I hope today that people will remember Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross, and Katherine Gun, who were all prepared to give up excellent careers to stand against the war in Iraq.
Blair is still a creature of absolute self-serving slime. His attempt yesterday to justify the invasion of Iraq as an effort to prevent a 9/11 on British soil is dishonest in every way. Blair knew full well that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11 – that was his still friends and financiers the Saudi elite. The intelligence advice in advance of the invasion he received was unequivocal that it would increase the threat to the UK, and it directly caused the attacks of 7/7.
The broadcast media seem to think the Chilcot report is an occasion to give unlimited airtime to Blair and Alastair Campbell. Scores of supporters and instigators of the was have been interviewed. By contrast, almost no airtime has been given to those who campaigned against the war.
Cameron’s speech to parliament was such an out and out, and dishonest, apologia for the invasion that it bore no relationship to the report. Corbyn is no orator, but his genuine moral outrage was justified. The Blairites who heckled him from behind during his speech are disgusting. If any meaningful democratic choice is to be offered to people in England and Wales, the Blairites have to be removed from the Labour Party to join with their fellow Tories.
The SNP are playing a blinder on Chilcot. I do hope Salmond moves forward with impeachment, not least because it will both force the Blairites to expose themselves, and reveal the deep feelings against Blair’s actions in the military linked wing of the Tory party.
As predicted, Chilcot had to repeat the Butler Inquiry’s verdict that the intelligence was not fixed, because Chilcot was himself on the Butler Inquiry. It is a lie, the intelligence was knowingly fixed. More on that later.
I apologise these are very brief thoughts. I have not had the opportunity to pay the attention you would expect, as my mother has been taken into hospital and I had yesterday to dash down to Norwich. It will be a few days before I am able to concentrate on politics.
Quote: “The NEC has agreed that as the incumbent leader Jeremy Corbyn will go forward onto the ballot without requiring nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party and the European Parliamentary Labour Party.
All other leadership candidates will require nominations from 20% of the PLP and EPLP.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/jul/12/labour-nec-jeremy-corbyn-leadership-from-labour-leadership-ballot-would-be-sordid-fix-politics-live?page=with:block-57853d8ee4b058a20001363e#block-57853d8ee4b058a20001363e
I believe that Republicofscotland owes me a fiver.(although he/she didn’t actually take the bet).
This is the most important development since JFK in the 1960s.
It’s a joy to behold how the presstitutes are spinning it.
Sorry, you media whores, the public are a little bit more savy thesedays.
Things do not always turn out as expected. Brexit might make Europe stronger and the US-led NATO expansion defunct. This must be worrying to the Yanks.
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160712/1042819113/european-army-vs-nato-analysis.html
Putin said he wanted a strong Europe he could deal without it coming under external influence. He thought Britain out would weaken Europe.
If Britain leaves then perhaps that might expedite Euro Army, but everyone will see through it for the vanity project that it is including European tax payers and European heads of state and defence secretaries ie will not weaken NATO but just allow the Americans to raise an eyebrow (if they do that) and demand more money.
Or the EU will have to go to Russia for military support in which case why bother with a fig leaf Euro Army in the first place.
…….
On a more left wing note congratulations to Jeremy Corbyn and the unions.
We must throw ourselves behind Jeremy. I urge my fellow comrades to invest three pounds once more. One last push, Comrades, and the future is ours.
#ToriesForCorbyn
#KeepJezSafe
Keep up – it’s £25 for new members now Nat Ex can smell the tory pound.
We can stretch, Comrade.
Chilcot, the stooge, is not even fit to define the parameters of the Inquiry that will follow Chilcot.
The venom thrown at, and the dirty tricks against Jeremy Corbyn are beyond compare. The Daily Record and Sunday Mail, still in thrall to secret squirrel Jim Murphy, deserve special mention for their viciousness and mendaciousness beyond reason; the unions, big corporations themselves, too are a treacherous bunch, from pro-militarist/WMD/nuke power shills to willings tools of the multi-nationals and serial betrayers of their dwindling and burned-out ordinary members.
I have inserted this line to break the text up, you may now proceed to the next bit.
Hope Corbyn stands his ground and the blighted constituencies quickly select new candidates in place of this festering ugly hard-right/Blairite entryist mob, and if the squatting illegitimate MPs cannot be shamed into resigning forthwith, a general election must ensue, as it must in any case as the Tory internal coup method of anointing a new government is simply bizarre and quite intolerable even within this sham of a pseudo-democracy we labour under. Labour candidates for seats not presently held by Labour should likewise be scrutinised and if found wanting, sent packing. Peculiar business Britnat politics, parties and all this EU hokey-cokey. That England should have come to this is not surprising, it’s always was and is a complete sham, run for and by incompetent but depravedly evil chancers and con-artists. A government of treasure-lusting bloodthirsty thieving and murderering, butchering pirates, a conspiracy, a common criminal enterprise, masquerading as a country. A worst possible model sadly often copied. That is Englnad.
Hope your Mum is better Craig , I thought this speech by John Gray was very good it is pro Brexit but others in the series with be for Remain, I voted leave BTW as I see Kalgeri’s Pan European nightmare unfolding .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07l5y3d
Having remained as leader, notice how the presstitutes will go completely silent on the subject of Jeremy Corbyn…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4
These people are total and utter vermin.
Not so, sadly. The Toady (sic) programme reanimated Margaret Hodge this morning, along with a token Corbynite, didn’t catch the name – call him TC. The issue was apparently the free brick Angela Eagle received through her window. TC, as is only right and proper, deplored this and stated that it was certainly nothing to do with Momentum. Hodge got four times the time to assert otherwise, rant about the nastiness of the Corbynites, and recall how she had singlehandedly faced the Militant hordes (Ken Livingstone) in the 80’s. The first question she was asked was along the lines of ‘Would you like to tell us your feelings about what the Corbyn camp is up to?’
‘Up to?’ Now there’s impartial.
The fact that Eagle’s constituency (Wallasey, not exactly leafy suburbia) party, while pretty well forced to support their MP, Eagle, are on record as being more than slightly critical of her leadership bid…wasn’t mentioned at all.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/angela-eagle-under-threat-deselection-wallasey-party-members-after-leadership-bid-1570011
On the previous page I shared two petitions claiming the most important one was to ensure that Jeremy Corbyn’s name appeared on the Labour leadership ballot paper after the night of the long knives challenge to his leadership from the Blairite/Neocon elements in the Labour Party (career MPs). This challenge is also known as the attempted Chicken Coup. Since his name is on the leadership contest that petition is now redundant. This therefore becomes most important.
https://www.change.org/p/labour-party-angela-eagle-to-resign-as-member-of-parliament-for-wallasey
You do not need to live in Wallasey to sign it. After Labour Party meetings we used to sing the Red Flag which contains the memorable line: “though cowards flinch, and traitors sneer” we’ve seen all that in this attempted Chicken Coup. The cowardice was in the executive holding a secret ballot to launch the challenge from the sneering traitors.
However, in true statesmanlike fashion, Corbyn continues to try and win over these career politicians. We must encourage them back into the fold but they must change their ways. This is a real chance for ordinary people. Grasp it.
You’re wasting your time. Do you think these people are going to be grateful for their humiliation if Corbyn is returned to the leadership with an increased majority?
Get them out, and get a local left-wing candidate in.
I’m just following Corbyn’s advice John. They will go of their own accord, just like the Gang of Four did. Come to think of it they are tarred with the same brush. That snake, Bill Rodgers, now Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, came to Birmingham University to speak to the Labour group just as he was about to leave with Shriley Williams, David Owen and Roy Jenkins. I recall him showing everybody his card as a Labour Party member and telling an anecdote about how when he first entered parliament all he had was a locker but how things had improved and MPs now had their own offices with secretaries (which showed me exactly where he stood and why we were better off without him or other ‘bought’ politicians.
I seriously doubt that. Get their noses out of the trough all by themselves, most unlikely.
What needs to be done is to make them aware that they will not be fighting the next GE as Labour Party candidates and then keep a close eye on them. When they are frantically lining their pockets before they lose their seats they can be done for corruption.
Well I seriously hope that my MP, Steve McCabe, who has many qualities and came up on a Trades Union ticket, will see the light, though the last email I received from him was very critical of our current leader after he has only been leader for 10 months or so. That is disgraceful!
Can we presume your infiltration is now complete and you have found your new Leader?
You can presume what you like. It’s a democarcy – or should be.
I’ll take that as a yes then. Those of us who support the Party’s aims and values have no problems in declaring our membership.
You would. For a long time you have tried to ascribe things you would like to think I said as things I actually did say. If you really are a Socialist now is the time to get behind our leader.
Goss
Far from being a socialist you are a stooge for every country and organisation that wishes the UK ill.
How dare you ask people to sign petitions on UK political matters?
I agree, there is no way these snakes in the grass are going to give up on the promise of the silver for their betrayals. Get rid of the lot of them to a man/woman of them!!!!
In UK people vote for the party and not the “candidate” these fat pampered banksters’ representatives should have no place in the labour party.
What about the humiliation of Labour being well behind a disastrous Tory Government in the poils during the mid term and the defeat for our policy on Europe in the referendum. If you and your infiltrator friends win – just watch the Party sink into electoral oblivion while the Tories continue to shaft ordinary working people – then you will know what humiliation feels like.
The Labour Party ceased to exist when Blair dropped Clause 4. It became the tory-with-a-smileyface party. The electorate has now, and fatally for NuLabour, realised this. If the market-sensitive, business-oriented, careerist politicians in ‘Labour’, prevail, they can’t win an election against the Tories, as they’re only offering the same future plus incompetence. They will bleed votes to the Libs, UKIP and Greens, though principally UKIP. If, on the other hand, Labour recognises the mood of its former supporters, rather than trying to seduce middle-class swing votes, it can gain support. The mood is ‘fuck the lot of you’, at present, and rightly so. Yes we righton lefties deplore populism, don’t we? But the populace, strangely, doesn’t.
Realpolitik, please, Labour. Not jobs for the boys and girls.
Signed.
Well done.
I’m surprised. But yes, well done! 🙂
“You do not need to live in Wallasey to sign it”
No you don’t – but unless you have an imperialist mindset who the electorate want to have as their MP is their business not yours – last time they voted they wanted Angela Eagle, and my guess is they still do.
All traitors should be opposed. There is only one (up to now) who has thrown her hat into the ring. I will vote for Steve McCabe if Jeremy Corbyn is the leader (and I have emailed him to say so).
But the electorate don’t decide who the MP will be. The PLP does (still).
http://demo60.going1up.com/Content/FEATURES/Party-Planner/Article/How-PLP-candidate-selection-process-works/60/1124/54340
Your link’s about bloody Bermuda!
It’s as near as I’ll be getting to an offshore haven. But it’s often easier to find details of UK politics in such places: ifacts are rather more important to investors than journalists.
Your link’s about the Bermuda Progressive Labour Party!
“The changes were backed by former PLP chairman David Burt, now a Senator, who said last year: “The branches should have the final decision on who stands for the PLP in their constituency.””
You ever heard of a UK Labour party chairman becoming a Senator before??
O f##k. You are absolutely right. Hand me the mess Webley, please.
Fuck, I give up. The lefties on here don’t seem to have any inkling with regard to what this is all about:
Britain is a colony of America, and we’re about to be taken into yet another major war; this time with Russia.
I.m sure the dumb/propaganda fucks like Habba will explain why we have to go to war with Russia, and I have to ask if people are stupid enough to believe such crass propaganda.
Rob mate you have not got the hang of this warmongering. The yanks go to war with nations that have little in the way of self defence. This is in line with their traditions of killing them thar red injuns. Russia has teeth and can bite back, in fact bite back pretty nasty to boot. However that does not mean that they will not give up on trying to find supper destructive first strike weapons to annihilate the Russians in the first few seconds of a first strike scenario.
The paradox of course is, the yanks themselves could be blown to kingdom come with their own creation, but that somehow does not concern them.
We Americans just exhibited that kind of foolishness with the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s computers. We let the genie out of the bottle, when we are far more vulnerable to cyberattack, because we depend more on cybersystems.
True, very true, but as you know there is no part number for common sense in US. Hence the results of the immense shortage of such an attribute; Stuxnet only helped to accelerate the development of the Iranians’ second generation centrifuges. As well as wholly undermining the Siemens PLCs market share.
Less said about the out of bottle genie, as you say,
” The paradox of course is, the yanks themselves could be blown to kingdom come with their own creation, but that somehow does not concern them”
Fed Up is correct, war with Russia would indeed be a bad idea – The End of All Ideas – for a Long time
As this Open letter From Russians living in the USA says ..
” But we—knowing both Russian history and the current state of Russian society and the Russian military, cannot swallow these lies. We now feel that it is our duty, as Russians living in the US, to warn the American people that they are being lied to, and to tell them the truth. And the truth is simply this:…
” If there is going to be a war with Russia, then the United States will most certainly be destroyed, and most of us will end up dead…
“Even if the entire Russian leadership is killed in a first strike, the so-called “Dead Hand” (the “Perimetr” system) will automatically launch enough nukes to wipe the USA off the political map. We feel that it is our duty to do all we can to prevent such a catastrophe.
Evgenia Gurevich, Ph.D.
Victor Katsap, PhD, Sr. Scientist
NuFlare Technology America, Inc.
Andrei Kozhev
Serge Lubomudrov
Dmitry Orlov
The Saker (A. Raevsky)
https://off-guardian.org/2016/06/04/open-letter-a-russian-warning/
Thanks for that BrianFujisan, this from der Spiegel on the Hawks who are currently making the running in NATO.
” the Danish NATO officer Jakob Larsen publicly suggested that “we need to learn to fight total war again.” Larsen commands NATO’s advance post in Lithuania and apparently isn’t aware that the last call for “total war” was made in Germany during the infamous 1943 speech delivered in a Berlin sports stadium by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Pause for Reflection
It is comments like those — which have gone largely unnoticed by the public at large — that recently led German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to warn against “saber-rattling and cries for war.” It was a comment reminiscent of the bon mot from former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, who once said that war is too important to be left to the generals. The intensity of the criticism Steinmeier received as a result of his comments shows the lack of willingness to pause for reflection and to seek perspective.”
It is sad to see that some could even contemplate to ‘learn to fight total war again’ when we still have thousands of messages to learn from past conflicts, is unbelievable. These warmongers should be forced into the front line so they can see what their learning process entails, for those few minutes they are still alive.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-efforts-to-boost-force-in-baltics-will-not-boost-security-a-1102578.html
Corbyn better watch his back. As somebody says in Oliver Stone’s JFK: “These [people behind the assassination] are serious f***ing people.”
Please discover the scroll bar of failing that a sense of humour.
‘little serious political comment going on this evening’
Oh yea? How about the Labour Whips threatening to resign?
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/688828/Jeremy-Corbyn-vote-NEC-ballot-paper-Labour-leadership-challenge
Cameron’s last gasps for Trident..
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/12/cameron-pushes-for-trident-and-life-chances-plan-at-last-cabinet-meeting
That must be breaking the rules Lysias. Remember the Bolsheviks-Mensheviks division when the Bolsheviks stole power at a time when the (Jewish) Mensheviks were involved in religious worship or involvements. I think today that could easily be overthrown as a non-starter.
What is more under the changes introduced by Ed Miliband, as I understand them, you do not need to be a Labour Party member to support Labour. He introduced this to raise money. That money is the money of those of us who supported Corbyn. But, if it is true it shows the murky depths to which these creatures can sink. Names anyone?
Don’t know what’s happening with comments.
As to Cameron’s last gasps for Trident there are serious questions needing to be asked about the nuclear weapons stolen from South Africa which Cameron knows about. My suspicion is they went to Israel.
“Len McCluskey, has opened up a £2.00 registered supporters scheme with Unite Community. Meaning to be a Registered Supporter you don’t have to pay £25.00 and if you joined the Party after January 12th you can vote. Len McCluskey, has opened up a £2.00 registered supporters scheme with Unite Community. Meaning to be a Registered Supporter you don’t have to pay £25.00 and if you joined the Party after January 12th you can still vote” (Shar Matsell, Facebook)
https://www.unitetheunion.org/…/your-party-your-voice/
Please make any impecunious Trots you know aware of this.
Just noticed the repetition – sorry. J
Does the little matter of agreeing with the Party’s aims and values – but of course that doesn’t really worry you and your friends for whom the ends justify the means
According to Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter, Robert Peston reported that, at the end of the NEC meeting, after Corbyn and two of his supporters had left the meeting, those remaining voted that those who have joined the Labour Party in the last six months cannot vote in the leadership election.
Well, if he’s right. I doubt very much that such a vote will be valid. You don’t allow people to leave and then vote on something in their absence which they knew nothing about.
Greenwald says it shows the chicken coup plotters’ desperation.
Astounding, isn’t it? “I joined the party because I could see that the PLP was determined to throw Corbyn out, and I thought it was important that he stays leader and has a chance to become Prime Minister.” “Oh, no, that’s not a valid reason for joining. We don’t want lefty scumbags like you in the party. Out.”
I see rumours on line that some former Shadow Cabinet and front bench members, bullied into resigning by hard case Blairites or caught up in the excitement, are thinking the matter out again.
De selection committees springing up around the land can only but help to concentrate the minds of the free loading opportunists
This vague explanation suggests that Corbyn wasn’t allowed to be present during those votes.
scroll down to 23.20 at this link :
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/live-jeremy-corbyn-will-automatically-8406188
Disenfranchising the unemployed and the low earners seems to be the name of the game for the cretins in power. The sum of three pounds made it more accessible to the demography that needs the Labour party for their very survival (literally) given the food banks and the poverty inspection and verification agency ie the social services role in providing the stamped passports to the relevant food bank for three times only.
The times reporter sneering the paltry sum for the voters and then of course there is the disenfranchisement of those whom have joined the party from voting, is there any other obstacles the red Tories can think of next? This saga is turning more and more into the Aladdin’s adventures and the quests thereof!!!!
It really is astonishing. This is to change the rules half way through the contest. And to do so without consulting either the Constituencies- it would have been very easy to poll the Executives- or the candidates.
Clearly the whole point of asking supporters to pay a small, nominal, fee was to encourage the most disenfranchised and victimised to take part in a contest that will be crucial to their futures. Raising the fee to twenty five pounds tells us- and the voters- all they need to know about the anti-Corbyn forces. It is their Marie Antoinette moment.
Now is the time for the CLPs to get involved: to censure the plotters in the PLP, to censure the NEC for this rule change and to censure the General Secretary who should resign.
They did that? Raised the fee to £25?
This shows their true colours. How much money are you willing to pay to buy a proportion of our democracy?
The EU lost its soul over what it did to Greece. That’s when they lost my vote. Anyone wanting to dismiss such disgust as “racism” is not facing up to the facts, frankly.
Now the Labour Party is having its own arbitrary, self-generated crises generated from the same war-mongering Red Tories who brought the Iraq war, “austerity”, not to mention abandonment and sneering contempt for the working class – the only people who actually generate the wealth upon which finance is built.
If the disastrous “New Labour” dead-enders want to destroy the Labour movement as an opposition to the investor class, they could not be doing a better job.
Shame on them all. Class traitors, every one.
That must be breaking the rules Lysias. Remember the Bolsheviks-Mensheviks division when the Bolsheviks stole power at a time when the (Jewish) Mensheviks were involved in religious worship or involvements. I think today that could easily be overthrown as a non-starter.
What is more under the changes introduced by Ed Miliband, as I understand them, you do not need to be a Labour Party member to support Labour. He introduced this to raise money. That money is the money of those of us who supported Corbyn. But, if it is true it shows the murky depths to which these creatures can sink. Names anyone?
“Remember the Bolsheviks-Mensheviks division when the Bolsheviks stole power at a time when the (Jewish) Mensheviks were involved in religious worship or involvements….”
What does this mean, John?
A bit of licence Bevin from a former lecturer who had a sarcastic bent. The real split in the party came at the beginning of 1912 in Prague when there were only fourteen voting delegates (twelve of them Bolsheviks). It unconstitutionally appointed ‘a new central committee. . . including Lenin’. As E. H. Carr put it “Henceforth the Bolsheviks were no longer a faction within the party, but the party itself”. Source: The Bolshevik Revolution, Pelican paperback, vol 1, 75).
Thank you for answering.
That Bolshevik Central Committee to which you refer did, as I recollect it, some very peculiar things and appears to have been riddled with precisely those agents that Lenin’s cunning Democratic Centralism was designed to guard against.
It was an aspect of William Cobbett’s great wisdom that he advised radicals to steer well clear of organisations which were not perfectly open. He realised this after seeing the ease with which the spies and provocateurs betrayed the Luddites.
Something else that Glenn Greenwald retweets:
Yes thanks. I’ll laugh myself to sleep on that one.
Whether you love or hate Corbyn, he’s still the leader of the Labour Party; and there’s much, much more to all this.
But I’m going to bed.
The good thing about Corbyn is his very existence is not merely a thorn in that class of insincere professional Blairites, but a torch which reminds us of who they are. If you are a socialist then Corbyn is your guard. If you are a tory, who reasons of hypocrisy or social upbringing do not fit in at the conservative party then remove him and install a Blairite leader.
Is that too cynical?
Labour leadership: Owen Smith intends to run in contest
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36780715
The Pontypridd MP, who resigned as shadow work and pensions secretary last month, will join Angela Eagle in challenging Jeremy Corbyn.
On Tuesday, Labour’s National Executive Committee ruled Mr Corbyn should automatically be included in the contest – a decision Mr Smith supports.
Opponents of Mr Corbyn argued he needed the support of 51 MPs or MEPs to stand.
However, the NEC voted 18-14 in favour of the Labour leader’s inclusion on the ballot, following hours of talks.
Mr Smith will announce his intention to stand once he has spoken to Labour members in his south Wales constituency.
Smith was named as a potential contender in the 2015 Labour leadership election to replace Ed Miliband.[7] Ultimately, nothing came of this.
On 14 September 2015, he was named as the new Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.
On 9 January 2016, he voiced an interest in eventually standing for Labour Leadership, saying it would be an “incredible honour and privilege” to do the job.
On 27 June 2016, in the mass resignations from the Labour benches following the Leave vote in the EU membership referendum, he announced he was stepping down as the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Smith resigned over concerns about the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, saying “It breaks my heart to say I cannot see how he can continue as leader.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Smith_(politician)
His constituency is fairly close to that of Stephen Kinnock,
are they compadres?
Owen Smith does have one good point I wad hitherto unaware of and so I shall investigate further.
UNITED KINGDOM INDEPENDENT PARTY
leadership contenders can now throw their hats in the ring to replace Nigel Farage after nominations opened on Monday.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/688739/Ukip-leadership-election-how-contest-work-when-new-leader-elected-Nigel-Farage-replaced
Mr Farage stepped down as the leader of Ukip this month after helping to lead the Brexit campaign to victory in the historic EU referendum.
A leadership contest is now under way replace the outspoken household name who has transformed the Ukip party over last decade.
I wish Nigel Farage a happy retirement,
even if he never achieves another thing in his life
he has done the country proud.
We will soon be unshackled from the drowning corpse of the hated E.U.
Craig’s blog is definitely the diamond mine of the securocrat world, essential reading for any spook/spookette/spookit – unless it already is banned/restricted/denied to only puppets & idiots like me.
I certainly view Craig as the goto “DanTDM” for more than average levels of truth but rather more concerned with rights & politics than video games & blockbusters, films & mass entertainment. . . whilst our attention is fleetingly captured by H O L L Y W O O D why not listen to some more on that annoying C H I L C O T report, but this time from a F A N T A S Y source – the screenwriter of a thriller . . .David Weisberg
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rock-screenwriter-cant-believe-uk-910173
So, it was all total and utter bullocks, watch out next for the deadly Sodium + Chlorine attack – where jihadi restaurants such as McD might cover children’s food with poisonous chemicals, such as NaCL, to make the chips tasty. . .
Dut, doo, dooo, doo, doo, right…
Bedroom Tax
Disability benefit cuts
NHS chaos
Libya misadventure
Tuition fees
#PigGate
Good riddance!
Voting for the invasion of Iraq
Continued war in Afghanistan.
3 year benefit sanctions, individuals in Britain even starving to death.
£1.56 trillion national debt (Q1 2015)
UK to leave EU and possibly split, 31 year drop in the pound, years of turmoil ahead, UK a laughing stock, and possibly its last moment of real influence in the world.
Incompetence in defence… including changing the design of aircraft carriers under construction, then changing it back again… having sold off the Harrier aircraft that could fly from them for almost nothing.
Then there’s what he didn’t. Crack down on tax avoidance etc… failure to protect British steel… failure to train British nurses… and a zillion other didn’t’s
Nearly forgot. Farage’s going to the US Republican Convention!
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/blog-summaries/287445-farage-will-attend-republican-convention
Won’t say who invited him, but he is aware that Trump is the candidate…
Owen Smith on Radio 4 this morning claimed to be against the Iraq war at the time. That is not consistent with what he said according to this 2006 (just updated) BBC article. In 2006 it was already clear Iraq was a disaster… yet he didn’t know how he would have voted. 2016 standing for leader – he now does know. He was against it.
“Owen Smith on…
The Iraq War
“We are making significant inroads in improving what is happening in Iraq.
“I thought at the time the tradition of the Labour Party and the tradition of left-wing engagement to remove dictators was a noble, valuable tradition, and one that in South Wales, from the Spanish Civil War onwards, we have recognised and played a part in.”
He didn’t know whether he would have voted against the war, as the previous MP Llew Smith did.”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/owen-smith-iraq-war-working-2338066
PS in favour of PFI too according to that.
Wiki sez:
In 2002 (Owen Smith) became a special adviser for Paul Murphy*, then the Secretary of State for Wales. He later followed Murphy to the Northern Ireland Office. From 2005 to 2008, he was Head of Policy and Government relations in Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals’ UK communications team, being paid by the company around £80,000 per year.[5]
Nightmare scenario: ” hey, didn’t that prime minister or whatever those limes call their puppets, once work for us? Tell him the NHS isn’t buying enough Naloxone ™ and ffs get on with privatizing (sic) it.”
*voted for Iraq war
A roundup of todays memes, Whilst C H I L C O T in his millions of words didn’t overtly mention our special forces contributing to the infamous Iraq Task Force Black (a.k.a. 88) at Joint Base Balad, Russia Today’s subtle propaganda does it for him: https://www.rt.com/uk/350768-sas-death-squad-chilcot/
with more background here, (it seems that some Hereford morals were outraged at the time) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_88_(anti-terrorist_unit)
it looks like there will be C H I L C O T revelations/contextual analyses for quite a while to come. . . .even the U.S.A. have stopped attacking whistleblowers (after a decade) http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/us/politics/thomas-tamm-nsa-wiretapping-law-license.html?_r=0
A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2016, on page A12 of the New York Times national edition with the headline: Deal Allows Whistle-Blower on N.S.A. Wiretaps to Keep Law License.
SO, Farewell Then Cameron, D. MA Oxon. . .contd P94
https://youtu.be/a83IzwDAyqg (Cameron retires, singing happy ditty “I’ve got a trust-fund”?)
perhaps the latest (short) video at the Indie sums up the Labour ‘chicken coup’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-john-mcdonnell-labour-rebels-coup-useless-defence-radio-4-today-a7134046.html
Your John Mcdonnell link, while being witty, won’t let me back to the blog on my back button. Anyone else?
Happens to me on
the Sun’s sitedisreputable populist fishwrapper sites I occasionally click by mistake. Cure, if forewarned, is to open in new tab and discard when read.Your post contains passing reference to one of the few who the British should take pride in.
http://sasspecialairservice.com/known-sas-men/ben-griffin/
Instead of being publicly recognized for his exemplary conduct and bravery he has instead been gagged by the British authorities, and remains a marginal figure. His story was of no interest to any of the eminent people tasked with inquiring into the depraved debacle that was Iraq.
I see Theresa May will soon write her ‘letters of last resort’ to the Trident commanders, instructing them whether to retaliate or not in the even of a nuclear attack. It seems crazy to let just one person decide this. They should hold a referendum.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has told the Chinese (PLA) the Peoples Liberation army to prepare for combat with its Asian neighbours over the Hague ruling, regarding seas in the region.
http://www.arirang.com/Mobile/News_Detail.asp?nseq=193264
“Theresa May’s husband is a senior executive at a $1.4tn investment fund that profits from tax avoiding companies”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-philip-may-amazon-starbucks-google-capital-group-philip-morris-a7133231.html
So it will come as no surprise that the new PM will undoubtedly look out for big business first and foremost, it will be in her and her husbands interests to do so.
“new PM will undoubtedly look out for big business first and foremost”
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
No shit!!!!
Last night I told you about this way ahead of the curve, and you were busy pontificating about the “democracy” and “Chinese don’t have a queen” and they cannot swear at their gubiment.
You should stop looking at such rubbish, Ros.
How could China expect a 200-mile exclusion zone around the Spratlis?
This is all Western propaganda as China only wamts to build up the islands as a counter to US Navy presence in case American confrontation results in war.
The Sounds of Monad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3789849251&feature=iv&src_vid=zWMydEmrr4Y&v=rdzA4sXc4p4
Media Lens has an excellent new alert on the Chilcot Report:
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/823-the-great-iraq-war-fraud.html
Well worth reading.
Regarding the situation in South Wales, for so long the heartland of the sort of politics that Corbyn represents it is very sad to see Labour Constituencies supporting Blairism. One of the problems is that Labour is so established in the country that actual control of the CLPs has often devolved onto careerists.
The same thing happened in Glasgow and we all know what happened there.
The choice in South Wales is not between Corbyn and his rivals but between Corbyn and the Plaid.
Rugby Football fans will understand what has happened to Labour in Wales because something very similar has happened to the Welsh Rugby Union, repeatedly in the past.
Bevin,
I was speaking to a former senior Labour Party member in Wales today seeing if I could get her to vote Corbyn, she won’t touch Labour with a bargepole and essentially states most are a bunch of bastards and the ordinary members just cower and follow whatever the Party line happens to be – if you look at election turnout its low in many of the once Labour safe seats, such is the Party’s contempt for us.
Still, having been unsuccessful in getting a vote as a full member of Labour, now joined the Coop Party, so get to vote as an affiliate, but cost me £44 quid thus far, God knows how my parents are going to be able to afford to vote, but the Labour Right love democracy, as long as its only at a GE and the sheep are voting Labour, after which ignored until next election – time for a change me thinks!
You wanna switch to UKIP
they are on the up.
It is the same pattern found in Scotland and, I suspect, to be found, too in the North of England. I knew, in the sixties of some CLPs which made it almost impossible for new people to join and were dominated by family cliques which shared out the municipal offices and invariably nominated professionals, barristers for example, as Parliamentary candidates. I knew one, who actually turned out years later to be quite left wing, who campaigned in poverty stricken council estates in his own new Jaguar.
The rot in the Labour Party has been there for a very long time, what has suddenly revealed it is that neo-liberalism, rather than mixed economy Butskellism, has become the ruling ideology so that the little cliques who run the local parties accept it the way that they always accept Establishment wisdom.
And neo-liberalism is not so much a precursor of fascism as a variant of it. Hence the contempt for the people (losers) and the cynicism about democracy.
The real news of yesterday was that 14 members of the NEC voted to keep Corbyn off the ballot, because they don’t like him, that is more than 40% were ready to do something unconscionable.
I hope that everyone saw the link to this piece that I posted a few days ago. The author, from Edinboro Pennsylvania- a beautifully smelling town in the highlands, is worth following:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/13/amazing-brexit-identity-and-class-politics/
Thanks for that Bevin! I like the part where it describe to a T exactly what Craig Murray keeps doing:
“Even more cynically, they divided the victims for public consumption into good guys (immigrants) and bad guys (the British working class), thus setting the liberal humanitarians howling at those crude, illiberal, and anti-immigrant workers. Brilliant societal mind fuck.”
Brilliant societal mind fuck is exactly what it is.
When he gave his speech outside No.10, Cameron’s children looked like street urchins under the care of Fagin, and SamCam had obviously handmade her dress out of the Downing Street curtains.
Cameron left the palace and 30 seconds later May arrived, wearing a dress that had also seemingly been made out of curtains; the fastest change-over of PMs that I’ve ever witnessed; and of course no mention of a general election.
As I type this, May is giving her speech outside No.10, and once again she’s spouting ‘vaguely socialist’ stuff. The sound of a big demo can be heard in the background.
They are absolutely terrified of Corbyn.
This horrendous creature called Theresa May has played a very large part in all of this…
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/un-declares-uk-s-austerity-policies-breach-international-human-rights