A stark example of the entire purpose of modern politics; careers for the political class. Lib Dems may agree to a referendum on EU membership because it “reflects the thinking of English Lib Dem MPs in seats where they face Eurosceptic pressure”. That is, nothing to do with their beliefs, just trying to save their jobs. Exactly like the Westminster Labour establishment in Scotland.
Allowed HTML - you can use:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Sky News faces a social media backlash after a woman suspected of ‘trolling’ the parents of Madeline McCann was doorstepped by reporters. Users allege Sky News is responsible for the woman’s death after her body was found hours later.
Brenda Leyland, 63, was found dead in a hotel room on Saturday, according to police. Hours before, Sky News reporter Martin Brunt had confronted Leyland over her role in a campaign of online abuse.
_________________________________
A touch of the Jacintha Saldanha, about this event it will beery interesting to see if she left a suicide note, or if MI5 type ne out.
Either way its a warning from Whitehall to lay off the McCanns.
http://rinf.com/alt-news/uk-news/sky-news-faces-online-backlash-death-mccann-troll/
Fred; “The revolving door is more of a problem in America than Britain Ben”
It’s more than chronic enough here, especially,(but not only), in the Arms Industry;
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/oct/15/mod-military-arms-firms
New NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday that the Western alliance could deploy its forces wherever it wants, apparently calling into question post-Cold War agreements that have been shaken by Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine.
______________________________________
It would appear NATO are intent in goading Russia into some sort of military action.
http://nr.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=3&articleid=29891082&m=d
I saw ‘The Fifth Estate’ last night, or ‘Evil Assange vs kind and benevolent state department only trying to do their best etc..
What an abortion. And Mark kermode called it balanced ?
Not one mention of the empire. Destroying whole bloody counties. OIL ect. But OOOooo, this Assange guy, he’s dangerous? Everyone involved in that film should be utterly ashamed. My guess is they don’t even notice how upside down the picture they present is.
Sorry just had to get that of my chest.
I know, How about we have a referendum on if we should vote in US elections? I think citizens should have some say in who runs this country.
Seems a lot of other countries shold also have that right.
“Islamic Dawa party MP Ali al-Badri said, at a press conference at the parliament building in the presence of a number of deputies of Diwaniyah province and attended by IraqiNews.com that “the terrorist organization ISIS used chlorine gas for the first time in the region of Saqlawiyah after trapping more than 400 troops, resulting in the deaths of many of them due to suffocation while the terrorist gangs detonated car bombs within the brigade headquarters.”
http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/urgent-isis-kills-300-iraqi-soldiers-chlorine-gas-attack-saqlawiyah/
it was just a question of time.
Ishmael concerning “The Fifth Estate” thank you for that comment. Almost all other reports I’ve read about it have said the same thing.
Where is Arbed to keep us informed regarding any progress now Sweden has an apparently better government?
“It’s more than chronic enough here, especially,(but not only), in the Arms Industry;”
But nothing like as bad as in America where when a government changes the old politicians not only move into industry but the new ones move in from industry then when the government changes again they all swap back again. that is where the “revolving door” analogy comes from.
Dick Cheney went from Secretary of Defence to CEO of Haliburton to Vice President.
Democracy, like the other slogans such as human rights, freedom, justce, gender equality, etc. – has been corrupted so much by the elites that they have all lost their original meanings. Interestingly, Muslims make the largest minority groups in the US, India and Israel – but they’re the most persecuted ones in those countries. American writer Stephen Lendman wrote: “Is it less true for America or in how Israel treats Muslims, many its own citizens yet denied virtually all rights afforded to Jews, and in Palestine none under military occupation.” Indian writer Arundhati Roy compared Hindu right wing (Hindutva) persecution of Muslims in India to Hitler’s persecution of Jews. She asks: “What kind of India they want? A limbless, headless, soulless torso bleeding under the butcher’s clever with a flag driven deep into her mutilated heart?”
http://rehmat1.com/2010/01/16/it-is-not-a-democracy-stupid/
Yes John, I noticed even reviews on IMDB reflected that.
I’m a slow learner. So many people who I’m finding I should not respect much in the establishment. Yet I still must as it still gets to me.
Fred; UK doesn’t stink as bad as US doesn’t mean there is no odor.
http://corporateeurope.org/revolving-doors/2014/07/uk-prime-minister-david-cameron-nominates-revolving-door-ex-lobbyist-eu
Lobbying transparency, just like Obama is the ‘most transparent administration’.
As usual with reports from the Western press, the deception can manifest itself just as much from what is omitted as from what is actually said. The Washington Post maintains that those who destroyed the statue were merely “anti-Russian protesters.” In reality, it was a mob led by literal Neo-Nazis of the notorious Azov Battalion – fielded and directed by Kiev’s Interior Ministry itself.
While the Washington Post attempts to claim the statue’s destruction was a manifestation of the people’s will in eastern Ukraine, it was in reality a stunt pulled by some of Kiev’s most vicious, ultra-right, and illegitimate supporters – supporters the West works continuously to obfuscate from public view.
Azov’s role in the Kharkiv incident was revealed not by the Russian media, but instead by the European Union and NATO’s own Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors on the ground in Ukraine. Submitting daily reports often ignored by the Western press, the OSCE stated in its September 29, 2014 briefing that (emphasis added):
On 28 September, at 14:30hrs, the SMM observed in Kharkiv a large demonstration of some 2,000 pro-Ukraine supporters gathering in front of the Opera house. The crowd, composed of men and women of different ages and including children, was led by members of the “Azov” volunteer battalion, as well as young men and women with masks. Some of the demonstrators marched towards Liberty Square, where Lenin’s monument was located. There, the SMM observed a group of young men with masks trying to climb on top of Lenin’s statue, while the crowd present on the square had increased to approximately 5,000 people. The demonstrators who had climbed up to the statue began using an electric cutting instrument to dismantle the base of the statue. Whilst not visible on the square, the SMM observed the police deploy and set up an outer perimeter cordon around the square and three buses of police behind the regional administration building. At 22:40hrs Lenin’s Statue was pulled down by the demonstrators. As the SMM left the scene, it did not observe any further incident.
While Azov’s role in much of Ukraine’s daily violence goes unreported, the Western media has tentatively reported on the group in the past. The Telegraph in one article titled, “Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists,” reported that:
As Ukraine’s armed forces tighten the noose around pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, the western-backed government in Kiev is throwing militia groups – some openly neo-Nazi – into the front of the battle.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/10/07/ukraine-nazis-in-plain-sight/
It’s amusing to see how you wiffle waffle around.
On the question of Scotland departing the UK, that’s a question for the people to decide in a referendum — to be held over and over again until the people get it right. But on the question of the UK departing the EU, that’s not a question for the people to decide in a referendum but for MP’s to firmly oppose as a matter of unyielding principle, and any MP who says otherwise is crass opportunist.
But the definitive statement on the responsibilities of a representative in a parliamentary democracy was surely that of Edmund Burke, who rejected the notion that a representative was bound by the opinions of his constituents:
“My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?
To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,–these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.”
But Burke would surely have disapproved even more of the present-day reality which requires that an MP serve merely as a representative of the government to the people. Any move in the direction of real democracy in the West thus requires procedures for the selection and promotion of candidates for election to the legislature that allows a representative to vote in accordance with “the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience.”
Yes Canspeccy, that was Burke in 1775 before the American Revolution when it was shown that constituents do have rights of proper representation. Burke would have fit in well with parliamentarians today. Some things are too big to be left for MPs to be whipped into opinion which is roughly what he saying at that time. War is one issue which should never be left to elected represenatatives.
Burke was a somewhat different character 15 years later when he wrote ‘Reflections on the French Revolution’ but still as wishy-washy. This ‘pamphlet’ pushed Thomas Paine into his critique and dismantling of it in the “Rights of Man”. Burke’s ‘Reflections’ were not really about the French Revolution but more about a fear that Republicanism might spread across the Channel and he defended the constitution which he formerly found flawed. In it the self-same Burke claims the English nation renounced the rights to negotiate the terms of a civil society and successful government depended on continuity – keeping the status quo.
On the other hand Paine wanted to abolish the monarchy, introduce state pensions and other human and worker rights not introduced till the twentieth century. So the “fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution” would have left us back in the eighteenth century. We pretty well were for more than 100 years – imperialist pursuits of theft, war and no rights for those who produced the wealth.
You are right of course. We do need to make changes. First and foremost is removing the right of central party machines to determine who can stand in which constituency, and consituent party members should select people from their own electorate. That in my opinion is where the change is needed.
Joe Biden told us part of the truth of where ISIS comes from. The corporate media buried his initial comments, but where delighted to tell us he apologised to the countries that are funding and part-arming ISIS.
This is what happens: people who tell the truth are required to apologise.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/biden-is-sorry-for-saying-arab-allies-aided-isis.html
I DO apologise for ‘where’ !
“Lib Dems may agree to a referendum on EU membership because it “reflects the thinking of English Lib Dem MPs in seats where they face Eurosceptic pressure”. That is, nothing to do with their beliefs, just trying to save their jobs.”
__________________
That is one interpretation, of course.
Another, less negative one, might be that they are responding to what appears to be the wish of quite a few people on the Clapham omnibus.
That might – just might – be considered by a less angry person as democracy in action in the five-ears interval between general elections.
“five-year” (before Mr Goss starts talking about Noddy again 🙂 )
Having just read the rest of the comments on this thread I wish to take off my non-existant hat to Republicofscotland, who has left the narrow confines of Holocaust denial behind him to branch out into such a variety of posts (even on Honduras, a country that most unfairly gets little mention on this blog) that the ordinary reader is simply dazzled!
Keep it up, RoS, you’re a one-man adult education programme.
Biden is often ‘accidentally’ honest, Mike. I’m not sure if he is the lightning rod or the dildo of the Obama Admin.
@ JG:
that was Burke in 1775 before the American Revolution when it was shown that constituents do have rights of proper representation
How exactly does a revolution “show” anything. Presumably not by any logical process.
And as for “proper representation” what exactly is that: the 2014 US Congress?
Burke was a somewhat different character 15 years later when he wrote ‘Reflections on the French Revolution’ … This ‘pamphlet’ pushed Thomas Paine into his critique and dismantling of it …
LOL. Burke may, in your opinion, have got the character of the French Revolution wrong, but at least he wasn’t, like Paine, arrested, tried and convicted for treason by the revolutionaries, notwithstanding his supposed revolutionary cred.
First and foremost is removing the right of central party machines to determine who can stand in which constituency, and consituent party members should select people from their own electorate.
I think I said that, more or less.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) ! 7 Oct, 2014 – 10:31 pm
Well done Noddy! I’m impressed. Freudian slip I guess, Big Ears what! We all do it my boy. But you were quick to correct yourself which is admirable.
Now, about that match. Somebody from Newcastle has walked off with the ball since the Crows signed up Peter Crowch in this eight aside game.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127161425@N07/15284833599/in/set-72157647518928915
Was it you Noddy?
Speaking of democracy in action:
Cameron should apologise for not cutting immigration, says Clegg
Even damn liberals are now racist white supremacists who think England is the homeland of the English, not a place where any opportunist migrant can as a matter of right help themselves to the job of a native.
What next? Clegg to promise coalition with Britain First?
Its like chiggers or bed-bugs in your face, eh Canspeccy. Immigrunts are good for the UK. You are a one-issue voter.
Canspeccy I was agreeing with you. You should not take everything as an attack. Burke was, as his name suggests, a nerd, though highly-educated and articulate. Too many people who have read neither Burke nor Paine have too much praise for Burke and nowhere near enough for Paine. I have read both.
Robespierre and ilk imprisoned him because he made a plea to save the king from execution, as any decent person would do.
@JG
Canspeccy I was agreeing with you. You should not take everything as an attack.
I was agreeing that you were agreeing with me. Mostly.
@ Ben
You are a one-issue voter.
Oh far from it. I’m for the abolition of the minimum wage, though I thought I’d already said that.
And I’m for a reverse income tax so that workers unable to earn a living wage in a free labor market do not starve.
I’m for a carbon tax, too, which is a more efficient way of limiting the chemical transformation of the atmosphere than stupid subsidized windmills, etc.
And, of course, I’d restore free speech, i.e., an end to political correctness.
And I’d replace the House of Lords with a House of Plutocrats, membership to be based on the amount of tax paid. That would be a return to the original conception of the upper house, which was for the big land owners, i.e., the plutocrats of the day.
And, I’d end the silly expensive business of general elections and have a lower house selected at random from literate people over the age of 40, who are not on the public payroll.
There are few other things I’d vote for, but I do understand that while political correctness reigns calling you opponent a one-track-mind racist is the way to go.
It’s amazing, though, that the Liberals had to lose 99.9% of there voter support before they realized that there are people out there, millions of them, who have opinions and interests that cannot be negated by sheer force of politically correct bullying and that, in particular, those people don’t like being genocided, as in becoming a minority in the national capital, in Luton, in Leicester and soon in many other major urban centers.
But now Clogg faces total electoral obliteration, perhaps he will also demand Scameroon apologise for failing to allow a referendum on EU membership. But pehaps Milliband will promise a referendum — Not that anyone would believe him.
CanSpeccy
“people don’t like being genocided, as in becoming a minority in the national capital, in Luton, in Leicester and soon in many other major urban centers.”
_______________________
Here you are again with Luton and Leicester.
Luton : inaccurate as far as I know – please back up your assertion with figures.
many other urban centres : please elaborate on your scare-mongering assertion – which other “major urban centres”?
Thank you.