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 do not detest Gordon Brown.”
Not even when he was defrauding British taxpayers of £5bn worth of gold for his banker bosses? Not just selling 395 tonnes of British taxpayers gold but telling the markets beforehand *how much* he was selling and thereby *guaranteeing* that the lowest price possible would be paid. And we are led to believe that he is intelligent?
A thouroughly mendacious man the equal of Blair, but without the media skills. Blair/Brown are idealogical twins, you can not seperate them – that’s why their animosity towards each other is purely a matter of personalities and not policy and was mostly driven by Brown to distance himself from the Blair premiership that he unquestioningly supported for over a decade.
His time as PM shows the scale of his ineptitude in so many areas, the fact that this man harbourd ambitions to be PM for so long but so quickly proved he was fucking useless sums up his crushing ego to a tee.
You’re absolutely right, Craig …. nobody agrees with you.
I’ll concede this much … the media hounded him out of office with as much co-ordinated spin as they used to keep Bliar in office, so we can conclude he was less compliant to the puppet masters’ wishes. But, however he justified it to himself, by the time he reached Downing St., he had already sold his soul over Iraq, and as I struggle to pay the inflated cost of our local PFI school over the next 30 years, I won’t forgive or forget what he did to try and stay there.
A Node, he say:
Daniel Rich Thanks for the links. I believe that anyone wishing to read McBride’s garbage will have to buy the printed edition of the Mail.
Wonder how many pieces of silver he has received?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2426071/Poison-heart-Labour-Book-reveals-Browns-spin-doctor-ran-smear-campaigns-No10-destroyed-ministers-careers-hacked-secret-Cabinet-files.html
As I said before, what a bunch! To think we endured 13 years of them and now we have the ConDems, many of whom very expert at opening food banks. 9 of them below in fact, the others Labourites inc one G. Brown Esq.
The pride of Britain
Posted on July 31, 2013 by Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s very rare, viewers, that we get so angry in the course of writing a post that we have to stop. But when we ran a picture last night of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander MP, opening a foodbank with a cretinous smile on his face as if being a member of the government of a modern industrial nation in need of foodbanks was something to be happy about, a reader suggested making a gallery of similar images
/..
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-pride-of-britain/
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me…,anyone?
Sorry for the bandwidth:
Villager – 15 Sep, 2013 – 5:00 pm
emphasize = mine
“The Palestinians responded with crude missiles.”
Many of which were fired by dubious ‘militias’ (aka Israeli backed stooges) against the direct orders of Hamas, only after Israel began it assault did Hamas let loose with it’s Katyushas – and promptly started hitting Israeli population centres, unlike the earlier rockets which landed harmlessly. The manufactured casus belli has been in constant use since the Roman era.
Res. Diss….
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…
That’s something of an accusation. Link please, as I wouldn’t want to search Stormfront without a gas mask.
Or did you make that up?
Deepgreenpuddock:”a very weak man, who is a moral failure at every level who has sought power for the simple sake of it, and, unhappily for him-was successful in his fantasy.”
Thank you for that long Post,and I agree with your summing-up of Gordon Brown.
Komodo: “I have no idea. He didn’t share with me. And I didn’t say he did”
No you didn’t, as I misread your comments as to pertaining to Brown instead of Blair, yet you do say that you agree with Craig, presumably on Gordon Brown, so in that case we can agree to differ.
Villager: “Is there anything that Habbabkuk can do for the silencing “ban” to be rescinded?”
You really have no shame; and neither any of the other Contrarians begging for the reinstatement of one of the most offensive, disruptive & most blatant of trolls in the history of this Blog; it speaks volumes that this obnoxious character is the apparently the best proponent of your views, & that you people are now running around like headless chickens. Beyond pathetic !
The cover is red with a photo of Miliband E, Balls and Brown with McBride in the middle. A British version of mafiosi.
Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin by Damian McBride (25 Sep 2013)
£20.00 £13.20 Hardcover prime
Available for pre-order. This item will be released on 25 September 2013.
£11.88 Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Trip-Decade-Policy-Plots/dp/1849545960/ref=sr_1_1/278-9788371-5614663?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379675804&sr=1-1&keywords=damian+mcbride
How will Miliband E deal with this matter at the conference starting Sunday in Brighton for four days?
http://www.labour.org.uk/annual_conference_2013
Meanwhile, we have no Parliament sitting. Both houses are in ‘recess’ until 8 October.
http://services.parliament.uk/calendar/Lords/MainChamber/events.html#!/calendar/Commons/MainChamber/2013/9/20/events.html
As for the debate over nominating North Queensferry as a circle of Hell, I should point out I spent much of my youth living in South Queensferry. North Queensferry is actually where Brown lives.
O/T Obomber and his cohort are really losing the plot.
Venezuelan president denied travel through US airspace – Caracas
September 19, 2013 23:25
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua told media that an aircraft carrying President Nicolas Maduro was denied a path over Puerto Rico’s airspace.
President Maduro’s flight, which was to depart for China, was forced to find an alternate flight path according to Jaua, who denounced the act as “an act of aggression.”
“We have received the information from American officials that we have been denied travel over its airspace,” Jaua said, speaking to reporters during an official meeting with his South African counterpart.
“We denounce this as yet another aggression on the part of North American imperialism against the government of the Bolivarian Republic,” he added.
“No one can deny airspace to a plane carrying a president on an international state visit.”
There is “no valid argument” for denying travel through American airspace, Jaua said, adding that he expected the US to rectify the situation.
President Maduro was due to arrive in Beijing this weekend for bilateral talks with the Chinese government. Jaua was adamant that the Venezuelan leader would reach his destination, regardless of any perceived interference.
Though the US has yet to issue an official response, the latest incident will likely add to already strained relations between the two countries.
In July, the Venezuelan president announced that his government was halting attempts to improve relations with the US. The move was in response to comments made by the newly appointed US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who told a Senate committee that her new role would include challenging the “crackdown on civil society” abroad, including in Venezuela.
/..
http://rt.com/news/maduro-plane-us-airspace-102/
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2013-09-20/israels-chemical-arsenal-under-new-scrutiny/
Interesting article on Israel’s chemical weapons and WMD
Suppression, and back room deals for enforcing the suppression
What is it with politicians and smiling? They smile when they are in the dock facing rape charges, they smile when their disastrous policies mean people do not have food to eat, they smile when they are making war. The only politician I can think of who was so inept that he couldn’t muster a genuine smile, even after professional coaching, is… er… whatsisname? The “I ended boom and bust” fella… used to be PM… Scottish bloke… fucking useless…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYPqAo3UasA
I don’t know Brown so I can’t say I hate him. I do despise the way he tells lies to try to defeat the democratic right of the Scottish people. He knows full well devolved powers can be taken back at the drop of a hat, and yet he spins a line about having the Scottish parliament’s position enshrined in the constitution! Perhaps if he addressed the fact of the non-existing constitution, I might give him more credence!
Shame on all Westminster apologists trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the Scottish people!
Further to recent comments here iro the UN, more from Mary’s RT link @12.38;
“Dispute over visas ahead of UN summit
The Venezuelan President also spoke of attempts by the US to set “conditions” on a visa issued to General Wilmer Barrientos, one of Maduro’s ministers who is slated to attend meetings during the UN General Assembly next week.
“They want to put conditions, if we decide to go to New York…They don’t want to give a visa to my minister,” said Maduro. “Do we want to go as tourists? We’re going to the United Nations. You’re obligated to give visas to all the delegation.”
Appearing via the television network TeleSUR on Thursday, Maduro indicated that he had directed his foreign minister, Elías Jaua, and Venezuela’s Ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, to “activate all mechanisms” in reference to the visa dispute.
“US, you are not the UN’s owner. The UN will have to move out of New York,” remarked Maduro.
He warned that if he has to take “measures” against the government of the US, he would be prepared to take “the most drastic measures necessary” to ensure Venezuelan sovereignty.”
Funny how the US likes the pretext of accusing others of “playing politics” when it wants to vetos UN resolutions that it doesn’t like.
Most of what Deepgreenpuddock says (at 9.59am)I agree with entirely, so these are minor correctives. I also never met Brown but knew Kirkcaldy well as a Burntisland-based Kirkcaldy High School pupil. Gordon’s father was our school chaplain – a good man with a plummy voice which led Neil Macniven and me into temporary disgrace for collapsing under the pews of St Brycedale’s Church in uncontrollable loud giggles during a particularly sanctimonious prayer. I didn’t feel that Gordon’s credentials as a Raith Rovers supporter were faked. Yes, KHS was a rugby and cricket-playing school. But most of us had deep geographical tribal loyalty to Raith Rovers as the local club. Raith (yellow) was also the name of my school “house”, the others being Balwearie (green), St. Serf’s (blue) and Ravenscraig (red). Our school sports days were held at Stark’s Park.
However, I do consider Gordon guilty of more subtle dissimulation. Many will remember that on “becoming” Prime Minister, he sentimentally and proudly recalled his school motto as “I will try my utmost”. That was not the motto. Like many Scottish high schools, the motto was a dimly-understood but memorable Latin tag – in our case “Usque conabur”, picked out in bright yellow thread on the badge of every school blazer. If asked what our motto was, we’d always say the words in Latin, however bad we were at the subject, rather than the meaning in English.
(http://britologywatch.wordpress.com/2007/06/28/gordon-browns-school-motto/ )
So, I’ll agree that he has shown an instinct to claim membership of tribes that he sees as adding to his political clout and to distance himself from links with the flavour of privilege. And, of course, the biggest difference between Brown and Blair is that one was fiercely tribal in his politics, the other just as fiercely anti-tribal. If one takes Iraq as one of their shared follies*, they were each too cowardly to move out of their comfort zones. Brown did not dare risk earning the epithet “disloyal” (even if the party to which he professed loyalty had been hijacked), since that would probably have lost forever his chance of replacing Blair as party leader and PM; and for Blair, being disloyal to deep Labour traditions was almost a bonus; what he could never risk was losing the Papal blessing of POTUS.
[*There were others – PFI, cozying up to tycoons and greedy bankers, preferring to see the unemployed swelling the numbers of welfare clients indebted to New Labour rather then swelling old-fashioned unemployment statistics.]
Macky: yet you do say that you agree with Craig, presumably on Gordon Brown, so in that case we can agree to differ.
I should have been clearer. I don’t detest Brown (and agree with Craig there), but that’s a long way from liking him. I have the idea he is a fair constituency MP – and that constituency is not without problems. I might be wrong. No-one to date has had any better ideas than PFI on how the increasing demands on the NHS might be funded: the medicine is getting more expensive, and more people are using it, than was ever imagined by Beveridge. Not that I think PFI is a good idea, but it’s the only one around which someone -in a moment of hopeless optimism- could claim might work.
Selling off the gold reserves was plain crazy, but Brown saw that the alternative was borrowing….it didn’t save him from having to borrow, either, sadly. To some extent, and opinions must differ on this, I think Brown was in a trap not of his making for much of his time in Cabinet and beyond. Working for a psychopathic megalomaniac can’t be easy, and Brown had to.
Macky siad;
US is the byword for hypocrisy, in its latest cocking a snook at the planet and all its habitants, US exceptionalism has resulted in test firing of nuclear capable ICBM on the very same day that the world leaders are gathered to debate the international nuclear weapons disarmament talks!
Tony Blair is a scoundrel and I hate him.
Gordon Brown is a scoundrel and I hate him.
You are very tolerant, Craig. Just how bad do people have to be before you dislike them?
There’s another good Labour leader/PM we did not have – Brian Gould who has just been speaking on Boulton on Sky. He stood against John Smith 21 years ago and lost.
Our loss. Mew Zealand’s gain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Gould
Komodo You speak of the PFI construct benevolently as if we could not have schools and hospitals without relying on the sharks who sell their interests on, sometimes at rising rates of interest. We have plenty of money for wars, Hellfire missiles, two new aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, etc costing £billions and billions.
The death watch beetles are within the NHS now, eating away at its structure.
Despite Brown being one of the 1980s modernisers, I think he’d have been happier during the post-war consensus with its mixed economy and wealth distribution.
The neocon consensus is a much more difficult sell. No wonder he looked awkward and uncomfortable.
And anyway, why are we all talking about him as if he’d just died.
I’d have preferred something on Syria and whether that presages the end of this shitty neocon period.
Like The Arctic Monkeys tribe, which is mostly made up of 14-16 year old girls – lots of political clout right there.
He said he regularly listened to their fist album but could not name a single track, not even the title track, ironically called “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not”, not only that but their catchy little tune “I bet You Look Good On The Dance-floor” had been #1 for quite a while.
End result; he had to embarrassingly admit later that he in fact did not listen to The Arctic Monkeys but preferred Coldplay instead. No doubt he had memorised the names of albums and tracks but the interviewer didn’t even bother asking him. What a klutz – he can’t even tell lies properly.
I posted the latest PMG report earlier.
This is what’s happening today in Makhul. Even French diplomats and other nationals are not immune from the Israeli violence and lawlessness.
Ex Medialens
Clashes between Israeli soldiers and diplomat convoy in Palestinian village
Posted by margo on September 20, 2013, 1:00 pm
https://twitter.com/Ediz99
Ediz TiyanÅŸan â€@Ediz99 1h
#BREAKING: Clashes on-going between Israeli soldiers and UN/diplomat convoy in the occupied Palestinian village of Makhul
[..]
After 57 structures belonging to Makhul community was demolished on Monday, UN & other int agencies mobilized humanitariann aid for the village
updates
Ediz TiyanÅŸan â€@Ediz99 35m
@haaretzcom @Jerusalem_Post @ynetnews I know it’s Sukkot, but u might really want to check out what’s going on in occupied village of Makhul
A french diplomat is now sitting in the truck along w/ senior un official, trying to halt the confiscation. 35 soldiers present w/ riot gear
~8 Israeli military jeeps on site. Sound grenades fired. Diplomats forcefully removed from the truck & the area. Humanitarian aid’s blocked
Unlike #MaviMarmara, this time it’s not just civil society, but with actual diplomats challenging the arbitrary Israeli occupation!
A truck full of tents & water was escorted by a dipl. convoy of reps from france, ireland, uk, spain, greece, brazil, australia, sweden, EU
Craig,
There is something telling in the events occurring around the change over of PM from Bliar to Gordon Brown.
If you recall, Gordon Brown ‘took over’ the PM role on 27 June 2007, & within the next 2 days there was the ‘Al Queda inspired attacks of the ‘Tiger Tiger’ device/rickshaw escape baloney on 29 June 2007 & then the Glasgow Airport ‘attack’ on 30 June 2007.
The timing of these events is very suspicious, particularly when you consider that on 22 April 2007, an article appeared in the Sunday Times stating:
Al-Qaeda ‘planning big British attack’
Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by Al-Qaeda planners as a “change in the head of the company”.
It turns out that it was a disgruntled Met Police employee (Thomas Lund-Lack) who leaked the info to the journalist Dipesh Gadher, he ‘was annoyed with [how his work] was being run.
Thomas Lack Lund was jailed under the Official Secrets Act.
What a load of bobbins…….
Yawn… bring back Habbabkuk. The inability to reserve judgement is the most prominent aspect of human irrationality. The guy questioned some cherished beliefs here, for the most part politely unless provoked.
Go on Mary, call me a troll 😉
bert 20 Sep, 2013 – 2:38 pm
I just assumed that was all part of ‘Project Gordon’, the overt efforts of the spin-meisters to fashion a gold nugget out of a turd. They had a whole load of ‘media events’ specially engineered with the aim of enhancing his profile as a statesman and world leader, they even lined up endorsements from Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela in their desperation to make him look good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyGSK8WhkkM
Komodo You speak of the PFI construct benevolently
I don’t.
as if we could not have schools and hospitals without relying on the sharks who sell their interests on, sometimes at rising rates of interest.
By borrowing indefinitely and punting the rising interest into the wide blue yonder for younger people to pay, maybe.
We have plenty of money for wars, Hellfire missiles, two new aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, etc costing £billions and billions.
We don’t, actually. Either. This too is borrowed. I agree our priorities are completely wrong, but the money doesn’t actually exist. It has to be invented. That is what banks do. Let’s have some realpolitik here. Idealism isn’t achieving anything.
The death watch beetles are within the NHS now, eating away at its structure.
And your solution is….?
Komodo 20 Sep, 2013 – 1:30 pm
Macky: yet you do say that you agree with Craig, presumably on Gordon Brown, so in that case we can agree to differ.
Mary suggested one idea – use the billions we squander on making other countries miserable.
Here’s another – the government builds our hospitals and schools by borrowing and repaying the money at market rates, rather than letting the vampire consortiums build them and be repaid at many times the market rate.
Here’s a third – our government takes control of our currency from the bankers and we won’t need to borrow the money.
Oops, remove second sentence above and it makes more sense.