I am in Tbilisi at the moment, where I spent this early morning drinking tea with some of the 2,000 strong Yazidi community. They see their religion as much more closely descended from Zoroastrianism than appears in most accounts I have read.
I very much enjoyed a visit to Tsinandali which was most useful for gaining a Russian perspective of the Great Game. I don’t have my books with me and am suffering a mental block as to whether it was Connoly, Abbott or Malcolm who visited Tsinandali. I had not realised that Griboyedov was married to a daughter of the house, Nina Chavchavadze. The murder of Griboyedov, Russian Ambassador in Tehran, by a mob rates little more than a footnote in British accounts of the Great Game, even though the British had bribed the religious authority to stir up the riots. What revisionist history there has been, has come from the Iranian side and falsely tried to obscure the fact that the refugees Griboyedov was sheltering were runaway slaves from harems.
This is a neglected recurring theme. When Shuja agreed the treaty already negotiated between Macnaghten and Ranjit Singh, the main stipulation he sought to add was that the British would return to him any runaway slave girls. The immediate motive for the ringleader of the attack on Alexander Burnes was that Burnes had refused to intervene to return a runaway slave girl who had sought the protection of another British officer. My fellow anti-imperialist historians have in general been guilty of emphasising rapaciousness by the British in these incidents and overlooking or excusing the slave status of the girls. Both aspects need to be faced squarely to write honestly the full facts of history. Tellingly, it is generally impossible to recover names of the girls involved.
Griboyedov deserves to be remembered for much more than his murder. An accomplished playwright and poet, he was a friend of Pushkin and had links to the dissident groups who attempted revolution in 1825. His murder left Nina a widow at either 17 or 19 by different accounts, and pregnant. She lost the child on hearing of her husband’s death, and never remarried. It is a tragic story which came alive to me in visiting the family home.
Griboyedov had fought Napoleon in the 1812 campaign, but had helped those Napoleonic adventurers Allard and Ventura evade a British blockade and go into service with Ranjit Singh. Griboyedov’s successor as Russian Ambassador to Tehran, Simonicz, had actually fought on the Napoleonic side against Russia, presumably in the Polish Legion. Nina’s sister was to marry a Murad nephew of Napoleon. The political elites of Europe melded quickly after the convulsion.
With which clumsy segue I shall note that the battle against the entrenched political elites of the UK appears to be going extremely well without me. I cannot express without a welling up of real emotion how happy I am that all I have been saying about the stultifying neo-liberal consensus and exclusion of dissent, and appalling burgeoning wealth gap between rich and poor, has found such massive traction between Jeremy Corbyn in England and the SNP in Scotland. I may have gone AWOL for a few days, but the cause of social justice appears in extremely safe hands.
Looks like the Labour branch office in Scotland might be in a wee bit of trouble come next May.
THE SNP are set for a landslide at the 2016 Holyrood elections, according to a new poll from TNS.
The same poll was a devastating read for Scottish Labour as it suggested former supporters would rather not vote at all than back the beleaguered party. Only half of people who voted Labour in May say they will definitely vote for Labour next year. The figures are 51 per cent on the constituency vote and 46 per cent on the list vote.
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/labour-in-freefall-as-poll-shows-voters-deserting-in-droves.6228
Having fouled up the state education system, Poison Gove Lord Chancellor LOL is now proposing to close many county courts, magistrates’ courts and tribunals. BBC South are saying that some cases will not even make it to trial.
This gives the outline.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11743788/More-than-90-courts-to-shut-under-new-plan.html
In the South West the proposed closures are:
Barnstaple Crown Court
Bath Magistrates’ Court, County Court and Family Court or North Avon (Yate) Magistrates’
Court
Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court
Cheltenham Rivershill House Tribunal
Chippenham Magistrates’ Court, Civil Court and Family Court
Dorchester Crown Court
Fareham Magistrates’ Court
Gloucester Magistrates’ Court
North Avon (Yate) Magistrates’ Court or Bath Magistrates’ Court, County Court and Family
Court
Stroud Magistrates’ Court
Torquay Magistrates’ Court
Other closures are listed on https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/proposal-on-the-provision-of-court-and-tribunal-es/user_uploads/reform-estates-national-consultation_official-sensitive_final.pdf
pages 14-20
Some courts and tribunals are to be combined. BBC South Today had it as their lead item in which a retired judge and a solicitor spoke strongly against the plans. Gove’s ‘consultation’ (a sham) ends in October.
The following item on BBC South Today was the announcement that Southampton City Council will close five libraries unless volunteers to run them come forward.
The Con cutz are biting hard.
Police in Scotland have said they remain alert to all terrorist threats after a report that a woman in Glasgow may be poised to carry out an attack.
A Sky News investigation claims that individuals are being recruited by so-called Islamic State as “lone wolf” bombers in the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-33861865
Here we go another “White Widow” propaganda BS story possibly eminating from Whitehall and carried by the ever obedient press.
As usual the prefered term “Lone Wolf” is thrown in for good measure, what a load of old bollocks.
re Mr Souter and hid life peerage:
Whether Mr Souter was nominated by Mr Salmond or by a committee of civil servants is missing the point.
The real question might be the following:
ASSUMING that Mr Souter’s rather large donation could be taken to indicate that he is a SNP supporter and subscribes to its policies;
WHEREAS the SNP has a policy of not nominating people for to sit in the House of Lords as life peers
GIVEN that membership of the House of Lords is not compulsory upon those who might e nominated
WHY did Mr Souter not exercise his right to refuse the nomination?
Mary
“Having fouled up the state education system, Poison Gove Lord Chancellor LOL…etc…etc”
___________________
There are many who would hold that the UK state education system was fouled up a long time before Mr Gove happened on the scene.
I understand that Secretary of State Mr Crosland (deceased) closed more grammar schools than did Mrs Thatcher.
Re the late Sir Edward Heath and the accusations of paedophilia (and even murder):
KEMPE : “..he still has a right to a fair and proper investigation of all the evidence as do his alleged victims”.
MJ : “That’s all that’s happening. Don’t worry about the tittle-tattle in the newspapers, I’m sure the police don’t.”
__________________
“Don’t worry about the tittle-tattle in the newspapers” (to which Habbabkuk would add “and on the internet”)
Perhaps MJ should take to task all those who have, on this blog, been gleefully peddling the accusations against Sir Edward by linking to various newspapers and websites/blogs? People like the Transatlantic Sage, Mary, and so on?
Mr Goss
I am interested in getting to know your thought processes a little better (God know why, though).
You wrote:
““Around 30 degrees C in Tel Aviv this morning and Jewish and Arab Israelis are enjoying the beach in perfect harmony (you wouldn’t have seen that in aopartheid-era South Africa!) . . . off to the beach now for some swimming, lounging, flirting with the girls ad, of course, some beach footie if I can rustle up some equally energetic souls.”
When you get back from the beach here are some photographs of those who never grew old enough to play football on the beach, killed on Netanyahu’s instructions.”
What is the connection, in your mind, between my enjoyment of beach football and the fact that four teenagers were killed while playing football on a Gaza beach?
Craig has hammered Lefties on his own blog for a very long time mocking their admiration of Putin’s backward Russian economy and contradicting those who refuse to swallow FCO whopping lies.
He wanted to challenge the neo-cons from the safety of a Liberal, best-of-all-available-worlds Britishness, aka the Scottish Imperialist Burnes.
Then he said he was disgusted at media hypocrisy about Lord Sewell, and circumcised all comments that opposed his libertarian line and he dressed his inconsistencies with the camouflage paint that they were polemics, undertaken in the search of truth.
Then he posed a romantic vision of a Trident-free, illegal war-free independent Scotland. But he has never challenged USUKIS policy in Libya apart from criticising their unnecessary violence. He has not commented on USUKIS policy in Syria since Geneva2.
In conclusion, he finds the status-quo of English fudge and under-statement while it is fucking over the rest of the world , a comfort zone. Why is he commenting in the Guardian when it is well known that the Guardian deletes all comments that differ from its own narrow viewpoint?
i fail to see in Craig’s posts any reference to the deep political lies which accompany 2 years of destruction launched against Islam in our lifetimes. I am therefore forced to conclude that he is in agreement with the Zionist cause he purports to hate.
So long as the world continues to revolve around right/left politics and Western values he’s fine. But if you were to propose a world that finishes political corruption and demands worship and morality, that’s going too far for him.
I’m fed up with being moved from one corner of the fire to another corner of the fire. By and large in the last 30 years the means of production has been placed in the hands of the workers, because they know what needs to be done. Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist talk is proposing something that has already been done by Capitalism.
All that you all want to achieve is a continuation of an Imperial , exclusive order, in which outsiders become anglicised and transformed into citizens of the not Roman, but British empire.
Unfortunately history tells us that more radical events overtake the slow wanings of every bum, declining Empire.
I can’t wait for this time-wasting bickering about incey wincey nuances of politics to stop and real change to come.
25 years, not 2.
“WHY did Mr Souter not exercise his right to refuse the nomination?”
__________________________
Why don’t you ask him yourself, you who claim to be a master.
http://www.briansouter.com/contact-details.aspx
Do let us know the outcome of your little foray
Thanks.
Mr Goss
Let’s keep you busy a little longer.
You write:
“That is why the petition was raised which you call “vexatious, silly and has no chance whatsoever of being taken seriously, never mind succeeding.”
Well let me inform you that the petition has already passed 29,000 signatures and there should be a government response after 10,000 signatures for which we have been waiting for 2 days. Even somebody with Noddy’s arithmetical skills could work out that nearly 20,000 signatures have been added over the last forty-eight hours. 100,000 signatures makes the petition eligible for parliamentary debate. I forecast it will shoot well beyond that quite quickly making your above statement fatuous and possibly indicative that you have been taking too much sun.”
____________________
The fact that 29000 people may have signed this petition so far does not indicate – never mind prove – that the petition to have Netanyahu arrested for war crimes on his visit to the UK is anything other than vexatious and silly.
One could just as well argure that all that it proves is that there are 29000 people in the UK (out of an adult population of say 40 million) who would wish to se Netanyahu brought before a court and thrown into the nick.
As to your 10000 and 100000 figures, they do not invalidate, either, what I said about the petition having no chance of being taken seriously never mind succeeding. The govt will respond by saying “get lost” (but more politely) and as you admit yourself, 100000 signatures makes a petition eligible for debate in the HoC but does not ipso facto automatically lead to such a debate.
“GIVEN that membership of the House of Lords is not compulsory upon those who might e nominated
WHY did Mr Souter not exercise his right to refuse the nomination?”
I don’t know that a knighthood would enable him to sit in the house of Lords anyway.
Even SNP MPs accept honours, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh OBE for instance.
“Around 30 degrees C in Tel Aviv this morning and Jewish and Arab Israelis are enjoying the beach in perfect harmony (you wouldn’t have seen that in aopartheid-era South Africa!)
Ask him which beach that might be. Only two ‘Tel Aviv’ beaches encourage , er, mixed bathing, and one of them’s nearer Jaffa.
Around 30 degrees C in Tel Aviv this morning and Jewish and Arab Israelis are enjoying the beach in perfect harmony (you wouldn’t have seen that in aopartheid-era South Africa!)
Ask him which beach that might be. Only two ‘Tel Aviv’ beaches encourage , er, mixed bathing, and one of them’s nearer Jaffa.
You might also enquire how often, and under what conditions, West Bank Palestinians are allowed into Tel Aviv at all. One occasion would be Ramzan (one day, out by 10pm), but finding others would be an educational exercise for him. One occasion would be Ramzan (one day, out by 10pm), but finding others would be an educational exercise for him.”
_________________
If that’s the best Ba’al-Komodo can do then he’d be well advised to hop back onto his lofty perch on Mount Olympus and continue to refuse engagement with me by hiding behind his Habbabreak. 🙂
Perhaps someone would be kind enough to tell him the following:
1/. He is guilty of a deliberate and misleading conflation when he says that “you might also enquire how often, and under what conditions, West Bank Palestinians are allowed into Tel Aviv at all”.
Had he read my post a little more carefully, he might have noticed that I referred to “Jewish and Arab Israelis”, ie to citizens of the State of Israel, and not to West Bank Palestinians.
To repeat: Arab Israelis are perfectly free to visit and use the Tel Aviv beaches and do so.
2/. There are approx. 16 kms of beaches stretching north and south from Tel Aviv and there is only one where Arab Israelis would not be welcome – that is the beach for ultra-Orthodox Jews. All the others are open to Arab and Jewish Israelis alike.
Of course, Ba’al-Komodo weasels his way round that inconvenient fact by saying that Arab Israelis are not “welcome”. If he were to read this post, he might attempt to un-weasel his assertion by supplying a little chapter and verse about how his “unwelcome” manifests itself and the forms it takes. Failure to do so might lead me and others to suspect that Ba’al-Komodo has just lazily picked up some propaganda from a pro-Palestinian web-site or group.
Just a minute ago
Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested for war crimes when he arrives in London
Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold talks in London this September. Under international law he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the U.K for the massacre of over 2000 civilians in 2014
Sign this petition
34,112 signatures
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446
Please sign.
Dear Sir,
The Dutch Safety Board in collaboration with the Joint Investigation issued a press statement that a number of parts found at the crash site may originate from a Buk surface-to-air missile system.
This has caused a media frenzy.
Considering further research into the origin of these parts is required by the JIT with the help of experts, I find the statement to be premature considering (a) there is no causal relationship between the detected parts and the crash of of flight MH17 and (b) No eyewitness reports of a Buk missile launch at the time of the crash have been submitted to either JIT or the Research Council.
This authority has neither received US satellite data of the incident or official conclusions from the UK Air Accidents Branch after examination of the Cockpit Voice Recorder.despite email requests for such data.
I therefore conclude that the professionalism of both the JIT and the Dutch Safety Board must be called into question and as such a report will be sent to the UN Security Council.
Your faithfully,
Jon
“Quite aside from principles, I’d quite like to see someone of Corbyn’s historical and intellectual nous face Cameron at the dispatch box. Cameron, even for this admirers, does not have this depth, and the massacre is likely be short.”
This I doubt very much. Quite aside from principles, Cameron, for all his faults, and I am certainly no admirer of his, is supremely articulate and confident. He would make mincemeat of Corbyn and win hands down in a straight contest between the two.
All this, like Corbyn’s chances of winning a general election, is speculation of course. So we won’t know until we know. Are you a betting man?
Republicofscotland
““WHY did Mr Souter not exercise his right to refuse the nomination?”
__________________________
Why don’t you ask him yourself, you who claim to be a master.”
________________
Very weak reponse, RoS.
And not logical – being a master implies that people like you should do the heavy lifting in accordance with my directions. 🙂
Link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mh17-russia-buk-missile_55c9e9b4e4b0923c12be08a9
Fred
At the beginning of this sub-thread were not people on here talking about a peerage?
++++++++++++++++
If what we should have been talking about is a mere knighthood, the question of why he did not refuse it remains.
The latest Exaro piece on Ted Heath:
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5638/sir-edward-heath-more-than-a-dozen-police-probes-become-one
One of the Guardian pieces on Ted Heath today:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/11/edward-heath-asexual-says-former-adviser
(today’s Exaro piece has been picked up upon by the Guardian and other media)
Disproving the Tory propagandist @ 7.53pm above
‘But no matter what the failings of the broadcasters or Cameron’s reasons for wanting rid of the event, it is telling that he is so afraid of these debates. Cameron is nowhere near as effective as his team claim him to be. He comes across as arrogant, easily brought to anger and often unable to think quickly on his feet. His record is weak and his political career defined by response rather than agency. He is a political shadow.
This is the event most suited to his qualities. And yet he runs from it, laughably citing his unending concern for the Green party. That tells you a great deal about his political abilities.’
Cameron’s fear of TV debates shows how weak his presidential skills really are
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/01/09/cameron-s-fear-of-tv-debates-shows-how-weak-his-presidential
9 January 2015
Mary, signed.
Anon1, thanks – interesting. I think Cameron does jeering very well, and thus in the sharp-elbowed Commons punch-fest sense, he can hold his own. But Corbyn knows his stuff in a way that Cameron does not seem to. Also, Corbyn seems to take after Benn in his politeness, and thus petty point-scoring may not serve the Tory as well as usual – it may strike a viewing audience as the whole problem with the Commons in first place!
To be clear, I would be thrilled if the two would have a debate, and someone really should take me to task for suggesting that anyone would “massacre” the other. What I want is for the elite to be held to account for their actions against the poor, and I suspect that’s the reason for Corbyn’s popularity. Whilst I warmed to him a little in the last election cycle, Miliband failed to do this convincingly.
Am I a betting man? Only the National Lottery, I’m afraid!
“At the beginning of this sub-thread were not people on here talking about a peerage?
I thought we were talking about nationalising trains.
“Disproving the Tory propagandist @ 7.53pm above”
You can’t “disprove” an opinion, Mary. And you can’t disprove an opinion by posting someone else’s opinion, even if the writer of the second opinion “appears regularly on the BBC, Sky and Al-Jazeera”.
[Even if I disagree with the “Tory propagandist” that you refer to.]
Crawford
“Mary, we all want to hear/read what you have to say”
________________
Just to set the record straight, there are at least three regulat commenters on here who disagree with the above.
Best wishes for your health.
“He’s not defending Heath, he’s defending a basic tenet in British justice which is in grave danger of being forgotten.”
Well of course that’s absolute poppycock. When Babar Ahmed and Talha Ahsan were imprisoned for years on end not accused of any crime I did not see Kempe coming to their rescue with a ‘basic tenet’ of British Justice. Neither was Kempe speaking up for Moazzam Begg when the spooks had him banged away on trumped-up accusations and finally released him without charge some seven months later. Of course they were Muslims and they were not rich and powerful like the former Prime Minister. It seems Kempe, and others no doubt, have dual standards when it comes to rich and poor, white and brown.
Gideon appears to be under the control of other forces.
Revealed: The Treasury mandarin who said losing £1bn for the taxpayer was “value for money”
David Hencke
10 August 2015
Why did a senior treasury civil servant wholeheartedly endorse losing the British taxpayer so much money?
There has been enormous outrage about the £1bn loss to the taxpayer caused by the sale of the first tranche of Royal Bank of Scotland shares. An article in The Guardian on August 4 reported not only expected criticism from Labour but concern from a banking analyst that the share price of RBS was too low to justify the sale.
What was only briefly mentioned was that the second most powerful mandarin in the Treasury had also given the go ahead. You might expect him to bow and scrape to the Chancellor but actually he has more powers than you might think and he needn’t have followed his instructions. If an accounting officer believes that a government minister is about to make a decision that will lead to a big loss to the taxpayer he can refuse to approve the action.
These actions are not taken lightly – one of the most recent examples being the refusal by Richard Heaton (soon to become Permanent Secretary at MoJ) who requested one, on value for money grounds, on 26 June over extra funding for the Kids company charity. He was overruled by ministers who have now seen to have made a big mistake as recent coverage reveals.
John Kingman could have done the same thing. He would face being overruled by George Osborne but it would have caused a furore and triggered an eventual Whitehall investigation.
Instead as this letter above (image) shows he has positively embraced the sale.
“ I am satisfied that a sale at this time would offer good value for money for the taxpayer and meets all other requirements in accordance with the principles of Managing Public Money,” he wrote to George Osborne.
/..
https://www.byline.com/column/22/article/242
‘They’ are all in it together. Their City pals made a killing as with the Royal Mail bonanza.
Kingman recently worked for Rothschild’s and his father was Rothschild Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kingman father
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oliver_Frank_Kingman son
Mary
“Cameron’s fear of TV debates shows how weak his presidential skills really are”
__________________
I believe you’ve cut-and-pasted in the past to deplore the increasingly Presidential style of UK politics, UK party leaders and UK elections.
Surely therefore you should be pleased that Cameron’s presidential skills are not up to the mark?
Instead of which you sound oddly displeased.
Thanks Daniel. The more the merrier.