The Price of Peace 531


I have never managed fully to understand the mechanism by which the media and political class decide when to leave a fact, a glaringly obvious and vital fact, completely excluded from public debate. That process of exclusion is a psychological, not an organisational, phenomenon but extremely effective.

Brexit continues to dominate mainstream political discussion, and the Northern Ireland border issue remains at the centre of current negotiations, forced there by the London government’s reneging on the agreement it signed almost a year ago. But there is a secret here, hidden in plain sight, the glaring fact driving the entire process, but which the media somehow never mention.

For the Tory right, the destruction of the Anglo Irish Agreement is a major goal to be achieved through Brexit. In this, they are in secret communion with their friends in the DUP.

Consider the 58 page paper by one Michael Gove, entitled The Price of Peace, published in 2000 by the Tories’ leading “think tank” the Centre for Policy Studies.

Gove argues the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement and the Anglo Irish Agreement should be annulled. And Gove concludes:

Ulster’s future lies, ultimately, either as a Province of the United
Kingdom or a united Ireland. Attempts to fudge or finesse that
truth only create an ambiguity which those who profit by violence
will seek to exploit. Therefore, the best guarantee for stability is the
assertion by the Westminster Government that it will defend, with
all vigour, the right of the democratic majority in Northern Ireland
to remain in the United Kingdom. Ulster could then be governed
with an Assembly elected on the same basis as Wales, and an
administration constituted in the same way. Minority rights should
be protected by the same legal apparatus which exists across the
UK. The legislative framework which has guaranteed the rights and
freedoms of Roman Catholics and ethnic minorities in Liverpool
and London should apply equally in Belfast and Belleek…

In such circumstances, resolute security action, the use of
existing antiterrorist legislation and the careful application of
intelligence could reduce the IRA to operating as it did in the fifties
and sixties. Combining such security measures with a political
determination not to allow Ulster’s constitutional status to be altered
by force of arms would rob the republicans of hope.
It can be done. But does any Government have the will?

Gove gets to this position through a statement of root and branch opposition to the Good Friday Agreement motivated by a classic Tory rejection of any role for the state in seeking to enhance social justice, and of affirmation that the rights of the “majority community” to rule must not be limited or mitigated. Gove objects to every measure of the Good Friday Agreement, including promotion of Catholic recruitment into the RUC, support for the Irish language, state support for businesses, prisoner releases and changes to the oath of allegiance to the United Kingdom.

It [The Good Friday Agreement] enshrines a vision of human rights which
privileges contending minorities at the expense of the democratic
majority. It supplants the notion of independent citizens with one
of competing client groups. It offers social and economic rights:
“positive rights” which legitimise a growing role for bureaucratic
agencies in the re-distribution of resources, the running of
companies, the regulation of civic life and the exercise of personal
choice. It turns the police force into a political plaything whose
legitimacy depends on familiarity with fashionable social theories
and precise ethnic composition and not effectiveness in
maintaining order. It uproots justice from its traditions and makes
it politically contentious. It demeans traditional expressions of
British national identity. And it privileges those who wish to
refashion or deconstruct that identity.

This view of Northern Ireland is shared by Gove’s colleagues in the European Reform Group. They may have accepted it was politically not possible to roll back the Good Friday Agreement in the last couple of decades, but Brexit and a hard border fundamentally undermines the Anglo-Irish Agreement and changes their whole calculation.

It is not possible to understand the current state of play in Brexit negotiations, without understanding that those effectively driving the Tory Party position do not view a hard border with Ireland as undesirable. They view it as a vital achievement en route to rolling back power sharing and all the affirmative measures which brought peace to Northern Ireland, in an affirmation of the glory and power of unionism.

It is no accident that Northern Ireland is the rock on which Brexit has foundered. It is considered Tory strategy about which, by that psychological mechanism I will never understand, the mainstream media has chosen not to tell you.


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531 thoughts on “The Price of Peace

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  • Dave

    I have long considered many conservative Unionists as anti Unionists as their policies undermine the Union. Brexit strengthens the prospect of a United Ireland within a United Britain independent of the EU based on voting reform and devolution throughout Britain. Brexit is a great opportunity to replace Brussels and City of London rule with a modern democracy as the old Catholic separatism and hostility towards Westminster gives way due to the impact of mass immigration and globalism.

  • Sharp Ears

    We are approaching Remembrance Sunday, the centenary of the Armistice. Audio visual and print media are full of reminders and we cannot miss the poppies and the Tommy silhouettes everywhere. As if we could be allowed to forget.

    Steve Bell’s cartoon refers to Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, On Passing the New Menin Gate.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/nov/06/steve-bell-on-the-armistice-centenary-cartoon

    The poem:

    On Passing the New Menin Gate, by Siegfried Sassoon

    Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
    The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
    Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate, –
    Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
    Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
    Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
    Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
    The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

    Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride
    ‘Their name liveth for evermore’ the Gateway claims.
    Was ever an immolation so belied
    As these intolerably nameless names?
    Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
    Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

    It is both sad and nicely savage.

    Are Steve Bell, Stop the War Campaign’s Treasurer and Steve Bell, cartoonist, one and the same?

    • Sharp Ears

      Ben Griffin of Veterans for Peace at the Oxford Union in 2013. Gareth Porter and Ben Sullivan supported the motion. Rory Stewart, Count NikolaiTolstoy and Malcolm Rifkind spoke on behalf of the warmongers.

      vfpuk.org/articles/i-will-not-fight-for-queen-and-country/

    • Tony_0pmoc

      Sharp Ears,

      My Grandfather from Scotland was a Music Teacher in a famous school, in London, where my Mother was born. He was an Officer and a Gentleman. He survived 4 years in The Trenches, almost certainly herding thousands of young teenagers to their almost certain deaths. His wife my Grandmother was completely outraged. She thought he was completely mad. She took my Mum and her older brother on a ship to New Zealand. She said I am leaving you. I have left your other 4 kids behind. (She was trying to save his life)

      Amazingly enough they all survived The First World War.

      My Grandfather walked. He couldn’t take the slaughter any longer.

      My Grandmother became a Medical Missionary in Africa

      My Grandfather looked after the two youngest kids in France on a Farm in Northern France.

      My Mum was a Scottish/English Peasent Girl brought up by her Dad in France…till he dropped dead of Appendicitus.

      Now she was all alone at 9 years old with her 10 year old brother.

      She always spoke Brilliant French.

      My niece found his words and note music which he wrote in a trench in France, certain he was going to die, and played it to my Mum on her 80th Birthday.

      We really do not want to do this again.

      Tony

      • Sharp Ears

        Thank you for that family history Tony.

        The One Show on BBC1 tonight was MoD propaganda. The presenters and the guests were poppied up. The male presenter is about to do The Rickshaw Challenge in aid of Children in Need. In a rich country like ours no child should be in need.

        Anyway I noticed that the route takes in ROYAL Wootton Bassett. That is the town near RAF Brize Norton wher the processions of hearses containing the coffins of dead military from Afghanistan were paraded through.

        One of the guests was Carol Vorderman. She is an Honorary Group Captain in the RAF. Why?o She was shown taking three air cadets to the US to visit the Lockheed Martin factory in Fort Worth (a mile long apparently) where F35s are produced. The cadets met the test pilots. One sat in the simulator and landed a plane onto an aircraft carrier deck. You probably know that the UK has ordered a large quantity of these planes for the two (redundant) aircraft carriers named after Her Maj and the Heir to the throne.

        The programme was outright undisguised propaganda for the military and the country’s wars.

        Sickening stuff from the state broadcaster.

        • nevermind

          The F35-B is unable to.use its vertical take off whence fully loaded with arms and fuel, making it a limited capability for use on any aircraft carrier. Too heavy overengineered/designed. Its cockpit has blind corners requiring a new helmet that projects a view via a camera.

          Nato manouvre in full flow, flying almost constant incl. during the evening.

          • Jon

            Does the F35-B represent the end of Britain building its own fighters?
            Surely better for the balance of payments, jobs, technology etc to have produced a marinised version of the Typhoon!

            Labour’s Dr. John Reid should have been imprisoned for treachery for his part in selling of the research facility at Farnborough.

    • John Goss

      A powerful poem. I have seen the memorials into which are cut almost countless names of the dead. I have seen the many graves of unknown British soldiers in Belgium. I have never found anyone who can give me a satisfactory answer to the question: Why did they answer the call? For what reason did so many ordinary people choose to kill and be killed? The solution then was rooted in the inalienable right of individuals to refuse to fight. “Ye are many, they are few.”

      Modern arms manufacturers who now profit from similar loss of life no longer have to rely on “cannon fodder” as these innocent war casualties were once collectively described. The results though are the same today. The deaths of thousands of people in foreign lands because our MPs are silent when it comes to the genocide of non-Europeans or non-Americans abroad in their own countries.

        • Clive p

          Same in WW2 when more men from independent Ireland joined the British forces than from loyalist, ‘patriotic’ Ulster

          • Loony

            What you write is true – although to put it in context the concept of “Reserved Occupation” existed in Northern Ireland but not in Eire.

            During the period 1939-45 the shipyards of Northern Ireland produced some 140 warships, 123 Merchant vessels and repaired approximately 3,000 vessels. Clearly this required a labor force.

            Some 250,000 citizens of Eire left the country during the war years – some to join the British military and others to work in factories supporting the war effort. Manifestly, for whatever reason, these people must have felt some affinity to the UK. This contention is supported by the fact that today over 850,000 Irish born citizens reside in the UK. It is estimated that some 6 million UK nationals have at least one Irish grandparent.

            Now ask yourself why the EU is so desperate to create and exploit divisions between Eire and the UK. Maybe the answer is to be found in Mathew 7: 15-20

          • Paul Greenwood

            The fact is that Men from the Irish Republic fought for Britain and the Allies in WW2 and should be acknowledged for that in both UK and the Irish Republic and respected.

        • Carmel Townsend

          Sharp Ears You are absolutely right. My grandfather from Co Meath joined the Royal Irish Rifles and was badly injured (head wound/ part of his skull has a rib put in it in France). Back in Ireland, it was replaced with a metal plate. He and other ex-servicemen were badly treated when they were demobbed and moved home. My well-off grandmother’s family refused to acknowledge him and I believe, Irish boys received little recognition until fairly recently.
          They joined the army for many reasons, often to avoid unemployment, but my grandfather believed Ireland would achieve Home Rule at the cessation of hostilities. He believed Ireland should be free of British rule.

          • Jon Rueth

            Carmel – ”He and other ex-servicemen were badly treated when they were demobbed and moved home.”

            An unfortunate consequence of wearing the same uniform as those who were executing and murdering his fellow countrypeople who stayed home to fight for the islands independence. But he had to do what he had to do in those times for his family.

            All by design.

          • Jon Rueth

            Deny a person the ability to feed, clothe and shelter their own family Paul and you do not need conscription. Not today, not in 1916.

            It was a necessity for those poor unfortunate fools, with a rotten carrot dangling from the palace balcony. Fight for us and we’ll give you independence.

            And true to their imperialist nature, they lied (again). No honour.

            Open your ears Paul. Listen to what Irish folk are telling you. They did not fight ”for” Britain as you put it above, they fought to feed their families.

            Enjoy your ‘vow’ Scottish folk.

          • IrishU

            @Jon,

            The people of Ireland joined up for many reasons. Some out of necessity, some for adventure, some out loyalty to flag and Empire and others to deliver Irish Home Rule (note Home Rule was not the same as independence but it was the wish of the majority prior to 1918). It is not for you or anyone else to judge their motivations from the comfort of 100 years later.

            I think the piece below is an excellent summary:
            https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/IrelandandtheFirstWorldWar/

            Two particular stories worth considering in the piece listed above are those of Tom Kettle and Tom Barry. Both of these men were Irish nationalists and Tom Barry went on to become a leader of the IRA during the War of Independence. Both men joined up to fight in the British Army during World War 1.

          • Carmel Townsend

            Paul Greenwood and Jon Reuth. Yes, that’s what I always wondered about because my grandfather joined up in 1915, and as you say conscription was not introduced in Ireland, so he must have gone willingly. Was it adventure? A belief that Home Rule would come quicker (that’s what he said they were promised!) Whatever it was, he kept quiet about it and I was too young to be interested in his war then! I wonder if this was the main reason he and my grandmother moved to England – the fact that his compatriots saw him and his fellow soldiers as “traitors?” John Redmond, the Irish Parliamentary party leader, encouraged boys from the south to join up, expecting some autonomy for his country at the war’s end.

        • IrishU

          Hi Sharp Ears,

          The following articles may be of interest:

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/05/irish-soldiers-who-fought-for-britain – The Forgotten Irish Soldiers
          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46101553 – From GAA Pitch to the Western Front
          https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/heroes-or-traitors-experiences-of-southern-irish-soldiers-returning-from-the-great-war-1.2394449 – Heroes or Traitors? Experiences of Southern Irish Soldiers returning from the Great War

          You are quite correct that the survivors were given a hard time. My own great-grandfather was one of those who fought on the Western Front with an Irish Regiment and was wounded in action on several occasions. He returned to his hometown just outside of Dublin and was one of the lucky few to receive a newly built house under the Homes for Heroes Scheme. This caused significant disquiet in the town where housing was generally shoddy and remained so for many years in the Irish Free State.

      • N_

        @ John

        For what reason did so many ordinary people choose to kill and be killed?

        About half of the Brits were conscripts. They joined because they were told to by those who were higher up the social hierarchy than themselves. Most volunteers joined because they were pressured from the same quarters. This is by no means a trite observation.

        At the time of WW1 by far the commonest reason that a human being killed another human being was not anger, cruelty, a dehumanising attempt to achieve a personal gain, or psychosis. It was because someone told them to do it. Capitalist culture requires widespread suggestibility. And the hierarchical figure who told them was right there in front of them telling them. Most, given the chance, didn’t actually do it. They fired to miss. Have a look at the story of Harry Patch, Britain’s last surviving soldier who saw combat on the western front during WW1. “(P)oliticians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder”. This is the man who in 2005 told Tony Blair to his face that “War is organised murder and nothing else.” (Blair whimpered off.) He also said that 11 November was “just showbusiness”.

        Even as late as the Vietnam war, there were accounts where US and Vietcong patrols would back into each other in tunnels, apologise, and then go their separate ways. Have a look at Dave Grossman’s book, On Killing, and the field of “killology” generally.

        This has changed now. Now it’s kill kill kill and whoop whoop whoop. The US army has been I__aelified. The general culture in contemporary capitalism is ever crueller and more inhumane. Video games play their role.

      • Tom

        Sadly the carnage of the First World War is a terrible example of human group-think and the power of propaganda. They went because everyone else did and they would be socially ostracised if they didn’t.
        A hundred years on, would anyone at all actually go to fight a war like that? But look at Brexit and the readiness of millions to still be conned by their government into doing stupid things.

    • Paul Greenwood

      Kipling had it better is his self-reproachful couplet:

      “If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied.”
      and

      Sassoon’s “the General”

      “‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said
      When we met him last week on our way to the line.
      Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
      And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
      ‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
      As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

      . . . .
      But he did for them both by his plan of attack. “

      • Alyson

        The film for television ‘My boy Jack’ was very moving. Kipling had inspired with his poetry so many young men to sign up to be heroes, that when his son Jack was killed on his 18th birthday, the first day he was allowed to be sent over the top, to lead his men out of the trenches against the machine guns, Kipling felt so utterly betrayed. He spent the rest of the war inviting returning soldiers into his home, asking them if they had any news of his boy, and how he had died. Daniel Radcliffe was excellent as Jack. They should have shown the film again this weekend

  • Ingwe

    Just listening to Evan Davis on PM interviewing a Trump publicist. Davis put to her that Trump’s campaign was racist, anti Semitic, hostile to immigrants etc. Her response was along the lines of what nonsense, Trump moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The chump Davis didn’t follow up and ask how this addressed the matter of Trumps’s antisemitism, thereby continuing the BBC’s perpetual conflation of anti Zionism with anti Semitism.

    • Loony

      Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is married to Jared Kushner. Kushner works for the President and is an orthodox Jew. Ivanka converted to Judaism in 2009. They have 3 children who are all being raised in the Jewish faith. It seems odd to me that Trump would manifest his anti Semitic tendencies by allowing his progeny and his descendants to be so closely associated with Judaism.

      Presumably Trump’s racism is evidenced by the fact that Black unemployment stands at an all time low. Trump is keen to celebrate this fact. But I wonder why a racist would wish to celebrate the improving economic fortunes of those of a different race?

      Is Trump hostile to immigrants or is he hostile to illegal immigrants? If you embrace illegal immigrants then by definition you must be hostile to legal immigrants – since legal immigrants are required to follow relatively complex and lengthy bureaucratic procedures and illegal immigrants are not. The only way that respect can be shown to legal immigrants is to enforce the law against illegal immigrants. Trump has made his pick – you are free (at least in the US) to manifest your non violent contempt for legal immigrants You do this by insinuation – presumably because you lack the courage to openly sneer at and despise legal immigrants.

      Has the BBC essentially dumbed down its audience or does the BBC merely reflect the inanity of it audience?

        • Loony

          Never mind Trump think of yourself.

          Do you support illegal immigration or not? If you do support illegal immigration then by definition you wish to discriminate against legal immigrants. If you do not support illegal immigration then, on this issue, Donald Trump is representing your views.

          Donald Trump is not responsible for your morality. Only you can be responsible.

      • GlassHopper

        Trump, and the UK government, support those applying through the regulated channels (even if most will not be be successful due to the numbers). Their critics are siding with the people traffickers, and wish to let in illegals at the expense of families languishing in refugee camps who’ve gone through the legal and required channels.

        It is clear that those supporting the people traffickers have extremely wonky moral compasses, and that for once, Trump and our government are in the right.

        • giyane

          grasshopper

          There are no conflicts in the world that have not had the tinder for the bonfire collected and dried, the flashpoint oil poured by their agents and the larger wood felled and amassed by themselves. OK so the arsonists, mainly USUKIS according to health and safety regulations have also prepared a bucket of sand and a bucket of water to hand. The responsibility for looking after the survivors of the ensuing conflagration rests solely on those who prepared, ignited and stoked the flames.

          But of course we know now that even in the minutest areas of government such as housing safety the government has built in clauses to prevent anybody holding government to account.
          In Syria our government prepared the civil unrest in the Muslim world by torture -rendition-brainwashing hundreds of thousands of Muslims. It then sent in special forces to ignite a flame within a peaceful demonstration. Hillary Clinton’s Lafarge built hundreds of concrete bunkers to house their secret operations and their brainwashed terrorists. Later came the overwhelming force dropped from the air by USUKIS war planes and from tanks given to Iran. The entire populations of Raqqa and Mosul were obliterated either by the USUKIS’s Islamists or by the fire service they sent in to kill them.

          All immigrants are legally allowed to claim sanctuary redress from those responsible for attacking the sovereign nations of others . Everybody wants just to live in peace in their own country and their own homes. USUKIS cannot survive by trade alone, so it has embarked on a 30 year killing spree with Israel against the Muslim nations. Everybody with half an ounce of sense knows what I am saying is true. people who come on here to shill for the neo-cons are known here as Trolls.

          • GlassHopper

            There is no single issue to have enraged me more in recent years than the NATO backed Terror campaign against The Syrian Arab Republic. I have been aware of the campaign since Sy Hersh’s “Redirection” piece for The New Yorker back in 2007.
            https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
            The last Guardian article on the subject worth reading stretches back to 2012.
            https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking

            To be called a Neocon Troll is pretty bizarre.

            But strange as it may seem to you, the issue of migration cannot be simply laid at the door of neocons, and even if it could, it does not change my position on the issue. Those pursuing entry through people trafficking gangs, can never be given preference over those going through legitimate channels. To do so is to hand over control to the headchoppers. Let’s not stoop to the same levels as our governments.

          • giyane

            glasshopper

            I suppose it’s because these continuous 30 years of war against Islam don’t directly affect any of us that we assume these refugees would be trying to come here anyway. nothing could be further from the truth. From the time that Kurdistan was protected from Saddam by John Major its economy started to boom. But Obama created Islamic State through NATO’s Erdogan in order to get Iraq to submit to colonial theft.

            The people who joined the queues of controlled immigration were those who had urgent need for political asylum because they had been CIA/MI6 agent provocateurs against powerful and determined dictators. These people had had years to plan their escape to the West and ample time to exchange ideas as to what to say to the UK authorities and what to omit. Not so the desperate refugees from Syria who are shot at by Turkish police as they scramble to rubber dinghies in the dark. A CIA henchman operating in false-flag terror in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Sudan, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Malaysia etc or nowadays in Myanmar, could learn every trick in the book what lies to tell the soft-hearted gullible wonks over here. My children were eaten by dogs etc etc…

            Forget the troll idea. I just think it’s rather high and mighty of you to suggest that the organised, ex-CIA provocateurs had more right of asylum than the desperate victims of Obama-made head-chopping Islamic State. In fact, unlike you, I don’t see the agents of MI6 and CIA as victims at all. And I think it’s rather distressing that a victim of Obama’s Islamic State terror in the form of gang rape, should be laughed at by her torturer in the EU after Erdogan has got him a veezer.

    • Nicolas

      Watch Censored Al Jazeera documentary exposing the Israel lobby in the U.S. They also did it in the UK too both at them same time of recording not surprised anymore …it’s amazing the UK one got aired yet the one from Israel got pulled .. Anti Semitic card being played too much these days .. Ingwe

      • GlassHopper

        It was a lame doco, like the UK one.
        Who needs a doco when you can see all the recent presidents having to kowtow before AIPAC on your TV screen to see if they’re up to the job?
        Hard up American taxpayers can also find out in two minutes that Israel is the biggest recipient of foreign aid, and that Egypt is second. (Jordan is up there too).
        The Al Jazeera doco was pathetic. The only interesting thing was the attempt to stop it being aired.

        • yarkob

          you’ve watched all four episodes and it’s “lame”?
          i think you may be fibbing..the last two episodes were only released the day before yesterday. it’s a breathtaking expose of the lengths of duplicity evinced by “politicians” of all stripes. to brand it as “lame” may belie some uncomfortable alliances in your part. “lame” it most certainly isn’t.

          • GlassHopper

            You are right. I have not watched the last leg. However i’ve yet to see anything of interest in the series. Perhaps because i already knew of the shenanigans involved.

    • Paul Greenwood

      Evan Davis is of course a paragon of neutrality and impartiality – that is how he got his job at the BBC.

      The best thing about the BBC is that listening to it you know exactly what its Party Manifesto is…….there is no other political grouping with such a clear exposition of its political agenda.

      It is like a Sermon from the BBC Pulpit and you go through the day knowing “What You Must Believe”

    • Rod

      Evan Davis is no chump, rather I believe he is right wing shill in the BBC’s employ and has form stretching a long way back in this regard.

      During the start of the financial crisis he gave Len McCluskey an on-air grilling while preventing him from elaborating on his argument in the same way as he allowed Danny Alexander, George Osborne and other ministers. Barry & Saville Kushner in their book : Who Needs The Cuts, wrote to Davis asking why ministers were not asked to explain the significance of the low level of national debt and borrowing on their cuts planning.

      His response was that he personally thought there were arguments to be made for not dealing with the deficit at the moment. But these need to be set out by those who want to assert them, not me.

      The upshot of that was that he knew the answers but wouldn’t tell the public what they were. Surely, that is the role of journalists to use their insight and present a fair and balanced report ?

  • Republicofscotland

    “Israeli gang convicted of hunting down, repeatedly stabbing and brutally beating Palestinian citizens of Israel with hammers and steel rods, for the “crime” of dating Jewish women; half of the assailants got off with
    nothing more than community service.”

    https://mobile.twitter.com/davidsheen/status/1059800682922946560

    https://www.haaretz.com/amp/israel-news/.premium-israeli-gang-leader-sentenced-to-prison-for-beating-up-arab-men-dating-jewish-women-1.6627192?__twitter_impression=true

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Corbyn exposes high cost of 25 years of private rail, and the figures are shocking’:
    https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2018/11/07/corbyn-exposes-high-cost-of-25-years-of-private-rail-and-the-figures-are-shocking/
    ‘…the taxpayer is putting more money into our railways than when we owned and ran them…’
    ‘…the government is ploughing in around £5bn directly each year and another £4bn into the growing debt of Network Rail. Before privatisation, it was just £2bn in today’s money….’
    All aboard the gravy train.

    • Loony

      Did you really need Corbyn to expose this? What did you think would happen when you smashed and destroyed the core engineering base of British Rail? …and why did you do this? Why because the Germans demanded it of you.

      Corbyn is appealing to the most stupid of people. It cannot be recreated because you have literally bulldozed the core base of the industry.

      There is a price to pay for craven stupidity, so suck it up losers.

      • Ken Kenn

        Are you sure Corbyn did that?

        I always thought it was Mrs Thatcher and the Chicago Boys and that he ( Corbyn ) and his mentor Tony Benn voted against the de-industrialisation of the UK.

        Leaner and fitter and all that.

        Never mind – the US will demand that we do all sorts of things if a we fall out of the EU so watch your wallet.

        Now you can’t blame Junker and co for that when it happens – surely?

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Loony November 7, 2018 at 22:11
        ‘Did you really need Corbyn to expose this?…’ No, but it is helpful that he has, and put some figures to the scam.
        And thhat he is likely to start reversing it when (Inshallah) he takes office.
        Neither I nor most of the British people wanted Privatisation – it was rammed down our throats by government, principally Thatcher.
        So ‘craven stupidity’ does not enter into it; the perps and their ‘friends’ made bundles, and as usual the taxpayers and punters paid the costs.

        • Loony

          Like I say – craven stupidity.

          The core part of British Rail has been smashed and destroyed, with some residual factory buildings turned into shopping centers. Not only is Corbyn not going to reverse any of this, he has never ever said that he intends to reverse it. Yet here you are postulating that “he is likely to start reversing it…”

      • Laguerre

        “…and why did you do this? Why because the Germans demanded it of you.”

        Nothing like a bit of Brexiter anti-EU conspiracy theory. Ooh, it was the nasty Germans! I don’t think British Rail was privatised to please the Germans.

        • Loony

          It is not a conspiracy theory – every word I wrote is supported by facts – facts that are for the most part undisputed. No doubt the existence of undisputed facts is, to supporters of the EU. like sunlight to a vampire. Hence the need to dissemble and smear.

          Only you have postulated that Germans are “nasty” and only you have claimed that the destruction of British Rail was undertaken to “please” Germans.

          I do wonder whether the evident destruction of your own intellect is because you are a captive of the EU mindset or whether you consider yourself to be some form of pro-EU shock troop tasked with pouring excrement over any fact that is not conducive to the narrative.

          • SA

            Loony
            It looks as if you wish to rewrite history, Margaret Thatcher smashed mining and industry in UK with the help of her soul mate Reagan not for the benefit of Germany but for the benefit of the city. After Britain lost its industrial base it could not resist being a net important whilst German industry continued to develop. Of course it is the German’s fault that they continued to develop thier industry and we ran down ours. And I wonder whether you are a fan of Thatcher?

      • Paul Greenwood

        Siemens is building a new factory in Hull for a contract. Hitachi Rail is in County Durham. Bombardier is in Plymouth and Derby. Just because BREL has gone does not mean they cannot build trains in UK and probably cheaper and more efficiently that is the German works Bombardier is closing down.

    • Bayard

      “…the taxpayer is putting more money into our railways than when we owned and ran them…’

      And we have a lot better rail system as a result. What the re-nationalisers want is a nationalised railway system and the same level of funding as at present. However, there is no guarantee that funding levels for a national railway would not go back to what they were before.

      Sufficient time has passed since the end of British Rail that it can now be viewed through the rose-tinted spectacles that all history is seen through in this country. The fact that BR was closing lines almost to the end of its existence and, since BRs demise, the closures have stopped and lines have actually been re-opened, seems not to be taken into account.

    • Sharp Ears

      LA celebs cough up $60 million for Israel Defense Forces at gala event
      Published time: 7 Nov, 2018

      Hollywood flocked to a gala for the Israel Defense Forces and raised a colossal $60 million for the armed force. Some of the celebrity attendees, however, faced a backlash online for appearing at the Beverly Hills event.

      The Friends of the Israel Defence Forces (FIDF) annual gala was a star-studded event attended by actors like Ashton Kutcher and Gerard Butler, with Pharrell Williams providing the evening’s entertainment.

      FIDF announced it raised $60 million at the Beverly Hilton gala, the most raised at any single one of the organization’s events. It also said the biggest donors were Haim Saban and his wife, and casino magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson and his wife, with each couple donating $10 million to the cause.

      The gala drew 1,200 attendees, the organization said in a statement that listed Andy Garcia, Fran Drescher, Ziggy Marley, David Foster and Katharine McPhee among the celebrity guests.

      READ MORE: Clinton mega-donor Saban thanks Kushner for ‘collusion’ on Israel’s behalf

      “We are thrilled that so many members of our community, including major Hollywood figures, are coming together to help us support the brave men and women of the [Israeli army]. Standing behind these heroes is one of the greatest honors in my life,” Saban, a member of the FIDF board and chair of the event said.
      https://www.rt.com/usa/443374-idf-fundraiser-hollywood-actors/

      • Paul Greenwood

        If you loo at who bankrolls films in Hollywood; who the agents are; and who founded the major studios you can see why Mel Gibson ploughed his own furrow with “Passion of The Christ” to be able to fund his own projects

  • SO.

    Might be a bit late here but i’ll say this for free.

    If the NI ‘terror’ orgs reactivate themselves over a border they won’t actually target the border.

    They’ll go right for the people (and institutions) they think are responsible for it.

    Problem is now that if they do decide to start again they’ll be missing the top down direction and leadership they used to have before so in effect will act both more irresponsibly and much more dangerously.

    That’s not a but i’d be willing to gamble on without an awful lot more information.

  • Courtenay Barnett

    The international drugs trade – as with the international arms trade are businesses.

    Governments profit while people die.

    As in the US – be it Obama or Trump and his primary concern about the billions forthcoming from Saudi Arabia – it is business as usual.

  • Mochyn69

    Village war memorials everywhere speak of the pain and anguish those communities must have suffered in these global conflagrations.

    Especially so in Welsh speaking communities where the cultural and linguistic fabric of the society would become shattered by the loss. Just one story, deserving of being much better known, is that of the story of Hedd Wyn, (born Ellis Humphrey Evans, 13 January 1887 – 31 July 1917), a Welsh-language poet who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I. He was posthumously awarded the bard’s chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Evans, who had been awarded several chairs for his poetry, was inspired to take the bardic name Hedd Wyn ([heːð wɨ̞n], “blessed peace”) from the way sunlight penetrated the mist in the Meirionnydd valleys.

    Born in the village of Trawsfynydd, North Wales, Evans wrote much of his poetry while working as a shepherd on his family’s hill farm. His style, which was influenced by romantic poetry, was dominated by themes of nature and religion. He also wrote several war poems following the outbreak of war on the Western Front in 1914.

    Travelling in Brittany recently I was struck by same thing. War memorials to dozens of village lads, ‘Maro evit hor bro’. Died for their country.

    Poignant and ironic that 100 years later only Ireland has so far succeeded in partially fulfilling that sacred desire of small nations to be free.

    >

    • giyane

      Mochyn69

      Thank you for that tribute to a Celtic artist murdered by foreigners some 2000 years after they invaded this nation.

    • Sharp Ears

      I wonder what he would have thought of the Magnox nuclear power station that was inflicted on his village. In the Snowdonia National Park. It is being decommissioned.

      Way back we were on holiday nearby and visited it. They gave tours! We must have been mad.

      ‘Trawsfynydd nuclear power station is a former Magnox power station situated in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, Wales. The plant, which became operational in 1965, was the only nuclear power station in the UK to be not built on the coast (cooling water was taken from the man-made reservoir, Llyn Trawsfynydd). It was closed in 1991. +++ Work to completely decommission the site is expected to take almost 100 years.’+++

      • Vivian O'Blivion

        The old Magnox plant at Wylfa, Anglesey is to be replaced by a new plant built to a Hitachi design. Not sure whether the Welsh Assembly controls policy on power generation through planning policy. The Scottish Government does and there are to be no new neuc plants.

    • Sharp Ears

      He said it all.

      WAR
      Why must I live in this grim age
      When, to a far horizon, God
      Has ebbed away, and man, with rage
      Now wields the sceptre and the rod?
      Man raised his sword, once God had gone,
      To slay his brother, and the roar
      Of battlefields now casts upon
      Our homes the shadow of the war.
      The harps to which we sang are hung
      On willow boughs, and their refrain
      Drowned by the anguish of the young
      Whose blood is mingled with the rain.
      — Hedd Wyn

      http://www.literaturewales.org/our-projects/poetry-of-loss/hedd-wyn-1887-1917/

  • Mochyn69

    @ Sharp Ears
    November 8, 2018 at 07:43

    Well said. Hedd Wyn’s poem, Rhyfel (“War”), remains one of his most frequently quoted works. In the original Welsh here:

    Gwae fi fy myw mewn oes mor ddreng,
    A Duw ar drai ar orwel pell;
    O’i ôl mae dyn, yn deyrn a gwreng,
    Yn codi ei awdurdod hell.

    Pan deimlodd fyned ymaith Dduw
    Cyfododd gledd i ladd ei frawd;
    Mae sŵn yr ymladd ar ein clyw,
    A’i gysgod ar fythynnod tlawd.

    Mae’r hen delynau genid gynt,
    Ynghrog ar gangau’r helyg draw,
    A gwaedd y bechgyn lond y gwynt,
    A’u gwaed yn gymysg efo’r glaw.

    Brings a shiver to the spine every time I hear it.

    >

  • King of Welsh Noir

    I remember being very struck many years ago reading Robert Graves’ ‘Goodbye to all That’. He told how the soldiers on home leave would be disgusted by the delusional jingoistic nonsense they encountered everywhere about the war, from their friends and family. Talk of the Hun being cowards and monsters etc. He said, they couldn’t wait to return to the charnel fields of Northern France where they would be among their own again. He said they fought against the Germans every day and knew they were noble and brave soldiers, not cowards. And if they occasionally committed an atrocity it was for the same reason the Tommies did: they would kill a captured soldier because they were simply too tired to guard him.

    The bullshit about war that those young soldiers encountered back home is precisely what allows it to continue and the greatest tragedy of the First World War for me is the fact that 100 years later it has not been challenged. If you want a single word to sum the grotesque lie that facilitates the pointless industrial scale slaughter of young men it is the word ‘serve’. In the coming few days we will hear it everywhere, spoken in hushed tones with fake solemnity. ‘Those who served…’ It implies there was some noble purpose to the slaughter, but hardly anyone you ask can tell you what the whole thing was really about.

    • Garth Carthy

      I agree with you.
      The admirable First World War veteran Harry Patch, who died in 2017 at 111 years of age, put it in a nutshell: “War is legalised mass murder”.

    • Andyoldlabour

      @King of Welsh Noir,
      I refuse to buy a poppy, have done for years.
      WW1 was supposed to be “the war which ends all wars” – the biggest lie ever told.
      Most people regard WW2 as the “next” war, conveniently forgetting Churchill’s assaults on the Irish, Russian Bolsheviks, Iraqis, Afghans and others, all of these events started during or immediately after WW1.
      I see “Remembrance” Sunday, as some kind of sick, morbid commemoration, celebration of the military, and wonder if this is the media and politician’s way of brainwashing people in order to ready them for more war.

      • DiggerUK

        “I see “Remembrance” Sunday, as some kind of sick, morbid commemoration”
        The point your comment fails to acknowledge is the deep sense of loss felt by any of their family, friends and former comrades. Remembrance Day is a carefully orchestrated performance to not condemn war itself, a performance that none of the original organisers thought would still be going on a hundred years later.
        Most of those who have been in the forces will be the first to condemn the politicians, and point out the nonsense causes they have been called on to fight for.

        Don’t make enemies of those you need to win to your argument…_

        • Andyoldlabour

          @DiggerUK,

          “Most of those who have been in the forces will be the first to condemn the politicians, and point out the nonsense causes they have been called on to fight for.”

          The big problem I have with that, is that we do not have conscription now, so people choose to join the armed forces in the full knowledge that they will be involved in conflicts around the World.
          They know that they will be ordered to kill people in some far off foreign land which poses no threat whatsoever to our security.
          The “nonsense causes” as you call them, have resulted in million of deaths and tens of million more people displaced in the last seventy years, and that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands who will suffer the rest of their lives from injuries and birth defects caused by the use of depleted uranium and the like.
          My late Uncle Alec was a prisoner building the Burma railroad. To his death he hated the Japanese, but he also hated war – and he never wore a poppy.

        • Paul Greenwood

          It is Sunday because the Labour Government in 1945 moved it to the nearest Sunday away from 11 Nov to stop disruption to production

      • Dave

        It’s a mistake for anti war activists to decry Remembrance Sunday as this helps the warmongers. It’s too entrenched and remains important as the wars continue. Nearly all services I have attended contain a message of peace and people can tell the difference between Remembrance and warmongering. Don’t make the mistake of Jane Fonda by burning the flag in protest at war. Instead fly the flag in protest at war by highlighting why its bad for people and country.

    • cimarrón

      The hypocrisy of our tears and sadness for those killed in our European wars, whilst still today we send our bombs to other parts of the world to kill in hundreds of thousands those whose families feel the pain of their loss in EXACTLY the same way we do.

    • Anthony

      The remembrance industry has been ramped up and militarized in recent years to make people wary of criticizing illegal invasions and bombings of sovereign states.
      This is a good discussion of what’s going on with a former British Army colonel and Iraq war veteran.

      Novara Media: War, What Is It Good For? (Absolutely Gammon)
      https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-stv6m-4f9cf7e

    • Dave

      In two world wars Russia was an Allie and they died in their millions. And yet the centenary of WWI includes the demonization of Russia that threatens WWIII. Russia defeated Nazi Germany and saved the Jews, but now Putin is described as another Hitler by the neo cons. What hope for the Palestinians?

      • Andyoldlabour

        @Dave, partially true about those facts, but you ignore the fact that Stalin allowed Hitler to use Russian air bases, re the Soviet-German military pact – 1922 to 1933. This was mainly due to the fact that the new Soviet regime didn’t really like the British very much, due to the fact that Churchill had bombed the Bolsheviks in 1919. In the 1920’s there was a huge Junckers factory outside Moscow, and in 1927 there was a massive flight training school at Lipetsk 500 kilometres from Moscow, where Soviet and German pilots and crew trained. In 1935, the German Luftwaffe had a core of 1000 pilots who had trained at Lipetsk, who were now ready to obtain further “training” in the Spanish Civil War.
        The German tanks – Panzer 1 to Panzer 1V – were built at Kazan, in readiness for the Blitzkrieg in Europe.
        The Molotov-Ribentrop pact was a joint Soviet/German plan to eliminate Poland.
        Stalin even planned to agree to let the German Kriegsmarine use a naval base at Murmansk, but this failed to happen when Hitler obviously had ideas above his station, and launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941 – the German invasion of Russia.

        • Paul Greenwood

          Stalin did not. It was decided by Frunze and the factories were put there under Rapallo Treaty. Stalin did not have the authority to decide. It was Hitler that ended the cooperation but Guderian perfected his Panzer tactics in USSR pre-Hitler. BMW had its Junkers factories in USSR. The former Luftwaffe airfield in USSR is now Russia’s main test facility for new military aircraft.

          • Andyoldlabour

            @Paul Greenwood,

            Frunze was only in office for one year – 1925, whereas Stalin was effectively Soviet leader from 1922/23 to 1953. Nobody did anything without asking Jo Stalin first.

  • Republicofscotland

    Well Trump’s somewhat mysognistic approach to women, unless he’s grabbing them you know where, when he feeks like it has backfired on him.

    I don’t know if it’s the #MeToo movement that was/is prevelant that’s empowered women a bit, or just that women don’t particularly like Trump, but a record number of women have been elected to the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

    Not only that, but two Muslim women (Democrats) made history by being elected to Congress, no doubt that won’t please Trump one little bit.

    Even Kansas got in on the act by electing its first ever native American congresswomen, (Democrat) from the Ho-Chung nation.

  • Republicofscotland

    “Numerous members of the group who sickeningly burned an effigy of Grenfell Tower during Bonfire Night celebrations on the weekend regularly attend their local Conservative Club in South Norwood – an institution officially linked to the Conservative Party through the the Association of Conservative Club.”

    https://evolvepolitics.com/exclusive-grenfell-tower-effigy-burning-group-members-conservative-party-links-revealed/

    Those idiots that produced the video, very bad taste indeed, need a kick up the backside in my opinion, yet they may face time in prison.

    However the councillors who knew that Grenfell tower was covered in dangerous flammable materials that killed dozens of people, won’t see the inside of a prison cell.

    Which is the more serious offence I ask you?

      • MaryPau!

        Really? I saw a clip of the smoking fridge where it started at least I thought that was what it was. I have been following the inquiry and I thought the flammability of the panels and the misleading way they were marketed had been well demonstrated. As had the faikure of various professionals to design and install the panels in a safe manner and others to inspect them to ensure they were safe. Plus of course the misguided focus on cost saving by the various project managers.

        shortcomings of the design. installation and FMA

        • Dave

          No there were early reports about a faulty fridge exploding, except fridges don’t explode and there was no call in of the product. A later report said a fire started near the fridge but no details given. But we are also told the occupant fled the flat! Why? As fridges don’t explode and I doubt even smoke much, surely the occupant would simply pull out the plug, throw some water or cloth over it, and then if necessary call the fire brigade. The fact this never happened is evidence of explosives, because you would flee if you knew explosives were smoking!

          Tower block flats are safe and built to contain fires within each flat, so how did the fire get outside the flat to ignite the cladding in such a disastrous way? Because there was an explosion of explosives. This is why the cause has not been announced and will await, if then, the outcome of the enquiry, although public sympathy is being deliberately reduced with a number of stories involving fraud and generous compensation. It’s true the wrong cladding was used but I would think even inflammable cladding isn’t easily ignited, again indicating explosives.

          • Mary Paul

            I can see you have made a number of assumptions without reading the proceedings of the official inquiry. I suggest you do so. Originally tower block flats were built to standards to make fires within them self contained but a lack of maintenance and then poor standards of repair and upgrade meant this was no longer the case in Grenfell. The relevant safety checks were not carried out with any degree of rigour, indeed the London Fire Brigade Officer told the inquiry he had not had any training in what checks he should carry out. The cladding, falsely claimed to be fire resistant due to “fudged” safety tests, was installed in such a way that the necessary firebreaks were not inserted at each floor to contain potential fires. some windows were open so that fires could and did escape once started and raced up the side of the building in the space created by the poorly installed cladding. As a result “The originating fire within flat 16 extended out of the kitchen window of the flat and at some point re-entered through the window of the bedroom next to the living room of flat 16 causing further damage to the flat.”

            Regarding an explosion you may like to read the testimony to the inquiry of the resident of the flat where the fire started.
            https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/06/grenfell-occupant-flat-fire-started-demands-exoneration-racist/

    • King of Welsh Noir

      No offence, but I wish people would stop referring to it as an effigy, it’s a model. An effigy is a representation of a person like Guy Fawkes.

      As to your point, I agree. The reaction to these people—calling for their arrest—is out of all proportion and yet another symbol that this country has jumped the shark in just about every respect. Of course what they did was sick but people have been telling sick jokes for as long as I can remember, at school I even heard jokes about Aberfan. It doesn’t get much worse than that but it seems to me a line is crossed when you suggest arresting the people who tell such things. I suspect a big part of all this is the new British national pastime of synchronised virtue-signalling.

    • Andyoldlabour

      @RoS,

      I find myself agreeing with more of your posts by the day.
      The Grenfell enquiry started 14/09/2017 and is still going.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44356660

      I had a theory that the Skripal fiasco was arranged to get the Grenfell story and conclusions out of the news.

  • Jon Rueth

    If only Irish and British history had more stories like this legend of a man – Tom Crean – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean_(explorer)

    ————-
    Thomas Crean (20 July 1877[1] – 27 July 1938), was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer who was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving.

    Tom Crean was a member of three major expeditions to Antarctica during what is known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911–13 Terra Nova Expedition. This saw the race to reach the South Pole lost to Roald Amundsen and ended in the deaths of Scott and his polar party. During this expedition, Crean’s 35 statute miles (56 km) solo walk across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Edward Evans led to him receiving the Albert Medal.

    Crean had left the family farm near Annascaul to enlist in the Royal Navy at age 15 but he lied about his own age as he had to be 16. In 1901, while serving on Ringarooma in New Zealand, he volunteered to join Scott’s 1901–04 Discovery Expedition to Antarctica, thus beginning his exploring career.
    —————

    Himself, Evans and a few other unsung hero’s largely ignored by mainstream history. The upper crust always take the glory.

    • Republicofscotland

      Ireland has a long history of notable people, that you don’t often hear or read about. Their feats and achievements are more often than not, obscured by British history more central to the narrative. In my opinion educational institutions should teach their own countries history first and foremost.

      Irishmen like Richard Martin, known as “Hairtrigger Dick” who fought most of his duels over animal cruelty.

      Martin put the first animal rights bill through parliament, and founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which became the RSPCA, that we now know, love and donate to.

      In recognition of this he was renamed Humanity Dick, and was much admired in France.

  • Tony

    We all have to work for peace.

    Something that would, if carried out, make the world a more dangerous place is President Trump’s threatened withdrawal from the INF nuclear weapons treaty.

    A recent article in the American Conservative magazine slammed the decision:

    “Quitting the INF Treaty and allowing New START to expire would represent the wilful destruction of the most important arms control agreements that the U.S. has, and together they will have a very dangerous destabilizing effect on the security of Europe and the U.S.”

    To help save the treaty, simply click on the link below which will send a message to your MP.

    https://cnd.eaction.org.uk/inftreaty

    Thank you.

    • Col

      The Russians are happy with the US quitting the INF treaty, despite their bluster to the contrary.

      It limited what both countries could do wrt the Chinese, and other nuclear powers.

      • Paul Greenwood

        Europe should be very unhappy because it sets Europe up as a nuclear battlefield just as during the Reagan Years and now as John Bolton wants…..fighting a tactical nuclear war in Europe and another in Asia

        • nevermind

          John Bolt on’s pecuiar two cell extremity holding his brain together, seems to think that Russia will agree to his kind of scenario, how very peculiar.

          One the apex of the first few Mirv’s has been reached and places like Mildenhall, Marham and Faslane are obliterated, the Bering strait will be the chosen path of re entry over the US mainland. To think that the boys will be in agreeance over targetting is from past cold war tactics.

          Having large munitions and useless conventional forces fight it out in Europe is a wishlist.
          one nuclear device delivered to the cauldron in the midst of the yellowstone latent but active vulcano can make the rest irrelevant to say the least.

  • Geoffrey

    An article in today’s Times smearing The Rev. Andrew Ashdown ,written by Dominic Kennedy the Investigations editor, who the Times disclosed the Foreign office regards as an “Apologist for Assad”, states that “the RAF attacked Assad’s chemical weapons facilities in response to the gassing of Syrian civilians”. The writer’s email address is [email protected] .
    It would be interesting to know how he knows more than the OPCW , and how he knows about where Assad makes his chemical weapons.

  • mike

    I am not defending Trump by any means, but CNN’s “news reporting” virtually since he came to power has been a disgrace. Most of their articles covering the Orange Balloon have been thinly disguised opinion pieces – the language used has nothing to do with news reporting. CNN have abandoned all pretence at impartiality and fact-based reporting. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that their coverage of the Trump presidency has been propaganda for the other side.

    It took CNN three years to realise their own country was helping Saudi slaughter civilians in Yemen. When Saint Barack was in charge there was no mention of it. Same with the destruction of Libya, once the richest country in Africa.

    CNN have “discovered” the Yemen conflict because they think it paints Trump as a warmonger, when of course their darling Killary is the true psychopath.

    Thankfully, a new Democrat Party is being born, one not based on Ivy League blue chip psychopathy.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Looks like Craig isn’t interested in how, why and where Dr. David Kelly was murdered.

      • Paul Greenwood

        Hutton was selected by Peter Mandelson for his sterling work in Northern Ireland as a “patsy judge” and MI5 approved

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        Neither are you interested in Kelly’s murder.

        And there are two kinds of Law Lords, ones who make the serious decisions and those who rubber stamp them. Hutton was pissed becacause he at best only carried the can for the bad ones.

        • IrishU

          Haha – you really are making this too easy.

          Your ignorance has been exposed time and time again.

          Hutton was elevated to being a Law Lord on 6 January 1997, under the Tory Government of John Major. Mandelson became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in October 1999 by which time Lord Hutton was hearing cases in London, in the House of Lords, and was no longer on the bench in NI. As for being a patsy judge, you have still offered up zero evidence of this, whereas I have pointed you to two cases, that of Peter Nash and Pvt Lee Clegg, where Lord Hutton went against the Establishment.

          There are not two kinds of Law Lords (although at least you now know there is no difference between a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and a Law Lord – progress, perhaps?). You are yet again spouting nonsense to excuse your own ignorance but it is quite amusing.

          As I offered yesterday, here is a link for the cases heard before the Appellate Committee of The House of Lords from 1999 – https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldjudgmt.htm#1999

          I realise you don’t understand the British legal system or how the Courts operate but judgements are listed by seniority, i.e. the most senior judge issues his judgement and so on. As you will no doubt be able to follow from the link above, the longer Lord Hutton served the higher he came in the order of precedence when it came to issuing judgements. Compare his position in the Pinochet judgement (last) with his last judgement issued in 2003 (second) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldjudgmt/jd030626/rus-1.htm

          The process of judgement writing and seniority in the House of Lords compared to the UK Supreme is explained rather well by Lady Hale, now President of the Supreme Court in this blog: http://ukscblog.com/judgment-writing-in-the-supreme-court-brenda-hale/ . Lady Hale served as a Lord Law and then moved to the Supreme Court and is therefore well qualified.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            Nothing relevant here to what I wrote.

            You will go to extreme lengths to hide that you don’t care in the slightest who and why Dr Kelly was assassinated, like the rest of the UK’s covert establishment.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            Found the link most interesting as Lord Rodgers had no legal position before becoming an Appeal Lord in Ordinary was ranked below Lord Hutton. Some of the Laws Lord are quite experienced while others are like Rodgers. Any ideas?

          • IrishU

            @Trowbridge,

            Lord Rodger of Earlesferry was a senior Scottish judge, in fact he was Scotland’s most senior judge as Lord President of the Court of Session, before his appointment as Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2001.

            He is not to be confused with Lord Rodgers of Quarreybank who was one of the Gang of Four (who left Labour to set up the SDP in the early 1980s) and did not serve as a Law Lord.

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        I see no such thing only other posters rightly complaining about the cover ups of the murders of Dr. Kelly, Willie McRae, Helen Murrell et al.

        I doubt you have done any charitable work comparable to that by Soros.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            You lied about me when you linked that thread which had no posts from me to show how wrong I was about some covert murders I have long complained about which the UK carried out.

            Your unidentified claims about charity work sound like just more lies.

          • John Goss

            I am sorry but you’ve lost it, not just by not knowing Hilda Murrell’s name but in so many ways. You do not even realise that when I pointed out that clicking on your name did not bring up any posts I was trying to help you. If you choose not to be helped that is your problem. But to accuse me of lying about you is nonsense.

          • Trowbridge H. Ford

            Just more lies from you. When I click on google my name, Trowbridge H. Ford, I see 2,220,00 entries. And I have not, as I recall, written an article about Mrs Murrell, only heard about her murder in relation to Willie.’s.

            People who rely on your attempts to help find they lead nowhere.

  • Johny Conspiranoid

    “In this, they are in secret communion with their friends in the DUP.”
    And also with their friends in the media.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Too many people don’t have an idea of why California is such a national basket case.

  • Sharp Ears

    We were talking earlier about Irish soldiers who took part in WW1. 45 of them were awarded Victoria Crosses and this exhibition in Limerick (where my own father was born) acknowledges their bravery.

    Our thanks to them.

    ‘A special exhibition remembering the forty five soldiers of Irish descent who were awarded the Victoria Cross for their heroism in World War I has opened in Limerick.
    .
    The ’45 for Valour’ exhibition is the work of artist Trish Taylor Thompson, a graduate of the Limerick School of Art and Design and a former presenter on RTÉ’s classical music station Lyric FM
    .
    The focus of her work is the importance of remembering, captured in a collection of paintings featuring the globally recognised symbol of remembrance, the poppy, as well as scenes of No man’s land, Flanders fields and the Menin Gate.

    One of the exhibits at the Limerick Museum features paintings of 45 individual poppies naming and remembering those men from counties across Ireland who were awarded the Victoria Cross, regarded as the most coveted of British military medals awarded specifically for valour.’

    https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2018/1107/1009360-limerick-war/

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    While I have no complaint about people who served in wars, especially bravely, being remembered, I do find it obscene for leaders who never served in any wars celebrating the end of WWI which didn’t end them at all.,

  • Alyson

    “Born on 7th November 1528, probably at the family seat of Haroldston near Haverfordwest,
    Sir John Perrot, reportedly the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, who he resembled both physically and temperamentally.
    Perrot was favoured by Edward VI, but as a Protestant during the reign of Mary I (1553–58), he was charged with sheltering heretics and imprisoned. His fortunes improved under Queen Elizabeth, and he was entrusted with the naval defence of South Wales.
    Perrot was created Lord President of Munster at a time of rebellion in Ireland and over a two year period laid waste the province to procure peace, killing and decimating the homes of those who opposed him. He returned to Wales in 1578 as Vice Admiral of the Welsh seas and was named Commissioner for Piracy in Pembrokeshire.
    In 1584, he was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland. He occupied Ulster and vigorously opposed Roman Catholicism. He then undertook the plantation of the province of Munster. This involved the distribution of 600,000 acres of land confiscated from Catholic estates to anyone willing to employ English labourers and farmers to work the land and build towns. This was an onerous undertaking and Perrot eventually asked to be recalled.
    It was inevitable that Perrot had made many enemies during his time in Ireland and on his return, they plotted his downfall. He was accused of treason and plotting against Elizabeth. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London where he died in September 1592 while awaiting execution.”

  • Neil

    I dont understand how the border issue has been able to be presented as such a road block for withdrawal. Switzerland is not in the customs union but there is a border where people can pass freely with some checks on goods, it is not particularly obstructive.

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