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.
Node
Yes of course the western media were all over homophobia as anti Russian propaganda. Yes of course LGBT rights are an issue in UK/US. But still, of course it is in Russia too. Posting a prison planet link ito deny bigotry in Russia is laughable.
I know you say you are only countering propaganda. However, you make claims about which side is “better” at LGBT as if you know. As if the slightly least authooritarian is quantatively different from the other.
Do not loose sight that both ‘sides’ are actually the same side. Both racist, homophobic, elitist empires. Both fighting the foreigners, the queers, the poor. Fighting you and me. Yes fuck the UK, US. But fuck Russia too.
Fedup
You are unusually peddling weak analysis. Banking/money conspiracy nonsense. There is no board room of bankers pulling the strings.
You exagerate the banking connections that did quickly become somewhat strained once fighting commenced. The banking sector was just one part of the ruling classes support of the right. I can see the IBM hq as I look out of my window. I have a Krupps kettle in the kitchen.
So business continues during war. Yes, business fuels war. But this focus on Jewish bankers is the type of bullshit promoted by empire to distract from the real systematic problems.
“Mary don’t worry the oligopoly you hold with Mr Goss on smearing using family connections is one that you can keep – interesting how touchy you are in defending your heroes and what you see as your property rights.”
Perhaps Mary does not have a family member who valiantly fought for Russia against the Fascists, whose step-grandson defames his name by supporting them! Just saying.
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I challenge you to quote anything from it which supports your claim that “The law effectively legalized discrimination against LGBT people and cast them as second-class citizens.”
Come on then RD.
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RoS thanks for the rusting barrels of plutonium. If were Scotland I should want them removed directly to the Thames estuary.
Phil.
The real systemic problems being what exactly?.
Robert Crawford
Capitalism.
Less charitable would class this as a clever dodge of the issue.
Banksters creating money out of thin air is not the issue. Also discounted is the fact that successive corrupt legislature have passed laws into statute that has made such an activity legal and proper. To the extent which any self respecting boardroom gofer is kept too busy chasing the money, for shareholders and compelled to forget any and all morality in pursuit of the said money.
To use the smoke screen of Jew is to derail any kind of research or discourse, somehow implies that Jews are the world banksters! Alas Jews and none Jews alike have the victims of the ex pawn merchants (whom coincidentally happen to be Jews) and cohorts the likes of William Paterson.
To invoke the Jewish card soon as the ex pawn merchants are referred to is a cheap trick to keep suppressing any debate, about money and what is this entity that is evidently the root of all evil?
A system that is based on scarcity of a notional “sum” with no basis in reality and sustained as the only viable means of transactions, disregarding the human agent, and human factor all cannot be explained away simply by the empire? Just who/what is this Empire?
Phil.
Capital is needed for everything, and requires to be generated. This is done by you and me buying and selling goods and services to one another.
When laws are put in place to protect certain types of businesses, then capitalism becomes a danger to those who do not have the same protection from the law.
A little bit of legislation can make or break any business.
It is the “Law Makers” who are the problem.
Why do you think they “lobby” the Law Makers so much?
These are members of the Nazi youth group in Ukraine. Now where have I seen something historically similar? Shame on all their supporters including Cameron, Obama and Resident Dissident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5WrBAWwf_I&feature=youtu.be
Mary
“John Spencer Davis. Good info on Bahrain.”
_________________
Good info….but very long.
Wasn’t it you who criticised me only yesterday for posting the whole text of a link rather than just giving the link and providing a very short summary or introduction?
A small detail, to be sure, but very typical of how your standards are very flexible when it suits you. 🙂
Phil,
“Posting a prison planet link ito deny bigotry in Russia is laughable.”
I am supplying a link to a well researched document. Prison Planet website is a convenient place to view it. If you prefer, here’s another route to the same document :
http://www.scribd.com/doc/203382931/Russian-Lgbt-Law-White-Paper#scribd
“I know you say you are only countering propaganda.”
Correct. My motivation is not to defend Russia, it’s that this whole “Russian Anti-gay Law” business is a perfect case study of Western brainwashing in action. In this country we heard about it on TV, radio, newspapers, and websites from news presenters, comedians, sports presenters, phone-ins, game show panelists, newspaper columnists, bloggers, politicians, letters pages, and ultimately the man on the Clapham omnibus, and it was all shite. As my link shows, the entire story originated from a completely inaccurate NY Times op-ed by Harvey Fierstein. Whatever the original intention of that op-ed, it suited the purposes of the anti-Putin propaganda brigade who turned it into a global meme.
Even people usually attuned to such propaganda fell for it, including me and the author of the piece I have linked to. The usefulness of this case is that it is entirely self-contained – it has a beginning and an end and is based on facts which can be checked. It is the perfect counter to “everybody knows that so it must be true”
“However, you make claims about which side is “better” at LGBT as if you know. As if the slightly least authooritarian is quantatively different from the other.”
Read chapter 4
“Do not loose sight that both ‘sides’ are actually the same side. Both racist, homophobic, elitist empires. Both fighting the foreigners, the queers, the poor. Fighting you and me. Yes fuck the UK, US. But fuck Russia too.”
…. and fuck propaganda
Fedup
The jews and banking, their association with banking, has been repeatedly mentioned on this page. You dropped in the name Rothschild. You point out that Jews have a historical connection to usury. The sum of this emphasis is to perpetuate a racist myth that has nothing to do with the reality of what faces us.
” Just who/what is this Empire?”
This? I do not suggest there is one empire. I clearly name three above.
So Rothschild happens to be a Jew so what?
Historically Jews have been associated with usury, what are you talking about?
Jews had not a pot to piss in and were more like the poor Pakistani/Afghani villagers to consider these involved in usury is a ludicrous and stupid notion.
Because Rothschild the ex pawn merchants come respectable banksters happen to be Jews, talking about them is verboten because it is antisem…….?
By the same token it means there are no poor Jews and every
Node
“Read chapter 4”
I have no intention of reading the report nomatter how much authority you claim for it. I can very confidently predict the contents of that report have no bearing whatsoever on my point.
One report claiming this side is slightly less repressive than the other is of no interest to me. This is irrelevent bickering practised at great lengths by liberals who are continuosly surp[rised at horror. I am convinced that both the US and Russia are pretty horrific when it comes to any rights. I want rid of both of them.
You read chapter four and then cheer for your favourite empire if you want. I say fucxk them all.
every Jew is a bankster!!!!
A ridiculous notion indeed.
Fedup
“Because Rothschild the ex pawn merchants come respectable banksters happen to be Jews, talking about them is verboten because it is antisem…….?”
Doin’t play that childish anti-semtism crap.
I am simply saying that when you are part of a conversation where pople are expounding jewish banking conspiracies it might be better to point out this is nonsense before banging on about nazisw, banks and jews.
Fedup
“every Jew is a bankster!!!!”
Well four exclamations marks do add passion but I haven’t a clue what you mean.
Do you mean that every jew is banker? Or are you saying that I am saying that? Because I am not.
“Capitalism”
____________________
It was one time London Mayor Ken Livingstone who said,
“Capitalism had killed more people than Hitler”
Imperialism isn’t any better,with many people dying from starvation in the last fifty years of the Raj in India.
I wonder what Clive would have thought about that.
Mary re Euan Blair
“Euan has a BA in Ancient History from the University of Bristol and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.”
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You can count yourself lucky that he didn’t take PPE at Oxford.
Tony and Max Beloff were all set to get the young man – whose A levels were not straight As – into Trinity but the story leaked out and ’twas not to be.
As for the MA at Yale, well, the less said the better about who can get to read for a higher degree there. Alternatively Lysias (BA Oxon – college still undisclosed) might tell us?
But I think the younger Blair got there, the fuss having been forgotten in between times.
Shame on the Thomas Cook global outfit for their greed in the case of the deaths by CO poisoning of two little ones in Corfu in 2006 and shame on Frank Meysman (Chairman) and Peter Fankhauser (CEO). See their bios on Bloomberg.
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=187284&privcapId=20482698&previousCapId=4515244&previousTitle=THOMAS%20COOK%20GROUP%
20PLChttp://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=9430136&ticker=TCG:LN
They’ve been everywhere.
Boycott Thomas Cook for their corporate greed. The annual turnover is £8.5bn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cook_Group
The usual suspects.
Thomas Cook Group plc’s three major shareholders as of October 2013 were Invesco (11.9%), Marathon Asset Management (4.12%) and Kames Capital (3.14%).
Republicofscotland.
“Clive” would not have given it a second thought. Neither would other like minded.
A poor analogy I know, ” if you want to make an omelette, you have to break eggs!”.
Phil : “I have no intention of reading the report nomatter how much authority you claim for it”
Please yourself. I have no intention of accepting your unsupported declaration that there is no quantative difference between treatment of LBGT in Russia and the USA no matter how much authority you claim for yourself. I’d rather rely on the statistics in chapter 4.
RoS
“Capitalism had killed more people than Hitler”
Livingstone said that? That surprises me a bit.
Although I no longer describe fascism simply as capitalism on steroids I am inclined to see the victims of ww2 Nazism as just a small subset of capital’s total. And imperialism. It’s hard to disentangle either from capitalism.
Fankhauser – http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=9430136&ticker=TCG:LN
Mr Goss
“BRICS has invited Greece to become the sixth member”
________________
Untrue.
Russia – ever eager to stir up mischief, and knowing that a number of SYRIZA ministers are Russia-friendly – has made a suggestion to that effect. The other BRIC members are less than keen.
Who is this Clive getting mentioned?
As it now stands globalisation,is really just a cover name for the explotation of the many by the few.
Unwillingness to pay a decent wage when you think about it is a war,on the poor.
Now the Tories have been let off the leash,they’ll be no Butskellism across the green benches,as the powers lie with the incumbents.
Those of you who believe Westminster can be reformed from the inside are kidding themselves on,when the only contender who could’ve made a difference Labour,embraced the Chicago Boys and Milton Friedmans,far rigth economics.
It became abundantly clear that socialism in the House of Commons has been on a slippy slope,and it doesn’t look like changing anytime soon.
Node
“and fuck propaganda”
Quite agree.
“I’d rather rely on the statistics in chapter 4.”
Groan.
Hang on! You have conflated the Jews with banking again! This holds that every Jew is a bankster!
Banking and Jewish religion are not the same. If some banksters happen to be Jewish (on their say so) talking about the banksters and their snakeoil nostrums is not homing in on Jewish Banker Conspiracy!
In fact anyone expounding as such are covering up for the fraud that the banking is and has always been!
So far as the standard 18th 19th 20th century Jew was in as pitiful a situation as their current Muslim counter parts, somehow has been lost in the mists of time and the political fraudsters and their bankster sponsors have covered up, in the way of suppressing any debate or research into their conspiracies and fraudulent activities.
Stop conflating the “Jews” with the conspiratorial banksters who are enjoying the protection of the old prejudices and the smoke screen of antisemi……
RpS The nuclear submarine graveyard at Devonport has been dangerous for years.
https://www.cnduk.org/about/item/779-devonport
“Clive” would not have given it a second thought. Neither would other like minded.
A poor analogy I know, ” if you want to make an omelette, you have to break eggs!”.
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Robert Crawford,you’re probably right,it’s an endemic problem of the Britishness of old that’s transended,to the modern world.
Non more so than when the Chagossians were cleared by their imperial masters.