The Labour Party is being remarkably coy about releasing the actual result of its Scottish accounting unit leadership election, giving only a percentage. The entirely complacent unionist media is complicit in what amounts to a deception. The stunning truth is that in a one person, one vote election among the entire membership of the Labour Party in Scotland plus trades union supporters, Dugdale won with 5,217 votes (out of a claimed electorate of 21,000, many of whom do not exist or could not be arsed to choose between two right wing numpties).
UPDATE: A second Labour figure just rang me to assure me my information – which was from a good source – is wrong. She would not give the actual figure and only said it was “higher”. I offered to take down the post and publish an accurate figure if she would give it, but this was declined.
I once was a guest of Al Friendly’s widow, and she told me that things happen in the media that would not bear public scrutiny.
Famous quote from Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham:
That impressive list of names thrown on the table by our friend omits that of Carl Bernstein.
Perhaps we shall learn from hie next post (which will surely not be long in coming) that Bernstein was Mossad’s man on the case?
Some good news from Germany. Whilst the rabid right is fighting police and is burning refugee centers in Saxony, the vast majority of Germans are receptive and open, offering their houses, offering services and other means to help refugees who have suffered terribly under ISIS and NATO alike.
I think it is a crying shame that Britain, at the forefront of every poodle action they care to wave their tail at, has not compunction to what they are causing in the ME.
Its OK if you are an oligarch, tax avoider looking to be ‘rescued’ by the City of London, or rich enough to jump the threshold, you can come in anytime you like.
The oldest democracy, a bigoted self serving enclave for tax evaders, a haven for paedophiles and crooks, but if you are bombed, lost yopur family, fleeing to Europe, they want have nothing to do with the impact they cause.
oops, meant to post this
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/refugees-encounter-willing-helpers-in-germany-a-1048536.htmls
Bernstein wrote a famous article for Rolling Stone precisely on Operation Mockingbird and the CIA’s infiltration of the media. Although I have read that the article left out the Washington Post and people like Phil Graham. (I think I did read the article many years ago, but I don’t remember whether he committed that omission.)
“Bernstein wrote a famous article for Rolling Stone precisely on Operation Mockingbird and the CIA’s infiltration of the media.”
______________
So he may have done, but that wasn’t what I was asking about. So that particular bit of info is something of a distraction, isn’t it.
I was wondering why Carl Bernstein’s name didn’t figure in that impressive list of names compiled by our Transatlantic friend (and which did include the name of Bob Woodward, the other reporter).
It’s a pity that there seem to be a dearth of fearless go getter journalists, in the mould of Bernstein and Woodward, in the Britain at least.
Men of that ilk would’ve had a field day with scandal ridden politicians of today, not just in the UK but further afield.
Bernstein’s hard work on the Watergate story all but secured the Washington Post a Pulitzer prize for public services in 1973.
Pity no such fearless journalists came forward, (Jim Garrison excluded) to question the Warren Commission or the 9/11 Commission.
You mean people like Roberto, RoS
Umberto Eco thinks he’s a national hero. he lives shut off the public under armed guards which are frequently exchanged and Bunga Berlusconi Bunga called him ‘unpatriotic, defaming the country’.
Roberto Saviano has risk his whole life to speak out against the Cam,orra and they want him dead on a plate, he’s got nowhere to run to.
So what does he do?, He researches the Latin/south American drug trade and writes his latest book exposing how easy it was for the drug barons to bank with HSBC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Saviano
a short review of his latest and Britain essential part in the global drugs trade.
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/zero-zero-zero-by-roberto-saviano-review-10411542.html
Since I have no reason to believe Bernstein was part of the CIA/Pentagon plot against Nixon, I had no reason to mention him.
John Goss@9:47am
Lie after lie from the congenital liar – I just don’t don’t have the time or inclination to point out all the misquoting, selective reporting, deception and dishonesty. I suspected even his friends in the KGB will be embarrassed.
For those who wish to see a more balanced view as to what is going on in Eastern Ukraine, I would as always point to the OSCE reports.
http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/177826
I am not going to give the name of the man who is apparently the sole living former LibDem MP from Birmingham, as it has been suggested that to do so might prejudice a trial.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446
Signed and now at 69,456
I guess this thread has descended into the usual Israel/Palestine polemics as the new branch manager is such a dipstick, a bit of a wet blanket really.
On the other hand, the Corbyn campaign is really shaking at the foundations of the system.
The biased msm coverage is appalling with its oxygen of publicity for the Blairist faction trotting out the arch war criminal’s bollocks about cliffs and rocks unchallenged. I for one, having never, ever voted for Labour in my life – PC many times, Con, maybe once or twice, or not at all, can’t remember for sure, Lib Dem more times than I’m prepared to admit, would certainly consider supporting True Labour if Corbyn becomes leader.
@Lysias
18 Aug, 2015 – 7:57 pm
I think you and all other commenters on here should bear this in mind:
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/who-can-sue-defamation
.
That is an American website Mochyn 69 so I assume American law is being described.
http://www.dmlp.org/about-digital-media-law-project
It may be easy to determine who was the subject of my comment at 7:57 with a bit of googling, but my comments have not accused that person of doing anything wrong.
As far as American law is concerned, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that, for a derogatory comment against a public figure (and a former member of a legislative body is a public figure) to be actionable, the person making the derogatory comment must have acted with actual malice, i.e. either (1) in the knowledge that the comment was false; or (2) with reckless disregard for whether or not it was true. Here in the U.S., that is still good law. The case is New York Times v. Sullivan.
Ref all the recent stuff about the disparity in wealth between the 1% and us, the 99%, I came across a review of the 10 best pubs in England.
One of them is aptly named The Well Feathered Nest in Chipping Norton. LOL
Who lives in the locale? Cameron, Rebekah Brooks, Elisabeth Freud, nee Murdoch and even Clarkson, now in receipt of Beloff’s $millions at Amazon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipping_Norton_set
“I guess this thread has descended into the usual Israel/Palestine polemics…” Mochyn69
Yes, well said, this was the point I made yesterday evening.
Increasingly, when one dips in and out of the threads, while Craig’s posts always have been consistent, thoughtful and stimulating, sometimes the tone of the comments below seem to leave little room for deviation from a specific ideological line. Anyone who initiates discourse on pet subjects which deos not adhere in an almost religious manner to the line tends to be attacked as a deviant. This is reminscent of the behaviour of, say, fourth generation Leftist cadres who no longer fully understand the theory or rationale of their movement and at some level are awware of this but are terrified of admitting it to themsleves and so shout down any attempt to pause, think, see the other’s point of view. Instead, endless trite slogans are replayed into meaninglessness.
I would suggest that politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Craig Murray are bracing antidotes to that specific lobotimisation which signifies little more than perpetual, terminal defeat.
David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government is due to be published on October 13 (which is not a Friday, I am glad to say).
Amazon Jeff Bezos not Beloff.
NY Times
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace
The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push
white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions.
By JODI KANTOR and DAVID STREITFELD
AUG. 15, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0
Sky News
Union: Some British Amazon Staff Develop Physical And Mental Illnesses
http://news.sky.com/video/1537848/unions-accuse-amazon-over-uk-staff
August 18 2015
You’d think the logical thing to do would be to draw straws or the like, so that one of the four is randomly chosen to be the one who goes forward. I guess, to get to be in that position, you have to have too big an ego to be that self-sacrificing.
“now in receipt of Beloff’s $millions at Amazon.”
It is Bezos not Beloff and guess what he isn’t.
Bezos is the current owner of the Washington Post.
What an utter bollocks!!!!
Nice nifty debate between empaths! not a trick at all, not at all, not at all!
Speak for yourself empath and don’t set yourself up as some kind of a representative for any section of the society! Left and right are not the issue. at issue is the murderous venality of a bunch of supremacist vermin that have no place in civil society or any civilised debate!
What a shabby lot we have running the country if this is one example.
Department of Work and Invention (Metro headline)
Labour hits out at DWP over ‘made up’ benefit sanctions leaflet
Labour has hit out at Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith after it emerged his department made up case studies in a leaflet about benefit sanctions.
https://www.politicshome.com/party-politics/articles/story/labour-hits-out-dwp-over-made-benefit-sanctions-leaflet
It follows on from Hancock’s promotion of bootcamps for the so called NEETS, an insulting term.
“now in receipt of Beloff’s $millions at Amazon.”
It is Bezos not Beloff and guess what he isn’t.
PANTO STYLE “Oh yes he is!”
I would not call it ballcocks, but skewed fed up, I have to agree with Fed Up on this specific point, we have come to the point where reminiscence and the the past leftist moves has ceased, when the super haves are dictating the puppets in power, so that the no haves are left aside and the middle class, why should we think of the u-turn on OAP’s having to sell their houses to pay for care now, can already feel that the globalisation, they helped to create (emphasis on create) by voting for middle of the roads, is a Cul de Sac, a blind alley.
Why talk up division when we need a the absolute opposite?
Positive forward thinking does not come from supporting cliques, political tribes, we have too much in common between Greens, the SNP, whatever party poopers will admit, and Corbyns simple approach to a ten point plan cuts the breath off, people can’t wait to talk, compare, digest.
Why should leaders become automatic PM’s?
or, how much longer before Britain is dragged into a modern fair and equitable 21st. century?
Getting a popular accord is not down to division and past arguments chewed over ad nauseum, surely, it must be defined by the limitations our childrens face, never mind our inabilities to communicate at close range.
Common goals are not defined by celebrities and come dancing, but by sincere use of public funds for us all. To achieve this national support, these three parties should agree to offer the English a fair proportional vote, a vote that does not disappoint because it always represents a majority of voters, not lord it as a minority over us all.
PR is the key policy to a progressive society that can economically breath, whats good enough for Germany after the war, what is appreciated all over the world, hallo NZ, should also be offered as of choice to the English, why should they be held in political limbo, inferior to their Union colleagues?
“supremacist vermin…”, Fedup
To whom, precisely, might you be referring?
You see, it is this shrill tone, this bellowed intolerance, which actually does not connote strength but its opposite. I do think people might do well to study the Scottish Independence Referenedum ‘Yes’ movement (I do not mean just the official campaign, which had many flaws). This movement exemplified a sea-change in politics, with ramifications not just in Scotland but possibly across the whole of the UK – for example, I do think it has been a direct trigger of the Corbyn candidacy. And the movement was open to debate and disagreement, it was not narrow, sectionalist or, in general, mean-spirited. It did not target people as, “supremacist vermin”. And it massively increased support for Independence.
But Nevermind, with respect, what you are striving for will not be achieved if anyone who does not agree with, say, Fedup and Co. is told they must not disagree with them on anything. My point is that that approach is not a road to political strength but a track to irrelevance. And who, precisely, is “talking up division”? This is what I mean. You can’t say anything on this blog anymore which does not accord religiously with the sloganeering of the drum majorettes. I would argue that this does not strengthn the political credentials of any blog.