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.
Monsieur Hollande, late of the Charlie Hebdo anti-Muslim rallies, has his sun lounger booked on ‘la plage de Tel Aviv sur les bords de la Seine’.
Armed police braced for protests as they man security checkpoints all over central Paris to protect a hugely controversial ‘Israeli beach’
Armed police drafted in ahead of protests against ‘Israeli beach’ in Paris
Fake beach on the banks of the Seine is used to promote Israeli capital
Controversial move has seen city of Paris accused of being ‘pro-Israel’
Protesters seen holding Palestinian flags and images of Gaza casualties
13 August 2015
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3196289/Armed-police-braced-protests-man-security-checkpoints-central-Paris-protect-hugely-controversial-Israeli-beach.html
I had mentioned its planning before but now it’s there. It was obviously designed to provoke and that is happening.
Lord Janner lawyers lose High Court bid over child abuse charges
22 minutes ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33909697
YouKnowMyName
13/08/2015 3:34pm
Yes – how I love the Hancock’s Half Hour “Sunday Afternoon At Home”, with six hours of bird and animal impressions by the maddeningly boring neighbour (Kenneth Williams). Incidentally, both those comedies were scripted by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Kind regards,
John
Listen to Obergruppenführer Amber Rudd on Radio 4 Today at about 7.30am. She was dismissing the untermenschen and their concerns re ‘fracking’.
0730
Shale gas planning applications will be fast-tracked under
government measures announced today. We hear from Jennifer
Mein, Labour MP and leader of Lancashire County Council, and
Amber Rudd, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
Change.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064zlvd#play
1hr.31mins in
Justin Webb held the line.
She, a backbench MP and ex employee of JP Morgan, suddenly became a minister. She has been on all the news channels today and kept saying that delays were not fair to the ‘investors’. Quite so Amber as we must always put the concerns of those with the sponduliks above the rest of us but 16 weeks in which to make a planning decision is nothing cf to say the six years of the Chilcot ‘inquiry’.
Her brother Roland, doing nicely with Finsbury, is a friend of Mandelslime, Jowell and Balls. All chosen.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2074786/Roland-Rudd-Another-schmoozing-lobbyist-clout.html
Any of the fracking ‘investors’ as his clients?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Rudd
Ethics do not obviously concern Finsbury in their selection of clients.
27 August 2013
G4S hires new spin-doctor
‘G4S has hired city PR firm RLM Finsbury, in a bid to salvage its reputation. RLM Finsbury’s clients have included dozens of FTSE 100 firms and Britain’s richest man, Uzbek-born billionaire Alisher Usmanov. The company’s founder, Roland Rudd, was voted the “City’s most influential public relations executive” three years running.’
http://corporatewatch.org/news-archive/201308
A movement has formed and is growing
Frackanpada: Building the European anti-fracking movement
16/06/2015 – 17:36
International anti-fracking camp to take place in Basque Country in July.
The European movement against fracking is gaining strength, with a major international anti-fracking camp planned for 14-19 July in Euskal Herria (Basque Country). The camp, named Frackanpada, will bring together those fighting fracking from all over Europe, and aims to allow participants to share experiences and exchange practices in opposing fracking. It also aims to connect the struggle against fracking with those against austerity and for sustainable societies.
The camp will take place in Subijana de Alava, a small village in the Vitoria-Gasteiz municipality where there are plans to carry out fracking, the first in Euskal Herria. The local community is opposed to the plans and has allowed the camp to take place on their land.
/..
http://corporatewatch.org/news/2015/jun/16/frackanpada-building-european-anti-fracking-movement
Any views on fracking Fred?
Via e-mail I’ve been contacted by a commentator on another site who claims that the 2015 UK general election was rigged; ie, the polls predicted 275 seats for the Tories but the election result gave them 330 seats. This person has thus far not given me any hard evidence that vote rigging did in fact take place.
The best circumstantial evidence is perhaps the overwhelming support that Corbyn is now receiving.
RobG
13/08/2015 4:45pm
Seems implausible to me that it was rigged. Why would anyone in a position to do that have cared whether or not Ed Miliband replaced David Cameron?
Kind regards,
John
“remind me again MJ of the EU in out referendum the British government propose in the near future”
A date hasn’t been announced yet but it will be during this parliament, possibly next year. I’ll let you know when I get more info.
I will probably vote to leave the EU on the grounds that it is undemocratic, disempowers ordinary people and is run by an unelected banking elite, whose names we do not even know and who seem intent on asset-stripping European nations one by one while they have the opportunity. If we vote to stay in however I won’t expect another referendum within my lifetime.
“I will probably vote to leave the EU on the grounds that it is undemocratic, disempowers ordinary people and is run by an unelected banking elite, whose names we do not even know and who seem intent on asset-stripping European nations one by one while they have the opportunity. If we vote to stay in however I won’t expect another referendum within my lifetime.”
___________________________
Well MJ,all of the above you say, is akin to many Scots and how they feel about Westminster,in general, and its undemocratic House of Lords.
So now you get the picture.
@RobG: Did your correspondent have a theory about how all the exit polls were rigged too?
RobG
“Via e-mail I’ve been contacted by a commentator on another site who claims that the 2015 UK general election was rigged; ie, the polls predicted 275 seats for the Tories but the election result gave them 330 seats.
***This person has thus far not given me any hard evidence that vote rigging did in fact take place. ***
______________________
Why am I not surprised?
Your contact must be one of the escaped fruit and nutcases from this blog.
*******************
La vita e’ bella, life is good!
“all of the above you say, is akin to many Scots and how they feel about Westminster”
Their votes still count in the UK and most Scots are clearly keen that that remains the case.
MJ re the UK referendum on the EU
“A date hasn’t been announced yet but it will be during this parliament, possibly next year.
***I’ll let you know when I get more info.***
_______________________
I love that second sentence.
You heard it from MJ first.
Pompous (and self-deluded) prat!
It is hilarious to see the chutzpah and front of a so called scientists who wants to paint nuclear power stations to make PWRs more appealing to the public.
Now this mouthpiece for Lord snooty snout Browne wants to tell local authorities to get lost and forget about devolution and all that should mean and get on with contaminating the water supply.
http://aboutlordbrowne.com/fracking-lord-browne/
‘Unique opportunity’ for Britain she said. Well Amber, not for us mortals, because its already clear that energy prices will not come down if we frack the heck out of our shale.
Hallo Amber, you are lucky to got elected by 27% of the eligible electorate and by an unfair disproportional, fraudulent voting system, don’t kid yourself, you have no mandate to waste bn of gallons of best drinking water mix in your chemicals, and then poison our water supplies, absolutely no mandate to undermine properties, or lord it over our planning authorities. whatsoever.
More of the vile stuff being thrown at Corbyn on the Guardian. Freedland is working hard.
The support for the Palestinians is the main reason for the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn. This Bloodworth (unfortunate name) evens brings the Rev. Sizer into the picture.
The slyly worded title is:
Why is no one asking about Jeremy Corbyn’s worrying connections?
James Bloodworth
Corbyn may not have an antisemitic bone in his body, but he does share platforms with people who do
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-foreign-policy-antisemitism
13 August 2015
Just when the US clients of Craig are looking at his blog, our ‘Steh auf Maenchen’ cyber stalker Habbakuk appears, ready to divulge irritate and bore the tits of us with his mate Fred.
Here’s another one for you, Ba’al :
——start quote
Letters, Private Eye
Sir,
As an SNP member, I am extremely bored of being labelled a Nazi by disappointed Labour supporters following their rout in Scotland. I’m also bored of the fact that someone in your office is clearly one of those folk.(*) Of course there are links to nationalism and fascism, “our” own Royal Family have recently provided strong evidence of that.
– Stuart Hannay, Yell, Shetland.
——end quote
* Saint Fred works for Private Eye?
Those who are interested can follow Craig’s comments in The Guardian.
The Guardians of Corporate interest are deleting some of his comments:
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/10766579
“I wrote a comment that apparently Jeremy Corbyn can annihilate the Labour Party in just 45 minutes. Alastair Campbell is writing a dossier about it. This was deleted for not meeting community standards. What standard does it not meet, exactly?”
LOL
Yesterday when I last looked, there were 91 pages x 100 of comments, ie 9,100, on BLiar’s revolting attack on Jeremy Corbyn in the Guardian. Today, there are said to be 7,885. Counting backwards now?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/even-if-hate-me-dont-take-labour-over-cliff-edge-tony-blair#comments
Yesterday when I put that link up Herbie, I hoped Craig would keep going but he seems to have packed it in.
~~~
Some of this about Amber Rudd’s brother’s firm RLM Finsbury, is historic but you see some familiar names.
http://powerbase.info/index.php/Finsbury
eg Boris Johnson being flown back from Davos in Rudd’s private jet.
Kingman, late of Rothschilds, now at the Treasury and advisor to Gideon to flog off the RBS shares.
(My comment on Tuesday night refers –
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/08/in-safe-hands/comment-page-3/#comment-543525 )
etc etc
They really are ALL in IT together.
Yes. Thanks for that, Mary.
Hugely enjoyable stuff.
“my old settee could have led Labour to victory in 1997. In the two next elections Blair lost over 4 million votes.”
Yes a very funny one liner there from Craig Herbie.
Many lines in the JC supporting the attack on Corbyn. Pompous rubbish.
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/142144/the-key-questions-jeremy-corbyn-must-answer
and that useless Joan Ryan becomes the new chair of LFoI.
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/141925/dont-vote-jeremy-corbyn-urges-new-labour-friends-israel-chair-joan-ryan
She was a BLiar babe but lost in 2010. Cannot believe she was re-elected after that expenses row but she was. Devious too if she was behind the Wiki editing.
‘In October 2007, the Evening Standard reported that Joan Ryan claimed £173,691 in expenses for the 2006/2007 tax year,[4] the highest for any MP. She was the second highest claimant in the 2005/2006 tax year.
In May 2009, it was reported that Ryan had claimed more than £4,500 under the Additional Costs Allowance for work on a house she had designated as her second home.[5] In February 2010, based on an audit report looking into the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, Ryan was asked to repay £5,121 mortgage interest.[6]
In 2012, The Independent reported that “[a]t least 10 attempts have been made from computers in Parliament to remove information about [Ryan’s] expenses claims and a further 20 efforts to delete the information, some from her constituency of Enfield, have also been recorded in Wikipedia’s logs.”[7] Entries on the present page’s edit history page indicate that similar edits to hide Ryan’s record continue to be made.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Ryan
“More of the vile stuff being thrown at Corbyn on the Guardian”
And some very entertaining comments 🙂
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-foreign-policy-antisemitism
One of the better interviews with Jeremy Corbyn.
Explains the issues and policies in a way that everyone can understand.
It’s Corbyn or the corporate clones.
Simple as that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUpdXXRvrw0
“Their votes still count in the UK and most Scots are clearly keen that that remains the case.”
____________________
I hate to burst your bubble MJ but you could count on one hand the amount of times Scottish voters have had a impact on the overall result in a British general election, infact even if Labour had taken every seat at the last GE, the Tories, would’ve still had a majority.
As for Scotland per se, virtually no one voted Tory that’s why there’s only one Tory MP, and even he scrapped past the post with a slim majority of 800, yet Scotland has Tory rule and policies forced upon it.
I describe it not as keen but as a form of madness, when you’re in a hole you stop digging, some in Scotland unfortunately for now, haven’t put the shovel down yet, but they will.
Glenn
13 Aug, 2015 – 2:47 pm
“WTH is Blair and his cronies to go telling us to abandon hope of electing a genuine socialist, because it will cause ructions? They need to shut up and sit down, and accept the leader that gets voted in. What they are threatening is simply blackmail – that they will attempt to destroy the party if they don’t get what they want.”
………………………………………………………………..
Exactly Glenn and the blackmail extends to Nu Labour’s rich backers.
“Labour’s biggest donors pledge to stop giving cash if ‘economically illiterate’ Jeremy Corbyn wins race”
“Labour’s biggest individual donors have pledged to stop giving money if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader in a move that could leave the party almost entirely dependent on trade union funding.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11792195/Labours-biggest-donors-pledge-to-stop-giving-cash-if-economically-illiterate-Jeremy-Corbyn-wins-race.html
How’s that for blackmail?
What happened to their support for the democratic process? It seems that, like some posters on here, they will champion democracy until it gives the “wrong” result.
We’ve seen all this blackmail and scaremongering to undermine a democratic vote before – the run-up to Scottish Independence referendum.
“Labour’s biggest individual donors have pledged to stop giving money if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader in a move that could leave the party almost entirely dependent on trade union funding.”
That would be a good thing wouldn’t it?
Or did you think we could have a truly socialist party funded by capitalists?
“yet Scotland has Tory rule and policies forced upon it.”
Scotland voted Labour and got Labour at consecutive elections. You even have your own Parliament to decide on most matters. Reality check for whinging Scrotes — you don’t always get what you vote for at national elections.
Labour’s biggest individual donors have pledged to stop giving money if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader in a move that could leave the party almost entirely dependent on trade union funding.
Less a loss than a huge boost to credibility, should they actually pull their money (Some won’t. They can’t operate without bribing politicians of all shades. Some on the linked list give to more than one party). And trades unions funded Labour’s infancy when their members’ subsciptions came from miserably small wages. Only NuLabour has been persuaded by the Tories that unions are evil.
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2015/03/24/list-of-labour-cash-donors-non-trade-union/
The major problem is getting the message across. Media.