UPDATE
Ms Stella Creasy is offended by this article. At 8.14am this morning 5 December she tweeted:
“This is just an offensive and wrong article and I hope Mr Murray retracts.”
Nothing in it is wrong to the best of my knowledge, but if anything is, I should be most happy to retract it. Nobody has indicated anything is factually wrong so far. I have changed the title of the post to be literal rather than sarcastic, because that was the only thing about it that was “wrong”.
But offensive? Really? She must be a very shrinking violet indeed.
Given that the whole point of this article is to suggest that Ms Creasy believes she should be above criticism and above democratic accountability, for her to describe the criticisms in this article as “offensive” purely proves my point. It is not offensive. It is legitimate criticism of somebody who lives off my taxes.
For me, the inevitable conclusion is that a woman whose Wikipedia page states “Creasy has aristocratic family connections on her mother’s side, including with the Howards, Earls of Carlisle (through whom she is related to Polly Toynbee), the Cayzer family and the present (9th) Viscount Gort who is her fourth cousin” believes she is not answerable to the hoi polloi.
If she regards this article as “offensive” and something that should be retracted, and given she described the extremely polite vigil in the video below as “intimidation”, I think we can all form our own view of Ms Creasy and her sense of entitlement to rule.
For the benefit of the media, she is currently organising a “public meeting” with in fact a highly selected and vetted audience to be seen to be “open and democratic” and justify to her constituents her decision to blow up Syrian children. Expect wall to wall media coverage of stooges coming out saying she convinced them.
The original article of which she complained starts here:
There is a very natural temptation for members of the SNP to laugh without sympathy at the universal media hostility faced by Corbyn and his supporters. That is because we faced an equally massive and equally unrelieved torrent of biased media propaganda during the referendum campaign, and then the entire Labour Party, including its left wing, not only did not condemn the biased media but actively sought to promote it.
On top of which the corporate media is in utter confusion in Scotland, and still largely under instruction to boost Labour, it being at least unionist. The peculiar result of this is that an alien landing in Livingston and following the media would come to the conclusion that John McTernan must be leader of the country, given his ubiquity on media and the extreme deference shown to him, especially by the state broadcaster.
I am however of a peculiarly forgiving disposition, and take the view that two wrongs don’t make a right. What is by any standards fascinating is the way that the media use precisely the same tactics against Corbyn they used against the SNP. First you have the expressions of scorn, of incredulity that such a view could be held, the dismissive body language of presenters, the comment of “unelectable” presented as fact.
When all that does not work, you get the portrayal of anybody putting forward a view outside the neo-con consensus as fanatic, desocialised and violent. We experienced precisely this with the massive “cybernat” campaign of the mainstream media, in which independence supporters were presented as hideous thugs and bullies. This is precisely the narrative which is now being relentlessly deployed on all media for the last 24 hours against the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. The narrative is reinforced by promoting a celebrity “victim”, preferably female and blonde. Step forward J K Rowling the first time, and Stella Creasy now.
Here is a shocking video of the hate-filled mob which besieged Ms Creasy’s constituency office, with the result that her staff dare not go to work and she herself felt intimidated.
Demonstration outside @stellacreasy’s Walthamstow constituency office against war in Syria – video @rhodri_jones
https://t.co/O9ULmc6ofU
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 1, 2015
Terrifying, wasn’t it? The truth is this was an extremely polite and quiet bunch organised in fact by the local vicar Stephen Saxby, who writes in Red Pepper:
This week I took part in a vigil with a wide section of the local community. I am deeply saddened by the misinformation about the vigil which has circulated in the media, and grateful to Sue Wheat for correcting the misreporting of the vigil.
I am also surprised that some in the party appear to be overly influenced by irresponsible coverage in the media, such as the Mail’s description of the peaceful people on our vigil being called ‘Hard-left hate mobs’ and the Mirror stating ‘Vicars, imams and net trolls target MPs’.
I am shocked by Tom Watson’s statement on Radio 4 today that ‘any Labour members on that demo should be removed from the party’.
At the same time as I condemn intimidation of MPs or their staff, I reiterate that the vigil was not intimidation, and condemn those who seek to portray democratic, peaceful actions as such. This is also is a form of intimidation.
For my part, I shall not be intimidated into not speaking on issues about which I am passionate and alongside others within and beyond the Labour Party.
I refute the erroneous allegations about me and about our peaceful vigil, and look forward to continuing to support Stella Creasy as MP for Walthamstow, and the campaigns to elect Sadiq Khan as mayor and Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister.”
It is astonishing that Tom Watson says that anybody in that video should be expelled from the Labour Party, and that the entire mainstream media has described it as “intimidation”. There really is a genuine attempt to delegitimise even the concept of dissent from the neo-con war agenda.
In truth, we all know that social media abuse does exist to a certain extent, just as abuse exists in every other form of human communication. But the one thing we learnt for certain from the Scottish referendum campaign, is that the media will report constantly any abuse allegedly from the anti-establishment camp, but will ignore the at least equally bad and quite possibly much worse torrent of abuse from supporters of the other side of the argument. The absolutely false connection of social media aggression uniquely to anti-establishment politics is an organised media propaganda trick as morally disgusting as it is pernicious.
The object to delegitimise a political view – be it Scottish Independence or Corbynism – is taken further in the current example. There is a concomitant media campaign to portray as an affront to democracy the idea of MPs facing reselection by party members – to portray the idea that an MP should have a lifelong right to the party nomination as norm.
This is a complete inversion of truth. The idea that MPs should be subject to reselection by members as the candidate at the end of the term for which they were chosen, is obviously in reality the more democratic. Should an MP be deselected, they have the democratic option to stand as an independent if they truly believe the voters were electing them, and not the party.
A final word on Ms Creasy. She has belatedly come out and denied the false reports all over the media that demonstrators gathered outside her home – though anyone who thought the Porsche Cayenne driving, Oxbridge Ms Creasy lives in a terrace in Waltham is very naïve. She is a fanatic supporter of Trident missiles and of any bombing opportunity going, and is precisely the sort of MP everybody should be trying to get rid of. Here is Andrew Neil exposing her for a shallow careerist fool:
Presumably that ranks as intimidation and abuse.
The Blair/Brown lost the Labour Party millions of votes but they still keep lying. Hillary gave a good resignation speech, being cheered on by the Tories. Livingstone can dream on. How out of touch they are in Scotland. They just keep bombing.
No opportunity to remind us of the war on terror is missed. Now Boris the other Bullingdon Boy joins in.
Boris Johnson visits Bataclan in Paris to pay respects on behalf of Londoners
3 Dec 2015
The London Mayor is currently visiting for a climate change debate with world leaders, but stopped off at the Bataclan Theatre to pay his respects’
We forget he does a double act as an MP as well as London Mayor.
‘The Tory MP, who voted yes for air strike action in Syria on Wednesday night, said he did not believe the bombing campaign in Syria increased the threat of a terror attack in London.
On visiting the Bataclan, he added: “I think that argument is topsy turvy. The number of attacks has been growing from that area of Syria, the plans that have been germinating, and we need to do something about it.”’
http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/boris-johnson-visits-bataclan-paris-10543978
My condolences also Glenn. I had a friend with the same disease. She was under 50 when she died from liver disease. She could never stop drinking.
Truly pathetic – lets just select a 41 second clip from Channel 4 and a quote from a vicar and then conclude that the whole demonstration was peaceful. What about the demonstration outside what they believed was Creasy’s home – which was ok because she had no children or the abuse sent/telephoned to her constituency office.
You are right that two wrongs don’t make a right.
Of course Stella Creasy’s tangible achievements against pay day lenders will rankle with those who make a lot of noise and vitriol but actually in the end achieve bugger all.
“those who make a lot of noise and vitriol but actually in the end achieve bugger all.”
Could be your new moniker RD.
Mary and her friends are course now into the old cycle for appeasing terrorism – ie never criticise the perpetrators for the actual act, seek to shift blame on the western authorities, look for any unsuitables among those condemning the atrocity, blame them and the western authorities for Israel and any other outrages that come to hand.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying that this appeasement goes as far as supporting the terrorists, although my guess is that some do, but it is pretty clear that they do hate the west and the political values that most of share.
Tony M
You haven’t a clue what I have achieved in my personal and business life – my guess is that it is rather more than you. I did of course support the development of the tax credit system by the hated Blair government that you now want to defend to the hilt now it is being attacked by the Tories – but then your sort never could do irony.
I’d never heard of her or her ‘tangible achievements’. The problem with living in that media bubble is soon enough the air becomes stale and you die.
I’ve never once defended tax credits, the very idea is absurd. I’ve argued here to scrap the things entirely and supported Osborne’s cuts, thought he didn’t go nearly far enough.
“And by the way, I’m no stranger to seeing people die (half my family have been wiped out by cancer).”
You really should get some genetic testing/screening done – those doing the research are keen for more people to come forward, and knowing that there is a problem is more likely to lead to earlier diagnosis.
It is true to say then RD, everything you’ve ever done would have been better left undone. That is epic failure, but it no doubt kept you in a style commensurate with your swollen ego.
… and you die inside.
Cancer research charities are mostly rackets, even if some well-intentioned people are involved. I believe you might have been once well-intentioned in your spheres too, RD.
Clean air, water, soil, wholesome un-debased foodstuffs, protection of the biosphere, ending pollution, corporate irresponsibility, socialisation of costs, civil and military nuclear proliferation these are pre-requisites for health including of course cancer. The proponents of which and their arguments you attack on here and no doubt elsewhere with malice and relish. Does hypocrisy blind you to clear causation?
Craig, you probably know but at the end of Charles Cumming’s novel Typhoon he includes Murder in Samarkand as having been indispensable.
In my view the best way to preserve the values of the west that RD refers to is to keep a sense of proportion about terrorism and recognise that it does not present an existential threat to our way of life. The deaths in Paris are terrible for those concerned but in the bigger picture they are not massive compared to, say, the carnage on our roads which we manage to live with. This is absolutely not to diminish the pain and suffering but to suggest that over-reacting to it in the sort of carnival of public emoting that took place in the media in the aftermath of Paris is to give the terrorists the victory they do not deserve but certainly seek. Terrorism is not a threat in the way that Nazi Germany was a threat. To pretend that it is, is dishonest and inculcates a climate of fear in which people behave irrationally. A fine example of such irrationality, in my view, being Hilary Benn invoking the war against Franco, or the disgraceful cheering that took place from some quarters at the end of the debate. A far better response would be the old-fashioned stiff upper lip attitude displayed during the IRA bombings. Or by the people of our parents generation during the Blitz. They did not luxuriate in public emotion, even though the danger was many times greater, instead they just got on with life as best they could, and even, amazingly, managed to stay cheerful despite the fact that there was precious little to be cheerful about. I think that is the true way to triumph over terror.
Craig noted: This is precisely the narrative which is now being relentlessly deployed on all media for the last 24 hours against the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.
I find it interesting our so called ‘media’ i.e. disclosure/announcement, instead of deploying the Turkish oil fraud that Russia has exposed in detail, they have concealed the proof.
Why the British public continues buying newspapers is out of range of my understanding.
http://russia-insider.com/en/russian-appeal-international-community-ignored-dangerous-ignorance-our-new-reality/ri11638
Well said KOWN at 10.43 am. It is very noticeable that such terrorist events as Paris often precede a long planned geopolitical move by TPTB.
Real terror, not the sort created for the media to promote the shutting down of our freedoms in the War on Terror, but being bombed and starved to death.
“The United Nations food agency has warned that food supplies in Yemen are deteriorating quickly and the country is at risk of slipping into famine.
Ten out of Yemen’s 22 governorates were now classified as facing food insecurity at “emergency” levels, which is one step below famine, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.
“Clearly, Yemen is one of the hardest place in the world today to work – massive security concerns, escalation in the fighting, and the violence across the country,” Matthew Hollingworth, WFP’s deputy regional director, said in the capital, Sanaa.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/yemen-step-famine-151204210940979.html
That’s the Saudis and the Gulf states at work to keep the waterway safe for their Israeli friends to patrol in their Dolfins with nuclear capability and for the oil to get through.
The 9-11 bombings Are Not Acts of War
The 9-11 bombings Are Crimes Against Humanity
by David T. Ratcliffe
May 2003
Dispelling the bewitchment that “we are at war”
“Since 9/11 the U.S. corporate regime justifies everything it is doing by claiming we are war.
The war powers of the presidency is cited in the courts as justification for the military to hold citizens. Public discourse is largely locked into a tacit acceptance of legitimacy for what has been done because “We’re at war” — from making aggressive war on peoples that cannot defend themselves and rejecting international treaties and laws, to justifying and implementing the unthinkable-before-September-11th police state, now codified on the law books here at home.
But we are not at war. The 9/11 bombings were a crime against humanity mass murder of civilians.
The U.N. Security Council rejected Bush II’s bid to label the bombings an “armed attack” by one state against another state. The resolution that was passed denominated these events as “terrorist attacks.”
As international law professor Francis Boyle points out, “there is a magnitude of difference between an armed attack by one state against another state, which is an act of war, and a terrorist attack, which is not. . . . terrorists are dealt with as criminals. Terrorists are not treated like nation states. Terrorists are dealt with by means of international and domestic law enforcement. Terrorists are not given the dignity of special status under international law and practice.”
But elevating the dignity of terrorist individuals to reside on a par with the authority of nation-states is precisely what Bush II [did]. The claim that “we are are war” provides the underlying justification for the USA PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act, and the violation and destruction of the foundations of American Constitutional liberties as well as the abrogation of the United States’ participation as an equal member in the family of nations.
Regressing to the barbaric “law of the jungle” promises the abrogation of an entire species’ evolutionary history that seeks to honour and serves life’s needs. There is much to be done to challenge and dispel the bewitchment that “we are at war.”
/..
http://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/intro2cah.html
I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t “laugh without sympathy” at the media’s anti-Corbyn hysteria. I am as sickened by it as I am when the same despicable tactics are deployed against the SNP.
What does provoke wry amusement is the hypocrisy of British Labour whining about the media’s treatment of Corbyn when they were more than content that Alex Salmonnd should be the target of the same kind of spin and smear strategy.
“Why the British public continues buying newspapers is out of range of my understanding”
Mine too. I used to be a subscriber to the NeoCon rag The Guardian, but I stopped that some years ago when I realised that they had been captured by the bad guys.
The whole of the British main media seems to sing from the same hymn sheet now, the Turkish oil fraud being just one recent example. That so many people cannot see this is hard to understand. To keep on paying them hard earned money for their propaganda is beyond parody.
3 possible outcomes of the Syria war.
Syrian War Military Report 5 December 2015 The Middle East Escalation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lInobgiUKdI
Cameron is having a lie in this morning.
His operatives are still going for the oil fields and have managed to avoid any mid air collisions with all the other invading jets and UAVs overflying Syria illegally. That is with the exception of Russian planes of course who were invited by President Assad.
RAF Jets Hit Oilfield In Second Syrian Strike
Typhoons and unmanned Reapers bomb the oilfield in an effort to cut off Islamic State’s financial supply.
http://news.sky.com/story/1600446/raf-jets-hit-oilfield-in-second-syrian-strike
“Would we make ourselves a bigger target for ISIL attack? We are a target. We will remain a target. There is no need to wonder about it. ISIL/Daesh has told us so, and continues to tell us so, with every day that passes. Margaret Beckett MP
With anti-war support past the tipping point in the UK my mind turns towards a fact the Israeli army was systematically training UK police forced in tactics and strategy developed as an occupying army. Their methods are developed in a context, where the “citizens” are seen and treated as an enemy to be crushed.
Primarily before suspension of civil rights another window of horror by D’aesh/IS I call ‘Gladio London’ is likely to happen as an expected advance to recent British entanglement with terrorists in Syria.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/11/21/brussels/
“The whole of the British main media seems to sing from the same hymn sheet now, the Turkish oil fraud being just one recent example.”
True.
Question is why.
What is it that can bring the whole establishment together, singing more or less from the same hymn sheet, where anyone who dissents is called a terrorist sympathiser.
Certainly an existential threat can do that.
That threat obviously isn’t ISIS.
So what is it.
Tony M
Yawn – did you learn all that at your last Lickspittles for Putin meeting or similar.
KOWN
Of course terrorism is not the same threat as Franco or Nazi Germany and I don’t think it is an existential threat, western democracies and the values we espouse are too strong for that – but keep your head down and ignore it will not work either – I don’t think you understand its nature.
KOWN
Is the use of 4 additional planes against ISIL really an over-reaction. What would you suggest as an appropriate reaction – extra detention after school?
We could talk about the bigger picture of supporting the Syrian people in removing the undoubtedly fascist regime of Assad – but then many here are quite happy to support the war mongering of Assad ably assisted by their friend Putin(or have stayed silent about it for 5 years since the Arab Spring) but only seem to want to stop wars when the West responds to little provocations/false flags like Paris. Just how many people have been killed by Assad’s forces in Syria?
You don’t become ‘the Syrian people’ merely by crossing the border armed, into Syria.
Mary simply can’t resist:
“That’s the Saudis and the Gulf states at work to keep the waterway safe for their Israeli friends to patrol in their Dolfins with nuclear capability and for the oil to get through.”
____________________
Interesting that she puts the bit about Israeli submarines before the Gulf states’ desire to keep the oil waterways free.
Most non-obsessives would probably put it the other way round (if they had to mention Israeli submarines at all, that is).
What is it with some people, who disregard everything else that goes wrong in the world – wars, malnutrition, environmental damage and various other things – to focus almost exclusively on Israel and Palestine, I wonder? It’s curious.