Brian Taylor of BBC Scotland said last night he picked up at Holyrood that the other unionist parties were pleased that UKIP had won the former Lib Dem seat in Scotland and stopped the SNP getting a third. That was the most revealing moment of last night for me – it showed the vicious irresponsibility of the Better Together campaign, and exposed the lie that UKIP are outsiders.
The other moment worth watching was Alex Salmond confronting Dimbleby that the BBC had given UKIP four times as much coverage time in Scotland during the campaign as the SNP. Dimbleby tamely responded that his complaint should be directed to BBC Scotland. The BBC’s promotion of UKIP again explodes the myth of UKIP as outsiders.
The Unionist camp’s pathetic attempt to claim that UKIP’s 10% and fourth place in Scotland, squeaking one seat, shows Scotland is the same politically as England where UKIP got 29% and came first, is desperate politics. That in order to make that point they were happy for a racist party to marginally represent Scotland in Europe, is a sign of the total moral bankruptcy of the Better Together neo-con British Nationalist programme.
New Labour are completely screwed. To only beat the Tories by 1%, when there is a huge UKIP voteof which a significant slice will go back to the Tories, shows there is no chance whatsoever that New Labour will win the UK general election.
The people of Scotland have a very simple choice in September. Independence, or another Tory government which will probably pull the UK out of the EU, and might very well be in coalition with UKIP.
New Labour won almost nowhere except London. It is the party of London., with a leader who has never in his life lived outside London. But it is a fascinating fact that of all the class, educational, geographical and other statistics you can correlate with New Labour success, the factor with the strongest correlation of all with the New Labour share of the vote is the prevalence of postal voting. New Labour can win only where the system is open widest to abuse through massive scale electoral fraud.
Some of this is straight fraud – postal ballots being given to ghost voters, non-existent people on the register. That is very much more prevalent than you probably imagine. But mostly it operates through the deprivation of the privacy of the polling booth. In a polling station nobody is supposed to be allowed to look over your shoulder (although there were disgraceful scenes in places in Tower Hamlets, Wood Green and Newham). But if you receive your ballot paper in your home, you are extremely vulnerable if you live in a situation where others are able to enter your home and demand to check that you have voted the right way before you post your ballot. That is beyond doubt the situation both of many family members, particularly affecting women, and of certain highly hierarchical and patriarchal communities. Postal ballot distortion is an absolutely disgraceful blot on British political culture. It is also fundamental to New Labour’s ability to salvage something from a disastrous electoral performance.
There is indeed a very nasty undercurrent of racism in England at the moment. I live in one of UKIP’s strongest areas and this racism cannot be wished away. In fact I do not believe that Farage is personally racist, and I believe he is genuine not tactical in his abhorrence of the French National Front. But I do believe Farage has pandered to and encouraged people who are racists, and that there are a great many racists within UKIP. These people must not be allowed to become a ‘respectable’ part of politics and must be confronted wherever they appear.
I have argued for years that the UK is not a democracy in that no real choice is offered between the main political parties. Their policies are all the same. If the range of possible policies on any one issue were enumerated from 1 to 100, New Labour, Lib Dem and Tories offer you choices in the range 81 to 86. The electorate has noticed, and people are sick of it. People have noticed all over Europe too. The politics of neo-con consensus and its lackey media is happily dead. This is a change that will not stop. Once we imprison enough neo-cons who ripped off the public and the taxpayer, perhaps they might concede that it turns out history had not ended after all.
It is true that UKIP’s support does represent an upsurge of dissatisfaction with the political elite, and that also is part of an unarticulated rage at the astonishing growth of inequality of wealth in society and the vast shift of resources to the billionaire middlemen in the financial sector who do extremely little for it. It is good that rage is building, and Syriza show in Greece that it can be constructively channelled. But it is much more often and with much more success diverted in order to awake volcanoes of atavism, and rage that should be directed at plutocrats is instead turned on foreigners. The danger is letting that analysis divert you from the fact of how very, very real and very, very nasty that atavism is in the dispossessed classes. We are in a dangerous place. The neo-con establishment is fanning racist flames.
At school, we were taught about the years of revolution in Europe of 1830-32 and 1848-9. Those revolutionary years coincided with Asian Cholera pandemics, which undoubtedly played a part in driving people beyond endurance. You can of course argue that poverty and famine assisted the spread of the pandemics.
This current year of European change has also been sparked by economic distress, and seen an increase in poverty marker diseases, some of which we had hoped had effectively vanished. But plague has been a cause. Europe has suffered the most devastating plague of bankers in history.
The disillusioned should not blame immigrants. Immigrants are victims too. Turn your wrath on the bankers, the billionaires and the neo-con parties who do their bidding. Another world is possible.
Let’s start by ending the UK and setting Scotland free. It is not illegitimate to judge an idea in part by the quality and motives of those who oppose it. The full range of the neo-con establishment prefer racist isolation for a neo-con UK to a free Scotland. Just look at them. Then kick them where it really hurts.
Tony M,5.08 am,
Excellent post.
Nails it.
I voted Green in the European elections too. You don’t always get what you vote for.
The people of Eastern Ukraine know that, having voted in a referendum to join Russia. They are now getting bombed to eternity from the new Poroshenko government and I apologise for misleading people and myself yesterday into thinking he might be a good man. I see now what they have elected, another thug.
http://rt.com/news/161572-ukraine-slavyansk-shelling-civilian/
Mr Goss
“The people of Eastern Ukraine know that, having voted in a referendum to join Russia. They are now getting bombed to eternity from the new Poroshenko government and I apologise for misleading people and myself yesterday into thinking he might be a good man. I see now what they have elected, another thug.”
____________________
I think you’ve just performed a reverse ferret.
But when you say “another thug” , don’t you mean “another NAZI thug”? I’d be sad to think that you’ve dropped the NAZI accusation and am therefore opening a sweepstake on how long it will take you to discover that the new President is in direct line from Hermann Goering (deceased).
It’s a bit simpler than all that.
UKIP found a genuinely populist issue, associated themselves with it, and stuck with it. Immigration resonates…prices are rising, you can’t get housed, you can’t get a job. And here’s the alien hordes. At the very least, that’s more competition for jobs and a house, at worst, that’s our way of life down the tubes. That’s a very broad spectrum of opinion. It’s not going to go away as far as I can see, and I very much doubt it will be swayed by the promoters of immigration insisting that it’s good for us for a variety of rather questionable reasons. The spectrum of opinion knows who really benefits; market capitalists (Daily Mirror), or benefit scroungers (Daily Mail)…whatever.
And UKIP found itself campaigning in an atmosphere of utter disillusionment with anything that looked like a mainstream politician, because the only function of mainstream politicians is to lie for their party, and that is now widely recognised. Massive protest vote + popular issue = electoral success. Simples. No need to analyse it further.
Now, imagine if Labour or the Greens had (a) been able to retain their credibility – LOL- and (b) go to work on the massive inequality of income and opportunity we currently enjoy. Cameron’s head would be on a pike at the Tower of London, and his lapdog, Clegg, would be in Battersea Dogs’ Home. Another wasted opportunity.
As you say John, a thug. He talked of unity. He is of course working for his masters.
Clashes over control of Donetsk airport left at least 30 pro-Russian separatists dead, rebels say
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27584718
Where’s Mary and her tag team this morning?
Perhaps our “loss” will be her garden’s gain?
Oddie
Cutting and pasting articles into this comment section is not allowed. If you want to make an argument yourself and quote or link, that is fine, as long as it is on=topic (which they weren’t either).
Oh dear, I’ve just seen that our comments crossed.
Please reconsider, Mary, bearing in mind that the garden might need you whereas we don’t?
But whatever you decide, have a great and productive day!
Mary, all war is abhorrent. If a country, region or island wants independence by a vast majority then that should be allowed, as in the case of the Falkland Islanders in their recent referendum. But I suspect that Kiev wants to treat Ukraine like Westminster treats Newcastle and the North of England in general, telling them you do the manual dirty work, and we’ll strut around in pin-striped suits. You keep the money coming in and we’ll keep counting it.
Oddie, I don’t like John Kerry, but climate change is a very big problem that none of the main parties, and certainly not UKIP, can solve. The culpability lies, as I see it, with the US and started in the late sixties when Billy McCormac, father of the man who works in Sweden in partnership with Karl Rove to get Reinfeldt re-elected, was conducting high-atmospheric nuclear explosions causing a depletion of the ozone layer. This is destroying the coral reef around Australia and melting Antarctica. It is probably too late for the world so you are better off keeping your head in the sand as long as it’s not too close to the seashore.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/05/19/antarcticas-accelerating-ice-collapse-massive-sea-level-rise-in-decades/
As with their wars the Yanks never do this shit on their own doorstep.
a depletion of the ozone layer. This is destroying the coral reef around Australia and melting Antarctica.
No. Not on its own. Ozone depletion may contribute to the former by increasing solar UV irradiance, but high temperatures and ocean acidification (due to increased dissolved CO2) are much more important:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching
Ditto Antarctica:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/12/antarctic-ice-melt.html
…and ozone depletion is generally agreed to be due to emissions of refrigerant gases worldwide. Controls have not proved 100% effective, and new CFC’s were identified recently. Their source will be difficult to establish, but it is rather less likely to be the US than India or China.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/372na1.pdf
Unbelievably they are still counting in Tower Hamlets!
27 May 2014 10:13
Tower Hamlets count to restart after two suspensions
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27585346
The resident inviligator/interrogator is, as usual, displaying his vicarious nature.
Thanks Ba’al for your explanations. I’m not sure the science about CO2s is correct. It is too convenient to blame it on ordinary people, though I do not doubt that CO2 gases can cause depletion of ozone. I confess I don’t have the science but I can remember dentists telling us to brush our teeth side to side, then it was up and down, then it was circular, that filling your teeth was better for you than leaving them alone, and false teeth were better for you than the ones you were blessed with, and much of it turned out to be shit. Science and scientific explanations for events can historically prove to be as false as false teeth.
Your criteria for belief are different to mine, John. Let’s leave it at that.
He’s never far away. Ok, he’s just back from Kazakhstan.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2640015/We-not-bothered-migration-Blair-criticised-complaining-voters-elected-Ukip-MEPs.html
Elsewhere on record as saying:
You look a little bit beneath that Ukip facade and you see something, in my view, pretty nasty and unpleasant.
Didn’t look under the regime’s facade in Astana last week, did you, Tone? Hard to find out what you did contribute, apart from some platitudinous noises about globalisation.
Of no interest to the Faith Foundation ™ –
http://barthsnotes.com/2014/05/23/kazakh-atheist-may-face-seven-year-sentence/
The BBC version who give him a lot of house room. Is that the Purnell effect at work?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/05/freedom-cheaper-than-iraq-war/#comment-459099
Who is behind the ICM poll giving the thumbs down to Clegg?
Nick Clegg and Lib Dems face wipeout in damning opinion poll verdict
Exclusive: Internal ICM polling shows Clegg would lose his Sheffield Hallam seat in 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/nick-clegg-and-lib-dems-face-battle-for-survival
It was being said that it was a wealthy LD donor.
ICM are also saying this about Scotland.
What future for the British brand?
In the event of Scottish independence a third of Britons are less likely to deal with companies based in Scotland.
http://www.icmresearch.com/data/media/posts/slideshow/scot-1.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICM_Research Very little info there.
Company Check
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/02571387/ICM-RESEARCH-LIMITED/directors-shareholders
Parent http://companycheck.co.uk/company/00210505/CRESTON-PLC/directors-shareholders
Crikey! Assets £37.6m
City Group plc is a ‘director’ of both companies. Can a plc be a director? I don’t know.
http://www.city-group.com/
My congratulation to Molly Scott cato, newly elected Green MEP for the South West. She is an economist who will make some very pertinent points to the accounting methods and silence at display by the auditors of the EU, I’m sure.
Wheter she will make a ban on freemasons in public office the biggest ever feminist issue to be righted, is to be seen.
Labour performed dismally, just made sure their supporters came out, an election decided by those who did not vote.
In South Norfolk UKIP nearly pipped the Tories and the Greens were the fourth party, not the Lib Dems. If UKIP would field a locally well known person as their GE candidate they might be able to get elected.
http://www.south-norfolk.gov.uk/democracy/media/South_Norfolk_Result_of_Poll.pdf
Guess who’s coming to Rossendale and Darwen…
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/will-straw-im-deeply-angry-with-blair-for-taking-us-to-war-and-for-the-shoddy-way-he-betrayed-my-fathers-loyalty-6732417.html?action=gallery&ino=3
Think you’ll find your new constituents are deeply-angry-with-blair, too, Will. But also with your dad. For-facilitating-uncontrolled-mass-immigration and progressing-universal-surveillance, perhaps.
100% of the LibDem’s MEP’s are women though….score 100 feminist points.
That’s all one of her.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/meps
Complete list.
Thanks for that link, Ba’al, that could have been me being put in jail for the exact same reasons, what a dangerous farce, poor sod.
TB was giving artificial resucitation/advice to Radio 4 this morning, as if it was their ultimate arbiter, the indefinate answer to the problem of rightwing parties exploiting otherness and imigration in Europe.
In Peterborough and Blackburn with Darwen Labour thugs beat up UKIP candidates, alledgedly, the other Blair legacy from the attack on Iraq.
Has the BBC not learned enough from his lying days that they still attach themselves to his navel?
Phew, that earlier comment grew somewhat beyond its original origins.
What has become apparent in short is that BBC ARE the NO campaign, the rancid brain and the bloated bulk of it -they’re not helping it, supporting it or anything so ordinary: they comprise it, not content with mis-reporting and biased commentary on politics, they’ve joined in and are running the NO show, this is mission creep at its terrifying worst. The other parties, the NO-bodies are just the supporting cast playing all other parts.
‘My congratulation to Molly Scott cato, newly elected Green MEP for the South West. She is an economist who will make some very pertinent points to the accounting methods and silence at display by the auditors of the EU, I’m sure.’
Everyone had hopes that Ms Andreasen would expose the frauds within but what happened? She got sacked, joined UKIP and left them to join the Tories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Andreasen
I do not know Ms Andeasen, but I do know Molly scott Cato. All the power to her arms, I wish her well.
I also was mystified by Radio 4 wheeling the million-dollar pariah in, this morning. Fortunately I was elsewhere when he spoke. Summaries I have seen suggest that he is as usual talking complete bollocks and has no real understanding of the situation as it applies to Nude Labour. Labour has to admit that there is a huge mismatch between massive immigration and the provision of housing, services and jobs in an economy which assumes that real wages at the lower end of the scale must continue to drop. To that extent it has to agree with UKIP. Then, the problem admitted, it can offer alternative solutions. If it has any.
BTW, anyone know where all the letter ‘t”s dropped by Osborne lately might be recovered? He’s developed a terminal case of what we lovers of English call “Demo’ic Glo”al Stop”. I think this may be down to UKIP, too, as the hapless toff tries to adapt to Essex Man.
“BTW, anyone know where all the letter ‘t”s dropped by Osborne lately might be recovered? He’s developed a terminal case of what we lovers of English call “Demo’ic Glo”al Stop”. I think this may be down to UKIP, too, as the hapless toff tries to adapt to Essex Man.”
______________________
Well, he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. I agree it is pathetic for grown men to affect an Essex Man accent – the accent of the uneducated vulgarian – but you see, the problem is that if he speaks with his normal, good accent you’d immediately have middle-class ignoramuses like Mary bitching on about his “poshness” and how “out of touch” he is.
Of course, the vulgar accent holds sway these days wherever you listen and look. It’s all very sad.
Memories….
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-18569101
On Friday Mr Miliband said that Labour had made a mistake in allowing unlimited access to work in the UK when the first wave of eastern European countries joined the EU.
Asked about the criticism, Mr Blair said: “I think it’s fair in some ways – I actually took the decision.
Copyright 2012, Anthony “Jesus Calls Me Tony” Blair Associates LLP