A particularly mendacious lie by Danny Alexander puts the institutional start-up costs of Scottish Independence at £1.5 billion. That is a cool half billion pounds cheaper than Scotland’s share of the costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars, even on the Westminster government’s blatant under-estimate of the war costs.
So Scotland can afford criminal invasions killing hundreds of thousands to ‘bring freedom’, but cannot afford the smaller cost of its own freedom!!!
The £1.5 billion estimate is mendacious in two ways. Firstly, it is a simple recycling of a Canadian lie at the time of the Quebec independence referendum, apportioning with no argument 1% of GDP to startup costs.
Secondly, as nearly all the money will be spent in Scotland it is not a loss at all, but actually an increase to GDP, as any but the most nutty neo-con would be forced to acknowledge. And it would be the precursor of government money spent annually in Scotland rather than England for ever thereafter.
Thankfully Alexander won’t have a job much longer – and if he thinks a penny of Scottish public spending is going in future to support his huge arse and deceitful mouth, he is very wrong.
@Brian: Thank you re grandparenting. The most interesting thing for me that came out of the Chilcot interviews was Tony Blair explaining that perception was all that mattered (he meant in relation to post-911, but probably also just about every big issue).
He said that without any irony in his voice, as if perception just emerges, as if by a force of nature. However, we all know where that perception really comes from… the media. There can never be a true democracy unless there is an independent media (I think this was in one of the sections of the UN Charter on Human Rights).
Peacewisher
i think you may be refering to ( Article’s 17, 18, and 19 ) in this section –
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted by UNGA Resolution 2200 A (XXI) of 16 December 1966. It entered into force 23 March 1976. As of March 2010, 165 states were party to the Covenant and a further nine signatories were pending ratification.
Part I of the Covenant contains only one article, Article 1, the right to self-determination, which is identical to Article 1 ICESCR. Part II of the Covenant contains Articles 2 to 5, which refer to the nature of obligations, the territorial and personal scope of the Covenant and the principle of non-discrimination (Article 2) which is complemented by Article 3, guaranteeing the equality between men and women in the enjoyment of the Covenant rights. Article 4 allows states to take measures derogating from their obligations under the Covenant and Article 5 establishes a prohibition of abuse of rights (Article 5(1)) and a saving clause (Article 5(2)). Part III of the Covenant contains the following substantive rights: the right to life (Article 6); freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (Article 7); freedom from slavery, servitude and forced labour (Article 8); rights to liberty and security of the person (Article 9); right of detained persons to humane treatment (Article 10); freedom from imprisonment for inability to fulfil a contract (Article 11); freedom of movement (Article 12); right of aliens to due process when expelled (Article 13); right to a fair trial (Article 14); freedom from retroactive criminal law (Article 15); right to recognition as a person before the law (Article 16); right to privacy (Article 17); freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (Article 18); freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19); freedom from war propaganda and freedom from incitement to racial, religious or national hatred (Article 20); freedom of assembly (Article 21); freedom of association (Article 22); right of protection of the family and the right to marry (Article 23); right of protection of the child (Article 24); right of participation in public life (Article 25); right to equality before the law and right of non-discrimination (Article 26); and rights of minorities (Article 27).
Interesting, Brian. We all know that the US didn’t sign up to the 30 articles of UNCHR, although they encourage other countries to follow them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTlrSYbCbHE
but did they sign up to ICCPR? I suspect not.
“There can never be a true democracy unless there is an independent media”
and without human involvement.
Excellent recent article on principle of “do as we say not as we do…”, when it comes to human rights:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/the-us-lacks-moralauthorityonhumanrights.html
In case you wonder; Why there is no Russian military intervention in the Ukraine.
Wibble.
@peacewisher, here’s a handy reference,
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/UniversalHumanRightsInstruments.aspx
Thanks Dd
The perfect guide for following, champion that with animal rights and global responsibility.
It is our duty to learn them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/02/tony-blair-calls-european-elections-wake-up-call_n_5429677.html
(all papers)
Seems the little (fill this space with excrement) Blair is saturating the media with announcements of what he is about to announce (the bleeding obvious – move on, there’s nothing of substance to see) He’s definitely up to something.
Now ask me who Cameron would like to see as Euro Commissioner rather than Merkel’s choice, Juncker… someone who has disagreed with Juncker in the past, perhaps?
http://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/24028_en.html
Hmmm. Not that I see too much wrong with what Blair was saying at the time. The bleeding obvious, but Juncker doesn’t seem to think so.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645023/Tony-Blair-former-spin-doctor-Alistair-Campbell-accused-propping-mass-murdering-regime-Egypts-General-Sisi.html
There’s something intriguing about the man’s perception of freedom and democracy.
He’s still jockeying for position.
Tony Blair tells Europe to wake up to reform
Michael Savage and David Charter June 2 2014
Ukip’s election victory is a “wake-up call” on the need to reform Europe, Tony Blair is to say today.
The former prime minister will warn that support for Eurosceptic parties across the continent had exposed “deep anxiety, distrust and alienation from the institutions and the core philosophy of Europe”. In a keynote speech, he will urge pro-Europeans to accept the need for change, and not allow Eurosceptics to lead the debate. “The victories of Ukip in the UK and the National Front in France and the election of parties across the continent on explicitly ‘anti-the-status-quo in Europe’ platforms signify something. They cannot be ignored,” he will say. “The election results matter. They are a wake-up call to Europe and to Britain. Our response in Europe as in Britain should be to lead, not follow.”
His intervention comes amid attempts by David Cameron to block…
..http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4106432.ece
(paywall)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4106432.ece
Bungs R Us
Another YCNMIU
BLiar’s pal Goldsmith (signed off the Dodgy Dossier if I remember correctly) is on FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee.
2022 vote must be re-run if corruption proved – Goldsmith …
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/02/uk-soccer-fifa-qatar-idUKKBN0ED0JQ20140602
~~~
Independent Governance Committee
Chairman
Mark PIETH Switzerland
Deputy Chairman –
Member
Jose Luis ASTIAZARAN Spain (League President)
Peter GOLDSMITH England (former UK Attorney General)
Leonardo GROSSO Italy (FIFPro President)
Carlos HELLER Argentina (Club representative)
Michael HERSHMAN USA (Fairfax Group)
Guillermo JORGE Argentina
James KLOTZ Canada (Miller Thompson LLP)
Francois MORINIERE France
One down. A few dozen more to go.
King Juan Carlos of Spain abdicating
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27662301
What revolting Occupiers.
80,000 Palestinians left without tap water for three months
NEWS / Posted by Friends of Al-Aqsa / Sunday, 01st June, 2014
Tens of thousands of Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem have spent three months without running water, despite petitions and calls from human rights bodies after an Israeli water utility company stopped supplies in March.
Hagihon, Jerusalem’s water utility company, stopped regular supplies of running water to several neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem, such as Shu’fat Refugee Camp, Ras Khamis, Ras Sh’hadeh and Dahiyat a-Salam, said a statement from the website of B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
The camps are located inside Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and isolated from the rest of the city by the Separation Barrier.
According to B’Tselem, some households in these camps “have been completely cut off from the water supply” while others “receive water intermittently.”
“As for the rest, the water pressure in the pipes is so low that the water does not reach the faucets,”says the statement.
As a result, between 60,000 and 80,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are permanent Israeli residents, have been left without a regular water supply, adds the organization.
/..
http://www.foa.org.uk/news/up-to-80000-palestinians-left-without-tap-water-for-three-months
The daily temperature in Jerusalem in the past week has ranged between 27C and 38C.
Is Blair immune from prosecution if he manages to bully himself into a leading EU position? would not surprise me.
I suppose he would like to stop farm subsidies aqnd rather invest in arms R&D, or what was he on about? He failed as peace envoy and he failed parliament over Iraq, whatever Chilcott says, he can’t wish away Blair lying to Parliament.
Habbabkuk @ 1 Jun,2014-2:20 pm
If you do a word count, it would be even more extraordinary. My guess is in the vicinity of 30% of all words on this thread, but only about 5-10% being original content.
– – – –
Unrelated.. Here’s an uplifting video of a kid with pluck, defying convention :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXespwyiefY
Actually, I think Blair at the top of the Euro pile would very effectively destroy the EU. Farage needs to support his candidacy. That’s because Blair doesn’t do detail, and he sees issues only as black-and-white. Not what the EU needs at all; still less someone who’s either in Zurich picking up his sinecure money, some godforsaken Central Asian despotism sucking the oilteat, or Jerusalem, taking a percentage of any international aid aimed at the Palestinians while enthusiastically rimming Netanyahu.
@Mary
Lord Goldsmith on Radio 5 speaking of FIFA and the World Cup true to form he said all answers are to to transparent….
No with international diplomacy all dialogue should be true to form and in the open. That’s democracy.
Mr Scorgie and Mary opine, respectively:
“Mary’s posts are interesting and politically relevant.”
and
“posts here which I hope have been mostly informative.”
__________________________
Well, “interesting” is a subjective judgement to which Doug has every right of course; however, others outside the family might have a slightly different opinion. All part of the rich and democratic diversity of blogging life!
“Politically relevant” is a bit of a lazy and meaningless expression, isn’t it and is usually used by the ignorant or obsessive to justify scribbling about just about anything. A week without rain could be considered politically relevant insofar as it could be claimed that it is due to climate change which in turn results from political decisions taken on energy policy which are in turn taken because of…..and so on and so on. So Doug’s defence of Mary is not especially convincing and, moreover leaves entirely to one side the question of relevance to the subject of any particular thread…
Un peu de discipline, mes amis!
“Mostly informative” – well, yes, but this raises the question do we need to have a kind of “newswire service”, especially since most of us are, I suppose, capable of looking up anything we’re particularly interested in ourselves (we are all adults, apart from SKN of course)and some of do do have access ourselves to the various media (both MSM and “alternative” or “dissident) Mary keeps cutting and pasting from.
It could indeed even be argued that Mary’s newswire service is something of an attempt to force certain themes down the blog reader’s throat; it assumes his interest in those themes, something which in fairness cannot be assumed. Unless, of course, the function of this blog is merely to provide an echo chamber for a score or so of “alternative” or “dissident” voices whose principal concern is to mutually reinforce one another’s views; this would of course explain why the appearance of people who do not subscribe to the pensée unique (myself and subsequently a few others) had given rise to such agitation among the 20 or so regulars whom I thought it would correct to refer to as the “Excellences”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, if I feel O need a change from beach volley and my other healthy pursuits over the next few months I may do some more detailed analysis of who posts how often. It may be that, just as 1% of the population apparently owns 50% of the wealth, a half dozen posters on here account for 80% of the traffic.
A suivre….
Was it my post about the abomination of the Israelis denying drinking water to 80,000 Palestinians that brought the two attack poodles in?
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/75240000/jpg/_75240218_de27-4.jpg
Familiar…
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01792/pope_1792710c.jpg
Or maybe..?
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/1478/sootycf0.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdmt_j5P63I
If Blair were to get the EU presidency, wouldn’t it mean that he’d have to be more open about his finances.
Anyway, reports are indicating that Merkel (changed her mind), Hollande, Cameron and the Italian bloke are coming out against Juncker, so that leaves Schultz for the opposition, with dark horse Blair tearing up the inside as the compromise candidate.
I suspect that Cameron would support Blair, at this time. Can’t see the Russians being displeased either.
It’d be interesting to hear that question put to Cameron, forcefully, just to see how he handles it.
“Was it my post about the abomination of the Israelis denying drinking water to 80,000 Palestinians that brought the two attack poodles in?”
_________________-
No, not at all, Mary.
I was meaning to post that for a while anyway and then thought that the moment had come when I saw Mr Scorgie’s fawning “defence”.
Hope that clarifies.
Wow. This one flew completely under the radar. Three days before his Swedish trip,* Tony was in China, rocking globalisation for Ernst and Young.
http://www.ey.com/CN/en/Services/Strategic-Growth-Markets/EY-Strategic-Growth-Forum-China-Speakers
Hard to find out what he said, or how much a word he trousered for it, but here’s a nice picture instead:
https://twitter.com/CPAlexander_EY/status/469656156353597440
*Ba’al Zevul (I think: 29 May, 2014 – 12:59 pm
…dark horse Blair tearing up the inside as the compromise candidate.
I suspect that Cameron would support Blair, at this time. Can’t see the Russians being displeased either.
That’s what it looks like to me.
Re. the finances, I doubt the EU would be able to force the two crucial LP companies in Blair’s network to open their books at all. If it did, there would be a lot of structural ambiguity melding charitable money with weasel money. And then there’d be untraceable offshore assets, property held in other names, you name it. Much of Tony’s cash isn’t actually Tony’s you see, unless he explicitly wants it to be. He might be required to drop his current employment though…and that makes this theory rather attractive:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/tony-blair-the-return-former-pm-seeks-eu-saviour-role-9465860.html
Note, “unpaid”. That of course is completely counter to the Blair modus operandi, but wait. What would Morgan Stanley, Zurich and potentially other big players pay for an agent-in-place?
Jemand linked to an injustice in Yemen but fails to mention the great injustice of extrajudicial killings of Yemeni nationals by Obama’s drones.
Qaeda says kills ‘spies’ for aiding U.S. drone strikes in Yemen
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/02/us-yemen-alqaeda-idUSKBN0ED0NJ20140602
‘Yemen is the main stronghold of AQAP, one of the Islamist militant group’s most aggressive wings. The United States acknowledges using drones in Yemen but does not comment publicly on the practice.
In April, a series of drone strikes killed about 65 militants in southern and central provinces. Yemen’s army followed up with an air and ground offensive to dislodge AQAP fighters from their main strongholds in the south.’
There are AQ spies in Yemen just as there are Israeli spies in Gaza and Occupied Palestine and elsewhere.
Ba’al Zevul, Herbie, etc
No need to get excited about Tony Blair and a possible top EU job.
Listen to Habbabkuk.
Blair is not going to get any of the forthcoming package of top EU jobs and he us not even a dark horse: he is in any event disqualified from a couple of them, he has no chance of getting any of the ones he is not disqualified from and he is not even a dark horse. Read nothing into the reported visit to Berlin.
It is not to be ruled out (although I don’t think it’s very likely) that he may be given the task of “leading” a “reflection group” of something like “the future shape of Europe”. It wouldn’t be the first time that Heads have pulled this one out of the hat – eg before a conference on Treaty changes – on order to give the impression of taking stick, listening and so firth and it could happen either after the package of appointments has been agreed or, indeed, before. But this would be nothing like Giscard’s Constitutional Convention which preceded Lisbon and it should be noted that once produced, any report would be – not for the first time – swiftly and deservedly forgotten.
However.
Think laterally and ask yourselves the question – is the EU the only game in ol’ Brussels town? ……
***********************
La vita è bella, life is good!