The passing of wood through glass is a remarkable feat. There are those who believe that royalty can perform miracles – there is a well developed cult around the vain and vicious Charles I, for example. It now appears that the presence of the future Charles III also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics.
The police have now issued extensive CCTV footage of the attack on the vehicle of Charles and Camilla on the fringes of the anti-tuition fee demonstrations, and the media have been replete with more nonsense about Camilla being poked with a stick. Yet of all the CCTV footage and numerous photographs, there is no evidence at all of this attack and all the images show the car windows to be closed – as they would be. One gets cracked but not holed.
There is in fact no evidence at all of any intent to harm the persons of the expensive royal layabouts, as opposed to discomfiting them and damaging their vehicle. It is fascinating that the media continually repeats the “Camilla attacked with a stick” line when it is so blatantly untrue. There appears to be a closing of ranks by the whole Establishment to perpetuate the myth – both the Home Office and St James Palace have deliberately fostered the myth by refusing to confirm or deny.
Personally I would not touch Camilla with a bargepole. I dislike violence at demonstrations. Demonstrations, good, riots, bad is my basic mantra. Attacks on people in a civil demonstration are always wrong, including attacks on the police unless in self defence. I did not join in the outrage at the prosecutions of violent demonstrators after the big Lebanon demonstration in London, because I personally witnessed the group hurling dangerous missiles at police who were neither attacking, threatening nor kettling them. That is absolutely unacceptable.
But a policy as appalling as the withdrawal of state funding from university teaching, carried out by Nick Clegg by one of the most blatant political breaches of fatih with the public in history, , is bound to provoke huge anger. The government reaps what it sows. Demonstrators should not set out to hurt people. But all the evidence shows they had no intention of hurting Charles and Camilla.
I have personally worked closely with the royal family’s close protection officers in organising two state visits abroad, and plainly they too could see there was no intent to injure – that is why weapons were not drawn. They deserve commendation rather than the crap spouted out by Sky News, who seem to think they should have gunned down the odd student.
All of which serves to take the focus off vicious police attacks on students and the use of kettling to detain people who were seeking peacefully to express their views. Kettling people in extreme cold and with no access to toilet facilities raises questions on illegal detention which genuine liberals in government would wish to address. What is it? Is it a form of arrest? What is the status of the fenced pens into which people are herded? Should they not be formalised as places of police detention, and individuals booked in and given access to lawyers? If that is not possible, this detention – which can be for many hours – is not lawful.
KingOfWelshNoir wrote: “One of the windows is clearly half down for most of the attack”
The window descends at 0:18 to about halfway then closes by 0:26 . Probably Charles was going to do a Royal Wave as dreolin suggests but thought the better of it.
Yup..pick on someone who was there..I sugggest Kieron, obviously he was there and has something to say..me, I can only comment as to what I saw in the media..I am not an eye witness…over to you both to continue the debate..
Inspector Knacker at January 6, 2011 2:07 PM highlighted Lord Hope’s role in kettling.
“In 1989, Hope became a Senator of the College of Justice, taking the judicial title, Lord Hope, and was appointed directly to the offices of Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General, Scotland’s highest judge. He was made a Privy Counsellor at this time, and was awarded a Life peerage in the 1995 New Year Honours, his title being gazetted as Baron Hope of Craighead, of Bamff in the District of Perth and Kinross on 28 February 1995. In 1996, Lord Hope of Craighead retired as Lord President to become a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and was succeeded by Lord Rodger. On 1 October 2009, Hope became one of the first Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, and its first Deputy President”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hope,_Baron_Hope_of_Craighead
Thanks ‘Red Pepper’ at 6:54pm. The Red Pepper article is superbly evocative – a lightning strike of REAL journalism – this is what ought to be on our screens!
kingofwelshnoir
I am afraid I think you are wrong. What looks like an open window is I think an illusion caused by something like a secondary piece of curved glass over the window – to deflect wind when it is open. If you stop the thing at precisely 23 seconds, you can clearly see reflections on what gives the illusion of the open bit.
It would make no sense at all for them to be driving with open windows.
Frazer: You weren’t there, but felt free to praise the Filth to the hilt in their assaults on demonstrators and democracy. ok fair enough, and you argue against people not impressed with your craven apologia for the state thugs. But when someone argues back you start whining that it’s not fair, and you’re being picked upon! Never ceases to amaze me how authoritarian right-wingers go all cry-baby when called out on their BS.
Didn’t you order Craig Murray to shut down this blog after all, then? It still seems to be running.
Glenn, how about focusing on the issue of police action rather than launching yet another ad hominem attack on people offering alternative points of view?
I guess what Frazer meant by “picked on” was that Clark turned the criticism onto his personal belief system rather than what happened on the day.
@Frazer, thanks for the reply.
“I think it a bit harsh to call every cop in GB an “armed agent of the state’. Most are normal people doing a difficult job.”
Yes, I should have been clearer here. Perhaps I should have said “coercive agents of the state”; I didn’t mean to say that all officers have firearms or electrocution weapons. Many a political theorist, certainly on the socialist and anarchist left, has regarded the police and the armed forces in this way – a mechanism for protecting the political/business elite from the working classes they exploit. (NB: I wasn’t intending to be impolite to individual members of the police, some of whom do indeed work hard and genuinely wish to help society.)
“Justifiable public unrest..needs defining this one, and I am open to debate, though I disagree that a bunch of protestors smashing up shops and businesses of ordinary citizens is justifiable.”
Under any circumstances? Here’s an unlikely example: say the BNP get into power – perhaps based on a ticket of reducing immigration levels – and then they announce a programme of mass imprisonments and forced deportations for the “non-indigenous”. I’d go to London to take part in the riot, and I’d wager you’d join me.
The question of course is: at what point does injustice or inequality demand a radical solution? Also: at what point of the failure of the democratic mechanism should radical solutions be employed?
“Maybe again you should have a chat to some shopkeepers in London, I am sure that they would completely justify and support the action of these students that wrecked their shops and cost them thousands.”
I agree with this in part – the student demos need to preserve, and build on, current levels of public support. Alienating ordinary workers is counterproductive. That said, I don’t extend this position to all private property: the damaging of the Bentley was a good thing on balance, since it represents the worsening poverty gap very starkly indeed (and no people were hurt).
“Yup..look at the American system..want to go to College,take a loan and work hard, pay it back, seems to work in the USA.”
This raises two points. Firstly, the most important one was that the Lib Dems had a specific policy, which they have now U-turned on. I want my vote back! As Craig says (“one of the most blatant political breaches of faith with the public in history”) this is a U-turn of quite unprecedented proportions. We voted them for X, and now they are doing the reverse of X – on an issue of critical social importance.
This is quite aside from your example from the US – the most inequitable country in the developed world. Who gets to go to university in the US? Predominantly, the wealthy, by a very wide margin. For similar reasons, their healthcare is much the same: the health gap between the wealthy and the poor is huge, because the poor can’t afford to get sick.
You’re welcome to your views of course, but I’d say they were the politics of “I’m alright, Jack”. They call in support of limited welfare mechanisms, low-quality public education, and non-existent universal healthcare (even if you claim not to support these positions). Those that can pay are very well provided for, in the shape of private provision, and those who can’t can go to the poorhouse begging. The students in London have a very different society in mind, I think!
Viz Top Tip for Nick Clegg: Invite your friends out on a big drinkies evening and say you’ll be the designated driver. Then proceed to get completely cunted yourself.
Glenn’s as daft calling all police “filth” as Frazer is regarding all protesters as violent. Remember “Divide and Rule”!
Craig
‘If you stop the thing at precisely 23 seconds, you can clearly see reflections on what gives the illusion of the open bit.’
Maybe, but just before that at 16 – 17 seconds the window is quite clearly going down; shortly after it goes up again but not the whole way. What I think happens is the window was slightly open and Charles tries to close it but presses the ‘down’ button by mistake then corrects it.
It hardly matters, there ain’t no stick anywhere.
in fact know from friend that there was a back entrance. Charles & Camilla left from it in a white van. Cock-up or conspiracy: police violence elsewhere unacceptable. End of.
In Finland, Higher Education is paid for by the people. It works. It’s the way it ought to be. Instead, we pay for wars. Does anyone have any idea how much is being spent on the current wars? Why can’t we pay for Higher education? Anything else simply exacerbates pre-existing economic disparity and contributes to societal breakdown. 30 years of Mafiosi Torynomics, a massive social engineering machine which generates nothing but trillions for a few and the studied and deliberate destruction of our children’s future.
alan campbell: thanx for Viz
alan campbell
what friends?
Suhayl: Re cost of war. This US site gives a comparison of what could be purchased for a candidate state, with that state’s contribution towards these wars.
This one, for example, shows how many college scholarships for a year could be funded in Colorado, should that state not be contributing just for the war in Afghanistan in 2011:
http://costofwar.com/en/tradeoffs/state/CO/program/13/tradeoff/6
(The answer is 206,792 scholarships.)
When you look at large states, and use the tool to compare what has been spent since the “war on terror” began with useful programmes, the figures are truly staggering.
look, everyone, this sounds like a jewish prep school here (sorry all jews)
we should not be at each others throat, time will tell in any case and our minds are the real value in this, we ought to be able to see straight, regardless of dogma and blinkin ideology.
Frazer has his principles and I can live with that, it does not mean I agree with him hook line and sinker, fine.
what I do know is,
that I rather have him relaxed and comfy, he’s doing a shit job and you need your wits for it, than twitchy and wound up, his expertise and nous is far too valuable and important to us all.
Just in case you have not noticed, together we can be a bomb, dynamic and downright to the point, deadly in places, this is not to denigrate Craigs leading role in this, but synergy does make for a better blog, would you not agree?
I’m also glad we have not got a little Hitler as a moderator, its a welcome bonus, because engagement has got to be on our agenda, we must challenge in these times and be prepared to hit the spot. We must have the brevity to eat humble pie when its appropriate, tough, but even us all here can’t be right all the time.
Thing is we are trying quiet a bit and we can only improve, I repeat once more, we can make an awesome team.
Thanks to that.
PS I’m not drunk.
PSS: Cheer up Tony and start taking your drugs responsibly.
As for us all, we have far too much in common than to bitch at each other, the more we work together the more this blog will be alive and humming.
That over,
switch grey cells, how about this idea and who could be the man to do it?
Britain seemingly is hampered short for flu vaccines under Cameron, London GP’s are running amok to get the stuff. Meanwhile, Germany has got a massive problem with eggs contaminated by dioxinated feeds, high levels so I’ve heard from a friend.
I will happily drive the van/ lorry/ hire a ship for all I care, its a 400 mile round trip and I bet you get vaccines there, whilst bringing millions of good fresh British free ranged eggs on to German breakfast tables.
Anybody (;-)
“I did not join in the outrage at the prosecutions of violent demonstrators after the big Lebanon demonstration in London, because I personally witnessed the group hurling dangerous missiles at police who were neither attacking, threatening nor kettling them. That is absolutely unacceptable.”
Fair enough, Craig, I didn’t see what you saw. All I have ever seen thrown at a London demo are empty plastic water bottles and light pine placard sticks.
When I read your post I thought it was the Lebanon demo where George Galloway provided first hand testimony of agents provocateurs trying to whip up the crowd – and failing. But checking the records I see that it was at the 2008 anti George W Bush demo in Whitehall where this took place.
http://www.infowars.net/articles/june2008/260608Provocateurs.htm
Tom Brake MP made a very similar deposition after his visit to the G20 demo in the City in 2009
http://boingboing.net/2009/05/09/brit-mp-saw-undercov.html
“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.”
I don’t what became of these complaints – but I’ll bet a pound to a penny they were never followed up by the mainstream media.
Get out the whitewash brushes, again.
6 January 2011 Last updated at 20:26
G20 death: Ian Tomlinson inquest to be held in March Ian Tomlinson collapsed during the G20 protests, in which he was not participating
Related stories
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G20 officer on misconduct charge
No charges over G20 man’s death
An inquest will begin in March into the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London.
The 47-year-old was filmed being pushed to the ground by a police officer in 2009.
A pathologist initially found he died of natural causes but two subsequent post-mortems suggested blunt force trauma had caused internal bleeding.
The inquest is likely to examine the actions of police, the pathologist, the coroner and independent investigators.
Judge Peter Thornton QC will hear evidence in central London and the jury inquest is expected to last for up to six weeks.
He is an expert on public order law who been involved in several high-profile trials and was appointed assistant deputy coroner for the case in November.
No charges brought
Pathologist Dr Freddy Patel said Mr Tomlinson, who was not taking part in the demonstration, died of natural causes linked to coronary artery disease.
But his findings were re-examined after video footage emerged of a Metropolitan Police officer, Pc Simon Harwood, pushing him.
A second pathologist suggested Mr Tomlinson died of internal bleeding from blunt force trauma, in combination with cirrhosis of the liver, while a third examination agreed with the findings of the second test.
Pc Harwood now faces a disciplinary hearing or gross misconduct, which could see him dismissed by Scotland Yard, but this will not take place until the inquest has ended.
He has not been charged with a criminal offence, however, as the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was no prospect of a conviction, given the experts could not agree how Mr Tomlinson died.
BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12131691
Sure “kettling” and the way police manage demonstrations will be a prime issue in the coming year but the real worry for those of us who are vigilant re-keeping our freedoms may be that the battle has already been lost.
The police are not all we need to worry about. Psychiatrists are also becoming increasingly dangerous to civil liberties since the advent of New Labour’s Fixed Assessment Centre in 2006:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixated_Threat_Assessment_Centre
The Wikipedia entry makes it sound like it was just set up to deal with obsessives and paranoids who stalk or nurse an irrational sense of grievance against public figures like members of the Royal Family.
The conspiracy theorist A.J.Hill a.k.a. Muad’Dib whose DVD “7/7 Ripple Effect” drove a coach and horses through the fraudulent official account of what happened in the Tube and bus attacks in July 2005 is now in prison for sending copies of the film to the judge and jury in the Kingston court case trying three men who supposedly abetted the four supposed 7/7 suicide bombers.
Hill has also written several articles challenging the legitimacy of the royal line.
Like the US conspiracy theorist
Lyndon Larouche whose movement published the Dope Inc. book in the late 1970s that made the case that the British Royal Family stood at the apex of a chain of elite drug-dealing cartels going back centuries is banned from the UK Hill has made the most powerful of enemies.
One doesn’t need to be able to read tea leaves to perceive a time in the not too distant future when these “conspiraloon” obsessives will end up on a course of psychotropic therapy in the FTAC.
After all conspiracy theorists are Public Enemy No.1 for Obama Information Tsar Cass Sunstein and their blogs are targetted by trolls hired to effect “cognitive penetration” of their activities.
A more Orwellian depiction of the FTAC is painted here:
http://psychiatricnews.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/fixated-threat-assessment-centre/
So St. Loony and Angry have both disappeared? Oddly enough, they both appeared nearly simultaneous almost exactly a year ago, just before xmas 2009. They’ve both had coinciding absences over the year too, giving rise to speculation they’d gone on holiday together. One might almost suspect that a right-wing corporate funded “think-tank” of which there are too many to shake a stick at, had put one or two stooges on the payroll to provide disruption for a one year project. Hey guys – it didn’t work!
There are more Wikileaks documents which do not find Israel squeaky-clean, unfortunately they’ve not got a whiff of publicity in the MSM.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/israelis-demanded-bribes-gaza-crossing/
Partial quote:
—-start
OSLO ?” US firms complained in 2006 of corruption by Israeli officials at the Karni crossing into Gaza, then the Palestinian territory’s main commercial transit point, a leaked US diplomatic cable showed Thursday.
[…]
“Hartmann also alleged that he has been asked to pay as much as 13,000 to 15,000 shekels ($2,889 to $3,333) per truckload, which includes a flat fee plus an additional two shekels per case charge, which is not recorded on the invoice,” the cable said.
[…]
Israel shut the Karni crossing when the radical Hamas movement took control of Gaza in June 2007. Only a minimum of goods are now let through, using a conveyor belt.
—-end
Err … ? Angrysoba went quiet just before Christmas. Larry last posted on January 3rd @ 8:02pm.
Wow! Conspiracy! They must be the same … yada, yada … paid for by … yada, yada, yada.
I hope really hope this important topic concerning government manipulation of media and agents of the state doesn’t get buried under petty conjectures, smears and squabbles about and between commentators again. It’s a bit like journalists and columnists filling up the newspapers with personal snipes and defamations about their own colleagues. In other words, another form of distraction from more important topics. Even if it’s just a light-hearted joke.
Are you being paid to do this, glenn?? On second thoughts, there’s really no need to answer that …
@alan campbell: Great Viz quip about Clegg. As fine a metaphor for duplicity and betrayal as any I’ve heard.
CD: What’s your function, then? I’m pointing to the fact that two highly antagonistic and prolific posters both showed up together, both left together, and both took off time together. With your snide, “On second thoughts, there’s really no need to answer that”, you’ve ceded the lofty moral perch which you had assumed mere hours ago. Unsurprising, because all right-wing hacks have that same knee-jerk rationalisation when it comes to that over which they bitch and whine – it’s OK when they do it.
You know, you share some of the tedious characteristics Angrysoab exhibited, now I come to think of it. A further coincidence, no doubt. But may I take my hat off to your rapid study of this blog and its various contributors’ histories in such a short time.
strategist
it was the demo where I first made my “zionism is bullshit” statement.
Legendary reporter, victim of vile “anti-semitism” slurs for voicing the truth, lives on:
http://www.fcnp.com/news/8196-veteran-journalist-thomas-resumes-column-today-in-news-press.html
Thanks all..some interesting debates here..will reply later..bit busy at the moment….
glenn: “What’s your function, then?”
Irrelevant. Please focus on the issues rather than the commentators.
“On second thoughts, there’s really no need to answer that”
It’s not an snidey insinuation. I did in fact mean, ‘there’s really no need to answer that’. (But you did anyway, more’s the pity.) The question was a lazy rhetorical smear about motives, which I was just saying was irrelevant and distracting. I was hoping the sarcasm would prompt self-awareness. (Sadly it didn’t work.) Do you understand now? (Actually, there’s really no need to answer that one either … ).
“it’s OK when they do it”
Hey, I’ll stop if you will. That’s the key difference.
“A further coincidence, no doubt.”
And you round off with more innuendo about identities and motives. But I’m glad you’ve taken your hat off. I’ve got another one for you: a big cone with a “D” on it.
End of conversation. Please.
“How to spot a whistle-blower” or, officially, “Deter, detect, defend against employee unauthorised disclosures”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12120850
Can’t have any of that hazardous honesty, can we? Deploy Orwellian tactics to detect the threat before it occurs.
I wonder if and when this might have rooted out Craig?
Glenn at 11:12pm, thanks. Yes, I thought that. One wonders why this is not the central question being directed at Govt ministers. The answer is obvious, of course.
CD at 7:07am: Exactly. If you’d said to me, say, 20 years ago that, for example, NHS consultants and GPs would be “gagged”, I’d have laughed at you. Now it’s ‘normal’ procedure. Orwellian is correct. It’s the seeming tacit acceptance of this sort of psychological oppression that angers me. It’s got nothing to do with ‘national security’ or ‘commercial secrets’ (the usual excuses for shutting people up) and yet people are gagged and that’s like buying 12 eggs from the shop. No-one hears the rattle of the chains. And so, in some places, there are enough nurses in the ward to go on ward rounds anymore, but no-one can say. Hush! The walls have ears!
Madness.