Having spoken alongside Mhairi at a few meetings, and much admired her, it is rather strange to find her in danger of becoming an object of cult veneration. Just as with Nicola Sturgeon, it seems the shock of seeing the coherent and intelligent articulation of views outside the narrow consensus manufactured by the corporate media and political class, really does strike home to people. They almost never get to hear such views put; Mhairi is being given a hearing because of her youth in her position, but the marginalisation and ridicule will soon kick back in. Above all, Mhairi should remind us of how the Labour Party has completely sold out those they used to represent, and abandoned the task of proposing an intellectually compelling alternative to trickledown.
Jeremy Corbyn and the small group around him are of course an honourable exception.
You will recall that I managed to fall asleep on the platform in Perth while Mhairi was answering a question, embarrassingly revealed when the chairman passed the question to me! It really was nothing to do with Mhairi, I was exhausted. The question, as it happened, was asked by Joanna Cherry, who also just made a first class maiden speech.
The Labour Party has finally woken up to oppose something the Tory Party is doing, in the new draconian and unnecessary anti-union legislation. This is not because they really want to protect workers; the only thing that has motivated Labour to action is a threat to their own funding.
The Tory anti-union proposals are shocking. Criminalising peaceful secondary picketing is an infringement of the right of free expression and undoubtedly open to challenge under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The proposal that not just a majority of those voting, but 40% of the qualified electorate must vote yes for a strike to go ahead, is beyond belief, coming from a government who have an absolute majority on the basis of the votes of just 23% of the electorate. The hypocrisy is absolutely stunning.
The part of the proposed legislation I do support is on party political funding by unions. It should be by opt-in not opt-out. A majority of members must vote for a donation to a political party. That seems to me absolutely right and fair.
Precisely the same principle should be applied to company shareholders, of whom a majority should specifically have to endorse a political donation by the company. Where a shareholder is institutional, that shareholder must too base its vote only on a vote taken by a majority of its own shareholders specifically in each case, or its members if a mutual.
So if Tesco wants to donate to the Tory party, that must be specifically approved by a majority of Tesco shareholders. If Aviva is one of those shareholders, Aviva can only vote for Tesco to donate, if a majority of Aviva shareholders vote to do so. And so on down the chain ad infinitum.
That would be entirely fair and strike a massive blow at the corporate state/political party nexus. Then more real people like Mhairi would be able to become prominent in public life.
Speaking of false gods, we have the word of St. Paul that the love of money is the root of all evil, and Jesus had analogous things to say about Mammon and moneylenders.
Node “Fred. Next time you are tempted to portray all SNP supporters as Nazis, consider ….”
Fred “Have you not realised how much this fanaticism over Mhairi Black resembles the fanaticism for the National Socialist leaders in Germany in the 1930’s.”
OK, appealing to reason doesn’t work.
Habbabkuk desperately trying to raise his tone from stalking sick females to paying for sex. Pathetic.
Habbabkuk
Who he?
Node “Fred. Next time you are tempted to portray all SNP supporters as Nazis, consider ….”
Fred “Have you not realised how much this fanaticism over Mhairi Black resembles the fanaticism for the National Socialist leaders in Germany in the 1930’s.”
OK, appealing to reason doesn’t work.
You have to concede his talent for self-parody, though.
I see we are back onto pub quiz style posts again.
Time to go out, I think. 🙂
Becky
Becky Cohen:
“The reality is it was rich white males who caused the economic crash of 2008 and it’s rich white males who control the media”
Not everyone who was educated at a public school becomes a corrupt war-mongering toff. In my own case and many others I remember it was clear from a very easrly age that many were incurable, but there are many who are now in power who have adopted the blindfolds of the Eton/Westminster educated shite who came from altogether distant backgrounds, and many of them are women.
I don’t agree with your statement. Many people became rich following the path of lying politics. A massive social change has occurred in my life time, which has had the hidden blessing in my case that though my parents undoubtedly wanted me to become one of the professional lying class, I got “certifiable” and followed the path of truth to the true religion of the worship of the One God, Islam.
Eid Mubarak!
Habbabkuk
Sorry you were unable to answer the questions on your special subject.
You are the weakest link.
“Let’s see, who caused the economic crash in 2008? Was it the Scots? Was it the immigrants? Was it the poor people? the welfare scroungers, the people wearing tin foil hats?
Thanks for bringing this up Becky, the evidence is becoming more obvious by the day that the banks who levered and washed the drugs money also had high flyer’s partaking in the product a little too much, felt brilliant about loosing billions in one foul swoop, they have never had to answer to their huge speculative losses.
Has the situation changed today? I don’t know, because the same bolt holes for these ill gotten gains to disappear in, are still all in operation under British jurisdiction, whilst we are all pretending to fight a war on drugs,locking up little Henry for smocking a reefer, when our top bankers are washing billions of the Mexican proceeds and get away with a fine…. hallo HSBC.
That said, many of us are living top heavy, above our means.
Banks were solvable during the world financial crisis because they were washing drugs cash and keeping liquid. It was Blair’s rejection of financial reforms in 2006 that sealed our part in this farce.
Who is policing the stock-markets?
@ Habbakuk. I think you should leave quietly.
On the possibility of “civil war, or even a restored military dictatorship”, in Greece.
Habby harrumphs:
“There is zero chance of either.”
How’s that habby.
It happened before, in Greece and many other places.
What’s so different now?
“Have you not realised how much this fanaticism over Mhairi Black resembles the fanaticism for the National Socialist leaders in Germany in the 1930’s.”
Where’s all the stuff about her inspiring young girls, youth more generally. the poor and dispossessed etc.
That’s the usual pitch in these circumstances, and media love to run with that story.
Why the difference in approach?
Eid Mubarak, Giyane!
“OK, appealing to reason doesn’t work.”
I’m not a member of any political party, I have no fanatical loyalties to anything and I’m not motivated by any tribalist emotions or sectarian hatred.
The only thing I have is reason.
“The only thing I have is reason.”
And a pretty shitty attitude. Don’t sell yourself short.
“And a pretty shitty attitude. Don’t sell yourself short.”
Look I voted for John Thurso because he was the best man for the job not because I was a Liberal.
Thanks to a wave of Nationalist fanaticism I ended up with the worst man for the job and guess what, his shit don’t smell any different to any of the other politicians.
http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/MP-answers-critics-over-employing-his-brother-03072015.htm
Could have been worse, I reckon if they’d stuck a SNP badge on a chimpanzee the Nationalists would have voted for it.
John Thurso = Lord Thurso
This is not really on topic but I sense it would be something Mhairi Black would also comment upon. Twelve months ago, almost, Talha Ahsan was released from US custody having spent six years in UK prisons without charge, and more tha eighteen moonths in solitary confinement (23 hours, sometimes 24) in a room of small proportions, without companionship. It was, and is, torture.
After Theresa May extradited Talha Ahsan to the Evil States the only way he could get out of jail was to plead guilty to having accessed websites considered criminal by the US and/or distributing literature deemed to be detrimental to the United States. Here I must emphasise that Talha Ahsan is British, not American. He was not charged in this country with any crime. He was not tried in this country. My understanding is that the United States would not tell the UK government the crime of which he was accused. But he was sent to a torture-chamber on the say-so of Theresa May.
As a fellow-poet I wrote to Talha, as many other English people did while he was in solitary confinement. I was very impressed by his replies, not just by his politeness, but his knowledge of literature, his knowledge of alternative religions his engagement in matters you or I would discuss. Talha is a good Muslim but he strikes me as anything but a fundamentalist.
He is not and never has been a terrorist or a terrorist plotter. With a university first he wanted to become a librarian but he must have visited a site the US security services considered suspect. For that he was banged away for six years in UK prisons before being sent abroad to be tortured by the modern masters of torture.
I have met some of his family who are also lovely people. His brother is an artist, his father came to England to try and get a good education and better standard of living. What England did was subject Talha to the agony and persecution that is Somers, Connecticut.
https://vimeo.com/54826024
Actually, Fred, I was about to thank you for that interesting bit of information (“MPs at Westminster decided, on a free vote, not to have applause in the House of Commons…“). I didn’t know that, and wouldn’t be at all surprised if the new uptake of SNPs didn’t either. I vaguely recall some of Blair’s Babes committing the same faux pas until being put straight. It’s rather doubtful they’ll do the same again.
But then you had to reach for the Nazi analogies, which really is a bit unfair. “… but it seems it is a system the SNP want to impose on Parliament by force.”
“By force”? Ah… they’ve got a bunch of Glaswegian thugs doing a bit of C. U. Jimmy and getting old Lib/Con/Dem to join in with clapping under threats of violence, packing the place with brown-shirts, indulging in a bit of Kristallnacht…
Yuk its this guy again. Nadhim Zahawi is involved in trading oil derived from ISIS-controlled fields in Iraq.
Last time it was the electric bill for his stables.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/07/15/420406/UK-MP-ISIL-OIL-TRADE
Dave Lawton, thanks. The connections are worse than you think. Tony Buckingham was involved with Genel
I wrote this a couple of years back regarding Tony Buckingham and his erstwhile mercenary-mate Tim Spicer.
“Buckingham’s interests are scattered far and wide, but he usually conceals his involvement and instead relies on henchmen like Tim Spicer, Stephen Crouch and Christian Sweeting to lobby on his behalf, or on behalf of his companies.[5] Over the years, Buckingham has registered companies in diverse tax-havens, including the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and Hong Kong. It is said that his private army and mercenary interests ceased in 1999, and he is no longer involved in Sandline, which was wound up in 2004. This ostensible lack of interest coincided with Nelson Mandela closing down the South African operation of Executive Outcomes at the end of 1998. Although nothing today directly connects Buckingham to any mercenary army, many of his business partners, if not all, have a military or special units’ background. The more wars the west enters, the richer people like Buckingham and Spicer get.
Before Buckingham’s incursion into Libya, he was one of the first oil tycoons into Iraq after the 2003 war: a war which Prime Minister Tony Blair informed an outraged public had nothing to do with oil. Heritage Oil bought into the oilfields of Iraq when the second Gulf War ended; after “discovering” oil in the Kurdistan area of Iraq, Heritage exploited that find through Genel Enerji, a partner company in the Miran field. Before announcing the “find” to the market, Buckingham’s company leaked the confidential information to Genel’s directors Mehmet Sepel, Murat Ozgul and Levent Akca, who bought shares, which they sold on the very day the market was informed of the discovery. These shares rocketed by 25%, and the directors were penalized for insider trading. Interestingly, the three Genel directors had to pay a record fine, but not Heritage Oil, through which the oil discovery had been leaked to them.”
– See more at: http://newsjunkiepost.com/2013/01/29/libya-lubricating-the-oil-magnates-with-blood/#sthash.ruoujvmW.dpuf
“John Thurso = Lord Thurso”
So what?
He gave up his seat in the House of Lords to serve the people in the House of Commons, what’s the problem?
“But then you had to reach for the Nazi analogies, which really is a bit unfair. ”
Why?
I’m a free thinker. You can say what you like about the Tories but at least when it came to the fox hunting debate they had free thinkers prepared to vote against their party. The SNP were all assimilated by the Borg.
Can’t you see why a free thinker would be against Nationalism and the parallels with 1930s Germany?
“She said she had had enough of harassment from the usual suspect, and that he wouldn’t stop her posting about what she believed in, but it would no longer be on this blog.”
I hope Mary returns.
Some things we Miss…………………Like Real News,
Fred just to say … Like Craig, And Many here.. i have had more Experience, in Scotland. Than yourself… i have lived here all my life Seen it all, From the insides, But i so love getting oot into the Highlands The far North.. my Fave is Vatersay…. Shetlands are Crap
Edit Button….. Like Mary’s Real News.
Fuck the Topic…
Many will have seen this video already..if not.
WE HAVE TO SEND YOU BACK to be Beheded MY DARLING
Real Poets – Cry
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/07/palestinian-telling-welcome
One for Mary.. Fuck the cunts….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0CulhsQkTA
BrianFujisan nicely done, thanks mate for the clips and I second your motion; I miss Mary too.
The fact that the poor Palestinians have been displaced because of the policies of the German government past somehow does not register with Frau Ferkel, whom has been underwriting the cost of the dolphin class nuclear warhead capable submarines to those crazed lunatic supremacist zionists, whose handy work included ethnic cleansing the very Palestinians out of their lands who are now subject to Frau Ferkel’s ire and malice to get kicked out of Germany.
I enjoyed your contrasting of real tears with the crocodile tears in the Finkelstein speech.
but it seems it is a system the SNP want to impose on Parliament by force.
I take it you are against any MP’s exerting their right to vote as they damn well please, and that this (in the absence of any recourse to violence by the parliamentary SNP) is what you mean by force. You are presumably untroubled by the numerous measures foisted on us by the governing party via the back door, with no scrutiny or vote at all.
Personally, I’d be more likely to see the connection between the SNP and the Nazis, if they could get the railways working properly.
Re. Thurso: you’ve lost an Eton-educated hotelier and tourist-trapper, and gained a specialist in social policy who is committed to the area he serves (Monaghan’s his name). Isn’t UHI more important than the Bluebell Railway Trust? Support him, you miserable expletive.
Tories ignore advice on democracy
https://www.politicshome.com/party-politics/articles/story/government-overrules-electoral-commission-voter-registration-deadline
Nazis.