I had almost brought myself to the point of formally announcing the closure of this blog.
I cannot explain to you why the trend of recent political society in the West depresses me to the point of introversion and withdrawal. Almost everyone else manages to get on with it. It is an accepted, even commonplace fact of political discourse that inequality is rampant, that the gap between rich and poor in our economy has been widening and the trend accelerates, that social mobility has been turned backwards and we have a government dominated not just by wealth and status but by inherited wealth and status. The state itself has become, ever more blatantly, a mechanism for funneling money from ordinary people and giving it to the very rich, be it in bank bailouts, quantitative easing doled again to the banks, private finance initiative payments (liabilities totalling over £200 billion in taxpayer paid interest in the NHS alone) or “market driven” takeover of public services, or a hundred more ways.
My own professional struggle, which focused on trying to block use of intelligence gained by torture, seems only an attempt to divert a tiny ripple within a tsunami of contempt for morality in public life. The practice of torture exploitation has not ended; the Gibson inquiry into official complicity with torture has been unceremoniously halted as the guilty and directly responsible polish the green leather benches of the House of Lords with their expensively suited rumps, or inhabit their offices as Permanent Under Secretaries, or command large offices in BP. The SAS, CIA and Saudis play at overmastering the Russians in a new proxy war in Syria that, yet again, thanks to foreign military interference promises to be a still greater evil than the regime that preceded it. The media propaganda is yet more cynically distorted to a simplistic portrayal of “our” good guys and the evil bad guys, when in truth, as nearly always, the leaderships in resource wars on all sides are bad and the interests of the people are far from their hearts.
Democracy in the UK has become almost meaningless. A monopoly of effective news flow by a deeply corrupt corporate media has crystallised the major party structures as the only real choices in the consciousness of the vast majority of voters. Those major parties have been so bought up by those same corporate interests that there is no genuine choice of policy on offer. If you were against the handing of untold billions of your money to the bankers, or the interminable and pointless Afghan War, you were one of a very large percentage of the population but had no mainstream party which respected, let alone represented, your view.
New horror after new horror representative of this dreadful state of affairs arises every day. The latest casualties in drone strikes, which kill 20 innocents for every alleged terrorist they succeed in executing without process of law. Three young British soldiers dead today for no purpose whatsoever. The first NHS Trust goes under because of PFI debt. This week the Bank of England is expected to print another £50 billion in quantitative easing and hand it straight to the banks to be eventually paid out in salaries and bonuses.
The extraordinary way in which the middlemen who facilitate financial transactions in trade, suddenly through distorted legal frameworks became the chief individual beneficiaries of activity in the physical economy, is revealed every week in more and more detail of horrific corruption. But nothing whatever is done to stop them, let alone punish the guilty. They own the entire political establishment.
Occasional shafts of humour penetrate the stygian murk. Chloe Smith is revealed as completely inadequate by Jeremy Paxman. We could have told him that – at the Norwich North byelection the Conservative Party were desperate never to allow her to face questioning, and on this blog I offered a cash reward to anybody who spotted her with less than five minders. It was never claimed.
What really made me laugh was the report in the Guardian that she was given her ministerial position in the Treasury by David Cameron in the mistaken belief that, as she had worked for Deloitte, she must know something about finance. Why this is really funny is that the only job she ever had at Deloitte was not, as variously reported in the mainstream media, in PR or human resources, but in fact to be seconded to the Conservative Party. Chloe never had any job except as Conservative Party staff. She was then taken on by Deloitte and instantly seconded back to the Conservative Party; her working for Deloitte at all was a fiction. Whether this was to evade political donation rules or just to burnish her CV as a parliamentary candidate, I have no idea.
That the experience Cameron thought qualified her as a Treasury minister was actually a secondment to the Tory Party by one of those lobbying major corporate financial interests – and Deloitte was the Royal Bank of Scotland’s auditors – is so rich it moves beyond satire. I can scarcely believe it myself. In fact it gave rise to such paroxysms of bitter laughter that I found the strength to blog again. Thank you Chloe and Dave for that, anyway.
“Atos Healthcare”
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“Atos creates 50 “high value” IT jobs in Scotland
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EDF Energy selects Atos for £100m datacentre services deal
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Nuclear Decommissioning Authority selects Atos for £140m IT outsourcing contract
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Atos CEO: Olympics data loss of greater concern than cyber attacks”
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“Welsh government signs £70m contract extension with Atos”
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http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2186773/welsh-government-signs-gbp70m-contract-extension-atos#ixzz1zSijPTlX
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Atos
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{http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Atos}
“Atos Healthcare”
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If my memory serves me right ?, I remember reading that “Atos” was started up in Australia by the wife off (at that time) a high ranking Australian labor party minister. I wonder what connection they have with NuLabour here in the UK ?, who awarded contracts to Atos ?. Does the wife off (at that time) a high ranking Australian labor party minister still have some connection to “Atos” ?, shares etc ?. I know Atos has been sold on since it was first set up.
Such is the irrelevance of our parliament, that a Conservative member, Oliver Colvile, wasted time this afternoon introducing a 10 Minute Rule Bill proposing that husbands of Dame Commanders get a title, etc.
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Yet in spite of the chaos in the country, two backbencher debates have been cancelled on Thursday to make way for a debate on the banking industry and on what sort of inquiry should be called for.
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At the moment, there is a turgid debate with a dozen or so members present, on the niceties of VAT taxation. Silly little Chloe Smith is there with Gauke, the Treasury Minister responsible. She occasionally laughs and giggles. It’s all such fun!
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PS Last year she made her first trip to Israel as a new member of the Conservative Friends of Israel and paid for by the Israeli government. She receives a fair number of donations. Why I am not sure.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=24691
“East Lancashire calls to Samaritans helpline rises by 30%”
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http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9794636.East_Lancashire_calls_to_Samaritans_helpline_rises_by_30_/
“Early Day Motion 295”
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“ATOS Session 2012-13 Date tabled: 28.06.2012 Primary sponsor: McDonnell, John Sponsors: Text:”
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“That this House deplores that thousands of sick and disabled constituents are experiencing immense hardship after being deprived of benefits following a work capability assessment carried out by Atos Healthcare under a 100 million a year contract; notes that 40 per cent of appeals are successful but people wait up to six months for them to be heard; deplores that last year 1,100 claimants died while under compulsory work-related activity for benefit and that a number of those found fit for work and left without income have committed or attempted suicide; condemns the International Paralympic Committee’s promotion of Atos as its top sponsor and the sponsorship of the Olympics by Dow Chemical and other corporations responsible for causing death and disability; welcomes the actions taken by disabled people, carers, bereaved relatives and organisations to end this brutality and uphold entitlement to benefits; and applauds the British Medical Association call for the work capability assessment to end immediately and to be replaced with a system that does not cause harm to some of the most vulnerable people in society.”
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http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/business-papers/commons/early-day-motions/edm-detail1/?session=2012-13&edmnumber=295&or
Mark and Guest Atos has been the subject of many questions in the HoC recently.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?s=atos
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There was also a mention today. There is a double cost from the tribunals that ensue from their assessments.
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John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and others have put down this EDM. The appointment of ATOS is an absolute scandal.
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ATOS EDM 295
Session: 2012-13
Date tabled: 28.06.2012
Primary sponsor: McDonnell, John
Sponsors:Corbyn, Jeremy
Edwards, Jonathan
Havard, Dai
Lavery, Ian
Turner, Karl
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That this House deplores that thousands of sick and disabled constituents are experiencing immense hardship after being deprived of benefits following a work capability assessment carried out by Atos Healthcare under a 100 million a year contract; notes that 40 per cent of appeals are successful but people wait up to six months for them to be heard; deplores that last year 1,100 claimants died while under compulsory work-related activity for benefit and that a number of those found fit for work and left without income have committed or attempted suicide; condemns the International Paralympic Committee’s promotion of Atos as its top sponsor and the sponsorship of the Olympics by Dow Chemical and other corporations responsible for causing death and disability; welcomes the actions taken by disabled people, carers, bereaved relatives and organisations to end this brutality and uphold entitlement to benefits; and applauds the British Medical Association call for the work capability assessment to end immediately and to be replaced with a system that does not cause harm to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
“Dow Chemical”
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Didn’t “Dow Chemical” take over the Union Carbide company ?.
“Vanity Fair: Investigating Mitt Romney’s Offshore Accounts”
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http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=78886649f82a07d31af32499fb4e0fca&showtopic=19255&hl=
Pakistan have caved in which proves you can get what you want if you kill over 20 people using drones.
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The Nato fuel convoys have frequently come under attack in Pakistan
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Pakistan is to re-open crucial supply routes to Nato-led forces in Afghanistan after Washington apologised for killing 24 of its soldiers in November, the US has announced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18691691#
Good man for staying on Craig.
Bon courage, mon ami, bon courage. You plough a lonely furrow, but stick with it, please.
I am glad to see you are back.
Note the intelligent reflection of your commenters – not a contentious lot.
You remind me here of a similar post by a Greek lady on My Opera Community. Her disillusionment wore her spirits sorely. I noted the dissipating of the veil resembled accounts of loss of the glamour of faerie being greeted with groans by the mortal subjects of delusion.
Moving the goalposts has more than one result. Unrealistic expectations can be updated with a worldview more conducive to lucid reflection. We seem to have lost the ability to see that the past was not the idealized place it has been painted.
http://www.mtwsfh.blogspot.com/
I happened to notice this in the current feed
http://inthesetimes.com/article/13463/our_kind_of_torturing_town/
Craig
Ever thought of standing for Parliament?
If my other hero George G can get himself elected, then so can you!!
There is a nasty rumour going around the blogs that the government have appointed a Barclays banker to run the national health service. It all makes sense the way things are going…
Johnstone Craig stood as an Independent in a by election in Norwich North in 2009. Many obstacles were put in his way from the LEA refusing the use of a school hall for a meeting to the grossly unfair BBC coverage and the local media’s too. It was an exhausting and expensive process for him and one he will probably not repeat.
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http://tinyurl.com/br2apxj links to a google search of his blog pieces and other coverage
Hi Craig
Please dont give up on the blog – it is a really important forum.
Even if you dont feel like writing much the comment/ discussion is very good to read, and i am sure there are many like myself who do not comment much but are regular followers.
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I feel just like you do, and sometimes that makes it very difficult to motivate yourself to do anything, but blogs like this, and hearing about what you are doing, really help. It brings like-minded people together, and thats the first pre-requisite for resistance.
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As regards Mary’s suggestion …. “I think we ought to club together and set up a fund for Craig”. I’d be into that.
And organising a meeting for supporters
Craig
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“This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, in its place is something that you left behind let it be something good.”
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Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
“17 March 2009”
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“Barclays gags Guardian over tax”
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/17/barclays-guardian-injunction-tax
“Barclays Bank gags Guardian over leaked memos detailing offshore tax scam, 16 Mar 2009”
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http://wikileaks.org/wiki/The_Guardian:_Censored_Barclays_tax_avoidance_leaked_memos%2C_16_Mar_2009
Delighted that you are back in the game Craig. Don’t lose the faith, keep the flame alive. We are brief candles, but you burn brighter than most and light the way for thousands of others. I’m a teacher in a state secondary in inner-London and am constantly encouraged by the honesty, decency and idealism of our kids. We need insights like yours. I’ve been checking daily for weeks for updates and it is always a pleasure to feel there are other fellow-travellers out there. Keep fighting the good fight, – you are not done yet!!!
Guest I see that we both posted the EDM on the activities of ATOS.
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This was the question asked in the HoC today. Djanogly is a minister in the Justice Dept and did not answer the question. Slippery.
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Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op):
The Secretary of State will know that his Department will face tribunal costs of almost £50 million, largely arising from appeals to the work capability assessment. Given that 40% of those appeals are successful, is it not now time that his Department and the Tribunal Service discussed with Atos Healthcare how to get some of the money back—otherwise, the public are paying twice for wrong decisions?
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Mr Djanogly:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Better decisions need to be made by Departments in the first place so that fewer are appealed, and the Ministry of Justice is working with other Departments to that end.
“Guest I see that we both posted the EDM on the activities of ATOS.”
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Mary, I noticed that, was strange, almost at the same time!!!. You must have been writing yours as I posted mine, weird, maybe something in that astral plane mumbo-jumbo after all, who knows!!!.
Inspiring post.Great comments
Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush-
Don’t give up
In this proud land we grew up strong
We were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could fail
No fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
Ive changed my face, Ive changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose
Dont give up
cos you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not beaten yet
Dont give up
I know you can make it good
Though I saw it all around
Never thought I could be affected
Thought that wed be the last to go
It is so strange the way things turn
Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground
Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up
We dont need much of anything
Dont give up
cause somewhere theres a place
Where we belong
Rest your head
You worry too much
Its going to be alright
When times get rough
You can fall back on us
Dont give up
Please dont give up
got to walk out of here
I cant take anymore
Going to stand on that bridge
Keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come
And whatever may go
That rivers flowing
That rivers flowing
Moved on to another town
Tried hard to settle down
For every job, so many men
So many men no-one needs
Dont give up
cause you have friends
Dont give up
Youre not the only one
Dont give up
No reason to be ashamed
Dont give up
You still have us
Dont give up now
Were proud of who you are
Dont give up
You know its never been easy
Dont give up
cause I believe theres the a place
Theres a place where we belong
Craig,
Great post.
Please do not discontinue the conversation here. It is imperative that we all support one another through what promises to be a long long period of darkness.
Without one another to look to for reassurance, there is only the descent into madness that comes when living in a world where the vast majority simply refuse (or are too blind to see) what is happening.
But it was perhaps ever thus, all that has changed is the stakes have been raised, as the technologies of power have increased and the few believe they are now placed to recast society in a more brutalist fashion, confident that their unrolling surveillance state and private sector partners and media wizards can successfully prevent any organized opposition from forming.
Are they right?
great link Opit,and Kingfelix are you questioning the narrowing of public discourse and perception, or the lack of practical availability to make change happen? apathetic voters (less than 35% voted ion local elections)are of no matter and this questions the whole idea of whether one man one vote is really democratic.
Would it be not more democratic to choose a form or random representation, better for democracy, corruption, large manipulations of sums and public expenses, etc. and for what? a Government that has not received more than 36% of the vote?
So , somethin’s gonna stir, bor, or’t be rainin’ over Wil’s hous
The Yanks took interrogation away from trained professionals who ‘sympathized’ with prisoners to elicit information. Their transgressions at abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Bagram have been more blatant than UK practice, though reports would lead one to believe torture is endemic throughout the ABCA alliance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABCA_Armies Canadians, for instance, have been reported as assiduous in turning over ‘kettled’ Afghans for torture. That led to them being turned over to the US…which is now to turn them over to the Afghans. Secret services systematically induced field replication of the Milgram experiment. Conditions in US prisons are now scarce to be believed. http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/iraq/tagubarpt.html outlines the situation as ignored by Cheney/Bush.
Thoughts?
An extremist group has seized the African city of Timbuktu, systematically destroying its monuments.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/these-600-year-old-world-heritage-sites-might-be-rubble-by-august/259360/
@Nevermind. the short answer to your two questions is Yes and Yes.
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I am one of those people that Craig refers to; I read through the manifestos of the 3 main parties and discovered their only difference on Iraq/Afghanistan was quite how much enthusiasm they could conjure up for it. That policy is locked in. As I wanted first and foremost to cast my vote for a party that would end British military involvement in those two illegal occupations, I was left, strangely, with only the BNP.
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So, no vote.
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I don’t believe the solution lies through the so-called democratic process right now. That doesn’t mean I advocate armed revolution, but some social movement will have to spontaneously arise that channels widespread public dissatisfaction over the direction the UK is going in. It seems to me that this is why the ‘culture wars’ are coming to the UK, as the controllers of the largest media outlets set about spreading confusion and seeking to divide and rule. The coverage of Assange is one example, Craig writes about it. But the Ian Tomlinson case was also deeply instructive, for the way the media outlets will continually transfer on to the victim the blame for the violence they have suffered.
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It’s all very well being subject to ‘house-cleaning’ inquiries, but they only clean the rooms and change the furniture, never address the rotten structure.
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I’m the most politically aware person I know, in my daily life, and yet I am also the least engaged with any practical politics, in fact, I left the UK 8 years ago because there appeared to be no way to make any sort of difference. As we see with the Mark Kennedy infiltration, those who even threaten to get anything done, even if they are operating completely within the law, will be subject to surveillance, infiltration, and whatever trumped up charges/honey traps/etc are required to discredit and disband them. Just as happened to Craig and many others.
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On the above grounds, the confounding of change through the ballot box on the most important policy issues, and the use of surveillance and infiltration to break up movements seeking to organize against the state, I am extremely pessimistic. I also don’t believe that ‘exposing the truth’ works, either. What the Wikileaks cables have shown, at least in the West, is that even if the front pages of newspapers are full of the misdeeds, duplicity, and outright crimes of the Western powers, those powers are not shaken by such disclosures. Instead, these revelations close the book on the issue, and effectively render the torture and illegal surveillance and the drone strikes to be ‘business as usual’, something that is now wholly bipartisan and simply how our countries do things.
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Again, despite Iraq and Afghanistan, the same methods were used to go into Libyia, now Syria is up, then Iran. I place a lot of emphasis on the Iranian question. To me, Iran is EndGame. If the Western powers go into Iran, it shows there is nothing on this planet that can halt their agenda, an agenda which I believe will be catastrophic for all but the chosen few.
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But how am I, or anybody else, going to be able to counter their propaganda, or to stop a US aircraft carrier going to the Straits of Hormuz, or stop the State Department hiring mercenaries to do something, or stop Turkey flying in another jet to be shot down for effect?
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We’re just spectators at this point, but I hope one day that history will deliver the chance to play some meaningful role. In the meantime, to console myself, I study at a very good medical university, do social research on the poor, and take part in medical missions in developing countries. I can’t think of anything more than trying to make a positive contribution in my daily life to offset the tremendous shame I feel about the actions emanating from London and Washington.