British democracy has lost its meaning. The political and economic system has come to serve the interests of a tiny elite, vastly wealthier than the run of the population, operating through corporate control. The state itself exists to serve the interests of these corporations, guided by a political class largely devoid of ideological belief and preoccupied with building their own careers and securing their own finances.
A bloated state sector is abused and mikled by a new class of massively overpaid public secotr managers in every area of public provision – university, school and hospital administration, all executive branches of local government, housing associations and other arms length bodies. All provide high six figure salaries to those at the top of a bloated bureaucratic establishment. The “left”, insofar as it exists, represents only these state sector vested interests.
These people decide where the cuts fall, and they will not fall where they should – on them. They will fall largely on the services ordinary people need.
Meanwhile we are not all in this together. The Vodafone saga only lifts the lid for the merest peek at the way the corporate sector avoids paying its share, hiding behind Luxembourg or Cayman tax loopholes and conflicts between international jurisdictions – with which our well provided politicians are very happy. The often excellent Sunny Hundal provides a calm analysis of the Vodafone case here:
Let me tell you something else about Vodafone. Vodafone took over Ghana Telecom three years ago. They paid an astonishingly low price for it – 1.2 billion dollars, which is less than the value of just the real estate GT owned. The value of the business was much higher than that, and there was a substantively higher opening bid from France Telecom.
The extraordinary thing was the enormous pressure which the British government put on Ghana to sell this valuable asset to Vodafone so cheaply. High Commissioner Nick Westcott and Deputy High Commissioner Menna Rawlings were both actively involved, with FCO minister Lord Malloch Brown pressurising President Kuffour directly, with all the weight of DFID’s substantial annual subvention to Ghana behind him.
What is the point of DFID giving taxpayer money to Ghana if we are costing the country money through participating in the commercial rape of its national assets?
And why exactly was it a major British interest that Vodafone – whose Board meets in Germany and which pays its meagre taxes in Luxembourg – should get Ghana Telecom, as opposed to France Telecom or another company? Was privatisation at this time the best thing for Ghana at all?
This Vodafone episode offers another little glimpse into the way that corporations like Vodafone twist politicians like Mark Malloch Brown around their little fingers. It mioght be interesting to look at his consultancies and commercial interests now he is out of office.
BAE is of course the example of this par excellence. Massive corruption and paying of bribes in Saudi Arabia, Tanzania end elsewhere, but prosecution was halted by Tony Blair “In the National Interest”. BAE of course was funnelling money straight into New Labour bagmen’s pockets, as well as offering positions to senior civil servants through the revolving door. Doubtless they are now doing the same for the Tories – perhaps even some Lib Dems.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/jack_straws_cor.html
It is therefore unsurprising the BAE were able to write themselves contracts for aircraft carriers which were impossible to cancel and that their New Labour acolytes were prepared to sign such contracts. It is, nonetheless, disgusting. Just as it is disgusting that there is no attempt whatever by the coaliton to query or remedy the situation. There is no contract in the UK which cannot be cancelled by primary legislation.
Meanwhile, bankers’ bonus season is upon us again and these facilitators of trade and manufacture are again set to award themselves tens of billions of pounds to swell the already huge bank accounts of a select few, whose lifestyle and continued employment is being subsidised by every single person in the UK with 8% of their income. This was because the system which rewards those bankers so vastly is fundamentally unsound and largely unnecessary. Money unlinked to trade or manufacture cannot create infinite value; that should have been known since the South Sea Bubble.
Yet even this most extreme example of government being used to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else, has not been enough to stir any substantial response from a stupoured, x-factored population, dreaming only of easy routes to personal riches, which they have a chance in a million of achieving.
Conventional politics appears to have become irretrievably part pf the malaise rather than offering any hope for a cure. But political activity outwith the mainstream is stifled by a bought media.
I see no hope.
The revolving doors of corporate power. Nice work if you can get it! 1st Class passage through life.
@ Crab,
“Courtney’s jest didnt read as derogatory here, just as irreverent craic. I chuckled at the gust of humour.”
Thanks – pleased I could make you chuckle.
CB
@ Roderick a second time,
I really do not have any inside information re. Sandals – honestly.
CB
@ Suhayl,
Thanks. Essentially I speak when I have something to say and shut up when I don’t. Or, as I learned long ago a wise man speaks when he has something to say – a fool because he has to say something.
Now – I shut up.
But a “wise man” is oxymoronic, spoken tersely or not, we all have such little meaty brains.
Regarding this spam, i dont think (m)any of these messages are targeted. I googled some of them and found endless unrelated blogs containing exact same urls, text and cut/paste technique. The lack of clear commercial purpose at the targets is curious, but the spammer can have aims unrelated to disrupting discussion – experimentation. Occasional replies can be made by people messing about. Expect more unpleasant messages when meant to disrupt.
derp derp. corruption, war, terror, destruction…
best sentiments – water can flow or it can crash, be water my freind. (Bruce Lee)
*friend*
weeee 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USlnfTGlhXc&feature=related
bweeheehee ;]
Two small points on the original post
“The “left”, insofar as it exists, represents only these state sector vested interests”
This is the second time in as many weeks this line has been trotted out. I don’t know how well it serves Craig to keep referring back this particularly popular line of bullshit. I suspect this is a reference to what we may call the ‘Consitutional Left’ (i.e. Labour) -unavailing support of governmental and civic bureacracies, but it’s a not correct definition, and I believe (as do many) that any sustaining link between the Labour Movement and the Labour Party was broken a very long time ago. Conceptualising the left in this fashion is either wilfully disengenious or an immense political niavety, especially from a man that should know better; but I suspect that it serves its purpose, which is ideally to keep the notion of the cowed and defeated ‘big’ left very much in circulation.
20,000 people on the streets of Edinburgh last month and 50,000 in London yesterday – this is just the start. There is no end to areas of potential mobilisation against the current government. There is enough activity out there to prove the lie to the idea that there is no “substantial response from a stupoured, x-factored population, dreaming only of easy routes to personal riches, which they have a chance in a million of achieving”. Whether it be the S/TUC campaigns, individual industrial action, the implementation of complementary currencies (ala Brixton), and the development of larger-scale co-operatives, to the increasing awareness of what constitutes tax justice, real-world developments make that last comment sound as ridiculous mandarin as it is: besides being the kind of cliched, negative drivel that drives people away from not just the mainstream political process, but from its commentary also; because it’s not just the case that the majority of people aren’t genuinely apathetic – merely that in being confronted by the cynical exercise of politics by careerist snake-oil salesmen they’ve switched off – and a commentariat that parrot on about hopeless disinterest and electoral hand-wringing has nothing to say either.
@ Roderick,
What is your take on this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udNYSCc0E7Y&feature=related
“The “left”, insofar as it exists, represents only these state sector vested interests”
After seeing on channel4 tonight, bits of a squalidly sexed up 90 minute program (peppered with crave adds and aired prime time, before the ‘true blood’ blockbuster).. It was about the trillion pound debt, explaining that all public spending is useless and payed for “by us”. It really looks like “the left” is being bitched out of existence by “the right”
The standard characterisations of these two sides have always repelled me as simplistic and biased to the point of automation.
I think most basically, the left is the want to organise productive activity and resource distribution according to analysis, common union, possible sciences. The right is the want to just allow productive activity and distribution to self organise according to raw demands and supplys of human needs and urges.
Maybe there is a place for both ways in an alright economy, i would personaly tend towards maximising the left. It does seem like the right has sabotaged and is savagely screwing the left now for all supplies and demands regardless of any broad consequences.
So Courtenay links to a video by the failed Mr. Kollerstrom, who is a:
1. 7/7 denier;
2. 911 denier; and
3. Holocaust denier.
I’m still amazed at what scumbags inhabit this blog.
Interesting post, crab.
I too was incensed by the simplistic and one-sided analysis presented in the channel 4 programme.
The system they so mercillessly condemned was born out of the cross-party consensus that emerged during ww2, which provided a model for a fair and equal post-war British society. That society would be, and of course was, the envy of the world – despite Britain being “broke” (financially) after ww2.
The only problem with this society was that in the 1970s unions forgot their loftly principles, and a single “corrective” term of Thatcherism seemed to be what was needed to put things right. However, since the 1983 “landslide” the underclass that some had predicted has continued. Our society has paid them off to do nothing and moved further and further to the right, to the extent that goverbnment (which is meant to protect the people against the negative side of capitalism) is becoming just an extension of corporatism.
Those of us who grew up proud to be British have seen the relatively fair and equal society our parents fought to produce stripped away piece by piece. We have sat by, got fat in front of our TVs and watched it happen. Some of us got up and went on a few demonstrations to ease our consciences when it got too bad (e.g. Iraq war) but otherwise just rolled over and let it happen.
I don’t condone the violence in any way, but the spirit shown by students earlier this week (apart from the mishandled antiwar movement) is the first hopeful sign in a generation.
“I don’t condone the violence in any way, but the spirit shown by students earlier this week (apart from the mishandled antiwar movement) is the first hopeful sign in a generation.”
My stepson (wannabe rockstar) and his circle of friends seem apolitical to the point of Platonic purity. But one of their group, a girl, attended the demo and came back abuzz with excitement. Maybe there is hope, Craig.
Craig Murray @July 8th 2010:
“I find myself obliged to ban Larry from St Louis from commenting on this blog.”
Crab, Courtenay: Perhaps we all are oxymorons.
peacewisher and sean. I agree with both your sentiments. Students have finally woken up and are organising.
That said, it is the old models of protest, still, thatsignifies their actions.
far from assembling all in one place, neatly, looking at the small police presence, act up to it, thereby serving the Condem Government with pictures of violence, good arguments and reasoning to go ahead.
If you are students and involved in the NUS, try and raise your voice for decentyralised actions.
Imagine, all major and minor universities would organise these marches all over Britain in their respective Cities and towns, they would liaise with other local unions, up in arms about cuts, spreading the costs and efforts, making them work for their political masters.
Thisd would have the advantage that you are seen locally to get active, other students of the LibCon variety might even join in, something to exploit in front of cameras, etc.
Should you like someone to speak on such issues, get in touch and I come for some advanced but effective NVDA training.
Well done keep at it, just don’t act up to these little invitations, if there is no police around on demos, its an invitation, first, not always a mistake of logistical planning.
What about this for a cui bono? The ConDems and the Met knew that the protest would be large and they must have possessed enough intelligence coming through to forewarn them. So plan to have a small police presence and allow the protest to let rip. Then say ‘what terrible violence’ by anarchists etc. Enough media overload and fuss to completely overshadow the announcement of IDS’s cruel proposals on the following day.
The condems are still making hay out of it. The BBC have this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11740282
and the D Mail have an incendiary front page which prejudges the guilt of several people involved.
” It has taken fifteen years to build the 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor at Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast.”
Try 35 years! The Islamic Revolution slowed things down too.
“Iran has become the first Middle Eastern country to possess civilian nuclear power.”
Ermm…do I really need to tell you that at least one other Middle Eastern country has nuclear power?
“The project has survived material delays, sanctions, technical problems and an Israeli attempt to sabotage the firmware with an irresponsible coded attack”
It may well have been Israel (I don’t know). How do you know that it was?
“I strongly believe now is the time to open front-door relations with Iran by the British government. This must be considered now in light of the UAE concluding a $24 billion agreement with South Korea to build four nuclear reactors, with the first to become operational by 2017.”
Okay, so your strong beliefs aside, what do you think makes Iran and the UAE so different?
Angrysober,
To be honest my information is third hand from an American source who worked in Israel’s southern Negev Desert. That is all I am prepared to say. Pre-revolution work on Bushehr is irrelevant. Atomstroyexport signed the US$1 billion contract signed in 1995.
University will not cost the student anything if they never earn more than £20K. The student should not be forced to enter a contract with any party that has the power to alter the contract unilaterally at a later date.
The government, in common with Tony Blair at his book signing, likes to blame extremists, instead of recognising that students are correct to be angry about entering into a contract which can be changed later.
They changed their electoral promises. didn’t they?
Good Johann Hari article on Craig’s boss:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-clegg-ndash-the-man-who-betrayed-us-all-2131652.html
God, Mark, you know some ‘hot’ and heavy people! And that’s even before considered the half-life.
Gas prices.
Putting the screws on. B Gas raise prices by 7% because world prices have risen????
What?
Search Results for
Is there a glut of gas
CBC.ca E.ON, Total’s Natural Gas Glut Forecasts Show Buyer-Seller Rift? – 1 day ago
“The gas glut will remain for the next decade,” Klaus Schaefer, … There’s currently a potential oversupply of 160 billion cubic meters globally, …
Bloomberg – 597 related articles
Easing the Natural Gas Glut? – Energy and Capital – 93 related articles
Worldwide glut of gas, so why have our – Express.co.uk
11 Nov 2010 … UK News :: Worldwide glut of gas, so why have our bills gone up? … was a low user of gas that all there customers who are low users do not …
http://www.express.co.uk/…/Worldwide-glut-of-gas-so-why-have-our-bills-gone-up- –
Gas glut threatens investment in renewables sector, IEA warns …
9 Nov 2010 … There are environmental benefits to a gas glut because cheaper gas-fired plants are more likely to replace old coal plants, which emit twice …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/09/gas-iea-oil-renewables –
Natural gas: An unconventional glut | The Economist
11 Mar 2010 … Some think there is far more. No one will really know until … These producers are already getting a taste of the global gas glut. …
http://www.economist.com/realarticleid.cfm?redirect_id=15661889 –
Natural Gas Glut Overwhelms Speculators, Defies Rally (Update3 …
30 Nov 2009 … An “acute glut” is looming during the next five years because of rising shale gas production in the U.S. and Canada, the Paris-based …
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid...
World gas glut will weaken ‘Russian grip on Europe’ – Times Online
11 Nov 2009 … A looming glut in supplies of natural gas will trigger sliding prices and weaken Russia’s grip over Europe’s energy supplies, …
business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/…/article6911660.ece – Similar
Liars and thieves.
I’ve learnt that whenever a government agency appears to be incompetent there’s a reason. To say the police didn’t anticipate the numbers of protesters is absurd. All the measures taken by the government over the last few years have been directed to contain the public in recession.
To me the students were allowed access to the buildings and I very strongly suspect agents provocateur incited the violence. To set an example to the restless public these students will be given very, very heavy prison sentences.
It also really concerns me that a totally innocent student may take the wrap for throwing the fire extinguisher.
Courtenay Barnett: Re Your Comment November 12 2:50 AM — Thank you for commenting. I appreciate it. I was unsure how to read your earlier comment that was just after my wife’s comment; which is why I sought some clarification.
I am glad to hear from you that you heard nothing derogatory about me at all; you certainly shouldn’t have. I am sure you would agree with me that people who manufacture and deliberately spread slanderous smears about another, behind his back, are just “Pieces of Shit”.
Just last month a book was published in Canada – “Our Friendly Neighbourhood Terrorist” by Mary-Jo Leddy – that describes CSIS’s 13 year old campaign of abuse at yet another innocent victim. Ms Leddy is a senior Nun and in the Order of Canada (equivalent of a knighthood); yet CSIS even tried to frame her up using a forged document. As you know other precedents of this sort of abuse by CSIS in Canada and by MI5/MI6 in the UK are outlined on pages 17 to 20 of my Report (Click on my signature) and their use of The Big Lie Technique is described on pages 26 to 30.
Terrific piece of content, this is very similar to a site that I have. Please check it out sometime and feel free to leave me a comenet on it and tell me what you think. Im always looking for feedback.
I too suspect the supposed incompetence of the Met was a bit too far fetched. It was beyond satire to hear Sir (no less) Paul Stephenson go on about “lessons will be learnt” he obviously was paying attention to dinner lady and former home secretary (no less) Jack Boot Jackie who appointed him. Maybe it was a way of allowing the students to let off steam, afterall what’s the cost of a few broken windows compared with the millions saved on university subsidies. However whoever dropped the fire extingusher needs a good talking to. It’s one thing to protest and smash up an ugly old office block but quite another to kill someone just doing out their job.,
‘It’s one thing to protest and smash up an ugly old office block but quite another to kill someone just doing out their job.’
My point is that it may not have been a student but a student may be charged with attempted murder.
I notice that the policeman who killed Tomlinson has not yet been charged with attempted murder or manslaughter.
‘It’s one thing to protest and smash up an ugly old office block but quite another to kill someone just doing out their job.’
My point is that it may not have been a student but a student may be charged with attempted murder.
I notice that the policeman who killed Tomlinson has not yet been charged with attempted murder or manslaughter.
In 1986 I painted ‘ I hate Mrs Thatcher’ on the walls of the local Conservative HQ.
That was because I could see that the logic of her financial reforms would expose our economy to banker corruption. I was !00% right. I told them so at the time and I was !00% ignored.
The current batch of Tories are the wasters who clung on to the driftwood of the party after her downfall. I don’t see them as devious schemers who want violent police confrontation against protest like New Labour. I see them as wankers who think Thatcherism was misunderstood, and should be practised more strictly than before.
They re-painted the building after my graffiti. The Tory mind is not just closed, but hermetically sealed against any process of self-evaluation. Can any of you imagine what it feels like to be poor when you are told that you will lose the right to benefits if you don’t take some ghastly job? The rich who are swilling in advantages and opportunities want to cut off the oxygen of the poor.
Whoever threw an offensive weapon against innocent policemen doing their job, was completely demented. Like me 24 years earlier, they can see the appalling logic of the policy staring them in the face. They can see that these tuition fees will fundamentally disempower those who do not believe in the gospel of Thatcherism. People who are not interested in money will not be able to go to university any more.
The Thatcher policies have bankrupted the world, and their worshippers still want to find a way of excluding those who disagree with them from getting a good education and articulation of their ideas. Caputalism is indeed caput if it can’t cope with the welfare state or the slightest opposition to the strict orthodoxy of their bananas ideas.
Totalitarian New Labour wasted their chance to reverse Thatcherism, and the Lib-Dems have now wasted their chance to oppose it, in opposition to both main parties. The formation of a coalition has bought out the only opposition to Thatcher insanity. You will see more acts of people insanity as a result of common-sense being stitched up completely at Westminster. It’s their bonkers, not ours.