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”
They gave this one house room though.
Goodbye, Lahad.
September 14, 2015
A sadistic traitor to the Lebanese people, Antoine Lahad died of a heart attack on 10 September 2015.
The Israeli media is offering endearing tributes, calling him a “comrade in arms.”
But as head of the so-called South Lebanon Army, Lahad, with the help of his Israeli patrons, brutalized the Lebanese people for many years. He fled to Israel after the Liberation Victory of May 2000 and was later convicted of treason by Lebanese courts. Both human rights agencies and UNIFIL have documented the treacherous conduct of Lahad’s mercenary force, which worked together with the IDF: sniping, house demolitions, expulsions, abductions, arrests, torture, murder, enforced recruitment into the SLA, unprovoked and indiscriminate shelling and artillery fire.
/..
http://friendsoflebanon.org/archives/2496
Rose wrote:
“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.”
__________________________
Well, the signs (including Neil Kinnock and John Smith..) were there for all to see but most did not see them for the reasons Rose gives. Rose also makes a good point when she refers to the “18 years” – and especially to the shambles that was the Major govt. There’s an analogy there with the 13 years preceding the 1964 election, the last couple of years of which were also widely seen as a bit of a shambles.In both cases the desire for a “change” was overwhelming.
And in both cases my trade-mark warning “Do not go a-whorin’ after false gods” would seem to be pertinent – as it might be in the present case of Mr Corbyn and the apparent revolution in governance, economic policy and foreign affairs policy.
One should also note that wrt both 1964 and 1997 the alternative would have been more Conservative govt.
Glenn it’s true. I think we do have the good grace to forgive one another our little typing peccadilloes as we are all guilty.
Ndoe, loevly adn cmophrenislbe.
Goodbye, Lahad.
How fitting, Mary, he settled in the apartheid ‘state’ of genocide.
Mr Goss
“His [ie, Daniel Kawczinski’s] surname appears to have a Polish derivation. From what I know of Polish people he would not be welcome there
___________________
As you would not be either, judging from your (fairly) recent post(on) on who was really responsible for the Katyn massacres.
Pan
“Comments which are deemed off-topic could be given a greyed-out background, in the same way that Craig’s own comments are at present. (This would obviously require demarcating Craig’s comments with a different, more eye-catching colour.)
I believe this would make it much easier for those who wish to read only those comments which are strictly ‘on-topic’ to do so, as they could simply scroll past the greyed-out comments.
Shouldn’t be rocket science to implement, I wouldn’t have thought.
Any feedback welcome.”
________________
The problem with that is that there are commenters who are very skilled at seizing on a word or two of Craig’s posts in order to talk about their own particular obsessions.
I recommend that you look again at a number of Mr Goss’s recent comments, in which he segues effortlessly from a couple of lines on Craig’s post to rather more lines on eastern Ukraine (for which he often uses the word “Donbas”.
Having said that, it is also true that the opportunity for such diversions is often provided by Craig himself. A good example is this post of Craig’s: it starts well with a long account of intended trade union legislation and then, towards the end, segues effortlessly – and in my opinion pointlessly, into a denunciation of Sajid Javid which in turn provides the opportunity for another swift kick at Israel. It is difficult to understand what the last few lines add to Craig’s denunciation of the impending trades union legislation.
Mary
What exactly is your problem with a 7 day working week for NHS consultants – especially as it would go some way to ensuring that patients would have a better chance of surviving if they are unfortunate enough to be admitted to hospital on a Friday evening or Saturday morning (studies have shown that your chances of dying are significantly higher if you are admitted then rather than during the week?
Surely you are aware that a “7 day working week” does not mean that consultants would have to work every day for 7 days, merely that more of them would have to be available at weekends. After all, nurses and junior hospital doctors work a “7 day week” qua availability, don’t they?
Jon@ 11:42
I did post on this line of selective blocking[but not as BobSmith].
Re: the result of viewing replies to invisible [filtered-out] posts is not a problem. Replies usually note the author, so those replies can be neatly skipped-over in an instant, or not, at the viewer’s discretion. Further, any useful reply is just as easily scanned, and the choice to unblock the author is available in an instant. It is awesome how fast and effectively a human can scan.
BTW, the software to do this is installed at the blog’s server, not as an app on the reader’s computer/browse, in my actual experience.
Fresh rumours abound the Westminster village and mediasphere tonight that as al-Bin-Corbyn walked to Parliament in a ill-matching suit,didnt sing the Saxe-Goeberg anthem…
Shurely ‘Saxe-Coburg Gotha’? What is this, lese-majeste?
In other news, Corbyn to feature at PMQ’s like every other leader of the opposition ever, while Labour hopelessly divided between subversive communists who kick puppies and righteous champions of global progress who don’t, over the debate on benefit caps, which we aren’t going to tell you about since we are now interviewing a Blairite MP, a Tory and someone from the papers, on why Labour is hopelessly divided and it is all Corbyn’s fault.
And that was pretty well the Today programme this morning. I am surprised more at the blatancy of the bias than the bias itself. The pretence of impartiality by the BBC has been dropped completely.
Jeremy Hunt breezes through MPs’ health check
John Crace
While the beard of the other Jeremy enthrals the media, the one holding the NHS purse strings evades close scrutiny
15 September 2015
‘Corbynmania has reached such heights that the government could accidentally invade Syria and still the semiotics of whether the new Labour leader’s beard was sufficiently respectful for the Battle of Britain commemorations would dominate the headlines. Whether the lesser Jeremy currently had a grip on the NHS was neither here nor there.
Which turned out to be just as well. Hunt began in buoyant form, suggesting that despite an ageing population, a lack of money and rising expectations, the NHS had never been in better health. To underline his point, he started using extravagant Tony Blair-style hand gestures. It wasn’t a good look even when people were inclined to believe in them and it wasn’t long before the committee started to unpick some of his wilder assertions. Was it really true that the hospitals that were working flat out seven days a week had by far the highest morale? “Definitely.”’
A nice little political sketch. Crace has the measure of this nitwit.
BTW, the software to do this is installed at the blog’s server, not as an app on the reader’s computer/browse, in my actual experience.
You may or may not be aware that one of Craig’s audience wrote a Greasemonkey script to hide the exudations of posters selected by the reader. It was called ‘Habbabreak’ (I can’t for the life of me think why…) and while resident on the reader’s computer was subject to automatic updates. If these weren’t disabled, Habbabreak wiped itself when Greasemonkey, for reasons which remain unknown, not only deleted the support facility from its own server, but deleted the GM script on most user computers as part of its final ‘update’. I would suggest that the CM team look at the possibility of installing something similar on the blog server.
As one of the lucky few who were not wiped, I can still opt to ignore persistent spammers at will. It’s not a total solution to the off-topic posts, but as a lot of O/T posts are entertaining or informative, that doesn’t bother me personally. It’s like being in a pub and being able to selectively switch off the audio from a noisy pisshead.
“Fresh rumours abound the Westminster village and mediasphere tonight that as al-Bin-Corbyn walked to Parliament in a ill-matching suit,didnt sing the Saxe-Goeberg anthem and had ONE button undone as surely pointing to the FACT he’s the bastard son of BOTH Hitler and Stalin-very probably Trotsky too!”
I think Jeremy Corbyn must have the same publicity agent as Jeremy Clarkson and he’s good, Corbyn all over the headlines his face on every front page again. Was a time you’d have to microwave a cat or something to get that amount of publicity and Corbyn can do it by leaving his top button undone.
I think the protocol regarding off topic comments is fairly clear. When Craig puts up a new post it is simply good manners to stick to the topic. But after a day or so, when it has run its natural course, people start drifting off to other subjects while they wait for a new post. I don’t have a problem with that, I don’t take it too seriously. This place is more like a saloon bar, as far as I can see, where you meet the same old familiar faces. And just like a bricks-and-mortar saloon bar there are those who always bang on about the same thing and others who have new and interesting things to say. No one is forced to stay, or obliged to drop in. Another way it resembles a saloon bar is, every night we solve all the world’s problems 🙂
I was just wondering if there was a browser plugin or something I could get so I didn’t have to read all the posts about how people can not have to read posts they don’t like?
There is that, Fred. Bad publicity is still publicity, and no-one had heard of Corbyn in July. But isn’t he entitled to a fair crack of the whip now everyone has heard of him?
“There is that, Fred. Bad publicity is still publicity, and no-one had heard of Corbyn in July. But isn’t he entitled to a fair crack of the whip now everyone has heard of him?”
I think he knows exactly what he is doing and that the publicity isn’t doing him any harm.
The state of OUR NHS and its future concerns ALL of us at various stages of life from birth to death and many of us have cause to give enormous thanks for its existence. (Stating the obvious there)
It is being dismantled by the spivs.
Recording.
Health Committee
Tuesday 15 September 2015 Meeting started at 2.08pm, ended 4.42pm
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/07752ed5-a8db-4be1-9bc5-a9b1ff960fa1
Dr Sarah Wolllaston is the chair. She was a GP in Totnes, selected by the local electorate and not by the usual conservative selection process. Well regarded, highly intelligent and forensic in her capacity as chair of the committee.
live commentary
http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/hsj-live/hsj-live-150915-jeremy-hunt-at-the-health-committee-catch-up/5090355.article#.VfkqwmGFPSc
2.09pm up
Jeremy Hunt faces grilling from MPs over GP crisis and public health cuts
By David Millett
15 September 2015
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt will face questions over unsustainable pressure on general practice and the impact of public health cuts on London practices at an upcoming health select committee hearing.
http://www.gponline.com/jeremy-hunt-faces-grilling-mps-gp-crisis-public-health-cuts/article/1364088
Plans for seven-day service and 5,000 GPs ‘impossible’ as fifth of trainee posts unfilled
By David Millett
13 August 2015
http://www.gponline.com/plans-seven-day-service-5000-gps-impossible-fifth-trainee-posts-unfilled/article/1360033
Many more similar entries on the web on the NHS if you want more.
Chu-teh, the software can either be server-based (in which case Craig’s technical bods will need to do some work) or browser based (e.g. a browser plugin).
Ba’al Zevul – didn’t know someone had already written a GM script. Can’t think why that was a problem – do you have a link to the script? I’ve used GM for other sites with some success in the past.
Trade Unions have never been so vital considering most British people are social democratic, in a way that means protection and more spending on our health system, on education and with higher taxes for the well-to-do, at a time of totally unnecessary austerity measures that has laid to waste so many struggling families in Britain today.
That of course is the immediate tragedy, a struggle wrapped in misery; as I see it there are many more fundamental reasons why a ‘union’ of British people, even those with no job, those disabled who cannot work and those retired, is imperative essentially to coalesce activism against a system inexorably slithering to the far right and class war where the rich are getting richer and the gilded elite continue to steal from us.
We realise democracy is a threat to any power system nevertheless we have reached a point where at least 70% of the British population are disenfranchised with no political representation, are constantly spied on, are frightened into accepting authority and where living wages have stagnated or declined.
We resort to social networks and blogs for truth because we hear and read mostly rhetoric, disinformation from the main media and where a legitimate labour press is depressed or even apathetic.
The ‘submerged state’ has been a triumph of propaganda where some of thing that have been done are extremely sophisticated, such as a change from visible government programs of reform, subsidy and support where you see the government is doing something for you, to indirect means where you don’t see the government is doing it, what you see is some private entity doing it which is subsidised by the government and that subsidy goes to the wealthy thus harming not helping the British people. An example is the ‘Help to But scheme’ 5% deposit and 20% government loan; a scam to increase house prices and put large sums of cash into big corporates like John Allan, CBE Barratt Homes.
Gone are the days of a radical, militant element of the Labour movement that most of us had no use for, now today we need to peacefully unite and consolidate and I am thinking through a ‘union’ for the retired and for the unemployed (especially the young) people of Britain in the hope of radical change and the move towards a ‘community’ Labour Party.
“Another way it resembles a saloon bar is, every night we solve all the world’s problems 🙂 ”
We only solve the world’s problems to our own satisfaction.
“Make mine a half bottle of Louie Knight Special Edition Aberystwyth Gin” he said, lobbing one into the spittoon. “Cheers.” ☕
This looks serious. Russia briefing its military for intervention, operation Salvation, in Syria to save Assad’s government from Saudi-backed terrorists.
http://www.awdnews.com/top-news/putin-to-russian-army-officers-operation-salvation-shall-begin-soon,-you-must-prepare-to-cleanse-syria-from-obama-s-terrorists
From the above article.
“We have nearly two million orthodox Christians in the Levant—Syria and Lebanon— and approximately 5 million Christians across Middle-East. Regardless of America’s presidential election outcome, White House craves chaos in that oil-rich region by supporting fanatic Islamist organizations, i.e. ISIS and al-Nusra Front,” Moskovskaya Pravda cited the Russian president as saying.
It is morally incumbent upon Russia to change this terrible status quo in the Middle-East, added Mr.Putin, prepare for operation ‘Salvation’ and with God almighty’s aid, we shall cleanse Syria from Obama’s ruthless terrorists.
————————————-
What a mess the Israeli-backed US has made of the middle east!
The snake oil salesman is making pre election type speeches in reply to Corbyn’s serious questions which relate to questions submitted to him by the people.
CanmeraOn obviously underwent a training session and rehearsal earlier to have been able to put on such a glib performance.
This looks serious. Russia<h<h<hXXXXX FRANCE briefing its military for intervention, operation Salvation, in Assad's Syria to save Saudi-backed terrorists.
fixed that for you, according to https://euobserver.com/tickers/130288 FRANCE is about to start bombing
You can buy a set of blinkers at the local saddlers or online.
French Blinkers Brown
£18.95
Mill Saddlery
Browse Our Range & Buy Online Today, Fast P&P
and Ear muffs at B&Q
A snip at £4.23
Diall Ear Defenders
‘Petitioning BBC
Request for the BBC to refer to David Cameron as ‘the right-wing Prime Minister’
Every time Jeremy Corbyn is mentioned in a news report on the BBC he is referred to as ‘the left wing Labour Party leader’. In the interest of fairness and un-biased reporting, David Cameron should also be referred to in terms of his place on the political spectrum – ‘the right-wing Prime Minister ‘
Please sign the petition so that this small but significant change can be made, thank you.’
https://www.change.org/p/bbc-request-for-the-bbc-to-refer-to-david-cameron-as-the-right-wing-prime-minister
http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2015/09/15/valls-exclut-toute-intervention-francaise-au-sol-en-syrie_4758278_3218.html
M. Jean-Yves Le Drian [French defence minister] confirmed Wednesday morning on France Inter Radio, that French air strikes would take place “in the coming weeks, once we have clearly identified targets”. [intel flights have already started they mentioned, the Force de Frappe seem to have several weeks of nearly out-of-date bombs to use against ‘etat islamique’ – or their neighbours?]
“Strikes are needed”, repeated [Catalan] Prime Minister [of France] Valls, taking exact sentence imposed yesterday by the President of the Republic, “it is out of the question that by these strikes we would contribute to strengthen the regime of Bashar al-Assad “.
To defeat organised labour the Tories will use forced labour. Workfare macht Frei.
– do you have a link to the script? I’ve used GM for other sites with some success in the past.
I don’t have a link, sorry. What’s more, even ‘Habbabreak’ doesn’t exist according to the CM search box, which only lists thread titles. Nor does the poster who wrote it, whose nick, I think, was ‘Afriend’. Short of writing something involving ‘grep | the bloody lot’, I can’t help. However I can confirm that although it runs standalone on Windoze + Firefox, I have not succeeded in migrating it to another box. And I stress, GM wiped it, and presumably won’t touch it again; this probably means that a working implementation would have to be done in pure Java, if for no other reason than to present the middle finger to GM.
It was ‘Afrend’, sorry.
Background here:
https://squonk.tk/blog/2015/03/15/the-general-discussion-thread/comment-page-14/
but no idea what happened thereafter. Everything relevant to it has been deleted from Greasy Fork, too.
Clues perhaps here –
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/04/the-feminist-defence-of-blowing-out-the-brains-of-small-children/comment-page-3/#comment-452720