A government which claims the right to kill its own citizens with no judicial process on the basis of the vote of 24.4% of the qualified electorate, legislates that workers cannot strike without the support of 40% of their qualified electorate because strikes can inconvenience people. Not as inconvenient as being sliced to pulp by flying metal, I should have thought.
David Davis, a decent Tory, said that some of the provisions of the Trade Union bill are Francoist, and he was not exaggerating. You can read the dispassionate official analysis of the bill by Parliament staff here. One of least publicised yet appalling aspects of the bill is the arbitrary power given to an anti-strike witchfinder, the Certification Officer. He is specifically given the powers of the High Court to compel individuals to give evidence or produce documents, and to make arbitrary judgements.
That extreme authoritarian stance is reflected throughout the bill. It is more publicised that notice must be given of picketing, with names reported to the police and identifying armbands worn, with letters of authority from the union to be there which the Bill states must be produced not only to the Police but to anybody who asks on request. This gives employers a whole new avenue of harassment of strikers.
The provision that 14 days notice must be given of any strike is obviously designed to reduce the effectiveness of strike action. The right to bring in agency staff to replace agency workers is not in the Bill, but the parliamentary staff analysis indicates it is intended to bring that in under secondary legislation – power delegated to the Secretary of State. That obviously is designed to combine with the 14 day notice to make strikes ineffective. The regulation of what individuals say about the industrial dispute on social media is so repressive as to verge on the incredible.
It is obvious the Tory government serve the agenda of corporatism, pure and simple. But it is perhaps surprising they are so entirely open about it. If you do not have the chance to withdraw your Labour, you are a slave. In the days of real slavery in Jamaica, foremen or gangmasters were generally slaves themselves (as opposed to the southern United States where they were generally poor whites). Very often the black gangmasters were extremely brutal to the slaves under them, imparting floggings with gusto to try to cement themselves in the favour of their white masters.
That is the function that token Muslim Sajid Javid plays in this Conservative government, flogging the workers with more gusto than his Old Etonian masters would dare to do. Plus they wouldn’t want to get blood on their trousers. Javid is a most enthusiastic Uncle Tom determined to tick all the establishment boxes. He certified the Trade Union Bill as compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, when it is plainly in contravention of Article 11. But his most spectacular effort to fit in with his Tory masters came at the Conservative Friends of Israel where ignoring completely the terrible suffering, humiliation and repression of the Palestinian people, he declared
“Mr Javid, who described himself as a “proud British-born Muslim”, announced that if he had to leave Britain to live in the Middle East, then he would choose Israel as home. Only there, he said, would his children feel the “warm embrace of freedom and liberty”. For him, only Israel shared the democratic values of the UK.”
Sajid Javid promotes measures rightly called Francoist because he is a person it is perfectly reasonable to call a fascist.
Sajid Javid Hankers After “Israel’s Warm Embrace”
A distaste for workers’ right wasn’t only a feature of right wing regimes like Franco’s: Didn’t a certain Comrade Brezhnev also have a bit of a tussle with a trade union called Solidarity during the early 1980s? Anyone remember General Jaruseltski (yes, I know I probably haven’t spelt that right sorry) declaring martial law in Poland?
Anon1, you are as welcome as anyone else to misrepresent me if you so choose. Yes, I try to spend a lot of my time being reasonable, as I think it is the best way to discourse. You are equally welcome to echo MSM propaganda by referring to the “hard” Left if you wish, misrepresenting still more people who hold views different to your own. You can dismissively refer to regulars here as revolutionary “Murrayistas” too, if you think that contributes to an atmosphere in which a reasonable exchange of views can be had.
My experience here is that I often comment here for a few months, and then find that most of the potential for good conversation is drowned out by fighting – this has been going on for years, as you well know. This phenomenon is fuelled by a hardcore of posters here – and sadly you are chiefly among them – that come to fling abuse to “the other side”.
You are welcome also to regard below the line on this site as “revolting”, but why continue to post here, if you hate it so much? I see the odd snippet of anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic sentiment here, and I am keen on neither. However, I do not see the anti-Israel hate-fest you believe exists, and perhaps you could start with that re-evaluation.
I would also very much like it if you would expound upon your own views without the vitriol – perhaps starting with India, if you like. I think that if you are looking to change minds, you probably have not done so in several years, and thus would do well to change your course. However, if you just like conflict, or if you wish to dilute this space as a forum for discussion, you can probably go ahead, since it appears to be permitted in practice.
No problem John. Different locations. Have you come across the author, Dr T P Wilkinson before? He writes well and gets to the crux of it.
John Spencer-Davis
8:31 pm
“Turnbull’s defence of Peter Wright… The Spycatcher Trial.”
“£80 secondhand on Amazon”
Also available at abebooks.co.uk for pennies! (+ £2.15 postage)
No Mary, first time I think. Global Research often gets the pick of talented scribes much to the chagrin of our resident dissenters.
John Spencer-Davies I picked my copy of Spycatcher up in Australia in 1991. Thatcher’s gagging of oppositions (she did it with IRA leaders too) is where Cameron gets some of his ideas from, as with this law against trade unions.
“I’m really sick of being partitioned on this blog. And I get the feeling when i do f-off this time, it’s for good.”
Don’t do that Ishmael you do sometimes make a valuable contribution, your words can have a sort of poetry. “Jackboots Glenn” for instance, I liked that, would you mind if I use it occasionally? Maybe a lot?
John Spencer-Davis
‘I just looked the book up on Amazon.co.uk and blow me, second-hand copies are going for around £80. I must dust mine off.’
Don’t dust too vigorously matey, I can see it available second hand on Amazon for £1.90! (Although if you are willing to pay £80 I am happy to supply.)
Oops Pan got there first. Apologies.
Please do Fred, and in a way i’v already gone, being now of firm conviction. But I may just drop in to annoy things… 🙂 Bit of drip drip payback. It’s less a matter now, I can’t be used.
And yea, I thought it fitted him well. You know that he’s some kind of copper/police by the way he come’s across. Ordering people about with that ‘commanding tone’ assume he was picked on as a kid or something, so was I but it won’t drive me to be a ass hole.
Anon1
But aren’t all settler colonial states pretty nice for the settlers? Isn’t that the entire point of them?
I mean, in a reasonably recent example, Americans are very proud of their constitution and the freedoms it gives them. And they have been since 1787. And plenty of men and women chose to emigrate there to take advantage of those freedoms.
Doesn’t negate the fact it took a genocidal displacement of the First Nation peoples to create this paradise of freedoms, however.
Pan
15/09/2015 8:57pm
KingOfWelshNoir
15/09/2015 9:17pm
Humph! You guys have really burst my bubble! Thought I was on to a good thing there. 🙁
Maybe it was first editions I was looking at. I’ll have to check and see if mine fits the bill! 🙂
Kind regards,
John
Police and criminals are similar character distortions. The career ‘choice’ has little between them..
With the Guardian having completely sold out…
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/15/unite-chief-jeremy-corbyn-len-mccluskey-concern-woman-top-job
… methinks the Morning Star will increase circulation. This was about the only feelgood Corbyn story in the media today…
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-43e2-Im-92,-and-going-to-war-again#.VfiC630WGmU
“your words can have a sort of poetry”
And thanks for that, very nice to say so…
Of course Craig disdains poetry’s political significance, but the creative arranging of words really can change concept’s, ‘move mountains’…But to someone who largely repeats things, concepts already said…Yea, His writing is very ‘good’ but new ideas? He just marks the details of what people already know because they live it every day. Class virtue is sensible and reasonable, superficial neat clothing.
About as biased a “news” piece as I recollect ever having read in the Torygraph: Jeremy Corbyn branded ‘disloyal’ after refusing to sing national anthem on day of shambles for new Labour leader: The new Labour leader was heavily criticised for failing to sing God Save the Queen, failed to get his lines right in his first keynote speech and faced a resignation threat from one of his shadow cabinet ministers.
They actually stoop to saying this:
Well, maybe I read worse stuff in Neues Deutschland in my Berlin days.
“Rememberance these days is all about being seen to wear a poppy and ostentatious displays of crocodile tears.
Far more useful to making sure it never happens again is to skip the holiday in one’s Tuscan villa and spend some time touring the battlefields and cemeteries of the Western front.”
I don’t know, seems rather apt wearing a poppy to remember our troops who served in Afghanistan.
Daniel at 3.36
Well good on you and yours to be so prescient. For me in 1997 it was such a relief to have a party bearing that name back in power after 18 years I didn’t question it; then life was too much taken up with work, family and (awful word) community, to pay too much attention to what was going on beyond those spheres. And what a price we paid for that lapse of attention.
Now with the time to read and the internet to explore, it’s possible to catch a glimpse though not full understanding of the bigger picture.
So all I can hope for is that my nearest and dearest at least wake up. Ever tried to have a “serious” debate with a family firmly wedded to corporate values?
Lysias
15/09/2015 9:49pm
You think that’s bad? Try this one linked to in your piece:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11866955/Jeremy-Corbyns-TUC-speech-descends-into-shambles-as-he-forgets-to-be-rude-about-Margaret-Thatcher.html
This Christopher Hope is some piece of work. Apparently Corbyn’s speech was a shambles because:
– he didn’t attack Margaret Thatcher
– he didn’t bring along a media adviser to talk to the press
– the transcription of his speech contained an error.
“Mr Corbyn also arrived at the TUC conference with no media adviser to explain to journalists some of his key messages, or to smoothe out any mistakes.”
This brilliant journalist apparently doesn’t know how to spell “smooth”. Should we condemn his article as a “shambles” because of that?
No: it’s a shambles for other reasons.
Kind regards,
John
This is the kind of imbecile who has deluded himself into believing he is “one of them”, while in reality he is a Shabbos goy and no more. British in India used to have an uncharitable expression for the native railway clerks whom believed the were “British”, they called the said native clerks “Bubba”.
The degrees of denial of actualities somehow keeps this imbecilic chahcter sane. Although he would change his tune soon, given the “equality” he will enjoy once there in zionistan
Little recourse for Arab girl rejected from Israeli day-care
O/T This should be interesting. Taxpayers’ money up the spout again.
West Ham Olympic Stadium deal ‘must be made public’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34260708
Who benefited from the Olympics? Dave and Tessa Jowell upped their images.**Coe who has sold out his sports management company for £12m and now heads IAAF. LOCOG. The Olympics Committee and all who hung on their tail. The constructors and developers of the park. The housing developers on the site post games. Boris. Broadcasters, PR and media. G4S. McDonalds, and so on.
And now a football club apparently.
Directors. Gold and Sullivan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sullivan_(businessman) Net worth £850m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gold_(businessman) Net worth only £350m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Legacy_Development_Corporation
Boris is the chair followed by a very long list of the usual. CEO one David Goldstone.
**
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223283/Lord-Coes-12m-windfall-sells-private-firm-Olympic-advertising-contractor.html
No wonder Cameron wants to put shackles on the Trade Unions since it is only through gagging, lies and deceit spread by his media that he can keep the electorate drugged and doped. A big thank you to Ba’al who took the courageous step of teetering on changing his mind after reading the Eric Zeusse article yesterday and posting a link today which verifies it. All credit to him. It is a big manly decision.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/selective-indignation/#comment-550889
Perhaps now too he will reconsider the Litvinenko death having nothing to do with the Russian government and it just being a big lie of Cameron’s to malign Putin and Russia, as this article claims. There will soon be a documentary available which has consulted more western sources than Russian and comes to the conclusion that Litvinenko’s death was due to his own carelessness.
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/litvinenko-death-blamed-carelessness/ri9743
The use of the word ‘prod ‘s a giveaway, as in ProudScot.
Perhaps now too he will reconsider the Litvinenko death having nothing to do with the Russian government
Nope. It’s got Putin’s sticky fingerprints all over it.
I think that’s the Shakespeare spelling of ‘smooth’.
Positive signs that JC won’t have an army of shiny media-flacks. He’ll get stick for that, but perhaps it’s the pefectly wise choice? He’ll just get daily abuse from the corporate media, whatever he does, so he may as well treat them with the disdain they’ve earned. Some of the leading questions are just schoolyard abuse. Nothing wrong with giving politicians a bit of abuse, but surely it has to have some point to it, some intellectual value, not ‘by wearing a white popply, do you have no respect for dead soldiers?” or whatever.
Secret is out. Most journalists in senior roles are simply not very good at their jobs, have become fat and lazy, and way way too close to the political classes.
Still, JC did come out with the soundbite of the week, perhaps on purpose, just to annoy them. Poverty deniers is rather apt, can fit nicely into a headline, with a nice link to climate change. Excellent. Shame he eats Cuban babies, but you can’t have everything.
“Nope. It’s got Putin’s sticky fingerprints all over it.”
You should read it first. 🙂 Remember how you reconsidered when you read the Eric Zeusse article? 🙂
Coming to a UK shire somewhere near you, sometime soon…
http://www.alternet.org/environment/10-years-later-fracking-and-halliburton-loophole
Unless, Jeremy rushes into a phone box (do you still have them?) and changes into Super Socialist Man, tights an all.
A big thank you to Ba’al who took the courageous step of teetering on changing his mind after reading the Eric Zeusse article yesterday and posting a link today which verifies it. All credit to him.
Which I must gracefully decline. Even if I could remember the article (by Russia Insider contributor Eric Zeusse which I have allegedly read. I’ve never doubted for a second that Ukrainian wheelers and dealers are corrupt, venal, and capable of inviting the unholiest globalists to their financial aid. Trouble is, so are the Russian ones. My point in linking to a report on the YES conference – minimally reported in the UK MSM – was not to exonerate Russia. For every Pinchuk there’s a Rybolovlev….and as I said somewhere, Blair flew to Putin’s vanity economic conference in St Petersburg directly from Kiev, where he had been schmoozing Poroshenko, on his previous visit.
And what of Mandelson…?
Was that the article reporting Blair’s presence in Kiev? Disclaimer. I absorbed no other information from it, and my views do not necessarily coincide in detail with any link I offer. This may be hard for you to understand.
“Was that the article reporting Blair’s presence in Kiev? Disclaimer. I absorbed no other information from it, and my views do not necessarily coincide in detail with any link I offer. This may be hard for you to understand.”
Not at all difficult. You do read the articles don’t you?