Confident of victory off the back of large numbers of murdered people changing the media agenda, a triumphalist Theresa May yesterday vowed – contrary to the Tory manifesto – to “rip up” human rights legislation.
This feels to me like it could be Theresa May’s “awright! awright! awright!” moment. Most of my readers will recall the 1992 election, where Neil Kinnock finished with a rally in Sheffield at which his high octane triumphalism was viewed by many of the public as revealing a rather unpleasant character, which possibly helped engender a shock last minute swing which lost him the election.
May’s Slough meeting is very different to that Sheffield rally – for one thing May’s crowd of Tory activists was tiny, and as always that BBC video uses tight focus to hide her lack of enthusiastic support. But what it has in common with Sheffield is hubris. I strongly suspect that ditching human rights is wildly popular among the rabid racist Brexiteers who constitute her core vote. Locking up Muslims without charge and throwing away the key will appeal to them. But a great deal of the rest of the population are bright enough to work out that proposal is likely to cause more, not less, terrorism. They will view May’s performance as presumptive and alarming.
Of course, abandoning human rights would make May’s Saudi friends feel more at home when they come to London to entertain call girls in their penthouses. But I expect May’s declaration may cost the Tories several seats, not least to the Liberals in South West London.
There is one very obvious point that the mainstream media has deliberately avoided. The Tories having made Brexit central to May’s campaign, there is no minister more crucial to the election than David Davis, the Brexit Secretary. Davis is a libertarian with a long and genuinely distinguished record in opposing human rights encroachments made in the name of the War on Terror. There is no way Davis is going to go along with substantial censorship of the internet, increased surveillance powers, and detention without trial. If May pushes ahead with her draconian plans, she will need a new Brexit Secretary.
For this reason, Davis has disappeared from the Tory campaign since the focus was shifted by the mainstream media to those conveniently timed terror attacks. They were especially conveniently timed for the Saudi sponsors of terror, as a Labour government would be committed to ending arms exports to Saudi, and would not support bombing Assad forces in support of jihadists in Syria.
Why has nobody in the mainstream media pointed out that Davis will not support May’s new anti-human rights proposals? Why have they not attempted to interview him on the subject?
Mainstream media spend thousands of hours probing differences within Labour. Yet this massive disagreement on what the media themselves have described as the main issue of the election, between the two major figures of the Conservative campaign, goes completely unremarked. Media silence. We must not question our masters.
For May, this is a particularly explosive question. She was home secretary in the government of Prime Minister David Cameron when, in 2011, the Abedis and many others were released from the control order restrictions on them so they could take part in fighting in Libya. So exposed is she that after she suggested the recent attacks should lead to a review of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy, Steve Hilton, who worked for Cameron until 2012, tweeted that she was “responsible for security failures of London Bridge, Manchester and Westminster Bridge.” She should “be resigning not seeking re-election. Her spin doctors attack MI5, but she was in charge of them for years….”
From: http://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/terrorised-britain-protected-best-citizens-governed-worst/
Exactly, J. I agree with you…
This election was called so that the Tories could lose. May probably doesn’t even know that she is meant to lose. Calling this election two days after Nicola Sturgeon asked for a section 30 order was a panic move by the establishment. They have probably worked out that a Labour minority government, supported by the SNP, would kick another indy ref into the long grass. Scottish Labour voters that were a soft Yes in a referendum, would probably vote No if they think they can see a ‘socialist’ Westminster future. Neverending Tory rule would guarantee a Yes result.
Englands economy is going to tank after Brexit, and losing Scotlands assets would be the icing on the shit cake.
I’m not so sure, remember the fake left Syriza that turned out to be more corrupt than Bliar Lairbour? I think May wanted to pretend that she needed a bigger majority for the Lexit negotiations when she was really trying to get a bigger majority now rather than a potential defeat later. The reality is that the “electoral mandate” of Syriza was irrelevant in the face of the billionaires’ masturbation club masquerading as the EU and so will that of any British government, even though as every schoolboy knows, Britain isn’t a democracy and the election tomorrow is no such thing; it’s as bent as the March 1933 election in Germany.
Well Mr Murray, being of a scientific bent, like in Geology, unlike you, who being a politician puts your faith in statistics (there being lies, damned lies, and statistics) I carried out an experiment. I phones my children and tried to convince them to vote Labour.
Do you know what reply I got? From both my children, and their respective spouses?
“You can’t trust any politician to keep his/her promises, so why bother voting?”
By a strange coincidence that is exactly the same conclusion I arrived at, back in 1974, when I decided to emigrate, for that very reason. Guess what? I found that no matter where you go it is the same old story; you just can’t believe a word that comes out of a politician’s mouth; if a politician’s mouth is open, lies are coming out.
Poor Mr Murray, do you also believe in the tooth fairy, and father Christmas?
Tell you what; if this time next year either Labour or the SNP have changed anything other than surface-dressing I’ll come back and apologise to you, but I know you are going to lose, because there is a seven lettered word beginning and ending with “D” that describes those who believe politicians.
Alan, I got the same response from both my kids 8 years ago, and every argument I came up with to convince them to vote, they defeated. For years I didn’t vote. They had won the argument.
However, I have now changed my mind. If politicians have no real effect, and all important decisions are made at a much higher level, then why bother assassinating some of them if they are all just puppets? It causes a mess, and surely its much simpler just to change the puppet.
Why do Americans spend Billions of Dollars just to influence the result of their elected puppets? Why do I strongly suspect, that the results of many elections all over the world, are not merely corrupted by extreme propaganda, but the actual count of the election is corrupted?
So maybe it actually is worth voting. Maybe Jeremy Corbyn Is different to Theresa May, and may be able to change some things which will be positive for the vast majority of The British General Public, and maybe even Millions of People in other Countries who our recent Governments have been regularly bombing?
We will never know unless there is a change. Maybe Democracy still works at least to some extent.
Tony
You’re the one in denial, with lashings of patronising condescension on top. Of course it makes a difference. Maybe not enough for you, but enough for many people who need a little help. But your self-appointed political superiority to the population won’t change a thing will it? Or help anybody. Never mind, as long as you can retain your smug position, and taunt Craig, you will have contributed something useful to the world, how very laudable.
Apologies if this is too late Alan, but please do tell; what is this 7 lettered word? It sounds like it might be useful in Scrabble.
Heiland; my guess was “Dullard”. I think it means not very bright, in a learned sense. It was the sort of thing school teachers used to call some of their pupils.
D-E-L-U-D-E-D!
The real problem is not pensioners voting Tory; it’s that our children have lost all faith in the electoral system. What was it? 32% who bothered to vote in the last election?
Many Remainers believe that large swathes of the electorate should be excluded from voting. Purely on intellectual grounds, but the selection criteria has yet to be defined. Brexit voters who were apparently stupid, racist or both and should be excluded.
You’re of a scientific bent, but you dismiss statistics? Intriguing, as you can’t support an hypothesis without them.
I have the antidote after watching this video, for anyone that unfortunate.
‘Jeremy Corbyn election rally in Birmingham turns into a festival!’ – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZnpCSsTqg
Brexit campaign augmented by terrorist attacks. Let’s see how many people got wise to it…
Regards the latest “terrorist” incident it has been announced six out of the eight fatalities were foreigners. What are the odds of that, six out of eight non-English? Very long I would say. Even if we’d been hosting an international event like the World Cup those odds must be in the many millions, perhaps billions, but in a small area of London on an ordinary Saturday night? Total BS!
I learned a new word the other night. Vicsims. A contraction of victim and simulated. I think that’s why so many foreigners were declared dead, because it’s not easy to investigate across so many countries. But surely all these countries are involved in this lie, meaning they are dangerous to every one of us and their own citizens.
The victims were announced asone Spaniard, one Canadian two Australian and two French, one of who was found days later in the Thames. Several days in the Thames and nobody spotted it, eh?
Michael McNulty,
“What are the odds of that, six out of eight non-English?”
In my experience of Central London, at that time, those odds are about right. Whilst the English travel en-masse into London on their daily commute to do their 9-5, in reality they can’t stand the place, and most are at home on a Saturday night or down their local pub many miles away.
London stopped being English at about the time we arrived from “Up North” 35 years ago. I do understand why. Sorry.
Tony
Our Philip.
Theresa May’s husband is a senior executive at a $1.4tn investment fund that profits from tax avoiding companies
Exclusive: May mentioned Amazon and Starbucks in speech about tax avoidance
12 July 2016
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-philip-may-amazon-starbucks-google-capital-group-philip-morris-a7133231.html
Some of the +282 comments are interesting. Questions are raised.
I wonder if the terrorist attacks in Teheran – to be greatly deplored, as are all terrorist attacks – are not blow-back for Iranian-sponsored terror attacks elsewhere.
Bah,,,,just another Saudi-sponsored terror attack.
Interesting how now you suddenly believe in blowback, and have stopped being mendacious on this:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBt4BaYVwAA1AFo.jpg
What about those governments who ‘help’ ‘terrorists’?
“Israel quite openly backing al-Qaeda in Syria. Interview with former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy. “
What Iranian-sponsored terror attacks elsewhere? You have a fertile imagination, Habb.
Please give details of these attacks. Most if not all terrorists to date have been extremist Sunnis, but our leaders go after the Shia.
Well, you can but ask…
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/123/249/694/uk-government-release-the-suppressed-report-on-terrorist-funding/
Ba’al Zevul,
That report only concerns overseas terrorist funding. John Ward’s about the same age as you. I’ve been following him for many years. He has improved dramatically, and his last post was one of his best. Some of his fan club are worried about him. The realties are slowly dawning on him.
“UKGE17: The election is turning into doubts about the motives of our security services….& rightly so.”
“IS WHAT WE’RE SEEING TERRORISM, OR TERRIBLE INTERFERENCE IN OUR DEMOCRACY?”
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/ukge17-the-election-is-turning-into-doubts-about-the-motives-of-our-security-services-rightly-so/
That’s very good, Tony, thanks. Clear, cogent, and obviously better-informed than any opinion-piece hack in the mainstream. Will continue to read.
He’s right that this is indeed our Reichstag moment. But disappointingly, he fails to understand the implications of receiving his world view from mainstream media.
O, I think he does.
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/analysis-a-media-proprietors-route-map-to-pravda/
And here, I can’t disagree with a single point – at least once the election’s over and I don’t have to support the least evil option. In fact I commented to the same effect as the title not long ago.
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/opinion-in-the-short-term-the-best-bet-is-to-give-the-neocons-all-the-rope-they-need-to-hang-themselves/
His views of Corbyn seemed a little too media cliche. Having read those article I still think ward is a little too glib for comfort, like those he derides but with a little more erudition.
Myself, I’m fundamentally not political, I’m just fed up with the harm politicians do on behalf of the military, coal, oil, gas and security industries. For the record I can guarantee that my carbon footprint is lower than almost everyone I’ve ever met and my Consumerism Quotient is very low indeed. Several years of homelessness and living on windfall to thank for my relative lack of material desire.
Example:
“it only took from 1964 to 1967 before liberal media and the Baby Boomers caught on to the propaganda BS coming back from Vietnam. Right or wrong, those radicals and liberal media stopped the War and kicked out Nixon….”
The Vietnamese stopped the Vietnam war, in blood and determination born out of survival.
The slog always reads to me like father jack sobered up long enough to write a letter and hand it to the manager of the local supermarche.
Fair point, J, but I remember being briefly enthused by Blair’s act, only to realise he was a Tory with a smiley face not too long afterwards. Ward’s pretty evenhanded with his entertaining rants, i think, and it’s probably best not to imagine any politician is flawless – avoids the inevitable disappointment.
Re: I’m just fed up with the harm politicians do on behalf of the military, coal, oil, gas and security industries.
The Slog targets this very issue somewhere. Politicians aren’t free agents. They are the instruments of power – proxies – and Ward’s very clear where the power lies.
Isn’t it wonderful how having to live hand-to-mouth gives you a deep understanding of what’s necessary to life – even a contented life – and what isn’t? I’ve sorta been there too and I hear what you’re saying.
“Fair point, J, but I remember being briefly enthused by Blair’s act…”
Me too, but by the time they were setting up internment camps in the south there could be no doubt who and what they were. Same for the Obama train. I made this for a game I was working on in early 2009:
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7043/6781123278_f065d97acb_b.jpg
Only ten signatures overnight, was it too late for the petition? or has Saudi A. already put the kibosh up people. Are British people scared already of the influences that rabid Government adds to our own?
‘Follow the money’ is not the required action anymore so it seems.
Not all, or, I would suggest, most who support Brexit are “rabid, racist”. Davis most certainly is not.
Many who voted Brexit dislike the authoritarian aspect to the EU….as exampled by the treatment of Greece.
I imagine many already dislike May’s anti libertarian stance and will vote accordingly. I certainly will.
Wouldn’t pay much attention to May, as her career is finished. And what an odd career it has been. I am wondering, now, about May’s role in the cover-up of establishment paedophilia. Tom Watson argued that she was not one of the wreckers, but I am having my doubts. May doesn’t strike me as having the steely backbone required to challenge the spooks. And her tenure as Home Sec. appeared to mixed up in supporting ISIS! Mind, this is official Government policy, so perhaps it’s Cameron we should be arresting, not May.
Doesn’t matter, short of an increased majority, she’s toast. I am slightly less confident than I was. We all knew the polls were BS, and we were proved correct. I doubt Corbyn will win though, and the Tories will likely be the largest party still; a victory of sorts, but not an actual victory, for either party. So, the Tories will struggle on, with a new leader. I think the likelyhood of another election this year is high. Corbyn will walk that one.
I am wondering, now, about May’s role in the cover-up of establishment paedophilia.
It hasn’t been sparkling has it ? I think there has been three chairpersons appointed to head the inquiry, and each of them has left under a cloud. Appears she was also initially very reluctant to have Kincora included. May was also responsible for setting up Operation Grange, at the behest of David Cameron, following pressure from Rebecca Brookes. This is the £12million investigation into the Madeleine McCann affair, that after 6 years has come up with absolutely nothing at all.
Obviously, because establishment paedophilia isn’t a simple aberration of the elite to be ‘dealt with’ being a central and increasingly important mechanic of control within that elite, and as the blackmail potential of being gay become non-existent, other tawdry appetites must inevitably become the currency of control. I’m expecting a resurgence. In fact, politicians are probably more likely to be fast tracked if they have extreme perversions and with the internet it’s easier than ever to identify them long before they have an inkling of their future path to power.
Speaks volumes that Corbyn has had the longest, toughest ride to power of any of them.
Sorry! I didn’t realise how that sounded. I meant to write “other appetites which are more tawdry…” My brother is gay as are many of my friends, it’s no biggie for my generation.
A little refresher for those few who don’t know:
On May 16th 2004 the BBC broadcast London Under Attack . A simulated terrorist attack featuring among others Michael Portillo and former policeman turned security advisor Peter Power. Broadcast a little over one year before the actual London bombings of July 7th 2005, the scenario is that three bombs go off in three separate tube trains almost simultaneously, followed by a fourth later explosion above ground in a tanker : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7uIjg9dtoI
Two interviews on the day of 7th July, 2005 with the same Peter Power above, whose company Visor Consultants had organised terror simulations at the exact locations of the actual bombings :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKvkhe3rqtc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGE9FiuM06o
All the alleged attackers were well known to intelligence or were actually working as informers to MI5. The nation had been repeatedly primed that attacks were inevitable. More suggestible portions of the nation rallied around a deeply unpopular government.
Sound familiar?
The attacks were in July 2005.
The election was the previous month and Labour won a majority.
Indeed. I think you missed my point.
We’re witnessing the escalation after the warnings. But note the similarities, the coincidences, the operating procedure.
Guardian reporting Tories have 12 point lead (ICM poll). Others, well not so much.
In other words, polls are basically a joke. Perhaps they once served a useful purpose, but now they all appear to be push polls, which happily also make money for rich Tories. This makes the election interesting though, as the result seems genuinely in doubt. I mean the real result, can’t speak for the rigged one – that’s never in doubt.
I’m going to plump for a hung parliament – Tories on 310. We will see. Super excited.
Your U/N appears to define your level of credibilty. Rofl.
Yes the “working Tories” (possibly an oxymoron but let it pass) will come charging over the horizon like Arthurian knights to wipe the subhumans out to the strain of “Ride of the Valkyries”.
I can not understand why Radio Scotland has over the last 3/4 days given a platform to the Henry Jackson Society. Does this the BBC employ people who are active members of this organisation ? I think we should be told.
James Greig
Check out Jim Murphy. On the Political Council of the HJS and also employed by the Tony Blair Institute For Tony Blair. Need I say more?
Payback for the eggman, for services rendered during Project Fear 1. The self same Tory devised project which simultaneously stole the referendum, and destroyed Scottish Labour for good. And he gets a few baubles in return. Easily bought, and sold. A parcel of rogue.
Outstanding tactical awareness sir!
And Armageddon hasn’t quite happened yet. Another dose of May will bring it on.
Not at *work* today?
Your Tory heroes are supporting terrorists right now in the Middle East. They are also supporting genocide in Yemen for the sake of profits . How much of this blood money will trickle down to you?
Teachers, games designers, special FX, actors, physicists, musicians, historians, archaeologists, housewives, navy, army, novelists, politicians, artists, poets, journalists, councillors, unemployed, salesmen, biologists, chemists, designers, road sweepers, accountants, doctors, nurses, consultants, two GP’s, and one cosmologist.
You?
Vote Labour for more spending, more tax, more borrowing, more benefits, more Labour-voting immigrants and more Labour voters on the public payroll.
He shouldn’t give up the day job just yet, if he has one.