The BBC Making the Election about Terrorism 261

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On the very lowest estimates, the number of children killed by violence alone directly as a result of fighting in the Iraq invasion and occupation, is the equivalent of a Manchester massacre every single day for eight years.

I am going to write that again.

On the very lowest estimates, the number of children killed by violence alone directly as a result of fighting in the Iraq invasion and occupation, is the equivalent of a Manchester massacre every single day for eight years.

That in no way justifies the massacre in Manchester. Andrew Neil is quite intelligent enough to know that the notion that to explain is to excuse is illogical. The difference between Neil’s interview with Corbyn and his interview with May is that with May, Neil asked tough sceptical questions. With Corbyn, Neil put positions based on inflammatory emotion which Neil knows full well to be false. Nevertheless, Corbyn undoubtedly came out of it much better than May had done, not least for simply having the intelligence to react to the actual question being asked.

If I tell you that smoking causes cancer, it does not make me a supporter of cancer.

The fact that our invasions and bombings abroad inevitably have blowback in this world of globalised population settlement, is so evidently true it is ludicrous to deny it. There have been hate crimes against Muslims already since the Manchester attack. If we lost that many children every day for eight years, does anybody seriously wish to say there would not be extremist terrorist “Britnat” violence as a result? Of course there would.

After what we have done to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya and are abetting in Yemen, the surprise is not that we have suffered terrorist attack. The surprise is that we have not suffered more terrorist attack.

I suspect a great many more of the public realise that, than the inhabitants of the media/politico bubble wish to believe. There is no doubt that having Corbyn as the candidate has done a huge service in making it compulsory for the media to refer to views outside of the Overton window, and the invective and sheer hatred with which they have reacted is truly remarkable.

I commented at the last General Election that having Nicola Sturgeon in the leaders’ debate putting the arguments against Trident, exposed the English public to an argument from which they are normally rigorously shielded. Neil’s sheer horror that thinking outside the Blairite/Tory spectrum is being done came over strongly in his interview with Corbyn. It is of course as nothing to the horror of the Blairites. I have seen Charles Clark, Alan Johnson, Jess Phillips and John Woodcock all directly attack Corbyn during the course of this election. I am not a Labour party member, but surely that is going to have to result in expulsion from the party. Many ordinary members have been suspended for much milder and infinitely less publicised criticism of Blairites.

During the 2005 election, the BBC never once invited Jeremy Corbyn on air to attack Tony Blair over the bloody invasion of Iraq. So why are they filling the airwaves with Blairites attacking Corbyn now? The extraordinary thing is, they are counting these Blairites’ attack on Corbyn as Labour representation for their legal obligation of equal air-time during an election.

If the BBC really think that this is an election about the history of the Troubles, why have they not asked Theresa May whether she supports the actions of British troops on Bloody Sunday?

I am speaking this morning at the Merthy Rising Festival and hope to have the opportunity to make some of these points. Do come along if you are in the area.

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261 thoughts on “The BBC Making the Election about Terrorism”

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  • Moron labe

    The British regime with its tridents reminds you of a typical American gun nut. Flabby, strung-out and helpless, he dandles his little toy, obsessing about brown people rioting and jackbooted government thugs. He fantasizes about brandishing his weapon and blowing bad guys away. But brown people have no interest in his little backwater, and massed militarized police in tanks would be delighted to use him and his little pea-shooter for target practice.

    That’s Britain, obsessing about indifferent enemies and Russians who could squash them like a bug, paddling about in their useless little trident that runs on obsolete Microsoft Windows for toy submarines. They can’t even pull the trigger without the USA’s permission. Pathetic little pismire, the UK. Scotland could have more power as a diplomatic cynosure like the Small Five.

    • Tony_0pmoc

      Moron labe,

      I was struggling with pismire. Now I understand. Re Microsoft Windows – I said no lad you don’t want to do that – but what 13 year old boy does what he is told? His Windows server lasted 3 days before it was blasted to hell. He rebuilt it on Linux – and only asked me one question. “Dad – how do you configure the Security?” I found cynosure even tougher, but largely agree with you.

      A bheil thu a ‘bruidhinn mar sin sìos an poblach taigh?

      Ant’s pyss

  • Sharp Ears

    We are now funding, via our licence fees, nasty Nick Robinson to sit down to dinner in a restaurant to ask seven people what their views are on the Election.

    27/05/2017
    Nick’s Election Takeaways
    In the last of three special programmes the BBC’s Nick Robinson sits down for dinner with a group of voters to examine how different parts of the electorate are making up their minds ahead of the general election.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08t09ld

    30 mins

    What a waste of money. It could have gone to a food bank.

    • Stu

      The BBC’s primary method of political “reporting” now involves selecting individuals from the public who hold views they want to promote, interviewing them, editing that down to the talking points they had been looking for in the first place then broadcasting this as news.

      It is an incredibly effective way of promoting opinion as fact.

      • Republicofscotland

        Or they usually introduce them as impartial or independent. Or the trusted approach a well respected professor.

        Or a more subtle approach used widely during the 2014 indyref campaign, was to have a ratio of 3 to 1 when debating. It’s much better to have two similar opinions backing up the first opinion than just one.

        In my opinion all, the major tv channels do this and they also do it when reviewing the papers.

      • D_Majestic

        And we have seen this time and again over the last weeks,Stu. ‘Vox Pops’ worthy of Monty Python”s Flying Circus being trotted out, and always the outnumbered single Labour or LibDem Party supporter is followed by three or so chanting the mantra ‘Corbyn is no good’ or ‘I’m voting for Mrs. May because she has such nice teeth.’ The BBC has morphed into the Ministry of Truth, it would seem.

  • Becky Cohen

    The BBC has always been very reactionary. It is also sexist, homophobic and transphobic – as evidenced by its continuing refusal to have same sex dancing couples on Strictly, with a Beeb spokesperson outrageously giving the ‘excuse’ that it is an early Saturday evening ‘family show’ (what like Jim ‘ll Fix It was?!) Moreover, whenever they feature a news item about transgender issues they bring on some transphobic extremist whose views represent 00.1 per cent of the population yet whom the Beeb tout as an ‘expert’ – such as Zucker, Blanchard, Bindel or Ditum. The Beeb has become as misinformative as the tabloid press so I’m not surprised that they’re biased to Theresa May in their election coverage too.

    • Beth

      What on earth are you talking about ? Some of the professional dancers are gay but they still have a female partner because -hold the front page- they are dancing not having sex.

      • K Crosby

        Why don’t you want to watch two women dancing? Is there something wrong with you?

  • Jim

    Andrew Neil brought the Troubles up because, as he said, the majority of the British public wouldn’t be aware of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott’s history regarding giving succour to men of violence, If the point of that violence was to further their political aims.

    As a youth of Irish Catholic heritage growing up in ’70s England, influenced by my Uncle Martin’s passionate hatred of the ‘Brits’ in N. Ireland, I would invariably take the side of the IRA, bomb outrage or not. It was an incredibly superficial romanticised teenage take on the reality in the North, safely insulated in England. My political engagement went about as far as listening to the Wolfe Tones’ ‘The Men Behind the Wire’ and whispered stories of Uncle Martins car coming close to being blown up by the British security services in a pub car park (he was watched for years, but very much of the bar-room republican…If the guy’s in balaclavas had ever come asking for help he’d have shit his pants!).
    My Dad would occasionally talk about John Hume (he studied at Maynooth with him in the late ’50’s) in awed terms, but I didn’t want to know…too boring and consensual, who gives a fuck about the Orange bastards? Go Gerry & Martin!
    As I say, truly pathetic, but perhaps understandable from a basically non-political teenager more interested in guitars and music.

    The point is Corbyn et al were not idiot teenagers when they were hobbnobing with the seriously nasty bomb boys. They were adult professional politicians. People steeped in deep politics, it was their whole raisin d’etre.

    My engagement with the internicine horrors of Northern Ireland has remained, like most of the British public Andrew Neil was asking the questions on behalf of, superficial. I was unaware until very recently of their history in this regard and shocked to realise yet again the depth of hypocrisy. I’ve only just discovered that McDonnell as an MP was strongly against the Good Friday Agreement because it would in his opinion hinder chances of a united Ireland.
    The reaction from most British people to Neil’s interview seems to be a shrug, their lack of interest in and engagement with the tedious and incomprehensible NI question quite plain.
    All the polls are pointing towards a speedily narrowing gap and potential against the odds win for Jeremy.
    I’m glad about that, as even with this new knowledge I have about their despicable behaviour I’d rather see Labour in power than Mays malevolent & incompetent shower.

    • Jim

      Then I think what are the implications for Ireland and the border, the chances of a flare up to horror once more if McDonnell, Corbyn and Abbott do win, with Brexit negotiations coming up. Any constitutional experts out there got any views on that?

    • Stu

      Corbyn and co have been proven right.

      Dialogue between the British state and Sinn Fein/IRA led to the GFA. This issue is not gaining traction because people are aware that in the 90s Gerry Adams went to the Whitehouse many times and that both Tory and Labour governments negotiated with the IRA. It is completely contrived.

      • Jim

        Corbyn and co have been proven right that peace could only be achieved with a united Ireland, as they always argued?
        I think you need to look at a map of Ireland.
        The shadow Chancellor John McDonnell when an MP was strongly against the GFA, didn’t you even read what I said?

      • Jim

        And as Andrew Neil pointed out, Corbyn had no part in the negotiations for the GFA unlike his claims. This is important stuff. He lies about serious issues.
        Watch the interview again.

        • Ball

          You should watch the interview again Jim.

          At no point does he claim to have played any ‘part in the GFA negotiations’. In fact can you provide a link to where he does make such a claim? Such claims are being pushed on him from interviewees and the far right. With Neil, he specifically gave the the credit for the GFA to Mo Mowlam. How can you hold Corbyn responsible for what other people claim him to have done on his behalf? He is not lying; he is being misrepresented (just like his Foreign Policy speech). Its deceitful behaviour.

          ———–
          Corbyn and co have been proven right that peace could only be achieved with a united Ireland, as they always argued?
          ———-
          This is more deceitful misrepresentation on your behalf. They argued a United Ireland could only ever be achieved through dialogue and the democratic process not by military means. What they have acknowledged is that the only way to get to a place of dialogue with an opponent who only uses violence is to react with violence until everyone is sick of the devastation and is willing to sit down and talk. Same as in Columbia, Same as S.Africa.

          The fact that a united Ireland is inevitable now (demographic shifts will not change back to favour Unionism) means they were right. The GFA includes the Border Poll. The democratic process that the Unionists are still keen on not to take place.

          • Jim

            He’s insinuated it in interview before as the Alex Massie Spectator piece I posted before shows. Neil is digging into that. Not in as detailed a way as Massie did, as the interview was very short, but probingly enough to show to the public that any such claims don’t bear scrutiny.

            Off out for a run, I haven’t read beyond the first lines, I’ll do that when I get back. God I wish I could leave this flipping device alone, it’s so incredibly bad for my mental health. I feel like I’m on speed or something, horrendous.

          • Ball

            Jim,

            First off, I couldn’t even finish reading that drivel. Absolute bullshit if I was to be generous;
            ————–
            And the truth is that the IRA lost. It was the IRA who were brought to the negotiating table, not the British government. It was the IRA who were defeated, not the British government. It was the IRA who discovered that the price of continuing the armed struggle could no longer be sustained. It was the IRA who were forced to capitulate
            ————
            If there was any truth to this claim Massie makes above why did Britain negotiate? It doesn’t make any sense. The fact is (any honest person will admit) no one won; no one surrendered; no one capitulated; everyone was sick and tired of senseless violence on both sides of the fence. It was leading nowhere for both sides and the vast majority of people just wanted to live a normal life. The fact that Massie is still banging the war drums says everything about him.

            As for your claim; ‘He’s insinuated it in interview before as the Alex Massie Spectator piece I posted before shows’.
            Where do you think he insinuates it? From using the term ‘We’. Because I take that ‘We’ to refer to Britain, the British Government, as he stipulated it to mean in the Neil interview. Read the statement Massie opens with with that in mind and the statement is perfectly true. Once again Massie is distorting things to suit a narrative he is trying to peddle.

            I’ll make this easy for us both; Link to an article where Corbyn (himself, not third party opinion) claims to have been apart of the GFA negotiations, where he claims the IRA won, where he claims to achieved a United Ireland? There isn’t any. If there was it would be all over the mail, sun, express. Its a complete misrepresentation and distortion of the facts and his consistent position through out.

            You cannot hold Corbyn responsible for claims other people are making of him can you? Its deliberate misrepresentation just as they did with his Foreign Policy speech.

          • Jim

            Ball :
            I didn’t say he’d claimed it in the interview with Neil actually. I said ‘unlike his claims’.
            Well if you can’t be bothered to read the piece I provided there’s nothing I can say really.

          • Jim

            Ball :
            I didn’t say that Corbyn had claimed to have achieved a United Ireland! This is getting silly.

        • Jo

          Andrew Neil had NO point other than a wish to smear Corbyn. That you swallowed the idea that Neil wanted to enlighten the public suggests you are gullible to say the least.

          • Ball

            Jo,

            Not one question on Social Care, NHS, Education, Police funding or state investment.

            It was a hatched job, smear, from start to finish. 30 minutes on Trident, IRA, ISIS. Fuck all on domestic policy that effects day to day lives.

            And Corbyn still bossed the interview. Neil finished sweating.

          • Jim

            You probably don’t remember the Troubles or realise how fragile the last decades of peace have been Jo.
            Do you have any insights into how McDonnells Corbyn’s & Abbotts influence in a new Labour Govt may play regarding the likelihood of violence breaking out again?
            You seem to think this is ‘all in the past’, there are more important things. Wrong.

        • Jo

          “You probably don’t remember the troubles.”
          You said this to me further down but for some reason I can’t link to that post.
          On what basis do you make that assumption Jim? As it happens I remember the troubles very well.

          I accept we disagree but it’s really not right to dismiss my own views by assuming I’m too young to know what I’m talking about.

    • manda

      “Andrew Neil brought the Troubles up because, as he said, the majority of the British public wouldn’t be aware of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott’s history regarding giving succour to men of violence, If the point of that violence was to further their political aims. ”

      Have you a link to Neil saying precisely that please?

      • Jim

        Manda :
        He didn’t say exactly that, it was far more specific and damning quotes from McDonnell & Abbott, and details of the huge number of Republican solidarity meetings Corbyn had attended over the years, which the general public would not be aware of. I certainly wasn’t aware & I was one of the idiots cheering the Brighton bomb with my mates wishing Thatcher had got the chop.

      • Ball

        And that’s another point manda;

        The vast majority of people over 35 are well aware of the N.Ireland conflict and how pointless it was. They don’t need a history lesson. This was the BBC trying to indoctrinate the 400,000 young people that have just registered on the last day to do so. Young people being the backbone of the Labour online campaign pushing his surge in popularity.

        BBC showing a serious contempt for democracy here with their smear campaigns of half truths.

        • Jim

          You seem to think this is all in the past. The peace is very fragile. How do you think a new Labour Govt. under Corbyn’s crew is going to go down amongst the hardline Unionists? I can easily see things slipping into a return to sectarian violence with people like McDonnell, who was against the GFA in positions of influence.

    • K Crosby

      Are you pretending that the British state didn’t negotiate with the IRA (both sorts) and Corbyn & Co did? You need to have a word with Merlyn Rees, Thatchler and Major or is that too complicated for you?

  • Michael McNulty

    I see two terrorist-related problems for Jeremy Corbyn as PM, assuming he gets the votes and they don’t steal it from him. If he pulls us out of these illegal wars it’s not like we can simply say to those countries we’re off home now, game over, you can stop now. You can’t just walk away from all that murder and devastation and expect to be safe from revenge. That risk can remain for many years, and that’s where a second problem comes in. I worry the deep state will commit false flags to damage and even overthrow his government.

    • giyane

      I’m surprised Andrew Neil served up this old fruit-cake. Here’s Michael McNumpty wheeling out the emotional rheyoric of the IRA threat: “You can’t just walk away from all that murder and devastation and expect to be safe from revenge. ”

      This completely misses the point, that all the violence of IRA, the knee-cappings and murders and bombs, were false-flags by the UK establishment , exactly as the Islamic State savagery is today. They can’t revenge you if they don’t exist, they can only revenge you when a top US UK or IS official commands them to do it.

      That’s what’s so disgusting about May’s false flag attack on Manchester , BTW I don’t mean by false flag that all the victims are actors, they are innocent, murdered and injured adults and children, Islamic state has done nothing for all the time it has existed until three weeks before a UK election. Like a Church organist blaring out dissonance, Andrew Neil furiously working the base on the peddles and then next week they’ll be playing May with tender, sweet chords of reconciliation and harmony.

      Utter, satanic , blood-sacrificing, manipulation of the UK public’s emotions.

  • Ishmael

    I just tried to post a link here to leninology, server seemed to block me, is there some issue with that?

    • Ishmael

      Send a few quid to Richard if you can, sure he made a minor guff, but it’s not like he worked for Thatcher who supported pinochet is it.

      If we don’t support each other, we won’t even go down with dignity.

  • Anon1

    Great letter in the Telegraph:

    SIR – If Mr Corbyn is correct in saying that wars involving Britain are to blame for terrorist attacks today, then where are the Argentinian terrorists?

    • Shatnersrug

      The falklands war was 35 years ago and spending a lot of time with Argentinians I know that it was not supported by ordinary Argentinians.

      The idea that you think this is relevant shows just how out of touch you are.

      • Ishmael

        lol, yea, I was gona say were are the Indian attacks.

        Maybe it’s because we didn’t set up and fund a local fundamentalist extremist organisation there.

    • D_Majestic

      Simple answer to a simple question.Too far away.The flippin’ Vulcans only narrowly made it. The Raf had to hire a couple of Tristars to get kit down there pronto. Cut backs and crap planning, you see. One tatty old ship with one Oerlikon Cannon guarding the islands. As ever with the Tories. God help us if they get to do LemmingExit. ‘We’re all doomed, Captain Mainwaring!’

    • Ishmael

      Awful event. Im against prisons but there is a man who needs keeping safley away from the public. Therapy and education.

      Shame many people don’t get the chance to visit an Asian country at a young age. Much less likely these things would happen if they did. Changed my perspective totally.

      …Think iv used up my hours quota for today. Laters folks.

    • MJ

      Similarly, if nukes are such a great deterrent, why did Argentina invade the Falklands in the first place?

      • Dave Lawton

        “Similarly, if nukes are such a great deterrent, why did Argentina invade the Falklands in the first place?”

        It was all about oil.Eighteen months before the invasion, Howard Hughes ship Glomar Explorer for the Coalite company discovered oil deposits off the Falklands.

        • don

          Hmmm…would be surprised if it was the ‘Glomar Explorer’, as I recall it was a CIA asset that was only for pulling large metal objects like subs off of the ocean floor from great depths.

          She wasn’t converted for commercial drilling until 1997.

  • nevermind

    Why did Michal Fallon support the Apartheid regimes Sharpville massacre?
    What of ex IRA supporter, now Tory councillor Maria Mc Guire, renamed Maria Gatland, and her past cheered the death of British soldiers and Civilians?
    She was once suspended due to her ex membership of the IRA, but was re instated by the Conservatives, who hence must be supporters of the IRA.
    And why did the UK’s arms manufacturers sell arms to Libya and how was it possible for the Libyan Government, in cahoots with Ghaddafi, been unable to stop Czech Semtex reaching NI, were they not looking?
    How many IRA infiltrators had to keep their cover for fear of their own death, by committing atrocities for the IRA?
    Maybe John Stalker should come out now and bare all about the shoot to kill policy that was perpetrated on the people of NI.

    Canvassing of Norwich south today, together with Clive Lewis, Danielle Glavin, Owen Jones and roughly a hundred activists from all over Norfolk, Essex and even a person from Hastings helped to bring about Labours policies, we managed to cover the whole of Lakenham ward.
    I had not a single remark to terrorism, armed police on our streets, or even the Manchester massacre of innocent young people, it was the NHS, jobs, more flexible working hours and much uncertainty when it comes to Brexit, it seems as if some voters got cold feet over it, are not so sure anymore.

  • Anon1

    FAO Craig –

    The Canary Deleted A False Viral Story About The Sun’s Coverage Of The Manchester Attack

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-canary-deleted-a-false-viral-story-about-the-suns?utm_term=.ueBMaXkBO#.uknm36Bxo

    “On a day set aside for mourning, with all political campaigns stood down, The Sun ran this,” The Canary article said. “A naked manipulation of tragic events to serve its own political purposes. And just two years after it was ordered to place an apology to the Labour leader on its front page over another anti-Corbyn slur.”

    “But of course, by the time any new apology could be forced out of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid, the election would be long over. And the damage would be done.”

    In reality The Sun rewrote the entire front of the newspaper when news of the terror attack broke, and there was no way the newspaper could have covered an attack which took place at 10.30pm in the first edition of a newspaper that went to the printers at around 10pm.

    Although some more remote parts of the country would have received copies of the newspaper featuring the original anti-Corbyn front page, many would have would received the updated edition which led on the terror attack.

    ______

      • giyane

        These back office boys at MI6 certainly fooled you this time. Print the early story attacking Corbyn just long enough to give you an alibi, then proceed with the false flag story that was pre-planned.
        M. Poireau has saved Craig a whole wasted Saturday afternoon.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Craig, I am not denying blowback. It would only be natural that it would occur. However, there is very little evidence of it. People even more eminent than you have been writing about blowback for the last 16 years. I have bought and read their books. I am convinced their analyses are deeply flawed. Blowback may well become a monstrous issue, and Manchester may be an example of it – I don’t know – I haven’t evaluated all the evidence. I accept the Terrorist attack was real, but I am far from convinced that this was an example of blowback.

    Meanwhile I will read more Shakespeare, and maybe attend more Ballets. Princess Diana really did use to turn up with her kids and sit in the cheap seats with the rest of us. We didn’t embarrass her. I was gutted when she died.

    Tony

    • Ishmael

      I hope nothing happens to you or your family, relatives. It’s all very well to say when your not a minority being constantaly implicated because of a faith or other beliefs that put you in a group (by many who do think like that). Thats not to excuse this awful act, nothing does (and I don’t know the exact details of this case) but would you just keep your cool ?

      We are all human Tony. And there are loads of people locally (who I now keep an arms length from) who say they do awful things if anyone hurt their family etc. And they are “normal” “white” folk. Ie Not part of an increasing persecuted minority.

      It’s not a matter of saying this is blowback or not, binary thinking won’t do. But all this feeds into situations and to say it’s not (in part) blowback seems simpleminded and obviosely wrong.

  • George Brennan

    “If I tell you that smoking causes cancer, it does not make me a supporter of cancer.”

    Neat. Nor does it make you someone who believes there would be no lung cancer if there were no smoking or that no smokers escape lung cancer. Yet the analogous fallacies were trotted out by Neil and no doubt have been trotted out here. What about the Al Queda attacks before 2001? And what about Sweden and what about Spain? They havent invaded anyone have they?….. Jonathan Freedland has just attacked the straw “delusion” that terrorist attacks are “just about foreign policy”. This is a delusion from which nobody, nobody, has ever suffered.

    • Steph

      The ‘What about Sweden etc’ retorts are completely and utterly misunderstanding Corbyn’s analysis. What he is saying is that our foreign policy in the ME has resulted in instability and vacuums which have allowed terrorist groups to gain strongholds and recruit members. He is not saying that the terrorist attacks are some kind of ‘retalliation’ for our foreign policy. These groups wish to attack western culture and we have created a breeding ground for them. I cannot understand how ANYONE can possibly disagree. I can see why the Tories are wanting to spin this as they are but only a fool would believe them.

      • Phil the ex-frog

        Steph
        “instability and vacuums which have allowed terrorist groups to gain strongholds”

        Allowed? If you are saying that the west creates the space for folk who are predisposed to hate us then yes I do disagree.

        A basic materialist atheist perspective: When someone says god told them to bomb children it is really their own voice in their head reacting to material conditions. Religion is the rationalisation of how they respond to the real world. The madness, the unbearable shocking violence, is a result of centuries of conflict with economic competition at its root.

        • Steph

          Yes, the situation which we have created in the ME has helped groups like ISIS to gain strength. That’s without even going into arms sales to SA. You honestly think that we have not had any effect whatsoever?

          • Phil the ex-frog

            Steph
            “You honestly think that we have not had any effect whatsoever?”

            No, sorry I did not mean that at all. Colonialism and imperialism have been major contributions to the centuries of violence.

      • giyane

        Oh dear, Steph “These groups wish to attack western culture ”

        So that must be why they decide to live in leafy Didsbury, and pray in an old Methodist church, because they hate Western culture …

        What about not wanting to live in the political hell hole USUKIS has made their own countries?
        These people work for CIA and MI6, using false promises of freedom from the oppressive dictator USUKIS put into power. They create an instability in their countries which USUKIS can exploit and use as an excuse to attack them and steal their mineral resources.
        Quid pro quo for which is a nice house I can’t afford in Didsbury and a false-flag story corroborated by a bank card that your son blew up innocent children.
        I can’t believe you people are so green.

        • Steph

          When I said ‘these groups’ I was talking about ISIS, Al-Quada etc., not people, of any faith, who ‘in leafy Didsbury’! Calm down!! The vacuum which UKUSIS foreign policy has created in the ME has allowed them (ISIS etc) to florish.

          • giyane

            Steph

            Didsbury is a rather expensive suburb of South Manchester where the father of Salman used to make the call to prayer. There is no vacuum in the Middle East. ISIS were trained in Jordan which is controlled by its neighbour Israel. They were transported from Jordan through Turkey which is controlled by NATO to Mosul in Iraq which is owned by the US in the US’ humble opinion. Obama has declared that the US would keep ISIS in place for another 20 years to accomplish certain strategic aims.

            Those aims might be 1/ to threaten Saudi Arabia which has no expertise in warfare but which holds the largest reserves of oil. 2/ ditto Iraq which has great expertise in warfare and the second largest reserves of oil. 3/ to open a new USUK pod in the Middle East, as an extension of the Israel pod in the West of the region from which to threaten other oil-producing countries in the former USSR region 4/ to strengthen Iran, and Shi’a Islam against its regional competitor Saudi Arabia. USUKIS’s love of Iran has to be kept top secret, as does USUKIS’s love of Russia and USUKIS’s love of North Korea, which is why they are always threatening to blow them out of the sky all the time.

            Across these strategic warzones USUKIS control a terrorist army which terrifies the local populations who are desperately clinging on to their dictators like Erdogan, Barzani, Assad and the house of Saud in the hope of not being overrun by marauding, raping, USUKIS proxy madmen.

            These scary terrorists are flown around the Middle East through the major international airports. Tel Aviv, Amman, Istanbul, Sulaymaniah, Baghdad, are 3 to 6 flying hours from London. Anyone registered on NATO’s comprehensive list ( Robin Cook’s Al Qaida ) of perverted Muslims to the cause of USUKIS colonialism, can travel freely round the region under NATO protection. Also drugs, weapons, and international businessmen.
            There is no vacuum. Kurdish oil gets pumped without a meter directly to Europe and is controlled by the Conservative MP for Stafford and other thieving Tory and Blairite hands.

            If Corbyn gets elected, the US will use the relative calm of a Corbyn-created No Fly Zone to establish their proxy Muslim stooge imams, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Damascus and one war will end and another war begin between the Muslims and the new stooge imams. In that war it is highly likely that the USUKIS Al Qaida and ISIS who up to now have been created and supported by USUKIS against the dictators will swap sides and fight with the Syrian Republican Army against the new Muslim Brotherhood stooges from Europe and Washington.

            If May wins, Syria will be carved up leaving Assad in power in Damascus, Israel in power in Central Syria, and Kurdistan expanded into Eastern Syria armed by Trump,. The monkeys in charge of the White House are obsessed with helping the racist Erdogan ethnically cleanse Eastern Turkey of its Kurdish heritage, driving them into Syrian territory that they have never before lived in.

            There is no vacuum. A terror bombing in the UK is only a phone call away for No 10.
            The only vacuum is in the heads of the extremely right-wing leaders of USUKIS who have no idea what they are trying to achieve, except more and more colonialism.

        • Steph

          And I’m not entirely certain who the ‘you people’ you consider to be so green are, I assume you mean me. I actually agree with everything you have said. But I was simply trying to explain where I thought Corbin was coming from. Didn’t really want to go into an in-depth analysis of the ME situation!

          • Steph

            giyane

            Thank you for that analysis, some of which I too suspect to be correct and some of which I would personally feel a little less confident about. The whole thing is such a huge mess. A morass of actions which undoubtedly often end in unexpected consequences for their initiators, involving players whose individual motivations and natural instincts vary to the n’th degree. I don’t think it possible that such a small group of people would be able to ensure they retained control over it all. So whilst I fully agree that there are some very, very unpleasant smells coming from certain quarters I do not think it quite as clear cut as you do.
            Thanks again!

    • Sharp Ears

      ‘analogous fallacies’ Very good. I must remember that phrase which has such impact cf ‘lies’.

      Neil looked like some primordial creature from the swamp, with his large bulk and his crooked back filling his chair as he read out from his script. Remember his P Eye handle ‘Brillo’ and his ‘Ugandan discussions’. The photos were always of him in a vest wearing a baseball cap! Put his name in Google images. 🙂

      Those days are long gone for him.

      He must be quite short. Here is he with Pippa at the Spectator party.
      https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/70/1b/ea/701beac8840e38825a2a023fa9968d8d.jpg
      There is also one of him with Cameron and Shapps. All very pally.

    • Jiusito

      Oh, come on! Andy Burnham trotted out this same preposterous line that “9/11” came out of a clear blue sky. It didn’t. Try Wikipedia for a start: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_attacks

      I remember vividly that Osama bin Laden was reported at the time as saying, “America sowed the wind. Now it has reaped the whirlwind.” It was memorable because a day or two later Dubya Bush announced, “Al-Qa’ida have sown the wind and now they will reap the whirlwind!” and I thought: There you have it, a perfect illustration of the cycle of violence!

      Part of our problem is that we simply forget the violence of our side. (Indeed, I can no longer find that OBL quote online, tho the Bush quote I can.) Has everyone forgotten the terrible sanctions against Iraq throughout the Nineties, which the UN estimated had resulted in the premature deaths of 500,000 children – and Madeleine Albright telling a reporter this was “a price worth paying”? A price, need one say, that was paid by Arab and Kurdish children, not American.

      As for Syria, most people in the West haven’t the slightest knowledge of the ferocious sanctions imposed on that country by the US and its “international community”. And I doubt that many of us have much idea of what we have done to Libya, either.

    • Jiusito

      Some years ago, I attended a fascinating debate in the Olive Tree Programme organised by Rosemary Hollis of Chatham House. I can’t recall who the two other contributors were, but one was the editor of a leading Arabic newspaper and the other was a professor of peace studies (or some such) from East Sussex, himself ex-Forces. They pointed out that the thousands of young men the Saudis and the CIA had recruited to fight in Afghanistan as mujahidin were simply abandoned when the war with the Soviets ended and left brutalised, traumatised, stateless – and highly skilled. No attempt was made to reintegrate them into any kind of society or give them any kind of physical and psychological support, as I think has been done with ex-members of the Khmer Rouge, Renamo, the Contra, the Lord’s Resistance Army &c &c. Except, they were offered safe haven by Osama bin Laden. I don’t know whether that qualifies as “blowback” but it does qualify in my book as asking for trouble.

  • reel guid

    Journalist Hugo Gye has tweeted that the Scottish subsample of yesterday’s SurveyMonkey election poll found 54% of Scottish voters in favour of independence.

  • Phil the ex-frog

    These last few days the area is flooded by cops with machine guns approaching young moc asking for id and a look in your bag please sir. We’ve got a bomb scare going on in our local park right now. It’s all go in our age of terror.

    • Dave Lawton

      Meanwhile Zbig has kicked the bucket (did anyone notice?)
      Yes I clocked it.He wanted everyone chipped up so they could be controlled. He was mind control fascist .A quote from a paper he wrote.”Zbigniew Brzezinski

      From America in the Technetronlc Age

      New forms of social control may
      be needed to limit the indiscriminate exercise
      by individuals of their new powers. The possibility
      of extensive chemical mind-control, the danger loss of
      individuality inherent in extensive transplantation,
      and the feasibility of manipulation of the genetic structure will call
      for a social definition of common criteria of
      restraint as well as of utilisation.”

  • Brianfujisan

    It’s a stunning statistic Craig.. ” a Manchester massacre every single day for eight years… ” children killed by violence alone ”

    So that Does not include the U.S, Albright’s ( ” yes we think it was worth it ” ) infanticide, where Half a million infants perished.. that should add some more years to the 8.

    But the bbc would seem happy to push for the destruction of the earth, with mostly everything on it. some weeks ago a bbc ‘ reporter ‘ standing in front the the white house told us that NK ” had missiles that likely could reach the west coast of U.S ” LIES.

    Well gotta dash, a wee charity event.

    The Crowd funds are doing Brilliant to the MNC victims and families..

    With this one you get a chance to win one of Hope’s Amazing Hebridean paintings..I have painted the Machair myself but Hope is The Master.. Machair Master.. A look through Her work shoulld Brighten Anyone’s Saturday night 🙂

    https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/HOPE-BLAMIRE1

  • Michael McNulty

    To say these people will bomb us without provocation for our way of life yet not attack us for destroying their people and country is not just a silly notion but a ridiculous concept. Also the excuses used to attack Jeremy’s position are also spurious because many people believe it was the Bush Administration and Mossad who did 9/11, not Muslims; and the Madrid attacks blamed on Al Queda raised the suspicions of many Spaniards over their timing and Aznar lost the election soon after. I hope the same will happen to the Tories.

    • Loony

      You are correct – the official narrative is a ridiculous concept.

      Who would dare to say such things unless they were speaking to people that they manifestly despise.

      Problems are everywhere – a global network of factories producing radical jihadi’s. Recruitment aided and abetted by the vile and rapacious foreign policies enacted by the US and all of its vassal states. Leaders of US vassal states that despise and revile the people that they are supposed to be representing. A further education system hollowed out to the point of destruction all so you can produce a generation of people too stupid and too docile to make any effort at understanding the world around them. An absolute refusal to apply the rule of law to certain protected segments of the population.

      A day will come when it will be plain for all to see that mobs don’t march, they run.

      Against this bleak and dystopian backdrop you actually care who wins a UK election. Is it any wonder that the general population is held in such contempt.

      • Tony_0pmoc

        Loony, whilst I occasionally disagree with some of the stuff you write, you write it exceptionally well and sometimes make me laugh. I particularly like your last two sentences. However, that does not necessarily mean that I won’t vote. To get rid of the current sh1t (highly unlikely) would involve voting for someone who is almost certainly an even worse sh1t. I may just vote for the Labour Candidate instead. She is a pretty girl, but has not got what most people round here would consider a pretty name. Such superficial details are important if you want to get elected. Even she must think she doesn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance, so I probably won’t bother. I’m not totally convinced I don’t know her. She doesn’t half remind me of someone. If its her, I will vote for her.

  • reel guid

    Scottish Tories in third place at 22% in the Scottish subsample of the Opinium poll. SNP at 46% and Labour on 26%.

  • Sharp Ears

    O/T but Usmanov has featured in Craig’s posts over many years.
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/?s=usmanov

    It is strange that he was not visible in the line up when the FA Cup was presented just now.

    He is still after the control of the club.
    Usmanov refuses to give up on Arsenal’s main shareholder attempts
    May 25, 2017
    http://dailycannon.com/2017/05/usmanov-refuses-to-give-up-on-arsenals-main-shareholder-attempts/

    Usmanov is Red and White Holdings Ltd.
    http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corporate-info/the-arsenal-board

  • Dave

    The notion of suicide bombers is a neo-con propaganda fabrication, because you don’t kill yourself needlessly, particularly against easy targets, when you can kill again on another day. Its used as part of the bare faced nonsense that we’re attacked because of who we are, rather than what we do. The fact that such nonsense is promoted across the MSM illustrates the influence of the pro-terrorist neo-cons.

    • Loony

      Dave – have you ever heard of the word Kamikaze? I believe it was a practice that pre-dated neo cons and their propaganda.

      • Dave

        I have and it was an courageous and heroic act of desperation, a tactic adopted to increase the chances of hitting the target, with limited success. They did not kill themselves for the sack of it, which would be the case if they killed themselves needlessly attacking an easy target.

        • Kempe

          Martyrdom. Those doing it believe it’s a direct route to heaven/paradise and they believe they’re doing it for a noble cause.

          • Dave

            Even if true, and the recent ones hardly fit the description, those directing them are more level headed and would not waste someone willing to kill themselves on an easy target.

          • Kempe

            You’re looking at it through rational western eyes. You’re damn right that ISIS leaders are too smart to blow themselves up but as you might’ve noticed there’s an unlimited supply of gullible idiots who can be talked into it. This is generally the way terrorist groups work. The IRA leadership never went out and planted bombs themselves they got the younger more naïve members to do the dangerous stuff.

  • Dave

    Unpalatable, but British Government and Irish constitutionalists, accepted that the only way to end the war was to get the paramilitaries on both sides to give up their weapons and the SDLP and Ulster Unionists were sacrificed to achieve this. And in doing so Sinn Fein became SDLP and the DUP became Ulster Unionists, with only splinter rejectionist remnants remaining, that could be effectively dealt with as criminal rather than as ‘defenders of their community’ organisations.

  • Ball

    BBC bias (contempt for this GE) turns psychological.

    A full screen with party logos appearing in sequence as the BBC news presenter updates us on the days events; (they connect to each other side by side as they appear);

    Labour (right side of screen) Conservatives (left side of screen) Presenter divides, UKIP next to appear (connects under Labour), Lib Dems (connect above Cons), Sinn Fein (above Labour, the first time in my life I have even seen their Logo during a GE on BBC England) Greens (connects below Cons) SNP (connects to Labour).

    How Bizarre.

    I’d put it down to an honest coincidence if I wasn’t aware of their track record with these things. Sinister stuff.

  • Sharp Ears

    There is no love lost between Osborne and May. He has not forgiven her for not giving him a job and puts the boot in again.

    General election 2017: Osborne: Tory plans badly thought through

    Former Chancellor George Osborne has said the Conservatives have failed to think through commitments made in their election manifesto.

    Mr Osborne, now editor of the London Evening Standard, stood by headlines in the paper critical of Tory pledges on social care and immigration.

    He also said Theresa May had moved away from the international liberalism and globalisation pursued by David Cameron.

    He was speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking.

    Mr Osborne was critical of the Tory plan, originally included in the party’s election manifesto, to pay for social care by taking funds from the recipient’s estate after death, down to a cut-off point of £100,000.

    The party has since promised to cap the amount taken from an estate, after facing a barrage of criticism.

    Mr Osborne said the plans were “were clearly badly thought through, because the prime minister herself decided to rethink them.”

    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40071822

    There is a strange photo on the link which makes him look as if he is wearing lipstick.

    He also defended an Evening Standard headline denouncing Mrs May’s pledge to get annual net migration below 100,000 as “politically rash and economically illiterate”.

    • Shatnersrug

      He is wearing lipstick. Or at least he’s been snogging someone that was. He’s probably been tied up in leather all night with a ball in his mouth.

  • Fran Cotton

    Neil also twisted the quote from ISIS. He missed the next sentence which said that they would stop bombing us if we stopped bombing the Middle East.

  • Ruth

    I wrote this after the Scottish referendum. It really applies to this election.

    How to fix a referendum:
    1) Create mass media bias
    2) Position plants who will later defect
    3) If the media bias doesn’t work, stage a monumental event. Keep regurgitating the monumental event for maximum effect
    4) Manipulate opinion polls carried out by companies with government/Establishment links so the public believe both parties are neck and neck
    5) Work with broadcasters to make sure there are no exit polls. Exit polls give a very accurate indication of how the public voted.
    6) Rig the vote through swapping of processed postal ballot slips stored in boxes in council offices overnight or en route to counting centres. Manipulating say 20% of the vote should do the trick.
    7) Create a scare story on the eve of the referendum so one party is tainted as violent just in case one party has more than 70% votes
    8) When people cry foul after the referendum, distract them with a major

    • Shatnersrug

      You forgot

      9) make sure the opinion polls show you ahead until the final week then show that the opposition is narrowing to almost neck and neck, present it in a way that suggests they may win. This absolutely guarantees that many opposition voters won’t make the extra effort to get to the polling booth in the case of a GE, ‘proving’ lazy labour voters.

      Once you realise this is a thing you’ll notice it at every election cycle, they’ll even tell you “polls tend to narrow in the final straight” of course they do – they’re manipulated to do this.

    • Dave Lawton

      2I wrote this after the Scottish referendum. It really applies to this election.
      How to fix a referendum:”
      The same happened to in 1975 to manipulate the people to vote to join the EU.This was organised propaganda by IRD the
      Information Research Department of the Foreign Office.Which was headed by Norman Reddaway.

  • Ishmael

    I missed this. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salman-abedi-re-teacher-islamophobe-suicide-bombers-burnage-academy-for-boys-opinion-manchester-a7756611.html

    And so it unfolds.

    So he was racIly profiled at school? (one assume all the students weren’t asked) And i assume this- “One of Abedi’s said he had felt increasing frustration at his treatment in the UK, which was heightened after a friend was stabbed to death in what he perceived to be a religious hate crime”

    Awful sentence “One of Abidi’s said” ?? …. Friends said ? … Refers to an incident were his friend was stabbed TO DEATH, ?

    Is a “perceived” hate crime ? with no reference to evidence sighted in the article? Kind of implying it wasn’t but again, we don’t know. If it was, and even if it wasn’t it’s hard to say it played NO role in radicalisation, after being picked out in school. Sigh…

    And NO, the above does not seek to justify his awful act. But I think we can get an idea that (and these are only the incidents we know so far) this sort of treatment of people of muslims faith or Asian background MUST play SOME role in the attitudes he formed.

    And what gets me is all the clear warnings. This has nothing to do with underfunding, it’s complete incompetence, complete negligence to act on these warnings.

    But the narrative is it’s all “them” i.e., Uk is white gov, played no role whatsoever, played no part in radicalising him and didn’t fail to act when it’s clear he was. Just see the comments below the article, says it all. People just can’t look can they….

    • Ishmael

      What were seeing in the uk is a form of ethnic religious racism, helping to push Asian communties to these extreme things.

      And before someone says “Muslims are not a race” THERE – IS – NO – SUCH – THING – AS – RACE. That’s the point. It’s treating a group all the same under one banner. It’s a form of bigoted stereotyping of a group just the same. No difference what so ever. Same as jews were treated.

      • Ishmael

        Thanks.

        “Gang” doesn’t say much, But I wonder how much it matters if it was racially motived. If your being singled out and it certainly seems he was in at least one incident (We know by statistics muslims / Asians are being) then one is going to percive other things the same. This is just how persecution works. I know it myself. Craig knows I know it lol.

        I happen to be pale, caucasian. But being different at school (being picked on for it) follows you around.

        What a sad tragic story. And it’s being played across the country. Fed by the likes of Farage and all the other more blatent anti muslim commentators.

        My feeling is there are no muslim extremists.. NONE. It is their faith that keeps them from loosing it. Because we have so many under such an attack if it was about that the country would be in chaos now, real chaos. My take is that those who do this aren’t muslims at all. They are people who have just been pulled away into some perverted “variant” after severe isolation and persecution.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Well that didn’t work did it?…and this is from the Torygraph

    “Telegraph ORB poll: Labour narrows gap to six points as women voters surge towards Jeremy Corbyn”

    The situation kind of reminds me of the Jo Cox thing. (that didn’t work did it?) I just couldn’t get over the smiles on (particularly her sisters’s and Mum’s faces) whilst her Dad looked exceedingly embarrassed. I used to go out with a blonde girl in Bradford. If her sister had died she would have been in floods of tears for days. Even when John Lennon died – we just cried all over each other. She was inconsolable. She couldn’t possibly do a performance like this the day after her sister died.

    People in Yorkshire do not normally behave like this – even when they are in a Play. I accept that the photography and the timing do not prove anything. The timing could be coincidental, and people do react completely differently to grief…however – I do find this video very strange..It doesn’t prove anything.

    ” Jo Cox’s family… What’s wrong with this picture?”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxmTiUa__tU

    (mark golding posted here that she was on the team (intelligence services) i have no idea how he knew, and i think he was worried about posting it)

    Tony

    • Jo

      I recall that very public address given by Jo Cox’s sister and my absolute astonishment that she was able to do it. I have siblings. I cannot imagine how I would feel following the death of any of them from natural causes never mind in the circumstances experienced by Jo’s family. I found her sister’s whole demeanor weird and bizarre to say the least.

  • Ishmael

    Honestly, that is a crazy policy, People of THAT ill defined group are not facing anything like what Muslims are facing in this society today.

    But you allow while you don’t others. That’s nuts. Im tempted to go further but i’ll refrain.

    Liberal intelligence, living in the past under the thumb of the holocxxst industry (misspelled on purpose, just in case)

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