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.
Brian your drummers are fantastic, excellence again!.
They reminded me of a shoal of fish and a flock of birds all moving in unison. How do they do that? So young and with so much energy.
Many thanks.
I am not supposed to be posting. Now I am away to look at the other videos, just as I did with your link to the 7 year old karate warrior. Brilliant!
” 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. ”
I don’t recall having to defend habeas corpus against anyone on here, or anywhere else for that matter, calling for their conviction without trial.
The name of one of the pandas given by China to Heath in 1974 was Ching Ching.
The woman who kept the brothel Heath (allegedly) frequented in Salisbury is Madam Ling Ling.
Brothel madam says she supplied men for Ted Heath to sleep with but ‘he was not a paedophile – he was just a sad, old gay man’
Myra Forde, 67, says she never supplied Sir Edward Heath with children
She has admitted she ‘gave him company and he was happy’ but denies Sir Edward was a paedophile, saying that he was ‘just a sad, old gay man’
Known as Madam Ling Ling, she previously denied involvement with him
Seven forces are now investigating sex abuse claims against former PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3193697/Brothel-madam-says-supplied-men-Ted-Heath-sleep-not-paedophile-just-sad-old-gay-man.html
Jon
“It is somewhat odd that our friend Habbabkuk has gone all quiet since I asked him whether the context of media bias should be taken into account when (repeatedly) making statements about democratic choice.”
_______________
Don’t be daft, Jon. Or is your role on here to divert and distract?
Firstly, I’ve been anything but quiet since you asked your “question” which you admitted afterwards wasn’t a question. Why, the volume of my comments has even attracted praise from Mary!
And now to your non-question. I think you wanted me to say something about the role of the press, which you say is mainly to the right (from the perspective of a Corbynbite agenda)? Well, I agree with you, but so what?
Actually I believe there are some far-left publications out there, one occasionally ses people on the dtreet selling them. As it’s a free country without censorship, one must assume that they remain a (very) minority sport since few people seem to buy them; if they represented a growing section of public opinion they would probably have larger circulations (cf the history of Private Eye)
And now I suggest you invite various other commenters to reply to the various points I made – after all, they re on here to discuss and debat, aren’t they? Just as you are…..
“It is now owned by Putin-hater Lededev (a favourite of Resident Dissident)”
Yet another lie – might I suggest the pathlogical liar go and look up what I have said about Lebedev in the past.
Mary
I suggest you follow MJ’s advice earlier on this thread and pay less attention the “tittle tattle in the MSM” as he put it.
Especially tittle tattle about Madame Ling Ling retailed in that august journal of record called the Daily Mail.
And please leave pandas out of it, they’re an endangered species under CITES.
“Yet another lie – might I suggest the pathlogical liar go and look up what I have said about Lebedev in the past.”
Correct me if I have misunderstood you but I got the impression that your support for, and sourcing from, Lebedev’s Novaya Gazeta,has been close to fawning.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/amnesty-international-conference-on-torture/comment-page-9/#comment-511403
Michael Fallon pumping up his military muscle for a war with Russia aided by the whore of Westminster, the BBC, sowing forth right and left its seed-grass of lies for the baa-baas to graze on.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33665706
Sorry, posted a follow on report above which also misrepresented the murder of civilians in Donbas trying to present it as aggression from the east. Here is the Fallon report.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33873753
Quite aside from principles,
What principles? His trademark is to reverse any decision attracting bad press. Perhaps that’s a principle?
Cameron…..is supremely articulate and confident….
Demonstrating the purpose and benefits of an Eton education. Content-wise, he demonstrates the disadvantages of an upbringing well away from the uncomfortable realities of life in the real world.
…He would make mincemeat of Corbyn and win hands down in a straight contest between the two.’
That would depend on the nature of the contest and the audience, wouldn’t it? Cameron is set up for PMQ’s, which is in turn designed so that braying asses like Cameron can evade questioning and simply shout down any dissenting view. True, Corbyn isn’t a master of the sneeringly superficial putdown, in which the Tory front bench appear to have had specialist coaching, but, given the chance, can back the arguments he makes as well as anyone in the house.
We need to ask why the most-reported weekly appearance of our representatives is a content-free charade in which the loudest blusterer is seen as winning, don’t we?
Giggle, Mr. Habbabkuk! Very good. I don’t know that I’d regard it as an “admission” that I had some broad themes I’d like you to respond to – I don’t see that their broadness as a weakness. In fact, it gives you plenty of scope for an expanded answer. In other news it is probably true that I’m occasionally daft, but that’s not entirely material here 😉
I agree that PE has some Leftist themes – occasionally contributors for the Morning Star write for them – and there is the daily Morning Star itself. There is +some+ Leftist material in the Guardian, Indie and New Statesman, and a few good Left writers such as Fisk, Monbiot and Younge. There is of course also the internet, though that hasn’t eclipsed either the papers or the TV yet in terms of how the agenda is set, and it shows no signs of doing so. (Do MSM readers know what Wikileaks is doing these days? WL is still busy, but we wouldn’t know it).
Yes, the media is biased to the Right from the perspective of Corbyn – that’s clear and easy to agree upon. I’m also asserting that it is biased to the Right from the perspective of the centre, since the number of Right views easily outweigh the Leftist ones (Craig’s illustration is apposite: a one-digit percentage of press was given to anti-war views during the second Iraq war, despite the British population being strongly opposed).
Thus, the “so what” – if that is what the thing is called – is that presenting a free Leftist choice in a media system biased to the Right – is not entirely a free choice at all. It is not at all calling people stupid to say that propaganda works (advertising is a form of propaganda, and we can assume it works because of the phenomenal amounts of money spent on it). Modern psychology, I believe, also asserts that propaganda works, because of how our brains are wired.
So, if there is a point to all this, it is this: whenever you assert that people would choose conservative ideas over social-democratic ones – and you do so frequently – or whenever such a preference is “proven” by this or that election result, the truth is we do not really know. I readily admit that it is +possible+ that the British people would prefer conservative/capitalist spectrum parties given a propaganda-free environment providing perfect information, but until we eliminate propaganda and provide perfect information on political choices, it is difficult to measure.
(I assume we’re agreed there is no such thing as Leftist propaganda from a systemic perspective, but if this needs justifying I’m happy to do so).
So, feel free to respond, or not, as you wish. I think we’re capable of rational discussion – I often see glimmers of interesting material in your posts – and in this instance, our exchange has been civil, even if you are hesitant to commit yourself fully to answering. This does not bode badly for our small band of commentators: for all the pointless eye-poking that goes on here, it is possible for people to write original thoughts and swap analyses with people who have a different set of views.
Carry on, etc!
Question is, do any of the unionists behave any better? ”
Absolutely not; but that’s no excuse.
We would both like that to be the case. Unfortunately it isn’t. As far as I can see, all parties play (and it’s far too much of a game for them) by similar unwritten and, at a pinch, deniable rules. All parties want to win. A party embracing decent principles of behaviour is tying one hand behind its back. And a party running a large campaign needs money.
Absent any much-needed reform to the system, I’d say the SNP is as entitled as anyone else to use it. And it’s rather good at that – which sticks in not a few craws.
Even SNP MPs accept honours, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh OBE for instance.
Her OBE (New Year list, 2014) was awarded before she became an MP (2015), for services to business and the Asian community. She is recognised UK-wide for the latter.
Has a piece of Edward Heath washed up in Jersey or am I getting my news confused?
Putin has denied involvement…
Mr Goss
“Michael Fallon pumping up his military muscle for a war with Russia”
______________
Don’t be daft, Mr Goss, no one’s going to go to war with Russia. If there’s any one ramping up the war rhetoric it’s you. Get over it!
Jon
Don’t look for mini-conspiracies everywhere. It might just have occurred to you that I’m not terribly interested in discussing your theme of choice for the moment and find other contributions worthier of comment. more interesting. Which I hope you’ll agree is my right?
@Mary
“Any national investigation into claims of historical child sexual abuse involving former PM Sir Edward Heath is to be led by Wiltshire Police.”
Dig the way the BBC say “any” rather than “the”.
There’ll be an inquiry if Mr Poshy Sir feels it’s appropriate. Have you got that, you dirty plebs?
Wiltshire have a record of helping keep things quiet in Jersey. This rather makes it looks as though Heath was involved up to his neck in child abuse in Jersey.
Meanwhile, from the ongoing “independent” Jersey inquiry:
(I am not making this up)
“Witnesses Appeal
The Inquiry would like to hear from anyone with information about care homes or foster care in Jersey. This includes senior managers, support staff such as cooks and cleaners, police officers, teachers – indeed anyone coming into contact with children in the care system. People who were in care at anytime since the war are also asked to come forward and tell their story.”
…showing exactly where their priorities are… It reminds me of “Your Royal Highness, Your Excellency, my lords, ladies and gentlemen”.
It’s interesting too that their starting-point is the “Liberation” on 9 May 1945. Was there no continuity between what happened in Haut de la Garenne after that date and what happened before it? Did all the inmates get freed at the “Liberation”, to be replaced by a completely new group of inmates? Were the managers and staff also replaced?
Interesting too that the case against the commander of the German concentration camps on Alderney was dropped. As Leah McGrath Goodman has pointed out, for the inmates of Haut de la Garenne, conditions were similar to those in a concentration camp.
Jon
Just to be precise: I’m not saying that your theme isn’t worthy of discussion per se, it’s just that I don’t find it very interesting from a personal point of view and I therefore don’t particularly want to get into a discussion which would be highly theoretical and not very likely to increase the sum of knowledge very much. One has to ration one’s time on this blog
BTW, I liked your bit about glimmers of hope in (some) of my posts; but do hope you’re not putting in a take-over bid for Ba’al’s lofty perch on Mount Olympus 🙂
You know I asked about the tie that Robert Jordan, convicted abuser of childen at Haut de la Garenne, was wearing when he came up for sentencing? I thought he was sending a message and suspected the tie might be for a sailing club.
From the report from the Jersey inquiry from 7 Aug 2015:
“Prior to moving to Jersey, he had served in the Army, the Police Force in Gibraltar and moved back to Wales in 1974. In 1977 he moved to Jersey with a friend, obtained a job with the Channel Island Yacht Services and was invited to volunteer at HDLG, mainly taking the boys to play snooker or supervise them swimming.”
“Mainly” indeed. So he has got a background in “yacht services” and “was invited” (by whom?) to “volunteer” at Haut de la Garenne, taking the boys (not the girls) to places.
I wonder what he did in Wales too.
“Taking him through his witness statement, Inquiry Counsel Patrick Sadd, asked Mr Jordan to describe the systems in place at the time, how the home was managed and how he contributed to the care of the children.
He explained how he would discipline the children and that he was never told his manner was inappropriate or that he’d crossed the line. He always believed it was with the Superintendent, Jim Thomson’s blessing.
He stated he never received any training, but took the lead from colleagues who had been there longer. When HDLG closed, the couple decided to leave Jersey as it was too expensive to buy a house. Mr Jordan said he continued working with children and undertook a course in Social Services, which he described as “illuminating” and that looking back they could have done a lot more for the children.
Mr Sadd asked Mr Jordan about his trial and conviction in 2010 on eight counts of assault of children at HDLG. He was acquitted on four further counts. Mr Jordan maintained, as he did at the time, that the assaults did not happen and that he was wrongly convicted. He refuted [sic] being a bully.”
Two points:
1) so all the children who made statements about him were liars then?
2) it’s not just what this child abuser said; it’s also what questions he was asked by the inquiry counsel, namely “what systems were in place” and “how did he care for the children”.
The inquiry is nothing but a cover-up.
Of course British special forces have infiltrated Hezbollah in preparation for a large scale false flag operation in Israel killing many innocent civilians. The stumbling block apparently is determining who will be killed and where. The suggested ‘where’ is Israel’s nuclear research laboratories according to intelligence.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/04/13/israel-iran-boosts-weapon-shipments-to-hamas-hezbollah-in-expectation-of-lifted-sanctions/
The Guardian: “The big UK polling companies seriously misjudged the gap between the Conservatives and Labour – probably because of problems caused by differential turnout”
Or in other words, as my grandfather used to say, “Tories always vote“. Which is true – and remains the best reason I know of for voting Labour.
But other than that, the sentence is bullshit. The polling companies deliberately helped the Tories, and they and the slavish pundits and editors all sang to the same songsheet: “vote Labour for chaos”. Cue all the punditry about the queen’s speech, minority governments, “confidence and supply” – YAWN!! (talk about take the toys from the boys!) – in many cases not realising what assumptions had been put into their heads for them to spew out to people lower down the opinion chain. An expertly run campaign by the Tories.
Elections aren’t about bars going up and down on a chart and then settling in their final positions. It’s not a sport race on the television. When on earth will people get a clue?
Habbabkuk, of course – you may engage or not as you wish. However, since you are fond of saying that the electorate will reject a political platform that has Left components, hopefully every time you do, readers here may take the view that you preferred not to adequately answer objections to this assertion. Again, this is your right, and the inferences people will make from your exercise of that right is their right also.
I think it’s also important to understand that framing the media as a propaganda mechanism in this fashion not a conspiracy theory – we are specifically not talking about, say, the secret services seeding false stories. A classic conspiracy (when the phrase is not used as a broad smearing device) requires a small group of actors, usually in the pay of a powerful group or elite, to clandestinely collaborate towards some political outcome. There is nothing secret about who owns the media, or the ratio of Right versus Left opinions on offer, or that wealthy people who have done well out of thirty years of neo-liberalism do not wish their gains to be stopped or reversed – this all happens in plain sight.
@ Brian who wrote ‘Yes i has been a Very Cold Summer up here’
Are you saying I should bring a jumper next week? and some waterproofs? wellies?
thanks for the other links. A wholly redeveloped and rebuild Haut La Garenne sounds very much like the place were evidence could have been destroyed, but where did they dump the spoils?
Jon, he does not like to play with you, he’s into quick fixes and short sharp shocks.
And yes, readers will be informed regularly of his remoteness and inability to converse.
light rain has stopped, work beckons.
“Her OBE (New Year list, 2014) was awarded before she became an MP (2015), for services to business and the Asian community. She is recognised UK-wide for the latter.”
But at the time she was on the advisory board of Yes Scotland and a SNP candidate in the European election wasn’t she? She is an MP now?
“ROS… Fk Glasgow City Council, We are Gonna do it Anyway, ill be there – Hope Over Fear Rally, Cheers for highlighting this”
Is that wise?
You don’t think the Unionists would see that as provocative?
She joined the advisory board of Yes in 2012. She was the MEP candidate in May, 2014, after her OBE was awarded. So what, Fred? Member of SNP (but not member of any parliament) gets UK award? Independence supporter gets minor honour shock horror?
Have you anything, anything at all, to support the contention that any undue influence (criterion for ‘undue’ being ‘as compared to that routinely wielded by all other parties’) was exerted in obtaining a minor award for someone also active in fields other than politics – which the award itself acknowledges?
Or is this just another untestable smear? FFS, Fred. Try a little harder.
“Or is this just another untestable smear? FFS, Fred. Try a little harder.”
She is a SNP MP and she accepted an OBE.
It’s simple enough to understand and answered Hab’s question regarding the ethics of believing in separation while accepting British honours.
Show up or get arrested Janner!
Turn up to court this week or face arrest, judge tells Janner: Chief magistrate says he will not tolerate any more delays after lawyers try to use Human Rights Act to stop him appearing
Former Labour peer faces 22 charges of sex abuse against boys and men
He was ordered last week to appear in court to answer the case against him
However his lawyers claim the 87-year-old is too ill to appear in person
Ex MP denies any wrongdoing and his family say he is ‘entirely innocent’
Britain’s chief magistrate said he would not tolerate further delay in case
12 August 2015 | Updated 6.31am
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3193659/Lord-Janner-AVOID-court-child-abuse-charges-breach-human-rights.html
BUT WAIT………….
High Court to rule on whether Janner court appearance is unlawful
BBC News – 21 hours ago
A High Court judge is to consider whether it was unlawful to order Lord Janner to appear in …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33863435
We will see.
His bluff was called and found wanting.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/08/in-safe-hands/comment-page-3/#comment-543601
The Sea Lion is clapping! Brilliant.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7215/6886049138_8fdd43f32c_b.jpg