyone has – somewhere between 3 and 10 times stronger than VX yet a doctor, one of the first on the scene, who treated them for half an hour suffered no ill effects. Indeed, other than the Skripals seemingly only one other person, we are told, presented similar symptoms. Furthermore, a doctor, Steven Davies of the accident and emergency services at the Salisbury District Hospital, had the following letter printed in The Times in response to a 14th March report stating 40 people had been treated due to poisoning in Salisbury:

          “Sir, Further to your report “Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”, (Mar 14), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only been ever been three patients with significant poisoning.”

          That is quite the refutation. However, to my knowledge, neither the Times nor any other news outlet has followed this up. In fact, I can’t think of a single interview with any of the medical staff involved; I can’t recall a serious update on the health of the Skripals. The lack of information is very, very suspicious.

          Was a nerve agent used? Who the hell knows.

          • Yossarian

            In fact, I would suggest that the most likely explanation is that they had food poisoning and some idiot in British ‘intelligence’ suggested they should use it to their advantage. The first idiot was joined by some other idiots, one of whom had watched that TV show earlier in the year, and thus ‘Novichoks: a fantastical tale’ was born. The idiots relayed the potential narrative to the idiots in charge of the country who idiotically embraced it with gusto.

            Now it’s falling a part. Because they’re idiots.

          • Johny Conspiranoid

            I agree with Yossarian that this is a cock up not a conspiracy.
            And keep up the good work Craig.
            No doctor has stood up in public and said “these people have been attacked with a nerve agent”.
            The three patients are not dead from this “deadly” nerve agent.
            A serious covert operation would have done a better job of killing them.
            We have government by idiots because the likes of the Henry Jackson Society have been succesfull in assisting the careers of people who agree with them. You have to be an idiot to agree with the Henry Jackson Society.

        • Loftwork

          “chances the Skripals weren’t victims of a nerve agent”? Quite good. Note the Salisbury A&E Consultant’s careful wording: “…no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning.” Poison, yes, nerve agent, not symptomatically. Especially if it was indeed a “military grade Novichok” the question would be how the most lethal toxin known to man produced zero fatalities? I’m waiting for the OPCW report, assuming the OPCW receives real site samples from Porton Down.

        • MJ

          If the comments of the Salisbury NHS consultant are anything to go by the chances are very high indeed.

      • mog

        This is a loyalty test.
        If you are loyal to the fundamental power structure of this society then you will unquestioningly accept the official narrative, no matter how thin, how contradictory or how absurd that narrative is.
        To even have quesitons, or worse, express them, is to be considered traitorous (traitorous to collective ‘sanity’).
        To take a position of nuetral scepticism or to shun speculation or a rush to judgement, is to be a traitor too, absolute mental obediance is demanded.

        This is how totalitarianism works. The Skripal story has to be made to look ridiculous in order to function as a loyalty test.

    • Node

      Fred : It might help if you were to state your opinions on the probable cause of the nerve agent poisoning

      Keep up Fred

      Craig : But I have never said it was, or was most likely to be, Israel – it could be the CIA framing Russia, it could be a non-state actor entirely (which I am inclined to think most likely – this could come from those close to a victim of Skripal’s treachery, though I still think the Orbis intelligence connection has been overlooked).

    • Agent Green

      There are no facts. No evidence has thus far been presented.

      Russia is still asking for the evidence file and sample of the agent (as they entitled to under the OPCW convention).

      • Harry Law

        The Eton bloviator, Boris… “Evidence? We ain’t got no evidence! We don’t need no evidence!
        I don’t have to show you any stinking evidence!”

    • JohnsonR

      “The false flag to discredit Putin has been knocked on the head with the results of the elections”

      LOL! No it hasn’t – just because something fails doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But mostly the suggestion was anyway that the intention was to discredit Russia and move towards greater confrontation in western relations with Russia.

      Still the most plausible of all the possible justifications, but nevertheless pure speculation. What is clear, though, is that whatever the motives were of whoever perpetrated the attack, the motivations of those who immediately rushed to judgement and openly attacked Russia over it are not remotely obscure.

      “and the Isr@el done it for revenge over Syria to my mind never held any water to start with.”

      In your mind, yes, but clearly your mind is set in rigid pathways on that topic, for whatever reason. In reality, it’s perfectly possible that any of the states that resent Russia’s foiling of their plans in Syria had a motive for doing this – either revenge or reduction in Russia’s capability to effectively oppose their plan in the future. That brings in Israel, the US, the UK, and Saudi Arabia at least. Likewise Ukraine had a clear motive for such an action, and likewise there are clearly all kinds of potential criminal/private motivations involving nefarious activities Skripal has been hinted at being involved with.

      And now we know these chemicals could have been manufactured in any well equipped university lab, there’s no reason to dismiss any of them on grounds of lack of capability.

      Speculating about motivations is not difficult. What is difficult is getting at any hard evidence to identify a perpetrator, especially given the obvious intention to suppress such evidence on the part of the UK government and its tame news media in case it conflicts with the use of the case to attack Russia.

      “If you won’t state your honest opinions on the probable facts of the case you will be accused of promoting conspiracy theories.”

      The opposite is the case. If he states any opinions about whodunnit that will provide ammunition for those bearing ill will towards him such as yourself to attack him for them, by misrepresenting his speculative guesses as firm “conspiracy theories”. Best to keep an open mind about it while we have insufficient information to form any useful judgement. Which is exactly what the UK regime failed to do, because they saw an opportunity to use the incident to attack Russia and to buff up their political support (to adopt the most charitable interpretations possible toward their behaviour).

  • MAB

    I think the rhetoric and ‘with us or against us’ attitude first filtered into the media during the Sottish referendum, and its been getting worse ever since. Now, I have no skin in the Scotland issue other than thinking it would be incredibly sad to see the United Kingdom disappear, I could still see the way BBC framed the debate to demonise those who wanted independence.
    Those tactics have continued on today throughout the media, and now we have a situation where the party that has actual, verifiable financial links to Russia is the patriot and the man who asks us to follow the international law we signed up to is the Russian sympathizer. It is straight out of 1984.

    I’d also say that seeing what Craig has received for this, imagine what it must be like for Corbyn. And they will tell you he is weak. He seems far from that to me.

    • reel guid

      So basically you think the United Kingdom is shit, but think it would be sad if Scotland didn’t stay in it and have our wishes continually overruled.

      • MAB

        Nope.

        I fully understand why many would want out, especially since brexit, if I had grown up in Scotland myself, I’d probably have voted for independence.

        That doesn’t stop me feeling sad about the breakup of the UK though, especially when its a self inflicted wound caused by politicians in westminster over the last half century.

        • Douglas

          Have you considered moving to Scotland?
          There is plenty of room and you would be most welcome.
          I grew up in England and it took a while to realise how far the U.K. has diverged from the brief social solidarity of the post war years.
          The powerful fear the example that an independent Scotland could become -with the help of people like you.
          Ironically Scottish independence is the best hope for England and Wales in the long term.

      • Steph

        I think that is rather an unfair comment to make. I can see what you are saying and agree that independence for Scotland might well be a very good thing for those living there. But there are huge numbers of people living in the rest of the UK that have the same sentiments as you about our government. It seems sad that we cannot be united in our opposition.

        • reel guid

          Yes. Except ‘united’ now means for Scotland, the end of meaningful devolution, enforced departure from the EU. Enforced. Just think through the implications of that.

          An progressive independent Scotland will be nothing but a good influence on the people of England. An example in the north of what England could be.

          A miserable Scotland kept undemocratically chained in the union will be no good whatsoever to England.

          So disunite in order to unite on a different and better level I’d say.

          • Steph

            Yes, but I too am being ‘forced’ to leave the EU against my wishes, every bit as much as you are! And I have my doubts about the good influence you speak of. Scotland would consistantly be presented in a poor light and kicked in the teeth whenever possible. There is to my mind no possibility that England would be a nice neighbour!

          • reel guid

            Steph

            If England would not be a nice neighbour then that’s hardly a good argument for Scotland to stay in a political union with such a basket case country.

            But I don’t think England is beyond the pale. England just needs to get over the absurd imperial dream, that’s all.

          • Steph

            I agree entirely about the empire mentality bit, have been saying this for nearly 50 years. It has done no end of damage. But I still think that some way needs to be found for us like-minded to stick together. I cannot see how indendence for Scotland will help with that.

          • Steph

            PS. Looks like a good victory has just been won re. the withdrawing from Article 50 case! Well done Scotland!

        • J

          Divided and ruled. Surely one of the strategic objectives of the indyref disinfo campaign was to amplify divisions and it worked. They seek to atomise and isolate the left into hostile factions. On a positive note, I have to admit, it worked nowhere near as well as was probably hoped. More people than ever before appear to be seeing clearly.

  • Paul Hunter

    I agree that the corporate reaction to this has been almost Soviet, and that is deeply worrying. but let’s not forget that those who doubted Iraq had WMDs, such as Scott Ritter, have long been vindicated. And I believe you will be too, and there many of us behind you.

  • Canexpat

    And after Huxley, the much quoted Orwell line. “Truth is treason in an empire of lies”.

  • Monster

    Like you Craig, we are all under intense scrutiny with withering effects should we transgress. The violence at Tommy Robinson’s speech at Speakers Corner the other day was allowed by the police, perhaps even organised by their masters, to bring the hammer down further on the historic platform where ordinary people can speak freely. The new Met chief, Cressida Dick, has not commented on this violence; It was her decision last year to stifle public opinion by banning ‘soap boxes’ at Speakers Corner. Keep up the good work Craig.

  • Bob Dixon

    Winston’s “Black Dog” springs to mind…….I doubt Guido and his gang will be revising Churchill’s legacy based on the fact he suffered regular bouts of depression…….

  • james Norris

    Craig, I salute your courage and fortitude in writing the way you do in spite of such fierce opposition. It is only through the likes of you that people like myself—concerned about the further drift to a right wing embedded plutocracy with no sense of moral values—can get to know the facts and evidences that are abused and misused by Neo Liberals and their in pocket journalists.
    On the subject of mental illness: I couldn’t agree more with you about the shoddy comments meted out by Guido Fawkes. I don’t seem to remember many people going on about Alistair Cambell in his many admissions of living with same. Anyway, the greatest war leader we have ever produced, Winston Churchill, was forever plagued by his ‘black dog’—it didn’t stop him saving this country from the Nazis.
    You now have a following of millions, people who look for something resembling ‘the truth’ in this corrupt and self serving era of capitalism gone mad. Where I come from (Newcastle upon Tyne) we have a saying: ‘Don’t let the buggers grind you down’. Your voice is too important for that to happen.

  • Steve Hayes

    Britain isn’t along a road to becoming an authoritarian state. Britain is an authoritarian state. Anyone who dissents from the dominant ideology is marginalised, demonised, stigmatised. McCarthyism is institutionalised: in schools, universities, workplaces, parliament, the civil service, the police; and most of all, in the media.

    • Je

      C’mon, the problem with your exageration is it belittles the problems of those who
      really do live in authoritarian states.

      Dunno if it applies to you… but the irony of those here who stick up for Putin’s Russia so much
      – to come up with the UK is an authoritarian state…

      • Bob Dixon

        You’d be hard pressed to get a cigarette paper between Putin and Liam Fox if it wasnt for the fact that Putin believed in unversal healthcare!

      • J

        More than ten thousand people died unexpectedly in January/February in the UK. It’s been going on for years. I call it structural Euthanasia because everyone involved in drafting the policies know exactly what the implications are. It’s different in degree than elsewhere, but the unecessary deaths, suffering, poverty and ill health are entirely due to volition and the curve is rising.

        • Je

          We’re talking about authoritarianism… not trying to tot up every flaw in society… when anybody such as Freedom House tries to objectively compare countries the UK comes out as not authoritarian.

  • Ross

    Firstly, Paul Staines’s blog is far from being one of the most popular in the UK; he has been caught countless times lying about his traffic stats.

    As for Staines himself he is on record as…

    A liar
    A cheat
    A thief
    A bully
    A drunk driver
    A racist

  • DS

    Seems like these day you HAVE to be crazy to attack the Leviathan, whatever variety (British, Russian, American or Israeli).
    Just finished reading “Rise and kill first”. Looks fairly in line.

  • Katherine Da Silva

    When the journalists who currently write for the daily papers admit they do it for the ‘money’ mainly..perhaps we will be nearer a truth. But, I guess eventually the best of the population will stop paying the papers attention. And their subscriptions will fail. I think the Tories, know Corbyn is winning in popularity for just what he is saying and planning to make life bearable for all peoples, not just the fit people.

    • reel guid

      Is Corbyn winning in popularity though?

      A lot was made of his appeal to young voters in the 2017 election. But since then he’s taken a hard brexit line. Not a popular policy with the majority of the young.

      His anti-immigration speech in Dundee didn’t go down well with the Tony Benn style ethical socialists.

      He’s not widely admired in Scotland. Enforced Scottish departure from the EU and denial of an indyref makes him look very similar to May in many regards.

      • Loftwork

        “But since then he’s taken a hard brexit line”. That’s factually incorrect. His views have been repeatedly presented by Keir Starmer and require being in a customs union. Nor is he anti-immigration. Stick to the facts.

        • reel guid

          I’m not saying he is anti-immigration in terms of his political philosophy. But he’s on record making a Farage style speech in Dundee about how immigration drives down British wages. Naughty.

          Corbyn talks vaguely of being in “a customs union” a some later date. But wants to leave the customs union. And says repeatedly that being out the EU necessitates being out the single market. The foreign policy of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein all testify to that being total moonshine. So he’s hard brexit more or less.

          • Morton Subotnick

            “But he’s on record making a Farage style speech in Dundee about how immigration drives down British wages. Naughty.”

            Ah, another who disputes the theory of supply and demand: a Nobel Prize awaits your proof that, of all commodities, the only one this principle does not apply to is labour!

          • reel guid

            Leaving the economics debate aside, do you think that it’s OK for a Labour leader to make such a negative speech about immigrants at a time when the atmosphere in many parts of England is febrile and xenophobic?

          • Dave Price

            Here’s an extract I’ve found from the ‘on-the-record’ speech you are misrepresenting (naughty!):

            Corybyn said a future Labour government “cannot be held back inside or outside the EU … from preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour, to undercut existing pay and conditions in the name of free market orthodoxy”.

            I doubt Farage could ever put the word ‘prevent’ in front of the word ’employers’, nor criticise ‘free market orthodoxy’.

            Oh, maybe *you* are a free marketeer who would give full rein to employers to import the cheapest labour even if it would undercut your own pay and conditions? A true believer!

      • Morton Subotnick

        “A lot was made of his appeal to young voters in the 2017 election. But since then he’s taken a hard brexit line. Not a popular policy with the majority of the young.”

        Regarding the EU Referendum result:

        In Scotland, the predictable shift from SNP to Conservative was the result of the SNP’s post-Independence referendum ‘position’: still endlessly harping on about “out of the UK, in Europe”. Trouble is, because that is an internally contradictory position (in Europe is ipso facto not independent), the SNP lost all those who wanted independence but also out of the EU. Labour had been against Scottish Independence, so “Hello Conservatives!”. Of course, the Conservatives were also against Scottish independence, but Labour were the worst of all possible worlds: anti-independence and pro-EU (finessed and non-admitted). At least the Conservatives (for interests that did not coincide with those of the manual working class) were pro-Brexit.

        In England, as the swing statistics from result after result proved, the manual working class that really made the difference were moving away from UKIP (out of the EU, job done) and primarily towards Labour. Why? Nothing to do with some vaulted “middle class/yoof saviours of the common people” (since when have they ever cared about the manual working class, Communists aside?). Simply because the next most important threat to their living standards after EU membership was the Conservatives’ ‘austerity’ programme.

        It is exactly the same situation as occurred after WW2, when Labour was swept to power against all expectations: “We’ve fought your war, now we want what’s due to us”. For an intelligent survey of what is going on in the West, read Wolfgang Streeck’s article The Return of the Repressed in the March/April 2017 issue of New Left Review (https://newleftreview.org/II/104/wolfgang-streeck-the-return-of-the-repressed)

  • Mochyn69

    Isn’t that James Bloodworth, the trotskyist anti-Corbynite??

    Seems a bit tetchy in that exchange and not very open to dialogue. But what would you expect from a trot??

    >

  • Dave G

    I sometimes wonder if John Woodcock uses “James Bloodworth” as an online pseudonym. Both are hysterically pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn,

  • PreProle

    No one attacked the Skripals. They were unfortunate victims of their own smuggling activity. The daughter was bringing a small sample of Russian chemical research agent into Britain in her suitcase (very likely unwittingly). Her (ex?)spy father was to collect it and deliver to (safely close by) Porton Down for analysis. The container (probably disguised quartz scent bottle, or similar) became compromised during the flight from Moscow (likely by airport staff roughly handling luggage).

    Whoever is behind this operation will now be doing ALL IT CAN to divert attention away from its own culpability by loudly and breathlessly accusing a third party. After all, who would want to be found guilty of causing a highly toxic nerve agent to be released on British streets? Especially if you happen to be… the British Government.

    • Agent Green

      This is entirely possible. In the absence of any evidence it is as plausible as any other explanation.

    • Gladio_322

      Same with Litvinenko…..and guess where he picked up his Polonium….why yes, the elephant in the room….Israel

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