Tortoise was sponsored to produce the Dani Garavelli attempted assassination of Alex Salmond by Tulchan Communications, the same firm that employed Ruth Davidson on £50,000 a year for 24 days of corporate lobbying – until banned by the Scottish Parliament.
Tulchan Communications is an openly Tory body. Its Chief Executive is Lord Feldman, former Chairman of the Tory Party. Its directors include Lisa Kerr, former SPAD to George Osborne. It is a part of the UK’s suave system of corruption, whereby political hacks with the inside track get paid huge bungs by firms to influence ministers in their favour on tax, contracts, regulations etc.
It is genuinely not my normal style to judge an argument by who said it or by who paid for it. Nobody can possibly accuse me of not having judged and critiqued Garavelli’s article on its own merits. But the reaction to my critique, both from the mainstream media and from a whole slew of paid SNP staff, was to attack me for receiving subscriptions for my blog.
That led me to the train of thought that the source of funding for this blog is open – it is you, the readers, voluntarily – but why were those same people not asking who funded Ms Garavelli and why? I might not have done anything about it until I saw a tweet from Ms Garavelli stating that her piece had been “legaled” several times. Which is expensive.
By the fine art of provocation I got more details from Ms Garavelli of just how extensive her involvement had been.
Indeed, when you think about it, that makes it even more remarkable that she managed to speak to not a single person from the defence nor reflect any of the evidence of the defence witnesses. All that work yet meeting only one side? But it also makes this very expensive. Why would a magazine nobody reads pay so very much for a completely one-sided hit-job on Alex Salmond?
Tortoise claims to have an entirely new model for “slow” journalism, hence the name, putting in the research. That fits with what Garavelli has done here, although when you have made not the slightest effort to get more than one side of a story I am not sure why that is called “journalism” as opposed to “propaganda”.
Tortoise accepts subscriptions of £100 per year, but that is a minor part of their income. Most of their income comes from corporate sponsorship, and though they do admit this on their website, they are coy about which company is behind which article. BP are among the major actors. In the case of Dani Garavelli being employed to try and destroy Alex Salmond, the initiative to commission it from Tortoise came from Tulchan Communications. Garavelli was a very safe bet for this. Her normal employer is the independence hating “Scotland on Sunday”.
Garavelli had described the massive All Under One Banner marches as “the flag-fixated organisation beloved of the Trumpian tendency” and claimed they are disliked by the “mainstream” SNP. It seems to me highly improbable that Tulchan Communications would have expended so much money without giving Tortoise a pretty strong steer that they wanted an entirely one-sided account. The propaganda purpose is of course revealed immediately by the fact that Tortoise’s pretend subscription model operates from behind a paywall, but the Salmond attack article was pushed out for free everywhere. But I do not know what Garavelli’s brief was, and Tortoise could be pretty sure what they would get from Garavelli. I must add in fairness that I have no information whether Garavelli knew that Tulchan Communications were funding Tortoise for her article. It would be nost interesting to know whether she spoke to Ruth Davison at any stage.
Tortoise is what is politely known as an “Atlanticist” organisation, like a media equivalent of the Henry Jackson Society. It was co-founded by James Harding, Cameron appointed former Head of News at the BBC, by the ex United States Ambassador to the UK and by a Jack Daniels whisky heiress. Its corporate sponsors include the Bill Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Capita and BP. Radical it ain’t.
James Harding was of course the former Murdoch editor of the Times and Head of News at the BBC, who claimed that it had been his mission to make BBC News more pro-Israel, and later claimed that he had succeeded. I think we can say he was telling the truth.
All the people at Tortoise and all the forces they represent are firmly opposed to Scottish Independence. Tulchan Communications are extremely firmly opposed to Scottish Independence. Scotland on Sunday are fanatically opposed to Scottish Independence. Dani Garavelli makes a living from ridiculing Independence supporters.
So when Alex Salmond, who lifted the SNP into government and political dominance from small beginnings, was found innocent at trial, and these ultra anti-Independence forces combined to do a hatchet job on him effectively disputing the verdict of the court, the SNP needs to unite in congratulation and stop the self-interested sniping. Now.
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Our man on the case.On ye go sir excellent.So the journalist works for war mongers.Im surprised by how unsurprised I am.
This isn’t about Salmond. It isn’t about Craig Murray. It isn’t about Garavelli, Wings, or even Nicola. It isn’t about any particular person. It’s about the age-old problem of keeping the rabble out of the picture as their resources are plundered by the rich and foreigners. And when you remove all the crap about ‘white man’s burdens’, missionaries, and spreading democracy, that’s basically what everything has been about in this world for the last 500 years.
The real enemy, the only enemy, is ordinary people. That’s as true in the Middle East, Asia, and South America, as it is in Scotland. Ordinary people in Scotland think they want independence and control of their own affairs. That’s a huge problem. Every now and then someone like Salmond or whoever will be thrown up to represent that idea and it’s the job of those who serve power and their masters to shoot those types down. It’s an unending war.
Here’s the core issue. In resource rich countries like Scotland, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Brazil, to name a few, the people there ought to be pretty rich. In truth, they ought to be the wealthiest people in the world. The trick is to take all that wealth and, instead of sharing it out amongst those who it belongs to, you steal it and make sure it flows into the hands of rich people and their companies, like BP; and, of course, a small portion of it is given to the Tortoises of the world to ensure the rabble are kept dumb and out of the picture.
The Scottish people are the enemy. They need to get their minds right. “What’s our oil doing under your seas?”
People need to stop playing games. Unless all of the above is addressed first and foremost, head on, unless it’s on banners and discussed at every opportunity, everywhere, Scotland won’t have an independence movement. It might have something that impersonates an independence movement, a protest group of sorts that doesn’t express anything that upsets the masters, but it’ll never achieve independence.
And instead of a third world NHS and the worst planning and management you could imagine during a pandemic, Scotland could have the best and most able NHS in the world, and not one single person would need to die because of Coronavirus. (Btw, anyone who thinks this will peak in two weeks is insane. Sturgeon’s role is scandalous — on a par with stewards on the Titanic telling people to go back to their cabins because everything is going to be fine.)
I’m great at telling you all what you already knew.
But your so-called-rabble are the instrument of their own demise. Red walls falling for the no-policy tory manifesto when their lifelong experience tells them the Tories will never help them? Brexit itself was a major deception, get back control of our borders, except we did not want to do so and close the entry of planeloads of infected people from Wuhan, Italy and then New York, even when it was apparent that others were closing their borders. Take back our sovereignty? Like as if this is possible when we have the US breathing down our neck insisting we buy chlorinated chicken and GM foods, Sell our beloved NHS? Never, except in small parts and by stealth.
Unless we have a politically aware population and truly independent balanced press, it will always be money that speaks, the rabble will just remain rabble to be manipulated.
Had I been talking about the rabble in England, your comment might have made more sense. But I wasn’t. I was talking about Scotland where support for tories and Brexit was and remains minimal.
“Red walls falling for the no-policy Tory manifesto when their lifelong experience tells them the Tories will never help them?” Did Liarbour ever help “them”?
Not new labour no.
Thank you.
And of course there is a pattern, Corbyn, Assange, Salmond, and each had the tailor made way of being denigrated.
Craig – Its good to know where Tortoise is placed, in terms of its political position. What wasn’t clear to me, from your article, was whether you were saying that Tulchan specifically paid for the Garavelli article. I can see from the Tortoise website that Tulchan is one (among many) corporate backers of Tortoise. But I can’t find any indication anywhere that Tulchan was the particular sponsor who picked up the tab for this piece.
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[ Mod: This question was asked earlier. ]
Here’s Grovellini:
https://twitter.com/danigaravelli1/status/1098351705681477632
Here’s Buzz Osborne from The Melvins:
https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/buzz-osborne-of-the-melvins-performs-at-lollapalooza-1996-news-photo/465556670
I rest my case.
Sounds all together like Operation Mockingbird redux. Perhaps with the National Endowment for Democracy replacing the CIA and Tulchan Communications (and many others of their ilk) being used as a conduit or cover for managing payments to pliant scribes.
Very interesting-good to know.
Their fervid Atlanticism is doubtless another reason why they targeted Alex Salmond, one of the few politicians who consistently condemned all the insane “interventions” in the ME. What I find it baffling though, given his steadfastness on the NeoCons, is why he chose a protégé who is so admiring of all the great war criminals. He must surely have been aware of Sturgeon’s warmth towards the NeoCons?
Downing Street, i.e. presumably Boris Johnson’s spokesman James Slack, formerly of the Daily Heil, has “dismissed a report in Russian state media that the PM was on a ventilator, describing it as ‘disinformation’.”
I cannot believe that Slack does not know the difference between disinformation and falsehood. Why does he not call the report false?
The Russian report came from RIA Novosti.
No bulletins yet regarding the health of Boris Johnson’s boss Dominic Cummings, or the defence secretary Ben Wallace, both of whom are said to be in isolation.
Interesting how most politicians in Britain are obese piss-artists – two conditions neither of which helps much.
N_ if you need help with translation – I’m here, just ask 🙂
RIA/Novosti
https://ria.ru/20200406/1569611571.html
“LONDON, Apr 6 – RIA News. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was urgently hospitalized, a source close to the leadership of England’s national healthcare system told RIA Novosti.
“He will undergo artificial ventilation of the lungs,” – the source said….”
—
If it is a lie, then it came from the source close to the leadership of England’s national healthcare system
The word `lie’ is a tad over-used. Perhaps this was just wishful thinking by a chief medical officer who didn’t like him very much.
(and no – sorry – I cannot bring myself to think pious and sanctimonious thoughts about the people involved in the torture of Julian Assange)
Well, I studied English long ago, and even at that time my textbook by Bonk was considered obsolete. In it the word ‘lie’ was the only one to describe untruth. Apparently in those days there was yet no need to invent other words for denoting different sorts of lies.
For what you describe, we have the common expression “оговорка по Фрейду”. Google translates it “Freudian slip” 🙂
Tatyana – well, once upon a time I studied a bit of Hebrew and I discovered that in Hebrew, the imperfect tense is used to denote the future. While perfect denotes a completed action, imperfect denotes an incomplete action, and anything in the future is clearly incomplete because it hasn’t happened yet.
So the fellow might just have got his tenses a bit wrong – and he probably means that Boris Johnson will be put on a ventilator (whether he needs it or not) and is unlikely to recover (even if he doesn’t have Coronavirus).
James, what if the source is mute and was using sign language?
He could show pressure on Johnson’s throat, and the translator was too humane and interpreted the gesture as “lung ventilation”, what do you think?
My Russian may be better than you think, @Tatyana. The ventilator reference is NOT cited by RIA Novosti to a source close to the leadership of England’s national healthcare system.
I can’t improve on your translation of the first bit:
“Премьер-министра Великобритании Бориса Джонсона экстренно госпитализировали, сообщил РИА Новости источник, близкий к руководству национальной системы здравоохранения Англии.”
But then we get the boxout saying
“Ему будут проводить искусственную вентиляцию легких”, — уточнил собеседник агентства.”
I would translate that as
“‘He will undergo artificial ventilation of the lungs’, the agency’s correspondent specified”
It certainly does not say that that’s what the source said, which is how you translate it. The “agency” is RIA Novosti (the Russian Information Agency) itself. It is not what they refer to as England’s “national health system”, by which they probably mean the NHS, usually called a служба, service. Who knows where the RIA correspondent got his information from that allowed him to clarify what he cites to his source? Let’s not mess about. BBC ~ MI6. RIA Novosti ~ SVR.
Ah, my error, you’re right N_
Formally it may be 2 different people.
Anyway, the meaning is the same, whoever brought this information.
hmmm…. although no, after some consideration, this is a ‘translation trap’
I must be ‘Interlocutor’, not the ‘correspondent’
уточнил собеседник агентства – who?- interlocutor; whose interlocutor? – interlocutor of the agency.
собеседник – тот, с кем беседует
агентство – тот, кто запросил беседу
@Tatyana. Hmm. OK. This is a tricky one indeed! I concede that you are right and I was mistaken. Literally they do say “the agency’s correspondent”, but in context they do not mean an employee or stringer of the agency, the usual meaning of that term in this context in English, but the agency’s source, even if they use a different word from “источник” (“source”) which they used in the preceding sentence. My apologies.
In any case, I believe the veracity of this report. Its denunciation by Downing Street as “disinformation” was tantamount to an admission that the core of it was true, or at least that the British government was unwilling to call it false. It has now been admitted that Boris Johnson has moved into an intensive care unit.
It looks as though Johnson will die in the very near future. I wish him a speedy recovery as I would any other human being, including Dominic Cummings (who rumour says is also close to death’s door) and Ben Wallace. Johnson is a Tory and deserves to stand trial for his crimes, but I cannot wish poor health on any of my fellow inhabitants of this planet.
I think he will be miraculously cured by hydroxychloroquine.
But only if they use it in conjunction with azithromycin, this is the treatment the Chinese used very successfully (90% success rate) however you need to detect early, if Johnson hasn’t started it they may have left it too late. I’m sure that as soon as they knew he was ill they’d have been pumping him with gamma globulins or at least I would hope so but then maybe the Torys incompetence extends to the medical advice they’re getting. The UK is woefully behind the ball on this but then their obsession with ‘herd immunity’ (or the saving on pensions, care home fees and PIP payments death plan) seems to have overuled what little sense there is in Westminster at the moment. Dr Didier Raoult is also backing this drug regime, world famous specialist in infectious diseases. In any case it would vastly improve his condition within four days if using it, if not, I would expect him to be dead by then. This seems to be the repeated MO with the persistent cases that become troublesome around the 10 day mark: interesting interview with Dr Raoult:
http://thesaker.is/interview-with-professor-didier-raoult-in-the-parisien-newspaper-22-march-2020/
Latest reports say he has ‘received oxygen support but is not on a ventilator’.
In other words, he has been having vaguely ‘artificial’ ‘ventilation’ of the lungs, but he is not using the piece of equipment called a ‘ventilator’.
Bottom line, he is receiving the more mild version of ‘help with his breathing’.
According to media reports, assuming that they are to be trusted, of course….
Many medics, like many estate agents, are “100 lies a day” men and women. But some of the statements about Boris Johnson’s condition in what we now know is St Thomas’s Hospital really take the biscuit. No, being advised to go straight to hospital by a medic does NOT make your admission “non-emergency”. Nor is it “routine” to be taken to hospital and get put on oxygen if you are showing Covid-19 symptoms. When an admission to hospital as an in-patient gets called a “visit”, they’re really tripping themselves up. I won’t be surprised if Johnson dies by the end of tomorrow.
Someone called Sarah Jarvis whom I understand to be a non-specialist medic (“general practitioner”) who appears on the telly a lot, said it was possible Mr Johnson had received a larger “dose” of the virus than Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who was diagnosed at the same time and has recovered.
Indeed. Possible. Yes.
This is what the majority of supposed official story questioners who mention the bio lab in Wuhan don’t get: REGARDLESS of whether any virus got out of that lab, and, if it did, REGARDLESS of whether it got out as a result of deliberate human agency or error, the epidemic is STILL a biowar matter. Agencies in all major countries will be considering
* what other agencies may be doing in the way of spreading the virus or taking it to particular places
* what actions of that kind they themselves may carry out, and
* how they may be influencing each other’s perceptions.
This includes the consideration of vectors OTHER THAN ordinary citizens spreading it to other ordinary citizens who they come into contact with in their homes or workplaces or in the shops or elsewhere, which is what the population in most countries in the world have been encouraged (for the moment) to think is the whole of the problem. It includes, for example, carrying samples and taking out important personages, causing them to become ill, or drastically raising the possibility that they might snuff it. Y’know, unnerve and unsettle the opponents’ high commands. So Jarvis, who sounds like a right fool, nonetheless says something interesting when she speculates that Johnson may have received an unusually large “dose”.
Thanks for the Metro article, N_
it mentions Dr Sarah Jarvis comment, just not the best medical advice about x-ray, this test is not informative enough for Covid. Our doctors recommend another test.
Well, who I am to teach British doctors how they should take care of their PM. Perhaps they are already tired of him 🙂
Tatyana
You must distinguish between the Scots ‘being tired’ of any Tory Prime Minister and ‘UK Doctors’ being tired of him. It is a fundamental tenet of the Hippocratic Oath that you treat anyone, including murderers, to the best of your ability and leave the judgement of morals, criminality or any other subjective matter of behaviour to others.
It would be very difficult to treat politicians of either major party if you said that Johnson was unfit to be treated. >500 UK MPs voted lamb-like to go to war in iraq, despite Tony Blair sidelining Cabinet discussion and actively presenting a case that the Attorney General averred to be illegal, who changed his views when threatened with his career….
Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Alastair Campbell, David Cameron, you name it: they all voted to bomb the **** out of innocent Iraqis.
“When an admission to hospital as an in-patient gets called a “visit”, they’re really tripping themselves up.”
I noticed on the news that the move to intensive care was dressed up as a precaution in case he may need ventilating. If he does die they’ll probably say he’s resting. At least this is the way he would have wanted it; being weeded out by the grim reaper as being too weak for the survival of the herd and letting the strongest and fittest continue their unstoppable march to the sunlit uplands of Brexit and even cheaper chicken.
Deb O’Nair
Looks like you don’t think much of your King. Why on earth do you think we should put up with your king a king we did not vote for and never vote for. A moron of a king voted in by idiots.
London’s own Pravda, the BBC reported: the prime minister was taken into intensive care at around 19:00 BST. Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms worsen https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52192604
Declaration of Arbroath 6th April 1320
“Yet if he should give up what he has begun, seeking to make us or our Kingdom subject to the King of England or the English we would strive at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own right and ours, and we would make some other man who was able to defend us our King”
Time to get the Britnats out of the SNP/Scottish government. Time to get the Britnat media out of Scotland. Time to get ourselves a new King and say goodbye to QE Queen of Scots. A king that will protect the rights of the people of Scotland.
Do you have a new king of Scotland in mind? I take it you are proposing neither whoever is the heir of Idi Amin nor yourself for that illustrious role.
N
Not you or Nelson or Martin the Ned.
“Time to get ourselves a new King”
Going for a forward thinking, modern and progressive independent Scotland then?
Deb O’Nair
Reliable Deb. Reliable for a snidey comment. Not you Deb either.
… But when cities or countries are accustomed to live under a prince, and his family is exterminated, they, being on the one hand accustomed to obey and on the other hand not having the old prince, cannot agree in making one from amongst themselves, and they do not know how to govern themselves. For this reason they are very slow to take up arms, and a prince can gain them to himself and secure them much more easily. But in republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the memory of their former liberty to rest; so that the safest way is to destroy them or to reside there…
— Nicolo Machiavelli, “The Prince”
It’s off topic, but has anyone noticed that it is 700 years since the Declaration of Arbroath?
“The Declaration of Arbroath: letter of liberty” with Lesley Riddoch and Brian Cox (27m20s) – Vimeo
—
[ Mod: Yes, others have mentioned it.
Cubby at 10:37am
Martinned at 2:24pm
Cubby at 3:57pm
Regards. ]
Thanks for the link to that excellent video, pete. Happy 700th to all.
Oops
I’d never looked at a translation of the Declaration of Arbroath before. Were those Scottish Earls who attached their seals actually claiming to be descendants of a royal Jewish line or was that just some stylistic device employed to give Vikings some Christian legitimacy whilst writing to the Pope? The heraldic crests are curiously interesting.
Agreed, the Declaration of Arbroath is a very interesting document, as is the Declaration of Magna Carta. Notably they do not celebrate the kingdom of Scotland as a unification of Picts and Scots (hello king Kenneth MacAlpin) but declare that the Scottish people “completely destroyed” the Picts (which is not true), while being careful to say that the Scots were “nearly” the first Christian people (which is true, but they were not the first).
A guide in Edinburgh Castle once got irritated with me when I suggested the Stone of Scone may have been brought by the Scots from Ireland. She said it had been determined to have come from the vicinity of Scone itself in Perthshire. Does anyone know whether this is accurate?
Unfortunately there was no mention on the display cabinet that the stone was damaged in the early 20th century when the suffragettes bombed the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey!
The stone the guide referred to was indeed from the vicinity of Scone. It was knocked out in the 1950’s as a decoy for the real one. Well that’s one theory.
;
Got my letter from Johnson today. I hope he is not trying to sneakily pass on the virus to everyone so that these bampots at No. 10 can try out their Herd immunity theory. I wonder if Johnson, Cummings and their quack doctors are still feeling so great about ” taking it on the chin ” now that it is their chins in play.
The uncle of Cummings has snuffed it, perhaps from Covid-19
Got my letter from Gov. Scot… Telling me to stay indoors for 12 Fecking weeks.. TWELVE WEEKS.. I’ve already been locked in Quarantine for three weeks.
Anyone who believes B.J are deluded.. Re CoV-19.
I Send Reiki Distance Healing to Julian in that Hell Hole.
So now we know what it was like for Mr Assange, locked away for all those years because of the criminal US government and its spineless accomplices.
Brian, when there’s turbulence in the aircraft they ask you to strap in and fasten your seatbelt. It’s about compliance, controlling you and afterwards if the worst does happen, about identifying the bodies by their seat number. Fold away the tray and extinguish that cigarette. Stay safe.
Me too, Johnson is claiming a power he does not have. He tells us we “may only leave your home for very limited purposes, such as (…) exercising once a day”. The law does NOT say that. It is NOT a breach of the law to leave one’s home two times in the same day for exercise.
Bozo’s letter – mark it as
Return to Sender
10 Downing Street
SW1A
I’m not suggesting the ogre isn’t ill with virus, but it would be a kind of handy way of keeping the heat off him; he is not known to be overkeen on being held to account – what better way than faking illness, followed by a rapid ‘recovery’ after (if) things get better.
If you look at his face in the videos from his isolation, he clearly is sick. Not as bad as a Youtube from a guy who was having difficulty breathing from covid, but quite clearly ill, and he’s got worse since then.
Yes of course it would be impossible to fake that.
Sure, anything is possible, even the wildly improbable. Bit of a faff though to doll him up with all the makeup, when it’s not necessary.
We’ve moved on to the wildly improbable – he’s in Intensive Care.
66% of patients with COVID-19 who enter intensive care die, according to British statistics.
If he doesn’t survive, what would happen to his ‘pregnant partner’? I wonder, when they are not married, and she is going to have a baby in due time, will the baby be legally recognised as Johnson’s child and all his/her inheritance rights recognized in full?
Tatyana – Yes. If Johnson dies, his child will have the same inheritance rights as if he had been married to the child’s mother.
If Johnson dies, that will probably be a route for Jacob Rees-Mogg to get into the cabinet at long last (he is not a member at the moment, although he attends cabinet meetings): he could take over as Foreign Secretary if Dominic Raab takes over as prime minister.
Interestingly, both Johnson and Raab have family connections with the same company, Marks and Spencer, which has long been strongly supportive of Israel. Johnson’s stepmother Jenny Sieff is from the family that controls the company, being the stepdaughter of its chairman Edward Sieff. A leading Zionist, Sieff was famously shot in the head by Carlos Marighella (“Carlos the Jackal”) in north London and survived. Both of Dominic Raab’s parents worked for Marks and Spencer. What a small world.
it’s good that your law protects the rights of the child.
If I understand correctly, then, since the mother of the child is not a spouse, she will remain a ‘third party’ under the law, she will have the right to dispose of property on behalf of the child until he/she comes of age.
I don’t know that Raab would be appointed Prime Minister, if Johnson died. There might be a lot of objections. At least a new leader would have to be appointed.
Don’t think anybody in the Tory party would like to indulge us with hours of self preening whilst we are sat at home doing the work they forgot to plan for.
Not very likely, Raab is safe and controlled, nobody would want to say.something now.
Dont like Johnson but this is a.s…ty end I wish on no one.
@ Tatyana April 6, 2020 at 22:29
And what about all his other reputed children, whom he refused to number (never mind name).
Probably just his usual hangover. It would be nice to feel sympathy for him but he does not draw any, especially when there is the nagging doubt, that naturally arises when dealing with such a charlatan, that his illness provides a convenient move of focus in the media away from the abysmal mismanagement, lies, deception and incompetence of himself and his entire cabinet during the virus outbreak.
Probably got sozzled as a newt and ate some dodgy ham liberally sprinkled with novichok – his usefulness is diminished without being able to intone ‘hard brexit – done’.
With NulabInc back in the driving seat – it will now be safe to construct the gnu and push through with all their plans of saving the ancient City from EU wide regulations , selling off the rest of our states assets and handing a £trillion profit stream to the ancient overlord global bankers from our labour and taxes. Expect a war somewhere to get the MIC their share and mass miscarriages of justice under such a junta – Salmond will be in the nick before he gets his marching boots on – don’t matter what the jury decided!
…….
Paeodophile Archbishop Pell , convicted by a jury, immediately freed!
……,
WhatsApp introducing censorship on forwarding posts – based in false flag hysteria over fake news 5G masts.
…….
I see Craig Murray’s twitter is being strangled again – as are many of the indy reporters on Syria / Yemen / Iraq and soon YOU..
……..
Singapore on Thames will become a reality and we the population will be split along the lines of the Brave New World long planned.
……..
The tories are getting away with murder which had Corbyn miraculously won (against all odds and massive self admitted interference by a foreign government, USA and its gauntlet waving up-pompeo) than Labour would have been blamed for lack of masks, ppe, tests, ventilatiors, panic buying, cancelked flights and the collapse of the stock market!
Instead we are urged to pray for the recovery of bozo to get back to saving us!
The cognitive dissonance grows to fever pitch as Betty got rolled out to regurgitate her moms wartime spirit and almost burst into song.
We are urged to fall in behind the last refuge of the scoundrel and hand back liberties gained over generations – suckers that we are.
Great post, dun. Depressing but great. This has got a long way to go though and I think people are going to lurch massively to the left as it develops and they see the terrible decisions that have been made and the lack of preparedness in the cold light of day.
I also think we are collectively going to start looking at the big picture again, taking us away from the narrow “what’s in it for me?” paradigm that has plagued us for decades.
We are a herd, they’ll regret saying that; we are a substance, not an aggregate.
A couple of years on this blog, I noticed that some people lack the concepts of “personal”, “border” and “decency”. Personal, I mean personal, something that doesn’t affect the interests of these curious questioners.
People here interested to see personal correspondence, or estimate a personal wallet, or examine family life – all at the same level as “let’s take a look at your underpants.”
Evry time it reminds me of the Princess Javakha, the episode where she was accused of theft. She considered it a humiliation – to be suspected of low deeds – and refused to give personal items for inspection.
I had a completely different opinion about the mentality of your people.
strange, I was expecting answers to this post. the lack of answers made me think, maybe I formulated my idea wrongly and now look like Mary Whitehouse?
ok, I adhere to this principle: each person determines the boundaries of his privacy.
e.g.: I decide what information about myself to make public. If I don’t disclose certain personal information, then the rest of the society should respect my privacy. Moreover, they cannot demand or force me to disclose personal information.
It’s a choice and it’s freedom. Am I not right?
The law and morality of any culture must respect this.
Tatyana
Your confusion is a joy – it is borne of being outside looking in – which allows you to see with clarity the lies people tell themselves. The emperor has no clothes on, you scream amd everyone ignores you and may even admonish you.
Privacy is only there for the rich and powerful.
Start with the supposed head of the state the Queen and her family – look at how much wealth they have put out of reach of their own state! All the aristo families they represent too – when the Duke of Westminster died recently how much inheritance tax was paid on his many billions of pounds assets? An insignificant percentage compared to everyone else.
Look then at the Prime Ministers – Bojo’s – wealth and background – no one is yelling; before that ‘Dave’ a cousin to the Queen and his off-shore funds! Almost every one of these in the Cabinet ….
Look then at those who are the grandees and pillars of state – the Media, the newspaper proprietors their senior editors, the church even, the major executives of our biggest companies etc.
ALL of them keep THEIR privacy, happily being hypocrites (‘only the poor pay taxes’ / lockdown is for plebs etc) while they use their weapons of the media to demean their opponents with people’s personal information (which is not hidden from the relevant authorities) – hence CM and Corbyn and the late mother of the future king of England get the infamy and paparazzi piled upon them.
You must obey – because they know that their hypocrisy and exceptions only exist while the masses RESPECT their ‘superiority’ – hence they demand that you must not look them in the eye! Avert your gaze and bow your head! Or else you will be ruined, blinded, imprisoned, executed, made an example of.
It is many generations of such conditioning that enables such an acceptance of one rule for them and another for us – privacy included.
DunGroanin, thanks for the answer! I thought no one was interested 🙂
I understand that the law is not perfect and protects the interests of the establishment, but normal moral is not cancelled yet, right? How can ordinary people here on a blog shamelessly ask questions of this kind from another ordinary person?
Look at it from my point of view: if there’s a need to publicize someone’s housing, for example, the Queen’s palace or the residence of the Prime Minister, then they will also be protected. They put guards around the place.
Obviously, the state cannot provide guards for Mr. Murray’s house, then, the law must at least punish the publisher of the photo, right?
Or, an example with a wallet, if a person occupies a public position, he is obliged to report his expenses, isn’t that so? But if a person is just an individual citizen, then no one the court only can ask about his spending.
The issue of family life is even more difficult. E.g. Trump took office being married. Apparently he settled everything with Mrs. Trump, and their personal life inside their couple is no business of anyone. How does the law allow journalists to dig out and publicize his … sexual adventures? I understand, though don’t approve why and how they did it, but I understand starting an investigation on sexual assault suspicion, like with Assange or Salmond. But bringing Trump’s relations, quite consensual relations with different women … It’s something dirty to peep into this.
You see it clearly- we as I said are conditioned- like Pavlovs dog.
When phones with cameras appeared everywhere we were all alerted on possible personal information disclosure. The main rule is – we can make photos of everything in public places. We cannot publish photos of a person, even taken in a public place, if the person is a main subject in the picture (unless it is consensual). We cannot take photos and publish them, if there’s personal life in it, unless the photo proves a crime.
You must have something like this in your country.
“By the fine art of provocation I got more details…”
Made me smile.
An adroit disclosure, it really annoys sneaky people when you tell them that you used their sneakiness against them. It’s even better, if telling them that you have, is the sneakiness that you’re using against them. ;O)
Off-topic: can someone please explain what the term “24-hour news cycle” actually means, preferably with an example and making it clear why the time-period 24 hours is referenced rather than some other period, and what the “cycle” is.
It means that you have to stay up for 24 hrs. to find out N_, or…
48 hrs. to be able to find a simple pattern out of 95% of chaff.
Good luck
This is like playing chess here tonight, almost relaxing with a little focus on reality, mortality, maybe…even sobriety.
Good night.
It’s 24 hours because Newspapers get printed once a day and the Newspaper agenda sets the rest up.
My take is that news keeps continuously rolling in and, unlike print journalism, there is no cut off in broadcast newsrooms. So, to match the number of hours in a day, they (in the US I assume) called it the 24-hour news cycle.
Another willing accomplice of the DS spiderweb gets raised by her iwn petard, and look, so many others rushing to her aid with the samey worded tweet of support as the word spreads on her one sided ‘journalism’ (PR transcribing).
https://mobile.twitter.com/DaniGaravelli1/status/1246666801028706304
Many many more replies calling her out, are hidden from view.
She has astroturfed her Twitter feed in the last 24 hours with a lot of smoke to hide the fire she started and can’t hide.
Superb bit of whistle blowing journalism by CM.
Where do we nominate him for prizes?
Not that I’d consider he would get them or indeed accept most.
It’s going from bad to worse, first the herd of trojan-horses inside the SNP come out of the woodwork, take over and murder independence, then the Labour Party is back in the hands of the utter scumbags who formed the Blair’s inner-circle, and now Johnson, who might have been a bit more than just the harmless buffoon he pretended to be, but was far and away not the worst of them infesting Westmidden I’m sure, is out of action for the forseeable and all these weirdo non-entities are jumping into his show-trousers, who they hell are they? I’d never heard of any of them until a few weeks ago. This is how it starts indeed, or as that mass-murdering scumbag Churchill might have put it -this isn’t the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning. Government by jerky, halting video-imagery, that it might as well be Max Headroom/Big Brother in charge. No chance of an Election it seems ever again in case the hobgoblins get us. We’re in a pretty pickle indeed. Does anyone have any ideas, before we’re all murdered in our beds?
This journo-hackette wummim has had more than enough attention than she could ever merit, and I have to laugh at those saying it’s skilful journalism, is it hell, it’s tripe from start to finish. I still haven’t figured out who Marmalade is either, it’s not the queen of Sheba, the pharoah’s daughter Nikolai as she’s the Minister in Yes, First Minister who refers to Marmalade in the third-person and Marmalade is apparently old and has the life-limiting misfortune of having a male member, and isn’t in any case any longer a member.
“It’s going from bad to worse”
What do you make of the clapping ritual, Tony?
1) It’s a stand-in for religion. (But religion is surely going to rise again, probably very soon.)
2) It’s a pre-emption of a repeat of the “Argentinazo” of 2001, which started with people in Buenos Aires clapping next to their windows and banging pots and pans, first on their doorsteps and then on the streets. The rulers are trying to cut us off from this path of resistance, to swamp the culture with it as a pro-government thing so that it doesn’t become an anti-government thing. (Some might compare this with the official commemoration of the “sacrifices” made in WW1, which was partly a response to unofficial actions by working class people. There are several similar examples.)
3) When the Tories shout everywhere that they love the NHS so much (the principle of free at the point of delivery healthcare for everyone – the Tories? really?), a cull is already being prepared, just as Bertolt Brecht wrote that when the rulers talk of peace war is already being prepared. This is a good thing to think about for those who believe in “proper” journalism. Sorry, lads and lasses, journalism ain’t no answer to shee-yit. For all the poncy and extremely irritating talk about “speaking truth to power”, journalism cannot possibly encourage real scepticism towards government and bosses’ lies. It can encourage passivity. Chomsky for example can shove it where the sun don’t shine as far as I am concerned, and so can John Pilger.
A parallel to how “journalism” cannot put the finger on what the clapping stuff is all about is how neither journalism nor lefty academia can expose the true significance of the disgraceful decision in Britain to allow schoolteachers to decide what GCSE and A Level grades school pupils will receive, which (please be aware of this) is something that schoolteachers have been pushing for for years.
Sure, there may be lefty academic research in 5 years’ time showing that there was a class bias in the teachers’ decisions that prevented many working class children from getting on to the university courses they would otherwise have got on to, and boosting the careers of rich kids. But it will be too late then. Denounce it now and you will be called a “conspiracy theorist”, a ranter, or a “non-expert” undeserving of being listened to.
NEVER trust the ruling scum when they say we’re all in the same boat. Across the board, many among the rich are trying to take advantage of this upheaval, to the long term disadvantage of the majority. That fact is the precise opposite of the bullsh*t that is being purveyed by ALL of the official propaganda.
N_
I’ve heard that the markers are given the teacher’s estimate of the pupils results and will generally not deviate far from that estimate. Some schools might inflate their estimates knowing that they are unlikely to be challenged.
This is hearsay by the way.
It has just come to me in a flash who Marmalade is. By golly, heaven preserve us.
Care to share?
I hadn’t worked it out until Tony M posted. Then all of a sudden it was jarringly obvious. But if you go back and read the relevant lines, you’ll see why one ought to be very careful abut going too far.
Stonky
As I posted previously the men involved do not have legal anonymity but one is very close to an accuser to name them if you want to avoid the risk of prosecution. Of course SNPs McCann was named in the trial as the person who put the initial accusation by H on hold until it was needed in the future. The people who see this as a purely female matter are wrong ( like Gravelli ) – men also played their role.
A rather tempting target for the NHS to get their revenge….
I don’t really understand why the alphabet women have not been charged with perjury for falsely accusing Salmond of rape on a date that they were not present, and why Tortoise and Tulchan Communications have not been charged with perverting the course of justice , by pursuing Salmond after the court has found him not guilty.
If Feldman was thrown out of the chairmanship of the Nasty Party , for his staff being Nasty to new recruits and driving them to suicide, he would seem to have form. If he is a barrister, he appears , like Garavelli, to have prostituted his profession to criminal political ends. Heads should be rolling in high places for offences like perjury and perverting the course of justice.
As to Medusa Johnson , the blonde mop elected by algorithm to high office north of the Thames, he is fully entitled to use the NHS south of the Thames free of charge . But us ordinary punters will not be getting the plasma injections from Covid 19 survivors that he will be getting. His reward for depriving the NHS of funds to cater for this long predicted emergency, will be special treatment , free of charge. While pregnant women from outside the UK will be refused admission.
This is the state of our great, socialist nation, that pioneered the NHS and parliament. That the unelected monkeys grinding the organs of power are a Hogarth satire of what the high offices of Law, Government and journalism ought to be
Giyane
I suggest you go back and read the J’Accuse article and you will find the answer to your question re why the alphabet women have not been charged with perjury.
You might have a point N_ some kids can physcial and/or emotional health problems, for whom school is a totally miserable experience, some clown and daydream their way through school then excel in exams or in certain subjects, surprising not just their teachers, but even themselves. They’re going to suffer from that, possibly for the rest of their lives. Provision should be made for those at present in education to remain in education, it should be incentivised for an additional few years for them to do so, to tackle also the subjects they had no natural interest in, or thought they had no aptitude in but it was simply lack of application. They could emerge far more rounded from it might even be able to put their phones down, even turn them off, forego them altogether for five minutes without suffering anxiety. Some might think professionals, being professional, might behave professionally, but it is the exception, rather than the rule.
Boris Johnson is sick.
How sick we are not being told as the press briefings feed us the pap about him being in fine spirits, in control, and only in hospital for a few tests whereas he is actually in intensive care.
Latest statistics record that over 50% of people who go into intensive care die whilst 70% of those who die are men. Such statistics reinforce the gravity of the illness. So yes we should not misunderstand how Ill the PM may be. Trump understood that when early yesterday he made a statement about hoping his great friend would recover. But of course, unlike the fake news fed Great British public, Trump would have known the true health of Boris Johnson?
So who will replace Johnson if he were to die. Someone else who was equally committed to the policy of austerity, universal credit, benefit sanctions, reduction of state support and the underfunding of the NHS.
Another prime minister equally committed to helping exclude foreign doctors and nurses and making life as difficult as possible for foreign workers through the hostile environment.
Another prime minister who could could preside over staggering national shortages of essential health equipment.
Yes, let us all express our outpouring of support for Boris Johnson as a son, a father, a brother but let us not either forget the others who are equally suffering through him and his conservative government’s brutal economic and social policies.
Dominic Cummings horrendous quip about it all being about herd immunity, protecting the economy, and if a few pensioners die too bad, rings loud at this terrible time.
Is it just me, but I read today with absolute incredulity the Health Secretary paying fulsome tribute to the SEC for them having the magnanimity, the generosity, the public spiritedness not to charge rent for the SEC whilst it is being repurposed for use as the NHS Hospital Louisa Jordan.
With the SEC and it’s holding company being one hundred percent owned by the Glasgow City Council, the facility is a public asset. So where is the wonderful magnanimous generosity of which Ms Freeman bountifully crows to a hapless public.
At a time when there are not many pop concerts on the go it would have been a crime not to utilise an empty public asset like this at a time of crisis. But Freeman spins it like some super act of philanthropy.
But the temporary provision of this public asset, this city council owned asset, to the national health service does not as Freeman crows come entirely free, because whilst Freeman crows –
“ I’m grateful to them that they are not charging us rent for these premises at all. That’s a significant gesture by them as well as, of course, many, many NHS staff.”
However as an SEC spokeswoman said:
“We are not charging the NHS a rental for the venue but will charge for any costs directly attributable to the venue’s use as a medical facility “
And therein the truth emerges. Glasgow City Council through the SEC will be charging for everything else associated with the use of their facility, save a mythical rent that they say, or should I say Jean Freeman declares is being forgone.
Spin, spin, spin, Nicola’s Government are up to their ears in it – even in a time of crisis.
Hoping for a speedy recovery for Johnson. I would prefer Gavin Williamson to take on the role of leader at this time rather than Rabb.
Oh, I know Raab! This is the man who seemed to put on a trollface mask, only this is his face.
https://ganza.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/TrollFace-scaled.jpg
If you have ever learned how to draw portraits, you know how facial features express the inner world of a person.
Toad. A vile sadistic toad from Cinderella fairy tale.
Gavin Williamson is certainly better, he is simple. It is very easy to distract him from spoiling things. Give him a toy, like a roll of toilet paper and he is neutralized. Like a baby with a rattle.
@ Tatyana April 7, 2020 at 09:36
Trouble is, Williamson’s toys tend to be (or were) Trident submarines. And he’s not too keen on kids (maybe lest they nick his ‘toys’).
‘Gavin Williamson Under Fire Over Cuts To Free School Meals During Covid-19 Outbreak’:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/gavin-williamson-under-fire-over-cuts-to-free-school-meals-during-covid-19-outbreak/ar-BB127qGF
Paul Barbara
Gavin Williamson gives the impression of a big child never grows up to be an adult man, exactly like Trump. He is easy to manipulate. I wouldn’t take Williamson into account, attention should be paid to the one who controls him.
Actors also study facial expressions, to play the character reliably. Maybe someone here knows the old film “Bella Mafia”, James Marsden played such a psychopath in it. Luka.
Raab has the same cold empty eyes. Macron and Tony Blair have such eyes, too.
I hope you check your politicians with psychological tests, smth like we all undergo when applying for a driving licence or for owning a weapon.
I would prefer Gavin Williamson to take on the role of leader at this time rather than Rabb…
I would prefer an actual balrog. Once people have been driven around by a huge pitiless demon wielding a fiery whip for a week or so, they might have a better appreciation of the true nature of Western capitalist democracy.
Apparently once you are on a ventilator, chances of survival are slim.
So, I think there will be a discussion about putting him on the ventilator and then the suggestion of trying hydroxychloroquine? Some Zinc based medicine may also be required. Then when the miraculous cure is witnessed, the drug will be rolled out to halt the pandemic.
@ Soothmoother April 7, 2020 at 08:50
Hydroxychloroquine is certainly worth a try if you have the virus. Zinc, selenium, and vitamins K2, C and D3 supplements are widely recommended to be good to build up your defenses against it. If it were available, I’d go for Gc-MAF, but the unholy alliance of Big Pharma and government do their best to keep it off the market.
That is referencing this french doctor –
‘Dr Raoult has successfully treated ca 1000 afflicted w. #BillGatesVirus in his Marseilles clinic with chloroquine protocol–only one death (an 88 year old man)–this virus is perfectly treatable–global health bodies #WHO #CDC are obstructing treatment’
https://mobile.twitter.com/Cukullen/status/1246409423322599425
Even better if Brewdog & Guinness have been feeding their yeasts on quinine and lemon rinds and he’s nursed back to health on a zinc fortified flu bru that can be heavily subsidised and provided imminently in draught form at Witherspoon’s outlets across UK
I’ve watched a number of Youtube interviews with Didier Raoult (in French) about the hydroxychloroquine treatment, and I found it convincing. However he insists it is for early or middle stages of the disease. I.e. it is too late for Johnson. The problem for the rest of us, if we unfortunately pick up a dose of COVID-19, is to get it early enough from obstructive doctors (as unapproved), when Trump has bought up the worldwide supplies, and India has banned the export of the ingredients.
“he insists it is for early or middle stages of the disease”
In one of Trump’s press conferences, he basically said that to a reporter and emphasised that the ventilator stage was not good ie. too late!
It makes you wonder what all the ventilators are for, if it is basically too late when you have to use them.
It’s the tories and bozis Social Care policy that they have been promising for years.
My modded comments are usually visible only to me (i asdume) with a polite message from the mod asking it to be posted somewhere else. I suppose there are others which have been zapped – but it is not easy to tell as we can’t check our own posting history and replies received, as in the on -Guardian site.
You could go and post it at the Off-G site they famously claim not to censor (ahem…) and pop a link here – dare you!
If anyone has Craig’s ear on Twitter or on here, perhaps they could mention this to him.
Last night he made a post . He said it was to test his reach, but he specifically asked people not to retweet it. I guess he suspects that his feed is being muted to limit the number of people who can see his posts. It’s quite possible he’s right about that. I’ve had a twitter account for ten years, but I’ve only been active for a couple of weeks, since the end of the AS trial. Nearly all of my posts have been supporting people like Craig and AS, and challenging their critics. I’m pretty certain I’ve already been shadowbanned (I can see my posts and I think they are out there, but nobody else can see them).* All my incoming likes have been scrubbed.
Craig has 77k+ followers, but to date he only has about 2k responses and likes. That seems odd to me. It could be he is being muted. But it might also be that his tweet was ambiguous. In asking people not to retweet it, he may have dissuaded them from responding at all. I think if he posts a new tweet and specifically asks people only to like it, that is the quickest and simplest way for people to confirm that they are seeing it, and It won’t choke his feed as it will simply update the total number of likes on a single tweet.
Apologies if I have misunderstood. If he is trying to do something else maybe he could explain.
*The alternative explanation is of course that nobody at all is interested in engaging with me in any way.
Hi Stonky.
The best policy is to withdraw from Twitter and Facebook or not to use those media in the first place. The illusion of having great reach through these CIA/NSA machines which are mentioned hundreds of times in the newspapers each day, which have become almost synonymous in small submissive minds with the public sphere, and which are where most low-horizoned lazy “journalist” prats do most of their “research”, is a huge TRAP. There is still the worldwide web. I doubt many people know how to save bookmarks on their web browser nowadays, but not quite all of the web is dependent on the Great Satan of our times, Google.
If one is fighting a war on territory where one cannot win, withdraw and fight on other territory.
A great deal could be said about “shadowbanning” as a behavioural conditioning technique. For the moment all I will say is that since man is a social animal, many of us will adapt our behaviour even without thinking about it in order to “make it stop”.
That is how it works. Nobody who is not severely mentally ill prefers to talk to themselves all the time inside a closed box, seeing other people but not getting any interaction with them.
We live in a totalitarian culture.
Will Boris Johnson be removed from this earthly existence shortly before the publication of the “Russia report”?
Note that for several months Britain has had no Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, supposedly because its re-creation has had to wait until the election of a new leader of the Labour party (sic). It is the PISC that will officially decide whether or not to publish the report. The chairman of the previous PISC was Dominic Grieve, who said he favoured publication, but…guess what happened – Boris Johnson blocked publication and then the PISC was removed from existence because of the general election. Do you remember the general election? That was four months ago. Later, Johnson said he’d leave the matter of publication to the new PISC. Well there isn’t one. But there will be one soon. Whoops, bye bye Boris!
Boris Johnson was the only foreign secretary I can ever remember who has been said to be thought of as a security risk by senior officers of MI6. He’s been whacked.
They don’t want a trial like they had with Stephen Ward after Profumo.
Looks like Michael Gove is getting whacked too, and Dominic Cummings, and also possibly defence secretary Ben Wallace.
N_ – have William Hill opened a book on Boris Johnson’s survival chances? If so, would you be willing to place a small wager that he’ll be six feet under within the next four weeks?
Sorry to digress from the thread but there is an article in the Independent saying that Julian Assange’s partner has had a privacy application rejected by Baraister on the grounds that her right (and that of her children) to a private life is outweighed by the needs of justice being seen to be transparent. As we all know is her absolute priority in hearing that case. It appears the Press Association made application, so in the eyes of the MSM their right to privacy is less than say the actor on the video link in the Salmond case. What sort of a country is this?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/julian-assange-wikileaks-latest-news-extradition-partner-children-a9452856.html?amp
Mods, the ‘Reply’ button seems to have gone AWOL on this and the later thread.
And I don’t know where the ‘+’ came from in my name in previous comment; I have removed it, but certainly never put it in in the first place.
WordPress was just upgraded. There may be some teething problems.