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.
Jon
” I am, believe it or not, earnestly seeking your views.”
_____________
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, Jon – what was your question again?
More stereotyping from someone who seems so very offended when he thinks his own group is being stereotyped.
Habbabkuk, see my post at 9 Aug, 2015 – 3:29 pm. I’ll check back tomorrow – do feel free to write an expanded answer. I’d be interested in a conservative view on the state of the media, and how it affects electoral choice.
observe, everyone in America, this is what he craves, attention, our resident 15mm socket called Habbakuk is taking the piss out of Jon’s question, pretending he is in a conversation with him by writing ‘what was your question again?’
time for a shrink?
It was about the electability of the left and what you are basing your assumptions on, Habby, keep up boare.
John Goss, well done on your ride – 435 miles! Were your tube changes due to punctures? Slime works well to automatically fix small thorn-size holes, and can keep you going longer during slow punctures.
It’s not my argument that a Corbyn-led Labour party will be elected, habby.
My argument is very simply that your argument is cobblers. A cargo cult.
Your argument is that because of what happened 30 odd years ago, similar policies today would suffer a similar fate.
This is cobblers because the conditions have radically changed.
People now have experience of what 30 odd years of elite theft actually mean for them.
They didn’t have that experience then.
Sensible people will understand that that fact changes things quite a bit.
It’s not unusual that elite servants are the last to know when the weather changes.
They’re a self-serving incestuous bunch, who need to get out and about a bit more.
“I’m sorry but real people just don’t talk like that”
Don’t be a complete fuckwit all your life, Res Diss.
What people are saying is that they see no hope for the future, that things look like they’re just getting worse and worse everywhere, and that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.
I reported that as:
“I’m hearing despondency and alienation, and everywhere people look they see the economic game rigged against them and in favour of a relatively small elite.”
It’s laughable interventions like the above that show you for the fraud you are.
In the absence of any answer, Jon.
I had dinner yesterday with an eclectic group of campaigners, mostly conservatives, we had a common goal and could get on pursuing that purpose, but yesterdays discussion, over a drink outside beautiful Sculthorpe mill, about Corbyn and his policies, it came up as did other issues, showed that some of their core voters are wrestling with their past allegiances, not because of him, but how he addresses old issues and images, the synergies he attracts, the images he uses, the fears of a vibrant vogue movement and the facts it could project to the electorate is making some of them, quiet active people, question the durability of their policies.
Whilst still believing some of the laissez faire policies, they are as rattled by a prospect of picking old scabs as new Labour are.
just a snapshot of eight
Well done John Goss, you have earned the fully polished Habby turd of insolence, that is an impressive mileage, my folding bike would not do it, but, it managed to drag my carcass for three weeks of intense door to door canvassing during local elections,leaf letting everyone who was in and listening, but it was hard going, ‘m not made for folding bikes.
I hope you managed to impress many en route to sign up to the new supermarket campaign, to have full scale BDS.
Jon, first of all I only did three days of the ride, about 168 miles, but thanks for the big-up. There was an older man than me, I learnt last night, a gentleman, remember I got this second-hand who was 82, or 83, and cycled the first two stages. What a star!
Peter Kellner of YouGov:
“at one level Jeremy Corbyn is going with the grain of public opinion”.
So, Kellner doesn’t dispute the popularity of Corbyn’s policies, as habby, Res Diss and the nuLab muppets do.
Wonder why.
Perhaps he’s not a fraud.
The rest of the article is reasonably good:
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-157d-Extremist-Corbyn-a-hit-with-public
Jon, there were no thorns, or visible penetrations. When I looked at the tyre on the third change today it was kind of pliable like the rubber had melted. I should have changed both tyres before I left instead of just the back. 🙂
New Guardian article says the police are considering a limited investigation into Heath’s actions: Police consider limited inquiry into Ted Heath child sex abuse claims: Limited investigation likely to give validation to potential victims more rapidly than a full criminal investigation. Article strongly suggests that the police believe that the charges have validity.
REMINDER: CM may we have your cogent insiight into the developing Obama vs Neocoens JCPOA fight nearer to the vote. If only to observe the canaries here squirming to satsfice their natanyahu narrative.
Article strongly suggests that the police believe that the charges have validity.
Lysias-A year or two ago Plod also ‘believed’ in the validity of the charges levelled against Jim Davidson, Jimmy Tarbuck, Paul Gambaccini…once these allegations reach a certain critical mass rational judgement seems to fly out of the window.
What happened to Foot’s campaign in 1983 was that a large part of Labour’s leadership seceded calling the Labour platform extremist and marxist. This had the effect, amongst other things, of confusing much of Labour’s traditional support. Occurring at the same time as a massive media campaign celebrating the SDP and its purported radicalism- ‘breaking the mould of British politics’-it divided the Labour vote and handed the election to the unpopular Tories. Then there was the Falklands effect.
The notion that Foot was defeated in a straight contest with Thatcher and that his mild socialist policies were rejected in favour of her hard right programme is nonsense. His position was sabotaged by a well financed and carefully co-ordinated campaign to split the Labour party, by a right wing faction that has, since the 1940s, relied upon US governmental patronage on condition that it use every weapon to thwart those in Labour opposed to the Cold War and in favour of nuclear disarmament and peace.
Those who actually recall the history of the period will confirm that both within the Labour party and in the broader population nuclear disarmament, getting out of NATO and declaring British independence from the US were very popular policies. The membership of the Labour party was overwhelmingly in favour of the left. The proto Blairites and the Grosvenor Square groupies invariably relied on block votes from the authoritarian Union leaders at the party’s annual conference. The membership of the Constituency parties always supported the left. And so did most Trade Unionists and Labour voters.
When predicting the result of the next general election it would be best to understand that, for the great majority of the electorate, the coming five years are likely to see the NHS going the way of free education, a housing crisis which will see large numbers of working families, once again, living in crowded slums, an enormous increase in unemployment and a radical decline in living standards. A return to Victorian conditions.
Any politician who can offer an alternative is likely to do better than those declaring that nothing can be done, which is what the Blairites say. That any such politician will be crucified in the media, slandered and misrepresented goes without saying.
Beth
@ 11.24
Despair about Damascus’ destruction. Yes I commented yesterday on this @ 02.38 :
“Un-Edifying as all this talk about dinosaur pre-neo-con Edward Heath may be, it does serve to busy the minds of the chattering classes with pre-neo-con memorabilia, the buggering of boys on boats and uptight irascible males. Things that no self-respecting neo-con would ever be caught doing.
The real agenda is that neo-con Chavy Dave is about to bomb Damascus in conjunction with Al Qaida thugs, as he did in the early days of the last parliament with Libya.”
But I don’t feel despair. Assad needs to go. If USUKIS had wanted him gone they could have done so 4 years ago, but they wanted the slow and painful dismantling of Syria by Al Qaida and Islamic State et al so that they could re-build Syria in their own designer chaos with Israel ‘protecting ‘ the Syrian people from Al Qaida ‘terrorists’ whom they suddenly found out had been causing chaos there.
If Assad goes the real civil war will start between the Syrian Muslim population and USUKIS Al Qaida. The Syrian population will have the moral suppoort of all sensible Muslims round the world, which it could not achieve so long as they were allied to Russia and a cruel dictator.
Unfortunately for the Syrians, your and my ethnic family, the Israelis, may retain Assad to prevent this happening. They need chaos and division and they are masters of this cruel game. They may also want their mercenaries to move on.
Bevin you are just rewriting history again with your account of the 1983 election – I did a lot of election work during that election, probably more than any other, and nominated a left wing Labour candidate with I daresay impeccable credentials in your eyes. The Falklands was a factor on the doorstep but if you think the ideas in the 1983 manifesto gained much support you are deluded. I should also add that the economic background was even more supportive to those objecting to the Tories than it was now.
Bevin,
I agree entirely.
Bevin – good summary. The media really went to town on Michael Foot, especially after he fell and broke his leg. That was a most unfortunate accident but one which the press used mercilessly to prevent him becoming prime minister.
This is off topic but a very important petition to arrest Netanyahu for war-crimes on his arrival in London.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446
Bevin
10/08/2015 2:29am
“What happened to Foot’s campaign in 1983 was that a large part of Labour’s leadership seceded calling the Labour platform extremist and marxist. This had the effect, amongst other things, of confusing much of Labour’s traditional support. Occurring at the same time as a massive media campaign celebrating the SDP and its purported radicalism- ‘breaking the mould of British politics’-it divided the Labour vote and handed the election to the unpopular Tories.”
If Corbyn becomes the leader of the Labour Party, I would not be at all surprised to see history repeating itself, and the right wing of the party breaking away from the left.
Kind regards,
John
“renationalisation of rail and other natural monopolies enjoys high and constant public support”
But would it be legal under EU law? I thought everything had to be put out to tender.
Network Rail was quietly nationalised (ie its debts are now the taxpayer’s). Something of an admission of defeat there, by the privatisers. A recognition that some public services are best in public ownership may follow. The next stage might be* to call to account the private contractors which NR currently hires for repair, maintenance and construction. NR will be fined for its Christmas balls-up shortly: a situation in which the taxpayer is suing the taxpayer for the shortcomings – I firmly believe – of the private contractors, and in which the taxpayer-paid top management responsible** for the mess has to be asked pretty please not to pay itself any taxpayer-funded bonuses this year.
* But it won’t.
** Correction: Top management is paid to be no such thing. The buck stops somewhere else. The buck will be subject to an internal enquiry, and fired.
The Zionist-supporting CAMERA outfit, aka BBC Watch, do not like William Dalrymple one jot. They said:
‘However, Dalrymple’s baseless smear does not come out of the blue. Although the BBC describes him merely as “a writer and historian”, Dalrymple is also a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a patron of Sabeel who has a long history of anti-Israel activism under his belt, including propaganda diatribes at the Guardian and participation in the BDS-supporting ‘PalFest’.’
~~
A similar CAMERA outfit, CIF Watch, whose original target was the Guardian’s CIF, has been renamed UK Media Watch to cover other media. Their operatives under the command of Mr Levick must spend their lives poring over articles and comments in an attempt to spot the slightest smidgeon of what they perceive as anti semitism.
http://ukmediawatch.org/about/
¬
http://www.camera.org/
germany’s arms export have already outstripped last years profit figures half way through this year and questions are asked as to whether arms exports are fuelling a war in the ME. deals are done with Saudi, Kuwait, Quatar and the UN enclave Israel, regardless of the consequences.
It is as if our western economies are hooked on wars, without them their economies are flat lining or failing, because they are unsustainable otherwise.
This is an interview with Yaalon, why he thinks Israel has the right to defend itself/ attack Iran, kill scientists, and generally throw US politics into disarray in order to carry on stealing land from the surrounding Arab states.
” SPIEGEL: If your army or military chiefs were to inform you next week or next year that Iran has violated the terms of the deal and reactivated its military nuclear program, would you recommend air strikes against the nuclear facilities?
Yaalon: In such a case, we will have to discuss it. At the end, it is very clear. One way or another, the Iranian military nuclear ambitions should be stopped. We can in no way tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons. We prefer for this to be done through a deal or sanctions, but in the end, Israel should be able to defend itself.
SPIEGEL: So will we see further deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists through attacks or malware compromising Iranian computer networks?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israeli-defense-minister-moshe-yaalon-critizes-iran-deal-a-1047260.html
Very well done John and in that heat too.
~~
The temperature today reaches 35C for the poor souls in Gaza living in the rubble and with a shortage of potable water.
@John Goss – I’m glad people are talking about Michael Foot.
The Tory campaign in the 1983 general election came down to
1) The Labour Party is communist
2) The Labour leader is old, has got white hair and walks with a stick
Foot would have been the best PM for a long time.
On 1), a lot of the Tory bourgeoisie had been itching for some Pinochet-style action ever since the early 1970s. Ousting Wilson peacefully wasn’t good enough for them. Where were the football stadiums? Where were the fingernails? Where were the artillery barrages against council estates?
Here’s a sobering thought: the Labour Party have only three times replaced a Tory majority with a Labour one:
1945 (hope),
1964 (Profumo and modernity),
1997 (sleaze, modernity and support from the Sun).
It’s unlikely there’ll be a swell of hope any time soon. As for modernity, pah!
2) was a vile line that I’m surprised hasn’t been dusted off and run against Jeremy Corbyn, who is of a similar age.
But by 1983 the compradores had set up the SDP, allowing the Tory scum to get a big majority even though their vote share fell. Pundits still call it the Falklands election. What rubbish. The SDP election would be more accurate.
A similar CAMERA outfit, CIF Watch, whose original target was the Guardian’s CIF, has been renamed UK Media Watch to cover other media. Their operatives under the command of Mr Levick must spend their lives poring over articles and comments in an attempt to spot the slightest smidgeon of what they perceive as anti semitism.
It does seem to be a growth industry. Is this the CEO (Kantor, not chummy)?
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/tony-blair-recruited-cheerleader-israels-crimes
I also agree with Bevin. And let’s not forget the Falklands Effect on the 1983 election.
At the time of posting, Corbyn’s campaign has secured £115k in crowdfunding, with an average donation of about £20, apparently.
The others have made their required declarations as to large donations and have donation buttons on their websites for the hoi polloi. But none are saying how much they have raised in this way. My guess would be sixpence ha’penny. But I would like to know EXACTLY how much loose change the general public think each of them is worth.
Publish, Andy, Yvette, Liz – and then we can see exactly how irrelevant you are.
Doesn’t matter whether you agree with Corbyn or not. He is the only one with ANY support outside elite donors and party apparatchiks.
Slightly o/T
Michael Foot would turn in his grave if he realises what new labour and the Tory’s have done to the education service. It is becoming clear that ‘we might have a voice, but we do not have a choice anymore’ when it comes to having academies forced on to the locals, despite massive objections.
This Norwich story shows that the localisation act is not worth the paper its written on, another failed U-turn.
Just an informative piece
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/anger_as_government_confirms_hewett_school_will_become_an_inspiration_trust_academy_next_term_1_4181708
Corbyn, like the SNP, attracts votes for the “F*CK THAT!!!” tendency. The more the Tories try to revert the UK to the 19th century*, and the more NuLabour agree mildly with the general principle and do sod-all about it, the more traction Corbyn will have at grass roots. Is it any more complicated than that?
*And see the howls from NuLabour about Corbyn taking politics back 40 years!