What comes out to me from the “Black Spider letter” correspondence of Prince Charles published today is how utterly obsequious Tony Blair and New Labour ministers were to him. No sign whatsoever of radicalism from the former “People’s Party” as they fell over to ingratiate themselves with the heir to the throne. I rather enjoyed Charles quite sharp tone to Blair.
I am fundamentally opposed to the existence of the monarchy. It will hopefully be replaced by a better system, but no human system is perfect. Given that we have a monarchy at present, you will perhaps be surprised to learn that I do not see anything wrong in Charles’ letters, which put forward views which are much what we would have expected him to hold. Of course there is interaction between the monarchy and government, and of course we should get rid of this hereditary element. But Charles’ lobbying is hugely less damaging and pernicious than the corporate lobbying I witnessed throughout my Whitehall career. At least Charles is not lobbying them for corporate advantage and giving large political donations at the same time.
While in my view he did nothing wrong in writing the letters, he and government are both very wrong in arguing they should be private. It is when it is secret that such attempts to wield influence between two branches of government – and monarchy is a branch of government – can be most simply perverted to ill ends. That such publication will not occur again because government has legislated to keep it secret, is an example of the privileged arrogance that prevents this from being a genuine democracy.
Altogether not that big a story and it gives Rusbridger and the Guardian the chance to pose as radical. I find the fact that what is published is so anodyne and unobjectionable rather suspicious – what has not been published? Rusbridger is of course the editor who complied enthusiastically with a GCHQ instruction to smash the Snowden hard drives. The existence of other copies does not justify this any more than it justifies book-burning.
By coincidence, a very worthwhile article by Michael Gillard that had been excised from the net has recently been republished, setting out how Rusbridger in 2002 conspired with Andy Hayman of the Met to bury an investigation into police corruption, including the burglary of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. By a further coincidence I was having a pint with Laurie Flynn in Sandy Bell’s four days ago.
Hayman went on to be the promoter of the stream of lies about the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes and the publicist of numerous fake terrorist plots, before having to resign in a scandal involving nubile police officers at public expense in tropical islands.
Rusbridger and his extraordinary wig go on and on as a pretend opposition outlet, their reputation much dented by recent hysterical unionist output which exceeds the Daily Express. But Rusbridger’s continued usefulness to the establishment is not in doubt. The pose of publishing the most harmless of Prince Charles’ letters does little to help a threadbare disguise.
“One of my favourite songs seems apt for all these resigner/leavers.
The Seekers The Carnival is Over.”
The Nick Cave version is better.
Resident Dissident
“Habba
Could you remind us what the $ to Rouble exchange rate was when you first advised us to sell Roubles and buy dollars?”
_______________________________
I would love to, RD, but I can’t remember.
But in any case, my advice was (deliberately) only given after it was too late – you know that I would do nothing to help any of the Putinistas on here.
Now, I could of course have gone on to say “and buy CHF” but that too might have put money into the pockets of the more well-off Putinistas….. 🙂 ….and so I didn’t.
Resident Dissident 16 May, 2015 – 10:51 pm : ““evidence” on the North Korea killings from a source that the nutters sometimes trust
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-15/execution-anti-aircraft-gun-photographic-evidence“
I’m reposting your link in the hope that even more readers check out the quality of your “evidence” and rate your credibility accordingly.
RD nearly went up in a puff of smoke last night having generated so much hot air.
Habakkuk/Habbabkuk changed e-mail address/IP address mid way, again. So mobile. Perhaps resident on the iCloud or in outer space.
John Spencer Davis. Good info on Bahrain. Thanks. The housewife of Windsor has a lot of selling to do for the arms industry remember.
Wonder how many they sold and to whom. OK to do a bit of decorating or clearing out the garden shed but wearing one out of doors would surely attract a few choice epithets.
https://www.conservatives.com/tshirtoffer
Like father, like son.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3084416/One-eye-future-Euan-Blair-audience-wannabe-Labour-leaders-set-stalls.html
No! No! Spare us.
This amused. Last I heard he was with some employment agency.
‘He is believed to have quit his lucrative job at investment bank Morgan Stanley to focus on building his political career. But he caused controversy by working for the Republicans in Washington.’
Yes he is. Acting CEO.
Euan Blair – Acting Chief Executive Officer, UK
Euan’s focus is to oversee new business, negotiate contracts, and drive our employer engagement approach, working with key stakeholders from the public and private sectors to ensure effective delivery of our employment and training services.
Before joining Sarina Russo Job Access, Euan worked at Morgan Stanley where he helped raise funding of more than $60Bn for UK companies including Marks & Spencer, National Grid, Vodafone, and Unilever. He has also advised on funding strategies for a number of public sector and charitable clients including Transport for London, Network Rail and the Welcome Trust.
Euan started his career working for the US Congress House of Rules and Homeland Security Committees in Washington DC. He has been a speaker at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy conferences, a member of the New Local Government Network Taskforce on Capital Finance Options for Local Authorities, and is a governor of a primary school in Westminster.
Euan has a BA in Ancient History from the University of Bristol and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.
http://www.sarinarusso.co.uk/about-us/team-profiles.aspx
No laughing in the back please.
“While you’re there Resident Dissident what do you think to Lavrov and John Kerry advising Poroshenko to abide by Minsk 2?”
Unlike yourself, who has demonstrably called for Russia to reclaim its homeland on a number of occasions, I believe all parties should abide by Minsk 2.
“He did – he said their currencies weren’t trusted even by their neighbours – or by the tyrants themselves who salted their private wealth away in hard foreign currencies.”
Proof please.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/22/gaddafi-libya-oil-wealth-portfolio
Now Mr Goss will offer some proof for his original assertion – he can even do it in the 3rd person – but until then it is just another dose of his puffball dust.
A node you forget that zero hedge has one supporter here
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/01/the-russian-empire/#comment-503550
It could of course be a false post made in order to discredit zero hedge. Personally I’d follow Pykrete’s advice and stick to the Guardian and Reuters as MORE reliable sources.
Change of email address just for the Duchess of Dorking!
And back again like magic
I always thought going after family members was such an admirable and courageous way of getting at the target – perhaps Mary could provide us with details of her own family so the honour could be reciprocated.
All hail the emperor – the cult of the individual returns to Russia – remember the last time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZERK__FpPo
http://rt.com/news/256393-putin-15-years-president/
“The Gaddafi family could have billions of dollars of funds hidden in secret bank accounts in Dubai, south-east Asia and the Persian Gulf, much of it likely to have come from Libya’s vast oil revenues, according to analysis by leading Middle East experts.”
I asked Resident Dissident for proof and at 6.14 a.m. he provided a Guardian link which begins above. Yes, and I could have been the first man on the moon. But the proof is it was Neil Armstrong.
As to Saddam being about to launch a challenge to the petro-dollar I have already provided a link and I am not going looking for it again. That’s why I said the onus was onn you to disprove it.
“All hail the emperor – the cult of the individual returns to Russia – remember the last time?”
I suspect a touch of envy that the fifth column attempts of Nemtsov and others backfired so badly Putin’s popularity has soared.
“Can you help us put a full page national advert in the Independent and the i newspapers to mark the July anniversary of 547 children killed last year in Gaza, and promote The Big Ride for Palestine?
We have collected 20% over the past few days, if we don’t reach our target all money is returned to the donors.”
I am in training for this bike ride to raise money for the families of those children killed and maimed in Israeli bombings. It will go some way towards rebuilding their lives and show that eveybody in the west does not support Israeli aggression. If you can help in any way it would be appreciated. Thanks.
http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/remember-the-children-of-gaza
So “Everyone knows” actually means “I once posted a link about it” I’m sure Saddam would have liked to get the dollar out of world oil pricing. He would not be the only one to try, Iran in particular for obvious reasons avoids the dollar as much as possible. But as the saying goes, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride.
This will help too – as long as the UK stays in the EU http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/aid/countries/factsheets/gaza_en.pdf
“He would not be the only one to try, Iran in particular for obvious reasons avoids the dollar as much as possible.”
Russia too is ditching dollars and the BRICS bank is going to be the next major challenge. This is probably why the US is putting so much into trying to destabilise Russia via Ukraine. So I guess decent people will have to get on their bikes again to rebuild the mess in Ukraine.
Destruction is all the crazy west knows.
It is called FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and evidently the only freedom left in the freedom kit box, and you are now decreeing to take that away too?
If you don’t like what you read:
avert your eyes,
don’t read,
or more to the point putting it plainly; feck off!
==========
Clearly the best minds at work!!!!! Slight problem; these cannot tell their proverbial butt from their elbow?
Petrodollar?
What is it?
Do these luminaries have the slightest idea?
Fungibility, of the Iraqi and Libyan currency were not based on useless bits of printed paper these were issued based on the oil these countries are sitting on. However because the bent, corrupt, worthless banking system devised and mostly ran by a bunch of pawn merchants come banksters. These can collude and scheme to discount the real stuff, and instead push the fiat money, fake dollars, that have no basis in real world and are only fashionable.
The fact that money is something that everyone apparently aims to accumulate, somehow does not mean that anyone of the morons know what they are in fact accumulating?
They say fool and his money are soon depart, they are not kidding! Taking the UK insurance market, energy market, etc. that are blatant examples of crooked dealings and how the so called government has failed to do anything about it, other than putting adverts to tell people; you switch!
Freedom of choice!
Thanks Fedup. At least somebody seems to know what’s going on.
What’s going on in Lithuania some Lithuanians don’t like. This gentleman made me smile. He clearly does not feel safe with the Yankie Doodle Dandies around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=45&v=6TA_l2Nk_ao
Let us talk about money.
Say I control all the oil in the world and it is priced is US dollars. If you want to buy oil you have to use US dollars. Right or wrong?.
You then have to change whatever currency you have into US dollars. Therefore, someone receives a fee, namely the bank or money changer. They then have your currency as, “foreign exchange”.
Now, if an oil producing nation decides to sell it’s oil for something other than US dollars, the one with the US dollars loses out.
If the currency of a Commonwealth country is classed as “not legal tender” outside it’s own borders then all international financial transactions must go through the “Commonwealth Trading Bank in London”, therefore, someone pays a fee, and the Bank receives a fee. Nice business if you can get it. Or, the Bank can speculate on your currency going up in value and make a killing.
Just the same as you going on holiday and changing your money into the currency of the country you are going to.
Verification?
Any amounts of lies never equals the truth.
If two convicted criminals tell the same lie about you to the police, the police believe it and record it on their “data base”.
So if the newspapers decide to “blacken” your name with any lie, the mugs will believe. Right or wrong?.
Before you believe anything, from all sources, verify as much as you can. WMD in Iraq for example came from what you all thought was an impeccable source. Right or wrong?
It is almost impossible for you and me to verify anything. Right or wrong?.
Unless, we have insider information.
Craig Murray was that insider information.
We also know what “our government” did to discredit him for exposing rendition and torture.
So who is the smart legal brain who is willing to help when we are exposed to wrong doing by the police, because the government just does not want to know, or help.
That is my experience.
The “BRICS Bank” statute is denominated in U.S. Dollars http://brics6.itamaraty.gov.br/media2/press-releases/219-agreement-on-the-new-development-bank-fortaleza-july-15
“The “BRICS Bank” statute is denominated in U.S. Dollars”
It is at the moment because it has not defined the currency it intends to issue (allegedly) though much trade is being done in roubles and yuan. BRICS has invited Greece to become the sixth member. That must be really worrying for the banking fraternity which collectively has as much love for one another as Cain had for Abel.
Thank you Robert Crawford for a measured and well-thought comment.
8 in a row by RD. A record.
‘perhaps Mary could provide us with details of her own family so the honour could be reciprocated.’
If only I could. I am extremely proud of my relations and their achievements but you and your associates here would only smear then by association. You smear Putin, Gaddafi, Saddam and other leaders to your heart’s content don’t you?
John Goss.
My experiences!
Russia has suggested Greece join the BRICS bank http://rt.com/business/257701-greece-russia-brics-invitation/
In fact membership is open to all members of the UN. What is not clear is whether Russia is going to pay Greece’s subscription
Post the end of the gold standard for US dollar in 1971 by that arch crook Nixon, the al Sauds were approached and given the choice sell your oil in dollars or we will find someone else who will sell your oil for dollars!
The fiat money that had little or no worth, could now be printed in billions without any basis in the real world. However it would be still traded, despite the fact it was just a paper denomination (monopoly game money). Further the pawn merchants come banksters, setting up their stall across the planet and transferring the bundles of money from one place to another, caught up with the times and set up a telegraphic system that has come to be the “swift” system.
As ever those who write the rules of the play get to play more, and enjoy bossing other players around. The ex pawn merchants from the Austrian ghettos don’t let any Tom and dick and Harry to come play with the swift and the way it is explained away is “sanctions” (in direct contravention of the “human rights”; freedom to trade).
The International Bank Of Settlements an entity that is little known about but its personnel are immune from arrest (in any country) even for murder in any part of the world, gets to do the exchanging and decides who will be playing and who will not. Late Henk Ruyssenaars a tireless Dutch Journalist spent most of his life exposing this sinister entity.
Suffice it to say that whilst WWII was raging and pitting nation against nation, and man against man, the banksters of the warring parties would often gather in lavish parties held in Switzerland and in a very civil manner deal with each other!
Dollar is a worthless fiat money, however the fire power of the dollar printers and their mega tonnage destruction on demand buckets of annihilation ensure that the worthless paper is money and people can trust it! If people of the world decided to get rid of dollar, what would the crooks and banksters do?