On Being A Bit Wrong 791


I was down in London last week for discussions around my appeal to the Supreme Court, and staying in a hotel close to Leicester Square, I wandered along to see the fans during their game with Ukraine and its very noisy aftermath. I was hoping to write a piece about disgusting uncouth yobs of racist English nationalists and their stupid and perhaps violent excesses.

With the exception of the most hardline of unionists and the politically correct automatons of the “new” SNP, it is ingrained in most Scots to support two teams: Scotland, and whoever is playing England. This is generally expressed lightly, but the centuries of oppression and cultural and economic dominance that led to these attitudes are very real. I have been amusing myself greatly on twitter throughout the tournament by supporting the Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine, any opponent of England, I confess largely because it creases me up to see unionists so easily triggered and unable to cope with teasing.

I know, I should get out more.

Well, I have to say I was wrong. I found it impossible to dislike the crowds of England supporters. They were joyous, and there was no sign I could find around Leicester or Trafalgar Squares of the kind of racist Brexit backers who had booed the England team for taking the knee. Indeed, the most striking thing about the crowd was its extreme multiculturalism, the most joyous and unified representation of most of the ethnic groupings on this earth, all with their arms around each other and sharing beer, wine, tequila, a variety of smokable substances, and anything else to hand.

There was also a far greater gender mix than I expected, and the women were by no means passive or in girlfriend mode. In fact some of the more aggressively uninhibited groups of celebrating young women were distinctly intimidating to an old fogey like me and had me scuttling to cover (they meant no harm but might have hugged me to death).

Yes, I know London is not Grimsby or the ex-red wall constituencies, I know English nationalism is a real problem and will split up the UK (about which I am intensely happy). But I was wrong to dismiss the Gareth Southgate phenomenon of an essentially decent Englishness and its reach. My loyalties for Euro 2020 (sic) now lie with the nation of my Italian grandmother. But I feel somewhat less revolted by the continuing success of the English team.

I should make my confession; I liked the English fans I was around that night.

————–

I should be very grateful if you read this excellent article by Alexander Mercouris on my appeal to the Supreme Court. Alexander is a lawyer and it is an explanation of the detail, but it absolutely captures everything I have been lying awake at nights and thinking about the case.

I was chatting to Vivienne Westwood at a rally for Julian Assange and she is very taken with the climate crisis. We are heading for the edge of an abyss, and a few people in power are considering how to slow down a bit, while almost nobody is suggesting we turn round. Vivienne reminded me of her website Climate Revolution, which is very stimulating and worth checking for updates.

Vivienne often chooses to express her thought through her art and allegorical representation, and also writes cogently and pithily. The breadth and depth of her knowledge and quality of her thinking are impressive. For those not with a natural artistic bent, it is worth taking the time to understand. For example, she chose to celebrate Julian’s fiftieth birthday not by eating birthday cake but by smearing it on herself. It is a great piece of agitprop, and invites you to work out why.

Finally, here is a lovely picture of John Pilger, who was on great form, and me showing off my bald spot.

———————————————

 
 
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791 thoughts on “On Being A Bit Wrong

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  • Ian

    Absolutely agree, Craig. Gareth Southgate and his players, particularly Rashford and Sterling, have demonstrated a kind of Englishness we could all approve of. They are a beacon of light in a dark, dystopian rightwing autocracy. It is astonishing that not a single politician I can think of can stand up so eloquently and positively for a multlcultural England at ease with itself, so intimidated are they by the press and media. Pretty astonishing that it has taken a modest, thoughtful football manager to do the clearly right thing, while no politician dare. The vile brexit tabloids of course are full of utter hypocrisy about it, having hounded Sterling for daring to be successful.
    England v Italy will be a great final, can see Italy winning that one.

    • U Watt

      Corbyn has stood up for that multicultural Britain his entire career, unintimidated by the media. He is depicted by the rest of them — not least by Remainer liberals — as the most racist politician in the country. They want him and socialist and Muslim voters driven out of politics.

      • Bramble

        And the ex-Red Wallers “hate” him. They hate an anti racist pacifist who fights for social justice because he is an anti racist pacifist who fights for social justice. And must therefore be unpatriotic. What has happened to the country I was born in?

  • Grhm

    I’m appalled that you would stoop so low as to cheer on Ukraine.
    You perhaps missed the news that before the contest, UEFA required Ukraine to modify their strip, because the original version carried the slogan of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, the fascist party who collaborated with the Nazis in WW2.
    At one point during the Ukraine-Sweden match, the TV zoomed in on a fellow with black and red face paint, black and red being the colours of the OUN flag.
    You do seem to have a weird blind spot when it comes to Eastern European neo-fascism

    • Ian

      Er, we are talking about a football match, not a political manifesto. And a gesture with a glint in the eye. Spare us the high horse.

      • Grhm

        Spare us your “glint”.
        I agree that a football match is not a political manifesto, but it’s absurdly hypocritical for players to “take the knee” to symbolize opposition to racism and then go on to play against an openly racist opposition, without even a murmur of dissent. Either don’t kneel or don’t tolerate fascists. Can’t have it both ways.

        • Jimmeh

          Sports-people have been ignoring the political and social aspects of their activities since I was a child – probably longer. Typically, the excuse is that international sporting fixtures encourage openness and communication between peoples.

          I remember the England cricket tours of South Africa, at a time when nearly everyone but sportsmen were shunning South Africa (the South African teams were all-white).

          Sports-people are not hired for their deep insight into social issues or politics. I fail to understand why news crews interview them about anything other than sports; and I think even their remarks on sports are usually pretty boring. These people are athletes, noted for their physical strength and skills, not intellectuals respected for their incisive insights.

          I’m not interested in fitba. I try to keep up, so that I can share my companion’s enthusiasm. As a child, I enjoyed playing a few sports, especially Rugby Union (sorry:-), but spectator sports with big-star players never enthused me.

          • Ray Davis

            Hi, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Sport in capitalist society is not a neutral activity. And sportsmen and women are often totally myopic politically and socially. The social system encourages total self-absorption. Those who act on a social/political conscience like Rashford are the tiny exception rather than the rule.
            And, of course, there is nationalism and nationalism. Nationalism in the UK is a vile and totally negative thing. It fools working people into a false unity with the ruling class; thinking that “we all have something in common”.
            The mainstream media have crowed how the English football team has united a nation ( so we all can forget about the 100,000+ deaths at the hands of this criminal bunch in government.
            So, my delight at the defeat of England last night is a recognition of the temporary defeat of jingoist nightmare.

        • Courtenay Barnett

          Reply ↓
          Grhm,

          ‘Racism’ – ‘Fascism’

          One protest at a time – can’t blame a protester for not trying to take on all battles at once.

          • Grhm

            Hmm.
            1. Racism.
            2. Fascism.
            Which of those are you in favour of, then, Courtney?

        • Ian

          Football not your strong point, is it? Sanctimony is, though. So when Craig was supporting Scotland last week he was explicitly supporting Sturgeon’s persecution of Salmond, her neoliberal foreign policy and sundry other egregious policies. I see. Best not to support anybody in case the thought police come knocking at your door.

          • Vimto Bingo

            I was watching the England Germany match and the camera zoomed in on a handsome German lady wearing a hat with the number 18 on it. I remarked to my wife that these were the initials of Adolf Hitler utilised by the neo Nazi football crew from the UK ‘combat 18’. However I believe that she was just showing support for the German player who wears the number 18 shirt. But I could be wrong. There’s no easy way of knowing! Maybe the German team could stop using the number 18 on their kit, just to make sure that it cannot be appropriated for the wrong reasons leaving me in a state of concerned stupidity.

  • Crispa

    I am impressed by the England team and its manager. Its success in no small way is due to the influx of foreign money which has made the Premier League the world premier league, foreign coaches and foreign players all of whom have increased the technical and general footballing skills of the home grown players. The development of academies taking in the most promising youngsters at an early age has no doubt helped but these too are international in character. Jingoism is as irrational in football as it is in any other sphere.

    • J

      If only corporatism was as irrational in football as jingoism, then at least I could be partially interested in the spectacle. I was on my school football team but quickly, though reluctantly, discovered I could not even afford to ‘support’ my local team. Today, whenever I go on a day out very near where I live, I end up choking on the fumes of footballers cars, obscenely expensive cars too, just as I am deafened by the noise of their engines and dazzled by the bling on their wives fingers.

      It strikes me that Football has become a metaphor for Capitalism, just as surely as genuine supporters can barely afford to patronize matches or buy the kit. But sure, Eng-A-Land! Scotland!

  • nevermind

    blah blah national psychosis, ten bombers, etc. blah blah.
    C”mon Italy/Spain/Denmark/England….any country that can feed us more than bad news.
    Now smearing a bit of humus on to my tongue, followed by a piece of cheese covered with home made gooseberry jam.
    … where are the camera’s?..

  • Dario

    And that is the very best sign that you may have lost it, Craig.
    Because indeed, English people and fans are at their very worst, and they never stop showing it.
    The evidence is conclusive: Boris Johnson gave the British electorate a clean cut choice as to whether they should stand. And they made their stance crystal clear, in ways that no Brexit referendum could ever prove.
    England remains today what it has always been, a devastating cancer to international relations and world peace, and England’s soccer supporters are just one more piece of evidence to the point.
    They may show a deceptive face to the world; they may engage in the behavior you describe, trying to suggest they are not that bad after all; yet, at the end, just look not so closely, that is only another manifestation of their ultra-nationalist, psychotic attitude, that they have simply been forced to tune down out of public relations needs.
    They still are what they are, and the world should take finally notice.

    • Josh R

      Dario,
      & that’s just the kind of nationalist tribalism that underpins most of the stupidity in the world which we could all do without.
      To imagine the passport you hold defines the person you are is just daft & precludes finding common cause with folk across these imaginary lines in the earth – very ‘analogue’ ?

    • M.J.

      Here’s a video of a visit to Tristan da Cunha. An older man who lives there, who had been temporarily evacuated to England when the volcano got active, said that there were no other people he would rather live with, though he returned to the island when he got the chance. Of course, he would have fitted into British culture easily:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ElF8awm90

  • Giyane

    I trained in air conditioning in 2008 in readiness for the swap from gas boilers to heat pumps. But I was wrong. The gases in heat pumps are much more corrosive of our atmosphere than hydrocarbons and much too difficult to contain safely from pressurised systems.

    As well, we will soon be having nuclear pods in our cities instead of gas power stations, and the disastrous cycle of lies about nuclear waste which dogged our childhoods will start a new cycle.

    Insulation. Insulation Insulation.
    We need a Blair to make the slogan. Arectgere any spare Blair’s floating around?

  • mark golding

    Thankyou Alexander for an excellent and detailed analysis, specifically the importance of legal judgement on the unique in law ”jig-saw’ analysis perplexity.

  • Penguin

    So you think that black englishmen can’t be racist Scotophobes like their white brethren?

    You were not looking very hard then if you couldn’t find any racists singing their racist songs.

    I was in london 3 weeks ago and they were there. Very visibly and vocally. They hate us and always will. We are their pets and they have no intention of losing control of us.

    Anyone grovelling in the name of a dead drug dealer who killed himself with a Fentanyl overdose needs to be sacked, never mind booed off the park.

    Remember Fentanyl? You used to know the effects it had when you were telling us the Skripals were poisoned with it.

    • craig Post author

      What strange nonsense. I don’t think I ever suggested the Skripals were poisoned with Fentanyl, though that was the initial suspicion of the doctors at the hospital. Your remarks about the killing of Floyd are callous. He had certainly taken the drug and methamphetamine, but there is no doubt that having his neck crushed and chest compressed contributed to the death. Are you trying to say it is fine to kill drug takers?

    • zoot

      “racists singing their racist songs”

      keep fighting them in your own unique way Penguin.

  • casperger

    “I found it impossible to dislike the crowds of England supporters. They were joyous, and there was no sign I could find around Leicester or Trafalgar Squares of the kind of racist Brexit backers who had booed the England team for taking the knee.”

    Once again, real life observation differs from the divisive, polarising media narrative. As it usually does.

    • Johny Conspiranoid

      “the kind of racist Brexit backers who had booed the England team for taking the knee.” “

      How do you know they were racist or Brexit backers?

  • Cynicus

    “I found it impossible to dislike the crowds of England supporters.”

    —-
    Glad to hear it. Now try out liking the fans with microphones in the BBC studios. Good luck.

    • Vimto Bingo

      I cannot bear the pundits who spend most of their time discussing their own careers pointedly avoiding the actual match playing out in front of them. BBC is the worst. Seriously unable to be present in the match they deliver nonsense from their shite memories of their glory days. Does my heed in!!!

        • fishnishandchips

          if he heard, he paid no heed
          careful attention, notice, regard.
          Heed sounds like heid but I was actually
          thinking heed.
          You cannot concentrate, one’s attention is diversified.

  • Giyane

    Craig, while you’re having your little snigger about English racists, maybe it might be a moment to reflect on what English workers have to put up with from immigrants on construction sites and in society in general.

    Most immigrant electricians refuse to connect the safety earth, because they think it’s time consuming and unnecessary.. in Birmingham cars keep on coming through red traffic lights to the point that drivers with a green light can no longer crossctge lights. It’s daily bullying by one race against the rules of another race.

    You won’t be sniggering when you get mown down just for following the little green man. It never has been racism by the English, just that we constantly see is one rule for us and another rule for immigrants.
    It creases them up to see our annoyance.

    • ginger ninja

      You’re wasting your breath. Craig has a certain view of the oiks, especially the northern ones, to him they’re all small-minded racists, even when they’re not.

      • Giyane

        ginger ninja

        He is celebrating youth , and age.
        The bit in the middle, the Thatcher generation , will become a period like the fifties of strange lemming like conformity.

        • ginger ninja

          Giyane,

          It’s like a Harry Enfield sketch.

          Craig, if you’re reading this search for Enfield’s ‘Dad meets gay son’s partner’, or anything on ‘the resident Geordie’. We’ve all got our prejudices, for the high majority of us they’re not hateful or dark, just a bit silly really and they deserve being challenged on occasion with a sprinkle of light-hearted ribbing. Have a laugh at yourself for heaven’s sake, you old curmudgeon. :p

          And for others on here talking about knuckle-draggers and what have you. Please stop. Rallying against “Multiculturalism” isn’t always hatred of “the other”, it’s sometimes merely confusion about what we’re supposed to be nowadays. As a nation we seem directionless, disunited. The fear is we’re papering over that crack with some wishy-washy garbage some neoliberal think-tank has dreamt up to silence us, rather than dealing with it in any meaningful way.

          • Northern+Sole

            “As a nation we seem directionless, disunited.”

            Which nation are you talking about?

    • AndrewR

      I’m not qualified to comment on earthing, but here in London you are wrong to say that jumping red lights is cultural. For most of the day there will be one or two drivers who keep going when the lights have gone red. (You can forget about slowing down at amber.) At rush hour, this turns into four or five. There are lots of traffic lights, so this is a lot of people jumping them.

      This is from observation, of course, presumably there are studies. It is cultural in the sense that it is in the culture of drivers.

    • Pooh

      Gooood evening, comrade Clark

      Well, I would tend to echo your “Hmmm” hoping we could agree that generalising from particular instances would not, by itself, necessarily lead to a reasonably balanced conclusion.

      Bests

      • Clark

        Hello Pooh, good to hear from you. Yes, I agree with that.

        I missed the Free the Press action; I really wanted to be on that. Partly personal circumstances, partly the rapidly rising infection prevalence. Hoping I can participate in August.

        • Pooh

          Salute, comrade. You are good. I see you’ve been busy. Hope you are well. We’ll talk 911 again when the time is right.

          If you see a relaxed, very intelligent looking bear in August, you’ll know it’s me. 🙂

          Best wishes. Keep strong and safe.

  • Josh R

    Great photo of CM & JP,
    I’m sure there’s a ‘caption competition’ there somehow, perhaps involving ‘hair envy’ and a vaguely aggressive comment made by JP, to which CM is slightly taken aback ??

  • DunGroanin

    I am a little worried that something else you may need to re-assess didn’t concern you in these unwise, cabin fevered crowds of young folk – the petri-dishes of mutations – clearly showing in the absurd exponential growths that WILL translate into illnesses and hospitalisation and max pressure on the NHS again.

    That said – the attitudes of the England manager and team are worthy of attention.

    Southgate’s letter pre tournament to the Ingurland morons was hastily buried.
    Barnay Ronay (of the Groaniad) writes perceptive pieces on such topics as he did about the Russia World Cup tournament that was targeted by integrity initiative, which explained a lot about the timing of the anti-Russian narratives, including… ahem Salisbury.

    On a point of how there is such a sea-change in the footballing mindset in the England camp, the answer is a SCOTSMAN – the great Alex Ferguson.

    It was and is his cadre of schoolboy footballers that returned Man Utd to the fore. And it is them who have carried HIS socialist sensibility into their future careers. – from these that housed the homeless in their hotels to the welfare of feeding children through the ravages of imposed Austerity; which gave rise to resentment that led to the acceptance of BrexShit, The full effects of which have been hidden by Covid – hence the continued need to divert and infect even more Brits! The EU will certainly ban all travel from the U.K. within eeeks.

    Alex Ferguson’s socialist, grass roots , bottom up sensibilities are on display in THIS England team – not that the gammonites will notice. They will be hammered by the MSM Barbies and Ken’s under instructions of ii managers in short order – just watch what happens to the political statement of the Manager and team as they try and extend their modern social democratic attitudes in their future careers as has already happened with the grassroots BLM taking the Knee started by another great US athlete who’s career has been destroyed by his principled stance.

    The Queen apparently has given the NHS a George Medal (isn’t that usually for DEAD HERO’s?) in a Marie Antoinette let them eat cake fashion (is that what Westwood was intending?) of never mind a decent Austerity busting wage rise and actual improvement to the NHS – which is about to be buried as Health Service and left as the emergency body baggers of dregs who can’t afford treatment.

    I am in the middle of such English double think as our foreign staff recoil from the nasty frothing pent up rage of society beaten down by 50 years of Neocon/lib grabbing back control of their ancient serfs.

  • Funn3r

    “English nationalism is a real problem”

    I am confused Craig; considering your unwavering support for Scottish nationalism how do you manage simultaneously to hold two contradictory opinions?

    • Jimmeh

      Nationalism is a word with several meanings. I don’t think Craig subscribes to the supremacist, xenophobic kind of nationalism; he’s a supporter of independence.

      The English don’t need independence; they’re already independent. So English nationalism tends to have a nasty, xenophobic taste to it. Steer Karma’s flag-waving is an appeal to that kind of English nationalism, and it does him no credit.

  • Ray Ashworth

    “the kind of racist Brexit backers who had booed the England team for taking the knee” are a very small part of those who boo. Those I know who do boo do so for two clear reasons: firstly putting politics into sport is wrong; and more importantly, these “boo-ers” are anti-racist and know taking the knee is supporting BLM a racist organisation that has clearly been set up with the express purpose of using racism to divide us and keep us squabbling amongst ourselves.

    Or, in more simple terms, the BBC supports it therefore it must be wrong!

    • DunGroanin

      “BLM a racist organisation”

      That is the Orwellian double speak I speak of.

      “ firstly putting politics into sport is wrong;”

      Take out:
      the National Anthems;
      The Soldiers Sailors and Airmen and women and their marching bands;
      The only conic heads of states and Royals:
      And the FLAGS of conquest and political patriotism.

      Then come back with your ii boosted bs.

      • Ray Ashworth

        You can think it is bs, but BLM is a racist organisation. The name is enough to make it clear.

        Yes, politics is already in sport and should go, but I suggest we stop further encroachment as the first step.

        • DunGroanin

          No Ray – start with my list FIRST which has been around ever longer than BLM or you are plainly a hypocrite. It’s that simple.

          • Ray Ashworth

            I don’t care for any of the things on your list, but I don’t think it is hypocritical to take my foot off the accelerator BEFORE pressing the brake.

        • DunGroanin

          That is just you being a road raging bully, effing and blunding and justiculating as you foam at the mouth at some foreign-looking driver on YOUR road lined with flags, statues and entitlement of white supremacy that is borne of the lie of Empire and White Man’s Burden.

          See – you need to start at the begining if you want to get to your fake end.

        • Mighty Drunken

          “The name is enough to make it clear.”

          So you don’t think BLM?
          You need to lookup the word “racist”.
          If you do think BLM, then you shouldn’t have a problem with the phrase.

          • Ray A

            “So you don’t think BLM?” Strange, I never wrote anything like that. Have you placed this reply in the wrong place?

            If on the other hand you deliberately misunderstood what I wrote, then to help you understand I shall tell you that an easy test for racism is to substitute White for Black and see if it is then racist. If it is then the original term is racist.

          • Mighty Drunken

            BLM is a slogan because it is implicit that white lives matter. You could say the full expansion of BLM is

            “We all know white lives matter, so do black lives!”

            By just saying, “but WLM” you miss the whole point and look like a racist.

            White AND black lives matter that is the WHOLE point.

          • Ray A

            White AND black lives matter that is the WHOLE point.

            Something we can agree on, although I prefer All Lives Matter as otherwise you run the risk of alienating Asians.

  • Rhys Jaggar

    Mr Murray, I am very sorry, but you need to keep your ignorant mouth shut when it comes to linking ‘taking the knee’ to ‘Far right racism’.

    Taking the knee has nothing to do with countering racism, it is all about promoting the racist/marxist organisations BLM and ANTIFA. We have already had the disgusting saga of a Cambridge racist being promoted to full Professor for saying that the expression ‘White Lives Matter’ was a racist expression. If you agree with that, then your life doesn’t matter, your rights don’t matter and you can happily go to prison because justice for white men like you doesn’t matter.

    Now I expect you to come out categorically in print that the Cambridge academic who voiced those repulsive sentiments is a racist, it is just that she is racist against white English men. If you are in any way equivocal in your condemnation, I want you sent to prison for five years for your own indubitable racism. I will ask for the costs of your appeal to be awarded against you and I would ask the authorities to ensure that the costs match the value of your Edinburgh home so that when you come out you are homeless.

    BLM is a disgusting lawless organisation and if you say otherwise you need your house trashed the way BLM racists trashed white business premises in US cities, none of whom have been prosecuted for their criminality.

    Opposition to taking the knee is all about NOT having anything to do with US racism, it has nothing to do with making a stand against English racism. English football is vastly over-stocked with those of black skin, by which I mean that if you calculate on a population basis how many black players you would expect in the upper echelons of English football, it is way, way higher than you would expect. This is happening at precisely the time that riches for the top players are at their absolute peak. So don’t talk to me for one second about English football being ‘racist’. It isn’t. You would only expect 2 or 3 black managers in the entire football league based on population expectations, but the black population think they should have 10 or 12. If there is any under-representation of ‘those of colour’ in the English football game, it is amongst the Asian communities. There are far too many black ‘analysts’ on the TV based on population demographics, and at least one of Jenas, Richards, Scott and Aluko should not be appointed if we are going to have ‘even-handedness’.

    Now if you become President of Scotland, you are going to enshrine in law the rights of white men born in Scotland from having to live under a lifelong barrage of ‘women this, blacks that, muslims the other; Jews, Jews, Jews; gays, gays, gays; trans, trans, trans’.

    Nearly 40% of Scots were born white, male and heterosexual and it is about time you treated them with equality.

    • Ian

      Your ignorance is spectacular. Instead of telling us what is inside people’s minds you could read their easily available eloquent explanations and principles, which is why the England team’s stance is particularly impressive. But you won’t, preferring your bitter self-harming diatribe to their simple, powerful gesture in support of their friends and colleagues.

    • DunGroanin

      Just for you and your attempt at rewriting a history that hasn’t yet disappeared in the rear view mirror with wormtongued wizadry of a Talk Radio Propaganda blurb – Asians on there backing Brexshittery just as in Government being the petty patels of the original and never ending Cimpany – just the house slaves, mastering the serfs, for their massas as they have for centuries.

      ‘ NEW YORK, N.Y. – May 11, 2021 – Today, Kaepernick Publishing is proud to announce that it will release its first title, Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons, on October 12, 2021. ‘

      Colin Kaepernick
      @Kaepernick7
      kaepernickpublishing.com
      https://kaepernickpublishing.com/news

      There you go Rhys, you demented stooge of the global DS – the fruit really didn’t fall as far away as you so loudly have claimed – your over protestations and agit prop bellicose gobshiterry through the btl boards are writ large showing your red/brown pedigree, hmm?

      J’accuse !

    • Clark

      “but the black population think…”

      There’s racism, right there. People think, populations don’t, and lumping people together like that by the colour of their skin is racism.

      • Pooh

        Comrade, with much respect and affection

        I’ve left you a comment ^^^ minutes ago addressing the same topic as you have done here. However, I would doubt that what Rhys Jaggar’s said is to be understood as racist, I take it as just a way of putting it. Needless to say this bear has a soft spot for Rhys Jaggar. ;D

        Peace, comrade

    • josh R

      Rhys,

      “If you agree with that, then your life doesn’t matter, your rights don’t matter and you can happily go to prison”

      “I want you sent to prison for five years”

      “BLM is a disgusting lawless organisation”

      “you need your house trashed”

      wow! easy tiger, that’s all a bit strong, perhaps time to put the handbag away?

      I tend to think that what’s ‘presented’ as BLM & AntiFa is a far cry from what it actually is, in the minds & hearts of most people. Surely no surprise there? Isn’t that the ‘role’ of the narrative, to cloud, obfuscate, label & demonise? to divide & neuter?

      BTW, I love how our Yankee cousins are forever talking about AnTeefa, which suggests an ignorance of the fact that it stands for “Anti Fascist” (as opposed to Fascist), a strongly held conviction & not some organised terror ‘group’, presented in an establishment attempt to hijack what is a perfectly reasonable ideological stance to take, as with BLM.

      At one point last year, when the “if it bleeds, it leads” hacks were creaming their pants at all the lootin’ & shootin’, I read that 96% of the BLM protests across America were entirely peaceful. I saw short vids of BLM & Proud Boys chatting together as they were protecting local businesses, as they canvassed NY about the mandatory vaccine proposals.
      But I think a lot of people came away with the ‘impression’ that the country was ‘on the brink’, happily swallowing a sense of fear that, unsurprisingly, has led to more authoritarianism (yaaaaawn!).

      Similarly, the “insurrection!!” What a piss poor, stage managed pantomime that was, less riot & more family outing. With just enough ‘padding’ to paint some more Hate into the picture, a few lies about murdering supremacists to shore up the new ‘fear’; fire extinguisher lie was bollox & endlessly repeated, but you should know that already; turning up with plastic ties, lie! picked ’em up onsite.

      Just read the other day, about how Parler sent scores of warnings beforehand about plans to be troublesome on that day. Remember all those pics during Seattle & Occupy, of legions of Robocops outside Nike stores & thieving banks? Capitol Hill seemed quite quiet in comparison.

      “But it was the Orange Man!!” they cry, consumed by Trump-anoia, “it’s all his fault!!”, “he’s the End of The World” & “please, just give us back that old ‘predictable’ Imperialism!!”
      (he was just another twat in a long line of twats except, ironically, he probably left less dead bodies in his wake than the POTUS twats before him. The bad policies can be reversed, treaties re signed but dead babies don’t come back to life).

      & subsequently the seat of gov’t is locked up like a fortress & DoJ police funding goes through the roof, the whole War on Terrorism is simply being ‘pivoted’ to these new ‘domestic terrorists’, Black, White, Green or whoever, kids are still sleeping in cages & the foreign occupations & bombings continue, with fresh belligerence on the horizon & Raytheon keeps smiling.
      Good job there, by the righteously indignant.

      When you find yourself enraged by a whole ‘group’ of folk, you’re being played & it’s time to step back, slap yourself & remember what ‘real’ people are really like, not just the ‘nominated’ caricatures endlessly broadcast on the telly.

      It’s almost like the “if you disagree with a political ideologue, bomb the sh!t out of their entire country” mentality now extends to all interpersonal ideological differences,,,,,,

      I think it feels a bit fascist’y.

    • Jimmeh

      “racist/marxist organisations BLM and ANTIFA”

      As far as I’m aware, BLM is a slogan, not an organisation. That slogan asserts that it’s not OK for cops to shoot dead black people with impunity. Have you ever been to the USA? You see black people spreadeagled by the side of the highway, with cops pointing guns at them, all the time.

      With regard to Antifa, you have no idea what you’re on about. Antifa is not an organisation. It’s not Marxist. You could argue that it’s racist, on the grounds that it consists of groups of people that aim to protect specifically Jewish people from being assaulted on the street; and I wouldn’t deny that many antifa have socialist ideals. But I think perhaps you have been reading too many Trump speeches.

      I’ve never personally been involved with antifa activities. I’ve observed them, though; they’re people like me, with ideals and principles. To characterise antifa as “racist” smells like prejudice to me.

    • AmyB

      ” If you are in any way equivocal in your condemnation, I want you sent to prison for five years for your own indubitable racism. I will ask for the costs of your appeal to be awarded against you and I would ask the authorities to ensure that the costs match the value of your Edinburgh home so that when you come out you are homeless.”

      Good grief, I’ve read some nonsense in these comments pages over the years, but this rant takes some beating. This should become the dictionary definition of ‘impotence’.

    • Courtenay Barnett

      Rhys Jagger,

      I lived ten years in England and attended school and London University and did post-graduate there.

      So – when an otherwise very sensible man writes this:-

      ” Opposition to taking the knee is all about NOT having anything to do with US racism, it has nothing to do with making a stand against English racism”

      Which planet does he live on?

    • Jimmeh

      Yikes.

      I’ve read some rather alarming stuff by you Rhys, but that was a pretty foul diatribe. If that’s how you feel, I don’t understand why you read this blog; but perhaps you were pissed or stoned or something.

      Take a tranq, calm down.

      • Justin

        iirc, Mr Jaggar posted racist and antisemitic stuff on other blogs which got flooded with downvotes and then deleted by the admins.

        • DunGroanin

          Rhys is nothing more than a DS stooge, a sounding board for the scripts and playbooks of daily propaganda designed to appeal to the so called ‘leftist/rightist’ fascist instinct – a sophisticated attempt at bridging these red/brown political fabrications against the ‘other’ – currently being fanned into a conflagration that will be used as a feedback loop to reinforce the ‘us’ against ‘them’ 3 stooges act whilst insulating the ancient powers from the ‘punching up’ that every century or so inflamed the masses, when they have had enough of poverty and being offered cake.

  • Ray Ashworth

    Vivienne Westwood may be concerned about a climate crisis, but there are reasons to doubt there is a crisis or even a mild concern. When predictions of imminent demise keep failing, when the people publishing the data keep getting caught cheating, when the establishment supports Greta Thunberg, you can be sure that it is an establishment psyop.

    Or, in more simple terms, the BBC supports it therefore it must be wrong!

    • DunGroanin

      They arrived like a flying blue monkey army of bile spewers.

      “ predictions of imminent demise “

      Kindly explain what you think ‘IMMINENT’ means in climactic/geological definition.

      And don’t take a glacial time scale to reply.

      • Ray Ashworth

        Very droll. An example of some imminent predictions.

        2009 National Geographic News: No more glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2020 – false prediction, Grinnell Glacier is as large or even larger than 25 years ago.

        It is not the first time this prediction of an ice free park was made, the same forecast was made in 1923, and in 1924, and in 1936, and in 1952. And it continues in 2014 yet another prediction of an ice free Glacier National Park.

        These predictions vary from expecting an ice free Glacier National Park in eleven years up to fifty years.

        This predictions have one thing in common: all false.

        • DunGroanin

          So your understanding of ‘imminent’ is less than a generation to 2/3 generations?

          Just asking for some people in the next century or 4.

          • DunGroanin

            So a typical sociopath’s lack of concern for anyone else.

            Do you regularly cite and misrepresent ‘on the Origin of Species’ as is the wont of your fellow travellers?

        • Mighty Drunken

          Do us a favour, don’t believe all you read in the media. If you want to get a proper assessment of climate science and its predictions don’t look at media stories, they will be sensationalist one way or the other.

          Please, instead read the IPCC reports. Try the synthesis report
          https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/

          If you want more details on the physics and observations read the The Physical Science Basis report
          https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

          Climate science has done a good job at predicting our current climate and with current trends our future climate will be very uncomfortable.

          • Ray A

            Oh yes, trust a political organisation, very smart. I don’t need to be an expert in logic and physical sciences to know that when the data is being deliberately altered or misrepresented I am being lied to.

          • Mighty Drunken

            I see you have become insulated from the truth. Even posting links to the site RealClimate, sigh. The IPCC was set up by the UN but the reports are written by scientists. 1000s of them, all experts in that particular area.
            The climate is not about politics, only those who wish to deny for profit say it is.

            The hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada was just totally smashed.
            All trends are continuing to point to a warmer world, there is no other explanation than increased greenhouse gas concentration.

          • Ray A

            It is the so called scientists who keep getting caught cheating with the data!

        • Tom+Welsh

          After many decades of experience, with substantial funding, massive computer power and plenty of alleged experts, the Met Office still can’t predict TODAY’s weather reliably.

          And please don’t tell me that it’s easier to predict the global climate 20-50 years ahead.

          • Clark

            It isn’t easier to predict the global climate 20-50 years ahead.

            But if you pull out the plug in your bath it’s no surprise that the depth of water diminishes (Earth’s total heat reserve), and that still doesn’t help you predict the pattern of ripples on the surface (weather). You can prove in your own kitchen that CO2 accumulates heat with some CO2, two plastic bottles, two thermometers and a powerful lamp.

          • Ian

            A lot of the climate events happening right now are exactly in line with what has been predicted by climate scientists, every year the datasets become more comprehensive and confirmatory of the diagnosis of why it is happening. There is very little disagreement, despite the efforts of the dwindling band of conspiracists and oil company astroturfing.

    • Clark

      !!! Take a look at the Arctic sea ice – before it’s all gone. Some things are just too big to either hide or fake.

      The BBC stopped treating global heating as a debate only in 2019, and it took the school strikes and Extinction Rebellion to bring them to their senses – the BBC needs to retain some credibility to function successfully as state apologist, and the Guardian was available as a convenient model. But saying “my specific claim must be the truth merely because it contradicts the official story” is in any case classic conspiracy theorising:

      https://patternsofmeaning.com/2020/10/01/the-five-real-conspiracies-you-need-to-know-about/

      • Ray Ashworth

        Not sure what your patterns of meaning link is – looks like a typical part right, part wrong attempt at avoiding the more serious issues facing mankind.

        Anyhow, Arctic sea ice:

        From the 1920’s to the 1950’s, the Arctic warmed tremendously. Glaciers were disappearing and collapsing, and Arctic sea ice was thinning and shrinking.
        Sixty years ago, the New York Times reported that Arctic sea ice was two meters (seven feet) thick, and that it was fake news to believe Arctic sea ice was anything other than a thin crust.
        Sixty years later, Arctic sea ice still two meters thick – 24,000 km³ spread out over a little more than 12,000,000 km².
        Cyclical changes in the weather caused the ice to thicken after 1958, and by 1961 there was unanimous consensus that Earth was cooling.
        By 1970, the Arctic climate was becoming more frigid, the ice was getting “ominously thicker” – and scientists were worried about a new ice age. The polar ice cap had expanded 12% by 1975. Icelandic ports were blocked with ice for the first time in the 20th century.

        Taken from Real Climate Science

        And there is more. You are being lied to. Our government is our enemy, not Russia, not China. Nothing is hidden as long as people are prepared to use historical records

        • Clark

          “By 1970, the Arctic climate was becoming more frigid, the ice was getting “ominously thicker” – and scientists were worried about a new ice age.”

          This was merely the usual nonsense from the corporate media:

          “There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.”

          http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11584/1/2008bams2370%252E1.pdf

          The following page has seventy references to sources documenting the decline of Arctic ice – and I remind you that shipping fossil fuel companies are investing in the sea lanes and fossil fuels becoming available as the ice melts.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline

          Yes, we are constantly lied to, but it’s the toxic neoliberal system that is the enemy of all life, and governments all over the world are in thrall to it. The US wars in the Middle East and the Washington/Kremlin competition over Syria are competition for the liquid fuel hydrocarbons upon which the whole edifice is dependent – the struggle against global heating and the struggle for peace are one and the same.

          • Ray A

            Funny about no consensus in the seventies, I guess headlines now are more trustworthy. If you don’t like newspaper headlines from that period, try listening to London Calling by The Clash.

          • Clark

            Ray A – “Funny about no consensus in the seventies”

            Read what it says – “The possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.”

            Ray A – “I guess headlines now are more trustworthy”

            I don’t even know what these headlines say; I only read corporate media if a comment I’m interested in includes a link to it. The corporate media is usually a waste of brainpower. But I saw the Clash in York in the 1980s; as the ‘official’ gig ended they took to acoustic instruments and filed out through the central aisle, then continued until gone midnight in a nearby car park.

    • Natasha

      The real crisis for short term human civilisation as we know it, is rapidly diminishing access to energy supply. Climate change in and of itself is irrelevant – life will continue of this pale blue dot whatever humans do.

      • Clark

        I think you need to check the Arctic sea ice graphs; they’re declining to reach zero in one to three decades, well before the hydrocarbons are exhausted and centuries before we run out of coal. When that ice has gone predictions of what the climate will do can’t be much better than guesswork.

        I’m not anti-nuke BTW, but I think it’s tragic that over half a century on we’re still building nothing but PWRs, and with sea level rising and extreme weather increasing we need to defuel hundreds of reactors at sea level. Those who object to nuclear waste would do better to campaign against putting 95% U238 in our reactors – it’s not a fuel, it’s just an impurity that irradiates into some very problematic actinides – Don’t irradiate 238!

        • Natasha

          Clark, perhaps you miss the point: climate is an effect; and energy is its cause. Waving sticks at effects has, erm… no effect.

          I’m simply appealing for people to see the world through the tractable lens of causes like the thermodynamics of human energy supply rather than wasting valuable time and emotions waving sticks at effects like (using your example) arctic sea ice levels that on geological time scales have been up and down anyway. In other words, Westwood’s concerns are personifications of an utterly selfish but human self concern (spanning barely longer than one’s own lifetime) for the survival of our own species, in face of reality that neither the planet nor the climate gives a sh*t about humans.

          Our Wold in Data puts it this way:

          “if the world burned all of its currently known fossil fuel reserves (without the use of carbon capture and storage technology), we would emit a total of nearly 750 billion tonnes of carbon. This means that we have to leave around two-thirds of known reserves in the ground if we want to meet our global climate targets.”
          https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels#fossil-fuel-reserves

          So I’m appealing for the conversation to be about how humans switch to a non-fossil energy supply, rather than being distracted by Vivienne Westwood’s and XR’s, etc… parent-ego framed message that humans must urgently practice austerity and stop using up the planet’s resources, or humans are doomed to ‘climate change extinction’.

          Such framing hides the reality that they advocate for some combination of a) massive centralised global enforced contraction of everything humans do, and b) burn all the other two-thirds of fossil fuel reserves to build out and maintain wind & solar & water to expand from their combined circa 5% – 10% global energy supply c/w big fossil’s 85% share.

          Replacements for all 85% of fossil fuel derived global energy supply DO NOT EXIST so we must urgently focus on solving this adult-ego problem and not be distracted by parent-ego / child-ego stick waving.

    • Stewart

      “This is the essentially decent Englishness”

      You may disregard 1000 years of history, invention, art, culture and your own lived experience of England and “Englishness”
      It’s actually ALL fundamentally bad because here is a twitter video of 5 drunken football supporters dancing and singing a song that is disrespectful to Nazi Germany

      Is this your argument Dom?

      • Dom

        “This is the essentially decent Englishness . . . foreign cities bear witness to whenever the England football team is in town.”

        What’s with the misrepresenting and straw manning of my comment? Especially when there are explicitly racist posts directly above and below mine that any right thinking person would find far more offensive.

        • Stewart

          I’m not misrepresenting you Dom, I’m directly quoting you and asking you to comment on my interpretation of your post.

          To be clear, you seem to be equating “essentially decent Englishness” with drunken antisocial behaviour. The implication is, therefore, that there is NO SUCH THING as “essentially decent Englishness”, your evidence being the twitter video.

          If you had said “essentially decent English Football Supporterishness” the implication would have been limited to this specific sub-group of English people, but you made no such distinction and so I interpret this to mean ALL English people are essentially NOT decent.

          Is this your argument, Dom?

          Because, if it is, then it sounds pretty explicitly racist to me…

          Also, I would recommend reading up on logical fallacy, in particular the so-called “No true Scotsman” fallacy. “any right thinking person” is not a real group of people. The people in this world who disagree with you are not necessarily “wrong thinkers” either. This fallacy, also called the “Appeal to Purity”, is a fundamental building block of all totalitarian states and other cults.

          Just saying.

          • Dom

            They were rhetorical questions I responded with, Stewart. I see you very clearly.

          • Stewart

            @Dom 12:31

            “What’s with the misrepresenting and straw manning of my comment? Especially when there are explicitly racist posts directly above and below mine that any right thinking person would find far more offensive.”

            In what way are these “rhetorical questions” a response to my question, Dom?

            “I see you very clearly”

            Unfortunately, I can’t make any sense of your replies at all.

            Bye

    • Vivian O'Blivion

      Well, Scottish fitbaw fans weren’y ideological angels in the 1970’s. Exceptionalist to the core. “Wha’s like us” “Greatest wee country on earth”.
      Thankfully we’ve found the benefits of self depreciation and humility.
      The real prize of self determination is not to escape a real or imagined “racist” England, but to construct a meritocratic system where the PM didn’t go to Eton and the Chancellor wasn’t Head boy at Winchester.

    • M.J.

      OTOH Jeremy said in his book “The English”:

      “Every time that English soccer fans rampage through a city centre, overturning the tables of sidewalk cafes, bloodying the noses of anyone unlucky enough to be in their way, the London press and politicians agonize about what it all means. They should save their breath. Thuggery is something the English do.”

      The same chapter gives examples of violent behaviour going back centuries, regarded as a birthright by those who do it.

      Both hooliganism and gentleness seem to be part of English culture. Restricting the sale of alcohol (to moderation, not prohibition) may well have something going for it.

  • Uzmark

    “racist Brexit backers who had booed the England team for taking the knee” – this blog is mainstream light on all the big issues with everyone categorized in boxes. What about instances of black Americans for example who also don’t support this – are they also racist Brexit backers?

  • Peter

    Prejudice is prejudice.

    ‘Underdog’ prejudice may be different from ‘overdog’ prejudice, but it’s still prejudice.

    Great picture.

  • Brianborou

    What Craig didn’t mention in his article is the introduction of an apartheid system, it was used at Wimbledon as well, at Wembley. In order to watch the game the spectators had to have either proof of injection of an experimental gene therapy drug “ vaccine “ or had a test from either the inaccurate and unreliable PCR test or from a lateral flow test, which an Austrian MP demonstrated live in the Austrian parliament the validity of it when a can of Cola was tested positive for the SAR-CoV2 virus, to prove they were not infected.

    Yet, 2,500 European Football officials can not only side step all of these arbitrary stipulations but also don’t have to quarantine if they arrive from a country on the UKs danger list for the “ pandemic “. Besides of course the likes of Johnson, Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Prince Charles and the Queen who don’t have to bother with wearing a face nappy, safe distancing, limited numbers in a group, quarantining when arriving from certain countries .

    • Jimmeh

      “experimental gene therapy drug “ vaccine “”

      Jeez, the Trumpians are out in force this morning. You’ll be peddling tales about Bill Gates and microchip implants next.

      mRNA vaccines are not “gene therapy”, which involves modifying the patient’s genome. They are just a clever way of getting pure antigen into the patient, so that they make antibodies.

      These vacccines are no more experimental than annual flu vaccine – the reason that flu vaccine isn’t usually offered before October is that it takes them the best part of a year to work out what they need to vaccinate against, and what works. I.e., annual flu vaccine is no less experimental than mRNA vaccine.

      The mRNA vaccines are rather precisely targeted; all they do is make the patient produce a specific antigen. I’d sooner have that than the Astra vaccine, which is a modified whole cold virus (like most modern vaccines).

      The PCR test (polymerase chain reaction) is not inaccurate; it’s the most accurate way known for detecting DNA from live viruses.

      The lateral flow test *is* inaccurate, because it only detects antibodies. It can’t tell whether you have any viral load. It can’t tell the difference between a patient that has the disease, a patient that has had the disease but recovered, and a patient that has been vaccinated.

      FWIW, the purpose of face-masks isn’t to protect the wearer; I understand they’re not much good for that. They’re to protect other people from you coughing virus into their faces. Wearing a mask in an enclosed public space is simply civil behaviour, even if you’re sure you are clean; some people (e.g. the elderly) quite rightly fear to share an enclosed space with unmasked people they don’t know.

      • Clark

        Clarification – PCR can produce a “false positive” from people who’ve been infected but whose immune system has defeated the virus, by detecting short strands of virus that the immune system has broken apart. This is why the WHO recommended a reduction in the number of cycles, and why a court in Europe ruled that a positive PCR result could not be used to detain a person without confirmation from a doctor. Covid denialist sites have misrepresented this to claim that all PCR testing produces false positives.

        PCR does not produce false positives from people who have never been infected, as confirmed by miniscule false positive rates when China tested entire cities of millions of people.

        • Jimmeh

          I appreciate the correction. My point stands, though; a PCR test is the most accurate test for active infection, false positives notwithstanding. The PCR test is not inaccurate and unreliable, as stated by Brianborou. It is much more reliable than lateral flow (but it tests for something different from what lateral flow tests for).

          • Clark

            Jimmeh, it’s a clarification rather than a correction. PCR is indeed very accurate, but websites which depict it as highly prone to false positives rely upon the two issues I mentioned. It is also not used for diagnosis, but for population sampling to predict hospital demand, and for test and trace for quarantining, which it does very well.

            I was concerned that people who are undecided but had seen those issues might dismiss your comment as misleading.

  • David G

    “Yes, I know London is not Grimsby or the ex-red wall constituencies … But I was wrong to dismiss the Gareth Southgate phenomenon of an essentially decent Englishness …”

    I interpret this as Craig saying he went for a walk in one place in England expecting to see the worst humanity has to offer but instead observing a more agreeable aspect, but he still believes if had gone for a walk elsewhere in England, the same expectation would certainly have been validated.

    Living as I do on a different island an ocean away, I don’t know what he would have seen in Grimsby, but I think that a prejudice that chooses to take a dissonant experience as an exception while leaving the core assumptions unaltered, rather than as an invitation to reconsider the hostile preconceptions themselves, is a sturdy prejudice indeed.

    (… though, of course, I would only say such a thing because I think Vladimir Putin is perfect.)

    • Stewart

      A very perceptive reading of this (frankly quite strange) post by Mr Murray. The second sentence reads like it was authored by a tabloid “investigative journalist”:

      “I was hoping to write a piece about disgusting uncouth yobs of racist English nationalists and their stupid and perhaps violent excesses.”

      Equating any trace of English Nationalism with racism was always low-effort Remain propaganda, but to repeat it while simultaneously supporting Scottish Nationalism is hypocrisy, Mr Murray. And I write that as a proud Scot.

      .

      • Stewart

        Perhaps then you could explain what Mr Murray actually meant when he wrote:

        “I was hoping to write a piece about disgusting uncouth yobs of racist English nationalists and their stupid and perhaps violent excesses.”

        Thanks

        • Mighty Drunken

          ” I have been amusing myself greatly on twitter throughout the tournament by supporting the Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine, any opponent of England, I confess largely because it creases me up to see unionists so easily triggered and unable to cope with teasing. “

          The thing is I think I have a good handle on Mr Murray as I have read many of his pieces. For example he risked and lost his career by standing up against torture. I guess you have to rely on projection,

        • Ian

          I think you will find that is sarcasm, Stewart, based on the stereotypes Craig finds in the media.

  • unsigned

    Craig – you are off your trolley on climate matters.

    Fashion designer:

    ***
    “I was chatting to Vivienne Westwood at a rally for Julian Assange and she is very taken with the climate crisis. We are heading for the edge of an abyss, and a few people in power are considering how to slow down a bit, while almost nobody is suggesting we turn round. Vivienne reminded me of her website Climate Revolution, which is very stimulating and worth checking for updates. ”
    ***

    vs NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal:winner who analyses satellite data:

    ***
    “An Earth Day Reminder: “Global Warming” is Only ~50% of What Models Predict
    — April 22nd, 2021 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D


    Why does it matter?

    It matters because there is no Climate Crisis. There is no Climate Emergency.
    …”

    https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/04/an-earth-day-reminder-global-warming-is-only-50-of-what-models-predict/

    https://www.drroyspencer.com/about/
    ***

    Get a grip and recognise another topic where your misconceptions are “a bit wrong”!

    • Clark

      Global heating is a set of observations, not a prediction by computer models. If you think the polar ice data is faked, note that shipping companies are investing in the new sea lanes opening, and oil companies in the new reserves becoming accessible.

    • Ian

      Tell your armchair scientific expertise to the Canadians, Arctic and Siberian inhabitants, amongst many others. That’ll stop them whining, for sure.

    • Clark

      Note that such arguments nearly always cite the opinion of some “expert” with a load of credentials to establish their “scientific authority”, but they omit actual evidence.

      Science is a matter of evidence not opinion. The chosen “expert” generally really is an expert, but in a different field. This case is something of an exception; Spencer has worked at the top level in atmospheric science, but he’s a religious creationist:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Views

      Spencer is a signatory to “An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming”, which states that “We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence—are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.”

      Well you can’t argue with that!

      Spencer is an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance, formerly the Interfaith Steward Alliance (ISA), an evangelical Christian group that claims environmentalism is “one of the greatest threats to society and the church today.”

      https://www.desmog.com/roy-spencer/

    • Natasha

      Just replace “climate” with “energy” and all the emotional shrieking that we’re ‘doomed’ is correct.

    • unsigned

      Roy Spencer is hardly an armchair scientist:

      **

      About

      Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.

      Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.

      **

      But I’m sure Ian and Clark along with the guru Vivienne know better….not. As I said Craig, man up and challenge your misconceptions – perhaps start with the first figure here:

      https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/ArcticIce/arctic_ice3.php

      “The rapid warming trend in the Arctic over the last 25 years has dramatically reduced the region’s sea ice extent. Comparing this more recent trend with long-term data, scientists are trying to determine to whether this 25-year warming trend will continue, or is part of a longer-term cycle of ups and downs. (Graph by Larry Stock and Josefino Comiso, NASA GSFC)”

        • unsigned

          So what did arctic temperatures do in the 1930s Guru Ian?

          Please can you tell me who to report the fake earth observatory site to, oh Guru?

          • Clark

            earthobservatory.nasa.gov is a genuine site, but the most recent data in that article is from 2001. Two decades of accelerating ice loss since then. Fascinating that Unsigned dredged NASA’s archives to cherry-pick that very specific paragraph –

            “Doubt is our product,” Michaels quotes a cigarette executive as saying, “since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.” Michaels argues that, for decades, cigarette manufacturers knew that their product was hazardous to people’s health, but hired mercenary scientists who “manufactured uncertainty by questioning every study, dissecting every method, and disputing every conclusion”. In doing so the tobacco industry waged a campaign that “successfully delayed regulation and victim compensation for decades”.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubt_Is_Their_Product

          • Ian

            The 1930’s have nothing to do with it

            “over the past 30 years, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95%.”
            https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/six-ways-loss-of-arctic-ice-impacts-everyone

            “Evidence of the age of Arctic sea ice suggests that fewer patches of ice are persisting for multiple years (i.e., generally thick ice that has survived one or more melt seasons) (see Figure 2). The proportion of sea ice five years or older has declined dramatically over the recorded time period, from more than 40 percent of September ice on average in the 1980s to less than 10 percent since 2010. A growing percentage of Arctic sea ice is only one or two years old. Less old multi-year ice implies that the ice cover is thinning, which makes it more vulnerable to further melting.”
            https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-arctic-sea-ice

          • unsigned

            [ MOD : You were asked to refrain from insulting other commentators such as with your ‘guru’ jibes, and invited to repost in a more civil fashion.

            Since you apparently can do neither, and go on to lie about free speech not being allowed, you are more than welcome to leave permanently.]

            Dropping out of this discusison as moderator (or tech issue at a stretch?) deleted my response on Arctic sea ice history with further refs.
            Sad reflection on a site which apparently supports freespeech and debate.
            Craig – I’ll leave you in the safe hands of Guru Vivienne et al and their carefully researched and checked views.

          • Clark

            Ah, complaining about “freedom of speech”, meaning freedom to deceive; the final recourse of all conspiracy theorists. Let’s see. Unsigned started with an irrelevant deception about computer models, swapped horses mid race to the supposed scientific authority of a creationist, cherry-picked a twenty year old single sentence about a graph to manufacture some doubt, then retreated to ninety years ago while descending into casting aspersions. And this is meant to be scientific debate?

          • unsigned

            For Ian:
            **
            President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817 (Royal Society of London 1817):

            “It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated….

            ….. this affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”

            Royal Society of London 1817. President of the Royal Society, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153, Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.
            **

          • Clark

            Isaac Newton (mathematician, physicist, astronomer, unifier of earthly and celestial gravity, developer of calculus, Master of His Majesty’s Mint and President of the Royal Society), January 1682:

            “Grief, it seems unseasonably warm today”.

            Noah’s wife (supremely Virtuous Mother and purported ancestor of all humankind), about 2000 bce:

            “Darling, look! There seem to be a lot of drips falling from the sky!”

          • glenn_nl

            Noah’s son (appox 2000 BCE): “But Dad – we’ve barely even scratched the surface. The weight of insects alone is enough to sink the Ark.”

      • Mighty Drunken

        Roy Spencer makes a nice living being a climate denialist. Even leaving errors in the UAH satellite temperature record which made it look like global warming was not occurring, until they were forced to fix it.

        To say he “never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service” is silly. He is a board member for the George C. Marshall Institute which is funded by oil companies.
        https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_C._Marshall_Institute

    • DunGroanin

      Oh they really are dropping dumb conspiracy incendiaries around here now.

      “ Atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked for 2021 in May at a monthly average of 419 parts per million (ppm), the highest level since accurate measurements began 63 years ago, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today. ”

      https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2764/Coronavirus-response-barely-slows-rising-carbon-dioxide

      Has absolutely no effect on the atmosphere?? Are people so thick to believe that ???

  • Wally Jumblatt

    People who voted for Brexit, did so for 1,000 different reasons.
    Expecting them to fit in the venn diagram with racists and booers, is a bit shallow.
    In many cases, Brexiteers wanted a continued close trading relatonship with all of Europe -and indeed the rest of the world, but were repulsed by the notion that an unelected Commission had stitched up the concept of the EU, and were running it as a corrupt and bullying cartel. I don’t see anything wrong in wanting to make decisions as close to home as possible. I see that as independently-spirited.

    Recent unfriendly behaviour by the talented Ursula VdL and the French in the name of the EU, particularly in the way Norn-Ir’n has been treated, reinforces these suspicions.

    If you want to do anything to improve the notion of the EU in UK eyes, sort out the governance in Brussels.

    Nothwithstanding, keep up your fantastic work and superhuman effort. I hope the latest (a secret from anyone who watches TV or reads newspapers of course) news from Iceland about blackmailed witnesses, helps destroy Baraitser’s smugness in the Assange case.
    Of Lady Dorrian, one can only hope someone on the inside tells her she has proved unworthy of her dreams of promotion, by her behaviour in recent cases.

    • DunGroanin

      People only accepted BrexShit for one ultimate reason – a politically chosen Austerity started by NuLabInc and perpetuated by the LD/Con job.

      • Peter

        Not your best.

        The EU is “anti-democratically, politically imposed Austerity” on steroids.

        Ask the Greeks.

        Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek financial minister and remain campaigner, now believes the Brexit vote was the right one.

        Watch from 6m 45s: – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwSDtxzzG3g

        • DunGroanin

          Yannis a banker stooge – who works for an end to an ever closer EU. He was found out long ago by Tsipras and dumped fron his poisonous counsel.
          Greece did not collapse.
          The EU HAS rattled their magic money tree to all corners – even these run by nato plants who also have tge same goal of Yannis and his masters.

          Better?

          • Dom

            Tsipras, the high priest of anti democratic, brutal Brussels austerity.

            “The EU HAS rattled their magic money tree to all corners”

            What a nice guy, you are.

          • Peter

            “Yannis a banker stooge … ” Since when?

            That’s news to me. Tsipras fired him because he refused to kowtow to the bankers’ puppets in the EU.

            “Greece did not collapse.” ?? It pretty much did, along with the lives of a very large proportion of its people.

            “The EU HAS rattled their magic money tree to all corners … ” Yes, just like Bozo and Rishi (no liberals they) have here. Of course, here and there, it wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic.

            The EU has neoliberal austerity, and austere neoliberalism, baked in in perpetuity – with no vote on the matter available.

          • DunGroanin

            Since he taught at the LSE.
            Since he married into banking.
            Since he refused to attend a crisis meeting at the height of the crisis blaming it on his child

            Since when he became a mere media personality calling for the disbandment of the EU in favour of supposed socialists.

            He is a mere player of Games. And not that good at either.

        • Mighty Drunken

          The EU did suggest austerity and did impose nasty austerity on the Greeks. We are not Greece. I know, news to me too!

          As we were not part of the Eurozone, the EU could never actually impose sanctions or any punishment on the UK for not following their Stability and Growth Pact deficit spending rules. The UK imposed austerity on itself. <- that is a full stop.

          I like Yanis Varoufakis, he hates the EU with a passion though, understandably. Leaving the EU is not a bad thing. The reasons why we left and the direction we are being taken are bad things.

          • DunGroanin

            MD,
            We imposed and continue to do so a MUCH greater austerity upon our own public service providers and through inflation and restriction of the welfare benefits , such as increased pension age, tuition fees etc, which has caused a unprecedented rise In actual poverty and personal debt of the youngest at the beginning of their working lives. And generally as shown by the use of food banks.

            Kindly show me how much more worse it is happening n Greece – the starving masses? The emigration to parts of rich Europe? Where is the Grexit fantasy movement? Led by the foreign funds fed Golden Dawners?

            It was all a lie and attempted fix , like the EDL, Kippers and Fartage here , and Adf was in Germany , and the Macronites in France , all linked by Bannon and the Billionaires and Atlantic Bridgers. Their only purpose to stop the further ever closer EU, the eviction of the gangster MIC nato and actual cooperation and energy and economic security of a deal between the Future EU and the SCO march west on the various new silk roads and final abandonment of the $ hagemony.

            That futile resistance has been transferred to Ukraine as the chosen battle ground and sacrifice on the altar of anti-Russianism. And handed to equally fascistc Hungary, Poland and Lithuania – who are promised the parts of Ukrainian geography that Biden/Clinton/Nuland have pocketed with their capture of Ukrainian resources and signing up to unrepayable debt.

            That futility extends to the MSM ii messaging and the touring of Indy publishers by colonels,group captains and Admirals from the MOD telling them to not give any fair coverage to the Russians and to talk up the none existent Uyghur Holocaust.

            And at the bottom levels to the swarm of paid trolls who deploy their daily talking points and scripts here. Merely following orders believing they are immune from legal consequence.

            ¡Non Pasaran!

      • Tom Welsh

        A single contrary example is enough to explode your theory, DunGroanin – and I volunteer.

        I supported and enthusiastically voted for Brexit because I believe that Great Britain, as a country, has consistently been far above average for the past… well, for a very long time indeed. The Industrial Revolution, the Common Law, one of the greatest traditions of science and technology in the world, fair play and courtesy, a sense of humour… Admittedly most of those have been under violent attack for most of my lifetime, but they survive to varying extents.

        There are, of course, many strong arguments both for and against national independence. My judgment was that Britain is worth preserving, and that the EU is a political cesspool from which we should climb out as soon as possible.

        Certainly an independent UK entails many bad things. But, on the whole, I think they are less bad and more easily contained than the vast pit of badness that was yawning before us.

        • DunGroanin

          Tom, I’ll try and reason with you by telling you that what ‘you believe’ is what ‘they’ want you to believe. It is as simple as that.

          To expand a little further See if this addresses my thesis of your and most of the populace’s complete wrong headedness

          https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/07/07/the-ten-pillars-of-fascist-politics/

          Tell me which points you disagree with and why you think you alone decided BrexShit was a solution to a problem YOU didn’t think you had until you were told by THEM.

          Then I will happily dance with you in words here or in the Cable Streets of every town and village of this country to reach a … satisfactory understanding.

    • Jimmeh

      Brexiteer here.

      Ursula is just doing her job. It’s entirely expected that the EU is angry about Brexit; the UK furnished a good proportion of the EU income, and Brexit has created a precedent for leaving the EU. Nobody likes being divorced.

      The EU was constructed along French lines, which means that it’s fearful of real democracy; French law is based on the Napoleonic Code, and is very bureaucratic (Napoleon was terrified of “the mob”). Macron’s hostility to Brexit Britain is totally par for the course.

      Things will get better. Wounds will heal. But we’re still at the stage of finding out what wounds have occurred.

      • DunGroanin

        Not that great a proportion of income.

        Brexshit is only about one thing: the preservation of the ancient orders exceptionality from a level playing field by its ultimate best option of EU/EurAsian single largest landmass in a economic security block – that is burying the Great Gamers and their instruments of control – the World Bank, IMF, BIS amd the petrodollar!

        The Empire is dead dead dead.

        Long live the New Empire!

        You were fooled into believing in Brexshit. Which was also a stolen referendum with the deployment of Postal Vote Fraud under Cummings, CA and CGI a canadian Deep State logistical setup – that no one ever mentions!

        And fools rush in as we all know and never like to admit to having been suckered.

        • Jimmeh

          “stolen referendum”

          Oh dear. A bunch of bald assertions about empire and “The Great Game”, with no evidence or argument. And what’s this “candian Deep State” business?

          I realise that Brexit pissed-off a lot of scotsnats, because the EU provides regional funding to Scotland; and a post-indy Scotland would appear to have a budget gap if the Scots can’t get back into the EU. And I think Craig also relies on EU funding as part of his pro-indy reasoning.

          I don’t have a solution for the budget gap.

          I voted Brexit because the EU institutions are deeply undemocratic; and because I didn’t think we’d ever get another chance to escape. I thought it wasn’t auspicious to do Brexit under a tory government; but that was the only choice – Brexit with the tories, or no Brexit.

          Certainly Brexit is going to bring problems for both Scotland and England (we’ve barely seen the start of those problems). But hiding under the skirts of Mother EU is not a very ‘independent’ way of approaching things – independence is about taking control of our own affairs.

          • DunGroanin

            I refer you to my response to Tom above and invite you to the same ‘dance’.

      • Ian

        Brexiters never fail to confirm that they know nothing about how the EU is set up and works, while also celebrating our own ‘unelected bureaucrats’ like Frost and many more, spads etc, not to mention the dark money of the think tanks and sponsors etc. Turns out to be on a level way beyond EU bureaucracy which, even with its faults, gave us more rights and freedoms than the UK does.

      • michael norton

        The Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution together with the Scientific Revolution all had a head start in Dear Old Blighty.
        During and after the First World War, the U.K. started to decline, Great Depression and straight in to the Second World War, more decline and giving up Empire.
        The Common Market got going without us and it seemed to be doing quite well, for a time, especially as the U.K. was on a downwards slope. However, after a while ( a couple of decades) you could start to notice, that it had its downsides.
        Over-regulation being the main one.
        A dogmatic view of rules, ever more control and rules.
        Basically, after a while your critical thinking abilities are no longer required, you are on the coal slag heap of history.

        How to break out of the fog, the jelly.
        Answer have a referendum.
        The referendum was democratic and we know the result – Leave and reclaim our place at the forefront of innovation.

        • DunGroanin

          The referendum was fixed.

          As was Sottish Indy.

          And our last GE.

          The evidence of postal vote numbers is clear. That is why no detail is made available.

          • michael norton

            Calculus, beam engines, steam engines, railways, graphite, graphene, jet engine, hovercraft, telephone, television, computers.

          • DunGroanin

            Michael,
            I think you should be a transparent in what you are trying to say there.

            Starting with Calculus. – a Latin word I believe;
            Ancient Mathematics stretches back to India and China..even North Africa..

            Newton stands accused of plagiarism,
            Leibniz also claims invention of it.

            Same goes for the ‘unique’ claims of invention on that list.

            It is a racist, supremacist,
            fake list that is trotted out to prove non existent Exceptionalism.

            A Pavlovian button built into the serf British psychology that is pushed easily to reveal the gutter snipes we really are.

            On display yesterday with the lasering of Schmeichel and booing of Denmark and celebrating the ‘dive’.

            You left Football off your list.

        • Ian

          “reclaim our place at the forefront of innovation.”

          – haha, now that is funny.

          • Tom Welsh

            Actually, Britain has traditionally been at the very forefront of innovation. One Oxbridge college, if I remember rightly, has won more Nobel Prizes than most nations.

            If someone totted up the cash value of all the fine technology stolen by others – mostly Americans – it would be anough to buy us a new country.

          • Ian

            It may well have been, although I am sure there are quite a few other nations who would dispute that. Whatever, the point is that Brexit will do absolutely nothing to improve on that. On the contrary, it will diminish our capacity to innovate – being part of the EU, its research networks and funding, the collaboration and scholar exchange was a huge advantage for Britain which is now dribbling away, as many will go where the cutting edge is – Europe and America, as well as Asia.

        • Jimmeh

          “The Common Market got going without us”

          Actually, Britain was instrumental in setting up the Common Market.

  • Craig P

    It’s hard to dislike Gareth Southgate – unless ironically you are an England fan. They were knocking lumps out of him on the online forums as they thought his management was causing the team to underperform in the group stage. It will be a different story though should they reach the final.

    If you are looking for football fans to dislike, for ‘disgusting uncouth yobs of racist English nationalists and their stupid and perhaps violent excesses’, you don’t have to look any further afield than Glasgow.

    • DunGroanin

      They are asses led by their noses by being plugged into their talk propaganda shows all day long while working and by the gogglebox and porn shows in the evening. For the oldies it’s the 24/7 friend in the corner beebeecee Barbies pouring brainumbing bs like an open sewer into their heads.

  • Republicofscotland

    I’d imagine that most folk in England couldn’t care less if Scots support the England team in the Euro 2020 tournament, and I’m pretty sure England’s fans, the majority of them anyway, couldn’t care less if Scotland wins or loses in any football tournament.

  • Giyane

    Football is watched everywhere in the world, so you would expect the employees of such a successful global product to get professional advice about presentation to a global market.
    Even Islamic State do that.

  • Tom+Welsh

    Gosh. Whatever Mr Murray intended by this article, he has been astoundingly successful in starting not one, but several vigorous punch-ups. None of them, as far as I can see, involving any facts.

    Noted.

      • Tom Welsh

        I think it is because Mr Murray is so passionate in his beliefs and his justification of them. This attracts like-minded people, who tend to get het up when their beliefs are challenged.

        It would be good practice for us all to do our level best not to get emotionally upset, but to try to explain logically why we think we are right.

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