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.
“I put a raunchy “het” play on “Ice Cold in Alaska” in a gay pub (The Australian Bar on Hurst Street in Birmingham) and none of the local gays who used the pub came to see it.”
Funny that – for you next piece of research how about singing Birmingham City songs in the Holt End maybe? I’m afraid given the synopsis:
” Due to failing eyesight Tom misreads a newspaper article. He’s disappointed that nobody will buy his script Ice Cold in alaska. Helen suggests he produces it himself. There’s the problem of actors. Tom wants Helen to play all three women, Vivien, Cassie and Raquel while he plays George. There’s a knock at the door. It’s Uncle Tom passing through from the Isle of Man. Tom sees in Uncle Tom the makings of Eskimo Nell. Uncle Tom is not keen on this idea but agrees to take the script with him to read the part. When he returns it seems he’s re-written the script to the displeasure of Tom. Helen thinks the new script is good. They learn their parts and perform the dress-rehearsal right there in the living room which they turn into an alaskan cabin. Tom plays George, Helen plays Vivien (George’s wife) and Uncle Tom plays Nanook. Vivien is a saucy wench who, to the displeasure of George, spends all day whoring with the menfolk of Caribou. They pay for her services in gold soldiers. She collects a great many of these and is able from the proceeds to buy a saloon in Connecticut.”
I fear it would have had problems even in a down town brothel in Anchorage.
“Recently however I have come to the conclusion that gays in this country, and certainly in the US, are not oppressed.”
Another conclusion based on the lack of proper research I’m afraid – otherwise how do you explain this:
http://www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/hate_crime.pdf
And of course I suspect you believe that there is no problem at all in Putin’s Russia. Did you agree with Gerry Healy and Muamur that all this women’s and gay right stuff were a diversion from the class and anti-Zionist struggle?
“I fear it would have had problems even in a down town brothel in Anchorage.”
It did not have any problems. The audience loved it.
Those who can’t write, resort to criticising. I only criticise what I’ve seen.
Sochi 2.0 19 May, 2015 – 6:18 pm
“Nuland & Co caught the Bear unaware and carried out the coup/sniping whilst it was busy on Sochi. But what was it that Putin/Lavrov said to Kerry at Sochi this time that got him admonishing porky publicly. There is a lot more than meets the eye, anyone venture a guess?”
My guess is that the Russians have a defensive weapon that can bring down computerised military systems and make them inoperable. They’ve used this technology once.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html
Or perhaps they showed Kerry something else. Who knows. I am not like Resident Dissident judging when I have no knowledge so I reserve opinion on this.
Resident Dissident
Was that really the plot of the “play” Mr Goss wrote?
Unbelievably bad and I’m not surprised that the local gays stayed away in droves.
As did any other even half ways sa
As did any even half ways sane theatre goer, I should guess.
Mr Goss, I”m afraid, is no better a playwright than he is a poet.
Army knew Libyan soldiers jailed for drunken rampage of rape and sex assaults were dangerous and put barracks on lockdown when they arrived to stop them escaping.
Nevermind
“@ our resident shit rakers, why don’t you fuck off Habbakuk, you apologist for mass murder.”
______________________
Thank you for that intelligent and considered post, Nebelmind, du alter Wichser.
I’m offering a fiver that he’ll be on to the Parachute Regiment next! 🙂
Judge Rejects State Department’s Plan for Delayed Release of Clinton Emails.
“Those who can’t write, resort to criticising.”
Bit rich from someone who called Ted Hughes “Upper class, rural and farmy”
Yet another link to the Mail Online from our Irish-American warrior.
Most people on here wouldn’t use the Mail to wipe their bottoms with.
But there’s no accounting for taste, as they probably say in the bars of old Boston!
According to the latest Navy Times, the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan was at sea in the Eastern Pacific on May 1. First time it’s left port in many months.
Habba – his own synopsis I’m afraid. Perhaps he could post up the full script on his website so that we can see how he stands artistically with Ted Hughes!
Resident Dissident
Having read that synopsis, I’d rather see a stage representation of the lead story in the latest issue of the Navy Times, with Lysias in the starring role, of course.
Truly awful!
“I am not like Resident Dissident judging when I have no knowledge so I reserve opinion on this.”
This comes following another dollop of the usual targeted musings and links to tendentious tosh – remember all that stuff about attacks on Hitler’s birthday to name one of several others. I’m surprised we haven’t had a parroting of the change in the party line on MH17 given the photoshopping of the Ukrainian fighter attacking a plane that most definitely wasn’t MH17 we are now moving to it having been a missile from Ukrianian territory.
Habba – Oxbridge classics scholars don’t do boats, they are cold war spies in Berlin!
I don’t pretend to know this Steve Hilton guy
Minimal research would have told you he’s a former Cameron spin-doctor / advisor / courtier. And that his current narrative fits very well with both selling his book (out now!) and the nu-Cameron ‘blue-collar Conservative’ spin.
As Ingo says, once he learns that he cannot disconnect the system which feeds him and his ilk from the incestuous world of his paymasters, he might become a Green. Until then, he’s merely trying to make the Tories look cuddly. Some, er, aspiration!
Shit, sorry, Nevermind. Villager used the name we do not use and I followed suit without thinking. Baaa.
[mods-cm-org – spam filter false positive at 13:42]
Wonga’s new adverts are not going down well. They have abandoned the puppets and now use real live ‘hard working’ people. So funny. Perhaps that a wheeze from the No 10 escapee.
David Cameron’s senior adviser leaves to lobby for Wonga
The Prime Minister’s adviser on digital strategy, Jonathan Luff, is leaving Downing Street to become a lobbyist for Wonga, the controversial payday lender.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9642807/David-Camerons-senior-adviser-leaves-to-lobby-for-Wonga.html
Their APR is still 1509%. A snip.
PS Perhaps we could have some comment from Dreolin in the Emerald Isle. P Charles is meeting Gerry Adams today and then visiting the place in Galway where Mountbatten’s boat was blown up.
Resident Dissident
You are George Smiley and I claim my £5 !
“I’d only quibble that the knowledge of building a movement from the bottom up can probably only be acquired by actually doing it. And, sadly, once the movement’s objectives are met, that knowledge is lost again. Is there anything left in Labour that might serve, given a miraculous surge of goodwill, as the foundation for a socially and environmentally sane political movement?
Was talking to a Unite shop steward today. He’s still blaming the Tories’ fearmongering narrative for Labour’s defeat. Sure, that was a factor. One which should have been obvious in advance and pre-empted by anyone familiar with our rightwing press. But if his union, instead of pretending to be the exclusive champion of only its paying members’interests, had freely contributed, say, to social housing movements and food banks outside its self-assessed remit…then it could have mobilised a lot more votes.”
I agree with you. The problem with those who proclaim to speak on behalf of the interests of those who pay them their direct debits by way of union subs, is that they tend to view the nature of the class structure much the same way that Marx and Engels did in the middle half of the 19th century. Not only that, but the feeling is a mutually reinforcing one.
Whilst I recognize the great contribution both these giants played in the development of class consciousness, the situation is somewhat more nuanced now than it was when Marx was wring Das Kapital. It’s still the case that there is in existence a class war within contemporary Britain. However, it’s problematic to frame it in the way, as union activists tend to do, in terms of a Marxist analysis that doesn’t take into account the kinds of complexities of the workforce in Britain in the 21st century.
The issues seem to me to be structural and ideological as opposed to party political. We need to break the growing stranglehold the private sector has in the delivery of key public services. We are seeing greater forms of localized resistance that the unions, who are still welded to establishment politics, haven’t accounted for.
Where once these unions were at the forefront of radical social grass roots mobilizations, they are now, along with their political paymasters playing catch up. Hence, as you righly say, unions are not “doing it” even though many within the union movement think they are. We are certainly living in very interesting times.
BORN KNEELING – BUT NOT IN CANADA FOR MUCH LONGER. Yesterday (March 18th) Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, published an article headlined – “Royal Family support by Canadians waning, poll indicates”. While support for the Monarchy seems to vary depending somewhat on what question is asked, the CBC article goes on to indicate that – “A whopping 73 per cent of Forum Research poll voters think Canada’s head of state should be Canadian born and reside in Canada”.
Reporting a typo. In my comment above I have written a date as March 18th when of course I mean yesterday. May 18th.
It’s Good to hav a wee laff now n then EH… – Tissues at the ready
John McTernan Creates SNP Landslide –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVt6GV3inWY
Sometimes, it does not matter how many years pass… i was up all night last night..thinking of a petrified wee girl.
Her pleading eyes didn’t save her.. from the Evil Bastards…Fucking excuse for men…Cowards,…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/16/israel2
Nevermind..Well said @ 19/ 7;40…See ya aroon a Big Fire at Doune
We saw Putin publicly chastise Merkel to her face about coup “double standards” (ie porky vs hadi).Then the Lavrov to Kerry put down at Sochi. The Nuland visit to Moscow last week. A subdued Obama, something is happening behind the scenes. And all along we have to listen to this kind of habba/nickrobinson sing song narrative !
Ignore last para of my post at 11.02pm held in spam filter. Irrelevant today. And it was County Sligo not Galway anyway.
~~~
The best the Scottish Daily Record can do on Mhairi is to tell us that she worked in a chippy. So?
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-mp-mhairi-black-reveals-5723074
Much better is this photo of Wee Dougie.
http://i1.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article5675365.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Screen-Shot-2015-05-10-at-201716.png
The Daily Record belongs to the Trinity Mirror Group.
The wheels of the British justice system do grind exceedingly slow.
Police officer found guilty of assaulting student at tuition fees protest
PC Andrew Ott faces jail after breaking front tooth of William Horner with riot shield during 2010 demonstration in London
19 May 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/19/police-officer-found-guilty-assaulting-student-tuition-fees-protest
During the same protests –
Jody McIntyre: Met police cleared over wheelchair complaint …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13578369
27 May 2011 – Jody McIntyre said he was tipped out of his chair and dragged across a road on 9 December, and was hit with a baton.
A miscarriage of justice there. Jody McIntyre was also subjected to an aggressive and derogatory interview by the BBC’s Ben Brown.
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/12/14/jody-mcintyre-exposes-the-bbcs-disabilities/
There were thousands of complaints. Dismissed by the BBC needless to say.
Other students received injuries, some serious.
“The best the Scottish Daily Record can do on Mhairi is to tell us that she worked in a chippy. So?”
Perhaps they believe her recent work experience was of more relevance than where her grandparents originated from? Not that there is anything wrong at all with working in a chippy – could have been far worse she could have been a cog in Mr Sturgeon’s machine.