One of my oldest and dearest friends has gone public on his support for Scottish Independence. I am greatly cheered by this. More thoughts later.
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Res,
Try, those needing care.
PATIENTS.
“I was writing my address and I wondered”
Do you know I don’t believe I’ve ever used United Kingdom in my address, nor ever received a letter with that on it. I just stop at the post town, it’s always been sufficient, maybe the county as well. On international post I would put Scotland, I figure everybody knows where that is.
I too was thinking yesterday, while looking at a scruffy old Saltire being used as curtains, that as in England, it seems to be the Nationalists who have least respect for their flag.
You have to hand it to the Commons wag –
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This has just crossed my mind, and I thought I had better use it before you do: how do you solve the problem called Maria?
~~~
John Mann and David Winnick attempted to get a debate but were met with verbiage from Bercow.
3.32pm John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister said this morning that he is “very open” to suggestions on how to reform the system that some would describe as MPs regulating themselves through the Committee on Standards. I note that there is no ministerial statement so that the House can make suggestions for the Prime Minister and the Government to consider. What opportunities might there be for the House to discuss not the behaviour and actions of any individual Members but the principle of self-regulation of MPs by MPs?
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Undoubtedly these have been very bad days for the reputation of this House. My hon. Friend’s point on self-regulation is interesting, and of course it has been voiced by other Members and by people outside the House. Before the House rises on Thursday, what mechanism is there for us to discuss this important issue? I do not want to raise the particular case, but the general question of how we regulate ourselves and recognise the amount of criticism, justified or otherwise, that has been expressed outside by many people, and by no means just the media, over the past few days.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140407/debtext/140407-0001.htm#14040711000573
Dale Campbell Savours said this in the HoL.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab): My Lords, is not under registration among young people only a symptom of the disconnect between the politicians and the people? Does not the sight of a Cabinet Minister hanging on when she should go only aggravate that condition and that disconnect?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. We all know that there is a broader and long-term problem, which did not arise simply with this Government, of popular alienation from politics, and a sense that national politics and Westminster have little to do with the lives of young people in particular. All of us here and in the other place have a shared interest in combating that, rebuilding trust in politics, and regaining a sense of shared citizenship and political values. The Government cannot do that on their own.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/140407-0001.htm#14040716000789
Another gem from the Lords
Atos Healthcare
Question Asked by Lord Morrow
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in light of the announcement that Atos Healthcare is exiting its contract in respect of fit-for-work tests, whether they plan to initiate an investigation with published terms of reference into that company’s performance, including complaints made directly to Atos Healthcare and through any other agency including the Department for Work and Pensions.[HL6467]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con): The Department has closely monitored the performance of Atos Healthcare and will continue to do so until Atos exits the contract as described in the Written Ministerial Statement of 27 March 2014. There are no plans to carry out any investigations into performance.
‘A leaked draft of a UN report claims that if proven in court, actions testified to by victims of Rwandan forces in Congo/Zaire would constitute genocide.xii And perhaps most telling of all, Tony Blair has posted an opinion piece in the Guardian praising Rwanda as a “beacon of hope”. I am not being flippant when I say that praise from Blair, a personal associate of fellow war criminal Paul Kagame, should be read as an admission of oppression and injustice.’
From: http://ongenocide.com/2014/04/
Rwanda: Western Guilt and Hypocrisy, the Misuse of Genocide and Genocide Denial
6880 words.
“There are times when I wish Hersh and his fellow conspiracy theorists might just try to acquaint themselves with Occam’s razor.”
ResDis – Whatever the truth of Hersh’s allegations (he has a track record of being somewhere near the money, in fact), the enthusiasm with which the BBC and others have followed-up the story suggests that this is now the US/UK line. Erdoğan has been getting too close to Islam for our (and many secular Turks’) liking. Hersh maintains that the sarin-bearing projectiles (a) don’t resemble Assad’s known inventory – very likely true, they look like Chinese kit, not Russian/FSU – and (b)were made in Turkish workshops – very likely to be completely unverifiable.
It may be that we are preparing to accept that Assad has won, and looking for facesaving attitudes to adopt.
“Tony Blair has posted an opinion piece in the Guardian praising Rwanda as a “beacon of hope”.”
That should pretty well ensure Rwanda’s total collapse within the year.
What Tone is trying to do is counter all the hurtful things people are saying about him and his sacred mission to introduce large companies to cheap labour and others’ resources. His sole successful example of, er, humanitarian intervention (TM) – though he did not, as the Wiki entry suggests, lead his loyal army personally into Freetown – was the suppression of armed insurrection in Sierra Leone, and Tone would like to invoke this by association with other African issues. Sierra Leone seems to be appearing in press releases quite a lot right now.
For another, fairly convincing take on why Tone decided to take FCO advice and send the army in, see:
http://www.newstatesman.com/node/137744
This is more like the Blair we know and love. It has my vote, by a whisker.
http://www.newstatesman.com/node/137744
There was an account on Radio 4 this morning by one of the residents of the sacking of an Armenian Christian town by Islamist jihadis. Not online yet.
This is the RT account.
http://rt.com/news/armenians-kessab-syria-attack-381/
From Medialens
Seymour Hersh interviewed on BBC R4 The World Tonight
Posted by Robert on April 8, 2014, 12:05 am
From 39 minutes http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zqzvz
Item concludes with State Dept rebuttal
The programme also tweeted the link to Hersh’s article https://twitter.com/BBCWorldTonight/status/453285926203301888
From what I can see, when Hersh says he has well-placed sources, he has them, or a near approximation thereto. His track record suggests that he is not a fantasist. I would expect the State Department denial – it’s routine. And sometimes, re Hersh’s stories, shown to be completely untrue.
Business as usual. Hired guns in Ukraine.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576490/Are-Blackwater-active-Ukraine-Videos-spark-talk-U-S-mercenary-outfit-deployed-Donetsk.html
“This war did not spring up on our land, this war was brought upon us by the children of the Great Father who came to take our land without a price, and who, in our land, do a great many evil things… This war has come from robbery – from the stealing of our land.” Spotted tail
More on Blair’s Guardian piece –
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2014/04/tony-blair-s-latest-intervention
…”But Rwanda’s newfound stability has come at a cost, which Mr Blair barely gestured to. Mr Kagame’s opponents have been stifled, sometimes literally. Many, inside Rwanda and outside, have been killed—including Patrick Karegeya, former intelligence chief, who was assassinated in a South Africa hotel-room in January. Mr Blair does not mention them, or indeed the Rwandan plot to murder two dissidents in London that was uncovered by British spies in 2011.
He scarcely even mentions Rwanda’s far grosser abuses, waged in Congo, by its army and through local proxies, during the best part of two decades of war and plunder. Millions have perished in those conflicts, in which Rwanda’s culpability has been many times proved by a litany of UN and independent investigations.
There are only two possible explanations for Mr Blair’s one-dimensional appraisal of Rwanda. One is that, despite his mission to bring “practical change” to the Great Lakes region, he really has only the thinnest understanding of it. Another is that, like most informed Western apologists for Mr Kagame, he considers his abuses an acceptable bill for his successes.
That may be right; though it is not a view widely shared among regional experts, who fear Mr Kagame’s reluctance to relax his grip is storing up a future explosion in Rwanda. It should also be pointed out that apologists for his regime, including Mr Blair, have a lot of personal credibility invested in Mr Kagame.
AND –
…Iraq, where almost 8,000 civilians were killed in political violence last year. Quizzed by the BBC on that continuing nightmare, Mr Blair offered this thought: “In the end what we know now… is that when you remove the dictatorship, that is the beginning not the end.” What an insight that is.
Thanks Mary for the Radio 4 Seymour Hersh link. I do detect a sea-change in the way reporting through our media is becoming more responsible. I really welcome this. There is nothing worse than having to make apologies for your own media. It has been a bad few years of late since the BEEB has been supporting the insupportable war on Islam. I used to listen to Radio 4 all the time until those with an agenda took over.
I did smile at the State Department’s statement, despite refusing to comment, still blamed Assad for the sarin attack. This pretty well supports the leak from that department who said:
“My government can’t say anything because we have acted so irresponsibly. And since we blamed Assad, we can’t go back and blame Erdoğan.”
Light relief – came across this excellent site in the course of my researches, and even laughed at some of it. A rare event.
http://eveningharold.com/2014/04/05/pippa-middleton-humanely-destroyed-after-fall-at-grand-national/
This from a good doctor who has been working in the NHS for 35 years.
The NHS is on the brink of extinction – we need to shout about it
Government policy and privatisation mean the NHS as we know it will be gone in as little as five years if no one speaks up
http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2014/jan/08/nhs-extinct-government-policy-privatisation
cf his work for the his patients with that of the upstart Jeremy Hunt who, as well as having a privileged upbringing, grew rich from his online company, Hotcourses. ‘Hot’ being the currency in Tory Boy circles.
Better luck next time Jeremy.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hotcourses-jeremy-hunt-misses-out-3100095
This is the result of a poll of 2066 American citizens who were asked to mark the position of Ukraine on a map.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/files/2014/04/Ukraine_Full.png
Where’s Ukraine? Each dot depicts the location where a U.S. survey respondent situated Ukraine; the dots are colored based on how far removed they are from the actual country, with the most accurate responses in red and the least accurate ones in blue. (Data: Survey Sampling International; Figure: Thomas Zeitzoff/The Monkey Cage)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/07/the-less-americans-know-about-ukraines-location-the-more-they-want-u-s-to-intervene/
I seem to remember that the same applied to knowledge of Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the MediaLens Editors have stated, another definite must-read Anti-Empire Report;
http://williamblum.org/aer/read/127
Scottish independence a threat to world peace!!!
The Better Togetherers are getting desperater and desperater.
“The former secretary general of Nato has said that Scottish independence would be cataclysmic for the West in an era of international turmoil.”[mostly caused by Nato]
“Speaking in the US, Lord Robertson said a “debilitating divorce” after a “Yes” vote in September would threaten the stability of the wider world.”
“He said he believed the American administration was worried about the possibility of Scottish independence.”
“Lord Roberston was speaking at the Brookings Institution where he said the US should make its [anti-independence] views public – as should all British allies.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26933998
I’m surprised he didn’t say that an independent Scotland would be an opportunity for Al-Qaeda and they would set up a training camp in Auchtermuchty!
The Brookings Institute’s 21st Century Defense Initiative:
The 21st Century Defense Initiative (21CDI) is aimed at producing research, analysis, and outreach that address three core issues: the future of war, the future of U.S. defense needs and priorities, and the future of the U.S. defense system.
@Jay, the way is now free for multiple solutions to be applied. As with all management structures, waste or otherwise, they evolve with time.
I proposed a three day exhibition at County Hall to show off what is available and the most appropriate for Norfolk.
Here in Britain many landfill sites are in a precarious state and some, next to watercourses that feed consumate water into our pipes, should be prioritised to be reinstated.
Gassification of landfill waste works and has little emissions compared with incineration, an old method being rapidly replaced with recycling.
rather than concentrating onb one model, councils need solutions for a guaranteed uptake of recyclables by business, end of life responsibility, waste minimisation and in the case of the worst pollutants, product re design. It will take time top take hold, but it is a growing industry. Our landfill sites could all be reinstated if we had the will to adopt more than one method of resource recovery.
Waste is also political and some companies are front for organised crime, the laundering of money. Making waste disappear is a good business for some and hence business waste should be included into recycling regulatory framework.
much more work to be done, we have to find 8 million in 40 days, or let them, Cory Wheelabrator, whistle for the rest. Somehow I do not think that they would like to have their environmental record openly disclosed in court, should they have any designs on other local authority plants. Being seen to leech local taxpayers into paying their gross debts abroad does not sound like good publicity and good economic prospects.
Doug, are you expecting a Ukraine style support for the cause of the union from the ‘oh we’re so worried’ US?…;)
Will the US now be looking to support certain football clubs and their supporters into rowdy and loot behaviour, if they don’t get it their way?
indeed should certain nmations know for their history of subdefuge, have strict quotas of immigrants, so their extracurricular activities can be observed (playing golf with Trumps and Trimble)
Fred:
“Do you know I don’t believe I’ve ever used United Kingdom in my address, nor ever received a letter with that on it. I just stop at the post town, it’s always been sufficient, maybe the county as well. On international post I would put Scotland, I figure everybody knows where that is.”
I doubt that many Chinese postal sorters would know where Scotland is. You’re not going to find ‘Scotland’ or ‘England’ in any official international postal guide:
http://www.foreign-trade.com/resources/country-code.htm
I’ve got a small internet business and all international addressing is done from a drop down box where ‘United Kingdom’ is the only appropriate choice. After independence 🙂 ‘Scotland’ will be added to those dropdown boxes and there will undoubtedly be a period of grace where ‘U.K.’ is still acceptable for all countries of the British Isles, but sooner or later, an international postal designation is going to have to be decided upon for England Wales and N. Ireland. I suppose the easiest option is to retain ‘U.K.’ but it would be inaccurate and an ironic reminder of past glories.
I’m sure someone somewhere has prepared for this eventuality, but they don’t seem to have told Mr Google.
“Al-Qaeda and they would set up a training camp in Auchtermuchty”
I thought it was a festival camp Doug! 🙂
But I guess there will be a few plain-clothes investigators weaving in and out between the revelers. I notice they’ve already ostracised the foot-stompers. Foot-stomping is definitely on the list of terrorist activities in my book and I believe some of the organisers are now being held with Moazzam Begg in Belmarsh prison.
http://www.footstompin.com/forum/1/20783/1
I have just heard a stirring version of the Irish national anthem from Windsor. A whole lot of bowing and hand shaking going on.
Camilla is dressed as if for a funeral whereas the Queen is in bright colours.
http://irishnationalanthem.net/lyrics.html
Robertson weighs in. Nu surprise.
His interests
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-robertson-of-port-ellen/672
Some commentary
http://www.tpuc.org/blair-covering-up-paedophile-scandal/
The Medialens editors:
Another warning about Scottish independence, and this time it’s ‘cataclysmic’
April 8, 2014
BBC News now giving headline coverage to the thoughts of George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, KT, GCMG, FRSA, FRSE, PC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26933998
George Robertson has, of course, been a loyal servant to Western state power – not least as UK Secretary of State for ‘Defence’ and NATO Secretary General. So he clearly knows what he’s talking about.
~~~~
Enough said.
No surprise!
“there will undoubtedly be a period of grace where ‘U.K.’ is still acceptable for all countries of the British Isles”
I think not.
Sorry, Dreollin, I shouldn’t have made that mistake.
Correction : there will undoubtedly be a period of grace where ‘U.K.’ is still acceptable for all countries of the former U.K.
🙂
Nick Clegg has been soulless and gutless in his subservience as junior partner to Cameron, but now, as an election appears on the horizon, he has made a decision I applaud. Free school meals will be available from September for the first three years of a child at school. This is going to be the best meal some children get all day. Well done Clegg. At last.
In Kiev the thugs that have taken over forcefully removed a pro-Russian MP from the rostrum and fighting broke out. That’s what the Yanks, and we, have paid for, a parliament full of thugs. Praise to the BBC for reporting this.
(On topic). George Robinson thinks that if Scotland gets independence it will be disastrous (cataclysmic) for NATO countries. This is another good reason why I will be supporting the Yes vote. NATO, of which Robinson was a Secretary General, has been responsible for so much death and unnecessary aggression in the world, if it were to be dismantled tomorrow it would be no loss and a blessing.
Let no discussion involving George Robertson go by without mention of Dunblane’s dark secrets. Not even the Guardian is above dropping hints …..