It is no secret that Alistair Carmichael is a friend of mine. Not least because he told parliament so in 2005:
“The Government’s signals to the Uzbek regime have not always been helpful. I am thinking especially of their treatment of my old friend, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who has done us all a great service in graphically highlighting the appalling human rights record of the Uzbekistan Government.”
Alistair was one of very few MPs who raised the dreadful human rights abuses in Uzbekistan even before I got there. He has a genuine interest in human rights worldwide, and had a much better motivation in going into politics than the large majority of politicians. He was never anything like a diehard unionist in personal conviction. I felt quite proud for him when he was asked during the campaign what would his role be in negotiating for the UK the conditions of separation after a Yes vote. He replied that he was Scottish, and he would be on the Scottish, not the UK side.
I have never chosen my friends by my politics, and I am not one of those people who is only happy in the company of those who agree with me. I am happiest with a few drinks and a good argument in intellectually challenging company. I also do know that all human beings are flawed, and I don’t expect perfection. So I have no intention of ending friendship with Alistair.
All of which makes it hard, but I have to say that I really do think he needs to resign as an MP, and to do so immediately.
It was not just a mistake to leak that memo, it was wrong. It was even more wrong because he himself believed it was written in error and did not give Nicola Sturgeon’s true opinion. But in an election in which the Scottish Lib Dems faced wipeout, he saw the advantage of playing this trick. That was wrong on many levels. I would add that I feel very confident that Alistair would never have done it without consulting Clegg first. Clegg should resign too. And instead of the usual Cabinet Office stitch-up, there needs to be a real inquiry into the whole history and production of that extraordinary minute, and whether Alistair was set up to do it. The Scottish Government needs to be an equal partner in constituting that inquiry.
Alistair has no alternative but to resign because he then repeatedly lied about what he had done. It is much better that he goes now with a full and frank apology to everyone, especially his constituents. When you have blatantly and repeatedly lied about something, you cannot expect people to give you their trust again. That it even seems a possibility is an example of the erosion of ethical standards, of which Tony Blair is of course the greatest example as liar, mass murderer and multi-millionaire.
But we should not lose sight of the real lesson. The corrupt and rotten structures of the UK state are so insidious that they can take a fundamentally decent man like Alistair and lead him to behave so badly. There is something within the rotting organisms of UK institutions in their decline from Imperial power and dependence on corrupt banking and corporate systems, that infects almost all who enter them. While I worked for the FCO I saw really nice colleagues, decent men and women I worked with, go along with organising what they knew to be illegal war in Iraq, and with facilitating the torture and extraordinary rendition programmes. Because that was what paid their mortgage, looked after their children, and above all gave them social status as high British diplomats.
Westminster gives untramelled executive power to a party with just 23% of the support of the registered electorate. The majority of parliamentarians are unelected Lords a great many of whom are themselves mired in corruption – and some much worse. The organs of state power are used to facilitate the flow of money from the poor to the very wealthy, which is the actual cause of the deficit in public finances. The rewards of being on the inside are sweet; those outside are measurably dispossessed of wealth, and measurably alienated in politics. The media is controlled by this corporate state.
Alistair Carmichael’s story is not the story of a bad man. It is the story of what happens to a good man who buys in to UK power structures. The real lesson of the sad story of this period in Alistair’s life is that the UK is evil, corrupt and corrupting, and that the UK state needs swiftly to be broken up.
Mr Scorgie (re Inconvenient Truths N°1):
“I predict Habbabkuk that Prince Charles will not become king or if he does he will not last long.”
____________________
My original post appears to have upset some people. But never mind, that’s in the nature of inconvenient truths, isn’t it!
Re the above quote from “RobG” : it is fairly obvious, given the age at which Prince Charles will accede to the throne, that his reign will not be as long as that of his mother. Unless of course you believe he will live to the age of 120 or so.
Should have read “Re the above quote from Mr Scorgie” of course.
Apologies, but the loonies all seem to blend into one other over time, don’t they.
Mary
“James Landale speculates on what will be included in the speech.”
__________________
It’s hardly “speculation”, is it?
He, and other MSM, have been given (under embargo, as per usual) the outlines of what will be in the speech.
Grandiose complex gone wild , Fake “prophet” turned Mystic Meg or is that Septic Meg, now can foresee the future (connections to high places, already read the documents, nay has written them all). Further it can foretell the opponents of Jack and the beanstalk world view; gnashing their teeth, and wailing too!
========
Thes creepy hideous fake Buddhist, has yet again manifestly proved the depth of the cesspit that it occupies by its sustained attacks and bullying of Mary.
In this “contribution”:
‘Consultation’ over Human Rights Act as agent Cameron unveils a limp, deceptive and gratifying massage of United Kingdom harmony, peace and unification; an oxymoron deliberately intended to keep the UK Trident program on track and counter SNP division. Hey Ho!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/queens-speech/11631597/Queens-Speech-David-Cameron-pledges-tax-cuts-but-delays-scrapping-Human-Rights-Act.html
Where’s Blair?
Last seen by the media in Nigeria, on the 13th May, and by Tony Blair PR plc in Sierra Leone the next day, he was scheduled to address a conference of the new Nigerian APC ruling party (back in Nigeria) on the 20th May.
He didn’t. Instead, the platitudes were deliverd by ‘Lord’ Mandelson, the well-known expenses fiddler, and apparently in Mandelson’s, not Blair’s words. This was initially reported by Nigerian outlets (it went unnoticed by anyone else) as being Mandelson ‘representing’ Blair. However, the story has now changed:
Tony Blair, Former British Prime Minister who was due to speak today at the opening of APC’s 2-day Policy Dialogue on the implementation of the agenda for change organised by the Policy research and strategy directorate of the All Progressive Congress Presidential Campaign Council was absent, but replaced (and not represented as earlier reported*) by Peter Mandelson….
*in:
http://jide-salu.com/2015/05/20/must-read-lord-mandelsons-tough-talk-to-buhari/
No explanation of this has yet emerged, and neither has Blair. Apart from an unattributed Telegraph report that Blair will be actively intervening on the pro-Europe side of the EU debate, silence from the media since then. This is uncharacteristic.
If Mr Blair (who visited both Liberia and Sierra Leone this month) is experiencing feverish symptoms and/or bleeding from multiple orifices, he needs to see a doctor. Knowledge of his whereabouts is urgently needed (do not approach this man!). Can anyone help?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-2/#comment-527301
Northern Ireland rejects £600m Tory welfare cuts plan that would ‘attack most vulnerable in society’
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/northern-ireland-rejects-600m-tory-5768485#ICID=sharebar_twitter
[mods-cm-org – spam false positive at 00:10; duplicates deleted]
“In Navy parlance these precarious boats were ‘full to the gunwales’, including many people with dehydration, those with injuries, very young children and several pregnant women.
“The weather at the moment is extremely hot so my ship’s company and I are very pleased that we were able to bring them to safety. It’s unclear what would have happened to them but the risk of further injury or worse is of course considerable.”
Well done Nick! Sadly you were commanded to ‘pick up the pieces’ of PM Cameron’s onslaught on Libya – Oh well, better the humanitarian mission than throwing shells and missiles into Libya during the British Naval gun-fire support mission eh? old boy.
http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/New-captain-Plymouth-based-Royal-Navy-flagship/story-25990271-detail/story.html
By the bye old chap, while agent Cameron renegotiates EU migrant quotas, be rather careful who you pick out the sea…
http://rt.com/op-edge/259685-eu-migrants-africa-military-action/
It might be AQ or ISIS ‘EU cell’ commandants.
Mark @0855-
That sounds very familiar…sepia dissolve with floaty music to 2002:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-138861/Blair-vows-tackle-poverty.html
: “Our goal is a Britain in which nobody is left behind, in which people can go as far as they have the talent to go, in which we achieve true equality – equal status and equal opportunity rather than equality of outcome.
“It must be a Britain in which we continue to re-distribute power, wealth and opportunity to the many not the few, to combat poverty and social exclusion, to deliver public services people can trust and take down the barriers that hold people back.”
In 1997, he’d deregulated the banks. In 2006, he got this through:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_and_Regulatory_Reform_Act_2006
I’m unclear as to what more Cameron can do to harmonise, pacify and unify the UK, personally.
Cunts, all of them.
While the attacks by Fedup on Dreoilin are even more repulsive (it goes without saying that they’re unwarranted). One as bad as the other – where have we heard that before?
Oh the tag team are at it big time!!!!!!
Calling fresh keyboard warriors; snipe and run.
Repulsive is your duplicitous conduct, and unwarranted nay unwelcome is your interjection!
There again it is “freedom of expression” so you can say what you like!
Get back to whatever you were doing, not interested in the list bit about your brain farts!
PS dreo should stop dishing it out tagging along with the fake “prophet”, fake “Buddhist” and Techwotsit!
Fedup:
“exploiting Mary’s health status and taking delight in her illness.”
On the contrary, Fedup, I’m sure everybody on here wishes Mary well and a full and speedy recovery.
It is in that vein that one has tried to suggest, since we are psychosomatic beings, that she be less antagonistic by referring to genuine long-term commenters as trolls, because they happen to disagree with her. Let the moderators deal with genuine trolls like English Knight and more lately, Really. If Mary were to heed that simple advice, we might find a change in the atmosphere here.
Btw, K was not a Buddhist, nor anybody’s guru. Hence there are no ‘disciples’, nor am I a Buddhist. or any kind of an ‘-ist’, for that matter.
Hope this helps.
I mean, if Tony Blair cancels for this, tomorrow:
https://secure.fswc.ca/HomeSOH-2015.aspx
will Mandy have to talk to the assembled Holocaust students?
Or maybe some other neoclone of Blair’s will fill in…
“Oh the tag team are at it big time!!!!!!
Calling fresh keyboard warriors; snipe and run.
Repulsive is your duplicitous conduct, and unwarranted nay unwelcome is your interjection!”
Oh, get knotted, you duplicitous, hypocritical prose pander.
You scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian, you.
Cunts, all of them… The Queens Speech – BETWEEN THE LINES..
First in their sights is a further £12 billion in cuts to benefits.
LARGE tax concessions to businesses and reduce inheritance tax taking the advice of Peter Mandelson and Lord Sugar that we weren’t “appealing to big business.”
Mollifing small increase in tax thresholds for the people.
Five-year tenancies and sell housing association properties to boost unregulated private rented sector and increase homeless.
Theresa May’s nasty xenophobic refusal to welcome any of the Mediterranean boat people to Britain, insisting they should all be sent back.
Profile the Human Rights Act and leave the European Convention on Human Rights
Unveil a draconian anti-trade union law.
Unveil a draconian law to kill freedom of expression
Unveil public order military armed riot squads
Claim that austerity IS working and ignore the inequality and poverty created.
Further pressure for local government cuts including a proposal to ‘dump’ your own daily garbage. (Collect black bags from the local library).
Further an ideological commitment to remove the NHS and the rest of the post World War II welfare state.
So just remember this peeps – – Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, in which the ‘Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal’ was described as ‘so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumes that if you can’t see it, then it can’t see you.’
Then everything will be just fine…
TC, that’s three new words I’ve learnt LOL
Anyway, on your earlier post to me, I’d rather the person to whom my remark was addressed respond to me.
Have a good day!
Mollifing small increase in tax thresholds for the people.
Making the comfortable more comfortable. Making the bootless and unhorsed* more uncomfortable (sorry, ‘aspirational’) We’ll need the money to bail out the banks next time. Not long now…
* Hat tip to JP Donleavy
And the topic is? Yep, well this is off-topic too. Aid with ties.
In making a few people rich UN aid programmes in Haiti have destroyed sustainable living, made the Creole pig extinct and introduced cholera where it was previously unkown. “In fact, Haiti was the richest country in the western hemisphere because it had the lightest footprint.” Dady Chery eplores the changes since her childhood days in Haiti.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2015/05/26/humanitarian-imperialism-aid-as-a-trojan-horse/
this is off-topic too.
Bloody right, John. The topic is ‘slagging off other posters’. And please don’t forget it. 🙂
“explores”
Thanks Ba’al for letting me know the topic. With infrequent visits I get a bit confused as to what the latest Goss is. 🙂
John – The rule is: if it’s over 100 comments, the topic is always ‘slagging off other posters’
You need to get here earlier…
Ah yes:
When you find a friend
Who is good and true
Fuck him
Before he fucks you
We read the same books, Mark. Peace.
Ba’al Zevul
27 May, 2015 – 12:14 pm
John – The rule is: if it’s over 100 comments, the topic is always ‘slagging off other posters’
________________
The following therefore bears repetition and may or may not be helpful, depending on how people respond:
27 May, 2015 – 10:34 am
Fedup:
“exploiting Mary’s health status and taking delight in her illness.”
On the contrary, Fedup, I’m sure everybody on here wishes Mary well and a full and speedy recovery.
It is in that vein that one has tried to suggest, since we are psychosomatic beings, that she be less antagonistic by referring to genuine (long-term) commenters as trolls, because they happen to disagree with her. Let the moderators deal with genuine trolls like English Knight and more lately, Really. If Mary were to heed that simple advice, we might find a change in the atmosphere here.
Btw, K was not a Buddhist, nor anybody’s guru. Hence there are no ‘disciples’, nor am I a Buddhist. or any kind of an ‘-ist’, for that matter.
Hope this helps.
The insatiable desire for the last word, eh?
On a web forum there is no such thing.
Anyway, the police are looking at Carmichael’s slur:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/26/police-investigate-alistair-carmichaels-false-denials-over-memo-leak
And ursine quadrupeds defecate in sylvan surroundings:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32881672
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the new USA Attorney General Loretta Lynch takes the same interest in getting those who commit war crimes to get the same treatment of those who commit crimes in running international football.
Just imagine what would happen the next time the G8 meets somewhere in Switzerland, and Obama, Cameron, Hollande,Harper and some NATO officials are arrested, and sent off to the Hague to answer for their crimes, like Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosovic.
Villager
I read it that Mary has taken to calling people “slugs” whom she previously labelled “trolls”. She has no tolerance at all for anyone who disagrees with her, so if this is what she’s doing, it wouldn’t surprise me.
I posted about metaldehyde because Mary has a dog! And some of her neighbours are presumably likely also to have cats or dogs. If she has any intention of flinging metaldehyde around her garden, she’d want to keep her dog indoors, and warn her neighbours.
“if it’s over 100 comments, the topic is always ‘slagging off other posters’”
True, Ba’al, but nobody plumbs the depths quite like Fedup, who is more than happy to invent complete untruths about other commenters and post them here as statements of fact. Hoping to influence “lurkers” no doubt, just as Mary is hoping to influence them by referring to “trolls” and “slugs”. Despite Craig having said a number of times that he does not want to see people’s motivations discussed, only their arguments.
If I wish to respond to someone who has been labelled a “troll” or a “slug” by others, I will respond to them. And no amount of childish intimidation attempts (by Fedup or anyone else) will stop me.
Fedup has stated that Technicolour is a “Zionist enabler” which couldn’t be further from the truth. In the past, Tech has pointed out that not every Israeli is behind Bibi, not every Israeli is in favour of bombing Gaza to smithereens, that there are Israelis who protest and march for peace. For this, Fedup labels her a Zionist enabler. (Because Fedup posts the first rubbish that comes into his head, and never stops to think twice.) Fedup has a very loose interpretation of freedom of speech. And then he quotes The Communications Act 1977 section 127 — that completely cracked me up! (I couldn’t help wondering was he done under the the 1977 act, because there is of course the 2003 act, which one assumes supplants the 1977, does it not?)
He has now stated that Villager is “exploiting Mary’s health status and taking delight in her illness.” This is a disgusting defamation – and I would have expected some of the more decent commenters to have said so. Mary occasionally posts here at 3am or 6am (along with her first cup of tea of the day?) and clearly posting here (and looking for items to post here) is a large part of her daily activity. If she wasn’t well enough to do so, one imagines she’d take a break. But if she’s well enough to post here, IMO, then she’s well enough to deal with the rough and tumble of replies she gets. Nobody is obliging her to post here – it’s her choice. As Villager has already said, I’m quite sure that everybody here wishes Mary well and a full and speedy recovery. It would be a very hard heart that didn’t.
I don’t however, believe that Mary has some sort of immunity from sharp responses because she has been ill. Plenty of people here have been ill, or are ill, and they neither expect nor receive special treatment because of it.
Here is a little gift for everyone
https://xkcd.com/386/