The BBC and corporate media coalesce around an extremely narrow consensus of political thought, and ensure that anybody who steps outside that consensus is ridiculed and marginalised. That consensus has got narrower and narrower. I was delighted during the general election to be able to listen to Nicola Sturgeon during the leaders’ debate argue for anti-austerity policies and for the scrapping of Trident. I had not heard anyone on broadcast media argue for the scrapping of Trident for a decade – it is one of those views which though widely held the establishment gatekeepers do not view as respectable.
The media are working overtime to marginalise Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour leadership candidate on the grounds that he is left wing and therefore weird and unelectable. But they face the undeniable fact that, Scottish independence aside, there are very few political differences between Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon. On issues including austerity, nuclear weapons, welfare and Palestine both Sturgeon and Corbyn are really very similar. They have huge areas of agreement that stand equally outside the establishment consensus. Indeed Nicola is more radical than Jeremy, who wants to keep the United Kingdom.
The establishment’s great difficulty is this. Given that the SNP had just slaughtered the Labour Party – and the Tories and Lib Dems – by being a genuine left wing alternative, how can the media consensus continue to insist that the left are unelectable? The answer is of course that they claim Scotland is different. Yet precisely the same establishment consensus denies that Scotland has a separate political culture when it comes to the independence debate. So which is it? They cannot have it both ways.
If Scotland is an integral part of the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s policies cannot be unelectable.
Nicola Sturgeon won the UK wide leaders debate in the whole of the United Kingdom, despite the disadvantage of representing a party not standing in 90% of it by population. She won not just because she is clever and genuine, but because people all across the UK liked the left wing policies she articulated.
A Daily Mirror opinion poll following a BBC televised Labour leadership candidates’ debate this week had Jeremy Corbyn as the clear winner, with twice the support of anyone else. The media ridicule level has picked up since. This policy of marginalisation works. I was saddened by readers’ comments under a Guardian report of that debate, in which Labour supporter after Labour supporter posted comment to the effect “I would like to vote for Jeremy Corbyn because he believes in the same things I do, but we need a more right wing leader to have a chance of winning.”
There are two answers to that. The first is no, you don’t need to be right wing to win. Look at the SNP. The second is what the bloody hell are you in politics for anyway? Do you just want your team to win like it was football? Is there any point at all in being elected just so you can carry out the same policies as your opponents? The problem is, of course, that for so many in the Labour Party, especially but not just the MPs, they want to win for personal career advantage not actually to promote particular policies.
The media message of the need to be right wing to be elected is based on reinforced by a mythologizing of Tony Blair and Michael Foot as the ultimate example of the Good and Bad leader. These figures are constantly used to reinforce the consensus. Let us examine their myths.
Tony Blair is mythologised as an electoral superstar, a celebrity politician who achieved unprecedented personal popularity with the public, and that he achieved this by adopting right wing policies. Let us examine the truth of this myth. First that public popularity. The best measure of public enthusiasm is the percentage of those entitled to vote, who cast their ballot for that party at the general election. This table may surprise you.
Percentage of Eligible Voters
1992 John Major 32.5%
1997 Tony Blair 30.8%
2001 Tony Blair 24.1%
2005 Tony Blair 21.6%
2010 David Cameron 23.5%
2015 David Cameron 24.4%
There was only any public enthusiasm for Blair in 97 – and to put that in perspective, it was less than the public enthusiasm for John Major in 1992.
More importantly, this public enthusiasm was not based on the policies now known as Blairite. The 1997 Labour Manifesto was not full of right wing policies and did not indicate what Blair was going to do.
The Labour Party manifesto of 1997 did not mention Academy schools, Private Finance Initiative, Tuition Fees, NHS privatisation, financial sector deregulation or any of the right wing policies Blair was to usher in. Labour actually presented quite a left wing image, and figures like Robin Cook and Clare Short were prominent in the campaign. There was certainly no mention of military invasions.
It was only once Labour were in power that Blair shaped his cabinet and his policies on an ineluctably right wing course and Mandelson started to become dominant. As people discovered that New Labour were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to quote Mandelson, their popular support plummeted. “The great communicator” Blair for 90% of his Prime Ministership was no more popular than David Cameron is now. 79% of the electorate did not vote for him by his third election
Michael Foot consistently led Margaret Thatcher in opinion polls – by a wide margin – until the Falklands War. He was defeated in a victory election by the most appalling and intensive wave of popular war jingoism and militarism, the nostalgia of a fast declining power for its imperial past, an emotional outburst of popular relief that Britain could still notch up a military victory over foreigners in its colonies. It was the most unedifying political climate imaginable. The tabloid demonization of Foot as the antithesis of the military and imperial theme was the first real exhibition of the power of Rupert Murdoch. Few serious commentators at the time doubted that Thatcher might have been defeated were it not for the Falklands War – which in part explains her lack of interest in a peaceful solution. Michael Foot’s position in the demonology ignores these facts.
The facts about Blair and about Foot are very different from the media mythology.
The stupid stunt by Tories of signing up to the Labour Party to vote for Corbyn to ridicule him, is exactly the kind of device the establishment consensus uses to marginalise those whose views they fear. Sturgeon is living proof left wing views are electable. The “left unelectable” meme will intensify. I expect Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest problem will be quiet exclusion. I wish him well.
Was just about to echo Daniel’s last comment, I’m afraid. It was a study originally cited and linked to by Daniel; you have not acknowledged that it disproves your point about immigration depressing wages; instead you now move on to ‘infrastructure’. I hear an axe grinding.
“CalMac was privatised by the Labout Party years ago.
This is just another manufactured ‘SNP bad’ story.”
CalMac is owned by the Scottish government. If the contract to run the west coast ferries goes to Serco then the service will effectively have been privatised. The ferry service which provides a lifeline to the islanders will be in private hands.
No the best I can do is to show that you are wrong. And I’ve done that.
OO, did you get the ‘civil’ treatment Phil.
Has to be one of the best. Though I think I was pushing toward terrorist….
Now every just obey our direction (you don’t really have a choice) and we can get back to serious business. Political party’s are all about democracy, etc etc.
More on Shaul Mofaz’s visit to the UK. By e-mail
Seek out and prosecute visiting war crimes suspect Shaul Mofaz
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
22 June 2015
Ref: 33/2015
Seek out and prosecute visiting war crimes suspect Shaul Mofaz
الوصف: mofaz
PCHR today called on the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, and the Attorney General, Jeremy Wright QC, to urgently liaise to ensure that immediate decisions are made regarding the arrest and (if the evidence permits) prosecution before the a Court in England and Wales of Shaul Mofaz with a war crimes offence contrary to the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 (GCA). It is essential the decisions are made today, 22 June 2015, before Mr Mofaz is able to leave the UK.
PCHR calls on the public and members of civil society to immediately contact the Attorney General’s office via email – correspondence at attorneygeneral.gsi.gov.uk – to ensure that he understands
the strength of public feeling about the fair application of the rule of law to all those suspected of committing serious offences under international criminal law.
It is understood that Mr Mofaz, who left Israeli political life earlier this year, is in London on Monday, 22 June 2015, on a private visit and that the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has not accorded Mr Mofaz any form of immunity from the fair application of English criminal law. After learning of his visit to London, on 21 June, and acting on behalf of Gazan victims of alleged war crimes, PCHR sent the police and Crown Prosecution Service evidence relating to Mr Mofaz to enable the police to arrest him on suspicion of committing an offence contrary to the GCA.
PCHR respectfully reminds the Attorney General and the UK Government of the UK’s solemn international duties under article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949 to ‘seek out and prosecute’ those suspected of committing war crimes. To deter such crimes during military conflicts and military occupation of civilians, it is essential that suspects are properly subject to the rule of law in accordance with such clear obligations to enforce international criminal law.
PCHR calls on the British authorities: please strike a blow against impunity where suspected Israeli war crimes are concerned; and restore public confidence in the effectiveness of international criminal law regardless of the nationality of the suspect: act now, so Mr Mofaz does not evade the fair application of the law to his alleged conduct in Gaza.
It should be noted that on 05 September 2003, Swiss attorney, Marcel
Bosonnet, and Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Raji
Sourani, submitted two complaints to the Swiss Military Attorney General in Berne on behalf of Palestinian victims. One complaint is in respect of
Palestinians whose homes were demolished by Israeli occupying forces; the
second complaint is in respect of Palestinians who were subjected to torture and ill treatment in detention by the Israeli security services. The complaints call for investigation and prosecution of those responsible for these acts. In particular, the complaints call for investigations of former Israeli Minister of Defence, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer; former Chief of Staff of the Israeli military, Shaul Mofaz; former head of Israel’s General Security Services, Avi Dichter; and former head of the Israeli military Southern Command, Doron Almog. The Swiss Military Attorney General accepted the complaints and promised to follow necessary legal procedures in addition to file a lawsuit against Shaul Mofaz in the UK in 2002 in cooperation with Hickman and Rose Foundation.
Public Document
Fred,
Isn’t it amazing that when private external and outsourced companies motivated by profit like Serco and Capita run government contracts to provide local services throughout England its regarded as “privatization”, but in Scotland it’s regarded as English meddling.
One to the eye of all those who can’t get in for free.
And what a load of bulls it is. Glastonbury is not, will not and never has been a sustainable festival. It takes three month to clean up the bad habits and excretions of humans beyond bowel control, max. morphed mind control and mostly with no clarity of thoughts or sense of directions….
round and round Babylon they go, mile after mile, dropping litter as they go.
Michael Eavis rejected the solutions offered to him many moons ago.
The Green Litter Crew tried to suggest it to him, to exchange the topsoil in front of the most popular venues, with sand, some 6 to 10 inches deep, before the festival, and keep the topsoil piled next to the stage. That way, the litter crew would have been able to rake out the detritus from the night before, get all needles removed,etc. It was rejected resulting in a total exchange of topsoil each year, what a waste.
https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2015/06/19/young-greens-to-pilot-sustainability-project-at-glastonbury-festival/
‘We are the opposition’.
I think they may really believe that. But no, the opposition is getting behind peoples struggles. On the ground. And it elevates them not you. We hear have very limited potential power to help causes, that have more. But it seems most of it’s used in an effort to marginalize ‘opponents’ from the ‘accepted’ narrative …
Witch is obviously how the system retinas almost perfect unanimity.
Almost 🙂
Eavis is a capitalist motivated by money. I understood that way back in 1984 when I went to my first Glastonbury.
I’m actually doing this all for me..? Yep, i’m sure that’s the way most think.
This has been at my considerable discomfort and expense. And I get nor want anything for it.
There is no doubt i’m truly dim sometimes. But I do know how to move on. life is change..
“Was just about to echo Daniel’s last comment, I’m afraid. It was a study originally cited and linked to by Daniel; you have not acknowledged that it disproves your point about immigration depressing wages; instead you now move on to ‘infrastructure’. I hear an axe grinding.”
Clearly, Habbabkuk – as highlighted by ROS’s post at 9.07pm – is a dishonest poster who ordinarily I would have no hesitation on pressing the ignore button:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/craig-is-meeting-julian-assange/#comments
“CalMac is owned by the Scottish government. If the contract to run the west coast ferries goes to Serco then the service will effectively have been privatised. The ferry service which provides a lifeline to the islanders will be in private hands.”
___________________
To meet the requirements of European Union Community guidelines on state aid to maritime transport, the company’s routes were put out to open tender. To enable competitive bidding on an equal basis.
Dear “joint threats’ research and intelligence group colleagues” reading/posting on this liebor thread,
can you respond to the comments that far from JTRIG focussing on headline ‘MI6 type’ foreign/terrorism targets – most of the work that you do seems to be ‘domestic security’ in the UK, including I guess to seeding the Beeb & the permitted political parties with root material for the development of the narrow consensus of politics to “ensure that anybody who steps outside that consensus is ridiculed and marginalised.”
docs such as https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2108174/behavioural-science-support-for-jtrigs-effects.pdf
are both a fascinating read, worrying for the UK.GOV departments/colleagues mentioned, and conspicuous from the lack of public debate about just everything! e.g. what constitutes an extremist website, in who’s viewpoint? (is everyone non-official here an extremist?) and just which journalists are employed by jtrig? who knew that such great jobs existed for psychologists!
I mention this document above, as it is now de facto public domain, irrespective of the method it became public. (Similar to the Cryptome self-avowed disinformation website which seemingly only publishes document that have been seen online *somewhere*, *anywhere*)
Some of the work that you planned/that is mentioned is admirable, fighting against child sexual exploitation, but one might imagine that you have somewhere in your loop the ‘famous filter’ preventing action against friends of royalty/popes/politicos otherwise you’d have solved the online porno problem years ago with the massive power available in your systems. Can the small number, perhaps 2 or 3 humint actors present here at the moment, explain further the way that specifically action isn’t taken against a high-profile criminal? what is the name of the ‘blackmail’ protocol files that trig hold?
best regards,
a person on a Clapham omnibus
Anon1
I awarded you a golden cow-pat on the back this morning. I know Muslim beliefs are very repellant to you Hasbara trolls, but I’d’ve thought you could’ve at least tried to melt its golden flavour in the mouth a little, or try to melt it down.
Oh you poor mite all at your own expense, what do you think happened during my 34 years in the GP, hmmm? We, my missis and myself paid for leaflets, general election campaigns and deposits.
16 years unpaid press officer, hitch hiking to Twyford Down on weekends, neglecting my young kids for the sake of some road protests, you think you’re stupid? Newbury Brightlingsea chained underneath buses for hours on end getting kicked by coppers? there are no cameras under buses… traveling all weekend to enjoy a piss wet Faslane, followed by a stint of drying out in Glasgow nick.
All on our own Nellie and we did not earn much. Please spare us your weening noises.
It’s not unfair of Ba’al to say that we all have our pet subjects on here. One of mine is opposing fascism in all its ugly faces, the most ugly of which at the moment are those of ‘Porky’ Poroshenko and the weasel-faced Yatsenyuk. Not sure I agree with him that in pursuing my (Macky, Dave Lawton, Nevermind, Peacewisher and Herbie and a few others) tirades against the Kiev Nazis that some good will eventually come from our efforts. Then I expect, when the BBC and other MSM outlets start saying what a nasty lot these people were, and those who supported those who did all that evil to poor civilians in the east, all those who supported the coup because of their inherent or conditioned mistrust of Putin will change their minds and stop giving their support.
It is unlikely they will stop vilifying Putin because some indoctrinations are so thorough they cannot be cleansed sufficiently to see through the propaganda, a bit like the dirt and smoke-stains on Granny’s old net curtains that she is too old and frail to take down and bleach clean. Nevertheless I can see the end game is in sight. The US is split on whether it continues to support the coup it established. When a senior military figure, a major general, moves over to the Donbas and spills the beans on how demoralised ordinary troops and their commanders are it does not bode well for a country that less than 18 months ago was at peace, even if the majority was frustrated with its government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFZHmdCNWBw
OT ; Did I miss the Assange meeting? Trying to ketchup.
“To meet the requirements of European Union Community guidelines on state aid to maritime transport, the company’s routes were put out to open tender. To enable competitive bidding on an equal basis.”
When Westminster put the running of the rail service out to tender it was called privatisation.
Why should putting the ferry service out to tender be called anything else?
Ba’al Zevul; “I think the term you are looking for is “people who don’t agree with me”. What have you in mind? Firing squad?”
No, that’s your more in line with your authoritarian running-to-Mods-start-your-own-blog mindset.
Ba’al Zevul; “As to ‘countering’ your opponents your posts are in general so devoid of hard fact and dogmatic, all you are doing is stiffening the resistance.”
You have already established you have zero perceptive ability, no need to prove it again.
Ba’al Zevul; “What needs to happen on the anticapitalist front is some agreement between the likes of you and the likes of Craig.”
Agreement can only come from an honest exploration of issues; I have given certain individuals, (even Habb at the beginning), here more than a few opportunity for genuine honest debate, only to be rewarded with dishonesty.
Lets be honest here, the Blog is like a honeytrap in that it draws people who have a natural preconception of what a Human Rights Whistlebower’s blog should be like, and then wham ! Well wham to the more perceptive, but for others it takes time, to eventually reaslise all is not as it seems.
Previous post Ben. Craig visited Julian in the Embassy.
Ref Saudi Arabia and the latest Wikileaks releases.
Erratic and Dangerous State
Saudi Arabia, Propaganda and Control
by BINOY KAMPMARK
“The Saudi Cables lift the lid on an increasingly erratic and secretive dictatorship that has not only celebrated its 100th beheading this year but which has also become a menace to its neighbours and itself.”
– Julian Assange, Press statement, Jun 19, 2015
It is fitting that a state such as Saudi Arabia, deeply influential and ultimately destabilising, should be the subject of the latest WikiLeaks exploits. The transparency site is currently in the process of releasing upwards of 500,000 cables, the first batch of which were released on Friday. At this writing, some 61,000 are available.
/..
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/22/saudi-arabia-propaganda-and-control/
~~~
As I posted earlier we were told by RT that the MoD is supplying precision weapons to the Saudis (sold to them by P Andrew perhaps) for bombing Yemen, the most impoverished Arab country and once a British outpost when it was a coaling station for the Raj.
EXCLUSIVE: MoD confirms Britain is arming Saudi Arabia in Yemen conflict
http://rt.com/uk/268324-uk-arming-saudi-yemen/
19 June 2015
How vile that we are colluding in this.
Giyane
22 Jun, 2015 – 4:03 pm
Anon1
” I know Muslim beliefs are very repellant to you Hasbara trolls, but I’d’ve thought you could’ve at least tried to melt its golden flavour in the mouth a little, or try to melt it down.”
Like this little gem here ‘Giyane’?
Islam, if people don’t listen to the truth, and connect it to the comprehension/fitra of the God which they were given when they were born, and are utterly contentious against the message that God is one, not trees nor spirits nor men, then the sword is justified against them.
Hmmmm….
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/the-bagh-i-wah/comment-page-1/#comment-532539
Habbakuk: the piece Daniel linked to was interesting, did you read it?
The ‘Dustmann Report’, which Technicolour and others have praised to the skies, has been thoroughly fisked in subsequent reports by both Migration Watch and Civitas. However these rebuttals were both ignored by the BBC when they were published last year, thus keeping several regular commenters here in their usual state of blissful ignorance-
http://news-watch.co.uk/bbc-ignores-key-immigration-reports/
Among the methods Glenn Greenwald has now revealed the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group of GCHQ uses to manage the Internet:
Sound familiar?
“When Westminster put the running of the rail service out to tender it was called privatisation.
Why should putting the ferry service out to tender be called anything else?”
____________________________
I’m not saying it isn’t Fred, I’m just explaining the rules,the same scenario applied to the Abellio contract,replacing ScotRail.
In some ways I agree with the tender rules,why nationalise something if the service may suffer,you must take into account as well,that Westminster is currently in the process of cutting,the Scottish budget this year alone will see £177 million taken from Holyroods coffers.
This deduction comes after Holyrood and Westminster had already agreed Scotland’s budget.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-33009579
OldMark: several points wrong with your comment, as far as I can see – please do address & rebut if possible:
1. The issue under discussion was whether immigration lowers wages. The report showed it did not for the majority, and very marginally for a minority. Please point to where, in your link, this is ‘fisked’, debunked, or even addressed.
2. Rowthorne’s report apparently concludes, according to your link: “having few discernible economic benefits and only minimal improvement in GDP per capita.”
so:
a) some discernible economic benefits
b) an improvement in GDP per capita
Finally, Dustmann’s rebuttal of the Migration Watch paper attacking the positive financial contribution made by immigrants: please address –
““The main criticisms by MigrationWatch relate to three points. The first and second points are unfortunately based on a serious misinterpretation of the methodology we have used in our work, which leads to fundamental mistakes that invalidate their calculations. The third point has been already raised by other commentators in the past,” Professor Dustmann has said.
Migration Watch had claimed that Professor Dustmann’s original findings – that EEA immigrants who came to the UK since 2000 have paid in more than they have taken out – are incorrect because they rely on the following three mistaken assumptions, namely that:
(1) [Migrant] employees earn the same as the UK-born population; (2) Self-employed migrants contribute far more than those employed; and (3) Migrants own the same investments, property and other assets as the UK-born and long-term residents from the day they arrive in the UK.
But Professor Dustmann has pointed out that all three of these assertions are wrong:
“Their first claim is simply incorrect. At no point do we make assumption (1). We rather allocate earnings (and the ensuing tax receipts) according to the figures on earnings for immigrants and natives that we obtain from the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS).
“Their second claim is also incorrect. At no point do we make assumption (2). In fact, in the absence of information on self-employed earnings, we allocate tax payments of the self-employed according to the shares of income tax payments computed for employees. This may rather lead to an underestimate of the income taxes paid by immigrants, as relatively more immigrants are self-employed.
“Finally, we have responded to the third point in an earlier reply from November (ignored in the MW report), where we compute an extreme scenario where recent immigrants pay no corporate taxes and business rates whatsoever, and allocate these taxes to long-term residents only. We still find that recent EU immigrant make a positive contribution, while the net contribution of natives remains negative.”
He adds that, as a result of these mistakes, Migration Watch’s conclusion that recent immigrants have cost Britain £3,000 a year each is “simply wrong”.
The Daily Telegraph shouldn’t have published this completely misleading ‘analysis’ without checking it; but more importantly, considering it is so fundamentally wrong, Migration Watch should now withdraw the report.”
A reminder
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/some-rules-for-comment-moderation/
Fair Play. Play the ball, not the man. Address arguments, not people. Do not impugn the motives of others, including me. No taunting.
No explanation.
Enforcing these rules is necessarily arbitrary and needs judgement calls. Moderators are precluded from explaining decisions online. If you want to complain use the contact button.
Full guidelines at https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/some-rules-for-comment-moderation/
Old Mark: finally, just in case you are misled in future by someone commenting that you are ‘interesting’, it does not mean that he/she/they are ‘praising you to the skies’.
“… one major study last year by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found, “Seven in ten (71 percent) employers feel the good availability of migrant workers has no impact on wages at their organisation.” Among the 14 percent of employers who do feel the availability of migrant workers has an impact on wages, about half of them (7 percent of the total) think immigration reduces wages, while the other half think it raises them. So the evidence suggests reality is different to the accepted myths.”
http://socialistreview.org.uk/389/do-migrants-lower-wages
As a result of his academic study of work, ‘Inequality’, British social geographer and Professor of Geography at Oxford University, Danny Dorling,
provides a highly accessible portrait of the nature and shape of inequality today. The book smashes numerous media myths about immigration and multiculturalism.
Dorling shows how the so called quality press reported the population rising above 65 million on three different occasions and points out how unreliable the data collection methods, and so the data itself, is.
Dorling demonstrates how limited the term immigrant is by pointing out that a high incidence of German born children in an area could be used as an indicator of poverty from 2001 census data.
He notes that the borough with the highest number of immigrant children in school is in fact Kensington and Chelsea and the immigrant children come from the United States.
Dorling shows how Migration Watch are charlatans in as much as they distort and lie about population densities. He notes that Malta, one of the most densely populated parts of the EU, is full of migrants from… you guessed it, “overcrowded” Britain.
Dorling suggests that how we organise urban space is more important than the overall level of population density. Why don’t Amsterdam and Barcelona feel as crowded as London, even though they are more densely populated? Could it be their superior public transport systems?
“In some ways I agree with the tender rules,why nationalise something if the service may suffer,you must take into account as well,that Westminster is currently in the process of cutting,the Scottish budget this year alone will see £177 million taken from Holyroods coffers.”
When they privatised the Orkney Shetland ferry prices were raised and services cut. When MV Hamnavoe broke down and was out of action for a month there was no replacement brought in. Serco was banned from bidding on government contracts for over charging for electronic tagging but the Scottish government seem happy to get into bed with them, as they are with the likes of Brian Seuter and Rupert Murdoch.
The people who live on the islands will suffer, the CalMac workers will suffer.