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.
Mary
You’re by way of being a public figure through your assiduous posting on this blog.
You’re also an accomplished geneaologist.
So tell us a little about your grandparents, bless!
Daniel
I think you are confusing ship stewards and trade union leaders and then indulging in rather a lot of broad gerneralisations. Also to disagree with Baal there are a lot of shop stewards who do take a wider interest than there members interests – there are also not a few who take an interest in their unions head office politics to the exclusion of their members interests. There is a real problem in certain of the larger unions where the leadership exert an almost Stalinist control over their structures – and any keen union members who want to campaign outside a defined core of issues will get no support whatsoever – but there are also pockets where real politics actually flourish. With the former the issue really isn’t one of an ideological focus or worship of Marx and Engels but of personal fiefdoms and cliques – the way new leaders are appointed and then subsequently ratified often leaves very much to be desired.
Baal, Rose
I found the bemolution a tad confused/confusing. He wants “anarchist” like resistance because he doesn’t like the current government. This call for transitional anarchism leading to a socialist state is new to me. I don’t know what you would call that. Probably not anarchism though. Bolshevism? 🙂
Fair enough, RD, but wasn’t suggesting by any means that all trades unionists were insular cogs in the machine…just that that still seems to be the prevailing ethos. Understandably, given the continuing assault on organised labour, and the need for defending what’s left of workers’ rights – this has to be reactive, and doesn’t allow a longer-term strategy to develop.
Addressing part of Phil’s comment, I think the takehome message is that local engagement with everyday problems beats the shit out of machine politics. Bodies as various as the SNP, Hamas, the Taliban and even the LibDems a few years ago, have gained from this realisation. To say nothing of the early Labour Party itself…
The bemolutionist’s appeal for me is that he starts interesting trains of thought, even if the line is still under construction.
And I do recommend a stroll round the bemolution site. Here’s something approaching its philosophy:
http://thebemolutionwillnotbetelevised.com/2013/10/28/a-for-the-planets-sake-and-b-just-to-survive-the-left-needs-to-get-generic/
It Was The Joos Wot Lost It! (by the Jews)
http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/analysis/136348/labour-party-must-now-pass-israel-test
Your eyes didn’t deceive you. The endorsement of 0.5% of the UK population must be obtained before the democratic process even begins.
Warning: the words ‘Blair’ and ‘honest broker’ appear in the same paragraph.
The Malaysian and Indonesian authorities have relented and will take in the Rohingya people from Burma/Myanmar. There was a choice of either a slow annihilation or setting off on a long boat journey.
US Condemns Burma’s Treatment of Rohingya as Migrant Crisis Intensifies
‘Nearly 4,000 people remain stranded at sea with dwindling supplies
Washington called on the nations of Southeast Asia to marshal their forces to help thousands of Burmese and Bangladeshi migrants who have been marooned on the high seas for weeks.
UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, warned on Tuesday “that time was running out” for the migrants fleeing sectarian violence in Burma and poverty in neighboring Bangladesh.’
http://time.com/3890323/burma-u-s-migrants-human-trafficking-southeast-asia/
The people from Bangladesh are likely to be repatriated.
Baal
“Here’s something approaching its philosophy”
This is what I took away from that second bemolution article:
Marxism is dead. We need a new left to all come together. No good way forward.
What a wishy washy load. Nothing concrete at all. I can’t see anything he is saying beyond the standard liberal position: those pesky extremists are spoiling it for everyone. Vote [add your current fav party name]!
Baal
” I think the takehome message is that local engagement with everyday problems beats the shit out of machine politics.”
Yes. This is a bog standard, probably universal, left anarchist perspective. It is how we hope to dismantle the machine.
Phil – I’m still waiting for your concrete suggestions…other than throw that chunk of concrete through the shop window…
And I don’t think that’s really what he’s saying. What he does say is that the left has to go back to first principles.
The blogosphere reverberates with people self-importantly telling each other what ‘the Left’ should be doing. What the world and her springer spaniel are clearly crying out for, then, is another deeply unpopular, laughably unlikely ramshackle leftist strategy, hastily rammed in the virtual left-wing suggestion box and probably never seen again. The Bemolution lives to serve.
The Left should radically and unsentimentally revamp itself, turning what is all too often a fossilised remnant of the early twentieth century into something specifically addressing the social, political and ecological here and now. It should drop the blinkered obsession with past ideological battles. Instead, it needs to hammer itself back into contemporary relevance, going back to first principles and relating them afresh to the way the world is today.
(The first paragraph is not intended seriously: the second is.)
Namely, Labour as presently semi-functioning will happily betray its founding principles to get into power. Once in power, it will happily forget its founding principles completely in order to stay in power. It is partly enabled to do so because its founding principles have been overtaken by massive socio-economic and environmental change…ay, there’s the rub. The only way is start again; a new agenda for a just and sustainable society, which per se does not invoke or excuse consumer capitalism. The objective is not power within this or any other system: it is transformation.
I could go on. I’ll spare you that.
Yes. This is a bog standard, probably universal, left anarchist perspective. It is how we hope to dismantle the machine.
Get dismantling, then. Or is there a problem?
The chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life is an arch Zionist, Lord Bew. He does not reveal his chairmanship of the Anglo Israel Association in the website biography.
CSPL members
•Lord Paul Bew (Chair)
•David Prince CBE
•The Lord Alderdice
•The Rt Hon Dame Margaret Beckett DBE MP
•Sheila Drew Smith OBE
•Patricia Moberly
•Richard Thomas CBE
•Dame Angela Watkinson DBE MP
•Carolyn Fairbairn
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/the-committee-on-standards-in-public-life/about/membership#members
https://www.gov.uk/government/people/paul-bew
cf his Lords register
Professor of Irish Politics Queen’s University Belfast 1991-
Chairman Airey Neave Trust 2012-
Chairman Anglo-Israel Association 2011-
Chairman Key Stage 2 Assessment Review 2010-11
Chairman British-Irish Association 2008-
Focus
Asylum, immigration and nationality
Defence
Education
International affairs
Parliament, government and politics.
World
Middle East
United States
Register of Interests
2: Remunerated employment, office, profession etc.
Professor of Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast
Chairman, Committee on Standards in Public Life
10: Non-financial interests (d)
Executive Member, British-Irish Association
10: Non-financial interests (e)
Chairman of the Executive, Anglo-Israel Association
President, Airey Neave Trust
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-bew/3832t
The Seven Standards of Principles in Public Life are:
1.Selflessness
2.Integrity
3.Objectivity
4.Accountability
5.Openness
6.Honesty
7.Leadership
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life–2
Tristram Hunt is not standing for the Labour leadership.
Theresa is annoying the police at their conference in Bournemouth.
“Tristram Hunt is not standing for the Labour leadership.”
____________________
Excellent news. It will mean that he might devote more time to the job he’s paid to do, which is teaching undergrads history at Queen Mary.
A supercilious so-and-so and very ungentlemanly when debating with other politicians.
“Theresa is annoying the police at their conference in Bournemouth.”
_____________________
I am not surprised. Margaret Thatcher was wise enough to get the police on-side while undertaking the restructuring of various other areas of national life.
The current and previous govts feel that, job almost done, there is less need for the police to be on-side.
And now it is the turn of the police to be restructured.
The experience is not proving pleasant.
Pastor Niemoller’s well-known quotation refers.
Baal
My position in a tiny nut shell:
I have ideas of a anarchist future – there are plenty of opinions within this broad group. Not incudentally a broad group that actually practises tactical meaningful alliances as much as many and more than most. Syndicalist, communist, blah, blah. Doesn’t really matter what our differences are because we are so far from these decisions and way more importantly we do not know, nor should we pretend to know, how a popular awakening will turn. We recognise we have ideas to seed but these are only our current ideas. We do not hope to be the leaders of the future.
Of course there are universally acceped tenets: minimise coersion, free association, self responsibility, these types of things. Hopefully these will be universally accepted norms that allow for a wide range of local experimentation within these parameters.
The above is my quick position on where anarchism may take us. Of course from the tenets above I make conclusions.
Look here’s the ting. This friggin mass awakening ain’t gonna happen out of the blue. It takes organising. That organising is important. This touches on the idea you questioned earlier, that you can only learn by action. Just getting people involved in organising themselves is really important. The Spanish anarchist revolution was not sponataneous. The people had been organising outside of the state for a long time before. That tradition , kicked off by a non Spanish speaking Italian bizarrely enough, enabled them to take over quickly when the state retreated and continues today in Spain. Which led to occupy. Which was inother ways crap but that’s another story. It got new people thinking about self organisation.
So my position is:
-Agitate against the status quo
-Organise locally to prepare for the end of the state
Of course this is dreaming. But what’s the choice. I am convinced that power will always be abused. The only hope is to minimise the damage when this happens. Spread it out.
I am happy to make alliance for reforms that tangibly improve peoples lives. Sorry this a quick but rtamblinmg lunch time comment. Please tear into it and |I will get back this evening.
Thanks very much for your considered response, Phil. It can only be good to get beyond picking holes in other peoples’ positions and to take the time to explain our own – that’s not meant as a veiled criticism, btw. We don’t seem to be that far apart, even.
Now let me be contentious. I bet your local vicar needs all the help he/she can get to improve peoples’ lives. That would be a useful starting point for any activist, who could simultaneously sell some liberation theology. Wonder where that might take us? Since we’re dreaming…
@Mary: The chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life is an arch Zionist, Lord Bew.
How does his support for Israel lead to his formulating standards that are unsatisfactory? The 7 principles that you quote at the end don’t seem to require any stance on Israel.
On Israel, I just noticed in the news that Israel’s PM overturned an attempt at introducing segregation on buses travelling to the West Bank.
From many sources ‘הסכם העברה’ we learn the Pharisees truly ‘got into bed’ by way of deception with the Egyptian royal families exploiting the lack of incest taboo.
n.b. Royal or Majestic (הָדָר) [noun] – ornament, splendor – the modern beautification to attain a vulgar superiority.
Cut to Rafeef Ziadah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vFJE93LTI
Bless her.
If the chairman actually followed Zionist standards on public life he would try to bomb the Foreign Office like the Stern Gang.
http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/local-news/plot-bomb-london-thwarted-heroic-7411721
More on Bew
From Wiki:
‘Bew served as an adviser to David Trimble.[2] Trimble and Bew are both signatories to the statement of principles of the Henry Jackson Society,[12] which has been characterised as a neoconservative organisation.[13]’
Remember Trimble (also on the CSPL outfit) who was brought in by Israel on the Mavi Marmara whitewash report??
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-members-of-flotilla-inquiry-panel-meet-for-first-time-1.296644
Trimble was also involved in setting this up. One of those ‘Israel does no wrong’ set ups. Note the location of the first gathering – the House of Commons – under the auspices of the Henry Jackson Society and Halfon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Israel_Initiative
From the Anglo-Israel Association website. They are even embedded in Her Maj’s places of worship.
‘Our annual programme includes a briefing visit to Israel by senior clergy. These visits have already borne fruit in that we now cooperate with Westminster Abbey and St. George’s at Windsor Castle in their briefing programmes for parliamentarians, clergy and diplomats to gain deeper understanding of Israel and the Middle East.
Briefing senior clergy in Israel gives them an accurate picture of the situation. Clergy return with clearer views.
On the academic front, our annual Ambassadors’ Roundtable tackles the hot issues of the day whether it’s looking at renewable energy, food security or innovation in our universities. We bring Israeli experts to meet their counterparts in the UK to share knowledge and to create business and/ or scientific relationship.’
So now we know.
Abecentrics world, Abecetric mantra!
Boy the world ought to celebrate the Jew only buses are not going to kick out the Arabs!!!
You are just an apologist for mass murdering, land stealing, child abusing, bunch of Jewish Supremacists who have made murder, lies, terror, mass murder to be more acceptable than the profanities on the TV which have a watershed hour!
Abe other than you the rest of the world population can see the ugly face of the Jewish Supremacy and all that goes with it!
Abe other than you the world cannot stand the stench of hypocrisy of the claims of land without people for people without lands!
Abe you may not find it reprehensible to find that our law makers and movers and shakers are at the beck and call of the zionists, but the rest of us, find it highly objectionable and inappropriate, regardless of your thoughts, and concerns, as an apologist of mass-murders, and land thieves. But we don’t have a democracy; so the likes of you can say what they do and get away with it too!
“I’m offering a fiver that he’ll be on to the Parachute Regiment next!”
_____________________________
He’ll need to get permission from Prince Dobby first afterall Dobby is Colonel-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Truth aka the BBC,have been reminiscing over Lord Mountbatten and how disgraceful and unsporting it was of the IRA to pull his plug so to speak.
I hear or see no such lamentations for the innocent victims the Parachute Regiment dispatched,without remorse.
As for Americans of Irish descent,it’s completely understandable as to why they still bear a grudge against the old empire.
“I think you are confusing ship stewards and trade union leaders and then indulging in rather a lot of broad gerneralisations.”
Perhaps. I’m not denying that there are some very good shop stewards. I’ve come across good and bad. My line of argumentation in the substantive sense relates to the concept of the union hierarchy and how structurally its ability to affect meaningful grassroots mobilizations within the wider aspects of the working class is becoming increasingly limited and irrelevant.
Both unions and the traditional Labour Party that funds them, haven’t been a) very good at being able to adapt to meeting the demands of an increasingly fragmented workforce and b) have largely failed to keep up to pace with the shifting socioeconomic conditions so as to be at the cusp of local mobilizations that these shifts reflect.
The distance between the Labour Party/unions and the mass of working people and activists on the ground has therefore become wider and wider over time. The vacuum is thus being filled by others who are better placed to resist the privatisation of the public sphere through direct action and mass civil disobedience which circumvents the need for union-led interventions. This is the way forward in my view.
It’s no coincidence that the relevance that both the Labour Party and unions have in terms of their responsiveness to meeting the needs of ordinary working people have been in decline for decades.
“As for Americans of Irish descent,it’s completely understandable as to why they still bear a grudge against the old empire.”
________________________
Possibly so (some of them, at least) but it’s always good to know where certain posters are coming from, isn’t it. Sort of puts the themes of their posts and what they say into context wouldn’t you agree, old fruit?
BTW, I wonder what your particular hangup is?
I think I’ll start a series of occasional posts under the rubric “Inconvenient truths” (inconvenient for the nihilists, extreme left-wingers, conspiracy theorists, loonies and obsessives on here, I mean).
It will be complementary to my normal posts and run in parallel to them, so ROS, Fedup, Mary, Monsewer Goss et al, you’ll still have to keep on your toes ‘cos I’ll still be keeping an eye on you!
“Possibly so (some of them, at least) but it’s always good to know where certain posters are coming from, isn’t it. Sort of puts the themes of their posts and what they say into context wouldn’t you agree, old fruit?
BTW, I wonder what your particular hangup is?”
___________________________________
Oh we all have our crosses to bear,our points of view,are often a reflection of ouf politics,you youself are no milquetoast when it come to expressing your undying loyalties.
Infact I find some commentors have very endearing Falstaffian qualities,don’t you?
@Fedup: “Boy the world ought to celebrate the Jew only buses are not going to kick out the Arabs!!! … ” Indeed it should, so get on with it!
Seriously, there aren’t going to be any Jew-only buses, because the policy trying to create them has been overturned.
This is Israeli democracy in action and shows how Western civilisation with its capacity for self-criticism can achieve action for human rights better than Arab states.
“…” I’ll ignore the slanderous nonsense that follows.
Abe Rene
There are however,anti-Islam adverts carried on buses in the USA.
Philadelphia’s transit system has been ordered to accept provocative ads that include a 1941 photograph of Adolf Hitler with a former Arab leader after a federal judge ruled in favour of a pro-Israel group’s free-speech lawsuit.
The ads do nothing to heal relations between Arab and Jew.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-city-ordered-to-allow-anti-islam-ads-featuring-hitler/
“Seriously, there aren’t going to be any Jew-only buses, because the policy trying to create them has been overturned.”
Do you think that the Zionist extremist aspiration for Eretz Yisrael will be overturned too?