Apologies for break am very tied up with a legal case we are bringing I will tell you about in a day or two.
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Report that Greta Thunberg was beaten and made to kiss the Israeli flag:
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-news/2025/10/04/greta-thunberg-israel/
If the report is verified, this means that even “white privilege” is not a protection any more from being roughed up. In apartheid South Africa, while black people were often tortured and killed in detention, the regime finally began doing it to white people such as Neil Aggett.
What an amazingly civilised country. So brave.
No wonder our politicians are falling over themselves to become “Friends of Israel.”
Not ‘beaten’, she was tortured. They were strip searched and she was made to crawl across the ground and kiss the Israeli flag. If you look at Ahed Tamimi now, compared to the brave 15 year old she once was, you can see that some damage is long lasting. A hundred and fifty or so hostages (which it would seem they are now) have been released out of the 443 who were kidnapped from the flotilla. They were water cannoned with sewage when they were boarded and Greta said her cell has bed bugs.
They are so very brave, to try and show the world what the dead journalists in Gaza were prevented from showing. Humanitarianism is for all humans. International Law is for all countries. Yet we have bound ourselves into tandem with Israel and appeasement is our only option.
The Day of Atonement is Yom Kippur and many Jews in Israel and around the world stood up to declare their shame about what Israel is doing. Atonement.
@Alyson
What Jews?
Israelis in Southern Israel proclaimed their solidarity with the Sumud and the need to end the siege. They were filmed stating their heartfelt support for all the nations that are trying to save Palestinian lives, and then the IDF arrived and filming stopped.
Also every protest march, in London at least, has had a visible Jewish presence condemning the genocide. Londoners defended the Jews from the fascists in Cable Street all those years ago. Fascism is raising its ugliness again and people are facing it together
I asked because there aren’t any Jews in Palestine, the zionist antisemites keep it Judenrein.
Total despotism and impunity to kill as many is the Israeli “concept”. Which makes them simply Nazis.
No diplomacy, no compromise, only murder to reach their genocidal goals.
To this day in Germany this fact is still not understood by most. It´s – I don´t know – psychotic? sick?
I have given up on writing to outlets anything anymore. The facts are so obvious. No one can claim they wouldn´t know.
I ran across a historian who unfortunately writes also about current events, Danny Orbach, who probably is either a paid PR person or even worse, utterly delusional as many “intellectuals” in the humanities are. As late as this Sept. Orbach seriously published a book/study trying to debunk the genocide “claims”.
The years since 2022 have manifested as an ultimate declaration of bankruptcy especially of the Western elite humanities class.
At first their fanatic hatred towards Russia, which to a little degree in the first weeks could be forgiven considering the insane level of lies and PR from outlets, the Ukrainian government and NATO.
But what came then in Gaza is beyond excuse.
But also their hailing the Ukraine War even when the immense human cost and death and lies cannot be neglected. But, hell, that´s why Lippman, Bernays and successors are being so much studied to this day.
And if Edward Said was pointing fingers at such produce of “elite” culture as Verdi´s Aida, as Jane Austen, as Henry James or Conrad, Kipling, Forster we see ourselves hurled back in time.
Or as Chris Hedges put: Haven´t we learned anything?
Considering the nature of privilege extremely depressing or infuriating. Depending on the time of day.
p.s. the peace protests in Germany on Oct. 3rd were almost completely eclipsed by legacy media.
Disgusting to watch western leader after western leader to embrace the phony “peace proposal” by Netanyahu/Trump – Trump could of course not care less about the conflict itself, he is just obsessed getting the Nobel Peace Prize (where does this obsession of his come from anyway, how could he be so totally insecure and looking for validation in that age?! What a truly pathetic man).
Also, imagine if Russia and China declared “20 points” in solving the Ukraine-conflict whereas Ukraine will be de-radicalized, de-militarized and not be allowed to rule their own state and if Ukraine do not agree to these “20 points” after 72 hours, Putin will unleash “hell” against Ukrainians.
Does anyone believe the western leaders would embrace such “peace” deal? Of course not but Palestinians must somehow accept the capitulation order by Trump/Netanyahu? There is some gigantic gaslighting going on where this type of idiocy is not to be questioned and become normalized.
His obsession comes from the fact that Obama won the award.
Point 8: “Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party.”
So the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is pulling out?
As for Trump, he doesn’t just want his name on the agreement. One of its points is that he will become the head of the supervisory “Board of Peace”.
Anything with Blair involvement is likely to fail.
Point 18 would be funny in other circumstances:
“18. An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.”
Rainbow flags on the Haram al-Sharif? All together now, “Kumbaya, my Lord”.
My guess is Blair has conferred with Pope Leo. What a pair of plonkers.
Note also #7 regarding the aid.
7. Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the 19 January 2025 agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.
They speak of “full aid” but in the next sentence it is obvious that the aid that – allegedly – will go in will certainly not be excessive and kept a a, deliberate, minimum level.
The British regime and its media are pushing the line that it’s “disrespectful” to Jews to protest against the genocide being committed by Jewish settlers in faraway Palestine shortly after two Jews were killed in Manchester – apparently one (a squaddist who may or not have been carrying a firearm or other weapon) by the host country’s police and one by a British Muslim guy.
Huhhhhhh?
Is someone assuming that Manchester’s Jews are pro-genocide (70k deaths in Gaza so far), or even pro the Occupation?
Because anti-genocide protestors certainly aren’t assuming anything of the kind.
It makes sense to hold back from protesting against GENOCIDE because it’s “disrespectful” to co-religionists or ethnic fellows of the genocidalists? That is insane.
Maybe the Jews should have cancelled their Yom Kipper celebrations because it’s disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Palestine and makes British Palestinians feel unsafe ?
It works both ways, though apparently not in two tier Starmer’s regime.
It is the Day of Atonement and Jews around the world stood in humility and Atonement, and in solidarity with people protesting their (and our) governments’ complicity in genocide and war crimes. I don’t know how peace is possible.
Brian Red
Indeed and one could easily flip that argument. Why protest against Hamas aslong as palestinian civilians are killed everyday by israel? Why is that not disrespectful?
The Resistance Turns The Tables on Israel, in this video Demitri Lascaris explains in detail Trumps plan and Hamas detailed replies to it. More negotiations are required, Israel must not stay in Gaza, and the resistance will not disarm until a Palestinian government is in place {Osama Hamdan Hamas leader] A Tony Blair like administration is out of the question, only Palestinian technocrats will be accepted and Hamas must have a say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suHa3U_KAxA
The statement issued jointly by the leaders and foreign minister of the countries that Trump met – Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Indonesia – referred to the first draft Trump and Witkoff had agreed to in New York.
Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner took that plan to Netanyahu. Together and over many hours in hotel rooms they changed the text radically. The Times of Israel referred to these changes as “edits”.This did not need the busy hands of Witkoff and Kushner to rewrite.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trump-gaza-plan-great-betrayal-arab-muslim-leaders-rewarding-israel-genocid
The question is when the first draft was drawn up this was sent to the Arab leaders who appeared to endorse it, then Witcoff and Kushner got to work and made significant changes to the agreement (probably at the behest of Netanyahu) then Trump announced to the world how the Arab leaders had agreed to his first draft agreement. The question now is not whether the Arab leaders were duped with the change in text, but whether Trump was also? If so Witcoff and Kushner need to go.
Bibi picks the politicians, Bibi writes the policies. Trump is owned, so is mini-me Starmer. Goys need to stop being antisemitic !
“It looks like the Middle East could very well be solved after 3,000 years approximately,” – Trump
Manipulated much? By that logic – asserting Old Testament land rights – just who are the rightful owners of North America? The only relevant border is the Green Line; the only relevant date 1967.
“The only relevant border is the Green Line; the only relevant date 1967.”
Why do you say this? The ethnic supremacist settler entity has no legitimacy on either side of that line. Their terror squads established it in 1948-49.
The idea that “Israel” would be OK if it withdrew to its 1967 borders is Zionist propaganda – a position on offer to those liable to forget what Zionism is all about as soon as they are offered coffee and biscuits.
Trump’s statement about 3000 years would be laughable in other circumstances. But by all means, scratch out the King David project, even though this is la la talk because the kingdom of David that supposedly existed 3000 years ago may well not have done.
Brian Red
Let’s be realistic. Israelis aren’t going to dissolve their state and revert to Palestine, and there is absolutely no pressure on them; militarily or diplomatically; regionally or internationally, to do so. It’s going to be difficult enough to get the illegal settlers out of the West Bank, even in the unlikely scenario the US has a new administration with that as a goal.
No point building castles in the sky.
“the only relevant date 1967”. Nope, the only relevant date is 1948.
The only castles in the Sky are the ones occupied by people who think the Israelis are going to give anything back.
“Let’s be realistic. Israelis aren’t going to dissolve their state and revert to Palestine, and there is absolutely no pressure on them; militarily or diplomatically; regionally or internationally, to do so.”
You could have said that about any of the colonial states in the world pre WWII, yet as soon as the colonial power decided to abandon them, they were mostly, at least nominally, returned to their indigenous inhabitants. Israel is entirely supported by the US, politically, economically and militarily. The moment that support is withdrawn, Israel in its current form will collapse.
What will bring the apartheid state of Israel down, as in the case of South Africa, is military and economic sanctions. But it will require American cooperation, and that will take time – if America doesn’t slide into fascism first.
@M.J.
October 7, 2025 at 11:29
“But it will require American cooperation, and that will take time ”
=======
Aye- there’ s the rub.
The US political process is an almost wholly owned subsidiary of the US Israel lobby.
It’s traditional that when the Seppoes do a deal, the English version is different to the copy in the indigenous language and the differences are always at the expense of the indigenous version of the agreement. There’s no good faith in this and the genocide continues.
If this is true, it is possible Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have had a say in Netanyahu’s decision to withdraw from Trumps “Peace Plan” who knows what is going on? Or is he just going to ignore Trump?
World Affairs
@World_Affairs11
BREAKING:
Israeli PM Netanyahu withdrew from Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan, deleting his post of consent on X account.
Is this how states declare their acceptance of other states’ proposals nowadays – a prime minister posts to Elon Musk’s website?
FWIW Jared Kushner, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich are all pals with Chabad. Might as well put a crown on the document just to make it clear.
“Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza will be allowed to do so freely and permitted to return.”
Where might they go exactly? They make it sound as though people who have lost everything, and who will count themselves lucky if they manage to avoid starvation, are being allowed to have a nice holiday abroad if they can afford one.
Talking of which – Genocide Starmer’s momentous “recognition” of Palestine doesn’t seem to have stretched to adding Palestine to the list of Britain’s “visa national” countries. Maybe it was the typist’s day off at the Home Office?
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-visitor-visa-national-list
‘Israel approved a new settlement plan on October 5 to seize land from the Palestinian village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya in the northern occupied West Bank, a local official said. The plan includes 58 new settler units in the Mitzpe Yeshai settlement, built on Palestinian land.
The UN affirms that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law and threaten the prospects of a two-state solution.
Earlier in September, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have carried out more than 38,000 attacks across the occupied West Bank’. (TRT)
Shocking to read and see the 500 or so peaceful folks expressing peaceful free comment being arrested by the police in London yesterday. And then today the announcement that police will be granted powers to stop people from protesting in the first place.
Truly and utterly reminiscent of the behaviours of 1930s Germany. But the situation is actually much worse. With the national ID being set up every aspect of every individual is going to be logged and coordinated. Their photograph, their biometric features like iris scans, fingerprints, voice prints, and no doubt in a few years their DNA too.
And all linked to bank accounts, home ownership, passport, driving licence, health records, HMRC, police computers, security services, vehicles, everything, absolutely everything will be linked.
Try and open a bank account now and you have to provide all manner of details. Phone the tax office and they take your voice print. Use a mobile phone and you are tracked. That of course is the case with motor vehicles who are tracked day and daily by the tens of thousands of ANPR cameras – and where vehicles can be tracked in real time. Then of course there is facial recognition at airports, ports and in a town centre near you. Like the ANPR facial recognition can track in real time, look out for people of interest or just track for surveillance of folks as they move about.
And phones and computers. Sites visited and when are all logged, recorded, profiled and analysed. The state knows more about people than they know about themselves. And of course any government or individuals in control of that data will have authoritarian control beyond our wildest imagination.
No wonder it is reported to have been said that he who controls A! will control the world. But here’s the thing, save for a few for the most part, folks do not offer even a whimper about what is being put around them. Like rats in a trap, and for the most part that is what the elites think of ordinary folks, folks accept their lot. .
Big change is coming and maybe the dire biblical and other predictions might actually be coming. The world has too many people, How much better would the world be if numbers were hugely reduced with only enough to support the elites. Not as far fetched as many would once have thought – but yes, absolute control is coming unless folks wake up.
Britain now is Germany 1938.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” JFK
Very few are aware of what kind of info is collected by smart rings and smartwatches or even by those little TV sets that gumbies like to carry around with them.
Britain is especially bad for widespread submission and hopelessness, so maybe not surprising that the current “governing” party came to office on a promise of massifying smart rings through the much-adored National Homeland Service.
Q/ Do you have a smart phone Brian ?
Mosque burned down in England yesterday- no PM emergency Cobra meeting held, no mass media coverage, no constant propaganda about it on news channels – nothing, nil, nada.
It wasn’t burned down. It suffered a wee bit of damage at its front door, which thankfully had been locked at the time. I’m not condoning the arson at all, just wish to have accuracy.
Bill S.
Really? a wee bit of damage you say.
https://nitter.poast.org/SussexIncidents/status/1974613350710702229#m
Bill S
There was ‘wee’ car in front of the door – burnt out.
If that ‘wee’ car had exploded its petrol tank the ‘ wee ‘ incident could have become a ‘wee ‘ more serious.
Back to The Daily express with you.
Don’t forget to raise your ‘ wee ‘ Union Jack on the way.
Simplest. The Manchester mosque incident, grim as it was, was blown out of proportion. That was a clear political objective to try to bolster public support against Arabs and to try and reduce the increasing public anger at Sir Queer Starmer’s support for the Israeli war effort ( genocide ) in Gaza.
The Manchester incident was taken out of proportion to try and make Jewish people feel afraid. It also stopped them from thinking badly of Israel’s government. Most of all the blanket newspaper coverage of the incident displaced all mainstream reporting of the Freedom Flotilla’s fate. The lives of the activists remain at risk, and their courage is being sorely tested. Turkish captives were first to fly home and people from countries east were on their flight. Italians have also been released before this latest announcement by Netanyahu. The peace plan was never going to be anything less than complete and unconditional surrender. Terms for negotiation were null and void. The killing in Gaza is ramping up, with no intention of slowing or cease fire.
Surely we all knew this would be the case? ‘Performative’ negotiations
Willie.
Blown out of proportion, I’ll say – the corporate Controlled Media won’t shut up about it – its on the MSM constant – if its not that – its about how British Jews fear fort heir safety – or more shite about the Zionist hostages – they do their utmost not to mention there’s a f*ckin genocide going on.
50 % of the Jewish fatalities in the recent Manchester ‘event’ were killed by the police.
Are British Jews worried about their safety from the police ?
Sunset President,
Candy-floss king; emir, sultans,
No Solomon’s ring
You’ve got 8 syllables in line 2. Perhaps ‘Candy floss king; sycophants’ or ‘Burger king with sycophants’?
Alternatively, you could have ‘Candy-floss king with emir/s’ or ‘Candy-floss king with sultan/s’
Thanks M.J
I realised that I had put in 8 syllables for the second line (breaking the haiku template) but still felt, rightly or wrongly, that I needed to go with it ! Thanks for alerting me though it is appreciated.
Regards.
Terrible how silent the church/christians have been during the genocide, one thought they would show some interfaith compassion with the palestinians but it seems that the perverted christian zionism theology have taken over.
These christians – not atleast the pro-israel fanatical MAGA christians – seems to be terribly naive what israel really is about. Take for example that during 2024 111 hate-crimes against christians was reported in israel:
“Physical attacks emerged as the most prevalent category among the 111 documented cases, with the majority targeting clergy, easily identifiable by their religious attire. Spitting was identified as a common form of physical harassment. Vandalism and desecration targeting Christian churches, including graffiti, stone-throwing, and arson, were also documented.”
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/03/29/christian-communities-in-israel-face-growing-hostility-annual-report-reveals/
And what is worse, here you have Ben-Gvir, minister in the israeli government, defending attacks on christians, saying it is simply a “jewish tradition”.
Have you heard such evil? Imagine if jews were spit at here in europe and the response by a minister would be, ‘well you know we christians do that – it is an old christian tradition, deal with it’.
Video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyBAN_Eo5N_/
When there is so much talk about antisemitism, why not expose how israelis treat their own minorities?
Ben Gvir visited the flotilla prisoners and what he said shocked them to the core. Europe is irrelevant now, he allegedly said. Only the Turkish freed activists seem to be reporting on what is happening to the brave humanitarians captured by Israel. He was so frightening that he didn’t seem human was how one freed activist described him. They were put on the plane without their clothes, barely wearing anything, and the air conditioning was on max so they were frozen on the flight, but they are the lucky ones. They are home.
Food that they are given is crawling with insects and they were told they could drink the water from the toilet. People on the flight were passing out with dehydration. Those still in captivity have gone on ‘hunger strike’. They are not allowed their diabetic or heart medication.
Eleven more small boats are on the way, the peaceful Sumud flotilla continues
Decades of vicious propaganda mean that “Judeo-Christians” feel no kinship at all with the third Abrahamic faith – let alone human beings generally. (They also loathe Orthodox Christians, especially if Russian.)
” (They also loathe Orthodox Christians, especially if Russian.)”
Nope, it’s not “decades of vicious propaganda”, Christianity has always been like this. The closer the religion is to their particular version of Christianity, the keener they are to stamp it out. Heretics have always been considered worse than heathens.
The Church of England have spoken out over Palestine but look what happened to the former Archbishop Justin Welby and some of his predecessors if they are deemed ‘too controversial’ – smear campaigns in the media and, in Welby’s case, suddenly forced to resign over a scandal that he wasn’t involved in personally in any way.
At least he fared better than Thomas a Becket.
So the Board of Deputies of British Jews – is over the moon and here’s why:
“The Home Office has announced plans to give police new powers targeting repeated protests, particularly those related to Gaza, in an effort to crack down on ongoing demonstrations.
The move follows the arrest of nearly 500 people in London for supporting Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation. Under the proposed changes, police would be able to order regular protests to relocate to different sites.
Mother of imprisoned Palestine Action activist speaks at Trafalgar Sq demo
The Home Office has announced plans to give police new powers targeting repeated protests, particularly those related to Gaza, in an effort to crack down on ongoing demonstrations.
The move follows the arrest of nearly 500 people in London for supporting Palestine Action, a proscribed organisation. Under the proposed changes, police would be able to order regular protests to relocate to different sites.
In response, the Board of Deputies owelcomed the decision, describing the new “cumulative impact” powers as a key request in recent meetings with the Prime Minister and Home Secretary.”
It may soon become sensible to avoid reading any news article with the word “anti-Semitism” in it, the same way one avoids articles containing “tweet”, “social media”, or “expert”.
Rent boy lover and his weird wife – visited the radicalised synagogue – that been funding the IDF for years now – the streets been cleared of the public and we know why – only cops are allowed near him.
Meanwhile Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister MK Sharren Haskel, she visited the radicalised IDF funding synagogue – and demanded that Jews are protected
https://nitter.poast.org/BLAIMGame/status/1974376956088213649#m
No arrests or detaining of British IDF troops coming back to Britain, also no detention or arrests of any Israel politician or official entering Britain – this tells me the British government supports Israel – and Israel is carrying out a genocide.
“The UK has arrested 1,775 people for protesting against genocide since the proscription of Palestine Action.
The UK has not arrested a single person since October 7 for their participation in that genocide.”
I always thought the ZOG claim was such a ridiculous, dumb, racist conspiratorial label. I am not so sure anymore. Not based on loony accusations but based on what is actually happening within western societies. Based on the acts by western gov. themselves.
It is like westerners live under foreign occupation. ‘Everything for israel’ seems to be the motto of western rulers. Israel could, in theory, send drones to attack a house in let say London with the argument that a Hamas member live there and western leaders would back the attack.
As I said before, forget the “russian collusion”, what we have is an actual collusion and that is an “israeli collusion” that goes on right in the open.
Jack.
Surely there must be deep infiltration – blackmail and bribes to come out with this.
“German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says Germany should pull out of Eurovision 2026 if Israel is banned, calling the discussion over its exclusion “a scandal” and affirming that “Israel belongs in Eurovision.””
The move from systematic oppression of the Palestinian people – to the outright genocide of them, has shown us just how deep the Zionists have penetrated into European/Western governments, sad, and evil as it is – the genocide has uncovered for us the nature of many Western leaders – and its a very ugly sight to behold indeed.
“Israel belongs in Eurovision.”
Has he never looked at a map of the world? Israel has never belonged in Eurovision because it’s NOT IN F*CKING EUROPE.
The new fourth reich, will bring together all the nouveau fascists, from Ukraine to Israel, under the EU banner run by the German Reichskanzler.
Genocide Sch/Merz should realise that pylling out Germany out of their favorite humpta ta event so he can cotow to Zionist mass murdering gangsters and hoodlum settlers has SFA to do with politics.
He should keep his arms money grabbing fingers out of the Arts.
The event might not even go ahead if Trump, kid starver Starmer and Holocaust causator Bibi attack Iran and set the middle east alight with more murder.
Just despicable watching David Lemmy and Emma Thornberry mock the question why they support the Genocide in Gaza
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr86b6QbP5o
Same people that cry rivers if so a small firecracker goes off in Ukraine but seems to have a blast when questioned why they support mass slaughter of humans in Gaza.
I expected this callouness from a Tory government not from a Labour gov, and certaintly not 2 years into the genocide – what a downfall. Starmer’s disaproval rate now stands at the record high number of 72%. He could easily fix that number by taking a stance against israel but apparently supporting a genocide is above everything else for this disgraceful man.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-prime-minister-approval
Jack.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the West in particular is at war with brown skinned people – in a fashion that somewhat resembles the old crusades – how else could the head of Europe’s most powerful government, (Germany) Chancellor Merz say, “Israel is doing the dirty work for us all” and not find himself at least out of a job.
However, control and wealth also play a part – if was all just about the dominance of white people, the West would never have turned the predominately white Christian Ukraine against the predominately white Christian Russia
“He could easily fix that number by taking a stance against israel ”
How could he? Israel is his employer.
They’re coming for your Blue Tick Craig.
” People are now losing their blue ticks for criticising Israel’s genocide. It wasn’t enough for Zionists to take over TikTok, they’re coming for Twitter now. They’ve got something really bad on Elon”
https://nitter.poast.org/NormalIslandNws
WTF’s a blue tick, some sort of bloodsucker?
No- not Elon Musk but a device of his to make more money out of Twitter/X
If a Palestinian “technocratic” body is created, backed by the Kushner family and by some failed casino owner loudmouth who married his daughter into the Kushners, no prizes for guessing what academic subject its leading members will have studied and in which country.
In an excellent article by Patrick Lawrence he describes the Israel/US actions in the Middle East as a a running confrontation between power and justice,
https://scheerpost.com/2025/10/05/patrick-lawrence-power-and-justice/
Here is my take on the article…
“There is no question of the global majority bringing the Israeli terror machine to justice, he wanted to demonstrate, and power, not law, will remain what makes the world go around”.
“Force alone counts in the world Trump and Bibi propose to stand astride like the co-emperors who ruled the ancient world after Constantine established an eastern capital in 330 AD”.
Trump and Netanyahu would agree with Chairman Mao who said “power grows out the barrel of a gun” the US/Israel think they have that power, backed up with its other vassals in Europe and family ruled Monarchies in the Gulf. Unfortunately for them these are a ‘house of cards’ whose populations are coming to see with their own eyes the disgusting and expansionist nature of the Zionist project.
It is true the hard cutting military edge to this Zionist monstrosity is Iran, and its supporters Hezbollah and Ansar Allah [the Houthis] and other groups in the region but they have more than enough fire power to obliterate the postage stamp sized racist, Genocidal state, whose only means of existence is with US supplied aircraft, bombs, financial and diplomatic support, achieved with threats of sanctions and other financial pressure. The world is waking up and, in the natural course of events Israel will be isolated. This will take time, and will cost many innocent lives, in my opinion the proliferation of unstoppable hyper sonic missiles to Israels enemies is a good thing, proving the fact that the Israelis must choose, as the pied-noir had to do in Algeria, ‘the suitcase or the coffin’.
The US.European infatuation with Israel has been result of the Colonial experiences of same, thankfully with Macmillan’s “Winds of change” speech in the 1960’s, Britain’s Colonial “possessions” have been whittled away. As in the US there is a secret longing for these past conquests i.e. We know best and ‘Johnny foreigner’, fuzzy wuzzy, needs to be put in his place etc, Just a glance at the history of the US is instructive, before and after American independence in 1776 the indigenous native population, the Indian tribes (aka the “Savages”) were slowly obliterated, culminating in the ‘trail of tears’ and the natives being confined to reservations where they slowly died out.
According to people like Churchill this was a good thing, natural selection, as Darwin would have it. One superior tribe replacing another more backward one. Of course all this was backed up with the Pioneers advanced fire power, 1/ The Winchester repeating rifle and the Gatling gun. Approx 90 million native Indians were ethically cleansed and murdered as US state policy at this time.
How many people reading this, did not cheer when the Pioneers wagon trains were surrounded by whooping “savages” and a distant bugle was heard and US troops (led by John Wayne) brought their Gatling guns to bear on the Indian tribes. Had the Tribes had Gatling guns or more pertinently unstoppable hyper sonic missiles I think there may have been a different world.
Re: ‘the natives being confined to reservations where they slowly died out.’
There are currently around a million Native Americans living on reservations, Harry, out of roughly three million in the US as a whole.
Re: ‘Approx 90 million native Indians were ethically cleansed and murdered as US state policy at this time.’
It’s generally thought that there were no more than 20 million Native Americans living in the area that is now the US immediately before the arrival of Europeans. Most of those that subsequently died were killed by introduced diseases, such as smallpox, to which they had little resistance (we got syphilis in return).
I always thought that syphilis was brought to Europe by the conquistadores? Therefore South American and not North American.
However, your analogy still holds.
Thanks for your reply Luis. Syphilis probably had several seeding events in Europe, from both North & South America. Don’t forget that the conquistadores also conquered large parts of what is now the western US.
I do not know, but since some say only 66,000 Palestinians have been killed while others say 700,000 it is hard to say.
The Native American population reached around seven million before European contact. Estimates for all the Americans range up to or past 45 million. In North America, Native Americans are grouped into six tribes, numbering between three and seven million people. The Eastern Woodland groups, with their densely populated societies, such as the Iroquois, were the largest, being over 1.5 million people.
https://www.thecollector.com/native-americans-during-colonization/
When Buffalo Bill came to Liverpool; One hundred years ago, huge crowds thronged around the handsome American in buckskins who was making his final UK tour. Jul 27, 2004 · Sioux Indian chief Sitting Bull and sharp-shooter Annie Oakley who both featured in Buffalo Bill’s show; Newsham park Liverpool was the venue for the Buffalo Bill (Cody) show
When Buffalo Bill came to Liverpool
Buffalo Bill earned his living slaughtering millions of Buffalo on the Great plains to feed contractors [many Chinese] building railroads Westwards. Some things never change.
Harry
The important point to remember is that the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza is not at all like the slaughter of the native Americans. The whites could get away with it, because there was no-one to stop them, sea borders on both sides. Israel is a pimple on the backside of Asia, and in the long run things can’t go well, as the Crusaders found while following a similar policy. In the Middle East there exist forces to oppose Israel, but they are not doing it sufficiently right now. That could change tomorrow, or in a hundred years time. it’s always a fundamental error to be at war with *all* your neighbours.
Only scumbags celebrate Thanksgiving in the USA or Australia Day in Australia.
Q/ do you have a smartphone ?
Yes but I don’t use it much. Got it so as to use Whatsapp, given I can’t persuade everyone I want to chat with online to use a better program. I don’t take it with me when I go out.
Welcome to the gumby club ! 🙂
““Force alone counts in the world… ”
The mistake is to think that it was ever otherwise. It may be covered by a kid glove, but the mailed fist is always there.
https://news.sky.com/story/security-guard-reveals-new-details-of-manchester-synagogue-attack-13445873
““I turned around and I saw the car smashed into the wall of the gate,” he said. He described Alan Levy, the synagogue chairman, managing to lock the main door as he ran straight to the office and dialled 999.”
Liar. 999 isn’t who they’d call first.
Must have been looking very closely at the other guy’s fingers.
From today’s Guardian Middle East Crisis Live blog today:
Re the Nobel Peace Prize:
15.40 BST
A group advocating for the return of hostages held in Gaza have urged the Nobel Prize Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the US president, Donald Trump, for what they called his unprecedented contributions to global peace.
“At this very moment, President Trump’s comprehensive plan to release all remaining hostages and finally end this terrible war is on the table,” the families wrote.
“For the first time in months, we are hopeful that our nightmare will finally be over.”
Trump has previously complained multiple times about not receiving the Nobel peace prize, an award which four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.
The winner of this year’s Nobel Prize Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/oct/06/gaza-ceasefire-peace-talks-hamas-israel-trump-egypt-middle-east-crisis-live-news-updates
Please God they give it to Hind Rajab, Francesca Albanese or, imho, Pope Francis.
The reported nominations are quite numerous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Nobel_Peace_Prize#Reported_nominations
Can the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded posthumously?
There is much talk — which increases in volume in direct ratio to the volume of criticism of Israel’s latest stab at genocide – of a “huge increase in anti-semitic incidents”. Very precise numbers are usually cited.
Is there any generally accepted definition of an anti-semitic “incident”?
And where do the figures come from? Do they come from incidents reported to the police or other authorities or investigated/prosecuted by same, or are they an aggregate of the figures communicated to the public, media, and authorities by various Jewish organizations? Are the figures backed up in any empirical way?
Given that “anti-semitism” is very much in the eye of the beholder, I expect that the precise figures are a good example of false precision, https://m.xkcd.com/2696/ .
Any thoughts on where the figures – precise or not – come from?
Israel.
I believe there have been six million reports of auntie semenism 🙂
I suspect they are “an aggregate of the figures communicated to the public, media, and authorities by various Jewish organizations?” and include any reference to West Asia that is supportive of the Palestinians or critical of Israel.
So, as long as they don’t provide chapter and verse, these organizations can more or less just make up any figures they choose.
Not that you’d get any hint of this in the MSM of course.
All but confirms to me at least, that the Manchester event was false flag event.
“Faraj Al-Shamie, the father of the Manchester attacker, celebrated Israel’s assassination of Hasan Nasrallah and is a supporter of the NATO-backed rebranded Al Qaeda government of Syria’s Ahmad Al-Sharaa”
https://nitter.poast.org/MaxBlumenthal/status/1974951822818410834#m
“Like father, like son” is not a universal rule, “like grandfather, like grandson” even less so.
We shouldn’t assume it was the British police who shot Shamie. Many Zionist security guys in Britain have guns. This has been known since Victor Ostrovsky.
The problem with the “false flag” theory is that a Zionist goon was shot dead.
Either Shamie or the Zionist, or both of them, could have been killed by someone other than the British police.
The Peacehaven mosque attack may well have been a British state op. Those red gloves are weird and may signify something to someone.
The Guardian is going overboard attacking those who are family members of Shamie (message: they’re not welcome here, and definitely not on “quiet suburban streets”) and who “preach” (their inverted commas) Islam to children. (They don’t say anything about other proselytic religions or those who preach them to children, or who may for example be related to British citizens who serve in the IDF. Personally I don’t blame anyone for what their family members do, but this doesn’t seem to be the Guardian view.)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/06/neighbours-manchester-synagogue-attacker-concerns-police-jihad-al-shamie
The British government doesn’t care about its own citizens – never mind any Palestinians.
“Keir Starmer’s spokesman asked about Israel detaining British citizens who were on the Gaza aid flotilla, while in international waters, replies that it is a “matter for the Israeli Government””
The British government publishes the phone number of its consulate in Tel Aviv:
https://www.gov.uk/world/organisations/british-embassy-tel-aviv
They have a statutory responsibility to look after the interests of British citizens on their patch. They even say “24/7 support is available 365 days a year for all routine enquiries and emergencies.”
This is even if the “British” prime minister’s attitude seems to be “The law of the high seas – you can stick that up your a*se”.
I wonder what this so-called lawyer thinks a passport is for.
An actor friend of a friend (I’ve met him, so I know he’s a real person) was once called home unexpectedly from a foreign capital. Having not enough money with him to buy another air ticket, he rang the British Embassy to see if they could lend him enough to buy the ticket. “Very sorry, no can do,” was the reply. After a bit of thought, he rang again, this time putting on an upper-class accent, and was told he could come round to the embassy any time and collect the money.
Greta Thunberg arrives in Greece and says straight away that no-one can claim that they do not know that a genocide is going on, and that governments have a legal obligation to stop it, which is not happening, hence the flotilla action:
https://youtu.be/mkopVQWA9H0
She speaks of the incomprehensibility of humans being evil enough to deliberately starve millions of people.
The Nazis were capable of such evil towards their Jewish and other prisoners in concentration camps, or ghettos like Warsaw, especially when they rebelled, and Israelis are showing themselves to be similar evil-doers in doing similar things to Palestinians, including genocide.
Is it too late to nominate Thunberg for the Nobel Peace Prize?
If the Norwegian parliamentary committee decides to humiliate itself and award it to Trump, perhaps Thunberg could get a Real Peace Prize? If the announcement is for Trump, time for a mass electricity switch-off for 5 minutes??
Too late for a 2025 nomination, for either one. But I do think Thunberg deserves it, for the efforts she has made.
At least it would not be the Palestinians themselves who award it to Trump.
This time last year the Germans awarded Joe Biden their highest national honour in gratitude for destroying their industrial economy and standard of living.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-awarded-germanys-highest-honour-103332342.html
Another speech by Thunberg recently put on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecYG4COUrtA
This looks very consistent with things that Craig has said here.
Full circle: Larry Ellison, Tony Blair, Israel, Oracle, digital IDs.
https://thegrayzone.com/2025/10/06/cbs-owner-israeli-general-spy-americans/
Anyone insisting the Manchester synagogue attack wasn’t a false flag because “they would never kill their own” should recall what happened on this day two years ago, when they slaughtered their own en masse.
Also the bombs they have been raining down on their cherished hostages in the two years since that day.
How much more obvious do they need to make it that they have no compunction whatsoever about killing their own to further the zionist agenda?
How do you know anyone died anyway? Maybe the whole congregation were crisis actors, they must’ve been at a bit of a loose end since the Arena ‘bombing’. Perhaps every Jew in the country is a crisis actor and every anti-Semitic act a false flag to create sympathy for Israel and justify Digital ID, suppression of protest and increased control and surveillance of the population generally?
Every sentence an embarrassingly hysterical defence of the worst people alive.
Let’s try this again and see if there is any answer. Do you accept that a) the British government has been participating in the Gaza Genocide and that b) its reaction to the Manchester attack has been to try and stop people protesting its role in the Genocide, with the help of the media commentariat?
Are those also preposterous suggestions to you, like the idea zionists are more than happy to kill their own if it helps further their agenda?
What possible reason would the Manchester police have in saying that one of their armed officers killed a Jew by mistake if it didn’t happen? What possible reason would the MSM have in saying that Manchester police were saying that one of their armed officers killed a Jew by mistake if it didn’t happen? Your argument boils down to, “somebody somewhere thinks the world is flat, ergo everyone who disagrees with me is wrong and discredited”. That’s feeble, even from you.
Surprised sir two tier didn’t declare today a national day of mourning, remembering the thousand odd Jews murdered by the IDF as part of their false flag event on 7th October. Oh wait, he implicitly has: ‘Sir Keir said it was “un-British to have little respect for others” by staging demonstrations on the anniversary’
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wgx5v90vyo
Talk about vomit inducing, is there a more despicable person than Starmer ?
I will celebrate today by quaffing a nice whisky in celebration of president Putin’s birthday.
I believe Emmanuel Macron is the only world leader who is more despised by his own people, with an approval rating that fluctuates between 15% and single digits.
However what the People’s Sir Keir has achieved after just one year in office is unprecedented. He is now more unpopular than Liz Truss at her lowest ebb of her short-lived reign.
There are reports that US/Israel prepare for another assault on Iran:
“US Deploys Military Assets to Middle East: What We Know”
https://www.newsweek.com/us-deploys-military-assets-middle-east-10809727
With Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthi/Assad gone the israelis cannot get enough and therefore plot more more death and destruction. On the one hand the israelis weep over 7th of october but as one have seen, they make use of events like 7th of october.
As Finkelstein said the other day, 7th of october was a godsend for israel: the tears had not even dried up on october 7 2023 before the israelis rubbed their hands, thinking, how could they could benefit from the event.
Video, timestamp 5:30: https://www.aljazeera.com/video/upfront/2025/10/4/norman-finkelstein-trump-plan-has-no-connection-to-reality-in-gaza
We see a world breaking down fast now, Russia was and is still too naive to trust Trump that have just kept the war in Ukraine escalating, on top of it, Trump hinted he will supply Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.
In the end Russia threw Iran under the bus and also nations like Venezuela, which Trump now apparently also plan to strike.
The world need a bloc, the world need a resistance of nations against the US like during Cold War but today there is no interest in taking on the US anymore and therefore they could do whatever they want.
I thought that the US would become isolated when Trump got elected but obviously I was wrong, the development has gone in the opposite direction, so many world leaders sucking up to this fool.
Two deaths in Manchester is far more important than the deaths of, some say 700,000 men women and children to the MSM. This is morally repugnant, unfortunately human nature is like that. I am reminded of that Billy Wilder film ‘Ace in the hole’ [1951] about a man trapped in a mountain, with Charles Tatum [Kirk Douglas] pursuing a huge story.
(Charles Tatum) “One man’s better than 84. Didn’t they teach you that?”
(Robert Arthur) “Teach me what?”
(Charles Tatum) “Human interest. You pick up the paper, you read about 84 men or 284, or a million men, like in a Chinese famine. You read it, but it doesn’t say with you. One man’s different, you want to know all about him. That’s human interest.”
George Galloway has got his devices back. Quite understandable why he plans to acquire new ones.
There’s clearly something akin to a London gated community of permitted establishment journalists and journalistic opinion. Anyone outside that community; opining on controversial world issues, faces being questioned under the misappropriated provisions of the terrorism Act. A punishment for having the temerity to hold and express a different opinion?
Considering he was a Labour MP for all those years, and presumably a Labour Home Secretary signed-off on his detention, it’s staggering really. Its barely been reported, nor have many MPs in the Labour party showed much concern; just proving this isn’t the Labour party anymore. It appears that in the whole House of Commons, there is only David Davis who’s remotely interested in defending civil liberties. Many make statements claiming it is about striking the right balance etc, but they don’t mean it, as the authoritarian legislative ratchet only ever turns one way. All the rest would seemingly surrender any civil liberty on the basis of the promise of a bit more security.
“just proving this isn’t the Labour party anymore.”
I think that was obvious to many people from the moment Starmer was appointed leader, if not from when Blair became leader.
I don’t think even Blair would have gone after domestic critics using anti-terrorism laws as brazenly as this.
The raging insecurity gripping the UK establishment, is manifesting itself in these detentions. They want to put the unpopularity of the status quo, down to some external force that’s beyond their control, as a means of deflection. Rather than accepting it’s time to embrace long overdue constitutional/democratic reform by simply allowing organic democracy to deliver change, as it should.
The Home Secretary wouldn’t have needed to sign off on Galloway’s detention, Goose. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, police and customs officers can detain anyone they like at UK ports of entry* (and also in Northern Ireland, anywhere within a mile of the border with the Republic as well as at railway stations on the line to Dublin) for an hour and force them to answer their questions, whether they suspect them to have committed a crime or not.
* Except at the St Pancras Eurostar terminal – they’ve forgotten about that.
Re-lapsed Agnostic
In that case it’d be interesting to know who is authorising these detentions then, and on what basis? Because surely no one could seriously believe golden oldies’ Craig, George et al are involved in terrorism?
My guess is that the security services are trying to find evidence that certain individuals are in the pay of foreign regimes under the new U.S type FARA law they’ve introduced. Under the UK’s new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) it is illegal to accept undeclared payments from foreign govts. It’s a product of the paranoia of the US’s Russiagate, and the belief, based on scant evidence, that Russian meddling & interference is everywhere. The stated reason for the legislation being “resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign influence”. Unpopular politicians are all too ready to believe their and their party’s unpopularity must have some dastardly external causation.
Even Boris Johnson – as big a Russophobe and Ukraine backer as one can possibly get – said there was no evidence of Russian interference in UK politics.
Challenged by BBC News presenter Rachel Burden over whether there was Russian interference in UK politics, Mr Johnson said: “There is no evidence for that, and I think we have got to be very careful before we simply cast aspersions of everybody who comes from a certain country just because of their nationality.”
Much of it is media driven, esp. Guardian columnists, and a large section of the unpopular PLP- have convinced themselves massive interference is underway. It’s pure ‘reinforced through repetition’ ‘groupthink’ imho, along the lines of those who convinced themselves beyond any and all doubt, Saddam had WMD and anyone doubting that view was laughed at.
Thanks for your reply Goose. It’ll be the security forces that are authorising them, in part to give people a shot across the bows, but mainly so they can make copies of everything that’s on their phones/laptops. Sure, they’ll be interested in what interactions, if any, they’re having with foreign governments etc, but also in their domestic sources. For example, I can imagine that, if true, they’d want to know where our host got his info that the Skripals are/were being held in Hamilton, Ontario.
Much of the current woes of Labour and the Tories are down to external factors – not least Elon Musk buying Twitter and then, for various reasons, becoming red-pilled, having previously endorsed Biden for prez in 2020. Don’t underestimate the effect of this (now heavily-suppressed) tweet on much of the UK population:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1875931298143084755
Re-lapsed Agnostic
Seems silly throwing away the devices, not to mention costly. But after the pagers thing, it’s perfectly understandable journalists not wanting devices back that they’ve lost custody of for an extended length of time.
Not that I think UK security services would do anything as reckless as what Israel did, not to UK citizens – it’d be incompatible with fundamental rights. As you say, they’ll unlock the device and make an image of it. There are good forensic teams who specialise in detecting even sophisticated spyware on journalists’ devices, like Citizen Lab https://citizenlab.ca/ based at the university of Toronto, Canada. So when it’s handed back its probably clean of such things because they know journos could well assume implants & investigate. Even sophisticated spyware has to reach out and make connections to a C2 server and it’s not hard to detect with transparent bridge etc.
Thanks for your reply Goose. They (very likely) did far worse to poor Dawn Sturgess than just blow a couple of her fingers off. On which note, for anyone who hasn’t read it, here’s another shameless plug for my Salisbury & Amesbury Poisonings report:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-salisbury-poisonings-episode-was-all-staged/page/6/#post-103404
Apple and Google work closely with the official state.
“My guess is that the security services are trying to find evidence that certain individuals are in the pay of foreign regimes under the new U.S type FARA law they’ve introduced.”
The term “foreign regimes” presumably doesn’t include Israel.
They’ve categorized them.
The working assumption appears to be that allies can never be harmful, only those designated adversaries. In reality, any country exerting too much influence over politics or media can be deeply harmful. Were it left to me, I wouldn’t discriminate between ally vs adversary, and I’d start by clearing out the BBC, by enforcing a fair religious balance among senior staff and presenters, especially those hosting political shows; one that’s in proportion to UK’s religious balance as a whole. Without naming names, the current religious balance of senior staff and presenters, is statistically impossible, relative to the UK population’s religious balance including those of no religion.
@Re-Lapsed.
“at UK ports of entry* (and also in Northern Ireland, anywhere within a mile of the border with the Republic as well as at railway stations on the line to Dublin)”
It’s not just those places. Nobody should think they’re immune because they’ve entered the “UK” from the Republic of Ireland and made it more than 1 mile inside the border. If their home country is, say, Scotland, they can be grabbed later at Cairnryan or Stranraer despite arriving there from Northern Ireland which is inside the “UK”.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7/2006-04-13/data.html
“the examining officer believes that the person’s presence at the port or in the area is connected with his entering or leaving Great Britain or Northern Ireland”
See that document ^ , in which both Stranraer and Cairnryan are on the list of “designated seaports”. You can’t get a ferry from outside the UK to either of them.
It’s not got nothing to do with “terrorism”. It’s about the authorities seizing people’s information and questioning them without right to silence.
Thanks for your reply Brian. Yes, you’re quite right, they can nab you at Stranraer and Cairnryan as well. They still can’t get you at St Pancras though.
Anyway, nice to have you back.
Thanks, @Re-Lapsed.
Very interesting info about St Pancras.
Thanks for your reply Brian. You’re very welcome.
“Under the Terrorism Act 2000, police and customs officers can detain anyone they like at UK ports of entry* ”
I wonder if they refrain from detaining those who travel first class or have private jets.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. If they want access to the data on your phone or lap-top, I doubt whether travelling first class will deter them – except on the Eurostar (see above).
British cops have held my devices for more than a year.
Good to hear GG has got his back.
Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed: the British authorities are committing widespread abuse of the Terrorism Act by questioning and detaining people at the border, including many British citizens (whom they are not allowed to bar from entry) – seizing and copying equipment, demanding passwords, and asking questions that patently obviously have nothing whatsoever to do with possible commission, instigation, or preparation of acts of terrorism, benefiting from the absence of a right to silence – and these have mostly been people who have been vocal opponents of genocide.
What’s to stop investigative journalists and those likely to be at risk of such detention carrying old or basic devices they aren’t concerned about? It seems to be a power that will have diminishing value, if abused.
I read a report, that I haven’t been able to validate , claiming that the US is denying some people entry if they don’t have a smart phone? or no phone at all? Then there is this:
“In one recent high-profile case, a French scientist who was traveling to Houston on his way to a conference was allegedly denied entry by Customs and Border Patrol over phone messages that criticized Trump’s science policies, according to France’s minister for higher education.”
“What’s to stop investigative journalists and those likely to be at risk of such detention carrying old or basic devices they aren’t concerned about?”
It does now seem a good piece of travel advice to take a “travel” ‘phone with you when travelling and only put on it the bare minimum of information. After all, you wouldn’t take your entire wardrobe in your (enormous) suitcase. Perhaps we need to go back to learning telephone numbers by heart again as well.
The world is unifying.
“It seems to be a power that will have diminishing value, if abused.”
Then there must be something that isn’t being taken into account, because the big picture is all in one direction.
Within 3-4 years it could be smart watches or smart rings. In China, already citizens can’t do much shopping, travel on buses, etc., without a smart device, and smart watches are already at 8%.
It scares me that even those who know about the Xinjiang camps don’t spend much time thinking about what they’re for. Many talk as if there are indoctrinators in front of blackboards who say “Repeat after me – the CCP upholds the interests of the people”. Mind control was far more sophisticated than that, even in the 1940s.
I suggest as a general rule that anything that can be monitored if the mule asks for it to be monitored by an “app”, is monitored.
Politicians are no longer functioning as representatives and as a check on power. In part, because few understand the technologies and this will worsen with new technologies, like the increasing use of AI pattern analysis being deployed by GCHQ, NSA et al.
The security services see these things only from the utilitarian perspective, i.e., – would new powers be useful, make my job easier – then why not? And with today’s atrocious ‘party hack’ politicians, when asking for more powers, they are pushing on an open door. I mean, can you imagine any of today’s main party leaders turning them down on privacy or civil liberties grounds?
“It scares me that even those who know about the Xinjiang camps…. ”
What “Xinjiang camps”? You know the government lies to you almost constantly and are keen to let us all know, too. Why, then, do you believe them when they talk about China? Is it not much more likely that they are building China up into theis huge bogeyman of a totalitarian state so that they can say “Yes, things might look a bit oppressive here now, but aren’t you glad you don’t live in China?”
A phone isn’t needed to travel or go shopping in China.
Brian. China is not perfect, for sure, but your rantings seem to be taken from the gutter press and bare no relationship to reality. There are plenty of sites that show what daily life is like in China, and they’re not all propaganda sites, the reality is that the UK is more repressive than the lies spread about China. Save your bile for the real enemies.
Are such border detention figures kept(?) because there may be lots of less high-profile cases that no one knows about.
It’s the same thing with these technical capability notices(TCNs), like the one the Home Office issued Apple with. They should at least have to inform parliament how many are issued each year and privately(briefing) inform MPs to whom they were issued. Apple are like a country in terms of their market value, but many smaller companies and FOSS developers, will likely just roll over rather than contest these things. These powers, and exercising them in total secrecy, are like something a Medieval English monarch would crave, and this, in what is supposedly a democracy.
“and this, in what is supposedly a democracy.”
That’s one of the only good things about this repression. Britain never was a democracy, but now it’s obvious.
Remember all those in the guardian who assured us that the Tories’ anti-protest powers and The Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act 2021 ; Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021, would all be substantially rewritten or fully repealed, esp. allowing undercover operatives to do actual physical harm – the licence to kill, if Labour came to power?
Labour have double down on every Tory authoritarian measure, and are now adding to police powers to ban protests on highly subjective criteria. This is why Labour are in deep trouble politically, with what should be their natural support base. Bridget Phillipson – running for the Deputy leadership – made a pitch for support by calling for unity, and the comments below her piece illustrated just how much raw detestation there is for the Labour party, even among guardian readers.
I know not everyone is bothered by this stuff. Many would just shrug.
But if, in a two-party system, the Labour opposition upon taking power don’t fulfill their historic obligation and role, in terms of restoring civil liberties from the forces of reactionary conservatism, then just who is going to do it?
We lose civil liberties during every conservative govt, Theresa May’s stint was particularly atrocious, as was Sunak’s, and it’s like the slowly boiling frog whereby nobody notices until too late. I don’t trust Reform either, not to abuse these powers, once comfortable exercising power.
Polly Toynbee : praying the Tories can be saved.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/07/tory-party-britain-kemi-badenoch-one-nation
I don’t know whether she’s had any contact with intelligence agencies over the decades, but I know she was heavily involved with the SDP(1981) and the gang of four : Shirley Williams; Lord David Owen, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers. Which to me, looks like a classic historic divide and conquer exercise from the establishment, aimed at dividing the left. Roy Jenkins became a trusted confidant of Blair, which heightens suspicions. And David Owen campaigned against AV, promising to campaign for full-PR, only to go silent. We may never have had real organic democracy.
This is the thing with FPTP, the establishment and their media friends, especially the BBC can toy with democracy. I don’t think Reform will simply be allowed to replace the Tory party, not without a major attempt to derail them at some point.
Doesn’t democracy just mean elections are held, with more or less universal suffrage, in which citizens can choose between candidates who say their opponents’ manifestos (and their records if they’ve been in office) are poop? It’s about political rights not human rights. (The young Marx made this distinction.)
But agreed, Britain doesn’t have the rule of law, when it comes down to it.
On the subject of the BBC.
The BBC World Service costs £400 million per year to operate. Of which the govt pays under a third, some, £120 million. The BBC is now asking for money from the increased MoD budget. How on earth can the BBC claim to be independent with such an arrangement?
Basically the BBC and licence fee are akin to paying to be propagandised. Sky news reflects its owner’s views too. The news media environment in the UK offers nothing but biased crap.
“Doesn’t democracy just mean elections are held, with more or less universal suffrage, in which citizens can choose between candidates ….”
That’s “democracy”, not democracy. Getting to choose between two or three pre-selected candidates for the legislature, not selected by the voters, every five years or so is not rule by the people in any way. The UK has two heads of state. One is hereditary and the other is elected by a tiny minority of voters, 18,884 out of 48.2 million in the case of the current one. Changing the voting system from FPTP to PR is not going to make the slightest difference.
“But if, in a two-party system, the Labour opposition upon taking power don’t fulfill their historic obligation and role, in terms of restoring civil liberties from the forces of reactionary conservatism, then just who is going to do it?”
As “Sir Humphrey” so aptly put it in “Yes, Minister”, “The “opposition” are not the opposition, they are merely the government-in-waiting. The real opposition is the civil service”. The Labour party doesn’t have a “historic obligation and role” to do anything except to get their politicians into power and then keep them there for as long as possible. This, together with the concentration of policy-making in as few hands as possible when in power, is the purpose of any political party. Everything else could be amply done without the party system.
Best wishes
The end of all privacy? Germany’s vote is now crucial : https://www.welt.de/
These ChatControl proposals are very sweeping, imho very un-European. I don’t know the UK’s status outside the EU, but I’m amazed they have originated from Denmark, with its traditions. More on them here : https://metalhearf.fr/posts/chatcontrol-wants-your-private-messages/
They are going to scan everything based on known flagged hash values. But false positives can occur when a system incorrectly identifies an innocent image as matching a flagged hash, which can happen due to hash collisions or errors in the detection algorithm. They are also going to try to identify and flag and submit new images. With hundreds of millions of Europeans, I wonder what that false positive probability is? It seems like a dangerous experiment, when a false positive could be catastrophic – a cure that is worse than the disease.
Politicians, intel and military have demanded some sort of opt out from these proposals – the stated reason being : the risk this scanning could potentially be exploited by nation state adversaries to spy, or by hackers / extortionists. So they are effectively admitting they are deliberately introducing new attack vectors, via potential software vulnerabilities.
Quite how all these people with exemptions will opt out of common apps and operating systems, is hard to fathom? What it means though, is less security for all, while some politician or political aide could be the most prolific nonce under the sun, yet fly under the radar.
It appears Germany has decided against, thus the plan is sidelined for now.
This is the guy pushing client-side scanning of everyone’s devices, Peter Hummelgaard : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hummelgaard . He apparently doesn’t believe privacy is a human right : https://boingboing.net/2025/09/15/danish-justice-minister-we-must-break-perception-of-right-to-private-messaging.html
Wiki doesn’t have any information on what he did prior to politics. He seems to be echoing similar demands made by GCHQ’s Crispin Robinson and Ian Levy, who argued for client-side scanning over three years ago; presumably they were influential in lobbying Apple to implement? Apple announced plans to implement client-side scanning only to backtrack in the face of a worldwide Apple customer backlash. : https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252523028/GCHQ-experts-back-scanning-of-encrypted-phone-messages-to-fight-child-abuse
It’s all part of the seemingly unstoppable drive by the Euro Political ” Insane Clown Posse ” drive to * kettle * their populaces into some kind of digital pen; wherein not only will States have people’s personal data, eg health records, voting history, online reading sources/topics, * private * communications and purchasing history. Then, once the mass introduction of CBDCs has been effected, the State will have – potentially – almost total control of their minions, who will be reduced to nothing much more than mindless consumers of the shit ( Political/Social/Material ) the system controlled by the Corpro-State spews out 24/7. We’re not that far off this scenario as things stand.
It’s almost as if the Euro Elites, having long since dispensed with the irritant of doing anything their Political Party Dept were elected to do, has become envious of the virtually total control governments like , eg China, have over their populations – most amirably demonstrated during the * Covid * hysteria – and thought ….” Ja, Oui, Si, Tak ” and, of course, a big ” YES ” from Davos poodle Starmer – ” let’s have some of that good ‘ol authoritarian quasi-Fascist thang: in fact, let’s not bother with that ” quasi ” qualification and just go for the real deal , we can call it ” necessary defence against the barbarian hordes of Russia, Iran, China, boatloads of Islamic Terrorist programmed by evil Hamas Sorcerers to behead innocent W.A.S.P babies; oh , and faR fAR FAR!!! Left Corbyn, don’t forget that enemy within “; what are they ( the minions ) gonna do about it, vote for another wing of the Uniparty? L.O.L ”
As for those former beacons of redistributive Liberal Democracy ( in Yank Think – extreme Communist ) in Scandinavia- they’ve been ‘ Progressively ‘ falling, domino-style, to * Bear * Baiting U.S designed propaganda, abandoning the Neutrality that has served them well for decades and succumbed to the militaristic dopium peddled by the M.I.C and the ludicrous Russophobia that infects the NeoLibCon Groupmind.
From ABBA to Gaga, Norway to No Way, Finland to Binland, Denmark to No Mark, Bjorkland to Dorkland – the Nordics have sold their autonomous riches for the fools gold of US/EU/NATO ” protection “.I’m pretty sure they’ll come to regret such folly
“the virtually total control governments like , eg China, have over their populations ”
It’s pointless trying to appear to “tell it how it is” if you come out with propaganda like that. No modern government has approached anything like the grip the Catholic church had over mediaeval Europe.
That’s a strange comparison, B. I didn’t say that about China as a criticism of how that country is governed: on the contrary, given it’s immense population, I don’t see how it could function without the degree of social control that it has. Neither am I saying that it’s anything like optimum in this regard: but one only has to look at the degree of quality of life advances achieved by successive Post-Mao Govs to conclude they – the Chinese Gov – are doing a pretty good job in managing a population of +1Billion people.
Making a comparison between present day China and the Medieval Catholic Church in Europe is something of a non-sequitur
I can tell you…..I’m a lifelong ( well, from age 16 or thereabouts ) admirer of Chinese Culture, eg it’s Art, Architecture, Philosophical Traditions and Poetry etc . So, no Sinophobia from this quarter
“given it’s immense population, I don’t see how it could function without the degree of social control that it has.”
Quite possibly, although I disagree. However that still doesn’t mean that the social control is “virtually total”. The gap between “as complete as necessary for the smooth running of the country” and “virtually total” is pretty large, IMHO.
“Making a comparison between present day China and the Medieval Catholic Church in Europe is something of a non-sequitur”
Not at all. If you want an example of “virtually total social control”, then the mediaeval Catholic church is a much better one than present-day China. To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, “Call that virtually total social control? This is virtually total social control!
“With hundreds of millions of Europeans, I wonder what that false positive probability is?”
I don’t suppose that the people introducing this system either know, or,more importantly, care. This is the digital equivalent of the Israeli bombing of Gaza: it doesn’t matter how many innocent people suffer, so long as the evil-doers* are eliminated.
* the main evil-doers being, of course, those who seek to topple these same authorities from their positions of power.
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the British state is trying to reintroduce sedition offences by another name under terrorist and other legislation. Is it true that ‘aliens’ can still be jailed for some seditious offences under a 1919 Act? Which is comparable to the views against the USAmerican ruling on free speech applying to non-citizens there.