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.
And when will you delete technicolour’s comment on the Jewish lobby?
Larry – for the moment, no. Craig has asked me to ‘be liberal’, so I will delete as a last resort. Mark’s input here is not disruptive, but yours usually is. I think you could offer plenty on the topics I suggested earlier – from a US/conservative perspective?
@all: 9/11 comment is fine, but if it’s substantial, please put it on the other thread. Thanks 🙂
MORE ABOUT THE IGNORANCE OF AMBASSADORS AND THE VIRTUE OF CANADA’S CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
http://canadianspectator.ca
“I think you could offer plenty on the topics I suggested earlier – from a US/conservative perspective?”
I’m just about as conservative as Barack Obama.
I see Alfred/CanSpeccy can’t stay away. And he’s in all caps looking for attention. 🙂
Keep up the good work, Jon. Knowing Larry he’ll be trying to tell us next that there’s no Jewish lobby in the USA and that Helen Thomas was due to retire anyway.
Would talk more but I’m watching Leinster v Ospreys. Back anon.
Larry – engagement, excellent! I propose that Obama is, in fact, a conservative. Support for the war in Afghanistan, no problems with the growth of the military-industrial complex, and a total avoidance of universal healthcare in his healthcare bill (which ends up transferring large amounts of public money to the private sector). What a disappointment for those on the Left who believed – like many of us here – in his ‘change’ campaign.
Furthermore, what progress does he expect to make for peace in the Middle East if he sends a self-declared Christian Zionist to the region? What is he doing to pressure Netanyahu on the issue of settlements?
I suspect Obama is the US Establishment’s idea of a liberal – generally accepting of all of the ideals of the capitalist mechanism, whilst generally wary (or ignorant?) of genuine social-democratic policy. That said, the US has a thriving Left culture – in better shape than ours, I’d wager. Is it Nader, who gets about 1% of the vote, and who is all but shut out of the mainstream political conversation?
dreoilin: Hi… don’t know if you saw my post earlier, but if you like Helen Thomas (and who in their right mind would not?) you’ll be happy with this:
http://www.fcnp.com/news/8196-veteran-journalist-thomas-resumes-column-today-in-news-press.html
Hi Alfred. I fancied commenting constructively on your blog, but I don’t think you have comments switched on. Any chance?
Delete a quote from Chomsky? Huh? Larry, you are overstretching it.
Umn… yes. Exactly. This thread is about the student protests in the UK. And Prince Charles’s quantum car-window.
Yes, delete a quote from Chomsky, especially when it has nothing to do with the thread (if that’s the policy).
If you think of Chomsky as some god-like sage who’s always right, then you have a problem.
Chomsky thinks of himself as a god-like sage. He’s never admitted to being wrong about anything. Anyone who throws out his opinions as much as he does is bound to be wrong about something.
In any case, this typical and somewhat tiresome interpolation merely exemplifies precisely the points which technicolour and I were discussing in a most civil manner on another thread. How excellent.
Now, back to the the good Prince’s window…
The student protests, Prince Charles, Camilla and the bargepole. Cuts in the UK. Cuts to Higher Education. The Con-Lib Coalition and broken promises. Well, do people think there ought to be a new mass party of the Left? Or would that simply hand power to the Cons forever? Perhaps mass infiltration of Labour (Militant-style, but with a different politics)? Or is Labour beyond redemption? What are people’s views in this internal domestic UK matter?
(Moderated: disruptive.)
Do people believe in public-funded healthcare, education and basic services in the UK? Should we get out of imperial war and into the provision of services for our people? Is that not an argument which ought to be centre-stage in our MSM? So why isn’t it…?
To juxtapose two good causes:
1) Fight the education cuts:
http://anticuts.com/2010/12/20/a-two-of-two-demos-demonstrate-in-london-or-manchester-29-january/
2) Mess up the Weapons Fest:
http://www.dsei.org/
Now, to link the two in the public mind. Well, many people in the UK already question why they have to lose their jobs when ‘we’ are fighting stupid imperial wars costing us many billions.
Of course, this is how imperialism works.
(Moderated: response to earlier moderated comment.)
Larry: Obama and conservatism? Any civil discussion at all?
Heh technicolour – Chomsky doesn’t remotely believe in 911 truth? He thinks it’s silly. Does that cause you problems?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7908742/Axe-falls-on-NHS-services.html
Well-known leftie rag.
Suhayl – I’ll take you up on that new party of the left! However institutionally it has a huge battle on its hands, and I think the problems are insurmountable for the time being.
In Birmingham we had local candidates for ‘No to EU – Yes to Democracy’; a bit of a mouthful, but the idea was to challenge EU imperialism and privatisation policy (the latter allegedly codified in the constitution). This party, backed by prominent union activists (Bob Crow, I think) gathered a dire proportion of the vote, though some commented that it did well given its limited funds and how quickly it was put together.
From this project, it was proposed to build a new workers party – though that has been suggested on the left for years – and I don’t know that anything has come of it. My sense is that the SWP and SP find it difficult to collaborate even on projects of broad agreement. Add in the Communist Party and maybe some disillusioned Labour Party and Lib Dem members, and you’ll have a People’s Front of Judea that will split up before they’ve decided on a name!
I hope I’m wrong though. I sometimes wonder that funding is the main problem, and that if this could be resolved, any squabbles and factionalism would be countered by greater public awareness and electoral success.
(Moderated: disruptive and o/t.)
Thanks for that link, Glenn. I didn’t know she was back in the saddle (so to speak.)
“The newspaper was named CityPaper’s ‘Best Remnant of the Liberal Media’ for 2008.” (interesting)
The link is
http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/
And my response to a racist attack..
“……and one percent IQ ”
Did YOU ever actually meet him and talk to him.
Do you know all the things he did – after he retired from boxing?
Do you know that he worked as a “Nurse” To VERY Old Soldiers
Do you know anything about your own 1%?
What The Fuck have You Done To Actually HELP another human being in your life???
Gary Mason made all the Old Soldiers Smile. He had a wonderful sense of humour and there was absolutely Nothing Racist about him whatsoever and neither was their in The Old Soldiers Who Loved Him To Bits Because He CARED For Them
1% ?
Gary Mason Always Gave 100%
Tony
“when you say it looks like a textbook case of ‘steaming’ what do you mean, and what conclusions do you draw?”
–technicolour
I’m curious too, if anyone knows what “steaming” is.
“Or is Labour beyond redemption?”
Was that rhetorical? Anyway, the answer is yes. A more interesting question: just when were they lost? I think a long time ago – maybe even at the beginning, when they subsumed the Independent Labour Party. My great granny-in-law used to go around with a bucket of distemper sloshing ILP slogans on the walls of Glasgow closes. I can’t imagine anyone’s granny doing that for New Labour (isn’t distemper just absolutely the correct medium for radical graffiti?).
We’ve had the conversation here in the past about the difficulty of connecting up any kind of leftism. The leftists we have at the moment would rather stick their faces in bowl of boiling fat than connect with anything. We need a party of people like the army officer who appears intermittently in the in the Python sketches saying: no, no stop – this is too silly. Introspection usually works out to a recipe for inaction. Ask Hamlet. Or Monty Python.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YawagQ6lLrA
Craig,
Welcome back home…
Good to see you are back in fine form.
Love and Peace,
Tony
dreoilin: Good news for once, eh? With a load of hits worldwide for that small newspaper, and maybe a couple of encouraging letters to the editor, I hope she’ll be a star for them, and see out the rest of her working life quite happily. To think she’s been going all this time, and it takes the Obama regime to kick her out. Disgraceful.
(Here’s hoping I don’t get censored again. If it does, it’s the last post I ever make here.)
The only reference to ‘steaming’ I’ve ever come across is when a whole bunch of scrotes – maybe 30 or more – goes piling through a shop stealing items. The chances of getting nabbed are minimal, and in any case – the security staff will be overwhelmed by numbers. They’ll get a clobbering themselves if they try apprehending one. It used to be quite the fashion back in the 1980’s, and French teenagers were particularly fond of it while on day-trips here.
(Moderated: off-topic.)