With a callousness that defies belief, the British government continues to pursue and persecute Chagossians in pursuit of the genocide they initiated on the community in 1971. This blog has been campaigning for the Chagossians for over ten years, but following the recent resounding condemnation of the British government at the International Court of Justice, and the massive vote at the UN General Assembly for Chagos to be returned to Mauritius, thankfully the issue is becoming better known. The SNP are to be congratulated for initiating and leading a debate at Westminster this week to demand that the UK respects the International Court of Justice decision (which the Tories are refusing to do).
You may be interested to know that, having spent some of your subscriptions for two years on paid promotion of the blog to targeted audiences on Facebook, it was my article analysing at length the disgraceful British political actions over Chagos, particularly by New Labour, which caused Facebook to ban me from all Facebook advertising. I am still banned.
When the British government forcibly deported every single Chagossian from their islands between 1967 and 1971 to make way for a US nuclear weapons base, a few of them eventually found their way to the UK, being at the time British subjects. The small British Chagossian community is very active. Steven Leelah’s grandfather was one of the original deportees and his mother is a UK citizen. Steven had his right to remain in the UK refused by the Home Office, and when he turned up to report as required pending his appeal, he was arrested and imprisoned in “immigration detention” pending deportation. Just where they intend to deport him is an interesting question – his father is Chagossian and his mother is British – certainly not to Chagos, where the islanders are still forbidden from their own homes.
This is yet another example of the vicious and callous brutality which was injected, deliberately, into the Home Office by Theresa May and her “hostile environment” policy, which is no more and no less than the institutionalisation of racism as government policy. It goes hand in hand with the deprofessionalisation of the “Border force” and the contracting out of most of its functions to for profit companies.
You may find it hard to believe, but I worked very closely with officers of the old “Immigration Service” when posted in Lagos, Warsaw and Accra and formed many good friendships with members. They were career civil servants and included individuals who were sensible, humane, erudite and even kind, and often took a real interest in understanding the cultures of the people with whom they were working abroad. All that has now gone and been replaced by minimum wage teens box checking applications, and Serco and Group 4 thugs “enforcing”, all for profit, and in pursuit of the objectives of racism.
That the UK should compound the world renowned disgrace of its Chagos brutality with this treatment of Steven Leelah is jaw dropping. I really am incandescent with rage over this. Please do help by contributing to his fundraiser here.
Tories are permitted to ride out any level of brutality and callousness in their immigration policies. A week or so ago the centrist media again unironically trumpeted Theresa May’s “Windrush Day” (“celebrating the contribution of Britain’s Windrush generation”). Amber Rudd, the Home Office minister who was forced to resign over the Windrush scandal, has been totally rehabilitated by centrist media as one of the country’s great voices of reason. The racism and incompetence of the Tory government (and its next leader) is fine. Apparently the country’s big problem, according to the centrist commentariat, is Jeremy Corbyn.
If Corbyn is elected, I rather suspect you will discover that his policies are identical despite all the rhetoric. Much as, in the US, there has been no real change in policies since Reagan. Our governments, at every level both elected and uneleceted, have become (or perhaps been overtaken by – it doesn’t really matter which) organized criminals whose motivation is skimming as much profit as they can. Almost all the laws and regulatory changes that are passed today, whatever their ostensible purpose, are actually designed merely to allow some entity or group to skim profits off everyone else.
These criminals do not hurt the rest of us because they hate us. The damage they do, the brutality and callousness to which you refer, is simply collateral damage in pursuit of their profits.
Sadly Corbyn’s election won’t change a thing, and might actually make things worse.
I suspect that the only way to improve things is a massive change in education and culture. We need to teach logic, philosophy, critical thinking and disrespect for authority, and we need to raise a generation of children who value truth, honour and integrity ahead of money and power. And it may be that such a cultural change cannot be effected.
You will need a more than the American experience on which to base a claim Corbyn would be no different. The US has seen no political change because its parties are essentially two wings of the same bird of prey — wholly owned subsidiaries of the big business interests who write their policies.
Corbyn has always opposed big business ownership of politics and of the public realm in general, as well as British support for America’s imperial wars. That’s why he horrifies the political class and commentariat. The political transformation he and McDonnell are intent on instituting would also be a major help in reversing the trend in societal values you mention. If they fail it will be due to the people Craig highlighted in his recent Moment in History post. Mandatory re-selection for Labour MPs ought to have been instituted when Corbyn was in a position of great strength after the 2017 election.
Corbyn is no more horrifying to the political class than Trump was, although they espouse different philosophies (actually it’s not really clear whether Trump espouses any philosophy at all :-)). But Corbyn will no more succeed in his aim of changing big business ownership of politics than Trump had been able to “drain the swamp”. The political class in the UK will close ranks and stymie him at every turn, just as they have Trump in the US.
It’s also sadly the case that the socio-economic system Corbyn wishes to institute, requires more centralization of power and is even more susceptible to corruption than the one he wants to replace. So, even should he succeed in the changes he wishes to institute, corruption would return faster than ever, although the power might end up in different hands. Political appointees, party functionaries, and union bosses are just as corruptible as corporate officers and bankers.
The difference is that (as your own post at 15:26 makes clear) neoliberalism enshrines corruption as an ideal. At least those on the Left have to be hypocrites in order to be corrupt. (And Corbyn is no hypocrite.)
There is little similariity with Trump, who is just one more faithful servant of big capital and billionaire donors. Their concern with him has always centred on his crude presentation, which is stripping away much of the faux noble mystique that validates US hegemony.
With Corbyn it is genuine fear that he will start reducing inequality and end the UKs role as faithful imperial lapdog.
I don’t agree that neoliberalism “enshrines corruption as an ideal” (as an aside I prefer the word “facsism” to “neoliberalism”; I don’t think a new word is necessary to describe the same old phenomenon) any more than socialism “enshrines corruption as an idea”. It is simply that both systems feature heavily centralized power structures and hence present fertile breeeding grounds for corruption.
“There is little similariity with Trump, who is just one more faithful servant of big capital and billionaire donors.”
I’m not sure it’s hugely germane to my main argument, but I’m skeptical that Trump is a faithful servant of people who didn’t want him to be president. If he were a faithful servant of people who didn’t want him to stand, then how did he come to stand? Or are you saying that he is usually faithful, but his decision to stabd was a single act of faithlessness on the part of a man who is otherwise faithful?
It seems more likely to me that he is not a faithful servant of the existing establishment and that, while he is not diametrically opposed to everything the establishment desires, he does genuinely
(a) oppose endless war
(b) oppose immigration (I’m not making any statement one way or the other about whether this ia good thing, merely that it is clearly an establishment policy)
(c) oppose the existing “free trade” arrangements that govern world trade to the benefit of the corporatist, merchant class.
And even if Trump is a stool pigeon, ostensibly espousing policies he has no intention of actually implementing, that doesn’t logically invalidate my argument which is that the establishment will succeed in preventing Corbyn from doing what he wants.
In reply to David’s post at 19:52:
There is not enough space in the comments section of a blog to discuss this sidetrack (let alone to get back on whatever track we were on before!). I’ll be as brief as I can.
I scarcely doubt that neoliberalism and fascism are related; but conflating the two distinct terms of a relation makes the relation itself impossible to describe as anything but a tautology, a falsehood, or some confusing mixture of both.
Entire books have of course been written on both topics. I know little about either topic, but let me refer to two short books in the Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press.
Pages 9-10 of Steger and Roy’s book Neoliberalism quite clearly defines neoliberalism as an economic doctrine that arose in reaction against Keynesianism [if that’s a word!].
Fascism is more protean, and Passmore’s book Fascism was rewritten for its second edition in order to take account of the profound difficulty of definition, but page 5 of the book lists a variety of qualities commonly attributed to fascist movements.
The list of qualities attributed to fascism scarcely overlaps at all with any definition of neoliberalism. Perhaps the only close link is via Mussolini’s equation of fascism with corporatism – whatever exactly that is! 🙂
To repeat, this doesn’t mean that you’re wrong to identify the two movements. Indeed it seems vital to me to link the economic doctrine of neoliberalism with military aggression by the United States, in particular. Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine is good on this sort of thing, I think, and perhaps you can also recommend some reading.
But one cannot make such an identification by simply using the same word for the two different-but-related things, in a way that begs the question, and confuses the issue.
Still, I hope we can at least agree on the need to “raise a generation of children who value truth, honour and integrity ahead of money and power”.
(On a personal note, I bollixed everything up very badly as a father, and as a result I’m estranged from my daughter, who unfortunately seems very much bound up with “identity politics”. Still, I think that in her own way she does fit your description of what her generation needs to be like.)
It’s also sadly the case that the socio-economic system Corbyn wishes to institute, requires more centralization of power and is even more susceptible to corruption than the one he wants to replace. So, even should he succeed in the changes he wishes to institute, corruption would return faster than ever, although the power might end up in different hands.
Corbyn is a moderate old school social democrat. While I agree with your point that, if elected, he will face immense opposition from the status quo and have a very difficult time implementing his policies, your assertion that the changes to the system he proposes will make it much more vulnerable to corruption than it is presently, is simply ludicrous. Are you seriously suggesting that the centre-left social democratic governments that were ubiquitous in the UK and continental Europe before neoliberalism took hold were more corrupt than the present-day governments in these places? You’ve swallowed American neoliberal/right wing Kool Aid that letting a bunch of predatory capitalists buy politicians and enrich themselves at the tax payer’s expense, in what amounts to massive legalized corruption, is preferable to a “centralized” government that keeps the predators in check and provides programs and services that ordinary citizens desperately need.
Sorry, friend, you don’t have a leg to stand on here. Can you even name any specific policy proposals Corbyn has made and explain how they are supposedly going to make the system more corrupt than it is under the current cabal of empire worshiping thieves, scam artists and insane war mongers? Didn’t think so.
What he said. 🙂
“Are you seriously suggesting that the centre-left social democratic governments that were ubiquitous in the UK and continental Europe before neoliberalism took hold were more corrupt than the present-day governments in these places? ”
No. I have not made that suggestion. I am however suggesting that the rate of growth of corruption under those social democracies was quite high.
My argument is that power breeds corruption. And that corrupt people with power tend to aggregate more power to themselves thus breeding more corruption, and that this feedback loop tends to spiral out of control until societies collapse and reset themselves in some way. I am further suggesting that the rate of growth of corruption is related to the degree of centralization of power. And I’m also perfectly willing to accept that there are many other factors that play into this dynamic. I have mentioned education and culture. A strong leader with integrity can also have an impact, and thus the level of corruption can appear to ebb and flow for a while much as the ebb and flow of individual waves breaking on a beach are superimposed on top of a rising tide. But in the end the tide wins and the water rises steadily higher up the beach.
So what I am suggesting is that the centre-left social democracies required a considerable degree of coercive power in order to implement their policies of high taxation and regulation, and consequently corruption grew under them. And that as that corruption grew, those governments continued to pass more corrupt laws, aggregating more power to themselves and their predatory paymasters until we have arrived at today. Our governments lurch between “right” and “left” whatever those terms even really mean, but each government claims more powers than its predecessor while only rarely relinquishing any powers that were claimed before, and thus the tide continues to rise.
“You’ve swallowed American neoliberal/right wing Kool Aid that letting a bunch of predatory capitalists buy politicians and enrich themselves at the tax payer’s expense, in what amounts to massive legalized corruption, is preferable to a “centralized” government that keeps the predators in check and provides programs and services that ordinary citizens desperately need.”
I don’t think I’ve swallowed that kool-aid, although it’s always very difficult to know what kool-aid one has or hasn’t swallowed isn’t it? But I do believe that freedom and free markets are the best defense against corruption rather than centralized state power. Because centralized state power does not keep predators in check, nor does it provide programs and services that ordinary citizens desperately need. Instead it becomes the predator, either directly itself or because it falls into the hands of the predatory capitalists.
What makes a predatory capitalist predatory? You said it yourself, it is his purchase of a politician. And why does he buy a politician? To wield the power of government on his own behalf. If you make government more powerful, you are playing right into the hands of the same predatory capitalists who will rub their hands together in glee at the thought of what they will be able to do with these new extra powers which are now at their disposal.
“Sorry, friend, you don’t have a leg to stand on here. Can you even name any specific policy proposals Corbyn has made and explain how they are supposedly going to make the system more corrupt than it is under the current cabal of empire worshiping thieves, scam artists and insane war mongers? Didn’t think so.”
Corbyn has many proposals that will require the exercise of some new power and centralize government further: higher taxes for the rich, re-nationalizing the railways, “quantitative easing for people”, etc. etc. If he does not give up more powers than he takes, then corruption will increase. And I do not see which powers he plans to give up.
If you truly want to reduce corruption then, in my view, we need to
– eliminate corporate personhood and limited liability
– eliminate the bank of england, and all legal tender laws
– remove the state’s prosecutorial discretion from our justice system, and allow private individuals to bring criminal prosecutions
– make judges answer to the people and not the state (various mechanisms might work – I’m not tied to any one of them so am just stating the general principle)
– at the start of every jury trial, instruct every juror that their job is to try the law as well as the crime
– eliminate intellectual property laws
– massively reduce regulation of business (the vast majority of regulation acts to prevent competition from smaller competitors and hence aids the largest corporate interests at the expense of everyone else)
– massively reduce the wealth redistribution from working people to politically connected interests by eliminating the income tax
I hope you would at least agree that those ideas would not be popular with most predatory capitalists.
You are not wrong.
But the depths to which they are prepared to go in search of that profit are breathtaking.
Not only are they deliberately damaging their customers with the products they have had mandated, but the products are not providing a single one of the benefits claimed for them when they were mandated. And when research papers that demonstrate the extent of the damage being are published, the establishment who mandated a not only useless but also dangerous product attacks the messenger because what has become a religion formed out of ignorance may not be challenged.
If this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_MgMN-rhi8g&feature=youtu.be# is still on YouTube it is worth a watch before it is censored in the name of protecting potentially huge profits.
Sadly I find nothing breathtaking any more. The society, institutions, and legal system we have created literally guarantee these types of behaviour and outcomes.
When it comes to the profit motive Wakefield’s a good example! He took £435,000 from a group of US lawyers involved in an anti-vax case, had patented a replacement measles vaccine and estimated he’d make £45m from the sale of autism testing kits.
He’s an utter fraud, the anti-vaccine movement is killing children and that stupid video ought to be banned.
“If Corbyn is elected, I rather suspect you will discover that his policies are identical despite all the rhetoric.”
If that were the case there would not be such a coordinated campaign across the entire right-wing establishment, including the Tories, the corporate media, the security services, the US state dept. and now the civil service, to smear and defame decent people in the Labour party.
I disagree. There is a coordinated campaign against Corbyn just as there was against Trump and for the same reasons. Corbyn, like Trump, is not part of the existing establishment. Those who currently hold power would much prefer that Corbyn is not elected. They would have preferred that Trump was not elected either.
Both Corbyn and Trump espouse causes which are not to the benefit of the establishment.
But that does not mean that either can be successful in their aims once elected. Trump has faced opposition at every turn and achieved few of his goals. The most threatening to the establishment of Trump’s goals are ending the endless war, and immigration reform, and on those he has been completely blocked.
Sadly I doubt Corbyn will fare any differently.
David, regrettably I fear you’re right about a Corbyn government although I don’t agree that the system Corbyn would wish to implement necessarily results in corruption. Rather like Trump being controlled by the American deep state and the military industrial complex, the security services here and capital, through the the operation of the City, would undermine any real changes the government tried to bring about.
Representative democracy, as practiced in the U.K., will change nothing. For that sort of change we should be following the gilets jaunes and organising locally without being led by leaders who seek only to make capitalism work.
@ David July 5, 2019 at 18:54
There is a huge difference between Corbyn and Trump.
Trump is a crook through and through, a liar and an ignoramus. He had some very powerful backers, and delivered on virtually anything they asked for (Jerusalem Embassy, acceptance of ownership of illegally occupied Golan, huge annual aid budget, signed into law. So far he hasn’t delivered a war against Iran, but he is edging that way. And of course he nobbled Congress’s attempt to stop arms sales whilst Saudi Arabia was genociding Yemen.
And though no major new war has occurred on ‘his watch’, multiple smaller, little-mentioned wars are being carried on.
Then there is of course Venezuela. Sure Trump’s a puppet, but a super-thick one.
Yesterday, on 4th July, he praised the various US armed forces groups, praising the air force for ‘taking the airfields’ in the War of Independence!!!
Corbyn on the other hand is an extremely good man, a true politician for the people, not the Corporations and Banksters, with their wars and grand larceny from the tax payers.
If he succeeds against the massed ranks of the PTB and MSM, and foreign 5th Columnists, it will be a miracle, but like all miracles, a very welcome one.
I disagree, in part I have a different opinion what constitutes Establishment. Trump is second (third?) generation rich person, dabbling in politics for decades in the “giver” role, contributing to election campaigns on everybody who could directly or indirectly influence decision that a real estate developer or casino operator faces daily, schmoozing with politicians and greasing their palms. In his declined years he decided to be a “populist” using a mix of lies and few “genuine” issues, his horizons are narrow but he is a genuine expert on marketing and decent with acting — ad libbing may be weak, but he makes up with panache.
99% of Trumpian “heresies” are of the kind that Establishment does not care one way or another. Wedge issues that provide useful circus for the masses. Corbyn’s heresies undermine principal components of Establishment faith, namely innate goodness and immaculate conception of Our Lord and Savior, Israel, NATO, and additionally, EU, the monarchy, our beloved Trident etc. If that were not bad enough, he would like to increase taxes on the rich and distribute the loot to undeserving poor, something that shall not be forgiven is this life and the next.
That said, a putative parliamentary victory of Labour under Corbyn will probably activate “plan B” of the Establishment, with PLP being populated by Labour Friends of Israel and other invertebrates.
@Paul
“There is a huge difference between Corbyn and Trump.”
I agree that there is a huge difference between Corbyn and Trump, and I agree with most of your critcisms of Trump. But I don’t think that invalidates my point, which was not to equate Trump with Corbyn to any greater extent than that both espouse at least some policies that are unpopular with the establishment. And then to point out that thus far Trump has not been able to implement his anti-establishment policies owing to the opposition he has faced from the establishment, and to suggest that Corbyn will face similar opposition and is unlikely (in my view) to be any more successful implementing his anti-establishment policies. He too will be allowed to implement those policies which the establishment favor.
I also agree that Trump’s support of Israel is perfectly acceptable to the establishment and note that he has faced no significant opposition from anyone to his attempts to implement pro-Israel policies.
@Piotr
“99% of Trumpian “heresies” are of the kind that Establishment does not care one way or another. Wedge issues that provide useful circus for the masses.”
I disagree with this. Trump has at least two policies to which the establishment are strongly opposed:
1. His attempts to withdraw from the middle east and to make peace with Russia. Huge sums of money are made by some very powerful people from the war machine and control of the middle eastern energy supplies.
2. His anti-immigration stance. Immigration is a core establishment policy which serves three aims:
– cheap votes
– cheap labor
– extending the pension ponzi.
And the establishment has pulled out all the stops to prevent Trump making progress on these two fronts.
This has got off topic from Craig’s post which is almost certainly my fault, and is right at the top of the comment section. So I am not going to post any further replies here as I do not want to be mistaken for a troll.
David, you clearly haven’t read a single thing corbyn has written in the last 2 years or paid attention to policy statements by him and his close allies. if he was what you like to kid yourself, do you think anyone would have stopped him becoming PM? d’oh.
okay david, you’ve given your answer to that rebuttal already, i now notice. well, if i have time i’ll come back and prove you wrong to yourself and your opinion will change. but at the moment i’m far too busy enjoying life.
Dear Prime Minister May,
We, the people who are from the Caribbean are so grateful for the Empire ‘Windrush Day’ – not least of all coming from a Tory Government. The entire experience of the Empire, for us, the people of the Caribbean from the days of John Hawkins onwards have undeniably been one of overwhelming benefit for us as can undeniably be termed one of the greatest humanitarian experiences the world has ever seen.
Please do not pay the least attention to what Xavi has said:-
” again unironically trumpeted Theresa May’s “Windrush Day” (“celebrating the contribution of Britain’s Windrush generation”)”
What would he know of how well we have been treated.
Thank you for your presence in the Caribbean and for this wonderful celebration in Britain.
Appreciatively,
Courtenay Barnett ( for and on behalf of the people of the Caribbean and for all those living in Britain).
Agree, Courtney. The Windrush generation has never had such a friend and champion in 10 Downing st.
I wish people would stop saying “Windrush generation”. You wonder whether if they were told to use terms such as “Tarbrush Generation” or “Caught Too Much of the Sun Generation” they’d do it equally without thinking. “Windrush” and “Empire Windrush” are Daily Mail readers’ and Tory racist dogwhistle terms for “black British” or “black West Indian British”, as anyone who has properly looked at racism in this country can confirm. The Empire Windrush may have been the name of the ship seized by Britain from Germany that brought some West Indian immigrants to Britain in 1948, but they were not the first people to arrive here from the West Indies. The ship sank to the bottom of the sea in 1954, several years before the big rise in immigration from the West Indies in the late 1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s. Meanwhile not all West Indian immigrants to Britain have been black. Anyone who uses this term while not wanting to be a racist has been had.
Speaking of racism…here is the latest from Boris Johnson: there are “too many parts of our country” where English is not spoken as a first language. Yeah, like in a few parts of Scotland and much of Wales and at the illegal Jewish schools in London, But no, he doesn’t mean any of those). Apparently “some communities” are not doing enough to integrate. But “the story of communities that have come to London and made their lives in London is amazing”. (Note how “community” is also a dogwhistle term here. Very few whole “communities” have come to London or anywhere else in Britain. People have. But for the right wing racist scumbag where black people are concerned it’s the skin colour that counts most. If you’re black you must be part of the “black community”. This is an informal version of having “Black” written in your identity documents, as in apartheid South Africa.) “I want everybody who comes here and makes their lives here to be, and to feel, British – that’s the most important thing – and to learn English,” says this foul man Johnson. What he’s really talking about is keeping people out and pouring crap on many who have settled here, or whose parents or grandparents did.
He’s saying there are too many foreign scum here with their foreign ways. Just because he’s not saying it openly doesn’t mean he’s not saying it. It’s looking as though he’s in this contest to win it. It seems that the organisation behind him are even spinning the “MI6 doesn’t trust him” story.
Bannon and he will have studied their market, the Tory membership. Dogwhistle terms against non-white foreigners are what turns those b*stards on more than anything – they relish the knowingness among their own types, and their own white-power “our day has come” “community” feeling.
N_
“I wish people would stop saying “Windrush generation”. You wonder whether if they were told to use terms such as “Tarbrush Generation” or “Caught Too Much of the Sun Generation” they’d do it equally without thinking. “Windrush” and “Empire Windrush” are Daily Mail readers’ and Tory racist dogwhistle terms for “black British” or “black West Indian British”, as anyone who has properly looked at racism in this country can confirm.”
You do have a valid point ‘N’. The presence of Black people in Britain goes back centuries. I read where there was a Black Roman General at the helm there many centuries ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_African_presence_in_London
For me? Tired of it actually. But have to live with it even although I don’t accept it (i.e. racism). Read on:-
http://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-sermon-governor-northam-victor-vanquished-and-the-rest-of-us/
This is beyond crazy – to where to they want to ship out Steven Leelah ?
My guess would to wherever he was born and/or spent the first 14 years of his life before arriving in the UK. Presumably his mother was granted British Citizenship after he was born, otherwise he would automatically be a British Citizen by descent.
In any case, it is of course utterly deplorable that the British Government has chosen to ignore the ICJ and the UN General Assembly.
Mauritius is the obvious place I guess….
Thanks for bringing this wholly inhumane action by the Home office to our attention. I hope that he can afford legal representation before the day is out and the chaotic Government realises that they can’t just secret such shameful actions past us anymore.
To the HO;
“Respect the UN human rights reports on the treatment of the Chagossians, a wholly self inflicted malaise on your part, and start negotiating a return for these people to their ancestral homeland.”
Beyond disgusting. Perhaps the UN could support provision of Asylum for Leelah in a humane country where the slide into Corporate Fascism is not so advanced. The vile and lawless regime in the UK is no longer safe for anyone – let alone those whose Racial Purity score is beyond the mandatory 50% minimum.
@ Jarek Carnelian July 5, 2019 at 10:50
If it is inevitable that he is deported, perhaps Timor Leste would grant him asylum, provided he was agreeable.
“He seems to have got fed up taking the flack for the criticisms and ‘controversies’”.
I think you mean “flak”.
flak (also flack)
n noun
1 anti-aircraft fire.
2 strong criticism.
ORIGIN
1930s: from German, abbreviation of Fliegerabwehrkanone, literally ‘aviator-defence gun’.
Not “flack”.
flack1 North American informal
n noun a publicity agent.
n verb publicize or promote.
DERIVATIVES
flackery noun
ORIGIN
1940s: of unknown origin.
Boris Johnson again. From a BBC article published 27th August 2018 entitled ‘Chagos Islands dispute: UK ‘threatened’ Mauritius.’
‘Next week the issue will come before judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
“We have had verbal threats,” said the Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, in an interview with BBC News.
He did not dispute a report that Britain’s former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had called him personally to pressure Mauritius to back down on its demand that the islands be returned after decades under UK control.
“Unfortunately, we have been threatened with retaliation… on issues of trade and on issues of investment, you know, and on our relationship with the UK,” Mr Jugnauth added.’
There has been bullying and blackmailing by the UK in this affair over years.
____
We learn today that May had ”denied’ Boris Johnson full access to intelligence while he was foreign secretary.’ Is she favouring Mr Unt as her successor by putting this out.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-intelligence-theresa-may-foreign-secretary-tory-leadership-downing-street-a8989196.html
Sharp,
” “Unfortunately, we have been threatened with retaliation… on issues of trade and on issues of investment, you know, and on our relationship with the UK,” Mr Jugnauth added.’”
Again – Sharp Ears,
” “Unfortunately, we have been threatened with retaliation… on issues of trade and on issues of investment, you know, and on our relationship with the UK,” Mr Jugnauth added.’
Regarding that comment – it seems that someone is in with good company.
What else but the same is happening when the US circumvents, sabotages and ignores the jurisdiction of the WTO to then launch the global trade war against China et. al.
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD!
Hi Craig, I’ve been banned from facebook for weeks, will be able to use it again in another week or two. I went to twitter in the meantime and told israeli-flag-waving racist british/american white-supremacists that denying today’s holocausts whilst pretending to lament holocausts in general doesn’t wash. when i said that holocaust ghosts/spirits are on my side, not theirs, and ‘helped’ me with my trading algorithms, the comment was, amongst others, marked by twitter as hate speech and i was banned from there too. within 48 hours, maybe it was 24, the holocaust spirits provided their own justice. my algorithm evolved and increased its money-making speed by a factor of 10 to 100 and i am finally TOTALLY financially free (nothing to donate yet, give me time) – i no longer now have to wait a year for investment, with a mere 50 quid i can take off. i’ll put the link to where i have narrated all of that but for the last, delicious, part, in the website box on this form
justice is justice, whether ignorant fools use ‘laws’ and ‘rules’ to implement their warped perverted form of so-called justice!
imagine. they actually tried to claim that my claim that the holocaust spirits are on my side as, per se, on its own, offensive and hateful! it is unsurprising to me, in the end, that those very spirits stuck it to the censorious racists. i am sooo free now. it has shown me that all my activism and effort was 100% right and i was absolutely doing what i should. as for now – in a new state of a sorosian future – i will do similar to old george, that’s for sure. there are anti-semites in eastern europe, i recently read, claiming soros is ‘the puppet master behind corbyn’! too funny that the strongest evidence possible exists that anti-semites UTTERLY HATE corbyn.
anyway. sorry to hear about their abuse of you, eh? but what do they really win. as for my algo – the tweak which turned it from being able to guarantee profits in about 50 trades, to being able to guarantee them in about 15, at the same time as speeding up trades per month from about 25 to about 85, was actually one tiny change to a process which i had previously spent many many months making second nature to me, so in other words the gift was practically intantaneous and effort free, ie the gift from the ghosts of all holocaust victims
anyway, check out tvhobo.com some time, naturally in this time of being banned from facebook i’ve really made that particular pen quite a focused one. but for now, other than weekends, am going to focus on some short term cash creation for a bunch of months.
So – in a most cowardly manner – I shall not post my analysis of the Chagos Islanders ICJ decision on Facebook lest I be delivered the same fate as one, Craig Murray:-
http://blog.effectivelearning.net/sermon-call-of-the-wild-and-the-rule-of-law/
whatever problem you had with FB, Craig, as long as people share it who are still on FB , something will stick.
In sympathy with your treatment by Face Book, they are most certainly not a social media that anybody should put trust in.
I’m a member of several Face Book Groups, with one exception all local and community based, the one other, being a left leaning political group largely supportive of the leader of the Labour party.
It was to this group that i shared a link to an article on RT relating to the Guardian’s relatively new closer working relationship with the secret intelligence services and the email that appeared to confirm it.
Whenever i visited the group my post was there, well down the feed and devoid of either like, emoji or comment. Curious I thought, because the site has a lot of daily traffic and it’s very rare that any post escapes group members’ comments.
On privately contacting friends/family (not FB friends, I have very, very few of those) and asking them to visit the site – they confirmed there was no evidence of my post at all.
Doubtless this rather obvious censorship explained the lack of the FB group reaction.
I have heard of similar tales before but never been subject to it.
That’s funny because I communicate with all my friends by leaving letters in a little box the CIA puts outside my doorstep each morning. I find it so convenient. Strangely I’ve noticed that whenever I feel I’m getting somewhere in being critical of the CIA, my letters seem to “disappear”. Do you think I’m naive?
@Yr Gen Hof – You could try creating an email list. That works by members sending mail to a list address from which it then gets circulated to everyone who is a member. There’s nothing to stop people including links in their emails, or attachments if they wish.
It’s really easy. The principle of how it works is also easy to understand. With this method of communication within a group, no company is running an algorithm to decide which mails get favouritised and which don’t. The problem isn’t doing it. It’s finding people who aren’t a bunch of moronic Facebookheads, and who have the minimal self-respect and independence of thought that makes them capable of understanding what it means and why it’s good, and who aren’t too scared of not following the crowd that they’d never get off their butts to sign up.
This says something of the scale of the problem. So long as “radicals” think they’re going to wise the world up by posting to Twitter or Facebook, we’re f*cked. The CIA is not our friend.
This happened in the late-noughties. Before that, many activists collaborated using Indymedia and similar services. But they found that they could recruit young keyboard warriors more effectively using Facetwat, and this led to the decline of Indymedia.
Is it possible Craig was banned from Facebook ads due to the previous article? Flagged as “fake news” due to Craig’s sensible disbelief over the Skripal incident?
Either way it shows that Facebook will silence genuine inquiry whilst leaving toxic bullocks free reign.
Hopefully the government will eventually recompense the Chagossians to the fullest amount. Once we have a government which has the tiniest bits of compassion.
Facebook has some strange criteria for banning ads. Recently I tried to advertise on the Facebook the stuff I make and the adds were refused as the adult products with the notice how to correctly advertise sex stuff !
Strange it is, must I say, I’m not naive and I supposed that the western people are much more sophisticated in matters of sexual pleasure than russians, but… really? Hairpins??? Jewelry for dreadlocks???
not that uncommon here, I should know (I used to work in medical records).
The awful thing is that it will be your name. Mines Kovalenko so have the same issue
Thanks for highlighting this issue.
For anyone wanting more info, might l suggest watching this documentary ?
http://johnpilger.com/videos/stealing-a-nation
£10 contributed as ‘justice costs money’.
Interesting to know what the legal status of UK-US contract to allow US base/outsourced torture to occur on the island, if the expulsion of Chagossians is now deemed illegal and their removal was a condition of the contract going live. is USA equally guilty for that act or are they allowed to be amoral interests pursuers simply taking advantage of the thuggery of others?
Dear Craig, when I say, “thank God for Craig Murray: thanks for what he feels, thinks and writes”, I say it with some depth. I really appreciate what you do. I know money will help somewhat and please know that I will do what I can.
At this point is there anybody even capable of reigning in the Anglozionist empire? Seems the British state has absolutely dispensed with even the notion of attempting to conform to international law, common diplomatic conventions etc in the last few years and is now operating on bare faced abuse of totalitarian power alone for those interested enough to look. If Britain can shrug off the ICC and the UN without so much of a peep from the media, who is going to put a stop to this?
How are we supposed to change this if the vast majority of journalists abdicated their positions of responsibility in favour of simply being rewarded for reporting what they’re told to say? A free press operating with honesty and integrity, functioning as it should, would go a long way towards undoing the last 3 or 4 decades of damage to our society but I’m not going to hold my breath, somehow. All I want to see is a better standard of living for those of us carrying the yoke of capitalism with our labour but short of a full blown violent revolution (which again does not guarantee the outcome we’re seeking), how are we to get these psychopaths to relinquish the power they’ve accumulated? This is before we consider the bigger existential questions of what a new society should look like, even. There must be an alternative, I don’t care what Thatcher said.
The psychopaths in the ruling class can only be made to relinquish their power completely by means of a fullblown revolution, but of course only an idiot chooses not to support struggles for a better standard of living right now and indeed struggles that “only” defend existing (low) standards of living against further deterioration. But what is this about a “free press…functioning as it should”? What on earth is that? The idea of holding the authorities up to their own (supposed) standards can cut both ways. Tactically it can sometimes be very useful. But don’t believe in it.
So you don’t agree that responsible citizen based journalism would be an essential element of an informed democratic society?
Not that I’m necessarily arguing we’ve ever had that ideal, simply that I can see the deterioration in standards across the last 30 years even.
Well funny you should mention the socially regressive evolution of our political classes. High jacking tankers is an act of piracy if you are not sure as to whether this oil is for Greece or Syria.
The upshot is that Iran, should this tanker not be released, will have grounds for a tit for tat response, ushering in a new scenario of escalation.
This one is on Penny Mordant. Despite the fact that she wants to leave the EU, she sees nothing wrong for doing the bidding of the EU.
She ought to tell us about the EUs request to seize this tanker, and I don’t think it exists, before doing the bidding of a man who sers nothing in breaking a nuclear agreement the EU still supports.
This episode will make history as a clear indication that we are going to leave and face the economic wrath of our lost, most lucrative market.
But there is nothing to worry about as they will sell us GMOs and chlorinated chickens.
Time for the EU to create its own forces and safeguard the borders, even declare a non compliance with OTAN missions as they have gotten out of hand.
I toast to safe borders. Slantje!
Group 4 merged with Falck and then with Securicor and the company is now called G4S. Its controlling figures trouser a large amount of money from state contracts.
And not just in Britain. A British-registered company, G4S helps the Zionazi state of Israel to run some of its prisons, including some in which Palestinian prisoners are tortured. It also sells equipment and services to Israel that are used at military checkpoints and to protect Zionazi settlements and the regime’s police and military. Its controlling figures should, in short, be up in court.
One thing the company does in Britain is read electricity meters. If somebody wearing G4S insignia knocks on your door saying they want to read your meter, you might consider declining to grant them access on the grounds that you don’t condone crimes against humanity.
I don’t know what the ramifications of this deal are. Maybe it’s just a blind to give the activities in Israel another name.
New ownership. Same activities?
‘Israeli private equity firm FIMI Opportunity Funds, headed by Ishay Davidi, has completed the 100% purchase of security firm G4S Israel from its British parent company for NIS 350 million. G4S, formerly Hashmira, is Israel’s largest security solutions company. It is also one of the country’s largest employers, with some 7,000 employees. It was founded in 1937.’
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-fimi-completes-acquisition-of-g4s-israel-1001195052
http://www.fimi.co.il/about
Amazing! G4S are operating in the Chagos Islands. This is a draft of a KPMG pdf entitled ‘Feasibiity Study for the Resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory! November 2014.
http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2014-1543/Feasibility_Study_for_the_Resettlement_of_the_BIOT_Draft_Report.pdf
There are two references to them:
‘BIOTA on Diego Garcia, as part of the overall leasing arrangement to the US NSF, benefits from the services provided by the current prime US contractor, G4S. It is mandated that Federal Contracts for Diego Garcia be a Joint Venture (JV) between a US Prime Contractor and a subsidiary UK company.’
‘There is no independent UK service provision, outside of that provided by the BIOTA staff on Diego Garcia. All services and all other supply logistics are by means of request to the US military and US State Department, which are translated into a service order to G4S, which provides a cost estimate for BIOTA approval and payment.’
It is indeed sickening. There is no concept of ‘justice’ in this whatever. It is not sensible nor is there any kind of natural justice.
I’m always VERY wary, as I’m sure are you, that blame should never be assigned to those tasked with carrying out government policy whether they be Civil Servants or contractors carrying out those duties. Blame is ALWAYS to be attached to the Minister in question and the government of the day that puts the policy in place or indeed carries it on, knowing its effect.
Maybe I’m oversensitive to this having worked in the Civil Service and having myself been forced by the then Labour government to carry out so many distasteful but yet still legal tasks for them. All of those working in this field do carry out their duties regardless of their personal feelings and are, in the vast majority of cases, utterly impartial (at the coal face at least) in how they carry out those duties. Doing things they may strongly disagree with but doing them to the best of their ability. The Civil Service Code provides a small measure of cover for refusing some political instruction – even I have refused instruction (along with many others) that came directly in a memo from a minister as it was not only immoral but broke the Code and was also potentially illegal.
It’s important to remember exactly where the blame lies because politicians are very quick to blame the Civil Service for its own policy, even when the policy (perhaps especially when) is going EXACTLY as planned. Think Tax Credit debacle or Universal Credit. Our politicians are at times deliberately cruel as it plays well with a certain section of voters in an ‘I’m alright Jack’ kind of way…G
You seem to bring exact meaning to the phrase “the bourgeois clerks who bear no guilt”
It is beyond obvious that the single most egregiously nefarious aspect of policy was UK foreign policy under the premiership of Blair. Only a tiny handful of senior Civil Servants resigned (or were sacked) over this disgraceful period in British history. This imperceptibly small number of people were reinforced by one serving SAS soldier who also resigned his commission. The government via the offices of the Civil Service made an unsuccessful attempt to prosecute this man for desertion or something similar.
The rest of the rotting corrupt cabal of Civil Servants prayed daily to the glory of their future pension and kept their mouths firmly shut. It is often said that Hitler killed millions of people. In point of fact he killed precisely no-one, but millions died at the hands of people carrying out Hitlers orders. No doubt they too were concerned for their pensions. They too found comfort in the fact that every single policy was legal under German law at the time these policies were implemented.
What you’re selling – no-one wants to buy. Not even Walmart could package up that crock of shit and make it seem attractive.
Loony – I couldn’t agree with you more, and Gary – I couldn’t disagree with you more.
If you are ordered to do something you believe is wrong, then you have a moral duty to oppose the order. Carrying out the act in order to keep your job and your pension is cowardly and wrong.
It’s also worth noting that making a bargain in the first place which allows your employer to withhold your earnings (whether in the form of a pension or any other form) is foolish, both because you are putting yourself in a terrible negotiating position, leaving yourself open to coercion, and because there’s a darn good chance you won’t get full payment when it’s finally due.
Everyone who works has signed a contract and every contract grants power to the employer. And – yes, everyone is concerned to keep their job and pension – and this is not just a matter of individual circumstances. Most of us have families and are concerned about their future too. And as for “negotiating” position, that would only be meaningful if a large number of employees got together and agreed to have mass action. As a single employee well knows, you can stand up and take a brave line – but you will end up being made an example of, your life and that of your family will be ruined, and someone more compliant will take your place.
@George,
Cheer up man – it’s not quite that bad :-).
Yes it is true that a business relationship (employer/employee or businessman/customer) has value, and that that value is lost to both parties when the relationship is terminated and that therefore losing a job has a cost to an employee. Losing an employee is also a cost to an organization though.
It is also true that any negotiation between both parties will be influenced by game theory, and that under some circumstances the employer will present the employees with a form of prisoner’s dilemna and that the correct counter-strategy is for the employees to negotiate collectively (and also to penalize anyone who signs up to the collective and then subsequently breaks ranks). However the situation is not always that simple and there are many circumstances when an employee is perfectly able to negotiate directly with an employer. And the more the employee has created value to his employer in the relationship the stronger his position will be.
So I am prepared to accept that some of what you say has some validity. But I fail to see how it is relevant to either of my points.
My first point was that everyone has a duty to do what is right and someone who buckles under to the threat of losing a job or a pension is a coward. Are you suggesting that buckling under is acceptable because standing up for what is right has a cost? That one only need to do what is right when there is no cost?
And my second point is that allowing a significant portion of one’s wages to be withheld instead of paid when the job is done is simply ceding a great deal more leverage in any negotiation to one’s employer than would otherwise be the case. Whatever position you might have been in a negotiation with your employer, you are in a worse one if you have left him your life savings as a hostage. Again woulod you disagree with this?
And if your point is just that most people have no choice – they just have to acceot the system as it is and buckle under, then I would firstly argue that that is not true. Just because the situation presents more obstacles than one would prefer is not a good excuse for simply passive acceptance of one’s fate.
And I would also argue that an employee is usually in a better negotiating position when his employer is operating in a true free market and survives only because of his ability to provide a better service than his competitors. An employer who is able to opperate as a monopoly (protected either by regulations he has corruptly bribed into existence, or by the fact that he is directly owned by the state and competition is simply made illegal) is able to impose worse terms on his employees, just as he is able to charge more to his customers, and provide a lesser product or service.
David, you said, “My first point was that everyone has a duty to do what is right.”
Perhaps that is sometimes far less straightforward than you seem to imagine. You may be aware that there are two opposing positions in moral philosophy, or ethics, with consequentialism on one side (what matters are the final consequences of actions, explored by John Stuart Mill amongst others) and deontology on the other, with the well known example of Emmanuel Kant refusing to lie to a man with a knife about his granny being upstairs. His point being that it was better to let her go than be guilty of a lie, since truth is the absolute moral imperative.
@Iain
“Perhaps that is sometimes far less straightforward than you seem to imagine. You may be aware that there are two opposing positions in moral philosophy, or ethics, with consequentialism on one side (what matters are the final consequences of actions, explored by John Stuart Mill amongst others) and deontology on the other, with the well known example of Emmanuel Kant refusing to lie to a man with a knife about his granny being upstairs. His point being that it was better to let her go than be guilty of a lie, since truth is the absolute moral imperative.”
Yes indeed. Although, as you may be able to tell, I agree with many of J.S. Mill’s ideas, I fall very firmly on the side of deontology when it comes to ethics.
I’m pretty sure I’ve even discussed this in the comments section of one of Craig’s articles not that long ago, although it’s possible that I’m mistaken. I was seduced by consequentialism for many years – convinced by the microcosmic thought experiment commonly known as the “trolley problem”. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. A hypothetical philosopher stands beside a lever and is faced with a choice between allowing the trolley to proceed down one track which feature a large number of helpless persons securely bound to the tracks who will inevitably die should the trolley proceed on its course, or our hypothetical philosopher may pull the lever and switch the trolley down an alternative track where only a single helpless person is bound to the track and will die. Surely the philosopher should pull the lever and sacrifice a single unfortunate for the good of the many? Surely only a madman would argue otherwise…?
The problem with such arguments – at least to me – is twofold.
Firstly, all the examples that I have read are based on artifical premises that are never true in the real world. The hypothetical actor has perfect knowledge: he cannot be mistaken; the hypothetical victims are utterly helpless through no fault of their own; the philosopher may not communicate with anyone else; no other course of action is possible etc. So even if it is true that in our contrived thought experiment where one can persuasively argue that a philosopher should act in a non-deontological way, it does not necessarily follow that such an ethic is applicable to even a single situation which might arise in the real world, let alone generally applicable to all such situations.
Secondly, I think that consequentialism as an ethical system for governing a society can be shown to be logically fallacious. If we accept that individuals must act on the basis of consequentialism, how do we implement a system of justice? How do we decide whether an act is right or wrong and apply punishment to wrongdoers when literally any act at all may be defended on the grounds that it was for the greater good? Presumably we must set up an authority to decide which acts were for the greater good and which were not. And this authority must presumably have unlimited and arbitrary power to make any decision, since any limit on this power along the lines of “You may not decide that Act A is right because it is always wrong regardless of the circumstances” would represent a deontoligical heresy. And we must be able to trust this authority never to act in its own interest. But any human authority with that (effectively unlimited) power could not possibly be trusted, and such a system would inevitably result in a greater degree of evil than it prevents. So if you accept that consequentialist ethics does not lead to the greater good, then according to consequentialism itself, consequentialism is wrong which I believe counts as reductio ad absurdum.
My thinking in this area is still evolving – and your post actually forced me to think things through more clearly than I previously had – for which than you. I’m also very happy to be pointed at specific works or arguments which you feel disprove my line of reasoning.
Hi David, I’ve only just spotted your thoughtful comment. I suspect most people mix and match depending on circumstances, a bit like David Hume (whom Kant hated of course), for whom whatever is helpful or gives pleasure is good, and the opposite is bad. Ruwien Ogien, the French moral philosopher (who died recently) wrote quite a lot on the strict minimum required to ensure human liberty, including all sorts of moral dilemmas like the one you point out (and others like cloning and prostitution). Which are of course faced by doctors all the time in their choices of action (more often than crashing airline pilots) 🙂
Bang on right Loony. The truly disturbing thing is there is no shortage of people devoid of moral fibre to fill these positions thousands of times over. and its not just govt employ, the now privatised sections, the private sector in general, it’s life in general. It has ever been the way sadly. In the last few years I’ve been unfortunate to have had my eyes open further to the deeply ingrained dishonesty in people who will lie at the drop of a hat, about anything. My house was flooded, council officers, govt departments, insurance companies, official affiliated bodies, 5 different companies of lawyers – no surprise there, but 3 of them were allegedly representing us! Fair enough, still no surprise. On and on blatantly lying time and again over time extending into years, and now that over it seems tis all I see everywhere. Its simply endemic and quite frankly even though I’ve seen a lot in my life this degree of lying I found shocking, and its only a small step from lying to greater harmful actions. When people affiliate with a corporation they unwittingly also sign up to the egregore, group mindset. The *me* will do anything to defend itself, and so too the egregore, its a kind of ‘fealty’, surrendering any sense of morals in return for adopting someone – or something else’s mindset. I would say it must be the end times, but as Cicero was moaning about exactly this and that nothing had changed since aeons before, one can only conclude, a colossal amount of people just don’t give a shit and would be happy to lie, pull the trigger, flip the switch whatever, and lose not a jot of sleep on it. The notion that a psychopath is rare is a massive deceit, sure a lone serial killer may be, but just check out the last G20, or any large corporation boardroom.
Oops. Just realised I said Cicero when I meant, Marcus Aurelius –
“Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring counsulship, kingly power. Well then, that life of these people no longer exists at all. Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same.”
Nothing changes whilst everything changes.
I’m not sure it is true that nothing has changed.
Subjectively it feels to me that lying is more prevalent today than at other times in history, even as recently as my childhood. Although it is of course possible that it is simply my ability to percieve the lies that has changed, but I don’t think so.
And I’m not sure that Aurelius’ statements prove otherwise. I do believe, as Plato and Polybius argued (although they differed slightly in detail), that civilizations evolve cyclically through similar phases, although not always at the same speed. And it is arguable that we are in a similar stage in the cycle of Western civilization as Rome was during the first and second centuries AD – and that while lies and corruption were indeed prevalent during the reigns of all of those emperors, that does not mean that the situation was the same 700 years earlier, or even 250 years earlier.
While not exactly proof of anything, it is clear that when Orwell wrote 1984 he intended it as a warning, an indictment perhaps of the path we were already treading down, but not a reflection of current events. And even in the 1980s when I read it, it was possible to laugh it off as a dark fantastic prophecy which could never come to pass. That is clearly no longer the case, so things have got worse.
And perhaps this point in the cycle is inevitable, it always looks and feels like this, and nothing can be done about it except to follow the example of St Patrick who (at least according to Cahill) preserved as much of civilization as possible through the dark ages that followed the fall of Rome.
“This imperceptibly small number of people were reinforced by one serving SAS soldier who also resigned his commission. The government via the offices of the Civil Service made an unsuccessful attempt to prosecute this man for desertion or something similar.”
I’d love to know more about this. Is there any info online that you could link for us?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/mar/13/military.iraq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Griffin_(British_Army_soldier)
Ben Griffin is in this roll call on the Veterans for Peace UK website. A brave man who stood up to the evil of our endless wars.
http://vfpuk.org/about/
Thanks for the links. I was not previously aware of Mr Griffin.
Another excellent piece by you Craig. Sad that we are as bad as this.
Bearing in mind our history we should not be surprised, but still, shameful.
[ Mod: ‘Yonatan’ = Andrew, Ishmael, Anonymous, Heironymus Cowherd, YugoLies, Murgatroyd, Egbert, Gilbert, and many others. He is also implicated in a number of other sockpuppet clusters. ]
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Any comments on the legality or otherwise of the UK government sending armed troops to sieze a tanker allegedly carrying Iranian oil through the Straits of Gibraltar destined for Syria? Is the seizure legitimate or an act of piracy?
[ Yes there are, on the appropriate thread. ]
I know this is O/T, but I also know Craig and many commenters are very interested in the Julian Assange case.
Tomorrow (Saturday 6th July) there is a Demo/Birthday Celebration associated with Julian’s recent birthday, in Trafalgar Square, ‘Happy B-Day Julian Assange 48’, 14.00 – 17.00, Trafalgar Square, London.
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[ The flyer and announcement for the Assange birthday celebration are available at the WiseUpAction info site. ]
Current status:
£1,785 of £2,000 goal
Raised by 75 people in 1 day
Glad to see that the £2,000 target has now been exceeded. People should still give to this appeal, as the money will be used to help other Chagossians.
Neatly, the current status is:
£3,000 of £4,000 goal
Raised by 119 people in 4 days
But the rate of donations has slowed down a lot (although the average donation per person has remained roughly the same). We need another Craig Murray. 🙂
Thanks for highlighting this iniquity Craig and giving us the chance to donate to helping this young chap (and others in the same boat) with his legal fees. Also reminded me that as I have just started to receive my civil service pension it was time to share it with your blog too! Keep up the good work.
Just to say well done Craig for continually outlining this despicable persecution of a people and the theft of their homeland. Sadly it demonstrates just how beholden the UK is to the US. Money has a part in it with the UK leasing islands to the US which do not belong to them. Our sycophantic subservience to the US is the reason you have to take up so many causes: Julian Assange’s immoral persecution, the Chagos islanders’ search for justice, even the theft of land by Israel from the Palestinian people (which started with the Balfour declaration) and so many more. It is this attempt, particularly by the US hawks at world domination, which is the major cause of most of the world’s problems. It should sadden all decent people.
Keep up your dogged campaigning. Although I am not commenting regularly any more I regularly read your blog and say a quiet thank you for your insight, honesty and grasp of how the international political circus aims to remove the rights of all but a very small minority.
And just in case people have missed the fundraiser link on behalf of Steven it is here.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/chagos-football-player-detained-uk-home-office
John,
Good on you for helping.
Was wondering where you were hiding; not having seen any recent posts from you.
The behaviour of the government in respect of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islanders in general and Steven Leelah in particular is disgraceful and they should be ashamed of themselves. I have contributed to the fund to help him and I urge others to do so.
[ Mod: This is a very tenacious sockpuppetmaster, who has tried (and mostly failed) to post under the following pseudonyms:
JC4PM now = Old sailor, Hodges Lymphoma, Jenny, Boris fan, Observer, Live Podcaster, Concerned, Tramp Stamped, Trexit, Wee drambui, Gatekeeper 2.0, Obserwary, Bomb bomb bumbler, Assangeophile, Genuwine Patriot, Killer vote-winning app
Names from a related cluster include: ValdezWW3 is coming, Kurd for Scotch, Presstitution Galore, Bill Dodd, Observed, Talal Bentley
And from another: Hoi Polloi Harry, Sue Robins, Counter claimant, Perturbed, Deputy of the Board, Goebbels, Mo bone saw
This is just the tip of a troll iceberg. ]
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This tory government of toffs is into Venezuelan gold theft, Iranian oil theft law breaking as well. How the 99% elected the 1% sugary few is beyond comprehension. And hodge is actively preventing a JC4PM campaign that needs traction right at this time before a master of the foxhounds takes over. The deep state “gauntlet” that pimpeo alluded to is well known among the intelligence circles. But first things first, labour needs to deselect the blairite parachuted MPs using the alternate 10% of the electorate route to force by-elections in key marginal constituencies. Surely there is a brave patriot out there who can wear a wire to one of lord levys meetings strategizing against corbyn? That would surely have the fiddlers on labours roof scampering off like a lady porter !! Under the toffs the legal flaw that allows a green to offload company pension liabilities onto the public purse will be widened if jeremy fox gathers sufficient votes from the auschwitz block in the 160k to create a boris (who saved the Reubens in 57m in development costs) upset, this tory party is simply full of incorrigibles, thousands of Windrush deported whilst thousands of white helmet salafi potential Manchester bombers brought in, its a shambles. Only Margaret hodge nee oppenheimer stands in the way of a labour win in the coming GE.
Jeez, Denison barracks must be crawling with these weasel faced creeps. I wonder how many more are lurking in the background. I’m sure Brigadier Daniel Reeve will know.
The smelly sock master certainly writes like a badly regulated robot, maybe a cheap conversion from a bus ticket machine, assembling random keywords into an experiment in modern poetry. There used to be a commenter calling himself Charley Drake here (and below the line on the Guardian) a few years ago with a similar manic prose style.
If I understand it correctly – this type of a troll uses multiple names so that his/her point looks like supported by many people?
I mean, this UK government’s body that hires “covert online operators”, is it legal? Is there a risk of using this sockpuppet masters to influence the affairs where the majority is to decide? E.g. surveys, polls, election debates etc.
I’m not sure if it is the same everywhere, but from my experience, a person compares his/her point of view with the opinion of the majority, and if strongly objected, then a normal person would hesitate or join the majority.
And if one adds authoritative sources, historical facts or disguised logical errors in reasoning, then one can convince a person with no firm position.
I’m not sure if it is the same everywhere,”
The SVR website, kind of romanticises it a bit in my opinion. I recall the British recruitment drive mentioning snowflakes required.
http://www.svr.gov.ru/svr_today/sotr.htm
this is an ad recruiting spies (ok, intelligence service employees). But I was talking of “covert online operators” from the previous topic by Mr. Murray
https://recruitmentservices.applicationtrack.com/vx/lang-en-GB/mobile-0/appcentre-3/brand-4/xf-625960196945
Does the SVR not have a online brigade?
If so what name do they go by, example China’s 50 Cent army.
Also Tatyana, in your honest opinion have you come across any, as we do here, with the 77th Brigade in the UK
no, I don’t know of any and I don’t know their names.
Perhaps this one could roughly do, I recently met an article on the Picabu about a russian girl hired to an agency in one of capital cities (Moscow or Petersberg). Her job was to get into the building and to sit all day through at a computer and to write praising stories about Putin.
The story came out when she tried to get ‘leave on pregnancy’ and the agency won’t let her do it as supposed to under a normal working contract.
Thank you Tatyana, though I think you may have picked me up wrong. I was asking the name Russia’s online propaganda unit, not specific names.
Of course I read somewhere that all external web data is first run through state servers, so maybe you’d better not answer that.
If you mean, I could fear something, then you’re wrong. Of course, Russia should possess an online propaganda unit, I’m sure she should. But I’ve no idea what it is or what’s its name, really. Never met a sign of it with me.
Some say Putin has too much than normal support, or some say RT and Sputnik have too much then normal followers. I dare say, it is a true reflection of support/oppose ratio of opinions in russian politics.
I wonder, why not showing more of russian opposition in the western media? The only thing that comes to mind is – to paint the ruling power as a dictator. One IS a dictator if NO OPPOSITION is shown, isn’t it?
“to paint the ruling power as a dictator. One IS a dictator if NO OPPOSITION is shown, isn’t it?”
I think you’re right Tatyana, also you’ve been most helpful, thank you.
@ Tatyana July 6, 2019 at 21:55
leave it out, don’t give ‘them’ ideas. They demonise Putin enough already.
You can bet your life that along with the Yanks and others, ‘Our Boys’ are stirring things up as much as possible among any opposition in Russia. And where they can’t find it, they create it.
Paul Barbara
Opposition is a good thing. Alexey Navalny is highly likely the most known man, he discovered many corruption schemes. I wish we had such a person in my region, corruptiest of all corrupt. Every little boss here feels like a mafioso. I imagine the sum of money that can be in possession of those corrupt people! Heck.
In 2016 russian FSB detained colonel Zakharchenko and discovered 9 billion russian roubles in cash in one of his appartments. It is something about 143 million US dollars!!! Ironically that colonel was the head of some department of economic security and anti-corruption. OK, it was in Moscow.
In my region most prominent local problems are judjes and mayors. Oh, mayors love to build fountains and order new tiles for pavements so often! We can’t afford to feed our children in schools for free, but we change these tiles every season! Guess the owner of the tile production company.
People joke about the tram traffic that should be removed, because the trams are dashing back and forth and thus prevent frequent change of tiles.
Our governments get worse and worse. It’s almost approaching what we used to call red terror in Russia. Awaiting a bang on the door and to be taken away and made an example of. Get the neighbours to snitch and hold a show trial. One wonders where it will lead!
True, with Britain’s close links to Pakistan not once did they offer to give Asia Bibi asylum, and a FoI showed that over the decade of Bibi’s persecution not one FCO diplomatic telegram sent between Britain and Pakistan mentioned her unjust plight.
https://catholicherald.co.uk/magazine/how-britain-failed-asia-bibi/
@ Republicofscotland July 6, 2019 at 16:58
Thanks for bringing this important point to our attention.
I for one had no inkling of that situation.
Not a dicky bird on it anywhere. I would guess the Board and Committee of the so called 1922 committee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_Committee#Current_executive_committee
There is absolutely nothing in this recent HoC Library document about scrutiny.
Number 01366, 21 June 2019
Leadership elections: Conservative Party
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01366/SN01366.pdf
When we hear that some members are receiving duplicate ballot papers, the choice of the country’s next Prime Minister by partei members is a joke.
General Election now!
It can’t be the executive committee of the 1922 committee. It’s described as an independent body that was hired to scrutinise the election. Both the BBC and the Telegraph refer to “both” the party “and” this “independent body” being unable to say how some members received two ballot papers. It’s a private sector company (or just possibly a charity) hired by the party.
Talking of the 1922 committee, why did Graham Brady resign? The reason was supposed to be that he was going to run for the leadership, but he didn’t. Did someone have a problem with him returning to the role after recusing himself while he was considering a run? Or maybe he had a problem with a stitch-up by one of the candidates.
We can speculate that there may have been some “pushing hard and breaking things” where establishing who would get the contract to “scrutinise” the election was concerned.
The Tory enemy are seriously going for it this time: a crashout Brexit, “come what may”. Tories are men and women many of whose whole personalities are constructed around the idea that the working class majority, prisoners, single mothers, immigrants, people on disability benefit, people who live in social housing, the unemployed, etc., all enjoy state-allowed or state-provided cushy numbers that none of them in the slightest bit deserve. The more Tory a person gets, the more rabidly they believe this. It’s like their religion.
That wood must have been well polished! He is essentially asserting colonial rights more than 20 years after Chris Patten left. Beijing intelligence had such a laugh with that British-era flag in the parliament chamber recently. Who would otherwise care what the British government said? It’s as if the Beijing government is saying “Come on, you morons, declare something stupid – here’s the microphone.” Meanwhile Britain is about to trade-blockade itself, as Tory hatred reaches fever pitch. Might as well have nuclear wars with Iran, China, and Russia when the Channel ports are self-blocked and the foreign private owners of Heathrow and Gatwick try to dump them on whoever wants them, fast, before the weeds grow. And Gavin Williamson, here’s your office at the Ministry of Defence back.
Watson pushing the remain declaration; it fails, but succeeds in fully alienating the north of England; Labour lose next election; Corbyn resigns; Watson moves in to seize the crown.
Media delighted. Normal service restored.
You’re very bitter against Labour.
He is also very real, Laguerre, thete is not one single day without an attack on JC and it is a worrying development.
The MSM is a political propaganda machine focussing only on Labours current leadership and how to fell it, regrdless of a balanced approach or factual truth of what they are scribbling.
How can anyone go against such a facile bias against change of any kind, whether its the climate crisis, child poverty, the black hole of our public services.
This is the beginning of a widespread racially aggrevating fight carried out here. I hope tha Ali Milani will give islamophobic Tory Johnson a run for his money at the next GE.
Sawers hat is diplomacy so his comments on politicians are ostensibly irrelevant. This is the great pretence viz that diplomacy inhabit a different orbit to politics.
What Sawers is saying is that simply by the UK adopting post neo liberal horseshit from the U.S. will not solve the diplomatic problem of usukis exceptionalism . That it is being challenged by the UN, Russia and China.
The nervous breakdown is that having crawled up Israel’s rectum and found it was a dead end,
We need to back peddle,but nobody except MI 6 ‘s wonķ Rory Stewart can do it.
Russia’ Israel and the U.S. control the middle east. We have lost the Great Game. It was all the fault of the politicians anyway