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.
This is wot won it (for the crypto). ELEVEN pollsters were not wrong.
The cons, knowing disillusioned libdem voters (eg me) were not going to turn up, simply had the ballot boxes in the key marginals stuffed (remember the 70k van), including in the 23 former libdem constituencies they won, only homeboys clegg and carmichael were spared.
All that was then required to complete the chicanery,was to either have no exit poll (like in the indyref) or a cooked BBC poll out IMMEDIATELY (like the 911 nickrobinsong singsong crisis actor narrative -fire caused structural damage,interviewed in the street by a leventhall). And paddy ashdown was left chewing a marzipan hat.
There you have it, three conspiracy theories in one post. But a clever statistician can prove the rigging by dissecting the numbers of the 50 key “swingers”, no need for any YouTube videos.
You are correct about Clegg Arbiter. I really thought that he had not been re-elected. His majority in 2010 was +15,000 over the Conservative candidate. This time it was +2,000 over Labour.
He did of course resign the leadership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_Hallam_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
Not kneeling or bowing any more are the Palace flunkeys sacked in a supposed economy drive.
http://news.sky.com/story/1489364/royal-belt-tightening-sees-palace-job-cuts
Do they get a golden handshake like the deputy children’s commissioner Sue Berelowitz who has no shame?
Senior child protection chief in new payoff scandal
May 22 2015
A child protection chief who was criticised for failing to speak out about widespread sexual abuse by British Pakistani gangs has quit her job with a six-figure payoff and been immediately rehired on almost £1,000 a day. , who was deputy children’s commissioner for England and chief executive at the quango responsible for protecting vulnerable young people, took voluntary redundancy from her £99,333-a-year post on April 30 and received a severance payment of £134,000. The following day she was rehired as a consultant to continue leading an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the family environment, a role she has held since last July. Ms Berelowitz, 61, will be paid £960 a day under her new deal, working for up to nine days a month, a rate which means that she will earn almost as much as when she was a full-time employee…
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4449209.ece paywall
Mary,
If someone calls you a “bitch”, just remember what it stands for:
Beautiful, Intelligent, Top-Class Human.
With appreciation for all your hard work on this blog,
Neil
Seconded, and may God bless you Mary.
@John, why even bother with the Establishment trolls ? They have endlessly proved they are not serious, and I doubt that they could engage in a constructive debate even if their lives depended on it; the only worthwhile reason to interact with them at all is to highlight their dishonesty & hypocrisy. They are best defined by the last paragraph is this article by GG;
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/21/key-tactic-us-uk-hide-war-crimes-invoking-national-security/
Mary stands supreme here, especially against her moral pygmy detractors.
Mary, thanks for all the work you do in searching out important links and for making a real contribution to Craig’s blog.
Tony_0pmoc 23 May, 2015 – 3:32 am
I was moved. It looks like it may happen again. Regime change is part of the free market. And the trolls hold this up as a model for all to follow.
People are more important than governments. Collectively they are more powerful. Give me a fixed economy and peace, a mixed economy and peace: anything but the free-market capitalist war-making economy.
I was amused to read after the election that you were moving to Orkney.
At least now you can have the politician you deserve.
Enjoy him while you can.
Another loud-mouthed example of toxic masculinity in the headlines today as the former Archbishop of Westminster claims gay marriage is the greatest evil in our country:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/05/22/former-archbishop-of-westminster-gay-marriage-is-part-of-greatest-evil-in-our-country/
Yeah, obviously this confirmed bachelor feels that marriage between two consenting adults who love each other and wish to seal the bonds of a lasting, loyal relationship is far, far worse than paedophiles abusing kids in his church, eh? What a shmuck!
Techniclour
I was treasurer for an Unemployed Workers Centre in the late 1980s and saw how vulnerable they were to the whims of funding and disingenuous staff.
The Claimants Unions look a lot more robust. Self organising, very limited funding, no professional advisers. Excellent stuff.
“At least now you can have the politician you deserve.”
And the SNP will have the alliance they wanted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11621866/Alex-Salmond-Ill-campaign-with-Tories-to-stay-in-EU.html
Macky at 9.18 a.m.
The “our side is better” argument promulgated by trolls, and a sleeping public that sucks at the establishment nipple, demonstrates the full capacity they have for actual debate. The most disturbing aspect of Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept article is that evil monster, Ian Henderson, supported by our establishment, and the cover-up by British Secret Services of tortures and rapes under his command.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Henderson_%28police_officer%29
For the same reason I fear we may have a continued struggle to secure the release from Guantanamo of Shaker Aamer.
I meant to thank you for your recent links which I always read if I see them. However feel free to use Russian sources of news too. This is especially important now that the US has declared war on Russia Today, which it thinks is winning the media battle. It is winning the media battle because it tells the truth. The Neocon-Zionist media has no chance of catching up unless it starts telling the truth like Glenn Greenwald, John Pilger, Peter Oborne and a few others who refuse the bribes.
@Becky Cohen “the former Archbishop of Westminster claims gay marriage is the greatest evil in our country”
Thanks for telling us. Here’s the original Telegraph article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11625283/Yes-vote-in-Ireland-would-contribute-to-the-greatest-evil-says-Cardinal-Cormac-Murphy-OConnor.html
It is good to have the Cardinal stand up for his principles. I hope Ireland votes No.
Arbiter 23 May, 2015 – 7:20 am : “But a clever statistician can prove the rigging by dissecting the numbers of the 50 key “swingers”, no need for any YouTube videos.”
….. with special emphasis on the proportion of postal ballots compared to non marginals.
You never hear about this in our media. We just train the fascists. But there is daily shelling of cities in Eastern Ukraine by Kiev forces in contravention of Minsk 1 and 2 protocols.
http://newrussia.press/military/fights-in-donbass-22-05-2015/
@Fred
SNP policy is to stay in Europe.
Salmond has said he would campaign alongside anyone except “fascists and non-democrats” to stay in Europe.
What is your problem with that?
“SNP policy is to stay in Europe.
Salmond has said he would campaign alongside anyone except “fascists and non-democrats” to stay in Europe.
What is your problem with that?”
Nothing wrong with it at all for anyone who didn’t demonize the Liberals and Labour for campaigning alongside the Conservatives in the referendum.
For those that did, it makes them a bunch of hypocrites.
This is what happens when countries have a Rothschild National Bank and are up to their eyeballs in dollar debt. They are leaned upon. “If you don’t send your tanks into Eastern Europe, we will . . . you know what we will do!”
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/01/30/nato-units-set-for-baltics-poland-romania-bulgaria/22581365/
Britain isn’t a monarchy, it’s been a republic since 1707 and England has been once since 1688 (see the Coronation Oath Act 1688). The pseudo-monarchs are pantomime figureheads, behind which the executive president (called a Prime Minister) rules.
As to the Military Times article which shows the US has pushed France into supplying military equipment make me wonder what they have on Hollande. There is no Russian government-approved presence in Ukraine although there is British and US presence. Russia is no threat at the moment. As Putin responded when confronted with the false Russian military presence in Ukraine: “If we sent our army in the conflict would be over in a fortnight” or something like that in Russian.
Fred : “Nothing wrong with it at all for anyone who didn’t demonize the Liberals and Labour for campaigning alongside the Conservatives in the referendum.
For those that did, it makes them a bunch of hypocrites.”
During the referendum, the SNP didn’t demonise the Liberals and Labour for campaigning alongside the Conservatives in the referendum. They criticised them for campaigning to stay in the union. Obviously.
During the Independence referendum, the SNP campaigned alongside other parties with the same policy as themselves and criticised those with a different policy. During the European referendum, Salmond has said the SNP will campaign alongside other parties with the same policy as themselves and criticise those with a different policy.
Where is the hypocrisy?
It’s clear with the ludicrous OBL Desert Island book list and letter to wife wishing his son to be a jihadi,the CIA intends to target muzzies worldwide with a “coca cola wall to wall marketing campaign” run by the foremost media brains the Pentagon can muster. We can simply stand by and watch more Somali twins running to the caliphs arms at Raqqa or expose this giant ISIL hoax, the Arab masses are too dumb and unemployed to see through it.
Ba’al Zevul
22/05/2015 8:37 am
[Ba’al Zevul}: Ice cream cohen 100% genuine neocohen
[JSD]: Clearly jokes, no further comment needed except that “neocohen” is not the wisest of words to use even as a joke, as Phil observed very acutely, and I will quote and answer him later.
[Ba’al Zevul]: Some things need to be remembered, and the sometimes treasonous partnership between some American Zionists […] and the Israeli State is one of them.
[JSD]: I agree entirely with this statement, as I have extracted it.
[Ba’al Zevul]: [ – mainly Jewish, though not all – ]
[JSD] Well, you presumably know more than I do about that. I have no idea what proportion of American Zionists – which it would probably be useful in this context to define – collaborating with the Israeli state is Jewish, and what proportion is not, and nor do I care. What matters is what they believe and act upon, not what ethnic origin they are. Surely you can see that. No doubt a substantial proportion are Jewish, it would be astonishing if they were not. So what? Actually, my understanding is that a substantial proportion of American Zionists are fundamentalist Christians who believe we are living in the End Times. Others are people who believe Israel should be acting (in John Pilger’s words) as “the United States’ moored gunboat in the Middle East” – a strategically useful asset.
To describe the lot of them as “neocohens”, as Phil so brilliantly summarized it a few postings later, is “intended to suggest Jews are the neocon driving force. It is the normal racist conspiracy drivel that pops up here way too often”. Amen to that.
[Ba’al Zevul]: Taking umbrage on a play on words is not the way to suppress discussion, JS-D. Not here.
[JSD]: I’m genuinely confused by this statement. Either you have expressed yourself in a way that doesn’t make clear to me what you mean, or you have a very mistaken idea of what I was trying to do. Actually, I would have said that taking umbrage on a play on words would be a very good way to suppress discussion, if suppressing discussion was what one wanted to do. I have no interest at all in suppressing discussion. I welcome discussion, as I welcome your statements in this post. (I think some are irrelevant, however, as I have noted above).
You will also note that my request for deletion of posts was highly selective, and confined, as I recall, only to the posts containing the words “neocohen” and “jewboy”. The rest could stay as far as I was concerned. “Really” posted something about my son that I found pretty unpleasant, but I didn’t ask for it to be deleted. As your posts rightly note, I didn’t ask for “Really” to be banned, either, merely placed in pre-mod so that his posts could be looked at for this anti-Semitic garbage and edited if necessary. My request for pre-mod did not immediately follow my observing the word “neocohen”. There followed a long exchange which got steadily uglier, to my mind, until it was as clear as a bell that “Really” is some kind of white supremacist nut.
Apologies that this post is so long. I was rather surprised that you would think I was attempting to suppress discussion, so I wanted to give some background to my thinking. I will comment on further posts by you and Phil as I have time. Of course, you are welcome to respond whenever you please, but you might want to hold off until I have concluded.
Kind regards,
John
“I hope Ireland votes No.”
Early indications are that Ireland has voted Yes, with majority of 2 to 1, or 3 to 1 in some places.
Much celebrating.
Really, Dreoilin? That’s great!
BBC 666; “expose this giant ISIL hoax, the Arab masses are too dumb and unemployed to see through it”
See here;
http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/
Dreoilin
23/05/2015 12:38pm
I am very glad to hear that, Dreoilin, thank you. I never doubted that they would.
Kind regards,
John
“Really, Dreoilin? That’s great!”
Yes, the country seems to be rather proud of itself. 🙂
https://twitter.com/YesEquality2015/status/602076808008376320
https://twitter.com/BishopBuckley/status/602061183458385920
Thanks John. I’m very pleased, I must say.