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 Iranian told me that the 1979 Islamic revolution is now referred to as “The Big Mistake
Would that (by any chance) have been an expat Iranian? And/or a Baha’i? There’s a lorra lorra politics there…
http://thebahaiinsider.com/2013/11/10/bahai-role-in-the-50-year-crimes-of-the-pahlavi-regime/
Baha’i HQ Haifa Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_World_Centre
Dr Kelly was supposed to be a member of that faith. Probably a psyops smear.
Umunna withdraws Labour leader bid
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32748106
@ Exexpat
Oops!, Mandy dropped his chorister butter-side down.
The Baha’i Israel connection may well not be sinister at all, Mary, but times have overtaken it in that any opposition to the Iranian theocracy is a gift to Israel. This is the orthodox Baha’i account of the setup:
http://bahaiblog.net/site/2014/07/bahai-world-centre-israel/
I’ve had something to do with UK Baha’is, they’re pretty diverse in outlook, don’t quite come across as a cult, and the religion’s been described as the spiritual equivalent of the Liberal Party. If Kelly was one, fair play to him.
“Umunna withdraws Labour leader bid”
Damn! Next best we can hope for is Andy ‘Belsen’ Burnham.
Kim John Goss:
“This is true of other countries. It was true of Libya (one of the best socialist countries the world has ever known) until NATO whowed it what democracy is all about. It appears to be true of North Korea, another country without a Rothschild central bank. So stories are made up to discredit it the latest being about a top general being publicly executed with anti-aircraft weapons for falling asleep at a meeting.”
Made up? You only have to watch North Korean media for five minutes to know what kind of regime is operating there. Or listen to those who have managed to escape. But any anti-West regime, no matter how bad, is worthy of your support, isn’t it? You really are a fucking disgusting lunatic, Dross.
Without going in too much detail and turning this place into the General Synod; as Falun Gong is a religion so is the Baha’i both of which surprisingly share the belief in becoming invisible (as in invisible man).
The roots of these can be found in the SIS shenanigans going back to the days of the Great Game; choose an indigenous belief construct and tailor/change it to your own ends! Preach it to the population and you have a nice fissure that can be worked to split the crystalline demographic and get to use/abuse/deploy the disaffected and the believer alike.
Those North Korean Broadcasters
@Fedup: have you met Iranians happy with the current regime? I haven’t met at least one who wasn’t, having supported the revolution at first! He said as I recall ‘*We* now call it The Big Miatake’ (& he wasn’t royalty so far as I know).
@Phil: For Henry the VIII we can do even better: he wrote a whole book, for which the Pope gave him the title “defender of the faith”. Alas, he appears to have developed a roving eye thereafter. One reason to have a constitutional monarchy rather than an absolute one.
Chuka gave as a reason for withdrawing “I’m human, the rest of my life is more important to me than politics”. Sensible fellow!
correction: that should be “I have met at least one who wasn’t..”
The roots of these can be found in the SIS shenanigans going back to the days of the Great Game; choose an indigenous belief construct and tailor/change it to your own ends!
Nah. Humans come up with amazing beliefs all by themselves. And the major interest the Brits had in Persia when that one was founded was keeping the Russians out. That other syncretist success, the Sikhs, did rather better IMO – and I don’t think you’ll claim they were founded by British agents.
Invisible Baha’is? I don’t think so. Nothing more radical than the soul as an invisible essence, comparable with the Christians’ Holy Spirit, at any rate.
Yeahp! I have, on the telly!
Around sixty million of them!
Remember Iranian revolution? Those who kicked the Shah out and got rid of the US/UK stooges running their country?
They would do it again in a heartbeat if they were not happy with the current lot, running the show there.
You have met one, and evidently your huge demographic cross sectional sample of the one ex-pat (ie someone who does not live there) “Iranian Society” has afforded you the comprehensive and total understanding; “The Big Mistake”!!!!!
Here is a nice Christian liberal whom believes in British Values and our way of life and often celebrates it by torch processions!
Ben Bradshaw, BLiar and Iraq War supporter and member of the Henry Jackson Society thinks Umunna’s withdrawal from the leadership race is ‘tragic’ and he is ‘very sad’ that Chukka has chucked it in.
Thanks for that link Fedup at 12.41 p. m. All credit to the Mirror for exposing these evil-doers. It’s a pity they do not do the same in Ukraine, where the Nazis are ten times worse.
Fedup
Well I’ve spent a lot of time in Iran and can assure you that the Islamic regime there is not at all popular. People rebel in their own small ways and one of those is by ridiculing the regime behind closed doors, which would seem to be a favourite pastime of most Iranians in my experience.
Shrinking Palestine. A graphic paints a thousand words.
http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/shrinking-palestine/interactive.html
I expect they’ll be going for a lady this time, then. The black guys will have to wait their turn.
Anyway, I think religions are more of a top down thing.
And even a constitutional monarch needs an heir.
The Nakba: A crime watched, ignored and remembered
Ilan Pappe
15 May 2015
‘The steadfastness of the Palestinians is like the age-old olive trees in Palestine that succeed in resurfacing between the European pinesThe 15th of May is usually a trigger for a journey back in time. And for an unfathomable reason each such journey conjures up a different aspect of the Nakba. This year, more than anything else, I am preoccupied with the continued apathy and indifference of the Western political elite and media to the plight of the Palestinians. Even the horror of the Yarmuk camp did not associate in the minds of politicians and journalists alike the possible connection between saving the refugees there and their internationally recognised right of return to their homeland.
Israeli medical treatment of Islamists fighting the Assad regime, mending them and resending them to the battlefield is hailed as a humanitarian act by the Jewish state; its exceptional refusal, compared to all the other – and much poorer – neighbours of Syria to accept even one refugee from the Syrian mayhem has gone unnoticed.’
/..
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/nakba-crime-watched-ignored-and-remembered-1368485987
Anon1
Western media have a track record of falsely reporting executions in N. Korea, eg Kim Jong Un executes his former lover and a dozen others ….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10272953/Kim-Jong-uns-ex-lover-executed-by-firing-squad.html
…. then, they presto they’re alive again ….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10837897/Executed-Kim-Jong-Un-girlfriend-reappears-on-North-Korea-television.html
How, therefore, can you be so certain that John Goss is wrong to doubt the latest reports of a general executed for sleeping at a meeting? Are you using your super-ESP powers again? Be careful, the last time you used them you had to slink off the thread after being well and truly slapped down.
Yeah I have spent a lot time in Mars too, and I can assure that Martians are not half as tall as they are portrayed in the war of the worlds!
Is there any end to your talents and know how? World traveler, font of wisdom, political analyst, lion tamer, Tonka toy tester, …………
Give over!
Any nationals of any country that get rid of their ruling elite, for sure can rise up again and again, so all these tales of disaffection are just the normal run of the mill gripes of a population which would like a different way of running their own affairs.
How come when it comes to Iran the utopia alone can be the only standard?
=====
The abuse of power has become so endemic that even little Hitlers are daring to to lay down the law!
So stories are made up to discredit it the latest being about a top general being publicly executed with anti-aircraft weapons for falling asleep at a meeting.”
“Made up? You only have to watch North Korean media for five minutes to know what kind of regime is operating there. Or listen to those who have managed to escape.”
——————————————-
I’ll not address the ad hominem. I know that five minutes probably stretches your attention span beyond its limit Anon1 but gives you plenty of time to make your value judgements (based of course on these ridiculous stories and tales by paid stooges fed to you by western propaganda). The video in this article lasts less than four minutes so you might be able to cope.
http://rt.com/op-edge/258757-north-korea-threat-speculation/
Totally spontaneous and unorganised celebration of launching a rocket:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/nkorea-orders-more-satellite-launches/story-fnd134gw-1226536588991?nk=fffa49015264aede68d9c0031e856496
and the people, almost as if they were ordered to, joyously celebrate Kim Il Sung’s (dec’d) birthday.
“”It is because we have a nuclear deterrent like nuclear weapons that we are able to live our normal lives and have a beautiful flower exhibition like this,” said Kim Sung Sim, a Pyongyang greenhouse worker who contributed to the display, which opened Friday.”
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/north-koreans-celebrate-founder-s-birthday-with-mockup-missiles-military-slogans-1.1234787
Better keep Trident, eh, John G?
I have to say, using 6 4-barrel 14.5mm
machinegunscombine harvesters to discourage the opposition strikes me as wasteful. But then we’ve got austerity and N. Korea, er, hasn’t.@Fedup “Yeahp! I have, on the telly! Around sixty million of them!”
Such spectacles seem to me to have the same credibility as the old women who were shown dancing for joy in front of Saddam Hussein on TV. MAD magazine stuff!
No, the Iranian who viewed what happened in Iran as The Big Mistake told it as it was. May the Tide of Democracy, with appropriate planning to prevent hijacking by Islamists, take over Iran, Afghanistan as well as Pakistan ASAP!
Abe Rene
“to prevent hijacking by Islamists”
So your taste is for kings and priests of the christian faith?
The racist roots of the state, monarchy and church are rarely far below the surface.
Abe you have the habit of deciding for people everywhere, and tell them what is good for them! Heil Abe Rene finger up and mouse clicked!
You woefully inadequate understanding of the situation is stemming form you own prejudices and obtuse world view that is basically Abe centric and has little room left for any other ideas, notions, people, cultures, …….
You spouse “democracy” brand in an almost autonomic response which you feel in your water to be the best cure all for all the ills of the world.
Abe do you know that the only time Afghanistan offered a near normal life, was under under its communist government? Of course not, cuz, you know communism is bad, it never works, it is evil, and godless and …………..
The Big Mistake is for the tosspots dreaming they can reverse the tide of progress in Iran, they best wake up and smell the coffee, that is not going to happen!
A key adviser to Thatcher,on the Poll Tax,has been made up to a lord purely so that he can fill the roll of junior Scottish minister at the Scotland office.
Andrew Dunlop’s ennoblement,is an affront to democracy,and by parachuting a unelected lord into the Scotland office it also shows the Tories are prepared to ride rough shod over the electorate in Scotland.
Ex-Labour MP Brian Donohue,who lost his Central Ayshire seat to the SNP’s Dr Philippa Whitford,said in an interview with the Irvine Times newspaper.
I can now turn round and tell people to f**k off.
I take it he means by that remark, his ex-constituents.
What a nice chap Mr Donohoe is.
Spoorfugger.
Just to let you know I haven’t forgotten I owe you a message.
Kind regards,
John
They were pretty fucking delighted to get rid of the ‘Shah’. I do remember that.
It wasn’t a mistake. Lest we forget, he had been imposed by the West.
Reza Shah, the last Shah’s father, wasn’t a wholly bad lad, and might have done something to stabilise the region, if he hadn’t been forced to abdicate after the UK and Russia invaded Iran during WW2, on the grounds that he had declared Iran to be neutral (chorus: ‘ oil’). Ironically, we’d installed Reza in the first place, so there was another great mistake right there. We didn’t like the democratically elected Mossadegh, prime minister under the Mohammed Reza Shah, either. Oil again: he was proposing to nationalise Great British assets. Out he went, and was suppressed, ironically enough by an unsuccessful communist revolution. After that the Shah knew which side his naan was rather meagrely buttered, but the lower orders had had enough of him. SAVAK was a great mistake, too.