Sorry for protracted intermission – I forgot how very hard work moving house is, not to mention that it leaves you without an internet connection for weeks.
I am in any event so stunned by the monumental arrogance and incompetence of this government that I find myself at a loss where to start back. Anyone care to suggest a topic? The extraordinary reliance of Brown on merchant bankers as his advisers and ministers on the financial disaster is a possibility, but it is so appalling I dissolve into helpless giggles just thinking about it,
Anything to do with banks seems to go down well.
Welcome back Craig.
Well, Juan Cole has just declared that the Israeli election result has sounded the death knell of the two state solution, leaving only three viable options, 1. Apartheid, 2. Violent expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza & West Bank, 3. One State. He also says as an aside that apartheid is not a viable long term option. Any thoughts on this? (My reaction is surely Israeli policy has been apartheid for some time now, and Israeli Govts for some time have had no interest in delivering a two state solution?)
If that’s just all too depressing, how about an appreciation of (or just some comment on) HBOS whistleblower Paul Moore? I haven’t seen any telly today/yesterday (Weds) but he appears to be kicking ass all over the media. As a celebrated whistleblower who got good publicity first but eventually encountered media blackout, is he living the dream? What should his next moves be?
A topic?
Why was The Dodgy Smith Declaration not worthy of, even, a mention on PM’s Questions?
That the Lab Lords ‘caught in the act’ would get away with it was not a surprise.
That the Standards Commissioner never touched the ‘SmittFraud’ makes me think he should be re-named The Standards Commissionaire.
Maybe, Steve Bell could design him a new uniform.
‘I forgot how very hard work moving house is, not to mention that it leaves you without an internet connection for weeks.’
It can also leave you without husband/wife children, telephone bill, poll tax account, leccy and gas bills for ever.
Maybe, ID cards to prove M.P.’s addresses are a good thing?
At least we would know where Blair actually is (allegedly).
Helpless giggles is a good one, it’s really a show, isn’t it ?
Lets hope we can help limit its destructive potential.
Where do you all follow the news ? I am looking for sources as little manipulated as possible, just to keep an overview of developments. What is the agenda, bias and background of the sources you follow ?
Also, are there polls showing how far the UK public is aware of the power of the Jewish lobby, media and bankers in the UK and what they make of it ?
Are ordinary Jews being setup to take the fall again ?
Are those who financed Hitler still in charge ?
researcher:
I usually start at http://www.blacklistednews.com/ and take it from there
I link to this:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Some articles, and comments, are very interesting.
A topic? How about the missing registers from the Glenrothes by-election last November? This election was held in the constituency next to Gordon Brown’s – Labour retained the seat with a reduced majority. There was a higher than expected turnout and a 400% increase in postal voting, but it was just made public last week that the marked registers have disappeared, so it is impossible to tell whether or not the dead, moved away or senile voted. This might be gross incompetence – or, given the stakes for Brown and Labour’s record in fiddling votes in Birmingham, it might be something worse.
I think the most important topic would now be to exchange information on how to grow vegetables and fruit and raise livestock etc as when everything collapses it will be essential we have food.
When we can be sure of our food supply then we can discuss ways of restoring demcracy in the UK
How about
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/421839.html ?
imho that’s quite serious and would love to hear your thoughts, and that of other bloggers on that!
A small and probably irrelevant note. After a protracted period of not working, today is my birthday and I am in work again, so my treat to myself from my still meagre funds was buying The Catholic Orangemen of Togo.
Keep up the fight Craig!
well our campaign to stop the gov proceeding with G Hoons idea to privatise military training could do with some support. This crazy idea to proceed with the biggest PFI ever is creating a school for mercenaries, run by Qinetiq, Raytheon and as LST have pulled out Sodexo – all war profiteers and also including EDS the most incompetent bunch of crooks around. This really needs to stop or we will be perpetually at war to fill the coffers of the arms trade.
The mainstream media have picked up on the concerns that surround the Defence Training Review (DTR). They mirror the concerns that we and the PCS has been raising over the past few years:
The Guardian
The government’s biggest private finance initiative, a multibillion-pound plan to hive-off training for the armed forces, is in trouble, subject to delays, financial problems, and increases in cost, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The long-planned project, known as the defence training review, first proposed a decade ago, has been put off for at least two years and its estimated initial cost has risen from £11bn to £12bn. The entire project is in doubt, according to independent observers.
Even inside the MoD, there is scepticism despite official optimism. “No decisions have been made, it involves a huge amount of money and the [current] proposal does not meet the needs,” a defence official told the Guardian.
Problems faced have been compounded by the economic and banking crisis. Under PFIs, government departments and public institutions, such as schools and hospitals, sign decades-long contracts with firms who then run and finance the projects by borrowing funds. Continue Reading…
The Telegraph
The Defence Training Review, which was first proposed a decade ago, had already been subject to delays. Independent observers have now claimed the Government may be forced to bail out the project to ensure it goes ahead.
Under the plan, training for the army, navy and RAF ?” which is currently scattered around the country ?” will take place at a former RAF base at St Athan, south Wales.
A private consortium called Metrix was set up to finance and manage the project in a PFI arrangement. Under PFIs, projects such as schools and hospitals are built privately, with the Government paying the financiers back over decades.
The consortium originally consisted of Qinetiq, the Ministry of Defence’s privatised former research agency, and Land Securities Trillium. Yet Land Securities Trillium has since dropped out, meaning Qinetiq must find a new partner.
Mark Hellowell, a research fellow at Edinburgh University and an expert on PFI, told The Guardian: “Even if the project was affordable, the liquidity in the banking sector is not there to fund it. Given market conditions, it seems likely that some form of government intervention is necessary.” Continue Reading…
European Daily Information
The government’s biggest private finance initiative, a multibillion-pound plan to hive-off training for the armed forces, is in trouble, subject to delays, financial problems, and increases in cost, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The long-planned project, known as the defence training review, first proposed a decade ago, has been put off for at least two years and its estimated initial cost has risen from £11bn to £12bn. The entire project is in doubt, according to independent observers.
Even inside the MoD, there is scepticism despite official optimism. “No decisions have been made, it involves a huge amount of money and the [current] proposal does not meet the needs,” a defence official told the Guardian.
Problems faced have been compounded by the economic and banking crisis. Under PFIs, government departments and public institutions, such as schools and hospitals, sign decades-long contracts with firms who then run and finance the projects by borrowing funds. Continue Reading…
There’s a subject of profound importance which I believe is being ingnored and not debated.
This is the consequences of the war in Afghanistan spreading into and destabilizing Pakistan, which appears to be what is happening. If Obama sends another 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in order to prove that the United States is still a great power, and that NATO has a reason for existing, the stakes in this ‘great game’ will have been raised considerably.
But is it worth the risk, the risk, the certainty, that the conflict is spreading, inexorably, into Pakistan? The tragedy is, that the war to pacify Afghanistan is lost. The momentum is shifting back towards the Afghans and the Pastun people. It is becoming a war of national liberation which the West cannot win. Yet instead of withdrawing, we are getting ready to send even more men to a war that’s lost and is spreading with untold consequences, none of them good, for the entire region.
Pakistan, has, if I remember correctly, a vastly bigger population than either Iraq or Afghanistan, yet our leaders are leading us towards war with Pakistan, a Pakistan in turmoil. This reckless and stupid ‘strategy’, or drift towards chaos, on our part, simply beggars belief, and could prove to be a blunder of truly historic proportions.
Craig:
I don’t know if come you’ve across the Blair War Crimes Foundation yet:
http://blairfoundation.wordpress.com/
Worth a look me thinks. It would be even better if it could get a bit more publicity (than the 7 Google hits it currently gets) and a few more signatures (like a couple of million maybe??).
Cheers, Andrew M.
I hope the move went well and that you’re settling comfortably into your new home.
researcher
InformationClearingHouse is good . I second ‘anticant’ there .
Google for Counterpunch and GlobalResearch too .
There are scores of others, which very often get you to the same investigative reporting and analyses which rarely make the MSM .
On your last points, wiser and also more accurate, to refer to the Zionist Lobby .
16th December 2003
Prime Minister Anthony Blair
10 Downing Street
London SW1 A 2AA
England
Dear Prime Minister Blair,
It is a distinct pleasure to inform you that the ?’NOTABLE committee for liar of the year?’ has by unanimous decision declared you ?’ NOTABLE liar of the year for 2003?’. Normally, the committee makes its decision in January of the New Year. On this occasion, your mendacity so impressed us that for the first time in the committee’s history exemption was made in acknowledgement of your achievements.
There can be no doubt that in your capacity as Prime Minister, you lied brilliantly in support of the war in Iraq. No less a person than Saddam Hussein, is reputed to have said of one of your falsehoods, that you had just uttered, “The mother of all lies”. We crave your indulgence while we recall some of your finer moments.
We noted the unflinching servility with which you dedicated yourself to lying for President Bush as his poodle, in advancing the case for war against Iraq. The claim that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) was a high point. It showed exceptional commitment to fabrication when months after Saddam’s statue was toppled in Baghdad, and it was clear no WMDs existed, you resolutely lied on.
One cannot forget, when you were caught out on the fib about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger how you held fast to the lie. It showed strength of character when you shared the fib with your friend George Bush, and led him to repeat the lie in the State of the Union address. It did not go unnoticed that the CIA had dropped the Niger assertion, but you ducked in to another lie, embraced the original lie, and reasserted that the information shared with the CIA had been based on separate intelligence. That was clearly no simple cock-and-bull story, but a really imaginative and monstrous lie that greatly impressed the committee.
It was astoundingly brilliant when you faked the ?’45 minutes?’ Iraqi capacity for deployment of WMDs. Hans Blix’s exposure of that lie, in his diplomatic turn of phrase as you having made a “fundamental mistake” never detracted you from further barefaced lying. Your performance in the House of Commons, and your twisted-tongue statements have all helped to get you to the top. The use of the dodgy dossier before the Security Council has to be a source of much pride for you.
We recalled President Clinton’s famous words, which had nearly earned him the prize, when he said, “I never had sex with that woman”. The committee realised then that Monica had blown it, but Bill ended up blowing it too when he relented and said that he had made a mistake. By contrast Tony, under pressure you resolutely lied on, and that commanded our admiration and has made you, ?’El numero uno fibber and fabricator?’.
It is a distinct privilege to acknowledge that you are not an ordinary liar, but a liar of the first magnitude. Tony Blair, on behalf of the committee, I bestow upon you the honour ?’NOTABLE LIAR FOR THE YEAR 2003?’.
Congratulations.
Sincerely,
x
___________
NOTABLE
NOTABLE?’S NEW book is entitled ” Learn the Law: a retarded text for advanced readers”, and can be purchased online at http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-1143.html – or – http://www.globaljusticeonline.com – or -amazon.com