Marine LePen is an actual racist and fascist. Anybody arguing for her will be permanently banned from commenting on the blog. Fair warning.
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Tudor Law Theresa
First Strike Fallon
Rape Clause Ruth
Brexit Hard Boris
All those who are quite rightly criticising Ruth Davison’s defence of the rape clause might just want to extend their criticism to those regimes which allow rapists to avoid prosecution if they marry their victims – but I suspect that their moral relativism affliction may prevent them doing so.
Well done it was all turning a bit Molotov Ribbentrop around here. Worth noting how some of the apologists for Trump and Le Pen never raise a word of criticism for the current day funder of Le Pen (through his brother’s bank) and defender of Molotov Ribbentrop.
Mrs May is an actual racist and fascist. Why can’t anybody arguing for her be permanently banned from commenting on the blog. Fair question. Unlike Corbyn. whe has said nothing to ease the distress of the many millions of overseas workers and students who reside in the UK, or vice versa who reside or work in the EU.
I can’t see the difference between May and Le Pen. Can you?
This blog is just another Langley outfit.
The world is full of total traitors.
And let’s all go to war.
Oh, BS Rob. Trouble is, while you’re fretting about spooks peeping at you from behind every lamppost, you’re ignoring real problems. Langley outfit… give me a break. Craig Murray is real, so are a good number of the people here. I can actually vouch personally for some of them, but then – maybe I’m a spook too!
This just gets silly. Go back to your “Pizzagate” sources if you want some really crazy stuff. Look at some comments on YouTube. Get right into InfoWars once Jones has finished fending off a custody suit, besides answering charges concerning him physically threatening politicians, arguing that it’s all an act! He didn’t mean any of it, it’s just entertainment! He’s the one who started putting out the Pizzagate lie, btw, which you swallowed hook line and sinker.
So it’s rather tough to take your charges that this is “another Langley outfit” terribly seriously, particularly since you’ve been threatening us all with death almost every night for several years, and got scott free away with it.
glenn_uk
Rob does have valid point about spies .Crack this.
If you go down in the woods today
You’re sure of a big surprise
If you go down in the woods today
You’d better go in disguise!
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain
Because today’s the day the
Teddy Bears have their picnic
Shouldn’t “certain” and “Because” be on the same line?
It doesn’t scan very well otherwise.
The Forest of Dean in April is a nice time to go for a picnic.
Back already Rob?
Did the Tories not support the Fascists in Ukraine? Did they not employ faceless private companies to exclude the weakest in society from disability benefits? Did Boris Johnson not stand up for the terrorist co-ercers of the Muslim populations in Syria, Al Qaida , in parliament last month?
Tory, neo-con Fascism has got just six weeks to live.
Could someone please explain to me what Ms May has against Wales and the Welsh, first she goes on a small bloody walk in North Wales and has a revelation after communing with God to call a bloody election – which is insulting enough. Only to find today she’s allegedly visited Bridgend to meet with some of the Welsh electorate, who are actually banned from her gathering, which was for Conservative members only via special invite – probably many being bussed in from England. I wish she’d just leave us alone and stay in her bloody bunker, the one she’ll use after Hammond launches a nuclear first strike against God knows whom?
The foppish Hammond couldn’t launch a model boat on Hampstead pond let alone a nuclear weapon. It’s the personification of evil, Fallon, you mean. 😉
and Giyane. Boris has been sidelined for the duration I read on the BiBiCee website but the Heil are supporting him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4445462/Battle-Boris-poll-role.html
“Boris has been sidelined for the duration I read on the BiBiCee website but the Heil are supporting him.”
Just had thought. May’s appointment of Blob-Job Johnson was always a bit odd.Why would she want to be lumbered with the floppy haired loon in the Foreign Office .
It was difficult to see the strategy but now-with the election announced, it seems to make sense.
This suggests the plan was always to call the election-right from the moment that she became PM, and the period in office for the BoJo, would give him just enough rope to ‘hoist himself by his own retard(sic)’ due to his serial blunders. When May ascends, after the election, Bo Jo will be sidelined and neutralised, and offered some distant sinecure(or none). It all makes sense.
Sidelined and neutralised? As a replacement , can we have that guy Mr Tumble from kids TV?
Wondered who all those very old folk in the Beeb clip were. Has she talked about Triple-Lock with them? Bet she hasn’t. Did she meet them all on a Coach-Holiday? But yes-why on earth Wales?
I know the Progressive denial is at Peak stoopid, but is it possible your pride obstructs your evolution? It’s worth considering.
A couple of days away from this blog and this is what greets me on my return.
I have some sympathy with both Craig’s decision and his rationale with respect to the increasing number of anti-democratic comments, most of which can be traced to a few persistent sources.
On the other hand Le Pen is not, in my view, much worse than her opponent, who seems to me much closer to introducing the policies which lead to fascism, the crushing of working class living standards and the building, under the rubric of anti-terrorism, of a police system to deter resistance to high finance’s political wish list, than she would dream of being.
OffGuardian has a good intro:
https://off-guardian.org/2017/04/24/graun-celebrates-macrons-avowal-to-despoil-working-people-wreck-infrastructure-enrich-banking-class/
Much as I despise politicians such as Le Pen who consciously position themselves within the Petainist, Francoist, fascist neo-tradition, I value free discussion much more. I have seen little good coming from the “No Platforming” policies with which, in my youth and in the context of a post war anti-fascist consensus, I was happy to associate myself. Now I see the evils, in the ‘anti-semitism’ campaigns designed to insulate Israeli fascism from criticism and in the ‘liberal’ media’s campaigns to narrow the range of permissible debate to Tweedle Dee Centrism versus Tweedle Dum’s identical take.
On the sixties the problem might well have involved preserving the anti-fascist consensus to include anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism- successfully expanding the settlement of 1945 to finish the business of dispensing with Franco, Salazar, Apartheid and Jim Crow Segregation- excluding their proponents from the political pale. Today we face a very different enemy- fascism has crept back into the corridors of power wearing one of the expensive suits that so disgusted Macron’s critics.
The enemy today is centrist Totalitarianism which excludes not only the arguments but the facts which it fears from permissible debate.
I hold no brief for Le Pen but Macron looks like a much more dangerous enemy. And if the French working class agree with me and act accordingly-by abstention from a contest designed to disenfranchise them- I will not be surprised.
As to being banned- I have been banned from every discussion board that I ever joined and every party that I ever supported. And as to Le Pen’s ‘fascism’ and racism, in ideological terms it is much less pure than that of the Israeli Likudnik spectrum and in practical terms cannot be compared with the mindset of a state whose supporters set up grandstands to watch Gaza being shelled and bombed and whose actual policies offend the eyes and nostrils of humanity every day.
And yet Hasbara does at it pleases here.
I can’t agree that Macron is more a danger than Le Pen but I agree with you Bevin about the dangers of the undemocratic centre.
Have you read ‘The Extreme Centre – A Warning’ by Tariq Ali?
People forget that inside the Eurozone countries can’t print money for their currencies. It’s hard to see how even a banker like Macron can introduce the casino practices of Thatcherism. France must therefore have voted for him for his foreign policy, macro-French neo-colonialism. France is highly regarded for its engineering skills in the Middle East and Africa, in places where the penny has finally dropped that USUKIS’ main policy is to destroy.
I’m entirely happy for Macron to be President. One day the penny will drop on the neo-cons, too late, that people in foreign countries do not like terror and destruction being forced on them by USUKIS, first world countries.
Boris Johnson hasn’t got a hope in hell of getting business from anywhere in the world for the UK.
This Tory government is the last gasp of a last gasp of a thread-bare Thatcherite experiment that crashed in 2007. Roll on June 8. I look forward to hearing what Allah has written about the neo-cons and terrorist in the Qur’an recitations in Ramadhan. Then it’s going to be the biggest Eid , ever, to celebrate the end of them.
You are a complete troll and a prat if you don’t understand who Macron is.
You lot (GCHQ) really are going to be put up against a wall and shot.
We’re coming for you totally corrupt and treasonous vermin.
Craig seems to think I’m being extreme, but when WW3 kicks off he might think otherwise.
Well stop blustering, and get it over with – you’ve been saying this for SIX YEARS!!!
Not six years, glenn_uk, more like three, I think.
So what would you do? (apart from keep voting for these a-holes)
What would I do? Tough question. I suppose the best thing is to live our lives as well as we can, try to stay informed as much as we can stand it, vote the right way (given our limited options), and understand there’s damned little we can actually do about The Establishment.
Resist the consumerist BS as much as possible, and simply try to lead a decent, worthwhile life. Heck, it’s all inconsequential in the long term anyway.
Sorry I don’t have a better answer than that.
No I haven’t read the book, but thank you for the recommendation.
This is from As’ad AbuKhalil of the Angry Arab blog:
“I am opposed to leftist participation in muzzling freedom of speech on college campuses. Remember that the game can turn around. Leftists and progressives are far more likely to suffer from repression than rightist. I have always been of the view that rightist and racist speakers should be allowed to speak–and should be ignored by progressives. Of course, they can be protested but not muzzled. ”
I agree with him. I remember in the early sixties joining a group called The League of David (or something like that) and calling for a ban on anti-semitic speech. Old hands from the Anarchist movements and old Socialists (one of them a Glaswegian called John Sullivan) warned me that any abridgement of free speech , in capitalist society, would be against the interests of the working class. They were right.
Craig however approaches things from a very different direction.
“Craig however approaches things from a very different direction.”
You can say that again Bevin, essentially, and given his propensity to laud the EU, evidently we must all ignore the economic carnage inflicted by the twin evils of globalisation and monetary straightjacket of the Euro, which is itself but an extension of the Maastricht Treaty and European Monetary Union, which incorporates the Growth & Stability Pact, that ensures neither growth, or stability, as attested to by events in France currently – and elsewhere since the advent of the Great Financial Crisis.
Of course, by ignoring the fact that the Lisbon Treaty is one of the biggest neoliberal Accords in place, one that cements neoliberal economic proscriptions across the EU members states – we are but to ignore this fact and rejoice, rejoice at the economic carnage it has struck across much of Europe – alas, in CMs view the Euro is a great success, which is funny, because even many of those who informed the Euro, such as Otmar Issing, together with Jurgen Stark recognise its a bit of a disaster – these being two senior German Central Bankers and economists, who also happened to inhabit the highest echelons of the ECB itself.
Of course, by pointing out continually that it’s the economic trajectory that the EU and its member states have embarked upon that’s ripping it apart and feeding the advent of political extremes, this must be ignored, lest we be accused of offering support to fascists. Indeed, we must know our place and not question, we must genuflect to those who know better, such as out Blog host, and vote accordingly.
The fact remains, its now the Libruls who threaten freedom of speech, epitomised by ‘safe zones’ in Universities and the banning of anyone and anything that challenges the Libruls sensibilities, but it is we allegedly who are feeding and supporting fascism – I don’t think so, but I’m just an old git of the Left who pines for a decent world for our kids, not the barbarism and debt slavery we have today – hence, I shall campaign in our own election for a Labour government, one of an actual Left-of-Centre bent to forestall our own nations decent into fascism, ushered in by neoliberals epitomised by Blair, Cameron and May.
George Mosse, a true victim of the Nazis who had to flee Germany for the U S. after his Jewish family’s newspaper empire was confiscated, wrote in his book “The Fascist Revolution” that fascism was a totalitarianism of the center.
I read that fascism is supported most by the middle classes, who in times of economic uncertainty fear that losing their jobs means not only a decline in their income, but brings with it a drop in social status and they become working class; then they become poor. In the ’20s as Hitler’s party gained support across Germany most members naturally came from the working classes because there were more working class, but when shown as a percentage the middle classes were dominant.
Reel guid
Dear old Tariq has been issuing warnings about various things ever since he was a (well-off) fiery revolutionary at Oxford.
As I have remarked before, not a single one of them was born out by actual developments.
bevin, you won’t get much traction here.
Where all views are now banned unless they follow the neo-con agenda.
It’s all a total joke, of course, and all these criminals will be held to account, but in the meantime the sane amongst us have to try and prevent World War Three.
bevin
” the mindset of a state whose supporters set up grandstands to watch Gaza being shelled and bombed and whose actual policies offend the eyes and nostrils of humanity every day.”
THE NOSTRIL’s … Like the Sick barbecue some members of the far right party National Union held outside the Ofer Prison to the west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank where hunger Strikers are kept, they even had a huge fan to blow the smell of cooking in the hunger strikers direction.
It takes a certain sickness of the mind to come up with ideas like that.
One has to appreciate the humanity of your victims to understand what would be most damaging and hurtful. Recognising this humanity fully, they then exploit it in the most inhumane manner.
Unbelievable.
Nice thoughts / words Glen
if they go to that effort for a BBQ… To enjoy the food all the more, Knowing why the were there.
so much of humanity is Fugazi these days ..
Thank goodness for the outdoors, Forest Bluebells. The Atlantic, the Arts..Music. AND Youtube…..And not forgetting Women..And the wee yins… OH and Wee MESSI
Indeed Brian, and thanks. You’re right about the outdoors… Rob was asking “What’s the answer?”
Damned if I know. Try to live decently, and as fully as possible while causing the least damage, without hurting anyone or anything as much as you can avoid it, I suppose.
Go veggie too! That’s certainly a solid move in the right direction.
Interesting post. Who should we be more scared of the wolf who looks like a wolf, or Little Rd Riding Hood’s wolf who looks like nice old granny? Both. If we blindly censor then what chance do we have of recognising the disguised wolf?
Times cartoon yesterday had a French Cockrell crowing ” Cock a double doo doo” with Macron and Le Pen emerging from their hatched eggs.
Interesting post Bevin 23.38.
Bevs
“As to being banned- I have been banned from every discussion board that I ever joined and every party that I ever supported.”
__________________________
Perhaps that says more about you than about all those discussion boards and parties?
It’s a bit like the old “everyone’s mad except me” isn’t it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“And yet Hasbara does at it pleases here.”
_________________________
And of course you just have to round off your screed with the usual poke against Israel……..
Could you Mr. Habbabkuk, explain to me why Israel thinks it has a right to take and colonize The Golan?
I will tell you if you first tell me the nature of your particular interest in the Golan.
Well, perhaps the conquest by Israel of The Goland, was the first stage of the Syrian “civil” war
recently Israel has been bombing and shelling Syria from The Golan.
In the same way as the Syrians – who are still officially at war with Israel – used to shell Israeli farms and settlements from the Golan, you mean?
There’s your answer 🙂
What answer? “Might is right” or “two wrongs make a right” ?
Please explain.
Bevin, you say “Le Pen is not, in my view, much worse than her opponent” but then continue “but Macron looks like a much more dangerous enemy”. Which is it?
Macron will be receive support for his programs from the holders of capital at home and abroad. Le Pen is more unpleasant, but like Trump, even if elected she is unlikely to be able to change the status quo.
Thanks, Stu, for replying for Bevin, who is no doubt busy elsewhere. (But as Macron said to Le Pen during their televised debate, “he doesn’t need a ventriloquist”.)
Bevin Is clearly saying that Le Pen is a much less dangerous enemy than Macron.
Which is therefore his argument in favour of the FN.
J’accuse !
Bevin,
I accept your point that neo-liberalism has created the conditions that lead to fascism. But LePen is the fascist it leads to. So your argument that Macron is preferable to LePen is nonsense.
You however appear to be arguing at base that fascism is preferable to neo-liberalism as it is better for the working class. Is that your argument Bevin? Because if it is, you can fuck off and not come back.
You meant, “So your argument that LePen is preferable to Macron is nonsense.” … I think
Bevin’s argument is “Macron is preferable to Le Pen is preferable to Macron”.
I like Craig’s revised spelling: LePen with no space = no space for Le Pen.
Provide no oxygen for fascists. Looking forward to Habbabuk being permanently banned. And Fred. And Norton. Et al.
Don’t forget Anon1 !
Name me one Fascist who wasn’t also a Nationalist.
Show me one nonce who didn’t also like children.
Or a sheep-shagger who didn’t also have an interest in sheep, for that matter.
Yes, all nonces like children, all sheep-shaggers have an interest in sheep and all Fascists are Nationalist.
That’s what I said, Fred… and don’t you forget it.
So someone who isn’t a Nationalist can’t be a Fascist.
Fred: “So someone who isn’t a Nationalist can’t be a Fascist.”
No. But that wasn’t the point of your original slur.
Just like someone with an interest in sheep isn’t necessarily a sheep-shagger, only people who have no interest in sheep are definitely not sheep-shaggers.
Do you have any interests in sheep, Fred?
You are telling me what the point of my post was?
You arrogant cunt.
Just who the fuck do you think you are?
Fred: “Just who the fuck do you think you are?”
I’m the person who just totally pwned you in that discussion there, Fred.
You tried to make your usual snide insinuation that nationalists are all fascists.
All you ended up proving – by your own logic – is that you well might be a sheep-shagger.
Try to take your defeats more gracefully, and I won’t be so harsh on you next time.
I have stayed out of this discussion, I don’t have much interest in French politics and I kept my opinions on banning people because you don’t agree with them to myself.
Then I see my name mentioned, I see I am being accused of being a Fascist and someone is looking forward to my being banned.
Now you can say what you like about Norton, Habbabkuk, Anon1, as how repulsive their politics might be they aren’t the ones trying to bully and intimidate me into not voicing my opinions.
It is you who is the bully, not them. It is you who is the thug.
Fred: “It is you who is the bully, not them. It is you who is the thug.”
Nope. It is you who tried to tie nationalists to fascists, as is your wont.
I just proved to you, using your very own logic, how stupid that position is.
After that, you tried to blow smoke with your usual belligerence, “cunt”, “retard” and so on, and so finally now you’re trying to play the victim.
It wasn’t me who started calling people Fascists and it wasn’t me calling for anyone to be banned.
You are the thug and you are the bully.
Liz Troll, Tory Home secretary today defended in Parliament her decision to allow the press to attack High Court judges over the legalities of excluding Parliament from voting on Brexit. She said, totally disingenuously because she did not like the top lawyers’ verdicts, that she valued the freedom of the press.
But she does not value the freedom of Scots to vote for Independence. This Tory election pamphlet, composed in a fit of intemperate rage by Mrs May, will very rapidly be the latest on this governments many U turns. The truth is that the only way this government can get a U turn on hard Brexit for its business supporters is to let Jeremy Corbyn do it. May is scared of her own pit bulls. It’s seems to me like a very rational decision to allow Corbyn to make the necessary changes. 5 years is a short time in politics, as the saying goes.
She’s a racist, no doubt. I’m not convinced she’s a fascist though. Fascists have never been the main element of the French far-right. Ever heard of Charles Maurras?
“Fascists have never been the main element of the French far-right.”
They haven’t? Most of them cheerfully pitched in with the Nazis when they got the chance!
I am not going to defend LePen but I worry that focusing on her as the “greatest evil” is missing the point somewhat. Her rehetoric, as others have pointed out, is more or less on par with May’s, if slightly more inflammatory and direct. That many who call themselves “left” are basically advocating a capitalism that is to the right of Reagan and Thatcher and cheer an imperialist foreign policy that involves invasion, “regime change” and murder is far more worrying than a few enthusiastic LePen supporters. It’s Mr. Murray’s blog and I I won’t try and change his mind but I am concerned about the left’s fondness for banning speech it doesn’t like…while missing the larger point.
As’ad AbuKhalil, who blogs under The Angry Arab News Service, posted this today (talking about US university campuses):
The Left and Free Speech
I am opposed to leftist participation in muzzling freedom of speech on college campuses. Remember that the game can turn around. Leftists and progressives are far more likely to suffer from repression than rightist. I have always been of the view that rightist and racist speakers should be allowed to speak–and should be ignored by progressives. Of couse, they can be protested but not muzzled.
I agree with him wholeheartedly on this. I would also add the left ought to ask itself why racist scapegoating is finding such a receptive audience in Europe and North America at this point in history. The mainstream Guardian “left” (IMO they are liberals NOT leftists but that’s what the media calls them) is downright obsessed with identity politics and there is a large contingent of these geniuses who seek to purge the ranks of actual leftists who argue that getting back to class issues and standing up for economic rights is hugely important if the left is to have any relevance…and that the neo-feudal economics pushed by the neoliberal establishment is the leading cause of bigotry’s rise in the first place. It is also relevant to ask why the neoliberal cabal is so fond of immigration and identity politics. Surely it’s not because of their great concern for people’s rights and wellbeing?
Right now the so-called left is worse than useless and wholly serves the establishment’s interests by endorsing the same policies as the right, minus the obsession with race and Islam. (Of course cheerleading for al-Qaeda and other ISIS-lite “rebel” groups in Syria is also stupid beyond belief…do these people do any critical thinking at all?) It pains me to say this but parts of the non-reactionary right have a better grasp of geopolitical reality than the liberals that pass for “left” these days. Leftists who “get it” are few and far between.
If things continue as they are now, the neoliberal globalist phony “left” and the Trumpian neocons will undermine and destroy any semblance of national sovereignty that still exists in the west, while invading Syria and Iran and killing thousands of people and destroying their countries in the process. As a bonus they may even gift us with a nuclear war.
Corbyn and Labour, assuming they win, which is far from certain, will get the Trump treatment and a hysterical media painting them as Russian stooges etc. etc. They will have to fight hard. It looks like Macron and his establishment approved neoliberal wrecking crew will take France. If this does not worry you, something is wrong. The left needs to wake up and start punching back hard. Thank you for reading.
Very interesting post… welcome, and thanks.
It’s all propaganda rollocks.
There’s really no difference between May, Le Pen or Trump.
But we live in a total wacko-land that’s heading to the next world war.
The really frightening thing is that you get censored for stating the obvious.
Grow some balls, Craig.
Temporarily Sane,
If you had not notices, the Left, that’s the actual Left and not ‘faux Left’ epitomised by Blair, has been trying to set out issues in a sane and sensible manner, namely by objecting to the Blog hosts command that no dialogue concerning Le Pen, unless it’s berating her, will be tolerated, indeed, those trying to examine and comment on her rise, are threatened with banishment for such heresy as questioning how the hell we have got to such a predicament within the French body politic, and by extension, the European body politic – of course, I tend to look at matters via economics, which to me explain a great deal of what is occurring presently, which as you can presume, I equate to the policies of a madhouse. However, the Host seems not to like some home truths delivered on his beloved EU, lest we get accused of not only being racists, but now fascists too.
Car accidents are killing her people, smoking cigarettes and eating too much sugar is killing her people. All in far greater numbers than murderous immigrant Islamists. It’s not racist to state facts. It is racist to distort those facts to justify discriminatory practices and further your own hate-fuelled political agenda. All this can be said without in any way sympathising with the also hate-fuelled murderous Islamists who obviously do exist as a fact.
“Fair Warning”? Or virtue-signalling? I must say, I’m disappointed Craig.
A few on this blog got little sleep last night.
Hope Jeremy did. It’s the last PMQs today. Hope he roasts and toasts her. She who must be obeyed will be in robotic mood. I wonder if she’s regretting her decision to call the election.
mode not mood
Thus if I was french I wouldnt be voting. It’s a rerun of Clinton Trump.with uncanny parallels in the way Macron popped up out of the socialists after Hamon was chosen by a primary. The party hierarchy effectively dumped him in favour of the bright Establishment friendly choice of fine slogans and worrying neoliberal pedigree. Now the media are spruiking him for all he’s worth as vociferously as they are slagging Corbyn.
Although I used to read Zero Hedge for an alternate view albeit obviously oro Russian, but it could be interesting. Post Trump it started to look less dissident and more loyal lacky. Anyway, it has an interesting post on how Macron was manufactured. Worth reading. Would be Interested to read a critique ripping it apart, but I suspect something in it.
Le Pen may be trying to look less extreme than her father and party, but she us not such a master as Farage and we cab see the Wolf.
With Macron on the other hand, as Habba has correctly pointed out he comes across as Tony Blair once did. Young and a force for change.
Is there a mould. The mould that once made Tony Blair and Obama has it now made Macron (With apologies to Max Boyce).
A small point. You are right that H was asking people if they thought Macron was another Blair as many others here and elsewhere have done. The quote ‘More Blair than Blair’ came from Off Guardian in reply to a Guardian puff piece.
‘Sharp Ears
April 24, 2017 at 21:30
Graun celebrates Macron’s avowal to despoil working people, wreck infrastructure and enrich banking class
https://off-guardian.org/2017/04/24/graun-celebrates-macrons-avowal-to-despoil-working-people-wreck-infrastructure-enrich-banking-class
‘Macron is more Obama than Obama. More Blair than Blair. A creation, groomed and glossed for this “spontaneous” bid for power by the banking class he unashamedly represents.’
Thanks Mary. Excuse all my typos above.
Yes, Macron is a manufactured as was OBOMBA
and look where that had taken us.
BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB
I’m surprised & disappointed by your intolerance to others views, Craig.
I won’t be returning.
Derek – I’m no fan of le Pen (or most other politicians for that matter) but I was troubled by Mr. Murray’s stance on free speech too. If we’re not to read discussions of fascism then it’s going to be pretty thin stuff from now on, especially if we define fascism like Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”. There are those who could reasonably argue, with some merit, that Britain today qualifies under that definition.
Craig never forbade discussions of fascism. He said expressions of approval for Le Pen aren’t going to be allowed.
Also interesting to consider family history of Bollore (Bollore Group) and career of Vincent Bollore. Is there a full history. How did Rothschilds take it over in the 70s? Why did they sell it back to Vincent, who trained with the bank, for one franc?
Vincent – yet another ex Rothschild employee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Bollor%C3%A9
The company Bouygues, referred to in that entry, are making inroads into OUR NHS. Operatives wearing their livery are employed in my local district general hospital for instance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouygues
Keep turning over the stones and there is Rothschild.
Georges Pompidou changed career to work for Rothschilds for a few years (1953/4 to 1958) before becoming President De Gaulle’s chef de cabinet.
I am less certain than some on here that one can draw conclusions from the fact that some public figures have been Rothschild employees.
Nearly one quarter of France is banned from this blog – Wow!
Indeed. And I guess in the 1930s a great deal of Italy, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Romania etc would have got banned from it. Dreadful, isn’t it.
Without debate, how do you change people’s opinions? I don’t believe 25% of France is racist. If these people are backing Le Pen, it’s because their politicians have failed them.
Aah, now that is the foolish romanticism of the left. There is a huge amount of racism abroad in the general populace in both France and the UK. Why, is of course an interesting question. It has been deliberately fomented and encouraged by the powerful to distract from their looting of the economy. But to deny that large masses of people can indeed become racist is very foolish.
The rise of AfD, Le Pen, Wilders etc. is being aided by this kind of attitude. It’s also killing off free speech. As soon as certain topics are mentioned labels are applied and censorship begins. If people can become racist then presumably that can be reversed.
Indeed it can Soothmoother. The good news is that I see very few young people reaching for race as an explanation for their circumstances. Very few indeed.
I have had a few conversations in the last year or two, mostly young men from the more run down estates where I live, who have volunteered race or at least immigration based explanations for their problems. The degree of racism seems very surface level and interestingly, learned from the internet, although supported by certain influential people they actually know but not in any way ingrained and very responsive to countering with fact, context and argument.
By contrast I think back to growing up in Salford and Lancashire in the seventies, where the racism was automatic, casual but ingrained and less amenable to reason or discussion, at least in the climate of general poverty we had then.
My sense is that most if not all of the voluble racism is deliberately stoked way above the strata at which it becomes visible, perhaps precisely to prevent the middle classes, people exactly like Craig, reaching out to their natural allies among the working class. Divide and rule. Divide and rule. Craig has to admit, as barriers go, it’s working like a charm.
“There is a huge amount of racism abroad in the general populace in both France and the UK.”
Can you support that statement with any evidence? (assuming, when you say “racism”, you don’t actually mean xenophobia?)
I don’t have any problem with this ‘warning,’ but I don’t understand why it isn’t applied to most other politicians as well. I suppose it is simply because they are less vocal and keep their ‘hate crimes’ to themselves, or manage them in much subtler ways?
(J)Esther Mc Vey, the Conservative woman who designed and implemented the bedroom tax and the ghastly disability benefit cuts is going to run in George osborne’s constituency she said. She has toned down her eternal wish to become PM of late but she just can’t keep her trap shut.
Does she not know that this seat is to be abolished by the latest boundary commission changes proposed? or will the Tory cheats just leave this one unchanged? just overlook it, so easy when party political piracy rules the roost.
The Conservatives are cheats and should have never been in power, theoretically the CPS should charge all those cheats the day after the election if the Conservative cheats are not able to police their own rogues, top to bottom.
This election is the moment were we can tell people about Elliott Johnson, a young man with a great future who was bullied to take his own life after giving his all for the Tory election cheats.
Oh dear. Craig, I have never commented before on your blog although I read it most days. Your post today about LePen made me do it! Isn’t there still such a thing as free speech? Isn’t crushing dissent one of the things you campaign against?
I am not denying anyone free speech. The internet is an almost infinite available space. I do not want supporters of fascism on my blog any more than I would want them in my home. I am sorry if you do not like it.
Can I have this month’s award for most innocuous deleted comment, please?
Now I understand. It takes me a while sometimes … I blame old age and senility in the certain knowledge that this is no excuse whatsoever.
Racists and fascists are, indeed, among the least lovely of our species, but the ones who annoy me the most are not the ones who wear their appalling beliefs on their sleeves, as it were, they are easy to spot and to deal with – it is the ones who cloak their racism and fascism with weasel words and apparent reasonableness. These people are the truly dangerous ones.
‘Marine LePen is an actual racist and fascist. Anybody arguing for her will be permanently banned from commenting on the blog. Fair warning.’
Bigoted – obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, and intolerant towards other people’s beliefs and practices.
Am I banned now?
No. As I very clearly stated, expressing support for Marine LePen, who is a fascist, will get you banned. Calling me a bigot is perfectly OK.
Fair does. It is your blog with your rules. Applies to everyone who wants to use it.
Which in my case certainly raises a question. Suppressing issues of this kind makes them worse, not better.
Election 2017: Could this be Angus Robertson’s last PMQs?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39716979
The Conservatives intend to decapitate Angus
I certainly couldn’t support Le Pen. If you actually look at her policies they are very left-wing. She’ll be picking up a lot of Melenchon votes in the second round.
Careful, Anon. Pointing out that her policies include leftwing ones could be construed as support here.
Agreed Ba\’al, she has the only ‘left wing’ policies in the French election at this point among her other so called ‘right wing’ policies. As I pointed out, the National Socialists used the same trick.
Which is precisely why the ‘left’ should occupy the ‘left’ fully and unapologetically to deny the real racists like Le Pen any fertile ground. We’ve seen these dynamics before. We know how it ends. We also know what to do about it, and yet sadly here we are.
Couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, the first requisite for recapturing the allegiance of traditionally Left voters from the fascist tendency is to realise that the left has no remedy for the issues that caused them to switch. It’s paralysed by PC, denies the existence of actual social problems, and is unable in the last resort to agree with the far-right that globalisation is simply systematic economic enslavement. I fail to see how the left can gain any credibility if it doesn’t retain its original (Jarrow rather than Islington) principles -some of which may even be genuinely held by the far-right too. And it needs to support them.
In a nutshell…
Left: I love cuddly bunnies
Right: I’m quite sympathetic to cuddly bunnies. Before I use them as bait to catch Komodo dragons
Left That’s evil. Komodo dragons ought to be vegans. They must be taught not to eat cuddly bunnies. And I’m never talking to you again.
Baal,
Of course mentioning Leftwing interventionist economic prescriptions as an alternative to neoliberalism on steroids may get one BANNED on the Blog, however, I would like to point out that these were the very policies that Melenchon campaigned on and these were the very policies ignored by the MSM as first they ignored Melenchon, and then as with Corbyn derided him. The fact remains, whilst the old ‘faux socialist’ political groupings in Europe are imploding, new actual Leftwing groups untarnished by neoliberalism are emerging and the young are flocking to these groups – Melenchon Polled 30% of the 18-24 year olds, whilst Sanders too Polled well with the younger vote – Corbyn too seems popular with our youth in the UK.
So, whilst hope exists that the Left, that’s the actual left and not neoliberal Left, can get its house in order and offer and own all Leftwing socioeconomic policies, for now, its the Right that has the advantage – the Dutch election being a disaster for the Left and Centre and a feast for the Right – something CM fails to want to note.
Further, and staying with who owns ‘interventionist national economic prescriptions’, the latest Polling of Melenchon’s supporters does not augur well for Macron with only one in eight Melenchon voters moving towards the Macron camp, which again highlights what Mark Blyth has been stating for the past three months, namely, those who voted for Melenchon or any actual Leftwing candidate are unlikely to move to Macron’s camp – whether they stay at home, or move elsewhere is a moot point, particularly with the host of this Blog – but to deny actualities because we as observers don’t like them is a highly dangerous and counter-productive move in my opinion.
Chris Rogers,
You persist in deliberately lying and misrepresenting me. I have in no way objected to people arguing against neoliberal economics, nor from supporting Melenchon. What I have banned is people supporting racism and fascism as an alternative to neoliberalism.
Baal,
All this leaves me in what areas, if any, you disagree with Marine LePen. Your coy crap about “the issues that caused them to switch” and “actual social problems” is code for adopting racism.
There is certainly hope to be had among the young voters. For which perhaps we should credit high house prices, insecure employment and formulaic politicians. We probably need a bit more of those in order for any meaningful backlash to emerge…suddenly voting Tory doesn’t seem such a terrible idea…:-)
All this leaves me in what areas, if any, you disagree with Marine LePen. Your coy crap about “the issues that caused them to switch” and “actual social problems” is code for adopting racism.
No it bloody isn’t. Why are natural leftwingers deserting in droves to racist parties? What can the Left do about it? Face the debate. It’s necessary. You can’t tell some poor bastard competing for a zero-hours contract in a warehouse with an economic migrant from God knows where, that he’s the villain, and that the system is absolutely right. Can you?
The villain is the billionaire owner of the warehouse. The villain is not the immigrant. The idea that the left has to adopt a racist narrative to succeed is as nonsensical as the idea that an economy is a fixed size with a fixed pool of jobs so immigrants drive down wages.
If immigration drove down wages, Germany and the USA would have the lowest standards of living in the world.
So where do you disagree with Marine LePen? You think the left should adopt her position on immigration. So where do you disagree?
The villain is the billionaire owner of the warehouse. Aha. So do you support the billionaire by facilitating his global scam to drive down wages and increase his profits? On unnecessary and resource-depleting goods?
So where do you disagree with Marine LePen? You think the left should adopt her position on immigration. So where do you disagree?…etc.
Where do you disagree with Tony Blair? Questions, questions. Where I disagree with Le Pen is pretty generally. Notably in that in authoritarian states, contrary opinions are suppressed. Ring any bells?
Craig,
You claim I’m “deliberately lying and misrepresenting you,” fair enough, however, its difficult to articulate any case whatsoever when you articulate forcefully and without the ability to question that Mme Le Pen is a fascist – to be blunt, and based on a large body of academic research within political science, the fact remains your definition of Le Pen as a fascist is somewhat erroneous, if not wholly incorrect. Of course, we are to go elsewhere and argue this point from an academic perspective – I can assure you that the Senior Vice Principle of the University of Edinburgh, one Prof. Charlie Jeffrey, would not agree with you, nor does this political scientist from Columbia University: http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/3/14154300/fascist-populist-trump-democracy
It’s your Blog, but you have opened it to the Commons, and if the Commons is not allowed to articulate, or at least criticise the Hosts point of view, what’s the point? Obviously, most Leftwing voters on this Blog would not vote for Mme Le Pen, much as they won’t vote for Ms May, but lets not ignore underlying issues, detailed in the Vox Article I’ve attached, that are actually contributing to persons voting for Le Pen, not all of which are based on racism or anti-immigration – and that applies as much too to all those who oppose the EU as it is presently constituted, of which I’m very much a critic.
Chris Rogers: “your definition of Le Pen as a fascist is somewhat erroneous, if not wholly incorrect”. Well, Orwell reckoned some time ago that the word had been so debased to mean simply a bully. It seems fair today to think that Le Pen has redefined its meaning, at least to anyone (like me) who has actually had a discussion with any Front national supporters. Hatred, xenophobia and violence are not surprisingly amongst their cherished beliefs. “Fascist: holding the same opinions as the FN.”
Iain,
We are not discussing those who align themselves with Mme Le Pen, rather we are discussing leaders and the platforms they are on – and to be blunt, many of those who aligned themselves with UKIP were very much NF/EDL types. The fact remains, and on courses that actually teach/instruct about Fascism at a HE level, the attribution does not fit all necessary criteria associated with the correct usage/meaning. Again, you may dislike these fact, but you’d score low marks in any exam if you could not counter with any accredited academic papers/books dealing with the matter – its correct to say that Le Pen is a Far-Right Populist, which mean’s our own PM is not too far behind her, unless of course you don’t remember the ‘Wagons of Hate’ patrolling London in the Summer of 2014 under her Departments instruction – Ms May of course being anti-immigrant, something she failed at.
Many Tories are leaving the Mandelslime/Blair construct, Open Britain.
Pro-EU Tories quit Open Britain over plans to oust Brexit-backing MPs
Nicky Morgan, Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve say it is ‘untenable’ for them to support successor organisation to remain campaign
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/25/pro-eu-tories-quit-open-britain-over-plans-to-oust-brexit-backing-mps
‘A group of pro-EU Conservatives have angrily cut their ties with the successor organisation to the remain campaign after it launched a push encouraging voters to unseat prominent pro-Brexit MPs, most of them Tories.
Nicky Morgan, Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve released a joint statement saying it was “untenable” for them to support Open Britain any more after the group released an “attack list” of MPs to target, including Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers, as well as Labour’s Kate Hoey.
Neil Carmichael, another Conservative who had supported Open Britain, was also reported to have withdrawn his support following the new election strategy, launched on Tuesday.’
There is so much trimming and tacking, they would make good sailors.
Fascist?
I suppose it takes one to know one!
Quote “Flora Cobb in Daily Express comments 23 03 2017
The SNP has a history and it’s not a pretty one.
If you look back to WW2, the name Arthur Donaldson, a very prominent member of the SNP, springs up.
Arthur Donaldson, was detained under the emergency powers regulations for his pro-Nazi sympathies. The object of Donaldson’s hat red were not Jews but Irish Catholics who had settled in Scotland.
He is on record as stating in 1941:
“We must, be able to show the German Government that we are organised and that we have a clear cut policy for the betterment of Scotland; that we have tried our best to persuade the English Government that we want Scottish Independence and that we are not in with them in this war.”
Arthur Donaldson was elected as Leader of the SNP in 1960 with his views intact.
Donaldson was succeeded as leader by one William Wolfe, who was later acknowledged to also be a fascist in a similar vein.
The SNP has taken great pains to distance themselves from these early leaders but, upon Wolfe’s death in 2010, Alex Salmond described him as..”incredibly influential in developing a social democratic ethos for the SNP in terms of its political identity.” Unquote
The English Tory government has been criticised for a lack of transparency over its decision to kill Briton Reyaad Khan with a drone strike in Syria in 2015.
An Intelligence and Security Committee inquiry into the incident says it was not allowed to see some key documents.
Committee chairman Dominic Grieve told the BBC killing someone outside normal legal process was “a serious issue”.
The government said showing the documents to the committee would have gone beyond agreed parameters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39718044
i had thought that the House of Commons had a debate /vote and decided against intervention in Syria, perhaps my memory id at fault?
Dominic Grieve would seem to be at odds with Blair/Brown/Cameron/May
maybe he will be deselected?
Grieve serves as the president of the Franco-British Society. He was awarded the Legion of Honour in 2016.
He broadcasts in French on French radio and television.
Grieve’s wealth is estimated at £3.1 million.
Grieve was criticised for investments in multinational companies with significant projects in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
Well we can but guess who Grieve supports in the French Presidential Election.
‘Committee chairman Dominic Grieve told the BBC killing someone outside normal legal process was “a serious issue”.’
Ask Mr Grieve Con Beaconsfield, CFoI, about Dr David Kelly and Gareth Williams to name two individuals who were murdered by this state.
I did not know that there was a ‘normal legal process’ for killing anybody. Jesus said ‘Thoui shalt not kill…’.
In case anyone doubts that the urbane ex Attorney General with the strangulated voice is a member of CFoI:
‘The Director of Public Prosecutions, a supposedly independent figure, is answerable through the Attorney General. The new Attorney General is Dominic Grieve. In 2007 he was in Israel with a Conservative Friends of Israel delegation. He spoke up for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit but his sense of justice apparently didn’t prompt him to mention the thousands of Palestinian civilians tortured and rotting in Israeli jails.
Grieve’s deputy is Solicitor General Edward Garnier. In February, while still in opposition but warming up for the general election, he and Kenneth Clarke visited Israel as delegates of Conservative Friends of Israel when they could (and should) have gone under a neutral parliamentary flag. They met with deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon and leader of the Opposition Livni. Ayalon is also on the wanted list but was able to visit London after receiving a letter from the Foreign Ministry promising he would be safe from arrest while in England.’
Israel’s Friends at Westminster
Jul 25 2010
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/israels-friends-at-westminster/
An application was made in the High Court for a judicial review of Grieve’s decision as Attorney General not to grant an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. The judge turned it down. 2011 from memory. Dr Kelly could not have killed himself by cutting an ulnar artery which closes up. No fingerprints on the pruning! knife or the water bottle. Dr Kelly’s body had been moved too.
An extremely rare case of a death in suspicious circumstances not subjected to an inquest.
Falconer moved in and set up the Hutton Inquiry (which was a whitewash) for Blair within a very short time following the death.
As a chemical weapons expert, Dr Kelly would have known of surer ways to end his life. Break in at his dentists and records taken etc etc. His daughter’s wedding was imminent. Would a father do this at such a time? He had been refused permission to land in Kuwait to do his job shortly before 17 July 2003 when he died. When did the Iraq war start? March 2003. Dr Kelly had said Saddam had no chemical weapons. All true. Records sealed for 70 years.
Work it out. There were so many oddities and inconsistencies. Many reports in the media at the time were saying that he had buckled under Gilligan and then the FAC. Untrue.
Grieve is yet another stooge in the loop.
RIP Dr David Kelly. A fine man.
Grieve seems to have a split personality.
Listening to him today [penultimate item]:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0515r32
you would think he was a good egg.
His past (selective?) stress on legality and due process was sufficiently persistent to get him sacked by Cameron.
What he said today is consistent with the issues raised, here:
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/25/members-of-congress-demand-trump-provide-legal-justification-for-syria-attack/
One commentator has suggested that May should bring him back into the cabinet.
I see no prospect of that happening; Grieve does seem to have SOME scruples.
Bobm,
Grieve actually is but only an handful of actual Conservatives left within the modern Thatcherite Tory Party and made a great Attorney General, one that both a Corbyn Government or actual Conservative government could make good use off – I’m against partisanship as far as constitutional and administrative law is concerned, and whilst a committed democratic socialist, I can assure you on legal issues Mr. Grieve is a good one – if only he could apply such wisdom to social policy, I’d almost say he’s a one nation Conservative in the mould of McMillian, who of course is to the left of Blair and Mandelson.
Chris, you are right Grieve is from ultra-priveledge like MacMillan. He was a kid at Westminster School. One of the open-minded ones. But if his open-mindedness had not rebelled against the system by the age of 15, it wouldn’t have rebelled by the time he was 50.
At least he did not vigourously embrace the system like Blair, Clegg and BumJoy.
“I am truly appalled that such a gross restriction on freedom of speech should be imposed anywhere, let alone in a university where intellectual debate is meant to be an essential part of the learning experience. I really do not recognise today’s United Kingdom as the same society I grew up in. The common understanding that the values of a liberal democracy are the foundation of society appears to have evaporated.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/03/leeds-university-union-threaten-ban-speech-palestine/
Disgusted and Highly Disappointed.
Tony
Tony,
One can go better than that, Craig has discussed at length how TPTB and MSM have effectively decreased the size of the ‘Overton Window’ to a slit, well Craig’s gone one further here, and reduced the size of the Overton Window from a ‘slit’ to a fissure – of course he’s a Librul, at least we on the Left openly confront these issues head-on and uphold true notions of Freedom of Speech – Craig will no doubt then instructs us about JS Mill and limits on free discourse – most on the actual Left uphold the tradition of no limits whatsoever, if only based on the fact that if we have no opinion ourselves contrary to the prevailing orthodoxies, then we don’t actually exist, we are mere cogs, which is how the Tories treat us and their friends in the MSM – perhaps a quick read of Orwell’s output will assist us all.
” I do not want supporters of fascism on my blog any more than I would want them in my home.”
The phrase, “That’s a bit rich coming from you” seems overwhelming feeble; there are some of us here, who still remember Craig’s support for, & long time state of denial, of the fascists involved in the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
It’s this recurring nauseating hypocrisy from Craig, as well as the inevitable inherent censorship, that keeps reminding me of exactly why Craig’s career flourished so well when serving Empire.
You only reappear – after a most welcome absence – to slag off Craig?
Fcuk off, Macks.
Habbabkuk, Maybe Craig, has opened the locks, or maybe its a technical fault or maybe all the moderators have all resigned in disgust.
Don’t worry. It probably won’t last.
I will soon be banned as normal.
Tony
Seen it all now. The poacher turned gamekeeper @ 20.34
Pity you don’t give your friend on here the same message when he/she slags off Craig.