I have a guilty political secret. I do not detest Gordon Brown. That is such an unfashionable opinion that I don’t really expect any comments at all to agree with it. And yes, I do realise that he went along with the Iraq War and all the other horrors of the Blair era. Interestingly, I don’t remember the question of what Gordon Brown really thought about Iraq ever being discussed; he deserves condemnation for having not tried to stop it, and perhaps he was indeed an enthusiast. And I am well aware that the Private Finance Initiative is a terrible disaster, and that he oversaw creeping privatisation in the health services, and – worst of all – the introduction of tuition fees.
And yet I cannot dislike him. Probably because I just know too many people who have known him through decades, who are themselves good people, and who like him. Around Edinburgh and Fife you will find it hard to find people who actually know him who share the hatred and contempt he seems to arouse among the political and media classes of London.
As a general rule I do not like or dislike people according to their politics, but rather according to the sincerity of their political beliefs and the goodwill with which they hold them. I am sure Anders Breivik is sincere in his political beliefs, but those are lacking in goodwill. Sincerity is not enough – humanity and inclusiveness are also important.
There are one nation Tories who seem to me perfectly decent people, genuinely trying to do good. I don’t hate them because their political conclusions on the best way to do good are different to mine. Gordon Brown I put rather in the same category – I feel he was trying to do good for ordinary people, he just got it wrong.
Blair is in a whole different category again – insincere, absolutely focused on attaining personal power, and with a Messianic belief that what is good for him must be good for the World. The Guardian is publishing some emails around the Blair Brown rivalry this week. I don’t care and won’t read them. But while I see Blair as quite properly damned for eternity to the seventh pit of hell, I don’t think Brown deserves anything worse than North Queensferry.
I have been in Ghana the last 20 days living in a house with no internet connection and working (extremely hard) in an office with virtually no internet connection – not enough to load WordPress. I hope to get more chance to blog shortly.
I agree with you on this Craig. I felt Gordon’s heart was in the right place but he was clumsy, unfortunate and yes, wrong. I hate Blair and everything he did I pitied Gordon.
New thread. Same old concerns.
Drumbeats drumbeats, still chuntering away in the background…
Nato/US is upping the force threat, just a notch; Putin is saying we can’t be “100 per cent certain” the CW can be removed from Syria. The chess continues. Putin thinks Syria is still on the menu; and with the shooting down of their “test” missile, the US wonders if Russia might actually fight back.
And everyone knows Iran is next if Syria does get “liberated” by the decaying petrodollar empire.
Sorry, jjust realised you wrote that crap for legal reasons.
I am not obsessed by neocon wars.
I am not obsessed by neocon wars.
I am not…
Good to hear you are well, and working Away
I was often of two minds on Brown, he looked relieved big time to be walking out of that street with his family. Off course not before much carnage was done in Iraq – i firmly believe he was Genuinely Sorry, So sorry to grieving uk parent – But in the Real world – there was hell on Earth being heaped upon Irag, Still is compared to pr-western intervention, in both wars, which included the sanctions that caused the Iraqi infanticde….THAT Was Real
When Brown was managing the national economy I was somewhat skeptical about his ‘endogenous growth theory’, and also his worship of the ‘British Housing Market'(1/5 conditions against joining Euro). Much social housing was demolished during the 2001-2008 period of Labour government in order to stimulate the private property market.
Presenting Gordon Brown:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649308.stm
Departing Mr Brown told this women, “Very nice to meet you, very nice to meet you.”
Overheard after the ‘encounter’ Mr Brown called this widowed pensioner, a ‘bigoted women’- he continued, “I mean it’s just ridiculous.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649042.stm
Is that goodwill; is that veracity; is that sincerity? No it is NOT.
These ‘zombies’ represent us, yet they steal from us, force suicides through financial stress and eviction and create wars which murder innocent civilians and children.
Why do we indulge them? How can we justify these surrogates for our lives who are experts at nothing except prattle and enacting laws to control us?
Of course the answer is the system; the corpocracy which our leaders serve, by which they are manipulated, fingered by gluttony, greed and delusions of power.
Mary may have found it refreshing but I totally agree with Anon about how the last thread became little short of a sewer without the antiseptic cleansing element provided by dissenting elements. We have had John Goss making constant references to the Rothchilds ruling the world based on an analysis by a notorius anti-semite who bases his case on Protools of Zion type logic and to which this blog still includes a link, we have had Holocaust denial in buckets full by the likes of Daniel Rich and joy of joy Mary returned (despite of her promise not to do so until all dissident elements had been banned) to have a go at those who enjoy cycling and want to watch their heroes and got up to her old tricks of conflating anti zionism with a bit of petty anti semitism (the other side of this coin is those who try to conflate criticism of Israel and support of the Palestinian cause with anti- semitism – but many here fail to realise how they in fact just provide support to that attitude by their behaviour) . We also had a pretty thinly veiled attack on the first Iranian politician for a long time who has tried to improve human rights in that poor benighted country.
Whichever of the contributors here who decided to post on the Stormfront forum asking their fellow racists and fascists to come here and attack Habbakkuk and support Mary must know be looking at the last thread with some degree of pride – and how hamfisted moderation actually assisted their efforts (although I know Jon well enough by now to know that was not his intention).
On the subject of Holocaust denial, perhaps Craig should consider what he said on the subject a while back:
“I have met people who were in the death camps, and people who liberated them. I view people who deny that the industrialised murder happened as cranky, and I don’t think disputes over precise numbers are of much importance.
But neither do I think holocaust denial should be a crime. It should be met with ridicule and social sanction, not with prison. From reports Honsik seems a nasty bit of work, whose holocaust denial is motivated by Nazi sympathy. But he is given a spurious glamour by his imprisonment, and more attention than he deserves.”
Perhaps he might then wish to consider where has been the ridicule and social sanction for its occurence on his own blog – especially when the one poster who would have been most likely to offer a swift rebuttal was removed by the near constant pressure on the moderator by those who while on the whole not being Holocaust deniers do rather like to downplay its relevance and importance.
Jon
Could I suggest that you look at the Rothschilds link provided and referred to ad nauseam by John Goss – I would appreciate your views on whether you find the page referred to overtly anti-semitic or not. The link I provided will provide further elucidation on the views of its author Daryl Bradford Smith.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Hodge Blames Gordon For Vodafone Tax Dodge
Margaret Hodge isn’t wasting any opportunity to bleat about the £84 billion Vodafone/Verizon deal today:
“We must demand reassurance that HMRC has thoroughly examined this proposition to ensure British taxpayers get their rightful share of this massive profit. If there’s a flaw in legislation it has to be urgently addressed by Treasury ministers. I don’t understand how anyone can justify such a massive windfall without handing a fair share to the Exchequer. If this is an instance in which Vodafone has simply played the system then clearly they themselves have an obligation to UK consumers, on whom they depend for their business, to do the right thing.”
Flaws in legislation, you say? Well the two companies are exploiting the so-called “Substantial Shareholder Exemption” loophole to legally dodge the tax, the very same loophole used by Guardian Media Group when it sold Autotrader. SSE is a corporation tax exemption for businesses disposing of a substantial shareholding in a part of their business. The idea is that businesses should be able to restructure their businesses without having to worry about chargeable gains implications. And who was it introduced by? One Gordon Brown…
~~
Only one flaw there from Mrs ‘Enver’ Hodge. She voted for it.
PS Gordo exempted himself from the Syria debate. Where was he? Politically convenient perhaps.
http://order-order.com/tag/gordon-brown/
Labourites absent from both votes on 29 August 2013
Ian Austin (Labour)
Robert Blackman-Woods (Labour)
Hazel Blears (Labour)
Paul Blomfield (Labour)
Gordon Brown (Labour)
Richard Burden (Labour)
Sarah Champion (Labour)
Michael Connarty (Labour)
Rosie Cooper (Labour)
David Crausby (Labour)
John Cryer (Labour)
Ian Davidson (Labour )
Yvonne Fovargue (Labour)
Lilian Greenwood (Labour)
Peter Hain (Labour)
David Hanson (Labour)
David Heyes (Labour)
Sharon Hodgson (Labour)
Diana Johnson (Labour)
Barbara Keeley (Labour)
Andrew Love (Labour )
Siobhain McDonagh (Labour)
Austin Mitchell (Labour)
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour)
Emma Reynolds (Labour)
Dame Joan Ruddock (Labour)
Angela Smith (Labour)
John Spellar (Labour)
Karl Turner (Labour)
Shaun Woodward (Labour)
From his entry on TWFU. His constituents in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath must be thrilled.
Has spoken in 3 debates in the last year — well below average amongst MPs.
Has received answers to 15 written questions in the last year — average amongst MPs.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10068/gordon_brown/kirkcaldy_and_cowdenbeath#hansard
Nearly a full house of trolls now. I knew the ‘peace’ would not last.
I see RD is taking over from Habbabkuk in chanelling me and is even bringing up the Stormfront smear thing again. Could he leave me out of his tripe please.
btw who was it who was involved in the Stormfront smear? Any ideas?
Christ. Is this thread going to hell in a handbasket too?
Considering the last ten months of crap fest, it appears that again the keyboard warriors are filing in to register their dismay about the “antis….”, and reconsideration of the “decision” of the Mod. This line of attack has been over and again exercised elsewhere, with the resultants attained status of the sacred cow that even the mere mention of the certain words are not considered “tropes” and clear and present cases of “antis……”.
Firstly is it now mandate that we must all “Love” the _ews? Is it against the law to be indifferent or choose the don’t care option? Secondly in a post Christian UK WTF has this new article has to do with the not so dearly departed disruptive tosser, who had the temerity to come back and join in as though he was not thrown out on his ears, or the perceived incidents of “antis…”?
Why do we have to be subject to this kind of systemic attack and stay silent?
This is to register our dissatisfaction with these meddlesome whine merchants who have nothing of any value to add, other than whine, moan, and complains, in the way of making acceptable the inhumane and dastardly practices of a bunch of ziofuckwits, by suppressing any kind of dissent.
Why do these delicate “special” lot don’t fuck off and read somewhere else which is not as “hostile” to their delicate supremacist disposition? Why do we have to put up with them Mod? (Just to balance things out a bit, you realise)
Ben Franklin : I’m surprised it lasted that long mate!
Funny how those who claim to be against censorship constantly want others to STFU, using constipating logic, based on tribal ingredients and it’s all about ‘them’ never the ‘other.’ I’d rather prefer the sound of no hands yakking.
@ Glenn_uk,
Given
MurdererMurdock’s Kingmaker proportions in the UK the following ‘Why the US media ignored Murdoch’s brazen bid to hijack the presidency’ might not come as a real surprise.I don’t see Brown as the epithet of evil, but in the cutthroat environment of bloody politics you’d better be a shark and not a gullible guppy.
@ Resident Dissident,
Fair warning: this is strike 2.
Damian McBride’s book is being serialized. S**t to hit the fan.
The McPoison papers: Confessions of rogue spin doctor Damian McBride
As Gordon Brown’s communications chief, he smeared and span with a savagery that eventually saw him drummed out of politics. Now he has written a tell-all memoir. James Cusick gets a preview
Thursday 19 September 2013
Related
Blairites fight back with release of Damian aides’ emails
Senior Labour MP, George Mudie, blasts Ed Miliband and warns of 2015 poll defeat
Damian McBride’s poison pen looms over Ed Miliband as memoirs of Gordon Brown’s former spin-doctor set to be published
Heeeere’s Tony! Blair’s plan to ‘re-engage’ with British politics
Ed unveils Labour’s ‘new’ signing
Over the past few weeks Gordon Brown has telephoned some of his former aides and told them he’s now worried about “the book”. The assurances he’s been offered – that “everyone gets f***ed over except you, Sarah [Brown], Ed [Balls] and Damian himself of course” – haven’t been enough to calm the former prime minister down. The serialisation this weekend of Power Trip, the first insider account of life inside Brown’s Treasury and Downing Street courts, is expected to confirm his worst fear: that he made a mistake last year when he discussed with McBride, his former spin doctor, just who merited being attacked now that he was away from frontline politics.
Those who have known both men also expect the book to re-open old wounds, spark consequential revenge, and to engender retribution – according to a still-loyal Brownite – “worthy of Machiavelli and Don f***ing Corleone”.
/..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-mcpoison-papers-confessions-of-rogue-spin-doctor-damian-mcbride-8827726.html
“Sincerity is not enough – humanity and inclusiveness are also important.”
I’m sorry but Gordon Brown fails right there, as he has unforgivable blood on his hands; all those that turn a blind eye to this because he meant to do the right thing, especially on domestic issues, are in effect saying that a few pennies here & there for the poor here, etc, is so much more important than the lives of foreigners over there, and this acceptance of “meaning to do the right thing”, is exactly what Blair believes absolves him from his monstrous foreign policy crimes.
Brown had the power to stop Blair in his tracks right upto the last footsteps on that infamous march to war, he may not have prevented Bush going alone, but his resignation would have certainly put Blair in a very difficult if not impossible position to go with the Yanks. He should have followed Robin Cook’s example, as he must have realised that he had the power to possibly avert a war & the inevitably resulting mass killing & suffering, instead as Chancellor he gave the obliging financial green light & political go ahead by stating “”I told [Tony Blair] I would not – and this was right at the beginning – try to rule out any military option on the grounds of cost. Quite the opposite. He should feel free, because this was the right course of action, to discuss the military option that was best for our country and the one that would yield the best results”, and of course even in hindsight, he still defends this Crime Against Humanity, with this infamous quote, “”I think it was the right decision and made for the right reasons.”
Not one of your best Post Craig.
Dead right Macky. He wrote and signed the cheques for Afghanistan and Iraq.
Quite a telling photo of the twisted pair in this Mail article announcing McBride’s book launch timed to coincide with the party conference.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/03/28/article-0-0AFD8941000005DC-351_634x400.jpg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300524/Damian-McBride-publish-explosive-memoir-revealing-New-Labours-darkest-secrets.html
What a bunch. I always felt that many of the NuLabour lot had something on each other – a kind of mutual blackmail.
Resident Dissident: “”especially when the one poster who would have been most likely to offer a swift rebuttal was removed”
Was removed after making yet another grossly offensive remark, and after a full ten months of vile filled trolling, & bullying, & sock-puppeting ,etc, etc. On any other Blog, he would have been banned in a matter of days, not MONTHS !
It is obvious that the Contrarians here, consider him as their ablest champion, which really is actually an own-goal type sorrowful indictment; surely it’s not beyond RD, or any of the other Contrarians, to “offer a swift rebuttal” whenever he/they feel that it is warranted, and preferably without the characteristic venomous abuse of the rightly banned Troll.
Staging the Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria
Just listen to the Wanky Moon; “there is evidence that a relatively large scale attack”. The numbers of dead Syrians are not even one hours worth of murder in Iraq or Afghanistan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24170129
Greenpeace has been stalking and Putin filed a restraining order.
@ Macky,
Q: Not one of your best Post Craig.
R: I don’t know about better or lesser, but I appreciate any wo/man who is honest about his/her feelings/thinking/emotions/ideas/etc. The truth really doesn’t hurt; lies do. I can disagree with a man’s thoughts, but never his heart.
Correction: I realized that in the previous thread I mentioned I wanted to write a book. I should have mentioned the correct time line: I was trying to find out what had happened to one half of my family when I came across so many inconsistencies [I grew up with the horrors of soap and lampshades], that I decided to pen it all down [but in the end never did]. My apologies.
Deffo a Pattern here, On how best to Disrupt the threads / Blog
As RD has immediately Just done on this thread
Here’s Robert Fisk’s Spanner in the works Re whom the Moral ones are
Robert Fisk on Christian Zionism:
“Having once been sustained by the progressive left, Israel now draws its principal support from right-wing conservatism of a particularly unpleasant kind. Christian evangelicals believe that all Jews will die if they do not convert to Christianity on the coming of the Messiah. And right-wing racists in Europe – the most prominent of them being Dutch – are welcome in Israel, while the likes of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are not”.
And
As Tony Greenstein has written in The Guardian,
Like the boy who cried wolf, the charge of “anti-semitism” has been made so often against critics of Zionism and the Israeli state that people now have difficulty recognising the genuine article.
So absurd has the situation become that the allegation of anti-semitism is even made when Jews disagree among themselves. That is why the suggestion by Alvin Rosenfield that “anti-Zionism is the form that much of today’s anti-semitism takes” needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
One of the consequences of this abuse of the term “anti-semitism” is to devalue the currency. It renders it almost meaningless because people assume that allegations of anti-semitism are merely the last-ditch resort of those who are incapable of defending the Apartheid Wall that separates the people of the West Bank from their land, the bulldozing of civilian houses, the wanton destruction of olive groves and crops, to say nothing of the theft of their land.
Anti-semitism today is not a mainstream form of racism. It is asylum seekers, Muslims and black people who face stop-and-search, control orders and racial profiling, not Jewish people.
Daniel
Would it be too late now, that would make for soul searching reading and add to historical accounts, though i can see how re-visiting those Memories could be too painful.
Daniel Rich: “The truth really doesn’t hurt; lies do. I can disagree with a man’s thoughts, but never his heart.”
Yes it’s impossible to argue with what others feels in their, or in your own, heart, the feelings exist as solid & as true as any indisputable fact, & it’s always right to appreciate & value honesty, so you will not disagree with me either when I tell you that both my heart & my head are telling me that this particular piece of truth, namely that Craig “cannot dislike” Brown, on the strength of an inverse sort of guilt by association, & regardless as to whetever Brown was “an enthusiast” for the attack on Iraq or not, hurts my own high regard for himself, even whilst appreciating his frank honesty.
You may have hear about this ‘neo-Nazi’ murder in Greece;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24158845
It moved one Greek comic strip artist to pen this;
https://scontent-b-cdg.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/1240119_397613397030763_298598121_n.jpg
@ Macky,
If what you say is what you honestly believe in, who am I to judge you?
Syrian news: Islamist rebels declare war on non-Islamist rebels, seize border town + Syrian government says war has reached stalemate.
Does anyone see light at the end of this barbarically dark tunnel?
@ BrainFujisan,
It’s always easier to look at things in hindsight and comment, but I sometimes wonder what I was thinking when I ran over a frozen lake, knowing the ice was to thin, only to prove I was a cool guy [and, of course, I went through it]? But that act endangered mostly myself, because I got [luckily] out on my own. I think Macky expressed it perfectly when s/he said:
““…meaning to do the right thing”, is exactly what Blair believes absolves him from his monstrous foreign policy crimes.
Brown had the power to stop Blair in his tracks right upto the last footsteps on that infamous march to war, he may not have prevented Bush going alone, but his resignation would have certainly put Blair in a very difficult if not impossible position to go with the Yanks.”
Blair really seems to think God guided him [as a lawyer, who can argue with the ‘Big Boss?’], whereas Brown should have done the courageous thing and resign. He is not guilty by association, but by his inaction to stop the wrongdoing or stop being part of it.
In have to admit though, that I say this as a layman. I don’t personally know what it feels like to be PM of a country.
No time now to ponder on the flaws or merits of Gordon Brown. He may be a guy with some kind of heart but he served and he too messed up
Very possible staged filming of chemical attack in Syria: Children in video ‘moved between locations’
http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/09/19/staged-filming-of-chemical-attack-in-syria-children-in-video-moved-between-locations/
On another fairly relevant note, Resident dissident fails the basic human decency exam by the flawed referral to a singular holocaust. As a human race we should be sickened and angered by all holocausts, whether it be the horrible and deliberate starving of up to 10 million Ukrainians by the Russian/Jewish Bolshevicks, the 20 million Russians killed under Stalin, the tens of millions of Chinese killed under communist China,the 30 million murdered under the British Raj in India or the millions of Jews, Gypsies and others murdered by the German sociopaths in the European holocaust of world war 2