It is sickening that Spanish courts continue to jail, and remove from political life, Catalan politicians who are the victors in democratic elections. That the European political class and media is almost entirely complicit and supportive in this truly vicious repression of the Catalan people, has shocked many of us to our core, and made us realise how thin is the veneer of democracy and how fragile are the rights we believed we held.
If the UK were any kind of a democracy, opposition parties would have held firm against the rush to conflict with Russia, until serious and thorough investigation of the Skripal case had yielded real results. At the very least, you would expect to see a select committee of the House of Commons call the head of Porton Down to give evidence and quiz him about the level of certainty they have of the identity and the Russian manufacture of the substance which poisoned the Skripals.
Instead, we have seen all the establishment parties fall over themselves to appear as belligerent and faux-Churchillian as May and her pipsqueaks, in order to placate the tabloids. This is ludicrous. You cannot out-jingo the Tories, and the rush to increase international tension benefits nobody except the armaments and security industries.
I am obliged to say I was disgusted by Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP leadership and their premature condemnations of Russia. By coincidence I spent much of last week at pro-Indy events and I have to say I found this disgust almost universal.
The odd voice was prepared to offer the usual Nicola excuse of “She is trying not to alienate the Unionists”. But what is the point of not alienating the Unionists by, to all intents and purposes, becoming a Britnat yourself? The continued failure – for years now – of the SNP to argue to the public the case for Independence, the attempt to dodge Indyref2, all of it leaves me to feel that the SNP leadership have got their feet under the table within the UK, as a form of controlled opposition.
The SNP leadership are far happier talking about which powers devolve to Holyrood from Brussels, and which stay at Westminster, than they are talking about Independence. I don’t give a damn about the precise contours of the devolution settlement; I want my country to be free of Westminster entirely, and soon.
We are not yet subject to the extreme state repression afflicting our counterparts in Catalonia, but you can be certain the Tories have noted the template, and that other Western political leaders will support them if they start putting people like me in the pokey for thirty years for sedition. Sadly it has become abundantly clear that there is no danger of the highly paid SNP elected representatives, their SPADs, and party bureaucrats, ever putting themselves in that position.
They would be with those handing down the sentences, as their attitude to Carla Ponsati shows.
Just as MEPs lined up one after another in the European Parliament to defend Francoist thugs batoning grandmothers trying to vote as the “rule of law”, and use the same excuse for lengthy sentences for political prisoners, so there was an echo of this distancing in Nicola Sturgeon’s response to the extradition of Catalan campaigner Carla Ponsati through the Scottish courts, potentially to spend the rest of her life in a Spanish jail just for peacefully campaigning for freedom for her country.
Nicola referred to “the fact our justice system is legally obliged to follow due process in the determination of extradition requests”. She too is hiding behind “the rule of law” and thus turning a blind eye to the Francoist attack on fundamental rights.
Very few voters of the SNP put Nicola Sturgeon into parliament in order to warm her toes at the Robert Adam fireplaces at Bute House, while Catalan leaders are dragged from Scotland to a terrible repression. The SNP leadership have become far too adept at speaking with British Establishment voices and thinking with British Establishment minds.
At some stage they have to accept that achieving Scottish Independence is in itself a revolutionary act, and that it will never be achieved without real constitutional conflict with the UK, the sort of political conflict which has attended the birth of every independent state. If you are afraid to do something “unconstitutional” under the present repressive system, you have no right to pretend to be a part of the Independence movement.
For Sturgeon to hide behind the Edinburgh High Tory Scottish legal establishment and wash her hands, Pontius Pilate like, over the extradition of Carla Ponsati is simply unacceptable.
Saving this brave woman is as noble a cause to launch a constitutional crisis as one might wish for. The Holyrood parliament must pass a Bill forbidding the extradition of Ponsati and the Scottish government must order Police Scotland to enforce it. We need finally to show we are serious about challenging the UK. If Sturgeon declines, then the Scottish people must physically defend Ponsati. And the Independence movement must fundamentally reconsider its leadership and strategy.
Some snippets from the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer UK findings.
Edelman UK CEO Ed Williams said: “We are clearly seeing significant changes in people’s news consumption habits. The breadth of information available on the internet is not resulting in the same depth we once saw.
“As we look at some of the big problems we face in the 21st century, it should be of significant concern to us all that we are becoming a nation of news-skimmers and news-avoiders. It’s frightening that the professional classes, the people we rely on to take an interest in social affairs and to hold politicians to account, are the most pronounced news avoiders.”
Just six per cent of people surveyed described themselves as “informed” (defined as reading business and political news “several times a week or more”). The figure had never before fallen below 11 per cent.
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/trust-traditional-media-grows-uk-a-nation-news-avoiders/1455095
Nothing like stating the obvious, for a guy cocking about calling himself a “chief executive officer” of a fictitious person. Perhaps he should wear uniform and be introduced by bugle-playing heralds as he makes the formal announcement that his findings indicate that rain is wet.
May flies in to Ayrshire, visits a cashmere scarf factory for an hour and then flies away. While Scotland is still told we’ll be leaving the EU. The undermining of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government ministers is still being attempted. The traitor Ruth Davidson still works to Ulsterise Scotland. More and more Scots have to go to food banks to feed their families while new oil fields are discovered. The Scottish MSM still tries to deflect attention from all this and actively tries to misinform the public.
That cashmere scarf company sells a lot in EU countries. How the hell does leaving not make things more difficult for them?
She probably picked up some freebies from the Alex Begg cashmere factory.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-visits-scottish-cashmere-workers-to-mark-one-year-to-eu-exit
Tot up the multiple £tens of thousands she has received from donors.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10426
Abel Halpern for one KETERM – private equity advisors. £30k Probably a friend of Fillip’s
https://keterm.com/people/
It’s not what you know in the Tory partei. It’s who you know.
Yeah, and I’ll bet she never met with anyone who wasn’t hand picked either, strong and stable id her motto, it should be sleekit and quick.
Too many Scot Nats, including many in the National party leadership, just do not get it. You cannot carry British made baggage on the journey to independence. An existential, psychological break with Britishness is an imperative.
‘The don’t get its’ need a shock into the real world.
The Catalan question is part of that.
Contrary to the Panglossian outlook of the ScotNatBrits, it might well happen here.
There are, it’s true quite a number of Redmondites in the National Party. Authoritarian conservatives are planning to take control and Scotland would be subjected to cultural genocide into the bargain.
We need to take this unashamedly into the streets.
In my ignorance had to look up John Redmond. Found this quote attributed to him which is on theme.
“As a Nationalist, I do not regard as entirely palatable the idea that forever and a day Ireland’s voice should be excluded from the councils of an empire which the genius and valour of her sons have done so much to build up and of which she is to remain”
The empire may be gone but the memory residue still has the power to addle some Scottish brains.
reel guid
Much the comment I thought of making but refrained as being a problem for Scots themselves to sort out. In my view , the pro Nato vote has brought the SNP within the Pale. Didn’t Churchill, the arch Brit., share a platform with Redmond once and never return to the North following Unionist hostility?
Jeremy Corbyn still hasn’t explained how he went from being “70% in favour of the EU” during the referendum to being pro-hard brexit now.
The Tories called an election because they thought they’d pick up the UKIP vote. Most of it went back to Labour. Corbyn doesn’t want to lose it again.
British state broadcaster the “BBC” has induced a close relative of the Skripals into speaking to its organisation EXCLUSIVELY.
That makes me think of when they murdered Jean-Charles de Menezes and then sent a state c*** to Brazil to offer his mother a few grand to agree not to make a legal claim
These are the scum who rule us.
Meanwhile one of the kingdom’s “judges” appointed a fellow state official, the “Official Solicitor” as the legal representative of both of the Skripals, and then he accepted the obviously dishonest word of that official’s barrister that it did “not appear practical or appropriate” to “seek the views of others who might be interested” in the welfare of either patient.
These kinds of action strongly indicate that the British government is lying through its teeth about what happened in Salisbury and that it knows full well that its accusation against the Russian government is FALSE.
Ms Skripal’s niece Viktoria Skripal says she would like to know how they are. I imagine she would. For goodness sake, APPLY FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS NOW.
The strange thing is that there isn’t a queue of poor disenfranchised Brits with tortured souls queuing up for asylum at the Russian border to escape the tyranny of life under the (various) lying scum c*** British Government. I seem to think the flow is still firmly in the opposite direction. Go figure …
Indeed. The “fascist state” to which half the world would give their right leg to move to and which you are free to leave at any time.
I didn’t use the phrase “fascist state”.
Most of the Asian Brits I know – who are mainly from the Indian subcontinent – think the West is finished. Does being free to leave a toilet bowl make it something other than a toilet bowl? Does being surrounded by other toilet bowls make it something other than a toilet bowl? Raise your sights.
This has nothing to do with anything discussed here.
The strange thing is that there isn’t a queue of poor disenfranchised Rusisians with tortured souls queuing up for asylum at the British border. Those who arrive in Britain are gangsters with bags of stolen loot. Par the course for little britain.
You might also have noticed recent reports of a large number of proud ‘British’ folk scrambling for alternative passports across the EU, no? Patriots…….. an alternative days.
Short answer: most of us couldn’t afford it.
Long answer: isn’t running away from home, also in part a running from the fear that in doing so, we would only improve home. Abandoning change to others is how change is avoided. And wherever you run, there you are.
Russians applying for asylum in Britain? You mean like Boris Berezovsky?
Most Brits know the poshboy elite are a pack of lying bastards. Try to express your point without sarcasm next time. Oh…your point is that it’s contemptible to be negative about queen and country… No wonder you dress it up with sarcasm.
Scratch a Tory and it will soon tell you to go to back to Russia – or North Korea, if it saw Kim Jong-Un in its Daily Mail or Torygraph or on the BBC that day.
Ms Dick was welcomed to the One Show sofa in the week. Very chatty. She is determined to eradicate knife crime in London. She didn’t mention her goons who drilled multiple dum dum bullets into the head of Jean Charles. The ‘inquest’ that was held into his killing was yet another deep state farce. RIP Jean Charles.
Cressida Dick’s dad was senior tutor at Balliol. I wonder how she got the job.
And the government keeps this quiet and has done for years and thousands have died from this nerve poison.
“The revelation that the nerve agent used in the attempt to murder two Russians in Salisbury was an organophosphorous compound, Novichok, recalls one of the most harrowing and shocking stories I have covered as a journalist.
Over 15 years from 1992, I gradually uncovered how the terrifying power of organophosphates (OPs) lay behind a horrendous tragedy, brought about by our own Government. In the Eighties, thousands of farmers suffered a mysterious form of ill health after freeing their sheep from parasites by dipping them in OPs on Government orders.
These highly toxic chemicals, originally developed as an insecticide in Nazi Germany, attack the nervous and immune system, producing a wide range of symptoms, from horrible physical deterioration to wild mood-swings, including suicidal depression.”
http://subscriber.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/25/government-did-everything-could-conceal-sheep-dip-poisoning/
The evil Nazis of course passed anti-vivisection laws so could not anticipate the damage this sheep dip would cause
How the “hit squads” work:
One member is holding the bottle while another applies the poison to the door-handle with a cotton stick. A third member writes the message: “Upon leaving the house, please both of you touch the door-handle to the same degree, no gloves please!”. (the grammar of the original Russian might be better). A third member is waiting in the car. All of these wear protection suites and masks.
Then there is the second team. They keep the neighbours and random by-passers occupied . They do not wear protection suits and come in their own minibus.. They are instructed to hide their Russian accent as best they can, and not kill more people than necessary.
And they use a special “stealth” minibus that has no electronic communications and doesn’t show up on cameras 🙂 Those fiendish Russians!
Personally, I just think Putin rode up to the Skripal house on a bear and put the stuff on the door himself. Probably bare-chested as well.
Here’s a wee suggestion for the corporate journalists out there: Why not look at the membership of other political parties to ascertain the extent of anti-Semitism within their ranks. You could start with, say, the Conservative and Unionist Party or the Liberal Democrats.
Just something to chew over in case you focus all your attention on one particular party.
If you did that it would seem unfair and biased. Which is nonsense, I know. But it’s how it might be perceived, is all I’m saying.
Is there not laws in the US against stock market manipulation? Could it be interpreted that every other month, in between US threats of Nuclear holocaust aimed at some region of the world, the Dump and his financial backers are manipulating the markets for easy profit?
Amazon shares fall wiping more than $30bn off value after report claims Trump wants to ‘go after’ tech giant
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/amazon-shares-fall-donald-trump-reign-power-jeff-bezos-tax-a8278951.html
If you were to have bet $10,000 a point against Amazon shares a couple of days ago you could probably afford to buy a small island today. Not the first time a couple of tweets have made a stock nose dive.
America First, fuck yeah…..
If they are stupid enough to gamble on something so easily manipulated then hell mend them.
Is it a ‘gamble’ if you know the result.
I have wondered that especially when you see so many former Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley former employee’s go into the US gov..
Also wonder if anybody had any favourable positions on a leave vote for Brexit…
very plausible… if I wanted to manipulate a market, Governments usually the most powerful levers/tools…
We are being prepared for the deaths of the unfortunate Skripals.
Ross Cassidy, the haulage contractor who says he is Sergei’s “best friend”, seems to find it hard to appear in photographs without holding up branded products – such as here in the Torygraph, holding a bottle of Marston’s Pedigree beer, and here in the Sun, wearing a bow tie and looking at the menu of “The Epicurean” restaurant. The Sun seems to have bought him a few drinks. I wonder whether they bought him that watch too. This arsehole, who is not family, is allowing himself to be quoted saying his neighbour and his neighbour’s daughter ought to be “allowed” to die. Meanwhile their real family are trying to find out how they’re doing in hospital.
Viktoria Skripal has said she would like to know how her uncle and cousin are doing. But her priority is to look after her ailing 90-year-old grandmother, Sergei’s mother, whom she hasn’t told about the attack on her son for fear that the shock would kill her. Let’s hope the BBC and the Sun don’t find out where the elderly lady lives. If they do, they’ll be round her door harassing her.
This is a real family being caused real pain. They could have three deaths in the near future, including of a young woman in her 30s. Meanwhile the Brit posh boys are drooling down their chins at the thought of backhanders on weapons contracts and fighting a war.
I should point out that Viktoria Skripal, unlike Ross Cassidy, that prat of a haulage contractor, has not been photographed holding up any branded products.
Viktoria Skripal asks,
“Who did it? I don’t really know. Our side say it was the British secret services, the British say it was the Russians. I don’t know and I don’t want to hazard a guess.” (Sounds like a sensible woman.)
“Even if the special services did it – why is it so clumsy?” (Good question.)
“I believe that it was beneficial to some third party to quarrel between the two countries. Someday we will get answers to all the questions.”
The good news is that Julia Skripal is improving ‘awake’ and ‘conscious’ and ‘stable’ if you can believe Sky News. I sincerely hope this is true despite what I wrote about us never seeing them again.
However there are still countless questions. Perhaps they have been well all the time and watching the ridiculous Billy Bunter Johnson show on TV.
I’ve noticed now that RT is regularly showing the Foreign Secretary’s speeches without comment. There are not many more high profile ministers or former ministers capable of ridiculing themselves as much as Johnson/
O/T The ghastly Cherie Blair is still on the Renault board.
https://group.renault.com/en/our-company/leadership/board-of-directors/
Renault shares are rising as there is talk of Renault merging with Nissan into one company. That will mean the closure of a few factories and more thousands of workers put on the scrap heap.
Renault shares leap after Nissan merger report
A report that Renault and Nissan could extend their alliance to a full merger has powered shares in car firms across Europe.
https://news.sky.com/story/renault-shares-at-10-year-high-on-nissan-merger-talk-11307963
Sharp Ears.
Cherie Blair has a history of causing financial misery. Whilst her hubby has a history of causing physical misery, especially in Iraq.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/12184752/Cherie-Blairs-healthcare-business-shuts-to-leave-investors-with-huge-losses.html
When it comes to nerve agents and so forth, like most people I am somewhat uniformed, however this latest theory seems to test the bounds of reasonableness further than the previous ones.
We are told this is the deadliest nerve agent known, the man who for some reason thought selling the formulas for these things for £6 a go on amazon also claims it can kill in seconds. Yet now, it was put on a door handle, and then two people went for a drive, had some lunch, went for a pint, and 4 and a half hours later simultaneously suffered the reaction to said door handle applied poison.
As a logical person that seems a tad over complex to say the least. And if I can see the logic fail in all this, as professional journalist simply repeat the tale, shouldn’t they be the ones questioning the voracity of such a timetable when it reveals itself so unlikely?
I think there’s confusion about the different forms the same chemical can come in, caused by the use of terms like ‘military grade’ in the media. A nerve agent when weaponised can be an aerosol that can kill more or less instantly, and make unprotected first responders die too, which is the usual idea of how nerve agents work. The same chemical can be put in a non-weaponised form like a simple poison to be ingested or absorbed through the skin for assassination purposes, in which case it can be much less deadly to everyone nearby (though still pretty deadly depending on method) and have a longer time to take effect. Imo this is being confused in the media because admitting it’s more like a simple poisoning (albeit with nerve agents (apparently)) undermines the impression that it must be a state.
Yes, I acknowledge my lack of knowledge about the subject, so I am assuming that the idea of instigated the infection through the door handle is possible.
I can even happily accept that there are different gestation times for the symptoms to manifest depending on what form the substance is in.
I cannot though, logically accept that with such an imprecise delivery method, both people succumbed at the precise same time 4 and a half hours later. That is the part that makes no logical sense to me at all. I am not saying it could not happen like that, just that to me it seems extremely unlikely. Surely I am not being odd here, so given I will likely never know what actually happened, I look around and wonder why supposed intelligent professionals whose job is literally to question everything, are simply accepting this and not asking questions, when there are so many obvious ones.
I agree – The time from supposed door handle touching to effects on the bench seems way too long to make sense.
But why then the insistence that this was a ‘military grade’ poison which if true should have killed hundreds. Another piece of official nonesense.
Don’t worry about it MAB, Porton Down filmed a ‘reconstruction’ of the poisoning a few months ago that should be released on the bbc in the coming weeks. A step by step ‘reenactment’ of events right down to Lavrov smearing the door handle whilst Putin sorts out the car filter. Apparently Assad was the get away driver.
Should clear everything up……..
You’ll have Paul Merton inviting you onto HIGNFY if you are not careful…
“The handbook’s authors, doctors Ian Greaves and Paul Hunt, said Novichok agents act quickly, with their effects usually taking hold within 30 seconds to two minutes of contact.”
The Skripals were active for hours after contact !!
Even the dogs in the street know…but evidently no corporate journalists can smell the BS in this. See below.
https://www.ft.com/content/ea4d1700-2619-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0
It was cold that day so the Skripals would probably be wearing gloves when they left the house, they probably got the poison second or even third hand after removing gloves and the detective sergeant third or fourth hand maybe checking a wallet for ID.
This is probably the poorest excuse I’ve read yet, as to why the deadly nerve agent didn’t kill them.
Next up it was windy as well, or the sun was shining or there was a bit of rust on whatever one of the half dozen different places the Skripal’s were alleged to have touched, thats why the most deadly nerve agent failed.
Wasn’t it you who thought the Glasgow bin lorry crash was staged?
Yeah, but even I’m not lame enough to blame it on the cold.
Maybe he was, Fred, but that’s got nothing to do with the point at hand.
trust fred to come up with the most lame excuse, as supporter of theresa may and boris the idiot and whatever inanities that come with their position of authority…
Remember Fred, it was military grade, none of this applies.
Yes, they drove around, visiting a cemetery, had lunch and then, apparently 4 hours after being exposed, collapsed on a bench at precisely the same time.
Quite remarkable nonsense, really.
Ah, but Professor Plum was waiting in the living room, with a screwdriver, sorry I meant deadly nerve agent, when they returned.
At this stage in the story, it’s unlikely that the government are making revealing blunders. They’ve had time to weigh up their options and concoct a scenario which, if not plausible, is at least impossible to disprove. If they are going with the smeared door handle scenario, it must be scientifically possible. They may even encourage claims that the scenario is impossible so that they can later prove those ‘conspiracy nutcases’ wrong.
Node
It is not that anyone claims it is impossible , it is the ever changing story. I believe a table where they sat at Zizi had to be removed and destroyed, so much poison was found on it. I supposed the door handle will not be destroyed. I also supposed that the baby wipe guidance from the CMO in decontaminating objects and then the supposed advice for public to hand over thier clothes for safe disposal , while reassuring the public that there is no danger and at the same time saying that various number of people may have been contaminated, without any evidence, only a denial by medical authorities. This is all smoke and mirrors. As Johnson said” hiding a needle in a haystack of diversions and obfuscations@ or words to that effect. He was referring to the Russians but it really applies to this government.
Microsoft, we have the right to go through your private data, and ban if we want to.
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3264658/privacy/microsoft-to-ban-offensive-language-from-skype-xbox-office-and-other-services.html
The Orwellian state, take a step forward.
Still like to know how much money did Clara have to provide to get bail. Did the Scottish judge treat her as a potential threat to Spanish sovereignty. or one of its scapegoats?
As far as I know Trowbridge, all she had to was surrender her passport.
The four-and-half-hour gap between the Skripals’ initial exposure and their succumbing to this “military grade nerve agent” is one of the biggest holes in the official conspiracy.
Which is probably why any mention of the poisoning has vanished from the BBC website. This is what the corporate media do when uncomfortable questions come up – they ignore them.
Apparently Yulia is improving rapidly now, so it will be interesting to see what testimony she gives. Could be awkward.
Don’t forget what Sasha’s wife said about the Russians while her husband was dying similarly. Or Dr. Kelly’s wife said after her husband was murdered.
I wonder if she would be recovering if there was any chance that she would say anything awkepard
It’ll be easy enough for the conspiraloons to dismiss her as a crisis actor if she doesn’t say what they want to hear.
Well I never did!
http://news.sky.com/story/condition-of-salisbury-spy-daughter-yulia-skripal-improving-rapidly-11308353
Mike: “Which is probably why any mention of the poisoning has vanished from the BBC website.”
Really?
“Russian spy: Yulia Skripal ‘improving rapidly’ ”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43588450
What Assange was doing on the Web before Ecuador cut off his access was tweeting support of Catalonia and criticism of Germany and Spain for the arrest of Puigdemont. He compared that situation to the Germans handing over a former Catalan President (whose name Autocorrect is not allowing me to type) to the Francoists in 1940. Such a comparison could never do!
Spanish intelligence agents allegedly had been tracking Puigdemont’ s movements using the GPS on a cellphone of a friend who was accompanying him. One does wonder to what extent they were assisted by other countries’ Intel agencies and by telecom companies.
Whut?
Julian being spanked by Ecuador for Putin love?
Only if you believe Putin is reviled in Latin America.
So the Deep State is coercing Ecuador?
No, Spain more likely. The ties between Spain and Ecuador are extensive.
Absolutely impossible. No precedent for it and the CIA are all round good guys, as any “liberal” will tell you.
Naturally, the CIA would never interfere in the internal affairs of any Foreign nation.
Especially not Latin America .. Ben will tell you.
Quote me a single liberal who says the CIA are all round good guys. I think you’re telling fibs.
I can only assume you’ve not been following the news for the past 18 months. Liberal media from London to LA has reinvented the CIA as all round good guys for spearheading the Russiagate campaign against Trump. And it’s gone way beyond cheering for the Democratic party. This autumn, they’ll be running fully 50 military-intelligence candidates in the 102 congressional districts identified as its targets for 2018. A veritable CIA takeover of one of America’s duopoly warmongering parties.
So no quote then?
Just open your eyes.
I like it when someone makes claims about a quote, but expects others to hunt around finding evidence to prove the point for them. Really gives me confidence in their credibility when they behave like that.
Craig, this is a good time to give Assange an honourable mention.
And an update on the Skripal nonsense – in particular the laughable ‘evidence’ report presented by the British.
You can say that again Agent Green.
All prearranged and vetted closed shops, I’d love to see her in Govan shopping centre on a wet Friday afternoon, giving the strong and stable speel.
Mind you the often wheeled out Labour messiah Gordon Brown spoke only at closed shops, the one time pretendy socialist, even wrote a book about James Maxton.
Ros
May in Govan? Nae chance! She’ll stick to meeting Alexander Burnett’s estate workers.
I’ll bet the proofreader was the only person to read Gordie’s book.
1. Well, it didn’t take The Powers that Be long to silence Craig, did it
2. I am deeply impressed that Julia held out under the waterboarding for so long. I hope she now enjoys her long publicly-funded luxury retirement far away from the public eye or any impartial questioning – Britain has so many charming overseas dependencies where she can live out the rest of her days watching the banana’s ripening (or, if she starts to blab, the crofters tending their Puffins)
https://www.rt.com/uk/422700-yulia-skripal-salisbury-novichok/
What! But wait, yesterday the niece Viktoria said that both the Skripal’s had less than 10% of a chance of surviving, expect to see her on the couch with Phil and Holly soon, and then running the London marathon, then on the Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night.
http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/very-small-chance-of-survival-for-poisoned-spy-and-daughter-says-niece-11364260930191
Col Bob Stewart Con MP Beckenham has just paid tribute to the RAF Regiment and their prowess in the CBRN field of operations. ‘For security reasons’ he thought it best NOT to mention the names of the other countries they have helped.
LOL
He is dismayed however that this CBRN function is being transferred to the Army in future.
One thing is pretty clear. Neither father nor daughter were poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent.
O/T
Just had a nice letter from J C, all down to the excessive argy bargying since Salisbury dropped to page 15.
my name
Our Party was founded on the principles of solidarity and equality. We are proudly anti-racist, and at our best when we work together, uniting people in hope and against fear and division.
This week, Jewish leaders wrote to me to express their anger and upset about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
I want to assure you that prejudice against, and harassment of, Jewish people have no place whatsoever in our Party.
It’s important to develop a deeper understanding of what constitutes antisemitism.
Often it takes familiar forms, but newer forms of antisemitism have also appeared, sometimes woven into criticisms of the actions of Israeli governments.
Criticism of Israel, and support for the rights of the Palestinians, is entirely legitimate. Support for justice for the Palestinian people should provide no one with the excuse to insult, harass or encourage hatred of Jewish people.
And abuse and personal attacks of any kind, on social media or in person, are never acceptable.
I am committed to ensuring our Party is a welcoming and secure place for everyone. I offer all Jewish members my assurance that this applies equally to them. I want all of us to hear Jewish voices and listen.
If you are not Jewish, I want you to better understand the importance of this issue and what we can do together to ensure our Party remains true to our values.
Zero tolerance for antisemitism means what it says. We will not accept it.
We have to get this right, all of us. Because divided societies cannot achieve justice.
As we head into elections in May and look towards the next General Election whenever it might come, let’s take the lead in building a society free from prejudice. One that enables everyone to realise their full potential, and cares for all.
Thank you for supporting Labour.
Jeremy Corbyn
Leader of the Labour Party
Antise3mitism has always been part of the Labour Party said Louise Ellmann on Newsnight and one wonders whether this current crescendo against the leader and some of his MP’s is a coordinated campaign to get him removed before the next election.
I will not give up my support for the BDS campaign and I very much hope that with a new, less corrupt PM, Palestine/Israel will steer a less confrontational course in the middle east. There is plenty of gas to share amongst all in the middle east from Greece all the way round to Gaza, they should be sitting around a table and discuss sharing, not destabilising the world for fossil fuels.
surely, it’s about time all the party’s FoI were closed down
Jeez, what a laughing stock, spain must look to the outside world, as they go witch hunting for anyone and everyone connected with the Catalan indyref.
Spain’s action remind me of the indiscriminate round up of Turks by Erdogan after the failed coup. I’m sure Spain will have their very own Roland Freisler on the bench somewhere to do the sentencing.
http://catalannews.com/society-science/item/catalan-police-leadership-under-investigation
Yeah Ros. Spain’s judiciary seems to consist of nothing but Roland Freislers.
“Jeez, what a laughing stock, spain must look to the outside world, as they go witch hunting”
Nobody expects the Spanish extradition.
Is there much air between Assange and Suckerberg?
https://gizmodo.com/ecuador-just-cut-off-julian-assange-s-internet-says-he-1824147294
Wrong link
https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/03/28/theres-only-one-word-to-describe-julian-assanges-internet-being-cut-off-pathetic/#more-51666
About 50 miles worth, I would guess, Ben.
All perception is selective Trow. I see them as Yin and Yang.
In Chinese philosophy, yin yang describes how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Wikipedia
I was just thinking about a road map of central England.
Suckerberg lives in UK?
Heh. Every time I type Z autocorrect changes to S
No, some of his employees work in Cambridge.
And Zuckerberg started Facebook at Harvard, I.e., in Cambridge Massachusetts..
Show Biz..
“Exclusive rights to the series were picked up yesterday by Russia Today, an English-language television channel which the Guardian has called “the Kremlin’s English language propaganda arm… that has given voice to a thousand anti-western conspiracy theories, while avoiding criticism of the hand that feeds it.” Margarita Simonyan, Russia Today’s editor-in-chief, told Reuters Moscow that the network is counting on the show’s success. She also drew a few strained parallels between RT (which has featured pundits who argue that the Arab Spring was instigated by Free Masons) and Assange: “Everything we do on the air is different from the English-language mainstream, that is something we have in common with Assange.”
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/julian-assange-to-host-talk-show-on-russia-today
Hooda thunk Identity Politics was a good thing, Vlad?
Well, I and quite a few other don’t believe Russia is guilty of the Skripal attack, however I’m suspicious of every event that occurs and every counter-event.
Such as the Russian supermarket fire, RT has been pushing it, just as much as the BBC pushed attacks on the Skripals and other major event in England, Russia isn’t the good guy nation either.
In saying that the bloody Australian cricket ball tampering, definitely gets more media exposure than the Saudi led alliace that’s currently killing indiscriminately in Yemen.
It’s good to be suspicious
My radio has had Radio Sputnik on for the last couple of hours, and, if they had anything at all to say about the supermarket fire, I didn’t notice it.
Dec 2017. Token terror..
And…Russian transparency?
Looking back, was it right to publish the Hillary Clinton emails?
“Right for who? That’s why ‘right’ is one of the most difficult words in history. If the question is: did it fulfil our promise to the public to publish newsworthy information when we receive it and not censor it, then the answer is yes. Different groups now and in the future will have different views about any particular WikiLeaks’ publication that helped or hindered them. It is their right to have different opinions, but I believe that it is clear that knowledge through information about the world is a net positive on average”.
On more than one occasion the US and UK press have connected the dots between WikiLeaks publication of Hillary Clinton’s emails, Russia, and Trump, pointing to the fact that you received people very close to the Trump Administration in this embassy, like Nigel Farage or the US senator Dana Rohrabacher. Why did you meet with those individuals?
“I try to meet with anyone who might have information or could be useful to get a message out. If you believe what you are doing is important, you want to speak to every possible type of audience, that’s why in 2015 and 2016 I met everyone from Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore to Nigel Farage, that is what journalists do. LBC, which is the Leading Britain’s Conversation [a London-based radio station], wanted to do an interview”.?
Where has Craig Murray gone….no posts for 2 days…has he been “compromised”?
CM occasionally disappears for months at a time, don’t worry about it.
Mr Rozenberg of the BBC sits down with Jon Huntsman, the US Ambassador to Russia, for some more embroidering of the story.
The US have expelled 60 staff and their families from the Russian embassy. Soon the embassies will be empty.