Robert Webb might well have been the only person in the Labour Party well to the right of Liz Kendall. In 2005 He told the Guardian in an interview the person he most admired was Christopher Hitchens (at a time when Hitchens was the lead propagandist for the Iraq War) and Webb characterised opponents of the Iraq War as “suicide bombers and their apologists”. Today the Guardian gives him an enormous puff for resigning from the Labour Party in protest against Jeremy Corbyn.
A genuinely unpleasant person. I confess to a personal grudge against Webb, but it is a justified one. he was deeply involved in plagiarising my memoir, Murder in Samarkand for the BBC Comedy The Ambassador. The production company involved, Big Talk, had actually invited me to their offices for a meeting to ask me to sell them the rights to Murder in Samarkand. I attended the meeting but I refused to sell them the rights. They went ahead and made the series anyway.
Having been brought up in Norfolk I am a Norwich City supporter, as explained in Murder in Samarkand. Webb’s The Ambassadors featured a Norwich City supporting ambassador to Tazbekistan (which he claimed was unrelated to Uzbekistan) and made fun of the dopey Ambassador’s concern with human rights. Numerous incidents were very plainly taken from Murder in Samarkand as well as the entire scenario, but I could not afford to take the crooked plagiarising bastards to court.
Robert Webb. One of the nastiest men in Britain. If Corbyn as Labour leader achieves nothing more than getting shot of Webb, that is still progress.
BBC considers severe violations of human rights a laughing matter? No surprise these days, I guess.
Good news indeed, thanks for this heads up. I hope the rest of the free loading carpetbaggers in the Labour part would leave and let the socialism make a come back! never before was there a nation so much to the left of their government as it is in UK today.
Comedian? Oggsford Handlamps, then the BBC?
Nothing less than a Stalinesque purge of the Labour party will do. The real problem here is this Webb freak should have been allowed to resign – clearly, he deserved to be classified as an Enemy of the People and dealt with accordingly.
Craig, Fukushima transcends all else.
I am very depressed that people such as yourself don’t acknowledge this.
“never before was there a nation so much to the left of their government as it is in UK today.” Fedup
Maybe, maybe not. I mean I hope you’re right. But you know, people get brainwashed. We all do, to an extent, some more than others.
I cannot really see what Corbyn is saying, or doing, that is so very wrong. I mean, he’s promulgating what were pretty much post-War consensus policies – really, apart from nukes, pretty much what Labour, Conservative (and indeed in the early-to-mid 1980s, the SDP) were promulgating until Thatcherism poisoned the lot. Harold McMillan, Rab Butler, Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan – apart from nukes – would have had very little about which to disagree with Jeremy Corbyn.
What the Labour MPs need to do is to stop whingeing, stop moaning, stop acting as though their chance of a knighthood had suddenly been removed, and get behind their leader and his policies and more importantly, get behind a position of being opposed to the transfer of wealth from we, the people on whose labour (and it is called ‘The Labour Party’ for a reason) the gold is poured, to the parasites. And of course there is the rub. The Labour Party is not a broad church any more, it is a party with a lot of cuckoo (and I use that term in both sense of the word) Thatcherites in Parliament and no doubt in other positions too. There was a coup in the early 1990s.
C’mon you Canaries, OTBC. Norwich 2/3 – 1 Chelsea. nuff said.
Rob G. So whats the solution to Fukushima’s manifestation of absolute helplessness, to have no solution to the worst possible scenario?
Is it to go absolutely batshit crazy?
Time is on your side, Rob, this issue will not go away and anyone who has read Chris Busby’s work on nuclear contamination via our weather patterns knows what has already been dispersed, is affecting us.
Do not for one moment believe Craig is complacent about this tectonic issue, its growing on him, I’m sure.
If Labour cannot impress cross party voters and offer some basic democratic rights, they will fail due to their own disunity and backstabbing. Just what the press loves and the right wing Tory’s need.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/robert-webb-re-joins-labour-protest-russell-brand
It states here in the NS he ‘ re-joined ‘ the Labour Party in 2013 in response to comments made by Russell Brand . A strange reason to commit to ‘ re-joining ‘ . Why had he left before ? Even the NS seems dubious of his ‘ re-joining ‘ claim , or was it a bit of self-promotion . Is there any evidence he was ever in the Labour Party to begin with before his claim of ‘ re-joining ‘ ? .
I
Consider these recent items, amongst zillions of mainstream media reports over the last few years…
http://kval.com/outdoors/blue-whale-first-to-wash-up-on-oregon-coast-in-over-a-century
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Four+whale+deaths+week+baffle+scientists/11285810/story.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/fourth-humpback-whale-found-dead-along-bc-coast-in-a-week/article25948881/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/06/19/endangered-whales-are-dying-off-in-alaska-and-scientists-are-racing-to-discover-why/
I could go on and on with these (mainstream) news reports.
The Pacific Ocean has been totally fucked, and I’m afraid that I won’t take our venerable host seriously unless he acknowledges this.
A coup-coup.
Stolen Futures – One-way love – The Hidden Toll of Child Casualties in Syria –
Military action is inherently dangerous to those targeted. To think that military planners can exclude civilians from targets is a fallacy. Weapons may be smarter now than ever before but military and leadership assets are often deliberately sited in urban and residential areas. Even in the most rural areas, data suggests that US drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan still kill many civilians. Such ‘collateral’ casualties also inspire retaliation and radicalization in cycles of violence.
By the end of August 2015, approximately 20,000* children aged 17 years and younger had been recorded killed in the Syrian conflict, out of a current total of roughly 200,000* civilians killed.
By far the primary cause of death reported for children was explosive weapons (about 70%) of which most are air bombardment.
The remaining children(about 30%) are hit by small arms fire of which around 12% were reported to be from targeted sniper-fire. A relative small but significant number of children aged under 9 yrs which also includes infants, died from torture, rape and just over 1% are the children in Ghouta killed in a chemical attack.
Revised figures from the ORG report August 2013
Here is my ‘puff’ to propagandist Christopher Hitchins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QfQJxvM_WI&feature=share
Suhayl: Owen Jones seems to have identified one of the problems with Labour in his book The Establishment. Instead of behaving as the opposition, as they’re supposed to, Labour act as government ministers who are just temporarily out of office. The ’70s style politics that Corbyn is accused of threatening us all with would be a vast improvement on what we have now – higher growth, vastly lower national and personal debt, some actual industry in this country… why is it being referred to like some grim Soviet eastern Europe model?
Anyway, most politicians have no idea about work, having never done an actual job in their lives. It’s a cushy upper-middle class profession for them, a good opportunity to make contacts and get part time directorships plus a tidy little property portfolio on “expenses” with a fat pension to cap it off. Yet they are baffled at public cynicism.
I’ve always thought Mitchell & Webb desperately unfunny, presumably their success at the BBC is down to their political leanings rather than talent. As to why a nonentity like Webb’s resignation from the Labour Party should make headline news, it’s ammunition for the Corbyn hating meeja, though I can’t think why anyone else would give a toss quite frankly.
Such devils invariably display the extent of their evil by a commensurate impunity. That this thing wishes to stay far from Jesus Corbyn may even be regarded as a back handed compliment. That JC has a ceramic layer superior to teflon is clear, but is it polished enough for the mirror finish to reflect his many detractors to their early career graves? Especially the aaronowitch laura kuennsberg, her face does seem to be turning darker by the day.
Very well said Craig.
Webb is but a long line of Oxbridge c**** straight outta Central Casting into BBC bullshit by way of heavy MI5 wheel-smoothing.
A fake,a trojan probably planted all his “career” for his spook controlled moment to pounce.
Don’t for a moment unconsider his,ahem,”show” based plagiaristically on your ambassadorial experiences wasnt a wee Establishment Zersetzen on you.
Standard Procedure.
Whether Webb understood that,or to what end he was being used is moot…probably not.
Just another Oxbridge plant waiting for his spook-call when required.
There’s thousands of that type in MSM-land.
Craig
I supplied a graphic for your first blog post about the BBC plagiarising ‘Murder in Samarkand.’ That’s all the excuse I needed to create another about Robert Webb leaving the Labour party.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fxafox9nge9dmwi/Robert_Rat.jpg?dl=0
To those who ask why Webb has become news?
Well,he’s a figurehead for a certain class/youth demographic therefore is seen as possessed of a certain ‘chic’…absolute bollocks of course but that’s perception demographics in the crossover/interoperability between the MSM,politics and the Military-Industrial Complex in our reality now.
Go figure the madness..
Suhayl,
It aint that Corbyn is doing anything so wrong,you know that im quite sure.
What Corbyn represents,and confirms,is the complete shift to the right in Uk politics and the illusion of centre ground or alternatives.
The pillorying of Corbyn in the MSM is so OTT as to be embarrasssing;yet all this opprobrium for a guy promoting,on the whole,reason caution and consideration? Strange huh?.
Interesting to note,too,the MSM attack on those very qualities by inversion and false logic thus serves to promote the Tory(NeoCon) line of “Bomb everything twice,NOW!”
Madness through many looking glasses.
Corbyn-who im still not certain isn’t in on the scam-serves as a useful jester to ‘reinforce’the other jesters and their own special madness.
Strange times indeed.
Jeremy Corbyns politics are the politics of Labour post 1945 and are far from revolutionary. He represents an alternative to the failed neo-con philosophy of the Tories. This Tory philosophy is quite simple ’strip the State and feed the Oligarchy with the surplus’.
The Tory Govt has the backing of the MSM, via the usual inducements of coercion,blackmail. bribery. The Tory inclined security services have a long history in manipulating the Public perception of events thru’ the MSM propaganda. ( as we are witnessing with Syria,Ukraine and the Paris atrocities.)
It is difficult for a journalist to speak the truth when his career ,mortgage and paycheck is dependent on telling lies.
Jeremy Corbyn refuses to go along with their failed Economic policies and their subservience to the US war machine. For this he must be destroyed. Waiting in the wings is their compliant puppet Chukka Umumna and his Blairites.
Jeremy Corbyns has advocated Nationalisation of State utilities. He has advocated the creation of Sovereign money for housing and infrastructure to create employment.
This has seriously upset the Moneylenders, who have a centuries old grip on money creation.
The Nationalisation of formerly State assets will also stop the toll booth flow of profits from Electricity ,Gas,water, transport ,telecoms.,Royal Mail.
We can expect continued vilification of Jeremy Corbyn from the MSM into the future. The Labour Party is a broad Church,but there is no room for the heretic Blairites in it. Blairite policies are no different from the failed Tory ideology.
Jeremy needs to clean house for all our sakes. There will be no bright future on this Sceptred Isle for our children should the present Tory system prevail.
We remember it well. Revolting crowd of BBC luvvies.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/10/murder-in-samarkand-now-a-major-tv-series/#comments
I switched off HIGNIFY immediately at the start last night’s programme. Mitchell’s other half, Victoria Coren, part of the BBC nepotistic mafia, was the presenter. There was a nasty dig at Jeremy shown riding a bike as the UK’s answer for a ‘reaction force’ against ISIS. They all fell about including the giggling millionaires Hislop and Rees-Mogg.
~~~
Sky were pleased to report this morning that 60 Liebour MPs will support a vote for war on Syria. Nothing has changed since 2003.
Who should Sky News have on lately to review the ‘papers’ but Lebedev’s Defence Correspondent on the ES, Robert Fox, proponent for an increased British military.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robert-fox-5a785929
He wrote this in 2010 for the Guardian where he used to appear in Rusbridger’s day!
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/15/david-cameron-conservatives-defence-strategy
The warmongers are loving this too.
‘UN Agrees To Combat IS Threat ‘By All Means’
World powers agree to co-ordinate efforts to wipe out Islamic State to prevent further atrocities a week after the Paris attacks.
http://news.sky.com/story/1591572/un-agrees-to-combat-is-threat-by-all-means
Glenn, Jives, yes, I agree. I think Corbyn is genuine. He is to be Left of Centre and genuine – that alone marks him out as an enemy – repeatedly denoucned by the Government and their propagandists, Stalinist-style, as “threat to national security” – code for ‘a threat to our class interests’.
Mark Golding’s poster from the thread I linked to earlier.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7t89yG3NCBNVWkwUjdCbkEtNEU/edit?pli=1
My word weren’t the trolls and hasbara merchants active in the comments then. Habbabkuk appeared as ‘Solon’!
There are over 1m google results for ‘ambassador uzbekistan’.
The first appears in a box.
‘In 2002 Murray was appointed as the British ambassador to Uzbekistan at the age of 43 but dismissed in October 2004. In July 2004 he told The Guardian that “there is no point in having cocktail-party relationships with a fascist regime”, and that “you don’t have to be a pompous old fart to be an ambassador.”
Craig Murray – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray ‘
There is a link for ‘feedback’. ?
~~~
Currently
Christoper Allan
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/change-of-her-majestys-ambassador-to-uzbekistan
We don’t hear much about the Karimov daughters and their excesses these days.
He can always join the Tories. He is one. Along with the rest of them who do not support JC’s policies The Party members voted for JC as leader. Any of the prima donna, murdering, greedy troughers who don’t support his policies should resign. If they vote against him they should be thrown out of the Party or the members will deselect them or find another candidate. That’s democracy. Put up or shut up. Greedy liars. Along with some (unelected plitically) Trade Union leaders who bankrolled the illegal wars illegally mis using members money. Brown and Blair should be in jail. Where’s the Chilcot Report? 7 years late. Chilcot is getting £800 a day for 1/2 a day’s work. A disgrace.
Farague has lost funding. The crooks who tried to buy the election wasted their money. His funding has dried up. His PR stunt and patter didn’t work and he didn’t come up with the goods. Alcoholics make poor decisions. Out of touch with reality. A total crook embezzling public money. He should be put in jail.
60 Labour MP’s will be our of a job. The members will deselect them. Their days of troughing will be over. Their troubles will start now. Not sure if it is enough to start an illegal war. Cameron is illegally bombing now. Cameron could be bombed out again. Every policies gets voted down. Cameron/Osbourne are inexperienced amateurs in it for the fees and consultancies for them and their associates. Embezzling £Billions of public money and starving the vulnerable to death.
“He can always join the Tories. He is one. Along with the rest of them who do not support JC’s policies”
No he isn’t
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/robert-webb-ed-miliband-might-not-be-kind-leader-you-put-t-shirt-he-still-needs-my
Only the pig ignorant and their Stalinist friends think that if you do not support Corbyn then that makes you a Tory – other political viewpoints are possible when you drop your totalitarian mindset.
I saw the Webb news planted yesterday in the Trlegraph & simply ignored it as froth, I didn’t realize the history of evil-froth associated with friends of the Home-Office!
If you dig below the ‘headlines for non-thinkers’ then sometimes you can find a positive news item related fresh Labour. Here, Gulf-news of all people, reporting on hardline UK judges, prompted by less-corrupted Con & Lab MPs are challenging the deep-surveillance State:
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/90099c30-c087-468a-856d-02bd1a0454c0.aspx?
That’s such a wierd URI that I’ll add some of the Nov 21st text
Thatcher gave Murdoch an illegal share of the Press and lied about it. She broke the Ministrial code (many times) and kept it under the Official Secrets Act. It was exposed last year sfter thirty years. Harold Evans ex Times editor wrote an article about it. Without a free and balanced Press there is no democacy. The UK Press is owned by tax evading Non Doms and Printing companies, printing political propaganda for profits. Westminster controls the Press using the Official Secrets Act to issue ‘D’ notices.
Thatcher’s own Party had to stab her in the back to get rid of her. She left over 3Million unemployed, interest rates at 15%. Destroyed banking, deregulated and deleveraged the Banks (along with Regan) Demutialsed the Building Societies owned by their members. Sold off utilities so now fuel and energy are supplied and managed by Foreign State owned utility companies. The Foreign Office is a drain on public funds, opulent embassy building that British citizens can get into. The Barbados one must be a great posting. Life of luxury.
It’s a pity you could not have Crowdfunder to sue him in those days. Never mind a bit of publicity and exposing him him can be sweet revenge. An extremely dubious person. Remember to apply as a candidate at the Council elections. Work your way up.
The Tories are stopping coal production in Britain. Despite spending £2Billion (each?) on two new plants in the North of England, Coal will have to be imported. Westminsterbrefused a £1Billion CCS project at Longannet in Fife and the plant is being closed down. High taxes on Oil sector mean thousands of jobs are being lost in Scotland. More Oil produces will have to be imported, along with fuel and energy. The Tories are spending £25Billion on a nuclear plant at Hinkley which will be out of time and over budget. Labour cancelled A a tidal barrage project at the Humber £9Billion which would have produced more energy and
been less expensive. They are dumping nuclear waste in Africa.
The Tories have banned wind turbines the cheapest, safest form of energy over time. They have made solar more expensive by cutting investment. Along with trying to start a 111WW nuclear war. Refusing talks with Assad/Syria which Russia tried to barter, to find a diplomatic solution to the biggest migrant crisis since the 11WW. The West are supporting Iran with nuclear. they do not need it for fuel and energy. They have plenty Oil and Sun.