How the Establishment Functions 423


I suggested in my last post that the British Establishment may be looking for a way out of the terrible Assange debacle without raising difficult truths about the United States justice and penal system. The functioning of the Establishment, the way it forms a collective view and how that view is transmitted, is a mystery to many. Some imagine instructions must be transmitted by formal cabals meeting as Freemasons or Bilderbergers or some such grouping. It is not really like that, although different fora of course do provide venues for the powerful to gather and discuss.

I have a bit of a feel for it all, having been a diplomat for twenty years and member of the Senior Civil Service for six. And if I was advising someone who wanted to think of it seriously, I would say human nature doesn’t change; read Thackeray and Trollope, Harold Nicolson and watch the amazing Brian Cox in Succession. All these sources give genuine glimpses of insight.

Former foreign office minister Alan Duncan appears to fancy himself as something of a Harold Nicolson, though sadly lacking the wit or writing ability. Duncan has published his diaries. Duncan is the former FCO minister “for the Americas”, who cooperated with attempts to have Julian Assange removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy, and was the point man for the CIA’s various illegal schemes around Assange. Duncan referred to Assange in parliament as a “miserable little worm”.

And who was Alan Duncan’s best friend at Oxford? Why, none other than Ian Duncan Burnett, now Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the judge who heard Assange’s High Court appeals. As Alan Duncan’s diary entry for 14 July 2017 tells us:

“At Oxford we always called him “the judge” and they always called me “Prime Minister” but Ian’s the one who got there.”

On Alan Duncan’s birthday on 7 June 2017 Ian Burnett and his wife were part of the dinner celebration, alongside former Tory leader William Hague, and the arms dealer Wafic Said and wife. Wafic Said was central to the largest bribery scandal in British history, the Al-Yamamah BAE contract for arms to Saudi Arabia, where an eighty billion pound contract involved hundreds of millions in corrupt bribery payments swirling around Wafic Said and his friend Mark Thatcher.

The only reason several very rich people did not go to prison is that Tony Blair – another Oxford University man – and Jack Straw, the recipient himself of BAE largesse, made a historic decision that the Serious Fraud Office investigation must be stopped “in the public interest”. The Serious Fraud Office subsequently “lost” all the thousands of documents proving the corruption. Thus enabling the central fixer, arms dealer Said, to enjoy a jolly dinner and banter with the new Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, rather than eat his dinner in Ford open prison.

That, my friends, is how the British Establishment functions. It also of course enabled the continuing relationship that means British planes, missiles, bombs, mechanics, trainers and special forces are every single day involved in eviscerating women and children in Yemen. I do hope they are proud.

On 27 May 2018 Lord Chief Justice Burnett and Alan Duncan were at Chequers having lunch with Prime Minister Theresa May, Michael Gove and “journalist” Sarah Vine and – to quote Duncan – “two financier couples”. Thus do politics, the law, the media and big money mix, dear reader. These are not special events. It is the everyday milieu. Nobody needs to phone a judge and tell him what to think; they know what their circle thinks from constant experience and interaction, and they can extrapolate from the general to the particular.

The judges know what they are expected to think about Assange. The Scottish judges certainly know what they are expected to think about me.

The politicians freeload – Duncan’s birthday bash had been paid for by Tory party donor, Carphone Warehouse’s David Ross, whose unethical business practices I outlined two years ago. Some of us may feel distaste at the idea of having, or attending, birthday parties gifted by a businessman; but we are not politicians. Or judges.

There is no doubt that Jimmy Savile’s ability to mingle freely at precisely these kind of social gatherings, hosted by royalty and prime ministers down, provided him with the cloak of Establishment protection which enabled his decades of crime. To deny it is ridiculous. It is also very interesting how unanimously the Establishment has decided to protect Keir Starmer. They faced a real danger for a few years with one of England’s two main parties under the control of genuinely radical figures. Having managed to get the big money friendly Sir Keir Starmer into place and neutralise any possible threat to their wealth, the ferocity of the Establishment’s defence of Starmer is fascinating.

There is no doubt that Starmer was indeed Director of Public Prosecution and head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2009 when it was decided that credible allegations against Jimmy Savile should not be prosecuted (after they had reached that stage already decades too late). Of course the Director of Public Prosecutions does not handle the individual cases, which are assigned to lawyers under them. But the Director most certainly is then consulted on the decisions in the high profile and important cases.

That is why they are there. It is unthinkable that Starmer was not consulted on the decision to shelve the Savile case – what do they expect us to believe his role was, as head of the office, ordering the paperclips?

When the public outcry reached a peak in 2012, Starmer played the go-to trick in the Establishment book. He commissioned an “independent” lawyer he knew to write a report exonerating him. Mistakes have been made at lower levels, lessons will be learnt… you know what it says. Mishcon de Reya, money launderers to the oligarchs, provided the lawyer to do the whitewash. Once he retired from the post of DPP, Starmer went to work at, umm,

It is remarkable that the media has never got as excited about any of the lies told by Johnson, as they have done about what is in fact a rare example of Johnson saying an interesting truth. Starmer was indeed, as Director of Public Prosecutions, responsible for the non-prosecution of Savile.

But just as Savile was to be protected over actual sex crime, Starmer knew that Assange was to be persecuted over fake sex crime. Starmer’s conduct of the Assange case was entirely corrupt.

It is important for you to understand that Assange was never charged with any sex crime in Sweden. He was wanted for questioning, after Stockholm’s chief prosecutor had decided there was no case to answer, but a prosecutor from another district had taken up the case. Assange always believed the entire thing was a ruse to get him sent from Sweden to the United States. His legal team had offered the Swedish prosecutors the chance to interview him in the Swedish Embassy back in 2011, which should have enabled the case to be closed.

Under Starmer, the Crown Prosecution Service told the Swedish prosecutors not to come to London. The emails in which they did this were destroyed, and only recovered by an FOI request at the Swedish end. You will recall that, when after a further seven long years Swedish prosecutors finally did interview Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy, it resulted in the Swedish investigation being dropped.

Had Starmer not prevented it, the Swedish investigation could have been closed in January 2011 following interview.

Then in October 2013, while Starmer was still DPP, his staff emailed Swedish prosecutors in response to reports that they wished to drop the case, saying “Don’t you dare get cold feet”. The Swedes responded explaining they did indeed wish to drop it. The Crown Prosecution Service again dissuaded them.

Why was Starmer intervening to insist a foreign state continue an investigation that state itself wished to stop, and which involved no British nationals?

I am very confident there is no other example of the British DPP interfering in an overseas investigation in this way. It certainly was nothing to do with the ostensible subject matter of the Swedish investigation, which doesn’t rate a mention in the email correspondence. There can be no doubt that Starmer’s motive was entirely ulterior to the Swedish investigation, and almost certainly is related to the illegal CIA activity against Assange and the current US extradition effort. Starmer is revealed as a highly unscrupulous and mendacious character.

That has of course been confirmed by the downright lies Starmer told in seeking election by the Labour Party membership, when he stated he would maintain Corbyn’s popular left wing economic policies, particularly on rail and utility nationalisation. Once in power Starmer simply ditched these pledges in favour of billionaire-enabling policies, and started a purge of the left of the party on an epic scale.

The British Establishment likes Starmer. They can’t allow Boris Johnson – who is fast becoming a liability to them – saying true things about Starmer which they wish to be buried. Watching their propaganda apparatus act in unison to defend Starmer, and reconfirm in the popular mind the binary choice between their blue puppet and their red puppet, has been fascinating viewing.

As I frequently state, I don’t mind if you agree or do not agree, and I certainly want everybody to think for themselves. My aim is to point out facts that are insufficiently considered and project a different perspective to that commonly promoted in the mainstream media. I am not always right about everything. But I hope that you found reading this gave you some ideas to think through.

Correction: The 2011 offer by Assange was an interview in the Swedish, not Ecuadorean, Embassy. This has been corrected,

———————————————

 
 
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Recurring Donations



 

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

423 thoughts on “How the Establishment Functions

1 2 3 4
  • George Dale

    Well, well, well

    Boris Johnson’s policy adviser and key aide ‘quits over Jimmy Savile slur about Keir Starmer’

    • DunGroanin

      Rats leaving the ship putting a few more holes in it as they do.

      It is all choreographed.

    • DunGroanin

      For once my posting of a Groaniad piece can’t be off topic. I wrote it didn’t post and have read Iannouccis piece again. I am fuming.

      You may not agree with me. But here is an insidious example of how the Establishment Functions in real time.
      Make up your own minds.

      One of the Establishments and BBC’s Godfathers of Mirth comes out swinging to protect Starmer and replay the AS card whilst skilfully deploying the Narrative of Tories bad, everyone bad, except the Great Knight Dope.

      Evade, gaslight, attack: this is the playbook of a corrupt company, not a government – by Armando Iannucci (The Guardian, 4 Feb 2022)

      I always feel a stab of sadness when seeing the latest showing of the true colours of these who we loved but fooled us for decades.

  • Penguin

    We just saw the establishment in full cry over Raith Rovers and a man who has no criminal convictions, just a judge choosing to apply an evil and discriminatory law under the matriarchial hegemony.

    Goodwillie and his friend had sex with a drunk woman. She saw the Ched Evans case and thought I’ll have some of that and tried to gain £500,000 by pretending not to remember any events of her drunken frolic. No evidence, no witnesses, nothing but a woman who doesn’t even claim to have been raped, just that she can’t remember what happened.

    Any woman could do the same to you and you are now doomed. No wonder the first lesbian misandrist wants to remove juries and have her personal judges rule over us.

    • Lapsed Agnostic

      Goodwillie has several criminal convictions for various assaults – including sparking a bouncer out. No one seems to mind about those. Funny, too, how no one seemed to have minded about his civil rape conviction when he was banging them in for the Bully Wee these past four years – apart from incorrigible God-botherer John Mason MSP.

      (Sticking with the fitba, well done to Hatate Kid for bagging a brace against the Huns on Wednesday night to take the Bhoys top of the table)

  • Peter Moritz

    Trollope…of course his Palliser novels. But also the Barchester series for church politics.

  • Mr. Richard Winstanley

    Of course Starmer is a crook.
    He’s part and parcel of the Zionist controlled establishment. Its was ppiniant t to note that Jonathan Arkush the former head of the British Board of Jewish deputies and High Court judge was in part responsible for toppling Jeremy Corbyn to get Starmer a jewish puppet into power in the labour party.
    The same neo cons who were responsible for misinformation and “sexing up up the irac dossier” with the head of MI5 Scarlet. The same team who had Kelly murdered by Moddad is suspect.
    There we are.

    • M.J.

      Jewish conspiracies under every stone? Kelly done in by Mossad on UK soil? How can anyone believe such nonsense? Aren’t you ashamed of writing this anti-Semitic rubbish?

      • bevin

        Apart from a lazy conflation of jewish and zionist I see nothing anti-semitic about this post. Do you seriously question the efforts that Mossad and the Israeli state put into defenestrating Corbyn? Their motives were even clearer than the Establishment’s.
        As the recent Amnesty Report demonstrates (and as B’tselem and Human Rights Watch agree) what Corbyn was saying about Israel and what the Labour Party conference last Autumn said- that it is an Apartheid state which terrorises and persecutes the indigenous population and has driven millions of people into exile- was always correct.
        To say so is no more anti-semitic than Gandhi’s criticisms of the Raj were prompted by hatred of the British.

        • M.J.

          “Apart from a lazy conflation of jewish and zionist I see nothing anti-semitic about this post”.

          The fact is that the expression “jewish puppet” has been used. Arguably illegal in this country IMHO. One could excuse the use of the N word for similar reasons (but I doubt that anyone would get away with it outside racist circles nowadays, with such an excuse).
          But let us stretch a point. If you substitute “Zionist” for “jewish” then the article could be charitably described as left-wing conspiracist crackpottery, not a great deal better.

          • Rhys Jaggar

            What would you say instead? ‘a man who always makes sure that his public utterances are acceptable to the US-Israeli axis?’

            There’s nothing illegal in saying that. It is descriptive, not judgemental.

            It is not illegal, unlike Israeli killing of Palestinians every year since 1973.

        • Geoff

          Corbyn did a good enough job of getting rid of himself – Labour got annihilated in the last election. Starmer is obviously playing politics (he is one) in order to become PM, which now is his primary job as leader of the opposition, something which Corbyn forgot. I’m not sticking up for anything Israel has or may have done, but you don’t need to create a wild conspiracy to explain this.

          • fonso

            Labour’s Brexit policy was responsible for that annihilation. When the next election comes round voters will be reminded repeatedly who it was authored that policy.

          • Johnny Conspiranoid

            “Labour got annihilated in the last election”

            I thought it was a very close run thing as far as total vote count goes. Starmer has an ‘ex’ mossad man deciding who should be in the Labour Party so I expect the country will unite behind him.

        • Squeeth

          The zionist antisemites are US proxies like Al Qaida, IS, the Saud perverts and the rest of the alphabet soup of SA wannabes. The British have been getting in on the act that’s all. Judaism has nothing to do with it; never has, never will.

  • Coldish

    Thank you, Craig for that instructive report. I knew nothing about Starmer until after the Brexit referendum. I recall thinking of his efforts in parliament to minimize the damage that Brexit would cause as ‘sound’. That’s not a term I would now use with reference to ‘Keeves’ or ‘Keith’.
    Since then I’ve read that only around a week after first getting elected as an MP in 2015 he was already being discussed as a possible candidate in the Labour leadership election which followed the resignation of Ed Miliband. Keith didn’t stand on that occasion, but were there forces in the establishment urging him on?
    The establishment had had a shock when the left-inclined and union-supported Miliband defeated his Blairite elder brother in the 2010 leadership election. The outcome of the 2015 general election was uncertain until the day of the vote. Might the establishment have been so worried about the social democrat Ed Miliband possibly becoming PM that they wanted to establish a reliable beachhead within the parliamentary Labour party for stronger right-wing opposition to Miliband?
    Well, that’s my conspiracy theory for today.
    Keep up the good work, Craig.

  • Antiwar7

    What a hard-hitting, excellent summary of the facts. I think it should be split into several pieces for easy linking, each with its own astonishing fact. For example:

    • Labor leader Keir Starmer was the one responsible for not prosecuting Jimmy Savile.
    • Tory donor David Ross profited from stiffing his family business Cosalt Ltd’s pensioners.
    • Labor leader Keir Starmer was the one most responsible for the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange.
    • Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales Ian Burnett, who recently ruled on Assange, is best friends with ex-govt minister Alan Duncan, who called Assange a “miserable little worm”.
    • Stevie Boy

      To be clear. Duncan was responsible for a lot more than name calling Assange. He, along with Starmer, was the major player responsible for Assange’s predicament.
      Read his book to see what a scumbag he really is (Don’t buy it, use your local library).

      • Bayard

        If you borrow it from the library, he will be paid something. Much better to buy it secondhand on the net, then he won’t get a penny, or better still, get it from a charity bookstall.

  • Mist001

    There’s a fairly popularly held view that Britain has never been infiltrated by the mafia, unlike other countries. My own view is that Britain already has it’s own version of the mafia, which we know as ‘The Establishment’.

    • Goose

      Yes.

      And that’s why the Corbyn project was really always just a delusion an impossible dream. Many view it as a missed opportunity, but it never stood a chance.

      He’d have been undermined from within and without and subjected to an onslaught worse than Johnson is currently enduring now, PLP moves to replace him would have commenced as soon as he set foot in No.10. With 2/3rd of the PLP uncooperative how could he have even governed?

      Simply too many parliamentarians in both Tory and Labour are loyal to the Establishment, not principles or party. You’d need a new party that emerges from nowhere to challenge the status quo, and the media are the Establishment’s gatekeepers.

      • Twirlip

        Very, very sadly – as one of those who was naive enough to hope that Corbyn would be PM – I have to agree with all of that.

        • Observer

          Much as I liked Corbyn’s anti-war stances, I can see why the average voter thought he was a pie-in-the-sky socialist numpty when it came to domestic policy.

          • DunGroanin

            Which policies from the manifesto do you refer to from the last election that you think would have made the ‘average voter’ not vote for Labour?

          • Stevie Boy

            Funnily enough, Corbyn’s policies would have delivered the ‘take back control’ policies that the Brexiteers said they wanted.
            Also, Corbyn’s manifesto was the only one that was fully costed. Instead the great British public swallowed the Tory BS and voted in Bozo the Clown and his sycophantic gang of lying crooks.

        • Goose

          After the 2019 election many Corbyn supporters were left bereft, trying to make sense of why hopes had been raised so high in 2017 only to be cruelly extinguished.

          It felt almost like fate had played a cruel trick.

          When in reality it could never have worked, not with that PLP,… and thus it just wasn’t the right time.

          • U Watt

            It was because he had the 2nd referendum policy forced on him by arrogant and ignorant anti-democratic know-it-alls. Wonder what profound insights were you proferring at that time, Goose…..

          • Bramble

            That PLP (and union leadership, and party organisation) plus the self-styled “progressive” media (because social democracy is unelectable) which worked full-time to pump out the lies and smears and defamation.

          • Goose

            U Watt

            Both things can be true.

            I agree, Labour’s ‘People’s Vote’ policy, although popular in ‘Remain’ London, went down like a cold cup of sick in areas like the Midlands and North that had voted heavily to leave the EU, yet seen the referendum result frustrated by three years of parliamentary bickering.

            But it’s also true that that PLP was ungovernable for any leftist leader. Far too many Blairite bad actors.

            The UK’s Covid death toll alone would have been presented as grounds to remove Corbyn for a PLP that already hated him.

            My point was there was no viable Corbyn-led govt, and we were fooling ourselves pretending there was.

          • U Watt

            We will never know how a Corbyn government would have fared because after the scare of 2017 the neoliberals leveraged anti-democratic “People’s Vote” Remainiacs to ensure there would never be one.

            How Brexit Broke the British Left – by Daniel Finn (Catalyst Journal, Autumn 2021) – subscription

            The Brexit crisis dominated British politics between 2016 and 2019. Its outcome will shape the UK’s relationship with Europe for decades. One factor above all decided that outcome: the determination of Britain’s right and center alike to contain a left-wing upsurge inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

          • Rhys Jaggar

            Nothing will change in the Labour Party until Tony Blair is expelled for having wilfully participated in genocide, including the sidelining of his Cabinet and railroading of the HOC to ensure that his killing spree could take place.

            He and those around him represent everything that decent people will never, ever vote for and, I’m afraid that Islington dinner parties have zero in common with those on wages of £30k a year or less living in modest accommodation in the Shires.

            The Labour Party lost its raison d’etre when it became gentrified. You can’t be London snobs and represent blokes in Working Men’s Clubs in the Norf. It just doesn’t work.

          • Rhys Jaggar

            Goose – the 2019 election wasn’t a judgement on Corbyn per se, it was a judgement on the Labour Party for not being prepared to ‘Get Brexit Done’.

            The electorate gave three clear signals they wanted Brexit: the UKIP top of the pile vote in the 2015 European Elections; the 2016 Referendum; and the 2019 General Election.

            It wouldn’t take a genius to say that Labour ‘threw the election’ deliberately, because they knew that the BBB fiasco was going to occur within that Parliament, so they were very happy to be on the sidelines watching manure being piled onto Boris. What they perhaps didn’t expect that he would so willingly roll around in it and then get all his mates to come roll in it too before he asked Her Majesty to confirm their appointments to Great Offices of State…..

      • Feral Finster

        You are probably correct. As long as the 1% is united, no revolution or real change can happen, because the 1% will do whatever it takes to hang onto power. This is how they got to be the 1% in the first place.

        It is only when the 1% are divided amongst themselves, usually as the result of foreign threat or a serious dispute over how the goodies are to be divided, that fundamental changes are possible.

      • William Bowles

        Almost true. But the plain fact is that Corbyn is a Party man, a Labour Party man and the Party comes first, even if it means betraying the millions who supported/voted for him. Frankly, he’s a political coward and a very comfortable one, thank you very much. He’s sat on that back bench for over 40 years, made the right noises when necessary and now he can retire with a big, fat government pension.

        • DunGroanin

          William is that why the ubercapo thug spy chief Dearlove made a very public threat against Corbyn and he had to be stopped from winning at any cost? Because JC threatened all their plans?

          Which allowed Pompeo to shamelessly laud to the AIPAC donors that he was launching a GAUNTLET from the US deepstate to interfere in the U.K. elections to stop JC winning.

          Kindly answer how if JC was such a lightweight and didn’t threaten the Establishment and warmongering global robbing murderous Empire why he was considered such a major threat to them that they effected multiple chickencoups and a couple of snap election with mad media mud slinging and still had to resort to postal vote fraud to finally stop him and let the scum warmongering CIA dupe NuLabInc back into be fake opposition- who have opposed NOTHING since?

      • Squeeth

        Corbyn fell at the first hurdle then surrendered his way into oblivion. Just goes to show that the working class doesn’t need leaders, we need unity.

        • DunGroanin

          He survived multiple chickencoups and massive character assassination, and his many supporters were crushed by the thugs cf NME which was destroyed and its staff punished for their support.

    • M.J.

      Careful, someone might send you a warning postcard, a man in a black shirt against a black and white background. Can’t tell you who he is, because of Omerta. 🙂

  • DunGroanin

    The shameless bare faced hypocrisy on display!

    “ Mirza, who has worked with Johnson since his days as Mayor of London, urged Johnson to “apologise for a grave error of judgement made under huge pressure.”

    “You are a better man than many of your detractors will ever understand which is why it is desperately sad that you let yourself down by making a scurrilous accusation against the Leader of the Opposition,” she wrote. “It is not too late for you but, I’m sorry to say, it is too late for me.” “

    Making many scurrilous accusations against the Leader of the Opposition from the day Corbyn was her job and has been for Starmer since he wormtongued his way into the job.

    • Goose

      It’s some sort of orchestrated campaign, that’s been obvious for some time starting with the BBC allowing Cummings to continue his vendetta, via that BBC 2 special programme, with Laura Kuenssberg. The BBC have decided to ramp it up a notch since the TV Licence fee announcement.

      Johnson has been feeble in his own defence. Like a boxer stuck on the ropes taking punch after punch. Who is advising him? His retraction today, was pitiful. To survive he needs to get on the front foot, get proactive and on top of this or he may as well resign now. He should sack his No.10 team to prevent further timed resignations.
      His nuclear option is to call a confidence vote in himself and restate the idea any successor will be obligated to immediately seek their own mandate via a GE. Most Tory MPs would suddenly get cold feet, I’d wager.

      If a general election is the end result of all this ‘get-Johnson’ media hysteria. Labour have a mountain to climb and thus far Starmer’s empty vessel of a party have shown no ability to get Labour’s demoralised base out. By-elections for Westminster and the weekly local by-elections have seen Labour record abysmal results. Remember party membership is down, allegedly by as much as 300,000. Who will knock on doors in a GE with so many demoralised? They are bankrupt too, having to return to the same donors Blair courted. Can Starmer survive the questioning, and bruising leadership debates?

      If a hung parliament results, or a small labour majority – Labour has its Socialist Campaign Group contingent who are quietly furious with Starmer, they could hold the balance of power. The establishment foiled again.

  • Tatyana

    Mr. Murray is in the russian news today!

    The ex-ambassador of Britain addressed the West with words about Putin and “rams”
    Ex-British Ambassador Murray: Western media replicate false nonsense about Russia’s plans
    RIA Novosti (3 Feb 2022)
    https://ria.ru/20220203/myurrey-1770896990.html

    “Reports of Russia’s intention to “invade” Ukraine should be regarded as nonsense that has nothing to do with reality, – writes former British ambassador and human rights activist Craig Murray.

    “Remember guys what I told you? Putin will not attack Ukraine,” he said on Twitter.

    He also published an appeal to readers in which he sharply criticized the major Western media. According to Murray, “sycophants and rams” often speak there, speaking “false nonsense.”

    “If you fence yourself off from this , you will be able to perceive what is happening in the world more impartially,” – he concluded.”

    RiaNovosti is my main source for updates on what’s going on. Sorry, I used Google Translate to bring this piece to you, because it’s late in the night already in my place.

      • Jockanese Wind Talker

        A “graphic fake video”, like the White Helmet ones in Syria (thinking the manually placed chlorine gas canisters in Douma)?

        I suspect it isn’t the Russians who will try this type of move to keep the US arms based economy and military industrial complex busy!

      • Tatyana

        I liked it a lot!!! Please watch this 7 minutes video:

        Ned Price’s Verbal Duel with Matt Lee at US State Department Press BriefingRT (YouTube. 7m 01s)

        Ned Price delivered these speculations based on, you know, “unnamed intelligence from an unnamed source”. Matt Lee asked for some evidence and was cut off with “I’m sorry you don’t trust the US government’s information” 🙂
        OH! MY! GOD!
        Are they serious? What kind of cult are they trying to build? Is the US government playing a Moses bringing god’s commandments?
        It’s just amazing that people can take these types of claims at face value, after the fakes about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and other lies like that. And just look how Ned is sincerely outraged by Matt’s doubts.
        Come on! They cannot be like that, can they?
        It’s madness. It’s anything, but a government. How do they even dare to speak to journalists like that and consider themselves a democracy at the same time? This is authoritarianism of the worst sort. A cult.

        • Tatyana

          Do you mind some entertainment? Comments under this news on Russian Ria are most … droll?

          • Has someone found their balls? Or, is it another to-be-unemployed journalist? Democracy is what it is 🙂
          • And we have declassified information that Biden is going to take a huge crap in the middle of the White House. If he doesn’t do this, this doesn’t mean that he didn’t have such plans. It was we who prevented him.
          • Well done Matthew Lee. Simple questions always baffle “your” dreamers))
          • “Where is the proof?” – “You just have to trust us.” Even American journalists don’t believe the false statements of the White House. And those have one proof: highley likely.
          • Here are the ugly, and they also close RT everywhere ..
          • Price, is he a relative of Psaki?
          • It’s necessary to introduce new units to measure the level of stupidity – ‘Psaki’, ‘Klitschko’
          • and the unit to measure journalism would be ‘Matt’. Although, not everyone would reach at least 1 ‘Matt’.
          • They love him with a silent hatred.
          • Matthew, spit at them, please)
          • Matthew, thank you.
          • “Take the gentleman’s word for it,” said Uncle Sam, hiding his hands covered in blood up to the elbows, behind his back.
          • Give Lee Russian citizenship))))
          • Then who will troll Psaki-s on behalf of democratic American journalism?
          • Data and information are not the same thing. Data is verified information. And information is just someone saying something. He (*Price) says they have information. And this means that there is no evidence a priori. And it turns out that he’s not even lying. Someone told him this
          • “if you doubt the accuracy of the data of the US government, the British government, other governments and want to find solace in the information that the Russians are spreading, then the flag is in your hands.” Guys, you shook the test tube at the UN confidently and seriously! You said that you killed militants in Afghanistan and everyone there was militants, but it turned out that an entire family was killed there, innocent of anything. Believe you? Are you joking there?
          • the Russians wanted to steal the Statue of Liberty! But we said it and thus thwarted their plans! Huh. Jesters, damn it.
          • Tatyana

            Everything that is happening now looks like a comedy, only the clowns are evil.

            Liz Truss promises “UK would supply our Baltic allies across the Black Sea” 🙂

            Video: Russia mocks ‘utterly confused’ Boris Johnson and ridicules Liz Truss for her ‘poor geography knowledge’ after she boasted UK would supply ‘our Baltic allies across the Black Sea’
            Foreign Secretary Liz Truss confuses the Baltic and Black Seas in a pledge to support Ukraine. The seas are two different bodies of water, more than 700 miles apart.
            – by REUTERS and Chris Pleasance (Daily Mail, 2 Feb 2022)

            I hope that the British ships searching for the strait between the Black and Baltic Seas, will run into the American fleet that Psaki promised to send. US aircraft carriers must still be somewhere in that place, trying to find the coast of Belarus 🙂

          • Ingwe

            Oh Tatyana, it’s so bizarre, one can only laugh. The truly funny thing is that Psaki and Price are the best they can find. Price is ex CIA and is Harvard educated. And still struggles with the concept of evidence. “The Russians are going to do X.” Journalist: “ where’s the evidence?” Price: “I’ve just said it.” Journalist: “that isn’t evidence”. Price: “It’s evidence because the US government said it and I’m telling you.” ? And it goes on in ever decreasing self-referential circles.
            And these fucking morons will have the say-so when a drone is going to kill an Iraqi family going to the market.

      • Bramble

        Reminds me of the Douma incident when Western agents pulled off exactly this stunt, still unacknowledged by the oh-so impartial and truth loving western media.

      • Rhys Jaggar

        Anything the Guardian publishes about Russia should be assumed, a priori, until proven otherwise, to be worthless lies.

        It is not a source any reputable person should ever quote without exhaustive due diligence, as it is no longer a newspaper, it is a propaganda foghorn for extremely right wing neoconservatives.

    • Courtenay Barnett

      Tatyana,
      Thanks very much for your post.
      You may wonder why as a person way over here in the Caribbean I have a keen interest in this issue.
      Well – we are a globally integrated system. Not fairly and judiciously so – but we are significantly interacting.
      To the point – The West is playing a power game where it wants a lose/lose scenario for Putin/Russia.
      From my weak and humble position over here in the Caribbean – I want a win/win resolution for the world.
      Why so?
      i) War instigated and/or initiated in Ukraine.
      ii) US imposed sanctions.
      iii) A problem with global implications.
      iv) The Russia gas/oil supply lines come into play.
      v) The wider Europe has a serious problem on its home turf.
      vi) The world economy goes into further downturn.
      vii) Me – little me – over here – am impacted by the rising fuel prices – just as our economy has started to rise out of the covid-19 economic downturn.
      Any comments?
      I am truly concerned.

      • Tatyana

        With all my respect, Courtenay, I’m grateful for your kind interest, and engaging in dialogues, and asking questions. But I’m very sorry to say a, well, impolite and even offensive thing – if a war in Ukraine starts, then the last thing I would worry about is its impact on Caribbean economy. Sorry.
        I’d be running as fast as I can, somewhere I even don’t know where 🙂 With my husband, and son, and my 2 cats.

        • Goose

          The scary thing is, the US have been hyping up the prospect of invasion & war in Ukraine so much it’s almost inevitable something has to happen, some provocation. Otherwise the US, NATO and the MSM suffer a loss of face. The sanctions trigger is also poised.

          The US spokesman gave very specific information about what’s supposedly in this ‘faked video’ Russia are preparing, such as type of drone used(Turkish) | model number etc. and use of corpses, crisis actors etc. This could of course, be debunked by international observers at the scene of any future attack on Russian forces.

          If Ukraine does launch an attack, I’d hope Russia would allow international observers to investigate/report before any response.

          Both the US and Zelensky almost need a Russian invasion. The US are busily developing plans for LNG to mitigate/replace Russian gas in Europe. Looking at Wiki, In the Ukrainian presidential election in 2019 there was a 62% turnout, and that figure is without the 12% in the East who couldn’t vote, nearly all of whom would have voted against the current incumbent. i.e., around 50% turnout, hardly a ringing endorsement of Zelensky, and his popularity has dropped away, since then due to overpromising.

          • Tatyana

            Goose, there is OSCE mission in Ukraine, observers.

            The deputy head is Mark Etherington of British Army* Just see the list of conflicts he was working on! Jack-of-all-trades, my ass! I hope he’s not also a pianist. :-)*
            https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/mark-etherington

            Another deputy * what a face of a b*tch!* is Antje Grawe
            https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/antje-grawe

            Their Head is Yaşar Halit Çevik, ex-ambassador of Turkey in Syria
            https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/chief-monitor

            No wonder there are Turkish drones there, and I really doubt the mission is impartial. What do you think, if a Turkish drone Bairaktar delivers chemical weapons on Donetsk citizens, would a Turkish ambassador impartially report this? Or, those British military instructors, suddenly decide to strike, we do not expect Mark Etherington to honestly report this?

          • Goose

            Why do the entire western media parrot this stuff without question? They’ve been burnt enough in the past to know better.

            Any ‘provocation’ attack by Ukraine on Russian forces now. And western media are primed to dismiss it as fake.

            Mike Pompeo: I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole…. we had entire training courses [dedicated to doing just that].

            Yet the media take the ball and run with it every time?

          • Tatyana

            Goose, the media take the ball and run with it every time, because they are paid for it. It’s their job, to write stories for money. This job is very well-paid. Britain spent 6 billion in the last 3 years in Russia alone, to support russian anti-government media. Includind “Memorial”, which we discussed recently here on this site.
            Also, there are news on ‘Anonymus’ hacker group, who published British Foreign Office docs, showing they spend about 20% of state budget on fighting Russian propaganda.
            Some people wondered why Camala Harris became a vice-president, speculating it maybe trendy diversity decision. No, she stands there to represent Big Digit. You may imagine the budgets flowing into Google, Facebook and the like’s pockets.
            Ukraine – Britain runs a ‘Crushing sword’ campaign there. Today, YouTube bloked channels of Donetsk and Lughansk. So, if something happens there we will only get news from Kiev and Turkish-British-CIA OSCE mission (I guess that bitch-faced woman stands there for CIA).
            RT Deutchland is also blocked forever by YouTube.

            So, today we find ourselves living in a digital information world, and the information is censored by governments.

          • Rhys Jaggar

            Goose, it’s the gas it’s always been about. The USA is solely interested in jacking up gas prices in Europe hugely by cutting out Russian supplies and bringing in their own extremely expensive stuff instead.

            It’s high time there was a people’s vote across Europe to decide on the following: ‘Do you, the people, wish to be cut off from Russian Gas to pay much much more for LNG from the USA, Qatar or wherever, just because the USA are a bunch of mobsters, gangsters, criminals, fraudsters and genocidal bullies?’

            I think the continent would vote 80:20 NOT to be cut off from Russian gas.

            That would of course mean that all the sockpuppets in European Chancelleries would have no careers in future, which makes such a a vote impossible to secure via official channels.

            It may be time to carry one out without official Government permission….

        • Jennifer Allan

          “if a war in Ukraine starts”………. I am praying it doesn’t. Good luck to you and your family Tatiana. With wars there are no real winners -only losers.

          • Republicofscotland

            If the Ukrainian Foreign minister and hardliner against Russia, Dmytro Kuleba replaces Zelensky in the power struggle behind the scenes in Ukraine, then the possibility of war gets that little bit closer.

          • Rhys Jaggar

            I’m afraid Jennifer that the bankers and arms dealers win.

            That’s why they are always fomenting them.

  • dearieme

    One of your most fascinating pieces, Mr Murray.

    I wish you and your family well as you get over your sorry imprisonment.

  • Robert Hughes

    That political marionette Sturgeon should jump to the defence of Starmer should surprise no one : as should that fact that she has never uttered at critical word regarding the prolonged State torture of J Assange .

  • Feral Finster

    1. We are run by sociopaths. High function sociopaths, but sociopaths. nonetheless. Is this not obvious?

    2. Johnson may be a liability on many different levels, but I cannot imagine the establishment wanting a leadership change during the runup to a war. Decisions, decisions.

    • Fat Jon

      It is my belief that the planet is now run by evil people. They may project themselves as guardians of the truth and peace, with a main objective of presiding over a free and happy world; and they may have even convinced themselves of their own distorted propaganda.

      However, behind the veneer to me they are all pure evil psychopaths. I will need to see something other than continuous warmongering to convince me of another explanation.

  • intp1

    It is hard to imagine the Torys getting in next time around, even without Boris. but it won’t matter Starmer the consummate red Tory has been prepared, packaged and made ready for a seamless transition.
    You just can’t explain to people who still habitually see the political landscape as left or right. That is a complete illusion, a little like independence vs remain in the union. All camps with any feasibility have been captured.

    The question is what to do? The frogs are well simmered; there is no way to drift back for polite Brits. They are placing legislation as we speak to muzzle us, legislation which does not even require voting on, which does not even allow the Judiciary to weigh definitions, etc. etc. a society which uses Orwell as a manual rather than as the warnings that he meant us to heed.
    Anybody have a serious plan, meet me in the pub otherwise IMO we are done for.

    • Rhys Jaggar

      It’s hard to imagine Starmer getting in. Outside London, the Labour Party are absolutely reviled, because of their obsession with London. They are an absolutely tainted brand, they did not do a single piece of work during the past 2 years and none of them should have been paid a penny as they did not do their jobs of Opposing the Government.

      What’s needed is a third alternative, because everyone I talk to hates BOTH the Labour Party AND the Conservative Party.

      • DunGroanin

        They are only reviled because the arsehole media and its entertainment and propaganda wings were aligned in destroying Corbynite return of TradLabour, with bullshit about AS and terrorist-loving pacifism, as you well know, and as Armando Iannucci deviously deploys in his latest propaganda piece to pave the way for the return of the fake NuLab bastards.

  • Peter

    I’d like to know just who exactly thought it would be a good idea to give the job of Shadow Secretary for Brexit to (Sir) Keir Staliner.

    • U Watt

      He was viewed as a heroic figure by most Corbyn supporters back then because he wanted to force the country to vote again on the EU. They loudly cheered the 2nd referendum albatross he hung around Corbyn’s neck. Then they rewarded him for the 2019 result by electing him leader of the Labour Party, on the advice of the entire centrist commentariat. These Remainiacs effectively shut the brief window of democratic politics in Britain, probably forever, but are still awaiting some reward from Sir Keir Starmer and the establishment.

      • Peter

        Good points, thanks.

        But I’d still like to know who exactly was responsible for the decision to give him – imho an obvious establishment man – the position which lead to what was – again imho – the single most stupid policy on a main issue that any of the main parties have ever went into a general election with. Namely, the policy of rejecting the democratic referendum result, renegotiating the exit deal and putting that to the country, with virtually every cabinet member rejecting the deal that they have just renegotiated. How stupid can you get? The widely derided policy of Corbyn remaining neutral was the most/only sensible part of it.

        Well done (Sir) Keir Staliner, job done – Corbyn and the Labour Party effectively torpedoed.

        Did the likes of Seumas Milne not see that coming?

        So whose decision was it?

        • Squeeth

          @ Peter “So whose decision was it?” I don’t know but I bet Corbyn apologised for it. As for Corbyn remaining neutral being sensible, words fail me.

          • Peter

            @Squeeth

            “As for Corbyn remaining neutral being sensible, words fail me.”

            Given the above described context in the Labour Party, and Corbyn being, I believe, in favour of Brexit, it was the only position – the Harold Wilson position – available to him.

            Nonetheless, my comment was meant in part ironically.

        • U Watt

          Peter

          I agree, it was a disastrous appointment. Starmer claimed to be a Corbyn loyalist but had been one of the first to resign in the early chicken coup. People like Milne should also have known all about Starmer’s security-state/ Trilateral Commission background. They should also have seen a mile off the true intent of the 2nd referendum policy. Everyone knew 2/3rds of Labour seats had voted to leave and those voters would be outraged at being told to vote again by wealthy elites.

          A good piece here by Daniel Finn on how the primary aim of Brexit, for both the Right and Centre, was to destroy Corbyn and the British left.

          How Brexit Broke the British Left – by Daniel Finn (Catalyst Journal, Autumn 2021) – subscription

          The Brexit crisis dominated British politics between 2016 and 2019. Its outcome will shape the UK’s relationship with Europe for decades. One factor above all decided that outcome: the determination of Britain’s right and center alike to contain a left-wing upsurge inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

  • wall of controversy

    That’s a great piece that fleshes out some vital details surrounding Starmer’s role in the Savile cover-up and the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. Starmer is certainly a piece of work, and, as Craig says, the establishment are very keen to defend him. But in saying it’s all about dinners at Chequers and mates from uni, what Craig fails to mention is Starmer’s membership of the globalist Trilateral Commission. Moreover, New Labour bigwigs Blair and Mandelson are both Bilderberg attendees – Mandelson, like Ken Clarke, has been a member of its Steering Committee. So why downplay Bilderberg, as though nothing of significance happens there? Just as a quick summary here’s a list of heads of state who attended Bilderberg PRIOR to becoming heads of state:

    • Gerald Ford attended Bilderberg 1964, 1966 appointed as US President 1974
    • Margaret Thatcher attended Bilderberg (at least 1975, 1977, 1986) became Prime Minister 1979
    • Bill Clinton attended Bilderberg 1991 became US President 1993
    • Tony Blair attended Bilderberg 1993 became Prime Minister 1997
    • Paul Martin attended Bilderberg 1996 became Prime Minister of Canada 2003
    • Stephen Harper attended Bilderberg 2003 became Prime Minister of Canada 2006
    • Angela Merkel attended Bilderberg 2005 became Chancellor of Germany (Nov) 2005
    • Emmanuel Macron attended Bilderberg 2014 became President 2017

    If nothing else, you’d have to say that Bilderberg appear to be very able kingmakers.

    • Blue Dotterel

      The WEF and Klaus Schwab (of the “you will own nothing and be happy”) seem to have some influence on the way our countries are run for the establishments as well, seemingly training our future leaders for us.

      https://www.informedchoiceaustralia.com/post/wef-and-their-young-global-leaders-program

      Quote from site: “The WEF’s tentacles reach far and wide, positioning their grip on many industries, media and governments through their Young Global Leaders program.”

      Always useful to vet the leaders of the future to ensure the right thinking get placed in the right postions.

      • Wikikettle

        The Collective West’s “Passport” into domination of the world is with the “Key” stamped “Democracy”, prior to that it was a thousand warships. The capture is so complete that it can alter the meaning of words. In the 1974 film The Conversation with Gene Hackman, the technology to spy on folk eventually rebounds on the spy. Julian proved that. When Companies profit from war and death, taking over from productive forms of manufacturing, they destroy their own country’s economy. There is a documentary on the life inside a US aircraft carrier and its thousands of inhabitants. Within the windowless steel holds of the vessel, ordinary working class folk of all backgrounds mill around far from home and family, earning a living in maintaining an unproductive leviathon. I then thought of the amount of US debt and the profits and the panic on the ordinary people’s faces onboard if their vessel was to sink. About the same number as the people who died in the twin towers. And the resulting rage that was unleashed on the world: Pearl Harbour, Twin Towers, and perhaps a sinking is the next casus belli.

      • Rhys Jaggar

        That’s why it’s entirely appropriate to start demanding that no-one linked to WEF should be allowed to represent the people, as the WEF’s goals involve the enslavement of 99% of the entire globe.

        It’s not an organisation a reputable politician can have anything to do with.

        It’s a place for schemers, chancers, gravy train seekers etc.

        Nothing else.

        • M.J.

          So for as I can tell from a very quick look at the WEF’s website, they seem to be about increasing international prosperity. I did a quick search under the word ‘poverty’ and among the myriad of entries is one recommending increasing mobile coverage, and expressing concern about COVID and climate change. Interestingly they subscribe to the “stakeolder” philosophy of a symbiosis between public and private sectors.
          It all sounds very New Labour. But before dismissing them as a sop to capitalism – and I’m sceptical about public-private partnerships when it comes to key public services – recall that at UK general elections, Blair got elected three times, while Corbyn screwed up.

          • John Cleary

            I’m really tired of hearing of how Sir Anthony won three elections.

            The Tory vote collapsed following Black Wednesday. John Smith established the commanding lead for Labour, but he was a bit too honest for the Establishment.

            Blair did NOT build on Smith’s performance. He stole it and wasted all those years of Labour Government.

    • M.J.

      Very interesting. But let’s consider what they were when they went to Bilderberg:

      • Gerald Ford 1964: US Senator, Michigan. Member of the Warren Commission
      • Margaret Thatcher 1975: Leader of the Opposition
      • Bill Clinton 1991: Governor of Arkansas, head of the Democrat Leadership Council
      • Tony Blair 1991: spokesman on the city of London, Shadow Trade and Industry Team
      • Paul Martin 1996: Finance Minister
      • Stephen Harper 2003: Leader of the Opposition
      • Angela Merkel 2005: CDU General Secretary
      • Emmanuel Macron 2014: Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs

      The kings-to-be were well-known princes already when they went to Bilderberg, so their advancement wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. A bit like Saudi or Jordanian royals (gasp) becoming kings.

      • Rhys Jaggar

        You get the invite to Bilderberg once it has been decided behind the scenes that you are the horse that is going to be backed.

        They don’t invite just anyone.

        It’s rather like a ‘coming out party’…..

  • DunGroanin

    So here we are at D-day dum dum dum DUM?

    Will an airline fall from the sky? As Putin flies by?

    Shelling reported in Donbass as the Dumb asses cry wolf and let their poxy proxies fry in their ready made grave trenches. No need for body bags.
    Palantsirs are active.

    Time to go short and watch the market do wonders over the weekend.

    Now the Empire claims to have destroyed their proxy head chopper and family in his house just a few miles from Turkish border inside Syria. What about his deputy and family just down the road?
    Biden is claiming great successes.

    Russian naval forces are in their positions again as they wrrr back in 2014 when the salvos of cruise missiles didn’t make it across the Mediterranean.

    Cue # the final showdown. Eye of thee Tiger, a musical accompaniment to the dying light of Empire and the start of the Year of the Tiger.

    We can finally begin the 21st Century, free of the ancients yoke.

    The Establushment is diverting by pulling its pants down in public as Bozo the clown performs his coup de grace prat fall. Huzza!

    • DunGroanin

      Twitter:

      ‘– GEROMAN — ?
      @GeromanAT
      9:59am, 4 Feb 2022

      BREAKING – the whole US administration is now under suicide watch – the latest statements by Xi and Putin caused a wave of severe depression.
      (A senior US official who wants to stay anonymous just told me)‘

      • Wikikettle

        DunGroanin. The Russians like the Iranians will not take the bait. The Ukrainians and the Poles know they are being used. Hungary, Croatia and Bulgaria have given the finger to NATO. It’s China I am worried about. The US is determined to ruin the Winter Olympics. An emotional response from China to US provocation, is the frightening scene in this horror.

        • Stevie Boy

          China doesn’t do ’emotional’, they do rational, logical and sensible. Like Russia the Chinese are master ‘chess’ players, whilst the west hasn’t progressed past ‘noughts and crosses’.

          • Wikikettle

            Stevie Boy. I agree to what you say; my point, badly made, is that the long period of Humiliation of the Chinese is over. They, more than the Iranians and Russians, are in a position to return a slap with a punch. Their uncharacteristic outspoken responses to US actions by their chief diplomat indicates to me that they have had enough. Loss of Face of the Other is to be avoided in their ancient culture. But when the Other is a Bare-Faced bully then a Martial response is appropriate. “Enter the Dragon” …..

        • DunGroanin

          Just read the joint statement from the titans of humanity today.

          http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67712

          I link it there because our media are mere agents of the establishment and they can only tell a lie.

          The riot act was the draft treaties last year.
          This is what it has been leading up to for years whilst we dumb consumers of MSM fairytales were being told lies and diverted by comic book heroes and politicians and cult religions of economics (which is pushing up interest rates so they can feed off our labour for ever more, because they won’t be able to steal and enslave the row anymore.)

          From 02 02 20 20 the final pages of the crumbling Empire are being written – it’ll be a brand new book for planet Earth starting 22 02 20 22. ?

          • Tatyana

            Hehe, the day February 22 is marked in my calendar with the note to check if a war has begun yet. Our fighter clown Zhirinovsky plays Cassandra sometimes, he predicted this day for the war to start.

          • M.J.

            @Tatyana that sounds like a good choice of date, at least for assessing Biden’s initial prediction. Though I would wait till March, in case tanks work better then.
            I still think that Putin may well invade Eastern Ukraine and annex Lukhansk and Donetz, just as he did Crimea and South Ossetia. But by mid-March we should be certain.

    • Yuri K

      Interestingly, when the Russians bombed Idlib, they were always “attacking civilians”. And now, surprise, surprise! The top ISIS leader was right there!

  • John Cleary

    Two excerpts from Wikipedia (sorry)

    In March 2017, WikiLeaks began releasing the largest leak of CIA documents in history, codenamed Vault 7. The documents included details of the CIA’s hacking capabilities and software tools used to break into smartphones, computers and other Internet-connected devices.[237] In April, CIA director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia”

    In February 2018, after Sweden had suspended its investigation, Assange brought two legal actions, arguing that Britain should drop its arrest warrant for him as it was “no longer right or proportionate to pursue him” and the arrest warrant for breaching bail had lost its “purpose and its function”. In both cases, Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot ruled that the arrest warrant should remain in place.[255][256]

    What is interesting is what happened in between. See here:

    New evidence of conflict of interest against the judge responsible for the extradition process against Assange – by Kevin Reed (World Socialist Web Site, 24 Feb 2020)

    There is a lovely photo of Lord And Lady Arbuthnot. The caption states:

    Lady Emma and Lord Arbuthnot by Edron at Buckingham Palace in May 2017 [Source: Instagram]

    • John Cleary

      Make sure to click on “New evidence of conflict of interest” rather than the second part


      [ Mod: You originally linked to the Norwegian version of the WSWS article for some reason (and the caption text you reproduced was also in Norwegian). So we searched for the English version of the article and linked to that. However, in case you thought there was something special about the Norwegian version, we included a link to it in the latter part of the title – using an automatic translation service, which also displays a link to the original Norwegian page. So you can have whichever you prefer.

      In future, kindly link to articles written in English, or at least use an automatic translation engine such as http://itools.com/tool/google-translate-web-page-translator

      Regards. ]

      • John Cleary

        Sorry Mod, I don’t explain myself very well.

        What I’m trying to highlight is the photograph and the caption thereto. The main text, while interesting, is outwith my point.

        Arbuthnot and her husband were invited to a Buck Place garden party in May of 2017.

        You can see from my post above what had happened in March and April. The CIA were going nuts as Wikileaks picked them apart.

        So who is to say whether or not Mrs Arbuthnot was buttonholed by Her Majesty and told “stick it to da punk”.

        And every chance thereafter she did indeed stick it to Julian Assange. Having no choice in the matter at all, vis:

        Here is the oath sworn by Arbuthnot:

        Oaths
        When judges are sworn in they take two oaths/affirmations. The first is the oath of allegiance and the second the judicial oath; these are collectively referred to as the judicial oath.

        Oath of allegiance
        “I, _________ , do swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, according to law.”

        Judicial oath
        “I, _________ , do swear by Almighty God that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second in the office of ________ , and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”

        https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-the-government-and-the-constitution/oaths/

        If I am correct, then the only person breaking the law is Queen Elizabeth.

  • DiggerUK

    For me the real danger is that Johnson with his “Get Brexit Done” election victory, could be eclipsed by those in his own party who wish to ‘Get Brexit Undone’ or, heaven forbid, by a Starmerite led Labour Party.

    Let me assure all here, as an active Labour Party member, that the body blow to the liberal elite with Brexit, has still left the majority of the Labour Party with a bad attack of the vapours.

    Personally I feel that Genie should never, or will ever, be put back in its bottle…_

    • Stevie Boy

      DiggerUK.
      What I find hard to understand is why Labour Party members stay with the party. It’s patently obvious (isn’t it ?) that Labour as a socialist party, defending the rights of the people, the working classes and workers in general and ‘British’ society is finished !
      Surely, the time is ripe for a new party rather than supporting the red tories. This is much like the scots continuing to support the SNP. A lame horse ain’t going to carry you anywhere.

      • DiggerUK

        Yes Stevie Boy, it is a wonder that good people stay in the Labour Party. It’s a miracle anybody other than careerist influencers stay in any party.
        In Scotland they don’t stay in the party. Even ScotLabour voters have abandoned Labour to throw their vote at the SNP. If you wanted confirmation of the NewLabour heart still beating, look north. It’s a wonder so few ex NewLabour figures aren’t prominent in the SNP.

        I believe it correct to say, that if ScotLabour had anything to offer the citizens of Scotland, then most of the New Murrell Tartan Army would be on street corners selling the Big Issue.
        If ScotTories returned to their OneNation roots, then their wouldn’t be enough copies of the Big Issue sold for the Murrells to afford a bottle of Bucky.

        As to myself staying, well, I made the mistake of letting my membership lapse after Blair got elected. Now it is difficult to garner a great deal of support from comrades. So, I stay in, I’ll not make the same mistake. It will take some time to push back the woke, green alarmist, snowflake, safe space, critical race theorists, rejoin EU, gender warriors, etc., etc., etc.. But done it must be.

        So I stay put and argue my corner. Most parties are also no longer representative of what they stood for 40 years back. Then, ideologies had a political foundation, politics count for so little at the moment.

        It is plausible that there could be a wave of splits and convulsions in the body politic at any time. I’ll choose a new nag if a good runner comes along. But not until…_

  • Ruth El Heri

    Yes, I know what you’ve written about. But there’s much more to the Establishment and in particular their black economy where funds can be raised through theft of taxpayers’ money i.e. possibly £4.3 billion of furlough written off with no investigation by Sunak or £37 billion through Track and Trace. Then there’s their very likely role in organised crime i.e. excise or VAT carousel fraud

    • Peter

      Hmmm, good point.

      There’s much, much more to the establishment than the occasional dinner party.

  • Kit Klarenberg

    You’re somewhat off on the timeline here Craig. The ‘independent’ report into the Savile saga was written by Alison Levitt, his principal legal advisor at the time. They *both* joined Mischon de Reya in 2014.

    • Goose

      A point everyone is ignoring.

      And what are the chances of his principal legal advisor finding he acted improperly?

      Surely any such review should have been conducted by a truly independent outsider?

      As stated yesterday. Many of those feigning outrage over Johnson’s Savile comments, were the ones calling into question Sue Gray’s impartiality and independence, when it was announced she would conduct an inquiry into ‘Partygate’.

      • Bramble

        Some of them were also amplifying the outrageous lies told about Mr Corbyn and pretending to believe Julian Assange was a sex fiend.

  • Don't hurry a curry

    [ Mod: The ‘Name’ field is for a name, not for a slogan. Kindly choose a suitable screen name and repost your comment. ]


    [ — snip — ]

  • Beryl Jackson

    Could you comment on Starmer’s membership of the invitation only Trilateral Commission? I have asked him three times to explain his membership. I have had no reply.
    Thanks

    • Kit Klarenberg

      It’s essentially an elite discussion club and important not to overstate its significance too much, ie by elevating it to the level of secret world government. It isn’t, and isn’t particularly unique, just one of many establishment fora for discussing the world and shaping the future.

      However it’s definitely one of the most influential in respect of structuring policy, strategy, etc in Europe, the US and Asia, and is particularly of concern because a huge number of its members are high profile current and former national security/intelligence figures. This includes Henry Kissinger, former US directors of national intelligence, the CIA, MI5, MI6, GCHQ and so on. So essentially heads of big business meet spooks, military people, lawmakers (MI6 operative Rory Stewart used to be part of it – and Le Cercle too) and discuss how the world can be shaped in all their interests, and what role each component within the establishment superstructure will play in implementing and enforcing that.

      Their philosophy is clear from the 1975 pamphlet “Crisis of Democracy”, an extraordinarily revealing document in which the “crisis” is defined as an “excess” of democracy – ie there are too many people with the ability to impact politics (women, people of colour), far too many people questioning the state, far too many people organising, protesting, campaigning, etc. It discusses how to return the masses to a state of uninformed apathy, bemoaning how schools and universities aren’t doing their traditional job – “indoctrination of the young” (verbatim quote) – effectively enough, and how workers are too uppity and something needs to be done to get them back in line.

      It’s probably no coincidence it was around this time that third world outsourcing began expanding wildly, in the process of course destroying national industries and trade unions and thus commencing the process of most employment being a form of wage slavery for most people.

      • fonso

        Very interesting, thanks. It suggests Starmer is much less of a political blank canvas than his MSM allies try to pretend.

      • Goose

        They risk subverting democracy, however benign and/or informal they claim they are. There’s certainly a risk of elite ‘groupthink’.

        • European Leadership Network (ELN)
        • Council on Foreign Relations
        • Henry Jackson Society

        Craig has mentioned these. There are others, many favour laissez-faire capitalism, mass surveillance and military interventionism.

        • Wang Shui

          Sadly, Chomsky has been taken in by the Xinjiang genocide hoax, which has damaged his reputation out here.

      • Johnny Conspiranoid

        “So essentially heads of big business meet spooks, military people, lawmakers (MI6 operative Rory Stewart used to be part of it – and Le Cercle too) and discuss how the world can be shaped in all their interests, and what role each component within the establishment superstructure will play in implementing and enforcing that.”

        Sounds like a world government to me. Its existence and functions are unknown to the bulk of the population either in the West or elsewhere because the media coverage it receives is managed, which makes it a conspiracy just on your own description. And then there will be off-the-books discussions and decisions. The people in it pursue their class interests whether they know it or not, even if they recognise no distinction between their own interests and those of other classes. Thus class forces will govern what the establishment circles think, and conspiracies will arise when the part of that circle thinks certain actions have to be secret. Class forces produce conspiracies which express those forces. How long the conspiracies exist, and how formalised they become, would depend on utility.

    • Rhys Jaggar

      It’s a badge of ‘acceptablity’ to the unelected Powers that Be. Those who choose Presidents and Prime Ministers, Central Bankers etc etc.

      Him being on that means that the USA think he’s a safe pair of hands.

      Don’t expect him to be anything but a poodle if he ever goes on stage at Number Ten.

  • Shatnersrug

    Lol! What is the point of the Labour Party??

    Asa Winstanley:
    @AsaWinstanley
    4:05pm, 4 Feb 2022

    Here’s @Keir_Starmer making actual Israeli government propaganda now.

    Labour is a hopelessly compromised party. Throughly infiltrated by a hostile foreign power — the apartheid state of Israel.

  • Rhys Jaggar

    There is quite an interesting question to be had about what you actually have to do to be ‘behaving dishonorably’ in the Speaker’s eyes.

    I, were I the Speaker, would inform at least 100 MPs that their conduct both inside and outside Parliament was incompatible with them being ‘Honorable Members of this House, let alone Right Honorable Members’. Keir Starmer would be amongst those named.

    It really beggars belief that a forensic distillation of Starmer’s conduct has not been set out by an MP in the House of Commons, before demanding that Starmer be ‘Named’ for ‘professional conduct incompatible with being a member of this House’.

    But as he has the protection of the USA and Israel, that would indeed be ‘an extremely courageous decision’ to make…..

    • DunGroanin

      The last Speaker was the last ever that will be independent and put Parliamentary ideal ahead of party loyalty or capture of the Houses by the praetorians – for his troubles he has been defenestrated and unpersoned and denied the historical rewards for ex-Speakers.

      And the current muppet toerag was installed.

      Bercow was the only reason Starmer got any success with his pretend hard BrexShit-avoiding Bills. That is why Starmer himself has not supported Bercow! That is as obvious as why Starmer has thrown Corbyn out of the Party – the guy whom he stood alongside and who supposedly believed in the manifesto which he stood on at the general election – how you and any of the other mass-media bullshitters expect us to forget these actions is wishful and pathetic.

  • Nwtptv

    The Scotland part of the British Establishment works in similar ways.

    A loving parent (the victim) had been led to believe they were being taken to a Scottish National Health Service professional to obtain help for their disabled child. (The appointment had been issued in the name of the child).

    At the appointment the victim was subjected to degrading treatment by the Scottish NHS professional. The perpetrator of the abuse examined the victim in the presence of the victim’s child, interrogating the victim about pregnancies and miscarriages and questioned if the victim had ever been arrested by the Police (which they had not: the victim has never committed any crime). The male health professional also lectured the female victim to use contraception and give their body a rest. This was done in the presence of another adult: An employee of another public authority.

    The health professional had not made any attempt to obtain consent and continued to examine the victim AFTER the victim had verbally objected to being examined and warned her child will listen to what is being said. He later argued in court he had taken the witness’ word for it that the victim was willing to be examined. The victim was so afraid when the perpetrator of the abuse continued the examination, after the victim had objected, that the victim submitted to the examination as she felt she had no other choice but to go along with it in order to get out of the situation, as she felt trapped. The victim was caused a huge amount of immediate fear, humiliation and degradation and now suffers anxiety and a fear of public authority officials.

    During the the Health Board complaint investigation the Health Board was asked, by the victim, to obtain a witness statement from the other adult present and was assured this would normally happen but (it appears) they did not do this in this case. Even though the health board contacted the witness’ employer the very next day about the victim’s complaints.

    The Health Board investigation then came to the conclusion they could not decide which account was most accurate: the person who alleged being degraded or the health professional who completely denied any wrongdoing and insisted the person had given consent and then willingly cooperated. So, the complaint was not upheld as it was the health professional’s word against the victim’s word.

    The victim also asked the other Scottish public authority to ask the witness to provide a statement on what had taken place. The other public authority’s managers refused any cooperation to the victim regarding obtaining a witness statement from their employee. The witness told the victim that she had been ordered not to speak to the victim.

    The health professional, their health board employer and the other public authority were in direct contact with each other during the supposedly separate complaint investigations. The victim has the evidence that the other public authority’s sought agreement that the complaints responses of the two public authorities should complement each other. The perpetrator and NHS management also shared then their complaint responses to the other public authority for approval before responding to the victim. The “separate” complaint investigations did complement each other. They both whitewashed the two public authorities of the most serious complaints of abuses and did not uphold the degrading treatment by the health professional. The Chief Executives of both public authorities were involved in the whitewash.

    The victim was warned by those in the know, that the complaints won’t succeed and legal action would be blocked because the public authorities’ management are controlled by members of the Freemasons and Eastern Star so they will protect each other. Whether they are Freemasons or not, that’s exactly how things played out.

    The complaints processes were a whitewash. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) would not accept degrading treatment as a basis for a complaint and without question accepted the health professional’s / health board’s version of events but did eventually find a breach of privacy had occurred.

    SLAB refused the victim legal aid when the victim resorted to legal action as a last resort. One of the public authorities had written to the Scottish Legal Aid Board to oppose legal aid. SLAB then refused legal aid on the basis one of the public authorities offered a derisory sum in settlement with no admission of fault. No local solicitor was then willing to take up the case (one of the local authority’s is a major client for local solicitor firms).

    The victim’s friend represented the victim by acting as a lay representative. In stark contrast, the health professional was represented by an NHS Central Legal Office solicitor and an advocate paid for from the public purse.

    When the lay representative attempted to arrange citation of the witness to be served by Sheriff’s Officers at the witness’ place of work, the witness’ public authority employer made false hearsay accusations to the NHS solicitor (whose details were, it seems, provided by the Sheriff Court’s Sheriff Clerk) with the result that the NHS solicitor wrote to the court and repeated the hearsay which falsely accused the lay representative of conduct that would amount to contempt of court and requested the lay representative be barred from representing the victim. Contempt of Court in Scottish civil cases carries a potential three months prison sentence so was a frightening experience. This occurred after the Scottish NHS failed in their attempts to persuade the court to block the case from going to a proof trial on time bar because the victim had wasted her time using every prescribed means of obtaining redress without court action. e.g, Complaints processes, MSPs and the Ombudsman.

    The victim was required to resort to assistance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (based in England) and further legal action before the NHS would release all the victim’s personal data. (Though the NHS had no problem in sharing the victim’s personal data to the other public authority without the victim’s knowledge or consent). The Scottish NHS also censored (redacted) the victim’s SAR disclosure at the request of the other public authority. The Health Board did this against NHS Cental Legal Office legal advice which advised against breaking the law by redacting the victim’s personal data: not because the law should be obeyed but on the grounds the unlawful conduct may later be discovered.

    The court cleared the victim’s lay representative of the allegations of contempt and the case went to a proof. The witness was successfully cited by the victim which legally compelled the witness to attend court. Under oath, the witness corroborated the victim’s version of events. The health professional also testified the victim had held their hand up with palm facing the health professional and agreed the gesture usually means: Stop! but that the health professional had continued the examination.

    The victim had written to three different SNP Cabinet Secretaries of Health and to the First Minister. The Scottish Government said it’s nothing to do with them. It’s a health board matter. The Establishment responses to the victim’s complaints led the victim to ponder if she would be killed to silence her.

    It took over three years from the abuse until the victim finally proved in court that the Scottish NHS health professional degraded the victim in breach of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The health board has continued to support and employ the perpetrator of the abuse after the court’s findings, which has not come as a shock to the victim, as the cover-up came from the top.

    What the court could not address is the root cause of the victim’s abuse: the victim had complained that a public authority had endangered her child’s life. So the public authority’s officials abused their power to try and discredit the complainant.

    So, when I hear references to the Jimmy Savile abuses and people wonder how he was able to get away with it all these years, I have learned from experience how the Establishment closes ranks to protect the abusers and protect those who protect the abusers.

    Sometimes, the truth comes out when an Establishment official reveals a cover-up by another official. Not because they care about justice for the victims but because they are trying to deflect blame from themselves.

  • Aidworker1

    Allegedly!

    Let’s all wake up

    This isn’t about Munira Mirza doing the right thing

    This is about paving a way for Sunak to become PM

    Mirza’s husband is Dougie Smith – a good pal of Sunak

    And who broke the story?

    James Forsyth – who Sunak was best man to

    When he married Allegra Stratton

    #Marinapurkiss

    • Giyane

      Aidworker1

      The ambition of the Tory Party since engineering the banking crash in 2007 has been to further demolish the Middle East for Israel and restore Victorian injustice at home. The present crisis is the fact that Russia and China intend to rebuild the Middle East using the superior military power and wealth and that the plonkers paradise of one rule for us and another rule for them has reached its climax in the roof garden of No 10.
      They’ve run out of road, clean run out of plans. Rishi Sunak is not the next plan, Kier Starmer is not the next plan. What the public want is Jeremy Corbyn or his equivalent from Labour, allied to Russia and China. The sinking ship the rats are leaving is the US, not Johnson.

      • Wikikettle

        The Speaker said that it was the practice in the Commons to talk about the Royals. It is also not allowed to call a Member of Parliament a liar or combinations of words implying the same. The public however thinks they are liars and corrupt, but still go out and vote. When the Queen passes away the public will not be as deferential to Monarchy and all its Bling. When Australia had a discussion about becoming a Republic a while ago, I always smile when Dame Edna Everidge ( Barry Humphries ) threatened to stand for President. The Establishment, Born to Rule over us, using idiot toff characters far more ridiculous than good old Dame Edna.

    • paul

      I think the wikipedia page illustrates her versatility:

      Early on, Mirza was involved in revolutionary politics,[11] including being a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a small group that dissolved in 1997.[12][3] She contributed to its magazine, Living Marxism, which was dissolved after losing a libel case to ITN over the Bosnian genocide. Staff from Living Marxism later formed the Spiked website, for which she has written articles.[13]
      …..Many of Mirza’s Revolutionary Communist Party colleagues became influential in Conservative Party Eurosceptic circles after the dissolution of their party, while remaining closely associated with each other’s endeavours…..During 2005 to 2007, Mirza worked as Development Director for the conservative think-tank Policy Exchange.

      • DunGroanin

        A DS agit prop stooge from the egg she was hothoused from just like her leaderine Clare Fox – as I say – the whole thing is choreographed and Narrative Management.

  • laguerre

    “Animal Farm” is of course the model. I do not suppose that it is ever going to change. It is only a question of the details of how it is done.

  • Deepgreenpuddock

    I am curious over the Savile affair; Starmer surely had the final word on prosecution.

    Reasons for not prosecuting:

    1. He was aware of Savile’s connections and didnt want the blowback.
    2. He was leant on.
    3. Not sufficiently serious charges.
    4. shaky evidence or weak witnesses unable to cope with court conditions.
    5. high cost.
    6. risked some kind of public controversy, disorder or public paedophile witch hunt.
    7. Savile was in poor health and a pop clogging/clog popping event was imminent.
    8. risk of disrepute for BBC/monarchy/assorted politicians/charitable organisations.
    9. difficulties in ensuring a fair trial due to sensational media interest.
    10. a combination of all above + some others not mentioned.

    Against that, a sense that justice had been not applied to an egregious catalogue of crimes and a shameless criminal.

    It seems to me a fairly clear cut case of ‘not in the public interest’, hard though that might be to accept. OK it suited some elements of the establishment, but there is no reason to believe Starmer was shielding those elements.

    • Another Steve

      Having been on jury service several times I have been astounded by the evidence-free cases the CPS have supported which were then promptly thrown out by the jury. So the argument that it wasn’t in the public interest or worth the effort doesn’t stack up, in practice !
      As to Starmer not being aware of the case, c’mon Saville was one of the biggest stars in the UK, second only to the royals. Of course he was aware. This is equivalent in today’s environment of the head of the CPS saying they weren’t aware there was a proposed case against Prince Andrew. It’s complete BS.

      • Deepgreenpuddock

        not what I said. of course he was aware but his decision was rational in relation to his role as DPP

      • Goose

        He was aware, the only claim is the carefully worded,’he wasn’t the ‘reviewing lawyer’.

        https://skwawkbox.org/2022/02/05/johnson-says-starmer-nothing-to-do-with-savile-decision-but-is-he-right/

        The Full Fact organisation in 2020 published an article concluding that Keir Starmer ‘wasn’t the reviewing lawyer’ because none of the records that remain in existence mention him being consulted. However, the article also notes that:

        the CPS said that records relating to the decision not to charge Savile were not kept, which the service said is in line with its data retention policy.

        So there are apparently no records to show that Keir Starmer had ‘nothing to do with it’.

        But there were attempts before the data was deleted to reveal more information:

        A 2012 Freedom of Information (FOI) request asked for details surrounding the decision and the CPS dragged its heels so long that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ruled in 2014 that it had breached its obligation to respond in a timely manner.

        When it eventually responded, it refused to disclose the information, claiming that to do so would be prejudicial to its future operations. But the ICO report notes that:

        the CPS sought the opinion of the DPP on 17 April 2013. He provided an opinion on the application of section 36(2)(b)(ii) on 24 April 2013.

        • Goose

          Put alongside the destruction of the Assange related email exchanges between the CPS and its Swedish counterparts. From the guardian:

          Adding to the intrigue, it emerged the CPS lawyer involved had, unaccountably, advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

          The CPS data destruction was disclosed in a freedom of information (FOI) case being pursued by the Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi.

          “It is incredible to me these records about an ongoing and high-profile case have been destroyed. I think they have something to hide,” Maurizi said.

          And we talk about other countries.

    • zoot

      ‘ It seems to me a fairly clear cut case of ‘not in the public interest’ .’

      very revealing comment, deepgreenpuddock.

      • Deepgreenpuddock

        I am not a Starmer fan but surely it’s important to weigh things up as best possible, Clearly unsatisfactory to let Savile off but whoever the dpp was the same decision would have been made. Johnson is the target here for his squalid smear.

        • Fat Jon

          It is very interesting to note that the media outlets and other contributors squealing over the alleged squalid (or scurrilous depending on which official crib sheet they have used) smears about Starmer; are exactly the same as those who poured fuel on the flames of the smears aimed at Corbyn.

          Presumably, they think we are too dim not to have noticed?

1 2 3 4

Comments are closed.